Saturday, June 30, 2007

When terrorist attacks and wargames coincide

Here is a presentation by rspawn of YouTube
He writes, referring to his video compilation:

On more than one occasion there have been war games or military exercises regarding terrorist attacks that coincide in time, location and methods with actual terrorist attacks that have taken place.

1. General Meyers giving some details about the war games that took place on 9-11-2001.(C-SPAN footage)

2. mr Power describes the terror exercises his security company was involved in on 7-7-2005 in London.(from "Mind The Gap")

3. Three Russian secret agents arrested in connection to a thwarted bomb plot in Moscow in 1999, later claimed to have been an exercises. (from "Disbelief")

4. US undercover operatives involved in an attack on a barracks in Belgium, later claimed to have been a canceled exercises. Stolen weapons turned up at a militant communist group.

Friday, June 29, 2007

UK agents 'did have role in IRA bomb atrocities'

Henry McDonald, Ireland editor
Sunday September 10, 2006
The Observer

The controversy over claims that Britain allowed two IRA informers to organise 'human bomb' attacks intensified this weekend.
A human rights watchdog has handed a report to the Police Service of Northern Ireland, which concludes that two British agents were central to the bombings of three army border installations in 1990.
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The 'human bomb' tactic involved forcing civilians to drive vehicles laden with explosives into army checkpoints and included deadly sorties near Newry and Coshquin outside Derry. Six British soldiers and a civilian worker at an army base died in the simultaneous blasts on either side of Northern Ireland.
British Irish Rights Watch said: 'This month BIRW sent a confidential report to the Historical Enquiries Team on the three incidents that occurred on 24th October 1990... at least two security force agents were involved in these bombings, and allegations have been made that the "human bomb" strategy was the brainchild of British intelligence.

complete article at

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/politics/story/0,,1869019,00.html

Chas Freeman, former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, said “Israel started Hamas.”

from article by Robert Dreyfuss

It’s important to note, as detailed in my book, Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam , that Israel has only itself to blame for the emergence of Hamas. After 1967, when Israel occupied Gaza and the West Bank, the Israeli authorities encouraged the growth of Islamism as a counter to Palestinian nationalism and the PLO. In 1967, Israel freed Ahmed Yassin, the Muslim Brotherhood leader who founded Hamas in 1978-88, and they encouraged the Islamic right and the Brotherhood to take control of mosques and student groups. In 1977-78, the Israeli government of Menachem Begin’s Likud officially licensed Yassin’s Islamic movement and gave it official Israeli blessing. Throughout the 1980s, the Muslim Brotherhood fought pitched battles against the PLO. In an interview not long before he died, Arafat said: “Hamas is a creature of Israel,” and he quoted slain Israeli Prime Minister Rabin as having told him that Israeli support for Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood was a “fatal error.” Several U.S. diplomats and intelligence officials told me about Israel’s support for Yassin and the Brotherhood, and Chas Freeman, the former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, told me bluntly: “Israel started Hamas.”

complete article at http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/01/27/end_of_the_road_map.php

Sunday, June 24, 2007

Egyptian paper: Documents show Dahlan was working with AlQaeda with the idea of blaming trouble on Hamas

June 23, 2007

Hamas has turned over to the Egyptian authorities substantial parts of the intelligence information that fell into its hands when it overran the headquarters of Fatah-controlled security headquarters in Gaza on Thursday, according to what sources told the Egyptian newspaper Al-Masriyoun. This is the first reported use of the information in question, which has been a topic of speculation.

The sources said the documents include information about the involvement of the group of Dahlan and Shabak in cooperating in an organized way with the Mukhabarat of Israel and America, including attempts to inundate Egypt with drugs smuggled from Israel via Gaza, and the distribution of hundreds of thousands of counterfeit dollars in tourist areas of Sinai, to damage tourism in the area.

The documents also refer to the role of Dahlan in inciting
Bedouins of Sinai to threaten to support Israeli policy, and to involve their people in smuggling members of "terrorist organizations" into Sinai to undertake operations against tourist installations there, both to hurt Egyptian tourism
for the benefit of Israeli tourism, and also to cause trouble between Egypt and Hamas on the assertion that these persons were followers of Hamas.

complete article at http://www.uruknet.info/?p=33957

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Would you donate to a charity that is associated with the war criminal Henry Kissinger?

What about a charity associated with Madeline Albright? She is the former U.S Secretary of State who when asked by Lesley Stahl about U.S. sanctions against Iraq: We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it.

