JustGetThere

Tuesday, February 2. 2010

SENATE BURGLARY: CIA DOMESTIC BLACK-OP TEAM ARRESTED : False Flag Specialist Among Them

in False Flag

Defined tags for this entry: black-ops, cia, false flag, israel, senate, terrorists

Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor

Veterans Today | Last week’s breakin at Senator Mary Landrieu’s office in the New Orleans Federal Building was more than it seemed, much more. All of the 4 arrested had been trained by the CIA and, possibly, Israel. One arrested, Stan Dai, is listed as an Operations Officer of the Department of Defense Irregular Warfare Program and a known expert and lecturer on, not only surveillance but explosives training, assassinations and “false flag operations.” If you wanted a plane to crash, an enemy to get sick and die or a building to blow up, Dai would be the man to know how to make it happen. Problem is, his skills were being used as part of a criminal conspiracy inside the United States against members of our own government.

Original reports on the “break-in” were also wrong. One of those arrested was found blocks away with a covert receiver, managing the office bugs. The man in the car is identified as Stan Dai, Operations Officer for the Department of Defense Irregular Warfare Program:

“one of the four was arrested with a listening device in a car blocks from the senator’s offices.” The FBI’s affidavit noted that Flanagan and Basel were in the building with O’Keefe, and a federal law enforcement official confirmed to AP that Dai was the one in the car.”

What is not initially known is whether this was the first attempt or, as is much more likely, an additional incursion to plant new bugs as the ones in place were missing key conversations. Also, it is not known how many “black ops” crews are being run by the CIA inside the United States in violation of their charter or if their operations are being limited to spying on Democratic lawmakers or if operations of a more threatening nature have been performed but remain undiscovered.

Additionally, as this was a covert op against US government investigations of, not only terrorism and terrorism funding but major financial crimes against the United States, it is unclear who the recipient of the “product,” an intelligence industry term for “output” or information put up for “distribution” might be. Potential buyers could be the Republican Party, Israel, Turkey, India, Russia, China, Venezuela, North Korea or financial institutions involved in massive money laundering schemes being investigated by the Senate’s Committee on Homeland Security of which Senator Landireu is a member.

Learn how the Intelliegence Community Center for Academic Excellence (IC CAE) at Georgetown University and the CIA got involved in this seedy domestic “black ops” group. In a story broken this week:

Dai’s links to the intelligence community appear to be particularly strong. He was a speaker at Georgetown University’s Central Intelligence Agency summer school program in June 2009, and is also listed as an Assistant Director at the Intelligence Community Center of Academic Excellence at Trinity in D.C. (note the parallels between the Georgetown program tied to “conservative think tanks” and the GWU program with similar ties and the same characters where we trace Dr. Hasan, Ft Hood mass murderer to)

The university’s president Patricia McGuire told The Associated Press that it promoted careers in intelligence but denied that it trains students to be spies. (a seemingly meaningless statement considering what has happened)

The Trinity program received a “$250,000 renewable grant from the U.S. Intelligence Community” upon launching in 2004, according to its Web site. The program’s goals are stated:

The IC CAE in National Security Studies Program was established during 2005 in response to the nation’s increasing need for IC professionals who are educated and trained with the unique knowledge, skills and capabilities to carry out America’s national security objectives.

The CIA summer school packet also notes that Dai “served as the Operations Officer of a Department of Defense irregular warfare fellowship program.”

Dai has been an undergraduate fellow with the Washington-based national security think tank Foundation for the Defense of the Democracies (FDD), according to his College Leadership Program award biography at the Phillips Foundation — as Lindsay Beyerstein first reported.

FDD claims that it’s partly funded by the US State Department. Its Leadership Council and Board of Advisers comprise many high-profile conservative politicians and public figures — including former House speaker Newt Gingrich, Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), Weekly Standard editor William Kristol, Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), former Bush official Richard Perle and columnist Charles Krauthammer.

Operatives recruited in universities and managed thru conservative think tanks receive paid “vacations” to Israel and elsewhere, places where they are trained in silent killing, use of poisons, explosives and other potentially useful skills whether their career is in intelligence or politics. As with other terrorist suspects such as those who travel to Afghanistan for their training, these domestic types are funded covertly through the US government but, as we see in New Orleans, rented out to either Israel, India or the Republican party.

This history of this program parallels one from the Nixon administration after the Vietnam War. CIA recruiters subsidized hundreds, perhaps several thousand veterans, Marines, Special Forces and Army Rangers who served in unofficial and semi-official capacities in and out of the US. Some serve to this day. Today’s, if current bio’s are any indication, depend more on ideology than physical bravery or intellectual qualifications. Perhaps the “purity” test left little room for battle hardened veterans who might choose country over party and loyalty over cash.

In a “clarification” of how Israel is involved and sees their cooperation in this domestic terror organization as part of their support of the United States as a trusted ally, we received the following story:

Dai traveled to Israel for two weeks in 2004 on an FDD (Foundation for the Defense of the Democracies, a conservative Washington based “think tank” with CIA ties) -sponsored trip, the Daily Herald reported. “All expenses (room, board and travel) will be assumed by FDD,” FDD’s Web site said of its Israel program.

A host of FDD testimonials from Academic Fellows reveal that many fellows have traveled to Israel for training and field trips. The Foundation says the course includes “lectures by academics, diplomats, military and intelligence officials, and politicians from Israel, Jordan, India, Turkey and the United States.”

FDD proclaims that “Like America, Israel is at the forefront in the war on terrorism.” Further explaining its interest in Israel, FDD declares:

“Both the United States and Israel are democracies, and both face the same enemy. It is this connection between Israel’s experience and the future of the United States that is the essence of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.”

One FDD testimonial, by 2004-2005 fellow Dr. Cathal J. Nolan, highlighted the group’s bond with high-level intelligence and government officials in Israel:

“The access which FDD provided to top government officials–and to academic, police, security service, and intelligence experts at the highest levels–was truly remarkable. I know of no other foundation or fellowship program which is able to provide so much top-level access and first-hand intelligence and security service information in so compact a form, or in such an intellectually stimulating environment."

