Exposing Israel’s Most Dangerous Secret

May 4, 2012 · 12:16 pm

CounterPunch Weekend Edition June 24-26, 2011
What’s Really Going On at the Israeli Institute for Biological Research?
by Saleh El-Naami

Drivers will only dart a glance at that mammoth structure nestled in the dunes south of Rishon Litsion southeast of Tel Aviv as they speed on their way. It is forbidden to turn off the Tel Aviv-Rishon Litsion highway onto the side road leading up to that building, which is barricaded by cement walls equipped with state-of-the-art surveillance and warning systems developed by Israel’s military industries.

That fortress-like structure is the Israeli Institute for Biological Research (IIBR) where Israel develops its biological and chemical weapons and prepares for any eventuality of biological or chemical warfare. It is the most top-secret military installation in Israel. So tightly is it guarded by military censorship that the Israeli press has to turn to Western sources for scraps of information made available to them, very intermittently, by special contacts inside the institute.

Only once has the Israeli press been given leeway to discuss what goes on behind those high security walls. That was last month when Avisha Klein filed a suit against the IIBR administration for harassment and emotional abuse. A long-term employee at the institute, Klein has served in various positions, one of which was as part of a team to develop an ointment to protect the skin from mustard gas. But this is only one of the many details that have come to light in the course of the proceedings, which have shed considerable light on the nature and scope of the institute’s work.

The IIBR is staffed by some 300 scientists and technicians employed in one or more of its many departments, each of which specialises in a specific area of chemical or biological research generally aimed at the production of chemical or biological weaponry. One of these departments, for example, is reported to have developed the poison that was used by the notorious Mossad assassination unit, Kidon, in its botched attempt to eliminate Hamas politburo chief Khaled Meshaal in 1997. Nevertheless, if there remains some question over the accuracy of this information, which was reported in Haaretz, no one disputes that the first time the institute’s products were used in an assassination operation was in late 1977 when then prime minister Menachem Begin ordered Mossad to eliminate Wadie Haddad.

A leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Haddad was accused by Israel of responsibility for several terrorist operations, the last of which was the hijacking of an Israeli passenger plane en route to Entebbe in 1976. According to a recently published book by the Israeli journalist Aharon Klein, Haddad had a great fondness for Belgian chocolates. Mossad obtained some of these special chocolates, coated them with a slow-acting poison, and had them delivered to Haddad, who was then living in Baghdad, by an Iraqi official who was a Mossad agent and who had struck up a friendship with Haddad. Klein relates that the deadly substance was first developed in the IIBR and that its slow-acting and undetectable properties ensured that the agent and the instrument of death would not be discovered.

And indeed, following a gradual but severe deterioration in his health, Haddad was flown to a hospital in East Germany where he was diagnosed with leukaemia and eventually died on 28 March 1978. It was not until 32 years later that the truth came to light: that the real cause of death was a poison produced by IIBR.

It is not unlikely that Mossad conducted many assassination operations in this way, so as not to leave its fingerprints. In other words, the seemingly accidental deaths of many individuals that Israel regarded as a threat may have actually been caused by substances produced by IIBR. Most likely, the poison that Mossad agents injected into Hamas leader Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh in Dubai in February 2010 came from IIBR.

According to information that has recently come out, the institute contains a department specialising in the production of vaccines against biological weapons. One of the chief focuses of research and development, here, was anthrax, which Israel fears the Arabs and resistance organisations will use against it in a confrontation. The institute also has a department for developing remedies to minimise and counter the effects of chemical weaponry. The whole presents a gruesome picture of a curious chemical and biological race, with the institute virtually competing with itself to produce antidotes to weapons that it, itself, is producing, or that it fears others will use against Israel in an eventual confrontation.

The IIBR works closely and in full coordination with the Israeli army and intelligence, which furnish the institute with their lists of priorities in light of their strategic threat forecasts. For example, information that has come to light during the coverage of Klein’s suit reveals that many years ago the Israeli military establishment was concerned that Arab states might use such chemical agents as mustard gas in an potential assault against Israel and, therefore, instructed the institute to develop a chemical substance to minimise the effects of the gas. Not surprisingly, the institute coordinates closely with the Israeli army’s medical corps, which receives the antidotes and distributes them to its branches in the military in accordance with demand.

The institute also works closely with Mossad and Shin Bet, the agencies primarily responsible for most of the assassination and liquidation operations against Arab and Muslim targets. Also, since Mossad and the military intelligence unit “Aman” are responsible for gathering enemy intelligence and presumably monitor nonconventional weapons programmes in Arab countries, they would instruct IIBR to develop the necessary biological or chemical responses to these programmes.

However, the IIBR has another purpose on top of developing and producing biological and chemical weapons and antidotes. It is also a major hard currency income-generator. The Hebrew Haaretz website reports: “The institute has received a grant of hundreds of millions of dollars to develop an anthrax vaccine.” The grant followed an attack in the US by a home-grown terrorist group that developed a concentrated strain of anthrax spores and delivered them to several individual targets in US; the vaccines that IIBR was commissioned to develop were destined for use in the US.

More importantly, we learn from the website that Israeli soldiers have been used to test the vaccines, causing some permanent physical damage. Reports of the internationally banned use of human guinea pigs raised moral hackles in Israel and sharpened suspicions that the lives of Israeli soldiers had deliberately been put to risk for the sake of financial gain received for promoting the security of another country, namely the US in this case.

The IIBR has a live animals department, where rabbits, pigs, monkeys and other animals are used in experiments. And perhaps human beings as well, judging by the suits soldiers filed against the Israeli Ministry of Defence after they were used in the anthrax experiments. The soldiers demand that they be officially recognised as disabled veterans and receive compensation accordingly. The case remains in the courts, but the IDF, caving into pressure from the families of the soldiers and public opinion, recently announced that it would no longer conduct experiments on soldiers.

It was Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, who ordered the construction of the IIBR on the basis of the advice of a number of Jewish scientists. Throughout his rule, from 1948 to 1963 (with the exception of the years 1953-1955 when ?Moshe Sharett served as prime minister), Ben-Gurion was directly responsible for the institute and every detail in it. The staff were forbidden to disclose to anyone even the smallest tid-bit of data or information without first obtaining Ben-Gurion’s approval. That continued to apply even during that interstice when Sharrit was in power, for when this prime minister visited the institute in 1954 scientists had to apologise for not being able to show him the programmes they were working on at the time.

Although many scientists have taken a turn to direct the IIBR, it is generally believed that the one to have left the greatest imprint is its current director, Avigdor Shafferman. Shafferman, who has been named in Klein’s suit, has the reputation of being something of a powerhouse but also being very strict and quick to fire staff members on disciplinary grounds.

Nevertheless, as significant as the details that have come to light in this rare glimpse into the workings of the IIBR may be, little attention has focussed on a larger truth. As the international community hounds a host of countries for pursuing conventional weapons programmes that pale in scale next to Israel’s, it refuses to budge an inch to deter Israel, which only encourages Tel Aviv’s belligerent and tyrannical behaviour.

Saleh El-Naami writes for Al-Ahram, where this article originally appeared.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/06/24/exposing-israel-s-most-dangerous-secret/

Interview: Alice Walker - Israel 'is the greatest terrorist' in the Middle East.

The author and activist, who is setting sail for Gaza on a humanitarian mission, says Israel 'is the greatest terrorist' in the Middle East.
FP
INTERVIEW BY ROBERT ZELIGER | JUNE 23, 2011

