A Suggested Survival List

It’s once again time for my annual survival list column. One does not have to be a prophet to know that we are on the precipice of some potentially catastrophic–or at the very least, challenging–days. In fact, most of us are already in challenging days, and some are already enduring catastrophic events. That is, if one would call being out of work, losing one’s home, facing life-threatening medical conditions without any prospect of medical insurance, several families being forced to live in one house due to homes being foreclosed, etc., catastrophic.

The potential for an escalation of cataclysmic events, however, is very real. Only a “blooming idiot” would call someone who attempts to prepare for “the day of adversity” a Chicken Little now. Anyone who does not see the storm clouds on the horizon isn’t paying attention.

For example, can one imagine what would happen if Russia or China launched a nuclear attack against the United States? (Once again, I encourage readers to watch the CBS TV series “Jericho” to get an idea of how quickly life, and even civilization, could change.) Imagine if there was another 9/11-type event. What would happen if some form of Zimbabwe-style inflation hit the US? What would happen if anything disrupted the distribution of Welfare checks, or food to local grocers? Imagine a Hurricane Katrina-style natural disaster in your town. I think people everywhere are beginning to awaken to just how vulnerable we all really are.

As a result, people from virtually every walk of life have asked my thoughts on how they should prepare. Therefore, I will, again, attempt to share with my readers some of the counsel I have given these folks.

First, a disclaimer. I am not an economist; I am not a survival expert; I am not a firearms expert; I am not an attorney; I am not a physician. In fact, I am not an expert in anything! For several years, however, I have tried to learn from others. I am an avid reader. My work has allowed me to travel extensively. In fact, I have logged over 150,000 miles crisscrossing this great country over the last few years. I have had the privilege of sitting at the feet of–and learning from–many of America’s most learned, most trained, and most qualified “experts” in a variety of fields. What I write today, I have learned from others. I’ve formed my own opinions and priorities, of course, but everything I’m sharing has been said, or written about, before. But if I can share something in today’s column that will help someone be better prepared for the days to come, then my goal will have been achieved.

Location:

Analyze your living conditions. Where do you live? Do you live in an urban or rural environment? Is it a big city or small town? Do you live in an apartment or condominium? How close are your neighbors? Do you even know your neighbors? Would you trust them if the electricity was off and they were hungry? Could you grow your own food if you had to? How easily could you secure your home? If you live in a cold weather environment, how long could you stay warm without electricity? These are the kinds of questions you need to ask yourself now.

Over the past several decades, masses of people have migrated into large metropolitan areas. More people currently live in urban areas than at any time in American history. While this may be well and good for times of prosperity, it is an absolute nightmare during any kind of disaster. Does anyone remember what New Orleans looked like after Hurricane Katrina came through? Can anyone recall what happened in downtown Los Angeles during the 1992 riots? Needless to say, any inner-city environment could become a powder keg almost instantaneously, given the right (or wrong) circumstances. And the bigger the city, the bigger the potential problems.

If you live in the inner city, I suggest you consider moving to a more rural location. Obviously, now is a very good time to buy property (especially rural property), but the downside is, selling property is not as favorable. If you can afford it, now is a great time to buy a “safe house” outside the city. If you are fortunate enough to have family or some true friends nearby, you may want to put your heads–and some resources–together in preparation for serious upheaval. Obviously, a team of prepared people is much better than being alone.

If you must stay in your urban location, have some common sense plans in hand in the event of a major disaster. Get to know your neighbors: find out whom you can trust and whom you can’t. Keep some extra gasoline on hand, in case you need to get in your car quickly and leave. Have several exit routes planned ahead of time, in case roads are blocked. Have a “bug-out” bag containing essential ingredients to live on for three to four days. If leaving is not an option, have a plan to secure your home as best you can. You’ll need to think about things such as food, water, medicine, warmth, self-defense, etc. But at this point, to do nothing is absolute lunacy!

Most readers probably know that my entire family and I made the decision two years ago to move 2,600 miles from our home of 35 years in the Florida panhandle to the Flathead Valley of Montana, which is located about 75 miles south of the Canadian border in the Rocky Mountains. I can tell readers without equivocation or hesitation that we are so glad we made this move. We absolutely love it here–all the difficulties and trials associated with such a life-changing move notwithstanding. In fact, I’ve never lived in a place I love so much!

If readers want to learn more about what prompted our move to Montana, please peruse the information on this web page:

http://chuckbaldwinlive.com/home/?page_id=2243

Provisions:

During a major disaster, food will quickly disappear. Living for over three decades on the Gulf Coast, I can tell you with absolute certainty that whenever disaster strikes (usually an approaching hurricane, for those folks), food and provisions at the store sell completely out in a matter of a few hours. People panic, and within hours, you cannot find food, bottled water, ice, generators, batteries, candles, etc. In a matter of hours, every gas station in the area will be completely out of gas. Not days. Hours!

Furthermore, almost all disasters include a complete loss of electricity. The water supply is compromised. Bottled water becomes more valuable than bank accounts. Dehydration becomes a very real and present danger. I remember witnessing a man offer an ice vendor $100 for an extra bag of ice during Hurricane Ivan. My wife and I went two weeks (14 days) without electricity in the aftermath of that hurricane. Believe me, I got a taste of just how precious bottled water, ice, batteries, generators, fuel, etc., can become.

I suggest you have a supply of food and water to last at least a month. Many survival experts insist that a six-month supply is the minimum. Personally, I can live a long time on tuna fish or peanut butter. You can purchase MREs from a variety of sources, as well as “camp-style” packaged food from many sporting goods stores. Of course, bottled water is available everywhere during normal times. Stock up! Distilled water will store longer than spring water. Plus, I suggest you have some water purification tablets or a Katadyn water filter on hand. And, if you are able, prepare to grow your own food. In cold weather climates such as we have here in Montana, people quickly learn how to construct and utilize greenhouses in which to grow food. Canning food is another very helpful hedge against deprivation. If your parents and grandparents were like mine, this was standard operating procedure.

Get a generator. Keep a supply of fuel on hand. Stay stocked up on batteries, candles, portable lights, first aid supplies, and personal hygiene items–especially toilet paper. Trust me, during times of intense and prolonged disaster, toilet paper could become more valuable than money. I also suggest you never run out of lighters or matches. You never know when you’ll need to build a fire–and during a prolonged survival situation, fire could save your life. If you live in a cold weather climate, you probably already have some sort of wood stove or fireplace. And don’t overlook the necessity of a good knife.

Obviously, you need to take stock of your clothing. Do you have clothes suitable for extended outdoor activity? What about boots? During a disaster, you would trade your best suit from Neiman Marcus for a good pair of boots. Do you have gloves? Insulated underwear? What about camouflage clothing? These could become essential outerwear in the right conditions. Plus, any “bug-out” bag will need to include spare clothing. And as most folks here in Montana know, “cotton kills.” For extended outdoor wear in cold weather, wool is the only way to go!

Communication and medical provisions are also a high priority in any kind of emergency. How will you communicate with your loved ones when the phones (including cell phones) go down? Portable ham radios are a very valuable resource. But the time to buy (and train to use) one is NOW! A preordained rally point (or safe house) might be something to think about. And what about medical supplies? Do you have enough to take care of routine (and not-so-routine) emergencies? What about your prescription drugs? How long could you function if you were cut off from your pharmacist for any length of time? Also, seriously consider learning about natural, herbal medicines. Those plants growing in your “back forty” might just cure a headache, stop bleeding, or even save your life. Think about it now.

And one more suggestion, while we’re on this subject: the best resources in the world are of little use if one is physically incapable of making good use of them. In other words, GET IN SHAPE. During any kind of emergency situation, physical exertion and stamina become immensely important.

Commodities:

I suggest you have at least some cash on hand. Just about any and all disasters will result in banks being closed for extended periods of time. That also means credit card purchases being suspended. You need to have enough cash to be able to purchase essential goods (if they are even available) for an undetermined amount of time.

Of course, some survival gurus insist that during any cataclysmic climate, precious metals will become the only reliable currency. A little gold and silver could go a long way in a prolonged emergency. For that matter, with the way our fiat money system is coming unraveled, you may want to seriously consider moving your IRA accounts into precious metals, if for no other reason than to better protect your savings. Ask yourself, how much money have I already lost at the hands of these banksters in the Federal Reserve and their toadies in the stock market?

In fact, in a disaster, what is considered a valuable commodity can change rather quickly, as the barter system takes a life of its own. What is valuable is determined by what you need and how badly you need it. In a prolonged disaster, simple things such as toilet paper, canned goods, ammunition, and clothing could become extremely valuable; while cars, video games, televisions, etc., could be reduced to junk status. In antiquity, wars were fought over things such as salt. You might be surprised to learn that there are already active barter groups in your area. I suggest you establish a relationship with these people now!

Speaking of cars, remember that during a prolonged “national emergency” that might involve some sort of nuclear attack or widespread civil unrest, an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) might be employed; in which case, most every late model vehicle would be completely inoperable. Accordingly, if one can keep an older, pre-computer-age vehicle in good working order, he or she might be driving the only non-government vehicle capable of going anywhere. Of course, you might not want to drive it to town!

Self-Defense:

Needless to say, during any kind of disaster, your safety and protection will be completely up to you. If you really think that the police are going to be able to protect you during an upheaval, you are living in a dream world.

In both the New Orleans and Los Angeles disasters, police protection was non-existent. Lawless gangs quickly took control of the streets, and people were left to either defend themselves or swiftly become the helpless prey of violent marauders. In fact, in New Orleans, some of the policemen actually abandoned their oaths to uphold the law and joined with the criminals, turning their weapons upon the public.

Face it, folks: in any kind of disaster, you must be able to defend yourself, or you and your family will be meat for these animals of society that will quickly descend without mercy upon the unprepared, unsuspecting souls around them. This requires that you be armed! It also requires that you be skilled enough to be able to efficiently use your arms. Therefore, I strongly suggest that you purchase firearms sufficient to keep you and your family safe, and also that you practice sufficiently to know how to use them.

Now, when it comes to a discussion of which firearms are preferable for self-defense, the suggestions are as varied as the people who proffer them. These are my suggestions:

I believe every man (along with his wife and children of adequate age) should be proficient with the following weapons: a handgun in .38 caliber or above, a .22 rifle, a center-fire bolt-action hunting rifle, a semi-automatic battle rifle, and a shotgun.

My personal preference for a self-defense handgun is either a .45 ACP 1911 (either Colt or Kimber), a Glock .45, or a .40 S&W. In the .40 caliber, my favorite is a Glock 22 or 23. In the 1911, I like the Commander size configuration. I prefer either the Model 21 or the Model 30 in the Glock .45. And I will also admit to sometimes carrying a 9mm Glock 19 or a Smith & Wesson .357 revolver. My two favorites in this caliber are the Model 66 with a 2 ½-inch barrel and the Model 586 with a 4-inch barrel. My wife prefers to carry a Smith & Wesson .38 caliber revolver in the snub-nose, J-frame configuration. But this is primarily due to the reduced weight of these weapons for carry purposes. If needed, she could make a good accounting of herself with the Glock 19. If you are someone who has never owned and seldom fired a handgun, I recommend you buy a Glock. They are as simple as revolvers to operate, reliable, and almost indestructible. Plus, they provide increased magazine capacity, and are safe. They are also very easy to disassemble and clean. Of course, in dangerous game territory, you will need the power of a 10mm (the Glock 20 shines here), .45 Long Colt, .44 Magnum, or even a .454 Casull. These calibers are not for the limp-wristed, but when one is facing a brown bear or mountain lion, it is what one will need to survive. Plus, when your life is on the line, you’ll never feel the recoil.

For a .22 rifle, I really like the Ruger 10/22. A Marlin tube-fed .22 is also very effective. The CZ bolt-action .22 just might be the most accurate .22 on the market. For a hunting rifle, my suggestion is either a .270 or .30-06 caliber bolt-action rifle. I prefer the Remington Model 700 BDL or Browning X-Bolt, but there are several fine weapons in this configuration and caliber by numerous manufacturers. In dangerous game territory, a Marlin .45-70 could be a lifesaver. For a battle rifle, I suggest an AR-15-style weapon in .223 caliber or a .308 Springfield M1A. For a shotgun, I suggest a 12-gauge pump. Here I prefer a Winchester Model 1300, which is not made anymore. So, you’ll probably have to choose between Mossberg and Remington. For ladies, however, a 20-gauge shotgun is probably a better choice, and at “bad breath” range (where a shotgun shines, anyway), it is just as lethal.

Whatever you choose, practice with it to the point that you are able to use it proficiently. And be sure you stock up on ammunition. A gun without ammo is reduced to being either an expensive club or a cumbersome paperweight.

Go to your local independent sporting goods store (I don’t recommend the large national chain stores to do your firearms shopping.) and get to know your hometown firearms dealer. Most of these people are kind and helpful folks who will be more than happy to assist you in finding exactly what type of firearm is suitable for you and your family.

Spiritual Power:

I firmly believe that man is created to have fellowship with his Creator-God. I really don’t know how people can face the uncertain future that we currently face without the spiritual knowledge, wisdom, comfort, and power that is made available through Jesus Christ. I believe the maxim is true: “Wise men still seek Him.” I strongly suggest that you seek to possess a personal relationship with God’s only begotten Son. In truth, spiritual preparation is far and away the most important preparation of all. Accordingly, be sure to pack a copy of God’s Word in your survival gear.

And if you have not been able to find a local church where the pastor isn’t afraid to deal with the kind of issues like I am dealing with in this column, I invite you to worship online with us at Liberty Fellowship. People all over America who are tired of these 501c3, establishment churches–who have no clue as to what is going on and who wouldn’t take a stand if they did–are tuning in to hear my messages at Liberty Fellowship every Sunday afternoon. To tune in this Sunday, go to:

http://chuckbaldwinlive.com/home/?page_id=2606

That we are facing challenging days is a certainty. Exactly what that means is yet to be determined. I trust that some of my suggestions will help you be better prepared for what lies before us. Plus, here is an excellent online Survival Blog chock-full of great suggestions and resources for all things survival. Check it out:

http://www.survivalblog.com/

And if you are considering relocation, please check out Joel Skousen’s web site at:

http://joelskousen.com/strategic.html

And if you think you may want to relocate to the Flathead Valley of Montana, George Hudson, a man at Liberty Fellowship who “escaped” from California to locate here–and who is now helping scores of people from all over the country to resettle in our beautiful valley–may be contacted at:

hudnut1940@gmail.com

Please give him a few days to email you back, but he will be happy to try to answer any questions you have about moving here.

I am sure that I have left out several items that others more qualified than me would include. I welcome their suggestions, as I am always desirous to learn from those who are wiser and more experienced. In the meantime, remember your Boy Scout motto: “Be Prepared.”

Is Going Off The Grid Practical?

The technological miracle that transformed the 20th century into an engine of wealth creation was based upon cheap energy. The role of the electric grid cannot be understated when it comes to enhancing the quality of life for the greatest number of people. The advance of civilization often seems to go in reverse gear. However, the innovation of labor saving devices and productive machinery usually rely upon running on the stream from electric generation.

Even with this laudable accomplishment, the electric grid has fundamental flaws and distribution shortcomings. The challenge for the 21th century requires a re-invention of thinking as much as a technological replacement of the alternative current system of connection to the electric grid.

Peter Fairley reveals an important trend in Edison’s Revenge: The Rise of DC Power.

“Anything that uses transistors relies on direct current, the flow of electricity in one direction. That explains why PCs, iPhones, and flat-screen TVs all have converter boxes to turn the alternating current in wall sockets (which reverses direction 120 times a second) into direct current.

Such digital consumer devices account for up to a fifth of total power consumption today, according to Greg Reed, director of the Power & Energy Initiative at the University of Pittsburgh. Reed says the steep growth curve of DC power is due not only to computers but also to the spread of devices such as LEDs and solar panels.

“Within the next 20 years we could definitely see as much as 50 percent of our total loads be made up of DC consumption,” he says. “It’s accelerating even more than we’d expected.”

DC power is a far more practical method of generation if a consumer is determined to severe the cord with your local electric utility. The obvious drawback is that in the United States major appliances are all designed to run on AC. If one is resolute to become independent in electric creation, the practical sources of generating a usable current requires a substantial redesign of a wiring system and a substantial investment of capital for the privilege of telling the electric company to take their bill and stuff it.

Is this emotional determination realistic when most people reside in metropolitan regions? Now if you are an avid “Prepper” and have secured the ideal isolated and rural location to build your dream castle retreat, by all means, do your own thing.The reality is that reliability of consistent power is one of the main advantages of connecting to the grid. Sure power- outages increase as the lack of proper maintenance to the transmission grid deteriorates. But the alternative of a fickle wind turbine in a still sky means you better be lighting with candles. With all the shortcomings and the short life of battery storage systems, the joy of being free of the utility company may well mean converting to a 19th century hand well pump for your water and a wood stove for your heat.

