The American Monitor

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2006-11-26T21:44:00.000-05:00

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US-terror links kept in the dark as former Bush associate refuses to testify

2006-11-24T17:00:00.000-05:00

Fearing for his life, Sami al-Arian, an admitted terrorist financer and one-time acquaintance of President George W. Bush, has refused to provide information to a federal grand jury regarding a Northern Virginia-based criminal network with connections to the U.S. government.

For nearly five years, investigators have been attempting to untangle the complex web of corporations, charities, and think tanks, which have allegedly been used by al-Arian and his associates to launder money for terrorist activities overseas and in the United States.

As The Washington Post reported, "The government believes Arian could help untangle the money trail, court documents indicate. In an affidavit filed in support of the search warrants and unsealed in 2003, Homeland Security agent David Kane laid out alleged ties between Arian and IIIT, writing that IIIT was once the largest contributor to what he called a Palestinian Islamic Jihad front group run by Arian."

Although it has been grossly underreported in the mainstream media, the network under investigation has been intimately linked to the U.S. government, suggesting that some of the group’s activities have been sanctioned, protected, and possibly even coordinated by U.S. intelligence.

At the center of the investigation, the National Review has noted, is Yaqub Mirza, who is said to have contacts high within the FBI. Mirza was a board member of a company known as Ptech, which maintained several sensitive contracts with the U.S. government.

“Mirza has been publicly linked to the alleged financing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad through his organizations International Institute of Islamic Thought and Safa Trust,” the National Review reported.

Mirza's alleged coconspirator and Bush associate Sami al-Arian, along with another convicted terrorist supporter, Abdurahaman Alamoudi, both of whom have alleged links to 9/11, met several times with senior Bush Administration officials in the run-up to the attacks.

In June 2001, for instance, as a member of the American Muslim Council (AMC) (which was founded by Alamoudi) al-Arian was “invited to the White House complex for a briefing by Bush political adviser Karl Rove.”

Bush with al-Arian

Similarly, in 2000 Alamoudi “was one of several Muslims invited to meet with [presidential] candidate [George W.] Bush in Austin, Texas”; and remarkably, just three days after the 9/11 attacks, Alamoudi was invited to a prayer service with the president.

Bush with Alamoudi

In addition to founding the AMC, al-Arian's associate Alamoudi also co-founded Ptech, the U.S. defense contractor for which Mirza served as a board member. U.S. intelligence officials have described Ptech as a CIA front “on the level of Iran-Contra.”

Reports have connected Ptech to money laundering, drug trafficking, and terrorist financing. The company maintained contracts with numerous U.S. government departments and agencies, including the Army, the Air Force, Naval Air Command, Congress, the Department of Energy, the Department of Justice, Customs, the FAA, the IRS, NATO, the FBI, the Secret Service, and the White House. As of 2004, despite being publicly connected to terrorism and organized crime, the company still maintained contracts with several government agencies, including the White House.

Ptech’s primary investor and owner, Yassin al-Qadi, who has been identified as one of Osama bin Laden’s “chief money launderers,” escorted U.S. officials around during their official visits to Saudi Arabia and, prior to being publicly connected to money laundering and terrorist-financing, al-Qadi openly and regularly spoke of his friendship with Vice President Dick Cheney.

Furthermore, Ptech cofounder Alamoudi founded a U.S. Army chaplain program for which he served as a consultant for over a decade. “The right to select military chaplains,” the ultra conservative Front Page Magazine has noted, “offered Alamoudi and his colleagues the chance to recruit still more Islamists with specialized and highly useful skill-sets.”

There are indications that prior to 9/11, al-Arian, Mirza, Alamoudi, al-Qadi, and other members of the alleged criminal network were protected from prosecution by high-ranking US officials, effectively preventing the FBI from stopping 9/11.

FBI Agent Robert Wright, who was in charge of investigating the Virginia-based network during the 1990s, said the FBI “intentionally and repeatedly thwarted and obstructed” his attempts to arrest terrorists, seize assets, and expand his investigation.

Approximately three months prior to the 9/11 attacks, agent Wright wrote a memo warning that American citizens would die as a result of the FBI's incompetence. He said there was “virtually no effort on the part of the FBI's International Terrorism Unit to neutralize known and suspected international terrorists living in the United States."

According to John Loftus, even after 9/11 "people in the intelligence community came and said-guys like Alamoudi and Sami al-Arian and other terrorists weren’t being touched because they’d been ordered not to investigate the cases, not to prosecute them, because there were being funded by the Saudis and a political decision was being made at the highest levels, don’t do anything that would embarrass the Saudi government.” He went on to say:

“[W]ho was it that fixed the cases? How could these guys operate for more than a decade immune from prosecution? And, the answer is coming out in a very strange place. What Alamoudi and al-Arian have in common is a guy named Grover Norquist. He's the super lobbyist. ...Grover Norquist's best friend is Karl Rove, the White House chief of staff, and apparently Norquist was able to fix things.”

Norquist started an Islamic lobbying group, the Islamic Institute, founded with seed money from Alamoudi. The group, according to Front Page Magazine, “has placed a number of questionable Muslim activists -- including the son of a Wahhabi preacher who helped Osama bin Laden's second in command raise money -- inside the Bush administration, including the White House, the Transportation Department and the Homeland Security Department, as well as other sensitive agencies.”

At first glance it may appear that a terrorist support network infiltrated the U.S. government through lobbying groups and companies such as the Islamic Institute and Ptech. There are, however, strong indications that such links went far beyond standard corruption, incompetence, and a desire not to embarrass the Saudis.

It has been well documented, yet drastically underreported, that throughout the 1980s and 1990s the U.S. government supported elements of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya, and elsewhere, giving rise to what is now known as 'al-Qaeda'.

The alleged 9/11 'paymaster', Omar Sheikh, for instance, was reportedly recruited out of the London School of Economics during the 1990s by the MI6 and CIA. Prior to 9/11, Sheikh was reportedly sent to Bosnia and later to Kosovo on behalf of Western intelligence. He was even offered a passport by the British government in 2000.

Similarly, it would appear that members of the Virginia-based network were also involved in such CIA-supported operations.

Alamoudi, and the founding director of his Islamic Institute, Khaled Saffuri, both raised funds to support Muslims in Bosnia during the civil war of the 1990s.

Yassin al-Qadi -- the Ptech owner, "chief money launderer" for Osama bin Laden, and 'friend' of Vice President Cheney -- also allegedy supported the Bosnian jihad.

Al-Qadi reportedly made a payment of $195,000 to Bosnia's wartime president, Alija Izetbegovic, in 1996, the same year Izetbegovic earned the "International Democracy Award" and the same year that Ptech began obtaining contracts with the U.S. government.

Former counterterrorism advisor Richard Clarke has testified before Congress that al-Qadi's charity, the Muwafaq foundation (which was allegedly used to funnel the cash to Izetbegovic), “reportedly transferred at least $3 million, on behalf of Khalid bin Mahfouz, to Usama bin Laden".

Khalid bin Mahfouz, who "established and funded" the Muwafaq foundation, was once the principal shareholder and director of BCCI, a "criminal enterprise" used by the CIA to "funnel cash through its Islamabad and other Pakistani branches to CIA client Osama bin Laden, part of the $2 billion Washington sent to the Afghani mujahideen."

Mahfouz's and al-Qadi's Muwafaq foundation, according to the congressional testimony of former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Jonathan M. Winer, provided direct support for terrorist activities in Afghanistan, Albania, Bosnia, and Chechnya—all areas where the CIA reportedly conducted operations of mutual interest.

Ptech, which al-Qadi owned, was reportedly used to launder drug profits for such CIA-sponsored 'al-Qaeda' operations. According to U.S. intelligence officials who spoke to 9/11 whistleblower Indira Singh, Ptech was a CIA front "on the level of Iran-Contra."

According to Singh, a CBS affiliate in Boston "paid for private investigators to follow a couple of the Ptech people, and it did go to a mob-run warehouse area and the reports came back that basically it was a drop shipment place for drugs."

Singh presented such information to Senator Chuck Grassley, who reportedly confirmed the most damning of allegations: "I told him (Sen. Grassley) that I had stumbled onto the drugs and they were giving a free pass to all those affiliated with terror financing for 9/11. ... We had a very in depth exchange where he basically broke down and admitted a lot of things to me...he corroborated that it's all corrupt...he told me you're right."

Sami al-Arian will likely to be held in contempt of court for refusing to proivde testimony regarding the network, possibly adding as much as 18 months to his prison term. According to his lawyers, al-Arian is afriad for his life and is unlikely to change his mind.

JFK and 9/11 - Insights Gained From Studying Both

2006-11-20T17:58:00.000-05:00

Professor Peter Dale Scott speaks at the COPA (Coalition on Political Assassinations) Regional Meeting in Dallas, Texas on Saturday. More at 911blogger.com.

Key Stories (11/19/06 - 11/20/06)

2006-11-20T17:46:00.000-05:00

Housing Bubble Smack-down --Dissident Voice

Judge: FBI must correct disclosures on evacuation of Saudis after 9/11 --Raw Story

The Next Act --The New Yorker (Seymour Hersh reminds us that Cheney & Co. play by their own rules, so while an attack on Iran appears less likely by the day, we must never rule out the 'wild card'.)

Senior Democrat renews call for military draft --Reuters

Another Coup in the Making in Venezuela? --Gringo in Venezuela (Alternative, permanent link.)

Corn: Changing Price Structure --Axcess News (If cellulosic ethanol really is 'right around the corner', then it better hurry up!)

"September 1, 2006 inventories of old crop U.S. corn totaled only 1.971 billion bushels, 41 million less than forecast in mid-September. The 2006 harvest is now estimated at 10.745 billion bushels, 369 million below the September forecast. The supply of U.S. corn for the current marketing year is 410 million bushels less than that projected two months ago."

Ethanol production spikes corn prices, high meat costs may be next --Northwest Indiana Times

Did the CIA kill Bobby Kennedy? --The Guardian

'Low Food Security'

2006-11-19T13:00:00.000-05:00

Key Stories (11/15/06 - 11/18/06)

2006-11-18T22:25:00.000-05:00

Bush's Chernobyl Economy; Hard Times are on the Way --Dissident Voice

A bigger economy doesn't always buy happiness --The Los Angeles Times (Yes, the LA Times!)

Young Barrowers Face A Life of Debt --AlterNet

Military may ask $127 billion for wars --USA Today

The Project for a 'New Middle East' --Global Research

Clear Evidence 2006 Congressional Election Hacked --OpEd News

Reviewed: Peter Lance's 9/11 Masterpiece --Truth Out (Jason Leopold takes interest in the Ali Mohammed story but fails to connect the dots. Ali Mohammed did not "infiltrate" or "hoodwink" U.S. intelligence. He was a CIA operative! That is how he accomplished 'his most stunning achievements'. )

"...Lance writes, Mohamed kept quiet about "his most stunning achievements," including how he avoided being caught in a State Department Watch List, enlisted in the US Army and was stationed at the same base where the Green Berets and Delta Force undergo training, and wooed a Silicon Valley medical technician, whom he married. In the courtroom, Mohamed, fluent in four languages, "didn't say a word about how he'd moved in and out of contract spy work for the CIA and fooled FBI agents for six years as he smuggled terrorists across US borders, and guarded the tall Saudi billionaire who had personally declared war on Americans: Osama bin Laden," Lance writes.
...Remarkably, Mohamed was never sentenced for the crimes he pleaded guilty to. He is in the witness protection program, his existence shrouded under a veil of secrecy."

UK 'ignored spy's al-Qaeda fear' --BBC News (Go here for more.)

U.S. identifies al-Qaida leader as key informant --Associated Press (Go here for more.)

Gonzales: Definition of 'freedom' is grave threat to U.S. security --CNN

Police state roundup! --AlterNet

Scientists: More research needed to balance food, energy needs --The Associated Press

Oil sands global warming threat, report says --The Calgary Sun

UCLA Student Repeatedly Tasered in Handcuffs

2006-11-18T19:37:00.000-05:00

Another 'double agent'

2006-11-18T18:27:00.000-05:00

An article published by the BBC Thursday states, “UK intelligence services were warned of the threat posed by al-Qaeda in the mid-90s but did not act quickly enough, says a spy who infiltrated the network.”

“Known by the pseudonym of Omar Nasiri,” the spy “worked for intelligence in the UK and France, and trained in Afghanistan,” where he met senior al-Qaeda figures, the BBC reported.

“The spy also said that to maintain his cover the French and UK services reluctantly gave him money to pass to al-Qaeda, and he did not know how the money was spent. When asked if he ever forgot he was a spy while in Afghanistan, ‘Omar’ replied: ‘Oh yeah, all the time.’”

As The New York Times, notes, the name Omar Nasiri is actually a “pseudonym for someone who lives in hiding at an undisclosed location abroad”. This one-time intelligence asset has written a book entitled, “Inside the Jihad: My Life with Al Qaeda, A Spy’s Story”.

This book will undoubtedly omit relevant information and mislead the reader on certain points, but it is still worth checking out.

“Nasiri's original motive for writing a book, he said, was revenge,” the Times reported.

“After seven years of dangerous work - principally for the Directorate-General of External Security in France - he said he felt hung out to dry by the Western agencies. The bombings of two American embassies in East Africa in 1998 left Nasiri appalled by the violence of Islamic terrorism but also uncomfortable at the role of the West.”

The book, according to the Times, “is replete with tales of phony passports, envelops stuffed with cash, and cloak-and-dagger meetings between Nasiri and his "handlers" in various European capitals.”

Along his travels, as the Times interestingly notes, Nasiri said “he encountered Abu Zubayda, a Palestinian who acted as a gatekeeper to some of the camps.”

Abu Zubayda, who was recently named as a “key informant” in the Jose Padilla trial, was, at the time of his encounters with Nasiri, also serving the interests of Western intelligence, arranging for fighters to travel from Afghanistan to Chechnya and Bosnia.

Furthermore, according to the BBC, Nasiri came into contact with Muslim cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri, who Nasiri asserts, “was given terror training in London.”

The article offers no explanation for why British authorities were permitting such activities to take place after they had supposedly ‘infiltrated’ the group.

It would appear Abu Hamza was also an asset of Western intelligence, originally fighting in Afghanistan against the Soviets, then against the Serbs in Bosnia, and later assisting with the recruitment and training of Islamic militants for operations in various other regions.

“Evidence collected by the American agencies shows that, as early as 1997, Hamza was organising terror camps in the Brecon Beacons, at an old monastery in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, and in Scotland, suggesting that he ran a far more extensive training network than has been officially acknowledged until now,” The Observer reported in February of this year.

Some of these camps were reportedly run with the direct assistance of ex-British soldiers.

According to The Observer, “Transcripts of interviews conducted with suspected al-Qaeda terrorists held by America in Guantánamo Bay reveal that the British ex-soldiers, some of whom fought in Bosnia, were recruited to train about 10 of Hamza's followers at the Brecon Beacons camp for three weeks in 1998.”

Even The Observer seemed to have trouble explaining all this. The paper could only make a guess: “the British security services were either unconcerned or ignorant about Hamza's activities, despite warnings that he was considered a risk from foreign governments and intelligence agencies as early as 1995.”

As usual, the most reasonable explanation—that British intelligence was complicit in such activities—was ignored completely.

Al-Qaeda leader key informant

2006-11-18T13:42:00.000-05:00

An Associated Press article Friday identified Abu Zubaydah, the one-time al-Qaeda leader turned secret CIA detainee, as a “key informant” in the Jose Padilla trial.

“A senior member of al-Qaida held for years at an undisclosed overseas CIA prison was a key source of information that led investigators to alleged terror operative Jose Padilla, federal prosecutors have disclosed,” the Associated Press reported.

“The informant, known previously only as "CS-1" in government court filings, was Abu Zubaydah, who was among a group of 14 top al-Qaida operatives and leaders who were transferred in September from the secret foreign prisons to the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.”

