Wednesday, April 30, 2008

High-Level Officials Warn of Fake Terror

A variety of current and former high-level officials have recently warned that the Bush administration is attempting to instill a dictatorship in America, and will itself carry out a fake terrorist attack in order to obtain one.

Background

FBI agents, Time Magazine, Keith Olbermann and The Washington Post and Rolling Stone have all stated that the administration has issued terror alerts based on scant intelligence in order to rally people around the flag when the administration was suffering in the polls. This implies — as an initial matter only — that the administration will play fast and loose with the facts in order to instill fear for political purposes

More to the point, a former prominent republican congressman stated that the U.S. is close to becoming a totalitarian society and that the Bush administration is using fear to try to ensure that this happens.

General Tommy Franks stated that if another terrorist attack occurs in the United States "the Constitution will likely be discarded in favor of a military form of government".

Current U.S. Congressman Ron Paul stated, the government "is determined to have martial law", and that the government is hoping to get the people "fearful enough that they will accept the man on the white horse"

And Daniel Ellsberg, the famous Pentagon Papers whistleblower, said "if there is another terror attack, "I believe the president will get what he wants", which will include a dictatorship.

Terror on U.S. Citizens by American Government?

But would the government actually kills its own people to instill sufficient fear so that it can get what it wants? Read what the following very smart people are saying, and then judge for yourself:

A retired 27-year CIA analyst who prepared and presented Presidential Daily Briefs and served as a high-level analyst for several presidents, stated that if there was another major attack in the U.S., it would lead to martial law. He went on to say:

"We have to be careful, if somebody does this kind of provocation, big violent explosions of some kind, we have to not take the word of the masters there in Washington that this was some terrorist event because it could well be a provocation allowing them, or seemingly to allow them to get what they want."

The former CIA analyst would not put it past the government to "play fast and loose" with terror alerts and warnings and even events themselves in order to rally people behind the flag


The former assistant secretary of treasury in the Reagan administration, called the "Father of Reaganomics", who is a former editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and Scripps Howard News Service, and, said:

"Ask yourself: Would a government that has lied us into two wars and is working to lie us into an attack on Iran shrink from staging "terrorist" attacks in order to remove opposition to its agenda?" He goes on to say:

If the Bush administration wants to continue its wars in the Middle East and to entrench the "unitary executive" at home, it will have to conduct some false flag operations that will both frighten and anger the American people and make them accept Bush's declaration of "national emergency" and the return of the draft. Alternatively, the administration could simply allow any real terrorist plot to proceed without hindrance.

A series of staged or permitted attacks would be spun by the captive media as a vindication of the neoconsevatives' Islamophobic policy, the intention of which is to destroy all Middle Eastern governments that are not American puppet states. Success would give the US control over oil, but the main purpose is to eliminate any resistance to Israel's complete absorption of Palestine into Greater Israel.

Think about it. If another 9/11-type "security failure" were not in the works, why would Homeland Security czar Chertoff go to the trouble of convincing the Chicago Tribune that Americans have become complacent about terrorist threats and that he has "a gut feeling" that America will soon be hit hard?

A member of the British Parliament stated that "there is a very real danger" that the American government will stage a false flag terror attack in order to justify war against Iran and to gain complete control domestically

A former National Security Adviser told the Senate that a terrorist act might be carried out in the U.S. and falsely blamed on Iran to justify war against that nation.

President Carter recently impliedly acknowledged the risk of staged provocation in order to start a war against Iran.

Former Senator Gary Hart warned Americans that the White House might create a "Gulf of Tonkin" or "remember the Maine" type incident to justify war against Iran (starting at 7:15 minutes)

The former UN Weapons Inspector, an American, who stated before the Iraq war started that there were no weapons of mass destruction is now saying that he would not rule out staged government terror by the U.S. government.

And an allegedly-leaked GOP memo touts a new terror attack as a way to reverse the party's decline.

No way, That's Nuts

Sounds nuts, right?

Sorry to have to tell you, but "false flag terror" -- that is, state-sponsored terrorism, blamed on the "bad guys" of choice -- is an age-old trick which has been used by governments around the world for thousands of years to consolidate power and create support from their people. See this article on the Reichstag fire, and this article on the perennial ploy of those grabbing power.

But even recent events provide a glimpse into the world of false flag terror:

The well-respected former Indonesian president believes that the government may have had a role in the Bali bombings (see also this video).

