TBR News July 17, 2010
The Voice of the White House
Washington, D.C. July 16, 2010: “Il occasionally like to discuss what our dear friends in the PRC are doing to our pets and our economy. Their badly tainted pet food killed at the least, 35 thousand animals but the American media, who is told by the American business community not to unduly annoy the precious Chinese, claims that only 35 animals died! And I have spoken about the Chinese faking American (and foreign) gold and silver coins. Especially destructive are their Nicholas II gold and silver rubles, now in extensive circulation throughout the world coin markets. It seems that the Chinese are even permitting a forgery of all of their numismatic valuable Panda coins. The gold ones were first minted in 1982 and the silver ones in 1983. I would like to stress, without listing hundreds of coins, minting dates, etc. that without exception, all of the coins of each year have been copied and dumped onto eager collectors around the world. The Chinese have also been faking U.S. Treasury gold bars. These are made from tungsten and heavily gold-plated. However, the Chinese do not have the proper numbering system so banks now refer the numbers on alleged American gold to the U.S. Treasury to see if the bars are genuine. This has resulted in the discovery that China has been on a global spending spree and has jammed literally tons of fakes into countries around the world. In addition to any kind of fish or shellfish from China (which must never be eaten under any circumstances due to deadly concentrations of chemicals) the American public ought, at the least, to avoid the funny stories about huge caches of silver Morgan dollars ‘just found in a Kansas bank vault’ and spend a few dollars on a digital scale. Weighing the gold and silver coins now being sold will immediately show that the fakes always weigh far less than originals.”
WikiLeaks founder: Site getting tons of ‘high caliber’ disclosures
July 18, 2010
by Richard Galand
CNN
Oxford, England (CNN) — WikiLeaks.org, the website that released secret video of a U.S. airstrike in Iraq that killed a dozen civilians, is “getting an enormous quantity of whistle-blower disclosures of high caliber,” the site’s founder, Julian Assange, said Friday in a rare public appearance here.
Speaking at the TED Global conference, Assange said that “we are overwhelmed by our growth” and the site can’t keep up with the volume of the new material because it doesn’t have enough people to verify it.
He later told reporters that “there are many things which are very explosive.”
Assange said the organization gets material from whistle-blowers in a variety of ways — including via postal mail — vets it, releases it to the public and then defends itself against “the regular political or legal attack.”
He said the organization rarely knows the identity of the source of the leak. “If we find out at some stage, we destroy that information as soon as possible,” he said.
Pfc. Bradley E. Manning, 22, of Potomac, Maryland, has been charged with eight violations of the U.S. Criminal Code for allegedly illegally transferring classified data, including the video that wound up on WikiLeaks. He has been accused of “wrongfully introducing a classified video of a military operation filmed at or near Baghdad, Iraq” around July 12, 2007, “onto his personal computer, a non-secure information system.”
Assange said at a news conference that Manning “is a political prisoner being held in the nation of Kuwait, effectively keeping him away from the press and effective legal representation.” He said WikiLeaks is providing legal assistance to Manning without saying if he was the source of the video.
“Obviously, we cannot pick and choose,” said Assange, adding that the site has to defend everyone who faces serious charges as a result of material posted on WikiLeaks.
The video shows aerial footage of an attack by a U.S. Apache helicopter that killed civilians, including two journalists from the Reuters news service. WikiLeaks posted it in April. The site said the video “clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers.”
Asked to respond to Assange’s assertion that Manning is a “political prisoner,” Pentagon spokesman Col. David Lapan told CNN that Manning is “accused of committing serious offenses. He has been charged under the Uniform Code of Military Justice and will be processed by normal procedures through the military justice system.”
U.S. military authorities have warned that the publication of classified documents on WikiLeaks could aid in the planning of terrorist attacks and harm national security.
At the Oxford event, Assange said, “Remember the people in Baghdad, the people in Iraq, the people in Afghanistan, they don’t need to see the video. They see it every day.” He said the site’s hope is that such video “will change the perception of the people who are paying” for the war.
Assange denied reports that WikiLeaks had received hundreds of thousands of classified U.S. cables in addition to the Iraq video. He said the site would have released the cables if it had received them.
Assange said some information, including a patient’s medical records, should legitimately be kept secret. But he said WikiLeaks’s practice of revealing information from whistle-blowers follows the traditions of journalism. The fact that governments and organizations spend money to keep this information secret, Assange said, is a good indication that releasing the information can achieve reform.
The 39-year-old Assange, who has gray hair swept back behind his ears, noted that WikiLeaks operates in several countries, including Iceland and Sweden, where, he said, laws give protection to the disclosures made on the site. He said he had to cancel three public appearances in the United States, including one at the June conference of Investigative Reporters and Editors in Las Vegas, Nevada, because of “unreasonable” statements by U.S. officials in private that they “may not follow the rule of law” in dealing with him.
“I received advice from figures like [investigative reporter] Sy Hersh to exercise caution,” Assange said, adding that U.S. officials have now adopted a “reasonable” attitude in private.
Assange was interviewed by Chris Anderson, curator of TED, the nonprofit that ran the conference. He asked the audience for a show of hands as to whether he was a hero or a “dangerous troublemaker.” The vast majority signaled that they viewed him as a hero.
Comment: If you believe this, I have a bridge to sell you! Wiki Leaks has been designed to lure unsuspecting people with access to secret or otherwise classified material, into believing that WikiLeaks is a heroic group of dedicated patriots who fearless use their secret sites to reveal the real truth. Anyone with secret document access is strongly advised to disregard the periodic gushes of praise from the American media…unless they want to eat cold beans off of a tin plate for the next ten years.
Harry Brunser Review
“A ring of Muslim clerics in India defiling Hindu youths’
Today, I am going to review an interesting comment by one R. Mohan Srivastava about a large clerical Muslim pedophilic slave ring located in Calcutta, India.
The author,, formerly with the Department of Applied Earth Sciences, Stanford University, is currently at FSS International, Vancouver, British Columbia. He also is close relative of Dr. R. K. Srivastava, Director General of Health Services for India and has many relatives now resident in that country.
