War

Bombshell: Senator Suggested False Flag Attack To Kennedy 2 Years Prior To Operation Northwoods Proposal

August 31, 2012 by Ian Crossland 1 Comment

Originally posted by Mr.H on share.banoosh.com

According to newly released documents by the John F. Kennedy Memorial Library, former Californian democratic senator George Smathers proposed an Operation Northwoods style false flag attack on Gitmo to then Massachusetts senator Kennedy. The Guardian reports Kennedy and Smathers were seriously entertaining the possibility of assassinating Fidel Castro. Kennedy was obviously against the entire idea. Smathers went on to propose the option of bombing American troops to provide an excuse for military intervention in Cuba. Significant about Smather’s confessions is the now apparent fact that the idea of bombing the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay was obviously floating in political circles as well as military ones some time before the actual formalization of the false flag proposals in the Operation Northwoods documents, ultimately rejected by President Kennedy in 1962. The other significant aspect of the confession by Smathers is that the proposals described within Northwoods in March of 1962 literally reflect the false flag proposal submitted to Kennedy in 1960 by senator Smathers.

In the freshly released documents by the JFK Memorial Library, Smathers- who frequently joined John F. Kennedy on trips to the south- admits that he proposed the idea of a false flag attack on Gitmo during a conversation with the President-to-be. After the “killing Castro” propiosal was discarded by Kennedy, Smathers suggested provoking an incident at the US Naval base at Guantanamo Bay on the eastern tip of Cuba as a pretext for a US invasion. Smathers:

“I did talk to him about a plan of having a false attack made on Guantanamo Bay which would give us the excuse of actually fomenting a fight which would then give us the excuse to go in and do the job. He asked me to write him something about it. And I think I did.”

As noted this very proposal by Smathers in 1960 is stunningly similar to the infamous Northwoods document, signed by chairman Lyman Lemnitzer, in which the Joint Chiefs of Staff propose some pretty criminal things, among which the one proposed by Smathers to Kennedy in 1960. Under “Incidents to establish a credible attack” the Joint Chiefs came up with the following proposals in regards to the US naval base at Gitmo:

1- Start rumors (many). Use clandestine radio.
2- Land friendly Cubans in uniform “over-the-fence” to stage attack on base.
3- Capture Cuban (friendly) saboteurs inside the base.
4- Start riots near the base main gate (friendly Cubans).
5- Blow up ammunition inside the base; start fires.
6- Burn aircraft on air base (sabotage).
7- Lob mortar shells from outside of base into base. Some damage to installations.
8- Capture assault teams approaching from the sea or vicinity of Guantanamo City.
9- Capture militia group which storms the base.
10- Sabotage ship in harbor; large fires.
11- Sink ship near harbor entrance. Conduct funerals for mock-victims.

In a February 2 1962 memorandum titled “Possible Actions to Provoke, Harass or Disrupt Cuba,” written by Gen. William H. Craig and submitted to Brig. Gen. Edward Lansdale, the commander of the Operation Mongoose project outlines Operation Bingo- a plan to “create an incident which has the appearance of an attack on U.S. facilities (GMO) in Cuba, thus providing an excuse for use of U.S. military might to overthrow the current government of Cuba.”

In the context of Operation Mongoose, a highly classified US military operation, the refusal of Kennedy to put his signature under the before mentioned proposals is especially significant. According to countless sources from inside and outside the American intelligence communities, Mongoose was the infrastructure under which the assassination of Kennedy in ’63 has been carried out. Mongoose was in fact one of the largest covert operations ever conducted in the United States. It involved universities, military bases, individuals, businesses and government agencies- all neatly compartmentalized, of course.

Later, just about the time the Joint Chiefs of Staff submitted their operation Northwoods document to the President, Smathers recalled Kennedy telling him:

“George, I’d love to have you over … but I want you to do me a favour. I’d like to visit with you, I want to discuss things with you but I don’t want you to talk to me anymore about Cuba.”

Smathers said he didn’t bring it up again until the President invited him to an informal dinner some time after:

“I remember the President was actually fixing our own dinner and I raised the question of Cuba and what could be done and so on,” he related. “And I remember that he took his fork and just hit his plate and it cracked and he said, ‘Now, dammit, I wish you wouldn’t do that. Let’s quit talking about this subject.”

The revealing aspects of the Smathers confessions released by the JFK Memorial Library can hardly be overestimated. By the time Kennedy was presented with Operation Northwoods, he must have recognized the striking similarities to the Gitmo false flag proposal by Smathers. And just like in 1960, he firmly rejected the plans.

Source: http://share.banoosh.com/2012/08/21/bombshell-senator-suggested-false-flag-attack-to-kennedy-2-years-prior-to-operation-northwoods-proposal/

Filed Under: Corruption, Crime, Cuba, False Flag Attacks, Law, Media, Military, Murder, Politics, Tyranny, USA, War

Apple Rejects App That Tracks U.S. Drone Strikes

August 30, 2012 by Ian Crossland 4 Comments

Originally posted by Christina Bonnington and Spencer Ackerman on Wired.com, August 30, 2012

It seemed like a simple enough idea for an iPhone app: Send users a pop-up notice whenever a flying robots kills someone in one of America’s many undeclared wars. But Apple keeps blocking the Drones+ program from its App Store — and therefore, from iPhones everywhere. The Cupertino company says the content is “objectionable and crude,” according to Apple’s latest rejection letter.

A mockup of developer Josh Begley’s drone-strike app for iOS. Wired.com

It’s the third time in a month that Apple has turned Drones+ away, says Josh Begley, the program’s New York-based developer. The company’s reasons for keeping the program out of the App Store keep shifting. First, Apple called the bare-bones application that aggregates news of U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia “not useful.” Then there was an issue with hiding a corporate logo. And now, there’s this crude content problem.

