9-11 tragedy, we must fight to expose it.
The Big Lie is a propaganda technique. It was defined by Adolf Hitler in his 1925 autobiography Mein Kampf as a lie so "colossal" that no one would believe that someone "could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously".
Do you live in a High Rise? | |
Are you afraid the building would collapse if a fire was on an upper floor? | |
- | in 9-11 Truth Movement |
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/05/16/114269/wikileaks-cables-show-oil-a-major.html
WikiLeaks cables show that it was all about the oil
Kevin G. Hall talks with the Real News Network about the U.S. diplomatic push for more oil sources.
- Story | WikiLeaks: U.S. saw Israeli firm's rise in Latin America as a threat
- Story | WikiLeaks: U.S., Venezuela even fought over McDonald's
- Story | Guantanamo's detainees come into view for first time
- Story | WikiLeaks cables show Graham as senator-diplomat
- Story | WikiLeaks files on Guantanamo unlikely to help those jailed on flawed evidence
- Story | Guantanamo secret files show U.S. often held innocent Afghans
- Story | WikiLeaks: Just 8 at Gitmo gave evidence against 255 others
- Story | WikiLeaks: Secret Guantanamo files show U.S. disarray
- Story | State Department cables reveal U.S. thirst for all things Iranian
- Graphic | Trend in U.S. gas prices
- Graphic | Crude oil and gasoline prices
- Graphic | WikiLeaks and oil
- Document | Cable: Slovakia feels pressure from Russia on Transpetrol
- Document | Cable: Discussion between U.S. and Slovak Foreign Minister over Transpetrol
- Document | Cable: U.S. Energy Advisor's discussions regarding Russian oil shipments with Poland
- Document | Cable: U.S. advisor discusses with Slovak officials about Transpetrol buy-back
- Document | Cable:Slovakia is focused on regaining Transpetrol stake
- Document | Cable: A purchaser of Yukos discusses debt claims and Transpetrol
- Document | Cable: Restarting negotiations between Slovakia and representatives of Yukos
- Document | Cable: Slovakia concludes buyback of Transpetrol shares
- Document | Cable: The economic realities facing Russia's Gazprom
- Document | Cable: Slovak Govt aims to repurchase Transpetrol pipeline
- Document | Cable: Slovakia has own motives for repurchasing Transpetrol
- Document | Cable: The end of Russia's Yukos oil
- Document | Cable: An analysis of Equatorial Guinea
- Document | Cable: U.S. suggests tough warning to ENI president over Russia and Iran
- Document | Cable: Iran solicits Italian investment in Iran's oil fields
- Document | Cable: Chinese players in Ecuador's oil industry
- Document | Cable: Slovakia to repurchase Transpetrol shares from Russia's Yukos
- Document | Cable: ExxonMobil will sign to build a petrochemical plant in Venezuela
- Document | Cable: PDVSA - oil company or social development agency?
- Document | Cable: Venezuela's oil company counsels 'pragmatism'
- Document | Cable: Increased oil sales to Cuba?
- Document | Cable: How real is Chavez's oil threat?
- On the Web | Roundup of news developments involving WikiLeaks
- On the Web | WikiLeaks Cablegate site
- On the Web | More WikiLeaks coverage from McClatchy
By Kevin G. Hall | McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — In 2006, three years after the Russian government had charged Mikhail Khodorkovsky — then the country's wealthiest businessman — with fraud and moved to break up his Yukos oil company, U.S. diplomats had had enough.
Gazprom, which grew out of the former Soviet Union's state gas ministry, had been busy buying up Yukos' far-flung empire, stoking American fears that soon Russia and its tough leader, Vladimir Putin, would control virtually all of the natural gas flowing to Europe.
The United States wanted to stop that from happening. So the American embassy in Slovakia hired a Texas-based oil consultant and began secretly advising the Slovakian government on how to buy the 49 percent stake Yukos had held in Transpetrol, the Slovakian oil pipeline company.
With no oil experience of its own, the Slovakian government didn't know how much it should pay. The consultant, who sat in on the negotiations, assured Slovakia's economy minister, Lubomir Jahnatek, that the $120 million price offered to the group disposing of Yukos' assets was a bargain. Gazprom was willing to pay far more.
"We have made it clear to all parties that we do not want to publicize our role as technical advisors," the embassy said in an Aug. 10, 2006, cable that outlined what eventually became a deal. "Jahnatek is clearly appreciative of the input provided by (the consultant), and will continue to look to him and the U.S. embassy for information as he faces the challenges to the deal in the coming weeks."
The communication, part of the cache of State Department cables that WikiLeaks passed to McClatchy and other news organizations, is just one indication of how the U.S. government over the years has maneuvered to influence the world's oil and natural gas markets.
With oil trading near $100 a barrel and gasoline near $4 a gallon at the pump, Americans can take solace in knowing that securing sources of oil has been a chief focus of U.S. embassies across the globe for years.
Of the 251,287 WikiLeaks documents McClatchy obtained, 23,927 of them — nearly one in 10 — reference oil. Gazprom alone is mentioned in 1,789.
