Saudi ‘gift’ to hide its terror hand

 

By: Finian Cunningham

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/12/30/342785/saudi-gift-to-hide-its-terror-hand/

Saudi largesse is throwing money again – in a bid to cover up its bloodstained hands in violence hitting the Middle East and beyond.

The latest public relations gimmick is the “donation” of $3 billion to the Lebanese army made by Saudi King Abdullah at the weekend.

The Saudi cash – twice the national military budget of Lebanon – is being regaled in the Western media as a noble offer to secure Lebanon from recent terror attacks.

The announcement was made during a visit to Riyadh by French President Francois Hollande, who met the Saudi king and the latter’s Lebanese proxy, Saad Hariri.

The new Saudi military aid to Lebanon is tied to the condition that it must be spent on purchasing French weaponry.

Already, the outlines of a sleazy deal are emerging. The above political actors have done much to destabilize Lebanon with violence, which is now being blamed on the wrong people – Shia Hezbollah – thanks to the deft finger work of billionaire Paris-exile Hariri.

One of the main protagonists of terrorism – Saudi Arabia – now steps in with a military aid “gift” that will allow it to influence the Lebanese army to go after Saudi enemy Hezbollah.

Such an insidious interference by Saudi Arabia in the internal affairs of Lebanon can only but incite further sectarian tensions between Sunni and Shia in that country, which is still recovering from a 15-year civil war.

On top of this, the other main advocate of regional subversion and terrorism – France – stands to receive a handsome payback in weapons sales to the tune of $3 billion.

And all the while, the Western media give this despicable charade a veneer of respectability. It really is astounding how Western media can get away with such distortion.

Saudi blood money and sponsorship of terrorism are carrying out demonic work in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, Pakistan and even it could be added in Iran’s peripheral southeast region.

Moreover, the Saudi terror connection can also be traced to the weekend double bombing in the southern Russian city of Volgograd where more than 30 people were killed.

In October, a suicide bomber killed six also in a bus attack in Volgograd. Other cities have also been hit with deadly attacks in Russia’s Dagestan in recent months.

The likely Chechen perpetrators behind those attacks – led by Saudi-linked Doku Umarov – are also involved in waging the Saudi-financed terror war in Syria.

Recall, too, that Saudi spymaster Prince Bandar only a few months ago made veiled threats to Russian leader Vladimir Putin that the Sochi Winter Olympic Games were at risk to acts of sabotage. The Games are set to open on 7 February 2014.

Nevertheless, against this appalling background of provable Saudi-sponsored mayhem – stretching from the Mediterranean to the Russian Caucasus – we have this latest ridiculous Saudi public relations stunt.

Saudi King Abdullah, we are told, is to “grant” $3 billion to “help” the Lebanese army to “beef up its security”. France 24, among others, reported that the military boost “would help the Lebanese army fight ... groups like Hezbollah, which has caused a wave of violence in the country.”

The latter claim by France 24 is a risible distortion of the facts. Lebanon has indeed witnessed a wave of violence in recent months, but the main victims of the attacks have been Hezbollah and Shia communities in southern Beirut and Baalbek in the east of the country.

The primary source of this bloodshed in Lebanon is groups linked to Saudi, Israeli and Western intelligence.

For example, the double suicide bombing of the Iranian embassy in Beirut on 19 November, which killed at least 23 including Iranian cultural attaché [to Beirut Hojjatoleslam] Ebrahim Ansari, was claimed by the Saudi-backed al-Qaeda group known as Abdullah Azzam Brigade.

The Saudi king’s act of generosity to “improve security” in Lebanon should therefore be scoffed at by media instead of praised. But this is the Western media performing its dutiful function of inverting reality.

King Abdullah’s show of magnanimity came two days after a prominent Lebanese Sunni politician, Mohamad Shatah, was assassinated in a massive bomb blast that targeted his car in the capital Beirut on Friday morning.

Western media were quick to highlight claims by Saudi-backed Lebanese political leader Saad Hariri that the perpetrators of Shatah’s murder were Hezbollah. The Syrian government of President Bashar al Assad was also implicated for the killing.

There is no evidence to attribute Shatah’s murder to Hezbollah, other than politicized conjecture. Hezbollah and its Syrian and Iranian allies all categorically condemned the killing.

However, there is strong circumstantial evidence that Shatah may have been liquidated by his geopolitical allies as a nefarious means of triggering further sectarian violence inside Lebanon.

The execution of his murder would have required split-second timing and confidential information of his itinerary. He was on his way to meet members of the Hariri-led March 14 group.

This pattern of fomenting sectarian conflict between Sunni and Shia, as well as Christian, has been a staple of Saudi, Israeli and Western intelligence operating to destabilize Syria and Iraq over the past three years.

The splurging of $3 billion by Saudi Arabia to “increase Lebanon’s security” is merely cynical public relations to cover up the real source of violence in that country, as well as providing Riyadh military leverage to go after Hezbollah within Lebanon.

It follows the much bigger precedent of $100 billion that Saudi Arabia doled out to the United Nations Anti-Terrorism Center last August.

That donation was made at the end of the Holy Muslim Month of Ramadan as “a gift from the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques of Islam”.

In the previous four weeks before that “gift”, some 1,000 Iraqis were killed in terror attacks mainly committed by the Saudi-bankrolled al-Qaeda franchise known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant.

