The Closing of the Zionist Mind

July 30, 2010 by Juan Cole
Informed Comment


It finally happened. The Jerusalem Post has declared archeology itself anti-Semitic.

To tell you the truth, I am frankly worried about some of my colleagues who are committed Zionists having difficulty in dealing with reality in the wake of the severe difficulties facing the Zionist project in historical Palestine.

Caroline Glick’s inaccurate and angry attack on me in the Jerusalem Post reminded me again of why I am anxious about the Closing of the Zionist Mind.

Glick is actually alleging that anyone who practices critical history of the ancient world or the Middle East in general is thereby an anti-Jewish bigot. Glick, from Chicago, was a captain in the Israeli army and a judge advocate-general during the first Intifada or Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, which the Israeli army brutally crushed. She seems to be going off the deep end, having made herself notorious with the sick satirical video ‘We Con the World,’ which made fun of the civilian aid workers killed by Israeli commandos on May 31 of this year (and which appears to have had some backing from the Israeli government itself).

I don’t know if Captain Glick ever was not a zealot, but the bitterness and extremeness of her comments are now to the point of irrationality.

It is not just she. I’ve been at conferences where committed Zionists in the audience would afterwards approach me and, with a sort of glazed look in their eyes, give me a little set speech, then abruptly walk away. I initially always think they want to have a discussion. They don’t. They want to engage in some sort of strange ritual speech to exorcise the doubts I raised. They want to tell me off and then escape before I can reply.

One time some Orthodox students approached me at a conference to say that in their reckoning, Israeli settlers on the West Bank had almost never done any harm to anyone and maybe in total had killed 14 persons, for which they were sorry. I was frankly outraged. I mean, what world did these university students live in? Had they never read even one academic book on the effects of the Israeli Occupation on the Palestinians of the Palestinian West Bank? Why invent fairy tale statistics, and what is with the passive aggressive ‘apology?’ There is something wrong with this way of thinking, and it is a kind of group think that reinforces itself in small, tight, communities of discourse.

Last month, I was at a conference where a prominent academic at a prominent university gave a whole series of set speeches on various occasions.. Hamas is a terrorist organization that says it will never negotiate with Israel. Iran is near to being able and willing to nuke Israel. It was like a series of mantras to ward off any real, critical thought. When I told the person he was being essentialist, he was taken aback, then in a passive aggressive way, said he ‘hoped’ that what I was saying was true. It is so weird dealing with people who are supposed to be critical thinkers by trade who, when it comes to Israel, suddenly exhibit all the originality of a mynah bird. And they don’t let you get a word in edgewise once they start. And they constantly imply, with body language and innuendo, that you are misinformed or actively lying.

Other strange features of this discourse are the disregard for any evidence that contradicts the set talking points, unwillingness to seriously reconsider positions in the light of such evidence, the repetition of key phrases in an impenetrable way, the allegation that critics said things they never said, and insistence on demonizing the source of the alternative evidence.

I got exactly the same treatment in the 1970s from Maronite Christians in Lebanon and in the 1990s from pro-Milosevic Serbs, and recognize the condition. It is Failing Nationalism Syndrome (FNS).

Not all national projects succeed. There are by some counts 5000 ethnic groups in the world of a sort that could be the basis for a nation-state, but there are only about 190 countries. Some political projects, such as French Algeria (dominated by colons or colonists as a privileged group) or a Christian-dominated Lebanon, get going but just don’t have staying power. Algeria is now an almost wholly Muslim country, and Christians in Lebanon, while still powerful and numerous, are probably down to less than a third of the total population. But if we went back in time to 1935, we could sit at cafes in Algiers or Beirut and talk with these two about the future of their countries, and the ones in Algiers would have said that Algeria’s fate was to always be a part of France, and the Lebanese Maronites would talk have talked about their majority being strengthened and about the Phoenician identity of their country in the future.

Since the government of Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu is doing its best to run out the clock on a two-state solution, the only two plausible outcomes in Israel/Palestine in the coming decades are long years of dreary Apartheid or a one-state solution. It is not plausible that the Israelis will be allowed to keep the Palestinians stateless and without, ultimately, any real rights, forever. So Zionists (Israel nationalists) are increasingly suffering from Failing Nationalism Syndrome, and it is causing them to flail about saying the strangest things.

Let me take Glick’s weird screed section by section (she is replying to my : essay in Salon.com

‘ One of the most prominent anti-Zionists today is Prof. Juan Cole from the University of Michigan.

Zionism is just Israel nationalism. Nationalism is of two sorts. It can be a sane patriotism in which people take pride in their identity and pull together to achieve national projects of self-improvement. Or it can be an aggressive, expansionist, grasping and destructive movement that exalts the in-group over out-groups and disadvantages or damages the latter. The second sense of the word ‘nationalism’ was the more common in the 19th and the early 20th century.

So, I am not an anti-Zionist in principle (and it is weird that Glick would accuse me of being one), since Israel nationalism is fine with me as long as it is of the first sort. Any nationalism of the second sort, I roundly denounce, whether adopted by Jews, Arabs, or Melanesians. It is the virulent sort that Closes the Mind.

‘ Part of being a successful anti-Zionist involves claiming that Jews have no right to the land of Israel. So to be a good anti-Zionist, one needs to deny Jewish history.

To this end, in March Cole published a piece of historical fiction in the Salon online magazine.

Titled “Ten reasons why East Jerusalem does not belong to Israel,” Cole mixed half truths with flagrant lies to justify his denial of Jewish history and belittlement of the Jewish rights.

Cole wrote, “Jerusalem not only was not being built by the likely then non-existent ‘Jewish people’ in 1000 BCE, but Jerusalem probably was not even inhabited at that point in history. Jerusalem appears to have been abandoned between 1000 BCE and 900 BCE, the traditional dates for the united kingdom under David and Solomon.”

This assertion is so mendacious that it takes your breath away. As anyone who has actually been in Jerusalem can attest, it is all but impossible to be physically present in the oldest areas of the city and not bump into relics dating from between 1000 and 900 BCE.’

Glick is the one who is out of touch with reality. She cannot bump into a single monument from the period 1000-900 BCE in today’s Jerusalem. The position I hold is what is called the ‘Copenhagen school’ or ‘biblical minimalism,’ and it is a perfectly respectable academic movement. I think all archeologists and historians would hold it if some were not religious believers in the Bible. It is people like Capt. Glick who are politicizing archeology and tampering with science.

There is no evidence for a monotheistic cult in Canaan in the period leading up to 1000 BCE. Monotheistic Judaism appears to have been invented in the Babylonian exile or perhaps a little before, and the fables of a great kingdom of David and Solomon were woven together then. The Assyrians were the gossips of the ancient world and they wrote down everything that happened in their clay tablets, and even talk about minor Arab queens in the Hijaz, and they didn’t know anything about a magnificent kingdom of David and Solomon with palaces. If these figures existed at all, I suspect they just had really, really nice tents, not golden palaces (which by the way have not been found despite what ideologues like Glick assert). Historical Judaism was a reformation of Canaanite religion over a period of time. (Some readers asked me who I thought was carried off to Babylon in the first place, and the answer is simple: Canaanites, perhaps those of a certain religious cult, but very possibly not the sort of monotheist depicted in the Bible).

‘ Cole’s allegation is the academic equivalent of Louis Farakhan’s claim that white people are devils planted on earth by aliens. As an anti-Zionist anti-Semite, it was just a matter of time until Cole traveled into the fetid swamp of denying the historical record to facilitate his false claim that Jews are not a people and therefore are bereft of rights as a nation to our national homeland.

I don’t know where she found a quote by me saying that the Jews are not a people. She doesn’t actually seem good with like, evidence. But peoples anyway are not eternal essences. They are formed over time. All I am saying is that her timeline for the formation is off by several hundred years.

Anyway, if Israel nationalism depends on the Bible’s stories of David and Solomon being historical, then kiss it goodbye. But note that my point in the Salon article was not that Israelis had no right to be in Israel but rather that they have no right to expel all Palestinians from Jerusalem ( Yes, that is what Israelis of Glick’s stripe are doing) . Glick’s shouting is designed to cover up an ongoing set of crimes against someone else, by painting herself the victim of, horror, biblical minimalism of an academic sort.

And note Glick’s segue from calling me an ‘anti-Zionist’ to calling me an ‘anti-Semite’ because I won’t accept the bible at face value as a privileged text without some kind of supporting evidence (and in the face of contrary such evidence). I’ve gotten so I really don’t care about being called a bigot by people who are very obviously bigots.. And I am afraid that pretty much everyone is getting that way, which is a shame. Because the history of anti-Jewish bigotry in the West is cosmically ugly and should not be trivialized.

‘ And why shouldn’t he cover himself in anti- Semitic muck? So far, the stench has brought him great success. The very fact that I felt compelled to write an essay explaining why anti- Semitism is anti-Semitism and why anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism is depressing proof that anti- Semites have been wildly successful in whitewashing their bigotry.’

I’m still looking for evidence of anti-Semitic muck in anything I’ve written, as opposed to just practicing history. And, I’m glad she thinks me a success, but lets face it, I’d have gone much further in conventional life if I hadn’t gotten on the wrong side of strident fanatics such as she. But, I was never interested in a conventional career. I have a sneaking admiration for Hunter S. Thompson that I doubt very many deans share.

‘ What makes contemporary anti-Semitism unique is its purveyors’ great efforts to hide its very existence. Their motivation is clear. Outside the openly genocidal anti-Semitic Muslim world, most anti-Semites are self-described liberals who claim to oppose bigotry. For these people, pretending away their prejudice is the key to their continued claim to enlightenment.

And so the likes of Oliver Stone publish clarifications.

And Cole invents history. And the Europeans blame Jews and Israel and Zionism when Jews inside and outside Israel are assaulted and killed.

And I am sorry I wrote this column.

Because an audience that demands an explanation of why evil is evil is an audience that has already sided with evil.’

If all that ranting makes sense to anyone, they should please explain it in terms that sane people can understand. Some of it is just guilt by association and conspiracy thinking.