No explanation was offered as to how this “stimulating environment” managed to foster attacks on high security government offices, filled with vital intelligence. If Israel and the United States face the same enemy, why is Israel training Americans to attack America? One can’t help but see parallels between “junkets” to Israel for “intelligence training” and Islamic militants who go to Afghanistan for “terrorist” training.

How few Islamic terrorists would we catch if they were aided by Washington “think tanks,” guided by the Department of Defense or funded by the CIA?

Last week, Veterans Today outlined the many high security projects being monitored from Senator Landrieu’s office which included, not only terrorist money laundering and other security issues but investigations targeting tens of billions of dollars being hidden offshore illegally by Americans, many with ties to Israel. The projects subject to spying by this CIA/Israeli operation are, among others: (source: Department of Homeland Security and the United States Senate)

SENATE HOMELAND SECURITY COMMITTEE

Current hearings held by the Senate Homeland Security Committee chaired by Landireu, hearings subject to this espionage attack involve:

*Intelligence reform in the aftermath of the Christmas terrorist attack
*Overviews of contracting corruption in Afghanistan
*Planning for securing America’s diplomats around the world
*The Terrorist Reform and Terrorist Prevention Act (IRTPA)
*Investigating the root causes of the Ft. Hood attack
*Securing America from financial crimes
*America’s Defense from Cyber Attack
*Development plans for “post surge” Afghanistan

Current investigations by the Sub-Committee on Investigations are:

*Speculation in trading and how it effects national security
*How US banks help overseas corporation dodge US taxes
*Report on Tax Havens hiding billions from the IRS
*Massive abuses of government credit cards by employees
*Ending “offshore secrecy” to allow the US to recover billions in tax shortfall
*Shell Oil credit card interest abuses
*Medicaid abuse and equipment overcharges
*Billions in unpaid taxes on Medicaid income by American doctors
*Speculation in the energy markets costing American consumers billions a year
*Failures in United Nations reform, waste and corruption
*Speculation and manipulation that controls and rigs crude oil and gasoline markets
*and many many more

9/11

*The Senate HSC is responsible for implementing all intelligence reforms resulting from the findings of the 9/11 commission especially in light of continued failures as demonstrated by the Ft. Hood tragedy and the Detroit terror attack.

Current contracting oversight responsibilities:

*Overseeing all USAID reconstruction contracts in Afghanistan
*Investigating massive corruption tied to the US Embassy in Kabul
*Overseeing all US contractors used in Iraq, Afghanistan and around the world in regard to corrupt practices and cost overruns
*Detecting and Prosecuting Contractor Fraud

No information has been given as to how Federal authorities came to break up this terrorist operation but we are told that informants inside the CIA still loyal to the United States were involved. The arrest of Dai, a highly trained operative blocks away from the scene opens a number of scenarios.

With much of the CIA’s former leadership now employed by Blackwater/Xe, a company owned and controlled by Republican party leadership, the lines between domestic and foreign intelligence operations have become blurred. “CIA agents” killed in Afghanistan recently may all have been Blackwater/Xe employees, some or all former CIA operatives seeking the higher salaries of the private security industry. Has the CIA become “interchangable” with a mercenary group tied to a political party and available for hire by anyone with enough money? The deteriorating security sitiuation in Afghanistan and Pakistan gives creedence to this hypothesis.

The use of forces designated only to be used against American enemies outside the United States against elected officials of our own government, possibly on behalf of an unfriendly foreign government, is a total indictment of the usefulness of our entire intelligence community. Attempts to centralize intelligence resources only tied those resources to individuals whose political ideologies surpassed loyalty to the United States or were superceded by moral flexibility, so often the case with politicians, now popularly described under the term “situational narcissism.” (believing one’s position places one above any moral code or ethical standard)

Significant polarization within the political community during the Bush administration encouraged members of the intelligence community to look on members of the opposition political party as terrorist sympathizers. We are told that many members of the military and intelligence community may be actively involved in “extracurricular” activities, freelancing for individuals no longer in government. Those co-opted by extremist views are vulnerable to ploys from foreign intelligence agencies who represent themselves as part of “right thinking” or “conservative” patriotic groups.

This is a common ploy, developed long ago by the KGB in the Soviet Union and now SOP, (Standard Operating Proceedure) for agencies of friend and foe alike.

It is now a subject for a legitimate investigation as are such “accidents” as the Ohio plane crash that killed Mike Connell, GOP “vote rigging” guru who asked for police protection from Karl Rove tied to rigging the 2004 Presidential Election. Connell’s family believes his death was murder. US Senators, investigative reporters, whistleblowing scientists, “girlfriends” and so many other categories seem to die in numbers well beyond any actuarial table.

We are already spending billions of dollars a year hunting foreign terrorists that threaten the United States. Do we need to double this and go on a “witch hunt” within our own agencies, the ones we entrust with our own security? There is only one answer: Yes, of course we must. We may not have a few “bad apples,” we may have a diseased orchard.

Thursday, January 7. 2010

Shades of Things to Come: Israeli Airport Debuts Biometric System

in Technology

Defined tags for this entry: airport security, airports, biometrics, fingerprint scanners, Israel, technocracy, technology, terrorism

By YAAKOV LAPPIN

The Unipass biometric screening system.
Photo: Kfir Sivan/Yisrael Sun

The Jerusalem Post | As international aviation officials look to Israel for techniques to safeguard air travel after the failed Christmas Day bombing, Ben-Gurion airport on Tuesday launched a biometric security system for outbound passengers, heralding a new era of hi-tech passenger screening.

The Unipass Airport Management System, developed by the Israel Airports Authority, is initially being tested on El Al Matmid Frequent Flyer Club members, before being gradually expanded to include, within two years, all departing passengers who voluntarily register, the IAA said.

