Published: Saturday, May 18, 2002
The New York Times
WASHINGTON -- The FBI had been aware for several years that Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network, al-Qaida, were training pilots in the United States and elsewhere around the world, according to court records and interviews at flight schools and with federal law enforcement officials.
The FBI knew by 1996 of a specific threat that terrorists tied to bin Laden might use a plane in a suicide terrorist attack against the headquarters of the CIA or another large federal building in the Washington area, federal law enforcement officials acknowledged. But law enforcement officials said that the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other agencies had discounted the possibility of a suicide attack using planes, a decision that they had largely failed to draw together evidence gathered over the years that al-Qaida pilots were training here.
Last week, the FBI acknowledged the existence of a memorandum written last summer in which an agent in its Phoenix office urged his superiors to investigate Middle Eastern men who had enrolled at American flight schools and who might be connected to bin Laden.
However, the Phoenix memorandum was not the first warning that terrorists affiliated with al-Qaida had interest in learning to fly and might use planes as weapons. In his 1996 confession, a Pakistani terrorist, Abdul Hakim Murad, said that he planned to use the training he received at flight schools in the United States to fly a plane into the CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., or another federal building.
Murad, who was captured in the Philippines in 1995 and convicted in New York on charges of conspiring to blow up 12 American jumbo jets over the Pacific simultaneously, received flight training at schools in New York, North Carolina, California and Texas.
Information contained in Murad's confession formed part of the basis for a 1999 analysis prepared for U.S. intelligence agencies. That analysis warned that bin Laden's terrorists could hijack an airliner and fly it into government buildings like the Pentagon.
Additionally, a flight school in Oklahoma that provided training last year to Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker in the Sept. 11 attacks, had been under scrutiny by the FBI in 1998 after the discovery that another former student had been linked to the bombing that year of two American embassies in East Africa, another attack blamed on al-Qaida. The school, the Airman Flight School of Norman, Okla., has cooperated with the FBI.
Congressional investigators say they are only now compiling a detailed chronology of what was known about potential terrorists receiving flight training here in order to evaluate whether the FBI and other law-enforcement agencies failed to recognize signs that might have allowed the government to take steps to prevent the September attacks. At least six of the Sept. 11 hijackers received flight training in the United States.
The Phoenix memo, along with the disclosure this week that President George W. Bush was warned in August of the possibility that al-Qaida might be planning hijackings, have been seized on by lawmakers as evidence that the government missed signals of the coming attacks. The Phoenix memo, in fact, was sent to the Central Intelligence Agency only in recent weeks.
Spokesmen for FBI headquarters in Washington -- as well as for its field offices in New York and Oklahoma City, which investigated individual flight schools over the years -- had no comment on the issue.
Lewis Schiliro, who retired two years ago as the bureau's assistant director in charge of its New York office, said in an interview that his agents had tried to follow up information about the flight schools whenever possible. But he said that while the FBI worried that al-Qaida might hijack commercial planes, "never once did we really focus on the use of a plane as a weapon" and that it would have been "very difficult to connect the dots."
The FBI did not alert other federal agencies about many of the results of its flight school investigations.
The bureau's failure to alert other agencies is expected to be a focus of congressional investigations into the intelligence failures before the Sept. 11 attacks.
Buried in the back issues somewhere is a story I wrote about an appearance
on Jay Leno by James Woods. This is one of those this-is-how-I-remember-it stories.
I might get a detail wrong but most of this is correct.
Around August 11th, Woods took Flight 175 from Boston to Los Angeles,
which is the exact same flight Muhammed Atta flew into the WTC a month later.
During the flight, Woods saw that the four Middle Eastern men weren't speaking
but they seemed to be communicating. Woods cornered a stewardess and said,
"I know this sounds crazy because there hasn't been a hijacking in a decade
or two but I'm fairly certain that those four men are going to hijack this plane."
The stewardess thanked him for the warning and assured Woods that she would
tell the pilot and they agreed to keep an eye on the four suspicious Saudi passengers.
Nothing happened, but Woods told Leno that the FBI met him when the plane landed.
They took his statement and asked him not to reveal any of the details about what he told them.
Woods said 30 days later he turned on the TV in Los Angeles and saw the WTC burning.
He learned from the TV that it was Flight 175 from Boston to LA that crashed.
He said his first thought was "Those bastards from my flight did this."
Do you realize what this means?
The White House, the FBI, the CIA - everybody knew bin Laden and Al Qaeda were planning
SOMETHING involing a hijacked plane. Now we add James Woods's story and that proves the
FBI knew the flight number, the take off location, and they certainly had to know the passenger's
names who were secretly communicating without using language.
When this "What did Bush know?" story hit Wednesday, everyone's first reaction was
"they had no specifics on which to act" but now we know that's not true.
Atta and his sidekicks were doing a dry run.
They were acting suspicious because Woods was right - they WERE hijackers.
How could the FBI bungle this so badly?
Woods handed it to them in black and white.
The FBI learned the who - Atta and his elves.
The FBI learned the what - a hijacking
The FBI learned the how - armed takeover by four men
The FBI learned the where - out of Logan airport, Flight 175 to LA.
The FBI learned the when - it had to be soon if they were rehearsing.
