MAY LOVE PREVAIL ON EARTH
June 23, 2006
The Big Scoop Series #13: All That Matters - for now!
Hello everyone!
Here is what I've had time to review and gather for your information in the past 13 days.
I wish you all a very good summer ;-)
Jean Hudon
Earth Rainbow Network Coordinator
P.S. Your feedbacks are as always welcomed and may be included in a coming compilation - unless you prefer they are not. Circulating this compilation (or any part of it) and personally inviting your correspondents to subscribe to this list would also help enlarge the circle of people who have access to this material. Please include the following note and the URL address for the archived copy below along with your forwards, so others may have the opportunity to explore the original copy, if they so choose.
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"Punctured is the complacency and self-delusional attitude of millions of people with regard to their views and perspectives on themselves and the world. Gone is the illusion of a "normal" life of consumerism and business-as-usual. Shaken is the sense of having a firm grasp on our plans for the future, blissfully oblivious to the hardship endured by other less fortunate people around the world. Because of the normalcy-shaking effect of the recent World Trade Center tragedy and its ensuing consequences around the world, a growing number of people are shifting their priorities to more essential pursuits and opening their hearts to each other, helping each other and loving each other more fully and more openly than ever before. As a result, there is an even greater momentum towards unification of soul and spirit with the all encompassing Plan of our Divine Creator for our collective upliftment to new heights of spiritual awareness and accomplishment".
— Taken from Choosing Love Over Fear, Expressing our Innate Goodness (October 28, 2001)
"You are an inspiration and guiding light. Thank you on behalf of all humankind."
— Message left in the ERN guestbook by Joyce A. Kovelman asoul1@aol.com> (http://www.essentialsforasoul.com) on 2006-06-12
CONTENTS
1. Shine Your Light on the International Day of Peace!
2. Use of Torture at Diego Garcia
3. CCR Action to Fight Torture
4. New Earth Council Newsletter
5. WOMEN - Please Stand Up Against This Shit!
6. WHERE IS THE VOICE OF SANITY?
7. The Story Behind Zarqawi's Death
8. IS DEFENSE CONTRACTOR MITRE CORP. THE TROJAN HORSE OF 9/11?
9. Former CIA Analyst Says Iran Strike Set For June Or July
10. Permafrost melt could speed up global warming
11. Whalers secure crucial vote win in bid to overturn ban
12. The Perfect Stonewall
13. June 19 Message from Matthew
14. IMPORTANT MORGELLONS DISEASE INFORMATION
15. Misdiagnosis and Lyme Disease
16. Boylan Report: Astronaut Mitchell Talks About ETs
17. April 14, 1964 - The Day The Earth Stood Still
18. Report: U.S. May Have Been Abused During Formative Years
19. Ramadi: Fallujah Redux
See also:
BIG SURPRISES AT BILDERBERG
EVEN POLICE-STATE SECURITY CANNOT SILENCE HONEST MEDIA - By James P. Tucker Jr.
http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/big_surprises_at_bilderberg.html
Bilderberg expects interest rates to rise and many Americans to lose theirhomes in the months ahead. Meanwhile, they hope they can pressure President Bush to refrain from an all-out invasion of Iran while maintaining oil prices at their current record-high levels of about $70 a barrel. Timothy Geithner, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, predicted rising interest rates and difficulties for families that have obtained adjustable rate mortgages, or "variable" interest rates. Many are likely to lose their homes as rising home mortgage rates add hundreds of dollars to their monthly payments, he said. While most listened solemnly and some expressed concern, one was heard to say, "stupid Americans deserve their fate." Many Americans, especially young families, have been buying expensive homes at low but "variable" interest rates. Others have been paying just the interest owed on their homes and not the principal. They are the most vulnerable, Geithner said. Some have paid little or nothing down. Some institutions "lend" buyers the down payment. When home construction peaks and prices start downward, many will find they owe more on their home than it is worth in the marketplace. They will also find their mortgageãeven "interest-only" paymentsãare unaffordable. The banks will get the homes back and sell them again. Again, the term "stupid Americans" was heard among clucks of sympathy or silent indifference. According to one source, no concern was expressed by Allan Hubbard, assistant to President Bush for economic policy. European Bilderbergers said they would have no part in an invasion of Iran, something Bush says is an "option on the table." Although NATO is helping by adding 9,000 troops in Afghanistan, expect no help if Iran is invaded, they said. "We will not help you fight a war for Israel," one said. Several noted that Israel has had nuclear weapons since at least 1963 and has never signed on to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, so no international inspections are conducted. It was the late George Ball, a charter member of Bilderberg who was No. 2 man in the State Department under presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, who first revealed that Israel has nuclear weapons. CLIP
US Airstrikes Rise in Afghanistan as Fighting Intensifies
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/061806B.shtml
As fighting in Afghanistan has intensified over the past three months, the US military has conducted 340 airstrikes there, more than twice the 160 carried out in the much higher-profile war in Iraq, according to data from the Central Command, the US military headquarters for the Middle East.
Karzai Criticizes U.S.-Led Coalition (June 22, 2006) http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-5904887,00.html
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - President Hamid Karzai criticized the U.S.-led coalition's anti-terror campaign Thursday, deploring the deaths of hundreds of Afghans and appealing for more financial help for his government. Karzai's sharp assessment came as Osama bin Laden's deputy urged Afghans to revolt against coalition forces, and four more U.S. soldiers were killed. More than four years after U.S.-led forces toppled the extremist Taliban government, Afghanistan is gripped by its deadliest spate of post-invasion violence. To try curb the bloodshed, more than 10,000 coalition forces have launched a major offensive against militants across southern Afghanistan. More than 600 people, mainly militants, have been killed since May. But Karzai, who has previously scorned large-scale anti-militant campaigns, rejected the continued spilling of Afghan blood in military operations. "It is not acceptable for us that in all this fighting, Afghans are dying. In the last three to four weeks, 500 to 600 Afghans were killed. (Even) if they are Taliban, they are sons of this land,'' a clearly frustrated Karzai told reporters in Kabul. CLIP
Afghan Violence Kills More Than 500
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/061106Z.shtml
The worst three weeks of violence since the fall of the Taliban have left more than 500 people dead, the US-led coalition said Saturday.
Sri Lanka on Brink of War
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/061806F.shtml
Violence escalated in Sri Lanka yesterday when government forces stormed a Catholic church where 200 people had sought refuge, opening fire and hurling grenades at civilians cowering inside. Witnesses say at least five died and scores were injured. Sri Lanka is again on the brink of all-out civil war.
Rivals Agree to Somalia Peace Deal (June 22)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/062206T.shtml
Somalia's government and the Islamic group that controls the capital have agreed to end military campaigns at peace talks in Sudan.
Climbdown as Hamas agrees to Israeli state (June 22, 2006)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1803008,00.html
Hamas has made a major political climbdown by agreeing to sections of a document that recognise Israel's right to exist and a negotiated two-state solution, according to Palestinian leaders.In a bitter struggle for power, Hamas is bowing to an ultimatum from the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, to endorse the document drawn up by Palestinian security prisoners in Israeli jails, or face a national referendum on the issue that could see the Islamist group stripped of power if it loses. But final agreement on the paper, designed to end international sanctions against the Hamas government that have crippled the Palestinian economy, has been slowed by wrangling over a national unity administration and the question of who speaks for the Palestinians. Yasser Abed Rabbo, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organisation's executive committee and a lead negotiator on the prisoners' document, said Hamas had agreed to sections which call for a negotiated and final agreement with Israel to establish a Palestinian state on the territories occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem. "Hamas is prepared to accept those parts of the document because they think it is a way to get rid of a lot of its problems with the international community. That's why it will accept all the document eventually," he said. CLIP
Israeli Prime Minister Apologizes for Deadly Airstrikes (June 22, 2006)
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2105886
Israeli Prime Minister Olmert Apologizes for Recent Airstrikes That Killed Palestinian Civilians PETRA, Jordan (AP)— Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert apologized Thursday for the deaths of Palestinian civilians in recent Israeli army airstrikes after meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at an informal breakfast in Jordan. Some 13 Palestinian civilians have been killed in Israeli airstrikes in the past week, including two people in a Gaza house on Wednesday and three children in Gaza on Tuesday. Olmert said he felt "deep regret for the death of innocent Palestinians." "It is against our policy and I am very, very sorry," he added. Olmert did not mention a June 9 beach explosion in which another eight Palestinian civilians were killed. Palestinians blame Israel for that incident, but Israel has denied responsibility. Maj. Gen. Eliezer Shakedi, the Israeli air force commander, said in Israel, however, that the airstrikes would continue. The increasing number of errors were largely due to more militant activity in densely populated areas, he said. "We have to make a great effort to try everything possible to avoid hitting civilians," he told Israel's Army Radio. "We have to fight terrorism and we are doing it," he said, adding that the airstrikes were "the most accurate and the best possible option without launching a broad and very significant (ground) operation." Olmert and Abbas had breakfast with Jordan's King Abdullah II in the ancient Jordanian town of Petra the first meeting between top Israeli and Palestinian leaders in a year. After the informal get-together, they pledged to meet again within weeks. The two leaders shook hands, embraced and kissed each other on the cheek. Asked about his handshake with Olmert, Abbas said, "It was very warm, very warm."
Fallujah II, US Takes Aim at Ramadi
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/061106A.shtml
Fears of an imminent offensive by the US troops massed around the insurgent stronghold of Ramadi intensified Saturday, with residents pouring out of the city to escape what they describe as a mounting humanitarian crisis.
Leaked Memo Reveals Plight of Iraqis
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/062006D.shtml
A leaked cable from the US embassy in Baghdad signed by the ambassador paints a grim picture of Iraq as a country disintegrating, in which the real rulers are the militias, and the central government counts for nothing. The cable, signed by the US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and sent to the State Department in Washington on June 6th, is wholly at odds with the optimistic account of developments given by President George Bush and Tony Blair in their recent visits to Iraq.
Church opens to troops who refuse deployment Providing 'sanctuary' after officer rejected order to go to Iraq (June 17, 2006)
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=50686
1st Lt. Ehren Watada refused to go to Iraq A U.S. Army officer's refusal to fight in Iraq has prompted a Methodist Church in Tacoma, Wash., to declare itself a sanctuary for military personnel who also reject deployment orders. The administrative council for the First United Methodist Church of Tacoma voted to open its doors, beginning today, after 1st Lt. Ehren Watada declared he wouldn't go to Iraq because he believes the war is illegal, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported. The 300-member congregation said in a statement Wednesday that servicemen and women "who are unable to deploy to combat areas for reasons of conscience" can find protection behind its doors. Rev. Monty Smith said the church stands in solidarity with those who share its social-justice convictions. "Our initiative was because of Lieutenant Watada's gesture and a clear sense that we have, as a reconciling congregation, deeply involved in justice issues throughout the city, that any war, particularly this one, is inconsistent with Christian teachings," he told the Seattle paper. CLIP
Lieutenant Watada Refused Iraq Deployment Orders Today (June 22)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/062206S.shtml
First Lieutenant Ehren Watada became the first commissioned officer to publicly refuse orders to deploy to the Iraq war at 2:30 this morning. Hours before his refusal, Lieutenant Watada confirmed his steadfast opposition to the Iraq war.
Japan to Withdraw Its Troops From Iraq
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/062006K.shtml
Japan's government will withdraw its troops from Iraq, ending a mission that broke post-war taboos by sending its troops into foreign combat zones for the first time since 1945.