The IAA said the timing of the biometric security program’s launch, amid heightened international air travel security following the Al-Qaeda terrorist plot to blow up a US airliner over Detroit last month, was purely coincidental.

The IAA refused to address the issue of passenger profiling, saying instead that the Unipass system will offer improved service and security, and an identical screening process for all passengers.

"This is the first system of its kind in the world. Interest has been expressed by other international airports," an IAA spokeswoman said.

It was too soon say how much time the new arrangement will save, the spokeswoman added, but once it becomes fully operational, the system is expected to significantly speed up the security and check-in processes.

In the first stage, passengers will arrive at a registration desk, where a machine will scan their passports, and take fingerprint and facial imaging samples to create a biometric signature.

The information will then be stored on personal smart card that will be issued to each passenger. The registration is a one-time process. Equipped with their smart cards, passengers can then proceed to the first security stand, where they will be asked to swipe their cards and passports through the machine. As the computer confirms a biometric match, a touch screen panel will present the passengers with a series of security questions that until now were asked by airport personnel.

Guards will stand next to the stands to help anyone who runs into difficulties, the IAA said. "We¹re not giving up on human interaction," the spokeswoman said.

"If any of the questions receive incorrect answers, or the system reports a problem, passengers will be taken aside by a guard for an in-depth check, before being allowed to proceed."

The luggage X-ray machine is the next stop, and passengers will once again swipe their Unipass cards through a scanner to inform the system that they have passed the first stage of security.

After the luggage is scanned, passengers will go to the airline's check-in desk, where the smart card will again be swiped, prompting a message to appear on the clerk's computer screen that the passenger has passed through all security stages.

Once check-in is completed, the hand luggage scanning stage takes place, where travelers once again swipe their cards before continuing on to border control, the duty free stores and boarding.

The IAA already allows passengers to circumvent Border Control passport checks with a biometric fingerprint scanner, and says it plans to soon replace Border Control with the Unipass system for registered passengers.

Additionally, the IAA said passengers would soon be able to forgo sending their suitcases through the X-ray machine in the departure hall prior to checking in, thanks to a new system called Hold Baggage Screening.

"Passengers registered on the Unipass system will take their luggage directly to check-in, and from there the suitcases will be passed through comprehensive security before being loaded on the plane," the IAA spokeswoman said.

"I have no doubt that this system will significantly decrease waiting time for the various security checks," IAA director-general Kobi Mor said.

The IAA said the biometric information stored on Unipass computers would be fully secure and could not be accessed by outsiders.

Wednesday, December 2. 2009

BBC: Israeli Police Arrest Mossad Spy on “Training Exercise” After He Placed “Fake Bomb” Under Car

in False Flag

Defined tags for this entry: drill, false flag, Israel, mossad

BBC News | A trainee spy for Israel's secret service agency Mossad was arrested by Tel Aviv police while taking part in a training operation, media reports say.

The young trainee was spotted by a female passer-by as he planted a fake bomb under a vehicle in the city.

He was only able to persuade police he was a spy after being taken in by an officer for questioning on Monday.

The authorities have refused to comment on the story although Israeli media outlets have expressed their surprise.

'Just a drill'

Mossad does not tell local uniformed police about its training exercises.

The country's commercial Channel 10 said it hoped the agency's operatives were "more effective abroad", AFP news agency reported.

Niva Ben-Harush, the woman who reported the novice's suspicious behaviour to police, told Ynet News that 15 minutes after she made the call, Tel Aviv's port was closed and people evacuated.

She said police initially asked her to come with them and identify the suspect.

"But after a few minutes, they told me it was just a drill," she said.

Up to three agency employees were believed to have been suspended following the incident, Ynet reported.

It quoted the prime minister's office as saying it did "not respond to information about such activities undertaken by security agencies or attributed to them".

Wednesday, July 22. 2009

Internet warfare team unveiled: Twitterers paid to spread Israeli propaganda

in Internet

Defined tags for this entry: blogs, facebook, internet, Israel, media, propaganda, twitter

By Jonathan Cook

Global Research | The passionate support for Israel expressed on talkback sections of websites, internet chat forums, blogs, Twitters and Facebook may not be all that it seems.

Israel’s foreign ministry is reported to be establishing a special undercover team of paid workers whose job it will be to surf the internet 24 hours a day spreading positive news about Israel.

Internet-savvy Israeli youngsters, mainly recent graduates and demobilised soldiers with language skills, are being recruited to pose as ordinary surfers while they provide the government’s line on the Middle East conflict.

“To all intents and purposes the internet is a theatre in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and we must be active in that theatre, otherwise we will lose,” said Ilan Shturman, who is responsible for the project.

The existence of an “internet warfare team” came to light when it was included in this year’s foreign ministry budget. About $150,000 has been set aside for the first stage of development, with increased funding expected next year.

The team will fall under the authority of a large department already dealing with what Israelis term “hasbara”, officially translated as “public explanation” but more usually meaning propaganda. That includes not only government public relations work but more secretive dealings the ministry has with a battery of private organisations and initiatives that promote Israel’s image in print, on TV and online.

In an interview this month with the Calcalist, an Israeli business newspaper, Mr Shturman, the deputy director of the ministry’s hasbara department, admitted his team would be working undercover.

“Our people will not say: ‘Hello, I am from the hasbara department of the Israeli foreign ministry and I want to tell you the following.’ Nor will they necessarily identify themselves as Israelis,” he said. “They will speak as net-surfers and as citizens, and will write responses that will look personal but will be based on a prepared list of messages that the foreign ministry developed.”

Rona Kuperboim, a columnist for Ynet, Israel’s most popular news website, denounced the initiative, saying it indicated that Israel had become a “thought-police state”.

She added that “good PR cannot make the reality in the occupied territories prettier. Children are being killed, homes are being bombed, and families are starved.”

Her column was greeted by several talkbackers asking how they could apply for a job with the foreign ministry’s team.