In the cables, U.S. diplomats can be found plotting ways to prevent state entities such as Gazprom from taking control of key petroleum facilities, pressing oil companies to adjust their policies to match U.S. foreign policy goals, helping U.S.-based oil companies arrange deals on favorable terms and pressing foreign governments to assist companies that are willing to do the U.S.'s bidding.
Sometimes the U.S. approach seems mystifying. An Aug. 17, 2009, secret cable from the U.S. embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, recalled how days earlier the U.S. charge d'affaires, Richard Erdman, pushed Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali al Naimi to get closer to China.
But there was an ulterior motive. At the time, the United States was trying to persuade China to back sanctions against Iran over the country's nuclear fuel enrichment program. The U.S. believes the program is part of an Iranian effort to develop nuclear weapons. "We wouldn't mind seeing Saudi sales replacing some of Iran's oil exports to China. This would have the welcome side impact of reducing Iranian leverage over China," Erdman told Naimi in a cable.
Naimi responded that Saudi Arabia, a bitter rival to Iran, would soon be the largest oil supplier to China, and it came to pass. In 2010, Saudi Arabia was the top oil supplier to China. Iran was third, according to the Chinese website ChinaOilWeb.
A July 30, 2009, secret cable from the U.S embassy in Riyadh recounts how Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, while visiting the kingdom, leaned on his Saudi counterpart, Ibrahim al Assaf, to contain rising oil prices.
"Geithner said that it would be positive for the global recovery if oil prices did not rise further, whether from speculation or OPEC production," the cable said, noting that Geithner admitted "that the U.S. had not found a 'good way' to limit oil-price volatility."
The documents also show how in their global hunt for oil, companies from allied countries and foes alike complicate U.S. policy objectives.
One target of repeated U.S. ire is the Rome-based oil giant Eni, Italy's largest corporation and one in which the Italian government holds a 30 percent stake. Both efforts to expand its presence in Iran and its close ties to Russia's Gazprom are frequent topics in the cables.
"Eni CEO Paolo Scaroni told the ambassador that the Iranian energy minister has offered Eni investment opportunities in Iran's South Pars and Azadegan oil fields," said a secret cable from the U.S. embassy in Rome dated Jan. 12, 2007. "Scaroni said Eni is interested in additional investment in Iran so long as there are no multilateral sanctions against Iran in effect, Iran pays money owed Eni under existing contracts, and the investments are structured so that Eni's return is based on world oil and gas prices."
The embassy was particularly unhappy that Eni sought to structure its new business in Iran in such a way that it could claim that Iran was merely repaying old debts owed to the company, some dating to the 1950s. That would allow Eni to help Iran develop the fields and skirt any sanctions imposed over Iran's nuclear program, which the U.S. believes is intended to develop nuclear weapons.
The embassy urged U.S. officials in Washington to lean on Scaroni during an upcoming visit to squelch any deal. A subsequent cable indicates they did.
Scaroni was poised to try again with the Obama administration, according to a May 5, 2009, account of a meeting with another Eni official. "Post thinks there are good reasons for USG skepticism on this request," the cable said.
Eni's ties with Gazprom were the subject of an April 24, 2008, cable that urged the State and Treasury departments to express displeasure very clearly to Scaroni.
Specifically at issue was an Eni deal that would have given Gazprom access to Libyan oil and would have had Eni help Gazprom build a pipeline across the Black Sea. This project would have competed with a similar project backed by the U.S. government that would have connected gas fields in the Caspian region directly to Europe, bypassing Russia and Gazprom.
At the time, Silvio Berlusconi was about to become Italy's prime minister for a second time and the embassy urged headquarters to twist his arm as well.
"Post would like to push the new Berlusconi government to force Eni to act less as a stalking horse for Gazprom interests," the confidential cable said. "Eni . . . seems to be working in support of Gazprom's efforts to dominate Europe's energy supply, and against U.S.-supported E.U. efforts to diversify energy supply."
Eni has been in the news of late because it's the largest player in Libya's oil sector and Scaroni publicly voiced concern that U.S.-led efforts to oust strongman Moammar Gadhafi weren't in Italy's interest. On April 20, Scaroni announced that Eni was temporarily shelving its deal in Libya that would have given Gazprom a big stake in Libyan oil, a move the leaked documents show the U.S. had been seeking since 2008.
Sometimes, however, U.S. efforts were aimed at unleashing Russian oil.
A secret cable from Moscow dated April 16, 2009, tells how Houston-based ConocoPhillips planned to join the Russian firm Lukoil in bidding on oil contracts in Iraq. The joint effort in Iraq had the blessing of Putin, ConocoPhillips officials said, who noted that Putin had offered to provide debt relief to Iraq if the U.S.-Russian consortium were granted a contract.
Iraqi oil was the subject of many cables from diplomats in Iraq, including a number that dealt with the surprise 2007 announcement that Texas-based Hunt Oil Co. had entered into a production sharing agreement with the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq's north. The problem was Iraq hadn't yet passed its national oil law and the company's CEO, Dallas businessman Ray Hunt, was a friend of President George W. Bush. And Hunt served on Bush's foreign intelligence advisory committee.
A Sept. 9, 2007, cable from the U.S. government's Kurdistan Regional Reconstruction Team described Hunt Oil's Middle East manager, David McDonald, as unconcerned about the legalities of the deal.