This same group has been engaging in similar atrocities in neighboring Syria, along with [so-called] al-Nusra Front, [so-called] Liwa al-Tawhid and [so-called] Ahrar al-Sham – all of them Saudi-sponsored.

The simple fact is that the sectarian bloodshed inundating Syria and Iraq, and increasingly now in Lebanon, as well as in countries as far apart as Yemen and Russia, would not be happening if it were not for the blood money flowing from Saudi Arabia.

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Finian Cunningham (born 1963) has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages. He is a Master’s graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in journalism. He is also a musician and songwriter. For nearly 20 years, he worked as an editor and writer in major news media organisations, including The Mirror, Irish Times and Independent. Originally from Belfast, Ireland, he is now located in East Africa as a freelance journalist, where he is writing a book on Bahrain and the Arab Spring, based on eyewitness experience working in the Persian Gulf as an editor of a business magazine and subsequently as a freelance news correspondent. The author was deported from Bahrain in June 2011 because of his critical journalism in which he highlighted systematic human rights violations by regime forces. He is now a columnist on international politics for Press TV and the Strategic Culture Foundation

 

Peak Oil is here and it will Break Economies - BP Geologist

 

By: Nafeez Ahmed

http://www.theguardian.com/profile/nafeez-ahmed
News Source: The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2013/dec/23/british-petroleum-geologist-peak-oil-break-economy-recession

Industry expert warns of grim future of 'recession' driven 'resource wars' at University College London lecture.

A former British Petroleum (BP) geologist has warned that the age of cheap oil is long gone, bringing with it the danger of "continuous recession" and increased risk of conflict and hunger.

At a lecture on 'Geohazards' earlier this month as part of the postgraduate Natural Hazards for Insurers course at University College London (UCL), Dr. Richard G. Miller, who worked for BP from 1985 before retiring in 2008, said that official data from the International Energy Agency (IEA), US Energy Information Administration (EIA), International Monetary Fund (IMF), among other sources, showed that conventional oil had most likely peaked around 2008.

Dr. Miller critiqued the official industry line that global reserves will last 53 years at current rates of consumption, pointing out that "peaking is the result of declining production rates, not declining reserves." Despite new discoveries and increasing reliance on unconventional oil and gas, 37 countries are already post-peak, and global oil production is declining at about 4.1% per year, or 3.5 million barrels a day (b/d) per year:

"We need new production equal to a new Saudi Arabia every 3 to 4 years to maintain and grow supply... New discoveries have not matched consumption since 1986. We are drawing down on our reserves, even though reserves are apparently climbing every year. Reserves are growing due to better technology in old fields, raising the amount we can recover – but production is still falling at 4.1% p.a. [per annum]."

Dr. Miller, who prepared annual in-house projections of future oil supply for BP from 2000 to 2007, refers to this as the "ATM problem" – "more money, but still limited daily withdrawals." As a consequence: "Production of conventional liquid oil has been flat since 2008. Growth in liquid supply since then has been largely of natural gas liquids [NGL]- ethane, propane, butane, pentane - and oil-sand bitumen."

Dr. Miller is co-editor of a special edition of the prestigious journal, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, published this month on the future of oil supply. In an introductory paper co-authored with Dr. Steve R. Sorrel, co-director of the Sussex Energy Group at the University of Sussex in Brighton, they argue that among oil industry experts "there is a growing consensus that the era of cheap oil has passed and that we are entering a new and very different phase." They endorse the conservative conclusions of an extensive earlier study by the government-funded UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC):

"... a sustained decline in global conventional production appears probable before 2030 and there is significant risk of this beginning before 2020... on current evidence the inclusion of tight oil [shale oil] resources appears unlikely to significantly affect this conclusion, partly because the resource base appears relatively modest."

In fact, increasing dependence on shale could worsen decline rates in the long run:

"Greater reliance upon tight oil resources produced using hydraulic fracturing will exacerbate any rising trend in global average decline rates, since these wells have no plateau and decline extremely fast - for example, by 90% or more in the first 5 years."

Tar sands will fare similarly, they conclude, noting that "the Canadian oil sands will deliver only 5 mb per day by 2030, which represents less than 6% of the IEA projection of all-liquids production by that date."

Despite the cautious projection of global peak oil "before 2020", they also point out that:

"Crude oil production grew at approximately 1.5% per year between 1995 and 2005, but then plateaued with more recent increases in liquids supply largely deriving from NGLs, oil sands and tight oil. These trends are expected to continue... Crude oil production is heavily concentrated in a small number of countries and a small number of giant fields, with approximately 100 fields producing one half of global supply, 25 producing one quarter and a single field (Ghawar in Saudi Arabia) producing approximately 7%. Most of these giant fields are relatively old, many are well past their peak of production, most of the rest seem likely to enter decline within the next decade or so and few new giant fields are expected to be found."

"The final peak is going to be decided by the price - how much can we afford to pay?", Dr. Miller told me in an interview about his work. "If we can afford to pay $150 per barrel, we could certainly produce more given a few years of lead time for new developments, but it would break economies again."

Miller argues that for all intents and purposes, peak oil has arrived as conditions are such that despite volatility, prices can never return to pre-2004 levels:

"The oil price has risen almost continuously since 2004 to date, starting at $30. There was a great spike to $150 and then a collapse in 2008/2009, but it has since climbed to $110 and held there. The price rise brought a lot of new exploration and development, but these new fields have not actually increased production by very much, due to the decline of older fields. This is compatible with the idea that we are pretty much at peak today. This recession is what peak feels like."