The Forensic Science Service (FSS) enjoys a reputation as one of the world’s leading providers of forensic science.
The author, whose published paper is titled: “A ring of Muslim clerics in India defiling Hindu youths’, claims that a claque of Imams have kidnapped or lured young Hindu males, some as young at seven, into virtual bondage where they are kept for the “enjoyment” of the Muslim community of Calcutta.
The author uses a German phrase, ‘rassenschande’ or racial defilement in a number of places.
He is trying to get various international agencies involved in investigating his allegations and in at least two places in his long and often irrational article, speaks about “assistance” from the Cyber Technology Section Investigative Technology Division of the American Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Apparently FSS “works closely” with this branch of the Justice Department but, unfortunately for the accuracy of the article, this FBI group has acquired a very bad reputation and repeated accusations of faking evidence, to include fingerprints, false DNA reports, altered documents and other unpleasant matters.
As it is well-known in at least some circles, that many devout Hindus loathe their Muslim fellow Indians, the accuracy of this attack and the author’s firm’s connections with discredited American sources does not create confidence in the reader.
Internet Kill Switch Approved by Senate Committee
June 28, 2010
By Andrea Ludtke
CBS News
Washington, D.C.:The White House is one step closer to having the authority to flip the Internet “kill switch” in case of emergency.
The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs approved a cybersecurity bill called PCNAA, or Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act on Friday. The bill would give the president the power to call it lights out for the Internet if there is “a cyber attack capable of causing massive damage or loss of life.”
The legislation would force companies such as broadband providers, search engines, or software firms that the government selects to “immediately comply with any emergency measure or action developed” by the Department of Homeland Security . Anyone failing to comply would be fined.
The idea behind it is not new. A draft Senate proposal that CNET obtained in August allowed the White House to “declare a cybersecurity emergency,” and another from Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.V.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) would have explicitly given the government the power to “order the disconnection” of certain networks or Web sites.
That emergency authority would allow the federal government to “preserve those networks and assets and our country and protect our people,” Joe Lieberman, the primary sponsor of the measure and the chairman of the Homeland Security committee, told reporters on Thursday. Lieberman is an independent senator from Connecticut who caucuses with the Democrats.
Any company on a list created by Homeland Security that also “relies on” the Internet, the telephone system, or any other component of the U.S. “information infrastructure” would be subject to command by a new National Center for Cybersecurity and Communications (NCCC) that would be created inside Homeland Security.
The only obvious limitation on the NCCC’s emergency power is one paragraph in the Lieberman bill that appears to have grown out of the Bush-era flap over warrantless wiretapping. That limitation says that the NCCC cannot order broadband providers or other companies to “conduct surveillance” of Americans unless it’s otherwise legally authorized.
The NCCC also would be granted the power to monitor the “security status” of private sector Web sites, broadband providers, and other Internet components. Lieberman’s legislation requires the NCCC to provide “situational awareness of the security status” of the portions of the Internet that are inside the United States — and also those portions in other countries that, if disrupted, could cause significant harm.
Selected private companies would be required to participate in “information sharing” with the Feds. They must “certify in writing to the director” of the NCCC whether they have “developed and implemented” federally approved security measures, which could be anything from encryption to physical security mechanisms, or programming techniques that have been “approved by the director.” The NCCC director can “issue an order” in cases of noncompliance.
To sweeten the deal for industry groups, Lieberman has included a tantalizing offer absent from earlier drafts: immunity from civil lawsuits. If a software company’s programming error costs customers billions, or a broadband provider intentionally cuts off its customers in response to a federal command, neither would be liable.
If there’s an “incident related to a cyber vulnerability” after the president has declared an emergency and the affected company has followed federal standards, plaintiffs’ lawyers cannot collect damages for economic harm. And if the harm is caused by an emergency order from the Feds, not only does the possibility of damages virtually disappear, but the U.S. Treasury will even pick up the private company’s tab.
Initially, the bill would have given the president unlimited authority on how long he could control the Internet, but an amendment passed Friday says he would have to get the approval of Congress to shut down the Internet for more than 120 days.
National Guard’s “Homeland Response Force” to Patrol Missouri, Nine Other States
Aaron Dykes
Infowars.com
July 15, 2010
Homeland Response Forces are descending upon Missouri and nine other states, where National Guard units will be the face of Federal power in the regions in the event of a terrorist attack or disaster.
The Sedalia Democrat reports that, along with Missouri, the state where the report was written, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Texas, Utah and California will also host the National Guard Homeland Response Forces in the name of fighting terrorism. A unit will be placed within each of the regions established by FEMA, effectively implementing Federal powers at the state level premptively.
The U.S. Department of Defense announced Monday that Missouri will be one of 10 states to host National Guard Homeland Response Force units to help coordinate federal response to a terrorist attack.
According to the DoD announcement, the move came about following the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review — a congressionally mandated report put together every four years that highlights changes and challenges in national defense strategy. The 2010 report calls for improved coordination with civilian officials and providing resources for large-scale emergency response.
Other states that have announced participation in the program include Ohio.
This ties in with other recent reports of National Guard pitted against the domestic population. Infowars reporters recently exposed the National Guard involvement in Vigilant Guardian exercises training for terrorism & disaster during drills taking place in Chicago, Illinois. Video footage detailing this activity can be seen exclusively at PrisonPlanet.tv.
More shockingly, New York State has further announced the use of National Guard– merged with police– to aid in curbing the drug trade by intervening in local neighborhoods (despite the cynical fact that the CIA and other government agencies enable the importation of narcotics). The reports state that the National Guard will even scan vehicles for ‘guns and drugs’ using high-tech gamma rays
This roll-out of National Guard is not new, but is being phased in at an accelerated pace. The publicly-presented mandate for these National Guard troops continues to revolve around the “disasters” and “terrorism” theme. However, the RAND Corp., an authoritative think tank that has proven close to the political agendas actually being implemented, has prepared the nation for riots within the United States and control of widespread domestic unrest. Their 2009 report “A Stability Police Force for the United States” [PDF] proposes a “hybrid” military/law enforcement unit that would respond to disasters, but effectively act as a Federally-controlled policing force implemented within the bounds of States under the guise of controlling domestic riots, preparing for terrorism and even training for overseas deployment.
