World United

A US Political Manifesto and Return to Morality?

2009-11-12T16:42:00.000-08:00

By: Stewart Brennan
(Independent Writers for Truth)

It is my firm belief that while the US Federal Government continues to usurp power away from the fifty States of America, the American people cannot see the Freedom they believe they have, nor will they see it in the near or distant future. The US Constitution is in tatters and hanging by a thread while business interests carve out huge amounts of wealth from the American people.

The President, and / or the United States Congress, will not make any positive changes in day-to-day life for the American people, not while these same politicians steer the country in the direction of their personal pursuit of power and wealth. It will be the people who reclaim their ship and steer the country back from the brink of chaos.

Very few politicians today take a moral stand for what is right and what is wrong. There was a time, not long ago, when America was a great nation and practiced decision making with moral obligation, humanitarian beliefs, and empathy for the people of her own Country and the World at large. This is no longer the case. In fact, I would dare say that the USA is heading 180 degrees in the opposite direction and is on a collision course with domestic and global disaster.

Hope lays in the ability of the American people to retake control of their countries destiny, instead of trusting and relying on politicians or charlatans to do it for them.

Indeed, it is not just a country that will be saved from ruin if the American people are successful in reclaiming their Constitution, but the world will also be saved from disaster.

Extremely wealthy business interests financed this current reckless direction by design through the Federal Government structure they built. It is their insatiable thirst for wealth, power and world domination that their soulless empire was built.

Across the globe, the US Federal Government is busy creating and funding War around the World and over the last 8 years has gone to war on its own people. When will we all wake up?

Health Care or Don’t Care?

The Health Care Bill is truly the most talked about issue or argument of the day. The powers that be have made sure that there is division among the American people through the broadcast of shouting matches, name-calling, and labeling. This agenda only serves to hide the bigger issue, “Who has the power, and who gets to control the wealth generated by it”.

It isn’t hard to find a wide array of opinions no matter where the conversation takes place. One thing is clear however, if this bill is left as is, it will have the potential of ripping the Country apart.

The current trend points to civil unrest with a government unwilling to budge due to corporate meddling. The details of this Health Care Bill when implemented will wake Americans up and grab their attention and emotions. The only way to stop this trend is for the Federal government to back down. But I do not see that happening short of mass civilian disobedience. When a Country like the USA has a gun culture, it is most probable that they will be used at some point given the high anxiety this topic has raised. I would prefer to see the politicians become moral patriots with empathy for their own citizens, but when congress is more intent on protecting War criminals and stuffing their pockets, I don’t see a chance in hell that things will change, short of a revolution.

Reality:

The current health care proposal that just passed the House of Representatives is a large Federal power grab and suited to big corporate interests. The Senate will not change much before it votes on it, and when both the house of representatives and the senate agree to a final draft, nothing good will come out of it.

I have always believed that health care should be a single payer system. Health care should be at the State level and treated as a non-profit entity, where all employed by the system have a pay scale, including doctors, nurses, and technicians. The services would not diminish as some would have you think but in fact would remain the same and cover everyone. After all, where else will the doctors and nurses go? Canada? Mexico? Cuba? I think not.

Of coarse, the biggest enemy to the single payer State plan is the Insurance companies who currently reap trillions of dollars in profits every year. The real solution here is to remove the Insurance companies out of the picture completely. The second thing required is to enact legislation to restrict the Pharmaceutical companies from gauging the public as they currently do. Profits should not exceed 40% for any product they produce, and that is being generous. Consumer rights must be reinstated and protected.

Universal Health Care should be paid for by the taxes already collected from the American people through the IRS and not by additional taxation. Your tax dollars already pay for it. What you do not have is control of those tax dollars. That is what needs to be dealt with.

Is it better for a Federal government to run 50 different state governments, or is it better for the 50 states to run their own affairs and congressionally direct the federal system to support the 50 states?

Taxation:

The big question is, “Where are all the Tax dollars going?” The Federal government collects trillions of dollars every year through the IRS. In my observation, the corruption runs deep, and I suspect, as I am sure you do also, that powerful interest groups are at the heart of the problem.

Maintaining 700 military bases around the World to preserve corporate Empires are a major drain of US taxpayer dollars. 1.5 trillion dollars goes into preserving and maintaining US military bases throughout the World. That does not count the hundreds of billions spent to conduct the Wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Pakistan. Did you know that the USA is paying the Pakistan Army with US taxpayers’ money? What will this achieve for Americans back home? Well one thing is for sure, a larger debt incurred with interest due for the American people.

US Tax dollars are given to foreign governments such as Israel, Egypt, Honduras, Columbia, Saudi Arabia, etc. for military hardware to help preserve the US influence and corporate empires throughout the regions of the World. Some of the biggest customers of the American Tax payer’s cash are the military industrial corporations R&D projects for new weapons. How tight do you suppose those budgets are?

Homeland Tax Investment:

All I hear these days is that the USA has lost its manufacturing base. Anyone who thinks that this is true must have forgotten the Military Congressional Complex. This group has succeeded in securing trillions of taxpayer dollars to run a weapons industry that profits on destabilizing countries by arming both sides in a war. The US taxpayer pays the tab here too while the corporations get extremely wealthy.

Congress knows that War is big business and produces jobs for voters. Corporations such as Boeing, Raytheon, and GE remind politicians of this all the time and it is why these corporations succeed in procuring American Tax dollars from politicians. Of course these companies tell their employees which political candidate is faithful to the company and deserving of employee votes. I know this from personal experience.

I ask you, “Should your tax dollars go into supporting the weapons industry that destroys other countries or should your tax money go into creating jobs that rebuilds America?”

Why not spend money at home developing industries that will better the country and the Planet? Surely there must be a better way to spend tax dollars than on the War Industry. At the very least, there must be some money to rebuild recession torn America and aid for the American people.

Banking & Political Campaign Regulation:

America must recoup its taxation and monetary systems from the private interests that control it, and then they must isolate and regulate the investment banking system.

The Federal government is the main problem due to the Private interest groups behind the scenes that own shares in the Federal Reserve. The corruption is so widespread that both the Federal Government and the Private Interest groups are virtually one and the same. It is through these Interest groups that the Federal Government has legislated power to itself for the sole intent of building an empire and cornering all markets at the expense of the American people and the 50 states.

The Federal Empire has become a monster much the same way the early Roman Empire was. The extremely wealthy own all the land, the wealth, and have all the power. They wage war for profit and steal the riches from the conquered. They do not care about the people but are aware that the people can rise up so they throw confusion at them to keep them at bay. How long do you think that will last?

The solution to dismantling the Federal Empire is to put congress into line and implement a strict campaign policy where limits are imposed on funds a politician may receive and spend, to the amount of $300,000.00. It would also be in the people’s interest to limit campaigns to between 6 and 8 weeks.

The largest part of political corruption lays in campaign contributions and gifts by corporate interests and lobby groups. Therefore campaigns should be closely monitored so that limits are adhered to and that no sitting candidate would be allowed to receive gifts before, during or after service to his / her country.

War Crimes:

World opinion of the USA dropped like a stone the moment the United States invaded Iraq. The once mighty America that was looked upon as the beacon of freedom is now viewed as just another military dictatorship with aims of global domination. However, there is a chance for the USA to redeem itself in World opinion and once again stand proud of its founding principals. To achieve this, the USA must conduct an investigation and put on trial all those that conspired in the invasion of Iraq and all the fallout that ensued as a result of those decisions.

The USA must hold a War Crimes trial for its Illegal Invasion of Iraq, for sending thousands of US soldiers to their deaths, for the slaughter of over 1 million Iraqi civilians, and for violating human rights by torturing hundreds of prisoners.

In doing so, America will show the World that NO ONE in the USA is above the Law.
Above all else, this trial will return America back into the World community as a moral leader and a country worthy of the highest praise it once enjoyed.

Conclusion:

· Single payer health care is the only way to provide complete care for all people. Create a State run single payer system that is funded by existing taxes collected by the IRS. Have those taxes transferred back to the State to support the Health Care Plan.
· Create a universal pay scale for doctors, nurses, and technicians as all other industries do.
· Remove the Insurance companies from health care altogether and regulate the Pharmaceutical companies to price guidelines.
· Remove the Federal Reserve and return monetary control to the Treasury.
· Remove the IRS from the Federal system and allow the State to collect taxes for the services it is responsible for.
· Regulate Investment Banks and Isolate them from Main Street Banks.
· Implement Strict Campaign Funding Limits to $300,000.00 per political candidate. Do not allow gifts, before, during or after sitting in office.
· Limit political campaigns for re-election to 8 weeks maximum.
· Close military bases around the World.
· End the Wars by bringing the soldiers home
· Conduct a US War Crimes Trial on the GW Bush administration.

I am sure there are many other things that can be addressed here and there are a number of things that will be direct results of these 11 points. The main thing is to start the change now, and how you start is by forming a third political party to run against every democrat or republican that does not adopt these 11 principals of change. The nation is in your hands and together you can be the change you envision for your country. Stand up, stand proud, and stand together!

Nasrallah Slams Obama Israel Bias

2009-11-12T05:04:00.000-08:00

Source: Al Jazeera

The leader of the Lebanese group Hezbollah has accused Barack Obama, the US president, of "absolute bias" in favor of Israel and of disregard for the dignity of Arabs and Muslims.

In a televised speech on Wednesday, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said Obama has gone further than his predecessor, George Bush, in supporting the Jewish state adding that the high expectations that followed Obama's election had been "shattered".
He said Obama's initial statements calling on Israel to freeze settlement building and then backtracking was a "tactic" agreed on by both Israel and the US, and that the initial settlement demand had been exposed as "an American ploy to pass the time and gain Arab sympathy".

Wednesday's remarks are the Hezbollah leader's strongest criticism yet of Obama since he took office almost a year ago.

Hezbollah and Israel fought a bitter 2006 summer war that killed around 1,200 people in Lebanon and 160 in Israel before it ended with a UN-brokered ceasefire.
Nasrallah said any "illusions" anyone had about the US president being more even-handed in handling the interests of "the Arab nations, Arab and international governments, the Arab Islamic world and in the third world" had collapsed.
He added that "quickly the truth of this delusion was shown and all the analyses and the illusions collapsed".

"What we see is absolute American commitment to Israeli interests, Israeli conditions, and Israeli security ... while disregarding the dignity or feelings of the Arab and Muslims people and their nations and governments."

Israel warned

Nasrallah, who is influential among supporters of his Shia group in the Arab world, warned Israel against waging another war on Lebanon, repeating his pledge to hit back deep within Israel.

During the speech Nasrallah also lashed out at a major missile defense exercise staged recently by the US and Israeli forces to test technology aimed at protecting Israel from a missile attack.

Nasrallah warned Israel to "send whatever military brigades, five or seven, and if you want send the whole Israeli army … We will destroy and crash it in our hills, valleys and mountains".

He made no comment on Israel's seizure of a ship last week carrying weapons it said originated in Iran and were destined for Hezbollah, a claim the group has denied.

What Goldstone Says About the US

2009-11-11T05:19:00.000-08:00

By: Mark LeVine

Opponents of the Goldstone report might well be hoping that after its lopsided condemnation in the US House of Representatives and successful relegation back to the UN's Human Rights Commission, the report will become little more than an historical footnote in a decades-long conflict.

This might in fact occur, given the imbalance of power between the contending sides. But historians can do a great deal with footnotes.
When the glare of history is finally shone upon the whole affair, it might well turn out that the reasons for such vehement opposition from US politicians, and only tepid (at best) support for it among other major powers, have far more to do with their own geostrategic interests than with protecting Israel.

Back story

The report, written by South African jurist Richard Goldstone, has caused uproar in Israel and the US for its alleged bias against Israel and avoidance of serious criticism of Hamas. The condemnation, House Resolution 867, passed by a 344-36 vote.
Before the vote on the resolution, Goldstone sent a letter to members of Congress refuting most of the allegations contained in it. But his rebuttal did not lead to substantive changes in the report's accusations and apparently had no effect on the vote.

Given the way in which opposition to the report unfolded it would be easy to conclude that this is merely another case of the vaunted Israel lobby shutting down any debate over Israel's actions in the Occupied Territories.

Yet while Israel's supporters no doubt took the lead in pushing the resolution, there is a back story to this drama that has likely played an equally, if not more important, role in the firestorm it has generated.
Why would the House go so far out of its way to stamp out even the consideration of war crimes accusations against Israel? And why would Barack Obama, the US president, have pressured Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, not to push the report in the UN when he had to know that such actions would cost Abbas most of his little remaining credibility among Palestinians?

Accessory to war crimes

There are two reasons for this.
Firstly, if Israel is guilty of committing systematic war crimes across Gaza and the West Bank, then the US, which supported, funded and armed Israel during the war, is an accessory to those crimes.

Goldstone explains in no uncertain terms that Gaza was not an aberration in terms of Israel's treatment of Palestinians.

Rather, it marked not only a continuation of Israel's behaviour during the 2006 invasion of Lebanon, but "highlights a common thread of the interaction between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian civilians which emerged clearly also in many cases discussed in other parts of the report.
It referenced continuous and systematic abuse, outrages on personal dignity, humiliating and degrading treatment contrary to fundamental principles of international humanitarian law and human rights law".

"The Mission concludes that the treatment of these civilians constitutes the infliction of a collective penalty on those persons and amounts to measures of intimidation and terror. Such acts are grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and constitute a war crime," the report says.
Put simply, if there is blood on Israel's hands, than it is has dripped all over America's shirt.

Israel could not and would not have engaged in the level of wholesale destruction of Gaza painstakingly catalogued in the report without the support of the outgoing Bush administration, and acquiescence of the incoming Obama administration.

Israeli narrative challenged

Not only that, but on the same day the report was released the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Israel's military leadership is preparing the country for yet another invasion of Gaza in the near future.
It is not clear how much of Gaza is left to be destroyed, but the report's detailed discussion of Israel's attacks on innumerable homes, mosques, schools, hospitals and other civilian facilities show what lengths Israel will go to to punish Gazans, and Palestinians more broadly.

There is also the larger context of the peace negotiations. If Israel can be guilty of humanitarian crimes at this level, then it puts the entire Israeli narrative about the occupation - that it is ultimately about preserving the country's security - into question.

In fact, the report declares precisely this, in paragraph 1674, when it argues that the Gaza invasion "cannot be understood and assessed in isolation from developments prior and subsequent to it. The operation fits into a continuum of policies aimed at pursuing Israel's political objectives with regard to Gaza and the Occupied Palestinian Territory as a whole".

Almost everyone outside the US, including in Israel, understands that the occupation has always been about settlement, not security, since Israel could have militarily occupied the West Bank and Gaza in 1967 indefinitely without establishing a single settlement, and could withdraw from all its settlements tomorrow and maintain a military occupation until it felt secure enough to turn the territory over to Palestinians.

As famed general Moshe Dayan once put it, the settlements in the Occupied Territories are essential "not because they can ensure security better than the army, but because without them we cannot keep the army in those territories. Without them the IDF would be a foreign army ruling a foreign population".

But the US remains heavily invested in maintaining this security narrative; both because it is the core of the strategic alliance between the two countries with all the military, strategic and financial implications that come with it, and because, as with the Gaza invasion, the settlement enterprise could never have proceeded without US support, or at least acquiescence.

This dynamic continues to operate today, as the same day House Resolution 867 was passed, Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, explained that the US preferred to return to peace talks even without a settlement freeze, despite the fact that not stopping settlement construction during negotiations has been deemed by former senior Israeli negotiators such as Moshe Ben Ami and Yossi Beilin as among the single biggest factors dooming the Oslo peace process.

The Obama administration refuses even to push the parameters painstakingly set by his Democratic predecessor, Bill Clinton, before leaving office, to which both Israelis and Palestinians were very close to agreeing.
Alarming precedent

One has to wonder whether the US Middle East policy-making establishment, which is dominated by defence and security interests, is even interested in bringing about a speedy resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Beyond what the Goldstone report says about America's role in Israel's actions, the report holds a mirror up to US actions in its 'war on terror'. In so doing it paints for US policy-makers and politicians a more frightening picture of a future in which all countries are held accountable for their actions.

Here it becomes clear that, as it has been for four decades, Israel is both the spear and the shield for the projection - and protection - of US power in the Middle East. It engages in activities the US cannot do openly, and it acts as the first line of defence when US interests might be attacked diplomatically.