Henry Kissinger and Madeline Albright are listed in the International Rescue Committee’s website as “Overseers.” See http://www.theirc.org/about/ircboard.html
Look at what this article, concerning the Congo, says about the International Rescue Committee (IRC):

A UN Panel of Experts in a recent report challenged many airlines and companies for undertaking illicit flights (illegal, secret, unregistered, or falsely registered) into and out of the DRC. One of many notable companies apparently connected to Victor Bout’s arms trafficking networks is Simax, an Oregon-based company using an address in Sierra Leone. However, the UN Panel of Experts has once again ignored certain western agencies —with histories of illicit activities —whose flights remain equally surreptitious and unaccountable. At the
top of the list is the International Rescue Committee (IRC)—whose directors include Henry Kissinger and whose flights in and out of the Congo and internal flights to and from isolated airports in eastern DRC are completely unmonitored by MONUC arms embargo inspectors. In Bukavu, for example, all light aircraft are subject to MONUC arms embargo inspections, but IRC flights are not within the MONUC mandate.



Complete article at http://zmagsite.zmag.org/JulAug2006/snow0706.html

Founder of Doctors without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontiers) did not oppose Iraq War (in other words did not oppose genocide)

"One of the most prominent roles went to a member of the Socialist Party. Bernard Kouchner, who is best-known for starting the humanitarian organization, Doctors Without Borders, or Medecins Sans Frontieres, is the new minister of foreign affairs. Like Mr. Sarkozy, he has taken a pro-American stance and was one of the few French politicians who did not oppose the war in Iraq."Source http://www.voanews.com/english/2007-05-18-voa12.cfm

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Africa – Where the Next US Oil Wars Will Be

by BAR Managing Editor Bruce Dixon

On Feb. 7 George Bush announced the formation of AFRICOM, a new Pentagon command which will, under the pretext of the so-called "Global War On Terror", plan and execute its oil and resource wars on the African continent. What does this mean to African Americans? And to Africans? BAR consults Prexy Nesbitt, an architect of the anti-apartheid struggles of the 70s and 80s.

The Pentagon does not admit that a ring of permanent US military bases is operating or under construction throughout Africa. But nobody doubts the American military buildup on the African continent is well underway. From oil rich northern Angola up to Nigeria, from the Gulf of Guinea to Morocco and Algeria, from the Horn of Africa down to Kenya and Uganda, and over the pipeline routes from Chad to Cameroon in the west, and from Sudan to the Red Sea in the east, US admirals and generals have been landing and taking off, meeting with local officials. They've conducted feasibility studies, concluded secret agreements, and spent billions from their secret budgets.
Rest of article at http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=114&Itemid=37

Somalia: Victim of the "War on Terror"

This is a Somali politician (Asha Hagi Elmi) giving her views on the U.S. and Ethiopian invasion of Somalia

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

What if everyone knew the early relationship between Iraq and the United States?

Would there have been this approval (or is it nonchalance) towards the invasion of Iraq?

Here is an informative article “What Every American Should Know About Iraq” by David Michael Green.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17891.htm

I’ll just quote a few of his facts

  • Mesopotamia has long been a playground for great powers. The British invaded the area in 1917, causing a widespread revolt of the Iraqi people. Britain later ruled under a League of Nations mandate that produced the artificial creation of the country Iraq (and Kuwait), and continued to control oil production in the region. Foreign Minister Arthur Balfour said at the time, “I do not care under what system we keep this oil, but I am quite clear it is all-important for us that this oil should be available”.
  • Saddam Hussein started his career as a political thug, on the payroll of the CIA during the 1950s and 1960s, torturing and murdering Iraqi leftists whose names were provided by American intelligence, and participating in an armed coup against the Iraqi government.
  • In 1972, the United States conspired with Iran and Israel to support a revolt of the Kurdish people within Iraq against their government
  • In 1980, the United States provided encouragement, weapons, intelligence, satellite data and funding for Saddam’s Iraq to invade Iran, launching an eight year war - the longest and probably the bloodiest of the post-WWII era.