The project is a formalisation of public relations practices the ministry developed specifically for Israel’s assault on Gaza in December and January.

“During Operation Cast Lead we appealed to Jewish communities abroad and with their help we recruited a few thousand volunteers, who were joined by Israeli volunteers,” Mr Shturman said.

“We gave them background material and hasbara material, and we sent them to represent the Israeli point of view on news websites and in polls on the internet.”

The Israeli army also had one of the most popular sites on the video-sharing site YouTube and regularly uploaded clips, although it was criticised by human rights groups for misleading viewers about what was shown in its footage.

Mr Shturman said that during the war the ministry had concentrated its activities on European websites where audiences were more hostile to Israeli policy. High on its list of target sites for the new project would be BBC Online and Arabic websites, he added.

Elon Gilad, who heads the internet team, told Calcalist that many people had contacted the ministry offering their services during the Gaza attack. “People just asked for information, and afterwards we saw that the information was distributed all over the internet.”

He suggested that there had been widespread government cooperation, with the ministry of absorption handing over contact details for hundreds of recent immigrants to Israel, who wrote pro-Israel material for websites in their native languages.

The new team is expected to increase the ministry’s close coordination with a private advocacy group, giyus.org (Give Israel Your United Support). About 50,000 activists are reported to have downloaded a programme called Megaphone that sends an alert to their computers when an article critical of Israel is published. They are then supposed to bombard the site with comments supporting Israel.

Nasser Rego of Ilam, a group based in Nazareth that monitors the Israeli media, said Arab organisations in Israel were among those regularly targeted by hasbara groups for “character assassination”. He was concerned the new team would try to make such work appear more professional and convincing.

“If these people are misrepresenting who they are, we can guess they won’t worry too much about misrepresenting the groups and individuals they write about. Their aim, it’s clear, will be to discredit those who stand for human rights and justice for the Palestinians.”

When The National called the foreign ministry, Yigal Palmor, a spokesman, denied the existence of the internet team, though he admitted officials were stepping up exploitation of new media.

He declined to say which comments by Mr Shturman or Mr Gilad had been misrepresented by the Hebrew-language media, and said the ministry would not be taking any action over the reports.

Israel has developed an increasingly sophisticated approach to new media since it launched a “Brand Israel” campaign in 2005.

Market research persuaded officials that Israel should play up good news about business success, and scientific and medical breakthroughs involving Israelis.

Mr Shturman said his staff would seek to use websites to improve “Israel’s image as a developed state that contributes to the quality of the environment and to humanity”.

David Saranga, head of public relations at Israel’s consulate-general in New York, which has been leading the push for more upbeat messages about Israel, argued last week that Israel was at a disadvantage against pro-Palestinian advocacy.

“Unlike the Muslim world, which has hundreds of millions of supporters who have adopted the Palestinian narrative in order to slam Israel, the Jewish world numbers only 13 million,” he wrote in Ynet.

Israel has become particularly concerned that support is ebbing among the younger generations in Europe and the United States.

In 2007 it emerged that the foreign ministry was behind a photo-shoot published in Maxim, a popular US men’s magazine, in which female Israeli soldiers posed in swimsuits.

Wednesday, July 8. 2009

Wary of naked force, Israelis eye cyberwar on Iran

in Internet

Defined tags for this entry: cyber-attack, cyber-war, internet, Iran, Israel

By Dan Williams

Reuters | In the late 1990s, a computer specialist from Israel's Shin Bet internal security service hacked into the mainframe of the Pi Glilot fuel depot north of Tel Aviv.

It was meant to be a routine test of safeguards at the strategic site. But it also tipped off the Israelis to the potential such hi-tech infiltrations offered for real sabotage.

"Once inside the Pi Glilot system, we suddenly realized that, aside from accessing secret data, we could also set off deliberate explosions, just by programing a re-route of the pipelines," said a veteran of the Shin Bet drill.

So began a cyberwarfare project which, a decade on, is seen by independent experts as the likely new vanguard of Israel's efforts to foil the nuclear ambitions of its arch-foe Iran.

The appeal of cyber attacks was boosted, Israeli sources say, by the limited feasibility of conventional air strikes on the distant and fortified Iranian atomic facilities, and by U.S. reluctance to countenance another open war in the Middle East.

"We came to the conclusion that, for our purposes, a key Iranian vulnerability is in its on-line information," said one recently retired Israeli security cabinet member, using a generic term for digital networks. "We have acted accordingly."

Cyberwarfare teams nestle deep within Israel's spy agencies, which have rich experience in traditional sabotage techniques and are cloaked in official secrecy and censorship.

They can draw on the know-how of Israeli commercial firms that are among the world's hi-tech leaders and whose staff are often veterans of elite military intelligence computer units.

"To judge by my interaction with Israeli experts in various international forums, Israel can definitely be assumed to have advanced cyber-attack capabilities," said Scott Borg, director of the U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit, which advises various Washington agencies on cyber security.

Technolytics Institute, an American consultancy, last year rated Israel the sixth-biggest "cyber warfare threat," after China, Russia, Iran, France and "extremist/terrorist groups."

The United States is in the process of setting up a "Cyber Command" to oversee Pentagon operations, though officials have described its mandate as protective, rather than offensive.

Read full article

Wednesday, July 1. 2009

US remains silent over McKinney arrest by Israel

in Geopolitics

Defined tags for this entry: Cynthia McKinney, geopolitics, Israel

Press TV | Nearly a day after the detention of former US lawmaker Cynthia McKinney by Israeli forces, Washington has yet to make a reaction.

Israeli Navy detained former US congresswoman and Nobel Prize laureate Cynthia McKinney and twenty other human rights activists on board a relief boat outside Israel’s territorial waters on Tuesday as they were heading to Gaza on a humanitarian mission.

Tel Aviv claims the boat was trying to break Israel’s two-year siege on Gaza.

Ms McKinney — the 2008 Green Party nominee for President of the United States– has accused Tel Aviv of violating the international law by seizing an aid vessel in international waters.