Begley is confused. Drones+ doesn’t present grisly images of corpses left in the aftermath of the strikes. It just tells users when a strike has occurred, going off a publicly available database of strikes compiled by the U.K.’s Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which compiles media accounts of the strikes.

iOS developers have a strict set of guidelines that must be adhered to in order to gain acceptance into the App Store. Apps are judged on technical, content and design criteria. As Apple does not comment on the app reviews process, it can be difficult to ascertain exactly why an app got rejected. But Apple’s team of reviewers is small, sifts through up to 10,000 apps a week, and necessarily errs on the side of caution when it comes to potentially questionable apps.

Apple’s original objections to Drones+ regarded the functionality in Begley’s app, not its content. Now he’s wondering if it’s worth redesigning and submitting it a fourth time.

“If the content is found to be objectionable, and it’s literally just an aggregation of news, I don’t know how to change that,” Begley says.

Begley’s app is unlikely to be the next Angry Birds or Draw Something. It’s deliberately threadbare. When a drone strike occurs, Drones+ catalogs it, and presents a map of the area where the strike took place, marked by a pushpin. You can click through to media reports of a given strike that the Bureau of Investigative Reporting compiles, as well as some basic facts about whom the media thinks the strike targeted. As the demo video above shows, that’s about it.

It works best, Begley thinks, when users enable push notifications for Drones+. “I wanted to play with this idea of push notifications and push button technology — essentially asking a question about what we choose to get notified about in real time,” he says. “I thought reaching into the pockets of U.S. smartphone users and annoying them into drone-consciousness could be an interesting way to surface the conversation a bit more.”

But that conversation may not end up occurring. Begley, a student at Clay Shirky’s lab at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, submitted a threadbare version of Drones+ to Apple in July. About two weeks later, on July 23, Apple told him was just too blah. “The features and/or content of your app were not useful or entertaining enough,” read an e-mail from Apple Begley shared with Wired, “or your app did not appeal to a broad enough audience.”

Finally, on Aug. 27, Apple gave him yet another thumbs down. But this time the company’s reasons were different from the fairly clear-cut functionality concerns it previously cited. “We found that your app contains content that many audiences would find objectionable, which is not in compliance with the App Store Review Guidelines,” the company e-mailed him.

It was the first time the App Store told him that his content was the real problem, even though the content hadn’t changed much from Begley’s initial July submission. It’s a curious choice: The App Store carries remote-control apps for a drone quadricopter, although not one actually being used in a war zone. And of course, the App Store houses innumerable applications for news publications and aggregators that deliver much of the same content provided by Begley’s app.

Wired reached out to Apple on the perplexing rejection of the app, but Apple was unable to comment.

Begley is about at his wits end over the iOS version of Drones+. “I’m kind of back at the drawing board about what exactly I’m supposed to do,” Begley said. The basic idea was to see if he could get App Store denizens a bit more interested in the U.S.’ secretive, robotic wars, with information on those wars popping up on their phones the same way an Instagram comment or retweet might. Instead, Begley’s thinking about whether he’d have a better shot making the same point in the Android Market.

Drones+ iPhone App from Josh Begley on Vimeo.

Source: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/08/drone-app/

Filed Under: Censorship, Genocide, Internet, Media, Military, Murder, Pakistan, Technology, Terrorism, USA, War, Weapons

Ancient Builders Created Monumental Structures that Altered Sound and Mind, Say Researchers

August 23, 2012 by Ian Crossland 6 Comments

Originally posted by Popular-Archeology.com on March 5, 2012

The results of recent research suggests that ancient, or prehistoric, builders of the monumental structures found in such diverse places as Ireland, Malta, southern Turkey and Peru all have a peculiarly common characteristic — they may have been specially designed to conduct and manipulate sound to produce certain sensory effects.

Hal Saflieni Hypogeum on the island of Malta

Beginning in 2008, a recent and ongoing study of the massive 6,000-year-old stone structure complex known as the Hal Saflieni Hypogeum on the island of Malta, for example, is producing some revelatory results. Like its related prehistoric temple structures on Malta, this structure features central corridors and curved chambers. But this structure is unique in that it is subterranean, created through the removal of an estimated 2,000 tons of stone carved out with stone hammers and antler picks. Low voices within its walls create eerie, reverberating echoes, and a sound made or words spoken in certain places can be clearly heard throughout all of its three levels. Now, scientists are suggesting that certain sound vibration frequencies created when sound is emitted within its walls are actually altering human brain functions of those within earshot.

“Regional brain activity in a number of healthy volunteers was monitored by EEG through exposure to different sound vibration frequencies,” reports Malta temple expert Linda Eneix of the Old Temples Study Foundation, “The findings indicated that at 110 Hz the patterns of activity over the prefrontal cortex abruptly shifted, resulting in a relative deactivation of the language center and a temporary shifting from left to right-sided dominance related to emotional processing and creativity. This shifting did not occur at 90 Hz or 130 Hz……In addition to stimulating their more creative sides, it appears that an atmosphere of resonant sound in the frequency of 110 or 111 Hz would have been “switching on” an area of the brain that bio-behavioral scientists believe relates to mood, empathy and social behavior. Deliberately or not, the people who spent time in such an environment under conditions that may have included a low male voice — in ritual chanting or even simple communication — were exposing themselves to vibrations that may have actually impacted their thinking.” [1]

Researchers at the University of Malta are confirming the findings in an ongoing study.

