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The
Slaughterhouse Informer
A
Compendiium of Various Official Lies, Business Scandals, Small
Murders, Frauds, and Other Gross Defects of Our Current Political,
Business and Religious Moral Lepers.
Presenting a new magazine that contains material that is not found
elsewhere and is very difficult to post on the Internet. The
‘Voice of the White House’ will appear in each issue containing
material not found on TBR News for very obvious reasons.This
publication will appear once a week, on Wednesday, every week, will
be ten pages in length and is available by subscription only. The
price is $5.00 a month and can be paid via PayPal or by check, sent
to ‘Morris Productions, 1350 E. New Yort St. Ste A2-190, Aurora,
Il 60504.’ If you don’t like it, and Bush supporters can read
the Drudge Report for free, you can cancel at any time.
The Voice of the White
House
Washington,
D.C., October 30, 2008: “Even as the Bush righwingers are smelling
defeat in the air, they are allying themselves with American law
enforcement agencies in an attempt to completely censor and control
the Internet usage and reception inside the United States.
Many people are aware that the American media is controlled;
that negative news never get printed and governmental decrees are
made public, tarted up as news stories but the internet has proven a
might thorn in their side. Real material is on the internet and the
fake government planted stories are torn to pieces so the Attorney
General set up a special study group inside the Department of
Justice to study internet usage and determine how it could be
controlled.
The
not unexpected advent of an economic collapse, created by the Bush
people and now being dumped onto the American public, could well
create strong resistance to governmental policies. Now it should be
noted that the president is not the factor here.
The
president is the figurehead and others run the government, others
who have their own agendas. The American public is the best and most
heavily armed public in history and there is a very real fear in
U.S. counter intelligence circles, to include the FBI and the DHS,
that severe economic hardships could very well trigger massive
public resistance.
I have a thick official study of military law procedures,
upgraded to the end of August, 2008, that covers this subject. While
it is to prolix to publish in toto, I can easily quote from sections
of it and will certainly do so in the near future. (Editor’s
note: This material will be published in the Slaughterhouse Informer
and not TBR News because of its inflammatory nature)
But back to censoring and controlling the internet: To be
concise and not lengthy, what is on the table is mandatory internet
censoring in America, the same as now being practiced in both China
and Australia. A direct quote from the preamble to the censorship
bill reads: “we
specifically refer here to mandatory blocking, where possible, of
illegal or socially disruptive negative material."
And
further we read, “We seek to emulate and duplicate the Chinese
system of internet control which blocks any site deemed by the
government to be subversive, inflammatory or a threat to public
order…” Further
mention is made of the cooperation between China and American-based
internet companies such as Microsoft, Cisco, Google and Yahoo
in blocking
domestic Chinese access to sited deemed “forbidden” by the
Chinese government.
What is
proposed is to develop an internet filter that will be used by all
servers and that no American internet user will be able to opt out
of the filter system. The justification for this total censorship is
the prevention of access to illegal hard core material and child
pornography and has the fullest support of American evangelical
ministries.
There have
been no objections from American internet giants who recognize that
the alternative, also spelled out in this interesting fascist study,
would be for the government itself to become the sole internet
provider. Such a threat has had a very chilling effect on any
aspects of speech freedom advocates in the industry.
There will be an initial propaganda program, published in the
media, about “serious
problems with pornography and child abuse sites”
and then “concerned
groups,”
supplied eagerly by the Christian right, will lobby Congress for the
passage of this proposed internet control bill. The basic idea is
that anyone daring to protest will be labeled a supporter of child
pornography.
Principles
for a better Web
October
30th, 2008
by
Colin Maclay, Acting Executive Director, and Caroline Nolan,
Research Associate, Berkman Center for Internet & Society
at Harvard University
Reuters
More
than one billion people are online, with three times that amount
connected via mobile devices, just one indication of how integrated
digital technologies are with lives and livelihoods around the
globe. While governments have for the most part encouraged these
developments, they are increasingly aware of technology’s
capacity to disrupt existing power structures and accordingly
ambivalent. As governments seek to control information and online
activities, private actors –
information and communication technology (ICT) firms in particular –
are increasingly called upon to assist in those efforts.
Many
of us mistakenly assume that Internet governance doesn’t
touch us, and maybe it doesn’t
–
what expression is allowed on the Net and whether your personal
information is shared with law enforcement is often governed less by
law and more by practice. As Jonathan
Zittrain and John Palfrey have
long argued, companies providing technology services are important Internet
points of control
and are under great pressure to comply with local laws and
practices, which can
be at odds with
international standards, corporate values, and social norms.
Facets
of these corporate dilemmas have been explored by the OpenNet
Initiative,
the
Citizen Lab,
Chilling
Effects,
and other keen observers like Rebecca
Mackinnon,
but we are just beginning to understand the scope of this rapidly
evolving problem. Most of us remain more familiar with a few
infamous incidents in certain countries than with the real
challenges arising with less fanfare across the world. The
emergent nature of global technologies, business models, and
government responses
makes these complex
problems particularly
difficult for law to address effectively , at least in the near
term. These networked, distributed issues require a dynamic
approach, capable of evolving and scaling alongside the problem, and
ideally ahead of it.
Launching
this week,
the Global
Network Initiative
is a multi-stakeholder effort –
grounded in a set of guiding
principles,
supported by implementation
guidelines,
and a governance,
accountability and learning framework
–
that establishes a robust, responsive platform for participating
companies, NGOs, investors, academics, and others to work together
to protect and advance the rights to free expression and privacy in
the ICT sector worldwide. The launch represents the empowerment of a
coalition that can support companies as they resist governments that
seek to enlist them in acts of censorship and surveillance in
violation of international standards.
This
ground-breaking approach was developed with Google,
Microsoft,
Yahoo!,
Human
Rights Watch,
Committee
to Protect Journalists,
Research
Center for Information Law at University of St. Gallen, Switzerland
FIR,
School
of Information at University of California-Berkeley,
Calvert,
F&C
Investments
and other
organizations –
hopefully, with many others introducing still greater diversity to
come. Our varied views and experiences can be challenging, they push -
and allow –
us to consider the problem and approaches to it across multiple
dimensions, ultimately helping us to balance aspiration and reality
(or near term progress with long-term success) in a way that no one
sector would likely achieve.
The
actions of (and expectations for) companies will evolve over time.
Early commitments center on responsible
decision-making,
specifically developing the capacity to anticipate and address
concerns relating to privacy and expression. Among other
steps, companies will form cross-functional leadership teams and
train employees; conduct
human rights impact assessments before
entering new geographical or service markets, developing associated
strategies to mitigate those risks; and encourage participation in
GNI by relevant partners.
Company
relations with law enforcement can be complex, due to obligations to
support both legitimate law enforcement aims and commitments to
protect user rights (which is also clearly a business interest).
Under GNI guidelines, companies will request written documentation
explaining the legal basis for government restrictions; will seek to
minimize the impact of any such restrictions; and will challenge
governments when faced with requests that appear inconsistent with
domestic law or international human rights standards.
These
activities will be verified through an accountability and learning
framework, in which outside monitors will explore what is working
and what is not, ensuring that companies are making progress on
their commitments, and developing remediation where they are not.
Companies’
public reporting will foster greater transparency with users and the
wider public.
Beyond
these internal commitments (which
companies are already introducing),
we are optimistic about the Initiative’s
capacity for collective action that can have a transformative effect
on government behavior and lasting impact.
As
a university research center, the Berkman Center will focus on
building the GNI’s
underlying foundation –
its capacity for learning and research and information sharing –
developing strategies to identify, understand, and address the
threats to and opportunities for privacy and free expression.