In going after Israel, the report, however unintended, is going after the US, which has committed many of the same crimes (of which Israel is accused) in its occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, and perhaps through its drone attacks, in Pakistan and other countries. This is the report's true danger, and why - from the US perspective - its accusations against Israel cannot stand.

Specifically, the idea of treating a Western-allied state, Israel, and a resistance movement, Hamas, as equally capable of committing war crimes and being held accountable for them, sets an alarming precedent for the US as its engagement in Iraq stretches on indefinitely and deepens in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Why not hold the US (or Pakistan, China, Russia, or India for that matter) to the same standards as we hold the Taliban, al-Qaeda, or opposition movements in Kashmir, Chechnya or Tibet? None of these powers would allow this to happen.

Universal jurisdiction

Moreover, the report condemns the "Dahiya doctrine," which involved the application of disproportionate force and the causing of great damage and destruction to civilian property and infrastructure, and suffering to civilian populations.

Although claiming to work hard to protect civilians in the countries it is occupying, one of the primary complaints against the US by citizens of Afghanistan or Iraq is the frequent killing of civilians and destruction of infrastructure, particularly if it could be deemed to be "supporting infrastructure" for "terrorists".

And when such abuses are committed, paragraph 121 of the report reminds the world that "international human rights law and humanitarian law require states to investigate and, if appropriate, prosecute allegations of serious violations by military personnel".

This is an indirect stab at the US judicial system, which has so far failed to hold anyone but a few low-level soldiers accountable for the numerous abuses committed by the US in Iraq and the 'war on terror' more broadly.
Perhaps the most dangerous suggestion in this regard is the report's call for applying "universal jurisdiction" to the conflict.

As paragraph 127 states: "In the context of increasing unwillingness on the part of Israel to open criminal investigations that comply with international standards, the mission supports the reliance on universal jurisdiction as an avenue for states to investigate violations of the grave breach [of the] provisions of the Geneva Conventions."

There is no power that wants its officials or military and security personnel subject to prosecution by other countries.

Uncritical victimology

In this regard, it is not coincidental that the same day resolution 867 was passed an Italian court convicted 23 former CIA agents of participating in the illegal rendition of an Italian imam, who claims he was subsequently tortured in captivity.

In June, the Italian newspaper il Giornale published an interview with Robert Seldon Lady, the CIA's Milan station chief, in which he admitted, "Of course it was an illegal operation. But that's our job. We're at war against terrorism".

This is a crucial statement, for it reveals that the US establishment believes that in a 'war on terror', there are no legal limits to what it can do. And if Israel is condemned for the same attitude, this would vitiate America's ability to take whatever actions it desires, however illegal, to pursue its interests.

Obama might not take such actions, but his successors might. And if another major terrorist attack were to occur on US soil, there is little doubt that the gloves would once again come off, whether Obama wanted to keep them on or not.

In such a situation, the psychology of uncritical victimology that characterised post-9/11 America will be crucial to enabling such policies to be (re)put in place.
As the report quotes an Israeli professor (paragraph 1703): "Israeli society's problem is that because of the conflict, Israeli society feels itself to be a victim and to a large extent that's justified and it's very difficult for Israeli society to move and to feel that it can also see the other side and to understand that the other side is also a victim." This problem is equally difficult for Americans to overcome.

Report's historical imprint

Among the final coincidences accompanying the passage of resolution 867 was its release the day after Clinton held a high-profile meeting in Morocco to champion the country's recent official promotion of democracy.

But in her celebration of the Moroccan example she neglected to mention that press freedoms, the core of any democratic system, are suffering increasing restrictions in the country. Freedom of speech or challenging the country's political-economic elite remains heavily circumscribed, especially when it comes from the country's principal Islamically motivated opposition movement.

Of course, Clinton cannot push too hard for democracy in the Muslim world; democratically-elected governments would not tolerate many of the US' core policies in the region, from uncritical support for Israel to its own military and economic alliances and activities.

The day after her Morocco meeting, Clinton was in Egypt, meeting once again with the Egypt's autocratic leader, Hosni Mubarak, with not a word about democracy.
Against such policy interests, it might well be that the Goldstone report will be relegated to history without being acted upon.

What few of its opponents understand is just how big an imprint this most exhaustive study of the Israeli occupation will leave.

It might not help Palestinians and Israelis achieve peace today, but future historians will likely look upon it as a crucial document in exposing the realities of the American dominated Middle Eastern system for the world to see.

Mark LeVine is currently Visiting Professor at the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies at Lund University, Sweden. His most recent books include Impossible Peace: Israel/Palestine Since 1989 (Zed Books, 2009) and Reapproaching Borders: New Perspectives on the Study of Israel-Palestine (Rowman Littlefield, 2008).

Official US Air Force Document Reveals the True Intentions Behind the US-Colombia Military Agreement

2009-11-09T05:56:00.000-08:00

By: Eva Golinger

An official document from the Department of the US Air Force reveals that the military base in Palanquero, Colombia will provide the Pentagon with “…an opportunity for conducting full spectrum operations throughout South America…” This information contradicts the explainations offered by Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and the US State Department regarding the military agreement signed between the two nations this past October 30th. Both governments have publicly stated that the military agreement refers only to counternarcotics and counterterrorism operations within Colombian territory. President Uribe has reiterated numerous times that the military agreement with the US will not affect Colombia’s neighbors, despite constant concern in the region regarding the true objetives of the agreement. But the US Air Force document, dated May 2009, confirms that the concerns of South American nations have been right on target. The document exposes that the true intentions behind the agreement are to enable the US to engage in “full spectrum military operations in a critical sub-region of our hemisphere where security and stability is under constant threat from narcotics funded terrorist insurgencies…and anti-US governments…”

The military agreement between Washington and Colombia authorizes the access and use of seven military installations in Palanquero, Malambo, Tolemaida, Larandia, Apíay, Cartagena and Málaga. Additionally, the agreement allows for “the access and use of all other installations and locations as necessary” throughout Colombia, with no restrictions. Together with the complete immunity the agreement provides to US military and civilian personnel, including private defense and security contractors, the clause authorizing the US to utilize any installation throughout the entire country - even commercial aiports, for military ends, signifies a complete renouncing of Colombian sovereignty and officially converts Colombia into a client-state of the US.

The Air Force document underlines the importance of the military base in Palanquero and justifies the $46 million requested in the 2010 budget (now approved by Congress) in order to improve the airfield, associated ramps and other installations on the base to convert it into a US Cooperative Security Location (CSL). “Establishing a Cooperative Security Location (CSL) in Palanquero best supports the COCOM’s (Command Combatant’s) Theater Posture Strategy and demonstrates our commitment to this relationship. Development of this CSL provides a unique opportunity for full spectrum operations in a critical sub-region of our hemisphere where security and stability is under constant threat from narcotics funded terrorist insurgencies, anti-US governments, endemic poverty and recurring natural disasters.”

It’s not difficult to imagine which governments in South America are considered by Washington to be “anti-US governments”. The constant agressive declarations and statements emitted by the State and Defense Departments and the US Congress against Venezuela and Bolivia, and even to some extent Ecuador, evidence that the ALBA nations are the ones perceived by Washington as a “constant threat”. To classify a country as “anti-US” is to consider it an enemy of the United States. In this context, it’s obvious that the military agreement with Colombia is a reaction to a region the US now considers full of “enemies”.

COUNTERNARCOTICS OPERATIONS ARE SECONDARY

Per the US Air Force document, “Access to Colombia will further its strategic partnership with the United States. The strong security cooperation relationship also offers an opportunity for conducting full spectrum operations throughout South America to include mitigating the Counternarcotics capability.” This statement clearly evidences that counternarcotics operations are secondary to the real objetives of the military agreement between Colombia and Washington. Again, this clearly contrasts the constant declarations of the Uribe and Obama governments insisting that the main focus of the agreement is to combat drug trafficking and production. The Air Force document emphasizes the necessity to improve “full spectrum” military operations throughout South America – not just in Colombia – in order to combat “constant threats” from “anti-US governments” in the region.

PALANQUERO IS THE BEST OPTION FOR CONTINENTAL MOBILITY

The Air Force document explains that “Palanquero is unquestionably the best site for investing in infrastructure development within Colombia. Its central location is within reach of…operations areas…its isolation maximizes Operational Security (OPSEC) and Force Protection and minimizes the US military profile. The intent is to leverage existing infrastructure to the maximum extent possible, improve the US ability to respond rapidly to crisis, and assure regional access and presence at minimum cost. Palanquero supports the mobility mission by providing access to the entire South American continent with the exception of Cape Horn…”

ESPIONAGE AND WARFARE

The document additionally confirms that the US military presence in Palanquero, Colombia, will improve the capacity of espionage and intelligence operations, and will allow the US armed forces to increase their warfare capabilities in the region. “Development of this CSL wil further the strategic partnership forged between the US and Colombia and is in the interest of both nations…A presence will also increase our capability to conduct Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR), improve global reach, support logistics requirements, improve partnerships, improve theater security cooperation and expand expeditionary warfare capability.”

The language of war included in this document evidences the true intentions behind the military agreement between Washington and Colombia: they are preparing for war in Latin America. The past few days have been full of conflict and tension between Colombia and Venezuela. Just days ago, the Venezuelan government captured three spies from the Colombian intelligence agency, DAS, and discovered several active destabilization and espionage operations against Cuba, Ecuador and Venezuela. The operations - Fénix, Salomón and Falcón, respectively, were revealed in documents found with the captured DAS agents. Approximately two weeks ago, 10 bodies were found in Táchira, a border zone with Colombia. After completing the relevant investigations, the Venezuelan government discovered that the bodies belonged to Colombian paramilitaries infiltrated inside Venezuelan territory. This dangerous paramilitary infiltration from Colombia forms part of a destabilization plan against Venezuela that seeks to create a paramilitary state inside Venezuelan territory in order to breakdown President Chávez’s government.

The military agreement between Washington and Colombia will only increase regional tensions and violence. The information revealed in the US Air Force document unquestionably evidences that Washington seeks to promote a state of warfare in South America, using Colombia as its launching pad. Before this declaration of war, the peoples of Latin America must stand strong and unified. Latin American integration is the best defense against the Empire’s aggression.

*The US Air Force document was submitted in May 2009 to Congress as part of the 2010 budget justification. It is an official government document and reaffirms the authenticity of the White Book: Global Enroute Strategy of the US Air Mobility Command, which was denounced by President Chávez during the UNASUR meeting in Bariloche, Argentina this past August 28th. I have placed the original document and the non-official translation to Spanish that I did of the relevant parts relating to Palanquero on the web page of the Center to Alert and Defend the People “Centro de Alerta para la Defensa de los pueblos”, a new space we are creating to garantee that strategic information is available to those under constant threat from imperialist aggression.

Source News Story
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=15951

Eva Golinger is a Venezuelan-American attorney from New York, living in Caracas, Venezuela since 2005 and author of the best-selling books, “The Chávez Code: Cracking US Intervention in Venezuela” (2006 Olive Branch Press) and “Bush vs. Chávez: Washington’s War on Venezuela” (2007, Monthly Review Press). Since 2003, Eva, a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and CUNY Law School in New York, has been investigating, analyzing and writing about US intervention in Venezuela using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to obtain information about the US Government’s efforts to destabilize progressive movements in Latin America.

Mass Shooting Indicates Breakdown of Military

2009-11-07T04:05:00.000-08:00

At approximately 1:30 p.m. CST Nov. 5th, 2009, a soldier went on a shooting rampage at Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas, killing 12 people and wounding at least 31 others, according to base commander Lieutenant-General Bob Cone.

Truthout spoke with an Army Specialist who is an active-duty Iraq war veteran currently stationed at the base. The soldier spoke on condition of anonymity since the base is now on “lockdown,” and all “non-authorized” military personnel on the base have been ordered not to speak to the press.

“A soldier entered the ‘Soldier Readiness Center (SRC)’ with two handguns and opened fire,” the soldier, who is currently getting treatment for traumatic brain injury (TBI) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) explained. “That facility is where you go just before you deploy to Iraq or Afghanistan.”

The soldier named the gunman as Major Malik Nadal Hasan, and said he was about 40 years old. According to the soldier, Hasan was a member of the base’s Medical Evaluation Board, and worked there as a counselor.

At a news conference Thursday evening, Lt. Gen. Robert Cone said Maj. Hasan, who was shot four times, is alive and in stable condition at a nearby hospital where he is being guarded by military personnel.

“I can confirm Major Hasan was the gunman, and I actually saw him this morning,” the soldier explained. “I was over in the area doing some paperwork, and saw him at the facility. He seemed fine to me, and I spoke with one of my friends who had an appointment with him this morning. They said Major Hasan seemed OK to them too.”

The soldier believes that at least one Killeen Police Department officer was killed before the gunman was shot.

Fort Hood, located in central Texas, is the largest US military base in the world and contains up to 50,000 soldiers. It is one of the most heavily deployed bases to both Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact, the shooter himself was facing an impending deployment to Iraq.

The soldier says that the mood on the base is “very grim,” and that even before this incident, troop morale has been very low.

“I’d say it’s at an all-time low - mostly because of Afghanistan now,” he explained. “Nobody knows why we are at either place, and I believe the troops need to know why they are there, or we should pull out, and this is a unanimous feeling, even for folks who are pro-war.”

In a strikingly similar incident on May 11, 2009, a US soldier gunned down five fellow soldiers at a stress-counseling center at a US base in Baghdad. Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the US military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at a news conference at the Pentagon that the shootings occurred in a place where “individuals were seeking help.”

“It does speak to me, though, about the need for us to redouble our efforts, the concern in terms of dealing with the stress,” Admiral Mullen said. “It also speaks to the issue of multiple deployments.”

Commenting on the incident in nearly parallel terms, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said that the Pentagon needs to redouble its efforts to relieve stress caused by repeated deployments in war zones; stress that is further exacerbated by limited time at home in between deployments.

The condition described by Mullen and Gates is what veteran health experts often refer to as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

While soldiers returning home are routinely involved in shootings, suicide and other forms of self-destructive violent behavior as a direct result of their experiences in Iraq, we have yet to see an event of this magnitude take place in Iraq.

Prior to the May incident, the last reported incident of this kind happened in 2005, when an Army captain and lieutenant were killed when an anti-personnel mine detonated in the window of their room at a US base in Tikrit. In that case, National Guard Staff Sgt. Alberto Martinez was acquitted.

The shocking story of a soldier killing five of his comrades does not come as a surprise when we consider that the military has, for years now, been sending troops with untreated PTSD back into the US occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

According to an Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center analysis, reported in the Denver Post in August 2008 Titled, “The Battle Within”, more than “43,000 service members -- two-thirds of them in the Army or Army Reserve -- were classified as nondeployable for medical reasons three months before they deployed” to Iraq.

The Battle Within
http://www.denverpost.com/previous2/home/ci_10293242

Mark Thompson also has reported in Time magazine, “Data contained in the Army’s fifth Mental Health Advisory Team report indicate that, according to an anonymous survey of US troops taken last fall, about 12 percent of combat troops in Iraq and 17 percent of those in Afghanistan are taking prescription antidepressants or sleeping pills to help them cope.”

In April 2008, the RAND Corporation released a stunning report revealing, “Nearly 20 percent of military service members who have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan - 300,000 in all - report symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder or major depression, yet only slightly more than half have sought treatment.”

President Barack Obama, speaking during an event at the Department of the Interior in Washington, said that the mass shooting at Fort Hood was a "horrific outburst of violence". He added, "It is horrifying that they should come under fire at an army base on American soil."

Victor Agosto, an Iraq war veteran who was discharged from the military after publicly refusing to deploy to Afghanistan, has had firsthand experience with the SRFC at Fort Hood, where he too was based.

“I knew there would be a confrontation when I was there, because the only reason to do that process is to deploy,” Agosto explained, speaking to Truthout near Fort Hood . “So the shooter clearly intended to stop people from deploying.”

Agosto was court-martialed for refusing an order to go to the SRC to prepare to deploy to Afghanistan.

“I was court-martialed for refusing the order to SRC in that very same building. I didn’t enter the building, but I didn’t go in because I was refusing the process,” Agosto continued. “It’s a pretty important place in my life, so it’s interesting to me that this happened there.”

