Tom Leonard London Telegraph Thursday, Sept 11, 2008
US intelligence officials increasingly fear that the next terror attack on the United States will be carried out by white Americans or Europeans.
As Barack Obama and John McCain head to New York’s Ground Zero seven years after 19 Middle-Eastern hijackers brought devastation to the US mainland, counter-terrorism experts believe that any future attack will be made by terrorists with an “American face”.
They point to reports of white faces in terrorism training camps in Pakistan - the so-called “white men of Waziristan”, a reference to the remote tribal area where both al-Qaeda and the Taliban have bases.
Experts believe that dozens of westerners have undergone such training as their leaders try to recruit non-Middle Eastern Asians, particularly ethnic Caucasians, who are less likely to attract the attention of security and law enforcement agencies.
Al-Qaeda’s recent decision to put out videos in English and a similar change on extremist “jihadi” websites have also been cited of evidence of a new strategy to find recruits who are less likely to attract the attention of security and law enforcement agencies.
Such concerns were sharpened last week after the arrest of three Germans over an alleged plot to destroy a club used by US servicemen.
Two of the three were white, ethnic Germans and all had allegedly been trained in camps in Waziristan.
“There is no bigger worry for the US counter-terrorism community than young Caucasian men who have turned to al-Qaeda,” Roger Cressey, a former National Security Council official in the Clinton and Bush administrations, told the US news network MSNBC.
Terrorism experts say such a threat has been known about even before the arrest of Richard Reid, the British shoe bomber. However, it was not until three weeks ago that a US official explicitly admitted that the government knew of such people being trained in significant numbers.
09/10/2008 @ 6:29 pm Filed by Nick Langewis and David Edwards
Advertisement Screen star Matt Damon told the Associated Press that he considers the prospect of a President Palin to be a "really terrifying possibility."
"I think there's a really good chance that Sarah Palin could be president," he said, "and I think that's a really scary thing."
Noting Palin's relative youth in the political sphere as mayor of a small town in Alaska and the state's governor for less than two years, "I think the pick was made for political purposes," he added, "but, in terms of governance, it's a disaster."
"You do the actuary tables--there's a one-out-of-three chance, if not more, that McCain doesn't survive his first term, and it will be President Palin."
"It's like a really bad Disney movie," he continued. "'I'm just a hockey mom from Alaska,' and she's the President! And it's like, she's facing down Vladimir Putin using the...folks stuff she learned at the hockey rink. You know, it's absurd."
"The fact that we've gotten this far, and we're that close to this being a reality, is crazy...I need to know if she really thinks dinosaurs were here 4,000 years ago. That's an important--I want to to know that, I really do, because she's going to have the nuclear codes."
Third, I am just a housewife. I don't have a job she can bump me out of. I don't belong to any organization that she can hurt. But, I am no fool; she is immensely popular here, and it is likely that this will cost me somehow in the future: that’s life.
Fourth, she has hated me since back in 1996, when I was one of the 100 or so people who rallied to support the City Librarian against Sarah's attempt at censorship.
Fifth, I looked around and realized that everybody else was afraid to say anything because they were somehow vulnerable.
CAVEATS I am not a statistician. I developed the numbers for the increase in spending & taxation 2 years ago (when Palin was running for Governor) from information supplied to me by the Finance Director of the City of Wasilla, and I can't recall exactly what I adjusted for: did I adjust for inflation? for population increases? Right now, it is impossible for a private person to get any info out of City Hall--they are swamped. So I can't verify my numbers.
You may have noticed that there are various numbers circulating for the population of Wasilla, ranging from my "about 5,000", up to 9,000. The day Palin’s selection was announced a city official told me that the current population is about 7,000. The official 2000 census count was 5,460. I have used about 5,000 because Palin was Mayor from 1996 to 2002, and the city was growing rapidly in the mid-90’s.
As Governor, she gave the Legislature no direction and budget guidelines, then made a big grandstand display of line-item vetoing projects, calling them pork. Public outcry and further legislative action restored most of these projects--which had been vetoed simply because she was not aware of their importance--but with the unobservant she had gained a reputation as “anti-pork”.
She is solidly Republican: no political maverick. The State party leaders hate her because she has bit them in the back and humiliated them. Other members of the party object to her self-description as a fiscal conservative.
Around Wasilla there are people who went to high school with Sarah. They call her “Sarah Barracuda” because of her unbridled ambition and predatory ruthlessness. Before she became so powerful, very ugly stories circulated around town about shenanigans she pulled to be made point guard on the high school basketball team. When Sarah's mother-in-law, a highly respected member of the community and experienced manager, ran for Mayor, Sarah refused to endorse her.
As Governor, she stepped outside of the box and put together of package of legislation known as “AGIA” that forced the oil companies to march to the beat of her drum.
Like most Alaskans, she favors drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. She has questioned if the loss of sea ice is linked to global warming. She campaigned “as a private citizen” against a state initiaitive that would have either a) protected salmon streams from pollution from mines, or b) tied up in the courts all mining in the state (depending on who you listen to). She has pushed the State’s lawsuit against the Dept. of the Interior’s decision to list polar bears as threatened species.
McCain is the oldest person to ever run for President; Sarah will be a heartbeat away from being President.
There has to be literally millions of Americans who are more knowledgeable and experienced than she.
However, there’s a lot of people who have underestimated her and are regretting it.
The huge increases in tax revenues during her mayoral administration weren’t enough to fund everything on her wish list though, borrowed money was needed, too. She inherited a city with zero debt, but left it with indebtedness of over $22 million. What did Mayor Palin encourage the voters to borrow money for? Was it the infrastructure that she said she supported? The sewage treatment plant that the city lacked? or a new library? No. $1m for a park. $15m-plus for construction of a multi-use sports complex which she rushed through to build on a piece of property that the City didn’t even have clear title to, that was still in litigation 7 yrs later--to the delight of the lawyers involved! The sports complex itself is a nice addition to the community but a huge money pit, not the profit-generator she claimed it would be. She also supported bonds for $5.5m for road projects that could have been done in 5-7 yrs without any borrowing.
