Cecilia Lagos a journalist from Chile was just on CNN talking about how she was laying in bed awake as it was happening. It is not uncommon for there to be tremors but it didn’t stop in got louder and as she was looking out the window she noticed the sky was changing color. 6:45 AM PST I hear a woman say the sky was changing colors before and during the quake, “the scariest part was the sky changing color” and later It was like Armageddon or the Movie 2012

Earthquake in Chile

Check out these photos…………..Chile Earthquake

By J. Speer-Williams
3-1-10

From planned financial meltdowns, to engineered economic collapses, to increased taxes and inflation, to social upheavals, laboratory concocted viruses, deadly vaccines, state sponsored terrorist attacks, and more wars, the Controllers of the International Monetary/Banking Cartel are bringing their end-games to a climax, which is their One-World Government.

We are all being herded into this one-world corral, by psychopaths, posing as the world’s elite, who by human standards are the most insane among us; and yet, many people are imperceptive of this obvious phenomenon. Could there be something deeper than the Cartel’s controlled mass-media that is blinding so much of mankind to the geo/political realities of our world?

Why is the bulk of mankind in such a stupor? Are these questions to which we are not meant to know the answer? Can we just be satisfied with the words of Winston Churchill: “It’s a riddle wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.”.

But, I still wanna know. Why can we not see the plainly obvious?

I know some fairly well educated people want a one-world government, as they naively believe such a universal institution would bring an end to the horrors of war. What these same people do not know, and seem incapable of understanding, is that the power structure that is whipping us into a one-world state is the same tribe of psychopaths who have caused all the major wars of history.

Do we really want to be ruled by the arbitrary, ad hoc laws of the severely insane, rather than to be governed by laws which have the consent of the governed?

Do we really want to be ruled by the descendants of mass killers, who are themselves proven international war criminals?

Today, however, most Americans are largely so apathetic (and/or numb) to the deceit and treachery that routinely comes out of Washington, that they often pass it all off with, “Why inform myself about it as there’s nothing I can do about changing it anyway … you know what I mean?”

Yes, it means you are about as anti-intellectual as the moron who says, “Why study history, as there’s nothing I can do to change any of it anyway … you know what I mean?”

Worst yet, such anti-intellectuals, with their indifference and ignorance, become collaborators with the enemies of mankind, especially when voting for most democratic and republican political candidates, while thinking of themselves as being very patriotic by merely voting. Ignorance and arrogance are truly blood brothers.

Still, most Americans are simply so overwhelmed with their own problems, they have little time or energy to study the severe financial, economic, and political problems facing mankind, even if they could understand them.

But basically, what most Americans do not understand is that most of their problems have been artificially created, in part, so that the criminal activity in Washington can go on unabated. Also creating public apathy is how unnecessarily complex the subjects of finance, economics, and politics have, by design, been made, with the help of mass-media punditry.

But perhaps most devastating of all is the helplessness big government creates in individuals, until the affairs of Washington seem like the happenings of another world. Under a one-world governance, the affairs of state will seem like those of another galaxy, creating total non-participation in the affairs of government, a perfect situation for those who would exercise draconian measures over mankind.

Back in Lincoln’s day, when there was a population of about one-tenth of what it is today, and individual states shared power equally with the federal government, there was keen interest in politics, finance, and economics amongst citizens, as they felt they could have some small voice in the direction of their state and national governments. A person will have an extremely difficult time making his voice heard against the din of over six billion people.

There is a maxim we all would do well to learn and remember: As government grow, individual freedom diminish.

Liberals support big government and large public debts, as they think they’ll be able to “get something for nothing,” the motto of the criminal. Conservatives support big government, as most want large armies and air forces, central intelligence, atomic weapons, war production boards, and the attendant large public debts that come with the centralization of power.

Therefore, either explicitly or implicitly, many Americans will support the move to a one-world government, especially after the Cartel’s corporate media tells us how it’ll eliminate foreign threats, end terrorist attacks, recover our economy, get the homeless off our streets, and save our environment. And crime? We’ll be told crime will be a thing of the past, and it will be … except for those who’ll be controlling us, and who have caused foreign threats, terrorists attacks, failed economies, homeless in our streets, and who have made almost every effort to destroy our environment.

The Establishment would have us believe our choice is between big centralized government or disasters. It’s an old Hegelian dialectic trick: a choice between a false thesis and a ridiculous antithesis, as if no other choices exist. And yet, many supposedly educated college graduates and pointy-headed professors of academe fall for this ruse, even in the face of outrageous hegemony and burgeoning despotism. Western education truly robs one of any possibility of critical thought.

Argentine economic analyst Adrian Salbuchi somehow retain his ability to think critically, in spite of his advanced education, which is proven in his three part video, that can be seen at www.Rense.com. In the videos, Salbuchi tells us of twelve planned attacks leading from our current globalization to the ultimate Cartel end game – a one world government.

1. Planned financial melt-down – needing a world currency and financial system.

2. Economic collapse – requiring increased taxes and world economic authority.

3. Social unrest – requiring international military to police.

4. Virus pandemics – created in labs, requiring deadly vaccines and RFID chips.

5. Environmental scares – needing greatly reduced standards of living and increased taxes.

6. Mega-terror attack – by black opts units from US/UK/Israeli intelligence.

7. Major Middle East atomic war – demanded by Zionists.

8. Nuclear accident – requiring nuclear facilities and weapons to be turned over to world government.

9. Assassination of world leader – resulting with a world government with faceless, unelected leaders.

10. Total destruction of “rogue” nations – those “terrorist” states that resist one-world government.

The last two attacks, claimed by Salbuchi, are outside the box. See his videos and be surprised.

Is Salbuchi being unduly pessimistic with his above precludes to a one-world government of tyranny? Maybe.

But surely any, or all of the above, could come to pass if enough people do not become cognizant of the possibility of them happening. At this critical juncture of our world, it is vital that we drop some of our limiting and generally mindless pursuits in favor of enlightening ourselves and others, as our future well-being is of next to no importance to our so-called national leaders.

J. Speer-Williams
jsw4@mac.com

By Stephen Lendman
3-1-10

Post-9/11, Dick Cheney warned of wars that won’t end in our lifetime. Former CIA Director James Woolsey said America “is engaged in World War IV, and it could continue for years….This fourth world war, I think, will last considerably longer than either World Wars I or II did for us.” GHW Bush called it a “New World Order” in his September 11, 1990 address to a joint session of Congress as he prepared the public for Operation Desert Storm.

The Pentagon called it the “long war” in its 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), what past administrations waged every year without exception since the republic’s birth, at home and abroad. Obama is just the latest of America’s warrior presidents that included Washington, Madison, Jackson, Lincoln, T. Roosevelt, Wilson, F. Roosevelt, Truman, Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, GHW Bush, Clinton, and GW Bush preceding him.

This article covers WW II and its aftermath history of imperial wars for unchallengeable global dominance throughout a period when America had and still has no enemies. Then why fight them? Read on.

Wars Without End

America glorifies wars in the name of peace, what historian Charles Beard (1874 – 1948) called “perpetual war for perpetual peace” in describing the Roosevelt and Truman administrations’ foreign policies – what concerned the Federation of American Scientists when it catalogued about 200 post-1945 conflicts in which America was, and still is, the aggressor.

Historian Gore Vidal used Beard’s phrase in titling his 2002 book, “Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace” and saying:

“our rulers for more than half a century have made sure that we are never to be told the truth about anything that our government has done to other people, not to mention our own.”

In his 2002 book “Dreaming War,” he compared GW Bush’s imperial ambitions to WW II and the 1947 Truman Doctrine’s pledge:

“To support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.”

It was to keep Greece and Turkey from going communist, but it applied globally and initiated America’s National Security State strategy that included:

– NATO in 1949 for offense, not defense;

– NSC-68 against Soviet Russia in 1950 to “contain” what was called an enemy “unlike previous aspirants to hegemony….animated by a new fanatic faith, antithetical to our own (wishing to) impose its absolute authority over the rest of the world” at a time America was the only global superpower, the Soviet Union lay in ruins, threatened no one, and needed years to regain normality.

Then came:

– Truman’s instigated June 25, 1950 war after the DPRK retaliated in force following months of ROK provocations, what Americans call the Korean War, South Koreans the 6-2-5 War (meaning June 25), and the North its “fatherland liberation war” that left it in ruins, the South occupied to this day, and it was only the mid-century beginning as succeeding administrations continued an agenda for what’s now called “full spectrum dominance” for global US hegemony.

It worried historian Harry Elmer Barnes (1889 – 1968) in his 1953 collection of leading historical revisionists’ essays titled, “Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: A Critical Examination of the Foreign Policy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and It’s Aftermath” in which he wrote in the preface:

“If trends continue as they have during the last fifteen years, we shall soon reach this point of no return, and can only anticipate interminable wars, disguised as noble gestures for peace. Such an era could only culminate in a third world war which might well, as Arnold J. Toynbee has suggested, leave only the pygmies in remote jungles, or even the apes and ants, to carry on ‘the cultural traditions’ of mankind.”

He cited how America’s “needless” entry into two world wars converted its pre-1914 dream “into a nightmare of fear, regimentation, destruction, insecurity, inflation, and ultimate insolvency.” He debunked the cause and merits of WW I, “the folly of our entering it, and the disastrous results that followed.” He cited “popular fictions” about WW II, the injustices to Germany and Austria that caused it, the war Roosevelt wanted early in the 1930s as captured Polish documents and the censored Forrestal Diaries confirmed.

Before it began, he wanted US neutrality legislation ended, then after September 1939, he dropped any pretense by supporting Britain and France and opposing peace efforts after Poland’s defeat. His June 1940 “dagger in the back” address was a de facto act of war by beginning vast amounts of weapons and munitions shipments to Britain after Dunkirk, followed by the September 1940 (peacetime) Selective Service Act, the first in US history, in preparation for what close advisor Harry Hopkins told Churchill in January 1941 that:

“The President is determined that we shall win the war together. Make no mistake about it,” followed by Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Harold Stark telling his fleet commanders that “The question of our entry into the war now seems to be when, and not whether.”

Only a pretext was needed, first by trying and failing to provoke Germany, then deciding Japan would be attacked, whether or not it struck US ships, territory, or forces in the Pacific. In a July 4 radio broadcast, Roosevelt said:

“solemnly (understand) that the United States will never survive as a happy and fertile oasis of liberty surrounded by a cruel desert of dictatorship.” Then his July 25 Executive Order froze Japanese assets, stating it was:

“….To prevent the use of the financial facilities of the United States in trade between Japan and the United States in ways harmful to national defense and American interests, to prevent the liquidation in the United States of assets obtained by duress or conquest, and to curb subversive activities in the United States.”

Britain followed suit the next day, and Roosevelt nationalized the Philippines’ armed forces “as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States” with dominion over its Asian colony.

As early as 1937, he planned a naval blockade, but dropped the idea after an adverse reaction. It resurfaced in 1938 because he knew strangling Japan economically assured war.

Throughout his administration, from 1933 through late 1941, he spurned Japanese peace overtures that would have protected all American interests in the Pacific. By November 25, the final die was cast. America chose war, and on that day, War Secretary Henry Stimson wrote in his diary that it depended only on how to maneuver Japan to attack with the lowest number of US casualties.

Tokyo had no other recourse, knowing it couldn’t win, but hoping for a negotiated settlement to solidify whatever Asian control it could retain. It failed, lost the war, and remains an occupied US vassal state.

In the late 1930s, Roosevelt encouraged a Japanese attack by stationing the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor against the advice of two key admirals, James Richardson, Pacific Fleet commander and Harold Stark, Chief of Naval Operations until March 1942.

Selling arms to Japan’s enemies and an embargo assured war, and US cable documentation confirmed it was coming. Breaking the Japanese code let Britain and Washington track its fleet from the Kurile Islands to its North Pacific refueling point en route to Pearl Harbor on or about December 7.

At a December 5 cabinet meeting, Navy Secretary Frank Knox said: “Well, you know Mr. President, we know where the Japanese fleet is?”

“Yes, I know,” responded Roosevelt, saying “Well, you tell them what it is Frank,” who explained where it was, where it was heading until Roosevelt interrupted adding that perfect information wasn’t available in spite of navy reports confirming it in Pacific waters heading toward Hawaii. On December 6, officials awaited the attack until it came the next morning at 7:55AM Hawaii time.

It was a day of infamy and deceit, with Pearl Harbor’s commander, Admiral HE Kimmel, denied crucial intelligence to let it proceed unimpeded, arouse public anger, and give FDR his war – one decoded Japanese messages showed they didn’t want but Roosevelt gave them no choice.