We
are in the early stages of a long road but are fortunate to have
recognized that these are network issues: they emerge from and are
characterized by the distributed nature of ICTs. Effective solutions
should be built upon the same platform, with efforts that are
independent yet coordinated; responses that are tried, evaluated and
refined over time; and lessons that are shared and adapted; and all
the while, striving for transparency. The Global Network Initiative
connects our contention that the digital world not only gives rise
to new challenges, but also allows the formation of new institutions
that respond effectively to them.
The
Crowley Papers: The Vietnam War- 1945-1978
Edited by Dr. Peter Janney
On
October 8th, 2000, Robert Trumbull Crowley, once a leader of the
CIA's Clandestine Operations Division, died in a Washington hospital
of heart failure and the end effects of Alzheimer's Disease. Before
the late Assistant Director Crowley was cold, Joseph Trento, a
writer of light-weight books on the CIA, descended on Crowley's
widow at her town house on Cathedral Hill Drive in Washington and
hauled away over fifty boxes of Crowley's CIA files.
Once Trento had his new find secure in his house in Front
Royal , Virginia, he called a well-known Washington fix lawyer with
the news of his success in securing what the CIA had always
considered to be a potential major embarrassment. Three months
before, July 20th of that year, retired Marine Corps colonel William
R. Corson, and an associate of Crowley, died of emphysema and lung
cancer at a hospital in Bethesda, Md.
After Corson's death, Trento and a well-known Washington
fix-lawyer went to Corson's bank, got into his safe deposit box and
removed a manuscript entitled 'Zipper.' This manuscript, which dealt
with Crowley's involvement in the assassination of President John F.
Kennedy, vanished into a CIA burn-bag and the matter was considered
to be closed forever.
The small group
of CIA officials gathered at Trento's house to search through the
Crowley papers, looking for documents that must not become public. A
few were found but, to their consternation, a significant number of
files Crowley was known to have had in his possession had simply
vanished.
When published material concerning the CIA's actions against
Kennedy became public in 2002, it was discovered to the CIA's
horror, that the missing documents had been sent by an increasingly
erratic Crowley to another person and these missing papers included
devastating material on the CIA's activities in South East Asia to
include drug running, money laundering and the maintenance of the
notorious 'Regional Interrogation Centers' in Viet Nam and, worse
still, the Zipper files proving the CIA’s active organization of
the assassination of President John Kennedy..
A massive, preemptive disinformation campaign was readied,
using government-friendly bloggers, CIA-paid "historians"
and others, in the event that anything from this file ever surfaced.
The best-laid plans often go astray and in this case, one of the
compliant historians, a former government librarian who fancied
himself a serious writer, began to tell his friends about the CIA
plan to kill Kennedy and eventually, word of this began to leak out
into the outside world.
The originals had vanished and an extensive search was
conducted by the FBI and CIA operatives but without success.
Crowley's survivors, his aged wife and son, were interviewed
extensively by the FBI and instructed to minimize any discussion of
highly damaging CIA files that Crowley had, illegally,
removed from Langley when he retired. Crowley had been a close
friend of James Jesus Angleton, the CIA’s notorious head of
Counterintelligence. When Angleton was sacked by
DCI William Colby in December of 1974, Crowley and Angleton
conspired to secretly
remove Angleton’s most sensitive secret files our of the agency.
Crowley did the same thing right
before his own retirement , secretly removing thousands of pages
of classified information that covered his entire agency
career.
Known as “The Crow” within the agency, Robert T. Crowley
joined the CIA at its inception and spent his entire career in the
Directorate of Plans, also know as the “Department of Dirty
Tricks,”: Crowley was one of the tallest man ever to work at the
CIA. Born in 1924 and raised in Chicago, Crowley grew to six and a
half feet when he entered the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in
N.Y. as a cadet in 1943 in the class of 1946. He never graduated,
having enlisted in the Army, serving in the Pacific during World War
II. He retired from the Army Reserve in 1986 as a lieutenant
colonel. According to a book he authored with his friend and
colleague, William Corson, Crowley’s career included service in
military intelligence and Naval Intelligence, before joining the CIA
at inception in 1947. His entire career at the agency was spent
within the Directorate of Plans in covert operations. Before his
retirement, Bob Crowley became assistant deputy director for
operations, the second-in-command in the Clandestine Directorate of
Operations.
One of Crowley’s first major assignments within the agency
was to assist in the recruitment and management of prominent World
War II Nazis, especially those with advanced intelligence
experience. One of the CIA’s major recruitment coups was Heinrich
Mueller, once head of Hitler’s Gestapo who had fled to Switzerland
after the collapse of the Third Reich and worked as an
anti-Communist expert for Masson of Swiss counterintelligence.
Mueller was initially hired by Colonel James Critchfield of the CIA,
who was running the Gehlen Organization out of Pullach in
southern Germany. Crowley eventually came to despise Critchfield but
the colonel was totally unaware of this, to his later dismay.
Crowley’s real expertise within the agency was the Soviet
KGB. One of his main jobs throughout his career was acting as the
agency liaison with corporations like ITT, which the CIA often used
as fronts for moving large amounts of cash off their books. He was
deeply involved in the efforts by the U.S. to overthrow the
democratically elected government of Salvador Allende in Chile,
which eventually got him into legal problems with regard to
investigations of the U.S. government’s grand jury where he has
perjured himself in an agency cover-up
After
his retirement, Crowley began to search for someone who might be
able to write a competent history of his career. His first choice
fell on British author John Costello (author of Ten Days to
Destiny, The Pacific War and other works) but, discovering that
Costello was a very aggressive homosexual, he dropped him and
tentatively turned to Joseph Trento who had assisted Crowley and
William Corson in writing a book on the KGB. When Crowley discovered
that Trento had an ambiguous and probably cooperative relationship
with the CIA, he began to distrust him and continued his search for
an author.
Bob
Crowley first contacted Gregory Douglas
in 1993 when he
found out from John Costello that Douglas was about to publish his
first book on Heinrich Mueller, the former head of the Gestapo who
had become a secret, long-time asset to the CIA. Crowley contacted
Douglas and they began a series of long and often very informative
telephone conversations that lasted for four years. . In 1996,
Crowley , Crowley told Douglas
that he believed him to be the person that should ultimately
tell Crowley’s story but only after Crowley’s death. Douglas,
for his part, became so entranced with some of the material that
Crowley began to share with him that he secretly began to record
their conversations, later transcribing them word for word, planning
to incorporate some, or all, of the material in later publications.
In
1998, when Crowley was slated to go into the hospital for
exploratory surgery, he
had his son, Greg, ship two large foot lockers of documents to
Douglas with the caveat that they were not to be opened until after
Crowley’s death. These documents, totaled
an astonishing 15,000 pages of CIA classified files involving
many covert operations, both foreign and domestic, during the Cold
War.
After
Crowley’s death and Trento’s raid on the Crowley files, huge
gaps were subsequently discovered by horrified CIA officials and
when Crowley’s friends mentioned Gregory Douglas, it was
discovered that Crowley’s son had shipped two large boxes to
Douglas. No one knew their contents but because Douglas was viewed
as an uncontrollable loose cannon who had done considerable damage
to the CIA’s reputation by his on-going publication of the history
of Gestapo-Mueller, they bent every effort both to identify the
missing files and make some effort to retrieve them before Douglas
made any use of them.
All of this furor eventually came to the attention of Dr.
Peter Janney, a Massachusetts clinical psychologist and son of
Wistar Janney, another career senior CIA official, colleague of not
only Bob Crowley but Cord Meyer, Richard Helms, Jim Angleton and
others. Janney was working on a book concerning the murder of Mary
Pinchot Meyer, former wife of Cord Meyer, a high-level CIA official,
and later the mistress of President John F. Kennedy.
