Police chief in charge of de Menezes shooting is handed ANOTHER promotion

The police chief who oversaw the bungled operation which resulted in the fatal shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes was yesterday made the third most powerful officer at Scotland Yard.

Cressida Dick, 48, who was severely criticised over her role in the death of the innocent 27-year-old Brazilian, was appointed an assistant commissioner.

She will be charge of the Met's Specialist Crimes Directorate, which includes murder squads and elite detective units, including the one investigating MPs over alleged expenses fraud.

It is her second promotion since Mr de Menezes was mistakenly gunned down by anti-terror police at Stockwell Tube station in South London four years ago.

Her new job, equivalent in rank to a provincial chief constable, carries a salary of £180,000 - double what Oxford- educated Miss Dick was earning as a Met commander when the tragedy occurred.

Last night, diversity campaigners welcomed Miss Dick's latest promotion, which will make her the first woman to hold the rank of assistant commissioner on a permanent basis.

However, the move has angered relatives of Mr de Menezes, who believe she and other officers should have faced criminal charges over the shooting.

A spokesman for the Justice for Jean campaign said: 'Nobody has been held to account for Jean's death. Those in charge on the day have been rewarded.

'No wonder more and more of the public have lost confidence in the senior levels of the Met. Like MPs, they simply refuse to accept that they have done anything wrong.'

However, Yard insiders insisted last night that Miss Dick, one of the Met's most popular senior officers, had been given the post because she was 'head and shoulders' above her two rivals.

‘Horrific Provocation’ to Trigger Iran Invasion

Brookings Publication mentions possibility of ‘Horrific Provocation’ to Trigger Iran Invasion

Jurriaan Maessen
Prisonplanet.com

In a recent policy paper published by the influential Brookings Institute, the authors propose almost anything to guarantee dominance of Persia by the new world order, including bribery, lying, cheating and mass murdering by an all-out military assault of Iran. The paper ‘Which path to Persia: Options for a New American Strategy toward Iran’ is just one of many recent and not so recent examples of the firm intent of the globalists to engage Iran militarily and acquire its natural resources in the same effort.

The group of authors- a cozy little convergence of globalists- contemplate four separate options on ‘how to deal with Iran’ in the cold bureaucratic language that poses as scientific but is really nothing more than the intelligent musings of a calculating psychopath. The first option, ‘Dissuading Tehran’ through diplomatic means is being discussed as something tried, tested and discarded. The second option, ‘Disarming Tehran’ covers several ways of rallying the ‘international community’ around the globalists’ intentions. In the third part, ‘Toppling Tehran’ the warmongering increases as the writers contemplate both covert and overt military action against the Islamic republic of Iran. In the fourth and last section, ‘Deterring Tehran’ the option of ‘containment’ is elaborated upon. The proposed final strategy predictably involves all of the above mentioned options, in roughly the same order of appearance.

To ensure the cooperation of surrounding countries, the authors propose bribery as an effective tool. After the authors assert that ‘it may be necessary to cut some deals in order to secure Moscow’s support for a tougher Iran policy’, the authors continue with their ‘brainstorming’, advising a widespread bribery campaign in order to ensure international cooperation in regards to Iran:

‘Other countries also will want payoffs from the United States in return for their assistance on Iran. Such deals may be distasteful, but many will be unavoidable if the Persuasion approach is to have a reasonable chance of succeeding.’ And further on: ‘To be successful, a Persuasion approach would invariably require unpleasant compromises with third-party countries to secure their cooperation against Iran.’

This means the US will have to cut all kinds of deals with dictators, bloodthirsty local tyrants and other corrupt kings of Arabia- even facilitating them with weapons. Besides rallying the ‘international community’ around the Anglo-American establishment with the help of these ‘unpleasant compromises’, the paper stresses it will also be necessary to persuade the Iranians themselves to topple their government (page 39):

‘Inciting regime change in Iran would be greatly assisted by convincing the Iranian people that their government is so ideologically blinkered that it refuses to do what is best for the people and instead clings to a policy that could only bring ruin on the country.’

But the authors underline the necessity of creating a favourable climate for the transnationalists in which to operate.