Like other presidents, he lied the country into war against the wishes of 80% of the public, at a cost of millions of lives in both theaters, and a policy henceforth of perpetual wars for perpetual peace to achieve unchallengeable US dominance. In the modern era, FDR’s foreign policy began it, leaving a bankrupted moral and political legacy active to this day.

Consider also what revisionist historians say about Lincoln – that he provoked the Fort Sumpter (in Charleston, SC harbor) attack and began the Civil War for economic reasons, not to end slavery.

Consider also that ordinary people and soldiers don’t want war, just their leaders and commanders – to wit, Christmas 1914 during WW I when German and British troops stopped fighting, didn’t know why they were doing it, then defied orders by fraternizing with each other for two weeks despite risking being court-martialed. Unable to stop them, their officers joined them in a celebratory pause that didn’t stop another three years of carnage, millions of lost lives, and post-war policies that assured WW II.

The lesson is clear. All wars are immoral, unnecessary, and only happen when one side provokes the other for reasons unrelated to national security threats.

In his seminal book, “A Century of War,” Gabriel Kolko called the 20th century:

“the bloodiest in all history. More than 170 million people were killed,” 70% of whom in WW II were civilians, “mainly (from) the bombing of cities by Great Britain and America.” There was nothing good about “the good war” nor any others.

In Kolko’s later book “Another Century of War,” he stressed how America contributes to much of the world’s disorder through its interventions and as the world’s largest arms producer and exporter. Post-WW II, the US became a global menace, today claiming “terrorism” as the main threat – a bogus fiction to justify militarism, perpetual wars heading the nation for moral, political and economic bankruptcy. According to Kolko:

“The way America’s leaders are running the nation’s foreign policy is not creating peace or security at home or stability abroad. The reverse is the case: its interventions have been counterproductive.”

In his newest book, “The World in Crisis,” Kolko believes that America’s decline “began after the Korean War, was continued in relation to Cuba, and was greatly accelerated in Vietnam – but (GW Bush did) much to exacerbate it further.” He also thinks:

– US power is declining everywhere;

– “the world is no longer dependent on its economic might” because other nations like China and India are growing and may some day equal or surpass America;

– after the Soviet Union’s collapse, “the absence of identifiable foes has been a disaster, leaving the US aimless – (so) it picks and chooses enemies: rag-tag Afghan tribesmen, Iraqis or all sorts, perhaps China, perhaps Russia….South American caudillos,” whatever bogus ones can be invented for imperial wars, but the justification is wearing thin, and the burgeoning cost unsustainable.

The result is that America’s “century of domination is now ending.”

America’s Permanent War Economy

It’s how Seymour Melman (1917 – 2004) characterized it in his books and frequents writings on America’s military-industrial complex. One of his last articles was titled “In the Grip of a Permanent War Economy (CounterPunch, March 15, 2003) in which he said:

“at the start of the twenty-first century, every major aspect of American life is being shaped by our Permanent War Economy.” He then examined the horrific toll:

– a de-industrialized nation, the result of decades of shifting production abroad leaving unions and communities “decimated;”

– government financing and promoting “every kind of war industry and foreign investing by US firms;” war priorities take precedence over essential homeland needs;

– America’s “Permanent War Economy….has endured since the end of World War II….Since then the US has been at war – somewhere – every year, in Korea, Nicaragua, Vietnam, the Balkans, Afghanistan – all this to the accompaniment of shorter military forays in Africa, Chile, Grenada, Panama,” and increasingly at home against its own people;

– “how to make war” takes precedence over everything leaving no “public space….on how to improve the quality of our lives;”

– “Shortages of housing have caused a swelling of the homeless population in every major city (because) State and city governments across the country have become trained to bend to the needs of the military….;” the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless (CCH) currently estimates over 21,000 are on city streets nightly, and during winter months it’s dangerous;

– the result is a nation of growing millions of poor, disadvantaged, uneducated, and “disconnected from society’s mainstream, restless and unhappy, frustrated, angry, and sad;”

“State Capitalism” characterizes America’s government – business partnership running a war economy for greater power and wealth at the expense of a nation in decline, corrupted leadership, lost industrialization, crumbling infrastructure, and suffering millions on their own, uncared for, unwanted, ignored, and forgotten.

Melman stressed that:

“Further evasion is out of order. We must come to grips with America’s State Capitalism and its Permanent War Economy.” Re-industrialization is essential “to restore jobs and production competence – industry by industry.”

“Failing that, there is no hope for any constructive exit,” for the nation or its people.

Dwight Eisenhower’s January 17, 1961 Address to the Nation

It was his farewell address delivered 30 years to the day before Operation Desert Storm began in which he warned about the “military-industrial complex,” citing the “grave implications” of a “coalition of the military and industrialists who profit by manufacturing arms and selling them to the government.”

He stated “we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence….by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

He also said that:

“Every gun that is made, every war ship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, from those who are cold and not clothed,” the result of what some analysts call the “iron triangle” of Congress, the Pentagon, and the defense industry that includes producers of sophisticated technology for digital age warfare of a kind Eisenhower never imagined.

In combination, they’ve addicted America to war, not for threats, but for the power and profits that result. In his book “The Political Economy of US Militarism,” Professor Ismael Hossein-Zadeh refers to “parasitic military imperialism,” consuming over 40% of the national tax revenue at the expense of unmet human needs.

Morality aside, it’s not justified economically. It’s wasteful, inefficient, comes at a great cost, and over time is ineffective and self-destructive.

“The control over huge amounts of national resources tends to lead to an undermining of democratic values, a perversion of republican principles and a reduction of civil freedoms, as well as to the political corruption at home and abroad.” Moreover, “The constant need for international conflicts makes (America’s) military imperialism….more dangerous than the imperial powers of the past.”

It’s made war-making a giant enterprise “not only for expansionism but, in fact, for the survival of this empire,” yet consider the fallout Hossein-Zadeh examined in a July 10, 2007 article titled, “Parasitic Imperialism:”

– the redistribution of income and resources to the wealthy;

– the undermining of physical and human capital;

– the nation’s increased vulnerability to natural disasters;

– economic and financial instability, the result of the growing national debt now totally out of control;

– less foreign market potential for non-military ventures;

– the undermining of civil liberties and democratic values; and

– “foster(ing) a dependence on or addiction to military spending, and, therefore….a spiraling vicious circle of (unsustainable) war and militarism” that’s sucking the nation into decline.

America’s Post-WW II Imperial Grand Strategy

Post-WW II, America emerged as the world’s sole superpower – economically, politically and militarily, given the war’s toll on East Asia, Europe and Soviet Russia. In his book, “The Cold War and the New Imperialism,” Professor Henry Heller examined it with emphasis on the Cold War, America’s containment policy, and its efforts against leftist forces in support of fascist elements on the right at both state and local levels.

The Soviet Union controlled Eastern and Central Europe while Mao’s War of Liberation defeated Chiang Kai-Shek Nationalists. Cold War confrontation followed. It pitted US imperialism against an opposing ideology, the aim being which side would triumph or could both co-exist peacefully and avoid conflict.

War was never an option given each side’s nuclear strength under a policy of “mutually assured destruction (MAD)”. In addition, post-Stalinist Russia began reforms and expanded its sphere of influence. It wasn’t to destroy the West, but to co-exist equally. America and Soviet Russia only competed for developing country allies to keep them from the opposing camp, so neither would be dominated by the other or more vulnerable to being isolated, marginalized, or shut out from world markets and influence.

US Imperialism Post-WW II

James Petras and others have said behind every imperial war is a great lie, the more often repeated the more likely to be believed because ordinary people want peace, not conflict, so it’s vital to convince them.

In the 1950s, the Eisenhower administration overthrew two popularly elected governments in Iran and Guatemala, and sought greater influence in Africa and Southeast Asia as anti-colonial movements gained strength.

On January 1, 1959 Fidel Castro’s socialist revolution ousted the US-backed Batista dictatorship. He then survived America’s failed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, but faced decades of US hostility, including an embargo, destabilization, intimidation, and hundreds of attempts to kill him, unsuccessful so Cuba is still free from US dominance, but hardly safe from its northern hegemon.

In the 1950s, America also backed French Southeast Asian imperialism until defeat at Dien Bien Phu drove them out. A repressive South Vietnamese client regime was established at the same time, supported by US military advisors teaching war and repression tactics. Unifying North and South elections were blocked, and direct intervention began in 1961. In 1958, Washington also subverted Laotian democracy and incited civil war. Cambodia as well was targeted but remained free.

Early in his administration, Kennedy intervened, but a new James Douglass book titled “JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters” says without conviction because he opposed using force. After the Joint Chiefs demanded troops for Laos, he told his Geneva Conference representative, Averell Harriman:

“Did you understand? I want a negotiated settlement in Laos. I don’t want to put troops in.”

He wouldn’t agree to using nuclear weapons in Berlin and Southeast Asia and refused to bomb or invade Cuba during the 1962 missile crisis, saying afterwards that “I never had the slightest intention of doing so.”

In June 1963 (a few months before his assassination), he called for the abolition of nuclear weapons, ending the Cold War, and moving forward for “general and complete disarmament.” In October 1963, he signed National Security Action Memorandum (NSAM) 263 to withdraw 1,000 US forces from Vietnam by year end and all of them by 1965. He said he wanted “to splinter the CIA in a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds.” He wanted peace, not conflicts. It cost him his life, and future presidents got the message.

Johnson resumed Southeast Asian escalation to establish client regimes and military bases across East and South Asia, encircle China, and crush nationalist anti-imperial movements. The Indochinese war engulfed Cambodia and Laos as well under Johnson and Nixon. It killed three to four million, inflicted vast amounts of destruction, caused incalculable human suffering, got America to sign a peace treaty in January 1973, but war continued until its clients were defeated in April 1975.

Prior to Reagan’s election, the “Vietnam syndrome” and easing Cold War tensions and disarmament efforts alarmed militarists to fear defense spending cuts detrimental to profits. A propaganda campaign exaggerated bogus threats, manipulated intelligence to heighten fear, and got the Reagan administration to approve large military spending increases to confront “Soviet expansionism” at a time it was transitioning from Brezhnev, Andropov, and Chernenko to Gorbachev in 1985, followed by perestroika in 1986, glasnost in 1988, border openings and the Berlin Wall’s collapse in 1989, then the Soviet Union’s dissolution in 1991 – a new threat militarists feared would bring large, not to be tolerated, defense budgets cuts.

In the late 1980s, however, leading figures, including Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Samuel Huntington, and Albert Wohlstetter alleged Third World conflicts threatened US interests in the Middle East, Mediterranean, and Western Pacific, and recommended deterrence to stop them. Joint Chiefs Chairman Colin Powell and Defense Secretary Dick Cheney agreed. Others wanted large defense cuts for a peace dividend, including Johnson’s DOD chief Robert McNamara who proposed reductions up to 50%.

Throughout the 1989 – 1999 period, mostly under Bill Clinton, US-instigated provocations, sanctions, and armed insurrections support involved America in 134 military operations according to the Federation of American Scientists. The most egregious was Clinton’s bombing and dismemberment of Yugoslavia, an act playwright Harold Pinter called:

“barbaric” and despicable, “another blatant and brutal assertion of US power using NATO as its missile” to consolidate “American domination of Europe.” Worse was yet to come with the election of George Bush, America’s worst president in a country that never had a good one and never will as it’s now governed.

Long before 9/11, Middle East restructuring plans were based on bogus terrorist, rogue state, and “clash of civilizations” threats by hordes of Islamofascists, including the Palestinian resistance, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and Saddam Hussein targeted in the 1990 – 91 Gulf War, followed by years of devastating sanctions, then ousted by GW Bush in 2003.

Iraq was destroyed, occupied and balkanized. Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran face similar threats, the common thread being dominating Eurasia through endless conflicts and increased military spending for war profiteering bounties. September 11 assured it, and got Michelle Ciarocca of the Arms Trade Resource Center, in September 2002 to say:

“The whole mind set of military spending changed on Sept. 11. The most fundamental thing about defense spending is that threats drive (it). It’s now going to be easier to fund almost anything.”

Hossein-Zadeh investigated the growing role of private contractors creating a “built-in propensity to war that makes the US military-industrial complex a menace to world peace and stability, a force of death and destruction,” as virulent under Obama as George Bush.