By: Dahr Jamail - Truthout
http://www.truthout.org/11050912

UN Body Endorses Goldstone Report

2009-11-05T15:06:00.000-08:00

News Source: Al Jazeera

The United Nations General Assembly has adopted a UN-sponsored report that says Israel committed war crimes during last winter's military assault on the Gaza Strip.
The Goldstone report, which accuses both Israel and Hamas of war crimes, has already been endorsed by the UN Human Rights Council, which sponsored the fact-finding commission.
The General Assembly on Thursday voted by a margin of 114 to 18 to adopt the report after debating it for two days.
Forty-four member-nations abstained from voting.
The report calls on both Israel and the Palestinians to investigate accusations of human-rights violations during the 22-day conflict in December and January.
The debate at the General Assembly, which began on Wednesday, was called for by the Arab UN group, with the backing of the 118-member Non-Aligned Movement (Nam).
Offensive conduct
Most of criticism in the report, compiled by a fact-finding panel led by Richard Goldstone, a South African judge, was directed towards Israel's conduct during the offensive, in which human rights organizations say about 1,400 Palestinians - many of them women and children - were killed.
Thirteen Israelis, including three civilians, were killed over the course of the war.
Al Jazeera's Kristen Saloomey, reporting from the UN in New York, said on Wednesday: "The Palestinians put forward this resolution with several co-sponsors knowing that they have the support to have it passed in the General Assembly.
"This is really an attempt to keep the Goldstone report alive. The resolution endorses the report and also attempts to force it upon the Security Council, by getting the secretary-general involved."
Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian observer to the UN, said the report concluded that the Israeli military onslaught "was planned in all of its phases as a deliberately disproportionate and systematic attack aimed at punishing, humiliating and terrorizing the Palestinian civilian population".

'One-sided mandate'

Mansour warned that efforts by Israel and its supporters to discredit the UN report and its authors would not deter Arab states from following up the recommendations "in all relevant international forums, including the Security Council and the International Criminal Court, until the realization of justice with the accountability of the perpetrators of these crimes and violations".
Gabriela Shalev, Israel's UN ambassador to the UN, hammered Wednesday's debate at the UN as "yet another campaign against the victims of terrorism, the people of Israel".

"The Goldstone report and this debate do not promote peace. They damage any effort to revitalize negotiations in our region. They deny Israel's right of self-defense," she told the assembly.

"From its inception in a one-sided mandate, the Gaza fact-finding mission was a politicized body with predetermined conclusions," she added.

US House vote

The US House of Representatives on Tuesday dismissed the report as being "irredeemably biased" against Israel.
The house voted in favor of a non-binding resolution calling on Barack Obama, the US president, to maintain his opposition to the report.
Goldstone last week sent a letter to the US House of Representatives saying that the text of the US resolution had "factual inaccuracies and instances where information and statements are taken grossly out of context".
He offered several rejections and clarifications of the ideas expressed in the resolution.

In response to Goldstone's criticism, three parts of the resolution were amended on Tuesday to clarify that Goldstone had sought an expansion to the commission's mandate so that his team could investigate claims that Hamas had violated international law during the Gaza war.
The Goldstone report accused Israel of using "disproportionate force" and of deliberately targeting civilians.

The report called for cases to be referred to the ICC in The Hague if Israel and Hamas do not investigate the war crimes allegations against them within six months.
Hamas has agreed to hold such an investigation, but Israel has not.

US House Rejects Goldstone Report

2009-11-04T07:07:00.000-08:00

News Source: Al Jazeera

The US House of Representatives has rejected as "irredeemably biased" the findings of a UN-sponsored report that says Israel committed war crimes during its military assault on the Gaza Strip.

The house on Tuesday voted 344 to 36 in favor of a non-binding resolution calling on Barack Obama, the US president, to maintain his opposition to the report, which was written by a panel led by Richard Goldstone, a South African judge.
The report accused Israel and the Palestinian Hamas group, which has de facto control of Gaza, of war crimes during the 22-day conflict in December and January.
But most of its criticism was directed towards Israel's conduct during the offensive, in which human rights organizations say about 1,400 Palestinians - many of them women and children - were killed.
Thirteen Israelis, including three civilians, were also killed over the course of the war, Israel has said.

Steny Hoyer, the Democrat House majority leader, said it was important to adopt an official resolution against the Goldstone report as it "paints a distorted picture".
It "epitomizes the practice of singling Israel out from all other nations for condemnation," he said on Tuesday.

UN assembly pressure

The US house vote came a day before the United Nations General Assembly is expected to debate its own resolution endorsing the findings of the Goldstone report.
Al Jazeera's Kristen Saloomey, reporting from the UN in New York, said that while the majority of the assembly's member nations were expected to vote in favor of the resolution, the US vote on Tuesday, although non-binding, was likely to dampen its impact.

"Remember - the key recommendation of Goldstone is to get a credible investigation into the alleged war crimes that the Goldstone commission found evidence of in Gaza, and the UN Security Council is the only body that can move forward and demand an investigation," she said.

"The general assembly just does not have that power. Of course, on the security council, the United States is a veto-wielding member and, as the congressional vote underscores, the US is not going to be interested in moving forward in the Security Council to call for an investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC), or anyone else for that matter."

Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian representative to the UN, criticized the Security Council for so far failing to act "in triggering the mechanism that Goldstone wanted, the investigation, the monitoring and then reporting after six months before considering moving into the ICC".

"The General Assembly, in a responsible way in the draft we have submitted by the Arab group, which hopefully in the next two days will receive large support, has taken some of the responsibility from the security council ... and asked for the investigation to begin," he told Al Jazeera.

The United Nations Human Rights Council, which sponsored the Goldstone commission, has already voted to endorse the report.

Bias claims

Steven Rothman, a Democratic congressman from New Jersey, told Al Jazeera that the report was biased against Israel; even after the Goldstone commission's mandate was expanded so that it could investigate war crimes alleged to have been committed by Hamas.

"The report was not written to talk about 12,000 rockets intentionally sent by Hamas to slaughter Israeli men, women and children, versus the Israelis trying in many respects to minimize the damage to Palestinian civilians," he told Al Jazeera.
"So there have been completely different standards applied."
But when asked if he had read the Goldstone report in full, Rothman said he had read only the report's executive summary.

"I did not read the 400 or 500 pages, but I read the executive summary designed for members of congress and other world leaders to read, and I found it terribly, terribly biased and one-sided," he said.

But Brian Baird, a Democrat congressman for Washington state, said that the resolution failed to "accurately characterize" the Goldstone report and made no attempt to reflect the situation on the ground in Gaza.

"My belief is that it is incumbent on all of us who care about justice and peace in the region to look equally, with an equally critical eye, and all sides of this argument," he told Al Jazeera.

"One of the important elements of working towards peace and justice is that if someone of the caliber of Justice Goldstone, with the diligence and thoroughness of his investigation, ... reports on the kind of events that occurred that merits further consideration.
"The resolution before us in the House would block that."

Goldstone clarifications

The result of Tuesday's vote had been widely anticipated.

In January, as Israel bombarded the Palestinian territory, the House had overwhelmingly backed a resolution "recognizing Israel's right to defend itself against attacks from Israel".
The influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) had lobbied strongly for the latest resolution and said it "strongly applauded" the House's action on Tuesday.

Goldstone last week sent a letter to the US House of Representatives saying that the text of the US resolution had "factual inaccuracies and instances where information and statements are taken grossly out of context".
He offered several rejections and clarifications of the ideas expressed in the resolution.

In response to Goldstone's criticism, three parts of the resolution were amended on Tuesday to clarify that Goldstone had sought an expansion to the commission's mandate so that his team could investigate claims that Hamas had violated international law during the Gaza war.

The Goldstone report, which accused Israel of using "disproportionate force" and of deliberately targeting civilians, called for independent investigations to be held into Israel's and Hamas's conduct during the war.

The report called for the cases to be referred to the ICC in The Hague if Israel and Hamas do not investigate the war crimes allegations against them within six months.
Hamas has agreed to hold such an investigation, but Israel has not.

Al Jazeera Report
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/11/200911320434191455.html

The Coming War

2009-10-29T18:16:00.000-07:00

Written By: Stewart Brennan

It is probable to believe that a false flag attack on the USA is imminent due to the events unfolding in Afghanistan and Pakistan?

It is not by coincidence that the United States and other Western Powers have destabilized these countries. Both countries are vital to greedy western banking and business interests to secure a route for a planned gas pipeline that will run to the Arabian Sea. However, the official reason the Americans give is because Osama Bin Laden resides in both countries and finances both the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.

World Economics

World economics is governed by a few very wealthy families and has been that way for a very long time. Right now these Oligarchs, or Plutocracy, are in danger of loosing their strangle hold on the global economy due to a decline in easy accessible fossil fuels. They have long since realized that Economies do not grow when cheap energy supplies are not secured by acquisition or by force. One need only to pull out a World map and look at all the areas being contested today and what they have in common, to see that wars are being created to covet fossil fuel energy. At least by now, most people know that the Bush administration invaded Iraq to secure its continuation of Oil...and that it continues being sold in US dollars. It is also known that the USA and its Western European allies must import most of their oil to keep their economies moving.

Unlikely Allies

Pakistan has been an unlikely ally of the USA since the George Bush administration put a gun to their head in 2001 and said “Your either with us or against us.” The Pakistani government under General Pervez Musharraf immediately dropped its relations with the ruling Taliban government of Afghanistan and began an uneasy relationship with the US under threat of invasion.

In return for the use of 3 Pakistani airbases by the American Military, the US government removed earlier imposed sanctions and resumed military and civilian aid to Pakistan. Incidentally, the US also improved their ties with Pakistan’s archrival “India” and began supplying them with nuclear technology along with new military hardware. Both these countries are unlikely allies of the United States and will probably remain that way as long as the freebees are flowing in their direction.

US Pakistan Relations
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US-Pakistan_relations

Since those infamous words were spoken by George Bush, Pakistan has endured incursions into their Country by US drone attacks on their western provinces and had their Nuclear facilities monitored by the US military and CIA operatives.

Today, Pakistan is still bankrupt and continues to receive billions of US dollars, mostly to pay the Pakistan army to fight all resistance by tribal leaders in the “Federally Administered Tribal Areas”. To put it simply, the USA has bought the Pakistan army to do its bidding.

The result has created more than 3 million Pakistani civilian refugees in the North West Tribal areas not including the 1.7 million Afghan refugees already there from the US lead war in Afghanistan. It is understandable that the people of Pakistan have become extremely infuriated with the increased American interference and sponsored war in their country. Seven out of ten or 70% of the Pakistani population of 180 million are outraged by US interference.

The fact that Pakistan is completely bankrupt and that the US is paying the Pakistan army is quite disturbing in its own right. Of coarse, this tactic by the United States is not new if we look at the 140,000 mercenaries they hired for the Iraq war. The American taxpayer, or should I say, future taxpayers, pay for companies like Black water, who answer to no one.

The real reason the US government hires people to do their fighting is that they cannot find enough people at home to join their Wars short of imposing a draft, so they must purchase their soldiers. In the case of Pakistan, it is at the point of a gun with the added threat of a heavily armed, “India” also courtesy of the US tax payer.

USA Determined?!?

On the surface, and looking at the economics today, it does not appear that the US can afford another war, because quite simply, they are bankrupt. There is also a growing opposition to the war in Afghanistan by a majority of the American people. In short they have had enough and want all the troops to come home from Iraq and Afghanistan. Case in point, the US Military is having a hard time finding new recruits. The Americans cannot get troops from other countries either because World leaders are under pressure by their own people to leave or stay out of Afghanistan.

I’d say that overall the trend would be for the Americans to start planning an exit strategy of both Iraq and Afghanistan. I mean, how determined can the USA be in staying the course while borrowing billions of dollars from world powers such as China, Japan, and Saudi Arabia for an un-winnable war?

Just recently, Us President Barak Obama made public that he will not rush into committing 40,000 additional soldiers in Afghanistan. Could it be that they are waiting for the results of the run-off election in Afghanistan on November 7th, 2009? Considering that the UN inspector whom unearthed the fraudulent ballots from the last Afghan election was fired at the request of American officials, it appears the Americans need a Karzi victory to ensure additional troop deployments. Or do they?

As I am writing this, US troops are training Georgians for the Afghan War, the carrot for Georgia? Entrance into NATO. What do you suppose Russia thinks about that one?

Meanwhile, State Dept official “Mathew Hoh” resigned his post in Afghanistan stating he believes that, “The people who are fighting us are fighting us because we are occupying them. Not for any other reason…” It seems to me that Washington faces an uphill battle to sell a War nobody wants. Well, except maybe Georgia…

Of coarse there are a number of US Government officials that want to deploy more troops right now. One can just hear the battle of wills and the hollering on the hill. How determined are these people, and who do they represent? It is quite scary that there are lawyers in power that want to send somebody’s children to die in an un-winnable war while they get kickbacks in campaign contributions. Who gets the last say? Certainly not the American people.

Are Devious Plans Unfolding?

The car bomb explosion in a Peshawar market on October 28th, 2009 does not serve Pakistani Taliban interests, in fact it is more likely that this was a CIA operation to turn civilians support of the Taliban into support for the American Backed Pakistan Army.
Let’s face it; the Americans are unwelcome so the next best thing for the US military is a Pakistani Army supported by the people. Personally I do not think it will work. Throughout history, the occupied people have never welcomed invaders or collaborators.

Blast in Peshawar Pakistan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KfujMYFuSM

Short of the whole World going crazy overnight and supporting the USA there is only one thing that could cause the US to increase troop deployment and War spending if we look at all the scenarios, and that would be a major attack on a city in the United States.

Since no country is really capable of staging an attack without an invasion force or firing long range missiles, the only other possibility would have to be a terrorist attack as big or bigger than 911.

In all probability, it would have to be a staged false flag attack to drum up complete support for continuing the business of war. Considering that the attack would have to be larger than 911, it is most likely that the attack would be nuclear, and since it is impossible to smuggle radioactive material into the USA, it would have to be an inside job.

What would happen if a nuclear attack does occurs in a major US city? Well for one thing, no sane person would do such a thing. However, we are not dealing with sane people, so let us look into this scenario.

First, since it would have to be carried out by internal operations, like those that work for the military industrial complex, they would probably pick a date with some sort of significance, say November 11th, 2009 (2009-11-11) The date would tie into a reminder of 911, September 11th 2001, and a huge wave of media propaganda would be unleashed.

Considering the lack of investigative journalism in today’s Corporate media, it is a given that they would talk about nothing else but weapons of mass destruction, terrorists, al-qaeda, and liberal traitors. That would definitely take care of their conceived terrorist explanation.

Next, World governments would give the American Government the green light, but most importantly, money and personnel to invade the country they decide to point the finger at. Since the media always sensationalizes a disaster, 1,000,000 people would join the US military the next day as they did when Pearl Harbor was attacked in 1941. I suppose it would also solve the American job shortage.

Who Gets the Finger?

The US requires secured oil and gas pipelines throughout the Middle East but the most important one right now will run through Afghanistan and Pakistan, so I expect Al-qaeda or the Pakistan Taliban to be blamed. This will put Pakistan in a very difficult position where they will have to accept an influx of thousands of foreign troops. The US will also get their increased troop deployment in Afghanistan including the commitment of other NATO member states.

Pakistan is now the target of a bombing campaign and since the country is impoverished and the government is bankrupt, bribery becomes an easy tool for anyone with money, and don’t forget, the media has put the question of nuclear safety in the minds of their viewers. Even though the CIA and special military operatives control Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.

In all probability, the next attack will be a CIA sponsored false flag event on US soil to galvanize the American peoples opinion in favor of continuing war in Afghanistan AND Pakistan. The event will also gain World support and their inclusion into the endless War on terror that will rip the World apart. If this scenario unfolds, the US Government will declare martial law and begin a witch-hunt at home starting with those that oppose their war.

Then again, the Americans just might come home from Iraq and Afghanistan conceding defeat and bankruptcy, without securing an energy supply that their Oligarchs need to maintain their economic lifestyle. Maybe the Wars will end…but I doubt it.

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

Arab Officials Condemn Aqsa Raid

2009-09-28T05:39:00.000-07:00

Jordanian and Palestinian officials have condemned the Israeli security forces for storming Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque on Sunday during clashes that left many Palestinian worshippers wounded.