Douglas had authored a book, ‘Regicide’ which
dealt with Crowley’s part in the Kennedy assassination and he
obviously had access to at least some of Crowley’s papers. Janney
was very well connected inside the CIA’s higher levels and when he
discovered that Douglas had indeed known, and had often spoken with,
Crowley and that after Crowley’s death, the FBI had descended on
Crowley’s widow and son, warning them to never speak with Douglas
about anything, he contacted Douglas and finally obtained from him a
number of original documents, including the originals of the
transcribed conversations with Robert Crowley.
In spite of the burn bags, the top secret safes and the
vigilance of the CIA to keep its own secrets, the truth has an
embarrassing and often very fatal habit of emerging, albeit decades
later.
Among Robert Crowley’s papers was a complete manuscript he
prepared for in-house circulation dealing with the political,
military and intelligence backgrounds of the long war in Vietnam. As
a CIA employee, Crowley had signed an agreement that he would never
publish anything based on his CIA service without first submitting
the complete manuscript to the Agency for its vetting. In this case,
Crowley never submitted the manuscript and is now dead. His only son
is also dead and his wife is in a nursing facility so this
fascinating view of a troubled period in America is now seeing the
light of day for the first time.
The Vietnam War 1945-1978
By
Robert Trumbull Crowley
Origins
and Background
The
origins of the problems in what was once French Indo-China can be
clearly traced to the end of the Second World War in Southeast Asia
and the following immediate post-war realignments of the policies
and goals of the winning parties. The great colonial powers, Britain
and France, were forced by geographic and economic problems to
sharply reevaluate their former colonial policies while the
resurgent Soviet Union was commencing to develop its own
neo-colonial programs, both for Europe and Asia.
The
United States, on the other hand, had no coherent policies
concerning both existing and former colonial territories. No matter
how esoteric and idealistic the avowed aims of the new UN were, with
the death of Franklin Roosevelt in 1945, the United States had
pulled away from his planning in this area. After his death, the
Truman administration and the American military planners were solely
interested in winning the war in the Pacific with as few casualties
as possible and completely neglected the aspect of the post-war
period. Potentially very high American casualties that might have
resulted by a physical invasion of Japan were negated by the use of
two atomic bombs. This double attack was not only intended to
destroy the will of Japan’s leaders to continue the war but also
served to warn Communist Russia’s Stalin that America had a new
and terrible weapon that could be brought to the negotiating table
after the war. This lack of a coherent post war program left Russia
with strong territorial gains in eastern Europe, the Baltic and the
Balkans and in Asia, the liberation of a number of former colonial
entities from the Japanese was not followed by any kind of coherent
geo-political planning. To add to this negative position, the rapid
demobilization of the American military strongly reduced U.S.
bargaining power and clearly indicated to everyone concerned that
not only did the U.S. have no really coherent post war planning at
hand but also that there was no military force behind any random
planning that did exist at that time.
A major problem for the West was that of the French attitudes
towards their former colonies in Vietnam (or French Indo-China:
Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos). The Free French, under Charles de
Gaulle, had fought on the Allied side during the war and now was
demanding its just spoils. De Gaulle was not seen in a favorable
light by either Britain or the United States because of his stubborn
intransigence and personality conflicts with both Churchill and
Roosevelt, de Gaulle was viewed in both Washington and London with
some caution and often, evident dislike.
Roosevelt had been very outspoken in his rejection of any
renewed French resumption of colonial control and had wanted the
equivalent of a UN trusteeship over the area, but his death in April
of 1945 was the effective end of this policy. The problem of the
Japanese surrender of their conquests in Southeast Asia was
addressed at the Potsdam conference in mid-1945. The new American
president, Harry Truman replaced Roosevelt and it was eventually
decided that Chiang Kai-Shek’s China Command, then an Allied unit
located in southern China, would occupy Vietnam north of the
16th parallel while Indian troops under the
command of Lord Louis Mountbatten’s Southeast Asia command, would
occupy Vietnam south of the 16th parallel. This was to be
a temporary situation until a more permanent solution could be
formulated at an unspecified future date.
Continued….
Are
Credit Cards The Next Collapse?
October
29, 2008
by
Christina Rexrode
McClatchy
Newspapers
First came trouble with mortgages, then home equity loans and
commercial real estate. Now, banks are starting to worry about
credit cards.
As the economy slows and unemployment rises, consumers are
defaulting on credit-card payments more often. And though that trend
is unlikely to create a crisis in line with the mortgage fallout,
it's still a headache for banks that are already hurting.
U.S.
banks charged off 5.47 percent of all credit card loans in the
second quarter, according to the Federal Reserve, representing some
$50 billion that they'll likely never collect. That's up from 3.85
percent the year before, and that is a movement that's on the radar
of Ken Lewis, chief executive of Charlotte's Bank of America Corp.
Asked
in a recent TV interview if credit-card debt would be "the next
shoe to drop" for the banking industry, Lewis replied:
"It, in some ways, already is," adding that such losses
have risen "pretty substantially."
Laura
Nishikawa, an analyst at the Innovest ratings agency, predicts that
banks such as Bank of America and New York's Citigroup Inc. could be
hit especially hard by credit-card defaults. That's because those
banks, which offer both consumer and investment services, have been
depending more heavily on money made on consumer services such as
credit cards as the returns in investment banking grow increasingly
unpredictable.
To
be sure, credit cards don't represent a huge portion of assets for
most banks. For example, they comprise about 14 percent of all
consumer loans and leases at Bank of America, the country's largest
credit-card issuer. The main problem, Nishikawa said, is that
"everyone is so weak after what happened with mortgages that
another blow to a consumer product would be hard to handle."
Consumer
groups have long complained that credit-card issuers push cards onto
people who don't need them or can't afford them. They say that
rising credit-card defaults - just like mortgage defaults - are
largely the fault of banks who lent to risky borrowers.
Innovest
estimates that about 30 percent of Bank of America's credit card
loans are to subprime borrowers - second only to the failed
Washington Mutual Inc., which had almost half of its credit-card
loans held by subprime borrowers.
Innovest
also estimates that more than half of Bank of America's credit cards
are high-limit cards - second only to American Express Co. (Innovest
classifies high-limit cards as those with lines of more than
$10,000.) Nishikawa says that combination could prove toxic for Bank
of America, which may have "lent more than (borrowers) can be
expected to pay back."
Bank
of America's charge-offs, or loans it doesn't expect to collect on,
increased to 6.14 percent of all credit-card loans, or $1.24
billion, in the third quarter. That's up from 4.61 percent the year
before.
Executives
of Wells Fargo & Co., which is buying Charlotte's Wachovia
Corp., also noted credit-card troubles in their recent earnings
call. The San Francisco bank, which is the country's eighth-largest
credit-card issuer according to The Nilson Report, saw credit-card
charge-offs increase to 7.2 percent, or $361 million, from 4.3
percent a year ago. Chief financial officer Howard Atkins blamed
"higher bankruptcy rates, seasoning of the portfolio, and
continuing economic pressure on consumers," though he said the
losses were in line with the bank's expectations.
Innovest
predicts that credit-card charge-offs across the industry will
continue to rise, peaking around 10 percent by the first quarter of
2009. Some banks are also reporting that consumers are spending less
with their credit cards, which hurts the banks because they collect
fees from merchants every time a consumer uses a card.
Even
so, credit card defaults probably won't wreak as much havoc as
mortgage defaults already have, because they're on a much smaller
scale.
"This
won't be anything like the mortgage crisis," said James Early,
an analyst at The Motley Fool. "Simply put, the average person
owes a lot more on her house than on her credit cards."