Now many hi-tech inventions allow the self-reliant to enjoy the natural pleasures of a back to nature lifestyle. Thermoelectric generators (TEG) might even work if you can master the technology of generating small amounts of electric current from the energy of your wood or coal furnace. Or, if you did your due diligence in selecting that prime survivalist fortress, with a dependable water flow from a year round stream, you can consider a micro-hydro power systems. If you strike out with your current incompatible location, surely you can sling a few solar panels on your roof to boil your morning cup of coffee.The point is that the actual alternatives to generating a practical level of power independent from a grid connection, can be achieved by few property owners.

Now before you give up and order your PG&E smart meter, the definite scandal has little to do with guaranteeing a cost effective electric utility system. Note the main concern has to do with your health and privacy. “Civil liberties advocates are watching this case and asking if we can’t trust the utility industry not to read our e-mails and spy on us, how can we trust them not to share details of our private lives that they acquire from the smart meter?”As the emphasis of the alternative energy debate shifts solely from methods to dominance, one must admit that the electric grid is presently being used to control your household existence. The idea of allowing individual homeowners to live their lives free from Public Service Commission control is only an academic issue. With modern living, in the “Green” politically correct era, the only thing that can be counted on is a move towards a despotic government mandate that forces compliance to the “Cap and Trade” culture.

Going off the grid is far more a political matter than a primitive attempt to supercharge your energy independence by perfecting the recluse way of life. We are all in the same electromagnetic pulse (EMP) matrix that threatens to severe the electric life raft. Reverting to aHobbesian State of Nature in an age of comprehensive surveillance that runs on electric current will not cure the autocratic lightening strike.How can real and viable electric alternatives be developed and brought to market when the entire bureaucratic system rests upon enforcing arbitrary regulations for favored crony relationships? Proponents of “Sustainable Energy” worship a bogus deity. Their doctrine requires the elimination of coal altogether. With the rapid increase of natural gas turbines for electric generation, these zealots demand that every fossil fuel must be abandoned.

Such attitudes directly have a negative impact on the grid. The case of industrial wind makes the point. A dramatic expansion of the current grid would be required to provide an interconnect from scattered wind factory locations. Just ask Boone Pickenswhy he deserted his flirtation with this outdated, unreliable and inefficient wind generation in favor of natural gas.Home fuel cell technology to power your home offers independence from the grid, but any system that requires a cogeneration source of fuel (like propane or natural gas) has obvious economic drawbacks. The promise of producing electricity from magnet generation has a striking appeal. However, where is the practical model that can be tested and marketed at your local Home Depot?

Sorry, the facts all support a conclusion that for a complex society with an aging infrastructure and an authoritarian political culture, the will to invest in a different electrical distribution system does not exist. It is not even a question of developing a better method for connection; it is all about stretching the useful life of old technology. Where is Nikola Tesla when you really need him? Well, the modern day J P Morgan’s that control the utility grid have a decisive foreign ownership composition. When the likes of Iberdrola and National Grid are encouraged to buy up our domestic electrical utilities, the prospects for the future mirror the problems of Europe.So if you are not a Prepper and you reside in your urban Florida condominium, be prepared to survive without air conditioning, if you want to cancel your utility account. The regulatory agencies are rubber stamps for the “Corporatists” utilities and citizen groups have an uphill struggle in preventing a wholesale stranglehold on your energy availability.

Organizing community electric cooperatives with citizen utility boards may be the only way to combat the Agenda 21 goal of controlling and rationing energy availability. The grid could be a miracle support line if it was under the stewardship of community interests. Decentralization of the grid, while maintaining access to sources of reliable and cost effective electric generation, should be the goal. Preventing brownouts is a technological issue, not an Enron manufactured by design occurrence.

The prospect of skyrocketing utility bills is a foregone reality if further consolidation is allowed. Without market competition not only in the sale of electricity, but in the delivery system of distribution, the costs of surviving your electric bill may be far more difficult.

Conservation is a logical objective. Notwithstanding such a noble aspiration, the financial requirements for return on equity demand that a reduction in usage demands an increase in electric rates. Only a true and practical energy generation invention that could break the ties of the electric meter, would offer any prospects of getting totally off the grid.

For the foreseeable future, major energy appliances will be manufactured for AC current. Anyone who has experience with portable generators for backup home generation know all too well that the price of gas or propane are excessive and prohibitive as a permanent alternative.

The only way to get the grid to work for you is to place maximum pressure on the political system to promote innovation for individual independence of the end user. DC current is the energy of choice for the greatest autonomy. However, the Washington DC connection is the greatest hurdle to overcome. The physics of Tesla’s wireless transmission of electrical energy is child’s play, when compared to the enigma of government regulation.

America’s Descent Into Poverty

The United States has collapsed economically, socially, politically, legally, constitutionally, and environmentally. The country that exists today is not even a shell of the country into which I was born. In this article I will deal with America’s economic collapse. In subsequent articles, i will deal with other aspects of American collapse.

Economically, America has descended into poverty. As Peter Edelman says, “Low-wage work is pandemic.” Today in “freedom and democracy” America, “the world’s only superpower,” one fourth of the work force is employed in jobs that pay less than $22,000, the poverty line for a family of four. Some of these lowly-paid persons are young college graduates, burdened by education loans, who share housing with three or four others in the same desperate situation. Other of these persons are single parents only one medical problem or lost job away from homelessness.

Others might be Ph.D.s teaching at universities as adjunct professors for $10,000 per year or less. Education is still touted as the way out of poverty, but increasingly is a path into poverty or into enlistments into the military services.

Edelman, who studies these issues, reports that 20.5 million Americans have incomes less than $9,500 per year, which is half of the poverty definition for a family of three.

There are six million Americans whose only income is food stamps. That means that there are six million Americans who live on the streets or under bridges or in the homes of relatives or friends. Hard-hearted Republicans continue to rail at welfare, but Edelman says, “basically welfare is gone.”

In my opinion as an economist, the official poverty line is long out of date. The prospect of three people living on $19,000 per year is farfetched. Considering the prices of rent, electricity, water, bread and fast food, one person cannot live in the US on $6,333.33 per year. In Thailand, perhaps, until the dollar collapses, it might be done, but not in the US.

As Dan Ariely (Duke University) and Mike Norton (Harvard University) have shown empirically, 40% of the US population, the 40% less well off, own 0.3%, that is, three-tenths of one percent, of America’s personal wealth. Who owns the other 99.7%? The top 20% have 84% of the country’s wealth. Those Americans in the third and fourth quintiles–essentially America’s middle class–have only 15.7% of the nation’s wealth. Such an unequal distribution of income is unprecedented in the economically developed world.

In my day, confronted with such disparity in the distribution of income and wealth, a disparity that obviously poses a dramatic problem for economic policy, political stability, and the macro management of the economy, Democrats would have demanded corrections, and Republicans would have reluctantly agreed.

But not today. Both political parties whore for money.

The Republicans believe that the suffering of poor Americans is not helping the rich enough. Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney are committed to abolishing every program that addresses needs of what Republicans deride as “useless eaters.”

The “useless eaters” are the working poor and the former middle class whose jobs were offshored so that corporate executives could receive multi-millions of dollars in performance pay compensation and their shareholders could make millions of dollars on capital gains. While a handful of executives enjoy yachts and Playboy playmates, tens of millions of Americans barely get by.

In political propaganda, the “useless eaters” are not merely a burden on society and the rich. They are leeches who force honest taxpayers to pay for their many hours of comfortable leisure enjoying life, watching sports events, and fishing in trout streams, while they push around their belongings in grocery baskets or sell their bodies for the next MacDonald burger.

The concentration of wealth and power in the US today is far beyond anything my graduate economic professors could image in the 1960s. At four of the world’s best universities that I attended, the opinion was that competition in the free market would prevent great disparities in the distribution of income and wealth. As I was to learn, this belief was based on an ideology, not on reality.

Congress, acting on this erroneous belief in free market perfection, deregulated the US economy in order to create a free market. The immediate consequence was resort to every previous illegal action to monopolize, to commit financial and other fraud, to destroy the productive basis of American consumer incomes, and to redirect income and wealth to the one percent.

The “democratic” Clinton administration, like the Bush and Obama administrations, was suborned by free market ideology. The Clinton sell-outs to Big Money essentially abolished Aid to Families with Dependent Children. But this sell-out of struggling Americans was not enough to satisfy the Republican Party. Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan want to cut or abolish every program that cushions poverty-stricken Americans from starvation and homelessness.

Republicans claim that the only reason Americans are in need is because the government uses taxpayers’ money to subsidize Americans who are unwilling to work. As Republicans see it, while we hard-workers sacrifice our leisure and time with our families, the welfare rabble enjoy the leisure that our tax dollars provide them.

This cock-eyed belief, on top of corporate CEOs maximizing their incomes by offshoring the middle class jobs of millions of Americans, has left Americans in poverty and cities, counties, states, and the federal government without a tax base, resulting in bankruptcies at the state and local level and massive budget deficits at the federal level that threaten the value of the dollar and its role as reserve currency.

The economic destruction of America benefitted the mega-rich with multi-billions of dollars with which to enjoy life and its high-priced accompaniments wherever the mega-rich wish. Meanwhile, away from the French Rivera, Homeland Security is collecting sufficient ammunition to keep dispossessed Americans under control.

Source: Paul Craig Roberts

Hope and Despair for Lebanon’s Palestinians

Remarkably, this Ramadan holiday season in Lebanon designees from both the Shia Higher Islamic Shiites Council and the Sunni Dar el Fatwa, figuratively speaking, pointed their binoculars deep into the eastern sky and in almost unheard of unison, proclaimed that Eid al Fitr this year was to be August 19^th.  It was a good omen for many in Lebanon that Shia and Sunni religious leaders agreed of this important event given the internal and external forces at work to further divide the two main denominations of Islam as well as all of Lebanon by sect, confession, geography, region, tribe, clan and neighborhood.

It was also good news for Palestinians living in places like Finland which these days have approximately 20 hours per day of sunlight and many devout Muslims have very long fasts. Mercifully, a majority of Muslims far up North tend to adopt the mere sixteen hours of daylight for seyam (fasting) using Mecca hours for dawn to dusk days without, food, water, sex, or smoking as well as avoiding bad thoughts or acts of incivility as they test and renew their devotion to Islam while engaging in introspective struggle self-criticism.

During the three day Al Fitr holiday, much of Muslim Lebanon becomes less active and many businesses close including Lebanon’s largest wholesale fruit and vegetable market which borders Shatila Palestinian refugee camp. Just before closing time on Eid eve, this observer entered the vast produce market now run mainly by Shia who buy agriculture products from Bekaa Valley and southern farmers (minus one of Lebanon’s oldest and most important crops, Hashish or “ Lebanese Red Bud” as it’s known in Amsterdam smoke cafes and elsewhere). With little refrigeration, many of the wholesalers next to Shatila dumped, in time for Iftar and Eid feasts, large quantities of really fine produce at a designated corner of the ten acre market. They have been doing this for more than three years ever since the Palestine Civil Rights Campaign was lucky enough to convince the owners to dump their leftovers or soon to spoil fruit and vegetables in the southeast corner bordering Shatila camp. As a result of this charitable cross-denomination act, rather than disposing of the extra produce in dumpsters, Palestinian refugee families are given the much appreciated chance to collect free produce for their families.  Every day, men women and children from Shatila camp, as well as poor Lebanese and Syrian workers can be seen climbing over and thru hewn holes in the cinderblock wall bordering Shatila and gathering really excellent produce.  This basic humanitarian gesture is an example of how the Shia can, and do, reach out to the largely Sunni Palestinian community. Cross-confessional gestures such as this are among the reasons Palestinians in Lebanon support Hezbollah and the growing regional and international Resistance it leads.

Eid al Fita also coincides  this year with International Quds Day which was introduced from Iran in 1979  by Ayatollah Khomeini  and  which is commemorated on the last Friday of Ramadan,expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people and opposing Zionism and Israel’s control of Jerusalem.

In Lebanon’s refugee camps this Eid Al Fitr holiday season there is intense heat, little electricity or drinking water, and a paucity of fresh air or breeze available to the jammed populations.  Ein el Helwe, the largest of Lebanon’s 12 camps which according to the most recent UNWRA statistics houses 47,500 refugees but in reality now is home to more than 100,000. They like their fellow countrymen temporarily in Lebanon, have few reasons to celebrate.  The competition for breathing space has increased as the camps populations have swelled even more with refugees fleeing the violence in Syria.

This year there are fewer sweets for the children, less food, not many gifts or new clothes and few flowers to place on the graves of deceased love ones, a gesture by custom made during traditional Eid Al Fitr cemetery visits.  In the tightly packed Palestinian cemeteries, of which they are only four in Lebanon, sometimes as many as five layers of bodies are buried on top of one another  due to lack of space.

There is another anniversary that coincides in Lebanon this year with Eid al Fitr and with International Al Quds day but it’s no occasion for joy among the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.

It is the second anniversary of the August 17, 2010 amendment to article 59 of the Lebanese Labor Law which constituted a betrayal of Palestinian refugees by Lebanese politicians.  Before the vote, across the political spectrum were heard promises to enact legislation granting the elementary civil rights to work and to own a home in Lebanon. This country is the only one on earth that denies Palestinian refugees the basic right to work or even to own a home.

The legislation passed was simply a cruel hoax and has not facilitated one Palestinian refugee obtaining a job over the past 24 months. The amendment, while waiving work permit fees which were never a serious problem in obtaining a work permit, left in place numerous restrictions and catch-22 Kafqesque barriers that previously blocked Palestinians from being able to work. Parliament also left in place the racist 2001 law which outlawed any Palestinian from owning a home.

Ministers of Labor over the past two years have willfully failed to implement the new law, such as it is, by refusing the simple act of signing implementation papers. Less than two months ago a Palestinian delegation was promised yet again that a majority party in Parliament would see to it that the Minister of Labor did his job as mandated by the Lebanese constitution. Once more nothing was done.  On this second anniversary of the fake “Palestinian work permit legislation”  most Lebanese politicians who made so many promises to this observer and others  over the past four years to comply with international and Lebanese law and grant basic civil rights to Palestinians in Lebanon remain asleep on this issue.

Nevertheless, the hope of Palestinian refugees to achieve the basic civil right to work and to own a home is not extinguished in the camps this holiday season by the impotence of Lebanon’s big talk but do nothing Parliament. One reason for hope comes from the voices of people like Miss Hiba Hajj, a Palestinian princess living in Ein el Helwe camp.  This observer visited with her recently after sneaking into Ein el Helwe camp thru that smelly claustrophobic 30 inch, heavily trafficked sewer conduit at the eastern edge of the camp. The US Embassy here made crawling through the sewer line sort of obligatory for Americans wanting to visit Ein el Helwe camp ever since it directed the Lebanese Armed Force (LAF) not to grant Americans permission to enter the camp out of presumed, but misplaced, concern for their wellbeing.  It was Hiba (“gift from God” in Arabic), then a youngster of 14 years, who proclaimed three years ago when she volunteered to help achieve the right to work and home ownership for “my people” as she referred to them, stated to this observer and friends: “Failure is not an option for the Palestine Civil Rights Campaign, our only choice is success.”  And so it remains.

While the most elementary civil rights still have not been granted, Hiba continues to inspire us all with her rapid, charismatic and at times mesmerizing speech outlining what needs to be done and how to do it to achieve dignity for her fellow refugees.  This blooming seventeen year old Jean d’Arc, has zero problem smacking around, verbally at least, some of the toughest looking unkempt wannebe  salafists and jahadists from the eight Islamist groups who periodically show up in Ein el Helwe.  Hiba explains that she definitely wants the help of Usbat al-Ansar, who earlier this month helped resolve the traffic blocking sit-in by the controversial preacher, Sheikh Ahmad Assir in nearby Saida, but she demurs from the fictitious Jund al-Sham, or gangs who claim a spot under the imaginary loose cloak of al-Qaeda.

“I want you to do something worthwhile with your lives so we can get back to Palestine without more delay! Do you want to spend your lives in Lebanon? It’s not and will never be our country!” she scolds them as she asks for help to organize a major intifada here in Lebanon to prevent another anniversary from passing without Palestinian refugees attaining the civil rights to work and to own a home.

Hiba is encouraged this holiday season despite the failures of  Lebanon’s political parties, international activists, the international community “so very concerned with humanitarian values!” as she lectures her mates, and most especially the failure to date of groups here in Lebanon including the Palestine Civil Rights Campaign to achieve our goals.

This remarkable youngster idealistically reminds her coterie of likeminded teens of last week’s words of Hezbollah’s Secretary-General who she and her friends admire, trust, and believe.

During his International Al-Quds Day speech, Hassan Nasrallah stated that Imam Khomeini`s declaration of  Al-Quds Day falls within the context of a long continuum of religious and political commitment to “the sacred cause of Palestine” and  that Al-Quds Day  should not be simply a seasonal occasion  to support  the Palestinian people.