‘(…) any military operation against Iran will likely be very unpopular around the world and require the proper international context (…) The best way to minimize international opprobrium and maximize support (however, grudging or covert) is to strike only when there is a widespread conviction that the Iranians were given but then rejected a superb offer- one so good that only a regime determined to acquire nuclear weapons and acquire them for the wrong reasons would turn it down. Under those circumstances, the United States (or Israel) could portray its operations as taken in sorrow, not anger, and at least some in the international community would conclude that the Iranians “brought it on themselves” by refusing a very good deal.’

Here the authors seem to abandon even the facade of civility as they proceed. Even though the authors put these vile warmongering words in quotes, they cannot mask the mindset. They mean to rally the ‘international community’ through bribery and deceit- as a steppingstone towards military strikes. The path toward such military strikes will be made smooth by economically strong-holding surrounding countries, forcing them to accept western military action as well as the justifications for it without question.
Military action. This is as acutely on the mind of the current chickenhawks, as the invasion of Iraq was on that of the neocons in the last couple of decades. Apparently, the authors feel compelled to give a justification for the bravura of their manuscript.

‘We chose to consider this extreme and highly unpopular option partly for the sake of analytical rigor and partly because if Iran responded to a confrontational American policy- such as an airstrike, harsh new sanctions, or efforts to foment regime change- with a major escalation of terrorist attacks (or more dire moves against Israel and other American allies), invasion could become a very “live” option.’

As the geopolitical feeding frenzy increases, the authors clearly begin to lose their cool as they begin to talk about the real plan behind all this elaborate brainstorming, reflecting the long-term agenda of the globalists for whom they work:

‘Like Iraq’, the authors state, ‘Iran is too intrinsically and strategically important a country for the United States to be able to march in, overthrow its government, and then march out, leaving chaos in its wake. (…) Iran exports about 2.5 million barrels per day of oil and, with the right technology, it could produce even more. It also has one of the largest reserves of natural gas in the world. These resources make Iran an important supplier of the energy needs of the global economy. Iran does not border Saudi Arabia- the lynchpin of the oil market- or Kuwait, but it does border Iraq, another major oil producer and a country where the United States now has a great deal at stake.’

And exactly in line with their masters tendency of using false flags, they allow themselves the luxury of speculating openly about a possible ‘provocation’ to escalate things to the point of armed conflict.

‘(…) it is not impossible that Tehran might take some action that would justify an American invasion. And it is certainly the case that if Washington sought such a provocation, it could take actions that might make it more likely that Tehran would do so (although being too obvious about this could nullify the provocation). However, since it would be up to Iran to make the provocation move (…), the United States would never know for sure when it would get the requisite Iranian provocation. In fact, it might never come at all.’

Now that would be a great disappointment, wouldn’t it. Under the headline ‘The Question of a Provocation’ on page 66, the authors press the point even further:

‘With provocation, the international diplomatic and domestic political requirements of an invasion would be mitigated, and the more outrageous the Iranian provocation (and the less that the United States is seen to be goading Iran), the more these challenges would be diminished. In the absence of a sufficiently horrific provocation, meeting these requirements would be daunting.’

Reminiscent of the Pearl Harbor-quote by raving neocons pre-9/11, the authors continue imagining how excellent it would be to have an Iranian-sponsored terror attack within the US to trigger war and march off toward Iran. During all this, the authors are aware how unlikely it is that Iran would actually commit such an attack on American soil (probably because they know who is usually responsible for such mass terror attacks):

‘Something on the order of an Iranian-backed 9/11, in which the plane wore Iranian markings and Tehran boasted about its sponsorship.(…). The entire question of “options” become irrelevant at that point: what American president could refrain from an invasion after the Iranians had just killed several thousand American civilians in an attack in the United States itself?‘

Regarding the question of international support for an US invasion of the Islamic Republic, the Brookings people lament:

‘Other than a Tehran-sponsored 9/11, it is hard to imagine what would change their minds.’