Suicides Triple in New Orleans Aftermath
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/062106F.shtml
New Orleans is experiencing what appears to be a near epidemic of depression and post-traumatic stress disorders, one that mental health experts say is of an intensity rarely seen in this country. It is contributing to a suicide rate that state and local officials describe as close to triple what it was before Hurricane Katrina struck and the levees broke 10 months ago.... Many people who are not at serious risk of suicide are nonetheless seeing their lives eroded by low-grade but persistent feelings of sadness,hopelessness and stress-related illnesses, doctors and researchers say. All this goes beyond the effects of 9/11 and the Oklahoma City bombing, Mr.Curie said. Beyond those of Hurricanes Andrew, Hugo and Ivan. "We've been engaged much longer and with much more intensity in this disaster than in previous disasters," he said. At the end of each day, Sergeant Glaudi returns to his own wrecked neighborhood and sleeps in a government-issued trailer outside what used to be home. "You ride around and all you see is debris, debris, debris," he said. And that is a major part of the problem, experts agree: the people of New Orleans are traumatized again every time they look around.
When Will Mainstream Media Question 2004 Election?
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/061106C.shtml
Kenneth F. Bunting writes: "Robert Kennedy Jr.'s Rolling Stone mega-essay is titled 'Was the 2004 Election Stolen?' If you were looking in the five or six days afterward for follow-up stories, investigations or even a mention in the P-I, its cross-town competitor or just about any other major US newspaper, you were almost certainly disappointed."
Fire Sale in the Forests (June 19, 2006)
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/19/opinion/19mon3.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=print
The Bush administration has been having a tough time selling the nation's governors on its misguided decision to stop protecting nearly 60 million acres of roadless national forest from new logging and development. Thanks to the administration's own missteps, that task just got tougher.Rescinding the "roadless rule" imposed by President Bill Clinton in 2001 was the centerpiece of a broader administration strategy to make things easier for the timber industry by rolling back an array of environmental protections. Claiming that the governors had not been properly consulted in 2001, the Forest Service proposed a new rule that invited states to make recommendations about which roadless areas should be protected but left the final determination to Washington.The administration also promised ˜ including in a letter to The Times last year from Mark Rey, the new policy's main architect ˜ that it would provide "interim protection" to all roadless areas until the governors had submitted their plans.The administration broke that promise earlier this month when it took bids on a logging project in Oregon's Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest, despite Gov. Theodore Kulongoski's repeated and urgent pleas to leave the forest alone. Mr. Rey's underlings defend the sale as a necessary salvage and cleanup operation in a forest badly damaged by wildfire in 2002. Leaving aside the question of whether burned forests should be logged or allowed to regenerate ˜ a matter of scientific dispute ˜ this was a highhanded gesture that can only generate ill will.Which is the last thing Mr. Rey needs. California, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington State have gone to court to restore the Clinton plan, arguing that the Bush rule gives lip service to states' rights while opening the door to excessive logging and destruction of important watersheds. Several other states have told Washington that they want all their roadless acreage protected, as it was by the Clinton rule.Mr. Rey, a wily veteran of the timber wars not previously known for shooting himself in the foot, would be well advised to reconsider his strategy, beginning with a cancellation of the Oregon sale.
A BioGems victory in Hawaii! - by "Frances Beinecke, NRDC President" biogemsdefenders@savebiogems.org> http://www.savebiogems.org
I have great news to report to you about the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, where our BioGems campaign has been advocating stepped-up protection for a vibrant marine ecosystem that harbors 70 percent of America's coral reefs.The Bush administration has just designated this remote island archipelago as a national monument -- granting it the strictest protection possible under the law! This designation builds on the process begun by President Clinton's executive order of 2000.The reserve will span some 140,000 square miles -- an area nearly the size of Montana -- in the Pacific Ocean northwest of Hawaii. This fragile region supports more than 7,000 marine species, including the endangered Hawaiian monk seal and the threatened green sea turtle.The Northwestern Hawaiian Islands is one of the most pristine and diverse ocean environments in U.S. waters, yet it continues to face threats from commercial fishing, pollution and other dangers. Last year, NRDC added the region to our BioGems Watchlist. As the world's largest marine reserve, these islands will now receive immediate and lasting protection. Access for native Hawaiian cultural activities will be allowed, but harmful practices will be prohibited. And commercial fishing will be phased out entirely over the next five years.
Global Village News and Resources Issue 111 - June, 2006 - Editorial http://www.gvnr.com/111/1.htm
Changing attitudes towards climate change are sweeping the globe as we write. Global warming is steadily moving from a prediction to a reality and an international effort is emerging to tackle it. Local grass-roots action keeps growing, but it is the attitudes of the mainstream media, governments and industry that are now changing and really causing a stir.In this edition of GVNR we examine action being taken by organisations and individuals around the world, including a look at the action being taken by US Mayors to reduce greenhouse emissions in their cities and the growing US movement towards adopting the Kyoto agreement, in spite of Bush’s inaction. CLIP
The Flow of Time and the Power to Manifest - Archangel Michael through Celia Fenn
http://www.starchildglobal.com/
Dearest Children of Light, June 2006 will be a very powerful month. The energies are filled with potential and healing, and you are being guided in your first steps in this new reality of the Fifth Dimensional Earth. This year, 2006, has already seen incredible shifts and changes in the Earth's energetic matrix, as the planet settles into her new multi-dimensional grid. And already, you are beginning to feel the flows of the 8:8:8 vibrational harmonic that will be the signature of this year's Lion's Gate energy in August. This energy is about Time, and how you work with the flows of Time in the Fifth Dimension and Higher. So already you are feeling a substantial difference in the nature of time in your new reality. CLIP
Great News Clip on $2.3 Trillion Missing from Pentagon
http://www.bushflash.com/yt06.html
Recommended by "Kathleen Roberts" weerkhr@pacbell.net> who wrote: "3-minute clip. 25% of taxpayer dollars allocated to Pentagon are lost every year. Two whistleblowers talk. Can you say "Black Ops"?"
GOVERNMENT ORDERS SPY BLIMP (June 16, 2006)
http://www.freemarketnews.com/WorldNews.asp?nid=15095
The government has hired defense subcontractor Lockheed Martin to design and develop an enormous blimp that will be used to spy on Americans, according to the Athens News. Government agencies such as the NSA are anticipating that as early as 2009 the blimp will be operational and begin supporting new ways of monitoring everything that happens in the country.A prototype of the blimp is already being developed at a cost of $40 million. The spy ship, called the High Altitude Airship, will be seventeen times larger than the Goodyear Blimp and hover 12 miles above the ground. Although it is very large it will be invisible to both the naked eye and ground radar because of its distance from the earth. Fuel economic and self sufficient, it will be powered by solar energy and will be able to fly for years at a time.The U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command has already conducted a study to determine some of the uses of the spy ship. It has the capability of monitoring an area 600 miles in diameter at a time with surveillance equipment, such as high-resolution cameras. The government has ordered 11 of them ˆ enough to monitor every parcel of land in the U.S.
Omega-News Collection 17. June 2006
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/2188185/
1.
Date: 13 June 2006
Subject: Shine Your Light on the International Day of Peace!
From: Deborah Moldow deborah@worldpeace.org>
Beloved Lightworkers,
Your help is needed to anchor the light on the International Day of Peace, September 21st. Today is the beginning of the 100-day countdown.
The 191 Member States of the United Nations all approved UN General Assembly Resolution A/RES/55/282 fixing the date for the International Day of Peace as 21 September and declaring “that the International Day of Peace shall henceforth be observed as a day of global ceasefire and non-violence, an invitation to all nations and people to honour a cessation of hostilities for the duration of the Day...”
For the past 24 years, the International Day of Peace has been a catalyst for individuals, nations and civil society to unite in our shared yearning for a world at peace. Thousands of activities have taken place, coordinated by governments, individuals and a network of more than 1,000 civil society organizations in at least 106 nations! And yet the Day has not been well reported or recognized – until this year.
People around the world are slowly awakening to the International Day of Peace and the opportunity it offers for action in concert on all levels, manifesting the oneness of humanity. This Day belongs to all citizens of the planet! So let the musicians play, let the activists demonstrate, let the religious pray, let the students learn – and let all the people celebrate!
Your mission (should you choose to accept it!) is to provide the spiritual support for all of these activities to help create the shift in consciousness we know must come. Let your community know about this Day. Lead a Minute of Silence for World Peace at 12 noon in your home, your town, your school, your office or around a Peace Pole. Offer your prayers and meditation for world peace.
Together, let us raise the vibration of the entire planet on the International Day of Peace by joining in the powerful, universal prayer, "May Peace Prevail on Earth!"
We all know the power of our shared intention: let us focus our heart energy together on September 21st, across the planet, to create a new culture of peace for all our human family.
Resources for International Day of Peace activities worldwide can be found at:
http://www.internationaldayofpeace.org
http://www.idpvigil.com
http://www.worldpeace.org/peaceday.html
Thank you for the love and light you shine!
May Peace Prevail on Earth!
Deborah Moldow
The World Peace Prayer Society
The International Day of Peace NGO Committee at the United Nations
The United Religions Initiative Global Council
---
DEBORAH ALSO WROTE...
"Infinite gratitude for the amazing, unique and important service you provide. There are countless people like me who depend on the information you send as a counterbalance to all those other constricted media out there. And special thanks for the inspiring messages from Matthew, giving us real hope in these turbulent times."
2.
Date: 12 Jun 2006
From: Ariel Ky gemstonedeva@yahoo.com>
Subject: Use of Torture at Diego Garcia
June 11, 2006
Hello, Jean,
Thank you for compiling this monster compilation. I know how much time and effort it represents for you, and I am deeply grateful for all of your work. Your newsletter is my primary source of news.
I would like to comment about the articles on the International Committee of the Red Cross confession of failure to assist the Jews who were exterminated in WWII in concentration camps. That is all very well and good that they are coming forward in this way, but what about the ICRC failure to do much to investigate the prisoners being tortured at Diego Garcia? Again, the place where the worst atrocities are happening is the place they do very little about, just as in WWII.
I am clipping in correspondence that highlights the ICRC approach to the use of torture at Diego Garcia, followed by the first part of the article I have been writing about it.
A Letter to the ICRC regarding Diego Garcia
2 December, 2003
Dear Dr. Kellenberger,
I don't know whether you saw the remarkable statement by Lord Justice Steyn on the detention of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay.
I wrote to Lord Steyn about the related matter on which we have exchanged correspondence earlier, which concerns the matter of whether some prisoners are being "rendered" by the American authorities for interrogation on the island of Diego Garcia. This was denied by Baroness Amos in the House of Lords, but there have been insistent claims to the effect that it has been true. Firstly, the Washington Post reporter (26 December 2002) who had initially made these charges, told me that he still believed them to be true. Then there were various charges which I had relayed to Lord Steyn in the enclosed letter.
I asked the British Government whether the press could be admitted to Diego Garcia, and whether they would invite the ICRC to examine conditions there. They insisted that the question does not arise. Is it possible for you to make enquiries in order to be satisfied about the truth of this matter?
With my respect and good wishes.
Yours sincerely,
Ken Coates
P.S: There is now a report in The Times newspaper that a Republican Guard General in Iraq has died under interrogation by US military. What is the explanation for this? What can be done to protect these prisoners? I presume that there can be no doubt that these people qualify as prisoners of war, and are entitled to your protection as such.
Geneva, 18 December 2003
A Reply from the ICRC to Professor Ken Coates
Dear Professor Coates,
Thank you for your letter dated December 2, 2003. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has taken note of the Washington Post article you refer to and other reports in the media referring to the United States interning persons at Diego Garcia. As I indicated to you in a previous mail dated 19 March 2003, the ICRC has also raised this issue with the US authorities. So far, they have not notified the ICRC of any persons interned at Diego Garcia.
To answer the first question that you raise in your letter, I would like to point out that the ICRC is not an investigating body and that it does not have the capacity or mandate to carry out enquiries. The ICRC relies on the cooperation of detaining authorities to be notified of the detention of any persons that may fall under the ICRC's mandate. If the ICRC has the feeling that the authorities are not volunteering all the information, it will actively try to establish the whereabouts of detainees and will intervene with the responsible authorities in order to request access to them. The content and nature of such interventions remain strictly confidential.