Hezbollah’s Secretary-General added,

“Unfortunately, today the suffering of the Palestinian people (Hiba thinks he also means within Lebanon’s camps)  has become secondary and just ordinary news items in the Arab and Islamic world, even in the entire world which claims to be civilized, the news has become second row even late news. Today, the nation can do much for Palestine and its people. At the very least, the rulers can themselves stop blockading the Palestinians before asking them to assist in lifting the siege off the Palestinians. A Part of the blockade suffered by the Palestinian people is practiced by some Arab regimes. This embargo must be lifted and support must be submitted”.

Hiba and her friends interpreted these words to mean Hezbollah will use its power in Parliament and finally grant them the right to work in Lebanon thus delivering to them a less bleak future.  Palestinians in Lebanon, and their international supporters, are acutely aware that Hezbollah still holds majority power in Parliament and will do so at least until next year’s Parliamentary elections if they are even held which to this observer appears doubtful.

Hiba particularly liked Hezbollah’s Secretary-General’s  words which she quoted: “We must help the Palestinians towards this cause to uphold the right of return and to refuse any resettlement as well as to reject assimilation in any country as is happening through their forced migration to countries in Latin America, Europe, Australia and others.”

Members of Parliament who support this country granting the right to work and to own a home to Palestinians insist that if the political decision is made by the Parliamentary majority led by Hezbollah, the necessary legislation, still in the legislative hopper from two years ago, can be enacted in an afternoon.

Hiba and Hezbollah’s other supporters who share Sayed Hassan Nasrallah’s oft expressed views demanding basic human rights for Palestinians in Lebanon believe that the Resistance block will, on this 30^th anniversary of the massacre at Sabra-Shatila, finally act on what the late Imam Khomeini declared was  a central “moral, religious, and political” obligation of all people of good will.

The United States and Its Comrade-In-Arms, Al Qaeda

And other tales of an empire gone mad…

Afghanistan in the 1980s and 90s … Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s … Libya 2011 … Syria 2012 … In military conflicts in each of these countries the United States and al Qaeda (or one of its associates) have been on the same side. ¹

What does this tell us about the United States’ “War On Terrorism”?

Regime change has been the American goal on each occasion: overthrowing communists (or “communists”), Serbians, Slobodan Milosevic, Moammar Gaddafi, Bashar al-Assad … all heretics or infidels, all non-believers in the empire, all inconvenient to the empire.

Why, if the enemy is Islamic terrorism, has the United States invested so much blood and treasure against the PLO, Iraq, and Libya, and now Syria, all mideast secular governments?

Why are Washington’s closest Arab allies in the Middle East the Islamic governments of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, and Bahrain? Bahrain being the home of an American naval base; Saudi Arabia and Qatar being conduits to transfer arms to the Syrian rebels.

Why, if democracy means anything to the United States are these same close allies in the Middle East all monarchies?

Why, if the enemy is Islamic terrorism, did the United States shepherd Kosovo — 90% Islamist and perhaps the most gangsterish government in the world — to unilaterally declare independence from Serbia in 2008, an independence so illegitimate and artificial that the majority of the world’s nations still have not recognized it?

Why — since Kosovo’s ruling Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) have been known for their trafficking in women, heroin, and human body parts (sic) — has the United States been pushing for Kosovo’s membership in NATO and the European Union? (Just what the EU needs: another economic basket case.) Between 1998 and 2002, the KLA appeared on the State Department terrorist list, remaining there until the United States decided to make them an ally, due in no small part to the existence of a major American military base in Kosovo, Camp Bondsteel, well situated in relation to planned international oil and gas pipelines coming from the vast landlocked Caspian Sea area to Europe. In November 2005, following a visit to Bondsteel, Alvaro Gil-Robles, the human rights envoy of the Council of Europe, described the camp as a “smaller version of Guantánamo”. ²

Why, if the enemy is Islamic terrorism, did the United States pave the way to power for the Libyan Islamic rebels, who at this very moment are killing other Libyans in order to institute a more fundamentalist Islamic state?

Why do American officials speak endlessly about human rights, yet fully support the Libyan Islamic rebels despite the fact that Doctors Without Borders suspended its work in prisons in the Islamic-rebel city of Misurata because torture was so rampant that some detainees were brought for care only to make them fit for further interrogation? ³

Why is the United States supporting Islamic Terrorists in Libya and Syria who are persecuting Christians?

And why, if the enemy is Islamic terrorism, did US Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice — who daily attacks the Syrian government on moral grounds — not condemn the assassination of four Syrian high officials on July 18, in all likelihood carried out by al Qaeda types? RT, the Russian television channel broadcast in various parts of the United States, noted her silence in this matter. Does anyone know of any American media that did the same?

So, if you want to understand this thing called United States foreign policy … forget about the War on Terrorism, forget about September 11, forget about democracy, forget about freedom, forget about human rights, forget about religion, forget about the people of Libya and Syria … keep your eyes on the prize … Whatever advances American global domination. Whatever suits their goals at the moment. There is no moral factor built into the DNA of US foreign policy.

Bring back the guillotine

In July, the Canadian corporation Enbridge, Inc. announced that one of its pipelines had leaked and spilled an estimated 1,200 barrels of crude oil in a field in Wisconsin. Two years ago, an Enbridge pipeline spilled more than 19,000 barrels in Michigan. The Michigan spill affected more than 50 kilometers of waterways and wetlands and about 320 people reported medical symptoms from crude oil exposure. The US National Transportation Safety Board said that at $800 million it was the costliest onshore spill cleanup in the nation’s history. The NTSB found that Enbridge knew of a defect in the pipeline five years before it burst. According to Enbridge’s own reports, the company had 800 spills between 1999 and 2010, releasing close to 7 million gallons of crude oil. ⁴

No executive or other employee of Enbridge has been charged with any kind of crime. How many environmental murderers of modern times have been punished?

During a period of a few years beginning around 2007, several thousand employees of stock brokers, banks, mortgage companies, insurance companies, credit-rating agencies, and other financial institutions, mainly in New York, had great fun getting obscenely rich while creating and playing with pieces of paper known by names like derivatives, collateralized debt obligations, index funds, credit default swaps, structured investment vehicles, subprime mortgages, and other exotic terms, for which, it must be kept in mind, there had been no public need or demand. The result has been a severe depression, seriously hurting hundreds of millions of lives in the United States and abroad.

No employee of any of these companies has seen the inside of a prison cell for playing such games with our happiness.

For more than half a century members of the United States foreign policy and military establishments have compiled a record of war crimes and crimes against humanity that the infamous beasts and butchers of history could only envy.

Not a single one of these American officials has come any closer to a proper judgment than going to see the movie “Judgment at Nuremberg”.

Yet, we live in the United States of Punishment for countless other criminal types; more than two million presently rotting their lives away. No other society comes even close to this, no matter how the statistics are calculated. And many of those in American prisons are there for victimless crimes.

On the other hand, we see the Chinese sentencing their citizens to lengthy prison terms, even execution, for environmental crimes.

We have an Iranian court recently trying 39 people for a $2.6 billion bank loan embezzlement carried out by individuals close to the political elite or with their assent. Of the 39 people tried, four were sentenced to hang, two to life in prison, and others received terms of up to 25 years; in addition to prison time, some were sentenced to flogging, ordered to pay fines, and banned from government jobs. ⁵

And in Argentina in early July, in the latest of a long series of trials of former Argentine officials, former dictator Jorge Rafael Videla was convicted and sentenced to 50 years for a systematic plan to steal babies from women prisoners who were kidnapped, tortured and killed during the military junta’s war on leftist dissenters — the “dirty war” of 1976-83 that claimed 13,000 victims. Many of the women had “disappeared” shortly after giving birth. Argentina’s last dictator, Reynaldo Bignone, was also convicted and got 15 years. Outside the courthouse a jubilant crowd watched on a big screen and cheered each sentence. ⁶

As an American, how I envy the Argentines. Get the big screen ready for The Mall in Washington. We’ll have showings of the trials of the Bushes and Cheney and Rumsfeld and Obama. And Henry Kissinger, a strong supporter of the Argentine junta among his many contributions to making the world a better place. And let’s not forget the executives of Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Bank of America, and Enbridge, Inc. Fining them just money is pointless. We have to fine them years, lots of them.

Without imprisoning these people, nothing will change. That’s become a cliché, but we very well see what continues to happen without imprisonment. And it’s steadily getting worse, financially and imperially.

Items of interest from a journal I’ve kept for 40 years, part VII

• Bantustanning the aboriginals all over the world: The Indians in America, the aboriginals in Australia, the blacks in South Africa, and the Palestinians in Palestine.
• From 1966 tape of President Lyndon Johnson: “I know we oughtn’t to be there [in Vietnam], but I can’t get out.” And he never did. And thousands more troops would die before Johnson left office. (Washington Post, March 12, 2006)
• The Germans had Lebensraum. Americans had Manifest Destiny.
• chinks, gooks, wogs, towelheads, ragheads — some of the charming terms used by American soldiers to describe their foes in Asia and the Middle East
• In June, 2005, Cong. Duncan Hunter (Rep.-CA) held a news conference concerning Guantánamo. Displaying some tasty traditional meals, he said the government spends $12 a day for food for each prisoner. “So the point is that the inmates in Guantánamo have never eaten better, they’ve never been treated better, and they’ve never been more comfortable in their lives than in this situation.” (Scripps Howard News Service, June 28, 2005, Reg Henry column)
• Vice President Dick Cheney: Guantánamo prisoners are well treated. “They’re living in the tropics. They’re well fed. They’ve got everything they could possibly want.” (CNN.com, June 23, 2005)
• “[Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld said Guantánamo’s operations have been more open to scrutiny than any military detention facility in history.” (Associated Press, June 14, 2005)
• “Their ‘coalition of the willing’ [in Iraq] meant the US, Britain, and the equivalent of a child’s imaginary friends.” Paul Loeb, Truthout, June 16, 2005
• Nobody has ever suggested that Serbia attacked or was preparing to attack a member of NATO, and that is the only event which justifies a military reaction under the NATO treaty, such as the 1999 78-day bombing of Serbia.
• Rumsfeld re Chinese military buildup: “Since no nation threatens China, one wonders: Why this growing investment?” (New York Times, June 6, 2005
• Rumsfeld re Venezuelan major weapons buildup: “I don’t know of anyone threatening Venezuela, anyone in this hemisphere.” (Washington Post, October 3, 2006) [Is it possible that the response to both points raised is the same? A country in North America bordering on Mexico?]
• The failure of the United Nations — as an institution and its individual members — to unequivocally oppose and prevent the United States invasion of Iraq in 2003 can well be called “appeasement”.
• The Iraqi Kurds generally sided with Iran during the 1981-88 Iraq-Iran war; helped the United States before and during its bombing of Iraq in 2003 and during its occupation; and most Kurds don’t identify with being Iraqi according to polls.
• One of the military judges at Guantánamo said: “I don’t care about international law. I don’t want to hear the words ‘international law’ again. We are not concerned with international law.” (Democracy Now, April 12, 2005)
• George W. Bush, re al Qaeda types: “Iraqis are sick of foreign people coming in their country and trying to destabilize their country. And we will help them rid Iraq of these killers.” (Baltimore Sun, May 6, 2004)
• “I think all foreigners should stop interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq. Those who want to come and help are welcome. Those who come to interfere and destroy are not.” Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense and unindicted war criminal (Chicago Tribune, July 22, 2003)
• Timothy McVeigh, Gulf War veteran who bombed a government building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168 people: “What occurred in Oklahoma City was no different than what Americans rain on the heads of others all the time … The bombing of the Murrah building was not personal, no more than when Air Force, Army, Navy or Marine personnel bomb or launch cruise missiles against government installations and their personnel. … Many foreign nations and peoples hate Americans for the very reasons most Americans loathe me. Think about that.” (McVeigh’s letter to and interview with Rita Cosby, Fox News Correspondent, April 27 2001)
• Douglas Feith, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and unindicted war criminal: “Defense Department officials don’t lie to the public. … The Defense Department doesn’t do covert action, period.” (Washington Post, February 21, 2002)
• The United States will “deal promptly and properly with the terrible abuses” of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. soldiers. “No country in the world upholds the Geneva Conventions on the laws of armed conflict more steadfastly than does the United States.” Douglas Feith, Boston Globe, May 5, 2004
• “The State Department plans to delay the release of a human rights report that was due out today, partly because of sensitivities over the prison abuse scandal in Iraq, U.S. officials said. One official who asked not to be identified said the release of the report, which describes actions taken by the U.S. government to encourage respect for human rights by other nations, could ‘make us look hypocritical’.” (Los Angeles Times, May 5, 2004)
• In the decades after 1945, as colonial possessions became independent states, it was widely believed that imperialism as a historical phenomenon was coming to an end. However, a new form of imperialism was in fact taking shape, an imperialism not defined by colonial rule but by the global capitalist market. From the outset, the dominant power in this imperialism without colonies was the United States.
• Francis Boyle re the capture and public display of Saddam Hussein: “This is the 21st century equivalent of the Roman Emperor parading the defeated barbarian king before the assembled masses so that they might all shout in unison: Hail Caesar!”
• The US-provided textbooks in Nicaragua after the US-instigated defeat of the Sandinistas in 1990 carefully excluded all mention of Augustino Sandino as a national hero. (Z magazine, November, 1991)
• “Col. David Hogg, commander of the 2nd Brigade of the 4th Infantry Division, said tougher methods are being used to gather the intelligence. On Wednesday night, he said, his troops picked up the wife and daughter of an Iraqi lieutenant general. They left a note: ‘If you want your family released, turn yourself in.’ Such tactics are justified, he said, because, ‘It’s an intelligence operation with detainees, and these people have info.’ They would have been released in due course, he added later. The tactic worked. On Friday, Hogg said, the lieutenant general appeared at the front gate of the U.S. base and surrendered.” (Washington Post, July 28, 2003) [This is illegal under international law; in ordinary parlance we'd call it a kidnapping with ransom; in war, it's the collective punishment of civilians and is forbidden under the Geneva Convention]
• “Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.” — Martin Luther King, Jr.
• “Americans, who up until now had been so valued for their pragmatism, have become ideologues, ‘Bolsheviks’ of the Right, as Daniel Cohn-Bendit once described them.” (Jean-Marcel Bouguereau, concerning Iraq, Le Nouvel Observateur, September 8, 2003)
• Six months after its invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration defended its policy on the basis of schools and hospitals opening and strides made in providing water and electricity. (Washington Post, September 25, 2003) — These are all things 12 years of US bombing and sanctions had destroyed.

Notes

1. For a summary of much of this, see: Peter Dale Scott, “Bosnia, Kosovo, and Now Libya: The Human Costs of Washington’s Ongoing Collusion With Terrorists“, The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, August 7, 2011 ^↩
2. Camp Bondsteel entry on Wikipedia ^↩
3. Washington Post, January 27, 2012 ^↩
4. Enbridge entry on Wikipedia; Washington Post, July 29, 2012^↩
5. Reuters, July 31, 2012 ^↩
6. Associated Press, July 6, 2012 ^↩

The White House Secret Kill List

In a recent column, Judge Andrew Napolitano highlighted a recent New York Times investigative report that reveals how President Barack Obama is engaging in secret assassinations worldwide. Judge Napolitano begins, “The leader of the government regularly sits down with his senior generals and spies and advisers and reviews a list of the people they want him to authorize their agents to kill. They do this every Tuesday morning when the leader is in town. The leader once condemned any practice even close to this, but now relishes the killing because he has convinced himself that it is a sane and sterile way to keep his country safe and himself in power. The leader, who is running for re-election, even invited his campaign manager to join the group that decides whom to kill.

“This is not from a work of fiction, and it is not describing a series of events in the Kremlin or Beijing or Pyongyang. It is a fair summary of a 6,000-word investigative report in The New York Times earlier this week about the White House of Barack Obama. Two Times journalists, Jo Becker and Scott Shane, painstakingly and chillingly reported that the former lecturer in constitutional law and liberal senator who railed against torture and Gitmo now weekly reviews a secret kill list, personally decides who should be killed and then dispatches killers all over the world–and some of his killers have killed Americans.

“We have known for some time that President Obama is waging a private war. By that I mean he is using the CIA on his own–and not the military after congressional authorization–to fire drones at thousands of persons in foreign lands, usually while they are riding in a car or a truck. He has done this both with the consent and over the objection of the governments of the countries in which he has killed. He doesn’t want to talk about this, but he doesn’t deny it. How chilling is it that David Axelrod–the president’s campaign manager–has periodically seen the secret kill list? Might this be to keep the killings politically correct?”

The judge concludes, “Since 9/11, the United States government has set up national security systems that function not under the Constitution, not under the Geneva Conventions, not under the rule of law, not under the rules of war, not under federal law, but under a new secret system crafted by the Bush administration and personally directed by Obama, the same Obama who condemned these rules as senator and then extended them as president. In the name of fighting demons in pick-up trucks and wars that Congress has never declared, the government shreds our rights, taps our cellphones, reads our emails, kills innocents abroad, strip searches 87-year-old grandmothers in wheelchairs and 3-year-old babies in their mothers’ arms, and offers secrecy when the law requires accountability.