Abu Zubaydah has been useful to the US for a long time.

Zubaydah, as The Seattle Times has noted, originally “fought the Soviets in Afghanistan alongside Osama bin Laden. At 25, he was the emir of bin Laden's training camps, serving as gatekeeper and placement director. He set up cells, doled out money and helped coordinate al-Qaida's operations around the world.” These operations were carried out with the full support of the United States.

But even following the CIA-supported anti-Soviet jihad of the 1980s, Zubaydah continued exporting militants from Afghanistan.

“By this time,” according to The Seattle Times, “al-Qaida training was formalized. There was even a textbook, available in Arabic, French and other languages. The training incorporated methods American advisers had introduced to the Afghans in the 1980s in the war with the Soviets.”

This was more than blowback.

According to GlobalSecurity.org, Abu Zubaydah “arranged for fighters to travel from Afghanistan to Chechnya and Bosnia in the late 1990s and oversaw the "Khalden group" of training camps in Afghanistan between 1995 and 2000.” The CIA’s support for such elements of the ‘al-Qaeda’ network in Afghanistan, Chechnya, and Bosnia has been well documented.

Alleged attendees of the infamous “Khalden group” include 9/11 hijackers Mohammed Atta, Majed Moqed, and Satam al-Suqami, the so-called ‘20th hijacker’ Zacarias Moussaoui, and several of the alleged conspirators in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing plot, including the ‘mastermind’ Ramzi Yousef.

Scratching the Surface

2006-11-16T08:30:00.000-05:00

Writing for Spero News, Adrian Morgan scratches the surface of the CIA-supported al-Qaeda network:

"...Wahhabism was an alien ideology to the Muslims of former Yugoslavia, though in the Bosnian war of 1992 - 1995, it became imported by radical Muslims. These had been invited to the region by then-president Alija Izetbegovic. ... When the civil war began in 1992, he invited Mujahideen fighters to the region, incorporating them into the Bosnian army. ... Izetbegovic was portrayed by the Clinton administration as a moderate, though it was recently revealed that he was in the pay of a Saudi Al Qaeda operative, Yassin al-Khadi (Yassin al Qadi). Izetbegovic was also in direct communication with Osama bin Laden, according to British journalist Eve-Ann Prentice. ..."

Although it is rarely mentioned in the mainstream media, the United States did more than just portray Izetbegovic as a moderate, as the above article suggests. Izetbegovic and the Mujahideen fighters he invited to the region were the recipients of logistical, financial, and military support from the US.

As London's The Spectator has noted, "If Western intervention in Afghanistan created the mujahedin, Western intervention in Bosnia appears to have globalised it."

Indeed, several current and former top al-Qaeda militants and financers participated in the Bosnian civil war with the full support of the United States. It was, after all, for the Bosnian jihad that the 9/11 'paymaster', Omar Sheikh, was reportedly recruited to fight by the CIA and MI6.

As the above excerpt notes, it was recently revealed that Izetbegovic was "in the pay" of Yassin al-Qadi, a specially designated global terrorist and widely reported al-Qaeda financer. Izetbegovic reportedly received $195,000 from al-Qadi in 1996, the same year he earned the "International Democracy Award" from the Center for Democracy.

Alija Izetbegovic receives the 1996 International Democracy Award during a ceremony held at the United Nations on March 25, 1997.

Al-Qadi, in addition to financing the Bosnian jihad and acting as a "chief money launderer" for Osama bin Laden, owned a company called Ptech, which provided sophisticated software to several departments and agencies of the US government, including the Army, the Air Force, Naval Air Command, Congress, the Department of Energy, the Department of Justice, Customs, the FAA, the IRS, NATO, the FBI, the Secret Service, and the White House.

The same year (1996) al-Qadi was allegedly making payments to Izetbegovic, the al-Qaeda financer began obtaining contracts from the US government.

According to US intelligence officials who spoke to 9/11 whistleblower Indira Singh, Ptech was a "CIA clandestine op on the level of Iran-Contra." More after the fold...

Ptech was apparently used to launder drug money for covert operations. According to Singh, a CBS affiliate in Boston actually "paid for private investigators to follow a couple of the Ptech people, and it did go to a mob-run warehouse area and the reports came back that basically it was a drop shipment place for drugs."

Indira Singh presented her information to Senator Chuck Grassley, who reportedly confirmed the worse:

"I told him (Sen. Grassley) that I had stumbled onto the drugs and they were giving a free pass to all those affiliated with terror financing for 9/11. ... We had a very in depth exchange where he basically broke down and admitted a lot of things to me...he corroborated that it's all corrupt...he told me you're right."

As I noted in March:

"...Al-Qadi also maintained an unusually close relationship with notable US politicians. While attempting to defend Ptech, the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee of Massachusetts (ADCMA) revealed the fact that al-Qadi “was prominent in Washington circles and even showed President Jimmy Carter and Dick Cheney around during their visits to Saudi Arabia.”
Al-Qadi told an Arab newspaper in October of 2001 that he “spoke to [Dick Cheney] at length” and they “even became friends.” Similarly, while speaking with Computer World Magazine, Ptech cofounder Oussama Ziade said that al-Qadi “talked very highly of his relationship with [former President] Jimmy Carter and [Vice President] Dick Cheney." ..."

In 1998, FBI agent Robert Wright confiscated $1.4 million linked to al-Qadi, but astonishingly, according to The Boston Globe, al-Qadi "was so well respected that he escorted former President Jimmy Carter around a Saudi women's college in 2000."

Meanwhile, Agent Wright was "intentionally and repeatedly thwarted and obstructed" from arresting terrorists, seizing assets, and expanding his investigation into the financial network of which al-Qadi was a part. According to Wright, 9/11 could have been prevent had he been allowed to do his job.

Former counterterrorism advisor Richard Clarke has testified before Congress that al-Qadi's charity, the Muwafaq foundation (which was allegedly used to funnel cash to Izetbegovic), “reportedly transferred at least $3 million, on behalf of Khalid bin Mahfouz, to Usama bin Laden".

Key Stories (11/14/06)

2006-11-15T13:48:00.000-05:00

The Highjacking of a Nation, Part 1: The Foriegn Agent Factor --Sibel Edmonds (NSWBC)

US is top purveyor on weapons sales list --The Boston Globe

Corporate and Government Looting of the Gulf Coast --Truth Out

The Bush Administration's Trojan Horse: Robert Gates --Online Journal

Cleric Details CIA Abduction, Egyption Torture --The Washington Post

"His captors offered a deal: They would allow him to return to Italy if he agreed to become an informant. Nasr said he refused. As a result, he said, he was interrogated and physically abused for the next 14 months in two Cairo prisons."

Immigrants may be held indefinitely, may not challenge imprisonment --The Associated Press

Former CIA chief: 'Oil dependence threatens US, Israel' --The Jerusalem Post

Oilsands threaten water supply in Saskatchewan --Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

Rumsfeld, Vagabond

2006-11-15T13:20:00.000-05:00

From the great Mr. Fish...

The End of Suburbia

2006-11-15T09:20:00.000-05:00

This 52 minute version of "The End of Suburbia" is available free on YouTube for a limited time...

A Dark Day

2006-11-08T14:09:00.000-05:00

A seriously ill Mike Ruppert has announced the end of From The Wilderness. Today is truly a dark day. I am speechless. This video from the 2004 9/11 Citizens' Commission hearing is all I can think of posting. A tribute to Mike.

Response to 9/11 Press For Truth 'debunking'

2006-11-08T07:23:00.000-05:00

Below is an attempt by the blog, "Screw Loose Change," to dubunk the documentary 9/11 Press For Truth, followed by my response.

This is the hot new video in the 9-11 Denial Movement, although that seems a bit odd as the film does not (according to those who've seen it all) include any mention of the popular conspiracy theories, like the Bumble Planes or the missile into the Pentagon, or the controlled demolition at the World Trade Center. I am going to analyze the film in short bits; today I'll look at the first 10 minutes.

The film starts with a brief intro of clips from 9-11, including the initial CNN report and the crash of Flight 175 into the South Tower. It then jumps to President Bush. The music at this point is rather harsh and jarring in the background as the president gives his speech that evening. The image splits into two, then four then 9 and so on, distancing us from him.

We are introduced to three of the four Jersey Girls, 9-11 widows from the Garden State. Note particularly the soft music as they are introduced. The voice over notes that these widows had questions. At the top of their list is the question of "Why had the US military defenses failed to stop any of the four hijacked planes?"

Here the film engages in a little casual dishonesty. First we are shown a clip that the first hijacking was reported to the military at 8:38 AM (true). Then the announcer intones, "The last plane was reported to have crashed in Pennsylvania just after 10:00 AM (true enough, but the screen says 10:06, which is false; the 9-11 Commission concluded that the plane crashed at 10:03). One of the Jersey girls laughs and says, "That's almost two hours, that planes were flying around the skies of the United States with no military response."

And that is a lot of crap. First, even if we use their times, that's not even an hour and a half. And anyway, the question is not how long the air defenses had to react to all the hijackings, it's how long they had to react to each individual hijacking. As we know, that's not a very long time.

Flight 11: NEADS notified at 8:38. Crashed at 8:45.
Flight 175: NEADS notified at 9:03. Crashed at 9:03.
Flight 77: NEADS notified at 9:34. Crashed at 9:37.
Flight 93: NEADS notified at 10:07. Crashed at 10:03.

As you can see most advance warning that NEADS (Northeast Air Defense Sector, a unit of NORAD) had for any of the hijacked planes was seven minutes for Flight 11. The notion that our air defenses could have intercepted any of these planes with that little warning is completely unrealistic.

The movie then goes on to contrast this supposedly slow response by the military to the 1999 incident where air traffic controllers lost radio contact with Payne Stewart's plane. But in that incident air traffic control (PDF) got no response at 9:33 AM EDT. A Cubana Air flight tried to raise the plane at 9:38. According to the NTSB report on the plane crash the a military plane intecepted Stewart's jet at 9:54 CDT. That may sound like 21 minutes, but note the Time Zone change--it's actually an hour and 21 minutes. So the notion that the military did a crackerjack job with Payne Stewart, but was sluggish in response to 9-11 is just not borne out by the facts.

Next we comes a question about Bush's personal response on 9-11. Once again we get the creepy music; this documentary makes no bones about who's the villain of the piece, and it ain't Osama. We're shown a clip of Cheney talking about the Secret Service yanking him from the White House, and this is contrasted with Bush sitting in the classroom reading to the children, with I guess the implication being that the Secret Service screwed up by not pulling the President from the room. One of the Jersey girls helpfully asks, "If people fell down on the job, by not informing those who were in leadership positions, who had the power to do something, why were we not looking at our protocols so we could fix it going forward."

Of course, one assumes that the standing order since 9-12 is that if there is a terrorist attack again, the President is immediately to be pulled away from what he's doing. And as for that "power to do something", what exactly does she think he could do, run outside and shoot down the hijacked planes with a SAM?

So now we're two "questions" into the movie and they're asking about procedure changes in the event of a terrorist attack?

I actually agree with some of your overall views regarding the various sects of the so-called “9/11 Truth Movement”, but much of your own research is equally flawed and, more importantly, your approach is counterproductive.

There is absolutely no reason or justification for ridiculing members of the Family Steering Committee. They are simply searching for answers regarding the deaths of their loved ones, and they have presented several legitimate questions.

Trying to ‘shut them up’ with personal and poorly researched counterpoints is futile, and, dare I say, wrong.

Instead of wasting your efforts portraying the Jersey girls and other American citizens as brainwashed conspiracy theorists, why not spend some of your time actually analyzing the origins and motivations of the Family Steering Committee and the ‘9/11 Truth Movement’ as a whole?

If you take the time, you will discover that many so-called ‘conspiracy theorists’ are actually highly respectable and well-researched individuals that, in many cases, have uncovered explosive information.

By solely concentrating on any given social movement’s flaws and fringe elements, it is easy to convince oneself that the social movement is delusional and wrong, which is apparently your specialty.

This, of course, accomplishes nothing…except to provide a slight boost to your own self-confidence.

You want my advice?

Instead of blindly attempting to refute every conspiracy you come across, try objectively analyzing the evidence and picking out the ‘gold from the garbage’. Instead of stomping the Jersey girls into the ground, offer constructive criticism that could be used to improve and refine their cause.

Fight for the people, not for the institution.

Now for the facts…

"Why had the US military defenses failed to stop any of the four hijacked planes?"

Contrary to your viewpoint, this is a perfectly legitimate question.

You have the audacity to label Lorie Van Auken’s statement as a “lot of crap,” but you blatantly misinterpret her comments. As you yourself state, Van Auken said, "That's almost two hours that planes were flying around the skies of the United States with no military response."

From the first hijacking (about 8:13) to the downing of Flight 93 in Pennsylvania (10:03-10:06) is indeed nearly two hours.

Your contrasting viewpoint is based on inaccurate military notification times, along with the omission of ATC and FAA notification times, and the subsequent delayed responses to those notifications, all of which have yet to be explained by any government investigation.

You write, “The notion that our air defenses could have intercepted any of these planes with that little warning is completely unrealistic.”

But even General Ralph Eberhart testified before the 9/11 Commission that the Air Force could have intercepted and shot down all of the planes, that is, if the FAA had immediately alerted the military as standard procedures require. Eberhart was asked by the Commission…
“…would it have been physically possible, if everything had gone right in terms of communication of information and communication of orders -- would it still physically have been possible for the military pilots to have shot down either the plane that hit the first World Trade tower, or the plane that hit the second World Trade tower, or the plane that hit the Pentagon?

GEN. EBERHART: …if that is the case, yes, we could shoot down the airplanes. …”
So what exactly interfered with “communication of information and communication of orders”?

For one, all of STRATCOM, in coordination with several military and civilian branches of government, including the FAA, were participating in a massive military exercise, which included the use of an alternative communication/command system, a fact the 9/11 Commission avoided completely.

The exercise, known as Global Guardian, was conducted in conjunction with several related exercises, such as NORAD’s Vigilant Guardian, which included at least one hijacking scenario roughly scheduled for the same time as the attacks.

As for the military notification times you have listed, they are all in dispute, and some have been proven wrong, which is exactly why a new and independent investigation is warranted.

If you wish, I can elaborate further on any of these issues. I also welcome your criticism, but please refrain from name-calling and personal attacks.

As for your bit on Payne Stewart, standard scramble and interception procedures were and are executed on a regular basis, as documented in 9/11 Press For Truth and omitted from your review. Payne Stewart is just one example.

NORAD maintained 14 ‘alert sites’ in the United States, each with two fighters that could be scrambled within five minutes notice, but standard procedures were not followed on 9/11 and, consequently, not one of the hijacked flights was intercepted.

More to the point, you neglect to mention the fact that the information presented in 9/11 Press For Truth regarding the Payne Stewart incident is provided by an ABC news clip, which states, "just 25 minutes into the flight, controllers lost radio contact with the pilot and an Air Force F-16 on a training mission was sent to take a look.”

You claim to refute ABC’s above statement, citing an NTSB report and an apparent time zone discrepancy.

The fighters referred to in the ABC report, however, were from Tyndall Air Force Base, while the fighters you are referring to (and referred to in the NTSB report) were scrambled from Eglin Air Force Base.

As Knight-Ridder reported, “according to an Air Force timeline, a series of military planes provided an emergency escort to the stricken Lear, beginning with a pair of F-16 Falcons from the Air National Guard at Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla., about 20 minutes after ground controllers lost contact.”

This is corroborated by a separate ABC report, which states, “According to an Air Force summary, after contact was initially lost, two F-15s from Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla., were sent to track the Learjet.”

The AP timeline confirms the Tyndall scramble order at 10:08, Eastern Time, “Two F-16s from Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla., were airborne on routine mission when diverted to provide the initial escort.”