Deploring the Israeli action, the officials said it amounted to a "violation of the mosque's sanctity".

Trouble had broken out after a group of about 150 Israelis turned up and entered the mosque compound, reportedly under the guard of local authorities, on the occasion of Yom Kippur, the Jewish holy day.

Speaking to the JNA state news agency on Monday, Nabil al-Sharif, the Jordanian media affairs minister, said Amman viewed the Israeli action as a "provocative act".
"Both international law and relevant conventions and resolutions call for protection of places of worship against any violations", he said.
"We decry the repeated storming of the mosque by extremist Jewish groups and Israeli forces as a provocation that would exacerbate tension and ignite further violence that threatens regional security and stability."

Jordan's foreign ministry summoned the Israeli charge d'affaires in Amman to denounce the raid, saying that it came at "a time of concerted international efforts for resumption of peace talks" to find a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Palestinian condemnation

Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, said the Israeli security forces' action was a deliberate provocation in support of unwelcome settler hardliners who opposed an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Noting that riots during Yom Kippur were becoming an annual event, Erekat compared Sunday's scuffles to the violence that followed the trip to the site in the year 2000 by the ex-Israeli PM Ariel Sharon.
"We've seen this before, and we know what the consequences are," Erekat said in a statement. "
"Providing a police escort for settlers who are against peace at all costs, and whose presence is deliberately designed to provoke a reaction, are not the actions of someone who is committed to peace, but of someone who will go to extraordinary lengths to scuttle all hopes of peace," Erekat said.

Raid details

Sunday's clashes between Israeli settlers and Palestinian worshippers saw the Israeli forces intervening and firing rubber bullets and stun grenades.
The Al-Aqsa Foundation had warned a few days earlier that Israeli authorities were planning to permit settler’s entrance to the area. Officials in East Jerusalem predicted that the break-in would occur on Sunday under the pretext of marking Yom Kippur.

Jews refer to sections of the mosque complex as historically part of their Temple Mount.

Many Palestinians sustained serious eye and head injuries. Nine Palestinians were also detained following the scuffles, Israeli sources said.

Clashes also erupted near Majlis Gate, one of the main entrances to the mosque, after police prevented worshippers from entering the area, according to witnesses. More clashes followed noon prayers near the Lions' Gate entrance to Al-Aqsa.
Last year, a similar incident on the Yom Kippur holiday resulted in damage to dozens of cars and shops.

Israel captured the Old City of Jerusalem during the 1967 Six-Day War and later annexed it along with the rest of mostly Arab East Jerusalem in a move not recognized by the International Community.

Report by: Al Jazeera English
http://english.aljazeera.net/

Riyadh “Offers Airspace” for Israel Attack on Iran

2009-09-28T05:03:00.000-07:00

Israeli fighter jets have been allowed to use Saudi airspace to launch go-it-alone air strikes on Iranian nuclear installations, says a recent report.

The issue has been discussed in a closed-door meeting in London, where British Intelligence Chief Sir John Scarlett his Israeli counterpart, Meir Dagan, and Saudi official have been present Daily Express.

According to the report Scarlett has been told that Saudi airspace would be at Israel's disposal should Tel Aviv decide to move forward with his military plans against Iran.

The British daily added the likelihood of an Israeli attack against Iran has increased significantly after the country announced plans to launch its second enrichment facility in the central city of Qom.

In line with its policy of nuclear transparency, Iran announced the construction of a second enrichment plant in a letter to the UN nuclear watchdog on September 21. The new plant is due to produce enriched uranium up to 5 percent.

The letter was sent 12 months before the agency's regulations oblige its members states to inform of new developments.

With eyes firmly fixed on Iran's nuclear progressions, the right-wing government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly threatened to bomb the country's enrichment facilities out of existence.

Tel Aviv accuses Tehran of nuclear weapons development - a charge rejected by both Iran and the UN nuclear watchdog, which has so far made "21 unannounced inspections" of the country's nuclear facilities.

The UN nuclear watchdog in its previous reports has confirmed that Iran only enriches uranium-235 to a level of "less than 5 percent."

Uranium, which fuels a nuclear power plant, can be used for military purposes only if enriched to high levels of above 90 percent.

Details of the controversial Israeli plans to attack Iran emerged after John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, recently told a group of intelligence analysts that “Riyadh certainly approves” of Israel's use of Saudi airspace in the event of war with Iran.

Bolton, had previously said he had discussed the possibility with Saudi officials in closed-door meetings. “None of them would say anything about it publicly but they would certainly acquiesce in an overflight if the Israelis didn't trumpet it as a big success.”

The recent revelations follow a flurry of media reports in July, which suggested the Saudi government had approved the use of its airspace for an attack.

While Saudi officials deny having diplomatic ties with Tel Aviv, an Israeli defense source has confirmed that the Mossad spy agency maintained “working relations” with the kingdom.

According to a study published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a military exchange between Iran and Israel could result in the death of as many as 6 million people.

SBB/DT
Press TV

The Security Council Will Vote Against Morality and Corporate Media Wont Cover it?!

2009-09-20T12:40:00.000-07:00

By: Stewart Brennan
2009 September 20th

I’m left wondering what is yet to come, as I turn on the autocratic news channels where flashes of War, Disease, Poverty, Famine, and the latest laws that push for a Police State are there to greet my mind and sting my soul. I am wanting, for an end to it. I thought we all wanted the same thing…to live our lives peaceably with everyone else. But it seems our government’s do not believe in peace and must make our lives miserable so they can experience the power they were never elected for.

TV News Stations are in collusion with their content controlling advertisers to Viciously program the viewers with creations of fallacy by skillfully choosing images, and videos, with a poisonous script to propagate our minds and souls with lobbyist lies…approved by a crumbling economic empire once thought to be moral, now only concerned with survival of its vile and evil purpose; “A New World Order”.

To speak out against the New World Order and its supporters is to be labeled an enemy, a traitor, a racist, or a holocaust denier. This type of barking reply is comparative to a rabid dog foaming at the mouth ready to attack you. It is fascist in nature because there is no free speech unless you support their singular Nationalist agenda.

World wide, Politicians have reduced their communication with the people to vile trickery. Political puppets pledge allegiance to the corporate lobby groups, and cast their citizens into the furnace of war, poverty and police state while stating it is the right thing to do. Are we the people, to lose another generation to War, while we watch Moral Values, and human rights put to death one at a time?

Programmed Western News robots bark and vomit the bile dreamt up in an office on top of some building that furthers the immediate profits of their corporate Weapons companies. The news of the past days, builds a scripted enemy that was graciously provided by lobby groups, corporations, and backed by their puppets in politics.

Our way of life has been under the microscope for a long time. Don’t you kid yourselves. They tell us what to eat, what to drink, that we need insurance, and that we need to spend our money now. They tell us who to trust and who to hate. They tell us what is good and what is bad.

They know what lies we will believe because they tell us what to believe, and so they manipulate and bait us by programming. Today’s news bears what you must believe because to believe otherwise would be to side with the enemy. Are you not patriotic?

Well I say, “I am patriotic to the human race, not vitriolic towards any part of it.” They should take a page out of my book!

Humanity Under Attack:

Good moral values are under attack daily by the Banks, Insurance Companies, Pharmaceutical Conglomerates, and Weapons Cartels, through lobby groups that control our Governments and Entertainment News.

The time to change things is NOW!

On September 15th 2009, UN Investigator, Judge Richard Goldstone concluded that Israel did indeed commit War Crimes & Crimes Against Humanity for their monstrous attack on the people of Gaza in December 2008 through January 2009. The siege of Gaza by Israel is STILL ongoing!

Interview with Judge Richard Goldstone
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hbi6FnvWwvc&feature=player_embedded#t=14

The United Nations will meet this coming week, where the five Permanent members of the “Security Council” (The USA, Britain, France, China, & Russia) will vote on sending this case to the International Criminal Court of Justice.

UN Security Council
http://www.un.org/Docs/sc/

Dictatorship by the Security Council:

The recent political moves by US President Barack Obama, and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown suggest that neither the US or Britain are in favor of sending Israel to face War Crimes charges and will use their veto power to side with Israel and deny a War Crimes Trial to take place.

If this scenario plays out, or the Security Council votes against sending Israel to the International Criminal Court of Justice, then the World will have abandoned the moral principals set down by the Nuremberg trials after World War two. In short, it will be as if the Security Council pardoned the NAZI’S from the atrocities they committed during World War two.

Don’t expect the Western News media to report on this important topic or fight for what is right, because they are controlled by the same lobby groups who own the corporate sponsors as well as their puppet politicians. We already know where they stand and whom they support. They sure do not support moral values.

UN Foundation:

The foundation for the United Nations to even exist in the first place is based on the outcome of World War 2 and the desire to end aggressive War permanently. The Nuremberg trials were a testament to that fact with higher moral ideals adopted as the governing principals.

The United Nations
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations

NO COUNTRY IS ABOVE THE LAW!

It is imperative that we the people make this known to ALL members of the UN. If the Security Council does NOT send Israel to The Hague to face War Crimes Charges, then this will send the wrong signal to the World and the United Nations charter will disintegrate and no longer apply to any member state. It will ultimately unravel the last true World forum of Peace, Hope and Cooperation amongst nations.

Israel must be sent to “The Hague” to face charges for War Crimes, and Crimes Against Humanity or we will no longer have a United Nations or UN Charter that guarantees equality for “ALL NATIONS”. Don’t let the Security Council vote against morality.

The peace of the World is at stake! Send a letter of reprimand to the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and the High Commissioner for Human Rights “Navi Pillay”. Please urge your president, prime minister, king or what ever title they go by, to push for this War Crimes Trial against Israel! The future for your children and / or grand children depends on it!

United Nations
http://www.un.org/

Sincerely,
Stewart Brennan

The world needs a breather from the US. And they'll get it sooner than many think

2009-08-10T19:42:00.000-07:00

By: Mike Whitney

We're making this way too complicated. It's simple really.
The Fed has only one tool at its disposal; to create more money. Typically, the way the Fed adds to the money supply is by lowering interest rates. When the Fed lowers rates below the rate of inflation; they're basically selling dollars for under a buck. That's a good deal, so, naturally, speculators jump on it and trigger a credit expansion. What follows is a frenzy of market activity that ends in a housing, credit, tech or equity bubble. Eventually, the bubble bursts and the economy goes into a tailspin. Then, after a period of digging-out, the process resumes again. Wash, rinse, repeat. It's always the same.

The moral is: Cheap money creates bubbles; and bubbles move wealth from workers to rich motherf**kers. It's as simple as that. That's why the wealth gap is wider now than anytime since the Gilded Age. The rich own everything.

The Federal Reserve is the policy arm of the big banks and brokerage houses. Period. Ostensibly, its mandate is to maintain "price stability and full employment". Right. Anyone notice how many jobs the Fed has created lately? How about the dollar? Is it really supposed to zig-zag like it has been for the last decade? The central task of the Fed is to shift wealth from one class to another. And it succeeds at that task admirably.

The Fed's "mandate" is public relations claptrap. Bernanke hasn't lifted a finger for homeowners, consumers or ordinary working stiffs. "Yer on yer own. Just don't expect a handout. That's socialism!" All the doe is flowing upwards...according to plan. The Fed is a social engineering agency designed to serve as the de facto government behind the smokescreen of democratic institutions. Did you really think a black, two year senator with no background in foreign policy or economics was calling the shots?

Puh-leeese! Obama is a public relations invention who's used to cut ribbons, console the unemployed, and convince Americans they live in a "post racial" society. Right. (Just take a look at the footage from Katrina again)
The Fed has complete control over monetary policy and, thus, the country's economic future. Bernanke doesn't even pretend to defer to Congress anymore. Why bother? After Lehman caved in, Bernanke invoked the "unusual and exigent" clause in the Fed's charter and declared himself czar. Now he has absolute power over the nation's purse-strings.

The $13 trillion the Fed has committed to the financial system since the beginning of the crisis --via loans and outright purchases of mortgage-backed garbage and US sovereign debt--was never authorized by Congress. In fact, the Fed stubbornly refuses to even identify which institutions got the "loans", how much the loans were worth, what kind of collateral was accepted for the loans, or when the loans have to be repaid.

In truth, the loans are not loans at all, but gifts to the industry to keep asset prices artificially high so that the entire financial system does not come crashing down.

Check this out:
"In an analysis written by economist Gary Gorton for the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s 2009 Financial Markets Conference titled, "Slapped in the Face by the Invisible Hand; Banking and the Panic of 2007", the author shows that mortgage-related securities ballooned from $492.6 billion in 1996 to $3,071.1 in 2003, while asset backed securities (ABS) jumped from $168.4 billion in 1996 to $1,253.1 in 2006. All told, more than $20 trillion in securitized debt was sold between 1997 to 2007. "

$20 trillion! How much of that feces paper--which is worth just pennies on the dollar-- is sitting on the balance sheets of banks and other financial institutions just waiting to blow up as soon as the Fed asks for its money back? And the Fed will never get its money back because the prices of complex securities and derivatives will never regain their pre-crisis values. Why? Because these derivatives are linked to underlying collateral (mortgages) which have already declined 33% from their peak and are headed lower still. Also, these toxic assets were sold as risk-free (many of them were rated triple A) and have now been exposed as extremely risky or fraudulent. Because these assets were heaped together in bundles to strip out their interest rates, they cannot be easily separated which means that they are worth considerably less than the 33% that has been lost on the underlying collateral (mortgages) The securitization markets are not expected to rebound for a decade or more, which means that the Fed will have to find other more-creative way to goose the credit system to avoid a downward spiral.But how?

Zero percent interest rates haven't worked because qualified borrowers are cutting spending and saving their disposable income, while people who need to borrow, no longer meet the banks' tougher lending standards. Bank credit is shrinking even though excess bank reserves are nearly $900 billion. When banks stop lending, the economy contracts, business activity slows, unemployment soars and growth sputters.
Presently, the economy is still contracting, but at a slower pace than before. "Less bad" is the new "good". All the recession indicators are still blinking red--income, employment, sales, and production--all down big! But it doesn't matter because it's a "Green Shoots" rally; plenty of cheap liquidity for the markets and a freeway off-ramp (for sleeping) for the unemployed.

The Fed's lending facilities are designed to pump liquidity into the system and inflate another bubble by generating more debt. Unfortunately, most people accept Bernanke's feeble defense of these corporate-welfare programs and fail to see their real purpose. An example may help to explain how they really work:
Say you bought a house at the peak of the bubble in 2005 and paid $500,000. Then prices dropped 40% (as they have in Calif) and your house is now worth $300,000. If you only put 5% down, ($25,000) then you are underwater by $175,000. Which means that you own more on the mortgage than your house is currently worth. (This is essentially what has happened to the entire financial system. The equity has vaporized, so institutions are using dodgy accounting tricks instead of reporting their real losses.) So Bernanke comes along and gives you $175,000 no interest, rotating loan to you so that no one knows that you are really busted and you can continue spending just as you had before. Not bad, eh? This is what the lending facilities are all about. It is a charade to conceal the fact that a large portion of the nation's financial institutions are insolvent and propped up by state largess.
But there's more, too.

Now that Bernanke has given you $175,000 no interest, rotating loan; you expect that eventually he will ask for his money back. Right? So your only hope of saving your home, in the long run, is to engage in risky behavior, like dabbling the stock market. It's like playing roulette, except you have nothing to lose since you are underwater anyway.

This is exactly what the financial institutions are doing with the Fed's loans. They're betting on equities and hoping they can avoid the Grim Reaper.
Here's how former hedge fund manager Andy Kessler summed it up last week in the Wall Street Journal: "By buying U.S. Treasuries and mortgages to increase the monetary base by $1 trillion, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke didn't put money directly into the stock market but he didn't have to. With nowhere else to go, except maybe commodities, inflows into the stock market have been on a tear. Stock and bond funds saw net inflows of close to $150 billion since January. The dollars he cranked out didn't go into the hard economy, but instead into tradable assets. In other words, Ben Bernanke has been the market." (Andy Kessler, "The Bernanke Market" Wall Street Journal)

Only a small portion of the money that has gone into the stock market in the last 6 months (since the March lows) has come from money markets. The fed's loans are being laundered into stocks via financial institutions that are rolling the dice for their own survival. The uptick in the markets has helped insolvent banks raise equity in the capital markets so they don't have to grovel to Congress for another TARP bailout.

