Pulse

A Closer Look at Israel's Role in Terrorism
Informationclearinghouse.info

January 18, 2010 -- Response of former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when asked on September 11, 2001 what the attacks meant for U.S.-Israeli relations

Game theory war-planners rely on mathematical models to anticipate and shape outcomes with staged provocations. For the agent provocateur, the reactions to a provocation—as well as the reactions to those reactions—thereby become predictable within an acceptable range of probabilities.

With ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan poised to expand to Iran and Pakistan, it is time to take a closer look at how conflicts are catalyzed—by way of deception.

Continued below

Part 2

Part 3

When Israeli game theorist Robert J. Aumann received the 2005 Nobel Prize in economic science, he conceded from Jerusalem, “the entire school of thought that we have developed here in Israel” has turned “Israel into the leading authority in this field.” A professor at the Center for the Study of Rationality at Hebrew University, Aumann’s Nobel lecture, titled “War and Peace,” expounded on the rationality of war.

With a well-modeled provocation, a target’s anticipated reaction can even become a weapon in the aggressor’s arsenal. In response to the provocation of 9-11, how difficult was it to foresee that the U.S. would deploy its military to avenge that attack? With U.S. intelligence “fixed” by well-placed insiders around a predetermined goal, how difficult was it to anticipate that the reaction to 9-11 could be redirected to wage war in Iraq?

The emotional component of a provocation plays a key role in game theory warfare. With the nationally televised mass murder of 3,000 people, a state of shock, grief and outrage made it easier for Americans to believe that a known Evil Doer in Iraq was responsible—regardless of the facts.

For false beliefs to displace real facts requires mental preconditioning so that a targeted population can be persuaded to put their faith in fictions. That conditioning enhances the probability of a successful deception. Those who deceived the U.S. to invade Iraq in March 2003 began a decade beforehand to lay the “mental threads” and make the requisite mental associations to advance that agenda.

Notable among those threads was the 1993 publication in Foreign Affairs of a theme-setting article by Harvard University professor Samuel Huntington. By the time his analysis appeared in book-length form in 1996 as The Clash of Civilizations, more than 100 think tanks were prepared to promote it. The result created a widely touted narrative—a thematic storyline—supporting a “clash consensus” five years before 9-11 provided a plausible rationale for war.

Also published in 1996 under the guidance of Richard Perle was A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm i.e., Israel . A member since 1987 of the U.S. Defense Policy Board, this self-professed Zionist became its chairman in 2001.

As an adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Perle’s Pentagon advisory post provided a powerful insider position to shape the national security mindset around the removal of Saddam Hussein, a key theme of A Clean Break—released five years before 9-11. That same year Netanyahu addressed a joint session of Congress at the invitation of Newt Gingrich, the Christian Zionist Speaker of the House.

Murders, books, articles, think tanks and well-placed insiders are common components in a “probabilistic” model deployed by war-planning game theorists. Lawmakers are also a customary ingredient. They provide credibility and a facade of legitimacy—a critical element when inducing a nation to war with phony intelligence fixed around a preset agenda.

That role was eagerly filled by Senators John McCain, Joe Lieberman, a Jewish Zionist from Connecticut, and Jon Kyl, a Christian Zionist from Arizona, when they co-sponsored the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998. By promoting Israel’s 1996 agenda for Securing the Realm, their legislation laid yet another mental thread in the public mindset by calling for the ouster of Saddam Hussein—three years before 9-11.

The legislation also appropriated $97 million to promote their agenda. Distracted by mid-term Congressional elections and impeachment proceedings catalyzed by a well-timed presidential affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, Bill Clinton signed that Zionist agenda into law in October 1998—4-1/2 years before a U.S.-led invasion removed the Iraqi leader.

After 9-11, McCain and Lieberman became inseparable travel companions and irrepressible advocates for the invasion of Iraq. Striking a presidential pose aboard the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt in January 2002, McCain—a son and grandson of admirals—laid another mental thread when he waved an admiral’s cap and proclaimed, alongside Lieberman, “On to Baghdad.”

By Way of Deception

The confidence with which this game theory strategy progressed in plain sight could be seen in the behavior of Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, another Zionist insider. Four days after 9-11 while in a principals’ meeting at Camp David, he proposed that the U.S. invade Iraq. At that time, the intelligence did not point to Iraqi involvement and Osama bin Laden was thought to be hiding in a remote region of Afghanistan.

On that same day, San Diego FBI Special Agent Stephen Butler interrogated Iraqi Munther Ghazal at his home near San Diego to determine if he was funding Mel Rockefeller, an American with whom Ghazal traveled to Baghdad in early 1997. After meeting for several days with a top nuclear physicist with oversight of Iraq’s mothballed nuclear weapons program, Rockefeller returned to the U.S. with a practical proposal for removing Saddam Hussein without this war and without triggering an insurgency.