“Obama has argued that his careful consideration of each person he orders killed and the narrow use of deadly force are an adequate and constitutional substitute for due process. The Constitution provides for no such thing. He has also argued that the use of drones to do his killing is humane since they are ‘surgical’ and only kill their targets. We know that is incorrect. And he has argued that these killings are consistent with our values. What is he talking about? The essence of our values is the rule of law, not the rule of presidents.”

See Judge Napolitano’s column at:

http://lewrockwell.com/napolitano/napolitano56.1.html

Let me begin by offering kudos to Judge Napolitano for his trenchant column, and kudos to New York Times reporters Jo Becker and Scott Shane for their blockbuster report.

Do readers not find it a little curious that hardly anyone in the national press corps–or even in the vast majority of the local media–has not picked up the Times report? After all, the New York Times is the unquestioned flagship newspaper of America. The vast majority of newspapers around the country rely on the NYT for much of their reporting. So, why didn’t we see this report blasted on front pages all across the United States? Do newspaper publishers and editors really think that this report is not Page One worthy? Is not this the kind of story that the freedom of the press was directly designed for? And where were the three major network news shows or even the cable news shows on this report? This is an incredible report, and for all intents and purposes, the story is relegated to media oblivion.

Oh, yes! Maybe we also now know why so many drones are beginning to appear over the skies of America.

One would think that the supposed “anti-Obama” FOX News network would be all over this story. To help enlighten readers, let me quickly point out the sagacious point that Judge Napolitano made in his column, “Since 9/11, the United States government has set up national security systems that function not under the Constitution, not under the Geneva Conventions, not under the rule of law, not under the rules of war, not under federal law, but under a new secret system crafted by the Bush administration.”

Ah! There it is! That’s why FOX News ignores the story. G.W. Bush is just as culpable in this monstrous activity as is Barack Obama. In fact, Bush is the one who created this modern American version of Hitler’s Brown Shirts. When it comes to ignoring the US Constitution and assuming dictatorial Hitlerian policies, Republican and Democrat Presidential administrations of late have been virtual Siamese Twins.

Now, please read this paragraph carefully (taken from HistoryLearningSite.com): “Germany became a nation of snoops. People were employed in each street, in each building complex, etc. with the sole purpose of keeping an eye on others in their ‘area’ and reporting them to the authorities if they believed that something was amiss. [Sounds like America’s Department of Homeland Security, doesn’t it?] The reputation of the Nazi police and the secret police lead by Himmler was such that no-one wished to cause offence. People kept their thoughts to themselves unless they wished to invite trouble. In this sense, Nazi Germany was a nation run on fear of the government. Hitler had created a one party state within months of being appointed chancellor.”

See the report at:

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/Nazi_Germany_dictatorship.htm

And ladies and gentlemen, this is why electing Mitt Romney will change nothing! The same Orwellian, big-government internationalists who are manipulating Barack Obama, and who manipulated G.W. Bush (and Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush) are manipulating Mitt Romney. Ever since President Ronald Reagan, it hasn’t mattered to a tinker’s dam whether a Republican or Democrat has been in the White House. As Sonny and Cher sang, “The Beat Goes On.” For all intents and purposes, America only has one party at the national level. Pat Buchanan was right when he said that the Elephants and Donkeys inside the Beltway were “two wings of the same bird of prey.”

Of course, if the American electorate suddenly got a surge of constitutional electricity and would elect Congressman Ron Paul as President, the story would be much different. Things would change at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue–not to mention in the United States and the entire world–dramatically. However, with the majority of Americans in the hip pockets of the mainstream media, a Romney/Obama showdown in November seems inevitable (although I am still privately cheering for a Ron Paul coup d’etat at the GOP national convention in Tampa).

So, how many people have been or are on this secret kill list–and who are they? With the vast majority of the mainstream media cowering in abject fear of the federal government, and with both major parties in Washington, D.C., walking in lockstep to the drumbeat of an emerging police state, who is left to even sound an alarm of protest? Well, two New York Times reporters did; Judge Andrew Napolitano did; Lew Rockwell did. And now I am, too.

Is this the kind of government that most Democrats want? Is this what they wanted when they elected Barack Obama? Is this the kind of government that most Republicans want? Is this what they wanted when they elected G.W. Bush?

Anyone who cannot see history being repeated is flat not paying attention! I cannot believe my country has turned into this!

Anyway, thank you Judge Napolitano for being a watchman on the wall!

A Synchronized Global Slowdown

In Negative Territory…

“Every major part of the global economy is slowing, and slowing rapidly….Right now, we seem to be in a synchronized global slowdown, and that is very worrisome.” – Mohamed El-Erian, Pimco.

Growing troubles in the eurozone, a slowdown in China and a jobs report that was weaker than the most-pessimistic forecast, sent stocks plunging on Friday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 275 points on the day while the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ followed the DJIA into the red. All the gains of 2012 have now been erased leaving all the major indices in negative territory.

The global selloff was preceded on Thursday by a revision of first quarter GDP which was slashed from 2.2 percent to 1.9 percent. The US economy is neither growing nor adding jobs. The signs of stagnation–which have spread from manufacturing, to consumer confidence, to GDP, and now to jobs– has ended all talk of a “recovery” and dampened Obama’s prospects for re-election in November.

Payrolls increased by just 69,000 in May, far below the 150,000 that analysts had expected. The unemployment rate rose to 8.2 percent from 8.1 percent while revised estimates show that fewer jobs were created in the last 3 months than originally stated. The grim report suggests that the Obama economic recovery has run out of steam just as many economists had predicted.   Obama’s unwillingness to follow the advice of top economics advisor, Christina Romer–who recommended a $1.8 trillion stimulus package, instead of the $787 billion that the administration settled on–has probably cost him the election. Obama’s future depends on the condition of the economy, and the economy stinks.

In Europe, troubles in Spain and Greece have touched-off a bank run that’s pushed yields on risk-free assets, like US Treasuries and German bund, to record lows. The German 2-year bund (Schatz) dipped into negative territory on Friday while yields on the benchmark 10-year Treasury declined to 1.44 percent. The yield on the Swiss 10-year has plunged to an astonishing 0.48% is “the lowest ever recorded anywhere.”

Jittery investors are now lending money to the US and German governments’ knowing they’ll get less back in return. (in inflation adjusted terms.) This is the very definition of panic. And their fear is not without foundation, after all, Europe’s wholesale funding market is broken, Spain’s banking system is undercapitalized and teetering, the bank runs are intensifying, and policymakers are unable to agree on a course of action. Political paralysis has made a bad situation worse. Here’s a chart that shows the amount of liquidity the ECB has given to Greece, Spain and Italy via the Target2 program. Target fill the hole that’s been created by capital flight. This is what a modern-day bank run looks like.

The European Commission and the ECB have been unable to stop the bank runs because there is no euro-wide deposit insurance. So, when depositors begin to doubt their country’s future in the EZ, they withdraw their savings and move it to a safer location, like Germany. Here’s more from Reuters:

“Spaniards alarmed by the dire state of their banks moved money abroad in March at a faster rate than at any time since records began in 1990, official figures showed.

The 66.2 billion euros net capital flight occurred before the nationalisation of Spain’s fourth biggest lender, Bankia in May due to massive losses from a burst property bubble….

The European Central Bank stepped up pressure on Thursday for a joint guarantee on bank deposits across the euro zone, saying Europe needed new tools to fight bank runs as the bloc’s debt crisis drives investors to flee risk.” (Reuters)

The eurozone is not sufficiently integrated, fiscally or politically, to deal with the problems it now faces. It does not have a centralized bond market that collectivizes the debts of the member states in order to keep borrowing costs low. Nor is there a mechanism for fiscal transfers to help level the playing field so that account imbalances do not become unmanageable and destructive. EZ managers have rejected the traditional methods for integration and, instead, settled on punitive austerity measures that are designed to purge large deficits through internal devaluation. The process has created record unemployment, severe recession, and widespread social unrest. Still, Brussels persists with the same policy ignoring the fact that it has only deepened the crisis.

The EZ troubles are not difficult to grasp or remedy, in fact, former economic advisor to Barack Obama, Austan Goolsbee explained the problem in an article in Thursday’s Wall Street Journal. Here’s an excerpt:

“At root, the euro-zone problem remains the locking together of very different economies into a monetary union without a way to adjust….Normally, exchange-rate adjustments would reduce this gap…. But without an exchange-rate safety valve you need an alternate way to rebalance economies. Moving, inflating, struggling, or subsidizing are your only choices…(Either) Southern Europe can struggle through the problem—grinding down wages through high unemployment and structural labor-market reforms ….(or) Northern Europe could decide…, that it is willing to permanently subsidize euro-zone countries with low productivity growth. That could be through explicit subsidies or through bailouts and broad-based guarantees.” –A Fiscal Union Won’t Fix the Euro Crisis –The only practical choices are more geographic mobility, inflation, or subsidies” Austan Goolsbee, Wall Street Journal)

There it is in a nutshell. The problem is not particularly hard to understand or to fix, but if it’s ignored or if deficit zealots (like Angela Merkel) feel as though they can apply their own nonsensical remedies (austerity), then the bank runs will gain pace, a wider panic will ensue, and the monetary union will be torn apart, which is what’s happening now.

Goolsbee’s article also provides an interesting breakdown of how fiscal transfers work in the US:

“Last year, the Economist compiled census data from 1990 to 2009 for all 50 U.S. states on the amount of federal spending in each state minus the amount the state’s residents pay in federal taxes. Over 20 years, states like Minnesota and Delaware annually paid in about 10% more of their state GDP than they got back. On the other side, for the last 20 years New Mexico, Mississippi and West Virginia have received annual subsidies of more than 12% of state GDP. While not a perfect measure of subsidy, it conveys the basic point well. These are big. Greece’s entire 2011 deficit, for example, was 9.1% of GDP.”

The reason the US is able to successfully use one currency–despite the fact that some states are more productive and competitive than others– is because the weaker states are subsidized via Pentagon contracts, unemployment benefits, federal infrastructure programs, food stamps etc. These “fiscal transfers” are necessary to make the US-currency union work. The same rule applies to Europe, but EU leaders reject the idea saying that fiscal transfers are tantamount to “financing other governments” which is banned under the Stability and Growth Pact. This is idiocy in the extreme. The fact is, economists and experts have repeatedly explained what needs to be done to make the EZ a viable currency union, but EZ leaders refuse to make the changes. Their obstinance has thrust the 17-member monetary union to brink of annihilation.

In China, the evidence of a slowdown is also beginning to mount. The recession in the eurozone has taken a toll on Chinese exports which has hurt manufacturing and retail sales. (China’s PMI slipped to 50.4 from 53.3 a month earlier.) As the slump in the eurozone deepens, China’s economy will cool even more forcing policymakers to lower reserve requirements while boosting stimulus to increase investment by the state-owned enterprises. The recent signs of capital flight from China has experts worried that the boom-times may be over and that China may be headed for a hard landing. Here’s a clip from economist Tim Duy on the topic:

“…the exodus of cash could indicate that the Chinese story is coming to a close – and that will have significant consequences for the global economy. It is another signal that emerging markets will not be supporting global demand anytime soon. I think .. this story is slipping under the radar while we all have our eyes focused on the farce in Europe. But it could be the real game changer in the global economy.” (“Capital flees China”, Tim Duy, economists view)

China’s industrial production and electricity use are falling fast, while the number of non-performing loans has ballooned to new highs in the last year. Efforts to stimulate the economy have also fallen short as businesses continue to reduce their borrowing to see if demand picks up later in the year. New bank loans have dropped 8% y-o-y, while consumer credit has slowed to a trickle. Here’s more from the Wall Street Journal:

“The lack of confidence is due to the overhang from the last blowout. All of that investment in industrial capacity and real estate is now coming on line. Companies and local governments are finding it difficult to make their new assets generate enough revenue to service the debt. Inventories are piling up, and China is seeing capital flight for the first time in decades….

The worry is that China has gone more than a decade without a painful slowdown. During that time, the government held down interest rates at artificially low levels to encourage investment. Such conditions often precede particularly long and painful contractions.” (“China Is Stimulused Out”, Wall Street Journal)

China, the US, and the eurozone are all running out of gas at the same time. If shares continue to tumble as they have in May, the Federal Reserve will resume its Quantitative Easing (QE3) program to prop up stock prices. But liquidity injections alone will not provide the jolt the real economy needs to increase activity, add jobs or grow. Absent another round of fiscal stimulus, the economy will continue to drift sideways or dip back into recession.

Is Jeffrey Feltman Iran’s Best Friend In Lebanon?

Bullying Hezbollah…

Key Iranian and American officials arrived in Lebanon last week to assess the strength of their local allies in the fast approaching and crucial legislative elections, the escalating spillover effects of the Syrian uprising in North Lebanon and presumably other ways each country can remain key players in this cross-roads/cross-hairs quasi-country.

The Lebanese public and media heard plenty of policy nuances and even similar and seemingly repeated statements by the two well-listened to guests.

But there were plenty of differences. During over-lapping visits one warned and threatened Lebanon, while the second praised Lebanon’s “achievements”. Admittedly, divining these Lebanese ‘achievements” is no mean task.

Making the front page lead paragraph in a number of Beirut and Middle East dailies last Friday were nearly simultaneous summations by the two visitors as they articulated their country’s policy toward Lebanon.

One visitor was Jeffrey Feltman, the long serving US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, who for all intents and purposes in still US Ambassador to Lebanon and elsewhere in the Levant. Mr. Feltman is well known in Lebanon and many here actually view him as a too frequent visitor, Assistant Secretary Feltman repeated his seven year mantra during a meeting with Prime Minister Najib Mikati, of warnings for the Lebanese government and citizens to break with Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran.

On the arguably more positive side, as he had so many times in the past, Assistant Secretary Feltman renewed the United States’ commitment to “a stable, sovereign and independent Lebanon”. And he repeated these words to the President of the Chamber of Deputies Speaker Nabih Berri, Progressive Socialist Party Leader MP Walid Jumblatt, Lebanese Forces Party President Samir Geagea, Maronite Bishop of Beirut Boulous Matar, and March 14 politicians. All of whom presumably hear the words in their sleep by now as all visiting US officials repeat Feltman’s buzz words.

A few hours earlier, another visitor, the Iranian First Vice President, Mohammad Rida Rahimi, having arrived in Lebanon in a bid to implement agreements signed between the two gentlemen used 67 per cent of the same key words but their meanings appear vastly different and that’s why some of us could use some help from a serious student of the subject.

Feltman told his interlocutors that he came to Lebanon to express his country’s “grave concern” on a number of issues including Hezbollah and its links with Iran and Syria. He also gave instructions on next year’s parliamentary elections which his team, the March 14 opposition, has threatened to boycott. If they do, according to some analysts here, their decision will have resulted from Feltman’s instructions.

The Beirut Daily, As-Safir, reported that Feltman’s sole purpose was to lash out at Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah.
And he did.

Feltman repeatedly warned that “if some sides in Lebanon seek to circumvent the sanctions on Iran then the Lebanese government will face “very serious complicated problems with the international community. The “International Community” is increasingly defined as “US allies”. During his meeting at the obsequious and literally genuflecting pro-Saudi MP Boutros Harb’s house, whose front page photograph showed the MP bowing deeply to Feltman, the latter threatened that “the United States is keen not to allow any exploitation of the bank secrecy in Lebanon, in order to bypass the sanctions on Iran, Hezbollah, and Syria. This enters deep into US strategy.”

Feltman’s threats continued as he sought to pressure businessmen in Syria and Lebanon:”Not abiding by the US and International sanctions will have dangerous repercussions on the Lebanese banking sector.” More than once Feltman warned the Lebanese, with reference to the recent unilateral sanctions imposed on the Central Bank of Iran, not to underestimate the American capacity to monitor and trace deposits and transfers. Most Lebanese are generally aware that US Treasury officials have been swarming through Lebanon the past two years in order to intimidate Lebanon’s banking sector and shore up the failing US sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

Assistant Secretary Feltman, as he has done for the past seven years, repeated to his Lebanese hosts that the US would consider providing arms to the Lebanese army. While nearly everyone in Lebanon realizes that the American Congress will veto even shoe laces for the Lebanese army without Israel’s approval, Iran is ready to help. Lebanese Defense Minister Fayez Ghosn announced this week that Iran is ready to ship weapons to the Lebanese army and that the shipments will begin as soon as Prime Ministers Najib Mikati’s government finalizes its own political decision. “The Iranian weapons are ready Ghosn told a Beirut Daily As-Safir. “ Our request is there [in Iran]. What is missing is a political decision from the Cabinet to provide support for the Lebanese Army.” Mr. Feltman is working diligently to assure that the Cabinet does not give its approval.