...and all this time they knew Al Qaeda was planning to hijack planes?
They didn't even put a security watch on THOSE four men buying tickets
for the same flight when they were acting suspicious on the Woods flight?
Did the FBI lie about checking those suspicious passengers?
Wasn't Atta on an expired VISA? If I had a staff, I'd have some answers.
But some of the 19 hijackers were here legally and some weren't.
Of course, if the FBI learned that a possible Clinton girlfriend was on this flight,
they would've tracked her as far away as Japan. Remember Elizabeth Ward Gracen?
When the FBI wants to find somebody bad enough - they find them.
If the FBI had just done their jobs and investigated the suspicious Saudi passengers,
KNOWING bin Laden was planning a hijacking very soon, lives would've been saved
and terrorists would have been jailed instead of martyred for Allah.
How could they possibly screw this up and let them get on that same flight 30 days later?
MIAMI (Reuters) - Two men who allegedly plotted to carry out bomb attacks on U.S. electrical power substations and a National Guard Armoury in South Florida a year ago have been charged with conspiracy to damage and destroy property with explosives, justice officials said.
A two-count indictment was unsealed on Friday and the two defendants, Pakistani immigrant Imran Mandhai, 19, and Shueyb Mossa Jokhan, a 24-year-old naturalised U.S. citizen, appeared before a federal magistrate, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami said in a statement.
Prosecutors requested pretrial detention for Mandhai and Jokhan, who could face maximum jail sentences of up to 25 years and 20 years respectively if convicted as charged.
They were arrested by FBI agents on Friday, officials said, but no details were immediately available of what led to their arrest.
The indictment said the alleged plotting took place between May 2000 and May 2001 in Miami-Dade County and neighbouring Broward County.
The two plotted their missions as part of what they saw as an Islamic holy war, the indictment said, and their alleged plans included trying to obtain AK-47 assault weapons and funds, seeking to recruit others, and looking over possible targets.
"JIHAD" MISSION
The indictment said the "defendants scouted several locations for a 'jihad' mission, including electrical power substations and a National Guard Armoury, in preparation for bombing such a location or locations, which would be followed by a list of demands to be placed on the United States government and other governments elsewhere around the world."
Mandhai and Jokhan were charged with conspiracy to damage and destroy property by means of fire and explosives. Mandhai was also charged with soliciting Jokhan to commit a crime of violence.
If convicted as charged, they each face up to 20 years in prison and fines of up to $250,000 on the conspiracy count. Mandhai also faces a maximum of five years on the charge of soliciting to commit a crime of violence.
The indictment listed activities by the two as including trying to buy guns, obtaining information about explosives and scouting out electrical power transformers and substations including one near Miami International Airport and another in the Miami Shores area.
It said Mandhai sought funds to "acquire a variety of items to engage in training for an armed struggle against the United States, otherwise known as a 'jihad,' including firearms and other weapons, night vision equipment, stun guns, pepper spray and smoke grenades and other military supplies."
U.S. Attorney Guy Lewis noted investigation into the case involved agencies including the FBI and the Immigration and Naturalisation Service, and local and state law enforcement.
"This case represents a coordinated multi-front effort to identify and prosecute those who would engage in conduct that threatens public safety and national security," he said.
Preliminary hearings in the case were set for May 24.
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Urban Legends Reference Pages Rumors of War (Post No Bills)
LONDON, May 16 (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Tony Blair was put on the spot in a televised interview on Thursday when he was asked how he reconciled his Christian beliefs with accepting political donations from a porn publisher.
Blair, who told BBC Television's Newsnight programme that Christianity was central to his life, said it was "perfectly acceptable" for his ruling Labour Party to receive funding from Richard Desmond, owner of Express Newspapers and a string of pornographic magazines.
"Horny Housewives, Mega Boobs, Posh Wives, Skinny & Wriggly -- do you know what these magazines are like?" Blair was asked in the interview.
"No, I don't," an uncomfortable looking Blair replied. "But I do know that if someone is fit and proper to own one of the major newspaper groups in the country, there's no reason why we shouldn't accept donations from them."
Blair vowed to clean up politics when he took power in 1997 but the news this month that his party accepted 100,000 pounds ($146,500) from Desmond -- around the time he won government approval to buy Express Newspapers -- put that pledge in doubt.
"In my view, it is perfectly acceptable for us to take a donation from them," Blair said.
The Department of Trade and Industry, which gave the go-ahead for Desmond's Express Newspapers take-over, said this week there was no question of the decision having been influenced by the gift.
But supporters and opponents of the government united to criticise Blair for accepting the donation from a man they said exploited women.
Emerging Diseases in the 21st Century/With a Vengence
By Anti-Bioweapon Crusader Patricia Doyle
How are these diseases emerging?
Fall 1999, New York area experienced just such an event. A non endemic disease broke out in a "hot zone" in Northern Queens.
Was this altered strain a result of climate change or did it emerge from a Lab, Plum Island, Yale, or some other lab?
Plum Island is located less then 2 miles from the Eastern shore of Long Island, Orient Pt. It is less then 13 miles across Long Island Sound from our Submarine base at Groton, Ct. (Pathogens deemed too dangerous to enter via JFK, are brought via submarine and transferred to a Govt. Ferry to Plum Island.