Inside Malta’s Hal-Saflieni Hypogeum. Courtesy Old Temples Study Foundation

But the Hypogeum is not alone in its peculiar sound effects. A study conducted in 1994 by a consortium from Princeton University found that acoustic behavior in ancient chambers at megalithic sites such as Newgrange in Ireland and Wayland’s Smithy in England was characterized by a strong sustained resonance, or “standing wave” in a frequency range between 90 Hz and 120 Hz. ”When this happens,” says Eneix, “what we hear becomes distorted, eerie. The exact pitch for this behavior varies with the dimensions of the room and the quality of the stone.” Going further back in time, she points to the ancient 10,000 B.C. site of Göbekli Tepe in southern Turkey. Built by hunter-gatherers, the site is thought by many scientists to be located in the area transitional to the first development of agriculture and domesticated livestock. Located on a hilltop, it consists of 20 round stone-built structures which had been buried. Those structures that have been excavated feature massive, T-shaped, standing limestone pillars. “In the center of a circular shrine,” she says, “a limestone pillar “sings” when smacked with the flat of the hand. Obviously made to represent a human with a decorated belt and hands carved in relief at its waist, it bears unexplained symbols in the area of the throat.” [1]

The site of Göbekli Tepe. Courtesy Old Temples Study Foundation

And now, new findings of a recent archaeoacoustic study suggests that the ancients of the 3,000-year-old Andean ceremonial center at Chavín de Huántar, in the central highlands of Peru, practiced a fine art and science of manipulating sound with architecture to produce desired sensory effects. With the assistance of architectural form and placement, and sounds emitted from conch-shell trumpets, the “oracle” of Chavín de Huántar ”spoke” to the ancient center’s listeners.

Says Miriam Kolar, Stanford Interdisciplinary Graduate Fellow, PhD Candidate  at Stanford University and leader of the study:   ”At Chavín, we have discovered acoustic evidence for selective sound transmission between the site’s Lanzon monolith and the Circular Plaza: an architectural acoustic filter system that favors sound frequencies of the Chavín pututus [conch-shell trumpets] and human voice.” [2]

The Lanzon is a sacred statue or stela depicting the central deity of the ancient Chavín culture. Thought to be Chavin’s central “oracle” for its inhabitants, it is housed in a chamber, part of a series of underground passages within the Old Temple of the ceremonial and religious center of Chavín de Huántar. A central duct was built to connect the area of the Lanzon monolith with that of the Circular Plaza, an open-air place of ceremonial activity and significance. The duct was specifically designed to filter and magnify or conduct to a certain sound range — namely, the special range emitted by the Chavín pututu instrument. The specific reasons for this acoustical configuration are not entirely understood, but studies involving human participants within the ancient architectural and artifact context of the site are indicating that the resultant sound effects may have been related to intentional auditory perceptual effects of sound and space on humans.

So what does all of this mean? What explains these similar, yet geographically and culturally disparate finds?

“How curious that such varied ancient structures, separated by so much time and distance, should have common features which imply sophisticated knowledge”, observes Eneix. “Did the architects of the day each make and develop their own discoveries or did they inherit a concept from some older school of learning? Adding the time element to other fields of comparison suggests human trail-blazing of monumental proportion.” [1]

A detailed article about the acoustical qualities of prehistoric ancient architecture is published in the March 2012 issue of Popular Archaeology Magazine, and a live illustrated presentation on the implications of acoustics in the creation of megalithic structures is in production. More information about the lecture, “Sound and the Onset of Building Monumentally” is available from The OTS Foundation.

More information about the temples of Malta and Gozo can be obtained by going to: www.otsf.org and www.ancientmed.org

Article Sources

http://wakeup-world.com/2012/08/24/ancient-builders-created-monumental-structures-that-altered-sound-and-mind-say-researchers/

[1] Linda Eneix, The Ancient Architects of Sound, Popular Archaeology Magazine, Vol. 6, March 2012. http://popular-archaeology.com

[2] Magic Sounds of Peru’s Ancient Chavín de Huántar, Popular Archaeology Magazine, Vol. 5, December 2011. http://popular-archaeology.com

Filed Under: Archaeology, Ireland, Malta, Music, Peru, Science, Turkey

Darpa Looks to Make Cyberwar Routine With Secret ‘Plan X’

August 22, 2012 by Ian Crossland Leave a Comment

Col. Todd Wood (right), commander of 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, briefs National Security Agency director Gen. Keith Alexander at Forward Operating Base Masum Ghar in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan. Photo: Sgt. Michael Blalack/U.S. Army

Originally posted by Noah Shachtman on wired.com on August 21, 2012

The Pentagon’s top research arm is unveiling a new, classified cyberwarfare project. But it’s not about building the next Stuxnet, Darpa swears. Instead, the just-introduced “Plan X” is designed to make online strikes a more routine part of U.S. military operations. That will make the son of Stuxnet easier to pull off — to, as Darpa puts it, “dominate the cyber battlespace.”

Darpa spent years backing research that could shore up the nation’s cyberdefenses. “Plan X” is part of a growing and fairly recent push into offensive online operations by the Pentagon agency largely responsible for the internet’s creation. In recent months, everyone from the director of Darpa on down has pushed the need to improve — and normalize — America’s ability to unleash cyberattacks against its foes.

That means building tools to help warplanners assemble and launch online strikes in a hurry. It means, under Plan X, figuring out ways to assess the damage caused by a new piece of friendly military malware before it’s unleashed. And it means putting together a sort of digital battlefield map that allows the generals to watch the fighting unfold, as former Darpa acting director Ken Gabriel told the Washington Post: “a rapid, high-order look of what the Internet looks like — of what the cyberspace looks like at any one point in time.”

It’s not quite the same as building the weapons themselves, as Darpa notes in its introduction to the five-year, $100 million effort, issued on Monday: “The Plan X program is explicitly not funding research and development efforts in vulnerability analysis or cyberweapon generation.” (Emphasis in the original.)

But it is certainly a complementary campaign. A classified kick-off meeting for interested researchers in scheduled for Sept. 20.

The American defense and intelligence establishment has been reluctant at times to authorize network attacks, for fear that their effects could spread far beyond the target computers. On the eve of the Iraq invasion of 2003, for instance, the Bush administration made plans for a massive online strike on Baghdad’s financial system before discarding the idea out of collateral damage concerns.

