'Twas all Bushies' faultses

Clinton defends Bush administration on WikiLeaks, vows to prosecute leakers

Posted By Josh Rogin Friday, December 3, 2010 - 4:30 PM

MANAMA, Bahrain—U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, asked Friday what foreigners should think about the extraordinary breach of cybersecurity that led to the WikiLeaks crisis, pointed to the George W. Bush administration's decision following the 9/11 attacks to vastly expand the sharing of secret information. 

Asked how such a huge leak could have occurred and why no alarm bells went off when a low-level intelligence analyst allegedly downloaded 250,000 classified diplomatic cables, Clinton replied: "The decision was made in the Bush administration to add the diplomatic cables to the Defense Department's special network that was created for that purpose." 

While she defended the move as defensible at the time, she emphasized that these policies were being rolled back in the wake of the WikiLeaks crisis, perhaps for good. 

"The process was undertaken in order to do a better job of what's called ‘connecting the dots,' because after 9/11, one of the principle criticisms of the government was that the information was stovepiped, that the Defense Department knew things that the State Department didn't know, that the White House didn't know," Clinton explained. "So it was understandable for the Bush administration to say, ‘We need to end the stovepiping and figure out how to have greater situational awareness and sharing of information.'" 

Stovepiped, I tells ya!

Without identifying anyone by name, she then said that it was in the Defense Department, not the State Department, where the leak occurred. 

"The individual... was a fully cleared military intelligence officer... [The Pentagon is] conducting a very vigorous investigation to determine why no alarm bells went off," Clinton said. (Media speculation has swirled around Pfc. Bradley Manning, an intelligence analyst with the 10^th Mountain division in Iraq who has been charged with transferring classified information to an unauthorized source.) 

Clinton then explained that the State Department had severed its classified files from the Secret Internet Protocol Routing Network (SIPRNet), a network that was set up to share information between Foggy Bottom and the Pentagon. She revealed for the first time that this action had been taken well before the WikiLeaks cables starting floating out into the open. 

"I directed we would cease sharing, for whatever time it may take, our cables. That stopped as soon as this gentleman was apprehended," she said. Manning was arrested in May. 

Clinton also pledged that the United States would prosecute anyone connected to the disclosures. She said that any guilty parties would certainly be prosecuted, and that the prosecutions would go further, reaching those involved in distributing the cables such as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. 

Just WHAT exactly is the U.S. going to prosecute these cases for?

"[Manning] is clearly going to be prosecuted along with anyone who participated or contributed to the crimes that he committed," Clinton said. 

She continued the administration's two-pronged public relations strategy of playing up the danger of the leaks, while downplaying the information in the cables themselves. On the one hand, she warned the assembled leaders of dozens of countries at the conference that the problem was serious and was as dangerous to them as to the United States. 

"The attack on the United States' information system was really an attack on the international community," she said. "I believe that this attack, if left unpunished, will be just the first of many against anyone, anywhere." 

WE are the WORLD !!  U. S. A. !!!!!!!!!!

She then told the assembled leaders that the cables contained nothing really shocking.

Now THAT's quite shocking!

"Some of the analysis that has been done with the information that has been made available through these leaks has basically concluded there's not much news... There's no big revelation; it's the day-to-day work of what diplomats all around the world do."

And thus, Julius Assange must hang, or be assassinated by the Jews.

If you're following the logic, it seems, somehow, impeccable!

How are you remembering World Aids Day this year?

How are you remembering World AIDS Day this year? Tomorrow, the world will gather to remember those we have lost to AIDS and to celebrate successful efforts made this year to help curb the spread of HIV and to provide better access to medication, service and care. Your ELCA Washington Office would love to hear what you are doing to mark this important day. Respond to this e-mail with your stories and photographs of your events or educational efforts. If you are in need of last minute ideas for your congregations, bible study groups or adult forums, please see some suggestions on our Web site AND at www.elca.org/AIDS. You may also wish to join Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson, in signing onto the Religious Leaders Commitment to Action at www.HIVcommitment.net, as was suggested in his World AIDS Day message. This year there is a lot to celebrate, such as, but not limited to: Medical advancements that will assist communities worst hit by the HIV virus from unnecessary infection. Evidence from UNAIDS 2010 report demonstrates that in 56 at risk countries the infection rates have decreased or have stabilized, and globally numbers of new infections are less than in 2009. The new U.S. National Strategy on HIV and AIDS. Global affirmation of goals to eradicate pediatric AIDS and mother to child infection by 2015- Millennium Development Goals: 4, 5 and 6. New and innovative approaches to stigma eradication. Logically, every success comes with challenges in implementation and continued fund limitations, but in advocacy, even incremental successes need to be applauded. Thanks to your support our work on this important issue will continue. On this World AIDS Day, we ask for your prayers of support and healing for all people affected, effected or infected with HIV and AIDS. Don't forget to send us your stories and photographs on how you are commemorating the day. Just reply to this e-mail. Cheers, Daniel Pieper ELCA HIV and AIDS Public Policy Contractor

Here is a revealing headline: The noose tightens around WikiLeaks' Assange

And it reveals a "truth"; that various vigilante groups seek to put a rope around the neck of Julian Assasnge and strangle that poor motherf#cker so that he can't be heard from again; so that the embarrassment he has caused to so many American politicians will just go away.

The noose tightens around WikiLeaks' Assange

By RAPHAEL G. SATTER and MALIN RISING, Associated Press Raphael G. Satter And Malin Rising, Associated Press Thu Dec 2, 11:27 pm ET

LONDON – The law is closing in on Julian Assange. Swedish authorities won a court ruling Thursday in their bid to arrest the WikiLeaks founder for questioning in a rape case, British intelligence is said to know where in England he's hiding, and U.S. pundits and politicians are demanding he be hunted down or worse.

Hunted down OR WORSE of course, they are advocating his murder - and with no trial - and for what crimes?

The former computer hacker who has embarrassed the U.S. government and foreign leaders with his online release of a huge trove of secret American diplomatic cables

 Those are his crimes; in a nutshell. That he did

(1) Embarrass the U.S. government and

(2) Embarrass foreign leaders with his online release of a huge trove of secret American diplomatic cables (which ain't exactly so secret now!)

suffered a legal setback when Sweden's Supreme Court upheld an order to detain him — a move that could lead to his extradition.

So, he would have rather not been detained - in order that he might avoid extradition.

Meanwhile, Assange continues to leak sensitive documents. Newly posted cables on WikiLeaks' website detailed a host of embarrassing disclosures, including allegations that Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi accepted kickbacks and a deeply unflattering assessment of Turkmenistan's president.

Berlusconi - accepting bribes?  The wealthiest newspaper mogul in the world who also (coincidentally) happens to be Prime Minister?  In order to avoid facing criminal charges? ... And worse still - Berlusconin uttered deeply unflattering assessment of Turkmenistan's presidnet.!  SO

TAKE THAT Julian Assange! Your ass is gonna be got!

