RICO Court Blocks 9/11 Discovery (Again) - Sanctions Lawyers

By Terry Baynes - Posting #199 - Judge John M. Walker :o

(Reuters) - A federal appeals court sanctioned two California lawyers on Thursday over a lawsuit they filed, dismissed as frivolous, that accused former officials in the Bush administration of allowing the September 11 Pentagon attack to occur as part of a broad conspiracy.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit ordered the two lawyers to pay $15,000 total in sanctions in addition to double an unspecified amount the government spent defending the case.

Three attorneys -- Dennis Cunningham, William Veale and Mustapha Ndanusa -- filed the lawsuit in 2008 on behalf of April Gallop, a member of the U.S. Army injured in the Pentagon attack on September 11, 2001.

The lawyers accused then-Vice President Dick Cheney and then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld of allowing the Pentagon attack to occur through inaction, despite having what the suit described as real-time information that a hijacked plane was approaching.

The suit, which also questioned the nature of the attacks, said the inaction rose to the level of conspiracy to create a political atmosphere that would allow the U.S. government to pursue domestic and international policy objectives.

The suit accused the men and others of conspiracy to cause death and bodily harm and a violation of the Antiterrorism Act.

The September 11 attacks, carried out by 19 hijackers from the global militant network al Qaeda, led U.S. forces to invade Afghanistan to topple the Taliban rulers who had harbored al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

That war served as a precursor to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003, which the administration chiefly justified by citing intelligence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. No such weapons were subsequently found.

U.S. District Judge Denny Chin dismissed the case in 2010, ruling that the complaint was frivolous and a product of "cynical delusion and fantasy." A three-judge panel of the 2nd Circuit upheld that decision, imposing $15,000 in sanctions on the three lawyers for filing the suit. All three appealed.

In requesting a rehearing, the lawyers asked the court to disqualify the three-judge panel "and any like-minded colleagues" from participating in the decision to grant review, accusing the panel of "severe bias, based in active personal emotions arising from the 9/11 attack."

But the 2nd Circuit took exception to the request, concluding no attorney would make such a demand in good faith.

The court upheld sanctions against Veale and Cunningham but reversed them against Ndanusa, who only served a minor role as local counsel. Ndanusa said all of the lawyers acted in good faith in bringing the lawsuit.

The court also ordered Cunningham, who described himself as "the decider" in developing the case, to inform other federal courts in circuit of the sanctions order for the next year.

"We are not delusional by any means. We have the facts, and they cannot be explained," said Veale, a former chief assistant public defender for Contra Costa County, California.

Cunningham did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

WAKE UP AMERICA!!!....Its "OUR" country!!!

Love "Light" and Energy

_Don 　　　

References: The Toronto Hearings

Obama Rewards Judges 5 Feb 2012

PBC Radio Show: 9/11 Case Against Cheney and Rumsfeld

Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act

Money Trails Lead to Bush Judges :o

Judge John Walker, George Walker Bush’s Cousin, Judges April Gallop’s Suit

List Of Federal Judges Appointed by George W. Bush

U.S. Supreme RICO Court

April Gallop’s Attorney on The Kevin Barrett Show:

German Federal Judge, Deiter Dieseroth, stated in December 2009 that:

“No independent court has applied legal procedures to review the available evidence on who was responsible for the attacks.”

Also, that “it is not acceptable for a constitutional state…to declare war, bomb a foreign country, and place it under military occupation,” without first identifying suspects.

Dieseroth also said the U.S. “was under burden of proof” that Osama bin Laden was responsible for the attacks, yet the FBI admits it has no evidence presentable in court to back this up.

The stakes in this case are epic, including the possibility of an overwhelming transformation of the world’s understanding of history, not to mention American citizens’ relationship with their government.

Obama Drones: CIA Tactics in Pakistan Targeting Rescuers - Funerals

By Chris Woods/Christina Lamb - Posting #198 [My Ass]

The CIA’s drone campaign in Pakistan has killed dozens of civilians who had gone to help rescue victims or were attending funerals, an investigation by the Bureau for the Sunday Times has revealed.

The findings are published just days after President Obama claimed that the drone campaign in Pakistan was a ‘targeted, focused effort’ that ‘has not caused a huge number of civilian casualties.’

Speaking publicly for the first time on the controversial CIA drone strikes, Obama claimed last week they are used strictly to target terrorists, rejecting what he called ‘this perception we’re just sending in a whole bunch of strikes willy-nilly’.

‘Drones have not caused a huge number of civilian casualties’, he told a questioner at an on-line forum. ‘This is a targeted, focused effort at people who are on a list of active terrorists trying to go in and harm Americans’.

But research by the Bureau has found that since Obama took office three years ago, between 282 and 535 civilians have been credibly reported as killed including more than 60 children. A three month investigation including eye witness reports has found evidence that at least 50 civilians were killed in follow-up strikes when they had gone to help victims. More than 20 civilians have also been attacked in deliberate strikes on funerals and mourners. The tactics have been condemned by leading legal experts.

Although the drone attacks were started under the Bush administration in 2004, they have been stepped up enormously under Obama.

There have been 260 attacks by unmanned Predators or Reapers in Pakistan by Obama’s administration – averaging one every four days. Because the attacks are carried out by the CIA, no information is given on the numbers killed.

Administration officials insist that these covert attacks are legal. John Brennan, the president’s top counterterrorism adviser, argues that the US has the right to unilaterally strike terrorists anywhere in the world, not just what he called ‘hot battlefields’.

‘Because we are engaged in an armed conflict with al- Qaeda, the United States takes the legal position that, in accordance with international law, we have the authority to take action against al-Qaeda and its associated forces,’ he told a conference at Harvard Law School last year. ‘The United States does not view our authority to use military force against al-Qaeda as being restricted solely to”hot” battlefields like Afghanistan.’

State-sanctioned Extra-Judicial Executions

But some international law specialists fiercely disagree, arguing that the strikes amount to little more than state-sanctioned extra-judicial executions and questioning how the US government would react if another state such as China or Russia started taking such action against those they declare as enemies.

Related article: A question of legality

The first confirmed attack on rescuers took place in North Waziristan on May 16 2009. According to Mushtaq Yusufzai, a local journalist, Taliban militants had gathered in the village of Khaisor. After praying at the local mosque, they were preparing to cross the nearby border into Afghanistan to launch an attack on US forces. But the US struck first.

A CIA drone fired its missiles into the Taliban group, killing at least a dozen people. Villagers joined surviving Taliban as they tried to retrieve the dead and injured.

But as rescuers clambered through the demolished house the drones struck again. Two missiles slammed into the rubble, killing many more. At least 29 people died in total.

‘We lost very trained and sincere friends‘, a local Taliban commander told The News, a Pakistani newspaper. ‘Some of them were very senior Taliban commanders and had taken part in successful actions in Afghanistan. Bodies of most of them were beyond recognition.’

Related article: Witnesses Speak Out

For the Americans the attack was a success. A surprise tactic had resulted in the deaths of many Taliban. But locals say that six ordinary villagers also died that day, identified by Bureau field researchers as Sabir, Ikram, Mohib, Zahid, Mashal and Syed Noor (most people in the area use only one name).

Yusufzai, who reported on the attack, says those killed in the follow-up strike ‘were trying to pull out the bodies, to help clear the rubble, and take people to hospital.’ The impact of drone attacks on rescuers has been to scare people off, he says: ‘They’ve learnt that something will happen. No one wants to go close to these damaged building anymore.’

The Legal View

Naz Modirzadeh, Associate Director of the Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research (HPCR) at Harvard University, said killing people at a rescue site may have no legal justification.

‘Not to mince words here, if it is not in a situation of armed conflict, unless it falls into the very narrow area of imminent threat then it is an extra-judicial execution’, she said. ‘We don’t even need to get to the nuance of who’s who, and are people there for rescue or not. Because each death is illegal. Each death is a murder in that case.’

The Khaisoor incident was not a one-off. Between May 2009 and June 2011, at least fifteen attacks on rescuers were reported by credible news media, including the New York Times, CNN, Associated Press, ABC News and Al Jazeera.

It is notoriously difficult for the media to operate safely in Pakistan’s tribal areas. Both militants and the military routinely threaten journalists. Yet for three months a team of local researchers has been seeking independent confirmation of these strikes.

Eyewitness Accounts

The researchers have found credible, independently sourced evidence of civilians killed in ten of the reported attacks on rescuers. In five other reported attacks, the researchers found no evidence of any rescuers – civilians or otherwise – killed.