As for your second question concerning the article in The Times newspaper, for reasons of confidentiality, I am not in a position to comment on this article but I have transmitted it to the persons in the ICRC who are in charge of supervising the visits to places of detention in Iraq.
On the last comment that you made regarding protection of prisoners of war, I must specify that prisoners of war are not under the protection of the ICRC but rather of the Geneva Conventions. The role of the ICRC, as custodian of the Geneva Convention, is to verify that the provisions contained in International Humanitarian Law aiming at protecting persons deprived of freedom are respected.
Yours sincerely,
Dr Jakob Kellenberger (The President)
---
Torture at Diego Garcia?
by Ariel Ky
June 12, 2006
Diego Garcia, a small island in the Indian Ocean that has served as the U.S. military base for the bombing of Iraq and Afghanistan, is rumored to be the most secret detention center where top suspected terrorists are interrogated and tortured. Supposedly they are kept on board ships and moved onto the island for interrogation sessions at Camp Justice.
Officially, nobody knows for certain what is happening at Diego Garcia. Geographically remote, almost a thousand miles from other land, the entire island has been converted into a top secret military base. No human rights organizations have been allowed to visit the island to investigate allegations of torture. ICRC has not been given any lists of prisoners detained there.
The American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights First have been more proactive. They have taken action on the behalf of prisoners who have been tortured in Afghanistan and Iraq by suing Secretary Rumsfeld. In one of the latest developments of this lawsuit, after Rumsfeld argued that he is immune to a lawsuit, Lucas Guttentag, the lead counsel in the lawsuit and director of the ACLU Immigrants‚ Rights Project responded, “The Constitution prohibits the Secretary of Defense from adopting or permitting policies of torture or cruelty against civilians detained in U.S. military custody.”
Lucas waxed eloquent refuting Rumsfeld's claim of immunity, “He and the other defendants seem to believe that the Constitution is irrelevant if the victims are foreign nationals tortured outside the United States. That is not the law, and the courts are able to hold government officials accountable for the horrors of Abu Ghraib and the widespread abuse that resulted from the Rumsfeld policies.” (More information about the case including the latest filing and the amicus brief can be found online at: http://www.aclu.org/rumsfeld and http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/lawsuit)
Despite this promising action, torture at Diego Garcia has still not been addressed. The British government has issued statements that no prisoners are detained at Diego Garcia, based on assurances by the U.S. government. The U.S. government has simply ignored requests by human rights organizations for information about Diego Garcia or denied permission for an inspection. Amnesty International wrote to William S. Farish, the US Ambassador to Britain, to inquire about "stress and duress tactics" used on Diego Garcia's prisioners, but were stonewalled.
However, according to a Newsday article cited in a Washington Monthly article dated May 10, 2004, detention facilities do exist at Diego Garcia. "The facilities in Iraq, in Afghanistan, at Guantanomo Bay, Cuba, and in the Indian Ocean of Diego Garcia were set up under Rumsfeld's control." And Gordon Thomas, a well-known British author who has written 50 books about intelligence agencies, did write explicitly about Diego Garcia, "Highly placed intelligence sources in Pakistan and Washington have revealed that over thirty al Qaeda suspects have been kidnapped by CIA snatch squads and flown to Diego Garcia in the chartered Lears."
I contacted Gordon Thomas by e-mail to verify the information he had about torture at Diego Garcia. Thomas responded to my message by calling me from England, telling me that he had personally spoken to Mossad agents who had flown into Diego Garcia to conduct interrogations.
Gordon Thomas put me in touch with an ex-CIA agent in Poland, who I communicated with last fall about the use of torture. This agent informed me that many CIA agents were opposed to the extremes of torture that were being used today in the war against terrorism and also confirmed the use of torture at Diego Garcia by the CIA.
The U.S. has military bases in over 100 countries. Each of these bases has served at one time or another to detain prisoners, the ghost detainees who are moved again and again in the U.S. global prison gulag, from one country to another. Senator Leahy called for an investigation into these detention centers (see Congressional Record: July 22, 2004 (Senate) Page S8653-S8656), Attempts to Obtain Administration Memorandums:
“In addition, there are detention facilities that multiple sources have reported are maintained by the United States in various officially undisclosed locations, including facilities in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Jordan, on the British possession of Diego Garcia, and on U.S. war ships at sea. U.S. Government officials have alluded to detention facilities in undisclosed locations, declining to deny their
existence or refusing to comment on reports of their existence. \3\ A Department of Defense official told Human Rights First in June 2004 that while Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo's Camp Echo were open to discussion, ''as a matter of policy, we don't comment on other facilities. \4\ Similarly, Captain Bruce Frame, a U.S. army spokesman from CENTCOM, the unified military command that covers Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia, told Human Rights First only that there ''may or may not'' be detention centers in countries other than Iraq and Afghanistan in CENTCOM's area of responsibility.”
Another promising development in the movement to stop the use of torture is the Physicians for Human Rights call to health professionals to speak out against the use of torture. They urge the following steps :
Guided by the ethical tenets of our profession and fundamental principles of human rights, we urgently call on all relevant authorities within the United States government to:
- Take all steps necessary to ensure that US personnel do not engage in torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of prisoners and detainees in US custody.
- Establish an independent, bi-partisan commission, empowered to investigate fully all allegations of torture and ill-treatment; to determine how and to what extent official decisions and policy have led to such practices; to determine whether and to what extent medical personnel have been complicit; and to recommend steps necessary to prevent torture and abuse going forward.
- Rescind and reverse all legal opinions and policies that permit or condone torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and/or extraordinary rendition that puts detainees at risk.
- Establish and publicly disclose interrogation rules that are consistent with the prohibition against torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.
- Ensure accountability up the chain of command for all those responsible for torture and ill-treatment by US personnel.
- Ensure that all personnel who report evidence of torture and abuse to the appropriate authorities are protected from adverse consequences to their status or careers.
- Promote ethical practice by military medical personnel, including policies affirming health professionals‚ ethical obligations not to participate in torture or ill-treatment in any way, training for medical personnel in their ethical duties regarding torture and abuse, training for medical personnel in appropriate treatment and care for prisoners of war, and protecting military health professionals‚ clinical independence.
I heartily endorse all of these recommendations, but I want to make sure that Diego Garcia does not get forgotten again. I invite the international community to press this issue, and to discuss the significance of the practices of rendition and torture as practices used to intimidate and stifle opposition to U.S. military actions.
I also invite readers to join me in focusing your prayers and healing energy for everyone on the island of Diego Garcia, for both the tortured and the torturers who participate in these darkest of human depredations against the body, mind, and spirit.
Please respond to this article and share ideas about what action you think might effectively be taken to stop the use of torture, not only at Diego Garcia, but everywhere else in the world, too...
Ariel Ky gemstonedeva@yahoo.com>
__________
Note from Ariel Ky about writing this article: This is only the first installation of the article that I am still writing. At the end of this message, I will list some of the articles I have found which you may wish to read if you want more information. (Although I spent most of the two years researching this subject on the Internet intermittently, I did not actually begin to write this article until October of 2005. However, I kept hoping someone else would pursue the issue... a professional journalist with credentials. I called some British and American politicians and several human rights organizations to stir up some action, and I contacted several of the journalists who had written articles on torture.
That's when I found out that some actions were in process. Shortly thereafter, several comprehensive working papers on the use of torture by the U.S. were also posted on the Internet by human rights groups. Encouraged that the issue was being adequately addressed, I stopped working on the article. Then on December 30, 2005, after I had started working on the article once more, as I was submitting a political commentary to the Oakland Tribune, my computer crashed and I lost everything that I had written about Diego Garcia and most of my research. I have resumed work on this article because I still cannot find any evidence of an investigation of torture at Diego Garcia.
Sources:
"The CIA's Rendition Flights to Secret Prisons : The Torture-Go-Round", by Lila Rajiva in CounterPunch, December 5, 2005.
"Island Paradise or Torture Chamber? CIA Under Fire for Secret Detentions. Indian Ocean Atoll Alleged Abuse Site," by Lynda Hurst, The Toronto Star, July 2, 2005.
"The U.S. Health Professionals' Call To Prevent Torture and Abuse of Detainees in U.S. Custody", Physicians for Human Rights, June 23, 2005. http://www.phrusa.org/no-torture/
"Human Rights First Calls for Full Accounting of CIA Interrogation Practices," press release written by Nicky Lazar with Human Rights First, March 23, 2005.
"Bases, Bases Everywhere," by Tom Engelhardt, http://www.tomdispatch.com/, June 1, 2005.
"US Island Base Given Warning: Bulletins Sent to Diego Garcia 'could have saved lives,'" by Richard Norton-Taylor, July 1, 2005, article found on http://www.cageprisoners.com/, "a non-sectarian Islamic human rights website that exists solely to raise awareness of the plight of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and other detainees held as part of the War on Terror."
"Diego Garcia: Grunts Sense Tsunamis in Advance," Tuesday, January 04, 2005, http://morningleek.blogspot.com/
"Britain's Island in the Sune Becomes Blair's Latest Problem in Torture Scandal," by Gordon Thomas, Globe - Intelligence, January 5, 2005.
"Red Cross Report on Abu Ghraib," Washington Monthly, May 10, 2004.
"U.S. Military Presence in Diego Garcia: National Interests vs. Human Rights" by Joshua L. Harris, ICE Case Studies, Number 120, December, 2003.
U.S. Decries Abuse but Defends Interrogations; 'Stress and Duress' Tactics Used on Terrorism Suspects Held in Secret Overseas Facilities," by Dana Priest and Barton Gellman, Washington Post 26 December 2002.
3.
Date: 22 Jun 2006
From: "Bill Goodman, the Center for Constitutional Rights" ccr@mail.democracyinaction.org>
Subject: CCR Action to Fight Torture
I am writing to ask for your help in fighting torture. The Center for Constitutional Rights fights for human rights around the world, and we take foreign and US officials to court for torture and abuse. But we need your help now in the court of public opinion.
This Monday, June 26th is the official UN Day in Support of Survivors and Victims of Torture. Below there are several events and online resources you can use to support this important day. Most importantly, right now you can write Congress to demand your representatives oppose President Bush‚s policy of outsourcing torture to other countries. Click here to act now.
One of the best ways to support victims of torture is to use your power today to prevent future torture. Please take a moment to tell Congress to reject Bush‚s policies to outsource torture.
CCR will continue to fight for human rights and against torture in court.I hope you will write Congress today and review the events below to see how you can get more involved in supporting this cause.
Sincerely,
Bill Goodman
Legal Director
EVENTS & ACTIVISM ACROSS THE COUNTRY
You can attend and organize local events through TortureAwarness.Org:
http://www.tortureawareness.org/action_opportunities.html
You can find local showings of the important new movie, The Road to Guantanamo, about three 3 British Nationals Detained At Guantanamo Bay, by visiting:
To learn more about CCR‚s ongoing Guantanamo Global Justice Initiative, visit:
http://www.ccr-ny.org/v2/gac/
4.
ARIEL ALSO WROTE THIS INSPIRING ACCOUNT OF A UNIQUE EXPERIENCE SHE WENT THROUGH HERE ON THE PLATEAUX (SHE HAS BEEN STAYING AT OUR COMMUNITY'S YOUTH HOSTEL FOR THE PAST SEVERAL WEEKS). IF YOU'D LIKE TO RECEIVE THE PREVIOUS ISSUES OF HER NEWSLETTER AND GET THE FUTURE ONES, JUST LET HER KNOW
Date: 19 Jun 2006
From: Ariel Ky gemstonedeva@yahoo.com>
Subject: New Earth Council Newsletter, V.1.4
Unshakeable Faith!