Glick let slip at the end what is really going on. She is a cultist, who sees the world as black and white, good and evil. She and her movement are pure good. Those who oppose anything it does, including Apartheid, are evil.

And since the world will increasingly oppose Israeli Apartheid against the Palestinians, we are in for lots more furious rants and character assassination like Glick’s.

The Closing of the Zionist Mind, so evident in Glick’s weird column, is dangerous because a cult-like, black and white mindset is the first prerequisite for a turn to violence and it makes compromise and flexibility impossible. But what the Mideast needs more of is reasoned, humane, complex openness to change, to negotiation, to seeing the Other as human. Glick is foreclosing that process, and in so doing is helping dig the grave of Israel as we know it.

Luckily, most Israelis I know are nice people and Glick is not representative, so maybe I’m wrong to see a trend here as opposed to just a supremely annoying and ignorant individual.

source http://www.juancole.com/2010/07/7984.html

Are They Killing The Gulf On Purpose?

By J. Speer-Williams
opednews.com


The private, foreign International Monetary/Banking Cartel controls its puppets in Washington as it controls its oil company executives. And everything the Cartel does is anti-life, there are absolutely no exceptions; and their pretended Gulf oil clean-up is a glaring case in point.

Instead of cleaning up the unprecedented catastrophe created by the Cartel's mega-corporations (Halliburton, Transocean, and British Petroleum), these very same companies are purposely killing our Gulf of Mexico, under the pretense of cleaning it up.

Instead of using safe, non-toxic ways to gather up the rogue oil gushing from their incompetence, or planned cataclysm, the private Cartel is using an extremely toxic chemical dispersant, with the approval of the Obama administration.

Alan Levine, the head of Louisiana's Department of Health and Hospitals, said: "We don't have any data or evidence behind the use of these chemicals in the water. We're now basically using one of the richest ecosystems in the world as a laboratory."

As reported in Britain's Telegraph, Louisiana state Secretary of the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, Robert Barham reported: "We're very disappointed in their [EPA and oil company executives] approach. The federal procedures call for a consensus between federal authorities, the responsible party and the states involved. When we met and expressed our concerns [over the use of dispersants], apparently they decided to go without us."

And go they did. Obama's Environmental Protection Agency allowed BP to turn our Gulf of Mexico into a toxic testing ground, instead of removing the crude oil.

British Petroleum (BP) has even refused to use their own oil tankers, lying in the Gulf, to suck up most of the runaway oil, and possibly salvage it for sale later, as was done after a Saudi spill in the "90's. That method was so successful, it vacuumed up about 85 percent of that renegade oil.

Nick Pozzi, a former oil pipeline engineering and operations project manager is puzzled why BP did not salvage perfectly good crude oil for later sale, and to thereby protect marine and wildlife.

What Mr. Pozzi does not know is the oil companies are owned by the world's only legal counterfeiters the International Monetary/Banking Cartel who can "print" all the money they want, so making money on Gulf oil was not important to them. Killing the Gulf of Mexico is, apparently, important to them, for their own cryptic and esoteric reasons.

If the Cartel had wanted to save marine life, any oil they had not vacuumed up could have been mulched with any number of non-toxic materials, such as "Oil Sponge," a name trademarked by Phase III, Inc.

Rated as the "best performing" absorbent by the US Army Corp of Engineers, Oil Sponge is 100% organic, and is made from renewable resources.

Oil Sponge is built using a microbial and nutrient package, capable of transforming oil hydrocarbons into a safe bi-product of carbon dioxide and water.

But, the governmental bureaucrats of the Obama administration, and the Cartel's oil executives, had no interest in using an environmentally friendly product to clean up what is the greatest man-made environmental disaster of all time " they were intent on making this unbelievable cataclysm far, far worse, and one that could never be cleaned up.



It cannot yet be proven that the Monetary Cartel purposely blew up their own wellhead, but the crimes they have committed in their so-called "clean-up" efforts are well documented, in spite of no corporate media outrage.

After the Exxon Valdez incident of March 1989, Mycelx of Georgia developed what looks like a paper towel to soak up to 50 times its weight in oil. And while this product is used from the Middle East to Europe to Canada it was of no interest to the parties Obama charged with cleaning up the Gulf of the floating oil those very same parties caused.

Even hair naturally separates oil from water, leaving large tar globs, in which mushrooms can then be seeded. And as the mushrooms grow, they digest the oil, leaving non-toxic organics, which can then be composed into soil, great for growing healthy vegetables.

Anyone who has ever had a bad hair day knows how well hair will retain oil. In fact, Lisa Gautier, president of Matter of Fact (website for hair salons) has collected 400,000 pounds of hair, and stuffed it all into nylons to be used as booms near Gulf shores.

This idea could have been a shot in the arm of our dying economy, by creating organic compose for the millions of nutrient depleted farm acres in the world. Also there could have been a viable cottage industry of collecting hair from salons.

And, hair is certainly a renewable resource, with most of us contributing. But neither Obama or the Cartel will ever do anything for our dying US and world economy, but ensure it dies, while feebly pretending to resuscitate it.

But in the world of what could have been, there's hay, sawdust, crushed volcanic rock, and even kitty litter that could have mulched with the oil on the surface of the Gulf waters, making for easy pick-up.

But, oil industry executives and their confederates in the Obama administration quickly made sure that all spewing oil would either sink well below the surface, or never rise to it, so it could never be vacuumed up or neutralized.

Worse yet, these international criminals of humanity, and life in the Gulf, committed their dastardly deed of deeply submerging the floating oil with an extremely dangerous chemical dispersant that would deny all marine creatures oxygen, thus killing them, and marine plant life to boot, as major underwater currents carry the poisonous oil through-out the Gulf and into the Atlantic.

Trying to give this mass murder a positive spin, BP spokesman John Crabtree said his corporation had dropped more than 560,000 gallons of [toxic] chemical dispersants on the surface slicks and 28,700 gallons of the chemical at the subsea wellhead, 5,000 feet below sea-level.

Crabtree's justification for such an insane, criminal act was that the dispersants would drive the oil well below the water's surface, thus keeping it away from coastal shorelines. So instead of removing the oil, BP decided to make the oil even more toxic, and drive it deep into the ocean where it can never be retrieved, but will kill all marine life in its path.

Mandy Joyce, a marine sciences professor at the University of Georgia carefully chose her words about BP's deplorable dispersants: "Anything that requires oxygen will not be able to survive that water. The food web is going to change. You could stymie the entire production level of the Gulf of Mexico. That's a very real possibility."

BP's chemical dispersants contain 2-butoxyethanol, a compound that kills marine and wildlife, exactly the life our clean-up measures should try to save.

BP's chemical dispersants, currently being dropped by airplanes, break the crude oil into tiny droplets that sink well below the water's surface, where they form a giant cloud or plume, making it impossible to gather, as is the obvious intention.

And with this poisonous plume creating a dead zone, currently estimated to be about the size of Delaware and Rhode Island combined, hidden at about 3,000 feet of water, no one can place an accurate figure on how much oil has actually gushed into the Gulf.

And once this death dealing plume reaches the large, rapidly moving Loop Current, this oily cloud of doom could swing toward Florida and Cuba, killing the coral reefs and marine life there.



It cannot yet be proven that the Monetary Cartel purposely blew up their own wellhead, but the crimes they have committed in their so-called "clean-up" efforts are well documented, in spite of no corporate media outrage.

After the Exxon Valdez incident of March 1989, Mycelx of Georgia developed what looks like a paper towel to soak up to 50 times its weight in oil. And while this product is used from the Middle East to Europe to Canada it was of no interest to the parties Obama charged with cleaning up the Gulf of the floating oil those very same parties caused.

Even hair naturally separates oil from water, leaving large tar globs, in which mushrooms can then be seeded. And as the mushrooms grow, they digest the oil, leaving non-toxic organics, which can then be composed into soil, great for growing healthy vegetables.

Anyone who has ever had a bad hair day knows how well hair will retain oil. In fact, Lisa Gautier, president of Matter of Fact (website for hair salons) has collected 400,000 pounds of hair, and stuffed it all into nylons to be used as booms near Gulf shores.

This idea could have been a shot in the arm of our dying economy, by creating organic compose for the millions of nutrient depleted farm acres in the world. Also there could have been a viable cottage industry of collecting hair from salons.

And, hair is certainly a renewable resource, with most of us contributing. But neither Obama or the Cartel will ever do anything for our dying US and world economy, but ensure it dies, while feebly pretending to resuscitate it.

But in the world of what could have been, there's hay, sawdust, crushed volcanic rock, and even kitty litter that could have mulched with the oil on the surface of the Gulf waters, making for easy pick-up.

But, oil industry executives and their confederates in the Obama administration quickly made sure that all spewing oil would either sink well below the surface, or never rise to it, so it could never be vacuumed up or neutralized.

Worse yet, these international criminals of humanity, and life in the Gulf, committed their dastardly deed of deeply submerging the floating oil with an extremely dangerous chemical dispersant that would deny all marine creatures oxygen, thus killing them, and marine plant life to boot, as major underwater currents carry the poisonous oil through-out the Gulf and into the Atlantic.

Trying to give this mass murder a positive spin, BP spokesman John Crabtree said his corporation had dropped more than 560,000 gallons of [toxic] chemical dispersants on the surface slicks and 28,700 gallons of the chemical at the subsea wellhead, 5,000 feet below sea-level.

Crabtree's justification for such an insane, criminal act was that the dispersants would drive the oil well below the water's surface, thus keeping it away from coastal shorelines. So instead of removing the oil, BP decided to make the oil even more toxic, and drive it deep into the ocean where it can never be retrieved, but will kill all marine life in its path.

Mandy Joyce, a marine sciences professor at the University of Georgia carefully chose her words about BP's deplorable dispersants: "Anything that requires oxygen will not be able to survive that water. The food web is going to change. You could stymie the entire production level of the Gulf of Mexico. That's a very real possibility."

BP's chemical dispersants contain 2-butoxyethanol, a compound that kills marine and wildlife, exactly the life our clean-up measures should try to save.