Further confirmation comes from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, which reported, “At 10:08, Eastern time, at the FAA's request, two F-16 Air Force fighter jets scrambled from Tyndall Air Force Base to overtake and visually inspect the unresponsive Learjet.”

Note that some reports place the loss of contact at 9:34, while others place the time at 9:44. Regardless, your analysis is, to barrow a phrase, ‘a lot of crap’.

I do not know why the NTSP report does not mention the Tyndall fighters, but a measure of time and distance makes clear that the scramble order was indeed placed much earlier than you claim.

Furthermore, loss of contact with a commercial passenger airliner is considered far more serious than loss of contact with a private Learjet, and there are and were standard procedures for dealing with such a situation—procedures that, for whatever reason, were apparently not followed and/or obstructed on 9/11.

This issue certainly deserves further scrutiny.

Your third point regarding President Bush is nothing but a half-witted shot in the dark, so I won’t even waste time going into detail regarding the Secret Service’s and Bush’s lack of action, but there is one point worth mentioning.

You say, “And as for that "power to do something", what exactly does she think he (the President) could do, run outside and shoot down the hijacked planes with a SAM?”

If you dedicated just a fraction of your time to research instead of crafting sarcasm you would have quickly discovered that the only person with the authority to order a commercial aircraft shot down is the President. That is his “power to do something”.

9/11 Paymaster Video

2006-11-05T17:41:00.000-05:00

Larger version available here. Keep in mind, this is my first try.

Video on the way...

2006-10-31T17:15:00.000-05:00

I apologize for the lack of posts. I am still working on my first 'video blog/article', which should be completed within a couple of days. Stay posted.

Musharraf names 9/11 suspect as possible British asset

2006-10-26T08:18:00.000-04:00

My latest article is now available at From The Wilderness...

October 25th 2006, 4:47 [PST] - The man identified by the FBI as one of the primary financers of the 9/11 attacks, Omar Sheikh, may have worked for British intelligence during the 1990s, according to a newly released book by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.

“It is believed in some quarters that while Omar Sheikh was at the LSE (London School of Economics) he was recruited by the British intelligence agency MI6,” Musharraf writes in his book, In the Line of Fire: A Memoir. “It is said,” Musharraf notes, “that MI6 persuaded him to take an active part in demonstrations against Serbian aggression in Bosnia and even sent him to Kosovo to join the jihad.”

The man in question, Omar Sheikh, became infamous in 2002 when he was sentenced to death for the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, a crime Musharraf and several others claim Omar did not commit.

While Omar Sheikh’s reported ties to Pearl’s death have been making headlines for years, his alleged links to 9/11, as well as to Pakistani and Western intelligence agencies, have gone significantly underreported.

Similarly, several key points have been omitted from Musharraf’s book, perhaps in an attempt to cover up embarrassing and possibly criminal activities of Pakistani and US officials.

Musharraf’s book does not mention Omar Sheikh’s alleged role in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, nor does it mention Omar’s widely reported connections to Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the ISI, nor does mention Omar’s alleged history with the CIA.

A brief review of such details would have revealed startling information. ...

Full story available here.

Back in a week...

2006-10-23T05:21:00.000-04:00

I've had trouble finding a place to publish my most recent article. It would appear that even the so-called 'alternative' press is afraid of rocking the boat too hard.

The 'round up' will be on hold for a few days (maybe a week) while I work on some new ideas.

I realize much of the information in my articles is lengthy and hard to digest. But if I convert it into a video and slap it on YouTube, maybe the information will start getting the attention it deserves. I have some 'skills' (as Napoleon Dynamite would call them) in music and video production, so I figure what the hell, it is worth a shot.

Keep posted for the new article and the accompanying video. I hope to have the prior published (although I don't know where) by the beginning of next week.

Round up...

2006-10-19T23:37:00.000-04:00

Washington's Worst-Kept Secret: Changes Are Coming in Iraq Policy --Time Magazine (Will Baker propose dividing up Iraq?)

White House nixes partitioning Iraq --The Associated Press

Ghost Plane: The True Story of the CIA Torture Program --Democracy Now!

Govt. Death Squads Ravaging Baghdad --Inter Press Service

GIs face worst Iraq toll in 21 months, situation expected to get even worse --The Chicago Tribune

Review says propaganda in Iraq was legal --The Associated Press

Former CIA Officer Robert Steele Reviews Tarpley's 'Synthetic Terror' --9/11 Blogger

Judge Orders Cheney To Say Who Visited Him --The Associated Press

General Pace: Rumsfeld 'is inspired by God' --Agence France-Presse

Terror Suspect Says CIA Recruited Him --The Associated Press

U.S. citizen indicted for supporting U.S.-supported 'terrorist' group

2006-10-18T23:56:00.000-04:00

The utter hypocrisy of the so-called ‘war on terror’ is enough to make a person physically ill these days.

Zeinab Taleb-Jedi, as Online Journal contributing writer Mickey Z describes her, is a “95-pound, 51-year-old homeless Iranian widow with severe digestive problems…Armed only with a tattered coffee cup, a shopping cart overflowing with newspapers, and a name that will make Hollywood drool.”

Jedi, who currently lives in a Manhattan homeless shelter, has recently been indicted on federal charges for allegedly “providing material support” to the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), an officially designated terrorist organization.

This homeless (and apparently harmless) woman is currently the subject of a highly publicized FBI terrorist investigation, yet, while she faces a sentence of 15 years in prison for allegedly supporting the MEK, several influential Washington figures openly support the MEK without facing any consequences whatsoever.

In fact, according to reports from earlier this year, the Bush Administration has been using the MEK to orchestrate attacks and collect intelligence inside Iran.

Just this March, according to U.S. officials who spoke to the reputable online publication Raw Story, U.S.-sponsored MEK militants attacked and killed 22 Iranian officials in Iran’s southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchistan. These operatives were reportedly being “run” by the Pentagon under the instructions of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney.

It appears, however, that the Bush Administration is allowed to get away with murder (literally) while federal resources are used to prosecute a homeless widow from New York City who is allegedly affiliated with the White House’s weapon.

Round up...

2006-10-18T23:10:00.000-04:00

VIDEO: Clip from documentary Eternal Vigilance --Brad Blog

Peace Activists Beware: Homeland Security May Be Reading Your E-Mail and Passing it on to the Pentagon --The Progressive

Report Spells Out Abuses by Former Congressman Cunningham --The New York Times

Bob Ney, Guilty but Still at Capitol --The New York Times

"...The refusal to resign means that Mr. Ney can continue to draw on his $165,200-a-year salary, equivalent to $3,176 for each week he remains in the House, and his Congressional expense account, and to make use of a suite of offices on Capitol Hill, as well as four offices in his district in southeastern Ohio..."

Bush says he may ignore new war-funding law --The Air Force Times

Congressmen, intelligence officials do not know difference between Shiites and Sunnis --The New York Times

"...Take Representative Terry Everett, a seven-term Alabama Republican who is vice chairman of the House intelligence subcommittee on technical and tactical intelligence.

“Do you know the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite?” I asked him a few weeks ago.

Mr. Everett responded with a low chuckle. He thought for a moment: “One’s in one location, another’s in another location. No, to be honest with you, I don’t know. I thought it was differences in their religion, different families or something.” ..."

Round up...

2006-10-17T23:32:00.000-04:00

Proposing Plan C: Report on the Third U.S. Conference on Peak Oil and Community Solutions --The Community Solution

Energy Depletion & the US Descent into Fascism (PDF) --Mountain Sentinel (Dale Allen Pfeiffer)

Against An Imperial Internet --TomPaine.com (Bill Moyers and Scott Fogdall)

Academia Signs Up to Track Dissent --Truth Out

"...A regime openly committed to wielding arbitrary power over the life and liberty of every person on earth is now equipping itself with intrusive technology beyond the wildest dreams of the most totalitarian states in history. And some of the nation's most respected educational institutions - proud bastions of civilization and enlightenment - are helping them do it..."

Web could be terror training camp: Chertoff --Reuters

"Disaffected people living in the United States may develop radical ideologies and potentially violent skills over the Internet and that could present the next major U.S. security threat, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said on Monday..."

Former ISI head says U.S. assisted in Pakistani coup --United Press International

Dark Days Ahead --Truth Out

"...three years after a devastating blackout left 50 million people in the dark in the Northeastern United States and parts of Canada for nearly three days, and forced the closure of the New York Stock Exchange, nothing substantial has been done to overhaul the country's dilapidated power grid..."

Bush opposes three-way partition of Iraq --Agence France-Presse (This could become the Democrats' platform in 2008. It appears pulling out won't even be considered.)

Bush's Petro-Cartal Almost Has Iraq's Oil --AlterNet

First Bush-appointed election chair say 'no standards' for e-voting devices, system 'ripe for stealing elections' --Brad Blog

Rep. Doolittle Paid Lawyer Thousands in Connection to Abramoff Investigation --Associated Press

Round up...

2006-10-14T22:03:00.000-04:00

Sowing the Seeds of Fascism in America --Stan Goff via Truthdig

Will Google Take the Internet Over the Cliff --Alternet

"...Web activists envision a medium that will always support social change and can serve as a platform to distribute diverse points of view. But if the economic relationships between the old and new media are allowed to dominate online culture, what guarantees do we have that the Internet will continue to be the 'people's' medium?..."

The Peak Oil Crisis: Turning Points --Tom Whipple

Shiites Accused of Using Dirty Tricks --The Associated Press

"Sunni politicians accused Shiite lawmakers Thursday of using dirty tricks to push through a new law on federalism, a landmark measure that will transform Iraq by allowing Shiites to form a self-rule mini-state in the south. ..."

NATO backs Pakistan deal with Taliban --The Australian

Despite Critics, Pakistan May Expand Tribal Deal --National Public Radio

Documents Reveal Scope of U.S. Database on Antiwar Protests --The New York Times

Report Says Nonprofits Sold Influence to Abramoff --The Washington Post

Scandal Grows Over Backdating Of Options --The Washington Post

"The heads of three well-known technology companies (Cnet, McAfee, & Monster) lost their jobs this week... The three are the latest of at least 135 companies to acknowledge or be investigated for backdating stock options..."

AP, networks sue over new laws banning exit polling in Fla., Nev. --The Associated Press

Video: GOP 'uses evangelicals for their votes' --Raw Story, YouTube

Round up...

2006-10-11T23:13:00.000-04:00

Iraqi parliament approves law to divide country --Reuters

Death Toll of Iraqis Exceeds 600,000, Report Says --Bloomberg

Nearly 900,000 Iraqis have fled country, additional 300,000 forced to move --AP

US military 'turns blind eye to killings' --Inter Press Service

Army: Troops to Stay in Iraq Until 2010 --AP (Sounds too optimistic to me.)

Treasury Secretary Paulson Aims to Protect Corporate Criminals --Bloomberg

40 countries face food shortages worldwide --Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN

Water for millions at risk as glaciers melt away --The Guardian

VIDEO: Oil, Smoke & Mirrors --Documentary via Google Video (Peak Oil, 9/11 and the 'war on terror')

HBO to Premier 'Hacking Democracy' Just Prior to November Election! --Brad Blog

Evangelical Psycho Crook w/ Connections

2006-10-11T19:00:00.000-04:00

The Cleveland Plain Dealer ran an almost humorous story on Monday regarding the evangelical preacher and apparent spiritual advisor of Dennis Hastert, K.A. Paul. The opening paragraphs were as follows:

"Voters should oust congressional Republican leaders because U.S. foreign policy is delaying the second coming of Jesus Christ, according to a evangelical preacher trying to influence closely contested political races.

K.A. Paul railed against the war in Iraq on Sunday before a crowd of 1,000 at the New Spirit Revival Center in Cleveland Heights, his first stop on what he hopes is a 30-city campaign."

This is the same guy who claims he has convinced Hastert to step down over the Foley scandal. Today, Mother Jones reports:

"...The two men (Paul and Hastert) withdrew into a private room where, Paul says, he launched into a sermon about what Hastert should do. Paul told Mother Jones that he cited politicians whose reputations suffered when they resisted stepping down: Donald Rumsfeld, Tom DeLay, Bill Clinton. “I said ‘If you don’t do that, the Republicans will lose control of the Congress, you will no longer be Speaker in 30 days, and at the same time they will all blame you because of Foley scandal. You want that for you? You want that to be your life legacy after accomplish so many good things?’ So that’s what convinced him.” ..."

In addition to Hastert, Rumsfeld, Delay, and Clinton, Paul claims to have advised quite the cast of foreign characters as well. Also from today's Mother Jones article:

"Paul boasts that he convinced Liberian ex-dictator Charles Taylor to resign his office; he claims to have ministered to Saddam Hussein, Muammar al-Khaddafi, and Slobodan Milosevic, and to have known al-Qaeda’s Abu Musab al-Zarqawi 'when he was nobody."

Sounds like bull, right? Maybe not. In 2003, The New Yorker reported:

"Charles Taylor, having laid waste to Liberia, has been trying to set the record straight about who persuaded him to surrender his Presidency and go into exile in Nigeria. "I will say that 99% of [the credit] goes to Dr. K. A. Paul alone," he wrote on August 16th, in a letter to the Times.

...Dr. Paul even claims that he arranged, late last year, for Saddam Hussein and his two sons to leave Iraq. But the Bush White House blew it. “I called Karl Rove and left a message. I waited two weeks, but I heard nothing."

It seems The Houston Press is the only media outlet to have looked at Dr. K.A. Paul in any depth. And as you might expect, the deeper one looks, the dirtier he gets. Read on.

Round up...

2006-10-09T22:59:00.000-04:00

America ponders cutting Iraq in three --The Sunday Times

New Orleans Population Reduced Nearly 60% --The New York Times

Contractors in Afghanistan are making big money for bad work --CorpWatch

Musharraf faces new questions over Taliban --The Guardian

U.S. Senate majority leader calls for efforts to bring Taliban into Afghan government --AP

Report: Thousands wrongly on terror list --AP

Peak Oil: Yet another 'inconvenient truth' --Catalyst Magazine

White House worried terror ops will be exposed

2006-10-07T12:58:00.000-04:00

The Bush Administration is apparently nervous that their proxy operations in Iran will soon be publicly exposed. Iran's Fars News Agency reports:

"...Asked why the US State and Defense Secretaries have refrained from attending a congress meeting to reveal whether the US army has initiated to lunch any illegal operations inside Iran, he (State Department spokesman Curtis Cooper) said he was not informed of the issue, adding that no reason has been mentioned by the two US Secretaries for their absence from the 'Growing Terrorist Threats' Committee of the congress.

Several congressmen have so far called on the US State and Defense Secretaries officials to brief the congress about the army's operations inside Iranian soil, but each time officials of the US administration have refrained from attending the meeting.

A retired US colonel recently said in a TV interview that the reason underlying absence of the Defense and State Secretaries officials in such meetings pertains to the White House worries about the disclosure of the illegal operations of the US army inside Iran and the army's use of the anti-revolutionary Mojahedin-e Khaq Organization (MKO) in the reconnaissance operations on the Iranian soil. ..."

See previous coverage of this story here, here, and here.

Article in the works...

2006-10-05T13:24:00.000-04:00

I have been working on a few different things this week and haven't had time to post. However I have just completed a 9/11-related article that I hope to get published by next Monday (although I'm not sure where). The 'round up' will also return on Monday. Keep posted.

Round up...

2006-09-28T07:44:00.000-04:00

Earth's temperature nears million-year high --Reuters

Al Qaeda gains recruits from Iraq war: UN study --Reuters

The 9/11 Report and Ali Mohamed, Al Qaeda's Chief Terrorism Trainer --Peter Dale Scott via 911blogger.com

Most Iraqis Favor Immediate U.S. Pullout, Polls Show --The Washington Post

New Poll Says Majority of Iraqis Approve of Attacks on U.S. Forces --ABC News

Afghan suicide bombers soar as Taliban blame outsiders --The Herald

Congressman Wants FBI Anthrax Briefing --AP (Interesting how this common 'conspiracy theory' prevented an investigation of the real suspects, don't you think?)