The fallout includes a burgeoning national debt, loss of civil liberties and democratic freedoms, erosion of social services, collapse of the dollar, America already in decline, its coming loss of preeminence as a world power, its potential bankruptcy, perhaps demise in its present form. and the possibility of WW III.

America’s Illegal Wars of Aggression – The “Supreme Crime”

All US post-WW II conflicts were premeditated wars of aggression against nations posing no threat to America -
what Justice Robert Jackson at Nuremberg called:

the “supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”

Canadian Law Professor Michael Mandel explained America’s guilt in his superb 2004 book, “How America Gets Away with Murder: Illegal Wars, Collateral Damage, and Crimes Against Humanity,” his main theme being Jackson’s Nuremberg “supreme crime” declaration, as relevant now as then.

Tragically, as Edward Herman observed in reviewing Mandel’s book:

“The problem for the United States (and the world) has been that this country is now in the business of aggression and its commission of the “supreme crime” is standard policy, thereby bringing the “scourge of war” across the globe in direct violation of the UN charter.”

Its Purposes and Principles state that:

“The Purposes of the United Nations are:

(1) To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace.”

Conspiratorially with NATO and Israel, America willfully and repeatedly violates international and US laws, punishes its victims, absolves itself, and since WW II has directly or indirectly murdered millions of people globally, mostly civilian non-combatants.

Barack Obama – America’s New Warrior President

America glorifies conflicts and the righteousness of waging them, packaged as liberating ones for democracy, freedom, justice, and the best of all possible worlds. Obama is just the latest in a long line of warrior leaders promising peace by waging war, justifying them by bogus threats, and calling pacifism unpatriotic to further an imperial agenda for greater wealth, power, and unchallengeable global dominance.

In opposition to his announced Afghanistan surge, peace activists gathered across from the White House on December 12 for an “Emergency Anti-Escalation Rally” organized by “End US Wars”- a new coalition of grassroots anti-war organizations.

Speakers included Kathy Kelly, David Swanson, Granny D (age 100 on January 24, 2010) former Senator Mike Gravel (1969 – 1981), and former Representative and 2008 Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney, among others.

This writer was asked to prepare a short commentary to be read to the crowd. Updated, it’s reproduced below:

Obama’s Permanent War Strategy

Disingenuously calling Afghanistan a “war of necessity, not choice,” Obama ordered 30,000 more troops deployed over the next six months with perhaps many more to follow. In one of his most defining decisions, he’s more than doubled the force count since taking office, angered a majority in the country, and continues his permanent war agenda while calling himself a man of peace.

Next target, Yemen, and its newest, occupied Haiti for plunder, exploitation, and very likely killing unwanted Haitians by neglect, starvation, disease, and face-to-face confrontations if they resist.

As a candidate, Obama campaigned against imperial militarism, promised limited escalation only, and pledged to remove all combat troops from Iraq by August 31, 2010. That was then. This is now, and consider what he has in mind – the permanent occupation of Iraq, Afghanistan and more.

Besides the Afghan escalation, he’s also destabilizing Pakistan to balkanize both countries, weakening them to control the Caspian Sea’s oil and gas riches and their energy routes to secured ports for export. The strategy includes encircling Russia, China, and Iran, obstructing their solidarity and cohesion, defusing a feared geopolitical alliance, weakening the Iranian government, perhaps attacking its nuclear sites, eliminating Israel’s main regional rival, and securing unchallenged Eurasian dominance over this resource rich part of the world that includes China, Russia, the Middle East, and Indian subcontinent.

Like George Bush, Obama plans permanent war and more military spending than all other nations combined at a time America has no enemies. He promised change and betrayed us. Grassroots activism must stop this madness and make America a nation again to be proud of. The alternative is too grim to imagine.

Over 50 years ago, Bertrand Russell (1872 – 1970) warned:

“Shall we put an end to the human race, or shall mankind renounce war” and live in peace, because we have no other choice.

Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://prognewshour.progressiveradionetwork.org/

http://lendmennews.progressiveradionetwork.org/

box and h and dP

America’s Permanent War Agenda

By Stephen Lendman

3-2-10

Post-9/11, Dick Cheney warned of wars that won’t end in our lifetime. Former CIA Director James Woolsey said America “is engaged in World War IV, and it could continue for years….This fourth world war, I think, will last considerably longer than either World Wars I or II did for us.” GHW Bush called it a “New World Order” in his September 11, 1990 address to a joint session of Congress as he prepared the public for Operation Desert Storm.

The Pentagon called it the “long war” in its 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), what past administrations waged every year without exception since the republic’s birth, at home and abroad. Obama is just the latest of America’s warrior presidents that included Washington, Madison, Jackson, Lincoln, T. Roosevelt, Wilson, F. Roosevelt, Truman, Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, GHW Bush, Clinton, and GW Bush preceding him.

This article covers WW II and its aftermath history of imperial wars for unchallengeable global dominance throughout a period when America had and still has no enemies. Then why fight them? Read on.

Wars Without End

America glorifies wars in the name of peace, what historian Charles Beard (1874 – 1948) called “perpetual war for perpetual peace” in describing the Roosevelt and Truman administrations’ foreign policies – what concerned the Federation of American Scientists when it catalogued about 200 post-1945 conflicts in which America was, and still is, the aggressor.

Historian Gore Vidal used Beard’s phrase in titling his 2002 book, “Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace” and saying:

“our rulers for more than half a century have made sure that we are never to be told the truth about anything that our government has done to other people, not to mention our own.”

In his 2002 book “Dreaming War,” he compared GW Bush’s imperial ambitions to WW II and the 1947 Truman Doctrine’s pledge:

“To support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.”

It was to keep Greece and Turkey from going communist, but it applied globally and initiated America’s National Security State strategy that included:

– NATO in 1949 for offense, not defense;

– NSC-68 against Soviet Russia in 1950 to “contain” what was called an enemy “unlike previous aspirants to hegemony….animated by a new fanatic faith, antithetical to our own (wishing to) impose its absolute authority over the rest of the world” at a time America was the only global superpower, the Soviet Union lay in ruins, threatened no one, and needed years to regain normality.

Then came:

– Truman’s instigated June 25, 1950 war after the DPRK retaliated in force following months of ROK provocations, what Americans call the Korean War, South Koreans the 6-2-5 War (meaning June 25), and the North its “fatherland liberation war” that left it in ruins, the South occupied to this day, and it was only the mid-century beginning as succeeding administrations continued an agenda for what’s now called “full spectrum dominance” for global US hegemony.

It worried historian Harry Elmer Barnes (1889 – 1968) in his 1953 collection of leading historical revisionists’ essays titled, “Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: A Critical Examination of the Foreign Policy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and It’s Aftermath” in which he wrote in the preface:

“If trends continue as they have during the last fifteen years, we shall soon reach this point of no return, and can only anticipate interminable wars, disguised as noble gestures for peace. Such an era could only culminate in a third world war which might well, as Arnold J. Toynbee has suggested, leave only the pygmies in remote jungles, or even the apes and ants, to carry on ‘the cultural traditions’ of mankind.”

He cited how America’s “needless” entry into two world wars converted its pre-1914 dream “into a nightmare of fear, regimentation, destruction, insecurity, inflation, and ultimate insolvency.” He debunked the cause and merits of WW I, “the folly of our entering it, and the disastrous results that followed.” He cited “popular fictions” about WW II, the injustices to Germany and Austria that caused it, the war Roosevelt wanted early in the 1930s as captured Polish documents and the censored Forrestal Diaries confirmed.

Before it began, he wanted US neutrality legislation ended, then after September 1939, he dropped any pretense by supporting Britain and France and opposing peace efforts after Poland’s defeat. His June 1940 “dagger in the back” address was a de facto act of war by beginning vast amounts of weapons and munitions shipments to Britain after Dunkirk, followed by the September 1940 (peacetime) Selective Service Act, the first in US history, in preparation for what close advisor Harry Hopkins told Churchill in January 1941 that:

“The President is determined that we shall win the war together. Make no mistake about it,” followed by Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Harold Stark telling his fleet commanders that “The question of our entry into the war now seems to be when, and not whether.”

Only a pretext was needed, first by trying and failing to provoke Germany, then deciding Japan would be attacked, whether or not it struck US ships, territory, or forces in the Pacific. In a July 4 radio broadcast, Roosevelt said:

“solemnly (understand) that the United States will never survive as a happy and fertile oasis of liberty surrounded by a cruel desert of dictatorship.” Then his July 25 Executive Order froze Japanese assets, stating it was:

“….To prevent the use of the financial facilities of the United States in trade between Japan and the United States in ways harmful to national defense and American interests, to prevent the liquidation in the United States of assets obtained by duress or conquest, and to curb subversive activities in the United States.”

Britain followed suit the next day, and Roosevelt nationalized the Philippines’ armed forces “as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States” with dominion over its Asian colony.

As early as 1937, he planned a naval blockade, but dropped the idea after an adverse reaction. It resurfaced in 1938 because he knew strangling Japan economically assured war.

Throughout his administration, from 1933 through late 1941, he spurned Japanese peace overtures that would have protected all American interests in the Pacific. By November 25, the final die was cast. America chose war, and on that day, War Secretary Henry Stimson wrote in his diary that it depended only on how to maneuver Japan to attack with the lowest number of US casualties.

Tokyo had no other recourse, knowing it couldn’t win, but hoping for a negotiated settlement to solidify whatever Asian control it could retain. It failed, lost the war, and remains an occupied US vassal state.

In the late 1930s, Roosevelt encouraged a Japanese attack by stationing the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor against the advice of two key admirals, James Richardson, Pacific Fleet commander and Harold Stark, Chief of Naval Operations until March 1942.

Selling arms to Japan’s enemies and an embargo assured war, and US cable documentation confirmed it was coming. Breaking the Japanese code let Britain and Washington track its fleet from the Kurile Islands to its North Pacific refueling point en route to Pearl Harbor on or about December 7.

At a December 5 cabinet meeting, Navy Secretary Frank Knox said: “Well, you know Mr. President, we know where the Japanese fleet is?”

“Yes, I know,” responded Roosevelt, saying “Well, you tell them what it is Frank,” who explained where it was, where it was heading until Roosevelt interrupted adding that perfect information wasn’t available in spite of navy reports confirming it in Pacific waters heading toward Hawaii. On December 6, officials awaited the attack until it came the next morning at 7:55AM Hawaii time.

It was a day of infamy and deceit, with Pearl Harbor’s commander, Admiral HE Kimmel, denied crucial intelligence to let it proceed unimpeded, arouse public anger, and give FDR his war – one decoded Japanese messages showed they didn’t want but Roosevelt gave them no choice.

Like other presidents, he lied the country into war against the wishes of 80% of the public, at a cost of millions of lives in both theaters, and a policy henceforth of perpetual wars for perpetual peace to achieve unchallengeable US dominance. In the modern era, FDR’s foreign policy began it, leaving a bankrupted moral and political legacy active to this day.

Consider also what revisionist historians say about Lincoln – that he provoked the Fort Sumpter (in Charleston, SC harbor) attack and began the Civil War for economic reasons, not to end slavery.

Consider also that ordinary people and soldiers don’t want war, just their leaders and commanders – to wit, Christmas 1914 during WW I when German and British troops stopped fighting, didn’t know why they were doing it, then defied orders by fraternizing with each other for two weeks despite risking being court-martialed. Unable to stop them, their officers joined them in a celebratory pause that didn’t stop another three years of carnage, millions of lost lives, and post-war policies that assured WW II.

The lesson is clear. All wars are immoral, unnecessary, and only happen when one side provokes the other for reasons unrelated to national security threats.

In his seminal book, “A Century of War,” Gabriel Kolko called the 20th century:

“the bloodiest in all history. More than 170 million people were killed,” 70% of whom in WW II were civilians, “mainly (from) the bombing of cities by Great Britain and America.” There was nothing good about “the good war” nor any others.

In Kolko’s later book “Another Century of War,” he stressed how America contributes to much of the world’s disorder through its interventions and as the world’s largest arms producer and exporter. Post-WW II, the US became a global menace, today claiming “terrorism” as the main threat – a bogus fiction to justify militarism, perpetual wars heading the nation for moral, political and economic bankruptcy. According to Kolko:

“The way America’s leaders are running the nation’s foreign policy is not creating peace or security at home or stability abroad. The reverse is the case: its interventions have been counterproductive.”