The same goes for their plans in regards to that old favorite of the elite, covert psychological warfare, in order to subdue a sovereign nation. In chapter 7 of the manuscript, called ‘Inspiring an Insurgency’, it examines the possibility of propagandizing the Iranian people into helping out the globalists lute their nation:

‘The core concept lying at the heart of this option would be for the United States to identify one or more Iranian opposition groups and support them as it did other insurgencies in Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Kurdistan, Angola, and dozens of other locales since the Second World War. The United States would provide arms, money, training, and organizational assistance to help the groups develop and extend their reach. U.S. media and propaganda outlets could highlight group grievances and showcase rival leaders.’

Isn’t that a familiar sight? Could one way to ‘highlight’ group grievances be to mass distribute the death of a poor woman and then claim it’s all thanks to Twitter?

All this hinting at another false-flag attack underway and prepping the international community for a future invasion of Iran is becoming increasingly serious as the warmongering is being stepped up. This is the time to fix our eyes upon these globalists and their think tanks. If their blatant arrogance permits them to openly publish their bloodthirsty musings, we should be vigilant enough to pass this knowledge around lest we have another 9/11 on our hands.

Source: http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/rc/papers/2009/06_iran_strategy/06_iran_strategy.pdf

COVERT ACTION: THE ROOTS OF TERRORISM

Edited By Ellen Ray and William H. Schaap

www.oceanbooks.com.au

The following are some very brief excerpts from the editors' introductions to the various sections of the book, along with a list of the articles in each section.

I. War Without End

The practical, economic forces driving resurgent imperialism—in essence unmitigated greed—are not alone enough to explain current conditions. There are more metaphysical forces at play, undercurrents of the U.S. psyche as old as the nation itself. One such theme is U.S. exceptionalism, the notion that the United States is somehow unique, somehow beyond any need for international consensus, somehow entitled to do whatever it wants. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Washington has pursued a policy of unilateral, world-wide military conquest, attacking and destabilizing weak "rogue" states in the name of democracy.

Another element driving this unilateralism is a form of religious fundamentalism endemic to the United States from its earliest days, the messianic notion that the United States represents God's chosen people, God's chosen system of government, God's chosen way of life: Triumphalism. In one poll, forty-six percent of the people of the United States—including the President—described themselves as "evangelical" or "born-again Christians," an astonishing figure. Many of them, and most of their shepherds, do not believe we should merely offer our God-given way of life to the other peoples of the world; we should foist our brand of democracy upon them whether they like it or not, and by military conquest if necessary, appropriating their resources as God intended. God has chosen America to cleanse the world and George W. Bush to lead that battle.

As much of the material in this book makes clear, the strongest (and often the only) ally of this new U.S. triumphalism has been the government of the State of Israel. While many of Bush's key administration figures are indeed self-professed Zionists, many others are deeply fundamentalist Christians. Any detailed analysis of the complicated philosophical underpinnings of this alliance is beyond the scope of this book, though touched upon throughout.

The influence of the Israel-firsters cannot be gainsaid. It was the Jonathan Institute, described below in our introduction to The New Red Scare, that first promoted the notion of pre-emptive and punitive strikes. As this became U.S. doctrine, it served as an ex post facto justification for Israeli policies already in place. And it was the Jonathan Institute that provided the framework for the anti-U.N. sentiment that appears to have subsumed Washington.

The impetus for this collection is two-fold. Much of the world's turmoil is in response to the upsurge in U.S. imperialism, increasingly unchecked for decades. No one can truly analyze the dramatic rise in terrorism without conceding that it is largely reactive, largely driven by one brutal ploy after another by the western powers, almost exclusively the United States. Not just invasions and wars, not just the removal of leaders distrusted by the west, not just the subversion of international institutions—but also the rape of the planet's environment, the dumping of dangerous products on the unwary of the world, and the callous disregard for the proliferation of disease and malnutrition everywhere.

For more than twenty years, CovertAction magazine reported on the relatively secret machinations of imperialism. When we began publication, few U.S. citizens even knew what the CIA was, much less what it did and had done—in stark contrast to its victims around the world. Today, much of what was done in secret in the past is done openly, and one can barely imagine what continues under cover.