The researchers were told by villagers that strikes on rescuers began as early as March 2008, although no media carried reports at the time. The Bureau is seeking testimony relating to nine additional incidents.

Often when the US attacks militants in Pakistan, the Taliban seals off the site and retrieves the dead. But an examination of thousands of credible reports relating to CIA drone strikes also shows frequent references to civilian rescuers. Mosques often exhort villagers to come forward and help, for example – particularly following attacks that mistakenly kill civilians.

Other tactics are also raising concerns. On June 23 2009 the CIA killed Khwaz Wali Mehsud, a mid-ranking Pakistan Taliban commander. They planned to use his body as bait to hook a larger fish – Baitullah Mehsud, then the notorious leader of the Pakistan Taliban.

‘A plan was quickly hatched to strike Baitullah Mehsud when he attended the man’s funeral,’ according to Washington Post national security correspondent Joby Warrick, in his recent book The Triple Agent. ‘True, the commander… happened to be very much alive as the plan took shape. But he would not be for long.’

The CIA duly killed Khwaz Wali Mehsud in a drone strike that killed at least five others. Speaking with the Bureau, Pulitzer Prize-winner Warrick confirmed what his US intelligence sources had told him: ‘The initial target was no doubt a target anyway, as it was described to me, as someone that they were interested in. And as they were planning this attack, a possible windfall from that is that it would shake Mehsud himself out of his hiding place.’

Up to 5,000 people attended Khwaz Wali Mehsud’s funeral that afternoon, including not only Taliban fighters but many civilians. US drones struck again, killing up to 83 people. As many as 45 were civilians, among them reportedly ten children and four tribal leaders. Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud escaped unharmed, dying six weeks later along with his wife in a fresh CIA attack.

Clive Stafford-Smith, the lawyer who heads the Anglo-US legal charity Reprieve, believes that such strikes ‘are like attacking the Red Cross on the battlefield. It’s not legitimate to attack anyone who is not a combatant.’

Christof Heyns, a South African law professor who is United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extra- judicial Executions, agrees. ‘Allegations of repeat strikes coming back after half an hour when medical personnel are on the ground are very worrying’, he said. ‘To target civilians would be crimes of war.’ Heyns is calling for an investigation into the Bureau’s findings.

One of the most devastating attacks took place on March 17 last year, the day after Pakistan had released American CIA contractor Raymond Davis, jailed for shooting dead two men in Lahore. Davis had been held for two months and was released after the payment of blood money said to be around $2.3m.

A Case Of Retaliation?

The Agency was said to be furious at the affair. The following day when a massive drone strike killed up to 42 people gathered at a meeting in North Waziristan, Pakistani officials believed it to be retaliation.

The commander of Pakistan forces in the area at the time was Brigadier Abdullah Dogar. He admits that in drone attacks in general ‘people invariably get reported as innocent bystanders’. But in that case he has no doubt. ‘I was sitting there where our friends say they were targeting terrorists and I know they were innocent people’, he said.

Related Article: Get the Data: Obama’s Terror Drones

The mountains in the area contain chromite mines and the ownership was disputed between two tribes, so a Jirga or tribal meeting had been called to resolve the issue.

‘We in the Pakistan military knew about the meeting’, he said, ‘we’d got the request ten days earlier.’

‘It was held in broad daylight, people were sitting out in Nomada bus depot when the missile strikes came. Maybe there were one or two Taliban at that Jirga – they have their people attending – but does that justify a drone strike which kills 42 mostly innocent people?’

‘Drones may make tactical gains but I don’t see how there’s any strategic advantage’, he added. ‘When innocent people die, then you’re creating a whole lot more people with an issue.’

Growing Tensions

Drone attacks have long been a source of tension between the US and Pakistan despite the fact that the Pakistan government gave tacit agreement, even allowing them to fly from Shamsi airbase in the western province of Baluchistan, while publicly denouncing the attacks.

In return the US made sure that some of the terrorists killed were those targeting Pakistan.

However the relationship has been stretched to breaking point, first with the raid to kill Osama bin Laden in May and subsequent US accusations of Pakistani complicity, then the NATO bombing of a Pakistani post in November, killing 24 soldiers. In December Pakistan ordered the CIA to vacate the Shamsi base. For a while drone attacks stopped but they resumed two weeks ago.

The US claims the drones are a vital tool that have helped them almost wipe out the leadership of al Qaeda in Pakistan. But others point out they have stoked enormous anti-American sentiment in a country with an arsenal of 200 nuclear weapons.

Peter Singer, director of the 21st Century Initiative at the Brookings Institution, points out the operation has never been debated in Congress which has to approve sending US forces to war.

So dramatic is the switch to unmanned war that he says the US now has 7,000 drones operating and 12,000 more on the ground, while not a single new manned combat aircraft is under research or development at any western aerospace company.

After a remarkable lack of debate, there is starting to be unease in the US at the lack of transparency and accountability in the use of drones particularly as the campaign has expanded to hit targets in Libya, Yemen and Somalia and until recently to patrol the skies in Iraq.

Three US citizens were killed by missiles fired from drones in Yemen last September. Anwar al Awlaqi, an alleged al Qaeda operative, was deliberately targeted in what some have described as the US government’s first ever execution of one of its own citizens without trial. His colleague and fellow citizen Samir Khan also died in the attack. Two weeks later Awlaqi’s 16 year old son Abdulrahman died in a strike on alleged al Qaeda militants.

Such unmanned war is a politician’s dream, avoiding the inconvenience of sending someone’s son or daughter, mother or father, into harm’s way.

The fact that the operations are carried out by the CIA rather than the US military enables the administration to evade questions. The Agency press office responds to media inquiries on the subject with no comment and refusal to give names of those killed or who are on the target list.

Until Obama’s comments last week, the White House would not even confirm the programme existed.

‘We don’t discuss classified programs or comment on alleged strikes’, said a senior administration official in response to the findings presented by the Sunday Times.

Lawsuit

The ACLU filed a lawsuit last week demanding the Obama administration release legal and intelligence records on the killing of the three US citizens in in Yemen.

Privately some senior US military officers say they are extremely uncomfortable at the way the administration is carrying out these operations using the CIA which is not covered by laws of war or the Geneva Convention.

The use of drones outside a declared war zone is seen by many legal experts as setting a dangerous precedent. Aside from allies such as Israel, Britain and France, other countries have drone technology including China, Russia and Pakistan. Iran recently captured a downed US drone.

Heyns, the UN rapporteur, said an international legal framework is urgently needed to govern their use.

‘Our concern is how far does it go – will the whole world be a theatre of war?’ he asked. ‘Drones in principle allow collateral damage to be minimised but because they can be used without danger to a country’s own troops they tend to be used more widely. One doesn’t want to use the term ticking bomb but it’s extremely seductive.’

Additional reporting by Rahimullah Yusufzai in Peshawar, Pakistan

Christina Lamb is the Washington Bureau Chief of the Sunday Times

WAKE UP AMERICA!!!....Its "OUR" country!!!

Love "Light" and Energy

_Don 　　　

References: Theater of the Absurd: US-NATO Support "Al Qaeda in Libya" :o

Obama Adviser Discusses Using Military on Terrorists

A Question Of Legality

25 Militants Are Killed in Attack in Pakistan

Witnesses Speak Out

Pakistan Says U.S. Drone Kills 13

Pakistani officials: Latest suspected drone attack kills 10

Suspected US missiles strikes kill 11 in Pakistan

Collateral Damage of U.S. Drone Attacks

US Drone Strikes Hit Pakistan

The Triple Agent: The Al-Qaeda Mole Who Infiltrated the CIA :o LOL

U.S. Drone Strike Said to Kill 60 in Pakistan

How Media Distortions Promote Wars - 1999-2008 Kosovo, Iraq, and Mid-East

Tens of millions of human beings have died starting with World War I, because well meaning Americans were taken in by public relations atrocity campaigns to get us to go to war for the benefit of other nations. See How to Get America to Go to War. Below are links about the Kosovo war as much as about Iraq.