While Feltman was busy so was Iranian First Vice-President Rahimi. Rahimi signed three memoranda of understanding agreed upon in previous meetings.

During his meetings, the Iranian first Vice President stressed his country’s “total support for Lebanon on the political, economic, and development levels.

According to sources attending the Joint Lebanese-Iranian Higher Committee meeting, Rahimi discussed Iranian support to Lebanon on the oil, electricity, economic, trade, and agricultural levels, in addition to Iran’s interest in constructing water dams.

To give credence to his words, Rahimi presented a $40 million Iranian grant to Lebanon to pay for the construction of a dam in the Batroun region. He further announced that as the agreement’s executive program has been signed in both Tehran and Beirut, Iranian engineers will soon arrive in Lebanon to begin a project that the American government has discussed since the late 1970’s but has always conditioned US help to Lebanon on “better relations” with Israel.

With respect to Lebanon’s continuing electricity crisis, which leaves many in Lebanon with only 4-8 hours of government electricity per day, an Iranian Energy Ministry official said over the weekend that Iran would begin providing Lebanon with electricity next week. Abdolhamid Farzam, the Iranian Energy Ministry’s official in charge of foreign exchanges, was reported as saying that Iran would supply Lebanon with 50 Megawatts during an initial phase, to be boosted to 200 MW in the second phase.

On the subject of Israel, which is said to deeply concern Feltman, one American stringer for a major US daily who was covering the two envoys visit noted that Embassy sources advised that Feltman was in a bad mood during part of his visit for a few reasons. One was because he was not advised of the Iranian Vice-President’s simultaneous visit. Another was because he not told about the May 12th celebrations organized by Hezbollah and Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah speech that were sure to dominate a news cycle. The Hezbollah mass event was to acknowledge the success of its building and construction unit, WAAD (‘promise), in completing after nearly four years of nearly 24/7 rebuilding, 275 high rise apartment buildings housing more than ten thousand citizens in South Beirut. The destruction was caused by American weapons in the hands of Zionist forces and destroyed with carpet bombing Dahiyeh/Haret Hreik neighborhoods during the 33 days of the July 2006 aggression against Lebanon.

Feltman complained that there were American citizens who were tenants in some of the recently completed buildings that cost more than $ 450 to rebuild, despite both Hezbollah and its construction company, Jihad al Binna being put on US terrorism lists at his initiative. He reportedly demanded an investigation.

According to the same sources, Assistant Secretary Feltman was grousing over discouraging reports that another one of his projects, this one to salvage Camp David, was experiencing turbulence. Specifically, he was briefed that the current front runner in the May 23-24 Egyptian Presidential election, Abdel Moneim Abul Fotouh, has branded Israel a “racist state” and repeated to cheering crowds that the 1979 peace treaty with Israel was “a national security threat” that had to be scrapped and added that Israel and its supporters were “enemies of the Egyptian people.”

To make matters and his mood worse, the American Assistant Secretary was informed that another strong Egyptian presidential candidate, Ahmed Shafiq is exciting crowds with his campaign claim that the former air force chief had shot down two Israeli planes during the War of Attrition which Egypt declared between 1969 and 1970. “General Ahmed Shafiq has a great military record and career,” his campaign statement said.

Priding himself on being an adherent of realpolitik, Feltman is observing Israel being rejected by Arabs, Muslims and increasingly by the grounding swelling movement by people of good will including his own countrymen. He reportedly told one interviewer recently that he sees his role as “trying to staunch the coming tsunami of global rejection and delegitimization of Israel, and it’s not going to be easy.”

Meanwhile, Iran’s Vice-President Rahimi’s program included a meeting with Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, and a visit to the, “Iran” Gardens hugely popular with many Lebanese families, in the southern village of Maroun al-Ras located on Lebanon’s borders with occupied Palestine. From this hillside vantage point, on a clear day one can see Akka and other ethnically cleansed areas.

Similar words from Washington and Tehran to Beirut via experienced envoys. But fundamentally different approaches and deeds as has so often has been the case over the past decade.

Washington has, in important strategic respects, handed Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and soon more of the Persian Gulf countries to Iran’s rising presence and influence.
Next is likely Lebanon.

US Envoys: Losing Lebanon—Visit by Visit?

Beirut – It might require a semanticist with Noam Chomsky’s  erudition to explain to some of  us more obtuse  the meanings, context, and policy nuances of two similar and repeated phases heard  in Lebanon earlier this month by two well listened to guests . During over-lapping visits of top US and Iranian officials to Lebanon; one warned and threatened Lebanon, while the second praised Lebanon’s “achievements”.  Admittedly, divining these Lebanese ‘achievements” is no mean task.

Making the front page lead paragraph in a number of Beirut and Middle East dailies last Friday were nearly simultaneous summations by the two visitors as they articulated their country’s policy toward Lebanon.

One visitor was Jeffrey Feltman, the long serving US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, who for all intents and purposes in still US Ambassador to Lebanon and elsewhere in the Levant.  Mr. Feltman is well known in Lebanon and many here actually view him as a too frequent visitor, who rather like the Li’l Abner comic strip character Joe Btfsplk, personifies the World’s worst jinx who always travels with a dark cloud over his head. Assistant Secretary Feltman repeated his seven year mantra during a meeting with Prime Minister Najib Mikati, of warnings for the Lebanese government and citizens to break with Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran.

On the arguably more positive side, as he had so many times in the past, Assistant Secretary Feltman renewed the United States’ commitment to “a stable, sovereign and independent Lebanon”.   And he repeated these words to the President of the Chamber of Deputies Speaker Nabih Berri, Progressive Socialist Party Leader MP Walid Jumblatt, Lebanese Forces Party President Samir Geagea, Maronite Bishop of Beirut Boulous Matar, and March 14 politicians.  All of whom presumably hear the words in their sleep by now as all visiting US officials repeat Feltman’s buzz words.

A few hours earlier, another visitor, the Iranian First Vice President, Mohammad Rida Rahimi, having arrived in Lebanon in a bid to implement agreements signed between both countries, some since 1996, pledged Iran’s commitment to Lebanon’s  “freedom, independence and sovereignty”.

The two gentlemen used 67% of the same key words but their meanings appear vastly different and that’s why some of us, certainly this observer, could use some help from a serious student of the subject.

Feltman told his interlocutors that he came to Lebanon to express his country’s “grave concern” on a number of issues including Hezbollah and its links with Iran and Syria. He also gave instructions on next year’s parliamentary elections which his team, the March 14 opposition, has threatened to boycott.  If they do, according to some analysts here, their decision will have resulted from Feltman’s instructions.

The Beirut Daily, As-Safir, reported that Feltman’s sole purpose was to lash out at Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah.

And he did.

Feltman repeatedly warned that “if some sides in Lebanon seek to circumvent the sanctions on Iran then the Lebanese government will face “very serious complicated problems with the international community. The “International Community” is increasingly defined as “US allies”.During his meeting at the obsequious and literally genuflecting pro-Saudi MP Boutros Harb’s house, whose front page photograph showed the MP bowing deeply to Feltman, threatened that “the United States is keen not to allow any exploitation of the bank secrecy in Lebanon, in order to bypass the sanctions on Iran, Hezbollah, and Syria. This enters deep into US strategy.”

Feltman’s threats continued as he sought to pressure businessmen in Syria and Lebanon:  “Not abiding by the US and International sanctions will have dangerous repercussions on the Lebanese banking sector.”  More than once Feltman warned the Lebanese, with reference to the recent unilateral sanctions imposed on the Central Bank of Iran, not to underestimate the American capacity to monitor and trace deposits and transfers. Most Lebanese are generally aware that US Treasury officials have been swarming Lebanon the past two years in order to intimidate Lebanon’s banking sector and shore up the failing US sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

Assistant Secretary Feltman, as he has done for the past seven years, repeated to his Lebanese hosts that the US would consider providing arms to the Lebanese army.  While nearly everyone in Lebanon realizes that the American Congress will veto even shoe laces for the Lebanese army without Israel’s approval, Iran is ready to help.  Lebanese Defense Minister Fayez Ghosn announced this week that Iran is ready to ship weapons to the Lebanese army and that the shipments will begin as soon as Prime Ministers Najib Mikati’s government finalizes its own political decision.  “The Iranian weapons are ready Ghosn told a Beirut Daily As-Safir. “ Our request is there [in Iran]. What is missing is a political decision from the Cabinet to provide support for the Lebanese Army.”  Mr. Feltman is working diligently to assure that the Cabinet does not give its approval.

While Feltman was busy so was Iranian First Vice-President Rahimi.  Rahimi signed three memorandums of understanding agreed upon in previous meetings.

During his meetings, the Iranian first Vice President stressed his country’s “total support for Lebanon on the political, economic, and development levels.”

According to sources attending the Joint Lebanese-Iranian Higher Committee meeting, Rahimi discussed Iranian support to Lebanon on the oil, electricity, economic, trade, and agricultural levels, in addition to Iran’s interest in constructing water dams.

To give credence to his words, Rahimi presented a $40 million Iranian grant to Lebanon to pay for the construction of a dam in the Batroun region. He further announced that as the agreement’s executive program has been signed in both Tehran and Beirut, Iranian engineers will soon arrive in Lebanon to begin a project that the American government has discussed since the late 1970’s but has always conditioned US help to Lebanon on “better relations” with Israel.

With respect to Lebanon’s continuing electricity crisis, which leaves many in Lebanon with only 4-8 hours of government electrify per day, an Iranian Energy Ministry official said over the weekend that Iran would begin providing Lebanon with electricity next week. Abdolhamid Farzam, the Iranian Energy Ministry’s official in charge of foreign exchanges, was reported as saying that Iran would supply Lebanon with 50 Megawatts during an initial phase, to be boosted to 200 MW in the second phase.

On the subject of Israel, which is said to deeply concern Feltman, one American stringer for a major US daily who was covering the two envoys visit noted that Embassy sources advised that Feltman was in a bad mood during part of his visit for a few reasons. One was because he was not advised of the Iranian Vice-Presidents simultaneous visit. Another was because he not told about the May 12th celebrations organized by Hezbollah and Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah speech that were sure to dominate a news cycle.  The Hezbollah mass event was to acknowledge the success of its building and construction unit, WAAD (‘promise), in completing after nearly four years of nearly 24/7 rebuilding, 275 high rise apartment buildings housing more than ten thousand citizens in South Beirut. The destruction was caused by American weapons in the hands of Zionist forces and destroyed with carpet bombing Dahiyeh/Haret Hreik neighborhoods during the 33 days of the July 2006 aggression against Lebanon.

Feltman complained that there were American citizens who were tenets in some of the recently completed buildings that cost more than $ 450 to rebuild, despite both Hezbollah and its construction company, Jihad al Binna being put on US terrorism lists at his initiative.  He reportedly demanded an investigation.

According to the same sources, Assistant Secretary Feltman was grousing over discouraging reports that another one of his projects, this one to salvage Camp David, was experiencing turbulence.  Specifically, he was briefed that the current front runner in the May 23-24 Egyptian Presidential election, Abdel Moneim Abul Fotouh, has branded Israel a “racist state” and repeated to cheering crowds that the 1979 peace treaty with Israel was “a national security threat” that had to be scrapped and added that Israel and its supporters were “enemies of the Egyptian people.”

To make matters and his mood worse, the American Assistant Secretary was informed that another strong Egyptian presidential candidate, Ahmed Shafiq is exciting crowds with his campaign claim that the former air force chief had shot down two Israeli planes during the War of Attrition which Egypt declared between 1969 and 1970. “General Ahmed Shafiq has a great military record and career,” his campaign statement said.

Priding himself on being an adherent of realpolitik, Feltman is observing Israel being rejected by Arabs, Muslims and increasingly by the grounding swelling movement by people of good will including his own countrymen.  He reportedly told one interviewer recently that he sees his role as “trying to staunch the coming tsunami of global rejection and delegitimization of Israel, and it’s not going to be easy.”

Meanwhile, Iran’s Vice-President Rahimi’s program included a meeting with Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, and a visit to the hugely popular with many Lebanese families, “Iran” Gardens in the southern village of Maroun al-Ras located on Lebanon’s borders with occupied Palestine. From this hillside vantage point, on a clear day one can see Akka and other ethnically cleansed areas.

Similar words from Washington and Tehran to Beirut via experienced envoys. But fundamentally different approaches and deeds as has so often has been the case over the past decade.

Washington has, in important strategic respects, handed Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and soon more of the Persian Gulf countries to Iran’s rising presence and influence.

Next is likely Lebanon.

Can Palestine be far behind?

Fukushima – A Giant Nail In The Coffin Of Humanity

For the past few weeks, word of the extent of the Fukushima disaster is spreading like the radiation slick moving across the Pacific Ocean thanks to social media and a lot of newly concerned citizens.

Independent researchers who have been trying to warn people for over a year are finally being heard. Much of that can be attributed to citizen journalists, who have realized mainstream media dropped the ball on this a long time ago.

To understand the dynamics of information and how it has been controlled, you would have to look at companies like General Electric and Westinghouse, who not only build nuclear reactors, but own major news outlets and, of course, are buddy-buddy with the Obama Administration.

Or, I can just tell you about it, since I have spent countless hours researching these connections and interviewing people about it. More on that at a later date. It deserves a nice big page in itself, with room for lots of details.

Not only do we have citizen journalists and the alternative media on top of this, but citizen scientists as well.

Have you met your new Fukushima expert, who just might live right next door? These are people who have taught themselves everything they possibly could about nuclear physics, radiation, Geiger counters, atomic power, nuclear plants, the effects of radiation on health, and radiation mitigation.

These citizen scientists have studied bombs, fallout, and weather and wind patterns. They have been monitoring radiation levels across the country, with their own equipment they purchased out of pocket and learned how to use.

They have read anything and everything they can get their hands on. They know the difference between alpha, beta, and gamma radiation, and how to avoid it.

They know that besides cancer, radiation can do all kinds of things to you, like severely compromise your immune system, intelligence, and thyroid, or make you aggressive, confused, and fatigued.

You might bruise or bleed in weird places and feel sick more than usual. They have learned all this out of their own instincts of survival.

Sometimes they even go 2 days without sleep, when bad stuff is happening, just to make sure they are keeping on top of the issues as much as possible.

It’s amazing what you can do in a short period of time when your life depends on it. And the more that they learn, the greater their sense of urgency has become in bringing this info to the masses.

And what conclusion have these citizen journalists and citizen scientists reached throughout 14 months of study?

They have come to the inevitable conclusion that all of our lives changed on March 11, 2011, when Fukushima went out of control.

The glaring problem is that we that we weren’t told about what actually happened.

Take, for instance, the fact that there were 3 meltdowns almost right away, and that the radioactive isotopes that blew all over Japan, Hawaii, Alaska, Canada and North America came in extraordinarily high quantities.

Or how various agencies that taxpayers have funded, such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), did not do their job which is to protect the environment, and us.

In fact the EPA turned off their monitors for about a month, for the first time in their history. These are expensive and delicate pieces of equipment the taxpayers had already bought and paid for, for just such an emergency.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) knew, but they hid the information. The Obama Administration knew, but sent Hillary Clinton over to Japan to shake hands with the Prime Minister and show support.

Obama came out with a statement to the American people, saying, “We do not believe harmful levels of radiation will reach our shores,” which we now know was a lie.

We had to figure all this out for ourselves, which was difficult because the information was purposely withheld from us.

Despite their best efforts, they can’t stop the truth from leaking out of Fukushima. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests have now proven this beyond a doubt.

Conspiracy theory is becoming conspiracy fact. And now we are going public with this information, and in a very big way.

It has been around 3 weeks since I wrote my first article for End the Lie, and still no real progress to report at the plant itself.

Tons of water continues to get poured into the reactors and flow subsequently into the Pacific Ocean, every second of every day.

Radiation continues to steam itself out of the ground, and thus up into the air, which then blows over us (i.e. resident of the northern hemisphere).

Earthquakes still happen daily around Japan. In fact there were 7 or 8 of them just in the past few days near Fukushima.

The spent fuel still sits in its shaky nest at the top of reactor number 4. Nothing has been done to further reinforce the structure.

The good news (if you can really call it that) is that it hasn’t fallen yet. The United Nations and the United States are now in their most preliminary stages of addressing the complexity of problems there, in an attempt to see if they can help out.

But as you know, the wheels of bureaucracy turn very slowly. It took almost 14 months for them to start turning at all.

Besides the ongoing releases into the ocean and air and the precariousness of the pool, we have a debris field the size of Texas starting to hit the west coast and Alaska, which may or may not be radioactive.

Japan has been burning radioactive trash, and will continue to do so until at least 2014, and that blows over us as well.

We have a radioactive slick moving across the ocean, which by all estimates should have sunk to the bottom, but hasn’t. And we have sick and dying mammals, fish, and birds all over the world, which may or may not be related, but should still be an enormous concern, since many of them are being found in the Pacific.

That is part of the problem when you are faced with the world’s largest disaster. All of the models for how to deal with it can be thrown out the window.