The introduction to each section of this book is designed to highlight the connections between the articles and the situation today. In some cases, the connections are by analogy; in some they are simply the continuation of unfinished or interrupted game plans. In many cases, indeed, the main players are identical.

Dissent is not, as the warlords would have it, immoral; it is essential. If the articles in this book provide some assistance to the arguments of the dissenters, it will have served its purpose.

The articles in this section are:

"The Corruption of Covert Actions," by Ramsey Clark (1998).

"Tracking Covert Actions into the Future," by Philip Agee (1992).

"NATO and Beyond," by Ellen Ray and William H. Schaap (1999).

"Evangelicals for Nuclear War," by Larry Jones (1991).

II. From Cuba to Afghanistan

Instructive Examples

The United States is the only country in the world where the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, are not viewed as a consequence of U.S. policy. The reporting and analysis of what happened was almost entirely without historical reference. Yet the record shows that the al-Qaeda network might even not have existed at all, had the U.S. not sponsored Islamic extremism in Afghanistan.

This is commonly understood outside the United States. Yet in official and media circles in the United States, almost no memory evidently exists of the policies of just a few years ago, in the Reagan and first Bush administrations, that promoted radical, fundamentalist Islamic "holy warriors" as "freedom fighters" against the Soviet Union.

Throughout the 1990s, voices were heard repeatedly in the Arab and Muslim world warning of the monster that had been created by U.S. intelligence in Afghanistan. The United States rejected any responsibility when the holy warriors turned on other Islamic societies, notably in Algeria and Pakistan, for being too "secular" and vowing to "reform" them as they were reforming Afghanistan. Tens of thousands of people were killed in the Islamic world in the 1990s by these extremists, to the almost complete indifference of the U.S. government and media. The truest reflection of the U.S. attitude was uttered by Zbigniew Brzezinski, when he observed, "What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?"

The Islamic fundamentalism sponsored by the United States to promote its strategic interests (in a comparable way, Israel aided Hamas to weaken the PLO) is closely associated with the phenomenon of international terrorism, which lately has replaced communism as the embodiment of the "Threat," that metaphysical force the U.S. requires to define its foreign policy. For some 20 years before September 11, western corporate media toiled diligently to transform the "Enemy" from communism to terrorism—a very selective definition of terrorism that was being implanted in the collective consciousness of its audience.

The articles in this section are:

" Jihad International, Inc.," by Eqbal Ahmad (1998).

"Power and the Semantics of Terror," by Edward S. Herman (1986).

"Why Do They Hate Us?" by Edward S. Herman (1988).

The New Red Scare

It would be a mistake to imagine that George W. Bush declared war on terrorism on September 11. Rather he "re-declared" a war that Ronald Reagan had first created and financed, in the mid-1980s. While Jimmy Carter had used "human rights" as a focus for imposing U.S. hegemony, Ronald Reagan replaced that doctrine with his own war against "international terrorism." Within days of his inauguration, Secretary of State Alexander Haig announced that "international terrorism will take the place of human rights [as] our concern, because it is the ultimate ... abuse of human rights." This fundamental shift in policy was due in large part to the influence of a shadowy Israeli-American organization, the Jonathan Institute, founded in 1979 by Benjamin Netanyahu, the future Israeli prime minister, whose brother Jonathan was killed in the commando raid on Uganda's Entebbe airport in 1976.

The Jonathan Institute became the emblematic think tank of Israeli and U.S. officials. The National Security state was giving way to the Counter-Terrorist state, with a catalogue of strategies that would come fully into the open when the September 11 attack made it possible for U.S. officials to speak without ambiguity.

After the demise of the Soviet Union, the strategic equation changed only in its new definition of the Enemy. The acceptable policies of the Counter-Terrorist state were defined. A strong case can be made that the Jonathan Institute was established to insure not just the defeat of the Democrats in 1980, but the election of a Republican pledged to the international strategies of the Institute. The provocative underlying message promoted was: We must not wait to be attacked, but must institute "preemptive retaliation," a formula already expressed in early meetings of the Jonathan Institute.