The RAND report outlines in part:
“The USMS [U.S. Marshalls Service] hybrid option … provides an important nondeployed mission for the force: augmenting state and local agencies, many of which currently suffer from severe personnel shortages.”
“Furthermore, the USMS has the broadest law enforcement mandate of any U.S. law enforcement agency…. [This model] provides significant domestic policing and homeland security benefits by providing thousands of additional police officers across the United States.”
It is clear that while these events seemingly take place independently, and trickle out of the news without alarm, it is part of a larger plan to implement National Guard in duties never meant for them to undertake across the country, functioning, in essence, as another layer of “authority” over the states and inviduals, and taking power under the pretense of national disaster, terror attack, biological or chemical warfare, the drug war or general domestic unrest. Notice the difference between a response to something that might happen utilizing the National Guard when needed vs. the premeditated deployment of the National Guard along the 10 regional lines drawn by FEMA to serve at any pretext that can be justified. I have included both a RAND Corp. study for integrated National Guard response following Hurricane Katrina as well as an Army report playing out the joint command structures and integrated control of National Guard between Federal and State authorities, all closely paralleling the rise of Fusion Centers to ‘protect the homeland.’
Army suicides hit record number in June
July 16, 2010
By Liz Goodwin
Yahoo News
Thirty-two soldiers took their own lives last month, the most Army suicides in a single month since the Vietnam era. Eleven of the soldiers were not on active duty. Of the 21 who were, seven were serving in Iraq or Afghanistan, the Department of Defense said.
Army officials say they don’t have any answers to why more and more soldiers are resorting to suicide.
“There were no trends to any one unit, camp, post or station,” Col. Chris Philbrick, head of the Army’s suicide prevention task force, told CNN. “I have no silver bullet to answer the question why.”
Last year, a record-breaking 245 soldiers committed suicide. The Army seems on track to surpass that number this year, as 145 soldiers have taken their lives in the first half of 2010.
Tim Embree of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America testified Wednesday before the House Veterans Affairs Committee that many soldiers fear seeking help.
“The heavy stigma associated with mental health care stops many service members and veterans from seeking treatment,” he said. “More than half of soldiers and Marines in Iraq who tested positive for a psychological injury reported concerns that they will be seen as weak by their fellow service members.”
He pointed out that the statistics don’t include the number of veterans who end their own lives. That figure surged 26 percent from 2005 to 2007, according to the Veterans Affairs Department.
The Army has a 24-hour suicide prevention hotline, and has videos and other resources on its website. The Army’s new suicide prevention video features a soldier talking about his own failed suicide attempt after his wife said she wanted to divorce him. The rifle he used to try to kill himself didn’t fire, he says, and he later found out his comrade had disabled it because he was worried about him.
What’s Really Going on Behind Murdoch’s Paywall?
July 14, 2010
by Michael Wolff
Newser
Rupert Murdoch is trying to make news at the Times and Sunday Times in London—but he’s not reporting on it. Will his paywall work is the biggest story in the media business, and it would be quite a journalistic coup to document the progress, or lack thereof, that’s being made in trying to convince a skeptical world to shell out 2£ ($3) a week for what’s heretofore been free.
He is not reporting on himself because even less than most news outlets, Murdoch outlets have no objective sense when it comes to their own interests (or the boss’s interests), or willingness to ask questions which the boss might find uncomfortable, or penchant for anything but the party line. The news from News Corp. is always snarlingly good—even when it is very bad.
My sources say that not only is nobody subscribing to the website, but subscribers to the paper itself—who have free access to the site—are not going beyond the registration page. It’s an empty world.
The wider implications of this emptiness are only just starting to become clear. A Murdoch and Fleet Street veteran with whom I’ve been corresponding about the paywall reported to me on his recent conversation with an A-list entertainment publicist: “What was really interesting to me was that this person volunteered a blinding realization. ‘Why would I get any of my clients to talk to the Times or the Sunday Times if they are behind a paywall? Who can see it? I can’t even share a link and they aren’t on search. It’s as though their writers don’t exist anymore.’”
“What Rupert always does,” added my correspondent, “is use whatever technology is available as a publishing mechanism. In this, they are reshaping the Internet, or at least the world wide web, as a simple one-way publishing tool. Take us or leave us. Most will leave. But it fits perfectly with Rupert’s vision and particularly the sentiment of Sunday Times editor John Witherow, who would prefer never to hear a peep from his readers once he has watched the paper leave Wapping in gigantic trucks on a Saturday night. (Not that they leave Wapping anymore, but you get my drift.)”
Murdoch, the historic bugbear of journalists (at least those who don’t work for him) has, curiously, managed to court the journalism community with some success in the matter of his paywall experiment. David Mitchell, writing in the Observer on Sunday in a heavily retweeted article, was full of ire about the righteousness of free news and enthusiasm about the prospects for Internet payment plans—he sees Murdoch as the last best hope for getting us paid for our labors.
Beyond the fact that we journalists, behind a paywall, will have fewer readers (our real currency), Murdoch, I rush to remind, has always run a ruthless newsroom, in which nobody comes out ahead but Rupert. In that light, it may be better to see the paywall as not about making more but about costing less. The paywall, and the integration of the Times and the Sunday Times behind it, becomes the deus ex machina by which (and this has long been a Murdoch dream) Murdoch and his son, James, the paper’s boss (with his eager corporate lieutenants, Rebekah Wade Brooks and Will Lewis), happily tear up several centuries of history and join the Times and the Sunday Times—and save a fortune.
It’s a big story—but you won’t read about it in the papers that know it best.
China’s wars, rebellions driven by climate: study
July 17, 2010
by Marlowe Hood
AFP
PARIS — Two millennia of foreign invasions and internal wars in China were driven more by cooling climate than by feudalism, class struggle or bad government, a bold study released Wednesday argued.