"In his letter to Mueller, Holt said the FBI's failure to determine what kind of anthrax was used meant that 'resources were diverted and countless agents wasted their time investigating a small pool of suspects, instead of the broader search we now know was needed.'

...Beecher recently wrote an article in a scientific journal saying there was 'a widely circulated misconception" that the anthrax spores were made using additives and sophisticated engineering akin to military weapons production.'"

CIA Mole Killed in Basra --Kurt Nimmo

Second NIE Covered Up? --MSNBC via Crooks & Liars

Emergency Paper Ballot Legislation Introduced in Senate --Brad Blog

Emergency Paper Ballot Legislation Introduced in House --Brad Blog

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Hardball --MSNBC via YouTube

Round up...

2006-09-26T07:17:00.000-04:00

Ex-military officers criticize Rumsfeld --AP (Full video here, requires Real Player)

Army Warns Rumsfeld It's Billions Short --LA Times

"According to a senior Army official involved in budget talks, Schoomaker is now seeking $138.8 billion in 2008, nearly $25 billion above budget limits originally set by Rumsfeld. The Army's budget this year is $98.2 billion, making Schoomaker's request a 41% increase over current levels."

Proposal to carve up Iraq moves forward --AP

Torture Victim Had No Terror Link, Canada Told US --The New York Times (This case illustrates exactly why the 'compromise bill' will be ineffective. The legislation is nothing but a political tool for fake 'Rebel Republicans'.)

Sources complain of US involvement in Afghan opium trade --Wayne Madsen Report (Sept. 24/25)

Disinformation used to diffuse controversy regarding Pakistan-Taliban relations --Wayne Madsen Report (Sept. 24/25) (Ruppert concurs)

CIA paid millions for Al-Qaeda prisoners: Musharraf --AFP

Losing Afghanistan --Newsweek

'SLINGIN MUD' --Tampa Bay Scene via Brad Blog (Curtis/Feeney/Lemme/vote-rigging software story gets coverage.)

Round up...

2006-09-24T08:42:00.000-04:00

Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Worsens Terrorism Threat --The New York Times

Omar role in truce reinforces fears that Pakistan 'caved in' to Taliban --The Telegraph

NSA Whistle-blower Says He Has Lost His Livelihood --ABC (The Blotter)

New Anthrax Theory Offered --Hartford Courant (New? This is 'Déjà Vu'. Contradicting stories, never any answers.)

New US Plot against Cuba, Venezuela --Prensa Latina

Round up...

2006-09-21T23:50:00.000-04:00

Pentagon moves to second-stage planning for Iran strike option --Raw Story (Are the hawks really this crazy or are these leaks just meant to send a message?)

Who benefits from the Afghan Opium Trade? --Global Research

Ties to GOP Trumped Know-How Among Staff Sent to Rebuild Iraq --The Washington Post

Papers Show Bush Allies' Inside Access --AP

"The records showed Reed and [Grover] Norquist had extensive access to presidential aides, with at least 115 appointments at the White House since 2001. In some instances, Norquist stayed inside the White House for between eight hours and 12 hours at a time, the documents show."

Video: Extraordinary Rendition, Torture and Disappearances in the "War on Terror" --Information Clear House, witness.org

EMAILS: Bush Officials Blocked Scientist From Discussing Global Warming/Hurricane Link --Think Progress

The Secret Room, The Bush Administration's Surveillance Game --New American Media

Will the Next Election Be Hacked? --Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Jesus Camp --ABC via YouTube

Round up...

2006-09-19T05:44:00.000-04:00

British Army expert casts doubt on 'liquid explosives' threat, Al-Qaeda network in UK revealed --Raw Story (Nafeez Ahmed)

Kill the Messenger --NSWBC

Tom Hayden: Withdraw from Iraq Or Carve It Up? --Huffington Post (Tom Hayden)

Retired Col. Sam Gardiner says we're in Iran right now --CNN video via Crooks & Liars (See Terror Ops Underway in Iran and Iraq plans to remove Penaton's proxy force)

IRS watches churches in mid-term campaign --UPI

Round up...

2006-09-17T23:44:00.000-04:00

Ties With Terror: The Continuity of Western-Al-Qaeda Relations in the Post Cold-War Period --Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed reposted by 911blogger.com [Full Transcript/Report of the 9/11 Commission Report One Year Later]

What the 9/11 Families are Saying --The Cutting Edge

Close Associate of Mohamed Atta Surfaces in South Pacific --Daniel Hopsicker

Spy Agencies Outsourcing to Fill Key Jobs --LA Times

Trails of a global proliferation network cover-up --Wayne Madsen (Sept. 17-18)

Rumsfeld's Fake News Flop in Iraq --AlterNet (Excerpt from The Best War Ever)

Stealing an election in less than a minute --Princeton University [full report] (Clint Curtis video: always a good watch)

Major Problems At Polls Feared --Washington Post

Round up...

2006-09-14T22:14:00.000-04:00

Anthrax victim's widow says government may know who killed husband --Palm Beach Post

9/11 Live or Fabricated: Do the NORAD Tapes Verify the 9/11 Commission Report? --911truth.org (David Ray Griffin)

IAEA: U.S. report on Iran's nuclear plan 'outrageous and dishonest' --Haaretz & Reuters

Novak Accuses Plame Source Of Distortion --The Washington Post

"In an unusual column that appears today, Novak says his initial source, former deputy secretary of state Richard L. Armitage, was more sure of Plame's ties to the CIA than the source has indicated. Novak adds that Armitage linked her directly to her husband's CIA-sponsored trip to Niger and suggested the disclosure would be a good item for Novak's column.

This differs from Armitage's assertions last week that his disclosure was made in an offhand manner and that he did not know why Plame's husband was sent to Niger."

West responsible for extremism: Musharraf --ANI

Bush Tells Barnes Capturing Bin Laden Is 'Not A Top Priority' --Think Progress

Official Touts Nonlethal Weapons for Use --AP

"Nonlethal weapons such as high-power microwave devices should be used on American citizens in crowd-control situations before they are used on the battlefield, the Air Force secretary said Tuesday.

Domestic use would make it easier to avoid questions in the international community over any possible safety concerns, said Secretary Michael Wynne."

Starving the People To Feed the Cars --The Washington Post (Good to see Lester Brown staying on the ball and spreading the word. I just hope people start waking up. In my opinion, this is one of the biggest obstacles we face in regards to the energy dilemma.)

Ten big news stories you aren't hearing --Market Watch

Round up...

2006-09-13T10:47:00.000-04:00

Interrogating 9/11 Fives Years On --New Dawn Magazine (Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed)

Palast Charged with Journalism of the First Degree --Guerrilla News Network (Greg Palast)

Iraqi elections believed to have worsened divisions, report says --McClatchy Newspapers

"Iraq's political process has sharpened the country's sectarian divisions, polarized relations between its ethnic and religious groups, and weakened its sense of national identity, the Government Accountability Office said Monday.

In spite of a sharp increase in Sunni-Shiite violence, however, attacks on U.S.-led coalition forces are still the primary source of bloodshed in Iraq, the report found.

... The report, citing the Pentagon, said that enemy attacks against coalition and Iraqi forces increased by 23 percent from 2004 to 2005 and that the number of attacks from January to July 2006 were 57 percent higher than during the same period in 2005.

A graph showed that the number of attacks rose from around 100 in May 2003 to roughly 4,500 in July 2006."

Sadr Holds Out Against Plan to Divide Iraq --The Washington Post

Monsanto Whistleblower Says Genetically Engineered Crops May Cause Disease --Institute for Responsible Technology

Redesigning Crops to Harvest Fuel --The New York Times

Afghanistan ready to flood Europe with first-grade heroin --RIA Novosti

"God blessed America, and look what we did with it."

2006-09-11T23:47:00.000-04:00

Donna Marsh O'Conner...

Full video available here (requires Real Player).

Round up...

2006-09-11T22:20:00.000-04:00

Worried CIA Officers Buy Legal Insurance --The Washington Post

"The new enrollments reflect heightened anxiety at the CIA that officers may be vulnerable to accusations they were involved in abuse, torture, human rights violations and other misconduct, including wrongdoing related to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

...One former intelligence official said CIA officers have recently expressed concern that lawsuits will erupt if details of the agency's internal probe of wrongdoing related to the September 2001 attacks become public."

As violence escalates, so does talk of a divided Iraq --Christian Science Monitor

Deal on a Constitution for Iraq Is Teetering --NY Times

The Best War Ever --Sheldon Rampton & John Stauber

Ptech owner making headlines in Turkey, Bosnia

2006-09-10T10:07:00.000-04:00

"Prime Ministry insists on al-Qadi’s assets remaining frozen," Turkish Daily News, September 6, 2006:

"The Prime Ministry has appealed a Council of State 10th Bureau decision to suspend a Cabinet resolution freezing the assets of Yasin al-Qadi, a Saudi businessman and reputed al-Qaeda financier on Sept. 1, it was reported on Tuesday.

...The Council of State 10th Bureau had ordered the return of the assets, a decision that was made on technical grounds. Due to the appeal, the case will now go to the Council of State Administrative Cases Council.

...The decision came after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s defense of al-Qadi as a “philanthropist,” for which he was criticized. “I know Yasin and I believe in him as I believe in myself,” Erogan told NTV in an interview on July 11. “It is not possible for him to establish ties with a terrorist organization and support it. … He is a person who has no specialty other than being a philanthropist.”

...The Turkish media has accused Erdogan’s government of blocking an investigation into reported money transfers to al-Qadi in the late ‘90s by one of his top advisors.

The Republican People’s Party (CHP) last week filed a criminal complaint against eight people, including al-Qadi, Erdogan’s advisor Cüneyd Zapsu, Abdulaziz Zapsu, Mustafa Latif Topbas, Mehmet Fatih Sarac, Ibrahim Halit Cizmeci, Wa’el Julaidan and Gaye Zapsu for laundering money and financing terrorism.

The assets of al-Qadi, who heads the Saudi-based Muwafaq Foundation, also were frozen by the European Union. U.S. Treasury officials allege the organization he heads is an al-Qaeda front used to funnel millions of dollars to the global terror organization."

“WEEKLY CLAIMS WARTIME BOSNIAN PRESIDENT LINKED TO AL-QAEDA,” AKI, September 8, 2006:

“Bosnia's wartime president, the late Alija Izetbegovic received money from a Saudi businessman, Yassin al-Kadi - who has been designated by the United States, the United Nations, and the European Union as a financier of al-Qaeda - Sarajevo weekly Slobodna Bosna (Free Bosnia) has reported, quoting local and foreign sources.

Izetbegovic, a Muslim, who died in 2003, received 195,000 dollars in 1996 from al-Kadi, Slobodna Bosna alleges.

The weekly said that Bosnian authorities obtained the information on this transaction from a British bank in the process of investigation of activities of al-Kadi’s humanitarian organisation, Mufavak…

… Izetbegovic led Bosnia to independence from the former Yugoslavia, and thousands of foreign fighters or 'mujahadeen' from Islamic countries came to Bosnia to fight on the side of local Muslims in bloody 1992-1995 civil war. The war effort was partly financed under the cover of 'humanitarian' organisations from Islamic countries, according to intelligence sources. …”

Round up...

2006-09-09T16:38:00.000-04:00

Eustis chief: Iraq post-war plan muzzled --The Daily Press

"Months before the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld forbade military strategists from developing plans for securing a post-war Iraq, the retiring commander of the Army Transportation Corps said Thursday.

In fact, said Brig. Gen. Mark Scheid, Rumsfeld said "he would fire the next person" who talked about the need for a post-war plan. ..."

Iraq's Alleged Al-Qaeda Ties Were Disputed Before War --The Washignton Post (Read the two released sections of "Phase II" here. If we are lucky, the rest of the report might be finished before 2020.)

Discover the Secret Right-Wing Network Behind ABC's 9/11 Deception --Huffington Post (Max Blumenthal) (The widespread partisan bickering surrounding this whole fiasco is making me ill, but this article is certainly worth checking out, as it identifies the source of the controversy.)

Where was Osama on September 11, 2001? --Global Research

Round up...

2006-09-08T08:01:00.000-04:00

Palast, Pascarella Face Homeland Security Charges --GregPalast.com

Pentagon Spends Billions to Outsource Torture --AlterNet

Documents: Feds, City Knew Of Ground Zero Toxins --WCBS-TV

In the Iraqi war zone, US Army calls for 'green' power --Christian Science Monitor (The depth of irony here is almost humorous.)

US plans to 'fight the net' revealed --BBC

White House Targets Conspiracy Theorists As Terrorist Recruiters --Prison Planet

"Smoking gun" evidence uncovered in Ohio of massive vote fraud in 2004 election --Wayne Madsen

Rep. Jim Cooper: Bush is Hiding the True National Debt. It's Worse than You've Heard. Much Worse. --Buzz Flash

Tax Hunters LTD: Hired Duns Take Over Your Taxes --Dissident Voice

Panel Set to Release Just Part of Report On Run-Up to War --Washington Post (The 'Phase II' cover up continues)

Round up...

2006-09-07T07:02:00.000-04:00

Empire of Oil: Capitalist Dispossession and the Scramble for Africa --Monthly Review

Book says CIA tried to provoke Saddam to war --The Guardian

"More than a year before the invasion of Iraq the CIA devised a plan, codenamed Anabasis, to use Iraqi exile fighters to seize an air base and declare a revolt against Saddam Hussein in the hope that his response would create a pretext for war, according to a book published tomorrow.

...the CIA-backed fighters carried out sabotage operations and assassinations of Ba'athist officials in the run-up to the war, the book, called Hubris, reports.

...Planning on Anabasis, which cost $400m (£210m), started at the end of 2001 and was approved by President Bush in February 2002.

...According to the book, the CIA flew 80 former Iraqi soldiers into the US in the summer of 2002, and trained them at an energy department nuclear test site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. ..."

Sunnis enraged as Iraq prepares to divide itself into regions --The Telegraph

Scientists See New Global Warming Threat --AP

"New research is raising concerns that global warming may be triggering a self-perpetuating climate time bomb trapped in once-frozen permafrost.
...Scientists are fretting about a global warming vicious cycle that had not been part of their already gloomy climate forecasts: Warming already under way thaws permafrost, soil that had been continuously frozen for thousands of years.

Thawed permafrost releases methane and carbon dioxide. Those gases reach the atmosphere and help trap heat on Earth in the greenhouse effect. The trapped heat thaws more permafrost, and so on.
...Another study earlier this summer in the journal Science found that the amount of carbon trapped in this type of permafrost - called yedoma - is much more prevalent than originally thought and may be 100 times the amount of carbon released into the air each year by the burning of fossil fuels. ..."

Pakistan's Denies Bin Laden Gets a Pass --ABC (The Blotter)

Round up...

2006-09-06T07:13:00.000-04:00

(Note: I do not endorse ALL of the conclusions and opinions expressed in the articles posted here each day. These articles are posted because I believe each source presents valuable information and a unique perspective. When it comes to 9/11 research in particular, there is enough room for everybody, including Michael Ruppert, Daniel Hopsicker, Peter Lance, and the '9/11 Truth Movement' as a whole, despite the feuds among them.)

THE 9/11 HEROIN CONNECTION --Daniel Hopsicker

Pakistan signs pact with pro-Taleban militants --Reuters

Pakistan: Osama bin Laden will not be captured if he agrees to live a 'peaceful life' --ABC, Raw Story

Why is President Bush's Brother Hanging Out with an alleged Russian Mobster? --Jazz from Hell

The 9/11 Commission: A Play on Nothing in Three Acts --NSWBC

World War III more likely from oil grabs than radical Islam --Augusta Free Press

Urgent action is needed to avert the looming oil wars --Financial Times (Michael Meacher)

Iraqi Parliament to Debate Federal Break-Up --AFP

What Valerie Plame Really Did at the CIA --The Nation (David Corn)

Round up...