While Mayor, City Hall was extensively remodeled and her office redecorated more than once.
These are small numbers, but Wasilla is a very small city.
As an oil producer, the high price of oil has created a budget surplus in Alaska. Rather than invest this surplus in technology that will make us energy independent and increase efficiency, as Governor she proposed distribution of this surplus to every individual in the state.
In this time of record state revenues and budget surpluses, she recommended that the state borrow/bond for road projects, even while she proposed distribution of surplus state revenues: spend today's surplus, borrow for needs.
She’s not very tolerant of divergent opinions or open to outside ideas or compromise. As Mayor, she fought ideas that weren’t generated by her or her staff. Ideas weren’t evaluated on their merits, but on the basis of who proposed them.
While Sarah was Mayor of Wasilla she tried to fire our highly respected City Librarian because the Librarian refused to consider removing from the library some books that Sarah wanted removed. City residents rallied to the defense of the City Librarian and against Palin's attempt at out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down and withdrew her termination letter. People who fought her attempt to oust the Librarian are on her enemies list to this day.
Sarah complained about the “old boy’s club” when she first ran for Mayor, so what did she bring Wasilla? A new set of "old boys". Palin fired most of the experienced staff she inherited. At the City and as Governor she hired or elevated new, inexperienced, obscure people, creating a staff totally dependent on her for their jobs and eternally grateful and fiercely loyal--loyal to the point of abusing their power to further her personal agenda, as she has acknowledged happened in the case of pressuring the State’s top cop (see below).
I am a resident of Wasilla, Alaska. I have known Sarah since 1992. Everyone here knows Sarah, so it is nothing special to say we are on a first-name basis. Our children have attended the same schools. Her father was my child's favorite substitute teacher. I also am on a first name basis with her parents and mother-in-law. I attended more City Council meetings during her administration than about 99% of the residents of the city.
She is enormously popular; in every way she’s like the most popular girl in middle school. Even men who think she is a poor choice and won't vote for her can't quit smiling when talking about her because she is a "babe".
It is astonishing and almost scary how well she can keep a secret. She kept her most recent pregnancy a secret from her children and parents for seven months.
She is "pro-life". She recently gave birth to a Down's syndrome baby. There is no cover-up involved, here; Trig is her baby.
She is energetic and hardworking. She regularly worked out at the gym.
She is savvy. She doesn't take positions; she just "puts things out there" and if they prove to be popular, then she takes credit.
Her husband works a union job on the North Slope for BP and is a champion snowmobile racer. Todd Palin’s kind of job is highly sought-after because of the schedule and high pay. He arranges his work schedule so he can fish for salmon in Bristol Bay for a month or so in summer, but by no stretch of the imagination is fishing their major source of income. Nor has her life-style ever been anything like that of native Alaskans.
Sarah and her whole family are avid hunters.
She's smart.
Her experience is as mayor of a city with a population of about 5,000 (at the time), and less than 2 years as governor of a state with about 670,000 residents.
During her mayoral administration most of the actual work of running this small city was turned over to an administrator. She had been pushed to hire this administrator by party power-brokers after she had gotten herself into some trouble over precipitous firings which had given rise to a recall campaign.
Sarah campaigned in Wasilla as a “fiscal conservative”. During her 6 years as Mayor, she increased general government expenditures by over 33%. During those same 6 years the amount of taxes collected by the City increased by 38%. This was during a period of low inflation (1996-2002). She reduced progressive property taxes and increased a regressive sales tax which taxed even food. The tax cuts that she promoted benefited large corporate property owners way more than they benefited residents.
Also myriad nights spent at home "Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has billed taxpayers for 312 nights spent in her own home during her first 19 months in office, charging a "per diem" allowance intended to cover meals and incidental expenses while traveling on state business," The Washington Post reported Tuesday. Among these events included a college basketball game -- and a sled race in which her husband competed.
"The governor also has charged the state for travel expenses to take her children on official out-of-town missions," the paper added. "And her husband, Todd, has billed the state for expenses and a daily allowance for trips he makes on official business for his wife."
"Palin, who earns $125,000 a year, claimed and received $16,951 as her allowance, which officials say was permitted because her official "duty station" is Juneau... while her husband charged the state $43,490 to travel, and many of the trips were between their house in Wasilla and Juneau, the capital city 600 miles away, the documents show."
Excerpts: Speaking from Palin's Anchorage office, gubernatorial spokeswoman Sharon Leighow said Palin dealt with the plane and also trimmed other expenses, including forgoing a chef in the governor's mansion because she preferred to cook for her family. The first family's travel is an expected part of the job, she said.
"As a matter of protocol, the governor and the first family are expected to attend community events across the state," she said. "It's absolutely reasonable that the first family participates in community events."
The popular governor collected the per diem allowance from April 22, four days after the birth of her fifth child, until June 3, when she flew to Juneau for two days. Palin moved her family to the capital during the legislative session last year, but prefers to stay in Wasilla and drive 45 miles to Anchorage to a state office building where she conducts most of her business, aides have said.
She wrote some form of "Lodging -- own residence" or "Lodging -- Wasilla residence" more than 30 times at the same time she took a per diem, according to the reports. In two dozen undated amendments to the reports, the governor deleted the reference to staying in her home but still charged the per diem.
Palin charged the state a per diem for working on Nov. 22, 2007 -- Thanksgiving Day. The reason given, according to the expense report, was the Great Alaska Shootout, an annual NCAA college basketball tournament held in Anchorage.