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker will join the flotilla of ships next week that will try to break Israel's maritime blockade of the Gaza Strip. She says the goal is to bring supplies and raise awareness of the situation there. Last May, during a similar attempt by activists, Israel raided six ships. On one, clashes broke out and Israeli commandos killed nine people.
Foreign Policy reached the author of The Color Purple in Greece, where she is preparing for her departure.
Foreign Policy: Why are you taking part in the flotilla mission?
Alice Walker: In 2009, I was in Gaza, just after Operation Cast Lead, and I saw the incredible damage and devastation. I have a good understanding of what's on the ground there and how the water system was destroyed and the sewage system. I saw that the ministries had been bombed, and the hospitals had been bombed, and the schools. I sat for a good part of a morning in the rubble of the American school, and it just was so painful because we as Americans pay so much of our taxes for this kind of weaponry that was used. On a more sort of mature grandmotherly level I feel that as an elder it is up to me and others like me -- other elders, other mature adults -- to look at situations like this and bring to them whatever understanding and wisdom we might have gained in our fairly long lifetimes, witnessing and being a part of struggles against oppression.
FP: How long have you been involved in Palestinian activism? What drew you to it?
AW: It started with the Six Day War in 1967. That happened shortly after my wedding to a Jewish law student. And we were very happy because we thought Israel was right to try to defend itself by pre-emptively striking against Egypt. We didn't realize any of the real history of that area. So, that was my beginning of being interested in what was going on and watching what was happening. Even at that time, I said to my young husband, well, they shouldn't take that land, because it's actually not their land. This just seemed so unjust to me. It just seemed so wrong. It's really unjust because in America we think about Israel in mythical terms. And most of us have grown up with the Bible. So we think that we are sort of akin to these people and whatever they're saying must be true -- their God is giving them land and that is just the reality. But actually the land had people living on it. The people were in their own homes, their own towns and cities. So, the battle has been about them trying to reclaim what was taken from them. It's important, when we have some new understanding -- especially adults and mature adults -- we must, I think, take some action so that younger people will have a better understanding of what they are seeing in the world.
FP: Is the goal of this mission, though, to just raise awareness, or is it to actually deliver supplies?
AW: Well, our boat is delivering letters. So what we're trying to draw attention to is the fact that the blockade is still in effect. On the other boats there will probably be supplies. I haven't checked but probably things like sewage supplies.
FP: But Egypt has partially reopened its border with Gaza. So, couldn't you get supplies in through there?
AW: No, you can't. You can get two suitcases. Not only that, they closed it. They opened it and then closed it. So, that has not been worked out. I know people like to rally around what they think is a positive thing, but it's not that positive yet because it's not firm. They limit the number of people. They close it. They say two suitcases. You can't build a sewage system with two suitcases.
FP: Israel's ambassador to the United Nations said the stated goal of "humanitarian assistance" was a false pretext for your mission -- and it's actually designed to serve an extremist political agenda, and that many of the groups participating in the mission maintain ties with extremist and terrorist organizations, including Hamas. Your reaction?
AW: I think Israel is the greatest terrorist in that part of the world. And I think in general, the United States and Israel are great terrorist organizations themselves. If you go to Gaza and see some of the bombs -- what's left of the bombs that were dropped -- and the general destruction, you would have to say, yeah, it's terrorism. When you terrorize people, when you make them so afraid of you that they are just mentally and psychologically wounded for life -- that's terrorism. So these countries are terrorist countries.
FP: How is the United States a terrorist country?
AW: It is. Absolutely, it is. It has terrorized people around the globe for a very long time. It has fought against countries that have tried to change their governments, that have tried to have democracies, and the United States has intervened and interfered, like in Guatemala or Chile. I feel that it is so unreasonable, and I don't quite understand how they can claim everyone else is a terrorist and they are not when so many people right this minute are terrified of the drones, for instance, in the war in Afghanistan. The dropping of bombs on people -- isn't that terrorism?
FP: Of course Israel and the U.S. aren't the only ones that use bombs. Hamas has fired rockets at Israel in the past.
AW: Yes. And I'm not for a minute saying anybody anywhere should fire rockets. I mean, I would never do it. Nor would I ever supply such a thing to anyone. But it's extremely unequal. If people just acknowledge how absurdly unequal this is. This is David and Goliath, but Goliath is not the Palestinians. They are David. They are the ones with the slingshot. They are the ones with the rocks and relatively not-so-powerful rockets. Whereas the Israelis have these incredibly damaging missiles and rockets. When do you as a person of conscience speak and say enough is enough?
FP: Are you concerned at all that your trip could be used as a propaganda tool for Hamas?
AW: No, because we will never see those people. Why would we see them?
FP: You don't think you're going to see anyone from Hamas?
AW: No. I don't think we would. If we manage to get through with our bundle of letters we will probably be met by a lot of NGOs, and women and children, and schoolteachers and nurses, and the occasional doctor, if anyone is left.
FP: But doesn't Hamas control the security apparatus of Gaza?
AW: They may well control it, but we're not going to see them. It's like everyone who comes to D.C. doesn't see the president.
FP: I have to ask, since the previous flotilla trip ended with an Israeli raid on one of the ships and nine people dead. Are you frightened?
AW: Sometimes I feel fear. And the feeling that this may be it. But I'm positive -- I'm looking at it as a way to bring attention to these children and their mothers and their grandmothers, and their grandfathers and their fathers, who face this kind of thing every day. I grew up in the South under segregation. So, I know what terrorism feels like -- when your father could be taken out in the middle of the night and lynched just because he didn't look like he was in an obeying frame of mind when a white person said something he must do. I mean, that's terrorism too. So, I know that feeling. And this is what they are living under. And so, if you ever lived under terrorism yourself -- you know terrorism USA, Southern-style -- then you understand that people don't like it and they should not be subjected to it anywhere on the planet.

U.S. warns against new Gaza flotilla plans

Fri, Jun 24 2011

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Friday warned activists against plans to send a new aid flotilla to challenge Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip, saying it would be irresponsible and dangerous.

"Groups that seek to break Israel's maritime blockade of Gaza are taking irresponsible and provocative actions that risk the safety of their passengers," State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said in a statement, adding that there were established ways to move humanitarian aid to Gaza.

"We urge all those seeking to provide such assistance to the people of Gaza to use these mechanisms, and not to participate in actions like the planned flotilla," Nuland said.

Israel on Wednesday said it had warned the United Nations that a new aid flotilla -- which activists say could depart from European ports in coming days -- could result in "dangerous consequences.

Israel has made clear it will prevent any new flotilla from reaching Gaza. A year ago, nine Turkish activists, including one with dual U.S.-Turkish nationality, were killed in an Israeli raid on a similar convoy.

The Israeli military came under fierce criticism for the May 2010 raid, which led to a severe deterioration of its ties with Turkey.

The United States, Israel's most important ally, has backed Israel's blockade of Gaza, which the Palestinian Islamist Hamas group seized from forces loyal to Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in 2007.

Palestinians believe the Israeli sea blockade is illegal and say it is helping strangle Gaza's underdeveloped economy.

Nuland said there were "established and efficient" mechanisms for getting humanitarian aid into Gaza, and the situation there had improved significantly over the last year with a broader range of goods and materials available.

But she said that recent weapons seizures and periodic rocket and mortar attacks from Gaza against Israeli civilians illustrated the ongoing necessity for Israel to screen Gaza-bound cargo.

"We underscore that delivering or attempting or conspiring to deliver material support or other resources to or for the benefit of a designated foreign terrorist organization, such as Hamas, could violate U.S. civil and criminal statutes and could lead to fines and incarceration," Nuland said.

Israel lobby group outlines dirty tricks against campus Palestine activists

Submitted by Ali Abunimah on Fri, 06/24/2011 - 11:00

electronicIntifada.net

What is the best way to smear Palestinians and Palestine solidarity activists and get away with it?
That is the question David Bernstein, Executive Director of the pro-Israel propaganda group, The David Project, asks in a surprisingly frank article titled “How to ‘Name-And-Shame’ Without Looking Like a Jerk” posted on Israel Campus Beat, a website sponsored by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
Bernstein writes:

One of the more controversial tactics in a growing effort to counter the delegitimization of Israel is to “name-and-shame” - to go after those who actively delegitimize Israel and seek to delegitimize them.
There are even those, such as British journalist Melanie Phillips, who argue that our entire strategy should be to relentlessly attack the other side and to cease “defending” Israel.
While name-and-shame tactics can be put to positive effect, they can also easily backfire and do more harm than good. We need to learn the art of being disagreeable in the most agreeable possible fashion.

Hiding vilification behind a veneer of “civility”

Bernstein offers advice on how to be as insincere as possible in order to undermine Palestine solidarity work, especially on college campuses:

• Start every critique with supportive words for peace or free discourse or both.
• Don’t accuse anti-Israel forces of anti-Semitism unless they openly vilify Jews; accuse them of being anti-peace for opposing Israel’s right to exist.
• On campuses and other places where anti-Israel groups act in a disruptive manner, write and promulgate civility petitions calling on all parties to engage in a respectful discussion. If the anti-Israel groups sign it, then they constrain their future actions; if they don’t, they can be accused of being uncivil.
• In taking on an anti-Israel professor on campus, don’t focus on the substantive arguments they make. That will make you look like you’re trying to stifle discourse. Instead, accuse them, in the words of Professor Gil Troy, of “academic malpractice” for propagandizing the classroom.
• When someone on campus justifies Hamas or Hezbollah, call them out by asking a question: Do you really support the Hamas charter’s call for killing Jews? Can that ever be justified?
• Avoid indictments against all Muslims or Islam; preface any criticism of a Muslim radical group with an acknowledgement of peaceful Muslims.

No one should be fooled by the mask of civility - Bernstein makes clear that the goal is to “delegitimize” and marginalize, not to actually engage in “civil” debate.

The David Project’s dirty tricks

The David Project has a long history of dirty tricks. Indeed, the group was a key actor in the slander and fabrication campaign against Columbia University Professor Joseph Massad, part of the unsuccessful effort to deny him tenure (Massad explains the background in a statement on his website after his list of publications).
More broadly, the effort to “name and shame” Palestine solidarity activists is part of the major “anti-delegitimization” efforts underway by American Zionist organizations at the suggestion of The Reut Institute, an Israeli think-tank which in 2010 called for a campaign of “sabotage and attack” on activists and organizations.
In October 2010, the Jewish Federations of North America - an umbrella for 157 major pro-Israel organisations – and the Jewish Council on Public Affairs launched a $6 million initiative called the “Israel Action Network” to fight “delegitimization” – a strategy that will undoubtedly include “name and shame.”
As I wrote for Aljazeera.net last December in “Defending Palestinian solidarity”:

I got a foretaste of what the Israel Action Network’s tactics will likely be when Sam Sokolove, the head of the Jewish Federation of New Mexico, launched a failed effort to get academic departments at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque to withdraw their support for a lecture I gave in November. Sokolove’s campaign involved publicly vilifying me in the media, likening me to a member of the Ku Klux Klan. It is probably because of the publicity the Jewish Federation gave me that hundreds of people attended my talk.

We can thank Bernstein for his honesty in explaining to us what Israel lobby tactics amount to: personal vilification hiding behind a thin veneer of calls for “civility.” It’s a further sign of the bankruptcy of so much “pro-Israel activism.” It is not so much “pro-Israel” as anti-Palestinian. It has no positive message to offer whatsoever, certainly not one of peace.