We urge conservatives to look beyond the conservative media (NATIONAL REVIEW, WASHINGTON TIMES, HUMAN EVENTS, WALL STREET JOURNAL op-ed (the worst of all), FOX NEWS most of which are dominated by the Neo-conservatives, the War Party, and Empire wanters.. We refer you to Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting for updates on Middle East news distortions, the area of greatest propaganda and lies. Note also that American TV usually does not show the mangled bodies if caused by U.S. actions, which most of the rest of the world's TV does show. That's a major reason anyone seeing foreign TV broadcasts gets another view. U.S. networks are afraid to lose audience if they show pictures critical of suffering caused by U.S. policies. See also an excellent update on National Review and the "War" Street Journal

Truth, Lies and Afghanistan - How Military Leaders Have Let US Down

Behold: The U.S. God Of War - The Holy Fire of Patriotism

O Lord our God, ... help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, - Mark Twain

Independent Report Contradicts Western Portrait of Syria

While the Western media act like the Syrian government is wantonly and indiscriminately killing its own people without provocation, an independent investigation has found a different reality on the ground.

Specifically, over 160 monitors from the Arab League – comprised of both allies and mortal enemies of Syria – toured Syria and published a report on January 27th showing that the situation has been mischaracterized.

Fact Checking the U.S. Media (Murder Inc.) Mind Viruses On Iran :o

By Just Foreign Policy - Posting #197

In the wake of the latest IAEA report on the status of Iran's nuclear program, the confrontational tone of the US media and politicians has escalated considerably. What's more, the same media and politicians have been distorting or falsely characterizing the findings of the report and of the US and Israeli intelligence communities, taking them to confirm that Iran is currently trying to acquire a nuclear weapons when, in fact, they do not.

Distortions and falsehoods justified one recent US war. We won't let them justify another.

In December, Just Foreign Policy began to aggressively monitor the media for these misleading practices. And some major media outlets have responded. Check out who's been nabbed, who's repented, and who just won't admit that they've done wrong.

Washington Post:

Offense: "Iran's quest to possess nuclear weapons"
Outcome: Full Acknowledgement, Formal Correction

In December, Just Foreign Policy initiated a campaign to get the Washington Post to correct a photo gallery headline which asserted as if it were fact the mere allegation that Iran has a nuclear weapons program. Over 1500 Just Foreign Policy advocates emailed the Post ombudsman, Patrick Pexton. In response, the Post edited their headline and added an editor's note to explain the change. Mr. Pexton also wrote about the issue in his Sunday column.

Read more:

* Victory! WaPo Fixes Headline Claiming Iran Has Nuclear Weapons Program, Megan Iorio, Just Foreign Policy Blog, December 7, 2011
* On Complaints Over Iran Nuclear Weapon Claims, WaPo Ombud Rules for the Plaintiffs, Robert Naiman, Huffington Post, December 12, 2011
* Getting Ahead of the Facts on Iran, Patrick Pexton, Washington Post, December 9, 2011

Offense: "Iran's quest for a nuclear weapon"
Outcome: Text Corrected, No Correction Published

On January 19, 2012, a Washington Post article evoked a bit of deja vu when it claimed that "Israel’s supporters worry that Iran’s quest for a nuclear weapon and greater instability in the Middle East pose existential threats to Israel," despite the fact that the paper's own ombudsman had agreed just a month before that this particular shorthand was "misleading." An email was sent to Mr. Pexton, the Post's ombudsman, informing him of the infraction. The online text was subsequently corrected, about six hours after its initial publication. Read the full account, with original screenshots >

New York Times:

Offense: "Iran's nuclear program has a military objective"
Outcome: Acknowledgement; Text Corrected, No Correction Published

On January 4, 2012, the New York Times published an article that falsely claimed that the latest IAEA report assessed that "Iran's nuclear program has a military objective." The Times deleted this error without publishing a correction. What's more, on the same day, another article in the Times referred to Iran's "development of nuclear weapons" as if it were a known fact that Iran were engaging in such activity.

Robert Naiman's article on the issue was published in a number of outlets, including the Huffington Post and Al Jazeera. Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting also picked up the case and issued an action alert. The Times public editor ultimately responded in his column, recognizing the justice of our criticism, but falling short of publishing a correction.

Read more:

* The New York Times misleading public on Iran, Robert Naiman, Al Jazeera, January 9, 2012
* On Iran IAEA Reporting Complaints, NYT Public Editor Rules For The Plaintiffs , Robert Naiman, Huffington Post, January 10, 2012
* Times errors: Iran’s nukes, SF’s voting, Arthur Brisbane, New York Times, January 10, 2012

NPR:

Offense: US policy "to convince Iran to give up a nuclear weapons program"
Outcome: Maintains Innocence, Will Not Correct

On January 8, 2012, NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday reporter Tom Gjelten said, "The goal for the U.S. and its allies … [is] to convince Iran to give up a nuclear weapons program." But one cannot give up something one does not have, and thus this claim implied that Iran has a nuclear weapons program, which is not a known fact. Just Foreign Policy began a campaign to get NPR to issue a correction, but the ombudsman instead defended the reporting with a rather sketchy linguistic analysis of the indefinite article.

PBS:

Offense: Panetta's assertion, "Are they trying to develop a nuclear weapon? No."
Outcome: Maintains Innocence, Will Not Correct

Just Foreign Policy joined FAIR in calling out PBS's NewsHour in their misleading edit of a clip in which Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta stated that Iran is not trying to develop a nuclear weapon at the moment; however, US intelligence believes them to be seeking a nuclear capability. NewsHour edited out the first part of the quote, only leaving the part about Iran seeking a nuclear capability, thus potentially misleading viewers into believing that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons.

PBS's ombudsman was admittedly "mystified" by the edit. Even the NewsHour editor responsible for the segment said that "it would have been better had we not lopped off the first part of the Panetta quote." However, PBS did not go so far as to claim wrongdoing, and refused to issue a correction.

Meet the Press:

Offense: Santorum made false claim that Iran doesn't allow weapons inspectors
Outcome: No Acknowledgement

On January 1, 2012, Rick Santorum, candidate for the Republican nomination for president, told David Gregory on NBC's Meet the Press that, unlike President Obama, he would "be saying to the Iranians, you either open up those [nuclear] facilities, you begin to dismantle them and, and make them available to inspectors, or we will degrade those facilities through airstrikes and make it very public that we are doing that." Gregory did not challenge this claim, even though he should have known full well that Iran's nuclear program is currently under inspection by the IAEA. NBC, Meet the Press, nor David Gregory responded to our criticism. Read more >

WAKE UP AMERICA!!!....Its "OUR" country!!!

Love "Light" and Energy

_Don 　　　

References: Current Actions

Iran: This Is What Propaganda Looks Like

WaPo: Fact-Check "Iran's Quest to Possess Nuclear Weapons"

Victory! WaPo Fixes Headline Claiming Iran Has Nuclear Weapons Program

On Complaints Over Iran Nuclear Weapon Claims, WaPo Ombud Rules for the Plaintiffs

Getting Ahead Of The Facts On Iran :o

WaPo: Still Getting Ahead of the Facts on Iran

The New York Times misleading public on Iran

On Iran IAEA Reporting Complaints, NYT Public Editor Rules For The Plaintiffs

Times errors: Iran’s nukes, SF’s voting :o

U.S., Iran Play Economic Knockdown

Tell PBS, NPR: No Proof Iran Has a Nuclear Weapons Program

Is NPR Fomenting A War With Iran? No.

PBS's Dishonest Iran Edit

A FAIR Catch But UnFAIR Conclusion

Meet The Press Transcript January 12, 2012

David Gregory Tell Rick Santorum There Are UN Inspectors in Iran

Israel and 9/11 - An Introduction :o

By Anonymous - Posting #196

Secret CIA Documents on Mossad was published in 1982 by CounterSpy magazine. It is purportedly an appraisal of the Israeli Secret Services by the CIA captured by Iranian students when the US embassy was taken. It was published in Iran, and portions were later published in the US not only by CounterSpy but also by the Washington Post (see the CounterSpy Introduction).

It belongs in the archives of the 9/11 Truth Movement and on the internet. [.zip here]

It contains the following passages related to the connection between Zim Shipping and the Mossad:

Other Israeli governement organizations that provide support to the intelligence and security community are the Ministries of Finance (Customs and Excise, Investment and Securities) and tourism, the national airline, El Al, and the national shipping line, Zim. Unofficial Zionist organizations based in Israel and Jewish communities throughout the world also give aid to Israel operations when needed.

The function of intelligence officers under cover of diplomatic establishments is to arrange information exchanges with officials of local services, manage communications, serve as accommodation addresses and funding channels, and direct agents toward targets of interest. Official organizations used for cover are Israeli Purchasing Missions and Israeli Government Tourist, El Al and Zim offices, Israeli constrution firms, industrial groups and international trade organizations also provide nonofficial cover. Individuals working under deep or illegal cover are normally charged with penetrating objectives that require a long-range, more subtle approach, or with actvities in which the Israeli Government can never admit complicity.