When regional specialists at the U.S. Department of State would not meet with him, he traveled to Ottawa in April 1997 where he met with Middle East specialists in the Canadian government to ensure a written record was made to confirm there was an alternative to war in Iraq—six years before the invasion. Instead of debriefing him, FBI agents sought to discredit him. Though FBI agents interviewed Ghazal many times, they have yet to meet with Mel Rockefeller.

Agent Butler cashed checks and paid rent for the two San Diego-based hijackers who piloted planes into the World Trade Center towers. The same Iman counseling Major Nidal Hasan with FBI knowledge before he was transferred to Fort Hood also counseled the San Diego-based hijackers—with FBI knowledge. As of December 1, 2009, no one from the FBI or national security had debriefed Mel Rockefeller—eight years after 9-11.

See: Ft. Hood: “Death By Political Correctness”?

and Ft. Hood Tragedy: The Real Story of the Terrorist “Mad Doctor Hasan”

When President George H.W. Bush declined to invade Baghdad and remove Saddam Hussein during the 1991 Gulf War, Pentagon Under Secretary for Policy Paul Wolfowitz imposed a No-Fly Zone in northern Iraq. By the invasion of March 2003, the Israeli Mossad had agents deployed for a decade in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.

Intelligence reports of Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda were also traced to Mosul—reports that proved false. Mosul again emerged in November 2004 as a center of the insurgency that destabilized Iraq. That reaction precluded the speedy exit of coalition forces promised in Congressional testimony by senior war-planner Wolfowitz in the lead-up to the invasion.

An Inside Job?

The common pro-Israeli source of the phony intelligence that induced war in Iraq has yet to be acknowledged even though intelligence experts agree that deception on such a scale required a decade to plan, staff, pre-stage, orchestrate and—until now—cover up. The leaders of the 9-11 Commission conceded they were thwarted by Commission members adamantly opposed to hearing testimony on the hijackers’ motivation for 9-11: the U.S.-Israeli relationship.

The fictions reported as facts by mainstream media included Iraqi WMD, Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda, Iraqi meetings with Al Qaeda in Prague, Iraqi mobile biological weapons laboratories and Iraqi purchases of “yellowcake” uranium from Niger. Only the last claim was conceded as bogus prior to the invasion.

Only after the war began were the balance of the claims disclosed as false, flawed or outright fabricated. An attempt to punish former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Joe Wilson for his exposure of the phony yellowcake account led to a federal conviction of vice-presidential chief of staff Lewis Libby, another well-placed Zionist insider.

The multi-decade consistency of agent-provocateur fact patterns suggests that this game theory-modeled warfare includes the Israeli provocation that catalyzed the Second Intifada. An intifada is an uprising or, literally, a “shaking off” of an oppressor. The Second Intifada dates from September 2000 when Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon led an armed march to Jerusalem’s Temple Mount—one year before 9-11.

After a year of calm during which Palestinians believed that Israel was sincere about peace, suicide bombings recommenced. As Sharon conceded, his march was meant to demonstrate Israeli control over a site considered holy by Muslims worldwide. In response to this second failed attempt at “shaking off” Israeli domination, Sharon and Netanyahu observed that only when Americans “feel our pain” would they understand the plight of the victimized Israelis.

These Likud Party leaders commented that the requisite empathy “feel our pain” would require a weighted body count of 4,500 to 5,000 Americans lost to terrorism—the initial estimate of those who died in the twin towers of the World Trade Center—one year later.

In other words, only with pain could we identify with the Israelis. Does that mean that only with a mass murder could we be induced to respond with our military to advance their agenda? Was the U.S. response mathematically modeled at the Center for the Study of Rationality? Seven months after 9-11, Benjamin Netanyahu gave a speech in a U.S. Senate office building where he was introduced by Senators Jon Kyl and Joe Liebermn

American Valkyrie?

When successful, game theory warfare strengthens the agent provocateur while leaving the target discredited and depleted by the anticipated reaction. By game theory standards, 9-11 was a strategic success because the U.S.—by its response—was widely criticized for waging war on false pretenses. Only in hindsight did a deceived public realize that Iraq had nothing to do with that mass murder. However, that invasion had everything to do with “securing the realm.”

Our response predictably triggered a deadly insurgency with devastating consequences for Iraqis, the U.S. and a “coalition of the willing” led to war by a successfully duped U.S. From a game theory perspective, that insurgency was a predictable reaction in a nation populated by three long-feuding sects: Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds. A violent invasion led by a nation closely allied with Jewish nationalists only further fueled the flames of violence and extremism—another foreseeable outcome.

Until the U.S.-led invasion, peace was maintained by an unsavory dictator and former U.S. ally who was rebranded an Evil Doer in the lead-up to war. As the cost in blood and treasure from our “liberation” of Iraq expanded, the U.S. became overextended militarily, financially and diplomatically.