Assange is accused in Sweden of rape, sexual molestation and coercion in a case from August, and Swedish officials have alerted Interpol and issued a European arrest warrant to bring him in for questioning.

In America, we send men who own and fight dogs to jail, curtailing their professional sports careers at their heights; serial rapist, sexual molesters, and sexual coercionists, we ban them from their first four football games of the season. Which is worse? I ask you.

The 39-year-old Australian denies the charges, which his lawyer, Mark Stephens, said apparently stemmed from a "dispute over consensual but unprotected sex." Stephens said the case is turning into an exercise in persecution.

I'd LOVE to hear the courtroom exchange in re: the "dispute over consensual but unprotected sex."

While Assange has not made a public appearance for nearly a month, his lawyer insisted authorities know where to find him.

As in, he's not playing hide 'n seek?

"Both the British and the Swedish authorities know how to contact him, and the security services know exactly where he is," Stephens told The Associated Press.
It was unclear if or when police would act on Sweden's demands. Police there acknowledged Thursday they would have to refile their European arrest warrant after British authorities asked for more details on the maximum penalties for the three crimes.

They want the MAX?  Because ... he's a frigging example.

Scotland Yard declined comment, as did the Serious and Organized Crime Agency, responsible for processing European arrest warrants for suspects in England — where The Guardian claims Assange is hiding out.

In a statement, Assange's lawyer in Sweden, Bjorn Hurtig, suggested that Assange is being retaliated against for the leaks.

"I do find it somewhat strange and to say the least `coincidental' that Interpol has made the arrest warrant public simultaneous to Wikileaks releasing its latest revelations," Hurtig said. "My mind remains open as to whether the prosecutor has been influenced by any third-party considerations."

 Just saying, ya' know?

Stephens — who also represents the AP on media-related matters — said that if Assange is ever served with a warrant, he will fight it in British court. "The process in this case has been so utterly irregular that the chances of a valid arrest warrant being submitted to me are very small," he said.

The Swedish case has been subject to a great deal of back and forth, with Swedish prosecutors repeatedly overruling each other and disagreeing over whether to classify the most serious accusation as rape.

WikiLeaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson said late Wednesday that the organization is trying to keep Assange's location a secret for security reasons. He noted that commentators in the United States and Canada have called for Assange to be hunted down or killed.

Sarah Palin, the former Republican vice presidential candidate, likened Assange to an al-Qaida propagandist and accused him, without offering any proof, of having "blood on his hands."

"Why was he not pursued with the same urgency we pursue al-Qaida and Taliban leaders?"

Easy.  Because they are not the threat to the U.S. government that Julian Assange is!

she asked in a message posted on her Facebook page.

"I think Assange should be assassinated, actually," Tom Flanagan, a former adviser to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, told the CBC. "I think Obama should put out a contract or maybe use a drone or something." Flanagan, a U.S.-born professor of political science at the University of Calgary, later apologized.

Flannagan - UNFUCK you. Stop breeding. Asshole.

In Washington, the top Democrat and Republican at the Senate Intelligence Committee called on Attorney General Eric Holder to prosecute Assange for espionage. Committee chairwoman Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and vice chairman Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., said in a letter Thursday that they believe Assange's behavior falls under the Espionage Act, which makes it a crime to willfully pass on defense information that could hurt the U.S.

U.S. government lawyers are investigating whether Assange can be prosecuted for spying, a senior American defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said earlier this week. WikiLeaks has not said how it obtained the documents, but the government's prime suspect is an Army private, Bradley Manning, who is in the brig on charges of leaking other classified documents to WikiLeaks.
State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said WikiLeaks is not a news organization and Assange is neither a journalist nor a whistle-blower, but someone with a political agenda.

"I think he's an anarchist," Crowley said. He said Assange is

Anarchism is a political philosophy which considers the state undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, and instead promotes a stateless society, or anarchy.^[1][2] It seeks to diminish or even abolish authority in the conduct of human relations.^[3] Anarchists may widely disagree on what additional criteria are required in anarchism. The Oxford Companion to Philosophy says, "there is no single defining position that all anarchists hold, and those considered anarchists at best share a certain family resemblance."^[4]
There are many types and traditions of anarchism, not all of which are mutually exclusive.^[5] Strains of anarchism have been divided into the categories of social and individualist anarchism or similar dual classifications.^[6][7] Anarchism is often considered to be a radical left-wing ideology,^[8][9] and much of anarchist economics and anarchist legal philosophy reflect anti-statist interpretations of communism, collectivism, syndicalism or participatory economics. However, anarchism has always included an individualist strain ^[10] supporting a market economy and private property, or morally unrestrained egoism.^[11][12] Some individualist anarchists are also socialists.^[13][14]
Differing fundamentally, some anarchist schools of thought support anything from extreme individualismcollectivism.^[2] In the end, for anarchist historian Daniel Guerin "Some anarchists are more individualistic than social, some more social than individualistic. However, one cannot conceive of a libertarian who is not an individualist."^[15] The position known as anarchism without adjectives consists on "recognising the right of other tendencies to the name "anarchist" while, obviously, having their own preferences for specific types of anarchist theory and their own arguments why other types are flawed."[16

"trying to undermine the international system that enables us to cooperate and collaborate with other governments."

 Just what the f#ck international system is that? Did WE THE PEOPLE get a chance to vote for it? Is it democratic?  Is it the same system that enabled us to cooperate and collaborate with the sovereign Iraqi government under it's democratically elected lead Saddam Hussein?  If so, I want out, and anybody that can do anything to tear down such a flawed stucture ought to be nominated for sainthood.

"What he's doing is damaging to our efforts and the efforts of other governments," the spokesman said.

 Damaging to your efforts to do just the f#cking hell WHAT?  Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran?

One batch of the latest leaked dispatches — these from the U.S. Embassy staff in Turkmenistan — portrays the president of the former Soviet state in Central Asia, Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov, as "vain, suspicious, guarded, strict, very conservative, a practiced liar," and "not a very bright guy."

Sounds an AWFUL lot like George W. Bush, but, I'm just saying.  Oh, and BTW - this sounds like about what we'd expect from a high school government where the KEWL KIDZ win all the elections and make all the rules (win all the erections and make themselves fools; yes, that too.)

According to another one of the cables, Georgia's ambassador in Rome claimed that Berlusconi was promised a cut of the profits in energy deals with Russia. Berlusconi denied the allegation.

OF F#CKING COURSE - he was promised a cut of the profits, and he would deny the allegation.

The documents also included a frank assessment from the American envoy to Stockholm about Sweden's historic policy of nonalignment — a policy that the U.S. ambassador, Michael Woods, seemed to suggest was for public consumption only.
Sweden's military and intelligence cooperation with the U.S. "give the lie to the official policy" of non-participation in military alliances, Woods said. He added in a separate cable that Sweden's defense minister fondly remembers his time as a high school student in America and "loves the U.S."

We are all Americans now!  Have the Swedes had a chance to weigh in on this?

Woods cautioned American officials not to trumpet Sweden-U.S. cooperation in the fight against terrorism too openly, because that would open up the Swedish government to domestic criticism.