Remember to honor the Earth by celebrating Summer Solstice this Wednesday, June 21. Judy Rendina wrote that she will be celebrating the Summer Solstice at the Serpent Mound. I will be joining a group of people, including Jean Hudon, celebrating it here at Les Plateaux in L'Anse-Saint-Jean, Quebec. The star-nation and spiritual energies are coming in strong and we, as lightworkers, anchor these great blessings into the Earth.
I would like to share the following account of a mystical communication I had with Gaia Saturday:
I was lying down on my bed, chanting and singing, toning and praying, calling up Earth power to light the return to Michigan so that I make it safely and easily straight to my destination, to support the creation of the New Earth Council, to lighten and clear the Earth field of the dark energy of torture, and to bring blessings to everyone here on the plateaux. At one point, I entered a field of deep peace and love. I felt in communion with the Earth as a planetary being and gave over myself to her voice.
In this conversation, as I was chanting Her voice, she reassured me that she would always protect me from harm because I was going to accomplish much to relieve her of the burden of humanity's depredations against her. I felt her immense power. She expressed anger and indignation at what people have done, and continue to do, that wrongs her. However, she was so strong and alive with the life force, that I felt immensely supported and heartened in this connection with her.
We are making this shift. She wants it! I am totally in line with my mission and she is supporting me. I was given the understanding that I would come face-to-face, contending with dark forces, but that I was ready and strong enough to hold my own. We are bringing in the light of truth and love. The truth is that we are all a part of each other. Naturally, she wants me, and everyone who wishes her well, to prevail.
We invite everyone who resists Her ascension into the light. She will reckon with those who wish to continue to harm her. Does she not give us the air that we breathe, the water and food that sustains us, the land we walk on, the beat of our hearts, the life force that sustains us?
I have never before felt such a deep connection with the planet. I know that I will walk with this deep knowing the rest of my days. Nothing will deter me from my mission. I am wholly confident that I have found my path and that I will follow it, come what will. Whenever it gets difficult and I have to stand resolute against the dark, She will be there, ever at my side, to help me prevail.
Finally, I have the unshakeable faith that I have always envied in others and desired for myself. She gives me this great gift for all that I do on her behalf. I am given to understand that as each one of us steps forward to devote ourselves to Her, we may all receive these blessings. Let us bring in the New Earth together!
Ariel
5.
From: "Sandra and Richard" srkeber@msn.com>
Subject: WOMEN - Please Stand Up Against This Shit!
Date: 16 Jun 2006
Fear for My Daughter
By Sara Rich
t r u t h o u t | Letter
14 June 2006
It started out with being scared for her life when she signed up for the military. She assured me that she was promised she would not go to Iraq. I was not as trusting.
She was sent to Iraq right out of her basic training. While she was packing, we cried, as she assured me she would be okay. One of her sergeants assured me, "Don't worry, ma'am, we'll take good care of your daughter." I desperately hoped that I could trust him to watch over her. I later found out he was one the first predators to try to have sex with her and make her "his private."
She spent a long year in Iraq. I feared for her safety every waking minute. She frequently called me crying, telling me very little of the horror she was witnessing - only telling me it was hard. She told me that almost all of the other soldiers were sexually harassing her and that many of her sergeants and lieutenants were really pressuring her and making her life miserable for rejecting them. Calls from her often ended with "Oh, there goes gun fire - gotta go mom, love you."
When she returned from Iraq, she was much more quiet and anxious than when she left. I offered to get her help, but she refused. She told me that if she opened that can of worms she would not be able to function as a human being. I asked her if she wanted to deal with the horrible sexual harassment charges against so many of her fellow soldiers. She said, no mom, it would only make my life even more of a living hell. Then she finally blew the whistle on one of her superiors for sexually harassing her, and she was treated like a pariah, while he was moved to a different unit and promoted. She put her head down and worked as a Military Police officer on Ft. Lewis. She was always shocked by the number of domestic violence calls she went out on. The fear of a mother of a peace officer was there, but at least I could call her and knew she was safe. We knew that she was going to be re-deployed to Iraq sometime after the mandatory 18 months' stabilization time is over. So, we were looking at November of 2006 for a second re-deployment. Our hearts were heavy at the thought.
She came home for a visit and couldn't face me to tell me she was going back to Iraq much sooner than expected. My fear was skyrocketing. I asked, how can they do that, you will have only had 11 months of stabilization time? She told me that she refused to sign the paper waiving her rights to 18 months. She was told that her life would be hell in a shit hole if she refused to sign. They screamed in her face and intimidated her to the point that she would shake when she told the story. Our family prepared. She was packed, ready to re-deploy, keys in hand. She said, "I can't do this, Mom, I can't go back there." We shifted into action to protect our daughter.
We networked with everyone imaginable. We knew that we would rather see her in jail than spending another minute in Iraq. We hired an attorney with experience in these kinds of military matters. And Suzanne went into hiding.
Now here we are, facing what we knew was a real possibility. Suzanne is in jail and waiting to be taken up to Ft. Lewis, and I am really scared. The military treated her horribly when she was a soldier, I can only imagine what they will do to her as a prisoner. She is a brave young woman and my hero. But there is only just so much stress an Iraq war veteran can handle.
My fear for my daughter is real. My hope for and belief in my daughter and what she is doing is strong and unshakable. I truly believe she saved her own life with her courage. It is to be hoped that by telling her story and standing strong she can encourage others in the military to stand up, speak out, and refuse to participate in this illegal and immoral war.
Thanks to you all. I knew this was going to happen eventually, so I had my ducks in a serious row. Today I had a press conference, a vigil, at the jail where Suzanne is, and I spoke to 10 different radio shows, some nationally syndicated, three TV stations, 3 newspapers and had a million calls.
I only got to talk to Suzanne for one short minute in which we were both were crying so hard we could not talk.
They are transporting Suzanne tomorrow in the early morning to Ft. Lewis and returning her to her unit. We are planning to be at the jail at 7:45 - 9:00 a.m. to see if we can catch a a glimpse of her as she leaves the jail to show her that we are here for her.
Letters of Support Needed
Please write to Lt. Colonel Switzer, Ft. Lewis, Washington, to ask that Spc. Suzanne Swift receive a medical discharge or an honorable discharge from the Army due to her Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. After writing the letter, please fax a copy to:
Senator Gordon Smith
Federal Building
211 East 7th Avenue, Room 202
Eugene, OR 97401
Phone: 541.465.6750
Fax: 541.465.6808
Senator Ron Wyden
151 West 7th Avenue
Suite 435
Eugene, OR 97401
(541) 431-0229
Congressman Peter DeFazio
151 West 7th, Suite 400
Eugene, OR 97401
Phone: (541) 465-6732
Senator Patty Murray
950 Pacific Avenue, Ste. 650
Tacoma, Washington 98402
Phone: (253) 572-3636
Fax: (253) 572-9892
If there is no fax number, you can email them. Let me know if you send a letter and if you get a response.
If you want to donate to Suzanne's legal or medical fund, please contact me at mailto:formydaughtersuzanne@yahoo.com>formydaughtersuzanne@yahoocom
Thanks so much from Suzanne and her family. We appreciate your love and passion. This is so important for us to do - not only to end the war, but to defend women who are in the military.
Peace,
Sara Rich, M.S.W.
6.
Date: 13 Jun 2006
Subject: WHERE IS THE VOICE OF SANITY?
From: Phyllis Montague phyllism5@juno.com>
From: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13618.htm
WHERE IS THE VOICE OF SANITY?
by Paul Levy
(...) "As people who recognize the insane nature of our situation, which is to be sane in a world gone mad, it is our job to come to terms and deal with the collective psychosis that is wreaking havoc on our planet. It is our job, our calling, our vocation to deal with the indisputable fact that we are being ruled by people who have fallen into a state of collective madness. It is our responsibility to deal with the fact that everyone who supports Bush in his madness: his administration, the corporate, congressional, judicial, military industrial complex, the media, the voters that allegedly put him into office, and ourselves as well if we are doing nothing about our situation, have all fallen prey to a psychic epidemic that threatens the entire planet. If we continue to insist on being under-employed by not stepping into our power and creatively speaking our true voice to the abuse of power, we have no one to blame but ourselves.
The evil that is being enacted on our planet could only happen because of a sufficient number of people who are passively standing on the sideline and doing nothing about it. Not doing anything about the evil we see being acted out in the world is to ourselves become an unwitting instrument of evil, as our in-action allows, enables, and feeds the further propagation of evil in the field. Evil is truly calling us to pick up an empowered role, whatever that is, and “act,” as if we are actors in a play or characters in a dream. Recognizing our responsibility for the collective situation we find ourselves in, we access our ability to respond creatively in the world and act-ively do something about it.
Something is being revealed to us about ourselves by the fact that we are being ruled by people who are mad. Imagine, what would we do if we truly recognized that our government is being run by people who have collectively gone mad? What would we do if we realized that the leader of the most powerful nation on the planet, the person with his finger on the button, is a genuine psychopath? This is not a make believe question: How would we respond if enough of us not only recognized that our leaders were truly insane, but that we urgently needed to do something about it? What do we imagine we would do? This is a very relevant question, as this is the true nature of our current situation.
Do we go belly-up, imagining that there is nothing that we could possibly do about our insane situation? Do we imagine ourselves collapsing into impotence, being totally dis-empowered, unable to do anything about being ruled by a bunch of psychopaths? Or do we imagine that enough of us, realizing the gravitas of our situation, connect with each other and access our collective genius so that we can truly make a positive change in the world? The question is: Will the darkness that is manifesting in our world destroy our species or wake us up to our true nature? The choice, and responsibility, is truly ours."
---
Paul Levy is a spiritually-informed political co-activist. A pioneer in the field of spiritual awakening, he is a healer in private practice, assisting others who are awakening to the dream-like nature of reality. He is the author of The Madness of George Bush: A Reflection of Our Collective Psychosis, which is available at his website http://www.awakeninthedream.com
Please feel free to pass this article along to a friend if you feel so inspired. If you resonate with the message of this article and want to help Paul spread this information, please contact him at paul@awakeninthedream.com, as he needs all the help he can get.
To read this whole unabridged article, go at http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13618.htm
7.
From: http://www.counterpunch.org/vanbergen06132006.html
June 12, 2006
Was There a Legal Basis for His Assassination?
The Story Behind Zarqawi's Death
By JENNIFER VAN BERGEN
A bu Musab Al Zarqawi is dead. The Jordanian-born Zarqawi was in a meeting with associates at a "safe house" just north of Baghdad last Wednesday (June 7) when he was killed in a joint operation with Iraq carried out by U.S. air forces. Zarqawi has been called the head of "the Sunni insurgency" and the leader of "al-Qaeda in Iraq." On June 8, the Washington Post characterized him as "the mastermind behind hundreds of bombings, kidnappings and beheadings in Iraq."
However, in April the Washington Post revealed that military documents showed Zarqawi was not as important as was widely believed. The documents showed that the U.S. intentionally magnified Zarqawi's importance both in Iraq and in the U.S. in order to direct violence against Zarqawi from other Iraqis.
Additionally, Greg Palast has made a compelling case that Zarqawi's insurgency was the result of the U.S. policy to sell off Iraqi assets to big business rather than allowing elections to go forward.
More complicating factors in Zarqawi's death: there have been recent unconfirmed reports of a possible rift between Zarqawi and al Qaeda that may have resulted in his demotion or in him being "cut loose," and only minutes after his death was announced, the long-unfilled seats of Iraqi interior minister, defense minister, and national security adviser were quickly filled "in a giddy session of parliament."
The coincidence between these events and Zarqawi's death seems too great to be ignored.
The Creation of Zarqawi
The "Zarqawi PSYOP Program," as it was called in one internal military briefing, was apparently seen as "the most successful information campaign to date." Another briefing defined the purpose of the program as being to "Villainize Zarqawi/leverage xenophobia response." The program used three methods: media operations, special (covert) operations, and PSYOP.