U.S.
consumers have less than $1 trillion in outstanding credit-card
loans, but more than $10 trillion in outstanding mortgage loans. And
the delinquency rate for mortgages is higher than that for
credit-cards: 6.41 percent in the second quarter, up from 5.12
percent the year before, according to the Mortgage Bankers
Association.
Indeed,
no one is predicting that banks will abandon credit cards &mash;
only that they'll get stingier with lending and perhaps lose money
for a few quarters. Banks usually expect higher default rates on
credit cards anyway, since those loans are not secured by a house,
car or other type of collateral. That's one reason why banks charge
such high interest rates on credit-card loans.
Guy
Cecala, publisher of Inside Mortgage Finance, says that the most
notable characteristic of the current cycle isn't the rising
percentage of credit-card defaults, but the fact that people started
defaulting on mortgages before credit cards. This time is different
- the mortgage defaults are driven less by the slowing economy,
Cecala said, and more by unwise lending and the declines in home
prices. "The people going into default actually have
jobs," he said.
As
banks get squeezed on credit cards, they're sure to pass the pain
along. That means they're lowering - sometimes even closing -
customers' credit lines, increasing interest rates and declining
more applications, which will especially hurt poor or unemployed
consumers who use credit cards for basic living expenses. Early, the
analyst, said it's hard to feel sorry for credit-card issuers even
if they do encounter serious losses: "I don't think these guys
will get much sympathy," he said.
Justice
Department investigating American Express
October
31, 2008
Associated
Press
NEW YORK - American Express has received a request from the
U.S. Department of Justice for information regarding the credit card
company's policies related to merchant surcharging, according to a
regulatory filing Friday.
The
company said it received a Civil Investigative Demand on Oct. 14
from the Justice Department's antitrust division. The department can
issue CIDs to anyone it believes may have information related to an
investigation, the filing said. Receipt of such a request does not
mean that a formal complaint will be filed.
American
Express said it intends to cooperate with the department's request
for documents and other information regarding the company's policies
related to merchant surcharging and its "anti-steering"
policies that prohibit merchants from discriminating against the
American Express card in favor of other forms of payment.
Meanwhile,
the New York-based credit card company painted a bleak picture of
the current operating environment, saying in a filing with the
Securities and Exchange Commission that it does not expect to meet
its financial targets until economic conditions improve.
On
Thursday, American Express said it would cut 7,000 jobs, or about 10
percent of its worldwide work force, in an effort to slash costs by
$1.8 billion in 2009 as it prepares for an increasingly difficult
economic environment
The
War in Georgia: The American Official Cover-Up Revealed!
October
21, 2008
by
Brian Harring
www.brianharring@yahoo.com
Following the end of fighting in Georgia and the humiliating
rout and disintegration of the American-trained and supported
Georgian army, the political recriminations on the part of Tiblisi
in Georgia and Washington and the Pentagon in America were
frantically being created, sometimes out of whole cloth and always
with an eye to putting the sole blame on Vladimir Putin and the
leadership of the Russian Republic.
In the face of overwhelming evidence that the brief but
devastating conflict with Russia was specifically caused by an armor
and artillery attack on the breakaway provincial capital of South
Ossetia by Georgian forces, the erratic and volatile Georgian
President Saakashvili. has now been frantically working with
American political and military leaders to present his side of the
origins of the conflict. Lengthy Georgian apologia and enhancements
have gone to the New York Times, various Pentagon public relations
groups and the White House, with especial reference to Vice
President Cheney.
Since there is a strong propaganda effort in train, we can
clearly explain its basis and progress in two ways: We can lay out
an actual sequence of events and then show you the new propaganda
line or we can show you the concocted allegation and publish the
facts after them.
The U.S. and Georgian governments are on very thin ice here
because a great deal of factual material was presented at the time
but they always go on the belief that the last interpretation is the
one that remains. That having been said, let us proceed to present a
classic example of the sort of twisted facts and outright lies so
beloved by the Bush Administration.
Now that you have read, and hopefully read
between the lines, the Times report of the beginning
propaganda wave, let’s see what the official period Georgian
governmental emails, intercepted by both the Russians and
Americans, have to say on the issue: (Note: Author’s comments
are in italics, ed)
1 August, 2008
[1]At about 8:00
AM, Tbilisi time, a pickup vehicle with six Georgian police officers
was hit by two remote control explosive devices on the Eredvi-Kheiti
by-pass road linking the Didi Liakhvi Gorge – a Georgian enclave
north of the breakaway region’s capital Tskhinvali - with Georgia
proper. As a result of the attack, five Georgian policemen were
severely wounded. The central authorities decided not to retaliate
in order not to escalate
the situation.
[There
is no talk here of a Russian invasion. This discusses actions
alleged to have been committed by Ossetian and Abkhazia
“dissidents” against the Georgians, which is planned to be used
as the basis for the forthcoming attacks]
[2]
At this hour, the invading army of the Russian Federation has
entered Georgian territory outside the conflict zones of Abkhazia
and South Ossetia. The Georgian army is retreating to defend the
capital. The Government is urgently seeking international
intervention to prevent the fall of Georgia and the further loss of
life.
[This of
course is totally untrue. There were no Russian troop movements
anywhere on this date.]
“We no longer know the limits of the invading Russian
army—Russia seems intent on overthrowing the democratically
elected government of Georgia and occupying the country,” said
Alexander Lomaia, the Secretary of the National Security Council.
“As a consequence, the National Security Council has just decided
to bring the Georgian army to Tbilisi in order to defend the capital
and prevent the fall of Georgia.”
{The Russians had not attacked but
the Georgians were preparing to. Here is their justification for
their surprise attack. Don’t forget, this was in a conversation
with U.S. Ambassador John Teft}
2
August, 2008
As for the incidents
of the last two days, a terrorist act committed on 1 August left 5
policemen wounded, one of them severely. On 2 August, late at night,
bandit groups of the criminal regime opened fire at the villages of
Kvemo and Zemo Nikozi, Avnevi, Eredvi and Ergneti. Shootings
proceeded in the direction of a Georgian peacekeeping battalion and
police checkpoints as well. As a result, six peaceful civilians and
a policeman of the Interior Ministry received various wounds and
injuries. Several dwelling houses were damaged.
We have on more than one occasion focused the attention of
the international community, including the Russian Federation on the
fact that the existence of the criminal regime in the Tskhinvali
region poses threat to peace and stability in the Caucasus region as
a whole.
{Again, it is important to note the date of this official
statement. It is five days before the commencement of
‘hostile actions’ on the part of the Russians}
South Ossetian separatist government announced evacuation of
more than 500 people, including about 400 children. However, Ermak
Dzansolov, deputy prime minister of Russia’s North Ossetian
Republic, told Interfax news agency that it was not an evacuation.
Sending children to North Ossetia was part of a pre-arranged
summer-camp programme, as he explained.
5.
August, 2008
On 5 August 2008 Minister of Foreign Affairs of Georgia Eka
Tkeshelashvili met with representatives of the Embassies of the
United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany and China. The
meeting was held on the Georgian side’s request.
The aim of the meeting was to brief the aforesaid embassies
on the recent development of events in the Tskhinvali region.
Discussions also focused on prospects for peaceful resolution of the
protracted conflicts on the territory of Georgia and further
development of cooperation in this direction.
{Here we have the issuing of a diplomatic smokescreen designed to cover
the massing of Georgian artillery and armor planning to assault
South Ossetia.}
On 5 August, at 00.15, armed gangs of separatists carried out
an attack on the police checkpoint of the Interior Ministry of
Georgia. Three mortar grenades were fired at the police checkpoint,
of which the two fell on the building and the third one blasted in
front of it. This incident lays bare the criminal regime’s aim to
outlast its days of existence by escalating the situation in the
conflict zone through any means.