The sectarian violence unleashed in Iraq is precisely what Messrs. Rockefeller and Ghazal were cautioned against in early 1997 should Saddam Hussein be removed suddenly and violently. The 1.3 million Iraqi deaths from war-related causes exceeds the worst of Saddam Hussein’s atrocities. As any competent game theory war-planner knew, the strategic winner in this war was certain to be Iran as the U.S. neutralized its key foe—and is now urged by Israel to wage war on Iran.

As the U.S.—the primary target of this deception—emerged in the foreground, the agent provocateur faded into the background. But only after catalyzing dynamics that steadily drained the U.S. of credibility, resources and resolve. This “probabilistic” Israeli victory also ensured widespread cynicism, insecurity, distrust and disillusionment along with a steadily declining capacity to defend our real interests.

Meanwhile the American public came under a system of oversight and surveillance packaged and sold as “homeland security.” This ominously titled operation includes rhetorical echoes of a WWII-era “fatherland” featuring a domestic security force completely alien to U.S. traditions. It is not yet clear whether this new agency was established to protect Americans. Or whether it is meant to shield from Americans those responsible for deceiving us to wage their wars.

In January 2003, Secret Service Agent Richard Sierze interrogated Mel Rockefeller at his home in Fresno, California after he sent an email to Florida Governor Jeb Bush. The email said, in effect, that if the governor’s brother President George Bush did not interview him on a public record prior to invading Iraq, he would do his best to ensure that lawful means were deployed to see the president executed for treason by a firing squad.

When questioned by Sierze, Rockefeller offered to have the agent speak with Dr. Glenn Olds, an adviser to four presidents, his senior adviser since 1994 and a former U.N. Ambassador who assisted him in entering Iraq through Jordon at a time when Americans were prohibited from traveling there. Sierze declined.

He also repeated his intent to see the president executed for treason and insisted that he be charged and taken before a federal magistrate to present evidence that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and that an alternative to war had been available since early 1997. Agent Sierze declined his demand to be arraigned in a U.S. Federal District Court—seven weeks before the invasion.

Agent Sierze should be interviewed to see if, in retrospect, he agrees that—had this advice been followed—the war in Iraq may well have been prevented. To date, no one with line responsibility has interviewed Mel Rockefeller on a public record. Why? The answer to that question would reveal those responsible for this ongoing deception.

The victims of these serial deceptions, including the families of those murdered in November at Fort Hood, may have a wrongful death cause of action against those with line responsibility who aided these operations by failing to engage the Rockefeller record in a timely fashion.

Foreseeable Futures

By manipulating the shared mindset, skilled game theory war-planners can wage wars on multiple fronts with minimal resources. One proven strategy: Pose as an ally of a well-armed nation predisposed to deploy its military in response to a mass murder.

In this case, the result destabilized Iraq while creating predictable crises that could be exploited to greater strategic advantage by expanding the conflict to Iran, another Israeli goal announced in A Clean Break—seven years before the invasion of Iraq.

Today’s mathematically model-able outcomes undermined U.S. national security by discrediting our leadership, degrading our financial condition and disabling our political will. In game theory terms, this devastation was perfectly predictable—within an acceptable range of probabilities.

Pakistan is primed to emerge as the next battleground for game theory war-planners. When India, an ally of Israel, became the nation honored by the Obama administration’s first state dinner, that occasion gave reason for concern due to the dynamics already at work in the background.

See “What Is Israel’s Role in the Destabilization of Pakistan?”

In the asymmetry that typifies modern warfare, those who are few in number have no alternative when pursuing an expansionist agenda but to wage their wars by way of deception. To maintain its perceived status as a perennial victim, Israeli aggression must proceed non-transparently. Its only option is to operate with duplicitous means, including leveraging the power of its insider influence to advance an agenda from the shadows.

Thus the strategic necessity that this extremist enclave befriend the U.S.—with the intent to betray that friendship to advance its geopolitical goals. Thus the strategic need to create a relationship of trust with a post-WWII super power—in order to defraud us. How else could Colonial Zionists wage their wars except with our military? How else could Jewish nationalists induce our aggression absent the widely shared belief that Israel is not an aggressor but a victim?

Winning Wars from the Inside Out

Game theory war-planners manipulate the shared mental environment by shaping the perceptions and impressions that become consensus opinions. With a combination of well-timed crises, fixed intelligence and a complicit media, policy-makers can be induced to support a predetermined agenda—not because lawmakers are Evil Doers but because the public mindset has been pre-conditioned to respond to manipulated thoughts, emotions and beliefs.

Without the mass murder of 9-11, would America’s credibility be in tatters and its creditworthiness in jeopardy? By steadily displacing facts with false beliefs, those duplicitous few-within-the-few amplify the impact of their deceit. By their steady focus on the mental environment, game theory war-planners can defeat an opponent with vastly superior resources.

Today’s intelligence wars are waged in plain sight and under the cover of shared beliefs. By manipulating consensus opinion, psy-ops wars can be won from the inside out by inducing a targeted populace to freely choose the very forces that imperil their freedom.