Food shortages severe enough to spark civil turmoil or force hordes of starving nomads to swoop down from the Mongolian steppes were consistently linked to long periods of colder weather, the study found.
In contrast, the Central Kingdom’s periods of stability and prosperity occurred during sustained warm spells, the researchers said.
Theories that weather-related calamities such as drought, floods and locust plagues steered the unravelling or creation of Chinese dynasties are not new.
But until now, no one had systematically scanned the long sweep of China’s tumultuous history to see exactly how climate and Chinese society might be intertwined.
Chinese and European scientists led by Zhibin Zhang of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing decided to compare two sets of data over 1,900 years.
Digging into historical archives, they looked at the frequency of war, price hikes of rice, locust plagues, droughts and floods. For conflict, they distinguished between internal strife and external wars.
At the same time, they reconstructed climate patterns over the period under review.
“The collapses of the agricultural dynasties of the Han (25-220), Tang (618-907), Northern Song (960-1125), Southern Song (1127-1279) and Ming (1368-1644) are closely associated with low temperature or the rapid decline in temperature,” they conclude.
A shortage of food would have weakened these dynasties, and pushed nomads in the north — even more vulnerable to dips in temperature — to invade their southern, Chinese-speaking neighbours, the authors argued.
A drop of 2.0 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) in average annual air temperature can shorten the growing season for steppe grasses, which are critical for livestock, by up to 40 days.
“When the climate worsens beyond what the available technology and economic system can compensate for, people are forced to move or starve,” they said.
The study found more droughts and floods during cold periods, but the factors that contributed most directly to wars and dynastic breakup were soaring rice prices and locust infestations.
The Roman and Mayan empires, they noted, also fell during cold periods.
Zhang and colleagues speculated that periodic temperature shifts roughly every 160 or 320 years were related to natural climate changes, namely fluctuations in solar activity and in Earth’s orbit and axial spin.
The team said the findings demonstrate that climate change can lead to unrest and warfare.
“Historians commonly attribute dynastic transitions or cycles to the quality of government and class struggles,” according to the paper, published in the British journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
“However, climatic fluctuation may be a significant factor interacting with social structures in affecting the rise and fall of cultures and dynasties.”
But the historical evidence they found points to global cooling, not to global warming, as the culprit.
The scientists were cautious about making projections for the future. In 2007, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said that man-made warming this century will lead to worse droughts, floods, harsh storms and sea level rise, with the potential to inflict hunger and misery on millions.
An Answer to a Critic
by Dr. Phillip L. Kushner, Head of Mathematics Dept.
University of Texas-Austin
A reader of TBR News wrote me a very nasty email today, accusing me of being a “Jew-hater” and, worse, a “Holocuast denier.” I will not give this person any more publicity but here is my response, starting with the “poison gas” myth and going on from there
“You say that the use of Zyklon B to gas Jews is well-documented?
Could you document this for me as I have never seen any period references to it.
And I would request you not to use fictive references like Hilberg, Reitlinger, Goldhagen or other of their stripe. I deal only in facts, not fiction nor those who write to an idea.
Perhaps the proofs are concealed in the famous “Secret Lists.”
In fact, not in fiction, in all the enormous files of captured German records, in addition to postwar U.S. historical evaluations, there is no reference whatsoever to gas chambers. References to executions of Jews, Poles, Russians, Italians, Frenchmen, Hungarians and others do indeed exist but a through compilation of the figures do not show the existence of three million Jews in any camp system nor their summary executions by gas, hanging or shooting.
The real figure of murdered Jews, as opposed to the false one, is 300,000. Some enterprising and amoral twit has merely added a zero. Mr. Harring has sifted through these documents obtained from both the Russian and the German archives and this will be published in detail.
I openly invite anyone with actual proofs of these wild claims to step forward and produce them. Since the politically-correct historical community has been aware of my writing and investigations, many have written to me in horror and rage, claiming that the official records were all false but their sources (usually 90 year old “survivors”) are the only accurate ones.
This Holocaust business is just that; a business. Squeeze money from the Swiss and the Germans, weep and wail and get political clout (and healthy discounts on furniture) in various countries, especially in rich America. Now, we have the edifying spectacle of brave attorneys and rabbis who have extracted billions from the Swiss to aid “Holocaust Survivors’ being charged with massive embezzlement of these funds. Could there be a lesson to be learned from this? No one who runs a business, based on fraud, likes to have their myths and legends questioned. It can cost them money in the end.
Old alchemists postulated the turning of lead into gold. The modern Holocausters have succeeded in turning blood into gold and, scrambling up on the rotten bodies of their co-religionists, are reaching for the heavens.
The Schindler list story is hysterically funny, when one considers the paperwork on him now extant. Schindler was a Gestapo officer who took part in the Gleiwitz action, set up a munitions factory utilizing captive Jews and was certainly not any kind of a humanitarian.
The number of people who believe in these stories is not an indication of their reliability. After all, Christians believe there was a Jesus and that Jesus is coming back again, and there still some in America who believed that George W. Bush is both sane and a good president. The same idiots now are gushing over Sarah Palin who is, if possible, stupider than Bush.
And why not discover more “secret lists” that prove that it was 30 million Jews who were killed? Many enemies, much honor and in this case, larger figures, more loot to be extracted from the suckers.
When faced with the realities of the official records, the typical Holocauster screams with rage and cites his aunt Sophie who was gassed twice, along with the canary. The sainted New York Times has referred, on several occasions of record, that this or that person was a “Holocaust Survivor” (note the reverend capitalization) who died at age 50. Since the Second World War was over in 1945, what “Holocaust” did they survive? An exceptional spring sale at Bloomingdales? Next, we will be reading similar stories about 35 year old Survivors. What did they survive? The Bush Administration? Mr. Harring has collected about fifty of these fascinating people for his book..