It contains the following passage related to false-flag recruitment:

The Israelis have used false-flag recruitment pitches extensively and successfully. In several cases they approached citizens of Western European nations under the cover of a national NATO intellegence organization for operations in Arab target countries.

It contains the following passages related to the ability of Israeli security services to recruit and control Arab agents:

Arabic-speaking IDF interrogators sometimes pose as Arab officers and circulate among prisoners to elicit information. These techniques usually produce a large quantity of information from captured enemy personnel.

Some younger Mossad officers, who may be weak in certain fields of higher education or languages, are sent to universities abroad, where their pursuit of an advanced degree simultaneously serves as cover for their extracurricular operational activities. One of the established goals of the intelligence and security services is that each officer be fluent in Arabic. A nine-month, intensive Arabic language course is given annually in the Tel Aviv area to students from each service.

Mossad officers who are going into Arab operations take the same Arabic language training as Shin Beth officers. As further training, these Mossad officers work in the Administered Territories [i.e., the West Bank — ed.] for two years to sharpen their language skills before being posted abroad. During this period they usually serve in the Sinai and often run Bedouin agents into Egypt in conjunction with Military Intelligence.

Many Israelis have come from Arab countries where they were born and educated and appear more Arab than Israeli in speech, demeanor, and attitude. By forging passports and identity documents of Arab and western countries and providing sound background legends and cover, Mossad has successfully sent into Egypt and other Arab countries Israelis disguised and documented as Arabs or citizens of European countries.

There are numerous persons in Israel who have a thorough area and language knowledge of any area of interest to the intelligence services. These area experts can render extremely valuable assistance in analyzing intelligence information and formulating country requirements, thus contributing to the total operational potential since they enable Israeli intelligence officers to estimate rapidly the efficiency and reliability of their agents and informants. These persons are also useful for their ability to pass completely for a citizen of the nation in question The Israeli talent for counterfeiting or forging passports and documents ably supports the agent's authenticity.

Through the use of informants, who may be local Arabs or Oriental Jews posing as Arabs, Shin Beth has penetrated subversive Arab elements including communist cells and Arab nationalist groups. They have also picked up local Arab espionage agents on their way back to neighboring countries and doubled them in coordination with Military Intelligence.

It contains the following passages relating to Mossad's ability to operate clandestinely in North America, and its propensity to "create disturbances" with a view to the psychological impact of those disturbances:

Individuals working under deep or illegal cover are normally charged with penetrating objectives that require a long-range, more subtle approach, or with activities in which the Israeli Government can never admit complicity.

Mossad directs clandestine operations throughout Europe, including the USSR and East European countries; North and South America; the Near East; Africa; and the Far East, including South East Asia. Mossad activities are generally conducted through Israeli official and semiofficial establishments, deep cover enterprises in the form of firms and organizations, some especially created for, or adaptable to, a specific objective, and penetrations effected within non-Zionist national and international Jewish organizations.

Mossad also is charged with inciting disturbances calculated to create mutual distrust among the Arabs and to draw Western sympathy away from the Arab cause.

In brief, the document shows that everything that the Israeli secret services would have had to do, in order to accomplish the criminal acts of September 11, 2001, the CIA had evidence to suppose that the Israelis either had done or were capable of doing prior to 1982.

Editor's Comment

Positive evidence for Israeli involvement in 9/11 is patchy. There is the fact that on 9/11 the Twin Towers were owned by two men with Israeli loyalties: Larry Silverstein and Frank Lowy. There are the five dancing schlomos. There is Benjamin Netanyahu's statement that the 9/11 attack was "very good" for Israel. In addition to 9/11 providing a pretext for the U.S. government to nullify domestic civil liberties it also provided a pretext for the U.S. to declare a "war on terror" which in practice has been a war on Arab countries with strategic economic assets such as oil or could provide an oil pipeline. This has suited Israel just fine, because it is surrounded by Arab countries who (rightly) despise it and would be delighted if the state of Israel ceased to exist.

In a false-flag operation — that is, an operation in which the identity of the real or primary perpetrator is concealed and some other agent is made to appear as the (sole) perpetrator — it is common to use patsies: people who may or may not participate in the operation (whether or not they understand their true roles) and who may publicly be blamed as soon as the dust settles.

The attack on the Twin Towers had 19 patsies. These were the people whom the FBI announced (together with their pictures), soon after the event, were the Arab terrorists who allegedly were responsible (this became the official story). Some of these may have had no connection with the operation, but some (in particular "Mohammad Atta" — or the two "Mohammad Attas", one in the US and one in Germany) may have been recruited for their roles. Mossad would have had no trouble in finding such people.

Although some patsies may have had roles to play (e.g., to be captured on video when catching a connecting flight from Portland (Maine) to Boston on the morning of 9/11), or even actually to have been passengers on some or all of the four Boeing airliners allegedly used in the attacks, it is doubtful that any had a hand in the work on the Twin Towers required for their controlled demolition.

That the Twin Towers were brought down in a controlled demolition follows from the fact that it is highly unlikely that the impacts of the airliners and the resulting fires were sufficient to bring them down. The impacts did not cause them to fall because they were still standing 56 minutes (South Tower) and 1 hour and 44 minutes (North Tower) after impact, and no other steel-structure building has ever collapsed as a result of fire (see here). In late August 2011 Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth released a documentary video in which numerous highly qualified engineers denied that the official explanation for the collapse of the three buildings (WTC1, WTC2 and WTC7) was at all credible. These engineers strongly suggest that the collapse of the three buildings was actually a controlled demolition, but it is unlikely that Israel itself — or any US company (with or without connections to Israel) — possessed the necessary expertise in controlled demolition (of 100-storey buildings no less) to bring this about.

There are four possible ways in which the Twin Towers may have been demolished:

* Self-demolition capability:

It is not impossible that the Twin Towers were constructed in the early 1970s with such a capability, but this is unlikely because the controlled demolition expertise required did not exist at that time, and in any case it is likely that the architect intended them to last 100 years or more, and had no thought of their ever needing to be destroyed. But it is not impossible that a self-destruct mechanism might have been built in sometime in the 1990s after the first attack, but there is no evidence of this.

* Chemical explosives:

Since the Twin Towers exploded (they did not just collapse) this is an obvious possibility, but it is unlikely because of the amount of explosive material that would be needed and the amount of time and effort that would be required to rig the towers for this effect. It has recently been suggested that nanothermite was the explosive used. This hypothesis suffers from the defect that it has never been shown that nanothermite has sufficient explosive power to produce the effects which were witnessed on 9/11 (see here).

* Mini H-bombs:

When one thinks of H-bombs one tends to think of the massive explosions seen in Pacific atoll tests in the 1950s. However, in the forty years 1960-2000 huge amounts of money, time and intellectual ability were invested by the US in the development by the Pentagon of atomic weapons technology, and one possible result of this would be mini H-bombs. One of these in the basement of each of the Twin Towers might have been sufficient (due to the extremely high temperatures produced in a thermonuclear explosion) to vaporize most of the steel (resulting in the huge amounts of dust observed). For more on this see here.

* Black technology:

This term refers to technological capabilities developed in secret (in particular, by the Pentagon) about which nothing has ever been published. This includes so-called directed energy weapons. Since there is no public information confirming the existence of such capabilities this possibility remains speculative.

This editor inclines to the view that the Twin Towers were brought down by the use of mini H-bombs, and that the assertion that nanothermite was responsible is a red herring, intended to distract attention from the possible use of mini H-bombs or black technology, both of which would implicate the Pentagon.

Thus although it is entirely plausible that Israel was involved in the attacks of 9/11 the principal perpetrators must have been elements within (or closely connected to) the US Administration

WAKE UP AMERICA!!!....Its "OUR" country!!!

Love "Light" and Energy

_Don 　　　

References:

Secret CIA Documents on Mossad

Counterspy - An Introduction

Israeli Company Mum About WTC Pullout

Who Destroyed the WTC? (Connect the dots)

Frank Lowy, Zionism and 9/11

Five Dancing Arrested Celebrating MOSSAD's 9/11 False Flag

Netanyahu Says 9/11 Was Good For Israel

Wars for Oil

America's Pipe Dream

Tracking the 19 Hijackers

The Official Story: The Twin Towers

MOHAMED ATTA WORKED FOR ELITE U.S.

Mohamed Atta:Terrorist, Patsy, or Scapegoat?