"He did not express concern about the potential controversy surrounding signature of a PSC (production agreement) with the KRG that covers areas of operation currently outside the KRG's legal control," the reconstruction team warned. "He said, 'This is a significant opportunity that outweighs the legal ambiguity.' "
The cable said McDonald described hunting for oil in Iraq's north as "like shooting fish in a barrel."
The cables are filled with information about the energy industry that can't help but surprise. One cable from the U.S. embassy in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, argues that the Obama administration should be paying closer attention to the small West African nation, noting that a sudden reversal of political winds could cost hundreds of American oil workers their jobs and threaten 20 percent of the U.S. oil supply.
"Taking away U.S. energy imports from North America (i.e. those from our immediate neighbors Canada and Mexico), we find that over 30 percent of our imported oil and gas comes from the Gulf of Guinea region — more, for example, than from the Middle East," the May 21, 2009, cable noted. "The largest portion of the Gulf of Guinea maritime territory belongs to little EG."
The cable added that Spain and China are making oil plays in the country where U.S. companies Marathon Oil Corp. and Hess Corp. have as much as 30 percent of their capital invested.
Despite the unsavory reputation of Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang, who's proclaimed himself a living god, the time seemed right to reboot bilateral relations, the cable suggested, noting that Obama is a common surname there.
"The recent change in the U.S. administration — in the country with the highest per capita density of 'Obamas' in the world — was received as a herald of warmer relations," the cable said.
READ THE CABLES
Cable: Slovak Govt aims to repurchase Transpetrol pipeline
Cable: Slovakia has own motives for repurchasing Transpetrol
Cable: Slovakia felt pressure from Russia on Transpetrol
Cable: Discussion between U.S. and Slovak Foreign Minister over Transpetrol
Cable: U.S. Energy Advisor's discussions regarding Russian oil shipments with Poland
Cable: U.S. advisor discusses with Slovak officials about Transpetrol buy-back
Cable:Slovakia is focused on regaining Transpetrol stake
Cable: A purchaser of Yukos discusses debt claims and Transpetrol
Cable: Restarting negotiations between Slovakia and representatives of Yukos
Cable: Slovakia concludes buyback of Transpetrol shares
Cable: The economic realities facing Russia's Gazprom
Cable: Slovakia to repurchase Transpetrol shares from Russia's Yukos
Cable: Chinese players in Ecuador's oil industry
Cable: Iran solicits Italian investment in Iran's oil fields
Cable: U.S. suggests tough warning to ENI president over Russia and Iran
Cable: An analysis of Equatorial Guinea
Cable: Hunt Oil signs agreement with Kurdistan under Kurdish oil law
Cable: How real is Chavez's oil threat?
Cable: Increased oil sales to Cuba?
Cable: Venezuela's oil company counsels 'pragmatism' in U.S.-Venezuela relations
Cable: PDVSA - oil company or social development agency?
Cable: ExxonMobil will sign to build a petrochemical plant in Venezuela
MORE WIKILEAKS FROM MCCLATCHY
WikiLeaks cables show U.S. took softer line toward Libya
State Department cables reveal U.S. thirst for all things Iranian
WikiLeaks: Secret Guantanamo files show U.S. disarray
WikiLeaks: Just 8 at Gitmo gave evidence against 255 others
Guantanamo secret files show U.S. often held innocent Afghans
Guantanamo's detainees come into view for first time
WikiLeaks: U.S., Venezuela even fought over McDonald's
Wikileaks: Dim view of Panama president Obama will meet
WikiLeaks: U.S. saw Israeli firm's rise in Latin America as a threat
Replies
Listen to this speech and notice how Obama uses "sovereign and contiguous", "sovereign and non-militarized state".............isn't the Middle East made up of various sovereign governments, most of which are Monarchies. They are contiguous.
Some Highlights:
1) U.S. opposes violence or oppression on the people.
2) Obama: How can one negotiate with a party who has shown itself unwilling to recognize your right to exist. (question to Israel)................
3) "Sovereign and unmilitarized state."
4) Obama called Hussein and Bin Ladin irrelevant.
5) Obama is seen as irrelevant. Who cares (what Obama says).
6) U.S. is the reason for having so many dictatorships in the region.
7) Arabs are deposing regimes set up by the U.S.
8) President Obama who is from another country that's a partner in Israeli crime says that 'your country shall not be yours....it's reducing us to non-existent peoples'.
9) U.S. comes across to offer bribes to go against Arab people.
People asking for social justice.
U.S. exploitatation and pillage must come to an end.
10) ethnic cleansing occuring in Israel.
etc.
11) U.S. pillage on the resources must come to an end.
***************************************
Therefore, U.S. deliberately intervenes and imposes social change on the Arabs/Israel, and is moving to make them non-existent, while creating a nation state at their whim/pleasure...........in other words, the U.S. nose is in other nations business.
Observations/Applications
Similar to what occurred in Hawaii, the major points highlighted above applies to the moves on the Hawaiian Kingdom:
2) How can one negotiate with a party who has shown itself unwilling to recognize your right to exist.