BP's chemical dispersants, currently being dropped by airplanes, break the crude oil into tiny droplets that sink well below the water's surface, where they form a giant cloud or plume, making it impossible to gather, as is the obvious intention.

And with this poisonous plume creating a dead zone, currently estimated to be about the size of Delaware and Rhode Island combined, hidden at about 3,000 feet of water, no one can place an accurate figure on how much oil has actually gushed into the Gulf.

And once this death dealing plume reaches the large, rapidly moving Loop Current, this oily cloud of doom could swing toward Florida and Cuba, killing the coral reefs and marine life there.




http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/Are-They-Killing-The-Gulf-by-J-Speer-Williams-100728-937.html

"Protocols of Zion"-- Damage Control

July 29, 2010
Henry Makow Ph,D.


Mankind is slipping into a permanent coma according to a diabolical plan that has been public knowledge for over a century.

When The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" were leaked in the 1890's, Masonic Jewish bankers did effective damage control.

They tricked the gullible goyim into believing it was a "forgery" written by "anti-Semites."

The bankers couldn't exactly admit the truth, that they were enslaving humanity, could they? ( Their whole system is based on deception and secrecy.)

Thus they turned the disaster into an advantage by using it to incite more "anti-Semitism."

In the Protocols, they boast that anti-Semitism is used to "manage our lesser brethren." They fund anti-Semites to ensure that all Jews are blamed.

By linking their demented conspiracy to all Jews, they used them as Trojan horse, human shield and human sacrifice. Many gentile anti-Semites oblige by blaming all Jews regardless of individual responsibility. (And these critics have great moral pretensions.)

I speak for Jews who oppose this secret plan which was concocted by Cabalist bankers and rabbis centuries ago and revised periodically.

These self-appointed Jewish leaders have put all Jews in jeopardy. They are establishing their world tyranny by stealth -- manipulating current events, re-engineering society and controlling perception.

All Jews will be blamed for the disproportionate role many Jews play unless more speak up and are counted.

Many Jews, (especially Zionists/Neocons/Communists/socialists/liberals and feminists) are agents for the Illuminati bankers. The bankers tricked them into thinking they were"changing the world" into a socialist utopia. Unfortunately, this utopia is a mask for the tyranny of monopoly capital and Cabalism (i.e. Communism.)

But everyone, not just Jews, is implicated in this diabolical plan. The Protocols' Jewish world government is the British Empire repackaged. British imperialism was always a marriage of English aristocracy and Jewish finance under the rubric of (Cabalist) Freemasonry. American imperialism and Zionism serve the same cause.

Freemasons, organized Jewry, Christian Zionists and most everyone of prominence are collaborators in the Illuminati bankers' fraud. Selling out is a condition of "success." The banksters reward complicity.

The bankers' fraud lies in the fact that our currency is created in the form of debt to them. No one can own currency. It is a medium of exchange like beads or shells. It is like oxygen. But they are leveraging their fraudulent "ownership" of currency into ownership of everything and everyone.



THE "HOUSE' VERSION: CONSPIRACY OF THE RICH

The "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" repays constant rereading because it eerily described one hundred years ago what is happening today. Most versions are based on a 1920 translation by Victor Marsden, the Morning Post correspondent in Moscow.

I have been comparing it with a typescript version found by Stanley Monteith in the Edward Mandell House papers at Yale University. This one dates from about 1914. Although House was one of the conspirators, the typescript originated with people opposed to Jewish banker domination. This is indicated by sarcastic footnotes. For example, one lists some of the Jews and crypto Jews in power at the time.

I have already described some differences between the Marsden and House versions.

The Protocols were originally written in French and delivered at workshops of the Mizraim Lodge in Paris.

They were translated from French to Russian and then from Russian to English. There's room for error.

For example, the Marsden version says they will create class conflicts, and dupe and co-opt the poor. The House version says the opposite. They will play on the "hatred" of gentile elites for the poor.

Marsden: "Then will the hour strike when not for the sake of attaining the good, not even to win wealth, but solely out of hatred toward the privileged, the lower classes of the goyim will follow our lead against our rivals for power, the intellectuals of the goyim." (page 159, end of Protocol Four)

House: "Then, not for the sake of good, not even for the sake of riches, but only owing to the privileged class hatred towards the lower classes of the GOYS will follow us against the intellectual Goys, our competitors to power." (p.13, end of Protocol Three; Protocol Three in Marsden is entirely missing in House.)

In fact, the bankers co-opted both the rich and poor of the goyim but it is significant that the Protocols actually speak of co-opting the rich, not the poor.

Think about this next time you wonder why Warren Buffet and Bill Gates are pooling their money to vaccinate Africans, and all the foundations, mass media and corporation sing from the same New World Order/ diversity song book.

It seems counter-intuitive that the rich would seek Communism, but Communism is really a method of institutionalizing inequality. Government is the ultimate monopoly and monopoly capitalists want to run it. Thereby they extend their credit monopoly to power and thought itself, i.e. tyranny.

Unlike Marsden, the House version actually uses the word "Communism."

House: We will govern the masses "by means of cunningly constructed theories and phrases, by rules of communism and other traps not understood by the Goys..." (p.15)

Marsden: We will govern the masses "by means of cleverly manipulated theory and verbiage, by regulations of life in common, and all sorts of other quirks in all which the goyim understand nothing..." (p.161)

CONCLUSION

The world is a stage play written by Illuminati bankers and staged by their actors in media, government, education and the social sciences.

The bankers want us to think humanity has achieved a kind of Nirvana, the "end of history," a level of reason and sophistication that renders obsolete the forces that have caused war and suffering.

These historical forces have disguised one satanic force which has emerged triumphant. This is the conquest of mankind by Cabalistic bankers who have a satanic need to own and control everyone. They have bought the world, and the birthright of future generations.

source http://www.henrymakow.com/

NOW LAKE MICHIGAN POISONED BY OIL SABOTAGE -- 1,000,000 GALLONS SO FAR-- "ROTHSCHILD-AMERICAN WAR"

Richard Eastman
Date: Jul 28, 2010

"In Southwest Michigan, a state of emergency has been declared in response to the Kalamazoo River oil spill. At 9:45 a.m. on Monday
morning, an oil pipeline began leaking."

Residents are already reporting heavy fumes and oil-coated wildlife along the waterways from pipeline which has been carrying crude from
Griffith, Ind., to Sarnia, Ontario. The well has not been shut down. 819,000 gallons have been spilled into the Lake Michigan as of Wednesday morning. Other experts have put the number at 1,000,000
gallons or more No action is being taken to shut down the well. The fresh water late is not the Gulf, we are already nearing Gulf concentration proportions. And the oil is passing mixing with toxic chemicals.

"In Southwest Michigan, a state of emergency has been declared in response to the Kalamazoo River oil spill. At 9:45 a.m. on Monday morning, an oil pipeline began leaking."


The oil is flowing through the region of the Kalamazoo River Superfund cleanup site. The polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs found
in the superfund site will react with the chemicals that evaporate off the oil. This could cause very dangerous toxic fumes. The EPA has not committed to assistance. The governor has not ordered a shut-down and is only asking for cleanup help -- while the oil is still flowing.

The well is owned by a Texas company, Enbridge Energy -- but who owns that company remains to be seen.

This event, a disastrous spill of unexplained origin, that is poisoning one of the Great Lakes with no circulation other than through evaporation, with all of the pattern of official incompetence boardering on encouragement of the progression of the disaster which we have seen in the Gulf of Mexico attack (yes, both events are attacks on the American people -- they no longer can conceal that they are destroying us by indirect stealth-environmental warfare means, so now they must finish us fast before we can gather out wits,
organize and interfere with the plans.

People of Michgan and Illinois and Wisconsin to the west of the lake, take to the streets and raise their voices immediatlely to force their governor and the federal government to take action.

Begin massive demonstrations now -- everyone. The militias must realize that their guns are useless. Rothschild-Rockefeller have chosen a chemical attack. ALready there is going to be a lot of loss from damage already done. Remember, no one has stopped the well yet. This can only be intentional -- letting it happen, like letting the Pentagon get hit on 9-11.

Forget everything you hear on Fox news. Talk to your neighbor about how you will make public opinion known to the world.

The nation must demonstrate all together -- forgetting every difference or race, party, position, religion or any other consideration We must as a nation demand before the eyes of the world that the People of the US demand that the Rothschilds and their criminal allies around the world stop waging war against the American people. Stop this attack on Lake Michigan and stop all other planned
attacks against other regions of the US and other countries.

It is the responsiblity of the rest of mankind to stand behind the efforts of the American people -- we are a people of all races and creeds -- to overthrow the criminals who would rule the world with ruthless oppression.

Please do more than simply pass this information on. You must know, you must pass the word, then you must organize and fight and do so
immediately.

Richard Eastman
richardeastmanyakima@q.com

Queen Elizabeth Fronts for Rothschilds ("Crown")

Alcuin Bramerton
(for henrymakow.com)


It is accurate to posit that Australia, New Zealand and Canada are not independent, sovereign countries. However, these nations are not owned and run by the UK; they are owned and run by the House of Windsor Crown Temple syndicate within the City of London Corporation. The head signatory of the Crown Temple syndicate is Elizabeth Windsor (Queen Elizabeth II of England).

It should not be forgotten that the most powerful financial syndicate in the Western World is that of the European Rothschilds. The Rothschilds, because of their power base inside the City of London Corporation, have a controlling membership of the London Crown Temple syndicate, and they also have executive control of the Vatican and the Mafia though the P2 Masonic Lodge in Italy.

The financial affairs of the new UK coalition government in London are also Rothschild-controlled. The line management here is understood to be Jacob Rothschild > Nathaniel Rothschild (N.M.Rothschild & Sons Limited, New Court, St Swithin's Lane, London EC4P 4DU) > Oliver Letwin > George Osborne (British Chancellor of the Exchequer).

Queen Elizabeth II fronts for the Rothschilds. She is the largest landowner on Earth. She is Head of State of the United Kingdom and of thirty one other states and territories, and is the legal owner of 6,600 million acres of land, one sixth of the Earth's land surface. A conservative estimate of the value of the Crown Temple syndicate's land holding, under the Queen's signature, is £17.6 trillion.