2006-09-04T19:48:00.000-04:00

Is TSA's terrorism Watch List being abused to target whistleblowers? --Narco Sphere

"...McLaughlin was shocked. He produced credentials to prove that there could be no way he was on a government Watch List. But that still wasn’t good enough. ... To this day, McLaughlin has not been able to clear up the matter, despite requesting clarification through TSA.

...McLaughlin is a law enforcement officer. And he is not just any cop. He is employed as a narcotic agent assigned to the “Intelligence Unit” of the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office.
...TSA’s response to McLaughlin’s FOIA:

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) can neither confirm or deny whether an individual is on a Federal Watch List, because this information is derived from classified and sensitive law enforcement and intelligence information. ...
...Both attorneys represent McLaughlin in still pending litigation that dates back to the mid-1990s. That litigation stems from a case McLaughlin and his partner, Charles Micewski, worked against a ring of Dominican narco-traffickers.
From a Feb. 13, 2003, Associate Press story:

(AP) (PHILADELPHIA) A jury has sided with two narcotics agents who claimed their boss — the Pennsylvania attorney general — retaliated against them because they uncovered a drug-trafficking ring that diverted profits to a CIA-backed Dominican presidential candidate. ...

Bush Declares Eco-Whistleblower Law Void for EPA Employees --Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER)

Other Economies are Possible! --Dollars & Sense

UK Terror Suspects Met With 9/11 Paymaster

2006-09-04T01:22:00.000-04:00

Several of those arrested this August in the UK for allegedly plotting to bomb multiple trans-Atlantic flights met with the alleged 9/11 paymaster, Omar Saeed Sheikh, according to a virtually unnoticed August 12, 2006 article by the Indian newspaper, The Hindu.

Prior to the 9/11 attacks, Omar wired $100,000 to Mohammed Atta, who subsequently distributed the funds to his fellow hijackers in the United States. General Mahmud Ahmed, then head of Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the ISI, ordered the transfer, as confirmed by Dennis Lormel, director of the FBI's financial crimes unit. Gen. Mahmood was in Washington DC the week of 9/11 for "mysterious meetings" at the Pentagon and National Security Council.

Omar's connections to 9/11 have not been widely reported, but he made headlines in 2002 after being convicted for the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. Omar was sentenced to death for Pearl's execution, however his appeal has been adjourned more than thirty times and he remains alive in Pakistani custody.

Several of the suspects now being held in Britain reportedly traveled to Pakistan as earthquake relief workers in 2005 and subsequently met with Omar at a jail in Sindh.

Bahukutumbi Raman, a former high-level counterterrorism official in India, has noted, "Since nobody can meet him (Omar) without the permission of the jail authorities, the latter must have been aware of their meeting with him and what was discussed."

The suspects traveled to Pakistan as members of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JUD), the parent organization of the Lasktar-e-Toiba (LET), an organization with close ties to Pakistan's intelligence agency, the ISI.

As Michel Chossudovsky of the University of Ottawa has noted, "Lashkar e Taiba, which now operates clandestinely, is one of the main Kashmir rebel groups which had been supported and financed by the ISI, yet, at the same time, it is the ISI which has been entrusted in investigating Lashkar's role in the UK terror plot."

The Lashkar-e-Toiba, or LET, also has reported connections to Western intelligence, as does Omar Saeed Sheikh, the 9/11 paymaster.

According to a 2002 report by Raman, the LET, along with two other groups--the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM) and the Harkat-ul-Jihad-Al-Islami (HUJI)--were given the "leadership role" by the CIA during the Afghan jihad of the 1980s.

During the 1990s, some of the remaining HUM militants were sent to fight in Bosnia, while the CIA and the MI6 also began recruiting new jihadists in Britain. Omar, who was attending the London School of Economics at the time, was indoctrinated and became one these new recruits.

In addition to financing the 9/11 attacks, Omar is also believed to have trained the 9/11 terrorists in hijacking techniques.

According to his own account, Omar knew the plans for the 9/11 attacks and had fully informed his superiors at the ISI. As mentioned earlier, not only did the ISI do nothing to prevent the attacks, the head of the ISI, who was in Washington on 9/11, ordered Omar to wire $100,000 to the lead hijacker, Mohammed Atta.

Round up...

2006-09-03T22:27:00.000-04:00

US Army Contemplates Redrawing Middle East Map to Stave Off Looming Global Meltdown --Dissident Voice

"Maj. Peters, formerly assigned to the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence where he was responsible for future warfare, candidly outlines how the map of the Middle East should be fundamentally re-drawn, in a new imperial endeavor designed to correct past errors. “Without such major boundary revisions, we shall never see a more peaceful Middle East,” he observes, but then adds wryly: “Oh, and one other dirty little secret from 5,000 years of history: Ethnic cleansing works.”

Major Peters, the textbook imperialist, writes:

“Those of us who can sort, digest, synthesize, and apply relevant knowledge soar -- professionally, financially, politically, militarily, and socially. We, the winners, are a minority.” This minority will inevitably conflict with the vast majority of the world’s population. “For the world masses, devastated by information they cannot manage or effectively interpret, life is ‘nasty, brutish ... and short-circuited.’” In “every country and region,” these masses who can neither “understand the new world”, nor “profit from its uncertainties … will become the violent enemies of their inadequate governments, of their more fortunate neighbors, and ultimately of the United States.”

"There will be no peace. At any given moment for the rest of our lifetimes, there will be multiple conflicts in mutating forms around the globe. Violent conflict will dominate the headlines, but cultural and economic struggles will be steadier and ultimately more decisive. The de facto role of the US armed forces will be to keep the world safe for our economy and open to our cultural assault. To those ends, we will do a fair amount of killing."

Military source points to peak oil production and climate change, predicts global collapse by 2008:

...According to an American source with high-level access to the US military, political and intelligence establishment, Western policymakers are in no doubt that the world faces the imminent convergence of multiple global crises. These crises threaten not only to undermine the basis of Western power in its current military and geopolitical configurations, but also to destabilize the entire foundations of industrial civilization.

The source said that the latest petroleum data indicates that “global oil production most likely peaked two years ago.”

...The source also said that leading US financial analysts privately believe that “a collapse of the global banking system is imminent by 2008.”

...The source also commented on the danger posed by rapid climate change. Although most conventional estimates suggest that global climate catastrophe is not due before another 30 odd years, he argued that the multiplication of several “tipping-points” suggested that a series of devastating climatic events could be “triggered within the next 10 to 15 years.” ..."

The hungry planet --The Independent

"...Food supplies are shrinking alarmingly around the globe, plunging the world into its greatest crisis for more than 30 years. ..."

The truth about the "Terror Plot"... and the new "pseudo-terrorism" --Online Journal

Al Qaeda in Iraq's No. 2 Reportedly Arrested --LA Times

A List of Captured or Killed Al Qaeda in Iraq #2's --blogenlust.net

First Time Released Documents Expose Subservient Congress --NSBWC

Afghanistan's opium production jumps by nearly 50 percent: UN --AFP

Pentagon gives gloomy Iraq report --AP

Metroland feature on 9/11 Truth

2006-09-01T05:33:00.000-04:00

What Really Happened? --Metroland

"...The [Loose Change] group still faces plenty of legitimate criticism. Some argue that they base their assertions on speculations grounded in footage that they harvest from third- and fourth-hand Internet sources that could easily have been altered, or from sources like Wikipedia; they read too much into things that could have been reported in the heat of the moment, critics say, or simply recorded in error.
And yet, some of their most vocal critics also desperately want the group to succeed. Troy resident Patrick Buckley is one of those people. Buckley, like the guys behind Loose Change, was a young man on 9/11 and was gripped by the events and entered into a new sense of reality.

“I was in high school on 9/11. I was in 10th grade,” he explains. “I was completely disconnected from anything—from anything that had to do with politics, social issues, foreign policy. I remember when I saw it, I was in math class, and we saw just after the second tower got hit. The teacher came in late, right after the bell rang, and asked what happened. We pointed out that the two planes hit the towers, and she was just like, ‘I pretend that stuff doesn’t happen,’ and we went on with math class.”

Buckley says he realized that he wasn’t learning the things that really mattered in his high school, like current affairs and politics, so he began trying to understand what led to 9/11. Since then, Buckley has started investigations of his own and plans to run a Web site devoted to investigative journalism.

He notes that three years ago, the guys behind Loose Change would probably have been driven out of the country on a wave of angry patriotism, but that does not mean he agrees with everything they have to say.

“Yes, it helps spread speculation and helps get people to ask questions. But as far as I’m concerned, I would hope they would bring out some of the info that is out there,” Buckley says.

What information is that? The fact that the military was conducting war games the morning of 9/11, games that Buckley and a number of sources claim involved simulations of aircraft being hijacked and slammed into buildings. He says that the inclusion of the Project for a New American Century (a Republican think tank) in Loose Change is extremely important.

Rebuilding America’s Defenses, a document written by the think tank in 2000, pushes for the spread of American militarism and insists that Iraq be invaded as the beginning of a greater plan that would see the United States straddling the globe. The document goes on to assert that the only way to rally American enthusiasm for such change would be another Pearl Harbor-like event. “Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event—like a new Pearl Harbor,” the document declares. A number of members of the current Bush administration endorsed the paper, including Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.

But Buckley says that there are documents and money trails to be followed. While the Loose Change guys seem to want to bring about an official criminal investigation of 9/11—an investigation they say the government should initiate—Buckley is certain that information about the true causes of 9/11 is out there and available to investigative journalists.

In fact, he says some of that information is available to the American public. He points to coverage by many mainstream news agencies of a Pakistani official, Mahmud Ahmad, who was removed from his position because he had sanctioned the wiring of $100,000 to highjacker Mohammad Atta. Buckley insists there are links between this man and American intelligence, and he points to coverage of a visit Ahmad paid to CIA Director George Tenet during the week of 9/11.

Buckley has approached the filmmakers with evidence like this in hopes that they will include it over evidence that he says is more speculative, like the size of holes left by planes or what may or may not be explosions seen while the towers collapsed.

“I’ve been trying to get this across to them for a while,” says Buckley. “They say they are open to change and want to have the most well-documented film.” ..."

Excellent article, although Mr. King slightly misinterpreted that last quote. I have only spoken to the creators of "Loose Change" once. I was referring to all those who perpetuate the cruise missile theory when I said "I've been trying to get this across to them for a while." When I discussed the issue with the three filmmakers in early August, they seemed to agree that the missile theory was an unlikely scenario. I expect that it will be removed from the final edition and I intend to contact the filmmakers with additional suggestions in the near future.

Round up...

2006-08-31T23:01:00.000-04:00

Defense CEOs see pay double since 9/11, study says --AP

Positive Press on Iraq Is Aim of U.S. Contract --Washington Post

VIDEO: Olberman tells it like it is --MSNBC via Crooks & Liars

Round up...

2006-08-31T03:54:00.000-04:00

9/11 Truth: Peter Lance vs. National Geographic --Peter Lance

Will the End of Oil be the End of Food? --AlterNet

"Secret Hold" Senator Identity Revealed: Ted Stevens --CNN via Crooks & Liars

Round up...

2006-08-29T23:35:00.000-04:00

US accused of bid to oust Chávez with secret funds --The Guardian (The Revolution Will Not Be Televised may now be viewed online)

Is drug smuggler working for CIA? --Chicago Sun-Times

Bush Appointee Used Taxpayer Resources For His Personal Horse Racing Operation --Think Progress

Has the Bush doctrine failed? --Christian Science Monitor

Is this Bush's secret bunker? (Mount Weather) --The Guardian

Round up...

2006-08-28T23:11:00.000-04:00

Hurricane Expert Threatened For Pre-Katrina Warnings --Baltimore Chronicle (Greg Palast)

Brown says White House wanted him to lie --UPI

One Year Later: The Real State of New Orleans --Think Progress

AUDIO: Interview with Energy Bulletin co-editor Bart Anderson --KZYX Radio via Global Public Media

Senator Who Put "Secret Hold" on Bill to Open Federal Records Is a Secret, Too --Cox News Service

The Cheney presidency --Boston Globe (Op-ed)

Cheney Chooses Chief Propagator of False Iraq-9/11 Link to be Official Biographer --Think Progress

Prudential to Pay $600 Million in Fund Case --NY Times

VIDEO: Corrupt politicians, lobbyists try to escape voters' wrath --PBS via Raw Story

Round up...

2006-08-27T20:04:00.000-04:00

The Man Who Said Too Much --Newsweek

Federal prosecutors suppressed evidence of 1993 World Trade Center bombers --Wayne Madsen Report

US housing slump fuels crash fears --The Guardian

Numbers show a second-rate US --Christian Science Monitor

Experts warn U.S. is coming apart at the seams --Newshouse News Service

Army Corps worries about Big Easy levees --AP

FEMA Trailers Exploding

2006-08-26T18:18:00.000-04:00

Long-Awaited FEMA Trailer Explodes --AP, 8/26/06

Fire leaves family homeless --Times Picayune, 8/12/06

Hurricane Rita Evacuee dies in FEMA trailer fire --AP, 8/3/06

"...The victim had previously gone to the news media with concerns about the trailer's safety. ... In May, she spoke to Lake Charles television station K-P-L-C about exposure to formaldehyde in the two-bedroom mobile home. She said the exposure was causing headaches, a sore throat and sinus problems. According to the report, Schools said FEMA suggested that she open her windows to alleviate the problem."

Second FEMA Trailer Fire this Week Claims Life of St. Bernard Man in Slidell --St. Tammany, 8/3/06

Fire destroyed FEMA trailer --The Daily Star, 7/19/06

Trailer fire injures Harvey woman --Times Picayune, 7/17/06

Couple Burned in FEMA Trailer Explosion --AP, 4/16/06

Wheelchair User Perishes In FEMA Trailer --Inclusion Daily Express, 4/4/06

- -- --- ----- -------- ----- --- -- - -- --- ----- -------- ----- --- -- -

Are FEMA trailers 'toxic tin cans'? --MSNBC, 7/25/06

...Air quality tests of 44 FEMA trailers conducted by the Sierra Club since April have found formaldehyde concentrations as high as 0.34 parts per million – a level nearly equal to what a professional embalmer would be exposed to on the job, according to one study of the chemical’s workplace effects.

And all but four of the trailers have tested higher than the 0.1 parts per million that the EPA considers to be an “elevated level” capable of causing watery eyes, burning in the eyes and throat, nausea, and respiratory distress in some people.

...Dr. Scott Needle, a pediatrician in Bay St. Louis, said he noticed some unusual and persistent health problems among his patients living in the trailers well before the possible link to formaldehyde exposure surfaced.
“I was seeing kids coming in with respiratory complaints – colds and sinus infections – and they were getting them over and over again,” he said. “…Almost invariably, these families were staying in the FEMA trailers."
...Despite the Sierra Club tests – and air quality testing by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in November that detected formaldehyde levels at FEMA trailer holding stations on the Gulf Coast as high as 5.0 parts per million, or 50 times the EPA’s “elevated” level – FEMA says the trailers are safe and there is no need for it to conduct its own air-quality testing.

FEMA U-turn on trailer tests --MSNBC, 8/3/06

Responding to reports that formaldehyde may be sickening hurricane victims living in government-provided travel trailers along the Gulf Coast, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has reversed course and ordered air quality tests to determine if some of the units are emitting unacceptably high levels of the toxic gas. ...The testing came under order of Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff after he was alerted to an MSNBC.com article published on July 23...

...Secretary Michael Chertoff has been “very engaged in the issue” a Department of Homeland Security official told NBC's Pete Williams. The official said that in response to the MSNBC.com story, the secretary directed his staff to look at the matter thoroughly and to “turn it inside out to determine if there was any validity to the claims.”