Note: the party unwilling to recognize kanaka maoli's right to exist is the entity created, set in place and supported by the U.S. is the entity State of Hawaii with the U.S. government.
the complexity of the issues are now clouded due to the Premeditation evidence discovered showing that the U.S. did support treasonous persons to help to disrupt, leave in disarray, pirate an already recognized nation. The ongoing intent is to say that we are trying to "negotiate" with an "unwilling" U.S. which expects that a simple apology will do. See Public Law 103-150 signed by U.S. President Clinton.
Now, the U.S. has been pulling that stunt on many other nations and now moves against the Israeli's, et. als.
8) President Obama who is from another country that's a partner in Israeli crime says that 'your country shall not be yours....it's reducing us to non-existent peoples'.
Note: Obama, by supporting the Akaka Bill along with the entity State of Hawaii - partners in Hawaiian Kingdom's crimes is also saying to our kanaka maoli that 'our country shall not be ours.....they're rducing us to non-existent peoples' which is what they have been trying to do since the criminal claims of 'annexation' in 1898, and over time through lies, deceit, propaganda.
The entity State of Hawaii through the Rice vs. Cayetano case did a claimed legal tactic to assume the term "Hawaiian" and identity theft which intends to claim the term to apply to all born in the Hawaiian Islands as "Hawaiian" and have the ' benefits and privileges' for all with no blood relationship to the aboriginal people, the kanaka maoli, subjects, Alii of the Hawaiian Kingdom.
"Benefits and privileges" are terms used by Masons/Freemasons when they identify their membership/ supporters in the Hawaiian Islands.
As you now know that the Masons/Freemasons were part of the mercenaries supporting the U.S. , England's, bankers moves on a friendly, neutral, non-violent nation wealthier than their own...........and moved to pirate, pillage, criminally assume lands, assets, resources, etc. disregarding international law/breaching international laws.
As posted previously about the Middle East nations that were being set up for War due to OIL, Iraq, Iran, Arab Nation, etc. are on the list to Plunder.............
http://www.edu-share.com/index.php?mod=group_thread&code=view&a...
References: website www.politicalgraveyard.com
CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY OF HAWAII ABROAD AND THE UNITED STATES (2003) and other books writings by Amelia Kuulei Gora >>>
aloha.
> p.s. in regards to the SECRET TREATY OF VERONA:(break down of Monarchy governments)
see CONGRESSIONAL RECORD
-U.S. SENATE -
64th CONGRESS 1st SESSION
VOLUME 53 PART 7
Page 6781
25 April 1916
also see AMERICAN DIPLOMATIC CODE 1778 -1884 vol. 2; Elliott p. 179
lastly if you google youll see hundreds of referrals regarding the Secret Treaty of Verona.
7. Hawaii is occupied by a nation contrary to neutral peaceful existence:
REFERENCE: FOREIGN AFFAIRS The Road to War America and the World page 31Volume 70 No. 1
In other words the following on the U.S. list to WAR with or TERRORIZE are:
1. IRAQ (2003 Iraq accused of having nuclear weapons GW Bush moved to WAR for EXXON (oil) see: above article a repost THE BROWN STUFF by Greg Palast www.gregpalast.com
2. SYRIA
3. ARAB NATION
4. NORTH KOREA (October 2006 underground nuclear weapon set off)
5. GERMAN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
6. LIBYA
7. ARGENTINA
8. PAKISTAN
Off the forums:
Zeeshan
MC Intern
Registered: Jun 2003
Location: New York City
Posts: 15
youre absolutely right!
Amelia
I cant agree with you more. First Afghanistan now Iraq next? God knows better!
I as a Pakistani believe our turn is right around the corner somewhere. If the US government and foreign policy go unchecked and the media continues to play its present role then surely the world will be an absolutely horrifying global village.
9. IRAN
10. SOUTH AFRICA
and not necessarily in that order! Just to verify some of the above:
Learn from Iraq
Top Stories Reuters
By Philip Pullella
ROME (Reuters) The United States on Wednesday warned countries it has accused of pursuing weapons of mass destruction including Iran Syria and North Korea (news web sites) to draw the appropriate lesson from Iraq (news web sites).
aloha.
1) Failure in telling Americans about the true relationship with England/U.S. is but a colony of the Crown (of England)
Reference: CBS Channel 9 news 5:45PM 10/30/05 Sunday
Announcing Prince Charles and his wife would visit the U.S.
a colony of the Crown (of England);
This article covers part of checking up on the U.S. whose Southern (Confederate) Presidents have been actively destroying the Constitution without the understanding of most Americans.
The most recent U.S. Presidents who have had a hand in the ongoing destruction of the U.S. Constitution are:
President Lyndon Baines Johnson (Texas Confederate State)
President Richard Nixon (Texas Confederate State)
President Ronald Reagan (Texas Confederate State)
President James Earl Carter (Georgia Confederate State)
President George Bush (Texas Confederate State)
President William Clinton (Arkansas Confederate State)
President George W. Bush (Texas Confederate State)
See John Nelson legal researchers article at http://myweb.ecomplanet.com/GORA8037 for the U.S. Presidents role in destroying the U.S. Constitution etc.
By impeaching the U.S. President not only can the rights afforded by the U.S. Constitution be maintained but it will also be a credible sign to other nations that Americans are NOT about WAR the wrongful Pl under Ing Upon Inn *o* CENTS.