OMG!  Please Brer Fox - don't open up me government to domestic criticism. ANYTHING but that!

In England, meanwhile, a front-page story in The Guardian alleged that one of the leaked cables showed British politicians trying to keep Parliament in the dark over the storage of American cluster bombs on British territory — despite an international ban on the weapons. Britain's Foreign Office denied the charge.

WELL ,... looks like time to go to the Guardian!

___
Rising and Louise Nordstrom reported from Stockholm. Gillian Smith in London contributed to this report.

Just who IS getting all that U.S. federal government largess? The f#cking European Banks!!

There's quite a bit of interest in this story from Bloomberg:

European Banks Dominated Use of Fed’s Commercial Paper Program

By Christopher Condon and Bradley Keoun - Dec 1, 2010

The U.S. subsidiaries of European financial institutions, led by Zurich-based UBS AG and Brussels- based Dexia SA were among the largest users of a government program to provide emergency short-term funding to U.S. companies and banks during the credit crisis.

Six European banks were among the top 11 companies that sold the most debt overall to the Commercial Paper Funding Facility. They sold a combined $274.1 billion, according to data made public today by the U.S. central bank. UBS sold $74.5 billion, the most among all borrowers. The largest U.S.-based user was insurer American International Group, selling $60.2 billion.

There's something about that company, American International Group, AIG .. what is it, just what is it?  Why does it seem so familiar to me?

UBS’s figure of $74.5 billion represents the company’s total sales over the life of the program. The bank’s CPFF borrowings peaked at $37.2 billion, an amount the firm rolled over, or re-sold at maturity, once. Other companies rolled over debt in the program as well.

The CPFF was the only Fed program during the crisis that lent directly to non-financial companies, including Peoria, Illinois-based Caterpillar Inc., and Harley-Davidson Inc. in Milwaukee. None of the debt purchased defaulted and the Fed earned $6.1 billion in interest income and usage fees through CPFF, according to the Federal Reserve.

The Fed released details about the commercial paper facility to meet disclosure requirements in the Dodd-Frank financial-oversight law signed by President Barack Obama in July. The central bank has never before revealed specific, transaction-level aspects of its lending.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Voskuhl at jvoskuhl@bloomberg.net

Okay. I think I have the gist of it.  The U.S. government has provided hundreds of billions of dollars or credit which has been picked up mostly by European (investment) banks, and these European banks then lend money to U.S. companies which ... PAY it ALL back .. because, there are ... (perhaps) not enough U.S. banks to make such an investment.

GIZMO WARS

I've fallen off my chair, laughing so hard, I'm likely to break ribs.  Well, Commander Huber, if this blogging gig does not work out for you, consider stand up comedy. PLEASE.

Gizmo Wars

by Jeff Huber

According to the New York Times, the U.S. Army says “War would be a lot safer if only more of it were fought by robots.”

Had I been drinking coffee or milk, I'd have spewed it onto the puter screen, into the key board.

Safer for whom, Army? 

It apparently hasn’t occurred to the mavens of the Pentarchy, and likely never will, that the only way to make war a lot safer is to fight a lot less of it.  None of the anointed warfare wizards will bother to bring that tidbit to the national attention, that’s for sure.

Don't shoot it, Honey!  It's cute!

John Dyer, a retired vice-admiral who is now chief operation officer of iRobot (yes, that really is his company’s name)  [mg - you can't MAKE this shit up] says “One of the great arguments for armed robots is they can fire second.”  Dyer’s pseudo-logic blithely ignores the one might have more than ample reason for shooting first at an armed robot.  If an armed robot with a foreign flag painted on its arm were patrolling my block, I’d be inclined to do a little more than write a defamatory tone poem about it. 

iRobot makes those cute home cleaning gizmos, Roomba the robotic vacuum cleaner and Scooba the robotic floor scrubber.  The Modular Advanced Armed Robotic System (MAARS), made by QinetiQ North America, is every bit as adorable as its domestic counterparts, maybe even more so.  MAARS is the size of a lawn mower, has tank treads, carries a video camera and a big honking machine gun and has a domed cylinder thingy toward the back that looks just like that peppy little R2D2 character from Star Wars.  The coolest thing of all about MAARS is that it’s remotely operated by technicians through “wireless video-game-style controllers.”

Army Special Forces units have bought six of the MAARS robots.  I guess that makes six soldiers who aren’t at this moment playing Call of Duty: Black Ops. 

Arguments that say remote operators will kill fewer civilians than on-scene soldiers presently kill are specious at best.  The notion that one can gain a superior map of reality from a remote video camera is sillier than the belief that coffee can sober you up.  But at least one theorist argues that we won’t have to rely on human decision making to conduct wars any more.

War wonk John Arquilla of the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School says, “A lot of people fear artificial intelligence.”  Arquilla, an avid proponent of death by gizmo and, thinks an organizational structure “that skillfully blends humans and intelligent machines” is “the key to the mastery of 21st-century military affairs.”  Mastery of military affairs will only be achieved by developing intelligent humans to skillfully run them, not by fabricating “intelligent” machines to execute them.  But if by “mastery of military affairs” Arquilla means consummate skill at chumping the American public into going along with self-defeating, ever expanding wars throughout the New American Century and well into the next one, then he’s probably right.

Arquilla is part of the network-centric warfare cabal, that coven of brainiacs (most of them connected to the Navy) who evangelize the virtues of warfare through a “system of systems” that is really no more than a good-old-boy network of networks designed to sell cyber-age crap to the Department of Defense. 

Like fanatics who championed the spear and then the arrow and then artillery and then air power and so forth, Arquilla and his net-eccentrics fervently believe their new “way” is the “tao,” the long awaited arrival of the ultimate, universal reality in human conflict.  In an article from last spring in war porn glossy Foreign Policy, Arquilla promises that “netwar” (his streamlined version of the network-centric warfare buzz label) will “save untold amounts of blood and treasure” in future conflicts.  That makes you want to go out and start a few more wars doesn’t it?  Heck, if they cost less and none of the good guys get killed in them, we can’t afford not to have more wars, can we?

Arquilla’s arguments have a certain attraction, though.  He very correctly notes that “The U.S. military has exhausted itself in the repeated deployments since the 9/11 attacks” because “It has a chronic ‘scaling problem,’ making it unable to pursue smaller tasks with smaller numbers.” 

But he doesn't make the case that we can get by with smaller numbers.  He says that our present adversaries prevail because they are “networked” and present us with overwhelming numbers.  We could overcome the vast, networked enemy, his reasoning follows, if only we become networked ourselves and approach the problem with smaller numbers.

If we’re being out-networked it’s not because the ism soldiers have better communication technology than we have.  What the ism-ers are networking with is the 21^st century equivalent of smoke signals.  No matter what kind of technology they buy off the shelf it can’t possibly be any better than the technology we can buy off the shelf, and we can buy a heck of a lot more of it than they can.