In separate filings, the state was billed about $25,000 for Palin's daughters' expenses and $19,000 for her husband's.
The family also charged for flights around the state, including trips to Alaska events such as the start of the Iditarod dog-sled race and the Iron Dog snowmobile race, a contest that Todd Palin won.
09/09/2008 @ 10:57 am Filed by David Edwards and Muriel Kane
Advertisement In the short period since she was announced as John McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin's personal attitudes and beliefs have remained something of a mystery. In search of insights, ABC News sent Lisa Fletcher to Wasilla, Alaska to speak to "the women who know her best."
Fletcher interviewed four of Palin's closest friends, members of a group who jokingly call themselves "the Elite Six." The six women, including Palin, met 15 years ago at an aerobics class and started getting together after class as well.
When asked to reveal something about Palin that no one knows, one woman offered, "She doesn't care for cats very much," and another chimed in, "Oh, yes, she's afraid of my cat." A third added, "She lives off of caffeine and chocolate."
When asked what the American public really needs to know about Palin, one asserted, "She's honest as the day is long, and that is a unique personality trait for a politician these days." Palin's honesty has come into question this past week, in light of her claims to have opposed the "bridge to nowhere."
Although the women told Fletcher that they didn't discuss politics much among themselves, one did venture that there were certain things Palin had done as governor that she didn't agree with, including "the polar bear issue." Palin has sued the federal government to stop the listing of polar bears as an endangered species.
"Is it possible to be pro-choice and vote for Sarah Palin?" Fletcher asked.
A couple of the women responded that they were pro-choice, with the one who seemed to have the most doubts about Palin explaining, "I can't necessarily say who I'm going to vote for. ... I haven't made up my mind yet. ... I don't agree with everything Sarah says. ... I haven't committed to voting for anybody."
Another added, "I have never voted for a Republican for presidential and this may be the first time. ... I'm real excited to see the debates and make up my mind -- but I'm not committed."
Just one of the women said outright that she was voting for McCain because once he selected Palin, "I knew that she would help our nation go forward."
The fourth woman, the one who had described Palin as honest, declined to answer, saying, "My vote is very personal, and it's between me and the voting booth ... but I love Sarah to pieces."
Sealed machines opened up in seconds A physically sealed machine is opened and hacked in just 18 seconds.
A second machine is unscrewed in less than a minute.
A piece of sheet metal holding on the door is removed in several minutes with a simple Phillips head screwdriver.
It's possible the letter from Sequoia's Smith has succeeded in keeping some audits of the company's software off the national radar. In his letter to the Princeton professors who'd planned an audit of the company's voting machines, the firm all but threatens a lawsuit.
"As you have likely read in the news media, certain New Jersey election officials have stated that they plan to send to you one or more Sequoia Advantage voting machines for analysis," Smith writes. "I want to make you aware that if the County does so, it violates their established Sequoia licensing Agreement for use of the voting system. Sequoia has also retained counsel to stop any infringement of our intellectual properties, including any non-compliant analysis. We will also take appropriate steps to protect against any publication of Sequoia software, its behavior, reports regarding same or any other infringement of our intellectual property."
Sequoia reemerged in the news late last month after votes were double counted during a test in Florida. Yesterday, the company blamed the glitch on "operator error."
"Procedures by the poll workers and the Supervisor's office staff proved to be good," Sequoia asserted. "The hardware and software performed as it should. The accuracy will be confirmed at a later date. The reason that the vote totals doubled in these 40 precincts was due to an inadvertent operator error.
The California students' video was picked up Tuesday by the blog BoingBoing.
Test of company's software recently double-counted thousands of votes A newly released video depicts an eerie scenario in which voting machines produce an XXXXXX result for the ballot position of US senator after a vote is placed and then replaces the XXXXXX with an individual's name.
Though it appears to be part of an eerie low-budget sci-fi thriller, the producers weren't B-movie conspiracy theorists. Instead, they were students from the University of Santa Barbara's Security Group, participating in a project commissioned by the California Secretary of State.
Why the video was posted now despite the fact that the project took place last year remains unknown. It may have its roots in a legal threat issued by the voting machines' manufacturer in March. In a sharply worded letter to a Princeton research team that had audited their machines before, Edwin Smith, the VP for "Compliance/Quality/Certification," said that the publication of any security audit of "Sequoia software its behavior" would force the company to "take appropriate steps" through its "retained counsel."
In the film, included below, students demonstrate uploading a virus-like program to a voting terminal by inserting a data card and pressing a key. They then proceed through the voting process -- selecting candidates and approving ballot issues. Following their votes, the machine spits out a paper receipt.
The receipt correctly displays the student's choices. But a moment later, it spits out a second receipt, topped "VOID," which has replaced the student's senatorial selection with XXXXXX. The following receipt replaces XXXXXX with James P. 'Jim' Gray.
The student project also reveals the system's vulnerability to hacking the machines' internal workings. One student is able to slip one of the virus-implanting cards into a theoretically "sealed" machine simply by peeling back the flap.
Rogers says move indicates U.S. is “more Communist than China”
Monday, Sept 8, 2008
A leading investor has denounced the government seizure of two of the nation’s largest financial companies as “madness” and says the move will only serve to make the markets more volatile and see house prices continue to go down.
In an interview with CNBC Jim Rogers, CEO of Rogers Holdings, described the move by the Treasury to nationalize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as “insanity”.
The Treasury has pledged to provide as much as $200 billion to the companies, replace their chief executives and place them under a conservatorship, giving management control to their regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, or FHFA.
“This is madness, this is insanity,” Rogers said, “they have more than doubled the American national debt in one weekend for a bunch of crooks and incompetents. I’m not quite sure why I or anybody else should be paying for this.”