I would just like to point out that the Untied States also provided weapons to both sides of the Iran-Iraq war
“In his book Veil - The Secret Wars of the CIA 1981-1987, Woodward sums up the results of this U.S. double-dealing: "Doling out tactical data to both sides put the agency in the position of engineering a stalemate. This was no mere abstraction. The war was a bloody one....almost a million had been killed, wounded or captured on both sides. This was not a game in an operations center. It was slaughter." (p. 507)

from http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=2292

  • During this war, Ronald Reagan dispatched Donald Rumsfeld to Iraq to improve relations with Saddam. The United States then restored full diplomatic relations with Iraq, despite the administration’s clear awareness that Saddam was using chemical weapons at the time
  • During the presidential campaign of 2000, candidate Bush said very little about Iraq, and certainly never suggested the need for urgent action. Somehow, though, in just two years time - during which, if anything, Iraq actually got weaker, not stronger - Saddam and his country became a perilous and imminent threat that had to be addressed immediately.
  • Former members of his own cabinet have revealed that Bush planned to invade Iraq from the very beginning of his administration, well before 9/11. All discussions were about the how of doing it, never about the why, the justification, the costs or the wisdom.


Saturday, June 16, 2007

Australian Muftis, Usama Ben Laden, and the FBI

Last year there was uproar over an Australian Mufti’s comments. Sheik Taj el-Din al-Hilali compared women to uncovered meat, being temptation to a cat. It was portrayed as a clash of civilizations, as if though blaming a rape victim for the way she dressed was unheard of in Western countries. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6086374.stm

Ironically, while this indignant uproar was going on, a group of 12 young Australian men attacked a girl. They urinated on her, set her hair on fire and sexually assaulted her. The attack was filmed and put on the YouTube website. DVDs of the incident were sold for $5 in secondary schools. “...two parents of the two boys that made this laughed it off and said it was just a bit of fun.” http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/boys-sell-film-of-girls-humiliation/2006/10/24/1161455723952.html

After this incident “Victorian Education Minister Lynne Kosky ... cancelled a planned visit to a Werribee school at the centre of a community backlash over a DVD of a girl being sexually abused.”

What happened to speaking up when something goes wrong? That’s what the West preaches to the Muslim world. This visit was important for the sake of the girl that had been assaulted. It would have also helped the rest of the students as well as the staff because “...students in uniform had been spat on and abused and staff were dealing with harassing phone calls in the wake of the scandal” http://www.theage.com.au/news/National/Vic-school-suffering-after-DVD-scandal/2006/10/27/1161749297998.html


Sheik Taj el-Din al-Hilali has been replaced by Sheik Fehmi Naji el-Imam. Controversy is surrounding him because he says he does not know if Osama Ben Laden is responsible for 9/11. See http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,21891258-5006009,00.html

Well, the FBI also is not sure if Osama Ben Laden is responsible for 9/11.
Look at the FBI’s webpage on Osama Ben Laden http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/terrorists/terbinladen.htm
Under the word “Caution” it says
“Usama Bin Laden is wanted in connection with the August 7, 1998, bombings of the United States Embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya. These attacks killed over 200 people. In addition, Bin Laden is a suspect in other terrorist attacks throughout the world.”

Why wouldn’t an attack which killed 3,000 people be specifically mentioned?
On Ed Haas’ website, he investigates this


On June 5, 2006, the Muckraker Report contacted the FBI Headquarters, (202) 324-3000, to learn why Bin Laden’s Most Wanted poster did not indicate that Usama was also wanted in connection with 9/11. The Muckraker Report spoke with Rex Tomb, Chief of Investigative Publicity for the FBI. When asked why there is no mention of 9/11 on Bin Laden’s Most Wanted web page, Tomb said, “The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Usama Bin Laden’s Most Wanted page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11.” See complete article at

http://www.teamliberty.net/id267.html

Laila Lalami on Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Irshad Manji

Here is an article writtten by a Muslim women that gives constructive criticism of Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Irshad Manji . I was suprised this appeared in the Nation magazine because in general, the political right and left have similar attitudes about Muslim women.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060619/lalami