The removal/withdrawal of the American military from the Middle East/other nations will help to keep in check:
1) the Foreign Policies;
2) the Media (mostly Jewish run) who promotes WAR for GREED/money resources etc.;
3) and would impede the progress of the World being dominated by the UPPER CLASS/a few seeking control of a slave world society/ New World Order/ One World Order.
4) Question the United Nations and the Presidents need to connect with other nations.
5) Question the United Nations and the CFR /Council on Foreign Relations made up of U.S. England and the bankers.
6) Question the basis of Allen Dulles former CIA/Central Intelligence Agencys former chief who prepared a report recommending the following:
.a world government strong immediate limitation on national sovereignty international control of all armies and navies a universal system of money world-wide freedom of immigration progressive elimination of all tariff and quota restrictions on world trade and a democratically-controlled world bank. Allen Dulles 1942
The report also called for world-wide redistribution of wealth. It held that a new order of economic life is both imminent and imperative. It accepted Marxian concepts by denouncing various defects in the profit system as being responsible for breeding war demagogues and dictators.
7) Take a step back and watch the U.S. and Russias possible merger into a world government:
Dulles in 1946 said:
Moreover Communism as an economic program for social reconstruction has points of contact with the social message of Christianity as in its avowed concern for the underprivileged and its insistence on racial equality neither state socialism nor free enterprise provides a perfect economic system; each can learn from the experience of the other the free enterprise system has yet to prove it can assure steady production and employment Soviet socialism has changed mch particularly in placing greater dependence upon the incentive of personal gain.
Do note that in the first 25 years of Communist control of Russia the mass murder of 20-million human beings occurred.
15-million persons were in Soviet Slave Labor camps in 1946;
From 1946 1963 the communists exterminated another 40-million people in Russia China Hungary Cuba Poland Tibet and Korea.
Note and Comments:
Being that the treasonous activities Communist affiliations of the Presidents including the building of the United Nations does this mean that the recent count of 655000 Iraqis who were killed adds to the additional count of Communist mass murders?
The United Nations is communist based headed by England the WAR arm U.S. and funded by the international bankers.
The U.S. Constitution has been TAMPERED WITH by U.S. Presidents of a slave state background/Confederate States with less than a full recognition as the other States. See John Nelsons article at http://myweb.ecomplanet.com/GORA8037 and other issues of IOLANI The Royal Hawk for U.S. Presidents backgrounds etc.
As a reminder: Russia the U.S. England were part of the 1822 Secret Treaty of Verona along with Austria France Prussia and assistance from the Vatican. See Wolfram Graetz researchers finds in the U.S. Congress records in IOLANI The Royal Hawk issues or go to his website:
8. Royal families exist documenting excessive frauds criminal deviance Pirates of the Pacific and Friends.
9. Royal families excluding the clowns(not Crowns) Kawananakoas have filed liens/notices/affidavits (1996 2005 2007 etc.) for the world to see.
9. Royal families excluding the clowns(not Crowns) Kawananakoas document the truth and defend out kanaka maoli and others for their ancestral land claims health safety and maintain peaceful neutral status while recognizing the permanent treaties with other nations affecting Royal persons descendants of Kamehameha etals. today.
see: http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/HISTORY-OVERVIEW-FROM-HAWA-by-Am...
History Overview from Hawaii of Educating the Cute, Unknowing Sheep
Conclusion/ or Lessons to be taken from our history:
The history of Hawaii has indeed affected the World today. A Corporation is not a government. Everyone affected by the U.S., Great Britain's, France's etals. corporate structure needs to work on diminishing the tight reins of slavery by reaching for the areas of history that has problematic issues, reenact Constitutions, limit or eliminate the Corporate structure moving in to assume the rights of citizens.
There's more history which has been brought out by many historians, researchers, writers, which shows evidence of decadent nations looking to kill off all people of color, etc.
In other words, dear friends, take heed, and take back your governments.
aloha.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8MHvgEBF5Y
p.s. good stuff/
fyi see the Whitehouse website which documents /maintains the Hawaiian Kingdom's claims of the Hawaiian archipelago by our Alii/our families documented /sent to President (s) Clinton, Bush, and Obama.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/assets/formsubmissions/54/c1dc2d2b35964f0...
By Paul Craig Roberts
May 21, 2011 "Information Clearing House" -- In a sensational and explosive TV report, the Pakistani News Agency has provided a live interview with an eye witness to the US attack on the alleged compound of Osama bin Laden. The eye witness, Mohammad Bashir, describes the event as it unfolded. Of the three helicopters, "there was only one that landed the men and came back to pick them up, but as he [the helicopter] was picking them up, it blew away and caught fire." The witness says that there were no survivors, just dead bodies and pieces of bodies everywhere. "We saw the helicopter burning, we saw the dead bodies, then everything was removed and now there is nothing."
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article28161.htm
By Noam Chomsky
May 22, 2011 "Information Clearing House" -- On May 1, 2011, Osama bin Laden was killed in his virtually unprotected compound by a raiding mission of 79 Navy Seals, who entered Pakistan by helicopter. After many lurid stories were provided by the government and withdrawn, official reports made it increasingly clear that the operation was a planned assassination, multiply violating elementary norms of international law, beginning with the invasion itself.