In his newest book, “The World in Crisis,” Kolko believes that America’s decline “began after the Korean War, was continued in relation to Cuba, and was greatly accelerated in Vietnam – but (GW Bush did) much to exacerbate it further.” He also thinks:

– US power is declining everywhere;

– “the world is no longer dependent on its economic might” because other nations like China and India are growing and may some day equal or surpass America;

– after the Soviet Union’s collapse, “the absence of identifiable foes has been a disaster, leaving the US aimless – (so) it picks and chooses enemies: rag-tag Afghan tribesmen, Iraqis or all sorts, perhaps China, perhaps Russia….South American caudillos,” whatever bogus ones can be invented for imperial wars, but the justification is wearing thin, and the burgeoning cost unsustainable.

The result is that America’s “century of domination is now ending.”

America’s Permanent War Economy

It’s how Seymour Melman (1917 – 2004) characterized it in his books and frequents writings on America’s military-industrial complex. One of his last articles was titled “In the Grip of a Permanent War Economy (CounterPunch, March 15, 2003) in which he said:

“at the start of the twenty-first century, every major aspect of American life is being shaped by our Permanent War Economy.” He then examined the horrific toll:

– a de-industrialized nation, the result of decades of shifting production abroad leaving unions and communities “decimated;”

– government financing and promoting “every kind of war industry and foreign investing by US firms;” war priorities take precedence over essential homeland needs;

– America’s “Permanent War Economy….has endured since the end of World War II….Since then the US has been at war – somewhere – every year, in Korea, Nicaragua, Vietnam, the Balkans, Afghanistan – all this to the accompaniment of shorter military forays in Africa, Chile, Grenada, Panama,” and increasingly at home against its own people;

– “how to make war” takes precedence over everything leaving no “public space….on how to improve the quality of our lives;”

– “Shortages of housing have caused a swelling of the homeless population in every major city (because) State and city governments across the country have become trained to bend to the needs of the military….;” the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless (CCH) currently estimates over 21,000 are on city streets nightly, and during winter months it’s dangerous;

– the result is a nation of growing millions of poor, disadvantaged, uneducated, and “disconnected from society’s mainstream, restless and unhappy, frustrated, angry, and sad;”

“State Capitalism” characterizes America’s government – business partnership running a war economy for greater power and wealth at the expense of a nation in decline, corrupted leadership, lost industrialization, crumbling infrastructure, and suffering millions on their own, uncared for, unwanted, ignored, and forgotten.

Melman stressed that:

“Further evasion is out of order. We must come to grips with America’s State Capitalism and its Permanent War Economy.” Re-industrialization is essential “to restore jobs and production competence – industry by industry.”

“Failing that, there is no hope for any constructive exit,” for the nation or its people.

Dwight Eisenhower’s January 17, 1961 Address to the Nation

It was his farewell address delivered 30 years to the day before Operation Desert Storm began in which he warned about the “military-industrial complex,” citing the “grave implications” of a “coalition of the military and industrialists who profit by manufacturing arms and selling them to the government.”

He stated “we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence….by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

He also said that:

“Every gun that is made, every war ship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, from those who are cold and not clothed,” the result of what some analysts call the “iron triangle” of Congress, the Pentagon, and the defense industry that includes producers of sophisticated technology for digital age warfare of a kind Eisenhower never imagined.

In combination, they’ve addicted America to war, not for threats, but for the power and profits that result. In his book “The Political Economy of US Militarism,” Professor Ismael Hossein-Zadeh refers to “parasitic military imperialism,” consuming over 40% of the national tax revenue at the expense of unmet human needs.

Morality aside, it’s not justified economically. It’s wasteful, inefficient, comes at a great cost, and over time is ineffective and self-destructive.

“The control over huge amounts of national resources tends to lead to an undermining of democratic values, a perversion of republican principles and a reduction of civil freedoms, as well as to the political corruption at home and abroad.” Moreover, “The constant need for international conflicts makes (America’s) military imperialism….more dangerous than the imperial powers of the past.”

It’s made war-making a giant enterprise “not only for expansionism but, in fact, for the survival of this empire,” yet consider the fallout Hossein-Zadeh examined in a July 10, 2007 article titled, “Parasitic Imperialism:”

– the redistribution of income and resources to the wealthy;

– the undermining of physical and human capital;

– the nation’s increased vulnerability to natural disasters;

– economic and financial instability, the result of the growing national debt now totally out of control;

– less foreign market potential for non-military ventures;

– the undermining of civil liberties and democratic values; and

– “foster(ing) a dependence on or addiction to military spending, and, therefore….a spiraling vicious circle of (unsustainable) war and militarism” that’s sucking the nation into decline.

America’s Post-WW II Imperial Grand Strategy

Post-WW II, America emerged as the world’s sole superpower – economically, politically and militarily, given the war’s toll on East Asia, Europe and Soviet Russia. In his book, “The Cold War and the New Imperialism,” Professor Henry Heller examined it with emphasis on the Cold War, America’s containment policy, and its efforts against leftist forces in support of fascist elements on the right at both state and local levels.

The Soviet Union controlled Eastern and Central Europe while Mao’s War of Liberation defeated Chiang Kai-Shek Nationalists. Cold War confrontation followed. It pitted US imperialism against an opposing ideology, the aim being which side would triumph or could both co-exist peacefully and avoid conflict.

War was never an option given each side’s nuclear strength under a policy of “mutually assured destruction (MAD)”. In addition, post-Stalinist Russia began reforms and expanded its sphere of influence. It wasn’t to destroy the West, but to co-exist equally. America and Soviet Russia only competed for developing country allies to keep them from the opposing camp, so neither would be dominated by the other or more vulnerable to being isolated, marginalized, or shut out from world markets and influence.

US Imperialism Post-WW II

James Petras and others have said behind every imperial war is a great lie, the more often repeated the more likely to be believed because ordinary people want peace, not conflict, so it’s vital to convince them.

In the 1950s, the Eisenhower administration overthrew two popularly elected governments in Iran and Guatemala, and sought greater influence in Africa and Southeast Asia as anti-colonial movements gained strength.

On January 1, 1959 Fidel Castro’s socialist revolution ousted the US-backed Batista dictatorship. He then survived America’s failed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, but faced decades of US hostility, including an embargo, destabilization, intimidation, and hundreds of attempts to kill him, unsuccessful so Cuba is still free from US dominance, but hardly safe from its northern hegemon.

In the 1950s, America also backed French Southeast Asian imperialism until defeat at Dien Bien Phu drove them out. A repressive South Vietnamese client regime was established at the same time, supported by US military advisors teaching war and repression tactics. Unifying North and South elections were blocked, and direct intervention began in 1961. In 1958, Washington also subverted Laotian democracy and incited civil war. Cambodia as well was targeted but remained free.

Early in his administration, Kennedy intervened, but a new James Douglass book titled “JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters” says without conviction because he opposed using force. After the Joint Chiefs demanded troops for Laos, he told his Geneva Conference representative, Averell Harriman:

“Did you understand? I want a negotiated settlement in Laos. I don’t want to put troops in.”

He wouldn’t agree to using nuclear weapons in Berlin and Southeast Asia and refused to bomb or invade Cuba during the 1962 missile crisis, saying afterwards that “I never had the slightest intention of doing so.”

In June 1963 (a few months before his assassination), he called for the abolition of nuclear weapons, ending the Cold War, and moving forward for “general and complete disarmament.” In October 1963, he signed National Security Action Memorandum (NSAM) 263 to withdraw 1,000 US forces from Vietnam by year end and all of them by 1965. He said he wanted “to splinter the CIA in a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds.” He wanted peace, not conflicts. It cost him his life, and future presidents got the message.

Johnson resumed Southeast Asian escalation to establish client regimes and military bases across East and South Asia, encircle China, and crush nationalist anti-imperial movements. The Indochinese war engulfed Cambodia and Laos as well under Johnson and Nixon. It killed three to four million, inflicted vast amounts of destruction, caused incalculable human suffering, got America to sign a peace treaty in January 1973, but war continued until its clients were defeated in April 1975.

Prior to Reagan’s election, the “Vietnam syndrome” and easing Cold War tensions and disarmament efforts alarmed militarists to fear defense spending cuts detrimental to profits. A propaganda campaign exaggerated bogus threats, manipulated intelligence to heighten fear, and got the Reagan administration to approve large military spending increases to confront “Soviet expansionism” at a time it was transitioning from Brezhnev, Andropov, and Chernenko to Gorbachev in 1985, followed by perestroika in 1986, glasnost in 1988, border openings and the Berlin Wall’s collapse in 1989, then the Soviet Union’s dissolution in 1991 – a new threat militarists feared would bring large, not to be tolerated, defense budgets cuts.

In the late 1980s, however, leading figures, including Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Samuel Huntington, and Albert Wohlstetter alleged Third World conflicts threatened US interests in the Middle East, Mediterranean, and Western Pacific, and recommended deterrence to stop them. Joint Chiefs Chairman Colin Powell and Defense Secretary Dick Cheney agreed. Others wanted large defense cuts for a peace dividend, including Johnson’s DOD chief Robert McNamara who proposed reductions up to 50%.

Throughout the 1989 – 1999 period, mostly under Bill Clinton, US-instigated provocations, sanctions, and armed insurrections support involved America in 134 military operations according to the Federation of American Scientists. The most egregious was Clinton’s bombing and dismemberment of Yugoslavia, an act playwright Harold Pinter called:

“barbaric” and despicable, “another blatant and brutal assertion of US power using NATO as its missile” to consolidate “American domination of Europe.” Worse was yet to come with the election of George Bush, America’s worst president in a country that never had a good one and never will as it’s now governed.

Long before 9/11, Middle East restructuring plans were based on bogus terrorist, rogue state, and “clash of civilizations” threats by hordes of Islamofascists, including the Palestinian resistance, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and Saddam Hussein targeted in the 1990 – 91 Gulf War, followed by years of devastating sanctions, then ousted by GW Bush in 2003.

Iraq was destroyed, occupied and balkanized. Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran face similar threats, the common thread being dominating Eurasia through endless conflicts and increased military spending for war profiteering bounties. September 11 assured it, and got Michelle Ciarocca of the Arms Trade Resource Center, in September 2002 to say:

“The whole mind set of military spending changed on Sept. 11. The most fundamental thing about defense spending is that threats drive (it). It’s now going to be easier to fund almost anything.”

Hossein-Zadeh investigated the growing role of private contractors creating a “built-in propensity to war that makes the US military-industrial complex a menace to world peace and stability, a force of death and destruction,” as virulent under Obama as George Bush.

The fallout includes a burgeoning national debt, loss of civil liberties and democratic freedoms, erosion of social services, collapse of the dollar, America already in decline, its coming loss of preeminence as a world power, its potential bankruptcy, perhaps demise in its present form. and the possibility of WW III.

America’s Illegal Wars of Aggression – The “Supreme Crime”

All US post-WW II conflicts were premeditated wars of aggression against nations posing no threat to America -
what Justice Robert Jackson at Nuremberg called:

the “supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”

Canadian Law Professor Michael Mandel explained America’s guilt in his superb 2004 book, “How America Gets Away with Murder: Illegal Wars, Collateral Damage, and Crimes Against Humanity,” his main theme being Jackson’s Nuremberg “supreme crime” declaration, as relevant now as then.

Tragically, as Edward Herman observed in reviewing Mandel’s book:

“The problem for the United States (and the world) has been that this country is now in the business of aggression and its commission of the “supreme crime” is standard policy, thereby bringing the “scourge of war” across the globe in direct violation of the UN charter.”

Its Purposes and Principles state that:

“The Purposes of the United Nations are:

(1) To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace.”

Conspiratorially with NATO and Israel, America willfully and repeatedly violates international and US laws, punishes its victims, absolves itself, and since WW II has directly or indirectly murdered millions of people globally, mostly civilian non-combatants.

Barack Obama – America’s New Warrior President

America glorifies conflicts and the righteousness of waging them, packaged as liberating ones for democracy, freedom, justice, and the best of all possible worlds. Obama is just the latest in a long line of warrior leaders promising peace by waging war, justifying them by bogus threats, and calling pacifism unpatriotic to further an imperial agenda for greater wealth, power, and unchallengeable global dominance.

In opposition to his announced Afghanistan surge, peace activists gathered across from the White House on December 12 for an “Emergency Anti-Escalation Rally” organized by “End US Wars”- a new coalition of grassroots anti-war organizations.

Speakers included Kathy Kelly, David Swanson, Granny D (age 100 on January 24, 2010) former Senator Mike Gravel (1969 – 1981), and former Representative and 2008 Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney, among others.