“America is more communist than China is right now,” Rogers declared. “You can see that this is welfare of the rich, it is socialism for the rich… it’s just bailing out financial institutions,” he added.
Rogers and other critics alike are concerned that American taxpayers, already facing the worst housing bust since the 1930s, will now be saddled with billions of dollars in losses from home loans made by the private sector, radically changing the nature of the crisis. Government officials have justified the move by stating that that the cost of doing nothing would be far greater.
“You’re certainly gonna see a huge jump in any financial institutions which owned a lot of Fannie or Freddie… because they don’t have to worry about going bankrupt all of a sudden,” Rogers said.
“Bank stocks around the world are going through the roof, that’s ’cause they’ve all been bailed out. You don’t see the homeowners in Kansas going through the roof ’cause they’re not being bailed out,” he added.
Other investors have criticized the takeover as a “stopgap” and a “band aid” aimed at keeping the companies going into 2009, leaving the next president and Congress to deal with the fallout.
Jim Rogers commented that neither of the presidential candidates has a solution to the crisis.
“This is a big huge mess and neither one of them has a clue what to do next year. It’s going to be a mess.” Rogers said.
Three months before she was thrust into the national political spotlight, Gov. Sarah Palin was asked to handle a much smaller task: addressing the graduating class of commission students at her one-time church, Wasilla Assembly of God.
Her speech in June provides as much insight into her policy leanings as anything uncovered since she was asked to be John McCain's running mate.
Speaking before the Pentecostal church, Palin painted the current war in Iraq as a messianic affair in which the United States could act out the will of the Lord.
"Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also, for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending [U.S. soldiers] out on a task that is from God," she exhorted the congregants. "That's what we have to make sure that we're praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God's plan."
Religion, however, was not strictly a thread in Palin's foreign policy. It was part of her energy proposals as well. Just prior to discussing Iraq, Alaska's governor asked the audience to pray for another matter -- a $30 billion national gas pipeline project that she wanted built in the state. "I think God's will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built, so pray for that," she said.
Palin's address, much of which was spent reflecting on the work of the church in which she grew up and was baptized, underscores the notion that her world view is deeply impacted by religion. In turn, her remarks raise important questions: mainly, what is Palin's faith and how exactly has it influenced her policies?
A review of recorded sermons by Ed Kalnins, the senior pastor of Wasilla Assembly of God since 1999, offers a provocative and, for some, eyebrow-raising sketch of Palin's longtime spiritual home.
John McCain said, during a campaign tele-conference. that he would bring back a military draft in the United States only in the case of a 'World War III' scenario.
Reuters reported:
Many Americans are fearful the U.S. government will be forced to reinstitute the draft given the prolonged Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Asked about that possibility by a potential voter in Florida during a telephone "town hall meeting," McCain said: "I don't know what would make a draft happen unless we were in an all-out World War III." ...
McCain, a Vietnam veteran, said the draft during that conflict weighed most heavily on lower-income Americans, and that this should not be repeated.
But McCain may be more open to the draft than it seems. During a July 2006 interview on CNN, McCain was asked about the following statement by Newt Gingrich: "We're in the early stages of what I would describes as the Third World War and, frankly, our bureaucracies aren't responding fast enough." Asked whether he agreed, McCain said:
"I do to some extent. I think it's important to recognize that we have terrorist organizations which -- who are dangerous by themselves, are now being supported by radical Islamic governments, i.e., the Iranians, which makes them incredibly more dangerous because they are trained, equipped, motivated and assisted in every way by the Iranians." Also, as ThinkProgress noted, "Last October, President Bush himself warned of a coming 'World War III' with Iran. 'I've told people that if you're interested in avoiding World War III,' said the President. 'It seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.'"
WASHINGTON, Sept 5 (Reuters) - The Bush administration will withdraw a civilian nuclear pact with Russia soon as a penalty for its invasion of Georgia last month, a State Department official said on Friday.
"The administration will not be moving forward with the agreement. It will be pulling it back from Congress," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
While the U.S. government has announced plans to give U.S. ally Georgia more than $1 billion in reconstruction aid, it has yet to hit Moscow with any tangible sanctions for its military incursion deep into Georgian territory last month.
But the Bush administration is preparing to scuttle the civilian nuclear deal, intended to lift Cold War restrictions on trade and open up the U.S. nuclear market and Russia's uranium fields to companies from both countries.
"We made very clear that Russia's behavior has to be condemned and there have to be consequences that flow from what it's done in Georgia," the State Department official said. "This will be an example of that."
He did not know the exact timing, but said "It's probably going to happen next week."
The nuclear cooperation agreement was signed by the two countries in May and sent by President George W. Bush to Congress, which can still disapprove of the pact. Bush or his successor, who takes office in January, could later decide to re-submit the deal to Congress.
Key U.S. lawmakers have said the accord is probably dead anyway in the wake of Russia's short war last month with Georgia over the breakaway enclave of South Ossetia.
Russia has left troops in Georgia despite the internationally negotiated ceasefire requiring them to pull back to positions held before the conflict started.
Moscow further angered the West by recognizing the "independence" of South Ossetia and another pro-Russian separatist enclave, Abkhazia.
"We want to work with Russia on a wide range of issues," the State Department official said.
"But Russia has to show that it's interested in working with the international community. And the fact that there is a ceasefire agreement that they are not adhering to is troubling to all of us. ... That's why our relationship right now is being reviewed across the board."
The nuclear pact would have gone into force if Congress did not pass a joint resolution of disapproval or adjourned for the year before lawmakers had 90 legislative days to review it.