The Queen's syndicate land holdings are based on the laws of the countries she owns and her land title is valid in each of those countries. Her main holdings are Canada, the 2nd largest country on Earth, with 2,467 million acres, Australia, the 7th largest country on Earth with 1,900 million acres, Papua New Guinea with114 million acres, New Zealand with 66 million acres, and the UK with 60 million acres.

Elizabeth Windsor and her covert syndicate in London are the world's largest landowners by a significant margin. The next largest landowner is the Russian state, with an overall ownership of 4,219 million acres, and a direct ownership comparable with the Queen's land holding of 2,447 million acres. The 3rd largest landowner is the Chinese state, which claims all of Chinese land, about 2,365 million acres.

The 4th largest landowner on Earth is often said to be the Federal Government of the United States, which owns about one third of the land area of the USA, 760 million acres. However, this Washington DC private corporation Federal Estate is actually owned and controlled by the London Crown Temple syndicate. Indeed, at the present time, the London syndicate in partnership with an old family Chinese syndicate, hold, and have activated, a $47 trillion World Court Writ of Execution and Lien on the US Treasury and the US Federal Reserve Board.

The five largest "personal" landowners on Earth, at present, are Queen Elizabeth II of England (6,600 million acres), King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia (553 million acres), King Bhumibol of Thailand (126 million acres), King Mohammed IV of Morocco (113 million acres) and Sultan Quaboos of Oman (76 million acres). In reality, however, these named individuals are just the head signatories of old bloodline syndicates which act corporately through hidden family trusts.



More historical and current background about Elizabeth Windsor (Queen Elizabeth II of England) is compiled here:

http://engforum.pravda.ru/showthread.php?t=265271

source http://www.henrymakow.com/by_alcuin_bramertonfor_henryma.html

Rense and RealZionistNews

The Last Bastion of American Morality Is Under Assault

opednews.com
Paul craig roberts

The morality of the American people now resides, insecurely, in the Presbyterian Church. Every other institution of American society -- the evangelical churches, the bought-and-paid-for American media, both houses of Congress, the executive branch, both political parties, the corporations, the financial sector, the universities -- all support Israel's genocide against the Palestinians. Only the Presbyterians dissent.

The genocide is cloaked behind the propaganda that no Palestinians lived in Palestine until after the Israelis arrived, that all Palestinians are terrorists who want to murder innocent peace-loving Israelis, and that the terrorist Palestinians are armed by the few remaining Muslim governments that so far have escaped becoming American puppet states.

The solution, of course, is for the few remaining independent countries in the Middle East to be brought by force under US and Israeli hegemony.

The Presbyterian Church, as it is the only US organization that is not under the Israel Lobby's suzerainty, is included among the independent institutions that must be brought to heel.

The Presbyterian Church, which alone in America has a moral conscience, has been disturbed for some time by the Israeli/American policy of Palestinian extermination. In violation of international law and under the protection of US diplomacy and America's UN veto, Israel has evicted Palestinians from their homes and villages since the Israeli occupation of the West Bank in 1967 and even before. The remaining small parts of the West Bank in which Palestinians still reside have been turned by Israel into ghettos cut off from the rest of Palestine.

The Presbyterians, being meek Christians, have only mild criticisms of Israel, which are packaged together in the church's Middle East Study Committee's report with the Presbyterians' commitment to Israel's continued existence and to "our American Jewish Friends." The Presbyterian report even disavows divestment from Caterpillar, the US company that supplies Israel with the machines that destroy Palestinian homes, thus driving Palestinians from their lands so that zionist settlers can confiscate their properties. It was a Caterpillar bulldozer that killed the American Rachel Corrie who was protesting Israel's destruction of Palestinian homes.

The Presbyterian report expresses concern that "the window of opportunity for an end to the occupation and the viability of a two-state solution is rapidly closing." The Presbyterians fear that violence begets violence, and that the two sides are sliding into wanton willful murder of one another in violation of God's commandments.

The Presbyterian document states: "We do affirm the legitimacy of Israel as a state, but consider the continuing occupation of Palestine (West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem) to be illegitimate, illegal under international law, and an enduring threat to peace in the region. Furthermore, we recognize that any support for that occupation weakens the moral standing of our nation internationally and our security."

For Israel and the vast media and American political apparatus that Israel controls, this was too much. Israel is never guilty of anything. Only Palestinians are guilty. Anyone who criticizes Israel is anti-semitic and aligned with terrorists who want a second Holocaust.

The extreme Zionist Jerusalem Post; the moderate American Jewish newspaper, the Forward, and even a Mormon blog declared war on the Presbyterian Christians.

Israel, of course, denies that there is any illegal occupation of Palestine despite this being the finding of every country, the UN, and even Israel's American protector, the US government. The Jerusalem Post accuses the Presbyterians of expressing "contempt for Israel" attempting "to delegitimize Israel" and justifying "Palestinian terror against the Jewish state."

And there you have it. Any person or organization that is not all apologies for Israel's dispossession of Palestinians from their homes, villages, and lands, any person or organization that does not accept that 5-year old Palestinian children shot down in the streets by Israeli soldiers or zionist settlers were terrorists about to bring down the Israeli state, anyone who does not genuflect before the Israeli line on everything is an anti-semite who wants to renew the Holocaust and exterminate the Jewish people.

The Rabbis in every American community will buttonhole the Presbyterian ministers and ask them to explain why they are anti-semites and beat their wives. The Presbyterian General Assembly, which meets in July, will again be intimidated, as it was previously, and vote down the recommendations in the church's report on the Israeli/Palestinian issue.

The weak forces of morality will again be defeated by the Israelis, and the extermination of the Palestinians will continue.

The United States Remains a British Colony:

"In the mid-1700s the American Colonies were prospering, in part because they were issuing their own money called "Colonial Scrip," which was strictly regulated and did not require the payment of any interest. When the bankers in Great Britain heard this, they turned to the British Parliament, which passed a law prohibiting the Colonial Scrip, forcing the colonists to accept the "debt" or "fiat" money* issued by the Bank of England. Contrary to what history teaches, the American Revolution was not ignited by a tax on tea. According to Benjamin Franklin, it was because "the conditions [became] so reversed that the era of prosperity ended." He said:

"The Colonies would gladly have borne the little tax on tea and other matters had it not been the poverty caused by the bad influence of the English bankers on the Parliament, which has caused in the Colonies hatred of England and the Revolutionary War." (Source)



When the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783, most Americans thought that total Independence from England had been won. The fact of the matter, however, is that true Independence from England never really materialized:


"Working with Hamilton, (Aaron) Burr helped raise subscriptions (shares) for a private company to improve the water supply of pestilence-ridden Manhattan, but Hamilton and Burr also secured a charter (underwriting) from the Bank of England. New Yorkers were shocked to learn that the surplus capital from the venture had been used to establish the Bank of Manhattan, as the BNY was first known.

Twenty-five thousand shares were issued, of which 18,000 were held by investors in England. The Bank of England loaned the United States money in exchange for securities of the United States.

Now the creditors of the United States, which included the Bank of England, wanted to be paid the interest on the loans that were granted to the United States. So Hamilton came up with the bright idea of taxing alcohol. Consumers resisted, so President Washington sent out the militia to collect the tax — which they did. That episode became known as the Whiskey Rebellion." (Source)


In essence, the "Whiskey Rebellion" was fought to oppose the first version of the Internal Revenue Service. That is, the first attempt by the government of the United States to collect interest for the "Banksters" through the use of force. Note that the first unofficial Bank of the United States was 72% owned by "investors" in Great Britain. I have argued in past articles that this was the true price of peace with England, allowing the Crown and the Banksters to continue to profit from our labors through the use of loans and currencies.

Under the "Articles of Confederation", the government was too weak to collect taxes from its citizens. This was one of the gaping flaws exposed by the "Whiskey Rebellion". It was also a reason not to invest in an American Chartered Bank. After the passage of the Constitution, this was no longer an issue. Yet, we still see the creation of the First National Bank with 40% foreign ownership by the Banksters of England.

Going from 72% to 40% foreign ownership can be seen as a partial victory. Yet, it was hardly enough to placate those that wanted a clean break from the British and their Bank of England. In 1811 the First Bank of the United States was dissolved. The primary argument being that "States Rights" gave the States, not the Federal government, the right to control currency.

Interestingly enough, this move gave more power to Bank of New York and its British Investors. At least in the commerce capital of the United States, New York City. But, banksters being banksters, they wanted the whole enchilada. The British instigated for War through kidnapping American sailors and impressing them into the British Navy. The War of 1812 had begun.

The British won and the 2nd National Bank was created. Again, the British owned a significant share in the operation and charged interest for using their worthless paper currency.


"The Second BUS was still controlled by the Bank of England and foreign investors, who not only profited greatly by charging interest for the use of their paper American currency, but England still resented American independence." (Source)

With the demise of the 2nd National Bank and the creation of state chartered institutions, the balance of power still remained in the hands of the British Banksters through the Bank of New York and other foreign owned banking institutions. They were behind the "Panic of 1837" by insisting on payment to them be made in gold and silver. Much of the State and local Currencies were backed by real-estate. This demand for gold and silver forced local banks to foreclose on real-estate. The result was gross devaluations of land that was sold for the only real wealth in America, gold and silver.

Abraham Lincoln favored a National Bank, but without the foreign ownership and political manipulation:


"The Eastern banks had agreed to a $150 million government loan package just after the Civil War commenced in 1861. They would resell U.S. bonds in England with the Barings and Rothschilds, putting the United States at the mercy of the British aristocracy.

In December 1861, President Lincoln's own financial plan was presented by Treasury Secretary Salmon Chase (a free-trade liberal sweating and agonizing in the President's harness), and by Lincoln himself. Its measures included:

* a nationally regulated private banking system, which would issue cheap credit to build industry;

* the issuance of government legal-tender paper currency;

* the sale of low-interest bonds to the general public and to the nationally chartered banks;

* the increase of tariffs until industry was running at full tilt;

* government construction of railroads into the middle South, promoting industrialism over the Southern plantation system.