And Americans dressed as Arabs have apparently been setting off car bombs in Iraq (apparently, when it was discovered that some of the cars used in Iraqi bombings recently came from the U.S., the cover story became American cars were involved in car bombings only because they had recently been stolen from the U.S. and then shipped to Iraq -- but does it make sense that Iraqi insurgents would steal cars in the U.S. and ship them all the way to Iraq?)

Similarly, Britain's false flag attacks in Iraq made the news. And the press has acknowledged that the death of the lead investigator into the Basra incident was mysterious.

And the former director of the National Security Agency said "By any measure the US has long used terrorism. In ‘78-79 the Senate was trying to pass a law against international terrorism - in every version they produced, the lawyers said the US would be in violation"(the audio is here)

History proves that the officials' warnings of a terror attack by our own government are well-founded.

Scalia Tries to Apologize for Torture . . . Fails, Violating the War Crimes Act of 1996 in the Process

Supreme Court Justice Scalia says that torture doesn't constitute “cruel and unusual punishment”, because torture is not meant to punish, but only to get information.

Mr. Scalia's argument fails for several reasons.

Torture Does not Generate Useful Information

Initially, torture is a notoriously inaccurate way to obtain information. Indeed, it is well-known by professional interrogators that torture doesn't work. Experts on interrogation say that torture actually interferes with the ability to gather useful information.

So if torture is not an information-gathering technique, its only purpose must be punishment and/or intimidation.

Torturing People Who Can't Give Useful Information is Cruel and Unusual Punishment

Moreover, most of the people tortured in the "war on terror" were innocent farmers, villagers, who those against whom the neighbors who turned them in for a cash reward had a grudge against. And children were tortured.

Many of these people did not have any useful information. And since the U.S. military stressed quantity over quality (not actually demanding hard intelligence or probable cause to suspect that someone was a bad guy), this did not constitute a useful intelligence-gathering exercise, but simply horrific punishment.

Indeed, some of the people tortured as part of the "war on terror" were literally crazy, and no amount of interrogation or torture would generate any useful intelligence.

This was illustrated by an article in the Washington Post:

Retired FBI agent Daniel Coleman, who led an examination of documents after Abu Zubaida's capture in early 2002 and worked on the case, said the CIA's harsh tactics cast doubt on the credibility of Abu Zubaida's information.

"I don't have confidence in anything he says, because once you go down that road, everything you say is tainted," Coleman said, referring to the harsh measures. "He was talking before they did that to him, but they didn't believe him. The problem is they didn't realize he didn't know all that much."

***

"They said, 'You've got to be kidding me,' " said Coleman, recalling accounts from FBI employees who were there. " 'This guy's a Muslim. That's not going to win his confidence. Are you trying to get information out of him or just belittle him?'" Coleman helped lead the bureau's efforts against Osama bin Laden for a decade, ending in 2004.

Coleman goes on to say:
Abu Zubaida ... was a "safehouse keeper" with mental problems who claimed to know more about al-Qaeda and its inner workings than he really did.

***
Looking at other evidence, including a serious head injury that Abu Zubaida had suffered years earlier, Coleman and others at the FBI believed that he had severe mental problems that called his credibility into question. "They all knew he was crazy, and they knew he was always on the damn phone," Coleman said, referring to al-Qaeda operatives. "You think they're going to tell him anything?"
The article also says that Abu Zubaida might have been tortured for months.

(Indeed, even prisoners who were not previously crazy ended up that way after being severely tortured.)

Sorry, Mr. Scalia. Torture is not a valid information-gathering technique. It is, in fact, the cruelest and most unusual punishment there is.

By the way, anyone, no matter how high and mighty, who helps create, promote, or justify policies that violate the Geneva Convention is guilty of violating the War Crimes Act of 1996. See this, this, this, this, and this.

So you have not only failed to justify torture, sir, you have also opened yourself up to very serious charges. And see this.

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

This Week in 9/11 Truth

This has been a fast-pace week. For those of who you have been busy to keep up, let me summarize:
Indeed, the truth is coming out so quickly that the neocons are starting to panic. For example, the disinfo boys trotted out a ridiculous psyops wherein Al-Qaida's No. 2 supposedly says that theories questioning the official version of 9/11 are propagated by Iran.

And White House speech writer and arch neocon David Frum violently assaulted a 9/11 truth activist for simply asking him some questions.

Is the tide starting to turn?

Monday, April 28, 2008

Why The U.S. Economy Is Tanking

Okay, let me see if I've got this straight:
  • In order to avoid real protest against an unnecessary war, the Neocons decided that they had to avoid a draft at all costs, because a draft would cause Americans to actually pay attention to what is going on. In other words, the Neocons couldn't have gotten away with such a crazy war if Americans were getting drafted (they learned that lesson from the Vietnam war)
  • So the government has instead had to pay tremendous sums to mercenaries from Blackwater and elsewhere
Did I miss anything?