Melanie Phillips named and shamed

One final note of irony. In his piece, Bernstein cites Melanie Phillips, a very prominent pro-Israel advocate in the UK who has routinely attacked and vilified many people who have spoken up for Palestinian rights.
Last week, Phillips left her position at The Spectator under a cloud: the publication was forced to make several high profile apologies for Phillips’ totally false attacks against several people and organizations for alleged anti-Semitism or criticism of Israel. Phillips has been particularly virulent in her Islamophobic attacks on British Muslims, as Mehdi Hasan of The New Statesman reports.

What's the Matter With Oklahoma? State Launches Anti-Immigrant and Anti-Muslim Crusade

By Kari Lydersen, AlterNet
Posted on June 24, 2011, Printed on June 26, 2011

Oklahoma has relatively few immigrants – about 5 percent of the population – but it has long been in the vanguard of anti-immigrant and more recently anti-Muslim legislation of the type sweeping the nation.

Last fall more than 70 percent of voters passed a constitutional amendment outlawing the use of Sharia law in Oklahoma courts, and state legislators have also pushed anti-Sharia laws, even though the Muslim legal code has never been introduced in an Oklahoma courtroom. On June 14 the Oklahoma state Supreme Court upheld most provisions of the state’s strict anti-immigrant law, passed in 2007 and seen as a precursor to Arizona’s infamous legislation. And this year Oklahoma City state senator Ralph Shortey introduced a suite of anti-immigrant laws including one billed as “Arizona Plus.”

Shortey is Native American and as a child lived on a South Dakota reservation. He said that’s one of the reasons he wants to send a message to undocumented immigrants that they are “not welcome” in Oklahoma. In March Shortey told a group of reporters with the Institute for Justice and Journalism that he knows what it feels like to have one’s land stolen, and he doesn’t want it to happen again through an influx of undocumented immigrants.

The bill he introduced would order police to enforce immigration law, allow law enforcement to confiscate the property of undocumented immigrants -- including homes and cars -- and could criminalize providing social services and otherwise interacting with undocumented immigrants.

Shortey, a freshman legislator whose district was actually majority Latino until recent redistricting, also wrote laws that would mandate English-only, re-interpret the 14th Amendment so that children of undocumented immigrants would not be citizens, and prevent undocumented college students from getting in-state tuition.

Civil rights advocates say Oklahoma is an example of the illogical and political nature of anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim state laws, since the state as a whole and specifically the areas where constituents disproportionately supported the measures have small immigrant and Muslim populations. But advocates also say the ultimate failure of Shortey’s bills this year shows that even in one of the nation’s reddest states, coalition-building and activism can defeat proposals based on hate and fear.

Shortey and other anti-immigrant legislators had hoped their bills would build upon HB 1804, the draconian anti-immigrant law passed in 2007 and then challenged in court. Waves of Latino immigrants – documented and undocumented – left Oklahoma after 1804’s passage, according to many accounts. On June 14 the state Supreme Court ruled that almost all the bill’s provisions are constitutional.

The bill’s author, Republican state Rep. Randy Terrill (who is facing felony bribery charges for allegedly trying to persuade a Democratic legislator not to run for re-election), hailed the decision as a major victory and an affirmation of statewide anti-immigrant sentiment. Such sentiment, Shortey said, fueled his Arizona Plus bill.

“You have Democrats and Republicans who want Arizona Plus, legal Hispanics and everybody else who wants it,” Shortey told reporters in March. “Little babies come out screaming ‘We want Arizona Plus.’ I can’t ignore them.”

But after passing in a Senate subcommittee, the Arizona Plus bill eventually died. A coalition of community activists, human rights groups and social service organizations lobbied hard against it. Pro-immigrant legislators refused to back even a watered-down version of the bill, according to state senator Andrew Rice, whose south Oklahoma City district borders Shortey’s, while other right-wing legislators thought it didn’t go far enough.

Mana Tahaie, director of racial justice programs for the YWCA in Tulsa, said the bills proposed by Shortey had a definite impact on immigrants even though they didn’t pass. “When a bill is proposed, often people hear about it and think it’s law,” she said. “There’s a heightened climate of fear and anxiety.”

Last summer the Tulsa police department created a special outreach unit to Latino communities. Tahaie said it appeared driven by a notably increased reluctance of immigrants to report crimes since 1804’s passage. The 1804 law has actually not been strongly enforced, Rice and others say, but its impact is still felt. “It’s not as much about the enforcement as creating a climate in which certain categories of people simply don’t feel welcome,” said Tahaie. “They feel targeted, they are having to basically to look over their shoulder every day.”

It is likely anti-immigrant bills will be introduced again next session.

“It’s a hard dance to do every year – there is a very strong, angry political current among some parts,” said Rice, a former filmmaker who decided to go into politics after his brother was killed in the Sept. 11 attacks. He noted that since redistricting, his district has become majority Latino. Once he decides not to run anymore, he hopes to see the state’s first Latino legislator elected there.

Shortey said he needs to protect older, white, long-time residents from what he described as burgeoning crime by Latino immigrants.

“Their roots are there, they own homes and cannot leave,” he said. “But they’re frustrated and wish they could leave. Why? Are they racist? Some are. I don’t think I am. I’m Native American, I’m married to a Vietnamese woman, I have nephews who are Hispanic and half black. But we’re being affected by illegal immigration.”

He said his constituents – largely retired – aren’t worried about immigrants stealing their jobs, but rather “being shot by an illegal alien that’s in a gang.”

Meanwhile advocates expect an ongoing battle against anti-Muslim bills, even though a federal judge blocked the constitutional amendment from taking effect. The state attorney general is challenging that decision, and this spring legislators led by prominent far-right state House member Sally Kern introduced a law banning “foreign” law from Oklahoma courts.

Kern’s bill reflects a strategy developed by Arizona lawyer and known white supremacist David Yerushalmi that has been the basis for legislation in various states. It passed the state House 76-3. But after a public education campaign by local Islamic groups and resistance from business people who realized the law would complicate overseas investments, that bill died in a state Senate subcommittee.

The civil rights group Council on American-Islamic Relations sued to invalidate the constitutional amendment, and CAIR Oklahoma executive director Muneer Awad said anti-Sharia laws will never hold up in court. But the rhetoric they facilitate is still damaging.

“I never had a doubt about the legal case,” said Awad. “But the public discourse surrounding these debates is what’s so poisonous to the Muslim community. These politicians will get on radio, TV, and talk in town hall meetings, saying we need these amendments because Islam is violent and dangerous and wants to overthrow our government. Despite the fact that the amendment didn’t make it very far, those sentiments are dangerous and are spread throughout Oklahoma.”

The Muslim community is quite different demographically from the larger immigrant community in Oklahoma. The state’s 15,000 to 30,000 Muslims tend to be either African American converts or legal Middle Eastern immigrants or descendants of immigrants from well-educated and relatively prosperous backgrounds, living mostly in Oklahoma cities. The Latino immigrant community, especially immigrants who are undocumented or have family members who are, were largely drawn to Oklahoma for relatively low-paying jobs in construction, meatpacking and other industries.

Nonetheless the two communities and the state’s general peace and justice activists have joined forces to educate the public about the reality of proposed legislation and to promote tolerance and human rights. This may be symbolized in the figures of Julia and Imad Enchassi. Imad is a popular imam and leader of the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City. His wife, Julia, is a Mexican immigrant.

In the hours after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, Enchassi and a Muslim friend were questioned by police as suspects. Enchassi displayed his trademark sense of humor as he described the ordeal, joking that their cultural tendency toward lateness meant they were frantically rushing to the airport for his friend to catch a flight to Jordan. Their hurry combined with electrical equipment in his friend’s luggage – and most likely their ethnicity – triggered alarm bells.

“We use humor to try to help them see we’re human,” said Enchassi. “We joke they should outlaw cows in Oklahoma because they might all become Mooslims."

But on a serious note, Enchassi said the center still receives threatening phone calls and Muslims feel they are constantly subject to scrutiny and stereotyping. Awad agreed that prominent local Muslims still get death threats, and Oklahoma Muslims generally feel uncomfortable expressing their beliefs in public, knowing that just months ago almost three quarters of voters called for the anti-Sharia law.

Nathaniel Batchelder, director of Oklahoma City’s Peace House, sees the anti-Sharia and anti-immigrant bills as part of a strategy hatched by evangelical and right-wing leaders in 2004 with an unsuccessful attempt to amend the constitution to outlaw gay marriage, which was already illegal under state law.

“The purpose of that initiative wasn’t to forever ban gay marriage in Oklahoma, what that did was allow religious literalists, fundamentalists and ministers to become very excited and inflamed about urging people to go to the polls and vote,” he said. “What happened as a result was Republican control of both the House and Senate. I believe the bill was a Trojan horse to get motivated conservative voters to go to polls.”

Batchelder sees the same strategy at work in State Question 759, a voter referendum scheduled for the November 2012 ballot that would end affirmative action in Oklahoma under the guise of prohibiting “certain preferential treatment or discrimination.”

In response to these tactics, advocates aim to show moderate voters that the legislators pushing such tactics are “on the fringe,” in the words of Awad, even in a state where Republicans now hold a record majority in both houses and every statewide office. He pointed to controversial statements by Kern this spring that African Americans earn less than whites because they don’t work as hard and women earn less than men because they spend more time with family.

Rice said he thinks many non-immigrant residents have become more tolerant as the immigrant population in urban areas like Oklahoma City increases.

“One interesting thing that’s changing their views is intermarrying – there are a lot of Caucasian-Hispanic marriages,” Rice said. “When someone’s son or nephew or niece marries a Latino person and they become part of the family, people let go of a lot of their prejudicial ideas.”

Rice said the anti-immigration laws proposed in Oklahoma, as around the country, are also another symbol of why meaningful and humane federal immigration reform is crucial.