Plum Island is a biolevel 5 facility. In 1996 SUNY Stoney Brook had been considering joint experiments with Plum Island, using the biolevel 4 lab at Plum Island.
Why then do we hear in the press, that Plum Island is seeking funds to upgrade from level 3 to a level 4 facility?
This request to "upgrade" to "bogus" level 4 came on the heels of the West Nile like outbreak. March 1999 and also. during the summer there were a sequence of power outages.
Some background on Plum is needed.
March 1999, Plum island installed an undersea fiberoptic cable. During the finalization of the cable, by STV Inc. all power to Plum Island was lost. Plum Island needs power to maintain biocontainment.
Plum Island has had a horrific safety violation record and has been cited by the EPA as late as Spring 1999.
In March 1999, the (now previous) Director, Alfonso Torres, gave his resignation. A new Director, Dr. LeeAnn Thomas, took over in July of 1999.
Some of the attached links prove that Plum is not a biolevel 3, but it is a biolevel 5 faciliity, one of only a few worldwide. According to Dr. Alfonso Torres and also Dr. Kiley of Plum Island, Plum Island is the only biolevel 5 facility in the US.
Why would Plum Island seek the bogus level 4 upgrade after the outbreak of the WNV? I do not have that answer.
It is theorized that Plum island needs funds just to maintain its present biocontainment. (according to Dr. Kiley 1998 meeting USAHA Committee on Government Relations.)
Plum Island had been working with Japanese Encephalitis since the early 1990's. Plum Island/Yale Scientists had even tested JE vaccine on HUMAN VOLUNTEERS.
Background: 1978 bioaccident. FMD microbes escaped. Workers were evacuated in paper coveralls, lab animals were incinerated and the island was sprayed with toxic chemicals. I have corresponded with a person who lived near Plum Island at that time, and claims to have contracted Foot and Mouth Disease, as was the case with other children at that time.
Was this same toxic spraying done March 1999 and other times when the power was out?
http://www.nalusda.gov/ttic/tektran/data/000009/05/0000090536.html
Yes, Plum Island has been working with JE as the above link proves. Why would an animal facility test JE vaccine on HUMAN VOLUNTEERS?
There has been a loss of the lobster population in Long Island Sound, Fall 1999.
Did installation of the STV Inc. Cable cause the hazardous waste that Plum Island was cited for illegally dumping in 1998 to be drudged up? Did this or toxic chemical spraying of the island cause the algal bloom to become toxic and thereby cause the killoff?
Why did the Mayor of the City of New York, OVER REACT, and spray deadly Malathion when he learned of 3 deaths of elderly people. He did not follow legal steps to obtain a permit for the spraying.
History of Plum Island:
In 1954 Ft. Terry, a biowar research facility closed its doors on that scruffy island. It handed over to the new lab, 134 strains of 13 viruses collected from every Continent of the World.
At that time, the prime directive of Plum Island, was to find an efficient manner to infect Soviet Livestock.
In 1969, President Nixon OFFICIALLY ended the biowar research program. Plum Island, officially, became an Animal Foreign Disease diagnostic facility.
The advent of the 21st Century has the world in fear of bioterrorism. Bioweapons are cheaply fabricated, easy to carry and undetectable.
Countries unable to fund expensive defense programs are able to put together an arsenol of bioweapons.
Individual terrorists are able to strike fear into the hearts and souls of Nations at just the mention of a bioweapon threat.
In 1993, after a 10 year hiatus, Dugway Proving Ground began bioresearch. In 1983, after a bioaccident which resulted in the anthrax death of sheep in neighboring pastures, Dugway had ended its biowar research. Now, 10 years later, in the name of biowar DEFENSE, Dugway opened for business without any opposition.
Dugway is testing BIDS (BioIntegrated Defense System). At first the tests were conducted in liquid with "designer" simulants anthrax, bottulism, plague and smallpox etal. Now, testing of the defensive weapon is aerosol.
The pathogens are (synthetic, a type of "designer" pathogen) deemed no more harmful then bacteria found in dirt.
Only time will tell, I guess.
Now, for a PLUM ISLAND UPDATE I now know why Plum Island is a biolevel 5 facility. In 1970, just one year after President Nixon officially ended our offensive biowar research, Plum Island was granted 10 million dollars by the Federal Govt. The purpose of the grant was to research the use of mycoplasma for use in germ warfare.
The original 10 million dollar grant was for a 5 year period. In 1975, the funding was continued as the mycoplasma research was deemed very successful.
In the 1980's a young scientist had just completed his graduate research at Cornell. He was hired by Plum Island to head up the mycoplasma research project.
This scientist was Dr. Jawad Al Aubaidi. When it was obvious that hostilities would break out in the Persian Gulf, he went back home to his native Iraq, where he headed up the mycoplasma research at the Univ. of Bagdad.
I have recently received a letter from Dr. Aubaidi's professor at Cornell, Dr. Carmichael. Dr. Carmichael pointed out that Dr. Aubaidi was a brilliant youn researcher and a very nice person. He also sent me a medline reference sheet for me to look up Dr. Aubaidi's research prior to and while at Cornell.
I am still trying to figure out how Dr. Carmichael was able to locate my mailing address.