I might recommend to you the ‘Painted Bird’ by Kosinski, ‘Fragments’ by Dossecker/Wilkomerski or even the ‘Anne Frank Diary’ by Meyer Levin. And of course, Goldhagen’s howler. The first three references are aimed at the gullible and the latter at congenital idiots.
In Genesis we read…”And slime had they for mortar.” We can certainly learn much from the Bible, can’t we?”
US says Britain will not allow Iroquois entry
July 15, 2010
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The State Department says it failed to persuade the British government to allow an American Indian lacrosse team to enter Britain without U.S. or Canadian passports.
Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said U.S. officials discussed the matter with British officials Thursday.
He said it was made clear to the British officials that although the lacrosse team members would not be traveling on U.S. passports, they would be allowed to re-enter the U.S. when their visit to Britain was completed.
Nonetheless the British government decided to disallow entry for the team members, Crowley said. He described the decision as unsurprising, and he said both governments share the view that ultimately the Iroquois must have internationally recognized travel documents.
Tide of global opinion turning against Israel
Minhaz Merchant, July 11, 2010,
Times of India
Is Israel’s long-term security as a nation under threat? That was not a question many asked seriously 10 years ago. But today, thoughtful observers of West Asian politics, including friends of Israel, are asking the question and coming up with a one-word answer that was, till recently, unthinkable: perhaps.
Israel has clearly overreached itself in recent months under the pugnacious leadership of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu who took office in March 2009 (he was earlier prime minister between 1996 and 1999). In January 2010, an Israeli assassination squad murdered Hamas leader Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh in Dubai, leading to international condemnation. More recently, Israeli navy seal commandos killed nine protesters aboard a peace ship flotilla organized by the Free Gaza Movement.
For more than three years, 1.5 million Palestinians have been living under siege in Gaza, a narrow strip controlled by the Islamist party Hamas and blockaded by Israel, subsisting on food, water and medicines allowed in by Israeli troops and smuggled from Egypt through a maze of underground tunnels. There are three principal actors in this human tragedy. First, the United States for its support of any Israeli action, however excessive, in West Asia. Second, Israel for its uncompromising position on Gaza and the West Bank. Third, the broader Arab leadership, largely impotent since the creation of Israel in May 1948.
The trade-off is cynical and simple. American military power protects Arab governments from democratic movements in their own countries in return for acceptance of US policy in West Asia. Arab leaders make periodic statements of protest against Israel through the Arab League. But the clear understanding between the US and nearly a dozen Arab countries (including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait and Jordan) is that America’s policy writ in West Asia will not be challenged. Though President Barack Obama has attempted to moderate this policy, it remains an article of faith on Capitol Hill. The Obama administration’s balanced approach has, however, restored US goodwill among moderate Palestinians.
The Palestinians are the original inhabitants of the territory which today comprises Israel, Gaza and the West Bank. They were historically known as the Peleshets or Philistines, an Assyrian-Phoenician people who lived in the land since 3,000 BC. Herodotus, the Greek historian, first used the term Palestini around 500 BC.
Palestine was under Ottoman rule till just before the end of World War I. Between 1917 and 1948, it was administered under a British mandate. During this period, the population of Jews in Palestine rose six-fold from less than 100,000, mainly because of the migration of persecuted Jews from Eastern Europe. The massacre of more than six million Jews by Nazi Germany in World War II gave powerful Jewish leaders in Britain and the US a window of opportunity. Public opinion worldwide, outraged by Nazi atrocities during the Holocaust, favoured the immediate establishment of a Jewish state made up largely of European Jews and predicated on biblical prophecies of a Jewish homeland. Had the creation of Israel under UN resolution 181, adopted on November 29, 1947, been delayed by even a year, the moment would have passed.
Palestine as a separate nation has a solid legal — and civilizational — foundation. In 1917, Article 7 of the League of Nations mandate stated that a new, separate Palestinian nationality be established. Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations gave international legal status to Palestinian people and territories earlier administered by the Ottoman Empire.
How will the modern Palestinian tragedy play out? Israel, though a nation of determined and talented people whose centuries-long persecution in Europe rightly draws widespread sympathy, has two crucial weaknesses. The first is demographic. Israel has a low birth rate. Net migration, due to the psychological state of siege it lives under, is also turning negative. Meanwhile, the Palestinian population is exploding. Though confined to narrow strips of land, the number of Palestinians in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank (nearly six million) has already exceeded the total Jewish population in Israel (5.66 million). If this trend continues, Israel’s long-term security will be seriously compromised.
Israel’s second weakness is the shift in global, especially European and US, public opinion against its treatment of Palestinians. The international Free Gaza Movement, now three years old, is gathering pace. European Nobel laureates, American senators and Asian civil society leaders are challenging Israel directly and frequently.
But Israel’s real worries will begin once a separate Palestinian state is established over the next few years under the two-state solution brokered by the US at the Annapolis Conference in November 2007. Palestinian demographics and cross border fungibles could break down Israel’s ring-fenced security, causing even more of its nervous east European-origin Jews to migrate back to their homes in Russia, Poland and elsewhere. The inevitability of long-term reverse migration is what really haunts the Israeli political leadership. The result of reverse migration could be a creeping, backdoor takeover by neighboring Palestinians of much of the territory they lost when Israel was created. It is this very real fear that drives Israel’s policy on Palestine.
The Conversations with the Crow
When the CIA discovered that their former Deputy Director of Clandestine Affairs, Robert T. Crowley, had been talking with author Gregory Douglas, they became fearful (because of what Crowley knew) and outraged (because they knew Douglas would publish eventually) and made many efforts to silence Crowley, mostly by having dozens of FBI agents call or visit him at his Washington home and try to convince him to stop talking to Douglas, whom they considered to be an evil, loose cannon.
Crowley did not listen to them and Douglas made through shorthand notes of each and every one of their many conversation. TBR News published most of these (some of the really vile ones were left out of the book but will be included on this site as a later addendum ) and the entire collection was later produced as an Ebook.