...FEMA spokesman Aaron Walker said the agency has requested the tests for formaldehyde “out of an abundance of caution” and added that agency officials remain “highly confident and comfortable in the travel trailer program.”
He said the agency has received only 46 complaints of suspected formaldehyde contamination in the more than 113,000 travel trailers deployed in the Gulf Coast since it began logging calls on a special hot line in March.

But another FEMA official (Mike Andrews, FEMA’s director of mobile home operations in Mississippi) said earlier this week that the agency already has determined that there is a problem with elevated formaldehyde levels in “two or three brands” of the at least 10 brands of travel trailers provided to the government under emergency contracts in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
...An official with the Sierra Club, which has spearheaded efforts to get FEMA to test the trailers for formaldehyde, said Andrews’ remarks indicated “that FEMA has now acknowledged there is a problem.”

“But what about the people who don’t know why they have been so sick, why they and their kids get sick again and again?” said Becky Gillette, co-chair of the environmental organization’s Mississippi chapter. “FEMA needs to do far more. It needs to do comprehensive testing and should make sure that people are notified of the problem.”

Formaldehyde high in FEMA trailers --The Sun Herald, 8/25/06

Testing of FEMA travel trailers provided as temporary housing to those left homeless by Katrina continues to show illness-inducing levels of the chemical formaldehyde, the environmental group Sierra Club said Thursday.

The group has now tested 52 trailers in Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana, with 83 percent registering formaldehyde above 0.1 parts per million, a level the Environmental Protection Agency considers elevated.

...Kathleen Covington has been living in a FEMA trailer in Coden, Ala., since October. She tried to contact the local poison control center and health department after her 5-year-old started having asthma attacks in the night. She sent her 8-year-old away for three weeks after the child started getting nose bleeds. When the child left the trailer, she said, the nose bleeds stopped.
Covington has also been suffering with headaches and said she has lost 27 pounds in a month and a half.

"My kids just want to know when they are going to get better," Covington said.

Godish said the family's symptoms are a classic sign of formaldehyde exposure.

"The average person has no reason to know why they are having these illnesses," Godish said. "They just go to the doctor and have it treated."

FEMA To Test Methods To Reduce Formaldehyde In Travel Trailers --FEMA Press Release, 8/8/06

...Meanwhile, FEMA will soon begin distribution of a brochure to trailer occupants across the Gulf Coast explaining how those persons sensitive to formaldehyde may be affected by its presence and preliminary actions they can take to reduce their exposure in the trailers. The advice includes taking steps to:

Increase ventilation. Open the windows and door of the trailer and use fans to force stale air out and bring fresh air in.

Keep indoor temperatures cool. Heat does cause formaldehyde to increase the rate at which it releases fumes, so, after the trailer is well ventilated, keep temperatures cooler with air conditioning.

Lower the humidity. Like heat, humidity causes formaldehyde to release fumes, so keep the relative humidity at about 40 to 50 percent in the trailer.

Do not smoke inside. Tobacco smoking releases formaldehyde and other toxic chemicals.

ALERT TO FEMA: During the summer in the Gulf Coast the temperature regularly reaches the triple digits! "Just control the weather and you'll be fine," seems to be their basic message.

Couple Discovers High-Levels of Formaldehyde in FEMA Trailer --ABC (WLOX), 3/17/06

...After waiting for several months, Paul and Melondy Stewart were overjoyed to finally receive a FEMA trailer in December. But almost immediately that joy left them.

"When we first moved in here we had significant symtoms which continued til today. We had burning eyes, burning nose, nasal headaches, that type of thing," Paul Stewart said.

...The couple has tried everything to get rid of the fumes: opening windows and doors, even purchasing an industrial air purifier. But nothing seems to work.

Round up...

2006-08-26T15:26:00.000-04:00

DOE predicts gasoline shortages --The New Mexican

The CIA-Contra-Crack Connections, 10 Years Later --LA Times (Op-ed)

EPA scientist says agency hid dangers at ground zero from first responders, others --Raw Story

9/11-responders' health woes reach beyond NYC --AP

Whispers of Mergers Set Off Suspicious Trading --NY Times

U.S. May Curb Iran --LA Times

Weary Iraqis Face New Foe: Rising Prices --NY Times

Wolf Blitzer gets Howard Sterned --CNN video via YouTube

CNN does not check their sources!

Round up...

2006-08-25T15:19:00.000-04:00

Poll: 85% of Iraqis strongly oppose occupation, 76% say US invaded for oil --Abu Aardvark

Military to investigate cover-up of Pat Tillman's death (VIDEO) --BBC via Raw Story

Whistleblowers Say State Farm Cheated Katrina Victims --ABC (The Blotter)

Round up...

2006-08-24T18:50:00.000-04:00

Russia spins global energy spiders' web --The Asia Times

"A circle defining international energy security is now being drawn. The artist is Russia, which is steadily pulling into this circle all the resource-rich corporate states around the globe. These countries have a profound political affinity for one another and a simultaneous collective disdain, and even a hatred, for US-led unipolar dominance. The multinational oil companies of the West are being marginalized as a direct result."

Recession will be nasty and deep, economist says --Market Watch

Fannie Mae Avoids Criminal Prosecution --AP

Opium hits record in Afghanistan (again) --AP

Britain flooded by cheap heroin from Afghanistan --The Belfast Telegraph

'News round up' re-start...

2006-08-23T12:32:00.000-04:00

5.5 DC9 COKE BUST FALLOUT: WORSE THAN SNAKES ON A PLANE --Daniel Hopsicker

To Mix The Impossible Bomb: Suspects Charged, Arraigned In Alleged Bombing Plot --Brad Blog

Army intell. analyst under investigation for suggesting 9/11 was inside job --The Lone Star Iconoclast

Forty-one-year-old Sergeant First Class Donald Buswell, who served over 19 years in the United States Army and received a Purple Heart after being injured in Iraq, has now been labeled "disloyal" by the Army for suggesting 9/11 was an inside job. In response to an unsolicited e-mail, Bushwell wrote the following:

"I say Occums razor is the best way to deduce this ‘day of infamy’; if you weigh all options, do some simple studying you will see 911 was clearly not executed by some arabs in caves with cell phones and 3 day old newspapers! I mean how are Arabs benefiting from pulling off 911? They have more war, more death and dismal conditions, so, how did 911 benefit them? Answer: It didn’t. So, who benefited from 9-11? The answer is sad, but simple; The Military Industial [sic] Complex.

It’s not a paranoid conspiracy to think there are conspiracies out there...and, it’s not Liberal Lunacy either, nor is it Conservative Kookiness! People, fellow citizens we’ve been had! We must demand a new independent investigation into 911 and look at all options of that day, and all plausabilities [sic], even the most incredulous theories must be examined."

As the Iconoclast reports:

"Upon returning to his office the next day, Buswell discovered the locks had been changed, his security clearance was revoked, and an investigation had been launched. Buswell’s commanding officer, Colonel Luke Green, drafted a letter assigning Major Edwin Escobar to the investigation. According to sources, Colonel Green has asserted that SFC Buswell failed to obey Army regulations when he used his government issued email account to send what have been termed as messages disloyal to the United States with the intent of stirring up disloyalty, in a manner that brings discredit upon the United States Army."

Poll: Opposition to Iraq war at all-time high --CNN

Marines Who Served Will Be Ordered Back --LA Times

Is the Next Step a Draft? --ABC News (The Blotter)

"An Iraq War veterans group says the call-up of thousands of Marines from the Individual Ready Reserve, announced by the Pentagon today, is 'one of the last steps before resorting to a draft.'"

US made an offer Iran can only refuse --Inter Press Service

Iran Sanctions Could Fracture Coalition --NY Times

Corn Shortage Predicted By 2008

2006-08-19T02:45:00.000-04:00

"'We're putting the supermarket in competition with the corner filling station for the output of the farm,' said Lester Brown, an agriculture expert in Washington and president of the Earth Policy Institute. Farms cannot feed all the world's people and its motor vehicles as well, he said, and the result is that more people will go hungry." --NYT, 1/17/06

From the Earth Times, August 12, 2006:

WASHINGTON - Analysts in United States have cautioned that unless corn planting is expanded drastically, the country could be facing corn shortage by as early as 2008.

...Mark McMinimy, analyst at Stanford Washington Research, said, "There's definitely need for more corn. Especially with the ethanol industry growing bigger and hungrier each year".

...As per the current consumption rates, analysts predict that stockpiles would go down by nearly 40 percent to 1.23 billion bushels by next fall. With the oil price increasing every week, motorists in US have been turning to ethanol, which is produced from renewable resources such as corn, sugar and soybeans. US ethanol consumes as much as 2.15 billion bushels of corn, which is about 18 percent of the total crop produced.

----

From "Ethanol could leave the world hungry," Fortune Magazine, August 16, 2006:

...It could leave much of the world hungry.

We are facing an epic competition between the 800 million motorists who want to protect their mobility and the two billion poorest people in the world who simply want to survive. In effect, supermarkets and service stations are now competing for the same resources.

This year cars, not people, will claim most of the increase in world grain consumption. The problem is simple: It takes a whole lot of agricultural produce to create a modest amount of automotive fuel.

The grain required to fill a 25-gallon SUV gas tank with ethanol, for instance, could feed one person for a year. If today's entire U.S. grain harvest were converted into fuel for cars, it would still satisfy less than one-sixth of U.S. demand.

...biofuel production is now being driven largely by the runaway price of oil. Many food commodities, including corn, wheat, rice, soybeans, and sugar cane, can be converted into fuel; thus the food and energy economies are beginning to merge.

...In some U.S. Cornbelt states, ethanol distilleries are taking over the corn supply. In Iowa, 25 ethanol plants are operating, four are under construction, and another 26 are planned.

Iowa State University economist Bob Wisner observes that if all those plants are built, distilleries would use the entire Iowa corn harvest. In South Dakota, ethanol distilleries are already claiming over half that state's crop. ...

----

"...the only way to effectively reduce oil-dependency is to reduce overall energy-dependency. Alone, supply-side solutions only offer more problems. Growing grain to feed cars and trucks instead of growing food to feed people is just one example."

----

Coming to a "Super Center" near you...

Letter to the Editor (Times Union)

2006-08-12T05:35:00.000-04:00

(See "Local library packed for 9/11 truth" and "Web movie takes flight" for background.)

9/11 deserves scrutiny
Times Union, August 12, 2006

I commend the Times Union for covering the recent local screening of the documentary, "Loose Change," which addresses many of the unanswered questions regarding the 9/11 attacks. I only hope that the paper will now pay attention to the family members, whistle-blowers, independent journalists and concerned citizens who have been voicing similar concerns for nearly five years.

Unanswered questions and outright lies by the government have gone virtually unaddressed by the mainstream media, fueling speculation and giving rise to various conspiracy theories.

Why should the public be forced to rely on amateur filmmakers for answers?

For example, prior to 9/11, high-level government officials protected a wealthy Saudi by the name of Yassin al-Qadi from the FBI. Al-Qadi has been identified as one of Osama bin Laden's chief money launderers, and according to FBI agent Robert Wright, his arrest could have prevented 9/11.

But al-Qadi is not your average suspect. In addition to being a primary financier of al-Qaida, he also happened to own a company with millions of dollars worth of U.S. government contracts. At one time, he also escorted U.S. officials, such as Dick Cheney, around on their official visits to Saudi Arabia.

But you won't read about that in most newspapers. You also won't see it mentioned in "Loose Change."

This is exactly why media outlets like the Times Union should conduct their own independent investigation of the facts and circumstances surrounding the attacks. Otherwise authentic evidence will continue to disappear while "junk" research floods the front pages.

Jersey Girls, Coop Research releasing documentary

2006-08-12T00:47:00.000-04:00

From Paul Thompson of Cooperative Research...

Dear CCR Subscribers,

I'm proud to announce that the Complete 9/11 Timeline will be given extensive coverage in a new documentary to be released early next month. The film, 9/11: Press for Truth, chronicles the lobbying efforts of five members of the 9/11 Family Steering Committee (also known as the "Jersey Girls") to establish an independent commission to investigate the attacks. In November 2002, an official 9/11 Commission was formed. But it was underfunded, powerless, and rife with conflicts of interest. Its final report has been widely criticized for its omissions and distortions of the evidence.

9/11: Press For Truth, in presenting the families’ story, stitches together rare, overlooked news clips, buried stories, and government press conferences, revealing a pattern of official lies, deception, and spin. The film highlights the Jersey Girls' discovery of my 9/11 timeline and how they used the facts presented in it to eventually publicly repudiate the 9/11 Commission's work.

There are a number of recent films on the 9/11, however, as some have noted, this film has a real potential to bring the story to the mainstream. Just days ago, a nationwide poll showed that over one-third of Americans believe it is "very likely" or "somewhat likely" that U.S. government officials either participated in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon or took no action to stop them "because they wanted the United States to go to war in the Middle East." Many more have doubts about the official story.

While there are a number of films that "preach to the converted" that the official story is incorrect, 9/11: Press For Truth has the potential to reach out to a larger audience. There is an incredible amount of ignorance about 9/11, with half of the US population still believing that Saddam Hussein had a role in the attacks and one-third not even able to name what year 9/11 took place in. This new film presents the most important facts without pushing any particular theories about what happened, so it's an ideal way to inform a friend or family member without much risk of scaring them off.

Our 9/11 investigative project needs your help promoting this film and supporting additional research. I hope we can work together to bring this new film and the important 9/11 facts it contains to the large audience that needs to see it.

What you can do:

Volunteer to distribute flyers and posters of the film. We have the flyers and posters printed, packed, and ready to ship. If you are interested, send us an email telling us where you live and how much time you can devote during the last week of August and first week of September to this task. If you have very little time, but would still like to post a few posters around your town, please download the poster from here.
Host a local screening of the film on September 11 or the weekend before. Go here for details.
Purchase the DVD from Cooperative Research. We aren’t expecting to meet our fundraising goals from DVD sales alone, but every little bit helps. Support Cooperative Research by buying a copy of the DVD from our store. Go here to pre-order the DVD now.

Articles about the recent poll showing growing skepticism about what happened on 9/11 also note that many have only begun to have suspicions recently. Important questions are being raised as the issue goes mainstream, but ironically, at the same time, Cooperative Research and my investigation of 9/11 are having more trouble than ever before. I have a mountain of topics to investigate to further uncover the truth about 9/11, but I just don't have the funds to do it. It is also important that Cooperative Research is able to put its website on autopilot (see Fundraiser Alert) in September when we expect a huge surge in traffic.

Cooperative Research has fallen far short of its fundraising goals this year. Though it's been able to keep the website going, numerous critical tasks have not been done and it has been unable to fund new research. As a result, my own work on 9/11 came to a near halt in March after the fundraiser failed to raise the needed funds. I wish I could work on this full time, but unfortunately I can't survive on air. We're ready for another major research push to coincide with the 5th anniversary of 9/11, but we need your help. But in order to do this we need your financial support. Since the spring fundraiser we have only raised $7,541 of the $30,400 we called for in our budget. At a minimum, we need $10,000 to fund 9/11 research for the next 4-5 months. If we raise enough funds, we will be able to add new entries to the database on a daily basis during this critical period.

This is a pivotal and exciting time. I sincerely hope you'll see the new film, tell your friends about it, and host house parties to show it. And of course, please support our website with tax-deductible donations and volunteer work. No one doubts that 9/11 has had a profound effect on the last five years and continues to do so. If you want to have an impact on politics one of the most important things you can do is help educate yourself and others about what really happened on 9/11. Let's seize the opportunity this new film and the fifth anniversary of 9/11 presents us!

Sincerely,
Paul Thompson

Links:
9/11: Press for Truth web site and trailer: http://www.911pressfortruth.com/
Place Pre-Order for DVD: http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/911_press_for_truth.html
Volunteer for Flyer Distribution: http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/contact.jsp
Download and Print Posters: http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/misc/911_press_for_truth_poster.pdf
Host a local screening: http://pressfortruth.bravenewtheaters.com/

Lockheed Martin major participant in 9/11 Global Guardian exercise

2006-08-08T20:22:00.000-04:00

The American Monitor (TAM) is currently looking into many unreported details of the exercises that were underway during the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. While the research process has been slow, tedious, and expensive, TAM has uncovered some very interesting information.