Here are just a few excerpts from the article


This lumping together of various Islams--the geographical region, the Abrahamic religion, the historical civilization and the many individual cultures--is symptomatic of the entire book, and makes it particularly difficult to engage with Hirsi Ali in a useful way. Her discussion of female genital mutilation (FGM) is a case in point. In at least six of the seventeen essays, she cites the horrendous practice of FGM, which involves excising, in whole or in part, young girls' inner or outer labia, and in severe cases even their clitorises. Hirsi Ali is aware that the practice predates Islam, but, she maintains, "these existing local practices were spread by Islam." According to the United Nations Population Fund, FGM is practiced in sub-Saharan Africa by Animists, Christians and Muslims alike, as well as by Ethiopian Jews, sometimes in collusion with individual representatives of the faiths. For instance, the US State Department report on FGM reveals that some Coptic Christian priests "refuse to baptize girls who have not undergone one of the procedures." And yet Hirsi Ali does not blame Animism, Christianity or Judaism for FGM, or accuse these belief systems of spreading it. With Islam, however, such accusations are acceptable. A few years ago, Hirsi Ali proposed a bill in the Dutch Parliament that would require young girls from immigrant communities to undergo a vaginal exam once a year as a way to insure that the parents do not practice FGM. The suggestion is all the more interesting when one considers that the vast majority of Muslim immigrants to the Netherlands are from Turkey and Morocco, where FGM is unheard of. But there is a personal reason for this passionate stance: When Hirsi Ali was 5 years old, her grandmother had the procedure performed on her, without her father's knowledge or approval. The experience marked Hirsi Ali profoundly, and the fervor and determination she brings to the fight against this horrifying practice are utterly laudable. By making inaccurate statements like the one quoted above, however, she muddies the issues and alienates the very people who would have the religious standing in the community to make this practice disappear.

.............................................................................

So now what? Where does this leave feminists of all stripes who genuinely care about the civil rights of their Muslim sisters? A good first step would be to stop treating Muslim women as a silent, helpless mass of undifferentiated beings who think alike and face identical problems, and instead to recognize that each country and each society has its own unique issues. A second would be to question and critically assess the well-intentioned but factually inaccurate books that often serve as the very basis for discussion. We need more dialogue and less polemic. A third would be to acknowledge that women--and men--in Muslim societies face problems of underdevelopment (chief among them illiteracy and poverty) and that tackling them would go a long way toward reducing inequities. As the colonial experience of the past century has proved, aligning with an agenda of war and domination will not result in the advancement of women's rights. On the contrary, such a top-down approach is bound to create a nationalist counterreaction that, as we have witnessed with Islamist parties, can be downright catastrophic. Rather, a bottom-up approach, where the many local, homegrown women's organizations are fully empowered stands a better chance in the long run. After all, isn't this how Western feminists made their own gains toward equality?

Monday, June 11, 2007

Ayaan Hirsi Ali vs Waris Dirie











I wonder which name is more well known around the world? My guess is Ayaan Hirsi Ali is more well known. They are both Somali and have experienced FGM and both ran away from home when their fathers tried to arrange marriages for them to older men. They both are activists who want to stop the practice of FGM and improve women's rights.
How they differ is that Ali became a Dutch member of parliament, while Dirie became a fashion model. Dirie is a Muslim, while Ali is no longer a Muslim. They also differ in that while Dirie only talks about FGM and women's rights, Ali talks politics and often voices biased and misinformed arguments concerning the West and the Muslim world. In other words, when discussing politics, Ali says what Westerners want to hear, not an honest and balanced criticisms of boths sides of the issues.

Since Waris Dirie is not as popular, in the media as Ali, here is something about her life http://www.hcc.hawaii.edu/~pine/Phil110/waris-dirie.html

She was a UN goodwill ambassador in the fight against FGM. I don't know if she is still working with the UN, since I have not seen her in any media reports recently. She has a foundation that campaigns against FGM. see here http://www.waris-dirie-foundation.com/web/e_index.htm

Sunday, June 10, 2007

This is not going to help the Palestinians.

British teachers’ union weighs boycott of Israel
Britain’s largest union of university and college teachers voted to hold talks on an academic boycott of Israel, a spokesman said Thursday The University and College Union, which represents around 120,000 employees, voted Wednesday to
allow local branches to make a final decision on imposing a boycott on cooperation with Israeli academics. Union members voted on a motion asking them to note that “Israel’s 40-year occupation has seriously damaged the fabric of Palestinian society through annexation, illegal settlement, collective
punishment and restriction of movement.”
See complete article at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18963199/
Exactly what kind of conscience do these people have, if they only talk about what Israel is doing, but they don't talk about what Britain and the United States are doing in Iraq?

If the boycott is done and it spreads to other countries what will happen? Conveniently, a terrorist act wil take place (committed by agent provocateurs) and Israel will say "We told you so." These terrorist acts (whether it was the killing of the Isrealis at the 1972 Munich Olympics, or the hijacking of Air France Flight 139, where hostages were held at Entebbe Airport in Uganda, or the hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro), benefit Israel more than it does the Palestinians

If these British teachers want things to improve for the Palestinians, why don't they set the example by having their government stop its participation in the occupation of Iraq?