Now, we reliably learn, various Washington alphabet agencies are trying to find a way to block the circulation of this highly negative, entertaining and dangerous work, so to show our solidarity with our beloved leaders and protectors, and our sincere appreciation for their corrupt and coercive actions, we are going to reprint the entire work, chapter by chapter. (The complete book can be obtained by going to:
http://www.shop.conversationswiththecrow.com/Conversations-with-the-Crow-CWC-GD01.htm🙂
Here is the thirteenth chapter:
Conversation No. 13
Date: Wednesday, May 8, 1996
Commenced: 9:54 AM CST
Concluded: 10:32 AM CST
RTC: Good morning, Gregory. Have you been reading about the resurrection of brother Colby?
GD: Good morning, Robert. Yes, I saw this piece of news yesterday but I was too busy to call you. I’m trying to finish up the translation of Mueller’s journals and when I get on a rush, I don’t let up. He floated…no some divers found him. Right?
RTC: As I understand it, yes. Oddly enough, they had searched the same place before but without success.
GD: Maybe they took him from a fishpond somewhere and planted him before he got too ripe.
RTC: It’s an odd case, Gregory. Here we have a man in his late ‘70s staying at his little summer place out on Rock Point, coming downstairs about eleven in the evening, putting on the computer and the television and then running outside in bad weather, jumping into his canoe and paddling out onto the river which was very rough about then what with the wind and rain. And, most interesting, he left his life belt behind. Bill always wore his vest when he went out in his canoe but he seems to have forgotten it. Careless.
GD: Getting old.
RTC: But no older.
GD: Can I do a scenario for you, Robert? Just to show you how really clever I am?
RTC: Why not?
GD: Some friends came to visit him a little earlier. Unannounced of course. Friendly talk, maybe a glass or two of wine and then poor Colby drank something that made him a little disoriented. Nothing to remain in the body afterwards, of course. Then I’ll bet they picked him up, took him out and put him in the boat they came in on, hooked the canoe up behind them with a painter and out onto the bounding main. Then into the nice cold water, unhitching the canoe and back to shore and the warmth of home and hearth. There was no mention of a hole in his head or missing body parts at all. A careless and confused old man out for a refreshing little trip and then tragedy strikes. I don’t think they’ve had time for a full post but I’ll just wager you they won’t find any cyanide or ricin in him. Another skillfully planned CIA wet action.
RTC: That’s an interesting analysis, Gregory. You haven’t been talking to anyone about this, have you?
GD: From that, I must have guessed right. The reports mentioned the computer and the bad weather and I put the rest together. I always loved jigsaw puzzles, Robert. In the summer, when Chicago got hot, we had no air conditioning in those days so we used to go up to Vilas County in upper Wisconsin to get cool. Nice summer house on a quiet lake. On the front screen porch, there were two large ping pong tables and boxes of very complex jigsaw puzzles. While everyone else was out swimming or fishing for the really delicious lake trout, I was on the porch for hours, putting the puzzles together. I love puzzles. On this one, the pieces were all there.
RTC: I told Kimmel once that you would have made a first class agent for us and he was outraged that I would even think of such sacrilege.
GD: I don’t disagree with you Robert. Kimmel once told me, seriously, that I suffered from the worst case of hubris he had ever seen. Do you know what I told him?
RTC: Were you rude?
GD: No, merely accurate. I told him that I had thought I was wrong about something once but found out later I was mistaken.
RTC: Delightful response, Gregory. And his?
GD: He was not amused, but I was. Anyway, the errant Colby has returned to the land of the living but in worse shape than when he left it.
RTC: Thank God for that.
GD: We can anticipate solemn statements from the White House, a weeping wife and black-suited friends and then off to the bone yard in a bronze box, tightly sealed lest eau d’Colby annoy people downwind. By now he probably smells like a big Camembert cheese. And soon forgotten by most. And from what you said, you won’t be going to the services.
RTC: I think not.
GD: But you do have your memories.
RTC: So do a lot of others. Perhaps we can discuss something more cheerful than the loss of a valued friend and freedom fighter, Gregory.
GD: How is the blessed box working?
RTC: The birds still flee but no ambulances at the door.
GD: Yes. Wait until valued secretary Mitzi Rumpleberger hangs herself in an electronically inspired fit of depression in the ladies’ lavatory with a pair of silk stockings.
RTC: The Ambassador would be more spectacular.
GD: His office is probably in the back. And one would hope he doesn’t wear silk stockings. Or a bra either.
RTC: Such imagery.
GD: If you don’t laugh, Robert, you will go crazy. People don’t realize that life is a huge practical joke that always has a bad ending. Like Brother Colby, but enough of forbidden topics. Someday, I will tell you how I nailed Pollard.
RTC: This is not another joke?
GD: Not at all.
RTC: I have some knowledge of this business, Gregory, and I would like to compare it to your own. Do go on.
GD: I knew a military collector when I was living in California. He used to collect SS items which was rather weird because he was Jewish. His father had been a host for a kiddie television show and after he and the mother got a divorce, she married a big cheese in the insurance business. Jack Beckett.
RTC: Transamerica Beckett?
GD: The same. They lived in Atherton in a gated house. I used to visit there from time to time and met Beckett a few times. A very decent, down to earth person, easy to talk to and I would say very honest. Did you know him?
RTC: I believe we knew him.
GD: He mentioned he knew Stansfield Turner so you must be right. Anyway, Abenheim, that’s his name, Donald Abenheim, had a fellow student from Stanford named Jay Pollard. Pollard used to come over and the two of them would war game and I sat in on a few sessions. Pollard was a very pleasant, smart fellow but a raging nebbish. A Walter Mitty type, if you know what I mean. Lived in a fantasy world of his own making. Pollard’s father was a dentist or something dull living in Ohio but Pollard was a downright fanatical Israeli supporter and he went on about working as a kibbutz guard, being an officer in the Mossad and so on. Obvious bullshit. It didn’t make him a bad person but he was a little hard to take at times. We never believed a word he said on that subject. Anyway, later, after Abenheim had graduated from Stanford, he told me Pollard had tried to get into your agency as an analyst but they discovered his Israeli lust and turned him down. Don told me that in their yearbook, Pollard put down that he was a major in the Mossad. But then he went to work for naval intelligence….