There appears to have been no attempt to apprehend the unarmed victim, as presumably could have been done by 79 commandos facing no opposition - except, they report, from his wife, also unarmed, who they shot in self-defense when she "lunged" at them (according to the White House).
A plausible reconstruction of the events is provided by veteran Middle East correspondent Yochi Dreazen and colleagues in The Atlantic. Dreazen, formerly the military correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, is senior correspondent for the National Journal Group covering military affairs and national security. According to their investigation, White House planning appears not to have considered the option of capturing OBL alive: "The administration had made clear to the military's clandestine Joint Special Operations Command that it wanted bin Laden dead, according to a senior U.S. official with knowledge of the discussions. A high-ranking military officer briefed on the assault said the SEALs knew their mission was not to take him alive."
The authors add: "For many at the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency who had spent nearly a decade hunting bin Laden, killing the militant was a necessary and justified act of vengeance." Furthermore, "Capturing bin Laden alive would have also presented the administration with an array of nettlesome legal and political challenges." Better, then, to assassinate him, dumping his body into the sea without the autopsy considered essential after a killing, whether considered justified or not – an act that predictably provoked both anger and skepticism in much of the Muslim world.
As the Atlantic inquiry observes, "The decision to kill bin Laden outright was the clearest illustration to date of a little-noticed aspect of the Obama administration's counterterror policy. The Bush administration captured thousands of suspected militants and sent them to detention camps in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Guantanamo Bay. The Obama administration, by contrast, has focused on eliminating individual terrorists rather than attempting to take them alive." That is one significant difference between Bush and Obama. The authors quote former West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, who "told German TV that the U.S. raid was 'quite clearly a violation of international law' and that bin Laden should have been detained and put on trial," contrasting Schmidt with US Attorney General Eric Holder, who "defended the decision to kill bin Laden although he didn't pose an immediate threat to the Navy SEALs, telling a House panel on Tuesday that the assault had been 'lawful, legitimate and appropriate in every way'."
The disposal of the body without autopsy was also criticized by allies. The highly regarded British barrister Geoffrey Robertson, who supported the intervention and opposed the execution largely on pragmatic grounds, nevertheless described Obama's claim that "justice was done" as an "absurdity" that should have been obvious to a former professor of constitutional law. Pakistan law "requires a colonial inquest on violent death, and international human rights law insists that the 'right to life' mandates an inquiry whenever violent death occurs from government or police action. The U.S. is therefore under a duty to hold an inquiry that will satisfy the world as to the true circumstances of this killing." Robertson adds that "The law permits criminals to be shot in self-defense if they (or their accomplices) resist arrest in ways that endanger those striving to apprehend them. They should, if possible, be given the opportunity to surrender, but even if they do not come out with their hands up, they must be taken alive if that can be achieved without risk. Exactly how bin Laden came to be 'shot in the head' (especially if it was the back of his head, execution-style) therefore requires explanation. Why a hasty 'burial at sea' without a post mortem, as the law requires?"
Robertson attributes the murder to "America's obsessive belief in capital punishment—alone among advanced nations—[which] is reflected in its rejoicing at the manner of bin Laden's demise." For example, Nation columnist Eric Alterman writes that "The killing of Osama bin Laden was a just and necessary undertaking."
Robertson usefully reminds us that "It was not always thus. When the time came to consider the fate of men much more steeped in wickedness than Osama bin Laden - namely the Nazi leadership - the British government wanted them hanged within six hours of capture. President Truman demurred, citing the conclusion of Justice Robert Jackson that summary execution 'would not sit easily on the American conscience or be remembered by our children with pride ... the only course is to determine the innocence or guilt of the accused after a hearing as dispassionate as the times will permit and upon a record that will leave our reasons and motives clear'."
The editors of the Daily Beast comment that "The joy is understandable, but to many outsiders, unattractive. It endorses what looks increasingly like a cold-blooded assassination as the White House is now forced to admit that Osama bin Laden was unarmed when he was shot twice in the head."
In societies that profess some respect for law, suspects are apprehended and brought to fair trial. I stress "suspects." In June 2002, FBI head Robert Mueller, in what the Washington Post described as "among his most detailed public comments on the origins of the attacks," could say only that "investigators believe the idea of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon came from al Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan, the actual plotting was done in Germany, and the financing came through the United Arab Emirates from sources in Afghanistan.... We think the masterminds of it were in Afghanistan, high in the al Qaeda leadership." What the FBI believed and thought in June 2002 they didn't know eight months earlier, when Washington dismissed tentative offers by the Taliban (how serious, we do not know) to extradite bin Laden if they were presented with evidence. Thus it is not true, as the President claimed in his White House statement, that "We quickly learned that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by al Qaeda."