These themes—the backbone of Israeli policy against the Palestinians and the rationale for its continued occupation of their territory—soon became a part of the Reagan Doctrine. The precursor of the U.S.A. Patriot Act of 2002 can be found in Reagan's 1984 National Security Decision directive (NSDD) 138, authorizing paramilitary and military anti-terrorist squads as well as preemptive retaliation.

The articles in this section are:

"Cuban Exile Terrorists On Rampage," Editorial (1979).

"New Spate of Terrorism: Key Leaders Unleashed," by William H. Schaap (1980).

"Editorial on NSDD 138," Editorial (1984).

"Pentagon Moves on Terrorism," by Ellen Ray and William H. Schaap (1984).

"The Uses of `Counterterrorism,'" by Christopher Simpson (1996).

Libya in U.S. Demonology," by Noam Chomsky (1986).

Setting the Stage: Afghanistan

The actions of Afghanistan, of the Taliban, even of Osama bin Laden, have been seen on all sides as a metaphor for a global conflict, whether between western civilization on the one hand and intolerant religious fundamentalism on the other; or between rapacious global imperialism on the one hand and the yearnings of the exploited have-nots of the world on the other. It is extremely instructive to study the details of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, and such a study was made possible in a rather unique way.

After the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979, many secret documents relating to Afghanistan were discovered, and they appeared in the pamphlets of reprinted documents (often pieced together from shredder baskets) published in Iran and widely distributed around the world. These classified State Department and CIA cables up to October 1979 laid bare the development of the U.S. policy that led to incursion of Soviet troops two months later.

The articles in this section are:

"Destabilizing Afghanistan," by Steve Galster (1988).

"The Afghan Pipeline," by Steve Galster (1988).

III. Terrorist Wars in the Middle East

Israeli State Terror

For more than 35 years, the violent and bitter history of the Palestinian-Israeli conflicts have centered around a history of collaboration between U.S. and Israeli military and intelligence services and their coincidence of interests. Israeli covert operations have backed up U.S. clandestine schemes, especially in the Middle East, but also in Central America, southern Africa, and elsewhere in a global conquest in which U.S. domination has reached its apex under George W. Bush.

Ever since the discovery of vast, almost unimaginable oil reserves in the region, the overriding strategic objective of the United States in the Middle East has been access to and eventual control over that resource. And since its 1967 victory in the six-day war, when Israel established itself as the regional military superpower capable of aiding in this primary U.S. objective, massive U.S. foreign aid and subsidized weapons of war have ensured an Israeli-U.S. alliance with mutually expansionist agendas. Both want unfettered access to Arab oil, and more.

The second U.S. imperative is its strategic partnership with Israel, a function of the power of the pro-Israel lobby in the United States, exemplified by the ability of the American-Israel Political Action Committee to influence congressional and even presidential elections. And the White House, State Department, and Pentagon are riddled with insiders with dual loyalties, the belief that U.S. and Israeli interests are, and should be, identical.

The quid pro quo for Israel, an extension of this objective, is the relative free play given to its own designs in the Middle East as a military force and an ever-expanding Zionist state.

The United States has given Israel virtually every sophisticated weapon system it has to offer, more than $18 billion in the last decade, with more than $2 billion in military aid slated for the next fiscal year (2003-2004). As a further reward for cooperation in covert activities around the globe, the U.S. remained silent, if not actually assisted, Israel's development and testing of its own nuclear weapons.

The first intifada erupted in 1987 when Israeli expanding settlements in the occupied territories stripped Palestinians of more of their land, while Israeli and U.S. intelligence operations to weaken Palestinian unity intensified. "Preemptive retaliation" began with the Israeli assassination of the co-founder, with Yassir Arafat, of Fateh.

The articles in this section are:

"Israeli State Terror," by Naseer Aruri (1988).

"Israel Shahak on the `Transfer Proposal,'" by Ellen Ray (1988).

"Israel Wages Chemical Warfare With American Tear Gas," by Louis Wolf (1988).

"Washington's Proxy: Israeli Arms in Central America," ny Clarence Lusane (1984).

"Israeli-South African Collaboration," by Jack Colhoun (1986).

Iran-Contra and the Israel Lobby

The New World Order that George Bush senior heralded after the Soviet demise is now George Bush junior's legacy—his New Imperial Order.