The kind of war Arquilla envisions is the same worldwide circle competition we’re engaged in now: an ever-widening effort to subjugate the rest of the world by occupying every square inch of it.   All he really wants to do is con civilian and military leaders into letting their computers make their decisions and replace all the soldiers with robots that are ten times more charming than that Arnold on Green Acres and ever so much more deadly. 

But wait: if we inhabit the world with that many killer robots, won’t that run into even more money than we’re spending on our self-immolating wars now?  Well, that’ll be okay, I guess.  As long as War Widgets Inc. is tossing seven figure bonuses at its executives and keeping the stockholders happy, that’s all that matters. 

Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Retired) is the author of the critically applauded Bathtub Admirals, a satire on America’s rise to global dominance. 

Ukraine

 George Friedman is as astute a geo-politcal analyst as anyone I've encountered (save for those of the so-called "radical left, e.g., Zinn, Chomsky, Baegent, Pinckney, et al).  While I often disagree with some of his conclusions, I admire his scholarship and integrity.  The facts will speak different stories to different people.  This posting is a thanks to all of my readers residing in the former satelite countries of the Soviet Union.

Editor’s note: This is the sixth installment in a series of special reports that Dr. Friedman will write over the next few weeks as he travels to Turkey, Moldova, Romania, Ukraine and Poland. In this series, he will share his observations of the geopolitical imperatives in each country and conclude with reflections on his journey as a whole and options for the United States.

Related Links

• Special Series: Geopolitical Journey with George Friedman

By George Friedman
The name “Ukraine” literally translates as “on the edge.” It is a country on the edge of other countries, sometimes part of one, sometimes part of another and more frequently divided. In the 17th and 18th centuries, it was divided between Russia, Poland and the Ottoman Empire. In the 19th century, it was divided between Russia and Austria-Hungary. And in the 20th century, save for a short period of independence after World War I, it became part of the Soviet Union. Ukraine has been on the edge of empires for centuries.
My father was born in Ukraine in 1912, in a town in the Carpathians now called Uzhgorod. It was part of Austria-Hungary when he was born, and by the time he was 10 the border had moved a few miles east, so his family moved a few miles west. My father claimed to speak seven languages (Hungarian, Romanian, Slovak, Polish, Ukrainian, Russian and Yiddish). As a child, I was deeply impressed by his learning. It was only later that I discovered that his linguistic skills extended only to such phrases as “What do you want for that scrawny chicken?” and “Please don’t shoot.”

(click here to enlarge image)

He could indeed make himself understood in such non-trivial matters in all these languages. Consider the reason: Uzhgorod today is on the Slovakian border, about 30 miles from Poland, 15 miles from Hungary and 50 miles from Romania. When my father was growing up, the borders moved constantly, and knowing these languages mattered. You were never sure what you’d be a citizen or subject of next or who would be aiming a rifle at you.
My father lived on the edge until the Germans came in 1941 and swept everything before them, and then until the Soviets returned in 1944 and swept everything before them. He was one of tens of millions who lived or died on the edge, and perhaps nowhere was there as much suffering from living on the edge than in Ukraine. Ukraine was caught between Stalin and Hitler, between planned famines and outright slaughter, to be relieved only by the grinding misery of post-Stalin communism. No European country suffered as much in the 20th century as Ukraine. From 1914 until 1945, Ukraine was as close to hell as one can reach in this life.

Asking to be Ruled

Ukraine was, oddly enough, shaped by Norsemen, who swept down and set up trading posts, eventually ruling over some local populations. According to early histories, the native tribes made the following invitation: “Our land is great and rich, but there is no law in it. Come to rule and reign over us.” This is debated, as Anne Reid, author of the excellent “Borderland: Journey through the History of Ukraine,” points out. But it really doesn’t matter, since they came as merchants rather than conquerors, creating a city, Kiev, at the point where the extraordinarily wide Dnieper River narrows.

(click here to enlarge image)

Still, few historians doubt that some offer of this type was made. I can imagine inhabitants of what became Ukraine making such an offer in ways I can’t imagine in other places. The flat country is made for internal conflict and dissension, and the hunger for a foreigner to come and stabilize a rich land is not always far from Ukrainians’ thoughts. Out of this grew the Kievan Rus, the precursor of modern Ukraine, Russia and Belarus. There are endless arguments over whether Ukraine created Russia or vice versa. Suffice it to say, they developed together. That is more important than who did what to whom.
Consider the way they are said to have chosen their religion. Volodymyr, a pagan ruler, decided that he needed a modern religion. He considered Islam and rejected it because he wanted to drink. He considered Catholicism and rejected it because he had lots of concubines he didn’t want to give up. He finally decided on Orthodox Christianity, which struck him as both beautiful and flexible. As Reid points out, there were profound consequences: “By choosing Christianity rather than Islam, Volodymyr cast Rus’ ambitions forever in Europe rather than Asia, and by taking Christianity from Byzantium rather than Rome he bound the future Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians together in Orthodoxy, fatally dividing them from their Catholic neighbors the Poles.” I suspect that while Volodymyr liked his drink and his women, he was most concerned with finding a balance between powers and chose Byzantium to create space for Ukraine.