Lincoln was no friend to the "Banksters". This, more than anything else, led the British to support the Southern States in the Civil War. We will continue this discussion in the next article.

source http://www.moneyteachers.org/British.Colony.html

Keys to Dictatorship in the Soviet Regions of America

SoCal Martial Law Alerts
July 24, 2010

Based on historical precedent, we contend that the major keys to soviet-style dictatorship are currently in place here in America.

In order for a dictator to rule, he/she must have, at minimum, the following three geographical and political elements in place:

* One, or more, easily-manageable geographical regions as determined by the dictator;

* Usurpation of the existing governmental structures by soviet-style council (or committee) members who are appointed (not elected) by the dictator and who are accountable only to him/her;

* One, or more, military units which are accountable only to the unelected council which, in turn, is accountable only to the dictator.



Unfortunately, all the above-listed elements for a dictator to be successfully installed here in America are now in place:

* America has been divided into ten regions as determined by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which is an agency of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) -- a Cabinet-level position accountable only to the President;

* On January 11, 2010, President Obama established a Council of (ten) Governors (which will presumably rule over ten regions) when he signed Executive Order Number 13528;

* On July 12, 2010, the Department of Defense (DoD) announced that ten National Guard Homeland Response Force units would be assigned to the ten FEMA regions currently in place.



Examples from History

Historically, there has been a long history of dictators and/or would-be dictators, using appointment power coupled with military force to either bring about, or strengthen, their dictatorships.

During the final years of the Roman Republic, Julius Caesar used the power of the First Triumvirate (i.e. three heads of state, of which Caesar was one) to first reform the political landscape into further centralization of power. Soon after the death of Crassus (one member of the Triumvirate), Caesar then turned on Pompey. Aided by his army, Caesar crossed the Rubicon and entered Rome unopposed. Caesar further established his dictatorship by placing people of his own party into the Roman Senate. By 42 B.C., Caesar had passed laws which allowed him to appoint all magistrates, thus transforming the people's political representatives into Caesar's representatives. Although Caesar was assassinated soon after, he had laid the groundwork that would eventually lead to the Roman Emperorship (i.e. dictatorship).

In England, Queen Elizabeth I sent a small contingent of troops off to aid councils of Protestant nobles in Scotland. Elizabeth's fear was that her cousin, Mary (also known as Mary, Queen of Scots and former Queen of France) would bring French troops and invade England through Scotland. By the time Mary arrived in Scotland in 1561, her political network had been weakened to the point that she was never able to challenge Elizabeth for the British throne.

In Russia, the Bolshevik Party was founded by Lenin who sought to include only "professional revolutionaries" from the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. Only those Party members who were active and willing to fund the revolution were allowed into the Bolshevik Party, thus creating a recruiting ground for the revolutionaries Lenin desired. From this Party base, Lenin would eventually pick his first council (or soviet) which organized the October Revolution and involved armed insurrection. The Bolshevik Party system allowed Lenin to have a hand-picked group (the central committee) ready to replace the existing political structure (i.e. very similar to our current Council of Governors). The armed Party members gave Lenin the teeth to successfully pull off the 1917 coup, which culminated in the formation of the Soviet Union in 1922. To sum, Lenin needed both the central committee and a military force in order to gain total control.

In more recent times, Hawaii was ruled by the United States Army during WWII. After the Pearl Harbor attacks, Governor Joseph Poindexter, in essence, handed the Territory of Hawaii over to the Army, which promptly declared martial law. Given Hawaii's strategic position, the Army had already created a military command there, so, when martial law was declared, the Army easily transitioned into total control of Hawaii for nearly 3 years. During that time, Hawaii was ruled by a military governor, the civilian courts were not allowed to function and civilians were subject to military tribunal. Basically, Hawaii's civilian government was rendered ceremonial. Later in Duncan v. Kahanamoku and White v. Steer*, the Supreme Court upheld the military convictions (of American citizens in military tribunals) that had been handed down in a lower court and even justified the Army's extended use of martial law powers (despite the civil-rights violations of American citizens).

An interesting footnote regarding Hawaii's martial-law situation is the fact that, according to Harry and Jane Scheiber*, "the Army's readiness to take over every detail of government in Hawaii only hours after the Pearl Harbor attack was in startling contrast to its lack of military preparedness to deal with the onslaught by Japan's air fleet." In other words, Lt. Col. Thomas H. Green (who worked in the Office of the Military Governor), just happened to spend most of 1941 preparing "general orders" (i.e. orders concerning martial law) that just happened to be ready for implementation upon the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The Hawaii Defense Act of 1941 was passed by Hawaii's civilian government only weeks prior to Pearl Harbor and granted Hawaii's civilian Governor broad powers in the hopes that the military would not step in to control Hawaii during a war emergency. Unfortunately, the legislation was rendered completely useless during the Army's rule of Hawaii and, only after amending the Defense Act in 1943 with additional gubernatorial powers, did some semblance of control return to Hawaii's civilian government.

Implications for Today

So, going on what we already know from history, a conceivable dictatorship scenario could occur here in America if:

The President declared a national state of emergency, which would then allow him the unprecedented power to rule unchallenged (i.e. completely free of normal checks and balances) by his ability to give direct orders to DHS, FEMA and the "Council of Governors" -- all of whom must answer directly to the President in a national emergency and no one else. And don't forget how the latest DoD announcement gave FEMA its own military force (i.e. the National Guard Homeland Response Force units). Furthermore, FEMA can, and has, in time of crisis, called upon NORAD and NORTHCOM for additional military assistance. With National Guard units under the direction of FEMA and/or the "Council of Governors," our current State and local governments could easily be reduced to strictly ceremonial status and thus allow the President to exercise full dictatorial power backed by the military forces under his direct command.

In other words: Martial law in America.

Further exacerbating this harrowing possibility, our State governments have been slowly weakened over time through:

* Constant federal regulation and unconstitutional federal interference;
* Acceptance of federal funds with all their time-consuming red tape and sovereignty-weakening strings attached;
* Unconstitutional federalization of the National Guard; and
* The real threat of bankruptcy in the current financial meltdown.



As evidenced by the pending federal lawsuit against Arizona (which clearly violates the 11th Amendment), the federal government is out to punish any State that threatens to assert its sovereignty (even when, as is the case with Arizona, the State is merely trying to take up the slack where the federal government has been derelict). We also have a situation where the Gulf of Mexico, Louisiana and other States waited for federal permission to protect themselves against incoming oil from the BP disaster. Unconscionably, the failure of the federal government to grant such permits has resulted in greater damage to the coastal region and the further collapse of our economy.

Fly in the Ointment

The President's new "Council of Governors" has been criticized from the start.

As Pastor, pundit and '08 Presidential Candidate, Chuck Baldwin, pointed out in a January article, " ... what is not being disclosed is what powers will be conferred upon the 10 gubernatorial council members and what authorities they will be required to cede to the federal government."

Already the "Council of Governors" have direct contact with the DOD, the Coast Guard, the National Guard and DHS. But an even more important question remains: In a state of emergency, would these Governors also act as military governors (as happened in Hawaii during WWII)?

Interesting side notes: The "Council of Governors" chosen in February by President Obama include Governors from each FEMA region, with the exception of Region 5 (the Midwest), while two of the Governors, Maryland's Martin O'Mailey and Virginia's Robert McDonnell, both come from Region 2 (the Northeast). Also of concern is the fact that Puerto Rican Governor, Luis Fortuno, is a member of the "Council of Governors." (Puerto Rico recently had civil-unrest incidents which resulted in police wielding batons and using pepper spray on protesters.) The headquarters for FEMA Region 9, Oakland, recently announced that police will not respond to certain crimes (such as burglary), while, at the same time, hundreds of other local, regional and state law enforcement officers responded to the recent "Oscar Grant Verdict" riots and up to 21,000 National Guard were placed on stand-by (thus setting a dangerous precedent).

We've also noticed a disturbing pattern of FEMA Regions and/or Council Governors participating in the dubious practice of demonizing ordinary Americans for their political beliefs. For instance, in FEMA Region 9, the Associated Press reported earlier this week that the Oakland freeway shooter was allegedly connected to the Tea Party movement. In 2008, Council Governor, Jay Nixon (Missouri), supported the Missouri Information Analysis Center (MIAC) report, which labeled conservative Christians, militia members and those who support political candidates such as Ron Paul (R-TX) and Chuck Baldwin as "domestic terrorists."

Summary

Thus the federal government's unrelenting march toward the black abyss of globalist integration continues ever onward ...

As evidenced by the extensive number of emergency drills taking place here and abroad and the Congressional legislation that is being passed under the "homeland security" banner, it is clear that the military establishment is constantly preparing for the day when it can vertically integrate from the federal to the local level without interference from civilian government (i.e. "we the people"). Should the worst occur, such as a massive evacuation of the Gulf Coast region, or a large-scale terrorist attack (which the establishment has been calling for), the federal government has made ample provision to insure that the President will be the sole person in charge and can back his/her dictates up with deadly force (if necessary).

So, by implementing the "keys to dictatorship" described herein, the executive branch of government has created a separate, almost parallel, governing structure along with the military firepower to back it up. More ominous still, is the fact that all these unelected officials -- from the Pentagon to the Council of Governors -- have been granted power that is not subject to the normal checks and balances guaranteed by our Constitution and, even worse, they are answerable to the President alone.

This, surely, is a recipe for disaster?

source http://www.meetup.com/socalmartiallawalerts/messages/boards/thread/9473511

Israel’s Attack on Iran–A 15 Minute War To Save A Dying Theocratic Ethno-State?

By crescentandcross

As we approach that “great day of reckoning” viz-a-viz (what appears to be) the impending and unavoidable attack on Iran by the Jewish state, it is important to keep in mind the motto of Israel’s Mossad that “By way of deception thou shalt make wars”.