All the assumptions about fallout and it working itself into the food chain have been wrong. It was much worse, and has happened much faster, than anyone expected, even for concerned citizens and independent researchers following this closely.

The government knew this would be the case from the early SPEEDI numbers, which were hand translated and delivered to the US government as they happened. But for the most part, Fukushima has exceeded everyone’s expectations.

New ideas, new techniques, and new engineering has to be invented and implemented. New observations have to be made, and they are, as can be seen by searching “mutations” on YouTube and watching some videos.

We have citizen journalists and citizen scientists who are desperately trying to come up with solutions, and are doing it for free, while our government and agencies created to “protect us” continue to collect their paycheck, roll their eyes, shove their hands in their pockets and hum a tune like they’re waiting for a taxi.

But out of crisis, comes opportunity. I’ll use 9/11 again as an example.

Why do people get a warm fuzzy feeling when we see people rushing to aid those in the midst of disaster? Because we humans are hard-wired to care for others, and long to be part of a community.

Out of disaster, there is camaraderie, sympathy, and empathy. There are important lessons to be learned.

There are whole new industries that could be created out of this crisis, putting people to work. Aquaponics. Decontamination. Mitigation. Food testing.

And since we didn’t seem to learn these lessons with Chernobyl, we need to learn them right now.

All nuclear power does is boil water and create steam, which turbines turn into electricity. But when something goes wrong, it has the ability to kill everything on the planet. That is where we are at now.

We need to adapt if we are to survive. And part of that adaptation means we need to eliminate the possibility of this ever happening again, starting with the 23 reactors the same style as Fukushima, in the United States, which is the Mark 1 Boiling Water Reactor, or BWR.

People in the industry jokingly refer to these as “double-decker beach-bombs,” for the reason that the spent fuel is located in pools at the top of the reactor buildings, and they are usually located at a water source for emergency cooling purposes for when the fecal matter hits the fan at one of these plants.

In fact, several nuclear engineers who designed these reactors quit in protest before they went into production. They realized they had made a mistake. They realized this design would be extremely dangerous. GE went ahead and built them anyway.

When is the world going to realize the mistake of embracing nuclear energy as a power source, in spite of its danger?

And how long do we continue to ignore the brilliant scientists that warned about this, like Oppenheimer and Einstein? Or is it already too late?

There are no energy problems, in comparison. If you want to cut down on your electricity usage, turn off your TV.

We have natural gas deposits that could power everything we need. We have the power of the sun, water, wind and earth in the form of geothermal energy.

Nuclear power is a sham, just like the oil industry, and we have been duped into believing we need it to survive.

It generates billions and billions of dollars for these corporations. GE (who has the most ironic motto, “We Bring Good Things to Life”) made 14 billion dollars last year, and paid no taxes.

In addition to producing electricity, nuclear reactors also generate 500 pounds of plutonium a year per reactor, as a byproduct of the fission process.

What happens to all that highly toxic plutonium? The government gets to collect this material to make bombs, so we can go utterly decimate other countries, now known as “spreading democracy” and poison their populations for future generations.

Let’s not forget depleted uranium, or DU, which is now used in many military applications with horrific results.

Check out videos of children in Fallujah for some recent examples of this.

This is the one big secret that the nuke industry and our government will do anything to protect: besides being a billion dollar industry, nuke plants are basically bomb-making factories right under our noses.

Drawing attention to Fukushima would have drawn attention to this function of nuclear facilities.

An added side effect is that they also make people sick and help boost the health care industry, which in some states is now the number one private sector employer.

The plutonium and fission byproducts these plants produce help support our government’s number-one priority: the almighty military-industrial complex.

And it’s all in the name of money, power, and control. Energy companies hire top level advertisers and public relations people to promote and manipulate public opinion. Even during the Superbowl, ads were run showing how steam from nuclear power runs the turbines that make beer.

They want you to believe that we are dependent on this source of energy for our quality of life. The truth of the matter, on the other hand, is that nuclear power has ruined our lives.

Ask anyone who used to live in the ever-expanding evacuation zone in Japan, which may soon include the 35 million people in Tokyo.

Ask anyone who lives near a nuke plant and has a child with autism, gastroenteritis, or cancer. Just take a look at the statistics of cancer in the general population since we started embracing this technology.

The truth is: we have been nuked and are still getting nuked, every day, in a very big way.

I used to be a huge supporter of nuclear power, but 14 months of intensive study has changed my opinion significantly.

In addition to my studies, I have been influenced by some major health issues I developed after being outside the first 3 weeks after the reactors exploded. During that time I had a metallic-taste in my mouth, which I found out later was from tasting fission products. More on that later as well.

Nuclear cheerleaders like to complicate things in an attempt to make radiation something much harder to understand. That way it turns people off from the subject and they won’t pay attention as much.

The truth is, you don’t need to be a physicist, a scientist, or an expert in this field. You don’t need to know the differences between decay rates and half-lives, or cesium and strontium.

You only need to understand one thing: All radiation is bad, and all of it will make you sick, no matter how much Ann Coulter claims that the Japanese should be thankful for Fukushima.

The more you are exposed to it, the sicker you will be. The more places you can cut down on your exposure, the better off your health will be.

Radiation is cumulative. It builds up in the body. It destroys cells. It causes mutations in cell growth which can thus create cancer or other illnesses.

There is plenty of this radiation leaking out of Fukushima for over a year now, blowing around in our air, building up in our soil, and contaminating our water supply.

What’s worse, we have 104 of these plants in the United States, with special emphasis on the 23 previously mentioned, where this exact scenario is waiting to happen.

Radioactive steam comes out of these plants all the time, since as part of their normal operations. They vent to the atmosphere to keep things cool. Do some research into “rainshadow” in autism and brain cancer in children, and look where the numbers are the highest: around nuclear plants.

We can’t afford to wait or delay. If you aren’t already mitigating, you need to start now. You need to treat your health, and the health of your family, like you all have cancer already. That might sound like fear mongering to some, but this is one case where “better safe than sorry” truly applies.

This process involves eating healthy whole foods, filtering water, avoiding precipitation, taking supplements, and getting lots of sleep.

Stop eating fast food, and eat lower on the food chain, where bio-accumulation is less. Stop eating seafood, unless you know it is safe.

Include your children in these changes, because we will be dealing with this problem for at least the rest of our lives, and so will they.

We have to change our perspective. Quality of life becomes a much more important issue when your life expectancy has been shortened.

We have Fukushima to thank for this, and the nuclear industry, of course. As well as the various other individuals or agencies that tried to keep this information from us.

And then of course we have spent fuel pool doom lurking in the shadows. And for some unknown reason, Tepco seems to think their most immediate concern is building a huge underground wall, to contain something going on under the plant, the extent of which hasn’t yet been shared with us.

So what do they know that we don’t? Why is there a sense of urgency to contain something underground, when the spent fuel pool #4 is supposedly the weakest link in the Fukushima chain?

Where is all this technology we have to look for gas and oil, like ground-penetrating radar, optical coherence tomography, or even HAARP, to see what’s going on under the plants? What else is being hidden from us?

Instead of calling it game over, let’s play a new game called “No More Fukushimas.”

Let’s figure out ways to clean up this mess and not make more of them in the future. We can leave this for our children to deal with, that is if they are still here.

Or it is up to you, it is up to me, it is up to allof us to fix this situation, right now, as best as we possibly can.

Take care of your family first, have a plan for the worst-case scenario, then do what you can to help others.

Our lives all changed over a year ago, only you weren’t told about it. As bad as things are, there is a huge opportunity here for something wonderful to come out of this mess. A cleaner, brighter, healthier future for our children and generations to come. A future, period.

As a close associate of Obama once said, “Never let a crisis go to waste”. This might be the last crisis that we ever see, if we don’t so something about it.

Courtesy of MayanManifestor

Please send mutation images to christinax4@yahoo.com. Shoot at the highest resolution possible, and include your name, location, and date the mutation was found, for proper credit if the images are published. If it is from store-bought produce, include the location where it was grown and purchased. The more information you provide, the better you will be helping the rest of us.

Please help Christina purchase a spectrometer in order to get the most accurate radiation readings and thus get you the most precise information possible by shopping through her Amazon link or donate directly via PayPal to fukushimafacts@gmail.com. Keep in mind, this is expensive equipment and it is the only way that specific isotope readings can be obtained from food items.

Edited by Madison Ruppert

Christina Consolo is a former clinical researcher supervisor with NIH credentialing; a former Member-at-Large for the Board of Directors, Ophthalmic Photographers’ Society; A peer reviewer for the Journal of Ophthalmic Photography; She has written, published, and contributed to numerous scientific research in retinal imaging and ophthalmogy for the past 24 years; She is also an award-winning biomedical photographer and maintains several websites to teach people about radiation, mitigation, and other nuclear issues. She is also the host of “Nuked Radio” Tuesdays & Thursdays from 12-1:00 pm EST on theOrion Talk Radio Network.

For more info including mitigation for radiation exposure, please visit FukushimaFacts.com, where you can sign up to receive Fallout Forecasts on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.

Source: End the Lie

Egypt Just Annulled Mubarak’s Natural Gas Giveaway With Israel

Will Sadat’s Camp David and the Zionist Embassy be next?

The Egyptian people are demanding the return of their sovereignty. According to recent opinion surveys they believe it was partially ceded to Israel by the two post-Nasser dictators, Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak, at the behest of American administrations, from Nixon to Obama.

The removal of three humiliating shackles for Egyptians, the gas give-away scheme, the 1979 Camp David Accords and the US forced recognition of Israel, constitute a strategic national security objective for most of Egypt’s 82 million citizens. According to the results of an opinion poll, conducted for Press TV and published on October 3, 2011, 73 percent of the Egyptian respondents opposed the terms of the agreement. Today the figure is estimated at 90%.

For the past eight years, the 2004 gas deal has been widely unpopular, and one of the charges in the current indictment against Mubarak is that the deposed President sold Egypt’s gas as part of a sweetheart deal involving kickbacks to family members, associates and Israeli officials. Mohamed Shoeib, the chairman of state-owned Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company, told AFP last week that the gas deal was “annulled with the Israeli East Mediterranean Gas Co (EMG), because the company failed to respect conditions stipulated in the contract.”

Once Mubarak was toppled and his 14 secret police agencies began to lose some of their omnipresence, the gas line to Israel was severed 14 times in 12 months by a series of explosions that cut off 40%, of Israel’s supply which was used to generate electricity.

In the recent parliamentary elections and now during the presidential campaign, Egyptians have been debating relations with Israel publicly for the first time. Previously Mubarak was Israel’s protector and like some other Arab leaders still clinging to power, ignored his people’s demands for actively supporting for the liberation of Palestine.

In late January 2011, an Alexandria University student briefed this observer and a small group of Americans and Europeans sitting on benches opposite the wonderful ancient city’s majestic Great Library. He explained, recalling the demands of the Tahrir Square protests on January 25, 2011, “Our slogans at Tahrir Square were bread, freedom, dignity, and social justice. That was almost exactly one year ago. God willing, we will soon achieve the demands of our historic revolution which include canceling Camp David and withdrawing recognition of the Zionist regime still occupying Palestine. Egypt must again lead the Arab Nation’s sacred obligation to liberate Jerusalem and all of Palestine from the river to the sea.”

A stunning hijabed female student continued the dialogue, giving us her opinion: “The USA bought some of our leaders with billions in generous cash from your people but without any real benefit to ours. Camp David was essentially a private agreement by Sadat and then Mubarak. Our people had no say and were never asked whether we agreed. If we protested, we were jailed or worse. Now, the Egyptian people are gaining power despite a likely military coup by the SCAF military junta before the scheduled June elections.”

Israeli officials, in tandem with the US Zionist lobby are claiming that the abrogation of the gas agreement constitutes an “existential threat”. According to a researcher at the US Congressional Research Service in the Madison Building on Capitol Hill whose job includes keeping track of Israeli claims, it’s the 29th “existential threat” the Zionist colony has identified in its 64 year history. These perceived existential threats range from the internationally recognized Right of Return for Palestinians ethnically cleansed from their homes during and since the 1948 Nakba, to various Palestinian groups, more than two dozen UN Resolutions including, 194 and 242, Hezbollah naturally, international solidarity movement projects, a Jewish academic or two, Iran for sure, the rise of internet blogs, and potentially virtually every Christian, Arab and Muslim on the planet, not to mention the claimed rise of global anti-Zionism which the US Zionist lobby has recently decreed was always just another form of virulent anti-Semitism.

Despite all these perceived “existential threats” including recently the so-called “Road Map”, Israeli leaders continue to eschew any substantive negotiations which could mean Arabs and Jews sharing Palestine as part of one democratic, secular state on the basis of one person one vote, minus any ‘chosen people’ lunacy.

Yuval Steinitz, Israel’s finance minister warned that Egypt’s questioning its relations with Israel was “a dangerous precedent that threatens the peace agreements between Israel and Egypt.”

Ampal, the Israeli company which buys the gas, said that it considers the termination of the contract “unlawful and in bad faith”, and demanded its full restoration. Ampal, is planning to use international arbitration to attempt redress and is sending a corporate delegation to Washington to meet with AIPAC and administration officials to ask them to get the Egyptian action nullified and to force Egypt to keep selling its natural gas at below market prices. One congressional staffer joked in an email that Israeli companies get way better constituent services out of Congress than American companies, or even the voters who elect its members.

Israeli political analyst Israel Hayom wrote last weekend:” The painful conclusion from the collapse of the gas agreement with Egypt is that we are regressing to the days before the peace agreement with Egypt and the horizon does not look rosy at all. Camp David is in mortal danger. The painful conclusion is, once again, that we have no genuine friends in the region. Certainly not for the long term.”

The ADL’s Abe Foxman lamented, “Israel gave Egypt a great deal in exchange for the Camp David peace agreement, much more than we should have. Among other things, a free trade zone, in which we veritably pushed for the establishment of sewing workshops and an Egyptian textile industry so that they would be able to easily export cheap cotton and other goods to the United States as well as to Israel. We made the Egyptians a respectable people in the eyes of the American public. And this is how we are repaid what they owe us?”

Never idle for long, AIPAC began circulating a draft resolution this week to its key Congressional operatives aimed at having the US Congress condemn the cancellation of the gas giveaway and demanding its immediate renewal under threat of the US terminating aid to Egypt. The lobby has also begun to squeeze the Obama administration, threating a cut off of Jewish donors if nothing is done to convince Egypt “to get real” in the words of ultra-Zionist Howard Berman, the ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

The political reality is that American diplomats, AIPAC, and Israeli officials, sometimes difficult to distinguish from one another, have been bracing for a breach in Egyptian-Israeli relations since last spring’s demonstration in Tahrir Square. They rightly fear that Camp David and the Israeli embassy in Cairo will be next on the chopping block as the Egyptian people stand up.

Regarding the expected closing of the Israeli embassy, according to the daily Yedioth Ahronoth: “What we have at the moment is a swift deterioration in relations: Israelis can no longer set foot in Egypt, and the Egyptian consulate in Tel Aviv does not have a mandate to issue entry visas. Anyone who insists on going to Egypt from Israel even with a foreign passport can expect to get into trouble. His name could join the list of “spies” and “Mossad agents…They don’t want us. It’s that simple and it is very dangerous now for Israelis to be in Egypt.”

According to Netanyahu spokesman Mark Regev, “There is also no one who will rent a building to the Israeli embassy in Cairo, for the small embassy staff headed by Ambassador Yaakov Amitai. Due to security considerations, we have cut drastically their work week. The staff lands every Monday afternoon and leaves early Thursday. Every time an address is found for the embassy (at an exorbitant price), the local security officials shoot down the deal. As far as the Egyptians are concerned, the Israeli diplomats can stay in Jerusalem until their next president is elected and then we will see what happens.”

Why Did Russia Ban The Use Of Microwave Ovens?

Consumers are dying today in part because they continue to eat dead foods that are killed in the microwave. They take a perfectly healthy piece of raw food, loaded with vitamins and natural medicines, then nuke it in the microwave and destroy most of its nutrition. Humans are the only animals on the planet who destroy the nutritional value of their food before eating it. All other animals consume food in its natural, unprocessed state, but humans actually go out of their way to render food nutritionally worthless before eating it. No wonder humans are the least healthy mammals on the planet.

In Russia, microwave ovens were banned in 1976 because of their negative health consequences as many studies were conducted on their use. The ban was lifted after Perestroika in the early 90’s. Numerous documents can be found online relating to this topic.

The invention of the microwave and its mass adoption by the population coincides with the onset of obesity in developed nations around the world. Not only did the microwave make it convenient to eat more obesity-promoting foods, it also destroyed much of the nutritional content of those foods, leaving consumers in an ongoing state of malnourished overfeeding. In other words, people eat too many calories but not enough real nutrition. The result is, of course, what we see today: Epidemic rates of diabetes, cancer, heart disease, depression, kidney failure, liver disorders and much more.