Molten STEEL Flowed Under Ground Zero for Months After 9/11

In response to the numerous reports of molten metal under ground zero, defenders of the official version of 9/11 have tried to argue that it was not steel, but some other kind of metal with a lower melting point.

Well, here are what top experts who eyewitnessed the molten metal say:

  • According to reporter Christopher Bollyn, Mark Loizeaux, president the world's top demolition company, and Peter Tully, head of a large construction firm, said the following:
Tully told AFP that he had seen pools of “literally molten steel” in the rubble.

Loizeaux confirmed this: “Yes, hot spots of molten steel in the basements,” he said, “at the bottom of the elevator shafts of the main towers, down seven levels.”

The molten steel was found “three, four, and five weeks later, when the rubble was being removed,” he said. He confirmed that molten steel was also found at WTC 7, which mysteriously collapsed in the late afternoon.
Here's what eyewitness firefighters say:
Here's what other eyewitnesses say:
The fact that there was molten steel under ground zero for months after 9/11 is very odd, especially since firefighters sprayed millions of gallons of water on the fires and applied high-tech fire retardants.

See also this.

Saturday, April 26, 2008

9/11 Was Foreseeable


The administration claims that terrorists crashing planes into buildings was not foreseeable. Is that accurate?

How foreseeable was 9/11?

According to MSNBC, "There have been a slew of reports over the past decade of plots to use planes to strike American targets".

In 1994, the government received information that international terrorists "had seriously considered the use of airplanes as a means of carrying out terrorist attacks" (see also this article).

According to the New York Times, "The F.B.I. had been aware for several years that Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network were training pilots in the United States ...."

In 1998, U.S. officials received reports concerning a "Bin Laden plot involving aircraft in the New York and Washington, areas." Officials received reports that al Qaeda was trying to establish an operative cell in the United States and that bin Laden was attempting to recruit a group of five to seven young men from the United States to travel to the Middle East for training in conjunction with his plans to strike U.S. domestic targets.

Indeed, the report concluded that "a group of unidentified Arabs planned to fly an explosive-laden plane . . . into the World Trade Center".

A 1999 report for the National Intelligence Council warned that fanatics loyal to bin Laden might try to hijack a jetliner and fly it into the Pentagon.

There were extraordinarily high terrorist attack threat levels in the summer of 2001, involving threats of attack within the U.S., and the U.S. government knew there were Al-Qaeda cells within the U.S. (or watch the video here).

In July 2001, a briefing prepared for senior government officials warned of "a significant terrorist attack against U.S. and/or Israeli interests in the coming weeks. The attack will be spectacular and designed to inflict mass casualties ... (it) will occur with little or no warning.".

Shortly afterwards, the Attorney General stopped flying commercial aircraft within the United States based on a threat assessment by the FBI.

FBI agents recommended to FBI headquarters, in July 2001, an urgent nationwide review of flight schools regarding terrorism, and mentioned Bin Laden by name.

2 months before 9/11, intelligence services believed that Bin Laden intended to crash airplanes into the G8 Summit in order to kill President Bush and other world leaders. Condoleezza Rice was very focused on this threat to President Bush.

A pre-9/11 National Intelligence Estimate was entitled "Islamic Extremists Learn to Fly", and was apparently about Islamic people taking classes at U.S. flight schools.

The Federal Aviation Administration “had indeed considered the possibility that terrorists would hijack a plane and use it as a weapon,” and in 2001 it distributed a CD-ROM presentation to airlines and airports that cited the possibility of a suicide hijacking.

President Bush was told in August 2001 that supporters of Bin Laden planned an attack within the U.S. with explosives and that they wanted to hijack airplanes.

A month before 9/11, the CIA sent a message to the Federal Aviation Administration warning of a possible hijacking "or an act of sabotage against a commercial airliner".

"Israeli intelligence officials say that they warned their counterparts in the United States [in August 2001] that large-scale terrorist attacks on highly visible targets on the American mainland were imminent."

The August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Brief was entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US".

According to National Public Radio, the former CIA Director had warned congress shortly before 9/11 "that there could be an attack, an imminent attack, on the United States of this nature. So this is not entirely unexpected".

U.S. intelligence officials informed President Bush weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks that Bin Laden's terrorist network might try to hijack American planes, and that information prompted administration officials to issue a private warning to transportation officials and national security agencies.