Everybody's elated with Bernanke's latest bubble except working people who have seen their wages slashed by 4.5%, their credit lines cut, the home values plunge, and their living standards sink to third world levels.

And the Fed's spending-spree is not over yet; not by a long shot. The next wave of home foreclosures (already 1.9 million in the first half of 2009) is just around the corner--the Alt-As, option arms, prime loans. The $3.5 trillion commercial real estate market is capsizing. The under-capitalized banking system will need assistance. And there will have to be another round of fiscal stimulus for ailing consumers. Otherwise, foreign holders of US Treasurys will see that the US can no longer provide 25% of global demand and head for the exits.

Bernanke's back is against the wall. The only thing he can do is print more money, shove though the back door of the stock exchange and keep his fingers crossed. The rest is up to CNBC and a small army of media cheerleaders.

There is some truth to the theory that Bernanke saved the financial system from a Chernobyl-type meltdown. But that doesn't change the facts. Accounts must be balanced; debts must be paid.

The Fed chief has committed $13 trillion to maintain the appearance of solvency. But the system is bankrupt. The commercial paper market, money markets, trillions of dollars of toxic debt instruments, and myriad shyster investment banks and insurance companies are now backed by the "full faith and credit" of the US Treasury. The financial system is now a ward of the state. The "free market" has deteriorated into state capitalism; a centralized system where all the levers of power are controlled by the Central Bank. If Bernanke's Politburo withdraws its loans--or even if he raises interest rates too soon-- the whole system will collapse.

The economy is now balanced on the rickety scaffolding of the dollar. As the Obama stimulus wears off, the rot in the economy will become more apparent. Household red ink is at record highs, so personal consumption will not rebound. That means US assets and US sovereign debt will become less attractive. Foreign capital will flee. The dollar will fall.

The world needs a breather from the US. And they'll get it sooner than many think.

_______

Read more from Mike Whitney at

The Smirking Chimp
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/23166

First Goal is to Stop Gaza War Crimes Revelations

2009-08-04T17:58:00.000-07:00

By Jonathan Cook in Nazareth

5 August 2009

In a bid to staunch the flow of damaging evidence of war crimes committed during Israel’s winter assault on Gaza, the Israeli government has launched a campaign to clamp down on human rights groups, both in Israel and abroad.

It has begun by targeting one of the world’s leading rights organizations, the US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), as well as a local group of dissident army veterans, Breaking the Silence, which last month published the testimonies of 26 combat soldiers who served in Gaza.

Additionally, according to the Israeli media, the government is planning a “much more aggressive stance” towards human rights groups working to help the Palestinians.

Officials have questioned the sources of funding received by the organizations and threatened legislation to ban support from foreign governments, particularly in Europe.

Breaking the Silence and other Israeli activists have responded by accusing the government of a “witch hunt” designed to intimidate them and starve them of the funds needed to pursue their investigations.

“This is a very dangerous step,” said Mikhael Mannekin, one of the directors of Breaking the Silence. “Israel is moving in a very anti-democratic direction.”

The campaign is reported to be the brainchild of the far-right foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, currently facing corruption charges, but has the backing of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

Early last month, Mr Lieberman used a press conference to accuse non-government organizations, or NGOs, of replacing diplomats in setting the international community’s agenda in relation to Israel. He also threatened reforms to curb the groups’ influence.

A week later, Mr Netanyahu’s office weighed in against Human Rights Watch, heavily criticizing the organization for its recent fund-raising activities in Saudi Arabia.

HRW has pointed out that it only accepts private donations, and has not accepted Saudi government funds, but Israeli officials say all Saudi money is tainted and will compromise HRW’s impartiality as a human rights watchdog in its treatment of Israel.

“A human rights organization raising money in Saudi Arabia is like a women’s rights group asking the Taliban for a donation,” Mark Regev, a government spokesman, told the right-wing Israeli daily newspaper the Jerusalem Post.

HRW recently published reports arguing that the Israeli army had committed war crimes in Gaza, including the use of white phosphorus and attacking civilian targets.

HRW is now facing concerted pressure from Jewish lobby groups and from leading Jewish journalists in the US to sever its ties with Saudi donors. According to the Israeli media, some Jewish donors in the US have also specified that their money be used for human rights investigations that do not include Israel.

Meanwhile, Israel’s Foreign Ministry is putting pressure on European governments to stop funding many of Israel’s human rights groups. As a prelude to a clampdown, it has issued instructions to all its embassies abroad to question their host governments about whether they fund such activities.

Last week the Foreign Ministry complained to British, Dutch and Spanish diplomats about their support for Breaking the Silence.

The testimonies collected from soldiers suggested the Israeli army had committed many war crimes in Gaza, including using Palestinians as human shields and firing white phosphorus shells over civilian areas. One soldier called the army’s use of firepower “insane”.

The Dutch government paid nearly 20,000 euros to the group to compile its Gaza report, while Britain funded its work last year to the tune of 40,000 GBP.

Israeli officials are reported to be discussing ways either to make it illegal for foreign governments to fund “political” organizations in Israel or to force such groups to declare themselves as “agents of a foreign government”.

“Just as it would be unacceptable for European governments to support anti-war NGOs in the US, it is unacceptable for the Europeans to support local NGOs opposed to the policies of Israel’s democratically elected government,” said Ron Dermer, a senior official in Mr Netanyahu’s office.

He added that many of the groups were “working to delegitimize the Jewish state”.

Jeff Halper, the head of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, said the government’s position was opposed to decades-old developments in human rights monitoring.
Every dictator, from Hitler to Milosevic, has said that there must be no interference in their sovereign affairs, and that everyone else should butt out. But international law says human rights are universal and cannot be left to individual governments to interpret. The idea behind the Geneva Conventions is that the international community has a duty to be the watchdog on human rights abuses wherever they occur.
Mr Halper, whose organization last year received 80,000 euros from Spain to rebuild demolished Palestinian homes, was arrested last year for sailing to Gaza with peace activists to break the siege of Gaza.

Other groups reported to be in the Foreign Ministry’s sights are: B’Tselem, whose activities include providing Palestinians with cameras to record abuses by settlers and the army; Peace Now, which monitors settlement building; Machsom Watch, whose activists observe soldiers at the checkpoints; and Physicians for Human Rights, which has recently examined doctors’ complicity in torture.

The government’s new approach mirrors a long-running campaign against left wing and Arab human rights groups inside Israel conducted by NGO Monitor, a right-wing lobby group led by Gerald Steinberg, a professor at Bar Ilan University, near Tel Aviv.

NGO Monitor has also targeted international organizations such as Oxfam and Amnesty International, but has shown a particular obsession with HRW. Mr Steinberg recently boasted that HRW’s trip to Saudi Arabia in May reflected the loss of major Jewish sponsors in the US following the publication of its Gaza reports.

In an article in the Jerusalem Post on Sunday [1 August], Mr Steinberg claimed that European governments treated their funding of Israeli human rights organizations “as ‘top secret’, reflecting the realization that such activities lack legitimacy”.

Mr Mannekin said the Breaking the Silence report listed donors on the first page. “We are far more transparent than NGO Monitor. We don’t know who funds them.”

NGO Monitor, which according to its website is chiefly funded by the shadowy Wechsler Family Foundation in the US, is closely linked to Dore Gold, a hawkish former adviser to Ariel Sharon.

Mr Mannekin added: “The government cannot suppress information about what happened in Gaza by shutting us down. You can’t send 10,000 soldiers into battle and not expect that some of the details will come out. If it’s not us doing it, it’ll be someone else.”

The government’s current campaign follows a police raid on the homes of six Israeli women peace activists in April.

The women, all members of New Profile, a feminist organization that opposes the militarization of Israeli society, were arrested and accused of helping Israeli youngsters to evade the draft. The women are still waiting to learn whether they will be prosecuted.

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net.

A version of this article originally appeared in The National, published in Abu Dhabi.

Money for Healthcare

2009-07-25T08:02:00.000-07:00

By: Stewart Brennan

The annual cost of the Canadian health care system is about 100 Billion dollars. Considering that we are 33 million people or 10% of the Population of the USA, American costs would be 1 Trillion dollars. This is based on a linear comparison of population VS costs, and also using the Canadian model. Given time, the costs will rise because the Healthcare system is based on the fluctuating needs of the sick and injured.

Cost should not be the major issue unless the majority of the population that pays income tax is impoverished. An impoverished nation is not able to support its basic needs or infrastructure and simply cannot afford it. This is what the US politicians, the corporations, the insurance cartels, and the Banksters are claiming in the USA; that “America does not have the money for single payer healthcare”. Well that is just a bunch of malarkey.

There are some things that require a closer look and the spending of public funds is a major one. For example, it costs the US tax payers 1 Trillion dollars to maintain the more than 700 military bases in Europe and Asia, and that does not include funding the wars or giving money away to countries like Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt.

The US debt is currently 15 Trillion dollars. That equates to an annual interest payment of 600 Billion dollars to private banks before the principal is even touched. The US GDP is about 56 Trillion dollars annually. Think about that for a moment. Where is that money going? What are the US government’s priorities?

The Insurance cartel, turn a profit of over 10 Trillion dollars a year from the US citizens through healthcare insurance. No wonder they have a huge lobby spewing negative ads to proposed changes in the health care system! Obama is not going to change things if he continues to involve the insurance companies. Following this path is not called change; it is called the status quo.

Change will come when people become political atheists and not bicker amongst themselves through party affiliation. There has to be a 3rd voice...and that is the voice of common sense and reason.

Be Well,
Stewart Brennan

The Plutocracy’s Hidden Agenda on Iran

2009-06-23T21:03:00.000-07:00

I am sure you have noticed all the negative attention that Iran has received over the last few years especially now after the recent Iranian election. It’s not hard to see all the hyped up one-sided reporting by, dinosaurs like CNN FOX, NBC, CBS, and ABC. These NEO CON propaganda machines have been helping their owners push an aggressive agenda against Iran since the 1950’s. Of coarse CNN & FOX were not around then but their current owners sure were.
With any luck, Americans will awaken from this programming and turn off their TV’s before these monsters succeed in brainwashing them into another War…oops too late.

However, the USA are not the only country saddled with this type of agenda, in fact Canada, my own Country, has been infiltrated with scumbags that have seized control through the Conservative and Liberal Parties. A dictatorship has arisen in Canada that pushes a false position of the Canadian people…and our media is in collusion with this agenda. The CBC and CTV are controlled by the same corporate and political lobby groups as their counter parts in the USA. In short, our countries have become dictatorships ruled by corporate and political lobby groups that push their agendas through their bought and paid for media.

The media are controlled by lobby groups with very deep pockets. Their agenda is total political, economic, and social control of the people. The Plutocrats or Autocrats behind the scenes, have an agenda on Iran that has not changed since BP hijacked the Iranian oil fields in the 1920’s! The Oligarchs lost control of the Iranian Oil fields in 1979 when their man the Shah was deposed. They desperately want it back and will continue in collusion with Israel to dominate the Middle East until they get it. Don’t be fooled into believing what they report is the truth. This is nothing but a one-sided smear campaign against the rulers of Iran, initiated by the Plutocracy for control of the oil.

What are the facts?

· In 1953, US President Dwight D. Eisenhower overthrew Iran’s Popular Prime Minister Mohammad Massadegh in favor of “Mohammad Reza Pahlavi” Strategic reasons = OIL.
· Ever since the Ayatollah Khomeini and the Iranian people tossed out Dictator Mohammad Reza Pahlavi better know as the Shah in 1979, the US military Industrial complex has been planning their way back into Iran to take their Oil.
· Israel has been calling for military strikes on Iran for building a Nuclear reactor that will alleviate Iran’s severe shortage of electrical power.
· The CIA has been conducting destabilization plans within Iran for the last two years. Funded with hundreds of millions of dollars that Dick Cheney & George Bush funneled into covert operation programs such as, “The National Endowment for Democracy”.
· Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani is the former President of Iran. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad beat Rafsanjani in the 2005 Iranian Presidential Election. Rafsanjanni was very angry in defeat.
· Rafsanjani is associated with the Iranian Business Class (OIL lobby) and is openly hostile to Ahmadinejad.
· Rafsanjani supports Mir Housein Mousavi Khameneh the defeated opposition leader in the 2009 Iranian election.
· The Western Media have conducted a smear campaign of corruption against Ahmadinejad and favored Mousavi and a westernized Iran.

Opposition Leader Mousavi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mousavi

Rafsanjani
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafsanjani
Ahmadinejad
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmadinejad

The Last Shah
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Reza_Pahlavi

I ask you, “Why did opposition leader Mousavi claim political victory within 4 hours of the polls closing?” Why does the “twitter defiance” link back to Israel on June 13th? Why is the western media pushing their one sided reporting of a small pro western group as the victims of electoral fraud?

The word on the street is that Israeli mossad assisinated “Neda". Neda is a Farsi word for voice. However, western media claim she was allegedly shot dead by a Basij soldier. Why do you think the media are pushing a one sided story?

Have you thought about this? Did you let them form your opinion? Or did you seek out the truth by researching the last 100 years of history? The sheep always let the TV decide their thoughts. An awakened mind will do research and allow their intellect to form conclusions based on the facts. “OIL has everything to do with one sided propaganda reporting by corporate news and their sponsors.”

WHY!?!

A strengthened Iran is a threat to the Plutocracy’s greedy agenda of total economic control. To them Iran will always be an enemy until the IMF & World Bank have full control of the Iranian monetary system and the Western Military Industrial Complex has full control of Iran’s Oil.

Dick Cheney and George Bush were hell bent on attacking Iran and had met with Israeli officials to plan their attack back in 2007 & 2008. They did not trust the incoming administration as you may recall and decided to leave ALL options on the table. Including military strikes. They decided to fund covert operations to destabilize Iran through programs like “The National Endowment for Democracy” or the “Open Society Institute” chaired by George Soros. Remember George Bush’s speech in December 2007; about a third World War, and mushroom clouds? Come on people WAKE UP for god’s sake!!

I would like to point out that Iran has been a peaceful Country for a very long time. For those that disagree, I would then ask you, “When was the last time Iran invaded another sovereign Country?” But I digress.

Until recently, Iran had been in a positive light and grew by leaps and bounds in popularity especially when compared to Israel. After all, Israel destroyed Gaza and murdered 1,500 people most of them children after a lengthy starvation blockade not seen since the World War 2 Warsaw Ghetto blockade.
However, an Iran that grew in popularity with the common people of the Western World had the US and Israel seething in vitriolic hatred because their plans for the Middle East and for that matter, the World, had been derailed. They were, and continue to be, desperate to regain control of people’s minds through planned information. Israel and the US will stop at nothing to get what they want, and that is why we now see one-sided views of protests in Iran. Notice the signs of those pro western youths were written in English and touted by the MSM as the majority of Iranian opinion. These one sided reports are nothing more than a build up of planned suggestion to take control of your opinions.

Tools of Control:

The once powerful M.S.M. or mainstream media with its pro Israeli propaganda stance has been way laid by the publics thirst for the truth and accuracy in reporting. The catalyst to their end is of their own making. It was the aggressive and brutal attacks by Israel and the USA on the sovereign people of Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Palestine that has woken up the sleeping giant called humanity.

More and more people have turned to the Internet for their news and information, and turned away from old dinosaur propaganda Titans like CBC, ABC, NBC, FOX, and CNN because of their one sided reporting. Over the last 8 years, these MSM Corporate and lobby controlled rude tube bigots have become drunk with over bearing anger shows and hosts that target an audience with vitriolic hate programming. They are completely repulsive and lack morality, truth or respect.

The thirst for truth has logged a whole generation on to the Internet. This desire to investigate information and seek out both sides of a story gave birth to the truth movement. Truth seekers ask many questions that are never asked by the MSM and this line of questioning un-nerves the Plutocracy. The search for truth should be viewed as a noble act not as a terrorist ploy. When truth is treated as a crime, we will then be living in a police state. Indeed, that is where we are today.

“The pursuit of Truth is a quest by people that have higher moral standards than the actual class that seeks to silence them.”

Have we not evolved over the last 2000 years? Are we to continue on this road of ruination and repeat the fall of Rome? The quest for power and this insatiable greed with immoral reasoning that the Plutocracy has taken will lead to the Fall of Rome but it will echo 10,000 fold as the World falls to systematic planned division and World conquest.