{Growing concern
on the part of the peaceful but alarmed Georgian government about
attacks on them by illegal dissidents. The classical Gleiwitz
action. In September of 1939, the German Gestapo faked a Polish
attack on th.e German Gleiwitz radio station and used this as an
excuse to launch the Second World War.}
6.
August, 2008
6 August, separatists opened mortar fire at Georgian
populated villages of Eredvi, Prisi, Avnevi, Dvani and Nuli.
Georgian government forces fired back in order to defend the
positions and civilian population. As a result of intensive
cross-fire during the night, two servicemen of the Georgian
battalion of the Joint Peacekeeping Forces were injured. Separatist
regime also claimed several injured persons on their side. Despite
the targeted attacks on peaceful population and villages, as well as
on the Georgian police and peacekeeping forces, the central
authorities decided not to respond through heavy exchange of fire,
in order not to injure the local population.
{Again, the peaceful Georgians are growing more alarmed at the brutal
activities of the South Ossetians but are showing wonderful
restraint in the face of terrible provocations. What, one asks, are
they ever to do about this?}
7
August 2008
7
August 2008, on the initiative of Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs
of Georgia Grigol Vashadze, a meeting was held with the delegation
of the EU Troika represented by Fabienne Drout-Lozinski, Deputy
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of
France - current EU Presidency, Robin Liddell, First Counsellor of
the European Commission’s Delegation to Georgia and Ivan Jestřāb,
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Czech Republic -
next EU Presidency.
The objective
of the meeting was to acquaint the European side with the recent
development of events in the Tskhinvali region.
According to the Deputy Foreign Minister, the situation in
the conflict region remains extremely tense. The Ossetian side’s
actions are not of sporadic nature, rather, they represent a
well-planned and perfectly-organized military operation. However,
the Georgian side continues to abstain from taking any kind of
military action and does not plan any military offensive or
defensive operation. The Georgian side calls on the European Union
and its member states to register their firm position and employ all
levers at their disposal to exert pressure on the Russian Federation
capable to make a direct influence in terms of de-escalation of the
situation
[Either the Georgians have taken a leaf directly
from the Bush Iraq war book or someone from the U.S. State
Department is helping them write their messages. The point of these
plaintive meetings with representatives of
friendly foreign governments is to establish justification
and motive for their forthcoming assault.]
8
August, 2008
On
8 August 2008 Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Georgia Grigol
Vashadze received Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of
the United States to Georgia John Teft.
The Georgian
side provided the foreign diplomat with detailed information
concerning the recent development of events and provocative military
actions instigated by the separatist regime, which led the Georgian
Authorities to take decisive measures for the protection of Georgian
villages and peaceful population.
The Georgian
side confirmed the readiness of the Georgian Authorities to sit at
any time at the negotiation table. It was also emphasized that the
international community should employ all resources at its disposal
to make Russia desist from undertaking provocations against
Georgia’s territorial integrity as well as the citizens of
Georgia, both Georgians and Ossetians.
The meeting was also
attended by Deputy US Ambassador Kent Loxton and representative of
the Embassy’s political division Joy Davis Kirshner.
On
8 August 2008 Minister of Foreign Affairs of Georgia Eka
Tkeshelashvili held a meeting with the diplomatic corps accredited
in Georgia.
18:44
A motorcade of Russian tanks, armored vehicles and trucks loaded
with different kinds of weapons reach Tskinvali by the Dzara by-pass
road, 2 kilometers west of Tskinvali. The Russians opens intensive
fire towards Georgian forces located in Tskinvali and on the
neighboring heights. A second motorcade, which also came from Russia
via the Roki tunnel, is stopped near the Georgian government
controlled area of Dmenisi, 7 kilometers north of Tskinvali, and
Russians open heavy fire toward Georgian forces.
[In
light of the current claims of earlier Russian ‘vicious and
unprovoked assaults’ on Georgia, here we have an interesting
observation on the timing of this horrible assault by the evil Putin.
Note the timing. Comment is superfluous. It does remind a scholar of
the Pearl Harbor controversy]
21:11 The separatist
authorities claim to have altogether 1400 people dead and wounded.
At the same time, the Russian Ministry of Defense announces that
there are 10 dead among Russian “peacekeepers”.
Having digested the propaganda,
perhaps we can see comments from other sources not involved with the
Georgian attack.
The chief military attaché of the German government in
Moscow submitted to the German Foreign office in Berlin, a report
analyzing the actions of the Russian military in the recent
Russian/Georgian conflict. Generalmajor Heinz Wagner stated that the
Russian response to the attacks by the Georgian army against the
civilian population to be “entirely appropriate.”
"The extent of
the use of military force by the Russian side appears - seen from
here and despite reports to the contrary from Georgia and the
picture conveyed by the media - not inappropriately high,"
effectively or even to resist,"
.Generalmajor Wagner also said on August 11, 2008, that
Russia had no choice but to react to the Georgian military
action in South Ossetia.
The Russian peacekeeping forces stationed in the breakaway
Georgian region "were not in a position, given their weapons
and equipment, to defend themselves
”Russia had been compelled to ensure that the land forces
of its 58th Army were able to move without being threatened by the
Georgian Air Force, and for this reason Georgian planes had been
prevented from intervening, “
”The Russians had moved to strengthen their peacekeepers,
deployed under a mandate from the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), to protect Russian citizens and to
restore the status quo ante,” Wagner wrote "The deployment of
air power - despite the regrettable civilian casualties - can be
seen as militarily appropriate to the operation,"
=================================================================
The
attempt to reconstruct the five-day war in August continues to
revolve around one key question: Which side was the first to launch
military strikes? Information coming from NATO and the Organization
for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) now paints a different
picture than the one that prevailed during the first days of the
battle for the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali
NATO headquarters in Brussels reported on September 2nd,
2008 that their assessments indicated that the Georgians had started
the conflict and that their actions were more calculated than pure
self-defense or a response to Russian provocation. In fact, the NATO
officers believed that the Georgian attack was a calculated
offensive against South Ossetian positions to create the facts on
the ground, and they coolly treated the exchanges of fire in the
preceding days as minor events. Even more clearly, NATO officials
believed, looking back, that by no means could these skirmishes be
seen as justification for Georgian war preparations.
German Foreign
Minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier publicly called for clarification
on the question of who is to blame for the Caucasus war. "We do
need to know more about who bears what portion of the responsibility
for the military escalation and to what extent," Steinmeier
told a meeting of Germany's more than 200 ambassadors in Berlin. The
European Union, he said, must now "define our relations with
the parties to the conflict for the medium and long term," and
that the time has come to have concrete information.
The OSCE maintains a mission in South Ossetia, which was
caught between the fronts when the war erupted. According to a
so-called spot report that OSCE officials wrote at 11 a.m. Georgian
time on Aug. 8: "Shortly before midnight, central Tskhinvali
came under heavy fire and shelling, with some of it presumably
coming from launching pads and artillery stationed outside the
conflict zone. The Tskhinvali office of the mission was hit, and the
three remaining international employees sought shelter in the
basement."
NATO's assessments. According to this intelligence
information, the Georgians amassed roughly 12,000 troops on the
border with South Ossetia on the morning of Aug. 7. Seventy-five
tanks and armored personnel carriers — a third of the Georgian
military's arsenal — were assembled near Gori. Saakashvili's plan,
, was to advance to the Roki Tunnel in a 15-hour blitzkrieg and
close the eye of the needle between the northern and southern
Caucasus regions, effectively cutting off South Ossetia from Russia.