The roots of this current power grab go back to the last months of the Carter administration in 1980. Reagan-Bush campaign hawks plotted feverishly against the possibility that the U.S. Embassy hostages held in Tehran might be released just before the November election—a devastating public relations coup for the incumbent, a so-called October Surprise. On the heels of the disastrously botched hostage rescue attempt, only the negotiated release of the hostages would have kept Carter's chances alive. Reagan's minions secretly negotiated with ranking advisers to Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini for a delay of any action until after the election, and their success left Jimmy Carter facing the polls with the Americans having languished in captivity for an entire year.

The campaign for world economic and political domination gathered momentum during the final years of the Cold War, including the decade-long Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s (in which the United States sold arms to both sides), and the "clandestine" wars against Nicaragua's Sandinista government and the revolutionary movements in El Salvador, Guatemala, Angola, South Africa, and elsewhere. What became known as the Iran-contra scandal—clandestine U.S. arms sales to Iran, facilitated by Israeli intelligence guidance, with the huge profits used to fund the terrorist war of the contras against the revolutionary government of Nicaragua—was a major part of these operations. Both ends of the operation were ostensibly prohibited by U.S. law, and the secret sales to Iraq were not even part of the publicly-known equation.

The articles in this section are:

"Disinformationgate," by Fred Landis (1987).

"Deltagate?" by Ellen Ray and William H. Schaap (1987).

"Out of the Loop: The VP's Office: Cover for Iran-Contra," by Jane Hunter (1990).

"What Vice-President Bush Knew and Why He Knew It," by Anthony L. Kimery (1992).

"Vice-President Bush: Inside Track to Power," by Karen Branan (1992).

The Bush Family: Oiligarchy and the Emirs

When the U.S. economy falters, conventional wisdom calls for war preparations, or, better yet, war. Thus there are peculiar ramifications to the scandal over massive corporate malfeasance that broke early in the George W. Bush administration, hard on the heels of his fraudulent 2000 election. At present, the U.S. economy is in a shambles—not from September 11, but because of corporate greed, publicly revealed corporate greed, on a scale never exposed before.

The President, his father, his uncle, and all his brothers have been neck-deep for decades in the corruption he now pretends to find so shocking. Many key figures of the Reagan and Bush I administrations made huge profits not from any business acumen but from their political and military connections, sought after by corrupt Middle Eastern potentates, with assistance from shameful and unethical lawyers, banks, and accountants.

Even now, as some of the past wheeling and dealing is rehashed in the press, the truly far-reaching and longstanding implications are only superficially questioned. The common thread is and always has been the control of oil. Middle Eastern oil in particular, and world energy supplies in general.

The war against terrorism and the jockeying for oil are intertwined, the former providing cover for the latter. Before September 11, Washington's overarching thirst for oil had to be disguised. During the Iran-contra congressional hearings much of the press coverage was spun to highlight Oliver North's escapades with the Nicaraguan counter-revolutionaries, not his role as an arms dealer in Iran and Iraq, whose oil was not in the U.S. grip.

The article in this section is:

"The Family That Preys Together," by Jack Colhoun (1992).

Iraq and the Gulf Wars

For many years, the destruction of Iraq through its dismemberment into three mini-states (Kurdish, Shi'ite , and Sunni ), has been an Israeli, Zionist expansionist policy. During the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, the Israelis were critical of the United States when the Republican administration's hostility toward Iran ran so deep that it covertly poured weapons (including chemical and biological) into Baghdad while they were also working with Israel in selling arms to Tehran. Despite their differences, however, both Israel and the United States profited handsomely by prolonging a war that killed over a million combatants and civilians on both sides.

By 1990, U.S. imperial strategy had developed a new thrust with respect to Middle East dominance. Flushed with an unexpected Cold War victory, President Bush orchestrated Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, precipitating the first Gulf War. For a decade afterwards, Washington's strategy was to maintain draconian sanctions on Iraq, with the support of Congress and a supine United Nations, while ordering almost daily bombing raids in the so-called "no-fly zones."