Evidence that Flights AA 11 and AA 77 Did Not Exist on 9/11

Other Fires in Steel-Structure Buildings

Architects & Engineers for 9/11

Did the Twin Towers Collapse on Demand?

Has nanothermite been oversold to the 9/11 Truth community?

Military Expert on 9/11

The Journal of 9/11 Research (See SAIC)

The Perpetrators

Bush’s Crusades and the Carlyle Group

The Military Industrial Complex Government Staff :o

By Anonymous :o - Posting #195

Members of US Government Connected To The Top 5 Company's of the Military Industrial Complex

The People: David Kay "Honorable Mention"

Rozanne L. Ridgway Asst. Secy. of State for Europe, 1985-89
James O. Ellis, Jr. C-in-C of US Strategic Command, 2001-02
John T. Chain C-in-C, Strategic Air Command, 1986-91
Charles R. Larson C-in-C, US Pacific Command, 1991-94
Walter F. Doran C-in-C, US Pacific Fleet, 2002-05
Thomas Pickering Career US Ambassador
Nicholas D. Chabraja CEO of General Dynamics
James R. Mellor CEO of General Dynamics, 1994-97
Lester Crown CEO of Henry Crown & Co.
Vance D. Coffman CEO of Lockheed Martin, 1998-2004
Douglas C. Yearley CEO of Phelps Dodge, 1989-99
Kenneth C. Dahlberg CEO of SAIC
Richard Myers Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, 2001-05
Carlisle Trost Chief of Naval Operations, 1986-90
John Deutch CIA Director, 1995-96
Lester L. Lyles Commander, USAF Materiel Command, 2000-03
Gwendolyn S. King Commissioner of Social Security, 1989-92
Norm Mineta Congressman from California, 1975-95
Vic Fazio Congressman from California, 1979-99
Robert F. Ellsworth Congressman from Kansas, 1961-67
Robin Beard Congressman from Tennessee, 1973-83
John N. McMahon Deputy Director CIA, 1982-86
James Comey Deputy US Attorney General, 2003-05
William J. Haynes II DOD General Counsel, 2001-08
Joseph J. Sisco Kissinger's Mideast Deputy
William O. Studeman NSA Director, 1988-92
Vannevar Bush Pre-internet visionary
Ken Duberstein Reagan's Chief of Staff, 1988-89
William R. Spivey Retired AT&T executive
Robert Walmsley Retired Royal Navy Admiral
Thomas A. Corcoran Senior Advisor, Carlyle Group
Walter M. Oliver Senior VP at General Dynamics
George A. Joulwan Supreme Allied Commander, 1993-97
Joseph W. Ralston Supreme Allied Commander, 2000-03
Lawrence J. Korb The Joint Chiefs of Staff
Pete Aldridge Under Secretary of Defense, 2001-03
Theodore L. Eliot, Jr. US Ambassador to Afghanistan, 1973-78
L. Craig Johnstone US Ambassador to Algeria, 1985-88
Barbara M. Barrett US Ambassador to Finland
John B. Craig US Ambassador to Oman, 1998-2001
John M. Keane US Army Vice Chief of Staff, 1999-2003
Jay L. Johnson US Chief of Naval Operations, 1996-2000
Vernon E. Clark US Chief of Naval Operations, 2000-05
James M. Loy US Coast Guard Commandant, 1998-2002
Gordon R. England US Deputy Secretary of Defense
Richard Armitage US Deputy Secretary of State, 2001-05
James Thomas Lynn US HUD Secretary, 1973-75
James L. Jones US National Security Advisor, 2009-10
William J. Crowe, Jr. US Navy Admiral
William M. Daley US Secretary of Commerce, 1997-2000
Frank Carlucci US Secretary of Defense, 1987-89
Michael W. Wynne US Secretary of the Air Force, 2005-08
Donald C. Winter US Secretary of the Navy, 2006-09
Anthony J. Principi US Secretary of Veterans Affairs, 2001-05
Warren Rudman US Senator from New Hampshire, 1980-93
Carl E. Mundy, Jr. USMC Commandant, 1991-95
Eugene F. Murphy Vice Chairman of GE, 1997-99

WAKE UP AMERICA!!!....Its "OUR" country!!!

Love "Light" and Energy

_Don 　　　

References: Top Secret America

Washington Technology Top 100 US Defense Contractors (2011)

Weapons R Us: Making Warbirds Instead of Thunderbirds

Behind The Pentagon’s Budget Cuts :o

Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense [.pdf]

SAIC - The one "They" don't talk about :o SAholesIC

Boeing

General Dynamics

Lockheed Martin

Northrop Grumman

Raytheon

The FBIdiot's Secretive Practice of "Blackballing" FOIA Files

By Jason Leopold - Posting #194 :o

Have you ever filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the FBI and received a written response from the agency stating that it could not locate records responsive to your request?

If so, there's a chance the FBI may have found some documents, but for unknown reasons, the agency's FOIA analysts determined it was not responsive and "blackballed" the file, crucial information the FBI withholds from a requester when it issues a "no records" response.

The FBI's practice of "blackballing" files has never been publicly disclosed before. With the exception of one open government expert, a half-dozen others contacted by Truthout said they were unfamiliar with the process of "blackballing" and had never heard of the term.

Trevor Griffey learned about "blackballing" last year when he filed a FOIA/Privacy Act request with the FBI to determine whether Manning Marable, a Columbia University professor who founded the Institute for Research in African-American Studies, sought the FBI's files on Malcolm X under FOIA. At the time of his death last April, Marable had just finished writing an exhaustive biography on the late civil rights activist. Griffey filed the FOIA hoping he would receive records to assist him with research related to a long-term civil rights project he has been working on.

In a letter the agency sent in response to his FOIA, the FBI told Griffey that it could not locate "main file records" on Marable responsive to his request. Last November, in response to a FOIA request Truthout filed with the FBI for a wide-range of documents on the Occupy Wall Street, the agency also said it was unable to "identify main file records responsive to [our] FOIA," despite the fact that internal FBI documents related to the protest movement had already been posted on the Internet. The FBI has been criticized in the past for responding to more than half of the FOIA requests the agency had received by claiming it could not locate responsive files.

Griffey, who also teaches US history at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, and is co-editor of the book, "Black Power at Work: Community Control, Affirmative Action and the Construction Industry," was baffled. He found it difficult to believe that Marable would not have filed a FOIA for Malcolm X's FBI file. So, he sent an email to an FBI FOIA analyst asking for clarification.

The FBI FOIA analyst responded to Griffey in an email, asking him to supply additional "keywords" to assist in a search of the agency's main file records for documents on Marable responsive to his FOIA request. The analyst then disclosed to Griffey, perhaps mistakenly, that a search for previous requests for records on Marable turned up a single file that was "blackballed" per the agency's "standard operating procedure."

So last May, Griffey again turned to FOIA, this time to try and gain insight into the blackballing process. He filed a FOIA request with the FBI seeking a copy of the agency's standard operating procedure for "blackballing" files.

Two months later, he received five pages from an untitled and undated PowerPoint presentation that outlined procedures for blackballing files from FOIA requests. The FBI cited three exemptions under the law to justify withholding a complete and unredacted copy of the PowerPoint:

(b)(6) Personnel and medical files and similar files, the disclosure of which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.

(b)(7) Records or information compiled for law enforcement purposes, but only to the extent that the production of such law enforcement records or information:

C. Could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy;

E. Would disclose techniques and procedures for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions or would disclose guidelines for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions if such disclosure could reasonably be expected to risk circumvention of the law ...

Griffey appealed the FBI's decision to withhold information contained in the PowerPoint under the (b)(7)(E) exemption, but it was denied.

Still, the PowerPoint pages the FBI did turn over to Griffey provide insight into the "blackballing" process. On a page titled, "Blackball Files," it says files identified as 190 and 197 "main files," which are FBI classifications pertaining to FOIA/Privacy Act requests for files on people and civil litigation, are blackballed unless "specifically ask[ed] for" by the requester when an initial FOIA request is made.

Moreover, the agency deems certain "control files," "separate files which relate to a specific matter and is used as an administrative means of managing, or 'controlling' a certain program or investigative matter," that pop up and are unresponsive to a FOIA to be ripe for blackballing. However, a FOIA analyst must first get permission from a supervisor before a "control file" can be blackballed.

Finally, according to the PowerPoint, some files are automatically blackballed by an FBI FOIA analyst, but the public is not permitted to know the classification of files that fall into that category because the FBI redacted that part of the PowerPoint, claiming disclosure would reveal "techniques and procedures for law enforcement investigations and procedures."