I had applied to the National Archives, under FOIA, for information on Ft. Terry, Plum Island, and information about Dr. Aubaidi and the circumstances of his untimely death.
I received a letter from the NSA dated June 5, 2000 regarding my FOIA request. They informed me that the circumstances of the death of Dr. Jawad Al-Aubaidi, and information on his research is classified in accordance with Executive Order 12958. My request for information was therefore denied. They further went on to state that such information would involve breaching National Security and Foreign Relations.
According to Prof. Garth Nicolson, Dr. Aubaidi was murdered by the Israelis. Yet, according to Dr. Carmichael, Dr. Aubaidi was hit by a truck when fixing a flat tire. Dr. Carmichael said that according to Dr. Aubaidi's wife, the flat tire and subsequent "Accident" was arranged by agents of Sadom. Were the Iraqis responsible for his death?
According to Cornell Univ. Dr. L. E. Carmichael, Dr. Aubaidi and his family were planning to move back to the US. At the time of Dr. Aubaidi's death, Dr. Carmichael states that Dr. Aubaidi's planned move back to the US was to take place a week after Dr. Aubaidi's accident.
According to Dr. Carmichael Dr. Aubaidi deserves better. I therefore, am very interested in finding out exactly why Dr. Jawad Al Aubaidi was murdered in such a manner.
I could never understand how the US and the Pentegon could insist that biological agents were not used in the Persian Gulf. There was NO MONITORING FOR BIOLOGICALS in place during the Gulf War. There was only LIMITED Chemical weapon monitoring.
The BIDS moniitoring technology was not in place at that time. It only commenced in 1993.
According to accurate and verified accounts, Sodom Hussein purchased mycoplasma as well as other biologicals, which included West Nile Virus, from the US right up to 2 weeks before Desert Storm.
I have further discovered that Plum Island had projects in which "clean" ticks were infected with brucella. They also had a project infecting ticks with African Swine Fever.
Plum Island Scientists, Dr. Fred Brown and former Plum Island Director, Alfonso Torres have been working with BSE and other Prion diseases.
It is my contention that the disease we now call Lyme Disease, originated in a lab at Plum Island. The funding for research would be covered in the Mycoplasma grant.
The very first case of Lyme Disease was isolated in a youth, in 1975, within a few miles of the dock where the Plum Island Government Ferry boat lands on the Connecticut side of Long Island Sound.
I have heard that a young Connecticut girl who had received yet, not responded to all known treatments for Lyme Disease, and who was dying, was sent to the inhouse isolation ward at Plum Island and "emerged" from that Animal Facility, totally CURED OF LYME DISEASE.
When I first began the investigation into Plum Island and its connection to the New York outbreak of Kunjin/West Nilelike, I never imagined that Plum island would be so immersed in biowar projects.
In any event, I now know why it was designated a biolevel 5 facility. At the time, 1970, it was illegal to work with mycoplasma in the Continental US. As Plum island was and is a top secret biowar facility, and it is an island, it was designated biolevel 5 and given the funding to proceed with mycoplasma research.
So, indeed, Plum Island is a biolevel 5 facility.
August 30,2001 Plum Island Update
The Plum Island upgrade to biolevel 4 has not occurred as of the writing. There is now a citizen watchdog group overseeing the upgrade and the activities at Plum Island. It was my hope that the committee would monitor Plum Island and there would be safeguards in place.
I have recently learned that Plum Island IS doing research on Nipah virus. Nipah virus, in the paramyxovirus group along with Hendra virus is a biolevel 4 pathogen. In other words, labs working with this virus mandate a biolevel 4 designation. This designation is required because Nipah is zoonotic, jumping species barrier from animal to man, and, has no cure or preventive vaccine. So, why is a lab who claims to be only a biolevel 3 and not a level 5, working on a biolevel 4 pathogen? Is the fact that they are an island status and a biolevel 5 a factor in their working on Nipah? How many other biolevel 4 pathogens are being studied at Plum Island. Remember, Plum Island is less then 2 miles from Long Island's coast. Birds and probably bats fly to and from the island. Nipah is a virus that is vectored by bats. It joins Hendra, another paramyxovirus and Tioman, also paramyxovirus, as a bat vectored virus.
Although it is in the paramyxovirus family, Nipah and Hendra, and Tioman are in a separte group.
I wrote to Dr. Daniel Rock who heads the Nipah research unit and, as of this writing, have not had a response to my mail.
I am wondering where the watch dog group is and why are they not monitoring the Nipah research. I hope that we can get a response from Plum Island regarding their Nipah research in a biolevel 3 lab. According to APHIS/ARS, Plum Island needs funds to upgrade the facility JUST TO MAINTAIN ITS BIOLEVEL 3 DESIGNATION. This is the same facility that is working on a biolevel 4 pathogen?
BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan, May 17 (Reuters) - Another 22 British servicemen in Afghanistan had reported sick with an unidentified illness that struck a field hospital this week, a British military official said on Friday.
Two experts in communicable diseases were being flown into Afghanistan to assess the mystery illness, Lieutenant Colonel Ben Curry, spokesman for the 1,700-strong Royal Marines contingent in Afghanistan, told reporters.
"At present there is no way to distinguish... what is this enteritis," he said, referring to a condition that inflames the intestines.