Thus in the Information Age the disproportionate power wielded by those with outsized influence in media, popular culture, think tanks, academia and politics—domains where Zionist influence is pervasive not only in the U.S. but also in other nations induced to war on false pretenses.

Germany offers a case study in manipulation of the public mindset in plain sight and under the banner of a free press. In 2003, Zionist media mogul Haim Saban acquired the second largest media conglomerate in Germany. Why? As Saban investment banker Steve Rattner explained his client’s motivation: “Because Germany is important to Israel.” Or, as Saban concedes: “I have only one issue and that issue is Israel.”

By 2005, Saban had succeeded in electing Angela Merkel as German Chancellor. She quickly became the European Union’s most reliable and forceful advocate for Israel. By November 2009, she was prepared to sponsor in Berlin an unprecedented joint session of the German and Israeli governments. Following his political success in Germany, Saban acquired in 2007 a controlling interest in Univision, a Latino-focused network serving the fastest-growing voting bloc in the U.S.

Media manipulation serves as an essential force-multiplier to wage intelligence wars from the periphery or, as with Haim Saban, in plain sight. At the operational core of such psy-ops are game theory war-planners skilled at personality profiling and masterful at anticipating responses to staged provocations and then incorporating those responses into their arsenal.

In the case of Iraq, our mathematically foreseeable response to 9-11 led, in practical effect, to Israel’s deployment of our military to invade Iraq. For aggressors adept at psy-ops warfare, facts are only an inconvenience to be overcome when waging war by way of deception. Thus the key role played by consensus-shapers featured in mainstream media outlets who focus not on informing the public but on mental conditioning.

For targeted populations dependent on facts and informed consent to protect their freedom and preserve the rule of law, such treachery poses the greatest possible threat. Yet even now many Americans believe that Israel is not an aggressor but a victim and even an ally despite facts confirming a multi-decade pattern of expansionist nationalism and geopolitical deception.

Adhering to an Enemy

The U.S. is far less secure than before 9-11. Tel Aviv clearly intends to continue its serial provocations as evidenced by its ongoing expansion of settlements and its continuing blockade of Gaza. Israel has shown no willingness to negotiate in good faith. With few exceptions, Barack Obama has named as senior advisers either Zionists are those known to be strongly pro-Israeli.

The greatest threat to world peace is not Islam. The most fundamental threat that underlies all others is our “special relationship” with a skilled agent provocateur. Without U.S. support for an enclave of nuclear-armed religious extremists, the common source of this threat could long ago have been identified and steps taken to ensure its containment.

In the same way that lengthy pre-staging was required to induce the U.S. to invade Iraq, a similar strategy is now underway to persuade the U.S. to invade Iran or support an attack by Israel. Pakistan is also now on the agenda of those marketing The Clash narrative with its vision of a perpetual war against “militant Islam.” Similar mental conditioning is again at work, including the high profile branding of the requisite Evil Doer: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinajad.

From its outset, the Zionist enterprise sought supremacy in the Middle East. To date, its alliance with the U.S. has enabled the deployment of American military might in pursuit of goals set by Jewish nationalists more than a half-century before a Christian Zionist U.S. president was induced to extend nation-state recognition. Harry Truman made that fateful decision despite his fears that Israel would become what Zionist lobbyists assured him it would not become—and what it immediately became: a racist and theocratic state.

Only one nation had the means, motive, opportunity and stable nation state intelligence required to take the U.S. to war in the Middle East while making it appear that Islam—not Israel—is the problem. When a long-deceived American public—especially the U.S. military—grasps the common source of this devastating duplicity, the response will shift the geopolitical landscape. The facts suggest that “sympathy for Israel” is not among the probable reactions.

If Barack Obama continues to cater to these extremists, this Nobel peace laureate can rightly be blamed when the next attack features the usual orgy of evidence pointing to a pre-staged Evil Doer. Should another mass murder occur, that incident may well be traceable to the U.S.-Israeli relationship and to the failure of our policy-makers to protect America—and world peace—from this enemy within.

See also:

• How Israel Took Control of U.S. Foreign Policy
• How Israel Wages War in Plain Sight
• Appeasing Israel—At What Cost?
• American Intifada—Shaking Off Six Decades of Deceit

Two Israeli soldiers involved in the Gaza Strip offensive a year ago used a 9-year-old Palestinian boy as a human shield to open packages they believed were booby-trapped with explosives, the Israeli army charged Thursday. The soldiers, whose names were not released, have been indicted in military court for “unauthorized conduct” and “exceeding their authority in a manner that endangered life or health,” the army said. The boy, whose case was forwarded to the IDF by the UN, was unharmed. The soldiers could face a maximum sentence of three years if convicted, an army spokesman said. The criminal charges are believed to be the first related to combat brought against Israeli soldiers for their actions during the 22-day Gaza assault. A previous criminal case was brought against soldiers accused of looting a credit card. Military officials said they are reviewing about 30 criminal cases. Last month, the army said it had disciplined two top commanders for permitting shelling near a UN compound where civilians had taken refuge. Michael Sfard, an Israeli attorney who represents soldiers who went public with complaints about the military’s conduct in Gaza, called the army’s indictment “very little and very late.” He noted that his group, Breaking the Silence, tried to bring attention to the use of human shields in Gaza a year ago, but was subjected to blistering attacks from the government. Sfard said:

They dismissed everything out of hand. Now a year later they’ve found that one of the practices took place. If the state of Israel had conceded to calls for an investigation, I’m sure they would have found by now other practices to be true too.