And given that indeed it is the Jewish state and her interests (and them alone) managing all aspects of the propaganda machinery for this conflict, we can be rest assured that–employing the aforementioned motto of Israel’s intelligence service–not an ounce of truth exists in any of it. From top to bottom, left to right and alpha to omega it is nothing more than a hologram and high-production hoax of sorts meant to prepare the collective mind for the before, during and after effects of what this attack is intended to produce.

By definition then this must include all the dire warnings/expectations of what is likely to be the outcome of this upcoming war. Using Iraq and all the destruction wrought on her by Israel’s most valuable attack dog–America–as a model of what’s to come, by logical extension then people worldwide would expect the same thing occurring in Iran–Innocent civilian life butchered in the thousands and tens of thousands…Iran retaliating with a barrage of warheads…Russia and China getting involved…Oil shooting up to $300.00 a barrel, leading to the death of an already-dying world economy…An explosion of violence throughout the world as Islamic elements pre-positioned for terrorist attacks are activated, etc, etc, etc.

Or, it may be that this thing is over and done with in 15 minutes and none of the apocalyptic expectations take place. Yes, it sounds too crazy to be possible, but actually, given current events, it is more likely than not.

Not that Israel eschews violence, human suffering and chaos of course. Au contraire, she thrives on it in the same way a dentist thrives on tooth decay. She can’t do without them.

However, “desperate times call for desperate measures” as the old saying goes, and if ever there were desperate times as far as the continued survival of the Jewish state is concerned, it is now. As far as Israel goes, the real “existential threat” is not Iran, Islamic extremism or any possible nuclear aspirations on the part of Israel’s enemies, but rather the fact that these days the Jewish state has–for lack of more polite phraseology–shitty credit. Other countries (save America, of course) avoid her like the plague. Her ministers cannot travel abroad for fear of being arrested. Boycott and divestment campaigns are beginning to sound like music to a lot of people’s ears.

In sum, it is Israel’s image right now that more than anything else threatens to be the cause of her undoing, and this being the case means she needs emergency reconstructive surgery, and something strong enough to withstand the test of time.

Therefore, being a pariah and a vampire in the eyes of the world, what better situation exists in fixing that shitty credit, changing all those minus signs to plusses and going from a beggar thief with his hand outstretched to the guy with the keys to the vault then to condition everyone into fearing the upcoming “war to end all wars” and then have it not materialize at all? Better even, if–as a result of the war–everyone’s fortunes are raised.

The scenario goes thus–After a few high-profile false flag attacks by (of course) “Arab” terrorists leading to civilian deaths both in Israel and the West, like a thief in the night she flies in under cover of night and hits Iran’s nuclear facilities with precision bombs and with little to no civilian casualties on the Iranian side…Being that Iran’s early-warning radar systems are disabled well ahead of time, there is no confrontation. Israel flies out and the war is over before it even begun.

Before the fighter jets have even landed and before the Iranians figure out what has happened, the world is then carpet-bombed with news of Israel’s success. The war came and went without anyone knowing about it. Simultaneous to this, Israel gives her reasons for doing it–

“We knew…We had incontrovertible, undeniable proof of Iran’s weapons program, and more importantly, our human intelligence assets discovered Iran’s intention to use nuclear weapons against the entire “Christian” West…And despite the fact the whole world was against us, said we were crazy, called us all sorts of names and gave into their worst anti-Semitic instincts, we turned the other cheek and saved everyone…”

And as a final touch in reversing the maniacal, bloodthirsty image she has made for herself will say–

“See?…We don’t hate the Iranians…or the Palestinians or anyone else…We’re just here to try and live in peace with a world that hates us for no other reason than that we’re Jews…”

And, just like Netanyahu’s infamous speech recently before the UN General Assembly late last year where he waved “blueprints” of Nazi death camps before the eyes of the world, thus “proving” the existence of an increasingly-dubious holocaust, likewise Israel’s reasons for taking the action she did are proven right as well, and VOILA, she has now become savior of the planet, just like the overtly-Jewish character “David” in the blockbuster movie “Independence Day”.

Think it can’t happen? Well, as pithy as it may sound–think again. If these same interests can get a black man with a Muslim background and a name rhyming with “Osama” elected to the presidency of the US when America finds herself at war with 1.5 billion Muslims worldwide, they can perform just about any brand of magic they want when it comes to “crowd control”.

As a result of all this, Iran is politically paralyzed. The conflict is over and anything she does after that will be viewed as an overt act of war, despite the fact it was done in retaliation to Israel’s initial actions. Russia and China–considered the 2 wildcards in the equation–are politically paralyzed as well, and now, instead of it being the world vs Israel, it is the world vs Iran and the rest of the Islamic world.

In short, she–Israel–has become the Messiah. As a result of that15-minute war, all the protests against the butchery in places such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Gaza, Lebanon and beyond are turned upside down. Goldstone becomes a war criminal in his own right for suggesting Israel crossed the line in Operation Cast Lead. The anti-Zionist/anti-war movements are cut off at the knees. They no longer possess any credibility.

In the meantime, all the arguments made by the pro-war crowd since 9/11 receive a fresh coat of 24 carat gold paint and are validated. A long, accusatory finger is pointed in the collective face of a paralyzed anti-war movement as the chorus rings out “If we had listened to you Iran would have the bomb now and we’d all be nuclear toast”. The Neocons and the Christian right become absolutely unmanageable in their giddiness. “MORE WAR, MORE WAR, MORE WAR,“ they cry out 24/7.

True, the Christian Zionists are going to have a tough time trying to make the present mesh with their predictions concerning the end of the world, but again, with a little help with their Jewish friends in Hollywood we can be sure they’ll come up with something.

In short, the only voice of sanity left in the world exposing Israel’s war crimes and her future designs on humanity is squashed like a grape as anti-Zionist groups, spanning every facet of the world, become a laughing stock, Israel comes out of it smelling like a rose and is then free to continue on in her religiously-inspired maniacal rampage in the Middle East (and beyond) for who knows how long.

In the meantime, Jewish interests in control of the world’s economy decide to open the monetary spigot in the immediate aftermath of the “war that never was” and–Abracadabra–people are back at work and things return to normal. Like Pavlov’s dog, these same people make the association between the bell ringing and feeding time and (particularly in the west) associate going to war against Israel’s enemies with an immediate aftermath leading to their own financial enrichment.

Again, if history has taught us anything it is that the Jews as a people have an almost inexplicable capacity for survival and that, almost always–“by way of deception“–they are able to evade certain destruction and again. For them everything seems to be a fixed race where the horse no one would bet a dime on wins and they pay off.

If we thought Israel–with her constant disconnect from reality and her constantly reminding us all how screwed the rest of us would be if she weren’t around–was difficult to deal with before, well, then just wait and see what she’s like when she “saves” the world from nuclear Armageddon. As unbearable as she has been before, the fact of the matter is that we ain’t seen nothin’ yet.


(c) 2010 Mark Glenn

nomorewarsforisrael@gmail.com

Source http://theuglytruth.podbean.com

http://www.aidtoisrael.org/

All in the “Family”: Global Drug Trade Fueled by Capitalist Elites

Tom Burghardt

Antifascist Calling... , July 22, 2010

When investigative journalist Daniel Hopsicker broke the story four years ago that a DC-9 (N900SA) "registered to a company which once used as its address the hangar of Huffman Aviation, the flight school at the Venice, Florida Airport which trained both terrorist pilots who crashed planes into the World Trade Center, was caught in Campeche by the Mexican military ... carrying 5.5 tons of cocaine destined for the U.S.," it elicited a collective yawn from corporate media.

And when authorities searched the plane and found its cargo consisted solely of 128 identical black suitcases marked "private," packed with cocaine valued at more than $100 million, the silence was deafening.

But now a Bloomberg Markets magazine report, "Wachovia's Drug Habit," reveals that drug traffickers bought that plane, and perhaps fifty others, "with laundered funds they transferred through two of the biggest banks in the U.S.," Wachovia and Bank of America.

The Justice Department charge sheet against the bank tells us that between 2003 and 2008, Wachovia handled $378.4 billion for Mexican currency exchanges, "the largest violation of the Bank Secrecy Act, an anti-money-laundering law, in U.S. history."

"A sum" Bloomberg averred, equal to one-third of Mexico's current gross domestic product."

Since 2006, some 22,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence. Thousands more have been wounded, countless others "disappeared," torture and illegal imprisonment is rampant.

In a frightening echo of the Reagan administration's anti-communist jihad in Central America during the 1980s, the Bush and now, Obama administration has poured fuel on the fire with some $1.4 billion in "War on Drugs" funding under Plan Mérida. Much of that "aid" is destined to purchase military equipment for repressive police, specialized paramilitary units and the Mexican Army.

There is also evidence of direct U.S. military involvement. In June, The Narco News Bulletin reported that "a special operations task force under the command of the Pentagon is currently in place south of the border providing advice and training to the Mexican Army in gathering intelligence, infiltrating and, as needed, taking direct action against narco-trafficking organizations."

One former U.S. government official told investigative journalist Bill Conroy, "'Black operations have been going on forever. The recent [mainstream] media reports about those operations under the Obama administration make it sound like it's a big scoop, but it's nothing new for those who understand how things really work'."

But, as numerous investigations by American and Mexican journalists have revealed, there is strong evidence of collusion between the Mexican Army and the Juarez and Sinaloa drug cartels. A former Juarez police commander told NPR in May that "the intention of the army is to try and get rid of the Juarez cartel, so that [Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman] Chapo's [Sinaloa] cartel is the strongest."

The cosy relations among the world's biggest banks, drug trafficking organizations and the U.S. military-intelligence apparatus is not however, a new phenomenon. What is different today is the scale and sheer scope of the corruption involved. As Michel Chossudovsky points out,

This trade can only prosper if the main actors involved in narcotics have "political friends in high places." As legal and illegal undertakings are increasingly intertwined, the dividing line between "businesspeople" and criminals is blurred. In turn, the relationship among criminals, politicians and members of the intelligence establishment has tainted the structures of the state and the role of its institutions, including the military. (The Global Economic Crisis: The Great Depression of the XXI Century, Montreal: Global Research, 2010, pp. 195-196)



While the Bloomberg story should cast new light on highly-profitable links amongst major financial institutions and narcotrafficking organizations in what may be protected drug rackets green-lighted by corrupt officials, media silence, particularly by outlets such as The Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times, threaten to propel what should be an international scandal into a one-off news item scheduled for a trip down the memory hole.