It’s not the only factor holding back such operations. U.S. military chiefs like National Security Agency director Gen. Keith Alexander have publicly expressed concern that America may not be able to properly respond to a national-level attack unless they’re given pre-defined battle plans and “standing rules of engagement” that would allow them to launch a counterstrike “at net speed.” Waiting more than a few moments might hurt the American ability to respond at all, these officers say.

“Plan X” aims to solve both problems simultaneously, by automatically constructing mission plans that are as easy to execute as “the auto-pilot function in modern aircraft,” but contain “formal methods to provably quantify the potential battle damage from each synthesized mission plan.”

Then, once the plan is launched, Darpa would like to have machines running on operating systems that can withstand the rigors of a full-blown online conflict: “hardened ‘battle units’ that can perform cyberwarfare functions such as battle damage monitoring, communication relay, weapon deployment, and adaptive defense.”

The ability to operate in dangerous areas, pull potential missions off-the-shelf, and assess the impact of attacks — these are all commonplace for air, sea, and land forces today. The goal of Plan X is to give network-warfare troops the same tools. “To get it to the point where it’s a part of routine military operations,” explains Jim Lewis, a long-time analyst of online operations at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Of course, many critics of U.S. policy believe the deployment of cyberweapons is already too routine. America’s online espionage campaign against Iran has been deeply controversial, both at home and abroad. The Russian government and its allies believe that cyberweapons ought to be banned by international treaty. Here in the U.S., there’s a fear that, by unleashing Stuxnet and other military-grade malware, the Obama administration legitimized such attacks as a tool of statecraft — and invited other nations to strike our fragile infrastructure.

The Darpa effort is being lead, fittingly, by a former hacker and defense contractor. Daniel Roelker helped start the intrusion detection company Sourcefire and the DC Black Ops unit of Raytheon SI Government Solutions. In a November 2011 presentation (.pdf), Roelker decried the current, “hacker vs. hacker” approach to online combat. It doesn’t scale well — there are only so many technically skilled people — and it’s limited in how fast it can be executed. “We don’t win wars by out-hiring an adversary, we win through technology,” he added.

Instead, Roelker continued, the U.S. needs a suite of tools to analyze the network, automate the execution of cyberattacks, and be sure of the results. At the time, he called these the “Pillars of Foundational Cyberwarfare.” Now, it’s simply known as Plan X.

Source: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/08/plan-x

Filed Under: Cyberwarfare, Internet, Iran, Law, Military, Police, Politics, Privacy, Russia, Science, Surveillance, Technology, USA, War

Israel deploys Iron Dome missile system on Egypt border

August 20, 2012 by Ian Crossland Leave a Comment

Originally posted by breakingnews.sy on August 20, 2012

The Israeli military has stationed an Iron Dome missile-defense battery west of Eilat.

The move came days after two Grad rockets were reportedly fired from the Sinai Peninsula at the Red Sea resort city.

The remains of a Grad rocket were found north of Eilat on Friday evening.

The deployment of the battery was part of a national plan to test the Iron Dome system.

Source: http://breakingnews.sy/en/article/5215.html

Filed Under: Egypt, Israel, Military, Politics, War

Six jet attack missile sites across London during Olympic Games

May 1, 2012 by Aaron Jackson Leave a Comment

By Justin Davenport on April 30, 2012

London will be ringed by six missile sites to guard against a 9/11-style suicide jet attack during the Olympics.

One battery could be positioned near a playground in Waltham Forest with the others providing round-the-clock cover from Blackheath Common, the Lea Valley Reservoir, Oxleas Wood, Barn Hill in Epping Forest and on top of a block of flats in Bow.

David Cameron will have ultimate responsibility for any decision to fire the surface-to-air Starstreak and Rapier missiles.

The weapons travel at three times the speed of sound with a range of 3.4 miles. General Sir Nick Parker, in charge of Olympic operations, said: “We are practising for the worst-case scenario, not the most likely scenario but we believe that it is prudent to be prepared. It is sensible to prepare for the worst.”

Starstreaks can be fired from the shoulder or armoured vehicles while Rapiers are mounted on trailers. They will be aimed at defending the Olympic Park.

He said people were being consulted over the sites. General Parker said Typhoon fighter jets patrolling the skies would be the first line of defence followed by snipers in helicopters whose role would be to shoot the pilots of planes which failed to turn back from the stadium.

The surface-to-air missiles are being deployed as the third tier of defence aimed at slower or smaller aircraft. The Rapiers will be sited farther out and Starstreak High Velocity Missiles will be deployed in Bow and Waltham Forest just a few miles from the stadium.

The general said dummy missiles would be used during a major army and police security exercise which starts on Wednesday. The eight-day exercise codenamed Olympic Guardian will see the Navy’s largest ship HMS Ocean moored at Greenwich and Typhoon jets conducting low flying runs across London.

He revealed that Typhoon jets had been operating on exercise in London airspace as recently as last Friday. Of the missile sites, he added: “I understand that this is unusual and people may be concerned but I believe that for the greater good it is prudent to us to provide this sort of air security.”

The sites were chosen out of 100 possibilities as the best locations for anti-aircraft systems. The missiles are part of a major military involvement in the Olympics but the general said the role of the armed forces would remain in the background.

A total of 7,500 soldiers and naval officers will be deployed in London during the Games, including a detachment of Royal Marines and special forces personnel.

A 1,000 strong unarmed “contingency force” will be on stand-by to help with searches and security surrounding the games venues.

Police emphasised that no soldiers would be deployed on the streets of London during the games. HMS Ocean will anchor in the Thames to serve as a floating base for more than 800 marines. More than 12,500 police officers will be on duty.