Some lawmakers were already troubled by the nuclear pact even before Russia and Georgia went to war last month. They said they did not trust Russia enough to expand nuclear cooperation because it supplied fuel to Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant. Washington believes Iran harbors ambitions to build a nuclear bomb.
The Bush administration had argued the pact would clear the way for Washington and U.S. companies to cooperate with Russia in setting up an international nuclear fuel bank that would supply countries like Iran, in a bid to discourage them from developing their own nuclear fuel cycle facilities.
Republican White House candidate John McCain on Sunday rejected a comment by former president Jimmy Carter that he was "milking" his Vietnam war heroism for political gain.
Carter said in a USA Today interview on the sidelines of the Democratic convention in Denver last week that McCain had been "milking every possible drop of advantage" from his time as a prisoner of war.
But McCain said his five-and-a-half years as a prisoner after his navy jet was shot down over Vietnam in 1967 had been crucial to forging his character.
"I have great respect for former president Carter, but it's not first time we have disagreed," McCain said on Fox News Sunday.
"I don't think most Americans share that view.
"In fact, most of my supporters say talk more about your experiences, they were formative experiences."
"We have to judge people's character and my character, a great part of that formation of that character took place in a prison camp."
In the interview with USA Today, Carter said that McCain was able to bring the conversation around to his war service, whatever the question.
"It's much better than talking about how he's changed his total character between being a senator, a kind of a maverick, and his acquiescence in the last few months with every kind of lobbyist pressure that the right-wing Republicans have presented."
McCain was tortured by his captors in the infamous "Hanoi Hilton" prison camp and was so badly beaten that he still cannot raise his arms above his head to comb his hair.
The scion of a respected Navy family, McCain refused several offers of an early release which would have seen him freed ahead of others in a propaganda boon to the Vietnamese.
Former secretary of state Madeleine Albright has blasted the current US administration's handling of the Georgia crisis, saying her first move would have been to travel to Russia for talks.
In an interview with the online service of German news weekly Der Spiegel Sunday, Albright said she would have criticised the Russian military surge into Georgia and recognition of two Georgian rebel enclaves but reassured Moscow over its security fears.
"I would have gone straight to Moscow, unlike the current Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice," she said, in remarks printed in German.
"I would have told the Russians in no uncertain terms that this behaviour is unacceptable. At the same time, I would have assured them that there is no threat at their borders."
Albright called for a decisive response by the West to the Russia's actions in the Caucasus.
"If (Russian Prime Minister Vladimir) Putin does not rethink this then we must find ways to isolate Russia internationally," she said.
She said NATO must move forward with plans to eventually integrate Georgia as a member, and dismissed Moscow's comparisons of the two Russian-backed separatist Georgian regions South Ossetia and Abkhazia with Kosovo.
"Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and his henchmen ordered the ethnic cleansing of Serbia and Kosovo," said Albright, who was secretary of state when NATO bombing drove out Serbian forces waging a crackdown on separatists from Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority.
"We attempted in several UN resolutions to find a solution to the crisis and tried repeatedly to work together with the Russians. The situation was simply different. And what Milosevic did is not comparable with what the Georgians have done to hold their country together."
Russian troops entered Georgia on August 8 to push back a Georgian offensive to retake South Ossetia, which broke away from Tbilisi in the 1990s with Moscow's backing.
Last week, Moscow recognised South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent, in a move condemned by the United States and the European Union.
In what has caused quite a stir in this tiny country, reports have surfaced in the last couple of weeks that the Dutch intelligence service (the AIVD - the Dutch equivalent to the CIA) has, for years, spied on newspapers and news networks.
Why, people wondered, would the AIVD spy on journalists? Not just spying on them, though, they even infiltrated newspaper and news networks. Why? What’s the reason behind it?
The activities of the government in this regard first came to light when the Dutch news agency GPD accused theDutch Ministry of Social Affairs of spying on them . Shortly after the accusations were shared with the public, the Ministry confirmed that it had done so.
The reason? “The department wanted to know whether, and if so when, newspapers would publish negative articles about the department itself and about the government in general.”
All in all, government officials logged into the database of the GPD some 300 times.
Back to Van der Linden: the AIVD’s spies kept an eye on him because he sometimes expressed views not deemed correct. In this case, he seemed to - in the eyes of the spies - to sympathize a bit too much with those living in the Mideast.
Now, although this is certainly a problem in the Dutch media (as it is in the American media), that’s obviously not reason enough to stalk someone and to spy on him. What’s more, as far as I remember, the freedom of the press is one of the most important freedoms one has in a democracy.
Later word came out that Van der Linden is far from the only victim. It seems that the spying on journalists has been going on for years. Aside from Van der Linden, two journalists for the Dutch newspaper de Telegraaf were spied on as well.
In fact, the Dutch Secretary of State (or Minister of Domestic Affairs as we call it) Guusje ter Horst, refused to distance herself from the practice when the Union for Journalists called on her to condemn it.
The Union for Journalists is, of course, the main critic of the government in this regard. Journalists are often a bit too sensitive when it comes to their own freedom, but they are, in this case, exactly right.
Before commenters start arguing that everything has changed after 9/11 and that, as a result, the government should be able to infiltrate, not terrorist networks but newspapers, magazines and networks, let me say this: The AIVD started spying on Van der Linden in 1999. That’s two years before 9/11. We can be quite short about the ‘they need to do it because of terrorism’-defense (which is also the defense of the Minister): they don’t.
There are many ways for the government to keep an eye on extremists. The journalists they spied on, however, aren’t extremists. What’s more, when the government decides to infiltrate newspapers, etc., it has to have a great defense (excuse?). If it doesn’t, it shouldn’t do it. The freedom of the press is more important than ‘perhaps something useful will surface.’