"Not only are we not told when the FBI withholds material from FOIA requests, but we are not even allowed to know all of the kinds of material it withholds," Griffey told Truthout. "The law itself and not just its enforcement, is now effectively secret."

But Bill Carter, an FBI spokesman, told Truthout in an interview that "blackballing" is not about secrecy nor is the process used in any way to conceal responsive records, which the Justice Department revealed it has been doing for more than two decades in certain cases.

"Blackball is a term of art used by the [FBI's] FOIA section people in the records management division," he said. "It's an unfortunate term. It applies to people and events. It means that we pulled a file that initially looked responsive but after a review it turned out it wasn't because the file didn't match the requesters' specific request" for records.

Carter sent Truthout an email that contained an explanation of the blackballing process as provided to him by Dennis Argall, the assistant section chief of the Record/Information Dissemination Section, FBI's Records Management Division:

"[B]lackball" is a term we typically use to describe a file (not a request) that initially looked responsive but upon review we find it's for a different guy or event. It can also be used to describe a file that we won't process because, i.e., a guy makes a request for his "FBI file" in 2005 and [we] process it for him. When he makes another request for his "FBI file" in 2011, we will only process his "records" but will not process the file that was created to respond to the 2005 FOIA request, which is 190 file series [the classification the FBI uses for files requested on people].

That's exactly how the FBI described the blackballing process to attorney Kel McClanahan, executive director of Arlington, Virginia-based National Security Counselors, a public interest law firm.

McClanahan told Truthout in an email interview that he first learned about blackballing when the term was used in a set of FBI "processing notes" he requested from the agency to determine how FBI FOIA analysts had handled one of his FOIA requests.

Although McClanahan believes there is "definitely a place for blackballing in the FOIA process" he said the way the FBI "does blackballing leaves a lot to be desired."

"First of all, even though [the FBI] may blackball 50 records and release 3, they never tell the requester about the 50," McClanahan said, hitting on Griffey's main complaint about blackballing. "They never mention word one about 'and we found other records that we deemed non-responsive.' The requester is left to wonder why the FBI only found 3 records about the subject in question and he will never know that they found 50 others that they ultimately deemed non-responsive unless he has the foresight to FOIA the FBI's processing notes for his request. Knowledge like that is very important when a requester is trying to decide whether or not to tie up [the FBI's Office of Information Policy] with an administrative appeal, let alone litigation."

McClanahan said his concerns would largely be addressed if the FBI "only blackballed records for good reasons."

"If I could trust the FBI only to blackball things that were clearly non-responsive, I don't need to know that they found completely unrelated records," he added. "However, that's not what the FBI does. I have seen it blackball records because they 'weren't FBI records,' even though they were in FBI files (they were FBI copies of other agencies' records, which any FOIA person worth his salt knows are still responsive to a FOIA request made to FBI). I've seen it blackball records because the request asked for 'internal FBI records' and the records in question were sent outside of the FBI, based on a strained interpretation of the word 'internal.'"

The FBI will be forced to make a choice "if it wants to apply FOIA correctly," McClanahan said.

"The agency can either limit its blackballing to records that nobody would think are responsive (e.g. different people with the same name, records outside a set time frame); or it can tell requesters in the administrative stage that it determined that certain records were non-responsive and why," he said. "Failing to do either, however, is bad FOIA."

WAKE UP AMERICA!!!....Its "OUR" country!!!

Love "Light" and Energy

_Don 　　　

References:

Trevor Griffey

Manning http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifMarable

Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention

Pacific Northwest. Labor and Civil Rights Projects

FBI Claims It Does Not Have Any Documents on Occupy Wall Street

Meet the Guy Who Snitched on Occupy Wall Street to the FBI and NYPD

2009 Rosemary Award for Worst FOIA Performance Goes to FBI

Black Power at Work: Community Control, Affirmative Action, and the Construction Industry

Is The File A Blackball File?

FOIA Exemptions

§ 552. Public Information; Agency Rules, Opinions

Current FBI File Classification List

What Do They "Think" They Know About You?

DOJ Lies about Its FOIA Lies

National Security Counselors

The Real Terrorits - Assassination of a Iranian Nuclear Scientist

By Finian Cunningham - Posting #193

It’s not just an act of war; it’s a taunt for response

The US covert war against Iran raised the stakes even higher today with the assassination of yet another nuclear scientist, with some analysts saying that the Islamic Republic is being pushed into a corner to either back down in its confrontation with the US or retaliate – the latter most certainly triggering an all-out war.

Thirty-two-year-old chemical engineer Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan was inside his small Peugeot car when two assailants on motorbike rode up alongside and planted a magnetic bomb on his vehicle in the capital, Tehran. The scientist was killed instantly by the explosion. His driver died later from injuries. And elderly bystander was also killed in the attack.

Roshan was head of technical procurements at Iran’s first uranium enrichment facility at Natanz. His killing bears all the hallmarks of a targeted assassination by foreign covert military agents. Iranian state-owned media and parliamentarians immediately denounced “Mossad”, “Zionists” and the Western proxy-terrorist group, the Mujahedine-e Khalq Organisation (MKO), for having a role in the murder.

Such involvement is likely true, but ultimately the author must have been Washington. None of the groups would dare carry out this high-profile hit without clearance from handlers in Washington. Noticeably, Iranian sources shied away from articulating this obvious conclusion, perhaps realizing the gravity of the consequences.

For the past two years at least it is an open secret that Washington (along with British MI6, Mossad and local proxies) has been orchestrating a campaign of terrorist subversion in Iran – the ultimate aim being to overthrow the 33-year-old Islamic Republic, which replaced the West’s favourite client, the Shah of Iran in 1979. This is the real reason for the contrived confrontation over Iran’s nuclear activities.

Dozens of Iranian scientists, engineers and academics have either been abducted or assassinated by US-led covert ops. Most of them have been closely involved in Iran’s nuclear research. Two years ago, Professor Massoud Ali Mohammed was killed when a booby-trapped motorcycle exploded outside his home in Tehran. Last year, in an attack identical to the latest, nuclear scientist Majid Shahriari was murdered when motorcyclists planted magnetic bombs on his car. Another scientist, Fereydoun Abbassi, who is now head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation, was seriously wounded in a simultaneous attack.

On 12 November last year, a massive explosion ripped through a military installation at Bid Kaneh, near Tehran, killing 17 personnel, including Brigadier Hassan Moghadam who is believed to have been a senior missile technician. In that attack, there is suspicion that the explosive payload may have been fired from a CIA aerial drone. Then two weeks later, another explosion hit a nuclear facility in Isfahan, Western Iran.

Combined with CIA cyber-attacks on Iranian research networks and increasing drone incursions into Iranian territory, it is clear that the cold-blooded murder of the country’s nuclear experts is part of a deliberate cover campaign of terrorist subversion – orchestrated by Washington.

The latest assassination in Tehran comes only two days after an Iranian court sentenced a former US marine to death after he was convicted of operating in Iran as a CIA spy. That announcement provoked condemnation from the White House and an irate response in the American media. A US state department spokeswoman lashed out at the Iranian regime accusing it of committing routine political abductions of American citizens.

The details on the convicted man, Amir Mirzae Hekmati (28) from Flint, Michigan, seem murky. But it appears that he was given due process since his arrest in August, including access to a lawyer. He has 20 days to appeal the verdict. It should be noted that three other American citizens arrested previously in Iran on suspicion of espionage were eventually released by the Iranian authorities. It has been mooted that the government in Tehran released those detainees as a gesture for diplomatic dialogue with the Obama administration. The rebuff from Washington may have hardened Tehran to push for the full prosecution in the case of Hekmati.

But the wider context is the concerted efforts by Washington to overthrow the Islamic Republic’s government headed by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The sentencing of Hekmati is another twist in the spiraling tensions between Iran and the US and its Western allies – tensions that have escalated because of relentless Western aggression over unsubstantiated claims about Iran’s nuclear programme. According to Tehran and undisputed by countless UN inspections, Iran’s nuclear programme is for civilian energy and medical applications and is legitimately within the provisions of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

With tightening US-led sanctions bearing down on Iran’s Central Bank and oil industry, the naval war of nerves in the Strait of Hormuz, and the constantly amplified, provocative threats of pre-emptive military strikes against Iran, it is any wonder that Tehran needs to show defiance and assert its sovereign rights with regards to foreign nationals suspected of covert operations.