Today police chiefs refused to say how many armed officers would be deployed during the Games.

Residents near the proposed missile sites voiced their concern after being sent leaflets by the Ministry of Defence.

Lynda Greenwood of Barn Hill, Epping Forest, said: “We don’t want it here. People will be up in arms. Using a site in this tiny hamlet to store missiles is dangerous. What’s to stop terrorists from targeting us to get rid of these missiles?”

Mrs Greenwood, 58, who helps her husband run a roofing business, added: “It puts us in danger. What are the authorities thinking?”

Flash Bristow, chairwoman of the Ferndale Area Residents’ Association in Leytonstone, which includes the Fred Wigg Tower in Montague Road, said: “To hear there’s going to be something capable of killing people that is going to be put on a block of flats a few minutes’ walk from my house is shocking.

“The tower is 16 storeys high and is opposite terraced houses and near three primary schools.

“I don’t see why they need to put missiles everywhere. It will make me feel far less safe to know there’s something lurking nearby.”

Howard Shields, chairman of the Blackheath Society, said: “The leaflet talks about putting a ground-based air defence unit at the western end of Blackheath. We have to understand that security is a big general issue during Games.

“Our concern is that so much of the heath is already being used for other bits of the Olympics. We’re anxious this is not going to take another enormous chunk of the heath, and have been assured footprint is quite small.”

Source: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/london/six-jet-attack-missile-sites-across-london-during-olympic-games-7696931.html

Filed Under: False Flag Attacks, Featured

Syrian Peace Deal: UN’s Cloak to NATO’s Dagger

April 10, 2012 by Aaron Jackson 1 Comment

Turkey begins fabricating “cross border” incidents to justify Brookings prescribed “safe havens” inside Syria.
by Tony Cartalucci on April 9, 2012

From the very beginning, US policy makers admitted that Kofi Annan’s “peace mission” to Syria was nothing more than a rouse to preserve NATO’s proxy forces from total destruction and create “safe havens” from which to prolong the bloodshed. It was hoped that with established “safe havens” in Syria, protected by Turkish military forces (Turkey has been a NATO member since 1952) violence and pressure verses the Syrian government could be perpetually increased until it finally collapsed and the carving up of Syria could commence.

Photo: Annan is a trustee of Wall Street speculator George Soros and geopolitical manipulator Zbigniew Brzezinski’s International Crisis Group (ICG), along side Neo-Conservative corporate lobbyist and warmonger Kenneth Adelman, US State Department-listed Iranian terror organization MEK lobbyist - General Wesley Clark, Wall Street-backed color revolution leader- Mohammed ElBaradei of Egypt, and Brookings Institution’s Samuel Berger. Serving as “advisers” to the International Crisis Group include, Neo-Conservative warmonger Richard Armitage, former Foreign Minister of Israel Shlomo Ben-Ami, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Bank of Israel Governor Stanely Fischer, and President of Israel Shimon Peres. While Annan poses as a representative of the “United Nations” he is in reality representing the pro-regime change agenda of the ICG and the special interests that fund its work.

….

This has been confirmed by Fortune 500-funded, US foreign-policy think-tank, Brookings Institution which has blueprinted designs for regime change in Libya as well as both Syria andIran. In their latest report, “Assessing Options for Regime Change” it is stated (emphasis added):

“An alternative is for diplomatic efforts to focus first on how to end the violence and how to gain humanitarian access, as is being done under Annan’s leadership.This may lead to the creation of safe-havens and humanitarian corridors, which would have to be backed by limited military power. This would, of course, fall short of U.S. goals for Syria and could preserve Asad in power. From that starting point, however, it is possible that a broad coalition with the appropriate international mandate could add further coercive action to its efforts.” -page 4, Assessing Options for Regime Change, Brookings Institution.

Click to enlarge

Image: Also out of the Brookings Institution, Middle East Memo #21 “Assessing Options for Regime Change (.pdf),” makes no secret that the humanitarian “responsibility to protect” is but a pretext for long-planned regime change.

….

And while “peace” was being peddled by Soros-funded International Crisis Group trustee Kofi Annan, the US, UK, France, and members of the West’s proxy Arab League simultaneously called for Assad to stand down and withdraw troops from secured cities while openly declaring that arms and cash would continue to flow to the rebels. The “Friends of Syria” summit would even ludicrously declare that “wages” would be paid to rebels to continue their battle to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Clearly the label “peace deal” is inappropriate for a proposal that seeks to empower and indeed see one side prevail militarily over another whose hands are purposefully tied. It is an unconditional surrender to foreign-funded terrorists simply labeled as a “peace deal.”

The Brookings Institution’s “safe havens” and “humanitarian corridors” are meant to be established by NATO-member Turkey, who has been threatening to partially invade Syria for weeks in order to accomplish this. And while Turkey claims this is based on “humanitarian concerns,” examining Turkey’s abysmal human rights record in addition to its own ongoing genocidal campaign against the Kurdish people both within and beyond its borders, it is clear they are simply fulfilling the agenda established by their Western patrons on Wall Street and in the city of London.

Photo: Turkish tanks entering Iraq to raid Kurdish towns and hunt suspected rebels in 2008. More recently, Turkey has been bombing “suspected” rebel bases in both Turkey and Iraq, as well as conducting mass nationwide arrests. Strangely, as Turkey verifiably does what Libya’s Qaddafi and Syria’s Assad have been accused of doing, in all of their hypocrisy, are now calling for a partial invasion of Syria based on “humanitarian concerns.”

….Now, Turkey is fabricating stories involving Syrian troops “firing across” the Turkish-Syrian border. The New York Times published these bold accusations before admitting further down that “it was unclear what kind of weapons caused the injuries on Sunday around six miles inside Turkish territory,” and that “there were conflicting accounts about the incident.” As are all the accusations used by NATO, the UN, and individual member states to justify meddling in Syria’s affairs, these tales involve hear-say from the rebels themselves.