“The longer Congress fails to do that, it leaves states like us with a vacuum where people like the Randy Terrills and Ralph Shorteys get to take advantage of the situation and play off people’s anger,” he said.

This story was supported by the Institute for Justice and Journalism.


Kari Lydersen, a regular contributor to AlterNet, also writes for the Washington Post and is an instructor for the Urban Youth International Journalism Program in Chicago.

Senate Offers Revised Rules for Suspects of Terrorism

June 23, 2011
By CHARLIE SAVAGE
NYT

WASHINGTON — The Senate Armed Services Committee has voted for a sweeping and bipartisan package redefining the rules for detaining terrorism suspects, including giving military judges the power to review the cases of prisoners in Afghanistan and mandating military detention for important Qaeda suspects — even if they are captured on United States soil.

The panel approved the package last week 25 to 1 as part of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act, and it released a brief summary of the act as a whole. But its detention aspects have received scant attention because the vote took place in a closed session and the text of the legislation has not been made public.

The bill, which now goes to the Senate floor, could be unveiled Friday. Its contents related to the detainee deal — whose architects included the committee chairman, Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, and two leading Republicans on the committee, John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina — were described in greater detail by a legislative aide.

One section would direct the military to set up a system of status hearings for prisoners it intends to hold in “long-term custody” in places like the prison at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, where about 1,700 men are currently being held without trial. The hearings would be before a military judge, and the prisoners would be represented by a military lawyer.

Under the provision, if the judge were to find that such a prisoner is not an enemy combatant and is being held by mistake, the prisoner could win release. The legislation does not define crucial details, like what counts as “long term” and whether there would be any appeal process.

It is not clear how executive branch officials will react to that provision. Both the Bush and Obama administration have fought to prevent detainees in Afghanistan from having habeas corpus rights in federal court, and executive branch officials have previously expressed concerns that requiring military versions of such hearings for all prisoners would strain resources, the aide said.

Another provision would mandate military detention for people suspected of being “high value” terrorists from Al Qaeda: members of the organization who participated in planning or conducting attacks on the United States. The mandate would exclude United States citizens, and it would allow the secretary of defense to send detainees to the civilian criminal justice system at his discretion.

Andrea J. Prasow of Human Rights Watch called that provision an “outrageous” undermining of prosecutorial discretion, adding that “mandatory military detention is what martial-law states do, not democracies.”

The measure would affect detainee issues in other ways:

¶ Making permanent a restriction against using military funds to build a prison inside the United States to house Guantánamo detainees.

¶ Allowing defendants in military commissions to plead guilty in capital cases.

¶ Codifying in federal statute a parole-board-like system of annual reviews for detainees that President Obama established by executive order this year.

¶ Making permanent a steep set of conditions, previously imposed by Congress as a temporary measure, that must be met before a Guantánamo detainee may be transferred to another country, but also authorizing the secretary of defense to make exceptions to the rules in certain cases.

¶ Declaring that the existing authorization to use military force against the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks includes the power to detain members of Al Qaeda, the Taliban and associated forces.

The provision defining who can be detained is less sweeping than a similar provision in the House version of the bill. Critics have said that version as amounting to a new authorization of open-ended war severed of any connection to the Sept. 11 attacks.

Something Rotten This Way Comes

antiwar.com
Posted By Philip Giraldi On June 22, 2011 @ 11:00 pm

The issue of Israel is of critical importance to the antiwar movement, as frequenters of this website are surely aware. This is because Israel and its lobby in the United States have succeeded in so intertwining their interests with those of the United States that whenever Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sneezes four hundred congressmen say “Gesundheit!” What Israel does has consequences for every American citizen, and not only because Tel Aviv is the largest recipient of US economic and military assistance. It is indisputable that Israel and its friends in the White House and Defense Department played a major role in creating the lies and generating the momentum in the drive to war against Iraq in 2002, a conflict that continues to claim American casualties and which has left Iraq in ruins. Now the push is on to “do something” about Iran. There have been a number of bills in Congress that stop just short of declaring war on the Mullahs and there are signs that the Israeli government might be planning a military action before the end of the summer. Does anyone doubt that the United States would immediately be drawn into such a conflict, with disastrous consequences in terms of a terrorist response and energy prices that would skyrocket? It would be a particular misfortune in that there is no actual evidence of the alleged casus belli that Iran has a nuclear weapons program, the US is not threatened by anything Tehran does or could possibly do, and John Citizen has absolutely nothing to gain and everything to lose by Washington going to war.

There were two stories last week that illustrate just how bad the situation has become in the wake of the virtual capitulation by President Barack Obama during Netanyahu’s triumphal May visit to Washington, the first time in recorded history that a small nation with less than eight million citizens has subjugated a much larger country with a population of more than 310 million.

The first story is about the annual meeting of Ralph Reed’s evangelical Faith and Freedom Coalition in Washington on June 3rd and 4th, which included cameo appearances and a number of speeches by Republican presidential candidates. Support for Israel was on the menu du jour in nearly every speech and for every panel. It dominated the conference. One panel had as its subject “Israel: surrounded yet undaunted in the face of evil.” Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s oddly named Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission spoke for fifteen minutes about Israel, saying “If we want God to bless America, then we have to bless the Jews. God gave that land to his chosen people forever. That issue is settled by God almighty.” Land called Obama “…the worst president of the United States that Israel has ever had,” an assertion that probably had much deeper meaning than he intended. Danny Danon, a Knesset member for the Likud Party, warned President Obama “Take your hands from Jerusalem! Jerusalem will remain under Jewish control forever!”

Among the Republicans, only Mitt Romney failed to mention Israel, but he had already denounced Obama for “throwing Israel under the bus.” Godfather Pizza magnate Herman Cain demonstrated complete ignorance on basic Middle Eastern issues when he revealed in an interview that he did not understand the meaning of “right of return.” But he reportedly “blew the audience away” with his expressions of support—“You mess with Israel and you mess with the United States of America”—and then flew up to New York City to attend a Salute to Israel rally in Central Park. Michele Bachmann produced a standing ovation when she cited a “shocking display of betrayal of our greatest friend and ally Israel.” She added “I stand with Israel…President Obama…does not speak for us on the issue of Israel.” Tim Pawlenty enthused “We need a president of the United States who stands shoulder to shoulder with our great friend Israel.”

The second story comes from a reported visit by Illinois Republican Senator Mark Kirk to Israel. The coverage of the visit by Josh Rogin (isn’t he an actor?) on the Foreign Policy website, is headlined as a “new policy approach.” The story features a photo of a beaming Kirk standing next to a similarly glowing Netanyahu, demonstrating beyond all doubt that excellent dentistry is available in both countries. Kirk, who appears to have some problem in keeping his resume straight regarding his military record, traveled to the Middle East on an “intense fact finding” mission funded by you and me, unfortunately.

Senator Kirk envisions a “host of ways” to bring about a lot more Israeli-US defense cooperation, suggesting that the $3 billion plus per year they already get is inadequate to their needs. He would like to have the Israeli navy assist the United States navy in patrolling for pirates in the Indian Ocean. Sounds good, doesn’t it? The world’s mightiest navy with eleven carrier battle groups needs help from Israel’s three corvettes to patrol the Indian Ocean. Ah, but there must be a catch and I would guess that since Israel’s navy is inadequate to the task, the United States will generously pay to muscle it up, provide a few new vessels and maybe some advanced weapons systems. Probably also cover all the operating costs. It makes perfect sense as everyone knows that Israel is vulnerable to attack from the sea, particularly by car ferries manned by ferocious Turks wielding sticks delivering aid to the Gazans.

Kirk would also like to have the Defense Department consider the purchase of Israel’s Iron Dome defensive missile system to protect “our borders” in case either the Canadians or Mexicans decide to attack with Katyusha rockets. Iron Dome was largely developed with US funding but the sales would all go to Israel. Ka-ching!, just listen to that cash register opening up. Kirk would also like to have NATO buy the system to protect against somebody somewhere at some time who might be considering something bad. Ka-ching! Ka-ching!

But Senator Kirk’s brilliant insights into the state of the Middle East do not end with the Israeli navy and buying needful things. Kirk advocates ending US funding to the Palestinians as long as Hamas is involved and also terminating it anyway if the Palestinians dare to declare statehood in the UN. Or if they fail to curb “anti-Israeli incitement in Palestinian schools.” If those three reasons won’t do, there are almost certainly others. Oh yes, and Kirk wants the Turkish humanitarian relief organization IHH, which supported the flotilla bringing aid to Gaza in May, declared a terrorist organization.

Kirk concluded his visit by making a video with Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky on human rights in Iran. Sharansky recited a list of dissidents in prison in Iran. He apparently misplaced the list of dissidents in prison in Israel, which would be a whole lot longer, as would the corresponding list of those shot and killed by Israeli security forces on the West Bank and in Gaza.

I really don’t care what America’s hypocritical evangelicals do except insofar as they waste my tax money on their divinely sanctioned wars and demand my grandson for cannon fodder. The fact that they ignore Christian teachings of love and forgiveness and seem to gravitate instead towards Old Testament bloodshed because of their skewed and ridiculous interpretation of what they think it says in the bible is a symptom of their ignorance and hubris. That a US senator goes to Israel to genuflect and kiss the Netanyahu ring is not that surprising either. But it would be a mistake to dismiss Ralph Reed’s followers and the nincompoops that seem to proliferate in Congress because of their witlessness and hypocrisy. People like Land and the gaggle of Republican wannabes are both powerful and dangerous. The evangelicals appear to control who will be the next Republican presidential nominee, and their choice might well turn out to be a Bachmann or a Palin, with terrible consequences for the United States if they are elected and are able to carry out their fundamentalist agenda. Senator Mark Kirk is, by comparison, a useful idiot. He will give Netanyahu what he wants in return for support from the Chicago political machine to get reelected. But he buys that support with a Faustian bargain, using taxpayer money and compromising the security of every American. There was a time when someone like Kirk would be laughed out of the public forum, but currently every fool appears to have his day.