The Empire will stop at nothing to find mechanisms and techniques to achieve its final objective, and we cannot disregard the possibility of a military conflict in the near future. If the US places Venezuela on the “terrorist list” this year, we could be on the verge of a regional war. Latin America has suffered constant aggressions executed by Washington during the past two hundred years. Strategies and tactics of covert and overt warfare have been applied against different nations in the region, ranging from coup d’etats, assassinations, disappearances, torture, brutal dictatorships, atrocities, political persecution, economic sabotage, psychological operations, media warfare, biological warfare, subversion, counterinsurgency, paramiliary infiltration, diplomatic terrorism, blockades, electoral intervention to military invasions. Regardless of who’s in the White House, democrat or republican, when it comes to Latin America, the Empire’s policies remain the same. In the twenty-first century, Venezuela has been one of the principal targets of these constant aggressions. Since the Apr 2002 coup, there has been a dangerous escalation in attacks and destabilization attempts against the Bolivarian Revolution. Although many fell beneath the seductive smile and poetic words of Obama, it’s not necessary to look beyond the past year to see the intensification of Washington’s aggressions against Venezuela. The largest military expansion in history in the region, through the US occupation of Colombia, the reactivation of the Fourth Fleet of the US Navy, as well as an increased US military presence in the Caribbean, Panama and Central America throughout the past year, can be interpreted as preparation for a conflict scenario in the region.

The hostile declarations from various Washington representatives during the past few weeks, accusing Venezuela of failure to combat narcotics operations, violating human rights, “not contributing to democracy and regional stability,” and of being the “regional anti-US leader,” form part of a coordinated campaign that seeks to justify a direct aggression against Venezuela. Soon, Washington will publish its annual list of “state sponsors of terrorism,” and if Venezuela is placed on the list this year, the region could be on the brink of an unprecedented military conflict. Evidence seems to indicate a move in that direction. A USAF document justifying the need to increase military presence in Colombia affirmed that Washington is preparing for “expeditionary warfare” in South America. The 2009 document, sent to Congress last May, but later modified in November after it was used to demonstrate the true intentions behind the military agreement between the US and Colombia, explained:

Development of this Cooperative Security Location will further the strategic partnership forged between the US and Colombia and is in the interest of both nations. A presence will also increase our capability to conduct Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance, improve global reach, support logistics requirements, improve partnerships, improve theater security cooperation and expand expeditionary warfare capability.

The first official report outlining the defense and intelligence priorities of the Obama administration dedicated substantial attention to Venezuela. The Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community, which has mentioned Venezuela in years past, but not nearly with the same emphasis and extension, particularly singled out Pres Chavez as a major “threat” to US interests. Placing Venezuela in the same category as Iran, North Korea and Al Qaida, the intelligence document said:

Pres Chavez has established himself as one of the US’s foremost international detractors, denouncing liberal democracy and market capitalism and opposing US policies and interests in the region.

Days after the report was published, the State Dept presented its 2011 budget to Congress. In addition to an increase in financing through USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy to fund opposition groups in Venezuela, more than $15m, there was also a $48m request for the Organization of American States to:

deploy special ‘democracy promoter’ teams to countries where democracy is under threat from the growing presence of alternative concepts such as the ‘participatory democracy’ promoted by Venezuela and Bolivia.

One week later, the Inter-American Human Rights Commission of the OAS, funded by Washington, emitted a whopping 322-page report slamming Venezuela for human rights violations, repression of the press and undermining democracy. Despite the fact that it was a report and a Commission dedicated to the topic of human rights, the detailed study barely mentioned the immense achievements of the Chavez government in advancing human rights; advances which have been recognized and applauded over the past five years by the UN. The evidence used by the OAS to elaborate the report came from opposition testimonies and biased media outlets, a clear demonstration of dangerous subjectivity.