At 10:35 p.m. on Aug. 7, less than an hour before Russian
tanks entered the Roki Tunnel, according to Saakashvili, Georgian
forces began their artillery assault on Tskhinvali. The Georgians
used 27 rocket launchers, including 152-millimeter guns, as well as
cluster bombs. Three brigades began the nighttime assault.
The intelligence agencies were monitoring the Russian calls
for help on the airwaves. The 58th Army, part of which was stationed
in North Ossetia, was apparently not ready for combat, at least not
during that first night.
The Georgian army, consisted primarily of infantry groups,
which were forced to travel along major roads. It soon became bogged
down and was unable to move past Tskhinvali. Western intelligence
learned that the Georgians were experiencing "handling
problems" with their weapons. The implication was that the
Georgians were not fighting well.
The intelligence agencies conclude that the Russian army did
not begin firing until 7:30 a.m. on Aug. 8, when it launched an
SS-21 short-range ballistic missile on the city of Borzhomi,
southwest of Gori. The missile apparently hit military and
government bunker positions. Russian warplanes began their first
attacks on the Georgian army a short time later. Suddenly the
airwaves came to life, as did the Russian army.
Russian troops from North Ossetia did not begin marching
through the Roki Tunnel until roughly 11 a.m. This sequence of
events is now seen as evidence that Moscow did not act offensively,
but merely reacted. Additional SS-21s were later moved to the south.
The Russians deployed 5,500 troops to Gori and 7,000 to the border
between Georgia and its second separatist region, Abkhazia.
All of this having been published, the propaganda machines
will continue their diminishing labors and the obedient American
press will publish their revisionistic efforts on the back pages.
The collapsing American
economy will be taking prominence on the first and second pages.
Unless, of course, this badly-baked cake is served up by the
Bush-McCain forces to divert public attention from yet another
Bush-created and McCain supported disaster. BH
It
is near; it is at hand. Maybe tomorrow but probably never
A
compendium of endless predictions of the Second Coming based on
period documents
An untold number of people have tried to predict the return
of Jesus by using elaborate timetables. Most date setters do not
realize that mankind has not kept an unwavering record of time.
Anyone wanting to chart, for example, 100 BC to 2000 AD, would have
to contend with the fact that 46 BC was 445 days long, there was no
year 0 BC, and in 1582 we switched from Julian Years (360 days) to
Gregorian (365 days). Because most prognosticators are not aware of
all of these errors, their math is immediately off by at least
several years if not decades.
The return of Jesus Christ for His Church will easily be the
most important event in Pentecostal fictive history and long before
the Pentecostal sect evolved in 1900, empty-headed religious
zealots, banging on their empty drums, have been predicting the
Second Coming. Herewith we present a brief compendium of the more
entertaining prophesies for the entertainment of the reader.
53 AD
Even before all the books of the New Testament were invented,
there was talk that Christ's Return had already taken place.
The Thessalonians panicked when they heard a rumor that the day of
the Lord was at hand, and they had missed the event..
500
A Roman priest living in the second century predicted Christ would
return in 500 AD, based on the dimensions of Noah's ark. Someone
must have used a bad ruler because Jesus did not appear in 500 AD
1000
.All credulous members of what passed for normal society seemed
affected by the prediction that Jesus was coming back at the start
of the new millennium. The magic of the number 1000 was the sole
reason for the expectation. During concluding months of 999 AD,
everyone was on his best behavior; worldly goods were sold and given
to the poor; swarms of pilgrims headed east to meet the Lord at
Jerusalem; buildings went unrepaired; crops were left unplanted; and
criminals were set free from jails. When the year 999 AD turned into
1000 AD, nothing happened. Many citizens of the world who had given
their property away, but certainly not those who accepted it, were
stunned but eventually hopeful that the event would be postponed
until 1001. Nothing happened then, either.
1033
This year was cited as the beginning of the millennium because it
marked 1,000 years since Christ's alleged crucifixion.
1186
The "Letter of Toledo" warned everyone to hide in the
caves and mountains. The world was reportedly to be destroyed with
only a few spared, including the letter writer. It was not.
1420
The Taborites of Czechoslovakia predicted every city in the known
world would be annihilated by fire. Only the five mountain
strongholds they occupied would be saved from the Celestial
Barbeque. This did not happen
1524-1526
Muntzer, a leader of German peasants, announced that the return of
Christ was near. After Muntzer and his men destroyed the high and
mighty, the Lord would supposedly return. This belief led to an
uneven battle against government troops. He was strategically
outnumbered. Muntzer claimed to have had a vision from God in which
the Lord promised that He would catch the cannonballs of the enemy
in the sleeves of His cloak. The prediction within the vision turned
out to be false when Muntzer and his followers were mowed down by
cannon fire. If one believes their stories, the disintegrated had
the pleasure of going to heaven in a number of pieces which God
Himself would lovingly sort out just like pious Jewish religious
ambulance workers reassembling those fragmented in a Jerusalem bus
attack.
1534
A repeat of the Muntzer affair occurred a few years later. This
time, one greatly deluded by apparently very forceful, Jan Matthys
took over the city of Münster in Germany. The city was to be the
only one spared from Divine destruction. The inhabitants of Münster,
evicted by Matthys and his men, regrouped and laid siege to the
city. Within a year, every one of the strange occupiers in the city
was dead. They also had an express ticket to Heaven.
1650-1660
In an England beset by religious fanatics, the Fifth Monarchy Men
beseeched Jesus to establish a theocracy. They took up arms
and tried to seize England by force. The movement, and most of the
senior leaders of it, died when the British monarchy was restored in
1660. Jesus apparently was not listening or was otherwise engaged.
Heads rolled, quite literally, as England finally escaped from the
unwanted attention of dimwitted fanatics.
1809
Mary Bateman, who specialized in fortune telling, had a magic
chicken that laid eggs with end-time messages on them. One message
said that Christ was coming. The uproar she created ended when an
unannounced visitor caught her forcing an egg into the hen's
oviduct. Mary later was hanged for poisoning a wealthy client.
History does not record whether the offended and sodomized chicken
attended the hanging.
1814
Spiritualist Joanna Southcott made the startling claim that she, by
virgin birth, would produce the second Jesus Christ. Her abdomen
began to swell and so did the crowds of people around her. This
gathering is similar to certain ethnic groups who see visions of the
Virgin Mary on refrigerator doors or reflected on rooming house
walls. The time for the birth came and passed with no Jesus
appearing. As for the miraculous Southcott, she died soon after. An
autopsy revealed she had experienced a false pregnancy. Her
followers blamed the Antichrist for this.
1836
John Wesley wrote that "the time, times and half a time"
of Revelation 12:14 were 10581836, "when Christ should
come" John Wesley was wrong in this matter as well as a number
of other items of religious thought he preached.
1843-1844
William Miller was the founder of an end-times movement that was so
prominent it received its own name, Millerism. From his studies of
the Bible, Miller determined that the second coming would happen
sometime between 1843-1844. A spectacular meteor shower in 1833 gave
the movement excellent momentum. The buildup of anticipation continued
until March 21, 1844, when Miller's one-year timetable ran out. Some
followers set another date--Oct 22, 1844. This too failed,
collapsing the movement. One follower described the days after the
failed predictions: "The world made merry over the old
Prophet's predicament. The taunts and jeers of the 'scoffers' were
well-nigh unbearable." People
in general do not suffer fools gladly.
1859
Rev. Thomas Parker, a Massachusetts minister, looked for the
millennium to start about 1859. It did not. Parker subsequently was
placed in a lunatic asylum when discovered running, buck naked, down
the street in Bainbridge, screeching that Jesus was right behind
him. What actually were
behind the Reverend Parker were local bailiffs with nets.