Americans have to make a hard decision on what kind of country they want to have. If they want a state shaped by a holy book and guided by the venal and hypocritical they can have it and it will turn out something like the Muslim equivalents in Iran and Saudi Arabia. Thought and moral guidance police on every corner with mandatory prayer services. Or we can opt to throw all this nonsense into the garbage where it belongs. Make Ralph Reed and his cheering Israel firsters go away or emigrate to Israel if that is their wont. We can make do without them.

Project PM Leaks Dirt on Romas/COIN Classified Intelligence Mass Surveillance

According to a Project PM announcement, here are some of the 'classified intelligence' details about Romas/COIN (Odyssey) with capabilities to monitor and automatically analyze millions of conversations, and then secretly store a wide range of personal data. It appears as if even Apple, Google, and Disney's Pixar were trying to be brought aboard to help out in this mass surveillance apparatus.

By Ms. Smith on Wed, 06/22/11 - 10:44am.

• Email
• Comment
• Print

Updated note: To be clear, all analysis and documentation to expose this mass surveillance was done by Project PM.
If you are not sitting, please do so. Although I don't advocate drinking, you might also pour a double-shot of whiskey to prepare yourself for distinctly unpleasant news about immensely sophisticated mass surveillance called Romas/COIN, or soon to be replaced by a similar program known as Odyssey. The nature and extent of the "counter intelligence" operation can be glimpsed in part by closely inspecting hundreds of e-mails among the 70,000 that were stolen in February from the contracting firm HBGary Federal.
After searching through HBGary e-mails for keywords and reading until I wanted to puke or scream, I decided to go ahead and run with Project PM's announcement. Barrett Brown of Project PM will publish these findings in full on Project PM Wiki later, but this is part of that release. According to Project PM:
For at least two years, the U.S. has been conducting a secretive and immensely sophisticated campaign of mass surveillance and data mining against the Arab world, allowing the intelligence community to monitor the habits, conversations, and activity of millions of individuals at once. And with an upgrade (Odyssey) scheduled for later this year, the top contender to win the federal contract and thus take over the program is a team of about a dozen companies which were brought together in large part by Aaron Barr - the same disgraced CEO who resigned from his own firm earlier this year after he was discovered to have planned a full-scale information war against political activists at the behest of corporate clients. The new revelation provides for a disturbing picture, particularly when viewed in a wider context. Unprecedented surveillance capabilities are being produced by an industry that works in secret on applications that are nonetheless funded by the American public - and which in some cases are used against that very same public. Their products are developed on demand for an intelligence community that is not subject to Congressional oversight and which has been repeatedly shown to have misused its existing powers in ways that violate U.S. law as well as American ideals.
Although military contractor Northrop Grumman had long held the contract for Romas/COIN, enter HBGary Federal CEO Aaron Barr in an email to Al Pisani, an executive at the much larger federal contractor TASC, with a plan related to COIN. "I met with [Mantech CEO] Bob Frisbie the other day to catch up. He is looking to expand a capability in IO [information operations] related to the COIN re-compete but more for DoD."
The layout and story is extremely long, and you'll need to read over the announcement at Project PM when it's published there. Project PM determined from the dozens of clues and references in leaked emails the unbelievable mass spying nature of Romas/COIN:
- Mobile phone software and applications constitute a major component of the program.
- There's discussion of bringing in a "gaming developer," apparently at the behest of Barr, who mentions that the team could make good use of "a social gaming company maybe like zynga, gameloft, etc." Lovegrove elsewhere notes: "I know a couple of small gaming companies at MIT that might fit the bill."
- Apple and Google were active team partners, and AT&T may have been as well. The latter is known to have provided the NSA free reign over customer communications (and was in turn protected by a bill granting them retroactive immunity from lawsuits). Google itself is the only company to have received a "Hostile to Privacy" rating from Privacy International. Apple is currently being investigated by Congress after the iPhone was revealed to compile user location data in a way that differs from other mobile phones; the company has claimed this to have been a "bug."
- The program makes use of several providers of "linguistic services." At one point, the team discusses hiring a military-trained Arabic linguist. Elsewhere, Barr writes: "I feel confident I can get you a ringer for Farsi if they are still interested in Farsi (we need to find that out). These linguists are not only going to be developing new content but also meeting with folks, so they have to have native or near native proficiency and have to have the cultural relevance as well."
- Alterion and SocialEyez are listed as "businesses to contact." The former specializes in "social media monitoring tools." The latter uses "sophisticated natural language processing methodology" in order to "process tens of millions of multi-lingual conversations daily" while also employing "researchers and media analysts on the ground;" its website also notes that "Millions of people around the globe are now networked as never before - exchanging information and ideas, forming opinions, and speaking their minds about everything from politics to products."
- At one point, TASC exec Chris Clair asks Aaron and others, "Can we name COIN Saif? Saif is the sword an Arab executioner uses when they decapitate criminals. I can think of a few cool brands for this."
- A diagram attached to one of Barr's e-mails to the group depicts Magpii as interacting in some unspecified manner with "Foreign Mobile" and "Foreign Web." Magpii is a project of Barr's own creation which stands for "Magnify Personal Identifying Information," involves social networking, and is designed for the purpose of storing personal information on users. Although details are difficult to determine from references in Barr's e-mails, he discusses the project almost exclusively with members of military intelligence to which he was pitching the idea.
- There are sporadic references such things as "semantic analysis," "Latent Semantic Indexing," "specialized linguistics," and OPS, a programming language designed for solving problems using expert systems.
- Barr asks the team's partner at Apple, Andy Kemp (whose signature lists him as being from the company's Homeland Defense/National Programs division), to provide him "a contact at Pixar/Disney."
Altogether, then, a successful bid for the relevant contract was seen to require the combined capabilities of perhaps a dozen firms - capabilities whereby millions of conversations can be monitored and automatically analyzed, whereby a wide range of personal data can be obtained and stored in secret, and whereby some unknown degree of information can be released to a given population through a variety of means and without any hint that the actual source is U.S. military intelligence. All this is merely in addition to whichever additional capabilities are not evident from the limited description available, with the program as a whole presumably being operated in conjunction with other surveillance and propaganda assets controlled by the U.S. and its partners.
Here's the team players:
- TASC (PMO, creative services)
- HB Gary (Strategy, planning, PMO)
- Akamai (infrastructure)
- Archimedes Global (Specialized linguistics, strategy, planning)
- Acclaim Technical Services (specialized linguistics)
- Mission Essential Personnel (linguistic services)
- Cipher (strategy, planning operations)
- PointAbout (rapid mobile application development, list of strategic partners)
- Google (strategy, mobile application and platform development - long list of strategic partners)
- Apple (mobile and desktop platform, application assistance -long list of strategic partners)
- We are trying to schedule an interview with AT&T plus some other small app developers.
Two days after a briefing requirement meeting, the servers of HBGary and HBGary Federal were hacked by a small team of Anonymous operatives in retaliation for Barr's boasts to Financial Times that he had identified the movement's "leadership;" 70,000 e-mails were thereafter released onto the Internet. Barr resigned a few weeks later.
Also according to Project PM, along with clues as to the nature of COIN and its scheduled replacement, a close study of the HBGary e-mails also provide reasons to be concerned with the fact that such things are being developed and deployed in the way that they are. In addition to being the driving force behind the COIN recompete, Barr was also at the center of a series of conspiracies by which his own company and two others hired out their collective capabilities for use by corporations that sought to destroy their political enemies by clandestine and dishonest means, some of which appear to be illegal. None of the companies involved have been investigated; a proposed Congressional inquiry was denied by the committee chair, noting that it was the Justice Department's decision as to whether to investigate, even though it was the Justice Department itself that made the initial introductions. Those in the intelligence contracting industry who believe themselves above the law are entirely correct.
That such firms will continue to target the public with advanced information warfare capabilities on behalf of major corporations is by itself an extraordinary danger to mankind as a whole, particularly insomuch as that such capabilities are becoming more effective while remaining largely unknown outside of the intelligence industry. But a far greater danger is posed by the practice of arming small and unaccountable groups of state and military personnel with a set of tools by which to achieve better and better "situational awareness" on entire populations while also being able to manipulate the information flow in such a way as to deceive those same populations. The idea that such power can be wielded without being misused is contradicted by even a brief review of history.