It is clear that Turkey, NATO, and the UN are attempting to set the pretext for the establishment of “safe havens” and “humanitarian corridors” intended to circumvent the UN Security Council which has seen attempts to green-light military intervention vetoed twice by Russia and China. As the UN “peace deal” deadline of April 10 comes and goes, we can expect an ever increasing din of propaganda purporting Syrian violations against Turkish sovereignty, the continued propaganda campaign accentuating the “victimization” of NATO’s death squads, and the public roll-out of Brookings’ Turkish established “safe haven” within Syrian territory.

Image: Some of the corporate sponsors behind the Brookings Institution, from whose playbook Kofi Annan is being directed in his disingenuous “peace mission” to Syria. (click image to enlarge)

Image: Just some of the corporate and “institutional” sponsors of the International Crisis Group, upon which Kofi Annan sits as a “trustee” with other dubious personalities including George Soros, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Israeli President Shimon Peres, Egypt’s Mohammed ElBaradei, and Neo-Cons Richard Armitage and Kenneth Adelman. (click image to enlarge)

….The UN “peace deal” was a rouse from the beginning. The West has no intention of leaving Syria intact and will seek all means by which to prevail in toppling the government, carving up the country along sectarian lines, plunging it into perpetual violence as it has Libya, and moving next toward Iran. While it is essential to expose the truth behind Syria’s unrest, is also important to identify the corporate-financier interests driving this nefarious agenda and boycott them entirely while seeking out viable local solutions to support instead. If none exist, it is our duty to use our time, money, attention, and resources to create such alternatives instead of perpetuating the self-serving agenda unfolding before us.

Ultimately it is “we the people” paying into this current paradigm that allows it to continue moving forward, therefore it by necessity must be “we the people” who undermine and ultimately replace it.

Source: http://landdestroyer.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/syrian-peace-deal-uns-cloak-to-natos.html

Filed Under: Africa, British Petroleum, China, Corporations, France, Genocide, Human Rights, Iran, Libya, Military Industrial Complex, NATO, Russia, Safety, Syria, Terrorism, Turkey, United Kingdom, United Nations

The Israel-Palestine Conflict: A Matter of Peace or War?

December 18, 2011 by Lauren Zak Leave a Comment

“Let us, on this International Day, reaffirm our commitment to translating ‎solidarity into positive action. The international community must help steer the situation ‎towards a historic peace agreement.‎” That is UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s message for the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, 29 November 2011.

Mr. Ban called on the Israeli and Palestinian leadership to show courage and determination to seek an agreement for a two-State solution that can open up a brighter future for Palestinian and Israeli children.

There have been many Middle East peace proposals and many negotiations including an Arab state, with or without a significant Jewish population, a Jewish state, with or without a significant Arab population, a single bi-national state, with or without some degree of cantonization, two states, one bi-national and one Arab, with or without some form of federation, and two states, one Jewish and one Arab, with or without some form of federation.

During the 19th Century some Jews banded together to form a political ideology called Zionism, based on the idea of a “Jewish homeland.” In the USA the Zionist movement developed a powerful political lobby to promote its aims, while its military groups pursued a violent terrorist campaign in Palestine against the Arabs and Britain to force acceptance of its demands.

On 29 November 1947 the United Nations adopted a partition resolution dividing the land of Palestine into two independent states- one Arab and one Jewish, while Jerusalem was put under international protection. This was accepted by most of the Jewish settlers, who comprised 13% of the population and rejected by the majority Arab population, the original inhabitants who demanded self–determination. The British said the decision would be a failure and refused to apply it. When British forces withdrew in May 1948, and Israel declared independence fighting broke out between Arabs and Jews.

One of the first plans for settling the Arab-Israel war of 1948 was made by the UN emissary, Count Folke Bernadotte. Count Folke Bernadotte was a Swedish noble and diplomat, nephew of the Swedish king, fluent in six languages; he was an outstanding humanitarian and very well respected for his integrity. He gained international recognition through his work as head of the Swedish Red Cross during World War Two, organizing exchanges of disabled prisoners. Bernadotte also used his position to negotiate with Heinrich Himmler, a military commander, and a leading member of the Nazi Party, and save the lives of about 30,000 Jews, Allied prisoners of war and other people from the concentration camps, just before the end of the war.

On 20th May, 1948, the United Nations Security Council appointed Bernadotte as mediator in the Arab-Jewish conflict in Palestine. After meeting Arab and Jewish leaders he succeeded in obtaining a 30-day truce that began on 11th June. In then developed his first plan for peace.

First Proposal

Bernadotte’s first plan called for the Jewish State to relinquish the Negev and Jerusalem to Transjordan and to receive the western Galilee. Bernadotte advocated a total demilitarization of Jerusalem and blamed the Jewish forces for “aggressive” behavior in the city.

The Arab world rejected the Bernadotte plan on the grounds that, as Syrian officer Muhammad Nimr al-Khatib said, “Most of these mediators are spies for the Jews anyway.” The Israeli government, hating the idea of giving up Jerusalem and bent on military victory, quickly followed suit. Fighting resumed on July 8 and the Israeli army gained strength and succeeded in pushing back the Arabs until a second UN cease-fire was declared on July 18, this time with no time limit and a threat of economic sanctions against any country that broke it.