This writer was asked to prepare a short commentary to be read to the crowd. Updated, it’s reproduced below:

Obama’s Permanent War Strategy

Disingenuously calling Afghanistan a “war of necessity, not choice,” Obama ordered 30,000 more troops deployed over the next six months with perhaps many more to follow. In one of his most defining decisions, he’s more than doubled the force count since taking office, angered a majority in the country, and continues his permanent war agenda while calling himself a man of peace.

Next target, Yemen, and its newest, occupied Haiti for plunder, exploitation, and very likely killing unwanted Haitians by neglect, starvation, disease, and face-to-face confrontations if they resist.

As a candidate, Obama campaigned against imperial militarism, promised limited escalation only, and pledged to remove all combat troops from Iraq by August 31, 2010. That was then. This is now, and consider what he has in mind – the permanent occupation of Iraq, Afghanistan and more.

Besides the Afghan escalation, he’s also destabilizing Pakistan to balkanize both countries, weakening them to control the Caspian Sea’s oil and gas riches and their energy routes to secured ports for export. The strategy includes encircling Russia, China, and Iran, obstructing their solidarity and cohesion, defusing a feared geopolitical alliance, weakening the Iranian government, perhaps attacking its nuclear sites, eliminating Israel’s main regional rival, and securing unchallenged Eurasian dominance over this resource rich part of the world that includes China, Russia, the Middle East, and Indian subcontinent.

Like George Bush, Obama plans permanent war and more military spending than all other nations combined at a time America has no enemies. He promised change and betrayed us. Grassroots activism must stop this madness and make America a nation again to be proud of. The alternative is too grim to imagine.

Over 50 years ago, Bertrand Russell (1872 – 1970) warned:

“Shall we put an end to the human race, or shall mankind renounce war” and live in peace, because we have no other choice.

Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://prognewshour.progressiveradionetwork.org/

http://lendmennews.progressiveradionetwork.org/

From Ingrid Zündel
2-29-10

To our Zundel friends around the world -

This morning at 2:45 EST, I received a phone call from our British friend, Lady Michele Renouf, who told me:

“We have him in the car! All is well! Here he is…” and I could exchange a few happy words with my husband.

Ernst assured me that his release went smoothly and that he would call me a bit later with additional details.

Half an hour later I received a fax from his lady attorney, Alexandra Rittershaus, who told me:

“Ernst is in freedom. A few people were (at the prison gates), but everything went peacefully. I did not have an opportunity to talk to him, but he looked happy.”

Below is a photo taken just a few minutes ago, showing Ernst with his splendid Austrian defense attorney, Dr. Herbert Schaller who, at the young age of 87, fought like a lion for Ernst’s release!

I will send a more detailed description later in the day, provided there won’t be any Internet censorship or enemy interference, as has happened off and on these past few weeks.

Yours with many Tennessee greetings,

Ingrid Zündel

background…………….

Who is Ernst Zündel?

Ernst Zundel, a German-born publisher, author and civil rights activist, is a towering figure in the worldwide Holocaust revisionist movement. For more than two years he has been held behind bars, first in Canada and now in Germany , solely for the peaceful expression of non-conformist views.

Mannheim prison in Germany – Where Ernst Zundel is currently being held [Picture of what the cell is like that Zundel is in (outside cell) (inside cell)]	Metro West Detention Center in Canada, where Zundel was held in solitary confinement – under inhuman conditions

He is the most prominent political prisoner in the western world today. He is the author of countless booklets, newsletters and essays. He is a prodigious publisher, a one-man public relations firm, and an able public speaker and organizer. Energetic, tenacious and courageous, he is dauntless in struggle against apparently insurmountable odds and seemingly invincible adversaries.

newsletters, and audio and video cassettes. Simon Wiesenthal, the well-known “Nazi hunter,” called Zundel the world’s number one distributor of allegedly dangerous literature and cassettes.

Zundel is probably best known for his central role in the “Holocaust Trials” of 1985 and 1988. He was brought to court in Toronto on a charge of “publishing false news,” and specifically for publishing a reprint edition of a booklet entitled Did Six Million Really Die?.

Zundel’s two lengthy trials – the 1985 trial lasted two months, and the 1988 trial lasted four months – have been the closest thing anywhere to full scale debates on the Holocaust issue. For the first time ever, “Holocaust survivors” and Holocaust historians were closely and critically questioned under oath about their claims and views.

Solving the six million riddle with Fred Leuchter, Dr. Faurisson, Ditlieb Felderer, – 1988

Zundel during 1988 trial

To wage the legal battle that was forced upon him, he brought together an impressive international team of revisionist scholars, legal specialists, researchers, and many others. From numerous libraries and archives in North America and Europe , this group assembled at “Zundelhaus” one of the most impressive collections of evidence anywhere on this chapter of history.

Among those who testified on Zundel’s behalf in the trials were Robert Faurisson, David Irving, Mark Weber, William Lindsey, Udo Walendy, and Bradley Smith. As a result of the two trials, an enormous quantity of compelling evidence refuting the Holocaust extermination story was presented to the court and thereby was made part of the permanent public record. Perhaps the most important of this evidence was the historic testimony of American gas chamber expert Fred Leuchter about his on-site forensic examination of the alleged extermination gas chambers in Poland .

Read the Leuchter Report online

Zundel was found guilty in the 1985 trial, but the verdict was set aside by the provincial appeals court. It ruled that the judge in that trial had, among other things, given improper instructions to the jury, and had improperly excluded defense evidence. In May 1988, at the conclusion of the second Zundel trial, the jury declared him guilty. A few days later, he was sentenced to nine months imprisonment.

On appeal, Canada ’s Supreme Court threw out the conviction, declaring on August 27, 1992, that the archaic “false news” law under which he had been convicted was a violation of the country’s Charter of Rights. This was not only a personal vindication by Canada ’s highest court; Ernst Zundel secured an important victory for the rights of all Canadians.

Zundel’s next great legal battle was fought out before the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal in Toronto on charges, instigated by Jewish groups, of promoting “hatred or contempt” against Jews through the “Zundelsite” Internet web site (www.zundelsite.org), operated by Ingrid Rimland from the United States. In this legal action, as the Tribunal’s presiding Commissioner declared, the truth or validity of the supposedly “hateful” items was not a consideration. (Ultimately the Tribunal declared the “Zundelsite” to be unlawful, but because the site is based in the US , the ruling is unenforceable.)

During the 42 years he lived in Canada , Ernst Zundel was never convicted of a crime. He was, however, repeatedly a victim of violence and hate. He survived three assassination attempts, including by arson and pipe bomb. He’s also endured years of legal harassment and repeated jailings.

[Arson on Zundel-Haus (picture 1) (picture 2)]   [Poster advocating the murder of Zundel]

After more than four decades in Canada , including a failed effort to acquire Canadian citizenship, he moved to the United States , where in January 2000 he married Ingrid Rimland.

Ernst Zundel and his wife, Ingrid Rimland

His wife, a gifted writer and noted author in her own right, was born in an ethnic German Mennonite community in Ukraine . As a child she and her family were victims of Soviet rule and the ravages of World War II. After the war she lived for a time in Paraguay and Canada , and then for years in California . Ingrid Rimland holds a doctoral degree in education, and is a naturalized US citizen.

On February 5, 2003, Ernst Zundel was arrested at their quiet home in the mountain region of eastern Tennessee . He was seized on the pretext that he had violated immigration regulations, or had missed an interview date with US immigration authorities, even though he had entered the US legally, was married to an American citizen, had no criminal record, and was acting diligently, and in full accord with the law, to secure status as a permanent legal resident.

After being held for two weeks, he was deported to Canada . For two years — from mid-February 2003 to March 1, 2005 – he was held in solitary confinement in the Toronto West Detention Centre, on the pretext that he is a threat to national security.

His arrest and detention generated wide media attention. A few Canadian newspapers, including Toronto ’s prestigious Globe and Mail, and several independent analysts, acknowledged the injustice of his incarceration on an empty pretext.

Among those who protested Zundel’s unjust treatment was Bill Dunphy, a veteran investigative journalist and editor for the daily Hamilton Spectator. He spent six years probing Canada ’s “white supremacist” movement, and got to know Zundel personally. Although he has no sympathy for Zundel’s views, in a hard-hitting column (Hamilton Spectator, May 14, 2003) he told readers:

“Our government has seized and branded Ernst Zundel, stripped him of his human rights, tried him in secret and found him wanting, and will now hand him over to a foreign government anxious to throw him in jail…

“… Zundel – who did this country a favour by wiping off the books our disgraceful False News laws – has never once been convicted of a criminal offence in this country, never once found to have violated the hate crime laws that rest snugly around the throat of free expression in this country.

“Calculating correctly that there was no political cost, no ‘down side’ to slipping on the jackboots to kick a reviled old man out of our country, our government cobbled together their best insults and innuendo, and Lord knows what secret ‘evidence,’ and branded Ernst Zundel a threat to national security.

“I know this man, his local and international contacts and I know this movement. And after reading the 58-page ‘unclassified’ summary of the government’s case, I can assure you there is no justice here. Their ‘evidence’ is riddled with errors and misinformation, hearsay and inflammatory innuendo. Dead men walk again, and the shattered bits of shoddy secret networks long since collapsed under the weight of their own ineptitude are made whole and menacing once again. It is a shameful piece of dishonest, unreliable tripe.”

The Canadian Association for Free Expression (CAFE), a free speech advocacy group, fought for Zundel’s release. “Mr. Zundel is quite literally a political prisoner,” said CAFE director Paul Fromm, who also served as Zundel’s legal representative in his detention hearings. “He is being held in solitary confinement solely for the non-violent expression of his political views.“

The allegation that Zundel might be a threat to national security “is mischievous nonsense,” said Fromm. “Zundel has been politically active in Canada for 40 years. He’s a public figure. His writings and speeches are available on-line. He’s been investigated for years by the police. He’s an open book. Zundel has never advocated or practised violence, nor have his followers,” Fromm added. “He’s a pacifist and a publisher.“

The Canadian Association for Free Expression protests in Canada against the incarceration of Ernst Zundel

Zundel was held in Canada not because his views are unpopular, or because he was a “security risk.” He was in prison there because Jewish groups wanted him there, and because he promoted views that the Jewish-Zionist lobby considers harmful to its interests.

This lobby is the decisive, critical factor in the decades-old campaign to silence him. The only sustained and institutionalized effort to imprison Zundel has come from this lobby, which includes the Simon Wiesenthal Center , the Canadian Jewish Congress, the Canadian Holocaust Remembrance Association, and the League for Human Rights of B’nai B’rith (with the Anti-Defamation League, its counterpart in the US ).

Deportation to Germany from Canada. Right: Arriving at Mannheim

On March 1, 2005, Zundel was deported to Germany , just as Jewish groups had been demanding. Since then he has been held in the Mannheim prison were he faces years of imprisonment for the “thought crime” of “denying the Holocaust.” (“Holocaust denial” is against the law in Germany , France , Switzerland and some other European countries.)

On June 29, 2005, the public prosecutor in Mannheim formally charged Zundel with inciting “hatred” by having written or distributed texts that “approve, deny or play down” genocidal actions carried out by Germany’s wartime regime, and which “denigrate the memory of the [Jewish] dead.

The first and foremost of the writings cited in the indictment are texts posted on the “Zundelsite” website, which is registered and maintained by his wife in the United States, where all such writings are entirely legal.

The indictment warned that Zundel could be punished with four years imprisonment. Trial is set to begin on November 8, 2005.

Ernst Zundel, who sometimes describes himself as a “Swabian peasant,” is an outgoing, good-humored man who is blessed with a rare combination of unflagging optimism and practical ability. He maintains this infectious spirit even under very trying conditions. He is an unusually alert and sensitive individual with a keen understanding of human nature. He knows how to persuade, cajole and encourage others to give their best for the greater good. He inspires confidence, loyalty and affection.

Of this remarkable man, Robert Faurisson wrote in 1988: “Zundel may once again go to prison for his research and beliefs or be threatened with deportation. All this is possible. Anything may happen when there is an intellectual crisis and a realignment of historical concepts of such a dimension. Revisionism is the great intellectual adventure of the end of this century. Whatever happens, Ernst Zundel is already the victor.”

===== ===== =====

For more about Ernst Zundel, the injustice against him, and the worldwide campaign to secure his freedom, see the Zundelsite, including “David Against Goliath”.

By Haaretz Service
Tags: Israel news, Louis Farrakhan

U.S. President Barack Obama is targeted because of standing up to the Jews who control American politics as well as its economy, the Chicago Sun Times quoted the leader of Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan as saying on Monday.