History also demonstrates that the state will claim such powers as a necessity in fighting some considerable threat; the U.S. has defended its recent expansion of powers by claiming they will only be deployed to fight terrorism and will never be used against American civilians. This is cold comfort for those in the Arab world who are aware of the long history of U.S. material support for regimes they find convenient, including those of Saddam Hussein, Hosni Mubarak, and the House of Saud. Nor should Americans be comforted by such promises from a government that has no way of ensuring that they will be kept; it was just a few months ago that a U.S. general in Afghanistan ordered a military intelligence unit to use pysops on visiting senators in an effort to secure increased funding for the war, an illegal act; only a few days prior, CENTCOM spokesmen were confidently telling the public that such other psychological capabilities as persona management would never be used on Americans as that would be illegal. The fact is that such laws have been routinely broken by the military and intelligence community, who are now been joined in this practice by segments of the federal contracting industry.
It is inevitable, then, that such capabilities as form the backbone of Romas/COIN and its replacement Odyssey will be deployed against a growing segment of the world's population. The powerful institutions that wield them will grow all the more powerful as they are provided better and better methods by which to monitor, deceive, and manipulate. The informed electorate upon which liberty depends will be increasingly misinformed. No tactical advantage conferred by the use of these programs can outweigh the damage that will be done to mankind in the process of creating them.
The complete Project PM announcement about Romas/COIN has been published: http://wiki.echelon2.org:8090/wiki/Romas/COIN

A sinister cyber-surveillance scheme exposed

Hacked emails from security contractor HBGary Federal reveal a disturbing public-private partnership to spy on web users

Barrett Brown
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 22 June 2011 19.39 BST

In February 2011, the hackers' collective Anonymous released 70,000 emails from security contractor HBGary Federal, which revealed that CEO Aaron Barr had offered the firm's services to mount cyber-attacks against WikiLeaks and others on behalf of corporate clients. Photograph: Getty Images

When President Eisenhower left office in 1960, he provided the American people with a warning.

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."

Sixty years later, the military-industrial complex has been joined by another unprecedented centre of what has increasingly proven to be "misplaced power": the dozens of secretive firms known collectively as the intelligence contracting industry.

Last February, three of these firms – HBGary Federal, Palantir and Berico, known collectively as Team Themis – were discovered to have conspired to hire out their information war capabilities to corporations which hoped to strike back at perceived enemies, including US activist groups, WikiLeaks and journalist Glenn Greenwald. That such a dangerous new dynamic was now in play was only revealed due to a raid by hackers associated with the Anonymous collective, resulting in the dissemination of more than 70,000 emails to and from executives at HBGary Federal and affiliated company HBGary.

After having spent several months studying those emails and otherwise investigating the industry depicted therein, I have revealed my summary of a classified US intelligence programme known as Romas/COIN, as well as its upcoming replacement, known as Odyssey. The programme appears to allow for the large-scale monitoring of social networks by way of such things as natural language processing, semantic analysis, latent semantic indexing and IT intrusion. At the same time, it also entails the dissemination of some unknown degree of information to a given population through a variety of means – without any hint that the actual source is US intelligence. Scattered discussions of Arab translation services may indicate that the programme targets the Middle East.

Despite the details I have provided in the document – which is also now in the possession of several major news outlets and which may be published in whole or in part by any party that cares to do so – there remains a great deal that is unclear about Romas/COIN and the capabilities it comprises. The information with which I've worked consists almost entirely of email correspondence between executives of several firms that together sought to win the contract to provide the programme's technical requirements, and because many of the discussions occurred in meetings and phone conversations, the information remaining deals largely with prospective partners, the utility of one capability over another, and other clues spread out over hundreds of email exchanges between a large number of participants.

The significance of this programme to the public is not limited to its potential for abuse by facets of the US intelligence community, which has long been proverbial for misusing other of its capabilities. Perhaps the most astonishing aspect is the fact that the partnership of contracting firms and other corporate entities that worked to obtain the contract was put into motion in large part by Aaron Barr, the disgraced former CEO of HBGary Federal who was at the centre of Team Themis's conspiracy to put high-end intelligence capabilities at the disposal of private institutions. As I explain further in the linked report, this fact alone should prompt increased investigation into the manner in which this industry operates and the threats it represents to democratic institutions.

Altogether, the existence and nature of Romas/COIN should confirm what many had already come to realise over the past few years, in particular: the US and other states have no intention of allowing populations to conduct their affairs without scrutiny. Such states ought not complain when they find themselves subjected to similar scrutiny – as will increasingly become the case over the next several years.

• Editor's note: The headline and photo caption in this article originally alluded to HBGary. HBGary Federal is the company in question, which is a distinct entity from HBGary Inc. The article has been amended to make that clarification at 9am (BST) on 23 June 2011

7 Ridiculously Overpriced Foods (and 7 Better Ways to Blow Your Money)

By Blythe Copeland, TreeHugger
Posted on June 22, 2011, Printed on June 26, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/

Restaurants looking for some quick press can follow this tried and true formula: Take a simple dish (candy, a hamburger, soup); add some crazy valuable ingredients (gold, truffles, crystal); and market it as "The World's Most Expensive."

And while we know the market for a $5,000 burger, $2,000 sushi roll, and $1000 frittata isn't exactly huge, there are definitely better ways to blow your money in one shot.

1. The $500 Jellybeans

In March,Mogulite reported that Jelly Belly founder David Klein -- whom the site refers to as a "reclusive candy mogul" -- planned to launch a jar of jellybeans with a not-so-sweet price: $500.

The beans will be coated in 24-karat gold leaf and come packed in a crystal jar, but Klein said the taste of the "Beyond Gourmet" line will be the real treat: "It's literally an exotic trip around the world through the sense of taste via never-before-tasted jelly bean flavors," says the press release, while referencing varieties like mango chutney and lemongrass curry.

Wow. And we thought the strawberry daquiri flavor was groundbreaking.

Instead: Spending $500 on jellybeans when 37 million people in the United States relied on Feeding America's food banks last year is more than a bit ridiculous.

We suggest, to those looking for these oh-so-rare-flavored beans: turn that money over to a local food bank, use it to buy canned goods that can be donated to food drives, or mail a check to a national hunger fighting organization (like Feeding America).

2. The $2,600 Bottle of Water

If you live in an area where you can drink the tap water, then you have no excuse for buying bottled water. And no matter where you live, you have no excuse for buying the $2,600 bottle of water that Bling H20 announced in March.

The water, reportedly sourced from Tennessee's Great Smoky Mountains, gets its pricetag because of the 10,000 crystals that encrust the bottle.

Instead: Trust us: You do not want to be known as the idiot who spent $2,600 on bottled water.

You do want to be known as the philanthropist who provided more than two dozen people with fresh water for life -- which is what you'll be when you donate that money to water.org.

The group provides clean, safe drinking water to communities around the world -- Bangladesh, Haiti, Kenya, and elsewhere -- think of it as a more literal way to pour money down the drain.

3. The $5,000 Burger

While the new, $5,000 burger on the menu at Fleur in Las Vegas is pricey in part because of its ingredients -- chef Hubert Keller combines Kobe beef, foie gras, and plenty of black truffles in the finished product, according to The Wall Street Journal -- as any server can attest, it's the alcohol that really boosts the bill.

The burger is served with a bottle of 1995 Petrus and a set of Italian glasses; still, says The Wall Street Journal, the whole meal would probably only cost about $3,000 if you made it yourself.

Instead: While we're not always fans of PETA's attention-grabbing tactics, they do focus many of their efforts on rescuing animals of all shapes and sizes -- and promoting veganism and vegetarianism, a diet that advocates say is better for the environment, better for your health, and better for animals (and which most definitely does not include hamburgers that cost as much as a used car or meat from cruelly force-fed ducks). Send them a check and call it a day.

4. The $1,000 Frittata

The restaurant at the Parker Meridien hotel in New York City refers to this dish as "The Zillion Dollar Lobster Frittata" -- so when you find out that it really costs only $1,000, that seems pretty cheap.

What do you get for your money? Six eggs, lobster claws, and 10 ounces of Sevruga caviar. And if you're feeling a bit thrifty the restaurant also offers a $100 version -- though you'll find only one ounce of caviar on that.

Instead: Unless you know exactly how the chickens that produced those eggs -- or any eggs -- lived before the eggs ended up on your plate, there's a good chance they were raised on a factory farm, where animals are packed in tightly and diseases spread quickly.

Try making a $5,000 donation to Farm Sanctuary, instead: This Watkins Glen, NY, rescue organization takes in turkeys, pigs, goats, ducks, and other animals making a clean break from the factory farm life.

5. The $175 Soup

If you want to try the "Buddha Jumps Over the Wall" soup at London's Kai Mayfair restaurant, you're required to give the restaurant five days advance notice.

That's how long it takes them to put together the £108 dish (about $175), a steaming hot combination of "abalone (sea snails), dried scallops, sea cucumber, ginseng, corn-fed chicken, Chinese mushrooms, and gold" -- of course, gold! -- as per the menu.

Instead: The restaurant says that it uses farmed abalone, which takes as long as five years to mature before it's ready for the plate -- but in the wild, several different kinds of abalone are or have been on the endangered species list.

The slow growth, its sensitivity to water temperature, and increasing ocean acidification make the water less safe for these sea creatures.

Want to help? Donate your $175 to Oceana, and it will go toward efforts to conserve the world's waters and their inhabitants.

6. The $128 Chocolate Bar

The Amedei chocolate company in Tuscany, Italy, bills its single-origin Porcelana as the most expensive chocolate in the world, made from white beans grown in 3,000 kilo batches on small plantations in Venezuela.

The chocolate holds the Guinness Book of World Records title for most expensive chocolate from as far back as 2006, when one pound cost $90; Pianki currently sells a 1.92-ounce box of the limited edition chocolates for $16.

Instead: Amedei says it has a close relationship with its bean producers, but that's not always the case with other chocolate companies -- unless the bars are produced under Fair Trade guidelines, ensuring safe working conditions, livable wages, and other humanitarian basics.

Buy a Fair Trade bar instead, and then donate the balance to Fair Trade USA to support their work ensuring the proper treatment of workers in Asia, Latin America, and Africa.

7. The $2,000 Sushi Roll

The current Guinness Record for most expensive sushi goes to a dish from chef Angelito Araneta of the Philippines, who created a five-piece nigiri roll made from crab meat and wrapped in 24-karat gold -- and finished with diamond studs for a total value of $1,978.15 (we're not sure why they didn't just round up to $1,980 -- with that kind of cash, what's another $2?).