RTC: Naval Fleet Intelligence. Then he transferred over to the Anti-Terrorist Alert center of the NIS.
GD: The what?
RTC: Naval Investigative Service. They dealt with top secret military communications. Go on.
GD: When Don told me about this, I remarked that perhaps, given his attitudes, this was really not the place for Pollard to work.
RTC: In hindsight, you were perfectly right.
GD: So I pumped Abenheim about what Pollard was doing. Jay was in touch with him and they both had motor mouths. When Abenheim got specific, I suggested that he mention this to someone because he was fooling around with the national intelligence community but he only laughed at me.
RTC: And then what?
GD: Well, I thought about this and don’t forget I knew Pollard’s fanatic attitudes…I mean they were obsessive, believe me…so after stewing about this, I called up someone I knew who was connected with the Pacifica Foundation. He was a friend of Cap Weinberger, the Secretary of Defense. I told him all about Pollard and said that in my opinion, this was a man who should not have any access to secret governmental material dealing with anything in the Middle East. I made it a point to tell this fellow that if he couldn’t get Weinberger’s attention, I would take it to the press. Oh no, he said, give me some time. I did. He called me back in about a week and said he had passed the word along and begged me to keep quiet about it. Fair enough. Then we all know what happened.
RTC: Yes, we all do. So you were the “unidentified source.”
GD: Yes. Beats Mr. Sunshine.
RTC: Did you hear about what Weinberger did to Pollard?
GD: Not really.
RTC: Pollard cut a deal with the government for a lighter sentence but Weinberger hated him and got Wolf Blitzer to have an interview with Pollard and trick him into breaking his agreement. Pollard got life for being stupid.
GD: He wasn’t stupid, but he had no common sense.
RTC: Well, now he’s got life in the slammer.
GD: I told Abenheim what I did and he was terrified I would drag him into it. He was living off of Beckett, who put him into Stanford and bought him new cars and so on, and he was afraid of the consequences if Beckett got wind of his own lack of concern. He used to babble all kinds of family gossip around, including myself, and I always thought that if you take a man’s bread, you owe him at least some loyalty. But Don was not a man to contemplate honor. I remember once when I was having certain conversation with a German diplomat in San Francisco, this fellow encountered Don at some function. Don was an outrageous ass-kisser and at any rate, the German told him he knew me and that I was a “brilliant scholar” on the German scene. He said that Abenheim got annoyed and said I was only self-educated, which I am not and I said that considering that I had written Abenheim’s doctoral thesis, that was hardly appropriate. The German found this rather shocking.
RTC: If Stanford ever found out about that, they would jerk his degree, you know. I don’t think that would do his intelligence career any good. What was the thesis on?
GD: The Imperial German Navy’s etappendienst or resupply system, in the First World War. After this episode, I mentioned it to Charlie Burdick, the German military historian and Dean at San Jose State, very reputable and I’ve known him since ’52…anyway, he said that this paper struck him as much better than Abenheim’s usually pompous and turgid works. He knew my work and said that he could see in an instant that I was right. I asked him, since he was Abenheim’s sponsor for the doctorate, what he was going to do about it. As usual, nothing. But he would never talk to Don again.
RTC: What happened to him?
GD: Burdick?
RTC: No, Abenheim. Does he work for us?
GD: No, although Beckett wanted to get him into the CIA via his contacts with Turner. He does intelligence work for the Navy, I think. After I had a talk with him about his mouth problem, we haven’t spoken.
RTC: You should tip them off. We have too many treacherous people like that.
GD: Well, I don’t worry about it. The Germans and Burdick know, and believe me, and he can deal with that knowledge. I don’t think you have to worry about his selling secrets to Israel. He and his mother hate the Zionists. Reformed Jews usually do.
RTC: What does he think about your writings on Mueller?
GD: I would hate to think. Fortunately, that is outside his interest so I am probably safe.
RTC: What is his specialty?
GD: He likes to think he’s an expert on German military tradition but he most certainly is not. Abenheim is the moon and Beckett is the sun. Abenheim drove expensive sports cars, lived in an expensive house, went to an expensive school and met famous people but only because his mother married an important, and very generous, man. I remember once, Don and his friends were planning on raiding a military storage area in San Francisco when he was working in the Presidio museum. They heard there was morphine stored there and planned to sell it. I told him that I would tell his mother if he didn’t drop that idea and it scared him off. I mean, what an utterly stupid thing to do. He should have thanked me for keeping him out of jail instead of trash mouthing me to others.
RTC: Given what you’ve told me, he’s probably just jealous. I imagine he loved to pick your brains.
GD: Yes, like Corson.
RTC: There are certain similarities there.
GD: God save us from those of the small mind and large ego.
RTC: Anyway, Gregory, you did the right thing in the Pollard matter. And while your name is not known in this, your good deeds certainly are.
GD: But no good deed goes unpunished, does it, Robert? At least, Abenheim will be more cautious in the future or I might start writing nice letters to Stanford. After all, I have all the original work on his thesis. His useless notes and my handwritten pages. I remember once when he told me that brave Israeli commandos raided a Libyan secret plant, deep in the desert, and destroyed it. I got tired of his pomposity so I told him, very offhand, that that was a hoax. I said Kadaffi had put some oil and old tires into 55 gallon drums and set them on fire. I said the satellites showed clouds of black smoke but there was nothing to it. He got very irate and asked me how I knew such things? I said I had seen the side-angle satellite pictures…
RTC: My God, Gregory, you didn’t? Those satellites are very, very secret. He must have had a fit about that.