Farrakhan, speaking to a crowd of 20,000 followers at Chicago’s United Center on Sunday, said that Obama’s political problems began when he, according to the Chicago Sun Times report, stood up to the Jewish lobby during a White House meeting.

When they left the White House, his problems began,” Farrakhan said, adding that “the Zionists are in control of the Congress.”
Advertisement

Minister Farrakhan also referred to the U.S. president’s chief economical advisors, Timothy Geithner, Henry Paulson and Larry Summers, asking “Who does he have around him? The people from Goldman Sachs.”

The leader of the Nation of Islam added that “bloodsuckers of the poor” were rewarded with a bailout.

Abraham Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League, said in response to Farrakhan’s speech that “anybody who thought the old Farrakhan was gone: He never was.”

“It’s the same Farrakhan: ugly and anti-Semitic. With age, he doesn’t get milder, he gets uglier.”

Further on in his address, Farrakhan also reiterated his claims that the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 was “an inside thing.”

Last year, the Anti-Defamation League lashed out at Farrakhan for remarks he made in which he accused “the Israeli lobby” of controlling the government.

“When the people of Gaza were being slaughtered, the pro-Israeli lobby sent messages to the House and the Senate of words that they wanted them to use, gave them the language, and now you have bipartisan support,” Farrakhan told supporters in Rosemont, Illinois in a speech.

“You cannot deny the pro-Israeli lobby and get re-elected,” Farrakhan said. “Ask Cynthia McKinney. Ask David Hilliard. Ask our mayor in Oakland, California. Ask [former Illinois Senator Charles] Percy. Ask Jimmy Carter. You can’t criticize, you can’t say nothing because if you do, you’re branded as an anti-Semite.”

“Why, U.S. Congress, will you not speak? It is because you fear a lobby that has money and influence that will turn you out of your seat? So you’re terrorized. That’s why you don’t act for the American people that sent you to Congress. You are not their representative. You are the representative of the money and interests that have bought your soul.”

At one point during his address, Farrakhan implied that the validity of Holocaust records should be open to debate.

“[You] can’t even engage in constructive argument over the veracity of the figures of the Holocaust. We know something happened, sure, but you can’t talk about [it]. In certain cities in Europe they arrest you and put you in prison for denying such.”

“There’s not a vote that the pro-Israeli lobby wants that doesn’t get bipartisan support,” Farrakhan said. “Why? Because the Israeli lobby controls the government of the United States of America.”

The remarks were again met with strong condemnation by Abe Foxman.

“Louis Farrakhan is at it again,” said Foxman. “After his near-silence on Jews over the last several years, we thought Minister Farrakhan had put his long history of anti-Semitism and racism behind him, or at least had held his views in check. Apparently, that was wishful thinking. Once again he is clearly comfortable with putting his bigotry on display, unfettered and unhidden for his supporters and the world to see.”

The United States is now operating at four airports to ferry aid and relief supplies to quake-devastated Haiti, a senior US military commander said Thursday.

In addition to the Caribbean nation’s main port of entry, Port-au-Prince airport, US forces were also now at work at airports in the coastal city of Jacmel.

They were also operating in the neighboring Dominican Republic at San Isidro and Barahona, US Southern Command chief General Douglas Fraser said.

Around 11,000 US military personnel are currently controlling the operations both on the ground and offshore aboard US Navy and Coast Guard vessels, and another 4,000 US troops are expected to arrive in the coming days.

The Americans’ controlling of the aid operations has raised tensions with some countries. Bolivia and Venezuela have criticized its heavy presence and France earlier expressed annoyance after aid planes were delayed from landing.

French Secretary of State for Cooperation Alain Joyandet called on the United Nations to clarify the US role in Haiti, saying the priority was “helping Haiti, not occupying Haiti.”

Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) has complained that five of its planes carrying a total of 85 tons of medical and relief supplies have been diverted from Port-au-Prince to the Dominican Republic since January 14, although one of its planes was allowed to land this week.

On Thursday, the Haitian president said that “Haiti is not under guardianship” of other countries as they help nurse and feed the victims of last week’s huge quake.

Also, Haiti’s Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive told RTL radio in Port-au-Prince: “The Americans are here at our request, they are here purely to help us with our humanitarian and security needs.”

However, many commentators see in that US is not welcomed in Haiti. They confirm that US seeks to re-occupy Haiti. The U.S. occupied Haiti until 1934.

American troops returned in 1994, and now, the US Marines are back in Haiti for the same mission but under a different title: to support Haiti relief.

Phyllis Bennis said in Huffington post that “the reality is, on the ground, U.S. military forces take charge, as the United Nations is pushed aside.”

Rescue Efforts
Search teams in Haiti on Thursday refused to abandon hope of finding more survivors of the quake after two children were pulled alive from the rubble in 24 hours.

More than eight days after the devastating tremor, which killed at least 75,000 and left a million homeless, rescuers said they could not rule out the possibility of some victims still being alive under the debris.

And they said the powerful 6.1 aftershock that shook Haiti on Wednesday could have dislodged masonry giving fresh opportunities to free any last remaining survivors.

“The aftershock could have made the structures subside, but it might have also freed people trapped between two pieces of concrete,” said French firefighter Gilles Perroux.

As the focus of aid efforts turned to the vast task of providing food, water, medicine and shelter to an increasingly desperate population, rescuers said chances of survival were slim but not impossible.

Also on Thursday, Haiti officials said they were relocating thousands of homeless earthquake victims to hastily erected villages designed to each hold at least 10,000 people.

“The government has made available to people free transportation. A large operation is taking place: we’re in the process of relocating homeless people,” said Haitian Interior Minister Paul Antoine Bien-Aime.

Officials said the government was paying for at least 34 buses to take victims to the south and north of the country from the capital Port-au-Prince, which was largely destroyed in a 7.0-magnitude earthquake.

http://www.youtube.com/user/Freedommkf1

Haiti Earthquake Aid, or Army Occupation – Al Jazeera TV Reports

Haiti earthquake aid, or USA army occupation – Al Jazeera TV reports Sunday 17 January 2010. Every country that richer than Haiti is trying to help, but only American government is sending armed occupation forces to build more bases, and never pull out. Karachi-based charity worker, Abdul Sattar Edhi, pledged cash as former US president George Bush ordered. Food rots and cash disappears without traceable accountability. Pakistan has also pledged to send others relief items. Other Muslim and Arab countries are sending cash or kind. Most countries are helping in any way they can, a lot more than what six billion people see, hear or read in the anti-Muslim media. Many Muslim-Arab states and charities gave America billions dollars after the recent, Katrina, hurricane. Many other Muslim countries provided aid relief, including: Indonesia, Turkey, Iran, Morocco, Jordan, Islam Relief USA/UK, Muslim Aid, etc. But, by a remarkable coincident, Muslims countries, where USA imposed and sustained despots, and has occupation army, have donated almost nothing!!!

The USA and EU countries are selling 99.9% of the weapons of mass destruction, impose and sustain despots in over fifty Muslim countries to rob and loot but donate little, lie to impose “wars” on, invade and occupy, weak countries, hire Blackwater XE to invade and occupy, kill unarmed civilians with drone attacks everyday since 2004, and contribute to global “climate change” that leads to such disasters, etc. The US chosen, imposed and sustained despots are too busy funding and subsidising the US and the EU economies with almost free oil and natural resources, bailing out sub-prime banks. More than two rich Muslim-Arab countries in the Middle East alone own almost ten percent of the USA Inc. So, who is helping the victims of Blackwater XE and the US drone attacks? Muslims have fantastic charity programmes. Alms giving, or zakat charity, one of the five pillars of Islam. Haitians need water, food, shelter, medicines, hospitals, schools, reconstruction, infrastructure, etc. Do they need army of occupation and bases?

For further information on response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake, check out wikipedia, preferably before commenting on the subjects, linked here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Response…
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Response…

Special thanks to axis4peace channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_I9e1p…

Haiti is full of oil say Daniel and Ginette Mathurin

Les scientifiques Daniel et Ginette Mathurin indiquent que le sous sol haïtien est riche en hydrocarbures et en combustibles fossible qui ont été répertoriés par des spécialistes étrangers et haïtiens. ” Nous avons relevé 20 sites pétrolifères “, lance Daniel Mathurin précisant que 5 d’entre eux sont jugés de grande importance par les spécialistes et les politiques. Scientists Daniel and Ginette Mathurin indicate that under Haitian soil is rich in oil and fuel fossible which were collected by Haitian and foreign experts. “We have identified 20 sites Oil, launches Daniel Mathurin stating that 5 of them are considered very important by practitioners and policies.

Le Plateau central, notamment la région de Thomonde, la plaine du cul-de-sac et la baie de Port-au-Prince regorgent d’hydrocarbures, dit-il ajoutant que les réserves pétrolifères d’Haïti sont plus importantes que ceux du Vénézuela. ” Une piscine olympique comparée à un verre d’eau voilà la comparaison pour montrer l’importance des gisements de pétrole haïtien comparés à ceux du Vénézuela”, explique t-il. The Central Plateau, including the region of Thomond, the plain of the cul-de-sac and the bay of Port-au-Prince are filled with oil, he said, adding that Haiti’s oil reserves are larger than those of Venezuela . An Olympic pool compared to a glass of water that is the comparison to show the importance of oil Haitian compared to those of Venezuela, “he explains.

Le Vénézuéla est l’un des plus grands producteurs mondiaux de pétrole. Venezuela is one of the world’s largest producers of oil.

Daniel Mathurin révèle que des enquêtes de plusieurs gouvernements antérieurs ont permis de vérifier l’existence de ces importants gisements de pétrole. Il rapelle qu’un document du parti Fanmi Lavalas au pouvoir en 2004, avait précisé les nombreux sites d’hydrocarbures en Haiti. Daniel Mathurin reveals that investigations of several previous governments have allowed to verify the existence of these large deposits of oil. It reminds a document of Lavalas party to power in 2004, had specified the number of sites in Haiti hydrocarbons.

Selon Daniel et Ginette Mathurin, la région des lacs, avec des villes comme Thomazeau et Cornillon, renferme d’importants gisements de pétrole. According to Daniel et Ginette Mathurin, the lake region, with cities like Thomazeau and Cornillon, contains large deposits of oil.

Interrogée sur la non exploitation de ces sites, Ginette Mathurin a précisé que ces gisements sont déclarés réserves stratégiques des Etats Unis d’Amérique. Tout en faisant état de son imcompréhension d’une telle situation, elle rapelle que la caraïbe est considérée comme l’arriere cour des Etats Unis. Asked about the non-exploitation of these sites, Ginette Mathurin said that these deposits are declared strategic reserves of the United States of America. While stating his incomprehension of such a situation, it reminds that the Caribbean is considered the backyard of the United States.

Cependant Daniel Et Ginette Mathurin indiquent que le gouvernement américain avait en 2005 autorisé l’exploitation des réserves stratégiques des Etats Unis. Cette porte doit être utilisée par les politiques haïtiens pour lancer des négiciations avec des compagnies américaines dans la perspective de l’exploitation de ces gisements ajoute Daniel Mathurin But Daniel and Ginette Mathurin indicate that the U.S. government in 2005 authorized the use of strategic reserves of the United States. This door must be used by the Haitian political négiciations to launch with U.S. companies with a view to exploiting these deposits adds Daniel Mathurin

Les spécialistes soutiennent que le gouvenement de Jean Claude Duvalier avait vérifié l’existence d’un important gisement de pétrole dans la baie de Port-au-Prince peu de temps avant sa chute. Experts argue that the government acted Jean Claude Duvalier had verified the existence of a major oilfield in the bay of Port-au-Prince shortly before its fall.

De plus, Daniel et Ginette Mathurin révèlent que l’Uranium 238 et 235 et le zyconium existent en gisement dans plusieurs régions notamment à Jacmel. L’Uranium est utilisé dans les réacteurs nucléaires pour la production d’energie électrique. Moreover, Daniel et Ginette Mathurin show that uranium 238 and 235 and the deposit zyconium exist in several regions including in Jacmel. Uranium is used in nuclear reactors to produce electrical energy.

Title: Predictions for March 2010

UFO sighting sightings caught on tape the night before the Haiti Earthquake 2010 HAARP ??

Chile Battles Lawlessness, Chaos, Desperation After Quake

Death Toll From Chile Quake Leaps To 700

Chilean Military Takes Control Of Quake-Hit Cities

Chile Quake Generated By Peculiar Geo Characteristics

Vivid Photos Of Chile Quake Aftermath

Chile Rescuers Continue Efforts – At Least 300 Dead

‘The Sky Changed Colors…It Was Almost Surreal’

Chile Quake – HAARP Colors In The Sky?