1910
The revisit of Halley's comet to the earth’s bemused vision was,
for many, an indication of Jesus’
Second Coming. The earth actually passed through the gaseous tail of
the comet. One enterprising man sold comet pills to people for
protection against the effects of the toxic gases. Toxic gasses,
mostly vocal methane, from frantic Fundamentalists did not need
pills. It might have been better if the predictors had used
Thorazine tranquilizer pills but as they had not yet been invented,
this is a moot point.
1914
Charles Russell, after being exposed to the lunatic babblings of
William Miller, founded his own organization that evolved into the
Jehovah's Witnesses. In 1914, Russell predicted the return of Jesus
Christ. Jesus Christ was not listening and did not appear in 1914.
1918
In 1918, new studies assisted Russell from extending his predictions
to that year. Jesus Christ, or His travel agent, did not oblige.
1925
The Witnesses had no better luck in 1925. They already possessed the
title of “Most Wrong Predictions.” They would expand upon it
with great zeal and no sense whatsoever in the years to come.
1967
When the city of Jerusalem was reclaimed by the Jews in 1967,
prophecy watchers declared that the "Time of the Gentiles"
had come to an end.
1970
The ‘True Light Church of Christ’ made its claim to fame by
incorrectly forecasting the return of Jesus. A number of church
members had quit their livelihoods ahead of the promised advent. In
earlier time, such deluded creatures gave their property away to
their gleeful, non-believing neighbors, donned white nightgowns and
stood up on hilltops, waiting for the Celestial Elevator. It never
came for them but pneumonia did.
1973
A comet that turned out to be a visual disappointment nonetheless
compelled one preacher to announce that it would be a sign of the
Lord's return. It was not.
1975
The Jehovah's Witnesses were back at it again with commendable zeal
in 1975. The failure of the latest forecast did not affect the
growth of the movement. The Watchtower magazine, a major
Witness periodical, had over 13 million subscribers. Many of them
actually are able to read, albeit very slowly, but the majority love
the large pictures. However, over 40 millions have read the Left
Behind books or, as they have irreverently been termed: the My Left
Behind books.
1981
One author boldly declared that the rapture would occur before
December 31, 1981, based on Christian prophecy, astronomy, and a
dash of ecological fatalism. He pegged the date to Jesus' promised
return to earth a generation after Israel's rebirth. He also made
references to the "Jupiter Effect," a planetary alignment
occurring every 179 years that supposedly could lead to earthquakes
and nuclear plant meltdowns. Also, there were saintly rumors of the
Lost Continent of Atlantis suddenly emerging from the depths of Lake
Baikal in Russia, or according to other enlightened cretins, Lake
Michigan, New York Harbor, the Mississippi River just off of New
Orleans or the main public reservoir of Phoenix, Arizona. There was
no rapture and Atlantis never surfaced.
1982
The lunatic fringe was at it again in 1982 when they loudly
proclaimed that the world as we all knew it was going to end in
1982, when the planets lined up and created magnetic forces that
would bring “Armageddon” to the earth. Astrologers and religious
predictors joined forces here and when nothing happened, all of them
went back to the Ouija boards. Armageddon is, of course, pure
fiction and is not found in the Bible, even in the weird rantings of
the lunatic John of Patmos.
1982
A group called the Tara Centers placed full-page advertisements in
many major newspapers for the weekend of April 24-25, 1982,
announcing: "The Christ is Now Here!" They predicted that
He was to make Himself known "within the next two months."
After the date passed, they said that the delay was only because the
"consciousness of the human race was not quite right..."
Unfounded rumor had it that Jesus in fact did arrive but was
arrested by New York City Vice Squad for unmentionable acts in a
public lavatory in Central Park.
1984
The Jehovah's Witnesses made sure, in 1984, that no one else would
be able to top their record of most wrong doomsday predictions. The
Witnesses' record currently holds at nine. The years are: 1874,
1878, 1881, 1910, 1914, 1918, 1925, 1975, and 1984. Tired of loud
public scorn and derision, the Witnesses have modestly retired from
the field and now spend their time banging on doors and hawking
their magazines, T-shirts and Second Coming bath mats.
1987
The Harmonic Convergence was planned for August 16-17, 1987, and
several New Age events were also to occur at that time. The second
coming of the Serpent God of Peace and the Hopi Dance Awakening were
two examples.
1988
The book, 88 Reasons Why the Rapture is in 1988, came out
only a few months before the event was to take place. What little
time the book had left to it and its feeble-minded readers, it used
effectively. By the time the predicted dates, September 11-13,
rolled around, whole churches were caught up in the excitement the
book generated. Not unnaturally, nothing happened. The writer and
publisher, however, benefited greatly from the sales.
1989
After the passing of the deadline in 88 Reasons, the author, Edgar
Whisenant, came out with a new book called 89 Reasons Why the
Rapture is in 1989. This book sold only a fraction of the number
of copies his prior release had sold. Once burned, twice shy.
1991
A group in Australia predicted Jesus would return through the Sydney
Harbor at 9 a.m., March 31, 1991. Rumors are that He was doing the
breast stroke in the Harbor but was run over by a car ferry and
drowned.
1991
Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan proclaimed the Gulf War would
be "the War of Armageddon ... the final War." It was not.
George W. Bush started another mindless war
twelve years later.
1991
Menachem Schneerson, a mystic Russian-born rabbi, called for the
Messiah to come by September 9, 1991, the start of the Jewish New
Year. Apparently, Jesus was not listening and failed to appear. The
good rabbi passed away and his followers eagerly anticipated his own
return. He did not do so.
1992
A Korean group called Mission for the Coming Days had the Korea
Church in a state of frenzied excitement
in the fall of 1992. They foresaw October 28, 1992 as the
date for the Glorious Rapture and arrival of the Celestial Ominbus.
Numerology was the basis for the date. Several camera shots
that left ghostly images on pictures were thought to be a
supernatural confirmation of the date. Careless photography was a
more likely suspect.
1993
If the year 2000 is the end of the 6,000-year cycle, then the
rapture must take place in 1993, because you would need seven years
of the tribulation. This was the murky thinking of a number of
prophecy writers. They were all wrong.
1994
In the book, 1994: The Year of Destiny , F. M. Riley foretold
of God's plan to rapture His people. The name of his ministry is
“The Last Call,” and he operated out of
a Missouri that has produced both John Ashcroft and Jesse
James.
1994
Pastor John Hinkle of Christ Church in Los Angeles caused quite a
stir when he announced he had received a vision from God that warned
of apocalyptic event on June 9, 1994. Hinkle, quoting God, said,
"On Thursday June the 9th, I will rip the evil out of this
world." From a proper reading of Bible prophecy, the only thing
that God could possibly rip from the earth would be the Christian
Church. Some people tried to interpret Hinkle's unscriptural vision
to mean that God would the rip evil out of our hearts when He
raptured us. As usual the date came and went with no heart surgery
or rapture.
1994
Harold Camping, in his book Are You Ready?, predicted the
Lord would return in September 1994. The book was full of numerology
that added up to 1994 as the date of Christ's return. The numbers
did not crunch and Camping joined a long list of failed prophets,
seers and other mountebanks in blessed oblivion.
1994
After promising they would not make any more end time predictions,
the Jehovah's Witnesses fell off the wagon and proclaimed 1994 as
the conclusion of an 80-year generation; the year 1914 was the
starting point.
1996
A self-proclaimed California psychic, Sheldon Nidle, predicted the
end would come with the convergence of 16 million space ships and a
host of angels upon the earth on December 17, 1996. Nidle explained
the uneventful passing of the date by claiming the angels placed us
in a holographic projection to preserve us and give us a second
chance. His doctors will not let him write any more and even took
away his crayons.