There has never been any reason to doubt what the FBI believed in mid-2002, but that leaves us far from the proof of guilt required in civilized societies – and whatever the evidence might be, it does not warrant murdering a suspect who could, it seems, have been easily apprehended and brought to trial. Much the same is true of evidence provided since. Thus the 9/11 Commission provided extensive circumstantial evidence of bin Laden's role in 9/11, based primarily on what it had been told about confessions by prisoners in Guantanamo. It is doubtful that much of that would hold up in an independent court, considering the ways confessions were elicited. But in any event, the conclusions of a congressionally authorized investigation, however convincing one finds them, plainly fall short of a sentence by a credible court, which is what shifts the category of the accused from suspect to convicted. There is much talk of bin Laden's "confession," but that was a boast, not a confession, with as much credibility as my "confession" that I won the Boston marathon. The boast tells us a lot about his character, but nothing about his responsibility for what he regarded as a great achievement, for which he wanted to take credit.
Again, all of this is, transparently, quite independent of one's judgments about his responsibility, which seemed clear immediately, even before the FBI inquiry, and still does.
It is worth adding that bin Laden's responsibility was recognized in much of the Muslim world, and condemned. One significant example is the distinguished Lebanese cleric Sheikh Fadlallah, greatly respected by Hizbollah and Shia groups generally, outside Lebanon as well. He too had been targeted for assassination: by a truck bomb outside a mosque, in a CIA-organized operation in 1985. He escaped, but 80 others were killed, mostly women and girls, as they left the mosque – one of those innumerable crimes that do not enter the annals of terror because of the fallacy of "wrong agency." Sheikh Fadlallah sharply condemned the 9/11 attacks, as did many other leading figures in the Muslim world, within the Jihadi movement as well. Among others, the head of Hizbollah, Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah, sharply condemned bin Laden and Jihadi ideology.
One of the leading specialists on the Jihadi movement, Fawaz Gerges, suggests that the movement might have been split at that time had the US exploited the opportunity instead of mobilizing the movement, particularly by the attack on Iraq, a great boon to bin Laden, which led to a sharp increase in terror, as intelligence agencies had anticipated. That conclusion was confirmed by the former head of Britain's domestic intelligence agency MI5 at the Chilcot hearings investigating the background for the war. Confirming other analyses, she testified that both British and US intelligence were aware that Saddam posed no serious threat and that the invasion was likely to increase terror; and that the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan had radicalized parts of a generation of Muslims who saw the military actions as an "attack on Islam." As is often the case, security was not a high priority for state action.
It might be instructive to ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush's compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic (after proper burial rites, of course). Uncontroversially, he is not a "suspect" but the "decider" who gave the orders to invade Iraq - that is, to commit the "supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole" (quoting the Nuremberg Tribunal) for which Nazi criminals were hanged: in Iraq, the hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of refugees, destruction of much of the country and the national heritage, and the murderous sectarian conflict that has now spread to the rest of the region. Equally uncontroversially, these crimes vastly exceed anything attributed to bin Laden.
To say that all of this is uncontroversial, as it is, is not to imply that it is not denied. The existence of flat earthers does not change the fact that, uncontroversially, the earth is not flat. Similarly, it is uncontroversial that Stalin and Hitler were responsible for horrendous crimes, though loyalists deny it. All of this should, again, be too obvious for comment, and would be, except in an atmosphere of hysteria so extreme that it blocks rational thought.
Similarly, it is uncontroversial that Bush and associates did commit the "supreme international crime," the crime of aggression, at least if we take the Nuremberg Tribunal seriously. The crime of aggression was defined clearly enough by Justice Robert Jackson, Chief of Counsel for the United States at Nuremberg, reiterated in an authoritative General Assembly resolution. An "aggressor," Jackson proposed to the Tribunal in his opening statement, is a state that is the first to commit such actions as "Invasion of its armed forces, with or without a declaration of war, of the territory of another State...." No one, even the most extreme supporter of the aggression, denies that Bush and associates did just that.
We might also do well to recall Jackson's eloquent words at Nuremberg on the principle of universality: "If certain acts of violation of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us." And elsewhere: "We must never forget that the record on which we judge these defendants is the record on which history will judge us tomorrow. To pass these defendants a poisoned chalice is to put it to our own lips as well."
It is also clear that alleged intentions are irrelevant. Japanese fascists apparently did believe that by ravaging China they were laboring to turn it into an "earthly paradise." We don't know whether Hitler believed that he was defending Germany from the "wild terror" of the Poles, or was taking over Czechoslovakia to protect its population from ethnic conflict and provide them with the benefits of a superior culture, or was saving the glories of the civilization of the Greeks from barbarians of East and West, as his acolytes claimed (Martin Heidegger). And it's even conceivable that Bush and company believed that they were protecting the world from destruction by Saddam's nuclear weapons. All irrelevant, though ardent loyalists on all sides may try to convince themselves otherwise.
We are left with two choices: either Bush and associates are guilty of the "supreme international crime" including all the evils that follow, crimes that go vastly beyond anything attributed to bin Laden; or else we declare that the Nuremberg proceedings were a farce and that the allies were guilty of judicial murder. Again, that is entirely independent of the question of the guilt of those charged: established by the Nuremberg Tribunal in the case of the Nazi criminals, plausibly surmised from the outset in the case of bin Laden.