Although he is dismissive of shale oil and gas' capacity to prevent a peak and subsequent long decline in global oil production, Miller recognises that there is still some leeway that could bring significant, if temporary dividends for US economic growth - though only as "a relatively short-lived phenomenon":

"We're like a cage of lab rats that have eaten all the cornflakes and discovered that you can eat the cardboard packets too. Yes, we can, but... Tight oil may reach 5 or even 6 million b/d in the US, which will hugely help the US economy, along with shale gas. Shale resources, though, are inappropriate for more densely populated countries like the UK, because the industrialisation of the countryside affects far more people (with far less access to alternative natural space), and the economic benefits are spread more thinly across more people. Tight oil production in the US is likely to peak before 2020. There absolutely will not be enough tight oil production to replace the US' current 9 million b/d of imports."

In turn, by prolonging global economic recession, high oil prices may reduce demand. Peak demand in turn may maintain a longer undulating oil production plateau:

"We are probably in peak oil today, or at least in the foot-hills. Production could rise a little for a few years yet, but not sufficiently to bring the price down; alternatively, continuous recession in much of the world may keep demand essentially flat for years at the $110/bbl price we have today. But we can't grow the supply at average past rates of about 1.5% per year at today's prices."

The fundamental dependence of global economic growth on cheap oil supplies suggests that as we continue into the age of expensive oil and gas, without appropriate efforts to mitigate the impacts and transition to a new energy system, the world faces a future of economic and geopolitical turbulence:

"In the US, high oil prices correlate with recessions, although not all recessions correlate with high oil prices. It does not prove causation, but it is highly likely that when the US pays more than 4% of its GDP for oil, or more than 10% of GDP for primary energy, the economy declines as money is sucked into buying fuel instead of other goods and services... A shortage of oil will affect everything in the economy. I expect more famine, more drought, more resource wars and a steady inflation in the energy cost of all commodities."

According to another study in the Royal Society journal special edition by professor David J. Murphy of Northern Illinois University, an expert in the role of energy in economic growth, the energy return on investment (EROI) for global oil and gas production - the amount of energy produced compared to the amount of energy invested to get, deliver and use that energy - is roughly 15 and declining. For the US, EROI of oil and gas production is 11 and declining; and for unconventional oil and biofuels is largely less than 10. The problem is that as EROI decreases, energy prices increase. Thus, Murphy concludes:

"... the minimum oil price needed to increase the oil supply in the near term is at levels consistent with levels that have induced past economic recessions. From these points, I conclude that, as the EROI of the average barrel of oil declines, long-term economic growth will become harder to achieve and come at an increasingly higher financial, energetic and environmental cost."

Current EROI in the US, Miller said, is simply "not enough to support the US infrastructure, even if America was self-sufficient, without raising production even further than current consumption."

In their introduction to their collection of papers in the Royal Society journal, Miller and Sorrell point out that "most authors" in the special edition "accept that conventional oil resources are at an advanced stage of depletion and that liquid fuels will become more expensive and increasingly scarce." The shale revolution can provide only "short-term relief", but is otherwise "unlikely to make a significant difference in the longer term."

They call for a "coordinated response" to this challenge to mitigate the impact, including "far-reaching changes in global transport systems." While "climate-friendly solutions to 'peak oil' are available" they caution, these will be neither "easy" nor "quick", and imply a model of economic development that accepts lower levels of consumption and mobility.

In his interview with me, Richard Miller was particularly critical of the UK government's policies, including abandoning large-scale wind farm projects, the reduction of feed-in tariffs for renewable energy, and support for shale gas. "The government will do anything for the short-term economic bounce," he said, "but the consequence will be that the UK is tied more tightly to an oil-based future, and we will pay dearly for it."

 

Be the Change You Want to See in the World

Message from World United News Blog Owner Stewart Brennan

“Be the change you want to see in the world”…well that is what I have been trying to do for the past 7 years but because there are so many things I wanted to see changed in the world, I took on way too many topics to be any sort of effective change at all. So I made a decision today to focus on one topic that would bring about positive change in the world that could also have an effect on all the topics and issues I cared about and wanted to see changed for the better…my choice also had to be something I really enjoyed doing and really cared about so I decided to concentrate my time and efforts on promoting music.

Over the past 3 ½ years I have proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that there are far more artists in the world that deserve to be in the public spotlight than is presently being offered. Quite simply, I don’t like what the mainstream offers or has offered for a long time, so this is where I want to see change, and the only way to change that is to just do it…Music is an art-form that reflects everyday life and is a powerful medium that expresses our feelings while motivating our wishes and dreams…Music is a creative process that has been silenced for far too long and needs to be unleashed into the World once again…it is the medicine of our souls and the rhythm of our hearts, so “World United Music” is stepping up another notch to bring about musical change in the World.

I know I have already played a small part for some 400 plus bands and artists but it isn’t enough and my goal has not been reached so I hope you will join me on this spiritual quest and share with your friends the music that resonates with you. Your endorsement through sharing with friends is the best way to spread the word and bring about the changes we all want to see in this world…in my mind, our Revolution BEGINS with music…because music is the peoples voice and will not be denied.

Most of my energy will now be focused on the World United Music Website.