Ukraine, Europe and Russia

Ukraine is on the edge again today, trying to find space. It is on the edge of Russia and on the edge of Europe, its old position. What makes this position unique is that Ukraine is independent and has been so for 18 years. This is the longest period of Ukrainian independence in centuries. What is most striking about the Ukrainians is that, while they appear to value their independence, the internal debate seems to focus in part on what foreign entity they should be aligned with. People in the west want to be part of the European Union. People in the east want to be closer to the Russians. The Ukrainians want to remain independent but not simply independent.
It makes for an asymmetric relationship. Many Ukrainians want to join the European Union, which as a whole is ambivalent at best about Ukraine. On the other hand, Ukraine matters as much to the Russians as it does to Ukrainians, just as it always has. Ukraine is as important to Russian national security as Scotland is to England or Texas is to the United States. In the hands of an enemy, these places would pose an existential threat to all three countries. Therefore, rumors to the contrary, neither Scotland nor Texas is going anywhere. Nor is Ukraine, if Russia has anything to do with it. And this reality shapes the core of Ukrainian life. In a fundamental sense, geography has imposed limits on Ukrainian national sovereignty and therefore on the lives of Ukrainians.
From a purely strategic standpoint, Ukraine is Russia’s soft underbelly. Dominated by Russia, Ukraine anchors Russian power in the Carpathians. These mountains are not impossible to penetrate, but they can’t be penetrated easily. If Ukraine is under the influence or control of a Western power, Russia’s (and Belarus’) southern flank is wide open along an arc running from the Polish border east almost to Volgograd then south to the Sea of Azov, a distance of more than 1,000 miles, more than 700 of which lie along Russia proper. There are few natural barriers.
For Russia, Ukraine is a matter of fundamental national security. For a Western power, Ukraine is of value only if that power is planning to engage and defeat Russia, as the Germans tried to do in World War II. At the moment, given that no one in Europe or in the United States is thinking of engaging Russia militarily, Ukraine is not an essential asset. But from the Russian point of view it is fundamental, regardless of what anyone is thinking of at the moment. In 1932, Germany was a basket case; by 1941, it had conquered the European continent and was deep into Russia. One thing the Russians have learned in a long and painful history is to never plan based on what others are capable of doing or thinking at the moment. And given that, the future of Ukraine is never a casual matter for them.
It goes beyond this, of course. Ukraine controls Russia’s access to the Black Sea and therefore to the Mediterranean. The ports of Odessa and Sevastopol provide both military and commercial access for exports, particularly from southern Russia. It is also a critical pipeline route for sending energy to Europe, a commercial and a strategic requirement for Russia, since energy has become a primary lever for influencing and controlling other countries, including Ukraine.
This is why the Orange Revolution in Ukraine in 2004 was critical in transforming Russia’s view of the West and its relationship to Ukraine. Following the breakup of the Soviet Union, Ukraine had a series of governments that remained aligned with Russia. In the 2004 presidential election, the seemingly pro-Russian candidate, Viktor Yanukovich, emerged the winner in an election that many claimed was fraudulent. Crowds took to the streets and forced Yanukovich’s resignation, and he was replaced by a pro-Western coalition.
The Russians charged that the peaceful rising was engineered by Western intelligence agencies, particularly the CIA and MI6, which funneled money into pro-Western NGOs and political parties. Whether this was an intelligence operation or a fairly open activity, there is no question that American and European money poured into Ukraine. And whether it came from warm-hearted reformers or steely eyed CIA operatives didn’t matter in the least to Vladimir Putin. He saw it as an attempt to encircle and crush the Russian Federation.
Putin spent the next six years working to reverse the outcome, operating both openly and covertly to split the coalition and to create a pro-Russian government. In the 2010 elections, Yanukovich returned to power, and from the Russian point of view, the danger was averted. A lot of things went into this reversal. The United States was absorbed in Iraq and Afghanistan and couldn’t engage Russia in a battle for Ukraine. The Germans drew close to the Russians after the 2008 crisis. Russian oligarchs had close financial and political ties with Ukrainian oligarchs who influenced the election. There is a large pro-Russian faction in Ukraine that genuinely wants the country to be linked to Russia. And there was deep disappointment in the West’s unwillingness to help Ukraine substantially.

Beyond the Orange Revolution

On the day we arrived in Kiev, two things were going on. First there were demonstrations under way protesting government tax policy. Second, Yanukovich was in Belgium for a summit with the European Union. Both of these things animated the pro-Western faction in Ukraine, a faction that remains fixated on the possibility that the Orange Revolution can be recreated and that Ukraine must enter the European Union. These two things are linked.
The demonstrations were linked to a shift in tax law that increased taxes on small-business owners. The main demonstration took place in a large square well-stocked with national flags and other banners. The sound systems in place were quite good. It was possible to hear the speeches clearly. When I pointed out to a pro-Western journalist that it seemed to be a well-funded and organized demonstration, I was assured that it wasn’t well-organized at all. I have not been to other Ukrainian demonstrations but have been present at various other demonstrations around the world, and most of those were what some people in Texas call a “goat rodeo.” I have never seen one of those, either, but I gather they aren’t well organized. This demonstration did not strike me as a goat rodeo.
This actually matters. There was some excitement among politically aware pro-Westerners that this demonstration could evolve into another Orange Revolution. Some demonstrators were camping out overnight, and there were some excited rumors that police were blocking buses filled with demonstrators and preventing them from getting to the demonstration. That would mean that the demonstration would have been bigger without police interference and that the government was worried about another rising.
It just didn’t seem that way to me. There were ample police in the side streets, but they were relaxed and not in riot gear. I was told that the police with riot gear were hidden in courtyards and elsewhere. I couldn’t prove otherwise. But the demonstration struck me as too well-organized. Passionate and near-spontaneous demonstrations are more ragged, the crowds more restless and growing, and the police more tense. To me, as an outsider, it seemed more an attempt by organization leaders and politicians to generate a sense of political tension than a spontaneous event. But there was a modicum of hope among anti-government factions that this could be the start of something big. When pressed on the probabilities, I was told by one journalist that there was a 5 percent chance it could grow into a rising.
My perception was that it was a tempest in a teapot. My perception was not completely correct. Yanukovich announced later in the week that the new tax law might not go into effect. He said that it would depend on parliamentary action that would not come for another week but he gave every indication that he would find a way to at least postpone it if not cancel it. Clearly, he did not regard the demonstrations as trivial. Regardless of whether he would finally bend to the demonstrators’ wishes, he felt he needed to respond.

European Dreams

On the same day the demonstrations began, Yanukovich left for Brussels with talks about Ukraine entering the European Union. I had an opportunity to meet with an official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs before he departed for Brussels as well. The official had also been with the ministry during the previous administration. He was a member of the group that had been part of the numerous programs run by the United States and Europe for turning Eastern Europeans into proponents of the West, and he was certainly that. My meeting with the official taught me one of two things: Either Yanukovich was not purging people ideologically or he wanted to keep a foot in the pro-EU camp.
From where I sat, as an American, the European Union appeared at best tarnished and at worst tottering. I had met in Istanbul with some European financial leaders who had in past discussions dismissed my negativism on the European Union as a lack of sophistication on my part. This time they were far less assured than ever before and were talking about the possibilities of the euro failing and other extreme outcomes. They had travelled quite a road in the past few years to have arrived at this point. But what was fascinating to me was that the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry official was not only unshaken by the Irish situation but also saw no connection between that and the EU appetite for Ukraine becoming a member. For him, one had nothing to do with the other.
The troubles the European Union was facing did not strike pro-EU Ukrainians as changing the basic game. There was no question in their mind that they wanted Ukraine in the European Union, nor was there any question in their mind that the barriers to entry were in the failure of the Ukrainians to measure up. The idea that EU expansion had suffered a fatal blow due to the Irish or Greek crises was genuinely inconceivable to them. The European Union was not going to undergo any structural changes. Nothing that was happening in the European Union impacted its attractiveness or its openness. It was all about Ukraine measuring up.
In many countries we have visited there has been a class difference for EU membership. The political and economic elites are enthusiastic, the lower classes much more restrained. In Ukraine, there is also a regional distinction. The eastern third of the country is heavily oriented toward Russia and not to the West. The western third is heavily oriented toward the West. The center of the country tilts toward the west but is divided. Linguistic division also falls along these lines, with the highest concentrations of native Ukrainian speakers living in the west and of Russian speakers in the east. This can be seen in the election returns in 2010 and before. Yanukovich dominated the east, Timoshenko the west, and the contested center tilted toward Timoshenko. But the support in the east for the Party of Regions and Yanukovich was overwhelming.
This division defines Ukrainian politics and foreign policy. Yanukovich is seen as having been elected to repudiate the Orange Revolution. Supporters of the Orange Revolution are vehement in their dislike of Yanukovich and believe that he is a Russian tool. Interestingly, this wasn’t the view in Poland, where government officials and journalists suggested that Yanukovich was playing a more complex game and trying to balance Ukraine between Europe and the Russians.
Whatever Yanukovich intends, it is hard to see how you split the difference. Either you join the European Union or you don’t. I suspect the view is that Yanukovich will try to join but will be rejected. He will therefore balance between the two groups. That is the only way he could split the difference. Certainly, NATO membership is off the table for him. But the European Union is a possibility.
I met with a group of young Ukrainian financial analysts and traders. They suggested that Ukraine be split into two countries, east and west. This is an idea with some currency inside and outside Ukraine. It certainly fits in with the Ukrainian tradition of being on the edge, of being split between Europe and Russia. The problem is that there is no clear geographical boundary that can be defined between the two parts, and the center of the country is itself divided.
Far more interesting than their geopolitical speculation was their fixation on Warsaw. Sitting in Kiev, the young analysts and traders knew everything imaginable about the IPO market, privatization and retirement system in Poland, the various plans and amounts available from those plans for private investment. It became clear that they were more interested in making money in Poland’s markets than they were in the European Union, Ukrainian politics or what the Russians are thinking. They were young and they were traders and they knew who Gordon Gekko was, so this is not a sampling of Ukrainian life. But what was most interesting was how little talk there was of Ukrainian oligarchs compared to Warsaw markets. The oligarchs might have been way beyond them and therefore irrelevant, but it was Warsaw, not the European Union or the power structure, that got their juices flowing.
Many of these young financiers dreamed of leaving Ukraine. So did many of the students I met at a university. There were three themes they repeated. First, they wanted an independent Ukraine. Second, they wanted it to become part of the European Union. Third, they wanted to leave Ukraine and live their lives elsewhere. It struck me how little connection there was between their national hopes and their personal hopes. They were running on two different tracks. In the end, it boiled down to this: It takes generations to build a nation, and the early generations toil and suffer for what comes later. That is a bitter pill to swallow when you have the option of going elsewhere and living well for yourself now. The tension in Ukraine, at least among the European-oriented, appears to be between building Ukraine and building their own lives.