Additional work still needs to be completed, but in the meantime I thought I would share the following tidbit from a Lockheed Martin brochure currently available on the company’s website.

The ever-changing missions of the Joint Warfighter require staffs that are capable of performing their warfighting duties efficiently and effectively. Policies and procedures used by the warfighter need to be used, validated, and updated. Effective exercise planning and execution requires experienced and dedicated personnel that are experts in their functional area as well as experts in the Joint Exercise process. Intelligence scenarios need to be well thought out and thoroughly documented; event scripting must be sequential and believable; event injects must be orchestrated and achieve desired outcomes; and exercise after-action reported should be accurate, well documented, with aggressive follow-up action.

LMIT (Lockheed Martin Information Technology) Joint Exercise Planners and Analysts have supported the USSTRATCOM (and earlier SAC) Joint Exercise program for nearly 15 years. Our people are known throughout the DOD for their experience and outstanding deliverables, products, and results. The principal elements of our assistance are in the areas of exercise planning, documentation, event sequencing, role-playing, administration and observation, and after action analysis. Global Guardian and Global Archer are two of the primary exercises we support. In addition, out analysts provide similar support for STRATCOM's participation in regional command exercises. ... LMIT has extensive experienced in assisting personnel in attaining high levels of IT proficiency. We offer course in all of the operating systems. For example, at USSTRATCOM, we offer course in the Nuclear Planning and Execution System (NPES) and in the Command's LAN operations.

The role played by private defense contractors in military war games should not be overlooked. As illustrated above, companies like Lockheed Martin play a major role in large-scale nuclear and post-nuclear exercises, including the Global Guardian exercise that was in "full swing" during both attacks on the World Trade Center.

According to the brochure, "event scripting must be sequential and believable" and "event injects must be orchestrated and achieve desired outcomes."

Event "injects" or "inputs" are imaginary scenarios/threats that are "injected" into exercises in order to test the military's responses.

"I think this is a damn input," one NORAD official noted after the second attack on the World Trade Center. He thought, like everybody at NEADS originally did, that the attacks were all part of Vigilant Guardian--an exercise that was being conducted in conjunction with Global Guardian.

A simulated hijack scenario was scheduled to be "injected" at about the same time as the real attacks, causing significant confusion.

The 9/11 Commission gave a different story.

MKO in Iraq

2006-08-07T20:02:00.000-04:00

(See "Iraq plans to remove Pentagon's proxy force," and "Terror Ops Underway in Iran," for background information.)

Reports are surfacing out of Iraq that the Pentagon's anti-Iranian pets, the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK or MKO), are now organizing (or being organized) against the Iraqi government. This is pure insanity...

BBC Arabic, July 20, 2006:

"Iraqi security services' report indicates that the group of Mojahedin-e khalq gathers intelligence on Iraqi officials and authorities and gives this intelligence to other terrorist groups in the country," said Haydar Ebadi, Iraqi MP from the list of Iraq's Unified List.

This comment follows the statements of Iraqi PM, accusing the Iraqi-based Iranian opposition group of interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq.

Sotal Iraq, July 24, 2006:

…members of this group have formed a joint militia with some Baathist to kill Iraqi citizens and destroy the infrastructure of Iraq. It's really surprising that Iraqi governments, before that of Mr. Maliki, didn’t expel this group from Iraq. (They did!)

Some reports indicate that since the fall of Saddam, MKO has been giving secret information to Baathist forces to be used in order to assassinate Iraqi leaders.

Some of the officials, from security services, report of MKO's involvement in terrorist operations, the examples of which are the invasion on "Abu Hanifa Al-Naaman Mosque" in Azamiah district as well as raid on "Al-Sadeq mosque" in "Aur" district a few months ago; these operations were conducted in order to create religious and ethnic differences. During the raid on Abu Hanifa mosque, a number of these terrorists were arrested by the guards of the mosque and when identified as the members of MKO they were handed over to coalition forces before being released by them.

IRNA, July 2006:

[Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the head of Iraq's SCIRI] also called for the expulsion of terrorist groups from Iraq, with the MKO at top, and stressed that terrorist prisoners should not be freed. "A number of people involved in recent terrorist operations have been released. Releasing prisoners should be done under the supervision of parliament."

He said the role of fighting terrorism law should be strengthened and all those who support terrorism should be punished.

IRNA, August 2006:

Dr. Salem Al-Tikriti, professor at the University of Mosul, said he was the representative of 15 political and civil organizations, adding: "This group's presence in Iraq is illegal and it's also performing illegal acts. Occupiers have tied the hands of Iraqi government and support terrorism."

"Americans even ordered the government not to interfere in MKO's issues because the group was supported by them!" he added.

Al-Alam news channel, July 2006:

"Terrorists, mostly from Baathists and the members of terrorist MKO, try to divide Shia and Sunni muslims and to ignite the fire of clashes between Arabs, Kurds and Turkmens living in Dyala province," said Taha Dor' Al-Sa'di, representative of Dyalah people in Iraqi parliament. …

"The presence of this group in Iraq harms both Iran-Iraq relations and honor of Iraqis."

This member of Iraqi parliament also declared: "American forces don't care about the security issues in Dyala province; this has raised questions because the terrorists in this province don't target American forces anymore while tens of Iraqi citizens are being killed each day. US forces support professional terrorists and when they Iraqi security forces arrest such people, Americans release them."

"Iraqi Unity Coalition has asked the parliament to form a committee to prevent violence and improve security situation in Dyala because massacring people, terror and kidnapping happens on daily basis and more than 1000 families have left this region," he added.

Then he referred to the death of Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi and said: "His successor is also in this province and more than 1000 terrorists, including Baathists and MKO members, have scattered around the region conducing terrorist operations."

Dr. Jamal Al-Ali, Arz Alsawad newspaper, July 2006:

I heard the comments of a tribal leader from Dyalah province, expressed during interview with an Iraqi satellite television, on the necessity of investigating the reasons for a meeting, which was held in terrorist MKO's Camp Ashraf with the assistance of US military commanders, military officers from former regime and with the participation of some terrorist leaders. This meeting was all surprising.

Soon after that, I received a letter from a friend of mine, an Iraqi author; the letter said that according to sources, US occupying forces, MKO, pro-Baathist regime elements and anathematic terrorists are plotting against the elected government of Mr. Nuri al-Maliki and that they try to return their Baathist figures to the government.

They want to assassinate Shia clerics and elites and destabilize Kazemiah in order to crush the Shiites and then, introduce Al-Mahdi forces, Badr organization and Hizb Al-Dawa as the ones behind instability in Iraq.

By destabilizing the country, they want to convince public opinion that Nuri al-Maliki is not able to stabilize the country. They want their own puppets in the government.

MKO terrorists, who have declared their preparedness for conducting this plot, will engage with Shiites. In this way, they want to improve their face for Americans so as to be lifted from terror list!

Meetings are held in Camp Ashraf in order to coordinate terrorist operations.

America's largest field going offline

2006-08-07T20:01:00.000-04:00

Oil Surges Above $76 as BP Shuts Alaska Field, Largest in U.S.

Aug. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil surged above $76 a barrel, recording its biggest gain in two weeks, after BP Plc said it will shut Alaska's Prudhoe Bay field, where 8 percent of U.S. oil is produced.

The closure of the largest oil field in the U.S. because of pipeline corrosion and a leak will cut supplies to West Coast refineries during the country's peak demand for gasoline. ``Shutting down the field will take days to complete,'' BP said today.

``What BP is telling you is a greater problem with the whole of the Alaskan oil infrastructure,'' said Mark Tinker, head of strategy at Execution Ltd. in London.

Crude oil for September delivery rose as much as $1.79, or 2.4 percent, to $76.55 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract traded at $76.53 at 11 a.m. in London. Brent crude oil for September settlement gained $1.34, or 1.8 percent, to $77.51 on the ICE Futures exchange in London.

``The discovery of this leak and the unexpected results'' of recent pipeline tests ``have called into question the condition of the oil transit lines at Prudhoe Bay,'' BP America Chairman and President Bob Malone said today.

Some 400,000 barrels a day of production is being shut, BP's spokesman Ronnie Chappell said. A pipeline that leaked four to five barrels of oil was shut down at 6:30 a.m. Alaskan time Sunday, BP said. BP owns 26.36 percent of the Prudhoe Bay field.

``We haven't been told how long it's going to be down for. It's a big field, so it will take days to shut down,'' said Ivor Pether, who helps manage about $15 billion at Royal London Asset Management. ``They absolutely have to'' shut it, he said. ...

Local library packed for 9/11 truth

2006-08-04T00:01:00.000-04:00

I recently returned from a local gathering at the Bethlehem public library here in upstate New York.

"Loose Change," the popular online documentary contending that the government orchestrated 9/11, was shown before a standing room-only crowd in the library's video room. Following the film's conclusion, the crowd engaged in a lively discussion with the movie's creators, Dylan Avery, Korey Rowe, and Jason Bermas.

The region's dominant newspaper—the Times Union—was there to cover the event, along with ABC, and a few smaller publications.

I do not by any means endorse every theory presented in "Loose Change," but given the film's popularity, I decided to attend. I intended to confront the creators regarding a few of the film's misleading points, but instead of asking questions, I was busy answering them.

During the discussion, I spoke about Ptech and passed around a picture of President Bush with Abdurahman Muhammad Alamoudi, who was invited to a prayer service with Bush three days after 9/11 and who, according to the US Treasury Department, "had a close relationship with al Qaida and had raised money for al Qaida in the United States."

I spoke for less than five minutes, but afterwards, while waiting to question the filmmakers, curious attendees and members of the news media began approaching me with various questions of their own. One reporter even asked for an interview later in the week.

I was happy to meet and speak with several individuals. From members of a local peace group, to a mother and son, to an antique saleswomen. Nearly all of them seem to agree that the government was criminally complicit when it comes to 9/11, although many also believe that "Loose Change" could use some improvements.

I was so busy talking that I only had a brief chance to speak with the film's creators on their way out of the building. They seemed to be in a hurry but I had a quick line of questions in my head ready to go. My purpose was to dissuade them from promoting the theory that a cruise missile hit the Pentagon. Every consecutive question had a purpose...

"Why did you make a second edition?" I asked. "Why did you drop the 'missile pod' theory?"

Dylan Avery said they edited out the 'missile pod' theory in the second edition because there "wasn't enough evidence" to back it up.

For those who have no clue what I'm talking about, the 'missile pod' theory contends that the second plane to hit the World Trade Center fired a missile immediately prior to impact. In my opinion, this theory is completely absurd.

The original version of "Loose Change," opened with a detailed description of the 'missile pod' theory and its common talking points. I told Avery that I agreed with his decision to remove it from the film.

Next I asked Avery if there would be a third edition.

"Absolutely," he said.

My next question: "What is your exact position on the Pentagon? Do you believe there was no plane at all?"

At this point, Avery and Rowe shot each other a quick glance. For a brief second, their expressions seemed to portray uncertainty. Then Avery said he believed there was a plane, just not a commercial airliner.

"So what's with your bit on the cruise missile?" I asked, referring to the film's promotion of the theory that a cruise missile hit the Pentagon.

Avery said they were just presenting different possibilities.

I explained that it made little sense for the government to use a cruise missile to fake a hijacked airliner. Surprisingly, all three filmmakers seemed to agree.

Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to ask my last question. The filmmakers said they had a long drive ahead of them and had to leave. Therefore I can only wonder if the 'cruise missile' theory will be included in the third edition of the film.

Hopefully they'll drop it, given the lack of evidence.

Confirmed: hijack scenario scheduled for Vigilant Guardian on 9/11, confusion lasted well into attacks

2006-08-03T13:34:00.000-04:00

Excerpt from Vanity Fair article on recent tape releases:

----------------

08:37:52 -- BOSTON CENTER: Hi. Boston Center T.M.U. [Traffic Management Unit], we have a problem here. We have a hijacked aircraft headed towards New York, and we need you guys to, we need someone to scramble some F-16s or something up there, help us out.

POWELL: Is this real-world or exercise?

BOSTON CENTER: No, this is not an exercise, not a test.

Powell's question—"Is this real-world or exercise?"—is heard nearly verbatim over and over on the tapes as troops funnel onto the ops floor and are briefed about the hijacking. Powell, like almost everyone in the room, first assumes the phone call is from the simulations team on hand to send "inputs"—simulated scenarios—into play for the day's training exercise. ...

8:37:56 -- WATSON: What?

DOOLEY: Whoa!

WATSON: What was that?

ROUNTREE: Is that real-world?

DOOLEY: Real-world hijack.WATSON: Cool! ...

"When they told me there was a hijack, my first reaction was 'Somebody started the exercise early,'" Nasypany later told me. The day's exercise was designed to run a range of scenarios, including a "traditional" simulated hijack in which politically motivated perpetrators commandeer an aircraft, land on a Cuba-like island, and seek asylum. "I actually said out loud, 'The hijack's not supposed to be for another hour,'" Nasypany recalled. (The fact that there was an exercise planned for the same day as the attack factors into several conspiracy theories, though the 9/11 commission dismisses this as coincidence. After plodding through dozens of hours of recordings, so do I.)

08:43:06 -- FOX: I've never seen so much real-world stuff happen during an exercise.

... More than TWENTY MINUTES LATER and AFTER 2nd attack:

09:04:50

—Is this explosion part of that that we're lookin' at now on TV?
—Yes.
—Jesus …
—And there's a possible second hijack also—a United Airlines …
—Two planes?…
—Get the fuck out …
—I think this is a damn input, to be honest.

---------------

According to previous reports, "everybody" at NEADS originally thought the attacks were part of the exercise. We now have confirmation that even after the second strike, NORAD officials were still thinking that 9/11 was possibly all part of Vigilant Guardian, which included a hijack scenario scheduled for about same time.

The author's comments regarding "conspiracy theories" is regrettable:

"The fact that there was an exercise planned for the same day as the attack factors into several conspiracy theories, though the 9/11 commission dismisses this as coincidence. After plodding through dozens of hours of recordings, so do I."

Not too long ago, anyone who spoke of exercises during the attacks was labeled as 'conspiracy theorist'.

Plus, the last time I checked the 9/11 Commission's Final Report states that Vigilant Guardian "postulated a bomber attack from the former Soviet Union." The Commission said nothing about a hijack scenario.

Moreover, the Commission used apparently false testimony to imply that the exercise actually helped the response, which is...well...complete bullshit.

The Commission also neglected to mention any of the other exercises that were underway that day, such as Global Guardian, which will be the subject of an upcoming American Monitor report.

Iraq plans to remove Pentagon’s proxy force

2006-08-01T09:44:00.000-04:00

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki and other top Iraqi officials are calling for the eviction of an anti-Iranian militant group that is reportedly orchestrating attacks and collecting intelligence inside Iran on behalf of the Department of Defense.

The group, known as the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK or MKO), “is interfering in social and political issues as if it's an Iraqi organization,” Maliki told reporters at a recent press conference. “It's a terrorist organization and the presence of this group in Iraq contradicts the constitution,” he said, calling for the group’s eviction.

Although the Iraqi leader neglected to mention the United States, his position is at direct odds with current and former military and White House officials who view the MKO as a potential ‘democratic’ alternative to the present Iranian regime.

Furthermore, the Iraqi Prime Minister’s stance could jeopardize a covert operations program reportedly being directed by the Department of Defense against Tehran. The Pentagon is reportedly running the MKO in Iran’s oil-rich province of Khuzestan -- which has been the subject of numerous attacks and terrorist bombings over the past year -- and in the opium-smuggling border province of Sistan-Baluchistan, where suspected US/MKO operatives attacked and killed several Iranian officials just this March.