Video Source: World United Music YouTube

Here are a few Music Play lists from World United Music:

Rock & Alternative – 2010 to 2019

Soft Rock – 2010 to 2019

Folk Rock & Acoustic – 2010 to 2019

Blues - 2000 to 2019

Pop Rock - 2000 to 2019

Progressive Rock – 2015 to 2019

Psychedelic Rock – 2000 to 2019

Punk Rock & High Energy Rock n Roll – 2000 to 2019

Hard Rock & Heavy Metal – 2000 to 2019

Southern Rock Country & Bluegrass – 2000 to 2019

Here is the Direct link to the World United Music website

US appeals court overturns ruling, that 9/11 victims can't sue Saudi Arabia

Families of the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks have celebrated a federal court’s ruling that allows relatives of people who died in the attacks to sue Saudi Arabia.

Additional Link: Judicial Watch

Source: Press TV

Press TV: - A federal appeals court in New York City has revived litigation against Saudi Arabia on behalf of families of victims of the September 11, 2001, attacks.

More than twelve years after the 9/11 attacks and eight years after a lower federal court ruled Saudi Arabia had immunity from prosecution, a three-judge panel of the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan ruled on Thursday that families of 9/11 victims can get their day in court against Saudi Arabia.

According to the families of 9/11 victims, the kingdom provided support to al-Qaeda prior to the attacks which killed nearly 3,000 people.

“This opinion is eminently correct and will give 9/11 victims their day in court,” said Stephen Cozen, a partner at the Pennsylvania-based law firm Cozen O'Connor representing the plaintiffs.

“The parties will start over, and we are very, very satisfied that we will meet any defenses, both legal and factual, that are raised,” Cozen added.

The litigation began in 2002, just one year after the 9/11 attacks, when families of the victims said that Saudi Arabia and a charity affiliated with the Saudi government knowingly provided al-Qaeda with funds and other material support to help them carry out the attacks.

However, in 2005, US District Judge Richard Casey dismissed the case ruling that the kingdom was immune from prosecution under the federal Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act.

In 2008, a 2nd Circuit Court panel upheld the ruling on different grounds but the same interpretation of sovereign immunity law did not apply to Afghanistan against which a 2011 decision allowed similar claims to proceed.

It would be “especially anomalous” to treat the two cases differently, Circuit Judge Chester Straub wrote for the three-judge panel on Thursday, Reuters reported.

“I’m ecstatic, because we have a lot of information and evidence,” William Doyle, who lost his 25-year-old son in the attacks, told the New York Daily News.

Fifteen of the 19 September 11 attackers were Saudi nationals who flew hijacked planes into the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and into a field in Pennsylvania.

Moreover, many Americans and families of the attacks’ victims say there is more to the tragic event than just planes hijacked by Saudi nationals, talking about the controlled demolition of the World Trade Center, Israeli complicity in the events, and many other issues.

Critics have indicated, among other things, to bombs and explosives planted at the World Trade Center that demolished the buildings, jubilant Israeli intelligence agents photographing the attacks, made-up phone calls from the planes, and a warning by the Mossad (the Israeli spy agency) one day before the attacks to Israeli Tower workers and occupants to stay away from the buildings.

A former CIA agent, Susan Lindauer, has also indicated the role of the US intelligence apparatus in the attacks.

Lindauer talks about the CIA’s detailed knowledge of the time, target, and means of the 9/11 attacks over the months prior to the events, saying the “lies are so much bigger than what you know.”
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Update: 2016 Sept 11

Bill Allowing Families of 9/11 Victims to Sue Saudi Arabia Approved by Congress

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UPDATE: 2016 Sept 24

Obama vetoes bill allowing 9/11 families to sue Saudi Arabia

Video Source: Ruptly

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest explained that US President Barack Obama's decision to veto legislation allowing 9/11 victims' families to sue Saudi Arabia, was a move influenced by the administration's concern about relations, not only with Saudi Arabia, but with other countries around the world as well. Earnest was speaking at a press briefing in Washington DC, Friday.

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World Trade Center Building 7 Demolished

Source Video

Rosie O’Donnell & William Rodriguez on 911

Source Video

911 Fire Fighters – Three Explosions AFTER Plane hit World Trade Center

Source Video

Congress cites 9/11 Bush cover-up, demands Obama act

 

People walk amongst US national flags in Malibu, California, hoisted by students and staff from Pepperdine University to honor victims of the 9/11 attacks, September 11, 2013

By: Gordon Duff

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/12/18/340605/congress-cites-911-bush-coverup/

Two members of Congress, specially authorized to view documents on 9/11 censored under the personal authority of President Bush (43), have come away “absolutely shocked,” demanding immediate action.

However, the full story, told for the first time below, explains “why now” and who is really being targeted by revelations of cover-up and conspiracy.

In accusations published yesterday by the leading Tea Party publication, Family Security Matters, Saudi Defense Minister and Intelligence chief Prince Bandar referred to as “Bandar Bush” in his Wikipedia biography for his close relationship with that family, was said to be the planner of 9/11.

In an article by Paul Sperry of the Hoover Institute, Bandar was cited with fleeing the US to avoid prosecution. Here, Sperry quotes a government source: “Our investigations contributed to the ambassador’s departure,” an investigator who worked with the Joint Terrorism Task Force in Washington told me, though Bandar says he left for “personal reasons.”

Despite these pronouncements, these accusations may well be unfounded speculation. What we have to ask is why are they being made now and why by political groups long close to the Saudi government. Why has Saudi Arabia failed to respond to these very public accusations coming from some of the highest authorities in Washington? “Why are the rats turning on each other?”