1997
When Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat signed their peace pact on the
White House lawn on September 13, 1993, some saw the events as the
beginning of tribulation. With the signing of the peace agreement,
Daniel's 1,260-day countdown was underway. By adding 1,260 days to
September 1993, you arrive at February 24, 1997. Jesus, on the other
hand, did not arrive nor were the Elect of the Pentecostal cults
shot up into the stratosphere like so many ballistic missiles.
1997
Stan Johnson of the Prophecy Club saw a "90 percent"
chance that the tribulation would start September 12, 1997. He based
his conclusion on several end-time signs: that would be Jesus'
2,000th birthday and it would also be the Day of Atonement, although
it wouldn’t be what is currently the Jewish Day of Atonement.
Further supporting evidence came from Romanian pastor Dumitru
Duduman. In several heavenly visions, caused by the imbibing of too
much plum wine, Dumitru
claimed to have seen the Book of Life. In one of his earlier
visions, there were several pages yet to be completed. In his last
vision, he noticed the Book of Life only had one page left. Doing
some rough calculating, Johnson and friends figured the latest time
frame for the completion of the book would have to be September
1997. More bitter disappointments were evident as the time came and
passed without a sight of Jerusalem Slim.
1998
Numerology: Because 666 times three equals 1998, some people point
to this year as being prophetically significant. This incredible
information was posted on the internet where it stunned dozens of
true believers. .
1998
A Taiwanese cult operating
out of Garland, Texas predicted Christ would return on March 31 of
1998. The group's leader, Heng-ming Chen, announced God would return
and then invite the cult members aboard a UFO. The group abandoned
their prediction when a precursor event failed to take place. The
cult's leader had said that God would appear on every channel 18 of
every TV in the world. Maybe God realized at the last minute that
the Playboy Network was channel 18 on several cable systems,
and He didn't want to have Christians watching a porn channel.
1998
1998 Marilyn Agee, in her book, The End of the Age, had her
sights set on May 31, 1998. for the Glorious Arrival. This date was
to conclude the 6,000-year cycle from the time of Adam. Agee looked
for the rapture to take place on Pentecost, which is also known as
“the Feast of Weeks.” Another indicator of this date was the
fact that the Holy Spirit did not descend upon the apostles until 50
days after Christ's resurrection. Israel was born in 1948; add the
50 days as years and you come up with whatever figure you like.
After her May 31 rapture date failed, Agee, unable to face up to her
error, continued her date-setting by using various Scripture
references to point to June 7, 14, 21 and about 10 other dates.
Marilyn then set a new date for the rapture: May 21 or 22 of the
same year, Again, she and the dozens of believers who read her works
were doomed to disappointment. Eventually, later rather than sooner,
Agnes joined the ranks of the Disproven and passed into blessed
oblivion.
1999
TV newscaster-turned-psychic Charles Criswell King had said in 1968
that the world as we know it would cease to exist on August 18,
1999. It did not.
1999
Philip Berg, a rabbi at the Kabbalah Learning Center in New York,
proclaimed that the end might arrive on September 11, 1999, when
"a ball of fire will descend . . . destroying almost all of
mankind, all vegetation, all forms of life." Nothing happened
on that date of note except that the Devil was arrested at a sex
arcade in Times Square using counterfeit coins in a porn film
viewer.
.2000
The names of the people and organizations that called for the return
of Christ at the turn of the century is too long to be listed here.
I would say that if there were a day on which Christ could not
return, it must have been January 1, 2000. This day came and passed
and the waiting multitude did not see Jesus descending on Dallas,
arrayed like Solomon in all His splendor. Many had hangovers and the
only visions they had were of the double variety.
2000
On May 5, 2000, all of the planets were supposed to have been in
alignment. This was said to cause the earth to suffer earthquakes,
volcanic eruption, and various other nasty stuff. A similar
alignment occurred in 1982 and nothing happened. People failed to
realize that the other nine planets only exert a very tiny
gravitational pull on the earth. If you were to add up the
gravitational force from the rest of the planets, the total would
only amount to a fraction of the tug the moon has on the earth.
2000
According to Michael Rood, the end times have a prophetically
complicated connection to Israel's spring barley harvest. The Day of
the Lord began on May 5, 2000. Rood's fall feast calendar called for
the Russian Gog-Magog invasion of Israel to take place at sundown on
October 28, 2000. It did not. Perhaps Prophet Rood might have
considered the annual Harvest of the Floating Condoms from the
waters of New York City as an alternative event.
2000-2001
Dr. Dale SumburËru looked for March 22, 1997 to be "the date
when all the dramatic events leading through the tribulation to the
return of Christ should begin" The actual date of Christ's
return could be somewhere between July 2000 and March 2001. Dr.
SumburËru is more general about the timing of Christ's second
coming than most writers. He states, "The day the Lord returns
is currently unknown because He said [Jesus] these days are cut
short and it is not yet clear by how much and in what manner they
are cut short. If the above assumptions are not correct, my margin
of error would be in weeks, or perhaps months."
2003
ARKANSAS
CITY (AP) -- A Little Rock woman was killed yesterday after leaping
through her moving car's sun roof during an incident best described
as "a mistaken rapture" by dozens of eye witnesses.
Thirteen other people were injured after a twenty-car pile up
resulted from people trying to avoid hitting the woman who was
apparently convinced that the rapture was occurring when she saw
twelve people floating up into the air, and then passed a man on the
side of the road who she claimed was Jesus. "She started
screaming "He's back, He's back" and climbed right out of
the sunroof and jumped off the roof of the car," said Everet
Williams, husband of 28-year-old Georgann Williams who was
pronounced dead at the scene. "I was slowing down but she
wouldn't wait till I stopped," Williams said. She thought the
rapture was happening and was convinced that Jesus was gonna lift
her up into the sky," he went on to say. "This is the
strangest thing I've seen since I've been on the force," said
Paul Madison, first officer on the scene. Madison questioned the man
who looked like Jesus and discovered that he was dressed up as Jesus
and was on his way to a toga costume party when the tarp covering
the bed of his pickup truck came loose and released twelve blowup
dolls filled with helium which floated up into the air. Ernie
Jenkins, 32, of Fort Smith, who's been told by several of his
friends that he looks like Jesus, pulled over and lifted his arms
into the air in frustration, and said "Come back here,"
just as the Williams' car passed him. Mrs. Williams was sure that it
was Jesus lifting people up into the sky as they passed by him,
according to her husband, who says his wife loved Jesus more than
anything else. When asked for comments about the twelve dolls,
Jenkins replied "This is all just too weird for me. I never
expected anything like this to happen.”
This event is probably the most illustrative of all the great
compendiums of Prophesy.
2011-2018
For the past several decades, Jack Van Impe has hinted at nearly
every year as being the time for the rapture. Normally, he has only
gone out one or two years from the current calendar year. However,
Jack's latest projection for the rapture goes out several years. His
new math uses 51 years as the length of a generation. If you add 51
years to 1967, the year Israel seized Jerusalem from its Arab
inhabitants, you get 2018. Once you subtract the seven-year
tribulation period, you arrive at 2011. Dozens will be energized and
will sell off their bicycle training wheels and lifetime collection
of dignity pants but again, sad to say, nothing will happen.
2012
New Age writers cite Mayan and Aztec calendars that predict the end
of the age on December 21, 2012.
2060
Sir Isaac Newton, Britain's greatest scientist, spent 50 years and
wrote 4,500 pages trying to predict when the end of the world was
coming. The most definitive date he set for the apocalypse, which he
scribbled on a scrap of paper, was 2060. The original scrap is now
in the archives of Brother Pat Robertson. It appears to have been
written with a ball point pen which was not invented until 1948.
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