PSYOP is the military term for military actions designed to influence the perceptions and attitudes of individuals, groups, and foreign governments. PSYOP is short for "psychological operations."
One document reveals that Col. Derek Harvey, who was a military intelligence officer in Iraq and on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, considered that "The long-term threat is not Zarqawi or religious extremists, but these former regime types and their friends."
Another briefing, possibly quoting Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the military's chief spokesman in 2004, said: "Through aggressive Strategic Communications, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi now represents: Terrorism in Iraq/Foreign Fighters in Iraq/Suffering of Iraqi People (Infrastructure Attacks)/Denial of Iraqi Aspirations."
Was Zarqawi made into a terrorist by "aggressive strategic communications" of the U.S. military? Perhaps the Pentagon is taking more credit than is due it, but if Palast is correct, the actions and policies of Paul Bremer in Iraq contributed to Zarqawi's rise.
Bremer's policies, according to Palast, caused the insurgency. Bremer "instituted democracy Bush style: he canceled elections and appointed the entire government himself." Two months later, Bremer "ordered a halt to all municipal elections including the crucial vote to Shia seeking to select a mayor in the city of Najaf." Then Bremer issued ""Order Number One: De-Ba'athification." Palast says that "In effect, this became 'De-Sunni-fication.'" collaborated with the U.S. invasion. According to one collaborator, this action was "a gift" to foreign insurgents who, in Palast's words, "now gained experienced military commanders, Sunnis, who now had no choice but to fight the US-installed regime or face arrest, ruin or death." These insurgents soon linked up with Zarqawi, "who was committed to destroying 'Shia snakes.'" CLIP
8.
CONNECTING IMPORTANT 9-11 DOTS
Forwarded by Nattanya Andersen Nattanya@telus.net>
From: http://www.letsroll911.org/phpwebsite/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=44
IS DEFENSE CONTRACTOR MITRE CORP. THE TROJAN HORSE OF 9/11?
By Christopher Bollyn
American Free Press
http://www.americanfreepress.net
Did a central controller with "super user" privileges of the command and control systems of the Department of Defense, NORAD, the Air Force, and the FAA, control the aerial attacks of 9/11? There is only one agency that has that capability — a little-known private company known as MITRE Corp.
There are basically two versions of events surrounding the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. There is the government version, propagated by the controlled media, which claims that 19 Arab terrorists, organized by Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan, hijacked 4 passenger aircraft and used them to attack the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. This version, used to launch the "war on terror" and two invasions in the Middle East, is challenged by a lack of evidence.
On the other hand, a host of unofficial explanations, based on available evidence, make up what can be called the "inside job" or anti-government version. This version basically claims that agents embedded within the U.S. military and intelligence organizations conspired to carry out the terror attacks.
The two foreign nations most often implicated in the unofficial explanations of 9/11 are Israel and Britain. Both countries are supporters and beneficiaries of the Bush administration's "war on terror."
For the Israelis, Iraq, a major threat, was drastically reduced in power and put under military occupation. For the British, a oil-rich territory, Iraq's southern region of Basra, which it originally occupied in 1914, was reoccupied and its immense oil assets put under control of the Crown.
Royal Dutch Shell and BP, formerly named British Petroleum, are two companies said to be controlled by the Crown, which have posted record profits since 9/11.
While both Britain and Israel have substantial assets and powerful organizations in the United States, proponents of the anti- government version have not explained how a foreign power could manipulate the computer systems of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the North American Aerospace Defense Command ( NORAD), and the U.S. Air Force, and thereby control the aerial attacks of 9/11.
When American Free Press interviewed Eckehardt Werthebach, former president of Germany's domestic intelligence service, in December 2001, he said "the deathly precision" and "the magnitude of planning" behind the 9/11 attacks would have required "years of planning."
Such a sophisticated operation, Werthebach said, would require the "fixed frame" of a state intelligence organization, something not found in a "loose group" of terrorists like the one allegedly led by Mohammed Atta.
Many people would have been involved in the planning of such an operation, Werthebach said. He pointed to the absence of leaks as further indication that the attacks were "state organized actions."
Andreas von Bulow, who served on Germany's parliamentary commission and oversaw the three branches of the German secret service, told AFP that he believed that Mossad, Israel's intelligence service, was behind the terror attacks. The attacks, he said, were carried out to turn public opinion against the Arabs and boost military and security spending.
"You don't get the higher echelons," von Bulow said, referring to the "architectural structure" which masterminds such terror attacks. At this level, he said, the organization doing the planning, such as Mossad or British intelligence, is primarily interested in affecting public opinion.
In a recent article in AFP, " The Perfect Terrorist Plan To Level the Twin Towers Created In 1976" by Greg Szymanski, it was reported that the U.S. Army devised a plan in 1976 to bring down the towers using commercial airliners and box cutters as weapons.
At the time, George H.W. Bush was head of the CIA and Martin R. Hoffmann was Secretary of the Army. Hoffmann told AFP that he did not recall being involved in this planning reportedly done by the U.S. Army.
An architect, even of destruction, needs a contractor. Proponents of the anti-government version of 9/11 provide evidence to support their claims, but do not explain how the U.S. military and civil aviation control systems could have been hijacked to allow the aerial attacks to occur.
Because the attacks involved systems used by the FAA, NORAD, and the U.S. Air Force, the conspirators would have needed "super user" access to the command and control centers of these three separate organizations.
Super user means the most privileged user on a computerized data system. The super user has complete access to all files on the system. For the previously mentioned agencies, and virtually all other U.S. defense and intelligence organizations, there is one such possible super user: a little-known private not-for-profit organization, based in Bedford, Mass., known as MITRE Corp. MITRE also has a headquarters in McLean, Va., on a campus it shares with Northrop Grumman.
The MITRE Corp. is a major defense contracting organization headed by the former Director of Central Intelligence (DCI), Dr. James Rodney Schlesinger. Schlesinger, who was reportedly made DCI at the request of Henry Kissinger in 1973, later served as Secretary of Defense.
Schlesinger, a former director of strategic studies at the RAND Corp., was described in a 1973 biography as a "devout Lutheran," although he was born in New York in 1929 to immigrant Jewish parents from Austria and Russia. Schlesinger earned three degrees from Harvard University.
Schlesinger's father, an accountant, founded the accounting firm Schlesinger & Haas, and was a trustee and chairman of the budget of the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue. His father was also a member of the New York State Grand Lodge of Masons.
The MITRE Corp., of which Schlesinger is chairman of the board of trustees, is connected to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), MIT's Lincoln Laboratory, and Mitretek Systems of Falls Church, Va.
Schlesinger is a senior advisor for the Lehman Brothers investment firm and a member of the Defense Policy Board and advisory council for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
The MITRE Corp. has provided computer and information technology to the FAA and the U.S. Air Force since the late 1950's. MITRE is a Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC) for the Dept. of Defense, the FAA, and the Internal Revenue Service.
The chairman of the board of trustees of Mitretek Systems, a spin- off of MITRE Corp., is Martin R. Hoffmann, who served as Secretary of the Army when the "perfect terrorist plan" was reportedly prepared in 1976.
MITRE's Command, Control, Communications, and Intelligence (C3I) FFRDC for the Dept. of Defense was established in 1958. The C3I "supports a broad and diverse set of sponsors within the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community. These include the military departments, defense and intelligence agencies, the combatant commands, and elements of both the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff," according to MITRE's website. "Information systems technology," it says, "coupled with domain knowledge, underpin the work of the C3I FFRDC."
The U.S. Air Force maintains its Electronic Systems Center (ESC) at the Hanscom AFB in Bedford, Mass. The ESC manages the development and acquisition of electronic command and control (C2) systems used by the Air Force.
The ESC is the Air Force's "brain for information, command and control systems," according to Charles Paone, a civilian employee of the ESC. It is the "product center" for the Air Force's Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) and Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (J-STARS), Paone said.
Asked about MITRE's role at the ESC, Paone said, "MITRE does the front-end engineering. It's basically our in-house engineer." MITRE employees operate the computer systems at Hanscom AFB, Paone said.
MIT's Lincoln Laboratories, the parent of MITRE, is located on the Hanscom AFB.
A second FFRDC, the Center for Advanced Aviation System Development (CAASD) provides computer engineering and technology to the FAA. MITRE's support of the FAA began in 1958, when the company was created.
The FAA's Airspace Management Handbook of May 2004, for example, was written and published by the MITRE Corp.
Jennifer Shearman, MITRE's public relations manager for "corporate identity" in Bedford, told AFP that MITRE is a "trusted mentor" for the FAA and is a "unique" provider of "objective and independent" information for the U.S. civil aviation authority.
MITRE's Bedford headquarters are located near Boston's Logan airport where the two planes that struck the World Trade Center supposedly originated. Bedford lies directly under the flight path of westbound flights leaving Logan.
MITRE developed the technology "to aid controllers in solving problems while keeping aircraft close to their route, altitude, and speed preferences." Shearman was unable to say why the MITRE technology apparently failed on 9/11.
Indira Singh, an "IT consultant" who previously worked on a Defense Advanced Research Project, and who was employed by J.P. Morgan on 9/11, in risk management, pointed to MITRE's role at the FAA during the 9/11 Citizens' Commission hearings in New York last September.
"Ptech was with MITRE Corporation in the basement of the FAA for two years prior to 9/11," Singh said. "Their specific job is to look at interoperability issues the FAA had with NORAD and the Air Force in the case of an emergency. If anyone was in a position to know that the FAA — that there was a window of opportunity or to insert software or to change anything — it would have been Ptech along with MITRE."
A representative of Ptech could not be reached. [Ptech appears to have been a Mossad front company created to provide insecure Trojan Horse software to the U.S. military and intelligence agencies. Ptech has the typical Arab owners and financiers - and Mossad operators.]