The Western World, lead by the USA and its Israeli lobby, are pushing for control of the Worlds diminishing oil supply. It is OIL that powers growth in an economy and fuels military expansion. Right now, Russia and her friends control 60% of the Worlds Oil including Iran and Venezuela. The USA is NOT happy with this prospect, and has taken to drawing lines in the sands of the Middle East. We are being subjected to intense propaganda designed to make us choose a side in their pending conflict. The World is in an economic tailspin brought on by the Plutocracy’s insatiable thirst for power, and it is no secret that Israel wants to attack Iran.

If the Plutocracy continues to enforce their will and control over the entire planet, conflict will increase exponentially wherever they try to enforce their dominance. However, the public has become more educated and given rise to revolutionary ideas like peace, morality, and common sense. The Plutocracy fears a public armed with knowledge, especially when their own master plan of absolute control has been exposed.

But it is their fear that we should be most worried about, because fear will make a man do desperate things, and with an arsenal of weapons to cull the perceived threat to them, they will attack first for lack of a moral conscience. The very few that control the game of life such as, Ted Turned, David Rockefeller, Zbignew Brzezinski, Prince Phillip and others have come out with statements of population reduction as a preferred method of population control. These people are in control?

The Western media have crossed the line and require a massive lesson in common courtesy and respect for all viewers.

I say lets choose a different way. Let us start rebuilding community. Offer your hand in friendship to someone, who like you, is only trying to live their life. Let us change the system that governs us. Turn off your television sets and get yourself online to communicate with other people. Get the information they refuse to show you. Get others involved. Use common sense and reject their fear mongering. All we need is each other to make this World work. We don’t need them. They need us.

Have a great day!

By; Stewart Brennan

The Obama Delusion

2009-04-06T19:39:00.000-07:00

Weather you live in the Americas, Asia, Europe, or Africa, the majority of people in this World of ours just want to live a peaceful existence in their communities with their families.

For the past eight years, our planet has been beaten into submission by the words and actions of US dictator George Bush and his Imperial Storm Troopers. So if you believe that major change is needed in the World today, you are not alone in your thinking or beliefs.

“Change”, and “Yes we can” was the platform that Barrack Obama rode to the US Presidency. The World was eager for change, so not only were these words heard across America, they began to echo across a planet that was desperate for a fix.

“Change”, and “Yes we Can” sounded a lot better than Bush’s words of, “You are either with us or against us.” “Weapons of Mass Destruction”, and “War on Terror”

So when Obama went up against John McCain and his continuance of the Imperial Empire, the World began pulling for Obama. What choice did anyone have?

The euphoria that was unleashed when Obama was announced as the winner and new President of the United States would probably have been felt on Mars, had someone been there. But to make a point of how much even the US citizens hated the Bush regime, right after the announcement, the White House was surrounded by thousands of jubilant citizens chanting the end of tyranny, and “Yes we can”. For me, that was the moment I will remember the most from Nov 4th 2008.

In hind sight, Hundreds of Millions of people secretly wished or prayed for some sort of misfortune to befall George Bush & Dick Cheney. Some, including myself are still hopeful that these prayers will be answered. I have a lot of old shoes filled with rocks that I would like to toss at them, but I would rather see them on trial for “War Crimes” and “Crimes Against Humanity”… “Yes we can!”

However, all the evils we face in today's World have been driven by a very small group of Wealthy power hungry families. This group of extremely sick individuals own controlling interests in all the Central Banks, Media, and Major Corporations around the World and have complete control of who will be politically successful and who will fail. They do not take chances, nor do they gamble on one politician. They control the entire game and we are left with the illusions of democracy, free speech and an elected leader we chose ourselves.

Economic and Social Solutions:

The economic depression we find ourselves in today is no different than the economic crashes that have happened in the past. The results are always the same; the central banks get everything in the end including your freedom. We have become debt slaves in a game that the extremely wealthy own and control, and now they want our pensions and our children’s future.

The real solution that Obama and ALL the other World leaders should adopt is to nationalize the Banks, annul the debt accumulated in interest, and then make everyone in their Countries equal shareholder’s in the Banks and major corporations that fail. The result would be the elimination of Income Tax, debt, Inflation and poverty. The long-term gains would be a system free of debt and a World that would evolve to a higher level based on equality. Imagine that, all of us in control instead of a few sick individuals!

Nationalization of Central Banks would remove the autocracy that stops us from helping our fellow man. It would also take the power away from the very few that rules us with an iron fist and would initiate equality among all men and women in our World. The solution is a moral one and will require the masses to support it. But first they must be given the information to be set free.

Conspiracy:

Banks and Corporations are set up to turn a profit for the shareholders at any cost. In most cases the majority shareholders are the same greedy families. This sick model of society has caused global hardship. It is the sole reason why the majority of the World lives in squalor with a constant growth in hunger, disease, pestilence and War.

Corporate and Banking governance is fascist in its structure, and with the collusion of elected officials in all governing parties, the Private Banking families are poised to impose their New World Order on us all. The Imperial fascist system enforced on the World is evil to the very core and must be abolished or many of us will perish under the boots of tyranny.

The illusion that we elect a Government is only that, an illusion. Especially when an organized group of corporations and banks sponsor the candidates that are presented for election. The real candidates that stand for the people never get the spotlight anymore and have not attained the Presidency since John F. Kennedy.

The Obama Deception:

In 2008, the Population of the World was against the USA and its push for an American Imperial Empire. After the 8 tyrannical years of Bush Family Rule, Americans were divided and ready to revolt unless changes were made quickly.

Barrack Obama was chosen by the Bilderberg group to lead the Democrats because he spoke the words that the masses wanted to hear. Obama’s surprise visit to Berlin for a campaign speech in front of the German People back in the summer of 2008 was meant as a barometer reading of World opinion to see if he would be successful in regaining favor of the masses. Before that speech, Hilary Clinton was still in the Race as a democratic presidential hopeful, but then pulled out after a secret meeting. You must remember the press asking its audience in panic, “Where is Obama and Hillary?”

Obama was the Shadow government’s choice to lead because he was not only able to sway the American people, but was also successful in changing the Worlds opinion of the USA under his leadership. There was no other Presidential candidate that could turn the tide back into the Globalists favor, except Barrack Obama. So they chose him.

Propaganda History & Truth:

If a select group controls the media and the way in which news is reported, you pretty much have control of a very powerful medium that can be used as a propaganda tool against the people. Television is rife with repetition and planned suggestion delivered by loud overbearing mainstream television news that just so happens to be owned by the corporate sponsors. There is no “IF” in the vocabulary of a control freak.

The people of Germany were also desperate for change in 1933 and followed Hitler in drunken worship because his words offered hope, change, and an end to the 10 years of economic depression that had strangled their country after World War 1. The central banks unwillingness to forgive the War debt and repatriation for the destruction of property is what caused Germany to suffer so severely and was the main catalyst for the rise of Hitler and the launch of the Second World War.

I believe History is repeating itself. Obama has swayed the masses with the promise of major change with direct solutions for the economy. This time the majority of people in drunken worship are from many nations. I see the same insane look in their eyes when they shout “Obama” as I saw in the eyes of those that shouted “Hail Hitler” in the old German newsreels.

Obama speaks of change, but nothing has or will change. For instance, more than 50,000 US troops will stay in Iraq indefinitely, he is increasing his troop buildup in Afghanistan, and has escalated military drone attacks in Pakistan. He offers talks with Iran but maintains the same rigid posture in his Pro Israeli conditions as the Bush regime. Obama supports Israel regardless of the atrocities they have committed on the innocent people of Palestine. He offers Russia a reset button, but still pushes a missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic while maintaining all 700 military bases surrounding Russia and China.

I would say that Obama is going to be worse than Bush. He has staffed all his appointments with either former Federal Reserve (Central Bank) employees or members of the Zionist lobby group AIPAC. Not to mention that his government has already passed a bill in the congress that will make mandatory service for 18 to 25 year olds a reality. His next step will be to stimulate the weapons manufacturers by beefing up their contracts. These 2 areas are where Obama will focus his back to work program…just like Hitler did in the 1930’s

In Obama, the Globalists seized the opportunity to finalize their plans of World domination through economic and military control. They have successfully pulled the sheet over the publics eyes, and put Obama on a pedestal for idol worship. Like lambs to the slaughter the sheep belt out what they have been told to…Ohhhhbaaaaaammmmma.

I feel that if we do not change the system that controls our society soon, there will not be a society to save. There is an evil lurking all around us and it is called the New World Order. It is time for the masses to make a stand. Turn off your TV’s, get informed and pass the information along to a minimum of 2 others, then ask them to do the same. Always remember that wealth is in the soul, not the bank. Get involved in your Community; it will be your salvation during the hardest times. Good Luck.

Stewart Brennan

JDL Dictates Political Policy in Canada and Bans British MP George Galloway

2009-03-22T17:46:00.000-07:00

I was brought up to support and defend human rights and moral values that Canadians and my Country of Canada once stood tall and proud for. I still believe in those Peacekeeping values and that is why I felt compelled to speak out here.

For the last four years, the Canadian people have been left wondering what has happened to the leadership in this Country. A great country where Angry fear mongering Lobby groups have become the voice of our puppet government, where hatred, fear mongering, and horrendous accusations have become the voice of Parliament. They don’t even stand up for Canadians in peril abroad anymore.

That is why I believe it is imperative for Canadians to take back this great Country of ours from the angry hate groups and lobby groups like the Zionist JDL (Jewish Defense League) Most of you are aware of the Neo Nazi’s but may not be aware of the JDL. The JDL are at the very heart of what has sickened this great Country of ours.

The JDL are a vicious political Israeli Zionist lobby group that are every bit as evil and determined as the Nazi’s of World War 2. They do not represent the Jewish community of Canada. They represent Israel’s violent political agenda and are in political control of Canada behind the scenes.

The leader of the JDL, Meir Weinstein, has an agenda to control and eliminate Canada’s freedom of speech through censorship and false accusations and labeling of people as terrorists or anti Semitic. His recent political strong-arming of the Canadian Government to ban British MP George Galloway from entering the Country is an open attack on human rights and freedoms. Something I take very seriously as should many of you.

The fact that Weinstein convinced PM Steven Harper that British MP George Galloway should be banned from entering Canada because Weinstein labeled him a terrorist supporter is OUTRAGEOUS! Not only should Harper apologize publicly for this gross insult but also Weinstein and his JDL should be investigated for subversion, insurrection, malice and treason for their aggressive attacks on minority groups in Canada! I ask everyone out there to investigate this group for your selves and if you come to the same conclusion, please join me in removing this group’s ability to create fear mongering, censorship, and racial discrimination! Do not let them continue to dictate Canadian policy!

My father was a member of the Black Watch in the Canadian Armed Forces during WW2. He fought to end tyranny not to have it spring up in our Country by Political Lobby groups like the JDL.

Please sign the petition:

Let George Galloway Speak!http://www.petitiononline.com/galcan09/petition.html

Stewart B.

Israeli soldiers break ranks over Gaza war

2009-03-19T16:49:00.000-07:00

By Jeffrey Heller

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel's military was rocked on Thursday by Gaza war veterans' accounts of soldiers' killings of civilians and allegations that deep contempt for Palestinians pervaded its ranks.

The soldiers, alumni of a military academy, gathered last month to discuss their experiences in the 22-day Israeli offensive that ended in January, a campaign that Palestinians and human rights groups have said warranted war crimes probes.
Disclosing details of the session, the institution's director said the soldiers pointed to an atmosphere within the military of "unbridled contempt for, and forcefulness against, the Palestinians."

"They talked about unwarranted fire on Palestinian civilians. There was also talk of vandalism to property," Danny Zamir, head of the Yitzhak Rabin pre-military program, told Israel Radio.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak responded to the accusations by repeating Israel's description of its armed forces as the most moral in the world. The military said its judge advocate-general had ordered an investigation of the alleged incidents.
Excerpts from the veterans' discussion appeared on Thursday on the front page of the left-leaning Haaretz daily. It said the airing of the "dirty secrets" would make it more difficult for Israelis to dismiss such allegations as Palestinian propaganda.
It has been rare for Israeli soldiers to speak out about the killing of Palestinian civilians in the operation that Israel launched in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip in December with the declared aim of halting militants' cross-border rocket attacks.

WRONG TURN

One of the soldiers, an infantry squad leader, recalled an incident in which he said an army sharpshooter killed a Palestinian mother and her two children who turned the wrong way after troops ordered them out of their house.

"The platoon commander let the family go and told them to go to their right. One mother and her two children didn't understand and went to the left ... The sharpshooter saw (them) approaching him, closer than the lines he was told no one should pass. He shot them."

The squad leader said most of the men under his command felt "the lives of Palestinians ... is something very, very less important than the lives of our soldiers, so as far as they are concerned, they can justify it that way."
Zamir said he conveyed the veterans' accounts to the Israeli military. Israeli leaders have said Hamas bears ultimate responsibility for civilian deaths because its fighters operated in crowded Palestinian areas.

Another squad leader who attended the academy said at the gathering that a company commander had ordered an elderly Palestinian woman shot as she walked on a road about 100 metres (yards) from a house that troops had taken over.

meters Describing vandalism carried out by soldiers, the squad leader said: "To write 'death to the Arabs' on the walls, to take family pictures and spit on them, just because you can -- I think this is the main thing, to understand how much the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) has fallen in the realm of ethics."

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) has put the Palestinian death toll during the war at 1,434 -- 960 civilians, 235 fighters and 239 police officers. Israeli officials have disputed the figures. Thirteen Israelis were killed
On Thursday, an Israeli think-tank, the International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism, challenged the conclusion that close to 1,000 civilians were killed. It said that a statistical analysis of PCHR's list of civilian casualties showed a disproportionate number of young men of fighting age.

The Israeli army has given no figure for Palestinian dead.
Zamir said that while veterans at the alumni session had not directly taken part in war crimes, "they felt uncomfortable because they could not prevent them."
(Additional reporting by Ivan Karakashian; editing by Andrew Roche)

U.N. rights envoy sees Israeli war crimes in Gaza

2009-03-19T16:41:00.000-07:00

GENEVA (Reuters) - A United Nations human rights investigator said on Thursday that Israel's military assault on densely populated Gaza appeared to constitute a grave war crime.

Richard Falk, U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, said the Geneva Conventions required warring forces to distinguish between military targets and surrounding civilians.

"If it is not possible to do so, then launching the attacks is inherently unlawful and would seem to constitute a war crime of the greatest magnitude under international law," Falk said.

"On the basis of the preliminary evidence available, there is reason to reach this conclusion," he wrote in an annual 26-page report submitted to the U.N. Human Rights Council.

Falk gave the same death toll from Israel's offensive in December and January -- 1,434 Palestinians, including 960 civilians -- as the Palestinian human rights center.

Israel, which lost 13 people during the war, disputes the figures and has accused Hamas fighters in Gaza of using civilians as human shields during the conflict -- an allegation which Falk said should be investigated.

He called the Israeli attacks a "massive assault on a densely populated urbanized setting" in which the entire civilian population had been subjected to "an inhumane form of warfare that kills, maims and inflicts mental harm."

"As all borders were sealed, civilians could not escape from the orbit of harm," he said.

This denial of people's right to flee the war zone as refugees may also constitute a crime against humanity, he said.

WAR CRIMES PROBE

Falk called for an independent experts group to probe possible war crimes committed by both Israeli forces and Hamas. It should gather eyewitness testimony as well as explanations from Israeli and Palestinian military commanders.

Violations included Israel's alleged "targeting of schools, mosques and ambulances" during the offensive, which lasted from December 27 to January 18, and its use of weapons including white phosphorus, as well as Hamas's firing of rockets at civilian targets in southern Israel.

Falk said that Israel's blockade of the coastal strip of 1.5 million people violated the Geneva Conventions and this suggested further war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity.

The aggression was not legally justified and may represent a "crime against peace" -- a principle established at the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals, according to Falk, an American law professor who serves as the Human Rights Council's independent investigator.