After the unsuccessful first proposal, Bernadotte continued with a more complex proposal that abandoned the idea of a Union and proposed two independent states. Having witnessed the expulsion of the Palestinians from their home, he called for the unqualified return of all Palestinian refugees expelled as a result of the conflict. He declared:

“The right of innocent people, uprooted from their homes by the present terror and ravages of war, to return to their homes, should be affirmed and made effective, with assurance of adequate compensation for the property of those who may choose not to return…. [N]o settlement can be just and complete if recognition is not accorded to the right of the Arab refugee to return to the home from which he has been dislodged. It will be an offence against the principles of elemental justice if these innocent victims of the conflict were denied the right of return to their homes while Jewish immigrants flow into Palestine…”

Second Proposal

This proposal was completed on September 16, 1948 and it contained what he described as “seven basic premises” regarding the situation in Palestine:

Peace must return to Palestine and every feasible measure should be taken to ensure that hostilities will not be resumed and that harmonious relations between Arab and Jew will ultimately be restored.
A Jewish State called Israel exists in Palestine and there are no sound reasons for assuming that it will not continue to do so.
The boundaries of this new State must finally be fixed either by formal agreement between the parties concerned or failing that, by the United Nations.
Adherence to the principle of geographical homogeneity and integration, which should be the major objective of the boundary arrangements, should apply equally to Arab and Jewish territories, whose frontiers should not therefore, be rigidly controlled by the territorial arrangements envisaged in the resolution of 29 November.
The right of innocent people, uprooted from their homes by the present terror and ravages of war, to return to their homes, should be affirmed and made effective, with assurance of adequate compensation for the property of those who may choose not to return.
The City of Jerusalem, because of its religious and international significance and the complexity of interests involved, should be accorded special and separate treatment.
International responsibility should be expressed where desirable and necessary in the form of international guarantees, as a means of allaying existing fears, and particularly with regard to boundaries and human rights.

On 17 September 1948, the day after he submitted his progress report to the UN, a four-man team of the Jewish nationalist Zionist group Lehi (commonly known as the Stern Gang or Stern Group) ambushed Bernadotte’s motorcade in Jerusalem’s Katamon neighborhood.

The four hit men were, in fact, Stern Gang members consisting of three gunmen and a driver. The three gunmen were Yitzhak Ben-Moshe, “Gingi” Zinger, and Yehoshua Cohen. Cohen was the shooter who murdered Bernadotte. The fourth member of the hit team, the jeep driver, was Meshulam Makover.

Of the three Stern Gang leaders who dispatched the killers, Israel Eldad, Natan Yalin-Mor and Yitzhak Shamir, only Yalon-Mor was brought to trial along with one gang member, Mattiyahu Shmulovitz. They were not charged with Bernadotte’s murder but with membership in a terrorist organization. Following their conviction Yalon-Mor and Shmulovitz were pardoned under a general amnesty ordered by Ben-Gurion after serving only two weeks in jail.

Based upon events in Israel following Bernadotte’s assassination it is apparent that being a member of the Stern Gang was not blight on one’s good name but a career-enhancing credential. For example, Natan Yalin-Mor was elected to a seat in the First Knesset, the Israeli parliament. The shooter, Yehoshua Cohen, became Ben-Gurion’s personal bodyguard. In 1983, Yitzhak Shamir succeeded Menachem Begin as Prime Minister.

From 1948 through to the present day, the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is ongoing. After all these years, the only unanswerable question is the one that was asked by Bertrand Russell in his message to the International Conference of Parliamentarians held in February 1970:

The tragedy of the people of Palestine is that their country was ‘given’ by a foreign power to another people for the creation of a new state. The result was that many hundreds of thousands of innocent people were made permanently homeless. With every new conflict their numbers increased.

How much longer is the world willing to endure this spectacle of wanton cruelty?

It is abundantly clear that the refugees have every right to the homeland from which they were driven, and the denial of this right is at the heart of the continuing conflict.

Sources:

http://www.1948.org.uk/right-of-return/

http://www.timeanddate.com/holidays/un/solidarity-day-palestinian-people

http://www.soschildrensvillages.ca/News/News/child-charity-news/Pages/International-Solidarity-Palestinian-749.aspx

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_a_Palestinian_state

http://www.zionism-israel.com/dic/Bernadotte_Plan.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/COLDbernadotte.htm

http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/49384

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/folke.html

http://suspiciousdeaths.blogspot.com/2010/06/count-folke-bernadotte.html

Filed Under: Featured, Genocide, Human Rights, Israel, Palestine, Politics, War Tagged With: Folke Bernadotte, Israel, Middle East, Palestine, Peace, Politics, UN, War

Obama Not To Apologize To Pakistan: White House

December 1, 2011 by Aaron Jackson Leave a Comment

WASHINGTON — The White House has for now overruled State Department officials who favoured a show of remorse to help salvage relations after a deadly NATO airstrike killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, The New York Times reported Thursday.

Citing administration officials, the newspaper said the United States ambassador to Pakistan, Cameron Munter, told a group of White House officials that a formal video statement from President Obama was needed to help prevent the rapidly deteriorating relations between Islamabad and Washington from cratering. The ambassador, speaking by video-conference from Islamabad, said that anger in Pakistan had reached a fever pitch, and that the United States needed to move to defuse it as quickly as possible, the officials recounted.

But Defence Department officials balked, the Times said. While they did not deny some American culpability in the episode, they said expressions of remorse offered by senior department officials and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton were enough, at least until the completion of a United States military investigation establishing what went wrong.

Some administration aides also worried that if Obama were to overrule the military and apologize to Pakistan, such a step could become fodder for his Republican opponents in the presidential campaign.

On Wednesday, White House officials said Obama was unlikely to say anything further on the matter in the coming days.

“The U.S. government has offered its deepest condolences for the loss of life, from the White House and from Secretary Clinton and Secretary Panetta,” said Tommy Vietor, spokesman for the National Security Council, referring to Defence Secretary Leon Panetta, “and we are conducting an investigation into the incident. We cannot offer additional comment on the circumstances of the incident until we have the results.”

With everything at stake in the relationship with Pakistan, which the United States sees as vital as it plans to exit from Afghanistan, some former Obama administration officials were cited as saying the president should make public remarks on the border episode, including a formal apology.