For example, see Michael Goff, former marketing manager at Ptech, Inc. http://www.goffpr.com/about.asp
Schlesinger bio info: http://www.mitre.org/about/bot/schlesinger.html
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See also:
MILITARY LEADERS MUTINYING
http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/military_leaders_mutinying.html
Military Men Who Oppose Neo-Con Warmongering Under Attack By Michael PiperFor generations, Republicans were strong supporters of the Americanmilitary. But now that top military men are in open rebellion against thearmchair civilian war hawks—the hard-line pro-Israel ideologues who directed President George Bush to order an invasion of Iraq and who now want war on Iran—the angriest voices condemning the military are from GOP circles.Following the lead of the neo-conservatives, who are viewed as fanatics but still dominate the Bush administration and key GOP policy groups, many GOP loyalists are declaring war on the battle-tested generals, admirals and other military heroes who are saying, “Enough is enough.”Although none of the military men have yet said “No more wars for Israel,” their rhetoric in writings and public utterances says essentially that. Conservatives roundly denounced former Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni as an “anti-Semite” for noting that pro-Israel neo-conservatives were the driving force behind the Iraq war and that everybody in Washington knew it. Zinni knew what he was talking about: he formerly commanded all U.S. forces protecting Israel in the Middle East. CLIP
Michael Collins Piper's The New Jerusalem [Shadow Elites emerge in recent book]
http://www.wingtv.net/thornarticles/newjerusalem.html
(...) In regard to 9-11, if you’re naïve enough to still believe the government’s “official” version of events – that 19 Arab cave-dwellers planned, orchestrated, and executed the September 11 terror attacks – you can’t deny that it would have been caused by America’s molly-coddling relationship with the terrorist nation of Israel. But as we know, 9-11 was actually an inside job perpetrated by a small cabal within (and outside) our government. And why would they perpetrate such a psychopathically bloodthirsty mass murder? Answer: because it served as a pretext for our war in the Middle East where the United States is nothing more than a proxy doing Israel’s dirty work. So, in this sense, Piper’s claim is absolutely correct. (...) Again, you may wonder why. Surprisingly, the answer is simple. Throughout the ages, Jews have manipulated the ‘system’ to gain great wealth and power. And although Jews today only constitute 2% of America’s population, they unite with other like-minded individuals to create an array of very potent organizations and lobbies that ultimately seek not only political power, but also social influence as well (i.e. Hollywood, TV, etc).This arrogance is conveyed quite vividly by Mr. Ginsberg. “Jews often, secretly or not so secretly, conceive themselves to be morally and intellectually superior to their neighbors.” Thus, the Jews inevitably begin to abuse their power, and are eventually exposed and dealt with in the methods described above. Does this same fate await the neo-cons of today, along with the multi-tentacled Zionist lobby, the corrupt media kingpins, Ariel Sharon’s genocidal regime, and those who are building an Apartheid Wall from the West Bank's northern-most point to Jerusalem? If the past is any indicator, history will not treat these "enemies of the people" kindly.One of the unfortunate results of this arrogant pursuit of power is clear – war. And as Michael Collins Piper explains, three-quarters of America’s foreign aid expenditures is geared toward (either directly or indirectly) Israel’s safety. Thus, not only do we surrender $10 billion to Israel every year, but our annual outlays to Egypt are primarily administered for one reason – so that they won’t attack Israel. Isn’t it clear what a vicious cycle has been created by our subservience to Israel, and what a vulnerable position it puts us in as a nation?Worse, our current debacle in Iraq isn’t the first war engineered by Jewish elitists. Anyone who cares to objectively study history will discover the same hidden hands behind the Civil War (where Rothschild interests financed both the North and the South), as well as the Bolshevik Revolution, World War I, World War II, and the first Desert Storm Iraqi War. CLIP
"A good friend just sent me links to two intriguing articles on an issue very close to our hearts. Cognitive dissonance is a psychological term referring to what happens when people are presented with rational information which conflicts with deeply held beliefs. If you want to read two pieces on this important phenomenon, see: http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/dissonance.htm- the first few paragraphs are the important ones http://www.apa.org/books/4318830s.html- more theoretical, but useful information We all know that our problem is not lack of solid, easily verifiable information revealing a huge cover-up around 9/11. It is , rather, the difficulty in getting people to see how hugely we have been deceived. The information we present for most people forces an entire reality shift, something that most people cannot do in a short amount of time. If we present too much information at once, the cognitive dissonance factor can becomes insurmountable. I believe that the more we are aware of this problem, the more effective we can become at opening people's eyes. At WantToKnow.info, we've been working to deal with this phenomenon. For information on the strategy we've developed, see http://www.wanttoknow.info/conspiracytheories. I welcome your thoughts on this. By working together to overcome these challenges, I have no doubt we will facilitate a major paradigm shift on this planet. Thanks for the awesome work that all of you are doing!"
— Fred Burks fredburks@earthlink.net> 17 June 2006
BYU Physics Prof Finds Thermate in WTC Physical Samples - Building Collapses an Inside Job
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2006/06/341238.shtml
Based on chemical analysis of WTC structural steel residue, a Brigham Young University physics professor has identified the material as Thermate. Thermate is the controlled demolition explosive thermite plus sulfur. Sulfur causes the thermite to burn hotter, cutting steel quickly and leaving trails of yellow colored residue (See picture, below, of streaming molten metal) Streaming Molten Metal caused by Thermate prior to collapse of TowersProf. Steven Jones, who conducted his PhD research at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center and post-doctoral research at Cornell University and the Los Alamos Meson Physics Facility, has analyzed materials from the WTC and has detected the existence of thermate, used for "cutting" the steel support columns. Dr. Jones is a co-founder of Scholars for 911 Truth.Dr. Jones in earlier work pointed to thermate as the likely explosive that brought down the WTC1, WTC2, and WTC7 skyscrapers. But only recently was physical material analysed in the lab and the presence of thermate announced. The samples were provided Dr. Jones team from redundant sources. Both BYU and Prof. Jones have been offered additional grants if he would "change the direction" of his research. In addition, there have been threats made by an individual who "is taking action" to stop Dr. Jones' research, specifically his experiment with thermites (aluminothermics), on the grounds his work may be helpful to "terrorists". Jones notes that much more detailed information on both thermite and thermate is readily available on the internet.
9.
From: http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/june2006/010606iranstrike.htm
Former CIA Analyst Says Iran Strike Set For June Or July
McGovern: Staged terror attacks across Europe, US "probable" in order to justify invasion
Paul Joseph Watson/Prison Planet.com | June 1 2006
Former CIA analyst and Presidential advisor Ray McGovern, fresh from his heated public confrontation with Donald Rumsfeld, fears that staged terror attacks across Europe and the US are probable in order to justify the Bush administration's plan to launch a military strike against Iran, which he thinks will take place in June or July.
Appearing on The Alex Jones Show, McGovern was asked about the timetable for war in Iran and said that behind the diplomatic smokescreen, the final chess pieces were being moved into position.
"There is already one carrier task force there in the Gulf, two are steaming toward it at the last report I have at least - they will all be there in another week or so."
"The propaganda has been laid, the aircraft carriers are in place, it doesn't take much to fly the bombers out of British and US bases - cruse missiles are at the ready, Israel is egging us on," said McGovern.
McGovern said Iran's likely response to a US air strike would be threefold - mobilizing worldwide terrorist cells that would make Al-Qaeda look like a girls netball team - utilizing its cruise missile arsenal to attack US ships and sending fighters into Iraq to attack US forces.
"The Iranians can easily send three divisions of revolutionary guard troops right over....the long border with Iraq," said McGovern, stating that the local Sunni population of Iraq would welcome such an invasion.
The turmoil caused by such an action would lead the US to tap its so-called 'mini-nuke' arsenal said McGovern, opening a new Pandora's box of chaos.
McGovern highlighted President Bush's all time record low approval ratings as a reason for launching an attack on Iran to again whip up false patriotic fervour.
"I can see Karl Rove saying, 'look what you need to do is become a war president again, get us involved with something pretty big here and then strut around and say you can't vote for a bunch of Democrats to pull the rug out from under me while there's a war going on'."
McGovern drew a comparison with the concillatory cold war stance of Russia and JFK's decision to respond in a similar manner, and the Iranian President's letter which was immediately dismissed by the Bush administration. JFK's approach saved the US from potential nuclear anihalation while Bush's actions put the US in severe danger as Russia and China give ominous mixed signals on what their response to a US strike on Iran will be.
McGovern lambasted Bush's inner circle as uniformly lacking any real military experience and characterized them as a cabal already hell-bent on war.
McGovern entertained the notion that western governments and intelligence hierarchies could potentially stage terror attacks in Europe and the US either before or after an invasion of Iran.
"That's altogether possible," said McGovern.
"I would say even probable because they need some proximate cause, some casus belli to justify really unleashing things on Iran....I would put very little past this crew - their record of dissembling and disingenuousness is unparalleled."
McGovern said that Rove, Cheney and Rumsfeld, fearing impeachment and Enron-style criminal proceedings, are urging President Bush to launch a war in order to create a climate unconducive to lengthy investigations and impeachment proceedings.
Asked to cite specifically when we should expect to see an attack launched, McGovern said, "I think we all agree that an attack is likely before the election and we all agree that it has to do largely with the election - as for timing I see a likelihood that it could come as early as late June or early July, most of my colleagues predict August, September, maybe an October surprise even."
"My thinking is that for it to be October that would be so crass and so transparent that even this crowd would shy away from making it so obvious," said McGovern.
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See also:
Neocon Prince of Darkness Sighted at Bilderberg Meeting
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m23858
(...) In fact, as Carmichael notes, citing former CIA analyst Ray McGovern’s comments on Alex Jones’ radio program, there "is already one carrier task force there in the Gulf, two are steaming toward it at the last report I have at least—they will all be there in another week or so. The propaganda has been laid, the aircraft carriers are in place, it doesn’t take much to fly the bombers out of British and US bases—cruise missiles are at the ready, Israel is egging us on" (see Former CIA Analyst Says Iran Strike Set For June Or July, by Paul Joseph Watson). "McGovern’s predictions may be unfolding already," Carmichael continues. "The London police raid that coincided with Perle’s visit to Britain netted two men suspected of terrorist plotting to build a massive chemical bomb. But, after four days of excruciating forensic examination of their premises, the police found no evidence of bomb-building activities. Whether this ’swoop’ was staged or not remains to be seen, but this episode resonates with an official campaign to ratchet up the public concern about terrorism. The non-productive raid has produced a predictable backlash among the local residents who are demanding some form of official confirmation that the raid was based on credible evidence rather than a melange of Islamophobic paranoia." In addition, it appears the Canadians are onboard with the neocon brand of "Islamophobic paranoia" (or rather calculated fear-mongering), as a ludicrous terrorist plot, an obvious set-up by the RCMP, demonstrates. All it will take now is for a sincere terrorist attack of the sort unrolled last summer in London to get the ball rolling and the bombing sorties unleashed from flat-top decks. CLIP
Austria's Haider says Bush is a war criminal (June 17, 2006)
http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2006/06/17/austrias_haider_says_bush_is_a_war_criminal?mode=PF
VIENNA (Reuters) - Austrian right-wing populist Joerg Haider called President Bush a war criminal on Saturday, days before Austria's government hosts Bush and European leaders in Vienna.Haider, whose group is part of Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel's government coalition, said Bush's meeting with his European peers on Wednesday was pointless as he did not expect the U.S. president to pay attention to what Europe had to tell him."He is a war criminal. He brought about the war against Iraq deliberately, with lies and falsehoods," Haider said in an interview with Austrian daily newspaper Die Presse. "The Iraqi population is suffering terribly. Bush took the risk of an enormous number of victims," said Haider. CLIP
10.
From: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/06/16/MNGKKJFD5M1.DTL
Permafrost melt could speed up global warming - 500 billion tons of extra CO{-2} could be released, study says
Keay Davidson, Chronicle Science Writer
June 16, 2006
Global warming might be significantly worse than expected during the next century because the melting of carbon-rich permafrost in Siberia could expel hundreds of billions of tons of extra greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, scientists warn in a new study.
Experts said they can't be certain how large the impact might be, because they can't accurately estimate how much of the extra greenhouse gases will be absorbed by plants and the oceans.
One of the more frightening possibilities is that the permafrost-caused warming could feed on itself in what one scientist called a "vicious cycle": That is, it could trigger the melting of additional ice, which would unleash more greenhouse gases and thus cause more warming, in a self-repeating cycle for no one knows how long.
The melting of Siberian permafrost that has been frozen for thousands of years could eject about 500 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere during the next century, scientists from Russia, Alaska and Florida report in today's issue of Science. By comparison, at present the atmosphere contains about 700 billion tons of greenhouse gases.
"I'm a scientist, so we tend to be conservative in our language. But I would say this could make global warming significantly worse" than expected, said E.A.G. "Ted" Schurr, a former UC Berkeley doctoral student who is one of the article's three authors. The other authors are Sergey A. Zimov of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Terry Chapin of the University of Alaska at Fairbanks.
Schurr, now a professor of botany at the University of Florida in Gainesville, traveled to Siberia to collect samples of permafrost -- permanently frozen ground rich in carbon-laden dust particles that have accumulated over a million and a half years. He extracted permafrost samples from up to 10 feet beneath the ground, then hauled them back to Florida in standard coolers, stopping from time to time to refreeze the samples in a fridge so they wouldn't melt en route.
When he allowed the permafrost to melt in his lab in Gainesville, microbes attacked and absorbed the carbon, transforming much of it into carbon dioxide gas. Schurr measured the rate of carbon dioxide emission by shining an infrared beam through it. The estimate of 500 billion tons in extra greenhouse emissions was derived partly from this analysis.