The prime minister’s recent comments on the MKO were reiterated by Iraq’s Deputy Interior Minister for Security Affairs, Salam al-Zawba'i, who announced a “comprehensive plan, which requires approval of the government to expel the MKO from the country by the year's end.”

The Iraqi official also said that the MKO “seeks to hatch plots against the Iraqi nation.” Although he did not cite any specific examples, there are many in Iraq, including parliamentary leaders, that have accused the US of sponsoring MKO terrorist bombings -- not just in Iran -- but in Iraq as well.

The recent announcements by Iraqi officials come in the wake of blossoming negotiations between Iraq and Iran, the latter of which has been calling for the MKO’s eviction since the beginning of the 2003 invasion.

If the plan goes through, it may bring the reported US/MKO operations to an end, although it wouldn’t be the first eviction notice the MKO has received. The provisional Iraqi Governing Council expelled the militant group back in 2003, but despite the order, approximately 3,800 members of the group remained in the country under the watch of US forces -- presumably so they could be used in future operations against Tehran.

The MKO were supposedly being confined to a US military-run compound northeast of Baghdad, but by January of 2005 the group was reportedly “launching raids” from Camp Habib in Basra on behalf of the US, and had also been given permission by Pakistani President Pervez Musharaff to operate from Pakistan’s Baluchi area, according to US officials who spoke to UPI.

US-sponsored MKO militants are suspected of carrying out the string of terrorist bombings that killed at least 12 people and injured 90 others in Iran just prior to the country’s elections in 2005. They also attacked and killed 22 Iranian officials in the southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchistan this March, according to US government officials who spoke to the online publication Raw Story.

The MKO has a long history of violence and has been listed by the State Department as a terrorist organization, making it illegal for anyone in the United States to provide material support to the group. The Treasury Department has also labeled the MKO and its affiliated groups as “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” entities, “effectively freezing all [of their] assets and properties and prohibiting transactions between U.S. persons and these organizations.”

Despite their terrorist status, the MKO has conducted a fairly successful lobbying campaign in Washington, DC, garnering support from the Pentagon, the White House, influential foreign policy groups, and several members of Congress.

The Iran Policy Committee (IPC), which has been described as a “spin off” of the highly influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), serves as the MKO’s primary support group in Washington.

Maintaining the bold slogan, “Empowering Iranians for Regime Change,” the IPC is urging US officials to step in and counter the Iranian regime’s influence in Iraq.

“Iran's attempts to bulldoze and beguile Baghdad into evicting the Iranian resistance,” IPC member Bruce McColm recently said, “must be resisted by Washington.”

Fellow IPC member and retired Marine, Lt. Col. Bill Cowan, went even further: “The United States should put Iran on notice that we are going to threaten its regime in the worst way possible -- from within: Tell Tehran that we will be providing money, assistance, and advice to empower Iranian resistance movements.”

Any such efforts will surely be complicated by the Iraqi government, which has already cut off water and fuel supplies to the MKO’s main base of operations; restricted the MKO from making contact with governmental institutions; and, on July 27, ordered the militant group to leave the country within the next six months.

Trivia...

2006-08-01T09:43:00.000-04:00

What terrorist group is allowed to parade a prop missile around Washington DC?

Click here to find out.

Everything is fixed...I hope...

2006-07-27T16:16:00.000-04:00

I believe I have identified the html problems. Everything seems to be fixed and The American Monitor (TAM) will be fully operational in the coming days, although the frequency of posts will vary depending on the amount of energy being dedicated to long-term investigations. Keep posted.

Protester gets into Maliki's address to Congress -- Where is the Security?

2006-07-26T11:28:00.000-04:00

I'm sitting here watching Maliki's address on C-SPAN.

Shortly into it, a war protester started screaming, "Listen to the Iraqi people and bring the troops home!" (Note: A Ministry of Defense poll conducted in 2005 found that 82% of Iraq's population is "strongly opposed" to the presence of coalition troops.) How bout that security, eh? Good thing the protester wasn't a 'turrist'.

Electricity vulnerabilities becoming more evident...

2006-07-25T08:36:00.000-04:00

LOS ANGELES, CA, United States (UPI) -- The investigation into the ongoing blackout in the New York City borough of Queens could lead to the conclusion that the local electricity infrastructure was simply overtaxed by relentless growth in power demand.

...the outage wasn`t the result of some glitch at a far-off power plant or some 'act of God' that crippled a major high-voltage supply line.

The problem was, in fact, a widespread meltdown of the local grid in Queens that resulted not just in a loss of power, but in physical damage to lines and transformers that required ConEd crews to toil inside grubby, stifling nearly airless manholes for hours to replace equipment.

The big question -- make that the multibillion-dollar question -- to be illuminated by the pending ConEd report is whether or not the local grid in New York can still handle the growing amount of power consumers are demanding, and if not, are other major American cities about to hit the wall as well?

The Edison Electric Institute estimated earlier this year that the boom in personal computers and other home electronics accounted for 42 terawatt hours of power in 2005 compared to 16.5 terawatt hours in 2001. At the same time, growing urban populations and a humming economy have left less of a buffer for those mid-summer classic heat waves that has air conditioners and fans working overtime. ...

In a nutshell, Burke explained, the genesis of the outages was the failure of 'feeder lines' that carry 27,000 volts of electricity through ConEd`s 57 distribution areas. Feeder lines connect to transformers that 'step down,' or reduce the voltage down to the 120 volts found in household outlets. ...

The loss of feeder lines was blamed for the Washington Heights outages, which according to a report by the New York State Attorney General was traced in large part to insulation issues in the oven-like environment of underground utility vaults.

But as it did in 1999, the loss of the feeder lines in Queens caused higher volumes of electricity to run through the remaining feeders, transformers, and the lower-voltage lines, which were subsequently fried one-by-one by heavy power loads that they simply were not designed to handle.

Meanwhile, when all of this was going on in the netherworld of electricity, the folks in Queens went about their business with air conditioners pumping away.

'If the customers don`t see what is going on, they don`t reduce their (power) consumption,' Burke said. 'The electricity went through fewer and fewer primary feeders, which caused them to fail. The low-power grid now has to be put back together.'

...if the proverbial scene of the crime can`t be localized, it raises the prospect that the system was simply overloaded and people not only in Queens but in Manhattan and maybe even the rest of the United States will have to start restricting the use of their computers, big-screen televisions and washing machines to off hours. ...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Detroit News wire services) -- Authorities investigated at least 29 possible heat-related deaths Monday in California, where days of tropical heat and humidity have driven demand for electricity to record highs. If people can't take the weather anymore, neither could transformers and other equipment, which sputtered and shorted out and left tens of thousands of people without power in California and other states. ...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered state agencies to reduce electricity consumption by 25 percent, acting on a prediction from the state's power grid managers that demand would peak at 52,000 megawatts, a mark they had not expected to reach until 2011. Demand peaked at 50,270 megawatts, breaking the record of 49,036 megawatts set Friday. ...

Blackout Hits Small Business Owners Hard (AP)

Somebody's been snooping through my mail

2006-06-23T22:41:00.000-04:00

I recently filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with United States Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM). The purpose of this article is not to discuss the actual contents of the request, but rather to share some evidence indicating that USSTRATCOM’s response was intercepted and opened prior to being delivered to my home.

When I first received the letter, I immediately noticed that something was wrong. The top of the envelope had been cut open and was being held together by a single piece of clear tape.

As can be seen above, the piece of tape was placed over the meter stamp, meaning whomever placed it there did so after the letter had been sent.

It is also apparent that the snooper first attempted to peal open the adhesive flap, but aborted his or her efforts when the paper began to rip.

Maybe it was just a curious postal worker, but I doubt it.

News round up...

2006-06-08T22:58:00.000-04:00

Warfare

Zarqawi Killed --AP
Bush: Zarqawi death may "turn the tide" --Reuters
Bombings kill at least 40 in Baghdad --AP
Gunmen seize 50 in Iraq bus station raids --AP
Nigeria's oil delta faces escalation of violence --Reuters
'Five killed' in Nigeria oil raid --BBC
Efforts by C.I.A. Fail in Somalia, Officials Charge --The New York Times
Thousands demonstrate against US in Somalia --Reuters

Geopolitics

US bypasses Russia with BP pipeline --The Daily Telegraph
USA out-flanked in Eurasia Energy Politics? --Global Research
Iran warns of oil disruption if attacked --AP

Declining Dollar

RTS launches ruble-contracts in oil, oil products and gold --RIA Novosti
Russia Shifts Part of Its Forex Reserves from Dollars to Euros --MosNews
Iranian Oil Bourse nearly ready to open --UPI
How much longer can the dollar reign supreme? --The Guardian

Diplomacy

Iranian President Warms to Dialogue --The Washington Post
UN comments trigger row with US --BBC (Is Bolton threatening the UN?)

Remember this?
Apologize or we'll cut your funding US envoy tells UN --The Times

Crooks & Liars has the CNN segment

Energy Vulnerability & Sustainability

Greenspan sees a threat --Knight Ridder
Dutch Giants Told Gas Has Run Out --The Daily Telegraph

"Of course consumers will be affected. We need industrial, high-calorie gas to generate our electricity supplies. ... If gas supplies are unavailable our electricity is obviously threatened."
AUDIO: Julian Darley speaks to Congress for New Urbanism --Global Public Media
The Peak Oil Crisis, One Year in Review --Falls Church News-Press
AUDIO: Roger Blanchard on the Future of Global Oil Production --Global Public Media

Corporatism

States looking to cash in assets --USA Today

Corruption

Congressmen took free trips worth $50m --The Guardian
Powerful Lawmaker's Relative Linked Financially to Contractor --LA Times
Ex-Ohio Official Pleads Guilty to Charges --AP

Post-Katrina

Katrina Displaced 400,000 Study Says, New Orleans Becomes Whiter, Mississippi Coast More Diverse --The Washington Post

Constitutional Rights

Cheney's Office Declares Excemption from Secrecy Oversight --The New Standard
Specter's Uneasy Relationship With White House Is Revealed in a Letter to Cheney --NY Times

Cafferty: Arlen Specter: a gutless Republican worm
--Crooks & Liars
Specter Caves, Proposes Blanket Amnesty For Illegal Government Surveillance --Think Progress

Media Watch

Ann Coulter Calls 9/11 Widows 'Witches' --LA Times

Think Progress has the video
Widows lash back at poison tongue --The Herald Sun (Full statement here)
VIDEO - FOX ATTACK: Neil Cavuto's Turn to Bash RFK Jr., Legitimate Democracy --Brad Blog
Key Fact in National Review's Global Warming Article is 'Completely Wrong' --Think Progress

Update: Steorts Dismisses Factual Errors as 'Irrelevancies,' Demands Corrections

Unnoticed Stories of the Week:

'Cocaine One' DC9 Owner Still a Mystery, Problems Emerge with "former" Owner's Story --Mad Cow Morning News
FBI confidential informant also said to be provocateur --Raw Story (Professional FBI informant specializing in seduction trains activist 'lovers' in the United States to make bombs while encouraging them to carry out attacks and break the law!)

Quote of the Week:

"I’m really proud to say that in the recorded history of our family, we’ve never had a divorce or any kind of homosexual relationship."

Origin of Haditha

2006-06-04T07:58:00.000-04:00

Once again, as the truth regarding one of the many ‘massacres’ in Iraq creeps into the public spotlight, the Pentagon has announced the useless steps it will take in order to ‘solve’ the problem.

As most Americans now know, after a Marine was killed by a roadside bomb in the Iraqi town of Haditha, his brothers-in-arms reportedly went on a violent rampage, murdering 24 innocent Iraqi civilians, including women, children, and elderly.

In order to prevent this from happening in the future, the Department of Defense has decided to give all US troops in Iraq an update in “core values” training—a “reminder on legal, moral, [and] ethical standards,” as ABC News described it.

The Marines in Haditha, however, were not ethically or morally challenged and it was not a lack of training or experience that pushed them over the edge.

After repeatedly witnessing their fellow Marines torn apart by roadside bombs, the men of Kilo Company simply snapped. Their actions were horrible and inexcusable, but nonetheless, they were the result of psychological trauma—brought on by the nature of the war.

Antonio Castaneda, a reporter with the Associated Press, met with Kilo Company prior to the incident. In a June 1^st article, entitled “Marine rage just below surface,” he noted that the 3^rd Battalion was “clearly...a select group, nurtured within the military’s finest institutions and trained to lead an important mission. ... They also seemed sensitive to local concerns.”

In other words, these guys are not a group of ‘bad apples’ with poor morals. They are well-trained Marines; but they are also human beings, and there is no training that can fully prepare any sane individual to repetitively watch their best friends get ripped apart by explosives.

In an all too familiar situation, Castaneda described the Marines reaction to an earlier attack that occurred just a few miles from the Haditha site:

“... A Marine officer later described to me the rage that immediately consumed his unit, swelled by the knowledge that local residents likely saw the men who planted the bomb that killed their friends. ... I’ve heard other Marines talk about the temptation to seek reckless vengeance, often fueled by exasperation toward an unhelpful Iraqi public either too fearful of insurgents or spiteful toward the Americans. On that day in August, the powerful, raw emotion that sought revenge was quelled. But, if investigators are right, the rage in Haditha wasn’t contained for much longer.”

Marines are patrolling areas where the civilians perceive them as occupiers, the insurgents view them as targets, and their continued presence makes the situation worse with every passing day.

The origin of the massacre in Haditha is the war itself, not a lack of ethical values on the part of a few individual Marines.

Such manifestations of rage are inevitable consequences of war, which is exactly why Haditha was not the first, nor the last atrocity to be committed in Iraq.

While the men of Kilo Company face the possibility of the death penalty, the men who conspired to illegally instigate this war are being permitted to send more Marines to die and kill in their place, so you can expect more Hadithas.

The American Monitor

THE AMERICAN MONITOR NOW HAS ITS OWN WEBSITE

US-terror links kept in the dark as former Bush associate refuses to testify

JFK and 9/11 - Insights Gained From Studying Both

Key Stories (11/19/06 - 11/20/06)

'Low Food Security'

Key Stories (11/15/06 - 11/18/06)

UCLA Student Repeatedly Tasered in Handcuffs

Another 'double agent'

Al-Qaeda leader key informant

Scratching the Surface

Key Stories (11/14/06)

Rumsfeld, Vagabond

The End of Suburbia

A Dark Day

Response to 9/11 Press For Truth 'debunking'

9/11 Paymaster Video

Video on the way...

Musharraf names 9/11 suspect as possible British asset

Back in a week...

Round up...

U.S. citizen indicted for supporting U.S.-supported 'terrorist' group

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Evangelical Psycho Crook w/ Connections

Round up...

White House worried terror ops will be exposed

Article in the works...

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"God blessed America, and look what we did with it."

Round up...

Ptech owner making headlines in Turkey, Bosnia

"Prime Ministry insists on al-Qadi’s assets remaining frozen," Turkish Daily News, September 6, 2006:

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UK Terror Suspects Met With 9/11 Paymaster

Round up...

Metroland feature on 9/11 Truth

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FEMA Trailers Exploding

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'News round up' re-start...

Corn Shortage Predicted By 2008

Letter to the Editor (Times Union)

Jersey Girls, Coop Research releasing documentary

Lockheed Martin major participant in 9/11 Global Guardian exercise

MKO in Iraq

America's largest field going offline

Local library packed for 9/11 truth

Confirmed: hijack scenario scheduled for Vigilant Guardian on 9/11, confusion lasted well into attacks

Iraq plans to remove Pentagon’s proxy force

Trivia...

Everything is fixed...I hope...

Protester gets into Maliki's address to Congress -- Where is the Security?

Electricity vulnerabilities becoming more evident...

Somebody's been snooping through my mail

More html problems...

News round up...

Origin of Haditha