These diseases are all caused by a combination of malnutrition and exposure to toxic chemicals (plus other factors such as emotional trauma, lack of exercise, etc.). Microwaves make malnutrition virtually automatic, and being exposed to toxic chemicals is easy to accomplish by simply eating processed foods (which are universally manufactured with the addition of toxic chemicals that act as preservatives, colorings, flavor enhancers and so on).

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Are Microwaves Safe?.PDF

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Microwaving is, technically, a form of food irradiation. I find it interesting that people who say that would never eat “irradiated” food have no hesitation about microwaving their food. It’s the same thing (just a different wavelength of radiation). In fact, microwaves were originally called “radar ranges.” Sounds strange today, doesn’t it? But when microwaves were first introduced in the 1970′s, they were proudly advertised as radar ranges. You blast your food with high-intensity radar and it gets hot. This was seen as some sort of space-age miracle in the 1970′s. Perhaps someday an inventor will create a food heating device that does not radically alter the nutritional value of the foods in the process, but I’m not holding my breath on this one. Probably the best way to heat foods right now is to simply use a countertop toaster oven, and keep the heat as low as possible.

The microwave does work as advertised, by the way. It makes your food hot. But the mechanism by which heat is produced causes internal damage to the delicate molecular structures of vitamins and phytonutrients. Minerals are largely unaffected, however, so you’ll still get the same magnesium, calcium and zinc in microwaved foods as you would in non-microwaved foods, but the all-important B vitamins, anthocyanins, flavonoids and other nutritional elements are easily destroyed by microwave ovens.

The microwave is the appliance of the living dead. People who use the microwave on a regular basis are walking down a path towards degenerative disease and a lifelong battle with obesity. The more you use the microwave, the worse your nutritional state gets, and the more likely you are to be diagnosed with various diseases and put on pharmaceuticals which, of course, will create other health problems that lead to a grand spiraling nosedive of health.

Do yourself a favor: Toss your microwave, or donate it to some charity. It’s much easier to avoid using the microwave if you don’t have one around. It will clear up counter space, save you electricity and greatly enhance your dietary habits. When you need to heat something, heat it in a toaster oven or a stovetop pan (avoid Teflon and non-stick surfaces, of course). Better yet, strive to eat more of a raw, unprocessed diet. That where you’ll get the best nutrition anyway. Buy yourself a Vita-Mix and blend up some smoothies. It’s faster than microwaving foods are far healthier. (See my book Superfood Smoothies for recipes).

I drink a superfood smoothie every morning, and I haven’t used a microwave in years. Protecting health is our own responsibility, and it’s up to us all to make informed decisions about how we buy, prepare and consume our foods. You have to save yourself.

Here are some of recent scientific findings on microwaving food:

1. Microwaved foods lose 60 ~ 90% of the vital-energy field and microwaving accelerates the structural disintegration of foods.

2. Microwaving creates cancer-causing agents within milk and cereals.

3. Microwaving alters elemental food-substances, causing digestive disorders.

4. Microwaving alters food chemistry which can lead to malfunctions in the lymphatic system and degeneration of the body’s ability to protect itself against cancerous growths.

5. Microwaved foods lead to a higher percentage of cancerous cells in the bloodstream.

6. Microwaving altered the breakdown of elemental substances when raw, cooked, or frozen vegetables were exposed for even a very short time and free radicals were formed.

7. Microwaved foods caused stomach and intestinal cancerous growths, a general degeneration of peripheral cellular tissues, and a gradual breakdown of the digestive and excretive systems in a statistically high percentage of people.

8. Microwaved foods lowered the body’s ability of the body to utilize B-complex vitamins, Vitamin C, Vitamin E, essential minerals and lipotropics.

9. The microwave field next to a microwave oven caused a slew of health problems as well.

10. Heating prepared meats in a microwave sufficiently for human consumption created:
* d-Nitrosodiethanolamine (a well-known cancer-causing agent)
* Destabilization of active protein biomolecular compounds
* Creation of a binding effect to radioactivity in the atmosphere.
* Creation of cancer-causing agents within protein-hydrosylate compounds in milk and cereal grains.

11. Microwave emissions also caused alteration in the catabolic (breakdown) behaviour of glucoside – and galactoside – elements within frozen fruits when thawed in this way.

12. Microwaves altered catabolic behavior of plant-alkaloids when raw, cooked or frozen vegetables were exposed for even very short periods.

13. Cancer-causing free radicals were formed within certain trace-mineral molecular formations in plant substances, especially in raw root vegetables.

14. Due to chemical alterations within food substances, malfunctions occurred in the lymphatic system, causing degeneration of the immune systems’ capacity to protect itself against cancerous growth.

15. The unstable catabolism of micro-waved foods altered their elemental food substances, leading to disorders in the digestive system.

16. Those ingesting micro-waved foods showed a statistically higher incidence of stomach and intestinal cancers, plus a general degeneration of peripheral cellular tissues with a gradual breakdown of digestive and excretory system function.

17. Microwave exposure caused significant decreases in the nutritional value of all foods studied, particularly:
* A decrease in the bioavailability of B-complex vitamins, vitamin C, vitamin E, essential minerals and lipotrophics
* Destruction of the nutritional value of nucleoproteins in meats
* Lowering of the metabolic activity of alkaloids, glucosides, galactosides and nitrilosides (all basic plant substances in fruits and vegetables)
* Marked acceleration of structural disintegration in all foods.

Mike from Natural News.com says,
On Microwaves:

“The rise of widespread nutritional deficiencies in the western world correlates almost perfectly with the introduction of the microwave oven. This is no coincidence. Microwave ovens heat food through a process of creating molecular friction, but this same molecular friction quickly destroys the delicate molecules of vitamins and phytonutrients (plant medicines) naturally found in foods. One study showed that microwaving vegetables destroys up to 97% of the nutritional content (vitamins and other plant-based nutrients that prevent disease, boost immune function and enhance health).”“In other words, eating raw broccoli provides you with natural anti-cancer medicine that’s extremely effective at halting the growth of cancer tumours. But microwaving that broccoli destroys the anti-cancer nutrients, rendering the food “dead” and nutritionally depleted. There’s even some evidence to suggest that microwaving destroys the natural harmony in water molecules, creating an energetic pattern of chaos in the water found in all foods. In fact, the common term of “nuking” your food is coincidentally appropriate: Using a microwave is a bit like dropping a nuclear bomb on your food, then eating the fallout. (You don’t actually get radiation from eating microwaved foods, however. But you don’t get much nutrition, either.)”

So. if you are going to use a microwave oven, it is suggested that you set and walk out of the kitchen where practical. The American FDA advised “don’t stand in front of a microwave for long periods of time”. There is a lot of researching being conducted into microwave oven and the effects that it may have on human bodies. Final studies have not been released as yet, but if the above is any indication to the negative affects on food, I can only imagine the effects on the human body. So if you don’t have to use a microwave oven, then don’t. Even if it is to preserve the quality and nutritional value of your food.”

Do you and your family a huge life saving favor, throw away the microwave!

Spend a little longer preparing a meal, live a longer healthier life!

Source: Apparently Apparel

The EPA an Out of Control Monster

Government arrogance and pious hypocrisy reaches a new high when the sinister Environmental Protection Agency strikes out to save the children. The official position on the EPA website has one singing the Amerika version of “Don’t cry for me Argentina”. EPA Proposes First Carbon Pollution Standard for Future Power Plants

“Today we’re taking a common-sense step to reduce pollution in our air, protect the planet for our children, and move us into a new era of American energy,” said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson. “Right now there are no limits to the amount of carbon pollution that future power plants will be able to put into our skies – and the health and economic threats of a changing climate continue to grow. We’re putting in place a standard that relies on the use of clean, American made technology to tackle a challenge that we can’t leave to our kids and grandkids.”

What is missing from this statement is that regular citizens are under direct assault from their utility companies that force “so called” Green electric generation into the mix. Soon people will be living like beggars in order to pay the overpriced schemes that impoverish the population.

The latest outrage from the EPA bootjack thugs is the EPA Emission Rules To Effectively Ban New Coal Plants. “The Environmental Protection Agency effectively banned new coal-fired power plants Tuesday, announcing emission rules that will make them uneconomical to build. This follows other recent rules squeezing coal. The actions show the administration following through on an earlier promise to crack down on the industry via regulation after the “cap and trade” carbon bill stalled in Congress in 2010.”The proof of Obama ‘All the Above’ Strategy Does Not Include Coal, is seen by his EPA policy.

“The goal of President Obama’s “all of the above” energy policy is to drive up the costs on traditional energy sources, leveling the playing field so green energy power can someday become competitive economically.

But if the White House energy policy begins to phase out coal power before green energy sources are ready to take over, how is President Obama going to charge the battery in his Chevy Volt?”

With the demise of the nuclear alternative after the Fukushima cover-up, where is the sensible acknowledgement that electric generation requires a reliable source of energy?

Investor Business Daily cites the crucial reality. “Coal is an essential part of a diverse, reliable and affordable energy mix, supplying nearly 40% of our electricity,” said Bruce Josten, the Chamber of Commerce’s executive vice president, in a statement. “It remains a cost-effective and secure source of power in a time of soaring energy prices.”

 

The video President Obama’s Energy Promises Overlook Coal adds upon this analysis.Environmental whacks that hail shutting down electric generation from coal are utterly mad. Since this country has abundant and cheap coal deposits, powering generation plants just does not fit with their goal of turning the consumer into a subservient slave. Left out of this equation is that effective banning of new coal generation will simply divert coal sales for export to China and India.

With the intense use and continuous building of new coal facilities, the notorious record of the Chinese and India subcontinent to foster clear air standards is pale in comparison to the current emissions from U.S. generation. The EPA will do nothing to stop the use of coal oversea.

The Wall Street Journal writes in EPA Tips Scales Toward Natural Gas in Power Generation; Miners, GOP Cry Foul.

“Despite the EPA’s insistence that the new rule will still allow advanced coal plants to be built, many critics aren’t convinced. “This really is a ban on new coal-fired generation. The EPA knows that,” said Jeff Holmstead, a partner at Bracewell & Giuliani LLP in Washington and former head of the EPA’s air office under President George W. Bush.

With the new rule, the mining industry will look to the export market for relief. Asian coal demand more than doubled in the past decade, led by China and India. The U.S. Energy Information Administration expects Chinese coal demand to rise by 2.4% annually through 2035, almost ten times as fast as U.S. demand. However, U.S. miners are constrained by rail and port limitations, and exports will only partially offset declining domestic consumption.”

 

The You Tube of Pompeo responds to EPA’s regulatory overreach has a Congressional hearing worth viewing.The fundamental issue with the EPA is that it is an out of control agency. Accountability for its abuses is long overdue. However, recent Presidents and Congresses refuse to set a rational energy policy because the hidden objective is to destroy the domestic economy.

EPA CO2 Regulation Effectively Bans New Coal Facilities adds the details.

“Case in point: regulations subjecting existing coal plants that wish to make upgrades to costly and exhaustive New Source Review requirements, which actually discourage energy efficiency and safety improvements that plants would undertake on their own accord.

Congress should step up and stop the EPA from bypassing Congress’s sound rejection of cap and trade. The EPA regulations on CO2 are just one of those other ways to skin the cat, as President Obama famously promised.”

Such excess and high-handedness from the EPA is even more evident in the following example.

Bloomberg reports in EPA Enforcement Tool Blunted by High Court in Wetlands Case,

“The U.S. Supreme Court blunted a commonly used Environmental Protection Agency enforcement tool, siding with landowners and companies that said the federal agency was abusing its power.

The justices today unanimously ruled in favor of an Idaho couple blocked by the EPA from building a home on land the agency says is restricted wetlands. The justices said the couple can go directly to court to challenge an EPA order requiring them to restore property they had begun preparing for construction.

The decision weakens the force of so-called administrative compliance orders that the EPA issues on average 1,500 times a year to businesses and individuals. The orders demand an end to alleged violations, applying fines that pressure owners to settle. The government said those orders couldn’t be appealed to a court.”

The Environmental Protection Agency functions as a gatekeeper for the all knowing and powerful Wizard of Oz, the despotic State. The legal hurdles that forced a Supreme Court case just to obtain permission to file a court challenge against the EPA draconian rules are absurd. Likewise, the motivation to prohibit the use of coal for electrical generation solidified the rule of the tyrants.

Then again, do not place your faith that the Supreme Court gets it correct often.

An analysis by Steven F. Hayward in the American Enterprise Institute, applies today as it did when first published back in 2006.

“This is preface to a big story that is getting surprisingly little coverage in the media this week, namely, the design of the Environmental Protection Agency to double its budget, and to increase its number of employees more than tenfold, from the current level of about 18,000 to more than 230,000, over the next four years. And this just for one single program: the greenhouse gas regulations under the Clean Air Act. And all of this arises from the Supreme Court’s botched 2007 decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, which said the EPA could regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, even though Congress never intended this, and even said so at the time during floor debate over the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments.

Here’s the problem, long predicted by me and lots of other folks who know how the Clean Air Act works. The Act says any stationary source that emits as little as 100 tons a year of a pollutant must get annual permits from state agencies and the EPA. 100 tons is a lot if you’re looking at pollutants like volatile organic gases (unburned hydrocarbons) that contribute to ozone, but is a tiny amount for carbon dioxide. Your average fast-food restaurant or donut shop or apartment building easily emits 100 tons of CO2. Right now about 14,000 stationary sources have to get annual emission permits under the Act. By regulating CO2 through the Clean Air Act, the number of businesses that will require EPA permits will be over 6 million.”

The Federal executive branch has scores of agencies that act well beyond the intention, if not, the spirit of the law. Power hungry autocrats that lost the cover of “good intentions” decades ago, devise these governmental regulations. The ultimate goal is to synchronize a Cap and Trade policy through administrative ordinances. Congress needs to focus on repealing legislation that creates and funds rogue agencies like the EPA. Clean air is important, but singling out coal for replacement by “Green” alternative energy is simply suicidal.

Soon the EPA will impose a tax on your own breathing, since you are a CO2 exhaling machine.

Industrial Wind and the Production Tax Credit

The glimmer has been lost from industrial wind. The “Green” promises of an alternative energy hits a brick wall when applied to this industry. By an objective analysis standard, wind projects make no economic sense. Just look at some of the provisions that subsidized this botched industry.

“The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (H.R. 1) allows taxpayers eligible for the federal renewable electricity production tax credit (PTC) to take the federal business energy investment tax credit (ITC) or to receive a grant from the U.S. Treasury Department instead of taking the PTC for new installations. The grant is only available to systems where construction began prior to December 31, 2011. The new law also allows taxpayers eligible for the business ITC to receive a grant from the U.S. Treasury Department instead of taking the business ITC for new installations”.

The entire economic basis for developing wind factories rests upon government money. The recent defeat of extending the Production Tax Credit comes at a time when the appeal of backing inefficient and undependable electric generation is sinking like a rock. The PTC and Section 1603 extension was tacked onto the Stabenow amendment, which failed to pass in the Senate. “Stabenow’s amendmentwould have continued the production credit through 2013, as well as a Treasury Department renewable-power grant program known as 1603.”

Even under these generous subsidies, projects continue to fail. The latest causality is the UTC subsidiary Clipper Windpower. Bloomberg reports, that United Technologies is classifying Clipper as a discontinued operation. Forbes announces on their website, United Technologies Unloads Clipper Windpower,

“UTC in January 2010 invested an initial $207m to take a 49.5% stake in Clipper following a liquidity crisis at the wind turbine manufacturer. It gained full control in December 2010 for an additional $223m . . . Clipper was then losing money and share in its core US market. Installations of its flagship 2.5 MW Liberty wind turbine plunged to 28 in 2010 from 242 the previous year . . . .

The company’s image had also taken a hard hit after cracking problems surfaced in 2007 that required a $330m remediation program to replace the blades on all its turbines. Many of its third-party customers left for other vendors.”

The prospect of selling this business is remote. The company was only an assembler of components based upon their designs. Gearbox failures continue to plague these turbines. Under a capitalistic system, businesses that sell an unreliable produce go bankrupt. Clipper Windpower will soon be remembered as an example of a company providing defective and inept technology. Wasting public funds on such a venture exemplifies the shortcomings of “Green” zealots.

Clipper turbines were used on several First Wind projects. The subsidy carousal extends to the developer, as seen in the essay; First Wind swindle has just committed another heist. Cited in the 9/1/09 Democratic and Chronicle business section, the following article appeared – Southern Tier wind farm gets $74.6 million in grants. This amount is in addition to the PTC. As with any federal gift, connections and strings attached usually precede the process.

“First Wind has ties to the administration of President Barack Obama. A New York City hedge fund, D.E. Shaw & Co., is a major investor in First Wind, according to statements issued in recent years by First Wind. Lawrence H. Summers, who now heads Obama’s National Economic Council, was a compensated managing director at D.E. Shaw before leaving late last year.”