It’s also important to point out that the Social Department didn’t spy on the GPD in order to keep an eye on terrorists / Islamic extremists. Their reason to spy on the news agency was to find out whether and if so, when, the news agency would report negative things about the government.
That’s not fighting terrorism, that’s Big Brother.
So, will the government stop spying on journalists? The sad answer is no, probably not. The current Minister continues to defend it and the coalition partners don’t seem to care all that much either. The only ones getting angry are journalists themselves and members of the opposition.
In what has caused quite a stir in this tiny country, reports have surfaced in the last couple of weeks that the Dutch intelligence service (the AIVD – the Dutch equivalent to the CIA) has, for years, spied on newspapers and news networks.
One of the ‘victims’ of the AIVD’s enthusiasm is Frénk van der Linden, a journalist for the Nieuwe Revu. At the time when the AIVD kept an eye on him, he was writing for De Tijd. When he found out about it Van der Linden was – unsurprisingly – “quite pissed off.”
Why, people wondered, would the AIVD spy on journalists? Not just spying on them, though, they even infiltrated newspaper and news networks. Why? What’s the reason behind it?
The excuse they give? The war on terrorism, since 9/11 everything has changed. There are only two problems:
- they started spying on journalists at least two years before 9/11
- the Social Ministry admitted that it spied on newspapers because it wanted to know whether and if so when they would publish articles criticizing the government
Timothy Karr Huffington Post Saturday, Sept 6, 2008
Journalists and St. Paul citizens assembled outside St. Paul City Hall today to deliver more than 60,000 letters to Mayor Chris Coleman and prosecuting attorneys demanding that they immediately drop charges against all journalists arrested this week as they covered the Republican National Convention
By Friday morning, dozens of journalists, photographers, bloggers and videomakers had been booked by the Ramsey County Sheriff’s office in what appears to have been an orchestrated round-up of media makers covering protests during the convention.
“From the pre-convention raids to the ongoing harassment and arrests of journalists, these have been dark days for press freedom in the United States,” said Nancy Doyle Brown of the Twin Cities Media Alliance, who delivered the letters on behalf of the nonpartisan media reform group Free Press.
Stories That Will Never Be Told
She was joined by a crowd of local activists and journalists, including Amy Goodman and Nicole Salazar of Democracy Now!, KFAI-FM radio host Andy Driscoll and Mike Bucsko, executive director of the Minnesota Newspaper Guild.
“Tragically, there are stories that the world needed to hear this week that will never be told,” Brown said. “They won’t be told because reporters working on them were sitting in the back of squad cars, were stripped of their cameras, or were face down on the pavement with their hands cuffed behind their backs.”
On Thursday, the final night of the convention, it appears that authorities ratcheted up their attacks on both protesters and credentialed journalists, lobbing tear gas and percussion grenades into crowds and arresting student journalists, local TV photographers, Associated Press reporters, and two MyFox journalists, among others.
Other journalists have also been pepper-sprayed, and reporters with I-Witness were held at gunpoint during a “pre-emptive” raid aimed at disrupting protesters last weekend.
Mayor Chris Coleman has refused to reply to my repeated calls and e-mails asking for his response to allegations that journalists were specifically targeted by authorities.
Post-Mortem
A crowd of journalists — many of whom were arrested earlier in the week — entered City Hall and delivered the letters into the hands of St. Paul Deputy Mayor Ann Mulholland and City Attorney John Choi, who briefly told them that the legal system will sort out their concerns.
David Edwards and Muriel Kane Raw Story Saturday, Sept 6, 2008
A half-dozen representatives of the so-called Republican National Convention Welcoming Committee met with the media in a St. Paul, MN press conference on Thursday to condemn the widescale police raids and arrests that have targeted protesters in that city this week.
The strongest accusations were made by RNC Welcoming Committee co-founder William Gillis, who has been among those planning the protests for the last two years.
“Police kicked down doors with guns drawn on families with their children at dinnertime,” Gillis charged. “Reporters and the media at large have been repeatedly targeted for repression. Activists have been abducted off the street in unmarked vans and political prisoners held without access to medical attention.”
The allegation about police use of unmarked vans was apparently first made on August 31 by RAW STORY contributor Lindsay Beyerstein, who was reporting on the convention for FireDogLake. She wrote that “ColdSnap is reporting 9 arrests downtown near the Excel center” and then added in an update, “One of the 9 protesters arrested was a nun, seen being loaded into an unmarked blue van. The 9 were apparently trying to climb a fence near a church.” All nine were released later that day.
Other representatives of the protesters used the press conference to affirm that they were not terrorists. Betsy Raash-Gilman, a twenty-year veteran (doc) of non-violent activism, stated, “There are no terrorists up here. There are no terrorists in the Ramsey County jail. There are terrorists in the Xcel Center. There are terrorists in the White House.”
Taking a Look at World Population Control, Rockefeller, AIDS, United Nations, Planned Parenthood, and New World Order. It’s virtually impossible to give you a complete education on any subject in one article, let alone the subject of world population control.
Our goal is always to introduce you to the subjects that relate to the international banking thieves who steal your money to fund their New World Order plan.
Today, as we focus on population control, we’re going to bring you s a few excerpts from other sources and then link you to those sources.
Neither our site, nor any other, can possibly give you every single detail.
It’s up to you to read, read, and read some more in order to educate yourself on where our world is going.
World population control is a serious issue and must be recognized for what it is: an elitist plan to kill off many innocent, yet deserving people.
WORLD POPULATION CONTROL: FUNDING EXAMPLES "Ted Turner became a billionaire by developing a television network, CNN.
"He has given billions of dollars to the United Nations, doled out over ten years by his own foundation, and is steering a large portion of it to population control.
"Warren Buffett has discussed plans for a foundation to distribute his money after he dies.