The new cases took to 40 the number of British personnel to have fallen sick and underlines the sort of health risks involved working in the punishing climate and environment of Afghanistan, risks which proved the ultimate conqueror of Soviet forces after their 1979 invasion.
During their occupation around two-thirds of the soldiers were hospitalised for disease or non-battle injuries, most of which were preventable, according to British doctors.
One of the new British victims was seriously ill and was due to be flown back to Britain later on Friday, Curry said.
"A total of 22 personnel have said they have suffered, or are suffering from diarrhoea and vomiting, one of them is listed seriously ill and will be evacuated today," he said.
The others had shown varying degrees of the symptoms and were being treated at Bagram, the headquarters of the 12,000 to 13,000 strong U.S.-led coalition hunting down remnants of al Qaeda and Taliban in Afghanistan.
The latest cases turned up after Royal Marine units were ordered to survey their personnel for symptoms following the outbreak of the illness.
Eight medical personnel working at the field hospital in Bagram, north of the capital Kabul, were airlifted out of Afghanistan earlier.
TESTS
Curry said an anaesthetist, who had flown in from Britain to help evacuate one of the first sick soldiers, had been placed in isolation back home after showing similar symptoms.
The field hospital has since been closed and some 333 people have been quarantined.
"It seems like a form of enteritis, but tests are continuing to determine the disease," Curry said, noting all food for the soldiers in Afghanistan was brought in from Europe and no Afghan was involved in the food preparation.
"I can say the food comes from a variety of sources, but none of it from Afghanistan."
A large number of Marines took off late on Thursday for the mountains of south eastern Afghanistan in a new operation by international forces to hunt down remnants of the al Qaeda and Taliban.
The British-led Operation Condor was launched in the Paktia province after an Australian special forces party was fired upon.
British military officials have said the closure of the field hospital at Bagram following the outbreak of disease would have no impact on their operational responsibilities because other coalition medical facilities were available.
There are some 4,500 coalition troops stationed at Bagram, but none of the other forces have reported the sickness.
"We are working very closely with the British to contain the infection and of course keeping a close watch on our troops," said U.S. army spokesman Major Bryan Hilferty.
Associated Press
May 17, 2002
HYDERABAD, India –– India baked in a heat wave Friday so intense that mud huts became as hot as ovens and birds in trees dropped dead, villagers said. This month's heat has killed 638 people nationwide.
Officials described the temperatures exceeding 115 degrees as "a natural calamity."
In Andhra Pradesh state, 622 people died. Temperatures there reached a record 124 degrees, said D.C. Roshaiah, an official in charge of relief work in the state.
Most of the dead were old people unable to bear the extreme heat, said Rajshekhar Murthy, a health worker in the state's Guntur district, where 102 people died.
P. Vijaylakshmi, a farmer in Kovvuru village in a remote corner of Andhra Pradesh, described the height of the heat wave last Friday as "the worst day of my life."
"How I can forget it? There was no place to hide. Even the dirt floor of my hut felt like an oven," he said.
Villagers said the heat was so intense that birds fell from the trees.
Similar heat waves struck Andhra Pradesh in 1996 and 1998, but this year has been the worst, state weather officials said. Andrha Pradesh is the fifth-largest state in India, with 76 million people.
Murthy, the health worker, said the number of dead would have been higher had local officials not issued warnings and supplied extra drinking water to the poor.
"The administration sounded a warning a week in advance," said Poonam Malkondaiah, an official in West Godavari district, where at least 50 people perished.
"People were told not to venture out of their homes, especially around noon when the heat wave reaches its peak. If there were compelling reasons to go out, they were asked to cover themselves," she said.
It has been an abnormally hot May in southern India. Temperatures have been 7 percent above the monthly average.
The national capital New Delhi and other parts of northern India have also been sweltering. Sixteen people died in the desert state of Rajasthan as temperatures climbed to 117 on Friday.
Andhra Pradesh's Chief Minister Chandra Babu Naidu set up a scientific committee to establish whether global warming was causing the heat wave.
However, meteorologists quickly blamed scorching desert winds from the northwest, not the greenhouse effect or deforestation.
"Heat waves always precede the monsoon rains. They induce the moisture to come in," said R. Rajamani, an environmental expert based in Hyderabad. Monsoons normally arrive in southern India in early June, and in the rest of the country over subsequent weeks.
From New Democrats Online
www.ndol.org
5-16-2
New Democrats have been promoting the "citizen soldier" concept -- a short-term enlistment option designed to attract young Americans who want to serve their country without engaging in a military career -- since the late 1980s. One of the main advantages of the Bayh-McCain "Call To Service" legislation over the President's otherwise similar national service proposal is its commitment to a "citizen soldier" track for service.
We are happy to report that the Bayh-McCain "citizen soldier" proposal cleared a big hurdle in Congress late last week, as the Senate Armed Services Committee incorporated the short-term military enlistment option as part of the 2003 Defense Authorization bill.
As a member of the Armed Services Committee, Sen. McCain negotiated citizen-soldier language very close to the Bayh- McCain legislation. Those who volunteer to serve as a part of this new program would be required to serve on active duty for 15 months after completion of initial entry training and could complete the remainder of their service obligation by choosing service on active duty, in the Selected Reserve or in the Individual Ready Reserve. Serving in a civilian national service program such as the Peace Corps or AmeriCorps could also fulfill the reserve obligation.