Startling disclosures?

This week, Congressional representatives Stephen Lynch (D-MA) and Walter Jones (R-NC) have officially requested a congressional resolution demanding President Obama declassify the heavily redacted Congressional Investigative Report on 9/11.

The two representatives had just been given authority under penalty of “national security secrecy” to read the censored 28 pages of the 800-page report that had not been seen.

For nearly a decade, the US has maintained security policies, both domestic and international, based on threats now known to have been totally fabricated. The cost, trillions of dollars, thousands of Americans dead in wars against “enemies” long known to have never been involved in terror attacks on America, the phony “hunt for bin Laden,” all of it, nothing but utter hogwash.

Bush cited as conspirator

What has been made clear is that President Bush was fully aware that neither Afghanistan nor Iraq were involved in 9/11 and that military action against those two nations was done to cover involvement of his administration in 9/11, involvement that included support from foreign intelligence agencies.

The representatives, while reviewing the report, came to the portion titled “Specific Sources of Foreign Support.” A 28-page section here had been “butchered” by the White House on the personal orders of President Bush. On the original report given to Congress, an estimated 5-10,000 words were omitted from this section with page after page of dotted lines replacing text.

The full report carries a tale of not only broad complicity of foreign intelligence agencies but, in the use of the term “complicity,” indications of full knowledge of the funding and planning of 9/11 by the Bush administration.

However, the lawmakers, without the support of a resolution, are under a “gag order” and unable to name the nation or nations that supplied.

Israel, Saudi Arabia or both

Recent revelations tied to events in Syria and Egypt have exposed an unimagined level of cooperation between the intelligence services of Israel and Saudi Arabia. For years, Israel has cited Saudi Arabia as the greatest threat to their security, much greater than Iraq under Saddam or their claims of a “nuclear Iran.” This and much else of what Israel has publicly claimed as part of their “mythology of victimization” is now recognized as falsehood. Though both Israel and Saudi Arabia are known as allies of the US, their partnerships with America have been with specific groups, extremists within government and the military willing to back the plots now plainly evident even when US interests are sacrificed or even American lives are lost.

Telling, today, is the relationship between Al-Nusra and other al-Qaeda “franchises” and the Israeli/Saudi alliance, a relationship that has provided both financial support and weapons, used against Syria, Lebanon and Iraq.

The sections of the 9/11 report that were censored by President Bush may well include reference to that al-Qaeda/Israel/Saudi nexus. What is clear is that not only did the Bush administration wrongly blame bin Laden or “al-Qaeda,” a spurious and illusory group at best, but that those cited, Israel, Saudi Arabia or both, though named for funding and supporting the 9/11 attack, were always under the full control of the Bush administration.

What does exist is proof that the war on terror was, in reality as confirmed by General Wesley Clark, a plan to invade and occupy 7 oil- and gas-rich nations.

Israel put the blame on Saudi Arabia

In an article released yesterday on www.familysecuritymatters.org , Paul Sperry of the Hoover Institute cited, not just the Saudi government as having been behind 9/11 but set the relationship between George W. Bush and Prince Bandar at the crux of the conspiracy.

After the 9/11 attacks, the public was told al-Qaeda acted alone, with no state sponsors. “But the White House never let it see an entire section of Congress’ investigative report on 9/11 dealing with “specific sources of foreign support” for the 19 hijackers, 15 of whom were Saudi nationals.

It was kept secret and remains so today. President Bush inexplicably censored 28 full pages of the 800-page report.”

Sperry goes on: “Saudi consulate official Fahad al-Thumairy allegedly arranged for an advance team to receive two of the Saudi hijackers - Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi - as they arrived at LAX in 2000.”

Sperry goes on citing instance after instance where Saudi intelligence directly aided al-Qaeda every step of the way.

What is important is that we understand who Sperry represents. Family Security Matters isn’t a simple blog. It is the voice of not just the extreme right but AIPAC as well. Their editors include Senator Ted Cruz, top GOP domestic policy maker and former UN Ambassador John Bolton, Islamophobe extremist, “Israel Firster” and a man who never saw a war he didn’t love.

“Family Matters” is the power center for everything pro-money, pro-hate and pro-Israel. Self-proclaimed “investigative journalist Paul Sperry serves with the Hoover Institute, along with former Secretary of State Condi Rice. The critical aspect of yesterday’s article is that it represents the first time the Israel lobby has been willing to throw former President Bush “under a bus” in order to distance themselves from accusations of complicity in 9/11.

Prior to the exposure of Israel’s role as “mentor” for al-Qaeda in Syria, America’s media was able to suppress not just “conspiracy theories” but accusations backed by evidence and testimony that placed Israel at the center of the 9/11 attacks.

Prince Bandar accused of planning 9/11

Though there is no reason to assume Saudi Arabia is mentioned whatsoever in the redacted Congressional report, Sperry cites payments by Bandar to the alleged 9/11 hijackers and other funding to al-Qaeda.

“Other al Qaeda funding was traced back to Bandar and his embassy - so much so that by 2004 Riggs Bank of Washington had dropped the Saudis as a client. The next year, as a number of embassy employees popped up in terror probes, Riyadh recalled Bandar.”