Simultaneous to these accusations, a Spanish court accused the Venezuelan government last week of supporting and collaborating with the FARC and ETA, organizations considered terrorist by both the US and Spain, provoking an international scandal. Pres Chavez reiterated that his government has absolutely no ties with any terrorist group in the world. “This is a government of peace,” declared Chavez, after explaining that the presence of ETA members in Venezuela is due to an agreement made over 20 years ago by the government of Carlos Andres Perez in order to aid Spain in a peace treaty with the Basque separatist group. Last week, on tour in Latin America, US Sec State Clinton couldn’t stop attacking Venezuela during her different declarations made before international media. She expressed her “great concern” for democracy and human rights in Venezuela, accusing Pres Chavez of not “contributing in a constructive manner” to regional progress. In a cynical tone, Clinton advised Pres Chavez to “look further south” for inspiration, instead of towards Cuba.

Clinton’s regional trip was part of a strategy announced by the Obama administration last year, to create a divide between the so-called “progressive left” and the “radical left” in Latin America. It’s no coincidence that her first tour of the region coincided with the announcement of a new Latin American and Caribbean Community of States, which excludes the presence of the US and Canada. A military conflict is not initiated from one day to the next. It’s a process that involves first influencing public perception and opinion, demonizing the target leader or government in order to justify aggression. Subsequently, armed forces are strategically deployed in the region in order to guarantee an effective military action. Tactics, such as subversion and counterinsurgency, are utilized in order to debilitate and destabilize the target nation from within, increasing its vulnerability and weakening its defenses. This plan has been active against Venezuela for several years. The consolidation of regional unity and Latin American integration threatens US possibilities of regaining domination and control in the hemisphere. And the advances of the Bolivarian Revolution have impeded its “self-destruction,” provoked by internal subversion funded and directed by US agencies. However, the Empire will not cease its attempts to achieve its final objective, and a potential military conflict in the region remains on the horizon.

Trailer

Episode 1

Episode 2

Episode 4

Episode 5

Episode 6

10,000 claims over 9/11 illness, injuries settled
By Jamie Guzzardo, CNN
March 11, 2010 10:28 p.m. EST

New York CNN -- The WTC Captive Insurance Co. announced settlements Thursday with more than 10,000 plaintiffs who claimed sickness or injuries after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The settlements could total up to $657 million.

WTC Captive was created with a $1 billion FEMA grant and provides insurance coverage to the City of New York and its debris-removal contractors. In the aftermath of attacks of September 11, 2001, New York was unable to get adequate amounts of liability insurance for the rescue, recovery and debris-removal work done at the World Trade Center site.

The settlement would provide a system to pay for the compensation of the injury claims made by people working on the rescue and debris removal for the city and its contractors. This would include construction workers, firefighters, police officers and other workers and volunteers. The settlement would also fund a special insurance policy, which provides additional compensation to any plaintiff contracting certain types of cancer in the future.

Christine LaSala, president of WTC Captive, said in a statement: "We have reached a settlement that is fair under difficult and complicated circumstances. This agreement enables workers and volunteers claiming injury from the WTC site operations to obtain compensation commensurate with the nature of their injuries and the strength of their claims, while offering added protection against possible future illness."

In order to make a claim, plaintiffs will have to submit proof they were present and participated in the post-9/11 efforts. They will also have to present specific medical documentation, including a diagnosis confirming their illness or injury.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said of the resolution, "This settlement is a fair and reasonable resolution to a complex set of circumstances. Since September 11th, the city has moved aggressively to provide medical treatment to those who were present at Ground Zero, and we will continue our commitment to treatment and monitoring." A spokesman for the mayor declined further comment.

After the 9/11 attacks, individuals who worked or volunteered in the rescue, recovery and debris-removal project were entitled to and have received free medical care, which has been funded by the City of New York and the federal government. Participating in the settlement would not deter access to that care.

Former New York firefighter Kenny Specht told CNN's Campbell Brown, "You really can't put a price on your health, so I hope that this settlement was done the right way and I hope that it was done with people's health and safety and future in mind." Specht, 37, was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 2008.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/03/11/world.trade.center.suit/index.html?hpt=T1

[ Thanks to The Iconoclast for sending this our way]

Day 052/365 3.11.2010 – Unexpected Snow

Originally uploaded by goose3five

Ok, Vancouver just finished hosting the 2010 WINTER Olympics with average temperatures of 55 degrees F and absolutely no sign of snow. Two weeks later and I wake up to this. As you can see, the water plants in my pond are in full spring growth mode so I am pretty sure they woke up this morning thinking “WTF?” as well as “hey I am a plant, why am I thinking at all?”

Anyway, what you see is what you get. This snow was gone by mid-day and it is now just wet and rainy.

View my entire Project 365 set on a black background at Flickriver .

While it is commendable that Morrissey not the cool singing one corrected two blatant errors the BradBlog earlier busted him on, he made a third error which persists.

As you can see, Morrissey accepts as fact that the criminal defendant – Maria Miles – committed fraud. Given the ease of proving the allegations against Miles, it would indeed be bizarre if her being a fraud isn’t borne out.

Yet, in the same post, he takes quotes from the fraudulent Miles, not verified by anyone else, and accepts them as fact. Morrissey block qoutes a passage in which Agent Thelen the law enforcement officer who swears out the criminal complaint recounts statements from Miles alleging a sexual relationship between two ACORN employees Williams & Robinson and days in which Robinson then simply hung out but got paid on Williams’ okay.