In return for service, an enlistee would choose one of several benefits options: (1) reimbursement by the military for up to $18,000 in student loans; (2) a full year of the Montgomery GI Bill (MGIB) tuition credit if 15 months of active duty service is followed by a selective reserve commitment (amounting to as much as $23,400 in tuition, depending on the program the enlistee chooses); (3) two-thirds of the MGIB benefits for 36 months (amounting to roughly $433 per month, while the enlistee is enrolled in an educational program); or (4) a $5,000 severance bonus.
McCain and Bayh said the Committee's approval of their military service proposal is an important step towards passage over their overall bill, which also includes a dramatic expansion of the AmeriCorps program, an increase in senior service opportunities, and a requirement for colleges and universities to focus more of their federal work-study funds on community service opportunities for students.
"The Armed Services Committee gave a big boost to a bill that will give Americans concrete opportunities to serve a cause greater than their own self interest," said McCain. "By encouraging more military enlistments, we will give our forces greater latitude in the war against terror."
"Just as there is a great need for volunteers in communities across America, the war on terrorism has placed new demands on our Armed Forces," said Bayh. "Expanding opportunities for military service is an integral part of our plan to broaden the scope of volunteerism in America. By enhancing incentives and providing greater flexibility for enlistment, we hope to attract America's best and brightest to serve in the Armed Forces."
Progressive Policy Institute President Will Marshall, principal author of the 1988 DLC proposal that included a "citizen soldier" track for national service, said: "The Armed Services Committee action represents a real breakthrough in a defense community that in the past has been ambivalent about the need for a broader effort to attract well-educated and civic- minded young Americans to military service short of a career commitment -- an effort that makes more sense than ever given the fight against terrorism, the upsurge in patriotic sentiment, and the ongoing struggle of the armed forces to meet their recruiting targets."
"Senate action on the 'citizen soldier' initiative," said Marshall, "also illuminates the key difference between the Bayh-McCain initiative and other proposals to engage Americans in civic service: a clear call for serious, full-time national service in critically important military or civilian capacities. While encouraging casual and occasional volunteerism is always a good idea, the times call for the kind of national service that represents a real, life-changing commitment to nation and community. Citizen soldiers will perform that kind of service."
May 17 2002
(via Cosmiverse)
The biggest puzzle in neuroscience is how conscious brain activity differs from the brain activity driving all of those unconscious actions. Now, one scientist is proposing that conscious thought is the product of electrical impulses.
Professor Johnjoe McFadden from the School of Biomedical and Life Sciences at the University of Surrey in the UK said the conscious mind could be an electromagnetic field.
"The theory solves many previously intractable problems of consciousness and could have profound implications for our concepts of mind, free will, spirituality, the design of artificial intelligence, and even life and death," he said.
Most people consider "mind" to be all the conscious things that we are aware of. But much, if not most, mental activity goes on without awareness. Actions such as walking, changing gear in your car or peddling a bicycle can become as automatic as breathing.
When we see an object, signals from our retina travel along nerves as waves of electrically charged ions. When they reach the nerve terminus, the signal jumps to the next nerve via chemical neurotransmitters. The receiving nerve decides whether or not it will fire, based on the number of firing votes it receives from its upstream nerves.
In this way, electrical signals are processed in our brain before being transmitted to our body. But where, in all this movement of ions and chemicals, is consciousness? Scientists can find no region or structure in the brain that specializes in conscious thinking. Consciousness remains a mystery.
"Consciousness is what makes us 'human,'" McFadden said. "Language, creativity, emotions, spirituality, logical deduction, mental arithmetic, our sense of fairness, truth, ethics, are all inconceivable without consciousness."
One of the fundamental questions of consciousness, known as the binding problem, can be explained by looking at a tree. Most people, when asked how many leaves they see, will answer "thousands." But neurobiology tells us that the information (all the leaves) is dissected and scattered among millions of widely separated neurons.
Scientists are trying to explain where in the brain all those leaves are stuck together to form the conscious impression of a whole tree. How does our brain bind information to generate consciousness?
What McFadden realized was that every time a nerve fires, the electrical activity sends a signal to the brain's electromagnetic (em) field. But unlike solitary nerve signals, information that reaches the brain's em field is automatically bound together with all the other signals in the brain. The brain's em field does the binding that is characteristic of consciousness.
What McFadden and, independently, New Zealand-based neurobiologist Sue Pockett, have proposed is that the brain's em field is consciousness.
The brain's electromagnetic field is not just an information sink; it can influence our actions, pushing some neurons toward firing and others away from firing. This influence, McFadden proposed, is the physical manifestation of our conscious will. The theory explains many of the peculiar features of consciousness, such as its involvement in the learning process.
Anyone learning to drive a car will have experienced how the first (very conscious) fumblings are transformed through constant practice into automatic actions. The neural networks driving those first uncertain fumblings are precisely where we would expect to find nerves in the undecided state when a small nudge from the brain's em field can topple them toward or away from firing. The field will "fine tune" the neural pathway towards the desired goal.