A few days before the bin Laden assassination, Orlando Bosch died peacefully in Florida, where he resided along with his terrorist accomplice Luis Posada Carilles, and many others. After he was accused of dozens of terrorist crimes by the FBI, Bosch was granted a presidential pardon by Bush I over the objections of the Justice Department, which found the conclusion "inescapable that it would be prejudicial to the public interest for the United States to provide a safe haven for Bosch. "The coincidence of deaths at once calls to mind the Bush II doctrine, which has "already become a de facto rule of international relations," according to the noted Harvard international relations specialist Graham Allison. The doctrine revokes "the sovereignty of states that provide sanctuary to terrorists," Allison writes, referring to the pronouncement of Bush II that "those who harbor terrorists are as guilty as the terrorists themselves," directed to the Taliban. Such states, therefore, have lost their sovereignty and are fit targets for bombing and terror; for example, the state that harbored Bosch and his associate - not to mention some rather more significant candidates. When Bush issued this new "de facto rule of international relations," no one seemed to notice that he was calling for invasion and destruction of the US and murder of its criminal presidents.
None of this is problematic, of course, if we reject Justice Jackson's principle of universality, and adopt instead the principle that the US is self-immunized against international law and conventions - as, in fact, the government has frequently made very clear, an important fact, much too little understood.
It is also worth thinking about the name given to the operation: Operation Geronimo. The imperial mentality is so profound that few seem able to perceive that the White House is glorifying bin Laden by calling him "Geronimo" - the leader of courageous resistance to the invaders who sought to consign his people to the fate of "that hapless race of native Americans, which we are exterminating with such merciless and perfidious cruelty, among the heinous sins of this nation, for which I believe God will one day bring [it] to judgement," in the words of the great grand strategist John Quincy Adams, the intellectual architect of manifest destiny, long after his own contributions to these sins had passed. Some did comprehend, not surprisingly. The remnants of that hapless race protested vigorously. Choice of the name is reminiscent of the ease with which we name our murder weapons after victims of our crimes: Apache, Blackhawk, Tomahawk, ... We might react differently if the Luftwaffe were to call its fighter planes "Jew" and "Gypsy".
The examples mentioned would fall under the category "American exceptionalism," were it not for the fact that easy suppression of one's own crimes is virtually ubiquitous among powerful states, at least those that are not defeated and forced to acknowledge reality. Other current illustrations are too numerous to mention. To take just one, of great current significance, consider Obama's terror weapons (drones) in Pakistan. Suppose that during the 1980s, when they were occupying Afghanistan, the Russians had carried out targeted assassinations in Pakistan aimed at those who were financing, arming and training the insurgents – quite proudly and openly. For example, targeting the CIA station chief in Islamabad, who explained that he "loved" the "noble goal" of his mission: to "kill Soviet Soldiers ... not to liberate Afghanistan." There is no need to imagine the reaction, but there is a crucial distinction: that was them, this is us.
What are the likely consequences of the killing of bin Laden? For the Arab world, it will probably mean little. He had long been a fading presence, and in the past few months was eclipsed by the Arab Spring. His significance in the Arab world is captured by the headline in the New York Times for an op-ed by Middle East/al Qaeda specialist Gilles Kepel; "Bin Laden was Dead Already." Kepel writes that few in the Arab world are likely to care. That headline might have been dated far earlier, had the US not mobilized the Jihadi movement by the attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq, as suggested by the intelligence agencies and scholarship. As for the Jihadi movement, within it bin Laden was doubtless a venerated symbol, but apparently did not play much more of a role for this "network of networks," as analysts call it, which undertake mostly independent operations.
The most immediate and significant consequences are likely to be in Pakistan. There is much discussion of Washington's anger that Pakistan didn't turn over bin Laden. Less is said about the fury in Pakistan that the US invaded their territory to carry out a political assassination. Anti-American fervor had already reached a very high peak in Pakistan, and these events are likely to exacerbate it.
Pakistan is the most dangerous country on earth, also the world's fastest growing nuclear power, with a huge arsenal. It is held together by one stable institution, the military. One of the leading specialists on Pakistan and its military, Anatol Lieven, writes that "if the US ever put Pakistani soldiers in a position where they felt that honour and patriotism required them to fight America, many would be very glad to do so." And if Pakistan collapsed, an "absolutely inevitable result would be the flow of large numbers of highly trained ex-soldiers, including explosive experts and engineers, to extremist groups." That is the primary threat he sees of leakage of fissile materials to Jihadi hands, a horrendous eventuality.
The Pakistani military have already been pushed to the edge by US attacks on Pakistani sovereignty. One factor is the drone attacks in Pakistan that Obama escalated immediately after the killing of bin Laden, rubbing salt in the wounds. But there is much more, including the demand that the Pakistani military cooperate in the US war against the Afghan Taliban, whom the overwhelming majority of Pakistanis, the military included, see as fighting a just war of resistance against an invading army, according to Lieven.
The bin Laden operation could have been the spark that set off a conflagration, with dire consequences, particularly if the invading force had been compelled to fight its way out, as was anticipated. Perhaps the assassination was perceived as an "act of vengeance," as Robertson concludes. Whatever the motive was, it could hardly have been security. As in the case of the "supreme international crime" in Iraq, the bin Laden assassination illustrates that security is often not a high priority for state action, contrary to received doctrine.
There is much more to say, but even the most obvious and elementary facts should provide us with a good deal to think about.
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btw:
Noam Chomsky's article identifies Geronimo.........
who happens to be my ancestor!
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