Falk, who is Jewish, suggested the Security Council might set up an ad hoc criminal tribunal to establish accountability for war crimes in Gaza, noting Israel has not signed the Rome statutes establishing the International Criminal Court
He was denied entry to Israel two weeks before the assault started, forcing him to abort a planned mission to Gaza. In his report, he said that the refusal had set an "unfortunate precedent" for treatment of a special rapporteur.

On Monday march 23rd, 2009, he is to present his report formally to the Human Rights Council, a 47-member forum where Islamic and African countries backed by China, Cuba and Russia have a majority. Neither Israel nor its chief ally the United States are members.

(Editing by Mark Trevelyan and Jonathan Wright)

The Greatest Depression?

2009-02-28T11:08:00.000-08:00

No one in power will admit it, but we are in the midst of a Great Depression. It started in October 2008 when the hollow financial pillars of America collapsed under the weight of enormous debt! The foundation that the greedy bankers and evil oil barons built was unstable and doomed to fail from the beginning.

In October 2008, the US financial system began to spiral into a freefall and took the World economy with it. When an economy is in freefall, there is no good news until you hit the bottom, dust yourself off, and pick up the pieces.

What will future generations think when they look back at this period of time? One question might be, “How come they were so greedy?!” I’d like to hear your opinion on what the question might be.

What is the Trend Right Now?

The massive debt that has grown over these many years will keep the markets tumbling over the next 18 to 24 months. The market collapse is picking up momentum and will heave continual losses proportional to the monetary deficit,
The deficit is so large in the USA that it now surpasses gross national product. The numbers released in an article on Reuters February 25, 2009 was a staggering 66 Trillion dollar debt, compared to 65 Trillion in GDP. That amounts to bankruptcy.

This year alone the trend reveals that there will be 3 huge market drops coinciding with the end of each business quarter and culminating in a third quarter collapse of the US dollar.

How long will the depression last? I don’t know, but I can tell you that it will be long enough that people will suffer and then beg for a solution that the central banks will gladly offer. I am betting that the offer by these Criminally Wealthy bastards will either be 4 major currencies quartered in 4 Global regions or 1 global one. Either way, it will be backed by silver and controlled by the same collusion of Private Central Bankers that engineered the depression in the first place.

How did we get in this MESS?

Well, lets look at 2 key factors. Oil, & Central Banks.

Facts about Oil:

1. Oil is the prime source of energy that has driven the economy.
2. It is the reason that the Worlds Population has increased over the last 100 years from 2 Billion to 6.5 Billion.
3. Oil has been the driving force of the Industrial age over the last 100 years and also what has driven the exponential growth in the production and transportation of our food.
4. Between 60 to 80 percent of the products we produce or consume is made up of Oil.
5. In 2005 the Global demand for oil had surpassed the Global supply and so we had exponential demand saddled with a dwindling supply triggering a huge rise in the cost of Oil, topping $147.00 a barrel at its peak.
6. A World economy that is driven by limited Oil supply cannot maintain continued growth because sustained growth is exponential.

Facts about the Monetary System

1. Central Banks are Privately owned by a few extremely wealthy families. These Private Bankers control the issuance of most of the World’s Currencies.
2. Central Banks are not Government owned.
3. When the stocks crash, the Central Banks cash in and there is massive ownership transfer. (Companies, Resource Rights, Gold, Land, smaller Banks, etc) They get it all if you cannot pay the monetary debt.

The Central Bank Conspiracy:

The Banking system in which money changes hands is rigged. All the money that the Central Bank prints is ultimately designed to go back to the very same Central Banks. A complete explanation of how this Banking system works can be found at the link below and for a limited time on the video screen above.

Money, Banking, & The Federal Reserve
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYZM58dulPE

Here is a simplified example of how this Ponzi scheme works.

Ex: When a government Treasury bond is exchanged for an amount of cash, say, $100.00, the Central Bank prints $100.00 and charges interest, typically 3 to 4%. However, the Central Bank does not print the additional money owed in interest and so the Government can never pay the Central Bank back the $104.00 because only $100.00 exists. Considering that this corrupt system has been employed for a long time and there has been a money supply in circulation, the Government must raises taxes or charge more for its services in order to pay back the loan to the Central Bank. The same system applies to the people and the ring of smaller private banks that run the daily routines.

Interest creates debt, and debt brings inflation because one needs to raise money on goods to pay back the debt to sustain growth. In this simple example the $104.00 debt cannot be paid back because there was only $100.00 printed and therefore the bank takes legal ownership of the collateral put up front to guarantee the loan. Incidentally, the interest is compound interest on the total Principal loan, so the total amount owed grows annually. Over time the debt begins to increase exponentially.

How is it paid back? The Government guarantees the Central bank that the debt will be paid back by the people in the form of taxes.

Now, take our example of $100.00 and substitute it with today’s reality…70 Trillion US dollars, with compound interest that dates back over many years. Are you starting to get a good picture of what we are facing?

If we only had to pay the principal amount of the loan back, we would not be in this mess and that is why the suggestion that we only pay back the principal loan to the Central Banks and not pay the compound interest sounds like the only thing to save our World from a devastating Catastrophe. Incidentally, the compound interest is 95% of the overall debt and has become so large that it is impossible to ever pay back.

Debt and Inflation

Debt creates inflation and is the reason why the price of a 3 Bedroom home at $12,000.00 in 1962 increased to $120,000.00 in 1978. Last year the same house cost $500,000.00. It is all due to inflation brought on by debt owed in Compound interest on a currency. Inflation cannot go on forever…anyone who believed that buying a house was a good investment never counted on deflation. The simple fact is that salaries have not increased in proportion to inflation on the currency, so eventually the bubble bursts.

The Oil Influence:

When Oil production in the USA peaked in 1970, America had to import more oil from foreign countries and therefore could no longer control the energy needed to sustain its growth. Don’t forget that OPEC, the main Oil Producing Nations of the World, flexed its muscles to end the Israeli / Arab War in 1973. That was after Richard Nixon removed the Gold Standard in 1971 and replaced it with a FIAT Currency system…namely the US dollar. The Oil producing nations then got together to increase the global price of oil…anyhow, the result was an economic recession that hit very hard.

Good info on the Gold Standard can be found at the link below.

Gold Standard
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Standard

See the link below for more information on OPEC

OPEC
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPEC

How did we emerge from the recession in the 70’s? Determination to find alternative fuels and…Credit Cards…Credit cards allowed people to consume and then pay later. As consumers we expanded growth and then put more demand on imported oil. However, to get people to use these credit cards, Salaries had to increase along with the inflation.

Credit Cards stimulated the economy but they brought compound interest on them that was much higher than the interest rates charged by the banks…money was not even printed in this buy now pay later exchange which increased the over all imbalance between printed money and the debt owed on the money!

The second Oil based recession happened in 1980. To get out of that recession we created Free Trade. Free trade made it easier for companies to set up shop in other countries, that had cheaper labor, whereby lowering the corporate bottom line and reducing prices on a wide range of items…however, the Home Computer age began in 1980 also. A brand new technology for home use was a great incentive to start buying again, after all how many TV’s, and stereo’s did we need in one home. Electronic miniaturization and the resulting products have fueled a growth in the electronics industry that has lasted 28 years.

But basically, we had become bigger consumers that become so debt ridden that we needed to include our neighbors to help us pay the debt. So an exchange was made through free trade. But that just put us all on the hamster wheel where we were working harder to payoff the ballooning dept. Salaries did not increase much but inflation sure did.

In 2001 we again hit a recession…we emerged from it by removing the regulations on Real estate. How typical of a panicked administration. With growth came a larger consumer base and demand for foreign oil. It wasn’t long before everyone was included in the Fiat currency debt to the Central banks.

All 3 of these quick fixes of past recessions accelerated the growth of Debt and created a massive debt bubble in each area, Credit, Real Estate, and Trade.

Don’t forget that interest on money is never printed and so, to pay it back you need to increase the prices on goods, taxes, etc…eventually the debt becomes so huge that there isn’t enough cash to pay it back…what is the Central Banks solution? Print a massive amount of money. The US Government calls it a Stimulus Package. The Federal Reserve Central Bank did not just ask for the US congress to pass a Stimulus Bill but in fact demanded it with no questions asked. Congress was even threatened with marshal law should they not pass it…but I digress. Let’s keep our heads and stick to the facts, some of which have been hidden for a long time.

Most World Currencies are “Legal Tender” and based on itself and not precious metal. That means that the more of it out there in circulation, the less its worth. Which brings me back to the interest rate. Most of the Worlds Central Banks have lowered the Interest rates on their currency to almost nothing (0.25% to 0%) such as the Federal Reserve. What this does in effect is to devalue the currency. The Central Banks are pushing governments to pass legislation on huge monetary stimulus packages in the order of hundreds of Billions of dollars to give to the banks to pay down this ballooning debt. That’s YOUR CHILDREN's FUTURE MONEY! Of coarse the Central Bank will print this money gladly and take more ownership from a Country’s real estate, resources and everything taxed…and we the people will have to pay it all back…with interest! In essence, we have become debt slaves to the Central Banks because it will be the people that owe the extremely wealthy all those Trillions of dollars that went into those "save the bank" funds. We are not saving the banks; the Banks are robbing us blind!!
If you follow the trends, you will see that the Fiat Currency (The US Dollar) is finished and the Central Banks will suggest replacing the devalued currency with a new one. Perhaps backed by silver. However, don’t forget in your rush to approve a new currency, private interests will still control the economic wealth and the same debt rules will apply. The satanic cycle of greed will continue whereby the Central Banks will get it all and we will be the losers…again.

Wait a minute! What about energy to drive the new economy that will emerge from the ashes? An economy that will have sustained growth?

Well, here are some things to ponder. Since energy is required to energize growth in an economic system and power the Oligarchy’s military, what energy source will replace fossil fuels to drive this new economy?

Can we risk a return to exponential growth with a limited energy source and risk another global War in the Oligarchy’s rush to claim the dwindling supplies? Population always grows when there is economic growth, but it also declines when the economy contracts due to starvation, war and disease.

The World’s population will contract severely if there is an economic depression with an energy shortage. War will descend on us masked in the form of competition for the dwindling supplies of oil that will keep debt economies alive. Make no mistake; we need to change who controls the issuance of currency. The Privately owned Central Banks must be removed so that we the people no longer live under totalitarian control or debt slavery.

Thanks for taking the time to read this post and if it made sense to you, please pass it on to others because in reality, we only have each other to rely on. Don’t count on those extremely wealthy families to do the moral thing. They never have in the past and will certainly NOT give a damn about us this time either! May we all survive and come out of this depression as free men and women with a World united in peace.

Regards,
Stewart Brennan

Unite Against Israeli War Criminals

2009-01-11T13:06:00.000-08:00

End the Israeli Genocide of the Palestinian People! ISRAEL IS COMMITTING War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity. Send a letter to The International Criminal Court of Justice and call for A War Crimes trial against the Israeli government and ANYONE THAT IS SUPPORTING THEM.

The International Criminal Court of Justice.

http://www.icc-cpi.int/

"The Office of the Prosecutor" at the International Criminal Court of Justice.
otp.informationdesk@icc-cpi.int

Below you will find my letter to the Office of The Prosecutor. Please feel free to copy it or write one of your own. The Children of Gaza need our help right now!

Letter dated: January 11th, 2009

Your Honor, Please, I beg of you to hear my sincere plea for help.

Israel is committing War Crimes, and Crimes Against Humanity in Gaza on the Palestinian people and must be stopped immediately.

Remembering the words of Chief Justice Jackson during the first War Crimes trial held in Nuremberg Germany in 1946.

“The privilege of opening the first trial in history for crimes against the peace of the world imposes a grave responsibility. The wrong’s which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant, and so devastating, that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored, because it cannot survive their being repeated.”

Chief Justice Jackson

If humanity is to survive and progress, we must take swift and legal action on Governments that employ Crimes on Civilian Populations such as the crimes being committed in Gaza by the Israeli Government. It is not acceptable to wait until these Israeli crimes are played out because many of the men, woman, and children in Gaza will not survive this brutal genocide. Let us not get caught up in words, because action is required immediately. Aggressive War is a Crime, and targeting a civilian population in War aggression is a “Crime Against Humanity”.

The integrity and embodiment of the United Nations has come under attack by the absolute refusal of Israel to cease its War agenda by continuing to attack the Palestinian general population, UN convoys, civilian shelters, hospitals, schools, and all Palestinian Infrastructure. The very survival of the United Nations body will come into question if it is powerless to put a stop to a genocide that is taking place.

If the I.C.C.J. does not inform and take action against Israel for the atrocities they are committing on the Palestinian people then the United Nations will have failed Humanity and we will descend in to very dark times. The International Criminal Court of Justice is the one beacon of light that remains in our War torn World, and granted, there are many cases before the Court, but you MUST speak out NOW! As a Human being, I demand that the International Criminal Court of Justice stand up for the innocent people in the Gaza Strip! If need be, ask a neutral power of the Security Council such as Russia, to send a peace keeping force into Gaza. Do something before it is too late for the thousands of innocent men, women, and children.

Urgently waiting,
Stewart Brennan
Winnipeg, Manitoba,
Canada

Report January 9th, 2009 by;

United Nations High Commission on Human Rights

http://www.unhchr.ch/huricane/huricane.nsf/view01/D78B7DAC697D3060C1257539003B5F3A?opendocument

Commissions Findings (Part 1)
http://mx.youtube.com/watch?v=S4av0mqaQNY&feature=email

Commissions Findings (Part2)
http://mx.youtube.com/watch?v=1k0RVyB4DuY&feature=channel_page

Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Pages/WelcomePage.aspx

Please join our letter campaign and put an end to Israel's evil aggression!

Israel Commits War Crimes… Again!

2008-12-27T15:20:00.001-08:00

By: Stewart Brennan

I condemn Israel for their continued War Crimes on the Palestinian People! I urge EVERY person on our planet to stand up and put an end to Israel’s brutal attacks on the Palestinian people. Boycott Israel, call your leaders and tell them to put a stop to these evil bastards. Let them know you have had enough of these Israeli war crimes, and if your leaders do not listen, then let them know that they will be held responsible and accountable! It is time that the entire World puts a stop to Israel’s evil aggression.

I am completely outraged at yet another violent attack by Israel on the Palestinian People, and I am ashamed of my own Country of Canada for not taking action! Words are NOT enough when War Crimes are being committed. Maybe Canada should send aid and peacekeepers to Palestine for their protection against Israel instead of whatever it is they are doing in Afghanistan?

Maybe other countries should consider protecting the Palestinian people also, and maybe we should tear down the wall that the Israelis have erected, or maybe we should blockade Israel all together until they stop their apartheid, military aggression, and genocide of the Palestinian people!!!

How can the leaders of the World sit back and allow Israel to carry out aerial attacks on innocent human beings? …How would you feel if Israeli planes, guns and bombs, targeted your children? To think that I had to watch and hear the screams of parents running with the lifeless bodies of their children in their arms grieves me to no end. The so called reporters would have you believe that Israel is justified for carrying out these attacks while the lifeless bodies of woman, children and men, lie blown to bits by evil aggression!

The Western News media does nothing to help stop this horror. Do they report the real news, or a one-sided propaganda smear? What about moral responsibility to humanity? Why are journalists not putting the tough moral questions to the so-called leaders of the Western World? Are they investigative Journalists or are they smear puppets in an Imperial News Corporation? If they are in conflict with their bosses, why don’t they organize so that they CAN bring the real news to the masses?

Our so called western media and Political leaders would have you believe that Israel is justified for killing woman and children, They will tell you that apartheid by Israel on the Palestinians is not happening, and that an elected government of Palestine is not legitimate. Is it me, or do they sound like they are a bunch of assholes backed by an Israeli Lobby group? AIPAC perhaps?

Israel has declared War on the Palestinian people and has subjected them to living as jailed or caged animals on strict rations, just like the Nazi’s did to the Jews of Europe in the 1930’s. Israeli Zionists enact the same brutality on the native inhabitants of Palestine as the Nazi’s did to the Jews of Europe. We are told in our schools, news mediums, and movies, to never forget what happened to the Jews of Europe. In fact, this has become so entrenched in Western Political Doctrine by Israeli lobby groups that they insist we remember or risk being branded as anti Semitic.

Well I will go one further, and say that a Zionist is the same as a Nazi, an evil-minded oppressionist that inflicts fear, hatred, and violence to justify their existence.