But neurons are connected so that when they fire together, they wire together, to form stronger connections. After practice, the influence of the field will become dispensable. The activity will be learned and may thereafter be performed unconsciously.
One of the objections to an electromagnetic field theory of consciousness is, if minds are electromagnetic, then why don't we pass out when we walk under an electrical cable or any other source of external electromagnetic fields? The answer is that our skin, skull and cerebrospinal fluid shield us from external electric fields.
"The conscious electromagnetic information field is, at present, still a theory. But if true, there are many fascinating implications for the concept of free will, the nature of creativity or spirituality, consciousness in animals and even the significance of life and death.
"The theory explains why conscious actions feel so different from unconscious ones -- it is because they plug into the vast pool of information held in the brain's electromagnetic field," McFadden said.
Source: School of Biomedical and Life Sciences at the University of Surrey; Alpha Galileo
Another reason MRI scans are so dangerous. And why periods of high solar flare activity and hence geomagnetic storms may make the world a little crazier. And why the HAARP project is kinda scary.
May 17, 2002
(via Cosmiverse)
As the mother of two preschool-aged children, let me assure you that every pile tells a story. Peeling away layer upon layer gives one important clues about what was happening at the time the data or sample was collected. You disagree? Try cleaning out the back seat of your car.
The papers from your Kindergartner's class at school give way to the French fries they had with their Happy Meal over the weekend, and you uncover more schoolwork after that. Throw in that permission slip for a field trip (…so that's where that went!) and you have a fairly accurate picture of your child's schedule for the past week and a half or so right there in your car.
Scientists are encountering this theory on a larger scale by studying more than 70 different locations in the eastern parts of Northern America and analyzing the footprints, bone and plant spores they find.
Dennis Kent, a geology professor from Rutgers, is working with his colleagues in studying iridium dust and magnetic fields in four corresponding sediment layers in the Newark Basin. By examining this information with new and more sensitive equipment than has previously been available, they have been able to learn much about the different time periods represented there, as well as the animals that appear to have dominated the Earth during those times.
The team has published its findings, "Ascent of Dinosaurs Linked to an Iridium Anomaly at the Triassic-Jurassic Boundary," in the May 17 edition of the journal Science. The most fascinating discovery scientists made in the sediment there was iridium dust -- a substance usually linked to space objects.
This finding ties in with the theory that something from space (perhaps an asteroid similar to the ones believed to have later wiped out the dinosaurs,) struck the earth and abruptly ended the Triassic Period, clearing the way for the rise of the Jurassic Period.
By analyzing the parts of iridium per trillion in the sediment, they were able to find a spike in the amounts present, which then allowed the researchers to pinpoint exactly when they believe that this could have happened.
"Our research adds to the speculation that there was a comet or asteroid impact about 200 million years ago, followed relatively quickly by the rising dominance of dinosaur populations of the Jurassic period," said Kent in the University's Press Release. He then suggested that the effects of the impact killed off or reduced many competitive species, clearing the way for dinosaurs to adapt and flourish.
The impact of the asteroid was devastating to the animals of the Triassic Period. Because all predators had been wiped out, the path was cleared for dinosaurs to flourish and grow at the beginning of the Jurassic Era, which is exactly what they did. Free from most of their natural enemies, the dinosaurs quickly grew to incredible lengths and staggering heights -- much larger than anything that roamed the Earth during the Triassic Era.
Studying the sediment layers in such detail gave the scientists much more information than they ever had access to before. The things they found there pointed to a period of enormous devastation.
In surveying approximately 80 sites, Olsen's group found that fossil footprints changed from typical Triassic to typical Jurassic groupings in a period of just 50,000 years (the geological equivalent to the blink of an eye). In between lay the boundary between the periods, defined by a change in pollen type, and including the layer rich in iridium and fern spores.
The fern spores are important because ferns spread rapidly over devastated landscapes -- a phenomenon scientists have seen evidence of before. Sharp peaks of spores also occurred just after the final, cataclysmic celestial impact 65 million years ago.
Michael Benton of the University of Bristol aggress that the rapid change seen in the dinosaurs suggests that "it was more of a catastrophic event than people had once thought". However, he warns that there is much more to learn. This group has studied only one area of sediment, while iridium-rich deposits from the impact 65 million years ago have been found at 200 different sites.
Source: Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons; Rutgers; University of Vienna; Reuters; Cosmos Studios (image)
(View original article with lovely images using Adobe Acrobat at http://www.williamhenry.net/books_files/saddam.pdf)
A lot of wild speculation in metaphysical circles these days concerns the possible return of Planet X, a mysterious roaming planet that swings to the far side of our solar system, and is expected to return to our part of the solar system soon. In Sumerian mythology, Planet X is called "The Lord" and is the home of a group of beings that the bible calls Shining Ones. According to my interpretation of Sumerian myths presented in my book Ark of the Christos: Thee Mythology, Symbolism and Prophecy of the Return of Planet X and the Age of Terror, these wise beings, the 'angels' of the Old Testament, wielded enormously advanced technology. They operated a (star) gateway linking Heaven and Earth. They genetically altered the human body as a "resurrection machine" of "soul flow-er" to operate in conjunction with this gateway. They possessed the secret
science of alchemy, the transmutation of the elements, through which they could create weapons of mass destruction and advanced human beings.