Araneta appears to be a "celebrity chef" who makes a habit of creating ridiculously expensive dishes, so you likely won't find this roll on the menu anywhere (and your wallet will be glad to hear it).

Instead: Eating seafood without paying attention to how it's raised and where it comes from can sink your sustainable eating plan in one move. Look at seafood guides from the NRDC and the World Wildlife Fund -- and then put your money where your mouth is by helping those organizations further their efforts to protect the food chain.


Blythe Copeland is a freelancer living in Baltimore, Maryland, where she writes about eco-friendly fashion, beauty, babies, celebrities, pop culture, and lifestyle.

Man Robs Bank...for Health Care?

John Thorpe
San Francisco Chronicle
Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Having already set his affairs in order, James Verone calmly walked into an RBC bank in North Carolina and committed his first crime in his 59 years on this planet. Verone handed the teller a note that read "This is a bank robbery. Please only give me one dollar," took the dollar from the terrified clerk, and sat down on a couch in the bank's lobby.

"'I'll be sitting right over there in the chair waiting for the police," Verone told the bank teller. And wait he did. Police arrived moments later and apprehended him, hauling him off to the jail cell he so desperately wanted to enter.

No, James Verone isn't crazy. He isn't a career criminal. He didn't rob the bank to get drugs or booze. He didn't do it to get attention or on a lark. James Verone walked into that bank and committed a felony because going to jail was the only way he could receive the health care he needed to survive.

Verone is one man, but he could really be any one of us. He's 59 and well past the point of finding a new career. He was laid off from his 17-year job and, with unemployment hardly a survivable wage, took the first job that came his way. He developed a growth on his chest - the sort of medical condition that could be life-threatening - and earned two ruptured disks in his back, along with problems with his left foot.

After depleting his life savings and realizing he had, literally, nowhere else to turn, Verone committed the crime, hoping he could get the medical care that he so desperately needs.

This is what America has come to? Otherwise honest folks, with no where to turn in life, have to resort to fake-robbing a bank with the hopes they'll be arrested so they can receive medical care?

There is absolutely no reason for an allegedly civilized country, particularly one as wealthy as America, to pass the buck on providing health care for everyone. Yes, everyone: the employed and the unemployed; the sick and the healthy; old and young.

Before you scream "oh no, socialism!!!" stop and consider what you mean by that. How do socialist systems pay for health care? Taxes are collected from businesses and citizens, and a portion of those taxes go to cover the health care costs of everyone in the plan - in other words, everyone in the country.

How do health insurance systems pay for health care? Premiums are collected from businesses and employees, and a portion of those premiums go to cover the health care costs of everyone in the plan.

The difference between the two? Socialized care costs less (because it has a much larger pool of people to draw from), covers everyone at all times, and prevents people from purposefully committing crimes to get treated. Insurance systems ARE socialized systems, except they don't cover everyone and allow a corporation - and entity that neither receives nor provides the medical treatment - to skim a profit off the top.

In what sort of twisted mind is that the rational way to provide medical care? It's not like the marketplace can rationally set prices for health care. A dying man has no ability to check prices and compare services before deciding which hospital he'll take his heart attack to.

Chemotherapy cannot wait for patients to decide if they want to upgrade to the premium service that ABC Cancer, Inc is offering, or if they'll settle for the basic package. Health care is not cable TV and cannot be solved with these over-simplified market solutions. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a liar, a fraud, or a charlatan - and perhaps a moron. (I would bet on "moron".)

At some point, Americans need to grow up and accept that providing single-payer, government-paid health care for the entire country is not only mandatory - it is the only morally acceptable choice.

Israel's Stealth GOP Presidential Candidate?

Rapture Rick Perry of Texas:

Israel's Stealth GOP Presidential Candidate?
By Mar Dankof
Word Press, Al-Jazeerah, CCUN, June 21, 2011

Mark Dankof: Perry's Financed Junket to Israel: Financed by the Doheny Global Group and Irwin Katsof's Global Capital Associates. What are the Real Implications?

“Wow! Not even a whiff of a notion of the Presidency, and his lips are already lotioned to kiss ass.”

—Iranian-American Facebook blogger on Governor Rick Perry’s Zionist-inspired impending Presidential run P. T. Barnum aptly observed that there is a “sucker born every minute.” In the case of the Tea Party activist movement, the birth rate may be one every second.

The prospects for the movement, and the country, are identically both abysmal and comedic. Perhaps tragedy is truly the flip side of comedy.

What is presently happening in 2011 in the Republican Presidential sweepstakes can be understood against the backdrop of the 1996 GOP wars.

15 years ago, the International Central Bankers, Neo-Conservatives, anti-Catholic bigots, and the ever present Christian Zionist nutcases were having collective heart failure over the prospect of a Pat Buchanan nomination. For the most part, Buchanan wasn’t rising above 30% of the vote in any given primary (save Michigan after the battle had already been decided), but in the early going those figures packed considerable clout in a multi-candidate field, resulting in a victory in the Louisiana caucus that finished Phil Grimm, and a first-round victory in the kickoff New Hampshire primary. It was clear that Tricky Dick’s ex-speechwriter was terrifying the power brokers.

It became necessary for these brokers to develop a playbook to destroy Pat Buchanan.

The playbook that successfully accomplished this purpose included the following three components: 1) enlisting Israeli-asset Alan Keyes, William Kristol’s roommate at Harvard, to enter the Iowa caucus to divide the conservative vote and ensure Bob Dole’s ensuing victory and subsequent drive to the nomination; and 2) tapping the Christian Coalition’s Ralph Reed as Dole’s liaison to the Religious Right, ensuring the Faithful that Dole was a Pro-Life Evangelical (a crock) and a 10th Amendment man (another crock).

Reed’s enlisted effort for this political fraud was successful, despite the clear voting paper trail of Dole in the U. S. Senate, and the problematically untidy issue of the Senator’s impregnation of a campaign worker while running for President in 1980 against Reagan. Conservative Caucus Chairman Howard Phillips printed the evidence on this latter scandal, compounded in damage potential by the published proof that Dole Chief-of-Staff Craig Fuller had taken the lady to an abortionist in Kansas City named Dr. William Crist.

Ralph Reed helped to insure that this information never came to light in Evangelical circles. His service to Dole and the New World Order establishment lurking in the darkness behind the senior Senator from Kansas, went a long way toward the development of the client list and the greenbacks for his current Creative Consultants operation, which has included business with such Godly people as Jack Abramoff.

Ralph Reed: His Faith and Freedom Coalition Conference: Vetting GOP Candidates for Israel

Climatically, Reed’s slimy presence was augmented in the playbook by the third ingredient in the carefully devised game plan, 3) the entrance of William F. Buckley’s pro-Zionist National Review into the 1996 GOP Presidential foray, employed in a joint effort with the mainstream Time, Newsweek, and U. S. News and World Report magazines, in collectively assailing Pat Buchanan on cue as an anti-Semite whose views were totally outside the mainstream of the Republican Party.

The pivotal importance and critical significance of the William F. Buckley angle to the Israeli Lobby’s assault on Pat Buchanan is given its proper historical context by Dr. E. Michael Jones of Culture Wars, in his April 2007 essay in that publication entitled, “The Death of Conservatism.” The Jones piece is a review of the late Murray Friedman’s magnum opus, “The Neo-Conservative Revolution: Jewish Intellectuals and the Shaping of Public Policy” [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005].

There, Jones informs us via Friedman, that National Review was essentially run by the Jews who employed it and financed Bill Buckley, for the express purpose of hijacking the American conservative movement for the “ruling class internationalist establishment” and its accompanying Zionist interests, in the process destroying the careers of prominent spokesmen in the movement not co-opted by the hidden hand.

These careers included the late Joe Sobran and Sam Francis, and, of course, Patrick J. Buchanan. Jewish activists like Frank Meyer, Frank Chodorov, Morrie Raskin, Willi Schlamm, and Marvin Liebman were the power behind the emerging William F. Buckley persona on the national political scene, especially Schlamm, who drew up the publication’s financial plan, and Liebman, the guru of subscriber recruitment and financing. Jones notes the specifics of the Marvin Liebman biography for the purpose of contextualizing The Lobby’s unfurling plan of deployment of both Buckley and his flagship magazine over the decades to follow:

“What conservatism lacked in philosophical coherence, however, it made up for in effective political organizing techniques which its ‘founding Jewish fathers’ remembered from their days in the Communist Party. Or from their days in Zionist terrorist organizations.

“In terms of organization, the most influential of [William F.] Buckley’s ‘circle of Jews’ was a former communist who came to conservatism via Zionism, in particular via the terrorist organization known as Irgun Zvai Leumi. His name was Marvin Liebman and in addition to serving as publisher of National Review, he created the fund-raising technique known as direct mail, which would play a major role in the political movements surrounding Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan.
“In 1946 Liebman was captured trying to smuggle Jews into Palestine and held in a British detention camp on Cyprus for 15 days. . . .”

Buckley’s National Review thus became the prototype of other front publications and outlets making their appearance on the American Right in the years that followed, including William Kristol’s The Weekly Standard, Christopher Ruddy’s NewsMax, Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News, the Unification Church’s Washington Times, Human Events, and Joseph Farah’s Internet-based World Net Daily.

Along with the Israeli-controlled American Religious Right print and broadcasting operations, ranging from the Scofield Reference Bible to John Hagee’s syndicated television show, these opinion makers have enabled the Zionist State and its domestic American power brokers to effectively gain a stranglehold on the promotion of Republican political candidates who reflect Tel Aviv’s interests exclusively, even as Israel’s real record of performance since 1948 is systematically withheld from unsuspecting grassroots American conservatives who vote in Republican primaries.