"Cocaine One"

If, as New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman claims "the hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist," then perhaps too, drug cartels work their "market magic" with their own "hidden fist" or, as the Russians like to say a krysha, a web of protectors--and facilitators--drawn from business, finance, organized crime and the secret world of intelligence.

Dubbed "Cocaine One" by Hopsicker, the DC-9 was curious for a number of reasons, not least of which was the fact that "one of the chief shareholders" of a dodgy outfit called SkyWay Aircraft "is a private investment bank in Dallas which also raised funds for a Mexican industrialist with reported ties to a Cali and Juarez Cartel narcotics trafficker."

More curious still, the airline kitted-out its fleet with distinctive colors and a seal "designed to impersonate planes from the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security." And when he learned that "SkyWay's genesis can be traced to In-Q-Tel Inc., a secretive, Arlington, Va., investment group owned, operated, and financed out of the black box budget of the Central Intelligence Agency," well you can bet corporate media ran themselves ragged investigating that!

To top it off, when another drug plane crash landed in the Yucatan Peninsula eighteen months later and broke apart, a Gulfstream II business jet (N987SA) that spilled "4 tons of cocaine across a muddy field," Hopsicker reported that it had originated from the same network and used the same source for its financing, the "Casa de Cambio Puebla SA, a country-wide network of currency exchanges."

And to make matters even more intriguing from a parapolitical perspective, after searching through FAA records Hopsicker discovered that the Gulfstream II business jet "was owned by a secretive Midwestern media baron and Republican fund-raiser, who had a business partner who, incredibly, owned the other American drug plane, the DC-9, recently busted in Mexico."

In fact, as Bloomberg investigative journalist Michael Smith learned years later, these were the same planes and same currency exchange which Hopsicker reported back in 2007 traffickers had used to purchase drug jets with funds laundered through Wachovia.

"One customer that Wachovia took on in 2004 was Casa de Cambio Puebla SA," Smith wrote. The Puebla, Mexico currency exchange was the brainchild of Pedro Alatorre, a "businessman" who "had created front companies for cartels."

Alatorre, and 70 others connected to his network, were seized in 2007 by Mexican law enforcement officials. Authorities discovered that the accused drug money launderer and airline broker for the cartels controlled 23 accounts at the Wachovia Bank branch in Miami and that it held some $11 million, subsequently frozen by U.S. investigators.

In 2008, a Miami federal grand jury indicted Alatorre, now awaiting trial in Mexico along with three other executives, charging them with drug trafficking and money laundering, accusing the company of using "shell firms to launder $720 million through U.S. banks." The Justice Department is currently seeking Alatorre's extradition from Mexico.

According to Bloomberg, "Puebla executives used the stolen identities of 74 people to launder money through Wachovia accounts." Jose Luis Marmolejo, the former head of the Mexican attorney general's financial crimes unit told Smith, "Wachovia handled all the transfers, and they never reported any as suspicious."

Some $300,000 was transferred by Wachovia to a Bank of America branch in Oklahoma City. With cash in hand Bloomberg reports, traffickers "used the funds to buy the DC-9 through Oklahoma City aircraft broker U.S. Aircraft Titles Inc." When queried by Smith about the sale, "U.S. Aircraft Titles President Sue White declined to comment."

Jeffrey Sloman, the federal prosecutor who handled the Wachovia case said in a press release that "Wachovia's blatant disregard for our banking laws gave international cocaine cartels a virtual carte blanche to finance their operations."

Yet, as Hopsicker wrote nearly three years ago, "the politically-explosive implications of the scandal may explain why American officials have been reluctant to move against, or even name, the true owners of the planes and basically 'turned a blind eye' to the American involvement exposed by the drug trafficking seizures."

As of this writing, no Americans have been criminally charged in the cash-for drug planes banking conspiracy.

"Troubled Assets" or Something More Sinister?

When Wells Fargo bought Wachovia, once America's fourth largest bank in 2008 at the fire-sale price of $12.8 billion, the bank and its former CEO, Kennedy "Ken" Thompson, who "retired at the request of the board" before the full-extent of the financial meltdown hit home, were in deep trouble.

Before the Wells takeover, Wachovia had been on a veritable shopping spree. After the firm's 2001 merger with First Union Bank, Wachovia merged with the Prudential Securities division of Prudential Financial, Inc., with Wachovia controlling the lion's share of the firm's $532.1 billion in assets. This was followed by the bank's purchase of Metropolitan West Securities, adding a $50 billion portfolio of securities and loans to the bank's Lending division. In 2004, Wachovia followed-up with the $14.3 billion acquisition of SouthTrust Corporation.

Apparently flush with cash and new market clout, Wachovia set it sights on acquiring California-based Golden West Financial. Golden West operated branches under the name World Savings Bank and was the nation's second largest savings and loan. At the time of the buy-out, Golden West had over $125 billion in assets. For Wachovia however, it was a deal too far.

With an enormous housing bubble fully inflated, and a new speculative merger-mania in full swing, one can only surmise that the need for liquidity at any price, had driven banking giants such as Wachovia to play dumb when shadier, yet highly-profitable transactions, such as the "arrangement" with Casa de Cambio Puebla SA, were involved.

Bleeding cash faster than you can say "mortgage backed securities," Wachovia was on the hook for their 2006 $26 billion buy-out of Golden West Financial at the peak of the housing bubble, a move that BusinessWeek reported generated "resistance from his own management team" but ignored by Thompson.

Why? "Because no one outside of Thompson and Golden West CEO Herb Sandler seemed to like the deal from the moment it was announced," a company insider told BusinessWeek.

While the buy-out may have given Thompson "the beachhead in California he had long desired ... the ink was barely dry on the Golden West deal in late 2006 when the housing bubble in markets including California and Florida began to deflate."

Hammered by the housing bust, Wachovia's share price, which had risen to $70.51 per share when the Golden West deal was announced had slid to $5.71 per share by October 2008. In other words, Wachovia, along with the world's economy, began circling the proverbial drain.

However you slice it, although it was clear that the Golden West deal had gone south quicker than you can say "credit default swaps," this didn't seem to stop Wachovia from paying "smartest guy in the room" Thompson $15.6 million in total compensation in 2007, a year after the fatal Golden West transaction. Nor did these losses stop the bank from showering Thompson with a severance package worth nearly $8 million.

But was something else going on here?

Wells Fargo bank admitted in a signed Deferred Prosecution Agreement with the federal government that they would not contest charges brought by the Justice Department in its indictment of the bank.

The banking giant was forced to admit charges by prosecutors that "On numerous occasions, monies were deposited into a CDC [Casa de Cambio] by a drug trafficking organization. Using false identities, the CDC then wired that money through its Wachovia correspondent bank accounts for the purchase of airplanes for drug trafficking organizations. On various dates between 2004 and 2007, at least four of those airplanes were seized by foreign law enforcement agencies cooperating with the United States and were found to contain large quantities of cocaine."

Bloomberg reported that Wells Fargo, in the wake of the settlement "declined to answer specific questions, including how much it made by handling $378.4 billion--including $4 billion of cash--from Mexican exchange companies."

There was however, more than "troubled assets" and charges of money laundering to the story. In fact, the purchase of these drug planes have been tied to some of the Bush administration's most secretive "War On Terror" programs.

Drug Flights, CIA Renditions. Just Another Day at the Office!

Replicating a pattern used by the Central Intelligence Agency during the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s, the secret state used a network of cut-outs and legitimate businesses to transport prisoners to Agency black sites for "special handling."

During Iran-Contra it was "guns in, drugs out." Today one might say its "drugs in, tortured prisoners out." The results however, were the same; egregious crimes and lawbreaking on a staggering scale.

Subsequent investigations by Narco News revealed that "this particular Gulfstream II (tail number N987SA), was used between 2003 and 2005 by the CIA for at least three trips between the U.S. east coast and Guantanamo Bay, home to the infamous 'terrorist' prison camp," Bill Conroy reported.

"In addition," Conroy wrote, "the two SkyWay companies are associated with individuals who have done highly sensitive work for the Department of Defense or U.S. intelligence agencies, public records show and Narco News sources confirm."

According to AFP, the Mexican daily El Universal said "it had obtained documents from the United States and the European Parliament which 'show that that plane flew several times to Guantanamo, Cuba, presumably to transfer terrorism suspects,'" the French newswire reported.

The plane was carrying "Colombian drugs" bound for the U.S. for the "fugitive leader of Mexico's Sinaloa cartel, Joaquin 'Chapo' Guzman," when it crashed in the Yucatan.

According to El Universal, the Federal Aviation Administration's "logbook registered that the plane had traveled between US territory and the US military base in Guantanamo," and that its last registered owner was "Clyde O'Connor in Pompano Beach, Florida."

The Independent confirmed separately in January of this year that "Evidence points to aircraft--familiarly known as 'torture taxis'--used by the CIA to move captives seized in its kidnapping or 'extraordinary rendition' operations through Gatwick and other airports in the EU being simultaneously used for drug distribution in the Western hemisphere."

Hugh O'Shaughnessy, confirming earlier reporting by Bill Conroy and Daniel Hopsicker said that "a Gulfstream II jet aircraft N9875A identified by the British Government and the European Parliament as being involved in this traffic crashed in Mexico in September 2008 while en route from Colombia to the US with a load of more than three tons of cocaine."

While O'Shaughnessy got the tail-number and date wrong, he's correct when he states that U.S. intelligence assets "continue the drug dealing they indulged in during the Iran-Contra affair of the Reagan years."

Narco News, citing DEA sources, learned that the crashed Gulfstream loaded with four tons of cocaine "was part of an operation being carried out by a Department of Homeland Security agency."