"The foundation is to focus on two issues: world peace and population control. His fortune in early 1999 was reported to be over $30 billion and growing steadily.
"Other billionaires have begun funding parts of the eugenics movement. Bill Gates, the richest man in the country, and George Soros, the financier, have started putting their money into population control projects." - Funding the Eugenics Movement
Since 2006, "plague drills" have been being conducted throughout this country. In 1998, why did our government order 25 million body bags from DOW Chemical? (This was confirmed by DOW Chemical). To put this in perspective, that quantity, 25 million, is ten times more than all those men and women killed in all US wars COMBINED! (Civil War, World War I, World War II, Korea, Viet Nam, Desert Storm, 1812, Revolution, Spanish American War). How could this government, or any government, predict an event that could possibly cause that many deaths? The answer? They can't, unless they are creating the event themselves. Would a plague require that number of body bags? It most certainly would. And the NWO Illuminati have made no bones about the fact they intend to use a plague to reduce world population. This would go a long way toward explaining all of the "plague drills" currently being conducted in the U.S.
Anyone pondering this puzzle might well wonder if there is a "smoking gun." Well, there is and it is in the form of the Department of Defense Appropriations for 1970, HB 15090, Public Law 91-171, introduced in 1968, debated in 1969 and signed into law right at the end of 1969 when we were all distracted by the Vietnam war. In the Department of Defense Appropriations Hearings for 1970, Volume 6, page 129, we have Dr. McArthur from the Pentagon speaking to Robert L.F. Sikes, Florida, about the need for a Synthetic Biological Agent. Dr. McArthur requests and gets $10 Million for the research and development costs of a synthetic biological agent as outlined in item No. 2 of the program presented to the Appropriations committe. Dr. Leonard Horowitz stated at Conspiracy Conference 2001 that additional funding came from the Rockerfeller family. (Rockefellers being one of the 13 Illuminati bloodlines)
Here is the actual text of that request: "Within the next 5 to 10 years it would probably be possible to make a new infective microorganism which could differ in certain important aspects from any disease-causing organisms. Most important of these is that it might be refractory to the immunological and therapeutic processes upon which we depend to maintain our relative freedom from infectious disease.""It is a highly controversial issue and there are many who believe such research should not be undertaken lest it lead to another method of mass killing of populations."
According to Green's analysis, the following is a country-by-country of the devastating effects Global Report 2000 has had on the world: ETHIOPIA: Some 5 million people are in danger of starvation. Ethiopia-Somalia warfare largely provoked by Henry Kissinger. SOMALIA: 1.5 million refuges and many more nomadic people wait for death. Government is seeking $2 billion in reconstruction aid. United Nations actions are a preparation for the understanding and use of the NEW WORLD ORDER Police Force to control the world and put us all under the dictums of the United Nations. KENYA: Acute hunger and starvation are occurring in the Karamoja and West Nile regions. 9000 women and children died over a two month period. Food relief is nonexistent.
According to Rep. Richard Ottinger, Democratic congressman from New York's Westchester County area, sponsor of the Population Policy Act of 1981, "Overpopulation is a national security question. We have much greater demand on our food stocks, and WE WILL MAKE GOD-LIKE decisions on WHO LIVES and WHO DOES NOT. "
William Paddock, advisor to the U.S. State Department under three administrations. In 1980 he was an unofficial advisor to the State Department Office of Population. In an interview, "We're going to see a rollback of the population. It will happen somehow. One of the four horseman, and the FIFTH ONE, WHICH IS "THE BOMB."
Clearly this indicates the lengths our government will go to in order to exterminate us.
From the Global 2000 Depopulation file: "This Awareness indicates that for entities to hope to survive through the end of the century, the survival will require that entities be very much aware of what is occurring. This Awareness suggests for example, the program is in effect whereby beef is used to poison entities with certain additives put into the beef which has a growing effect on the system of creating various physical problems, including heart conditions, cancerous conditions, and a dullness of the mind, whereby the mind ceases to lose its ability to think clearly; these additives in the beef as that which has been introduced with the knowledge of the medical profession. "
"This Awareness indicates that this type of program can be expected to continue in other areas also; that these additives may be added to chicken, turkey, pork, and other areas (such as dairy products-Ed.). This Awareness indicates that during the future years, those entities on a vegetarian diet will survive best in terms of food intake. This Awareness indicates that also those who raise their own or receive food from known sources, not using commercial feeds. This Awareness indicates that there are also programs being prepared whereby masses shall be destroyed through plagues and biological warfare."
"We will make God-like decisions on who lives and who does not." Rep. Richard Ottinger, Dem. NY
George Green (photo) is a former investment banker (Registered Financial Principal with the N.A.S.D. and a Broker/Dealer. Securities Underwriter, Real Estate Developer, Insurance Broker and Publisher). A frequent guest on radio and TV talk shows, and a former insider who has the inside scoop on past as well as present info regarding the corruption and plans of the globalists.
In the money circles, Green was considered a "cash cow." He was considered one of the big time players who knew how to raise money - lots of money - something politicians are attracted to like bees on honey or, more appropriately like "flies on you know what."It was while hobnobbing with these neocons in Aspen that he realized this New World Order wasn't idle talk. It turned out, according to Green, to be "the God-awful truth."
"Kissinger loved to refer to the American public as 'useless eaters' and back then all the men in that room in Aspen, including Kennedy, Volcker and the others were endorsing this Armageddon-type plan, which is now being played out right before our eyes in Iraq and soon in Iran," warned Green, adding the next 90 days may prove to be the beginning of the end of America as we know it.
Green left the neocons behind and switched sides...he now speaks out loudly about the New World Order and their genocidal plans for population reduction, Global 2000 Armageddon".