Sovereign in Spite of Itself

But these were members of Ukraine’s Western-oriented class, which was created by the universities. The other part of Ukraine is in the industrial cities of the east. These people don’t expect to leave Ukraine, but they do understand that their industries can’t compete with Europe’s. They know the Russians will buy what they produce, and they fear that European factories in western Ukraine would cost them their jobs. There is nostalgia for the Soviet Union here, not because they don’t remember the horrors of Stalin but simply because the decadence of Leonid Brezhnev was so attractive to them compared to what came before or after.
Add to them the oligarchs. Not only do they permeate the Ukrainian economy and Ukrainian society but they also link Ukraine closely with the Russians. This is because the major Ukrainian oligarchs are tied to the Russians through complex economic and political arrangements. They are the frame of Ukraine. When I walked down a street with a journalist, he pointed to a beautiful but derelict building. He said that the super-wealthy buy these buildings for little money and hold them, since they pay no tax, retarding development. For the oligarchs, the European Union, with its rules and transparency, is a direct challenge, whereas their relation to Russia is part of their daily work.
The Russians are not, I think, trying to recreate the Russian empire. They want a sphere of influence, which is a very different thing. They do not want responsibility for Ukraine or other countries. They see the responsibility as having sapped Russian power. What they want is a sufficient degree of control over Ukraine to guarantee that potentially hostile forces don’t gain control, particularly NATO or any follow-on entities. The Russians are content to allow Ukraine its internal sovereignty, so long as Ukraine does not become a threat to Russia and so long as gas pipelines running through Ukraine are under Russian control.
That is quite a lot to ask of a sovereign country. But Ukraine doesn’t seem to be primarily concerned with maintaining more than the formal outlines of its sovereignty. What it is most concerned about is the choice between Europe and Russia. What is odd is that it is not clear that the European Union or Russia want Ukraine. The European Union is not about to take on another weakling. It has enough already. And Russia doesn’t want the burden of governing Ukraine. It just doesn’t want anyone controlling Ukraine to threaten Russia. Ukrainian sovereignty doesn’t threaten anyone, so long as the borderland remains neutral.
That is what I found most interesting. Ukraine is independent, and I think it will stay independent. Its deepest problem is what to do with that independence, a plan it can formulate only in terms of someone else, in this case Europe or Russia. The great internal fight in Ukraine is not over how Ukraine will manage itself but whether it will be aligned with Europe or Russia. Unlike the 20th century, when the answer to the question of Ukrainian alignment caused wars to be fought, none will be fought now. Russia has what it wants from Ukraine, and Europe will not challenge that.
Ukraine has dreamed of sovereignty without ever truly confronting what it means. I mentioned to the financial analysts and traders that some of my children had served in the military. They were appalled at the idea. Why would someone choose to go into the military? I tried to explain their reasons, which did not have to do with wanting a good job. The gulf was too vast. They could not understand that national sovereignty and personal service cannot be divided. But then, as I said, most of them hoped to leave Ukraine.
Ukraine has its sovereignty. In some ways, I got the sense that it wants to give that sovereignty away, to find someone to take away the burden. It isn’t clear, for once, that anyone is eager to take responsibility for Ukraine. I also did not get the sense that the Ukrainians had come to terms with what it meant to be sovereign. To many, Moscow and Warsaw are more real than Kiev.


Read more: Geopolitical Journey, Part 6: Ukraine | STRATFOR

Who destroyed the 9-11 evidence

Who Destroyed the 9/11 Evidence? .
Monday, 29 November 2010
Christopher Bollyn
http://www.rebelnews.org/opinion/terror/534590-who-destroyed-the-911-evidence

During the past two months I have been involved in research about the Rothschild/Mossad network behind the criminal destruction of the steel from the World Trade Center. I have found that the network that arranged for the destruction of the steel - critical evidence from the crime scene - was actually organized by Israel's Mossad and their Zionist agents, the real culprits behind the false-flag terrorism that changed the world. This article will be the final and conclusive chapter of my book, Solving 9/11 - The Deception that Changed the World.

On 19 November 2010 I sent photographs of two of the main people involved in the "recycling" of the 300,000 tons of steel from the World Trade Center to Roy Tov, the Christian Israeli author of The Cross of Bethlehem. I sent these photos of the culprits behind the criminal destruction of the steel to Tov because he is very knowledgable about the Mossad, having been pursued and targeted by Israeli assassins around the world. This is what Roy Tov wrote back to me on November 21:

Thanks Christopher,

If the pictures are real, then there is little doubt regarding their allies and employers. The chances they'll answer in such case are slim, or it will be in the form of an attack (lawyers or violent) against you.