Chile Eyewitness – ‘I was Seeing the Sky Change Colors’

Earthquake in Chile Caught Video

Very Strange ‘Ring’ in Chile Sky Before Quake – HAARP? – Vid

UFO Or HAARP Over Haiti Night Before Quake – Vid

Weird Color Clouds 10 Min Before China Quake – 2008 – Vid

In 1997 DoD Admitted Quakes Can Be Caused By EMF

Chile Quake – ‘Everyone Fears Aftershocks’

Biggest Quakes Since 1900

The Udumbara flower was found in the home of a Chinese nun in Lushan Mountain, Jiangxi province, China.

The rare Youtan Poluo or Udumbara flower, which, according to Buddhist legend, only blooms every 3,000 years, measures just 1mm in diametre.

Miao Wei, 50, was cleaning when she discovered the cluster of white flowers under the washing machine.

At first she thought the barely-there stems were worm eggs, however, the next day she discovered that the stems had grown 18 white tiny flowers on top and smelled “fragrant”.

Local temples believe the mini blooms are specimens of the miraculous Youtan Poluo flower – called “Udumbara” or “Udambara” in Sanskrit, meaning “an auspicious flower from heaven.”

Additional Important Sightings of the 9-11 Attacks

Quotes Relating to a Missile Firing Off the Roof of the Woolworth Building

“Someone had fired missiles at the World Trade Center’s north tower from atop the nearby Woolworth Building.” WNBC News “…we just had a second explosion, possibly a missile from the roof of the Woolworth Building.” Port Authority Police Officer WNBC News “They’re shooting at the Trade Center from the Woolworth Building.” Radio Dispatch NY Daily News “The first one they think was a guy shooting the missiles off the Woolworth Building.” WTC Police Channel 07 Mercury News “Woolworth Building! They’re firing missiles from Woolworth Building!” Police Channel Portland Inymedia “…there was a missile launch at the Woolworth building.” Police Officer, 09:18AM Mailgate News “…the police had a report that a missile had been fired at the World Trade Center from the Woolworth building.” Alan Reiss, WTC Police Desk 9-11 Commission Hearing “[About 50 yards from the Tower] There was a ’swooshing’ sound, then an explosion, and it sounded really low. It was if someone, one or two floors above me, had launched a shoulder-fired missile.” Lance Cpl. Alan Reifenberg Marine Corps News As we pulled ‘round the corner, we stopped the rig, and a cop walked over to us and said, `I saw them shoot a missile launcher off that [Woolworth] building, you guys better be careful up there.’ NYC Fireman Mr.Bellers Neighborhood

Unobstructed View of the World Trade Center from the Woolworth Building

The red arrow is the suspected video angle that Bush Junior had of the first plane hitting the North tower before he went inside to read the goat story to an elementary school class the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.

Perfect Line of Sight to the First Attack of the North Tower

The Flight 11 crash was directly visible from the rooftop of the Woolworth.

The First of Three Anomalous Flashes

An aircraft appears to materialize just long enough to drop a flashing/flare-like object.

Close-up of the Flash Reveals the Strong Possibility of a Stealth Delivery Vehicle

Auto-Levels of the Sequence Original Sequence

Was it a B2 Bomber? This Wasn’t the Only Stealth Sighting at the WTC on 9-11-01.

Auto-Levels Auto-Contrast Original

Two Additional Anomalous Flashes Surrounding the Woolworth Building

Second Anomalous Flash Third Anomalous Flash

Combined Diagram of the Three Anomalous Flashes and the Flight Path of the Orb

All Three Flashes in Comparitive Positions Red = Overall Flight Path of the Orb (A to E)

A = The starting point of the orb in the video clip (Approx. 4:04 p.m. 9-11-1) B = The point where the orb passes over the same Woolworth Building roof position where smoke billows forth about five seconds later. C = The point where the orb appears to seek cover in a nearby cloud simultaneous to the Woolworth Building rooftop erupting in smoke. D = As the “fire” appears to move up to the peak of the roof the orb darts quickly across the roof again, but from the opposite direction this time. E = The point where the orb literally streaks into the black smokey remains of the World Trade Center Towers. A to C = Took eleven seconds of flight time during which the orb seems to be continually flashing C to E = Took six seconds of flight time during which the orb streaks across the sky about twice as fast as it approached without any noticable flashing.

Did the Orb Make the Woolworth Building Rooftop Go Up in Smoke?

The Orb Passes by Previous to the Fire. Seconds Later the Rooftop Erupts in Smoke.

Traces Left by the Orb on its Curious 17-Second Round Trip

Traces of the Orb Moving Right to Left Slowly. Traces of the Orb Moving Left to Right Swiftly.

WTC Alignment to Woolworth Building Smoking Rooftop Video

The spire on the North corner of the Woolworth Building went up in smoke, then the top of the roof.

Play by Play Examination of Orb Flight
Upon close examination it appears that an “orb” flew just up above the height of the corner spires of the Woolworth building and may have delivered an explosive projectile at the crest of its arching flight path over the roof. Because the orb moved so slowly this seems a likely explaination, then dipped into a cloud mass at the exact moment, and at the same altitude, as the roof erupted in smoke, and then the orb streaked from the white cloud (on the left), just as the majority of the smoke from the roof was finished billowing, at about twice the speed. The orb approached the Woolworth building from the dust cloud left by the recently collapsed world trade center towers. Thus, there is absolute synchronicity in the path and timing of the orb flyby with the smoke from the roof of the Woolworth Building . In fact, the round-trip made by the or coincides seconds before and after the rooftop smoking occured, an odd 17 second complete U-turn.

Analysis of the Additional Flashes
In addition to this there was a bright flash, suspended in the sky, high above the Woolworth building seconds previous to its roof erupting in smoke. When the sequence is analysed closely it becomes appearant that when the flash becomes brightest there appears to be what looks like a scale version of a B2 bomber (or perhaps the real thing at a distance) that becomes visible, or temporarily materializes, just long enough for the bright single-flashing object to be dropped out of its bay doors/hatches. In addition to this flash there were two more suspicious flashes again from positions suspended in the atmosphere nearby the Woolworth building – completely ruling out the possibility of a flash from a conventional camera!

Why the Woolworth Building of All Places?
The Northern tip of the roof of the Woolworth Building would have provided the best angle for viewing the attack of the North Tower compared to all other corners of the rooftop. Plus there are no buildings in the way to block the view. Now isn’t it interesting that it was the North corner spire that was the section smoking, as if on fire? Is this perhaps evidence of the destruction of a video surveillance camera installed in that exact location for viewing the 9-11 attacks World Trade Center, and specifically the closer North Tower? Was there anyone who has admitted to seeing the 9-11 attack on the North Tower? Ironically, there is one person who admits to having seen the attack on the North Tower… Bush Junior!

Why the Missile Launching Was Absent from the Naudet Brothers Video
A missile firing off the rooftop of the Woolworth Building into the lower levels of the North Tower would certainly not have been caught on tape by the Naudet brothers filming. This is because all of the footage of the first plane to attack was actually shot from street level in New York City and because of the many buildings in the way there was no way for the lower fourty floors to be viewable or filmable from that position.

Masked Multiplicity of Attacks
In the North Tower there was extensive damage to the 22nd floor, so much so that survivors had to “tunnel through the debris”, in their own words, to escape. Exntensive damage also occured in the lobby of the North Tower making one firefighter on the scene say at the time that it “looked like a plane hit the lobby”. To add to this there were people in the sub-basement levels that witnessed the destruction of equipment on a nearby level weighing many tons. After putting together all of the pieces, it seems likely that the North Tower was targeted on at least three different levels using separate methods of attack approximately at the 96th floor, the 22nd floor, and the lobby, plus sub-basement levels. The 96th floor for dramatic theatrical effect, the 22nd floor to destroy evidence in the FBI offices located there, in the lobby to shut down the building’s surveillance camera systems, and the sub-basement levels to inhibit access to the vaults there which contained over $100 million dollars in gold that was never recovered! Evidence suggested that the 96th floor was attacked by a small airplane, the 22nd floor by a slightly delayed almost synchronous missile that fired off of the Woolworth building rooftop, and the lobby and sub-basement via pre-implanted explosives all timed to initiate in synch.

Related Questions
Q: Is there any other footage that shows this same orb flying around elsewhere at the WTC during the 9-11 attacks?
A: Yes, there was an orb that hovered over the both WTC Towers which seemed to be tracking Flight 175. The movement and authenticity of the orb sighting was determined by looking at two separate photographs taken from different locations plus an additional video clip that was shot from yet a third location.

Q: Has anyone seen orbs since 9-11?
A: Yes, they have been spotted in the skies throughout the USA. Usually they are associated with covert chemical spraying of cities, “invisible” weather modification operations, and aerial surveillance.

Q: Does anyone know what an orb actually is?
A: On one occasion a stealth fighter was seen hovering in the sky motionless, then a couple of minutes later in the exact same position in the sky a white orb was in its place alluding to a transformation from stealth fighter to an orb (real cloaking).

Bush saw the first plane hit the World Trade Center before he even got out of the car to read a story at an elementary school that Black Tuesday. Read the qoutes and weap disbelievers!

“The President was on Highway 301, just north of Main Street, heading toward Booker Elementary when… he received the news that a plane had crashed in New York City.”

November 2001
Sarasota Magazine

“Bush was driving to the school in a motorcade when the phone rang. An airline accident appeared to have happened. He pressed on with his visit.”

September 16, 2001
The Observer

“President Bush had emerged from his car and was shaking hands with local officials standing outside the school when Chief of Staff Andrew Card sidled up to him with the news.”

Nov. 1, 2002
CBS News

“I was sitting outside the classroom waiting to go in, and I saw an airplane hit the tower — the TV was obviously on.”

George W. Bush
Orlando, Florida
December 4, 2001
Whitehouse New Release

“At 8:55 Tuesday morning… an aide had just whispered to Miller the news of the first plane crash in New York, but if the President yet knew, his greeting as he got out of the limo did not give it away. He did, however, make an unscheduled stop in a communications room, where he talked with Condoleeza Rice in Washington.”

November 2001
Sarasota Magazine

“Just as we were arriving at the school, I received a notification from our operations center than an airliner had struck one of the towers of the World Trade Center,” says LTC Herman, “and that Dr. [Condoleezza] Rice, the national security advisor, was requesting the president on the telephone.”

Marist Magazine

“I had seen this plane fly into the first building.”

George W. Bush
Ontario, California
January 5, 2002
Whitehouse New Release

Linda Carson from Channel 40… had been one of the two or three pool reporters with the President in the classroom when White House aide Andrew Card whispered into the President’s ear that a second plane had hit the twin towers… Linda described to Rebecca and me what had happened next. Mr. Bush absorbed the news without changing his expression. For the next six minutes he let the second graders and their reading lesson proceed. He seemed to be going in and out of focus. At one moment he would listen carefully and smile at the kids, then a faraway look would come into his eyes as he stared out into the distance… A reporter called out a question about the attacks. The President held up his hand. “We’ll talk about that later,” he said.

November 2001
Sarasota Magazine

A reporter then asked, “Mr. President, are you aware of the reports of the plane crash in New York? Is there anything…”, But Bush interrupted, and no doubt recalling his order, “Don’t say anything yet,” Bush responded, “I’ll talk about it later.”

- First Reporter to Question Bush About the 9-11 Attacks

“Bush’s remark implies he saw the first plane hit the tower. But we all know that video of the first plane hitting did not surface until the next day. Bush couldn’t have meant he saw the second plane hit because he said he was in the classroom when Card whispered in his ear that a second plane hit.”

- Boston Newspaper

Individual profiles (from the Dietl website) for the executives of the company in charge of security at the Woolworth Building.

…more coming soon!

info@orbwar.com

By Andrew Higgins
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, February 25, 2010; A10

KABUL — A blizzard of bank notes is flying out of Afghanistan — often in full view of customs officers at the Kabul airport — as part of a cash exodus that is confounding U.S. officials and raising concerns about the money’s origin.

The cash, estimated to total well over $1 billion a year, flows mostly to the Persian Gulf emirate of Dubai, where many wealthy Afghans now park their families and funds, according to U.S. and Afghan officials. So long as departing cash is declared at the airport here, its transfer is legal.