This also goes to the Americans on the radical left who want to talk about Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, but do not want to discuss the United States' war crimes around the world.

Saturday, June 09, 2007

Israel's Nuclear Double Standards

During the apartheid era of South Africa, Israel gave the country its nuclear capablities see http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Global_Secrets_Lies/Israel_SAfrica.html
(excerpted from the book Israeli Foreign Policy by Jane Hunter)

Now that Iran is developing nuclear power, Israel portrays it as the most dangerous country in the world.

United States oil imports and Saudi Arabia investments

According to http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/company_level_imports/current/import.html

in March 2007,
the top 5 countries that the U.S. imported crude oil from are
Canada 1,780,000 barrels per day
Mexico 1,621,000 barrels per day
Nigeria 1,290,000 barrels per day
Saudi Arabia 1,216,000 barrels per day
Venezuela 1,036,000 barrels per day

And the top 5 countries that the U.S. imported Petroleum from are
Canada 2,305,000 barrels per day
Mexico 1,749,000 barrels per day
Nigeria 1,346,000 barrels per day
Venezuela 1,285,000 barrels per day
Saudi Arabia 1,244,000 barrels per day

According to http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2089.htm
"Canada and the U.S. have one of the world’s largest investment relationships. The U.S. is Canada's largest foreign investor. Statistics Canada reports that at the end of 2005, the stock of U.S. foreign direct investment in Canada was $228 billion, or about 65% of total foreign direct investment in
Canada. U.S. investment is primarily in Canada's mining and smelting industries, petroleum, chemicals, the manufacture of machinery and transportation equipment, and finance. "

On the same government website it says about
Saudia Arabia at http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/3584.htm

During and after the Gulf War, the Government of Saudi Arabia provided water, food, shelter, and fuel for coalition forces in the region. There also were monetary payments to some coalition partners. Saudi Arabia's combined costs
in payments, foregone revenues, and donated supplies were $55 billion. More than $15 billion went toward reimbursing the United States alone.

It does not give figures about how much Saudi Arabia invests in the United States and vice versa.

Here (http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20060115-103622-3038r.htm ) is an article that says “...government sources estimate Saudi holdings in the United States at $400 billion to $800 billion.”
This particular article is warning us of the influence Saudi contributions to media outlets and Universities will have. The reality is whatever influence they have is negligible in these areas.

Another way the U.S. gets back its money from purchasing oil is by selling the Saudis sophisticated expensive weaponry. ( http://www.fas.org/asmp/profiles/saudi_arabia.htm ) The Saudis don’t have the qualified personnel to use the weaponry, which is why they and Kuwait had to look to the United States for help when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait.

Monday, June 04, 2007

Israeli agents 'helped Entebbe hijackers'

Mr Colvin told his superiors that his source suggested that the attack was carried out by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine with help from the Israeli Security Service, the Shin Bet.

It was designed to torpedo the rival Palestine Liberation Organisation's standing in France and to prevent what they saw as a growing rapprochement between the PLO and the Americans.

''My contact said that the PFLP had attracted all sorts of wild elements, some of whom had been planted by the Israelis,'' Mr Colvin added. The message was received without comment by the Foreign Office but later officials recorded that a journalist from the Liverpool Post, Leo Murray, had also told them that a splinter group of PFLP was planning a series of spectacular incidents to disrupt contacts between the PLO leader Yasser Arafat and the US.

complete article at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/06/01/nhijack01.xml

Sunday, June 03, 2007

When did they have a chance to put the explosives in the WTC Towers?

People may wonder when was there a chance to place explosives in the World Trade Center towers. Here is a brief video that helps to explain this. Starting in about a minute and a half into the video there is a discussion about peopple who worked in the World Trade Center Towers who said that prior to 9/11 there had been several unexplained evacuations and power downs in the towers.

9/11 Truth: Unusual Evacuations & Power-Downs in the WTC Prior To 9/11



Now that I think about it, there were many parts of the WTC that were vacant (not rented) before 9/11, this probably shortened the amount of time needed for the buildings to be evacuated. Here is an article (see second item called "Skyscaper Award") that talks about how before 9/11 the WTC 7 was mostly vacant and after 9/11, when it was rebuilt, it has become attractive as office space.
http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_211/undercover.html