In September, when I began my research into the people behind the destrucion of the steel, I called the Hugo Neu company, which was one of the two New Jersey scrapyards that "recycled" the steel. Hugo Neu was a German Jewish immigrant from Fürth (like Henry Kissinger, another Rothschild agent) who came to America and worked as a bank clerk with Seligman & Co. before becoming the head of Associated Metals and Minerals Corporation (AMMC) in New York in the 1930s with his German Jewish fellows, Meno Lissauer and Walter M. Rothschild, the company's president. Lissauer's wife, Meta, was also Walter Rothschild's sister. Hugo Neu started his own scrap metal company in 1945. The company is now run by his son, John, and has very close business ties to the state of Israel and is invested in a Mossad-linked Israeli venture fund.

Since 2001, the two companies involved in the destruction of the steel, Sims Metal Management and Hugo Neu, have merged into one company. I called and asked to speak with Alan Ratner, the former head of Metal Management in New Jersey, Daniel Dienst, or Robert Kelman, since these were the key executives involved in the 9/11 steel recycling. I got through to Ratner's secretary, who gave me his email, but instead of letting me speak to any of these men, I was connected to company's spokesman, Daniel Strechay.

Daniel Strechay is the corporate gatekeeper who speaks for the company who profited from the illegal destruction of the steel evidence from the World Trade Center.

Strechay was completely unwilling to answer any questions. I told him that the destruction of the steel is a matter of great historic importance and that in the interest of fairness and accuracy I wanted to speak directly with the people involved. Strechay refused, saying "It's all a matter of public record. Read the Wall Street Journal."

He then said that the company is very proud of how it handled the steel from the Twin Towers, but was adamant in his refusal to let me speak with any of the men who were actually involved in the operation, and hung up the phone. Later, I got through to Alan Ratner by email and he wrote back, so I sent him a few questions, but he yet to respond. Clearly, these men do not want to discuss their roles in the destruction of the steel from the World Trade Center.

I called Kenneth Holden at his home in Scarsdale, New York, on October 16, to ask him some questions about his role in the clean-up of the debris at the World Trade Center. Holden is the former head of New York City's Department of Design and Construction (DDC), and was the official who oversaw the removal of the steel. As Mayor Bloomberg said about Commissioner Holden, when he was reappointed as head of the DDC in January 2002:

New Yorkers are fortunate to have Commissioner Holden agree to remain as Commissioner of DDC," said Mayor Bloomberg. "Over the last four months he has done a terrific job managing the clean up of the World Trade Center and so that the reconstruction process for Lower Manhattan can begin. By coordinating the movement of millions of tons of steel and rubble, excavating one of the most dangerous work sites in the world all seemingly ahead of schedule, under budget and without a fatality, Kenneth Holden has been the unsung hero of this enormous task.

Kenneth Holden
THE "UNSUNG HERO" WON'T SING

When Holden gave his statement to the 9/11 Commission on April 1, 2003, he said that he had received "verbal permission" to remove the steel to New Jersey scrapyards, but failed to name the person who had authorized the move. Oddly, nobody bothered to ask who gave Holden the verbal permission:

Steel and debris from the site was sent to Fresh Kills where it was examined and sifted. As the Department of Sanitation could no longer handle the steel with their equipment, and our engineers thought the steel would destabilize the landfill, DDC received verbal permission to ship the steel to New Jersey. (From whom?) By the end of June 2002, an astounding total of over 1.6 million tons of steel and other debris were removed from the site.

It was Saturday morning when I reached Holden at his home. I told him I was working on an article about the destruction of the steel from the World Trade Center and wanted to ask him a few questions. He bawked a bit at first, saying that he was no longer giving interviews on the subject, so I repeated what he told the commission and asked the most important question first: Who gave you the verbal permission to ship the steel to New Jersey scrapyards? I was able to repeat the question twice very clearly. After a short pause Holden said, "As I said, I'm not giving interviews on this subject." Then he silently ended the call.

I thought for a minute and called Holden right back. He picked up the phone and I immediately asked, "Was it Chertoff? Was it Michael Chertoff who gave you the verbal permission?" Holden was silent on the other end of the line, then he ended the call as he had done before.

"Silence is agreement" is the old Estonian saying that came to mind. The logic is that Holden could not deny that Chertoff had given him the verbal permission, so he remained silent. Common sense would suggest that the permission must have come from Chertoff, who as Assistant Attorney General of the United States was the top dog responsible for the federal (FBI) investigation of 9/11.

Assistant Attorney General Michael Chertoff was "top dog" at the FBI during the "non-investigation" of 9/11, in which the crucial steel evidence was destroyed in Asian smelters before being examined by engineers. Chertoff's Israeli mother, Livia Eisen, was one of the first Mossad agents. An Israeli by birth, Michael spent much of his childhood in Israel.

To understand the essence of the crime, I recommend reading the short article "Selling Out the Investigation" by Bill Manning of Fire Engineering. Manning's piece was published on January 1, 2002. The destruction of the steel was a crucial part of the 9/11 hoax. A hoax cannot succeed if there is evidence that reveals the truth and 9/11 is a global hoax.

The Twin Towers were primarily steel structures supporting 220 lightweight concrete floors.

The towers were well built structures that used more steel than today's skyscrapers. The debris contained about 300,000 tons of steel that was hastily dispatched by a New York City official to two Zionist-controlled scrapyards in New Jersey - before it could even be inspected by engineers. These Jewish-owned scrapyards then shipped the steel - hard evidence from the crime scene - to Asian smelters where it was melted down far from the prying eyes of U.S. investigators. Why was this allowed and who was behind it?

An organization called the NYC Coalition for Accountability Now (NYC CAN) is calling for the public to demand that the district attorney of New York County investigate and prosecute those responsible for the destruction of the evidence from the crime scene. This is from their open letter/petition of June 23, 2010 to the district attorney's office:

Cy Vance, Jr. District Attorney of New York County
Thomas Wornom, Bureau Chief, Special Prosecutions Bureau

Dear Sirs:

Over the last three weeks you have been informed about the overwhelming evidence that World Trade Center Building 7 was demolished with explosives. I trust that you understand the serious implications of this crime and that you are resolved to prosecute the guilty parties. To provide a critical steppingstone in your investigation, I would like to bring to your attention the widely documented – and widely protested – destruction of physical evidence (structural steel) at the crime scene, which I contend is prosecutable pursuant to Article 205 of the New York Penal Code, § 205.50 Hindering Prosecution.