Maybe Great Britain and the USA should not have created Israel as a homeland for European Jews after World War 2. I am sure that my father, a veteran of WW2, would have been disgusted by the acts committed by this brutal Zionist regime. After all, he fought to end tyranny and oppression by the Nazi’s during WW2…and back then, the Western nations would have you believe that they were moral law abiding nations.

I am ashamed of all the Countries that continue to allow these brutal and evil attacks on human life. Who ever is in support of Israel and their justification for killing people in Palestine, Lebanon, or Syria, are incarnate monsters and the real problem of our World today. Attitudes such as that of Zionist Israel will destroy the World with War.

Is this what awaits my Children & Grand Children? More Wars? Maybe we need to replace those who pretend to rule the World in good faith. The way I see it, these so called leaders have done nothing but destroy life in their greedy attempt to demand a “New World Order”. A phrase Adolph Hitler used often when justifying the Third Reich. Western Leaders of today, use these words often, in fact it seems to be their sole agenda. Who are behind those words, and what do they really want?

The biggest Zionist Lobby Group is AIPAC. They will insist that Israel is justified for attacking the Palestinians and push their agenda with ALL Western Leaders. Christians, Jews, and Muslims DO NOT SUPPORT the Zionist agenda. There are 1000’s of ways to resolve conflict but Israel always uses brute force to kill hundreds of people every time they lash out…just like the Nazi’s did in the 1930’s after their ultimatums…

Israel has not evolved with moral principals and does not deserve any more patience by the people of the World. Israel should never have been imposed on the Palestinian people to begin with. Creating Israel was the single most destructive error made after World War 2.

Reform the U.N.

Its time to put an end to the post World War 2 U.N. Security Council. Peace is up to ALL nations and not the 5 Permanent members. Its time for ALL nations to have a say in international affairs. If the World is going to progress then it will be up to ALL nations to lead and not just 5 nations that dictate terms!

Moral decisions cannot be made with a United Nations controlled by the 5 permanent Security Council members. If the UN decides to grow up and reform the Security Council, we will then be in a position to take a moral path as a species where all mankind will be equal!

If the U.N. does not evolve and decides to maintain the status quo of a 5 Country dictatorship then the World will be doomed to the very worst that these blood thirsty nations can dream up…such as Israel, and the constant pardon they receive after committing atrocities.

I call on every Human Being to stand up! Stand up and let your voices be heard. Tell our leaders that Israel must be tried for War Crimes and that taking life is NOT acceptable. Free the Palestinian people!!!

Please see this very important video called Occupation 101 at the following link.

Occupation 101

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2451908450811690589&ei=BGxeSbqHMo3I-gGkx8SMBQ&q=occupation+101

Steven Harper Divides a Country

2008-12-07T13:19:00.000-08:00

The fiasco in Ottawa that the Harper Minority Government initiated last week has insulted a majority of Canadians while having the effect of tearing our country apart from a name calling session in which Medicare supporters were called socialists in league with separatists to destroy Canada. What the Hell were you thinking Mr. Harper? This type of fear mongering and labeling has divided our Country at a time when unity is called for.

For those who might not be aware, Canada’s Prime Minister Steven Harper and his Conservative Party were faced with a determined Coalition of political representatives elected by the majority of Canadians. Harper panicked after a vicious name calling session with uncalled for labeling that would have made US Republican Senator Joseph Raymond McCarthy smile in his Grave. The Conservatives grasped at the one thing that they thought could save their government, to “Prorogue” Parliament. The outcome has caused an immediate rift and division in this country, which may not heal for a long time. Was the name calling intended Mr. Steven Harper, or was it your genuine feelings of the Canadian people?

The Lead Up to Division:

Over the past 2 1/2 years, Steven Harper’s minority government has bullied the opposition into accepting Conservative legislation in the House of Commons. Some would say that weak opposition leaders failed to take advantage and were not able to agree on tactics to stop the Conservatives from railroading their agenda into law. That is a debate on its own, however, as a Canadian, I am not happy about the way Liberal leader Stephan Dion handled the Conservative legislation because, I was taught that when faced with confrontation you stand up for your principals while keeping an open mind. You then VOTE on them to show your character and moral stance if that is the situation as was Dion’s. You do NOT stand up, turn your back, stick your fingers in your ears and act as children. The consequences of those actions have now come to fruition.

If the Opposition Parties were afraid of the consequences that an election might have on their future, then an immediate change in leadership should have been the remedy. Looking back, Stephan Dion did not show a quality of character that people could admire and the Conservatives knew it when they called an election for last October 15th.

A word of advice to all politicians, when representing the people who voted for you, at the very least, you must show that you have moral values and backbone by opposing legislation that is pointed against the principals of your constituents and VOTE!

Advice to the Liberals:

The Liberals need to look at the immediate future and their options with the prospects of a dictatorial budget imposed on the Canadian people by a Conservative party that does not believe in Social Programs. On January 26th, not only will this be a confidence vote but a crucial point in Canadian History. If the Liberal Party does NOT replace Dion before this date and bring the Harper Government down on a non-confidence vote, the Conservatives will push their agenda forward against the majority of the people, and the wounds will deepen. The results will be disastrous and Canada will have a renewed Constitutional crisis during an economic tsunami that will most definitely cause hardship and political determination.

It is imperative that the Conservative government is brought down on the division issue, however, without a new Liberal leader, the month of May is a long time away and a non confidence vote in January would surely bring about the possibility of an election before May. In this situation, the Liberals are not ready to face the House with strength because with Dion at the helm, the Canadian people will not vote for a party, which has a leader that did not demonstrate backbone on fundamental principals that should have been demonstrated long ago. Liberals who turn their back, put their hands in their pockets, or simply do not vote on important issues do not get to stay on as Leader of the Opposition. Nor do they gain the respect of the Canadian people. The Stephan Dion Liberals embarrassed Canadians, and that is something the Conservatives know all too well.

On the other hand, if the Liberals choose a new leader before January 26th 2009, they will go into Parliament ready for what ever is thrown at them weather it is an election, or a coalition government. The Liberals may not get the full backing of Quebec voters, but it is even more likely that the Conservatives will lose all their backing in Quebec. A Majority government will then depend on the voters in Ontario; so don’t be surprised if the Conservatives focus their interests there.

Moving Forward?

The Harper Conservatives have decided that this is the time to pick on the Canadian people and create division in our nation, which in my mind is a treasonable offence on the Canadian People! Harper has demonstrated once again that dictators do indeed live in Canada and that his panicky response to “Prorogue” Parliament when faced with a determined opposition has divided the Country. The decision by Canada’s Governor General’s “Michaelle Jean”, to grant Stephen Harper his wish to “Prorogue Parliament” leaves a distasteful burning question as to the function of a position that is redundant and has ties to an overseeing monarchy from another Country.

The aftermath of this should be troubling to the Conservatives because they have just lost all their Federal votes in Quebec in the next election. The barometer in this fiasco will be the outcome of the Quebec Provincial election in mid December 2008. Some people may not remember that Quebec Provincial Premier Jean Charest was a Conservative under Brian Mulrooney in the 80’s and 90’s before he switched his focus to Provincial Politics and changed parties to become a Liberal. The timing of Harpers outburst against social program supporters and French Canadians stinks of dictatorial division wrapped up in an “I told you so” excuse to the Canadian people about Quebec separation.

Jean Charest will most assuredly loose the Provincial Election in Quebec on December 8th in large part to his own shortcomings, but now guaranteed due to Harpers outburst and finger pointing to the Quebec Separatists as nation killers. Harpers accusations have the French majority in Quebec furious with this perceived attack on their identity.

The wrath of Quebec’s francophone speaking majority will unfold with their choice of political parties in the coming Quebec Provincial election to make a point of their displeasure at Harper’s words. The ensuing focus of those political parties will be on the continued eradication of the English speaking community within Quebec.

The Anglophone community has been brutally attacked and nearly destroyed by apartheid type laws, which have set the standards in attitudes of the majority francophone citizens. Harpers comments will most assuredly put the final nails in a community’s coffin by an eager population that needs to focus blame.

The unrest does not just stop there. Out west in Alberta there is also talk about Separation and how the East doesn’t care about their interests. Are those people talking about politicians from the east or the people that live there when they focus their anger? It seems that Steven Harper is intent on creating division in this country and you have to wonder why.

The solution to this quagmire of political BS is for the Canadian people to call for Steven Harpers resignation, and for Mr. Dion, to CALL FOR A LIBERAL LEADERSHIP CONVENTION in early January!

To all political wannabee’s, if you want to see what the real majority of Canadians want or who the Harper Conservatives are? Please click on the link below and view the video taken at the Conservative convention in Winnipeg last November 15th. You have to wonder what they conspired about in their private convention that no one outside their party was allowed to attend.

Canadian Protest Nov. 15th 2008 Winnipeg Manitoba
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8rrAdMqqoE&eurl=http://www.youtube.com/user/minstral2

Block Harper Rally Nov 15th 2008 (Winnipeg)
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=block+harper+winnipeg+november+15&emb=0&aq=f#

Sincerely,
Stewart Brennan
(Former Irish Anglophone Resident from Quebec)

Steven Harper Must GO!

2008-12-03T19:26:00.001-08:00

Photo By: Stewart Brennan

The recent events that have transpired in Canadian Politics has left me in an extremely angry mood, ripe with hostility and ready to take an extremely angry stand against the Conservative government and Steven Harper. The insulting attack’s he aimed at the opposition parties these past days reflects his true feelings towards the majority of the Canadian people.

When Harper shouted obscenities in the House of Commons about socialists and separatists conspiring to kill Canada, he was really shouting insults at 65% of the Canadian people who did not vote for his Conservative Party. These fear mongering tactics have been seen more recently in the USA and in particular with George Bush’s Cabinet where fear mongering is the Conservative way. I swear I heard Stephen Harper allude to “Your either with us or against us!” Well I’ve had quite enough of this type of CRAP.

It seems to me that Steven Harper and the Conservatives are intent on destroying Canada by trying to suspend government at the most crucial of economic times by asking the Governor General to Prorogue the House of Commons.

I call on the Governor General to refuse Steven Harper’s request to Prorogue government and ask that Michaelle Jean allow our Canadian system of democracy to run its course. IF that means a vote of Non – Confidence, then so be it! Allow the coalition to govern afterwards so that Canadians will have someone steering the ship during this economic nightmare!

Did anybody notice all the fear mongering out of Harpers mouth? Harper has rekindled a constitutional crises and set up divisions between Canadians. HOW DARE HE! A continuation of this course will only result in the destruction in the foundation of our Country. Canada voted but did not give you a majority Mr. Harper because they do not trust you, and rightly so. Its time for you to GO!

Sincerely,
Stewart Brennan
Winnipeg, Manitoba

The Madness We Call Reality

2008-11-01T13:02:00.000-07:00

This is a repost of an article I wrote a year ago (Oct 20th 2007)

Everyday we engage in a pressure cooker of daily routines that become more complex and energy consuming as time passes. These sophisticated routines we burden ourselves with, squeezes every last bit of energy out of us until we are practically disabled. What is it that has all of us in a mindless hurry? What is it that empowers us to be an active participant in this “thing” that drives our daily lives and society? Is it real or imagined? I say its time to take a good look at this madness we call reality.

What is this… “Thing”?

It has been chipping away at the foundation of civilization for a very long time. It has crept into and has woven a belief within our minds, and it guides us in everything we do. Those that have control of this “thing” dictate our very existence. “They” use it against us and control our actions with it. “They” will say anything and do everything to grab our attentions away from knowing the truth. They bombard us with planned suggestion to support this “thing” that they control.

The “thing” I am taking about is “money”, and “They” the “Private Bankers”, are the ones who control and Print it. We are totally subservient to them and their money system. It has disconnected us from our free collective ability and isolated us from each other.

Civilization should be based on the wonderful capabilities and accomplishments that humanity has achieved and not on money. Humanity should not be controlled by a few individuals but by the moral pillars of what is honest, and truthful in a just society.

Commercialism impedes our focus on reality:

You can call this monetary system a misguided direction or plan, or whatever you want…Capitalism, Imperialism, or Dictatorship, it doesn’t matter. The real problem, and driver of the current system is the moneymaker, his printed-paper, and an idea called financial wealth.

If we choose to remain on this path of “financial wealth”, we will always be controlled by the few that have set their sights on acquiring and controlling anything and everything. If we continue to embrace this system of money and not in the ability of our collective selves, mankind will perish from the Earth.

Remember, “Wealth is in the Soul”, not the bank, or stock market.

What Do We Do?

Today, our survival is in the hands of corrupt bankers and corporations that hire politicians to make laws that benefit the corrupt few instead of the population.

If mankind is to survive, he must evolve out of the illusion that economics portrays and into the Global reality of unity. The reality is that we need to help each other to progress as a species. The purpose in life is not enslavement by debt, but to work collectively for the betterment of mankind or the society. We need to remove the illusion of monetary wealth. Real wealth is not in a bank account, precious metal, or abundance of material. “Wealth is in the Soul”! Imagine a World without money.

Private Bankers and their system of financial wealth have created a World that is dysfunctional. It enslaves society to keep it running. The leaders of the financial system decide on who gets food, water, medicine, and who lives and dies. It makes weapons of mass destruction, and makes tyrants and slaves. Money is the root of all our problems.

A “Society based on money” robs us of our ability to think freely. Our attentions are taken away by commercialism via communication devices like the cell phone, television, radio, and Internet. All of which portray an unrealistic bubble that most people have come to believe is reality. The system is blindly supported by many and not questioned because those that control the system have told you not to question it.

Together we can remove the oppression that money and corrupt officials have imposed on society. Lets create a “World United” where everyone goes to sleep on a full stomach, has enough water to sustain themselves, has the medicine to treat sickness, and schools to teach the values and responsibilities of being alive. Lack of Money should not impede our helping others. It is morally wrong to say that helping someone costs too much! Remove the controlling element of money from society and the future begins to look brighter.

Basic Survival:

Many of us have forgotten how to take care of ourselves and those around us when money is not involved, and I am sure the prospect scares you. The reality is that we have been disconnected from nature and do not have control of our destiny. We need to regain control of our lives… We are supposed to be integrated with nature...that is what is missing in our lives! That missing element in your life, the hole in your soul, that void we try and fill but never seem to satisfy…is our connection to nature.

One day, everything will stop…No more “Grid Electricity”, no more running water, transportation, which means no more food deliveries to stores. Think about how you would survive without electricity…no more communications. TV, radio, Internet, telephones, will all be silent. No more modern day communications.

Does anyone remember how to build a fire, purify water, gather food, build their own shelters, know what plants and roots will cure your ailments? The world we know or knew will be gone, and that can be scary, but it doesn’t have to be.

Knowledge is your Salvation:

Our Grandparents or great grandparents and for some of us, our parents, knew how to survive hard times. They also warned us about the Private bankers and their money. My generation grew up without knowledge of hard times. We are the TV generation, born and raised.

Right now, we need to prepare for the collapse of the American Empire and the financial system that controls the World…and that means to learn everything about basic survival.

We need to get involved now by building trust in our communities. Reconnect with nature. We have to approach life as a unified community. The very lives of our children and grand children depends upon it.

Money and its guarantee of greed is the destroyer of our World. It is the sole reason for war. All crimes committed are sprung directly or indirectly from greed and the society that money created. In a future world devastated by economic upheaval…survival will come down to who was ready.

Disconnected from Nature:

We are now completely disconnected from nature and our symbiotic relationship with it. Individually, we no longer know how to provide the basic needs we require to survive. We are completely dependant on the function of the current economic system and the direction we have embraced is leading us to complete destruction. But now, “The Financial System” appears to be feeding on its self.

The foundation on which our modern world is built is crumbling, and with it the whole world will fall because government would have you believe that being a social society is evil when in fact it is quite the opposite.

Humanity needs strong characters to stand up against the endless waves of anger, brutality, and oppression that are systematically removing Human Rights and freedoms of the individual. It is up to everyone that reads this plea to stand up and make a difference in his or her perspective countries and or communities. Not one country, province, or state, and not one individual can escape the oppression that the World Bank and ruling class have imposed upon us. The time to act is NOW!

Be prepared; get back in touch with your surroundings and your community. Plan for the survival of your community in a long-term disaster scenario, and do it collectively together. We depend on each other to survive. We cannot do it alone. Be at peace.