However, in the climate of hostility, any such move by Tehran is immediately portrayed as a provocation – just as its warning was last week over the closing of territorial waters in the Strait of Hormuz to oil trans-shipments if the West proceeds with sanctions. If the murder of the Iranian scientist is a US strike over the sentencing of the alleged CIA spy, then the Iranians are being told that they have no room for manoeuvre – even when the manoeuvre is covered by a claim to sovereign rights.

It seems that the near decade-long Western confrontation with Iran has now shifted gear to an irrevocable vicious cycle where war is all but inevitable.

The latest murder of a senior Iranian scientist seems to be a trenchant ultimatum dispatched from Washington to Iran. The assassination campaign on Iranian territory against its citizens and scientific experts is not just as an act of war. It is a premeditated taunt for a response.

Finian Cunningham is Global Research’s Middle East and East Africa correspondent cunninghamfinian@gmail.com

WAKE UP AMERICA!!!....Its "OUR" country!!!

Love "Light" and Energy

_Don 　　　

References:

[1] Iran and the Terrorism Game

[2] 'Terrorism, Ductile Term For Israel, US'

[3] 'Nuclear assassinations disgrace IAEA'

[4] War Plan Iran: The US Finally Admits Its Criminal Bankruptcy

[5] The Next War on Washington’s Agenda

[6] UK, Israel 'Share' Iran Terror Agenda?

[7] 'Marines Urinating on Taliban' - Behavior Of Terrorists

[8] BFP - “Heroes” – A Poem by Gary Corseri

What's Really Behind The U.S. Sword Rattling With Iran ? ? ?

By Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya - Posting #192

Would the US be defeated in the Persian Gulf in a War with Iran?

Providing precious insight into the dynamics around the Iran-US standoff playing out in the strategically crucial Strait of Hormuz, Nazemroaya describes a situation that inevitably brings to mind the story of David and Goliath. With geography and international law standing resolutely on the side of Iran, we may be in store for a similarly amazing ending.

After years of U.S. threats, Iran has started to take very public steps to demonstrate that it is willing and capable of closing the Strait of Hormuz. On December 24, 2011 Iran started its Velayat-90 naval drills in and around the Strait of Hormuz and extending from the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman (Oman Sea) to the Gulf of Aden and Arabian Sea in the Indian Ocean. Since these drills took place there has been a growing war of words between Washington and Tehran. Nothing the Obama Administration or the Pentagon had done or said deterred Tehran from continuing the naval drills.

The Geo-Political Nature of the Strait of Hormuz

Besides the fact that it is a vital transit point for global energy resources and a strategic chokepoint, two additional things should be noted in regards to the Strait of Hormuz’s relationship to Iran. The first point is about the geography of the Strait of Hormuz. The second point is about the role of Iran in co-managing the strategic strait on the basis of international law and its sovereign rights.

The maritime traffic that goes through the Strait of Hormuz has always been in contact with Iranian naval forces, which are predominately composed of the Iranian Regular Force Navy and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Navy. In fact, Iranian naval forces monitor and police the Strait of Hormuz along with the Sultanate of Oman via the Omani enclave of Musandam. More importantly, to go through the Strait of Hormuz all maritime traffic, including the U.S. Navy, sails through Iranian territory. No country can enter the Persian Gulf and transit the Strait of Hormuz without sailing through Iranian waters and territory. Almost all entrances into the Persian Gulf are made through Iranian waters and most exits are through Omani waters.

Iran allows foreign ships to use its territorial waters in good faith and on the basis of Part III of the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea’s maritime transit passage provisions that stipulate that vessels are free to sail through the Strait of Hormuz and similar bodies of water on the basis of speedy and continuous navigation between an open port and the high seas. Although Tehran in custom follows the navigation practices of the Law of the Sea, Tehran is not legally bound by them. Like Washington, Tehran signed this international treaty, but never ratified it.

American-Iranian Tensions in the Persian Gulf

Now the Iranian Majlis (Parliament) is re-evaluating the use of Iranian waters at the Strait of Hormuz. Legislation is being proposed by Iranian parliamentarians to block any foreign warships from being able to use Iranian territorial waters to navigate through the Strait of Hormuz without Iranian permission; the Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee is currently studying legislating this as an official Iranian posture on the basis of Iranian strategic interests and national security. [1]

On December 30, 2011, the U.S.S. John C. Stennis passed through the area where Iran was conducting its naval drills. The Commander of the Iranian Regular Forces, Major-General Ataollah Salehi, advised the U.S.S. John C. Stennis and other U.S. Navy vessels not to return to the Persian Gulf while Iran was doing its drills, saying that Iran is not in the habit of repeating a warning twice. [2] Shortly after the stern Iranian warning to Washington, the Pentagon’s press secretary responded by making a statement saying: “No one in this government seeks confrontation [with Iran] over the Strait of Hormuz. It’s important to lower the temperature.” [3]

In an actual scenario of military conflict with Iran it is very likely that U.S. aircraft carriers would actually operate from outside of the Persian Gulf and from the southern Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. Unless the missile systems that Washington is erecting in the petro-sheikhdoms of the southern Persian Gulf are fully capable and active, the deployment of large U.S. warships may be unlikely in the Persian Gulf. The reasons for this are tied to geographic realities and the defensive capabilities of Iran.

Geography is against the Pentagon: U.S. Naval Strength has limits in the Persian Gulf

U.S. naval strength, which predominately includes the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Coast Guard, essentially has primacy over all the other navies and maritime forces in the world. Its deep sea or oceanic capabilities are unparalleled or unmatched by any other naval power. Nevertheless, primacy does not mean invincibility. U.S. naval forces in the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf are very vulnerable to Iran.

Despite its might and shear strength, geography literally works against U.S. naval power in the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf. The relative narrowness of the Persian Gulf makes it like a channel, at least in a strategic and military context. Figuratively speaking, the aircraft carriers and warships of the U.S. are confined to narrow waters or are closed in within the coastal waters of the Persian Gulf.

This is where the Iranian military’s advanced missile capabilities come into play. The Iranian missile and torpedo arsenal would make short work of U.S. naval assets in the waters of the Persian Gulf where U.S. vessels are constricted. This is why the U.S. has been busily erecting a missile shield system in the Persian Gulf amongst the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries in the last few years.

Even the small Iranian patrol boats in the Persian Gulf, which appear pitiable and insignificant against a U.S. aircraft carrier or destroyer, threaten U.S. warships. Looks can be deceiving; these Iranian patrol boats can easily launch a barrage of missiles that could significantly damage and effectively sink large U.S. warships. Iranian small patrol boats are also hardly detectable and hard to target.

Iranian forces could also attack U.S. naval capabilities merely by launching missile attacks from the Iranian mainland on the northern shores of the Persian Gulf. Even in 2008 the Washington Institute for Near East Policy acknowledged the threat from Iran’s mobile coastal missile batteries, anti-ship missiles, and missile-armed small ships. [4] Other Iranian naval assets like aerial drones, hovercraft, mines, diver teams, and mini-submarines could also be used in asymmetrical naval warfare against the U.S. Fifth Fleet.

Even the Pentagon’s own war simulations have shown that a war in the Persian Gulf with Iran would spell disaster for the United States and its military. One key example is the Millennium Challenge 2002 (MC02) war game in the Persian Gulf, which was conducted from July 24, 2002 to August 15, 2002 and took almost two years to prepare. This mammoth drill was amongst the largest and most expensive war games ever held by the Pentagon. Millennium Challenge 2002 was held shortly after the Pentagon had decided that it would continue the momentum of the war in Afghanistan by targeting Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Libya, Lebanon, Syria, and finishing off with the big prize of Iran in a broad military campaign to ensure U.S. primacy in the new millennium.

After Millennium Challenge 2002 was finished, the war game was presented as a simulation of a war against Iraq under the rule of President Saddam Hussein, but this cannot be true. [5] The U.S. had already made assessments for the upcoming Anglo-American invasion of Iraq. Moreover, Iraq had no naval capabilities that would merit such large-scale use of the U.S. Navy.

Millennium Challenge 2002 was conducted to simulate a war with Iran, which was codenamed “Red” and referred to as an unknown Middle Eastern rogue enemy state in the Persian Gulf. Other than Iran, no other country could meet the perimeters and characteristics of “Red” and its military forces, from the patrol boats to the motorcycle units. The war simulation took place because Washington was planning on attacking Iran soon after invading Iraq in 2003.