Carbon dioxide is the best-known greenhouse gas: It accelerates global warming by trapping infrared radiation before it can leave the atmosphere. Fossil fuels, when burned by cars and factories, are major sources of atmospheric carbon dioxide.
Leading climate models haven't incorporated the possibility of a major new greenhouse gas source from Siberia. The new report "makes it kind of scary -- it means there's a form of climate risk that we really haven't got a good handle on," said Chris Field, director of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology at Stanford.
He was not directly connected with the study published in Science, but he and colleagues are working with the authors to incorporate their findings in improved computer models of future climate change.
In interviews Thursday, experts who aren't connected with the Science paper had varied reactions.
"It could raise temperatures dramatically beyond the current projections. Second, it could raise the rate at which temperatures rise," paleoclimatologist David Anderson of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Climate Prediction Center in Boulder, Colo., said in a phone interview.
Anderson noted that present-day models estimate the average planetary temperature will rise by 5.5 degrees Fahrenheit if carbon dioxide levels double. It's uncertain, though, how fast that doubling (which is driven in part by fast-spreading industrialization and car ownership) could occur.
"Conceivably, (permafrost melting) could eventually -- say within several centuries -- have as much impact as the burning of fossil fuels," raising the average planetary temperature by more than 10 degrees, Anderson said.
The Science study shows the amount of carbon frozen in permafrost around the world, not just Siberia, is much higher than previously calculated, a climate expert at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory said.
"We have known (about) the permafrost in Siberia before," explained atmospheric scientist Bala Govindasamy of the lab. "Previous estimates for global permafrost (are) between 200 and 400 (billion tons). This study has found higher carbon content in the Siberian permafrost and estimates that the total global amount could be about 1,000 (billion tons)."
The U.N.-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change produced an original estimate for global warming of 3 to 11 degrees Fahrenheit over the next century, Govindasamy said. He added that the new permafrost data might push the estimate much higher -- to 5 to 15 degrees.
Kevin Trenberth, one of the nation's top climate modelers, said it's "hard to say" how much the findings could affect forecasts of global warming, but the effects are "likely nontrivial," he said in an e-mail.
E-mail Keay Davidson at kdavidson@sfchronicle.com.
---
See also:
Thawing permafrost could unleash tons of carbon (Jun 15, 2006)
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=scienceNews&storyID=2006-06-15T180503Z_01_N14246495_RTRIDST_0_SCIENCE-ENVIRONMENT-PERMAFROST-DC.XML
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Ancient roots and bones locked in long-frozen soil in Siberia are starting to thaw, and have the potential to unleash billions of tones of carbon and accelerate global warming, scientists said on Thursday. This vast carbon reservoir, contained in permafrost soil in northeastern Siberia, contains about 75 times more carbon than the amount released into the atmosphere each year by the burning of fossil fuels, the researchers said in a statement. Siberia isn't the only place on Earth with massive lodes of permafrost -- parts of Alaska, Canada and northern Europe have them too. The Siberian area is possibly the world's largest, covering nearly 400,000 square miles, with an average depth of 82 feet, and probably holds about 500 billion metric tons of carbon. By any measure, this is a lot, and it is in fact twice what scientists previously believed was there, ecologist Ted Schuur of the University of Florida said in a telephone interview. "There's a huge pool of carbon, even more than people thought before, perhaps double the amount of carbon that we thought," said Schuur, one of the article's co-authors. "If you have twice as much carbon there, essentially in the future twice as much could be released into the atmosphere." Cars, power plants and other fossil fuel burners release at least 6 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually, contributing to global warming, the scientists said. As the Siberian permafrost thaws, it will release the carbon contained in old grass roots and buried animal bones into the atmosphere, in what could be an unstoppable contributor to global climate change, according to the researchers. Earlier climate models may have failed to account for this possible component of global warming, he said. Schuur said this source of atmospheric carbon could create a vicious global warming cycle. "You have anthropogenic (human-generated) carbon that's making things a little bit warmer, and that causes the permafrost to warm up and carbon is then released from the permafrost," he said. "It goes into the atmosphere and makes things warmer yet again, so then more permafrost thaws." If all Siberian permafrost thawed and released its carbon in the form of heat-trapping carbon dioxide, it could nearly double the 730 billion metric tons of carbon now in the atmosphere, the scientists said.
11.
Forwarded by "Mark Graffis" mgraffis@gmail.com>
From: http://www.guardian.co.uk/japan/story/0,,1800905,00.html
Whalers secure crucial vote win in bid to overturn ban
· Tiny IWC majority declare 1986 moratorium invalid
· Result a return to dark days, say conservationists
Robert Booth
June 19, 2006 - The Guardian
Japan's campaign to restart commercial whale hunting received a major boost last night when the International Whaling Commission declared invalid a 20-year ban on the slaughter of the planet's largest creatures for anything other than scientific purposes.
Members of the international commission which regulates whaling voted at a meeting in St Kitts by 33 to 32 to support a declaration that paves the way to the lifting of a moratorium imposed in 1986 to save whale species from extinction.
Japan was joined by delegates from Caribbean and African countries who have been pushing to lift the ban as a way to protect fish stocks from whales and give their small countries food security.
The group - which included Denmark - said the resolution was needed to force the IWC to take up its original mandate of managing whale hunts, not banning them altogether.
Pro-whaling countries still need 75% of votes in the IWC to end the moratorium but last night's vote was seen as a big step towards that goal and Japan is encouraging new pro-whaling states to join the commission in the hope of wresting control from protectionists.
"This tragic moment signifies a great step backwards in time to when the International Whaling Commission was nothing more than a whalers' club," said Niki Entrup, of the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society. "This is a return to the 1970s dark days when whales roamed the seas unprotected. The welfare and future of whales remains seriously in question."
"This is a huge disaster," said Kitty Block of Humane Society International. She said it would bolster Japan's pro-whaling "propaganda".
Earlier in the meeting Japan had lost four votes which illustrated its pro-whaling credentials. It had called for secret ballots at the IWC, an exemption to allow Japanese coastal communities to whale, the elimination of a Southern Ocean whale sanctuary and a block on the commission discussing the fate of dolphins, porpoises, small whales and great whales.
The IWC meeting was then thrown into chaos by the vote in favour of the pro-whaling resolution. The declaration's claims that whales are responsible for depleting fish stocks and that non-governmental and environmental organisations which support the whaling ban are a "threat" were fiercely contested, but pro-whaling lobbyists celebrated the first serious setback for those against whaling in years.
"It's only a matter of time before the commercial ban is overturned," said Glenn Inwood, a spokesman for the Japanese delegation.
"This is historic," said Rune Frovik, secretary of the Norwegian pro-whaling lobby the High North Alliance. "For the first time in more than two decades the Whaling Commission expresses support for commercial whaling. This shows the power balance is shifting, but it really shows that both sides need to sit down, compromise and stop yelling from the trenches."
Sue Lieberman, director of the global species programme at WWF International, said a majority of IWC members had adopted language that anti-whaling activists considered scientifically invalid, such as the claim that whales ate large quantities of sought-after fish.
"What is more important than that is this does show that Japan's recruitment drive has finally succeeded. It should be a wake-up call."
Japan has increased aid to countries such as Belize, Mali, Togo, Gambia which are recent members of the IWC. Japan gave $300m to a string of Caribbean islands, ostensibly to develop their fishing industries, but Japan traditionally stresses that whales are responsible for low fish catches.
Japan has abided by the moratorium on commercial whaling since it came into force two decades ago, but, along with Iceland, uses a legal loophole to conduct scientific whaling. Norway is the only country that ignores the ban and more than 25,000 whales have been hunted and killed since the moratorium.
The Japan Whaling Association says Japan would only whale for food rather than oils or bone. It also says it should be allowed to whale because it is part of its culture. "Asking Japan to abandon this part of its culture would compare to Australians being asked to stop eating meat pies, Americans being asked to stop eating hamburgers and the English being asked to go without fish and chips," a statement on its website reads.
12.
From: http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/06/21/the_perfect_stonewall.php
The Perfect Stonewall
David Corn
June 21, 2006
After a brief hiatus to work on a book about the selling of the Iraq war and the CIA leak case, David Corn is back writing his twice-monthly column, "The Loyal Opposition" for TomPaine.com. Corn is also the Washington editor of The Nation and is the author of The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception (Crown Publishers). Read his blog at http://www.davidcorn.com
Future presidents and press secretaries will owe much to George W. Bush and Scott McClellan—that is, if they ever want to mount a cover up. A week after Karl Rove's lawyer announced he was no longer under investigation by special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald in the CIA leak case, it's rather clear that Rove and the White House pulled perfected the art of stonewalling. They—and this caper—will be an inspiration to spinners everywhere.
In July 2003, when columnist Bob Novak (first) and Time magazine (second) published stories disclosing that Valerie Wilson was a CIA officer—and cited administration officials as their sources—the White House responded with a simple denial. McClellan, who had just inherited the White House press secretary position from Ari Fleischer, said of this leak, "That is not the way this president or this White House operates." There was no wiggle room in that statement.
Months later, once the news broke that the Justice Department—acting in response to a CIA request—would be investigating the leak, the White House got more specific. Scott McClellan stated that any White House aide who leaked information on Valerie Wilson would be dismissed, and he asserted that neither Karl Rove nor Scooter Libby had been involved in the leak. Months after that, Bush reaffirmed that the leaker—if discovered—would be booted from his White House.
This was all unambiguous. It ain't us. It ain't Rove. It ain't Libby. And if we knew who had done this, he'd be run out of town. This straight talk got the White House all the way through the 2004 elections.
Eventually the strategy shifted—because it had to. In July 2005, Newsweek's Michael Isikoff revealed an e-mail written by Time correspondent Matt Cooper that showed (with no doubt) that Rove—on "double super secret background"—had told Cooper that Valerie Wilson worked at the CIA and had "authorized" the 2002 trip her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, had taken to Niger to check out the allegation that Saddam Hussein had been uranium-shopping there. The e-mail was incontrovertible proof that Rove had leaked—that he had passed to a reporter classified information (for Valerie Wilson's employment at the CIA was indeed classified, as special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald would later confirm), while the White House was trying to discredit a White House critic.
This e-mail was out of sync with the White House's clear-cut denials. And the disclosure of this e-mail raised a question: would Bush stick to his promise to fire the leaker? The answer was not long in coming: no. But there was more. Now that Rove was clearly pegged as a leaker, the White House came up with a new response: it could not say anything while the investigation was under way. Forget that it had done so repeatedly—that was before it had been caught fibbing about the president's chief strategist.
Those disciplined folks at the White House then clung to its we-cannot-comment lifeline for months. Whenever Bush or McClellan were asked about the leak, the reply was the same: while the investigation is going on, we can't say. And that stance came in handy when Scooter Libby was indicted last fall.
McClellan claimed that Fitzgerald had asked the White House to refrain from commenting on the case, but the press secretary refused to explain anything about that request (even the date that it had been made). At one White House press briefing, I asked McClellan if he would acknowledge that—despite whatever Fitzgerald had requested of the White House—the president was free to take action on his own to deal with the leak. After all, evidence in the public record now indicated a leaker (Rove) was in the highest circles in the White House. Still, McClellan stuck to the script: We cannot comment on an ongoing investigation.
Then last week—after Rove was cut loose by Fitzgerald—Bush said, "I've made the comments I'm going to make about this incident, and I'm going to put this part of the situation behind us and move forward." Wait a minute. Before the investigation was over, Bush and the White House had said they couldn't say anything until the investigation was over. Now that the Rove investigation was over, Bush was saying he had already addressed the matter and it was time to move on.
That was a pretty transparent dodge—duck the issue, duck the issue, duck the issue, then say the issue has already been dealt with and now is old news. But it worked. The media mash did move on to other stories. This was quite an accomplishment for the Bush White House. It had been faced with a smoking-gun piece of evidence proving that the president's most important aide had leaked and that the White House had misled the public about this, and the political price it had to pay was essentially nothing.