“This is an outrageous violation of international law against us. Our boat was not in Israeli waters, and we were on a human rights mission to the Gaza Strip,” McKinney said in a statement.

Green Party leaders have called on the White House and the US State Department to intervene and demand the immediate release of all the activists.

On Monday, the International Committee of the Red Cross warned of dire humanitarian situation in Gaza, saying 1.5 million Palestinians living in the coastal sliver are ‘trapped in despair’ because of the continuing Israeli blockade on the territory.

Read full article

Tuesday, June 9. 2009

June 8, 1967: USS Liberty Attacked by Israel in International Waters

in False Flag

Defined tags for this entry: false flag, israel, uss liberty

Media Monarchy

The USS Liberty

Press TV | A deadly Israeli attack on a US ship - an incident largely kept in the dark by Washington - receives new attention with survivors reliving the painful memory.

USS Liberty survivors gathered in Washington on Monday to commemorate the 42nd anniversary of the incident and expound on how they were sprayed with bullets by America's "closest ally and beneficiary".

On June 8, 1967, the unarmed spy ship USS Liberty was on duty in international waters off the Sinai Peninsula when it was bombarded by Israeli fighter jets and torpedo boats.

The two-hour-long attacks killed at least 34 sailors, wounded 173 others and nearly sunk the ship. The attack on the Liberty came at a time when Israel had engaged in a brief but intense war with Egypt and its Arab allies, which coincided with the US war on Vietnam.

Although the ship was clearly marked as an American vessel, Israelis declared the attack on Liberty as a simple case of "friendly fire" and "mistaken identity".

Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, former US president Lyndon Johnson accepted the Israeli claim and cancelled all investigations into the incident.

"It was a case of mistaken identity …I do not care if every man drowned and the ship sank, we will not embarrass an ally," Johnson had told his opponents who demanded an open congressional hearing to address the Israeli claim.

USS Liberty survivor Rick Almett, however, begged to differ.

"There was a conspiracy between our government and Israel. So that's the reason why they didn't pursue it and why the investigations were covered up because of the alliance of Israel and the United States," Almetti told Press TV.

Watch the documentary Loss of Liberty

Friday, May 1. 2009

Feds Dropping Charges Against Pro-Israel Lobbyists

in Government

Defined tags for this entry: AIPAC, government, Israel, lobbyists, Spies

The indictment had alleged that Rosen and Weissman conspired to obtain and then disclosed classified information on U.S. policy toward Iran, as well as information on the al-Qaida terror network and the bombing of the Khobar Towers dormitory in Saudi Arabia, which killed 19 U.S. Air Force personnel.

AP | Federal prosecutors moved Friday to dismiss espionage-related charges against two former pro-Israel lobbyists accused of disclosing classified U.S. defense information, ending a tortuous inside-the-Beltway legal battle rife with national security intrigue.

Critics of the prosecution of Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee accused the federal government of trying to criminalize the sort of back-channel discussions between government officials, lobbyists and reporters that are commonplace in the nation's capital. AIPAC is an influential pro-Israel lobbying group.

Acting U.S. Attorney Dana Boente said the government moved to dismiss the charges in the drawn-out case after concluding that pretrial rulings would make it too difficult for the government to prove its case.

Boente also said he was worried that classified information would be disclosed at trial.

U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III had made several legal rulings that prosecutors worried would make it almost impossible to obtain a guilty verdict. Among them was a requirement that the government would have to prove that Rosen and Weissman knew they were harming the United States by trading in sensitive national defense information.

The defense had also been prepared to put on a strong case that the information obtained by Rosen and Weissman, while technically classified, was not truly secret and that its disclosure was irrelevant to the nation's security.

The federal government's former arbiter of classification, J. William Leonard, was prepared to testify for the defense that the government overuses classification and applies the label to information that by any practical measure does not need to be secret. The government had sought to bar Leonard's testimony.

The trial had been scheduled to start June 2 in a case first brought in 2005.

Read full article

Wednesday, April 22. 2009

Bombshell: Rep. Jane Harman Caught on Tape Agreeing to Lobby for Alleged AIPAC/Israel Spies?

in Surveillance

Defined tags for this entry: AIPAC, domestic spying, Israel, Jane Harman, nsa, surveillance, wiretapping

By Jeremy Scahill

Alternet | This is a huge story: Representative Jane Harman, a hawkish, influential “Blue Dog” Democrat “was overheard on an NSA wiretap telling a suspected Israeli agent that she would lobby the Justice Department reduce espionage-related charges against two officials of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, the most powerful pro-Israel organization in Washington,” according to a report from CQ Politics:

Harman was recorded saying she would “waddle into” the AIPAC case “if you think it’ll make a difference,” according to two former senior national security officials familiar with the NSA transcript.

In exchange for Harman’s help, the sources said, the suspected Israeli agent pledged to help lobby Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., then-House minority leader, to appoint Harman chair of the Intelligence Committee after the 2006 elections, which the Democrats were heavily favored to win.

Seemingly wary of what she had just agreed to, according to an official who read the NSA transcript, Harman hung up after saying, “This conversation doesn’t exist.”

The case, known as the AIPAC espionage scandal centers around allegations that at least two AIPAC staff members passed sensitive US intelligence on Iran, provided by Pentagon official Lawrence Franklin, to Israel. In early 2006, Franklin pled guilty to espionage-related charges and was sentenced to 13 years in prison. The case against two indicted AIPAC staffers, Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, is ongoing.

Allegations that Harman intervened in this case in an effort to win the spot as chair of the Intelligence Committee have been widespread since 2006, but an FBI investigation into Harman was dropped for “lack of evidence.” As CQ Politics reports:

What is new is that Harman is said to have been picked up on a court-approved NSA tap directed at alleged Israel covert action operations in Washington.

And that, contrary to reports that the Harman investigation was dropped for “lack of evidence,” it was Alberto R. Gonzales, President Bush’s top counsel and then attorney general, who intervened to stop the Harman probe.