The scenario in the 2002 war game started with the U.S., codenamed “Blue,” giving Iran a one-day ultimatum to surrender in the year 2007. The war game’s date of 2007 would chronologically correspond to U.S. plans to attack Iran after the Israeli attack on Lebanon in 2006, which was suppose to expand into a broader war against Syria too. The war against Lebanon, however, did not go as planned and the U.S. and Israel realized that if Hezbollah could challenge them in Lebanon then an expanded war with Syria and Iran would be a disaster.

In Millennium Challenge 2002’s war scenario, Iran would react to U.S. aggression by launching a massive barrage of missiles that would overwhelm the U.S. and destroy sixteen U.S. naval vessels – an aircraft carrier, ten cruisers, and five amphibious ships. It is estimated that if this happened in reality, more than 20,000 U.S. servicemen would have been dead after the attack within a single day. [6] Next, Iran would send its small patrol boats – the ones that look insignificant in comparison to the U.S.S. John C. Stennis and other large U.S. warships – to overwhelm the remainder of the Pentagon’s naval forces in the Persian Gulf, which would result in the damaging and sinking of most of the U.S. Fifth Fleet and the defeat of the United States. After the U.S. defeat, the war games were started over again, but “Red” had to operate under handicapping restraints so that U.S. forces would be allowed to emerge victorious from the drill. [7] This would hide the reality of the fact that the U.S. would be overwhelmed as an outcome of a conventional war with Iran in the Persian Gulf.

Hence, the formidable naval power of Washington is handicapped by geography coupled with Iranian military capabilities when it comes to fighting Tehran in the Persian Gulf or even in much of the Gulf of Oman. Without open waters, like in the Indian Ocean or the Pacific Ocean, the U.S. will have to fight under significantly reduced response times and, more importantly, will not be able to fight from a stand-off (militarily safe) distance. Thus, entire tool boxes of U.S. naval defensive systems, which were designed for combat in open waters using stand-off ranges, are rendered unpractical in the Persian Gulf.

Making the Strait of Hormuz Redundant to Weaken Iran?

The entire world knows the importance of the Strait of Hormuz and Washington and its allies are very well aware that the Iranians can militarily close it for a significant period of time. This is why the U.S. has been working with the GCC countries – Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, and the U.A.E. – to re-route their oil through pipelines bypassing the Strait of Hormuz and channelling GCC oil directly to the Indian Ocean, Red Sea, or Mediterranean Sea. Washington has also been pushing Iraq to seek alternative routes in talks with Turkey, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia.

Both Israel and Turkey have also been very interested in this strategic project. Ankara has had discussions with Qatar about setting up an oil terminal that would reach Turkey via Iraq. The Turkish government has attempted to get Iraq to link its southern oil fields, like Iraq’s northern oil fields, to the transit routes running through Turkey. This is all tied to Turkey’s visions of being an energy corridor and important lynchpin of transit.

The aims of re-routing oil away from the Persian Gulf would remove an important element of strategic leverage Iran has against Washington and its allies. It would effectively reduce the importance of the Strait of Hormuz. It could very well be a prerequisite to war preparations and a war led by the United States against Tehran and its allies.

It is within this framework that the Abu Dhabi Crude Oil Pipeline or the Hashan-Fujairah Oil Pipeline is being fostered by the United Arab Emirates to bypass the maritime route in the Persian Gulf going through the Strait of Hormuz. The project design was put together in 2006, the contract was issued in 2007, and construction was started in 2008. [8] This pipeline goes straight from Abdu Dhabi to the port of Fujairah on the shore of the Arabian Sea. In other words it will give oil exports from the U.A.E. direct access to the Indian Ocean. It has openly been presented as a means to ensure energy security by bypassing Hormuz and attempting to avoid the Iranian military. Along with the construction of this pipeline, the erection of a strategic oil reservoir at Fujairah was also envisaged to also maintain the flow of oil to the international market should the Persian Gulf be closed off. [9]

Aside from the Petroline (East-West Saudi Pipeline), Saudi Arabia has also been looking at alternative transit routes and examining the ports of it southern neighbours in the Arabian Peninsula, Oman and Yemen. The Yemenite port of Mukalla on the shores of the Gulf of Aden has been of particular interest to Riyadh. In 2007, Israeli sources reported with some fanfare that a pipeline project was in the works that would connect the Saudi oil fields with Fujairah in the U.A.E., Muscat in Oman, and finally to Mukalla in Yemen. The reopening of the Iraq-Saudi Arabia Pipeline (IPSA), which was ironically built by Saddam Hussein to avoid the Strait of Hormuz and Iran, has also been a subject of discussion for the Saudis with the Iraqi government in Baghdad.

If Syria and Lebanon were converted into Washington’s clients, then the defunct Trans-Arabian Pipeline (Tapline) could also be reactivated, along with other alternative routes going from the Arabian Peninsula to the coast of the Mediterranean Sea via the Levant. Chronologically, this would also fit into Washington’s efforts to overrun Lebanon and Syria in an attempt to isolate Iran before any possible showdown with Tehran.

The Iranian Velayat-90 naval drills, which extended in close proximity to the entrance of the Red Sea in the Gulf of Aden off the territorial waters of Yemen, also took place in the Gulf of Oman facing the coast of Oman and the eastern shores of the United Arab Emirates. Amongst other things, Velayat-90 should be understood as a signal that Tehran is ready to operate outside of the Persian Gulf and can even strike or block the pipelines trying to bypass the Strait of Hormuz.

Geography again is on Iran’s side in this case too. Bypassing the Strait of Hormuz still does not change the fact that most of the oil fields belonging to GCC countries are located in the Persian Gulf or near its shores, which means they are all situated within close proximity to Iran and therefore close Iranian striking distance. Like in the case of the Hashan-Fujairah Pipeline, the Iranians could easily disable the flow of oil from the point of origin. Tehran could launch missile and aerial attacks or deploy its ground, sea, air, and amphibious forces into these areas as well. It does not necessarily need to block the Strait of Hormuz; after all preventing the flow of energy is the main purpose of the Iranian threats.

The American-Iranian Cold War

Washington has been on the offensive against Iran using any means at its disposal. The tensions over the Strait of Hormuz and in the Persian Gulf are just one front in a dangerous multi-front regional cold war between Tehran and Washington in the broader Middle East. Since 2001, the Pentagon has also been restructuring its military to wage unconventional wars with enemies like Iran. [10] Nonetheless, geography has always worked against the Pentagon and the U.S. has not found a solution for its naval dilemma in the Persian Gulf. Instead of a conventional war, Washington has had to resort to waging a covert, economic, and diplomatic war against Iran.

WAKE UP AMERICA!!!....Its "OUR" country!!!

Love "Light" and Energy

_Don 　　　

References: Sanctions Do More Harm Than Good

1] Fars News Agency, “Foreign Warships Will Need Iran’s Permission to Pass through Strait of Hormoz,” January 4, 2011.

[2] Fars News Agency, “Iran Warns US against Sending Back Aircraft Carrier to Persian Gulf,” January 4, 2011.

[3] Parisa Hafezi, “Iran threatens U.S. Navy as sanctions hit economy,” Reuters, January 4, 2012.

[4] Fariborz Haghshenass, “Iran’s Asymmetric Naval Warfare,” Policy Focus, no.87 (Washington, D.C.: Washington Institute for Near Eastern Policy, September 2010).

[5] Julian Borger, “Wake-up call,” The Guardian, September 6, 2002.

[6] Neil R. McCown, Developing Intuitive Decision-Making In Modern Military Leadership (Newport, R.I.: Naval War College, October 27, 2010), p.9.

[7] Sean D. Naylor, “War games rigged? General says Millennium Challenge ‘02 ‘was almost entirely scripted,’” Army Times, April 6, 2002.

[8] Himendra Mohan Kumar, “Fujairah poised to become oil export hub,” Gulf News, June 12, 2011.

[9] Ibid.

[10] John Arquilla, “The New Rules of War,” Foreign Policy, 178 (March-April, 2010): pp.60-67.

[11] Abu Dhabi Crude Oil Pipeline - Link (B) (C)

[12] Kazakh-China Pipeline - Link (B) (C) :o

[13] Habshan-Fujairah Oil Pipeline - Link (B)

[14] Petroline (East-West Saudi Pipeline)

[15] Iraq-Saudi Arabia Pipeline (IPSA) - Link (B)

[16] Trans-Arabian Pipeline (Tapline) - Link (B)

[17] Pipeline projects in the Middle East

[18] Persian Gulf Oil & Gas Exports Fact Sheet

[19] All Active and Planned Pipelines in Middle East and Africa