Real from conjecture

Members of Congress have openly admitted that they have seen documentation that would support an immediate criminal investigation against President Bush (43) and his closest advisors. Further, those agencies involved in compiling this report, key portions of which have remained secret, were also responsible for lying to the 9/11 Commission, not just through omission. All the intelligence that sent America into two wars is now not just suspect, it is proven false.

Recognizing that the nations responsible have not yet been named, though attempts by Family Security Matters to subvert this process are underway, what does stand is evidence of the same conspiracy.

From a CIA transcript dated September 24, 2001, Osama bin Laden is quoted: “The United States should try to trace the perpetrators of these attacks within itself; the people who are a part of the US system, but are dissenting against it. Or those who are working for some other system; persons who want to make the present century as a century of conflict between Islam and Christianity so that their own civilization, nation, country, or ideology could survive.”

Family Security Matters celebrates the death of Osama bin Laden as a terrorist fanatic. They also celebrate the death of Nelson Mandela as a terrorist fanatic. Mandela was right, as history has shown.

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Gordon Duff is a Marine Vietnam veteran, a combat infantryman, and Senior Editor at Veterans Today. His career has included extensive experience in international banking along with such diverse areas as consulting on counter insurgency, defense technologies or acting as diplomatic representative for UN humanitarian and economic development efforts. Gordon Duff has traveled to over 80 nations. His articles are published around the world and translated into a number of languages. He is regularly on TV and radio, a popular and sometimes controversial guest .

 

Fukushima and its Long Time Threats – PRN Radio Panel

 



Original Source: Progressive Community Hour PRN Radio Dec 16^th, 2013

http://prn.fm/progressive-commentary-hour-121613/

Special broadcast on the conditions at Fukushima and its present and long-term threats with host Gary Null, and experts Arne Gunderson, Helen Caldicott, & Harvey Wasserman

Arne Gundersen is founding chief engineer of Fairewinds Energy Education, a non profit organization dedicated to educating the public about nuclear power and other energy issues. In the past he was an energy advisor with 39-years of nuclear power engineering experience and a former nuclear industry senior vice president. During his industry career, Arne managed and coordinated projects at 70-nuclear power plants around the country. Now an independent nuclear engineering and safety expert, Arne has provided testimony on nuclear operations, reliability, safety, and radiation issues to the NRC, Congressional and State Legislatures, and Government Agencies and Officials throughout the US, Canada, and internationally. In 2008, he was appointed by the Vermont Senate President to be the first Chair of the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant Oversight Panel.He is regarded as one of the leading nuclear experts who is conveying the truth about the dangers of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plants and the global threats from the on-going release of radiation. His website is http://www.fairewinds.org/

Dr. Helen Caldicott is perhaps the single most articulate and passionate advocate of citizen action to counter the nuclear and environmental crises. She has a medical degree from the University of Adelaide and was a pediatric instructor Harvard Medical School until 1980 when she resigned to work full time on the prevention of nuclear war. She co-founded the Physicians for Social Responsibility, an organization of 23,000 doctors committed to educating their colleagues about the dangers of nuclear power, nuclear weapons and nuclear war. Dr. Caldicott has received numerous awards, was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize by Linus Pauling and has 21 honorary degress. The Smithsonian has named Dr. Caldicott as one of the most influential women of the 20th century.

She has written many articles and books, her latest being “Nuclear Power is Not the Answer to Global Warming or Anything Else.” Her website is http://www.helencaldicott.com/

Prof. Harvey Wasserman is a professor of history at Columbus State College and Capital University in Ohio. He is an investigative journalist, author and has been a national voice in the anti-war and anti-nuclear movements for over four decades. He is also a senior advisor for Greenpeace USA and the Nuclear Information and Resource Service and founder of Solartopia.org, a grassroots endeavor to promote a green-powered earth. Among his many books are “George W Bush vs. the Superpower of Peace” and his articles appear frequently on Counterpunch, Alternet, NukeWatch, Huffington Post and others.

Harvey can also be heard every Monday afternoon at 3 pm Eastern as host of “Green Power and Wellness” on the Progressive Radio Network. His website is http://www.Solartopia.org/

 

End the Siege of Gaza now!

By: Stewart Brennan 

If you are a human being that abides by moral human values then you must speak out against the atrocities being committed on the children in all nations. Otherwise your silence allows the atrocities to continue…I ask everyone with a moral conscious to contact their political representative as I have and call them out on these issues…let us find out who is indeed a human being or who is a Sociopath…I certainly will not vote for a sociopath would you? I don’t want mere words, I want real concrete action taken on crimes against humanity. End the Siege of Gaza NOW!

Here are the links you can use to get in touch with your government representative in Canada & the USA. I also encourage those from other countries to send their government representative a letter and call them out to the plight of the Palestinian people. Please feel free to use my letter and share this post with others. We need to take action around the world to make these atrocities stop!

Contact your Government Representative!

In Canada:

Members of Parliament

http://www.parl.gc.ca/MembersOfParliament/MainMPsCompleteList.aspx

In the USA:

Find Your US House Representative here -

http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/
Find Your US Senator here
http://www.senate.gov/

Here is my letter to my member of the Canadian Parliament:

Mr: Scarpaleggia

(Member of Parliament for Lac Ste Louis & Chair / President of the National Liberal Caucus)

Why do Canadian politicians stay quiet about the siege of Gaza where 1.7 million people are without the basics to sustain human life?