Why? Because, according to three top former national security officials, Gonzales wanted Harman to be able to help defend the administration’s warrantless wiretapping program, which was about break in The New York Times and engulf the White House.

When Justice Department officials reviewed the transcript of the wiretaps on Rep. Harman, its attorneys determined she had committed a “completed crime,” which, according to CQ Politics is “a legal term meaning that there was evidence that she had attempted to complete it.” The Justice Department attorneys wanted to open a case on her, but they needed the green light from top intel officials to confirm it rightly constituted a national security investigation. Porter Goss, who was then the CIA director reportedly approved the investigation and was preparing to notify then-Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and House Speaker Dennis Hastert and, through them, Harman herself:

But that’s when, according to knowledgeable officials, Attorney General Gonzales intervened.

According to two officials privy to the events, Gonzales said he “needed Jane” to help support the administration’s warrantless wiretapping program, which was about to be exposed by the New York Times.

Harman, he told Goss, had helped persuade the newspaper to hold the wiretap story before, on the eve of the 2004 elections. And although it was too late to stop the Times from publishing now, she could be counted on again to help defend the program

He was right.

On Dec. 21, 2005, in the midst of a firestorm of criticism about the wiretaps, Harman issued a statement defending the operation and slamming the Times, saying, “I believe it essential to U.S. national security, and that its disclosure has damaged critical intelligence capabilities.”

Pelosi and Hastert never did get the briefing.

And thanks to grateful Bush administration officials, the investigation of Harman was effectively dead.

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Pelosi knew NSA had listened to Harman phone calls

AP | House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday that she was aware a few years ago that Rep. Jane Harman had been overheard on a government wiretap.

“A few years ago, maybe three years ago, they did brief me,” Pelosi told reporters at an event hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.

“All I knew is that she was wiretapped,” Pelosi said. “When you are briefed on something, it isn’t your information to share with anybody else,” she added. “Even if I wanted to share it with her, I would not have had the ability to share it with her.”

Harman has said she first learned of the wiretapping last week from a reporter who had knowledge of the transcript of the recording.

Congressional Quarterly reported Monday that Harman was overheard agreeing to seek lenient treatment for two former employees of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee who were under investigation and later indicted for unlawfully possessing and disclosing classified information.

In exchange, according to CQ, prominent pro-Israel contributors would press Pelosi to appoint Harman to the chairmanship of the House Intelligence Committee.

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Monday, February 2. 2009

Wars And Economic Failure Have Been Marching Us Towards One World Government

in Geopolitics

Defined tags for this entry: financial crisis, geopolitics, globalization, hegelian dialectic, illuminati, israel, new world order, war on terror, world government

By Bob Chapman

Once the Illuminati have control of the world’s most prolific and profitable oil supply, they can use it to force other nations, as well as their own people, to accept one-world government by turning off the taps.

The International Forecaster | The US and Israel are on parallel paths. Each is now a base of operations for the Illuminati, and each will be discarded as a nation-state entity once their usefulness to the cause of the New World Disorder has been served, or at least that is the plan. Our nations have become a den of vipers. The corruption lies not with the common folk, but with their bought-and-paid-for or compromised leadership, while the common folk are kept in the dark by a corrupt media that is owned and controlled exclusively by the Illuminati.

Both the US and Israel have created the best enemies that money can buy, because the objective is to cause as much bloodshed and destruction as possible, for as long as possible, in order to provide fun and profits for the benefit of their respective military-industrial complexes. After all, you need a scapegoat on which to blame the destruction and loss of life that is necessary to rake in trillions of dollars in war profits, to implement genocides and population control agendas, to exert your political will, to rob other nations of their resources and to satisfy the limitless bloodlust of the satanic, megalomaniacal, trillionaire sociopaths who run the shadow governments in both the US and Israel.

The Illuminati, however, have conspired to achieve their objectives while simultaneously preventing the US and Israel from becoming too powerful, prosperous and independent to want to surrender their sovereignty in favor of world government. After all, why would the people of any free and prosperous nation with superior military and economic prowess on a global basis ever succumb to a one-world, Marxist-fascistic, Orwellian police state of feudality? That is why our respective militaries have been forced to suffer nothing but losses, stalemates and incomplete victories since the end of WWII. This process of implementing wars for profit without achieving too much military power and economic independence has been achieved by hamstringing US and Israeli military operations with incomplete or scaled-back objectives, moronic rules of engagement, insufficient manpower and equipment and implementation of defective military strategies which ensure that operations will devolve into a complete cluster-f–k, thus always snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Why did Roosevelt provoke the Japanese, and allow them to destroy our battleships in Pearl Harbor, while the carriers were conveniently on maneuvers off shore? Was is because he was worried the Japanese might find out we had broken their code, or was it to hamstring our navy to make sure the war would drag on in the Pacific for years to ensure that the Illuminist military-industrial complex made mega-profits and took us out of the Depression which the Illuminists themselves had caused? Couldn’t we have prevented the attack, saved several thousand lives and used the old ships until the new ones were built, and still have beaten the snots out of the Japanese? Did Admiral Kimmel have to be disgraced? Why did we ship defective weapons to nationalist forces in China, thus allowing the communist forces to take over after WWII? Why was General Patton assassinated by our own military when he sought to push the soviets back to their own borders, and why did we then set communist Russia up with a new kingdom in the Yalta sellout of Eastern Europe? Why did we abandon the Hungarian freedom fighters at the last second in 1956 and allow the communists in Soviet Russia to slaughter them? Why did we not bomb the Chinese troops in North Korea for a sure victory as desired by General MacArthur, who was later disgraced by the evil Illuminist puppet, Harry Truman, instead settling for a division of Korea into North and South sectors by a demilitarized zone which we still occupy to this day? Why did we cut short the TET Offensive in Vietnam, which would have brought us to a complete victory according to the leading North Vietnamese General who admitted he and his troops would have been done for, thus settling for a later loss instead after a long, bloody and expensive war? Why did we stop short of taking Baghdad in the First Gulf War? Was it because we were winning too speedily with too few casualties for the Illuminists to make their usual gargantuan war profits? Was there not enough bloodshed to quench their thirst the Illuminati’s thirst for blood? Why did we use depleted uranium in both Gulf Wars so as to sicken and kill our own troops? Was it to make the medical and pharmaceutical industries flush with cash and to cut pensions short, thus saving hundreds of billions of dollars? Was it to reduce the number of patriotic veterans who might violently object to the implementation of world government? Why did it take more time to beat a bunch of rag-head terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan numbering in the mere tens of thousands than it took to win WWII? Why did we use a small fraction of the number of troops recommended by our senior military commanders for the so-called War on Terror? Why were our troops continually ill-equipped and running excessively long tours of duty? Was it because we wanted to extend the war and wear out our military in order to reduce the number of US troops, and the potential for objection to world government by our patriotic veterans, by replacing them with mercenary killers who could care less? Why did we cause a civil war on top of the war to remove Saddam, due to the supposed errors in judgment that were made in our strategies for conquest? Was it to extend the war while channeling hundreds of billions to Illuminist contractors and mercenaries via no-bid contracts? Why did Clinton give our nuclear secrets to the Chinese? Are you beginning to get the picture?