GD: Oh, he did. It turned out later I was right about the burning tires so he rushed to his superiors to tell them all about the horrid person who had access to the sacred satellite pictures. And about a month later, a military collector friend of mine was approached by someone at a collector’s club meeting. A nice, clean-cut fellow named Mason. Anyway, this fellow made friends with my collector connection and developed a great interest in me and my doings. I checked on this Mason fellow and discovered from Petersen that Chris was a CIA operative so I led him a wonderful chase, feeding him all kinds of nonsense until he finally, after several months, realized he was being made a fool of and he went back to Washington. He was not very bright, Robert. I had written a book on German paratroopers in the campaign on Crete so he had my friend send me a mint copy of the book to autograph. The cover was heavy coated stock so I put on a pair of cotton gloves, went over to my next door neighbor and handed the book to him. I had told him earlier that I had written a number of studies of military actions and he was interested. I said I had hurt my hand and could he autograph the book?
RTC: Gregory, that was a terrible thing to do. Now someone has your neighbor’s fingerprints and handwriting in a file somewhere. What a wicked thing to do.
GD: Ain’t I awful, Robert? And I told my collector friend about all the lovely aerial pictures I had. I was going to get a Russian publisher to do a book called, “The World from the Air.”
RTC: Jesus Christ…
GD: Oh and I said they were Cosmic pictures. From Top Secret/Cosmic of course.
RTC: And I suppose he told his new friend and consternation ensued in Washington.
GD: I said I was meeting a Russian publisher’s rep in ‘Frisco down at his office on Green Street.
RTC: That’s the Russian consulate. That’s a KGB center, Gregory.
GD: No, don’t disillusion me.
RTC: That is really wicked. You never saw any side-angle satellites pictures, never had any secret pictures, had no Russian publisher but just imagine the furor.
GD: Kept me warm at night for months, Robert. Abenheim later told someone that I was pure evil and should never be talked to. He wasn’t specific but my friend thought he might have an involuntary bowel movement at any time.
RTC: I said several times you would make a great agent, Gregory.
GD: Whatever makes you think I’m not, Robert?
RTC: On that depressing note, I’ll let you go. We’re supposed to go shopping and let’s do this again. You’re better than television, Gregory.
GD: And a lot more accurate, Robert.
(Concluded at 10:32 AM CST)
Dramatis personae:
James Jesus Angleton: Once head of the CIA’s Counterintelligence division, later fired because of his obsessive and illegal behavior, tapping the phones of many important government officials in search of elusive Soviet spies. A good friend of Robert Crowley and a co-conspirator with him in the assassination of President Kennedy
James P. Atwood: (April 16, 1930-April 20, 1997) A CIA employee, located in Berlin, Atwood had a most interesting career. He worked for any other intelligence agency, domestic or foreign, that would pay him, was involved in selling surplus Russian atomic artillery shells to the Pakistan government and was also most successful in the manufacturing of counterfeit German dress daggers. Too talkative, Atwood eventually had a sudden “seizure” while lunching with CIA associates.
William Corson: A Marine Corps Colonel and President Carter’s representative to the CIA. A friend of Crowley and Kimmel, Corson was an intelligent man whose main failing was a frantic desire to be seen as an important person. This led to his making fictional or highly exaggerated claims.
John Costello: A British historian who was popular with revisionist circles. Died of AIDS on a trans-Atlantic flight
James Critchfield: Former U.S. Army Colonel who worked for the CIA and organizaed the Cehlen Org. at Pullach, Germany. This organization was filled to the Plimsoll line with former Gestapo and SD personnel, many of whom were wanted for various purported crimes. He hired Heinrich Müller in 1948 and went on to represent the CIA in the Persian Gulf.
Robert T. Crowley: Once the deputy director of Clandestine Operations and head of the group that interacted with corporate America. A former West Point football player who was one of the founders of the original CIA. Crowley was involved at a very high level with many of the machinations of the CIA.
Gregory Douglas: A retired newspaperman, onetime friend of Heinrich Müller and latterly, of Robert Crowley. Inherited stacks of files from the former (along with many interesting works of art acquired during the war and even more papers from Robert Crowley. Lives comfortably in a nice house overlooking the Mediterranean.
Reinhard Gehlen: A retired German general who had once been in charge of the intelligence for the German high command on Russian military activities. Fired by Hitler for incompetence, he was therefore naturally hired by first the U.S. Army and then, as his level of incompetence rose, with the CIA. His Nazi-stuffed organizaion eventually became the current German Bundes Nachrichten Dienst.
Thomas K. Kimmel, Jr: A grandson of Admiral Husband Kimmel, Naval commander at Pearl Harbor who was scapegoated after the Japanese attack. Kimmel was a senior FBI official who knew both Gregory Douglas and Robert Crowley and made a number of attempts to discourage Crowley from talking with Douglas. He was singularly unsuccessful. Kimmel subsequently retired and lives in retirement in Florida
Willi Krichbaum: A Senior Colonel (Oberführer) in the SS, head of the wartime Secret Field Police of the German Army and Heinrich Müller’s standing deputy in the Gestapo. After the war, Krichbaum went to work for the Critchfield organization and was their chief recruiter and hired many of his former SS friends. Krichbaum put Critchfield in touch with Müller in 1948.
Heinrich Müller: A former military pilot in the Bavarian Army in WWI, Müller became a political police officer in Munich and was later made the head of the Secret State Police or Gestapo. After the war, Müller escaped to Switzerland where he worked for Swiss intelligence as a specialist on Communist espionage and was hired by James Critchfield, head of the Gehlen Organization, in 1948. Müller subsequently was moved to Washington where he worked for the CIA until he retired.
Joseph Trento: A writer on intelligence subjects, Trento and his wife “assisted” both Crowley and Corson in writing a book on the Russian KGB. Trento believed that he would inherit all of Crowley’s extensive files but after Crowley’s death, he discovered that the files had been gutted and the most important, and sensitive, ones given to Gregory Douglas. Trento was not happy about this. Neither were his employers.
Frank Wisner: A Founding Father of the CIA who promised much to the Hungarian and then failed them. First, a raging lunatic who was removed from Langley, screaming, in a strait jacket and later, blowing off the top of his head with a shotgun.
Robert Wolfe: A retired librarian from the National Archives who worked closely with the CIA on covering up embarrassing historical material in the files of the Arcnives. A strong supporter of holocaust writers.