The siege of Gaza is nothing more than a crime against humanity by Israel and must be stopped right now! I’m really FN sick of Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestine as any moral human being should be. I’m tired of politicians backing a regime in Israel that holds onto the holocaust but are excused for committing a holocaust on the Palestinian people. I’m outraged! How would you like it if your children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren were trapped with no way in or out on a sliver of land where lifelines have been completely severed? Food, fuel, building materials, and everything else required to sustain life are blocked by an Israeli Gestapo like regime…the children are freezing to death right now because of the blockade!! Do you support these Israeli crimes Mr Scarpaleggia? If you don’t support crimes against humanity and abide by the UN declaration of human rights, what will you do to bring attention to this outrageous situation?! If you need information to be brought up to speed on this situation, I can certainly supply it...

I anxiously await your reply

Stewart Brennan

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Current crimes being committed by Israel and Egypt on the People of Palestine

Playlist Source Link: World United News

Just some of the Israeli Crimes between (2008 – 2012)

Playlist Source Link: World United News

Occupation 101 – The True history of Palestine & Israel

Japan Becomes a Fascist State

Japan's controversial state secrets bill passes upper house

Video Source 

In Japan, thousands of people have held a demonstration to denounce the government's decision to enact a state-secrets law to toughen penalties for whistleblowers and journalists.

Thousands of protesters, who braved Tokyo's cold weather, gathered across from the parliament building, chanting anti-government slogans. Under the state-secrets law, anyone who leaks information about the Fukushima nuclear disaster or the country's tense relations with China could face a long prison sentence. Journalists and others in the private sector convicted of encouraging such leaks would be put behind bars up to five years if they use inappropriate means to solicit the information. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has said the law is needed to persuade allies like the U-S to share intelligence. The ratification of the law came as a worldwide debate on secrecy is underway, sparked by US whistleblower Edward Snowden's leaks of classified documents.

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Japan enacts controversial state secrets law

News Source: Russia Today

Japan has enacted a new law to increase punishment for leaks, despite growing worries that the state-secrets law will erode press freedoms.

Last week Japan’s lower house of parliament gave the greenlight to the new legislation, which counts the support of conservative prime minister Shinzo Abe, who has said the measure is necessary to combat the leak of state secrets.

Abe and members of his cabinet have said that the law will help mend the government’s reputation for leaks and facilitate the sharing of intelligence with the US.

"We think that this law is extremely important for our connections with our allies and other foreign nations," said chief cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga. "I believe that people will come to understand."

According to a survey by Asahi Shimbun 61 percent of Japanese voters believe the law is “problematic,” and it has garnered the opposition of the media, publishers and the country’s lawyers. Opposition parties even mounted a challenge to the new bill, which was passed during a late-night session of the country’s upper chamber.

Members of the opposition raised motions to stop or delay the law but were overruled by members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its allies.

The new law enacts harsher sentences for public servants and others with access to sensitive national information, and could lead to jail terms of up to ten years. Meanwhile, journalists in the country could face up to five years imprisonment if the state determines the use of “grossly inappropriate” means to acquire state secrets.

Officials in Japan’s ministries will now be given the authority to designate state secrets in four categories: defense, diplomacy, counterterrorism and counterespionage. Such a classification will allow information be kept secret for up to 60 years or longer.

Still, opposition to the new legislation has come from a wide variety of sectors. Takao Takeda, a Buddhist monk and the secretary of the multi-faith organization Shukyosha Kyujo-no-wa, said that the bill echoed Japan’s authoritarian past.

"The bill being discussed now seems very similar to the Public Order Preservation Law" enacted in 1925, Takeda told AFP. That law enabled Imperial Japan to arrest anyone who voiced a dissenting view against the government, said Takeda.

"It is important to protect people's rights to know given our history and the way information was hidden in (World War II) and the fact that the government was not very open in the face of the [Fukushima] nuclear crisis."

Likewise, Japan’s media has also protested the new law.

"It is a threat to democracy," said Keiichi Kiriyama, editorial writer of the Tokyo Shimbun. The state-secrets law would "have a chilling effect on public servants who could become wary about giving the information" sought by journalists, he added.

Prime Minister Abe has said that the law is necessary to bolster the country’s security, in tandem with the creation of a new National Securities Council and cooperation with the US amid concerns over China’s growing military projection.

Critics worry that the new legislation lacks checks and balances as to how the state will define a secret, while Abe has said that his government will set up panels to legitimize that process.

The Pathology of the Rich

Updated: 2013 Dec 08

The Pathology of the Rich - Chris Hedges (Part 1)

Source: The Real News

The Real News Official Website

Chris Hedges discusses the psychology of the super rich; their sense of entitlement, the dehumanization of workers, and mistaken belief that their wealth will insulate them from the coming storms.

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Update: 2013 Dec 08

Credibility of the Ruling Elite is Being Shredded (Part 2)

Video Source: The Real News

Chris Hedges says that while people are disgusted with the centers of power, unless there is a constructive alternative, any eruption will be nihilistic and could be fascist.

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The Global Economy – The Truth & a Warning

Source: World United News

Additional Links:

Our Invisible Revolution - Chris Hedges

Truthdig

Broken Foundations & The Fall of Western Society

Canada Under Siege – The Economy - (Part 2)

Canada Under Siege – (Part 1) - The Tar Sands, Free Trade& Government

Convicted of genocide Israel prepares new Holocaust

A Palestinian woman is helped by a paramedic out of her building, damaged during an Israeli air raid in Gaza City, November 19, 2012

By: Kevin Barrett

Source: Press TV

On November 25, Judge Yunus of the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal found Israel guilty of genocide.