It was widely known within the FBI shortly before 9/11 that an imminent attack was planned on lower Manhattan.

An employee who worked in the Twin Towers stated "How could they let this happen? They knew this building was a target. Over the past few weeks we'd been evacuated a number of times, which is unusual. I think they had an inkling something was going on"

And a guard who worked in the world trade center stated that "officials had recently taken steps to secure the towers against aerial attacks"

On September 6, 2001, Condoleezza Rice was warned that a terrorist attack inside the United States was imminent

Also on September 6th, author Salman Rushdie was banned by US authorities from taking internal US flights; the FAA told his publisher the reason was that it had “intelligence of something about to happen”

A former FBI translator - who the Department of Justice's Inspector General, several senators (free subscription required), and a coalition of prominent conservative and liberal groups have claimed is credible - says that the government was provided with information about the planned attacks, including the fact that the attacks would be carried out using airplanes ("I saw papers that show US knew al-Qaeda would attack cities with airplanes"), and some information about date ranges and targets.

The National Security Agency and the FBI were both independently listening in on the phone calls between the supposed mastermind of the attacks and the lead hijacker. Indeed, the FBI built its own antenna in Madagascar specifically to listen in on the mastermind's phone calls. The day before 9/11, the mastermind told the lead hijacker "tomorrow is zero hour" and gave final approval for the attacks. The NSA intercepted the message that day and the FBI was likely also monitoring the mastermind's phone calls. (The NSA claims that it did not translate the intercept until September 12th; however, the above-mentioned FBI translator said that she was frequently ordered to falsify dates of translations regarding 9/11).

Members of the U.S. Special Operations Command and the Defense Intelligence Agency claim that they identified Mohammed Atta and most of the other hijackers as being connected with Al Qaeda a year before 9/11.

Newsweek stated "On Sept. 10, NEWSWEEK has learned, a group of top Pentagon officials suddenly canceled travel plans for the next morning, apparently because of security concerns" (pay-per-view; cached version of article here)

9/11 family member and "Jersey Girl" Patty Casazza was told by whistleblowers that -- before 9/11 -- the government knew the exact day, the type of attack, and the targets.

The Military Had Drilled for Attacks Such as 9/11

Indeed, the military had actually drilled for aerial attacks with planes.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), the military air defense agency responsible for protecting the U.S. mainland, had run drills for several years of planes being used as weapons against the World Trade Center and other U.S. high-profile buildings, and "numerous types of civilian and military aircraft were used as mock hijacked aircraft". In other words, drills using REAL AIRCRAFT simulating terrorist attacks crashing jets into buildings, including the twin towers, were run.

And the military had conducted numerous drills of planes crashing into the Pentagon. For example, see this official military website showing a military drill conducted in 2000 using miniatures; this article concerning a May 2001 exercise of a plane crashing into the Pentagon (see also this article and this one); and this article about yet another drill of a plane hitting the Pentagon from August 2001.

The military had also run war games involving multiple, simultaneous hijackings (first paragraph), so this aspect of 9/11 was not as overwhelming as we have been led to believe.

See this short excerpt of a Peter Jennings newscast on 9/11 (excuse the music and subtitles).

There are literally hundreds of further examples of facts which tend to show that 9/11 was foreseeable (see this timeline for additional information).

But What Do High-Level Officials Say?

In addition to the former CIA director and other credible witnesses discussed above, many high-level officials have gone on record raising questions concerning the foreseeability of the attacks:

Former 9/11 Commissioner Max Cleland said "As each day goes by, we learn that this government knew a whole lot more about these terrorists before Sept. 11 than it has ever admitted" (he also said, when he resigned from the 9/11 Commission: "It is a national scandal"; "This investigation is now compromised"; and "One of these days we will have to get the full story because the 9-11 issue is so important to America. But this White House wants to cover it up".)

The head of the Department of Homeland Security (then a top justice department terrorism prosecutor) said "As of Sept. 10th, each of us knew everything we needed to know to tell us there was a possibility of what happened on Sept. 11th . . . We knew the World Trade Center was a target . . . We knew an airplane could be used as a weapon."

A current U.S. Senator said "The two questions that the congress will not ask . . . is why did 9/11 happen on George Bush's watch when he had clear warnings that it was going to happen? Why did they allow it to happen?"

Then-ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee and a member of the joint intelligence committee that investigated 9/11 stated "They don't have any excuse because the information was in their lap, and they didn't do anything to prevent it"

Then-current chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee was "not surprised there was an attack ...."

Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg said "very serious questions have been raised about what they [U.S. government officials] knew beforehand." See this, this and this.

Former White House counsel John Dean stated "It seems very probable that those in the White House knew much more than they have admitted . . . After pulling together the information in the 9/11 Report, it is understandable why Bush is stonewalling. It is not very difficult to deduce what the president knew, and when he knew it [Dean is echoing the questions asked by Watergate prosecutors]. And the portrait that results is devastating."

A British member of Parliament said "It is known that at least 11 countries provided advance warning to the US of the 9/11 attacks . . . . It had been known as early as 1996 that there were plans to hit Washington targets with airplanes. Then in 1999 a US national intelligence council report noted that "al-Qaida suicide bombers could crash-land an aircraft packed with high explosives into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the CIA, or the White House.'"

A 24-year Air Force veteran and former Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs at the Defense Language Institute said "Of course Bush knew about the impending attacks on America. He did nothing to warn the American people because he needed this war on terrorism".

U.S. General, Commanding General of U.S. European Command and Supreme Allied Commander Europe, decorated with the Bronze Star, Silver Star, and Purple Heart (General Wesley Clark) said "We've never finished the investigation of 9/11 and whether the administration actually misused the intelligence information it had. The evidence seems pretty clear to me. I've seen that for a long time".

Former Federal Prosecutor, Office of Special Investigations, U.S. Department of Justice under Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan; former U.S. Army Intelligence officer, and currently a widely-sought media commentator on terrorism and intelligence services (John Loftus) says "The information provided by European intelligence services prior to 9/11 was so extensive that it is no longer possible for either the CIA or FBI to assert a defense of incompetence".

The Group Director on matters of national security in the U.S. Government Accountability Office said that President Bush did not respond to unprecedented warnings of the 9/11 disaster and conducted a massive cover-up instead of accepting responsibility.

Bush, Cheney, Ashcroft, Powell, Tenet, Rice, and Yoo Have All Committed War Crimes Punishable by Life in Prison, Death Or Impeachment

Anyone who violates the Geneva Convention by engaging in murder, torture, or inhuman treatment is guilty of a crime under U.S. law.

Specifically, the War Crimes Act of 1996, a federal statute set forth at 18 U.S.C. § 2441, makes it a federal crime for any U.S. national, whether military or civilian, to violate the Geneva Convention

The statute applies not only to those who carry out the acts, but also to those who ORDER IT, know about it, or fail to take steps to stop it. The statute applies to everyone, no matter how high and mighty.

Indeed, anyone who is a policy-maker who helps create, promote, or justify policies that violate the Geneva Convention is guilty under 18 U.S.C. § 2441. See this, this, this, and this.

What Does This Mean?

Well, according to the Associated Press, Cheney, Ashcroft, Powell, Tenet, and Rice all approved torture, and Bush knew about and approved what they were doing (see also this).

In addition, in addition to Ashcroft, other high-level Justice Department officials such as John Yoo approved of and justified torture.

All of these people are guilty of war crimes under 18 U.S.C. § 2441.

18 U.S.C. § 2441 has no statute of limitations, which means that a war crimes complaint can be filed at any time. The penalty may be life imprisonment or -- if a single prisoner dies due to torture -- death. Since the U.S. military has admitted that they have tortured some prisoners to death, that means that Bush, Cheney, Ashcroft, Powell, Tenet, Rice, and Yoo could all be sentenced to life in prison, or even death.

Additionally, violation of the war crimes act almost certainly constitutes a "high crime or misdemeanor" which would allow impeachment of such officials.

Indeed, many high-level officials in the U.S. and abroad have stated that those who crafted the torture policies are guilty of war crimes. For example, Colin Powell's former chief of staff stated that Dick Cheney might be guilty of war crimes. And Former Malaysian premier Mahathir Mohammad is calling for an international tribunal to try western leaders for war crimes over the Iraq war.

And for those who question whether waterboarding is torture, see this, this, this, and this.

Indeed, waterboarding is not the only form of tortures which has been used by the U.S. recently.

Finally, Donald Rumsfeld appears to have also committed war crimes. For example, t
he general in charge of the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq stated this week that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and other top administration officials ORDERED that inhuman treatment and torture be conducted as part of a deliberate strategy. This confirms what the Pullitzer prize-winning reporter who uncovered the Iraq prison torture scandal and the Mai Lai massacre in Vietnam previously wrote.

Alberto Gonzales probably also committed war crimes by promoting and covering up torture.