Since Clipper Windpower is in no position to honor service warranty agreements with First Wind, just how long will their wind farms continue to operate? Actually, First Wind is on very shaky ground and has serious financial troubles. The Sun Journal reports,

“First Wind, Emera Inc. (the Nova Scotia-based parent company of Bangor Hydro and Maine Public Service) and Ontario-based Algonquin Power and Utilities Corp. propose to jointly build and operate wind-energy projects in Maine and elsewhere in the Northeast. After a failed bid to go public in 2010, which left First Wind cash-hungry, the deal is a way for the Boston-based company to continue building wind towers across Maine and the region, as well as a way for Emera and Algonquin to reach new energy consumers in the U.S.”

After this arrangement collapsed, First Wind sought to sell an equity interest to Algonquin. The publication Recharge states,

“Algonquin Power and Utilities has dropped a bid to purchase a 12% stake for $83m in First Wind Holdings’ 370MW wind portfolio in the eastern US, citing delays in winning approval from regulators in Maine.

First Wind, whose main investors are hedge fund operator DE Shaw and private equity company Madison Dearborn Partners, cancelled an IPO in October 2010 after facing investor concerns over its debt load and future profitability.”

Soon First Wind will succumb to the same fate of Clipper Windpower, a discontinued operation.

The defeat of the Production Tax Credit may not be an assured and indefinite reality, but this is an election year. Surely, the corporate wind lobbyists will want to insert this boondoggle back into the federal budget. However, the ground swell against industrial wind factories is growing.

The little secret that wind projects often are paid not to produce electricity. The power grid is incompatible with many wind projects. Government-Subsidized Wind Farms Told NOT to Produce Energy reports,

“Wind farms in the Pacific Northwest – built with government subsidies and maintained with tax credits for every megawatt produced – are now getting paid to shut down as the federal agency charged with managing the region‘s electricity grid says there’s an oversupply of renewable power at certain times of the year.”

This is an absurd corporate welfare system. It is long overdue to let the free market compete. Industrial Wind is really a corporate/state pet program that operates just as unwisely as all government bureaucracies do. The money that is wasted through the Production Tax Credit and other subsidy grants is a national disgrace. Do your part and express your opposition to your elected officials.

Rape and Murder in Afghanistan

On March 11, up to 20 US forces murdered 16 Afghan men, women, and nine children, aged two to 12. Children were massacred while they slept. Two women were also raped before soldiers killed them.

Major media scoundrels whitewashed the crimes by shamelessly blaming one soldier to absolve others, and most of all, higher-ups responsible for permitting a culture that condones and encourages them.

A transparent March 11 Pentagon Secretary of Defense Panetta statement said the following:

“Today I spoke to President Karzai to offer my deepest condolences and profound regret for the tragic incident in Kandahar province that resulted in the loss of life and injuries to innocent Afghan civilians, including women and children.”

“A full investigation is already underway. A suspect is in custody, and I gave President Karzai my assurances that we will bring those responsible to justice. We will spare no effort in getting the facts as quickly as possible, and we will hold any perpetrator who is responsible for this violence fully accountable under the law.”

“I condemn such violence and am shocked and saddened that a U.S. service member is alleged to be involved, clearly acting outside his chain of command. I told President Karzai that the American people share the outrage felt by President Karzai and his fellow citizens. This tragic incident does not reflect the commitment of the U.S. military to protect the Afghan people and help build a strong and stable Afghanistan.”

“As we mourn today with the Afghan people, we are steadfast in our resolve to work hand in hand with our Afghan partners to accomplish the missions and goals on which we have been working together for so long.”

“This terrible incident does not reflect our shared values or the progress we have made together. As I told President Karzai, I am fully committed to ensuring that our cooperation continues. It is essential to forging a more peaceful future for the citizens of both our nations.”

Like similar Pentagon, White House, and other official statements, Panetta’s words ring hollow. They also reflected damage control cover-up, not only of a crime too grave to ignore, but just the latest in a systematic ongoing pattern wherever America shows up.

Like others, this one included rape and murder. According to Pajhwok Afghan News:

“A parliamentary probe team on Thursday said up to 20 American troops were involved in Sunday’s killing of 16 civilians in southern Kandahar province.”

It spent two days interviewing surviving family members, witnesses, and tribal elders. They also gathered evidence where killings took place.

Two groups of US soldiers were involved. Attacks occurred in separate villages one and a half kilometers apart.

“We are convinced that one soldier cannot kill so many people in two villages within one hour at the same time.”

Most victims were women and children. Parliamentarian Hamidzai Lali demanded that the UN and international community ensure those responsible are prosecuted in Afghanistan.

Lali said the Wolesi Jirga, Afghanistan’s lower House of the People, won’t stay silent until prosecutions occur, adding:

“If the international community does not play its role in punishing the perpetrators, the Wolesi Jirga would declare foreign troops as occupying forces, like the Russians.”

Soldiers Committed Rape and Murder

On March 18, India’s Siasat Daily headlined, “US Forces raped two Afghan women,” saying:

The Afghan probe team said US soldiers systematically went from house to house in two villages, raped two women before murdering them, and at least 14 others.

Some victim bodies were then set ablaze.

On March 17, Russia Today called the Kandahar massacre “preplanned” murder, according to Afghan Army Chief of Staff Lt. General Sher Mohammad Karimi.

He and President Karzai said multiple assailants were involved. They also stressed that US commanders stonewalled Afghan demands to interrogate those responsible and hold them accountable locally.

Surviving family members and witnesses said assailants had air support. Helicopters brought them in and remained overhead during the carnage.

Kandahar Massacre Reflects Earlier Ones

Analyst Rick Rozoff called the incident “particularly egregious” because of its “cold-blooded, calculated” nature. It evoked echoes of past ones like Vietnam’s My Lai, Iraq’s Haditha, and two Fallujah slaughter incidents in April/May 2004, then in genocidal numbers in November/December.

Survivors and witnesses confirmed industrial scale mass murder. Children saw parents shot. Adults lost spouses and children. Homes and stores were looted.

Thousands of others were destroyed. A government committee found 26,000 houses damaged and another 3,000 completely demolished. They included 70 mosques, 50 schools, and Fallujah’s power plant. The city depended on it for electricity, 50% of its drinking water distribution, and 70% of its sewer system.

Overall, indiscriminate slaughter, destruction, and environmental contamination occurred. It was followed by looting, mass arrests, torture, and deaths from ill treatment and disease. A cancer epidemic followed and numerous previously unknown or rarely seen illnesses, severe congenital malformations, and more.

Since 2001, millions of Afghans and Iraqis died. Libya’s enduring its own nightmare. Syria and Iran are next. American wars show no mercy.

Rape as a Weapon of War

In all US war theaters, slaughter, sadism, and other atrocities are institutionalized. Rape becomes a weapon of war. On June 19, 2008, the Security Council agreed, adopting Resolution 1820.

It demanded an “immediate and complete halt to acts of sexual violence against civilians in conflict zones.” It said:

“women and girls are particularly targeted by the use of sexual violence, including as a tactic of war to humiliate, dominate, instil fear in, disperse and/or forcibly relocate civilian members of a community or ethnic group.”

These offenses also “constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity or a constitutive act with respect to genocide.”

Former United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture Manifred Nowak said rape constitutes torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment used as a weapon of war to inflict greater pain and suffering.

Author Slavenka Drakulic described it as “slow murder.” The Nuremberg Tribunal called it a crime against humanity.

Nothing, however, stops it, and UN resolutions fall woefully short. The latest Afghan rape and multiple murder atrocity reflects countless others. It’s because US soldiers are trained to be violent in war theaters and show no mercy. Anything goes and does. Women and young girls are especially vulnerable.

In May 2009, Britain’s Daily Telegraph said former US General Antonio Taguba said the Obama administration sought to suppress images of US soldiers raping and sodomizing Iraqi prisoners.

He called photos he saw explosive, saying they “show torture, abuse, rape and every indecency. The mere description of these pictures is horrendous enough. Take my word for it.”

These and similar incidents aren’t isolated. Nor are a few “bad apples” alone involved. They’re widespread, tolerated, and sanctioned up to the highest government, military, and intelligence levels in all US war theaters.

Victims are helpless targets, including young girls and boys sodomized with phosphorescent tubes, clubs, wire, and other implements to inflict pain.

Instead of holding those responsible accountable, Obama suppressed their crimes. As a result, they continue. The latest Afghan victims represent a drop in the ocean. International and US law principles are ignored. Atrocities follow others repeatedly.

Wars reflect more than hell. They manifest generations of condoned US barbarity. It’s been institutionalized to permit wanton rape, sodomy, torture, sadism, murder, and virtually all other imaginable atrocities with impunity.

America the beautiful is an illusion only young children and fools believe. Ugly war theater wickedness reveals its true dark side. Its victims attest to how monstrous.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net .

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening. - http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.

Source: ICH

No Apocalypse Yet

“Moscow” — The anticipated apocalypse did not come to pass. The presidential election in Russia ran its course, Putin was duly elected, and to the great astonishment of the opposition, multimillion crowds demanding the blood of the tyrant did not materialize. Only some 15,000 protesters gathered in central Moscow and dispersed peacefully within two hours. Only a remaining hundred hardcore activists were resolved “to stay until Putin goes” in the frozen city fountain. They were removed by police, charged and released. What a flop!

An inspired spokesperson of the Whites, a returnee from New York Masha Gessen, self-described “Jewish Lesbian, a sworn enemy of the Putin regime”, a blogger for the NY Times, “extremely influential”, according to Newsweek, who has just published with Riverhead a book prophesying the swift fall of Putin, predicted (or called for) 200,000 angry Russians tearing down the walls of Kremlin and washing with blood the streets on March 5. Rarely has a forecast failed so profoundly.

The last rally had its funny moments. The radicals came with quite obscene slogans against Putin and against his electorate. They booed down almost everybody including the billionaire oligarch Mr Prokhorov who tried his luck with them. It was rather cold, almost 20 degrees F (-6°C), and the call of Udaltsov and Navalny to stay put was met with visible disbelief. Navalny looked extremely unhappy; he spoke of the need to build a movement from scratch. The police behaved very well; even the participants lauded its polite and respectful attitude. US cops could take a lesson from Moscow riot police how to be cool.

Until it happened, nobody was sure of the outcome. Opposition leaders I asked privately told me that they didn’t know; the government wasn’t sure and brought in thousands of troops and riot police, menacingly located in the backyards, happily remaining uncalled for. City hall permitted all the rallies applied for, at the time and place they asked; there were no logistic problems, the location of the main opposition demo was in Pushkin square, the Moscow equivalent of Times Square in New York. All in vain: people did not come.

They were sobered by the vote. Some 40,000 observers drafted from all walks of life were stationed at the booths; there were web-cameras checking every corner near the booths for possible fraud. Relatively open-minded observers had had a chance to see that in transparent elections people did vote for Putin. Not overwhelmingly (64 per cent is not a North Korean kind of result), but convincingly. A few liberal bloggers had a change of heart and sobbingly admitted that they had witnessed fair elections and heard vox populi. For this reason, calls by Navalny, Yashin, Udaltsov and other White leaders to declare the vote “illegitimate” fell on deaf ears.

Only a few hardcore activists kept claiming that the vote was fraudulent; other Whites lamented that they had to share this planet with such a rabble. The deputy chief editor of the main White broadcaster Echo Moskvy, Vladimir Varfolomeev, wrote in his blog that “the social base of Putin regime, 40 to 50 million Russians, has to be eliminated” for democracy to win. This remark was widely interpreted as a call for genocide. Other Whites disparagingly called the Putin electorate “sprats” and other endearing terms; one or two declared their intention to emigrate to Israel. They plan for more rallies, but the feeling is that the orange bubble has burst.

The activists are heart-broken, dashed in their expectations. Their cause, that of fair elections, is dead. Demonization of Putin did not work; to the contrary, it pushed many stubborn Russians back into the fold. Now they look for a new cause, and it seems they have chosen confrontation with the church. After the failure, their first action was in support of four punk-rockers who made a nuisance of themselves in a Moscow cathedral. This is not likely to endear them to the broad masses, as the Russians are quite devout to their national church.

The communists did rather well, but their tactics in the aftermath of the elections were confusing and lacklustre. Mr Zuganov chose neither to recognize nor congratulate Mr Putin; the Party called for a rally but did not mobilize its cadres and it flopped, for the ordinary Communists did not understand the message. Probably a new person at the helm of the party instead of tired Mr Zuganov will be able to change things in time for the next elections.

Moscow is different

Analysis of the election results shows that Moscow voted differently from the rest of the country. Russia’s social disparity was translated into electoral numbers very neatly. Elsewhere, second place was taken by the Communist contender Mr Gennady Zuganov (18 per cent); in Moscow it was ceded by the Communists in favour of the bon-vivant oligarch Mr Mikhail Prokhorov who received a very robust 20 per cent as opposed to 7 per cent in Russia generally.

Even more revealing were the results in separate electoral districts: the more well-to-do neighborhoods of Moscow voted handsomely for Prokhorov, in the best and most expensive areas he got up to 40 per cent of the vote. Prokhorov and his people called for a neoliberal agenda, less taxation for business, longer working hours, dismantling of the remnants of social protection including central heating that makes Russian homes so warm in the winter. Naturally he could not hope to win the average Russian heart, but the well-heeled voted for him, though they made their fortunes under Putin.

Putin brought this result upon himself: he allowed Moscow to become the vortex of money flows. More money comes and stays in Moscow than in the rest of Russia. Once, Moscow had a big working class population, many factories, good conditions for workers, for the workers were the mainstay of the Soviet regime. But for last 20 years Moscow has been deindustrialised, factories closed, the working class shrunk, while the locals made a killing renting out their state-provided apartments.

The results of elections in Moscow could have been even worse for Putin but for the bussing of voters from industrial townships. The bussed voters were also citizens of Russia and the bussing did not change the overall results; it changed the results for separate districts, and so it obscured the dangerous disparity between Moscow and the rest of the country. In some expensive areas of Moscow where little if any bussing took place, Prokhorov gathered almost as many votes as Putin. In London and Tel Aviv, where many Russian citizens voted, Prokhorov won hands down, and Putin was nowhere.

If Putin wants to remain in power, he must do something about Moscow. The disparity between Moscow and the country has to be equalized. The capital city and its inhabitants are hated by the country folk, and this feeling could allow Putin to shift resources away from this too-rich city.

His bigger problem is with the oligarchs. Will he try to fit their agenda? This is a distinct possibility. Though at the time of upsurge and hate-Putin rallies, he appealed to the patriotism of activists and intellectuals, and they saved him by the miracle at the Poklonnaya Mount, they are far from certain that he will not forget them in the time of his victory. Ditto Mr Rogozin, the fiery nationalist, who was brought home from honorary exile in Brussels. People wonder whether Putin will keep him now.

However, there is a possibility that he will do what the oligarchs fear, namely deal with offshoring and the dishonest dealing of the super-rich. John Helmer, an oldtimer journalist in Moscow with Asia Times, wrote enthusiastically of Putin’s directive VP-P13-9308 of December 28, 2011 available here; he described it “the oligarch killer”. Putin has demanded from CEOs and managers of the state-owned giants that they disclose, in Helmer’s words:

“networks of affiliation between officials and beneficiaries; wives, children and other family members or nominees who have been placed in concealed trusts and bag-holding positions; and chains of offshore cashflows. The state companies include Rosatom, the uranium mining and uranium fuel holding company; Inter RAO UES, the electricity holding company; RusdHydro, the hydroelectric power producer; Irkutskenergo, a southeast regional supplier of electricity; Gazprom; Transneft, the oil pipeline company; Sovcomflot, the state shipping company; Russian Railways; Aeroflot; Rostelecom; and the three state banks – Sberbank, VTB and Vnesheconombank.”

Surprisingly little was written about this in the media before the elections, though any sign of an attack on oligarchs would have brought in extra millions of voters to Putin. There were a couple of reports on TV, and then the matter disappeared from public view. Will Putin continue this struggle against the CEOs who deal with state property in the interests of their families? It is hard to predict whether in the end Putin will dare to fight the oligarchs or will prefer to accommodate them.

If he wants to survive politically, he will have to implement the national agenda, confront the oligarchs, curb the creative class, provide support to those who supported him. But Putin is a master of compromise; he takes decisive action only if necessary. He will be encumbered with Mr Dmitri Medvedev as his prime minister, an extremely inauspicious appointment he could not escape. Though loyal to Putin personally, he is not a good executive. Still it would be difficult to drop him unless he really makes a mess of things.

Russia faces fateful years. There is the danger of an Israeli-American war against Iran; and Iran is Russia’s neighbour and a friend. Syria, though in much better shape after the taking of Homs, is still in trouble, and Syria is the Russian foothold in the Middle East. The future of the Euro and the EC is doubtful, while Europe is Russia’s biggest trading partner. The US is in a presidential election year , a time when its politicians vie with each other to be tougher to the world – and to Russia. In a way, it’s a relief that this important country is in Mr Putin’s hands.

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