Israel’s response: accelerate the genocide.

The Israeli blockade on the Gaza Strip has crippled Gaza’s main power plant for more than a month - and it’s getting worse. The power outage has wrecked Gaza’s waste water treatment system and flooded the streets with raw sewage.

According to the head of the UN Humanitarian News Agency, Israel is effectively destroying “all essential services, including hospitals, clinics, sewage and water pumping stations.” The New York Times states, “The sanitation department may soon no longer be able to pump drinking water to Gaza homes.”

The Gaza Strip is the world’s most densely populated urban area. Some call it the world’s biggest concentration camp. Surrounded by barbed wire and Israeli guards, residents cannot escape. As it loses drinking water and is flooded with sewage - and as the Israeli puppet regime of al-Sisi shuts down the life-supporting tunnels to the Sinai - Gaza is on the brink of becoming an extermination camp.

But killing the Palestinians slowly by depriving them of essential services may not satisfy the Zionists. Alan Hart, the former lead Mideast correspondent for the BBC and back-channel peace emissary, thinks the Israelis may be planning a false flag operation that would trigger a new, larger version of the 1948 Palestinian Holocaust.

During a recent Truth Jihad Radio interview, Hart told me, “On present form, I think there will be a final Zionist ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Because the whole Zionist game plan has been to make life hell for the Palestinians of the occupied territories. But they’ve nowhere to go and they aren’t going to pack up and go. So when it dawns on Israel’s leaders, as it will, that the demographic time bomb is ticking, and they can’t bring on-stream a puppet Palestinian government that will accept crumbs from Zionism’s table, then there will be the final ethnic cleansing. And it can happen very easily. You get six Mossad agents dressed as Palestinian terrorists and kill thirty, forty, fifty Jews or whatever. And that’s it. Away you go... an internal Israel-Palestine false flag operation.”

Hart believes this scenario of an “internal false flag operation” followed by a final ethnic cleansing is realistic and likely to happen sooner or later. Less probable, but still a danger, is an “external false flag operation” - an attack on America designed to be blamed on Iran in order to draw the US into another war for Israel.

The author and Mideast expert explained:

“I don’t think there’ll be war (with Iran) because that has always been a bluff by Netanyahu. We know that most of his military and intelligence people are against it, unless they could somehow bring America in. But one can never rule out the possibility of an Israeli false flag operation, something dreadful that they would seek to blame on Iran. I’m not predicting it. I don’t think it’s likely. But I’m afraid you can’t rule out anything. Because it is now a desperate game for Zionism. Because (the Iran nuclear agreement) would mark the first-ever really big defeat for the Zionist lobby. And as I said, it would free up Obama to be serious about Israel-Palestine.”

Hart explained that the Zionists are most dangerous when backed into a corner:

“I think apart from a false flag operation, Netanyahu has shot himself in the foot.”

Alan Hart is a respected Mideast analyst, who was a personal friend of both PLO leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir. He has known American presidents and European prime ministers, and served them during his years as a back-channel peace negotiator. When someone of Alan Hart’s stature issues such dire warnings, they deserve to be taken seriously at the highest levels.

Hart says that US President Jimmy Carter once admitted to him that Israel has terrorized and paralyzed the US government by threatening to unleash mayhem if the US tries to force it to make peace. Since Israel has hundreds of nuclear weapons, and is said to be able to target Europe and possibly the US, such seemingly bizarre, reckless threats are unfortunately quite serious. The Israelis, it seems, are afflicted by some sort of collective madness.

Hart recounted one of his meetings with Israeli Defense Minister Ezer Weizman, who was visibly shaken by something. Hart asked what was wrong.

Hart told me what Weizman said, “‘This lunchtime, Sharon convened a meeting of many senior military officers, and they had signed a blood oath that in the event of any Israeli government withdrawing from the occupied territories, those who had signed the oath would take the men loyal to them, join forces with the settlers who would oppose the implementation of any withdrawal, and fight their own government to the death.’ Now when Ezer told me that story, he looked at me and he said, ‘Do you think Sharon would do that?’ And I said, ‘Ezer, I’m a visiting goy! You’re Israel’s Defense Minister! What do you think?’ And he said, ‘Of course he would. He’s mad enough to nuke the entire ---- Arab world.’ Quote-unquote. So yes, there’s madness and madness.”

It is time for the world to come together and put an end to the madness of Zionism, before the madness of Zionism puts the world in trouble.

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About: Dr. Kevin Barrett is a Ph.D. Arabist-Islamologist, and one of America's best-known critics of the War on Terror. Dr. Barrett has appeared many times on Fox, CNN, PBS and other broadcast outlets, and has inspired feature stories and op-eds in the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, the Chicago Tribune, and other leading publications. Dr. Barrett has taught at colleges and universities in San Francisco, Paris, and Wisconsin, where he ran for Congress in 2008. He is the co-founder of the Muslim-Christian-Jewish Alliance, and author of the books Truth Jihad: My Epic Struggle Against the 9/11 Big Lie (2007) and Questioning the War on Terror: A Primer for Obama Voters (2009). His website is http://www.truthjihad.com /

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Ken O'Keefe's Middle East on The Peoples Voice - Guests Gilad Atzmon

Video Source: Ken O’Keefe (The Peoples Voice)