However in a later report, Mark Conrad, a former supervisory special agent with ICE's predecessor agency, U.S. Customs, told Narco News that the crashed Gulfstream used to transport drugs and prisoners was controlled by the CIA and "that the CIA, not ICE ... [was] actually the U.S. agency controlling the ... operation. If this were the case, then "any individuals or companies involved in a CIA-backed operation, even ones that are complicit in drug trafficking, would be off limits to U.S. law enforcers due to the cloak of national security the CIA can invoke."

In other words, a jet purchased by drug traffickers with funds laundered through an American bank and used in the CIA's "extraordinary rendition" program may have been part of a protected drug operation by U.S. intelligence agencies. An operation furthermore, whose purpose is still unknown.

This report tracks closely with evidence uncovered by Peter Dale Scott. In a recent piece in Japan Focus Scott wrote that "it is not surprising that the U.S. Government, following the lead of the CIA, has over the years become a protector of drug traffickers against criminal prosecution in this country."

"A recent spectacular example" Scott tells us, drawing on research from his forthcoming book, is the curious case of CIA Venezuelan asset, General Ramon Guillén Davila.

General Ramon Guillén Davila, chief of a CIA-created anti-drug unit in Venezuela, was indicted in Miami for smuggling a ton of cocaine into the United States. According to the New York Times, "The CIA, over the objections of the Drug Enforcement Administration, approved the shipment of at least one ton of pure cocaine to Miami International Airport as a way of gathering information about the Colombian drug cartels." Time magazine reported that a single shipment amounted to 998 pounds, following earlier ones "totaling nearly 2,000 pounds." Mike Wallace confirmed that "the CIA-national guard undercover operation quickly accumulated this cocaine, over a ton and a half that was smuggled from Colombia into Venezuela." According to the Wall Street Journal, the total amount of drugs smuggled by Gen. Guillén may have been more than 22 tons. (Fueling America's War Machine: Deep Politics and the CIA's Global Drug Connection (in press, due Fall 2010 from Rowman & Littlefield).



Scott adds that "the United States never asked for Guillén's extradition from Venezuela to stand trial; and in 2007, when he was arrested in Venezuela for plotting to assassinate President Hugo Chavez, his indictment was still sealed in Miami. Meanwhile, CIA officer Mark McFarlin, whom DEA Chief Bonner had also wished to indict, was never indicted at all; he merely resigned."

But the stench of Iran-Contra, like that of the CIA's torture program, as with earlier secret state machinations with drug cartels never went away; in fact, like a cancer, one managed drug operation seamlessly metastasized into another.

Greasing the Wheels

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODOC) state in their 2010 Annual Report that "money-laundering is the method by which criminals disguise the illegal origins of their wealth and protect their asset bases in order to avoid suspicion of law enforcement and to prevent leaving a trail of incriminating evidence," and that financial institutions, particularly U.S. and European banks are key to efforts to choke-off illicit profits from the grisly trade.

The trouble is these institutions, along with U.S. intelligence agencies, are the problem.

UNODOC estimate that profits derived from narcotics rackets amount to some $600 billion annually and that up to $1.5 trillion dollars in drug money is laundered through seemingly legitimate enterprises.

Part of the fallout from capitalism's economic meltdown has been that "drugs money worth billions of dollars kept the financial system afloat at the height of the global crisis," The Observer disclosed late last year.

Antonio Maria Costa, UNODOC's director, told the British newspaper he saw evidence that proceeds from the illicit trade were "the only liquid investment capital" available to some banks on the brink of collapse last year and that "a majority of the $352bn (£216bn) of drugs profits was absorbed into the economic system as a result."

The UN drugs chief said that in "many instances, the money from drugs was the only liquid investment capital." And with markets tanking and major bank failures nearly a daily occurrence, "liquidity was the banking system's main problem and hence liquid capital became an important factor."

According to Costa, "Inter-bank loans were funded by money that originated from the drugs trade and other illegal activities... There were signs that some banks were rescued that way."

Web of Corruption

Although the UN's top anti-narcotics official declined to identify either the countries or banks that have benefited from the murderous trade, a web of corruption envelops the entire financial sector of the capitalist economy as the quest for "liquid assets" trumps everything.

Martin Woods, once director of Wachovia's anti-money-laundering unit in London told Bloomberg, "It's the banks laundering money for the cartels that finances the tragedy." Woods told the magazine he "quit the bank in disgust" after executives "ignored his documentation that drug dealers were funneling money through Wachovia's branch network."

Despite warnings from the Treasury Department since 1996 that Mexican currency exchanges were laundering drug money through U.S. banks, "Wachovia ignored warnings by regulators and police, according to the deferred-prosecution agreement," Bloomberg reported.

"As early as 2004, Wachovia understood the risk," the bank admitted in court. "Despite these warnings, Wachovia remained in the business."

At the bank's anti-money laundering unit in London, Woods and his counterpart Jim DeFazio in Charlotte, NC told Smith "they suspected that drug dealers were using the bank to move funds."

Former Scotland Yard investigator Woods, said he "spotted illegible signatures and other suspicious markings on traveler's checks from Mexican exchange companies," and that he sent copies of his report to the U.K.'s Financial Services Authority, the DEA and U.S. Treasury Department.

But rather than being rewarded for his diligence, Woods told Smith "his bosses instructed him to keep quiet and tried to have him fired." In one meeting, "a bank official insisted Woods shouldn't have filed suspicious activity reports to the government, as both U.S. and U.K. laws require."

According to a whistleblower suit filed with an employment tribunal in London, Barrons reported last year before the Wachovia scandal broke, that Woods claimed "his bosses bullied and demoted him, then withdrew his reports of other suspicious activities in Eastern Europe."

It gets worse. Woods' complaint alleges "that Wachovia staff may have even tipped off Mexican-exchange clients about his laundering suspicions," and the veteran investigator told Wachovia officials "he feared for his safety."

In response, bank spokesperson Mary Eshet said at the time, "Wachovia believes that it has acted appropriately in its business dealings, and Mr. Woods' claims to the contrary are without merit."

Meanwhile, on the American side of the pond, 21-year FBI veteran DeFazio said "he told bank executives in 2005 that the DEA was probing the transfers through Wachovia to buy the planes." The bank ignored his warnings and continued along on their merry way until their indictment.

The law enforcement veteran told Bloomberg, "I think they looked at the money and said, 'The hell with it. We're going to bring it in, and look at all the money we'll make'."

The former Scotland yard investigator added, "If you don't see the correlation between the money laundering by banks and the 22,000 people killed in Mexico, you're missing the point."

But Wachovia wasn't the only large financial institution "missing the point." Bloomberg also revealed that Bank of America and the London-based "HSBC Holdings Plc, Europe's biggest bank by assets," American Express Bank, Banco Santander SA, Citigroup Inc., as well as "the world's largest money transfer firm," Western Union were also up to their eyeballs in dubious transactions.

In 1994 for example, American Express paid $14 million to settle with the federal government after "two employees were convicted in a criminal case involving drug trafficker Juan Garcia Abrego."

Yet between 1999-2004, Bloomberg reported "the bank failed to stop clients from laundering $55 million of narcotics funds, the bank admitted in a deferred-prosecution agreement in August 2007 ... and paid $65 million to the U.S. and promised not to break the law again." Charges were dismissed a year later under terms of the agreement.

And back in 2004, The Independent disclosed that "HSBC, the UK's largest bank, have been slammed for lax money-laundering procedures in a report by a US Senate subcommittee."

Journalists Hugh O'Shaughnessy and Paul Lashmar revealed that "the UK-based multinational stands accused of laxity in the fight against money laundering, drug trafficking, corruption and terrorism, notably in the oil-rich African state of Equatorial Guinea."

"In one of the few cases" when the scandal-plagued and now-shuttered Riggs Bank "seems to have properly followed US anti-money-laundering legislation," Riggs formally asked HSBC and a Spanish bank, Banco Santander, "to divulge the identities of the owners of two companies that kept accounts with them and that were receiving suspicious wire transfers totalling in excess of $35m (£20m). The banks refused to say who the owners were."

Bloomberg disclosed that "federal agents caught people who work for Mexican cartels depositing illicit funds in Bank of America accounts in Atlanta, Chicago and Brownsville, Texas, from 2002 to 2009." Authorities contend that "Mexican drug dealers used shell companies to open accounts at London-based HSBC."

Nevertheless, neither bank were accused of wrongdoing by the federal government and both firms denied any involvement in money laundering schemes.

Bank of America spokeswoman Shirley Norton told Smith that they "strictly follow the government rules." Norton said, "Bank of America takes its anti-money-laundering responsibilities very seriously," a fact not readily apparent from Bloomberg Markets investigation.

Both Norton and HSBC spokesman Roy Caple told Smith that "[privacy] laws bar them from discussing specific clients."

And so it goes.

Fallout? What Fallout!

In the wake of Wachovia's admission to federal prosecutors, Wells Fargo will pay "$160 million in fines and penalties, less than 2 percent of its $12.3 billion profit in 2009."

"If Wells Fargo keeps its pledge," Bloomberg reports, then "according to the agreement [the federal government will] drop all charges against the bank in March 2011."

Why might that be? Large banks are immune from vigorous prosecution for violating the Bank Secrecy Act "by a variant of the too-big-to-fail theory."

Veteran Senate investigator Jack Blum, who led probes into the Iran-Contra drug connection and the CIA's favorite shadow bank during the 1980s, the Bank of Credit and Commerce (BCCI) told Bloomberg, "the theory is like a get-out-of-jail-free card for big banks."

"There's no capacity to regulate or punish them because they're too big to be threatened with failure," Blum says. "They seem to be willing to do anything that improves their bottom line, until they're caught."

Meanwhile as the bodies pile up, there's no jail time for executives and the assets of firms that could charitably be described as part of a "continuing criminal enterprise" haven't been seized; only a slap on the wrist and a promise to "do better next time."


:: Article nr. 68178 sent on 23-jul-2010 01:45 ECT

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Link: antifascist-calling.blogspot.com/2010/07/all-in-family-global-drug-trade-fueled.
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