But at a time when the United States and its allies are spending billions of dollars to prop up the fragile government of President Hamid Karzai, the volume of the outflow has stirred concerns that funds have been diverted from aid. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, for its part, is trying to figure out whether some of the money comes from Afghanistan’s thriving opium trade. And officials in neighboring Pakistan think that at least some of the cash leaving Kabul has been smuggled overland from Pakistan.

“All this money magically appears from nowhere,” said a U.S. official who monitors Afghanistan’s growing role as a hub for cash transfers to Dubai, which has six flights a day to and from Kabul.

Meanwhile, the United States is stepping up efforts to stop money flow in the other direction — into Afghanistan and Pakistan in support of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Senior Treasury Department officials visited Kabul this month to discuss the cash flows and other issues relating to this country’s infant, often chaotic financial sector.

Tracking Afghan exchanges has long been made difficult by the widespread use of traditional money-moving outfits, known as “hawalas,” which keep few records. The Afghan central bank, supported by U.S. Treasury advisers, is trying to get a grip on them by licensing their operations.

Full article

from http://moneyteachers.org/Florida.htm

Thomas Saporito has been a very busy man in the State of Florida. Saporito has sued in Florida Courts to shut down an aging nuclear facility that he believes is no longer safe. I quote the following from his website:

” Pictured above is the Florida Power and Light Company – Turkey Point Nuclear Plant located in south Florida. The twin nuclear reactors were licensed for operation in the early 70s just like the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant that is the center of controversy due to radioactive tritium leaking into the environment. The Vermont legislature last week voted down the Entergy’s request to operate the nuclear plant for an additional 20-years. Similarly, the State of Florida should seek to shut-down the FPL Turkey Point Nuclear facility. These aged nuclear power plants were only designed to operate safely for a 40-year life-span. However, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has been rubber-stamping licenses to extend operation of aging nuclear plants for an additional 20-years and well-beyond the safety parameters of the original licenses. The government remains unaccountable for the tons and tons of high-level nuclear waste which is currently stored at 104 nuclear power plants.

The reactor vessels are made of stainless steel that is bombarded by high-level radioactive particles day-in and day-out which embrittles the reactor vessel making the vessel very susceptible to cracking . Should the vessel crack, a loss-of-coolant accident would result causing an uncontrolled meltdown of the entire plant releasing unwanted high-level radioactive particles into the environment – much like the Chernobyl melt down years back. Notably, the NRC cannot guarantee that anyone would be able to timely evacuate the area during a general alert at the plant. Fact is, the NRC cannot guarantee anything related to commercial nuclear power generation.”

Are Nuclear Plants Obsolete?

Mr. Saporito believes that nuclear power plants are becoming obsolete because of a new fuel-cell technology called the bloom box. I quote the following from an article linked to his website:

“Everyone’s talking about Bloom Energy, a green-energy company that was named a World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer and featured on CBS News’ 60 Minutes this week.

Yesterday at a press conference, the fuel cell start-up publicly unveiled its innovative portable power plants, which are bringing corporate energy costs down from about 13 to 14 cents a kilowatt hour to 9 to 10 cents while reducing emissions, according to Business Week.

The contraptions, called bloom boxes, “efficiently generate their own electricity on site while reducing their carbon footprint, lowering energy costs, and mitigating the risk of power outage.” The fuel cells are made from silicon, an element found in sand, according to Yahoo.

“The core of our technology simply is sand,” said K.R. Sridhar, the company’s Indian-born co-founder and chief executive, displaying a fuel cell the size of a greeting card.

While fuel cell technology has tried and failed before, Bloom Energy is going strong out of the blocks; Sridhar announced yesterday that the company had already snagged a lot of big investors and signed up heavy-hitting customers such as Google, Coca-Cola, Wal-Mart, Staples, Bank of America, Cox Enterprises and FedEx; and as we’ve previously reported here at Tonic, eBay, one of Bloom Energy’s largest customers, saved $100,000 in energy costs in a mere nine months by using the green fuel-cell technology.

Sridhar also said that California may well soon join the list of customers. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was in attendance, and Sridhar anticipates the energy-strapped state will be interested. “We are twice as efficient as the U.S. national grid, which means we can produce the same amount of electricity for half the fuel and half the carbon footprint,” Sridhar said.

While Bloom Energy’s potential success could be great news for the planet, the bloom box’s affordability and portability promise other great benefits as well. Access to electricity can mean the difference between poverty and prosperity in the developing world, so a company that can engineer the spread of a low-barrier electricity-generating technology is on to something big.

We can only make significant progress cutting the number of people living in poverty in half by 2015, as one of the United Nation’s eight Millennium Development Goals dictates, if we provide 1.2 billion more people access to electricity. Traditional power grids won’t work; they are too time-consuming, costly and polluting to be viable considerations in most places.

Business Week declares that the company might just be able to “revolutionize the energy business” by bringing electrification technology to a level people worldwide can afford while at the same time curbing emissions.

It sounds like this is one idea whose time has come to blossom.”

Hon. James David Manning says Barack Hussein “Long Legged Mack Daddy” Obama was a C.I.A operative who used Columbia University as a cover to go to Pakistan in 1981 when the CIA and the Taliban worked together against the Soviet Invasion. Obama supplied arms, logistics, and money using his Muslim background. Follow us on twitter http://twitter.com/atlahworldwide For more information http://atlahmedianetwork.com/ Distributed by Tubemogul.

Download and print the CIA Columbia Obama Trial Flyer: http://atlah.org/pdf/ciaColumbiaObama…

By Patrick A. Heller on March 2nd, 2010

Recently, the German television station ProSieben ran a news story covering W. C. Heraeus in Hanau, Germany, the world’s largest privately owned refinery.  In the story, Wilfried Hörner, the head of the gold foundry, shows a 500 gram bar (16.0755 troy ounces) received from an unidentified bank.  The bar had the right physical dimensions to be an authentic gold bar, but one of the Heraeus employees suspected something funny.  After the bar was cut in half, you can see that the inside is tungsten, with only a coating of gold on the outside.

You can watch this news story on You Tube, where it was posted February 28, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKczs-7BFRI.

Last fall, Rob Kirby of Kirby Analytics in Toronto reported that China’s central bank had discovered some 400-ounce gold-plated tungsten bars among those it had recently received from bonded warehouses.  It was later learned that at least four counterfeit bars were found and that all had come from sources in the United States.  As suspicions grow about counterfeit bars among those held in bonded warehouses for delivery against either COMEX or London Bullion Market Association contracts or shares of exchange traded funds, investors could panic.  So, you can understand that there has been almost a total blackout on news coverage on this story.

Tungsten is the only lower value metal that has a specific density close enough to gold to fabricate passable counterfeit pieces of the same size and weight as genuine coins and ingots.  Over the years, there have been a few isolated reports of smaller coins and bars found to have been drilled to remove some of the gold which was replaced with tungsten.  However, it is far more profitable to fabricate larger original bars of tungsten that are then gold-plated.

Thus far, the commodity exchanges have disclaimed of any responsibility for the purity of the gold bars they are delivering against contracts.  As stories of gold-plated tungsten bars in bonded warehouses continue to appear, I expect the commodity exchanges are going to be forced to modify their business practices to provide a guaranty of purity for any bars they deliver.

The process of non-destructive testing of bars to check for counterfeits involves very expensive equipment and is time consuming.  It is beyond the means of almost all investors and coin dealers.  For maximize safety, I recommend purchasing only smaller size coins and ingots, say two ounces of gold content or less, and only deal with a company that has a lengthy track record and in-house staff expertise (unlike the bank that took in this counterfeit 500 gram bar).  If you have purchased coins and ingots from unknown sources, you may want have them checked out by an experienced independent third party.

In contrast, the last things I would want to invest in are large gold bars stored in bonded warehouses in unallocated storage.  If it turns out that the warehouse holding your bars has too many counterfeit bars in their inventory, it could go bankrupt.  That would leave holders of unallocated inventory as unsecured creditors of the bankrupt company, and not as owners of gold.

Because the existence of counterfeit gold-plated tungsten bars could have such a huge impact on the financial markets, there is a huge potential for deception and misinformation to be passed around.  Be very careful about automatically believing any story you may hear.  For your own protection, it would be better to take physical possession of the smaller sizes of gold coins and bars now, and know that what you own genuine solid gold.

Patrick A. Heller owns Liberty Coin Service in Lansing, Michigan and writes “Liberty’s Outlook,” a monthly newsletter covering rare coins and precious metals. Past issues can be found online at http://www.libertycoinservice.com/ Pat Heller is also the gold market commentator for Numismatic News. Past columns online at http://numismaster.com/

Newswise — Researchers at the Baltimore Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center and the University of Maryland School of Medicine have conducted a study on prion disease and found that transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) can be induced without an outside catalyst like a virus.

TSE (also known as prion diseases) are a group of progressive conditions affecting the brain and nervous systems of many animals and humans. The conditions include Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (the human form of mad cow disease), Gerstmann-Sträussler-Scheinker syndrome, fatal familial insomnia and kuru, all forming a spectrum of overlapping signs and symptoms caused by a myriad of tiny holes in the cortex that give it the appearance of a sponge. The disease impairs brain functions leading to both mental and physical deterioration over time.

Using a synthetic prion protein made in E. coli, the researchers induced a new form of TSE. Their study findings—published in January 2010 issue of Acta Neuropathol (with open access at Springerlink.com)— indicate a slow progression of the disease after the observance of first clinical signs, which is typical of how the disease unfolds in both humans and large animals, than in smaller animals such as rodents.

One of the study’s lead researchers, Robert Rohwer, PhD, director of Molecular Neurovirology Laboratory at the VA Maryland Health Care System and an associate professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, says the result is an “important milestone in establishing that the native wild-type prion protein is sufficient to induce prion disease in normal wild-type hosts. The interpretation of previous transmissions with synthetic prion proteins has been confounded by the use of mutant proteins and mutant host recipients subject to spontaneous disease.”

This result, Rohwer said, does not explain the many discrepancies “that have supported skeptics of the prion hypothesis like myself, and there is enormous work yet to be done to reconcile these apparent inconsistencies. However, the new insights, tools and focus provided by these discoveries promise to greatly accelerate the pace of those efforts.” Rohwer noted that the disease being induced “was itself unique and fascinating” and may prove valuable as a window on its progression in humans, cattle and sheep.

Rohwer, together with Ilia Backakov, PhD, an associate professor at the School of Medicine and director of the Prion Insitute at the University of Maryland’s Biotechnolgical Institute, inoculated Golden Syrian hamsters with synthetic E.coli recombinant prion proteins, while at the same time inoculating other hamsters with comprehensive slightly altered controls. During this first passage, all but two of the hamsters survived to old age (18 months) without any sign of disease. The researchers investigated the brains of each hamster at 18 months old for evidence of the TSE infection, finding that one animal showed definite signs of infection and one suspicious. They homogenized the brains of both the possibly infected and apparently uninfected animals that had been inoculated with prion protein and some control group hamsters, and then inoculated the homogenates in new animals. Again the animals appeared normal for more than a year after the inoculation, but then the animals began developing symptoms of TSE disease.

“There had been infection in the first passage, but the disease progression was so slow it didn’t have time to advance to a symptomatic form within the hamster’s lifespan,” said Rohwer.

In the hamsters from the second passage, a higher concentration of infectivity meant the infection process started at a higher level, causing the animals to reach a symptomatic stage of disease before their life’s end.


The research resulted in two findings, one being the ability of synthetic wild-type prion protein to induce prion disease in normal wild-type hosts and the other being the development of a new strain of hamster prion disease with a unique presentation for rodents that may prove valuable for investigating the longer duration TSE illnesses of larger animals like humans and cattle.

The VA Maryland Health Care System (VAMHCS) provides a broad spectrum of medical, surgical, rehabilitative, mental health and outpatient care to veterans at two medical centers, one community living & rehabilitation center and five outpatient clinics located throughout the state. More than 52,000 veterans from various generations receive care from the VAHMCS annually. Nationally recognized for its state-of-the-art technology and quality patient care, the VAHMCS is proud of its reputation as a leader in veterans’ health care, research and education. It costs nothing for Veterans to enroll for health care with the VA Maryland Health Care System and it could be one of the more important things a Veteran can do. For information about VA health care eligibility and enrollment or how to apply for a VA medical care hardship to avoid future copayments for VA health care, interested Veterans are urged to call the Enrollment Center for the VA Maryland Health Care System, Monday through Friday, from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at 1-800-463-6295, ext. 7324 or visit www.maryland.va.gov.