The justification for such barbarity was western insistence that Iraq possessed, and refused to destroy, vast stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), chemical, biological, and potentially nuclear.

By the time George W. Bush took office, it was clear to the world that sanctions had not weakened the Iraqi government, that no coup would succeed in Baghdad, and that opposition forces, such as they were, could never drive Saddam Hussein out. Only another U.S. invasion, Washington hawks proclaimed, would finish the job Bush senior had inexplicably halted. This became part and parcel of the evolving Bush Doctrine, which began by denouncing its former ally Iraq as a harborer of terrorists and a stockpiler of WMD, to be held accountable.

The hypocrisy of the administration in creating hysteria over the possible use by Iraq of chemical and biological weapons (CBW), and even of nuclear weapons, is boundless. For almost a century, the United States has been the most prolific user of CBW, in World War I, in World War II, in the Korean War, in the Vietnam War, and throughout the Cold War. It has left generations of victims throughout the world, devastated the ecology of Vietnam for decades still to come. It has tested these weapons of mass destruction on unwitting civilians and military personnel; it has subjected its own combat soldiers to horrific, debilitating and deadly disease. (See our recent book, Bioterror .) All the CBW agents Iraq ever had (and they have now been virtually destroyed) it got from the United States, in deals brokered by the very same people who now excoriate them.

Reviewing the 1990 Gulf War in some detail is historically helpful in understanding Washington's actions today.

The articles in this section are:

"Trading With the Enemy," by Jack Colhoun (1991).

"The Middle East in `Crisis,'" by Jane Hunter (1990).

"Iraq: Disinformation and Covert Operations," by Ellen Ray and William H. Schaap (1991).

IV. End Game: The Fundamentalists Ascend

In considering nuclear force, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld advised the Pentagon to "think the unthinkable."

The U.S. is considering military action against "40 to 50 countries," announced Vice President Dick Cheney.

"If we ... just wage a total war, our children will sing great songs about us years from now," was how the Chairman of the Defense Policy Board, Richard Perle, put it.

It is terrifying when the world's only superpower is in the hands of a cabal that seems not merely to believe in Armageddon, but to relish the thought. The links between Christian fundamentalists and the pro-Israel Zionist fundamentalists have been noted earlier. They all love the bomb.

The open talk of the U.S. use of nuclear weapons in Iraq, including pre-emptive use, only increases the likelihood that Israel will avail itself of this option, as it asserts itself into the conflict, something most observers think is inevitable. And Washington's atomic warmongering does nothing to foster nuclear restraint in Russia or China, much less North Korea.

While Washington demanded that Iraq and North Korea abide by U.N. resolutions and international treaties and forgo nuclear capability, it steadfastly flouted such resolutions and treaties over the years, actively assisting Israel and apartheid South Africa in nuclear development. Though the apartheid regime is gone, along with its atomic weapons program (having simply been moved north to a more pro-U.S. neighbor), Israel became one of the nuclear superpowers, willing since the October 1973 war to use them on its neighbors. Both Israel and the United States speak fondly of neutron bombs, miniature thermonuclear devices designed to kill as many people as possible while inflicting as little property damage as possible. They are reportedly a staple in the Israeli nuclear arsenal, a convenient weapon in future Middle East wars. Indeed, Israel's nuclear program is a source of deep resentment and fear in the Middle East, and there is no likelihood it will be constrained.

The U.S. no longer pays even lip service to non-proliferation, having rejected the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and moved ahead with a National Missile Defense program, reviving the Star Wars fantasies of the Reagan era and seriously threatening the weaponization of space.

We hope the lessons to be learned from studying this history of U.S. terrorism and imperialism in the 1980s and 1990s are clear. Washington's accusations must always be viewed with a jaundiced eye, its motives with skepticism. U.S. imperialism's hypocrisy knows no bounds, and its greed is unbridled. America's triumphalism is not motivated by a longing for world-wide democracy, peace, and order. It is nothing but a call for world-wide, brutal exploitation and dominion, led by a cabal that has not learned the lesson of Ozymandias.

The articles in this section are:

"Hiroshima: Needless Slaughter, Useful Terror," by William Blum (1995).