"[A] person `renders criminal assistance' when, with intent to prevent, hinder or delay the discovery or apprehension of…a person he knows or believes has committed a crime…he...suppresses, by any act of concealment, alteration or destruction, any physical evidence which might aid in the discovery or apprehension of such person or in the lodging of a criminal charge against him;"

I will present publicly available information on the destruction of physical evidence from the World Trade Center site, below my signature, in four sections entitled:

1. Official acknowledgement of the destruction of physical evidence from the WTC.
2. Control of the WTC cleanup.
3. The decision to destroy the physical evidence.
4. The continued destruction of evidence despite public outcry

The supporting documentation provided in this letter/petition from NYC CAN includes the following:

"In the month that lapsed between the terrorist attacks and the deployment of the [FEMA Building Performance Assessment Team (BPAT Team)], a significant amount of steel debris—including most of the steel from the upper floors—was removed from the rubble pile, cut into smaller sections, and either melted at the recycling plant or shipped out of the U.S. Some of the critical pieces of steel—including the suspension trusses from the top of the towers and the internal support columns—were gone before the first BPAT team member ever reached the site. Fortunately, an NSF-funded independent researcher, recognizing that valuable evidence was being destroyed, attempted to intervene with the City of New York to save the valuable artifacts, but the city was unwilling to suspend the recycling contract."
- Committee on Science, U.S. House of Representatives, March 6, 2002

"[T]here is so much that has been lost in these last six months that we can never go back and retrieve. And that is not only unfortunate, it is borderline criminal."
- Joseph Crowley, U.S. Congressman, 7th District, New York

"[O]n September 28, the New York Times learned that the city was recycling the steel. When the Times contacted Kenneth R. Holden, commissioner of the Department of Design and Construction, he said that no one from the investigative team had asked him to keep or inspect the steel. The ASCE, it turned out, had faxed a request, but to the wrong fax machine. Late that afternoon, after reporters shuttled the correct fax number to the ASCE, Holden said that a request had finally reached him."

Commissioner Kenneth R. Holden and his wife Frances McGuire. Holden was given an award in 2002 by the AIA New York Chapter after he had overseen the criminal destruction of the steel from the World Trade Center. Why was he being awarded when he should have been arrested?

By September 28, the DDC is publicly known to have been aware of the BPAT's request for the steel to be saved, however, the decision to recycle the steel stood.

Of course, Mayor Giuliani – previously a U.S. Attorney – and the DDC had to be fully aware of the illegality of destroying the physical evidence prior to their decision to recycle the steel. Their refusal to desist from recycling the steel when asked by the investigative team to do so – still less than three weeks into the cleanup effort, with hundreds of thousands of tons of steel still salvageable, and relatively negligible revenue from selling the steel not an issue because there was virtually unlimited federal funding for the cleanup effort – strongly suggests their contravention of the law was deliberate and motivated by intent to prevent the discovery of a crime they knew had taken place...

Calls to halt the recycling fell on deaf ears. According to Times reporters Glanz and Lipton:

"Officials in the mayor's office declined to reply to written and oral requests for comment over a three-day period about who decided to recycle the steel and the concern that the decision might be handicapping the investigation. `The city considered it reasonable to have recovered structural steel recycled,' said Matthew G. Monahan, a spokesman for the city's Department of Design and Construction, which is in charge of debris removal at the site"

Why didn't the city simply stop recycling the steel? Again, the outright refusal of city officials to desist from recycling the steel strongly suggests their contravention of the law was deliberate and motivated by intent to prevent the discovery of a crime they knew had taken place.

I strongly support the NYC CAN petition to prosecute those behind the criminal destruction of the steel from the World Trade Center. My forthcoming article will reveal the key people involved in the terror network behind this crime.

In the meantime, I recommend visiting the website of NYC CAN to understand the basis of their appeal for justice and the extent of the criminal destruction of evidence from the World Trade Center: http://www.nyccan.org/join.php

Where DO we find such liberals?

Any of you out there not regularly reading Jeff Huber's indispensable Pen & Sword Blog ought to do youor homework starting now!

Yes, We Could Have

The commander-in-chief’s new call sign: Cave Man.

Media louts are pounding the tom-toms about how now that Obama’s domestic agenda is receiving taking final sacraments, he can focus on becoming a “foreign policy president.”   Jesus in a camisole.  The only kind of foreign policy president young Mr. Obama can become is the kind young Mr. Bush was: a hapless servant of the Pentarchy that aims to keep American is a constant state of war throughout this American Century and into the next one.  Obama won’t have to work very hard to become that.

This is what a lame duck POTUS does.

I noted in early 2009 that Obama should have transferred Gates, Mullen, Petraeus, Odierno and the rest of his war domos to civilian command the nanosecond after that Bush appointed Chief Justice screwed up his oath of office.  I further noted that he should have fired them all when they pushed him to send more troops to the Bananastans but couldn’t tell him what they do with them once they got there.  When Bananas Stan McChrystal finally got so cocky Obama didn’t have any choice but to fire him, he should have sent the rest of the four-star hooligans assigned to Fort Palooka as well. 

 This is exactly what you get with war mongers leading the troops and advising the Prez.

But Obama didn’t do any of those things.  Instead, he put the head Praetorian, King David, in charge of the banana stand, thereby insuring that no withdrawal timeline would ever be adhered to in that theater of war, just like the timelines have been blown off in Iraq.  Baghdad is under siege again.  I forget how many times that makes, or how many six-month Friedman units ago we turned that corner for the first time. 

The bad news is that Obama now admits we won’t even be able to think about turning responsibility for Afghanistan over to the Afghans until 2014.  The good news is that outgoing defense secretary Bob Gates is “upbeat” about our legacy in Afghanistan, and hopes that his tenure in office has brought confidence about the U.S. role in that part of the world.  If he’s talking about our plight as unwanted and failed occupiers, yeah, I’m as confident about our performance in that role as I could possibly be.

I’m also confident in the future of our role as a stooge of Israel.  According to Likudnik megaphone JTA (they don’t say what “JTA” means for but I have a pretty good guess what the “J” stands for), Israel’s Bibi Netanyahu is positively swaggering over the recent GOP takeover of the House of Representatives.   He’s so sure he can get anything he wants now that he’s making hee-haw noise about how “Containment will not work” against Iran.  I’m guessing Bibi figures the Palestinians can go suck a gas pipe too. 

The man who started us down this road has been polluting the information environment plugging the autobiography that somebody else wrote for him.  Dubya’s telling every microphone that won’t run away from him that he did everything he did because lawyers like ‘Berto Gonzales and John “Fu Man” Yoo told him it was all legal so they can’t put him in jail.  And I’m guessing that Billy Graham told Bush he couldn’t go to hell for any of it either.

For going on two years now I’ve been thinking that Obama was at least better than the alternative we were stuck with.  I’m beginning to think differently.  Grampaw Pettibone and Tea Bag Barbie would have sold us out to the Pentarchs too, but they would likely have destroyed the GOP in the process.  As things stand, Obama has pretty much planted a pair of shiny new pennies on the “Democrat” Party’s eyelids. 

Of course, Obama had a lot of help sailing his party down the River Styx.  Take my old congressman (please), Glen Nye.  Sons of the daughters of the Great Enlightenment turned out in ’08 to meet the Virginia Hillbilly GOP horde and put him in office to promote a progressive agenda: you remember, health care, end the war little stuff like that.  Glen voted against Obama and with the zombies damn near every chance he got.  Then come 2010 campaign time, he spent all the money his Democratic backers gave him on ads bragging about how he’d voted with the Republicans.  He was no doubt as shocked as Captain Renault when Virginia Democrats didn’t turn out to vote for him a second time. 

Where do we find such liberals?

We don't find them - they are shunted upon us by a rigged primary system