In 1947 to 1948, Israel was sold out by Britain as it gave up possession of Palestine, which left them with indefensible borders and a country less than ten miles wide in some sections, thereby ensuring continual conflict with the Arabs. This vicious redrawing of borders to foment conflict is something the British Black Nobility are experts at after centuries of practice. They thought that the Arabs would destroy Israel which was becoming a thorn in their side because they wanted a piece of the Middle East oil action, and Israel was putting a crimp in their plans. But then Israel won miraculously in the face of an overwhelming attack by several Arab nations simultaneously, and Truman saw his chance to use Israel to gain a foothold in the Middle East, a base of operations for Illuminists of the US faction. Incidentally, Britain lost virtually its entire empire after screwing Israel, a nice bit of poetic justice and divine retribution for their treachery. But Israel did not press its advantage, winning by simply surviving, in its first war with the surrounding Arab states. Many of the Palestinians left the Palestinian territories bordering on Israel during this conflict, thinking that Israel would be easily defeated and that they would get to take over all the Israeli lands, as well as get their own back. Their desire to get this abandoned land back is the basis for the so-called "right of return." Frankly, in attacking Israel, the Arabs forfeited their rights to their own lands by failing to respect Israel’s borders, as did the Palestinians by cooperating in the war to destroy Israel. The surrounding Arab states could and should have taken all the displaced Palestinians in, but instead left a good portion of them along Israel’s new occupied lands as a hemorrhoid for Israel to deal with, allowing their Arab brethren to live in poverty and squalor rather than take them in after telling them to leave and then losing the war. They use the Palestinian territories as a base from which they can terrorize Israel and eventually destroy them. They have no intention of giving Israel peace, but instead want to take them apart piece by piece via the corrupt Oslo process and the so-called Roadmap to Peace, which should be termed the Roadmap to Israel’s Destruction.

In its 1967 Six Day War, which was a preemptive strike by Israel in an act of self-preservation against Arab states massing troops along its miniscule borders, Israel could have been more aggressive, but they pulled back and started negotiating with the Arabs after less than a week of fighting, when they could have extended their borders and made them more defensible. Why? Was it because the US insisted to protect its US oil interests with the Arabs? Was it because, in any case, the US Illuminists did not want Israel to become too powerful and extend their borders too far, because they wanted to destroy Israel when they had finished using it as a base of operations for Middle East conquest? Why did the US withhold aid from Israel in the 1973 Yom Kippur War until it was almost too late, thereby almost destroying Israel in the process? Was it because Kissinger, Nixon’s Secretary of State, wanted to bloody Israel’s nose to show them who was boss, and that they had better do as they were told, or else? Why, after Israel blew through Lebanon in the First Lebanon War and surrounded Arafat and his PLO, did they allow him to escape to Libya? Why did they tolerate the PLO for so many years when they could have easily eliminated them? Why did they allow Hamas to be eligible for elective office when they are sworn to the destruction of Israel? In the second Lebanon War, why did they use a tiny fraction of the forces used in the First Lebanon War against an enemy that was far more entrenched and dug in than in the first war? Was it because they were not supposed to win at the insistence of the US? Were they told to keep Hezbollah in place to keep fomenting terror and trouble, thus generating profits for the US and Israeli military-industrial complexes? Why does the US fund Saudi Arabia which then funds Hamas’ operations? Is it not convenient for oil companies to have an excuse to gouge consumers every time the Middle East ignites in conflict? Is not the whole peace process just a way to dismantle Israel after US and Israeli Illuminists are finished with it? You better believe it!!! Are you starting to get the picture again?

The fact that the US is the top-ranked military power in the world, and that the Israeli military is the top-ranked military in the Middle East, is no coincidence. Israel, of course, derives much of its strength from money and aid provided by the US, and it is, in essence, a satellite base for the Illuminist operation to create a region of oil hegemony in the Middle East where oil is the cheapest, and therefore the most profitable, to extract. Additionally, the control of this crucial resource provides great political clout and the opportunity for economic extortion in the great play for power. Russia is currently doing something similar with natural gas. Once the Illuminati have control of the world’s most prolific and profitable oil supply, they can use it to force other nations, as well as their own people, to accept one-world government by turning off the taps, by driving the price up to extortionate levels or by driving the price down to levels that are economically unsustainable for competing nations who would prefer to pass on a one-world system.