Pat Buchanan: The Anti-Defamation League Inspired Hit Job of 1996 is Joined by Buckley's National Review

Now fast forward to 2012. It is clear that the only candidate in the GOP Presidential field not totally co-opted by multi-national corporate interests, the New World Order, and the Christian Zionist zealots being used skillfully by the first two constituencies, is Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX/14th Congressional District).

Paul’s strong suits are the ability to raise money, and the role he plays as the sole candidate in the field talking about the dangers of a Federal Reserve-run monetary policy and an interventionist foreign policy. His weaker points involve less strength than desired as a television media candidate, and his advancing age (75).

There is another vulnerability, noted in my op-ed of last week: the fact that the Congressman has finessed the eternal question of the Zionist State of Israel, and its accompanying American domestic Jewish lobby, despite the fact that his expressed views on major topics would seem to lead, inexorably, to an inevitable public discussion of this matter in the developing Presidential primary campaign in the Republican Party.

How The Lobby and its Neo-Conservative agents of influence handle the Paul candidacy in the coming months will make for one of the more interesting stories of the 2012 campaign for the American Presidency. With a primary campaign season that is deliberately front-loaded, one may anticipate the early nomination of an internationalist Republican Presidential candidate by Super Tuesday next year and the quick fade of a Ron Paul candidacy that is now in its third cycle since his initial run on the Libertarian ticket in 1988.

But if Paul surprises the pundits and achieves early electoral successes akin to those of Pat Buchanan in 1996, he needs to get ready for an assault similar to that launched on Nixon’s speechwriter 15 years ago. Arguably the Congressman makes a far more difficult target for slander and character assassination than Buchanan did at the hands of Abe Foxman and the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai Brith (ADL), but this fact will not preclude what will come if the Representative of Texas’s 14th Congressional District confounds conventional political wisdom and gets out of the starting gate early as a contender for the Presidential nomination of the GOP. As Iran’s Press TV reports, Ron Paul’s enemies already plan to gerrymander him out of business. The playbook’s gameplan in 2011 will escalate well beyond that beginning venture, if future circumstances dictate. Watch your back, Good Doctor.

The Rev. John Hagee of San Antonio's Cornerstone Church and "Christians United for Israel" (CUFI): A $150 Million Empire Courtesy of the ADL and AIPAC.

This then begs the obvious question. If The Lobby is successful as usual in preempting the candidacy of a candidate who threatens it, who among the bought-and-paid for wannabes in the Republican Presidential Sweepstakes will emerge as The Anointed for the fall of 2012?

Rapture Rick Perry: Tapped by the Ghosts of Marvin Liebman and Willi Schlamm as Likud's Man for the White House?

Stated another way, who has been put forth by the cover of National Review this year as a GOP Presidential option, along with the identical suggestion of Newsweek Magazine in the same time frame?

The answer: Rapture Rick Perry, the Governor of Texas.

Perry’s heightened visibility recently seems to coincide with Netanyahu’s recent Washington trip. It was abundantly obvious to any informed observer that the Israeli PM was sending a clear message to Barack Obama and the Democratic Party that The Lobby had other options if the President’s Middle East policy proved to be less than a total lock for AIPAC and Friends.

And the Texas Governor’s credentials with the Zionist State, bankers, military contractors, and the Christian Right prove absolutely impeccable. Perry’s stop in Los Angeles today to assail Mr. Obama on the latter’s position on abortion is tailor made to appeal to the constituency left panting by Mike Huckabee’s mysterious withdrawal from The Sweepstakes, and the failure thus far of alternatives ranging from Michelle Bachmann to Sarah Palin to catch early fire with the followers of Pastor John Hagee of Cornerstone Church/San Antonio, and the odious Christians United for Israel (CUFI) front.

Is the Fix In? Newsweek joins National Review: Rapture Rick As The Lobby's GOP Anointed?

Those credentials were solidified in a June 2007 junket to Israel, paid for by Irwin Katsof’s Global Capital Associates and the Doheny Global Group which includes Tom Ridge as a Strategic Limited Partner. This trip, and its financiers, provide the Rosetta Stone necessary to decipher the forces behind the sudden media ascendancy of Rick Perry approaching 2012.

Rabbi Irwin Katsof (left): Hobnobbing with General Wesley Clark at the "Establishment and Development of 'Democracy'" Conference in Geneva. September 2005.

And not coincidentally, June 2007 was the same month and year according to Democratic Underground, that Governor Perry was an invited guest of the shadowy international Bilderberg Group. Paul Burka, columnist for Texas Monthly reported then that the Texas Governor was joined by:

“Kathleen Sibelius, governor of Kansas; Kristen Silverberg, Assistant Secretary of State; Ross Wilson, ambassador to Turkey; Paul Wolfowitz, World Bank; Philip Zelikow, ex-”9/11″ Commissioner; Richard Holbrooke, Perseus LLC; Vernon Jordan Jr., Lazard Freres & Co.; Henry Kravis, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR); Henry Kissinger, Kissinger & Associates; Richard Perle, Ex-Defense Policy Board, and several others.”

Burka then went to note that:

“. . . Gov. Rick Perry is headed to Israel to receive the Friend of Zion Award for his ‘leadership in homeland defense, border security, and economic development. . . . Gov. Rick Perry and First Lady Anita Perry today left on a seven-day trip to visit the Middle East nations of Israel and Jordan. In Israel, Gov. Perry will receive the ‘Friend of Zion Award’ from the Global Leadership Council for his leadership in homeland defense, border security and economic development. The award, which is given to ‘leaders who have played key roles in promoting the close alliance between America and the Jewish state,’ will be presented during a ceremony in Jerusalem at the historic Western Wall Square.

“Perry is also scheduled to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, former Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and former Prime Minister and newly elected President Shimon Peres. In addition, he will meet with the Israeli Chief Scientist, Dr. Eli Opper, and several representatives of the aeronautics, defense systems, homeland security and biotechnology industries. . . .”

No Man Can Serve Two Masters: Governor Perry's is Israel.

One thing is absolutely sure in Campaign 2012: No one will ask Perry in Corporate Media about his chats with these Israeli intelligence and scientific moguls against the backdrop of the charge recently made by Philip Giraldi on Iranian Press TV that Israel engages in more spying and technology theft against the United States than any other American “ally.” Giraldi is the ex-CIA Station Chief in Turkey, Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest , and columnist for The American Conservative. How much of Israel’s espionage operation targeting the United States may involve Global Capital Associates, the Doheny Global Group, and the Perry-backed Texas-Israel Chamber of Commerce would make for an interesting research project for Mr. Giraldi and his Council.

And as for the American Presidential “debates” promulgated by CNN and Fox News, here are a few suggestions for material to be directed toward the Governor of the Lone Star State when his hat is thrown into the ring:

“Governor Perry, how do you feel about a fiat American currency, a direct Federal income tax, usurious interest rates, endless foreign wars, a morally polluted American culture, an economic globalism which has destroyed the once-vaunted American manufacturing economy, and the imposition of a domestic technological surveillance structure that threatens to replace the freedoms of our beloved Old Republic with a repristinated Stalinism?

“Governor Perry, why is the domestic and foreign policy of the modern American conservative movement and the Republican party being defined by a view of Biblical prophecy unheard of until the 19th century, and largely promoted worldwide by the House of Rothschild’s distribution of the Scofield Reference Bible through its Oxford University Press? Secondly, why are we in an alliance with a nation that has repeatedly committed crimes against the United States, including the Lavon Affair, Mossad involvement in the Kennedy assassination, the premeditated attack on the USS Liberty in June of 1967, the Pollard spy case, participation with Communist China in the theft of American nuclear secrets at Los Alamos through the PROMIS affair, and the more recent Ben Ami Kadish and AIPAC/Rosen/Weissman spy cases?

Even Rapture Rick Perry Has to Cover his Face at John Hagee's Love-In for Israel.

“Governor Perry, given your recent attacks on Barack Obama in Los Angeles over the President’s position on abortion, why are we in an alliance as American conservatives and evangelical Christians with a domestic Jewish lobby which has militantly supported and financed the radical feminist, abortion, and homosexual lobbies most of us are sworn to oppose?

“Governor Perry, why are we, as a pro-life movement, committed to policies of genocide against the Palestinians and the advocacy of the mass murder of Iranians, at the behest of an ‘ally’ which is the chief nuclear, biological, and chemical military power in the Middle East, and a non-signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) signed, however, by Iran?

“And why, Governor Perry, are you here today talking about recovering American Constitutional Principles, in the context of ongoing obeisance to the chief players in a central banking cabal which has handed to us the direct Federal income tax, the Federal Reserve Board, $14 trillion in national debt, and every globalist trade treaty that has destroyed both American sovereignty and our economic vitality?

“Governor Perry, why are you not concerned with Philip Giraldi’s charge that Israeli intelligence is promoting agitation-propaganda through the Rupert Murdoch News Corp chain designed to begin a Third World War? Why are you silent about the charges of our ex-CIA Station Chief in Turkey regarding Israeli infiltration of our intelligence agencies, our Homeland Security Department, our Transportation Safety Administration (TSA), and our telecommunications industry?

“Governor Perry, should AIPAC and John Hagee’s Christians United for Israel be forced to register as agents of a foreign government?

“And Governor Perry, do you support the utilization of nuclear weapons against Iran and its people?”

The American people would await the answers in these upcoming Presidential debates, if only they knew what the real questions of the campaign are. . . .

Does Ron Paul?