"Nuclear Threats and the New World," by Michio Kaku (1992).

"Israel, Iran, the United States, and the Bomb," by Israel Shahak (1993).

http://www.covertaction.org/%20%09%20index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=117&Itemid=83

Former Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu Planned 9/11

The "mastermind of 9/11" was" waterboarded 183 times by the CIA"

Enver Masud was one of the speakers at a "Demand Accountability for Torture" rally, on June 25, 2009, in John Marshall Park, in Washington, D.C.

He questioned how Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was" waterboarded 183 times by the CIA," and then confessed to being the "mastermind of 9/11," can get a "fair trial"in this country.

Mr. Masud connected the dots between 9/11, the waterboarding of a detainee, a so-called "confession," and the Iraq War. Mr. Masud is the founder and CEO of "The Wisdom Fund" and the author of "The War on Islam." http://twf.org/

Jewish Pirates Kidnap Former US Congress Woman Cynthia McKinney

The latest from http://www.freegaza.org reports that the humanitarian vessel Spirit of Humanity has been attacked and boarded by the Israelis 23 miles off the coast of Gaza. Former US Congresswoman and Presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney is among the 21 human rights workers taken prisoner off the ship.

[23 miles off the coast of Gaza, 15:30pm (http://www.freegaza.org/en/home/hope-fleet-news/976-israel-attacks-justice-boat-kidnaps-human-rights-workers-confiscates-medicine-toys-and-olive-trees)] - Today Israeli Occupation Forces attacked and boarded the Free Gaza Movement boat, the SPIRIT OF HUMANITY, abducting 21 human rights workers from 11 countries, including Nobel laureate Mairead Maguire and former U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney (see below for a complete list of passengers). The passengers and crew are being forcibly dragged toward Israel.

"This is an outrageous violation of international law against us. Our boat was not in Israeli waters, and we were on a human rights mission to the Gaza Strip," said Cynthia McKinney, a former U.S. Congresswoman and presidential candidate. "President Obama just told Israel to let in humanitarian and reconstruction supplies, and that's exactly what we tried to do. We're asking the international community to demand our release so we can resume our journey."

According to an International Committee of the Red Cross report released yesterday, the Palestinians living in Gaza are "trapped in despair." Thousands of Gazans whose homes were destroyed earlier during Israel's December/January massacre are still without shelter despite pledges of almost $4.5 billion in aid, because Israel refuses to allow cement and other building material into the Gaza Strip. More

FEMA Administrator Fugate Meets Top Israeli Official To Discuss Emergency Management Issues

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Craig Fugate met today with Maj. Gen. Yair Golan of the Israeli Defense Forces Home Front Command (IDF/HFC), continuing to foster a working relationship with Israel and bolstering the exchange of information on common emergency management practices.

Administrator Fugate and Maj. General Golan will serve as co-chairs of an emergency management work group designed to discuss problems and issues and to exchange information on a variety of topics such as long-term community recovery, exercise programs, policies and procedures.

"I look forward to working with my Israeli counterpart as co-chair of an emergency management work group to improve emergency management practices in both countries," said Fugate. "These partnerships are critical in ensuring that we are incorporating best practices and also working towards greater public preparedness."

The IDF/HFC partners with the Israeli National Emergency Management Authority (NEMA) on emergency management issues. IDF/HFC and NEMA work with FEMA under an emergency management work stream workgroup established under a 2007 Memorandum of Understanding with DHS.

FEMA and Israel have had several exchanges of information over the past year. FEMA representatives attended the national preparedness exercise Turning Point 3 in Israel on June 1, 2009. In the past, Israel sent observers to the TOPOFF 4 national exercise in the United States, as well as personnel to participate in FEMA emergency management training.

FEMA's mission is to support our citizens and first responders to ensure that as a nation we work together to build, sustain, and improve our capability to prepare for, protect against, respond to, recover from, and mitigate all hazards.

http://www.fema.gov/news/newsrelease.fema?id=48950

FEMA arrived in New York the Night Before 9/11 Ready to start work at Ground Zero the next day September 11th, 2001

9/11 FEMA videographer at Ground Zero goes public