In addition to the manufactured wars for profit and the attempt to put a stranglehold on critical commodities and other resources, is the Illuminist economic destruction agenda which is being played out right before your eyes in the US and around the world. This destruction was brought about by the intentional creation of a conspiratorial daisy chain of fraud throughout the mortgage and consumer loan industries via derivatives traded in the unregulated OTC derivatives market, accompanied by intentional regulatory failures by the Fed and the elitist bootlickers in our government along with legislative machinations that opened the Pandora’s Box previously closed and locked by Glass-Steagall, AND NOT BY UNINTENTIONAL MISCALCULATIONS OR ERRORS IN JUDGMENT — THEY KNEW EXACTLY WHAT THEY WERE DOING!!!

The products spawned by that daisy chain of fraud were spread throughout the world like a deadly poison, only to be cut off unexpectedly and serendipitously by Meredith Whitney of Oppenheimer when she exposed Citigroup’s subprime derivatives as being toxic waste weapons of mass financial destruction. In addition, here in the US, the Illuminati have used free trade, globalization, off-shoring and outsourcing, along with both legal and illegal immigration, to bust our unions, and to destroy our domestic manufacturing sector by shipping it overseas, along with the productive, good-paying jobs produced by that sector. In place of those jobs in the manufacturing sector, we now peddle toxic waste derivatives, flip hamburgers and greet people entering department stores. These are the new "wonderful" jobs driving our new economy. The idea here was to knock the snots out of everyone around the globe, and especially in the US, so they will beg for a one-world solution, which will of course be offered in true Hegelian Dialectic fashion.

Monday, January 19. 2009

Gaza Children Found With Bullet Wounds To The Head

in World War

Defined tags for this entry: children, gaza, hamas, israel, palestinians, war crimes, world war

By Topaz Amoore

Gulf News | Cairo: Doctors operating the only brain-scanning machine at an Egyptian hospital near Gaza have been almost overwhelmed by the number of Palestinian children arriving with bullet wounds to the head.

On just one day last week, staff at the Al Arish hospital in Sinai were called to perform CAT scans on a nine year old, two 10 year olds and a 14 year old, each of whom had a bullet lodged in their brain after coming under fire during the Israeli ground assault on Gaza.

Israeli officials continued to deny on Saturday that their soldiers had deliberately targeted civilians, blaming Hamas fighters for sheltering in the houses of ordinary Gaza residents and using them as human shields.

But there is no disputing the scale of the suffering in Gaza or its heavy impact on the young.

Hundreds of victims of Israel's three-week campaign in Gaza have been transferred across the Egyptian border at Rafah for urgent treatment. They are seen first at Al Arish, nearly 40 miles from the border.

Among them last week was nine-year-old Anas Haref, who arrived with a bullet in her brain. Dr Ahmad Yahia, head of the trauma team, broke the news to her grandmother that the girl was not expected to live.

"The bullet has damaged a big part of her brain," said Dr Yahia. "It came in, hit the skull wall and then changed direction downwards."

Dr Yahia, a professor of neurosurgery, believes that the bullet was shot from close range. "If it changes course inside the brain it has high velocity and its penetrative force is also high," he said.

"I can't precisely decide whether these children are being shot at as a target, but in some cases the bullet comes from the front of the head and goes towards the back, so I think the gun has been directly pointed at the child."

Dr Ayman Abd Al Hadi, a medical team leader at the hospital, said: "We've had one child with two bullets in the head and nowhere else. We think this shows something."

He praised the medical teams in Gaza for managing to save so many lives despite a shortage of staff, supplies and equipment. "But only a very small percentage of children can survive bullet wounds to the head," he said.

"If we see three children here who have survived bullet wounds to the head, there are probably 97 still in Gaza who have not."

Doctors at the small but well equipped hospital do not attempt to remove the bullets, but perform a full assessment and attempt to stabilise their patients before sending them to hospitals in Cairo, and in some cases abroad, for more complex treatment.

Of those who survive, few will recover fully. Most child victims of such injuries are likely to be paralysed for life.

Other children have other horrific injuries - such as Samer, not yet three years old, who was shot in the back outside her home in Gaza, and had to wait three hours for medical help to reach her.

Her uncle, Hassan Abedrabo, said that Samer was hit by an Israeli bullet that damaged her spinal cord and left her paralysed. Her sisters, aged two and six, were shot dead in the same close-range attack as they tried to escape tanks bombarding their home in Jabaliya, north of Gaza City.

Their mother was hit twice but survived; Abedrabo said that their grandmother, waving a white flag at the front of the terrified family procession, lost an arm to another bullet.

Samer has now been transferred to a Belgian hospital but the Egyptian doctors who treated her in Al Arish believe she will never walk again.

Samer thinks she knows what happened to her.

"The Jewish shot me," she said in Arabic. "And they killed my little sister."

Sunday, January 11. 2009

Thousands in Europe Protest Against Gaza Operation

in Protests

Defined tags for this entry: gaza, Israel, palestinians, protests

Palestinian supporters protest against the Israeli operation in Gaza, in Berlin, Saturday.
Photo: AP

AP | Tens of thousands of people demonstrated in cities across Europe, North Africa and the Middle East Saturday, shouting protests against the IDF offensive in Gaza.

Protesters burned Israeli flags in Sweden and threw shoes at the US consulate in Edinburgh, Scotland. In central London, three officers were hurt when demonstrators hurled shoes and placards at police outside the Israeli Embassy. One officer was knocked unconscious. Some 180 people were arrested in Paris.

But in Innsbruck, Austria, volunteer security personnel arranged by the Islamic organizers of a demonstration moved quickly to surround and protect an elderly man after he suddenly unrolled an Israeli flag in the middle of the protest. The 3,500 Innsbruck marchers carried banners calling for "Freedom for Palestine" and saying "Stop the Israeli Terror."

A crowd of 12,000 gathered in London's Hyde Park carrying placards marked "Gaza: Stop the massacre" and chanting "free, free Palestine."

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Hamas is a Creation of Israel/Mossad - Ron Paul

in Geopolitics

Defined tags for this entry: geopolitics, hamas, israel, mossad, ron paul, youtube