Morrissey transforms Miles’ claim from allegation to fact when he says: “Charming. What a splendid work environment! No wonder James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles found ACORN staffers to be so helpful at promoting prostitution rings.”

This would be like writing a piece stating as fact that Ben Rothlisberger committed sexual assault solely on the complainants say so. In fact, what Morrissey does is worse because he admits the person who’s allegations he uses to smear ACORN is a fraud whereas we still don’t know anything about Big Ben’s accuser.

The bigger question that someone as astute as Morrissey should be asking is why Agent Thelen included these wholly gratuitous allegations in the first place. They are not material to the criminal complaint against either Miles or Clancy. The only reason I can think of is that the allegations were included to create a salaciousness to his report so as to secure the kind of coverage Morrissey then supplies. It betrays a bias by Agent Thelen against ACORN that is unbefitting of a supposedly objective law enforcement officer.

The other question is how much money was spent on this “task force” that then only came up with these five minimal violations which are really gimmees?

I’ve posted this here because Hot Air is a closed commenting community no surprise that prevents me from directing these comments to Morrissey directly. As for Patterico, the question is how he – as a lawyer and the self-proclaimed defender of absolute truth – can allow his site to approvingly link to a post that so disingenuously treats mere allegation as fact.

Day 051/365 3.10.2010 – Monotone, 1st Pass

Originally uploaded by goose3five

The folks over at Gizmodo have posted a new shooting challenge for the week, “Monotone.” I don’t particularly like this one but I was running out of time in the day to get a picture posted. The good news is that submissions are not due until Sunday, March 14th at 11PM Eastern so you can expect a few more tries before my final photo.

Ok Flickr Folk, anyone interesting in joining me in this challenge?

View my entire Project 365 set on a black background at Flickriver .

Gates clarifies US Iran policy in Riyadh after Biden fails in Israel
DEBKAfile, Mar 10, 2010

US Def Sec Gates arrived in Riyadh on Mar 10, flying in unexpectedly from Kabul in Afghanistan, after the Saudis demanded urgent clarifications of the Obama administration’s Iran policy. DEBKAfile’s military sources report that the demand followed the failure of US Vice-Pres Biden’s talks with Israeli leaders to resolve their differences on Iran. As a result, two senior US officials are visiting to Middle East capitals at the same to under pressure to deal with the Iranian nuclear question. Gates was closeted with Saudi rulers, although as recently as Feb 15, Sec State Clinton visited Riyadh and explained Washington’s strategy on Iran to King Abdullah and several senior Saudi princes. But she failed to allay her hosts’ intense concerns that the US was doing enough to abort Iran’s nuclear weapons program.. Then on Mar 7, CENTCOM Commander Gen. Petraeus, asked by a CNN interviewer, whether countries in the Persian Gulf wish to see a US military attack on Iran, said:

There are countries that would like to see a strike, us or perhaps Israel, even.

In Israel, where the media are obsessed with the slightest Arab or Palestinian utterance, none cited the US general’s comments. DEBKAfile’s military sources report that Petraeus’ comments referred mainly to the two main Persian Gulf states, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. In fact, the UAE foreign minister, referring to the assassination of Hamas member al-Mabhouh, noted this week that his country and Israel see eye to eye on the Iranian issue. Reports of the Biden conversations in Jerusalem Tuesday have reached Riyadh. They reveal that not only is the Obama administration leaning hard on Israel to abstain from attacking Iran, but is even retreating from harsh sanctions. Such penalties have no been put on hold for five months. The Saudis are as deeply alarmed by the latest US stance on Iran as the Israelis. US sources reported that no sooner did the US Def Sec land in Riyadh from Kabul when he was summoned to dinner with King Abdullah and the Saudi defense minister, Crown Prince Sultan. They admitted that he would be required “to present an update to Saudi officials who are intensely concerned about Iran’s nuclear program and the fate of the US-led effort to impose new sanctions on Tehran.”

Jerusalem expansion spurred by Biden’s
clampdown on Israeli action on Iran
DEBKAfile, Mar 10 2010