“Without some effective measures of defusing this issue, Pakistan will cooperate less rather than more with us, and we won’t be able to achieve our goals in Afghanistan,” said Vali Nasr, a former State Department official who specialized in Pakistan.But David Rothkopf, a former Clinton administration official and the author of “Running the World: The Inside Story of the National Security Council and the Architects of American Power,” said Pakistani officials need to understand that in the next year, the Obama administration will be less willing to make nice.

“I do think that it’s important for them to recognize that political dynamics in the United States will lead to a hardening of U.S. positions, and the president will have less and less flexibility to accept the kind of behaviour that he has in the past,” Rothkopf was quoted as saying. “The prognosis for U.S.-Pakistani relations is bleak.”

Source: http://nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/Politics/01-Dec-2011/Obama-not-to-apologize-to-Pakistan-White-House

Filed Under: NATO, Pakistan, Politicians, USA

Nato Air Attack On Pakistani Troops Was Self-Defence, Says Senior Western Official

November 27, 2011 by Aaron Jackson Leave a Comment

US-Pakistan relations strained further after attack allegedly kills up to 28 and prompts ban on Nato trucks crossing Afghan border.

An attack by Nato aircraft on Pakistani troops that allegedly killed as many as 28 soldiers and looks set to further poison relations between the US and Pakistan was an act of self-defence, a senior western official has claimed.

According to the Kabul-based official, a joint US-Afghan force operating in the mountainous Afghan frontier province of Kunar was the first to come under attack in the early hours of Saturday morning, forcing them to return fire.

The high death toll from an incident between two supposed allies suggests Nato helicopters and jets strafed Pakistani positions with heavy weapons.

The deadliest friendly fire incident since the start of the decade-long war also prompted Pakistan to ban Nato supply trucks from crossing into Afghanistan and to issue an order demanding the US quit the remote Shamsi airbase, from which the US has operated some unmanned drone aircraft.

A spokesman for Nato’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said it was “highly likely” that aircraft which had been called into the area to provide “close air support” to troops on the ground was responsible for causing casualties among the Pakistani soldiers.

For their part, a statement by the Pakistani military claimed that it was they who were attacked first, forcing them to respond to Nato’s “aggression with all available weapons“.

According to Pakistani officials the 40 or so soldiers stationed at the outposts were asleep at the time of the attack. Government officials said the two border posts that were attacked had recently been established to try to stop insurgents who use bases in Afghanistan to attack Pakistan from crossing the border and launching attacks.

Afghan intelligence say the US-Afghan force was conducting operations against suspected Taliban training camps in the area.

The vagueness of the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan is one potential, and relatively innocent, explanation for the incident. Drawn up by the British Raj in 1893, there is little agreement on where the so-called Durand Line actually falls, meaning troops from either side of the border can wander into the neighbouring country without realising it. One senior military official said that, in places, rival maps have discrepancies of “multiples of kilometres – sometimes as much as five kilometres”.

Much of the fighting in Afghanistan is conducted by guerrillas based a short distance inside Pakistan. Nato forces are not allowed to cross the border and militants sometimes fire artillery and rockets across the line from locations close to Pakistani army posts.

And yet both sides have worked hard to try and minimise any confusion. The attack happened just a day after John Allen, the US commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan, met with Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, the Pakistani army chief, to discuss enhanced co-operation on the border.

But a more troubling explanation would be that insurgents in the area were operating under the nose of Pakistani security forces. Many Afghan officials believe Pakistan helps the Taliban with cross-border operations.

Edrees Momand of the Afghan Border Police said that a US-Afghan force in the area near the Pakistani outposts detained several militants on Saturday morning.

“I am not aware of the casualties on the other side of the border but those we have detained aren’t Afghan Taliban,” he said, implying they may have been Pakistani or other foreign national Taliban operating in Afghanistan.

Whatever the outcome of investigations, the incident is likely to do yet more damage to the critical relationship between the US and Pakistan. The alliance between the two countries has been repeatedly battered in the past year, first by the jailing of a CIA contractor and then by US special forces who raided deep inside Pakistani territory and killed Osama bin Laden.

More recently the US has accused Pakistan of backing a militant group who launched a 20-hour attack on the US embassy in Kabul.

Washington believes Pakistan continues to support the Taliban, a movement it publicly backed in the 1990s, in order to have influence in Afghanistan. But at the same time as supporting the enemies of the US, Pakistan remains crucial to the military mission in Afghanistan.

John Allen was quick to release a statement saying the incident had his “highest personal attention”.

“My most sincere and personal heartfelt condolences go out to the families and loved ones of any members of Pakistan security forces who may have been killed or injured,” he said.

Islamabad reacted with fury to the attack.

“This is an attack on Pakistan’s sovereignty,” said Pakistan’s prime minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani. “We will not let any harm come to Pakistan’s sovereignty and solidarity.”

In a statement General Kayani promised “all necessary steps be undertaken for an effective response to this irresponsible act.”

A strong protest has been launched with Nato/ISAF in which it has been demanded that strong and urgent action be taken against those responsible for this aggression.

A cabinet committee convened by Gilani said the government would launch a complete review of its diplomatic, political, military and intelligence relationships with the US.

The vast bulk of Nato supplies arrive in Afghanistan by trucks that haul equipment up from the port of Karachi to the Khyber Pass, a key crossing point over the mountainous border into Afghanistan.

The shutting down of the border to Nato traffic has happened in the past during periods of Pakistani displeasure with Afghanistan and its foreign backers.

A similar incident last year in which two Pakistani troops were killed led to the closure of one of Nato’s supply routes for ten days.

However, in recent years the alliance has opened up alternative supply routes through Central Asia, reducing its reliance on the route through Pakistan.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/26/nato-air-attack-pakistan-soldiers

Filed Under: Pakistan, War