Compare this with Bill Clinton's travails. When he was first confronted by the Monica Lewinsky scandal, he went into automatic denial mode. ("I did not have sex with that woman.") But when he came face to face with a stained dress bearing his DNA, he admitted that he had an inappropriate relationship with the intern. He had tried to hold out as long as he could, but he couldn't deny reality. The Bush White House just did exactly that. The evidence about Rove? Sorry, we can't talk about it.
Theses two scandals are hardly parallel case studies. It just may be—for some reason—harder for a politician to get away with a lie about sex than a lie about a possible violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982. But the point is that the Bush gang stonewalled exquisitely. Democrats have reason to be frustrated that Rove—the fellow they despise as the evil genius responsible for many of their woes—escaped the clutches of Patrick Fitzgerald. Worse, though, is that Rove and the Bush White House have set an example for others to follow.
13.
June 19, 2006
[Note from Suzy: I’ve reached June 2 emails in my replies and I put some questions (also some that came in later) in the folder for these messages. Many thanks for your patience (as if we need any more of this “lesson”!).]
___________________________
S: Hi there, Matthew! I’m ready now.
MATTHEW: Mother, dear soul, great thanks from me and the others at this station for taking time out from the flurry of activity to prepare the list of questions. I’ll get to those, but first I want to relate a message from all of us. Before the “text,” if you will, we say THE LIGHT HAS WON—keep this truth foremost in your thoughts at all times! We ask also that you take to heart the importance of our words to you this day.
A previous message included our awareness of the fluctuating confidence even among light workers regarding the progress of the light. We fervently hoped that all such wavering would cease, but it appears that each time something expected does not happen or something not anticipated does, you falter in your conviction that progress is being steadily made, and fear in some form enters your being. The varying forms and severities of fear extend from all-encompassing hopelessness, temporary depression, concerned preoccupation about a possibility, and anger about a disappointing outcome to apathy.
If you ask yourselves, Did my feelings anywhere along that spectrum favorably affect anything? your answer would be “No.” It may be “No” because you feel helpless to make a change in something as expansive as a war zone or genocide or massive drug use, for instance, or someone you deeply care about is experiencing a dire situation beyond your means to relieve. When you look deeper, you see that applies only to your reaction to what you perceive as the status of Earth’s or another soul’s journey, and not your own. So again we remind you that the pace of Earth’s ascension is steady and her destination in the higher densities assured, and souls are experiencing what they chose for their own evolution—it is YOUR journey that you need to address.
It is out of our abiding love for each of you that we urge you to act on this universal truth: You choose your reaction to every situation and you have the power to change a negative reaction to a positive one by changing your thought about it. This is not a bit of delusion to trick you into feeling better—it is accepting the light that we constantly are beaming to you and allowing it to uplift you out of the morass of negativity. Indeed our light helps your homeland planet and all of her other life forms, but we are speaking here about YOUR life pathway. When light permeates your being, it aligns you with your soul’s chosen mission—steadfastness in this pathway is your foremost responsibility because it is from this essence that you grow consciously and evolve spiritually, and simply put, that’s why you are there!
Often we have told you that there will be bumps along the way to the Golden Age, the Age of Enlightenment, the era of love and peace throughout all of Earth. These bumps include what you may consider “setbacks” in the course of the light, although they are NOT—they are only delays in the energy’s surge forward that once tended to, will not after all be delays because they are followed by Earth’s faster “catch-up” pace. Again we return to YOUR pace and encourage you to maintain it in steadiness so you are spiritually prepared to successfully encounter the actual bumps during this transitional stage of your planet’s ascension.
Back to fear, the food of the darkness and its primary tool against light workers. Yes, we do realize that you know this well—so why are we saying it again? It’s because you know the force field of negative thought forms that we commonly call the dark forces has left the vicinity of your planet and you may feel that now you are impervious to the darkness. You are not—the dark tentacles lingering in the minds and hearts of Earth’s residents still can reach you. The energy of fear from any source there refuels and beguiles them into believing they still have a chance to dominate all of Earth by capturing one by one the other souls there. Although they are deluded in thinking that world domination still is within their grasp, they are correct in thinking that they can reach light workers. We do not mean that only light workers may be affected, but it is you whom they are targeting, and lamentably, in some cases, they have reached with varying degrees of success.
Health problems, some even with near-death experience, are the most pronounced effects among healing energy practitioners whose dedication to helping others led to their exhaustion and thus vulnerability to entry by the darkness. Not only does this prevent these souls from continuing their valuable light service until, or if, they recover, but the collective deep concern about these dear ones feeds the darkness. We tell you that prayers “for their highest good” and releasing the outcome to the universe will most benefit them and at the same time, lighten your hearts and minds.
There is that dark “trap” in this kind of light activity, and we remind you that it is the same with receivers of telepathic transmissions—do NOT perform either of these services if you are feeling fatigued, ill or emotionally stressed! Those conditions reduce your light energy and are an open invitation for the tentacles of darkness to enter in the forms of dis-ease and dis-information. Rest to the extent possible and indulge in re-creation—restorative pursuits that will rejuvenate mind, body and soul. To know when you can safely and effectively resume your light service, ask within and heed the answer that comes as intuition. Another reminder for healing energy workers: If a patient’s soul contract calls for experiencing the condition or the chosen missions have been completed, your efforts to treat or cure the person cannot override those choices; the patient’s energy field will block the love energy flowing through you that you intend to be healing.
Falling into fear for any reason takes its toll. Anxiety about precarious employment or job loss or financial woes is causing the actuality to befall souls who give these situations their focused attention. Even though untold fortunes are still in the control of the Illuminati, the universal law of attraction provides financially for you who see the blessings of life, feel thankful for them, and understand that seemingly adverse circumstances are “open door” opportunities for the changes necessary for your spiritual growth.
In short, soul contract choices and the laws of the universe prevail, and each of you, so cherished by all of us, constantly has the light as your pathway beacon.
Now then, Mother, I noticed a question about light workers. Let’s continue with that.
S: Please ask Matthew to explain what it means to “be a light worker” versus a “regular person” who reads his messages.
MATTHEW: First I say, reading my messages or those from any other high light source never is a requirement to be a light worker. We send our information to enlighten, encourage and guide you who do read our messages, but there are many millions of lighted souls who don’t know about us or our love for them and have no idea what a “light worker” is. The term applies to anyone who lives in what you could call godly ways by demonstrating belief in a higher, loving Creator through interaction in kindness, caring, honesty, compassion, fairness and harmony; sharing whatever meager resources with those still more needy; wanting justness for all without prejudice, discrimination or judgment. Even without recognizing it, a person who lives like this generates light and thereby is a “light worker,” albeit what could be thought of as a passive rather than an active role.
“Light weaver” is a term I haven’t used before, but it is more accurate for you who know that you chose to participate in the ascension of Earth and actively are filling the roles your cumulative experiencing so well qualifies you to do. You are “weaving” the loose ends of the collective karma that was required so your beloved Earth and her light-receptive peoples can be released from the limitations of third density where darkness thrives.
S: Thank you, dear. Do you have something to add to the group message or shall we go on with the list?
MATTHEW: I relayed our full thoughts, so please type the question in your thoughts.
S: Well, it’s there because so many people want to know what happened to Karl Rove’s indictment and what can be expected from Patrick Fitzgerald’s work. What one reader wrote sums up what others said in one way or another, “Many of us are extremely worried about the direction of our nation.”
MATTHEW: Mother, we know this, and the concern is not limited to the people in the United States! What happened to Rove’s indictment is, in a word, skullduggery. After the indictment was served, dark ones more powerful than he motivated others, also with dark proclivity, to disqualify the meticulously prepared, airtight legal case against him. Do not expect your mainstream media to comment thusly, but many reporters and all others who are thinking soundly see this as greater proof of corruption in the US justice system than the Supreme Court’s complicity in the “stolen” last presidential election.
When I spoke earlier of “delays” that are not “setbacks,” I had in mind the decision affecting Rove, which we know was extremely disheartening to the majority of people in the United States as well as US government observers in other countries. Some see this as the “last straw” of hope and now fear that forevermore, the corrupt ones will be in control. NO! The truth about this derailment of justice and all other dark endeavors cannot be hidden much longer. What we see in this moment is a lull in any apparent movement while the dark ones temporarily put lids on public disclosures such as the monstrous web of the prostitution ring “hooker-gate” that extends to the White House and the total chaos in Iraq, and they enjoy short-lived victories such as the quashing of the indictment against Rove. But the forcefulness of the light will bring these back to the public eye along with all other truths, and it is likely that instead of revelations coming forth incrementally as previously indicated by their energy momentum, due to the acceleration of “time,” it will be more like a prolonged eruption with one truth leading directly to another with little respite between.
Please do not ask when this “eruption” will begin—it is not possible to know this. The momentum of any course of action does not follow a straight line; it zigs and zags in accordance with every bit of input until the energy is played out with one result or another. Only the lowest, or basest, off-planet sources give specific dates for any occurrence, and to a considerable extent, they achieve the outcome they desire: negativity. Because they know the dates will come and go without the forecast event happening, the negativity of confusion, disillusionment and loss of belief in all channeled information results. Even when dire predictions such as a comet hitting Earth do not come to fruition, the fear created by the potential event is a victory for the darkness. How often have we urged you to be keenly discerning about all information!
Let me carry this beyond the Rove situation regarding people’s fears that justice is dead and buried and the environment is doomed, too. Legal decisions like that about Rove and unjust new and longstanding laws in any country will be repealed when wise, spiritually evolved souls take the reigns of governments, and they are ready to do so. All activities that are injurious to your planet’s well being will cease and restoration will take place amazingly quickly when our ET family can openly work with you and put to use their technology at ground level. And as Earth continues on her ascension course, all forms of disease, deception, corruption and violence will end—everything ever devised with dark intent will be only history. I know I am repeating myself here—it’s for the benefit of newcomers to my messages. I ask that the dear souls who want more comprehensive information on these and myriad other topics read prior messages on www.matthewbooks.com.
Now, Mother, the next question please.
S: Thank you for all of that, Mash—I don’t think anyone objects to helpful reminders. But about specific dates, maybe it’s different for my combination of two questions: What is your opinion of channeled information giving dates of celestial activity that opens vortexes or otherwise affects the planet energetically?
MATTHEW: Because I have no idea what events are being questioned, I can only speak generally. ALWAYS celestial activity has had a bearing on what transpires not only on Earth, but throughout the universe, and especially now in this period of such dramatic universal changes. Yes, specific times for celestial movement can be quite accurately charted by those who are knowledgeable, but we are aware that some who are not also are giving forth their well-meaning but wrong calculations and projected effects. At Earth’s request, ancient vortexes that closed as your planet sank into third density are being opened by the light from benevolent ET civilizations in conjunction with spirit beings—witness the in-pouring of what is called feminine energy, or the divine feminine, that has come in to balance the masculine energy that so long has dominated Earth’s populations.
S: Yes! A reader expressed his concerns that after all the truth about corruption and atrocities is revealed, which would create a new and frenzied dynamic in the mass consciousness, how will we deal with the negativity that will cause, and how long will chaos continue before there will be peace and rejoicing?
MATTHEW: Although a change of this magnitude has not affected Earth before, other lifetime experiencing there and elsewhere has prepared you to manage it quite effectively. You know this at soul level—you chose to participate in accordance with your acquired capabilities—and some of you know it consciously. The greatest change—the one that enables transition into the higher vibrations—is in humankind, those who embrace the light. This raises your consciousness and renews your spiritual awareness, and it permits physical survival in the higher planes of Earth’s destination. Those who refuse the light cannot make this trip and will not be around to impede progress of the transition process. Ye