On Mar 9, Netanyahu told visiting US Vice-Pres Biden that the Interior Ministry district building commission’s announcement clearing the addition of 1,600 homes to the existing East Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo had been made without his knowledge. It would take another two years of paperwork for building to begin. The announcement drew sharp condemnation from the White House in Washington and from Biden, who arrived late for dinner with the prime minister, after condemning the “substance and timing” of the announcement with the launching of proximity talks. This, he said “undermined the trust we need right now and runs counter to the constructive discussions I’ve had here in Israel.” The announcement was roundly condemned by the UN Secretary, Egypt and Jordan, as well as Israeli opposition leaders. Israeli officials later assured Washington there had been no intention to undermine the Biden visit, but Netanyahu took no steps to reverse the decision made by interior minister Eli Yishai. According to DEBKAfile’s sources, the sweetness and light conveyed by public statements was hardly present in the US vice-president’s private talks with Israeli leaders. Netanyahu may well have approved the Jerusalem announcement as an indirect comeback for the way the US visitor laid down the law on a number of issues of Israeli concern, chiefly the matter of Iran’s rapid progress toward a nuclear weapon. The peremptory note was first noted when Biden called on Pres Peres, his first meeting with an Israel leader. He then explicitly warned Israel against venturing to attack Iran without prior US permission. Even the oft-repeated US commitment to Israel’s security was delivered with a notable reservation: I can promise the people of Israel that we will confront every security challenge that we will face, said Biden. This statement ruled out unilateral Israel operations in its defense. Forget unilateral, he was saying: From now “we” make the decisions about the levels of “security challenge” facing Israel and how to “confront it.” And there was no false modestly about who the senior decision-maker was to be in this “alliance.”

Jerusalem was also taken aback by the US vice president’s assertion that Iran was isolated as never before. A distorting prism appeared to be held up by the Obama administration to justify its backtracking on painful sanctions for Iran. These sanctions were explicitly promised by the White House to Netanyahu and Barak in return for Israel’s consent to hold back from striking Iran’s nuclear facilities. The Biden visit to Israel, therefore, far from meeting its avowed goal of smoothing over the differences between the Obama administration and Israel, has left Jerusalem more distrustful than ever. The climate was not improved on Mar 8 by IAEA director Amano announcing that the IAEA board would get back to discussing Iran’s nuclear program and making decisions only in five months’ time. In other words, the UN Security Council would not have the nuclear watchdog’s recommendations for supporting a sanctions resolution before July. Israel attributed this delay to Washington’s intervention as another gambit for shunting Israel and its demands for harsh sanctions aside, while also holding its hand against exercising any military options. Approval for the expansion of Ramat Shlomo came on the heels of a tough new statement by Barak on Tuesday. In a talk to students, he warned that when it came to Iran, Israel must keep its finger on the trigger at all times. And upon arrival in the US this week, chief of staff Lt-Gen Ashkenazi was instructed from Jerusalem to talk tough on the Iranian question when he meets Pentagon officials in the coming days.

Jerusalem Police on Thursday agreed to let dozens of far-rightists march through an Arab village in East Jerusalem. The activists, led by Baruch Marzel and Itamar Ben-Gvir, had requested to demonstrate in Silwan to protest illegal Palestinian construction in the area. Police have given permission to 70 activists to take part in the march, which is set to take place in 10 days. Police have allotted the length of a kilometer along which the demonstrators can walk, beginning from the Old City of Jerusalem into the center of Silwan. Ben-Gvir said:

They cannot lecture us about construction in Judea and Samaria when in this village there are dozens of illegal houses. The law regarding illegal houses in this village is exactly the same law that applies to the houses being destroyed in our outposts.

Jerusalem Police have warned the activists not to hold inflammatory banners or make discriminatory comments during the march. Police are also concerned that Muslim protesters will turn to violence in their demonstrations against Israel’s decision to approve the construction of 1,600 new houses in East Jerusalem. As a result, police are limiting entry to the Temple Mount for Friday prayers and will deploy large forces across the Old City.

Police set for riots in east Jerusalem due to
approval of housing units, march led by extremists
Shmulik Grossman, Ynet, Mar 11 2010

Jerusalem Police and the Border Guard deployed backup forces in the eastern side of the capital Thursday, including the Old City and the Palestinian villages, due to intelligence saying teens are planning to riot there Friday. Last Friday’s riots were instigated by a government decision to include east Jerusalem holy sites in its new heritage plan. This week police fear Israel’s announcement of the approval of 1,600 new housing units in the eastern city will spark a similar response. As usual in times of tension, police will limit Friday prayer on Temple Mount. Muslim men over 50 carrying an Israeli ID and women of any age will be allowed into the area. Also fanning the flames is a police decision to permit right-wing activists Itamar Ben-Gvir and Baruch Marzel to hold a march in the village of Silwan in east Jerusalem. The two say they will tour the village on Mar 21 along with 70 others to observe illegal construction there. Ben-Gvir said:

Illegal Palestinian structures should share the fate of the structures being destroyed in our outposts.

Residents of the neighborhood responded with anger. Fakhri Abu-Dihab, who resides in the village, told Ynet:

The police are insane. The situation is already tense because of the homes that are going to be razed. It is well-known who Baruch Marzel is and what he represents, and if the police give permission to such an extremist, who wants us transferred, they will bear full responsibility for what happens. I am afraid, because everything here is so sensitive now, this will not be easily accepted by people here.

Another resident of the village added that police would not be able to control the 50,000 residents of the village. He commented:

At a time like this we need to help people get closer, not set fires. I don’t want blood shed on either side.