In July of 1980, Secretary of State endorsed as official Carter administration policy the Global 2000 report, which according to then Secretary of State Edmund Muskie's own words "THE ELIMINATION OF 2 billion human beings by the year 2000."
The Office of Population Affairs of the U.S. State Department from the National Security Council's Ad Hoc Group on Population policy: "U.S. Foreign Policy is being planned and implemented on the basis of its effectiveness in murdering human beings. " Unprecedented Population growth as spelled out in the ECO summit Meeting in 1992 in Brazil has required the examination of the statistics provided in the studies of "Human Environment" (1972), "Population" (1974), "Human Settlements" (1976), "Water" (1977) and others have shown the MOST growth of Human species in the last 40 years. The first Billion of population occurred on the planet around 1800, the next century ended with about two Billion, the 3rd Billion around 1960, the 4th Billion in approximately 1974 and reach 5 Billion in 1987. We currently exceed 6 Billion on the Planet and the Technicians of Genocide are now stepping up their programs."
Thomas Ferguson was the head of the Latin America desk at the U.S. State Department's Office of Population Affairs. "Every hot spot in the Third World is in fact a result of failed population policy. There is a single theme behind all of our work - we must reduce population levels. Either governments do it our way, through nice clean methods, or they will get the kinds of mess that we have in Iran or Beirut. Population is a political problem. Once population is out of control, it requires authoritarian government, even FASCISM, to reduce it. To really reduce population quickly, you have to put all the males into fighting and you have to kill significant numbers of fertile females. "
In the not-so-distant future, a new kind of weapon could appear that would change the balance of political power in the world. This main principle behind this weapon: seek and destroy according to genetics.
by Vasili Sychev
American scientists have declared that in six years they will succeed in creating a radically new type of biological weapon. This weapon would be capable of infecting people according to a genetically predetermined marker such as skin color or eye shape. Infection could have a delayed effect or only begin once a certain type of medicine was taken. A recent closed seminar held by the CIA was devoted to the topic. The event took place as part of the Project for the New American Century. A slow sickness
Scientists have been exploring the possibilities of selective biological weapons for some time now. This is roughly how these weapons would work. Genetic information is implanted into bacteria's "programming," reflecting the gene structure or gene combination of a certain targeted group of people. Once the programmed bacteria enter someone's system, they "recognize" their target and kill the person. If the genetic structure of the infected person does not correspond, the microbe dies without harming him.
Even specialists will have a hard time differentiating bacterial ethnic cleansing from a regular epidemic, if only because the countries leading the development of these weapons could purposefully misinform the public. There will be few direct clues...
Another difficulty is that this weapon could have a delayed effect. It could be turned on by a trigger mechanism, meaning it could target not only specific people but also people under very specific conditions. This means that illness could be delayed not just by days but for an indefinite period of time. Yet the moment the infected person, say, comes down with strep throat and takes antibiotics, the bacteria begin to multiply, leading to a severe illness that eludes diagnosis.
"It is already possible today to create antibiotic resistant cultures," Alexander Prozorov, a professor in the microorganism genetics lab at the Russian Academy of Science Institute for General Genetics, told Expert. The most striking examples of this type of culture are streptomycin-dependent bacteria that only grow in the presence of the antibiotic streptomycin. This will make it hard for doctors to do much, as traditional pharmaceuticals won't help. On the contrary, treatment will only make the patient sicker.
Political germs
Yet the most terrifying new possibility is the hypothetical biological weapon that could infect people according to genetic markers. Not only would it allow for genocide; it would be created specifically for that purpose. A recent report by the British Medical Association stated that "the rapid progress in genetics could become the basis for ethnic cleansing on an unheard of scale in the near future."
The Farmer and the Snake One winter a farmer found a snake stiff and frozen with cold. He had compassion on it, and taking it up, placed it in his bosom. The warmth quickly revived the Snake, and resuming its natural instincts, bit its benefactor, inflicting on him a mortal wound. "Oh," cried the farmer with his last breath, "I am rightly served for pitying a scoundrel."
The lesson: The greatest kindness will not bind the ungrateful.
Magnetic Forum Posts (83)
Next US terror attack ‘could be by white Americans or Europeans’
Tom LeonardLondon Telegraph
Thursday, Sept 11, 2008
US intelligence officials increasingly fear that the next terror attack on the United States will be carried out by white Americans or Europeans.
As Barack Obama and John McCain head to New York’s Ground Zero seven years after 19 Middle-Eastern hijackers brought devastation to the US mainland, counter-terrorism experts believe that any future attack will be made by terrorists with an “American face”.
They point to reports of white faces in terrorism training camps in Pakistan - the so-called “white men of Waziristan”, a reference to the remote tribal area where both al-Qaeda and the Taliban have bases.
Experts believe that dozens of westerners have undergone such training as their leaders try to recruit non-Middle Eastern Asians, particularly ethnic Caucasians, who are less likely to attract the attention of security and law enforcement agencies.
Al-Qaeda’s recent decision to put out videos in English and a similar change on extremist “jihadi” websites have also been cited of evidence of a new strategy to find recruits who are less likely to attract the attention of security and law enforcement agencies.
Such concerns were sharpened last week after the arrest of three Germans over an alleged plot to destroy a club used by US servicemen.
Two of the three were white, ethnic Germans and all had allegedly been trained in camps in Waziristan.
“There is no bigger worry for the US counter-terrorism community than young Caucasian men who have turned to al-Qaeda,” Roger Cressey, a former National Security Council official in the Clinton and Bush administrations, told the US news network MSNBC.
Terrorism experts say such a threat has been known about even before the arrest of Richard Reid, the British shoe bomber. However, it was not until three weeks ago that a US official explicitly admitted that the government knew of such people being trained in significant numbers.