The Shining Ones of Planet X were last here in 3760 B. C., which is the time of Anu's, the ruler of Planet X's, last visit.
In a morning-time ceremony in which Anu departs Earth, E. A. and Enlil, two sons of Anu, await Anu at what is called the "golden supporter." They hold several objects: "that
which opens up the secrets" (most certainly the Egyptian Key of Life), "the Sun disks," and the "splendid shining posts."
The "golden supporter" device is sheathed in a golden skin. Anu and his wife, Antu, stand before the golden supporter, which can only be the
golden Pillar or Tree of Life, a 45-foot tall device lined with a gold alloy the Egyptians said could 'drill' holes in space. This device (below) was mounted on a platform that
resembles in form and likely function the Ark of the Covenant.
The device comes alive, the gate swings open and Anu and Antu enter the Abyss (sometimes called the Fish of Isis).
Anu entering the gateway to return to Planet X?© Z. Sitchin, When Time Began.
Incredibly, Sumerian scholar Zecharia Sitchin has recovered what may be depictions of this scene. In this scene we see two people flanking an entrance to a gateway in which
a third person makes an entrance (or exit). The sun and moon symbols can be seen above this gateway.
The two guards hold devices, long poles with circular tops, which Sitchin concludes served an astronomical purpose. He also equates them with golden pillars at the entrance
to Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem. This being so, can we see these devices as "golden needles"? Is the story of this
golden needle woven deep into the mythology of the ancients? Is the 'silver thread' woven by this needle actually a wormhole linking Earth with the Planet of the Lord?
While it is uncertain if Planet X is headed this way in the immediate future, one thing is certain. The return of this planet centers on the recovery of a technology once housed
at Solomon's Temple that is used to open a gateway linking Earth with far off regions of space. Recent military and political activity suggests that the world powers are jockeying
for position as if the return of Planet X is imminent. The stakes are high. This planet is at the center of a biblical prophecy known as the "Day of the Lord." The man in the catbird
seat of this milieu is Saddam Hussein, the mass-murdering Iraqi dictator with the Cheshire cat smile.
Sitchin, one of the few experts on Planet X, indicates that, according to prophecy, the last time Planet X was visible was in the 6 th century B. C. The "Day of the Lord" (the
return of Planet X) occurred c. 550 B. C. when prophecies said that Planet X was visible. 550 B. C. is an extraordinary date. In 576 B. C. the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar
looted and leveled the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem, took three temple wise men hostage, and as I will detail momentarily, appears to have negotiated a deal with these
temple priests to open a gateway to Heaven. As the book of Daniel describes, 2 he put the three wise men from the Temple of Solomon into a "fiery furnace." When they
reappeared not only were they in pristine condition, they were not alone. They had the Son of God in tow.
I have interpreted this 'fiery furnace' as a zone of frequency or vibration that is the mouth of a stargate or a wormhole. When the three wise men entered this gateway they
traveled to a distant place, possibly to the center of our Milky Way galaxy, or possibly to Planet X, and returned with the Son of God.
This remarkable story is of far greater significance in the Age of Terror than most realize. It is well known that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has connected himself with
Nebuchadnezzar, spending over $500 million during the 1980s on the reconstruction and the re-establishment of ancient Babylon, the capitol of Nebuchadnezzar. Over sixty
million bricks have been made to place in the walls of Babylon, each engraved with the inscription "To King Nebuchadnezzar in the reign of Saddam Hussein".
In essence, as has been widely reported by prophecy watchers and international news organizations alike, Saddam is saying he is the reincarnated Nebuchadnezzar. He is
attempting to recreate and outdo the feats of the biblical king. As we shall see through this investigation, Saddam controls an asset infinitely more
important and powerful than oil, or even, nuclear weapons. He controls access to the temples that housed the history humanity's origins, and potentially, the secrets of
stargates. Buried deep beneath the sand s of Iraq are the secrets of the Shining Ones of Planet X.
Saddam's actions reveal that he knows the political value of these secrets. Before exploring the eye-opening story of Nebuchadnezzar's opening of a stargate it is important
to lay a foundation for this event. Saddam is currently engaged in a massive program to convert Iraq into a "Disneyland of the ancient Shining Ones" (my term). Included in this
program is the recreation of ancient Sumerian temples dedicated to the Shining Ones, the copying of anc ient cuneiform tablets concerning the Shining Ones, and the retrieval of
ancient Babylon's famed Ishtar Gate from Berlin. One of the most startling antiquities moves Iraq is set to launch is a campaign to
"revive" the Ashurbanipal Library, the earliest systematically collected and catalogued library in the ancient world. 3 This was the library of the king who said he could
read the texts from before the Flood! Excavated by British archaeologists in the mid 19th century at Nineveh, the 25,000
cuneiform tablets assembled by King Ashurbanipal are almost all now in the British Museum. These include the famous 7th-century BC Flood Tablet, which relates part of
the Epic of Gilgamesh and contains the "backstory" to the account of the flood given in the Book of Genesis.
In April 2002 Iraqi archaeologists asked the British Museum if it would allow casts to be made of the cuneiform tablets. Although individual tablets have in the past been
copied as casts, this would be the first time that any substantial number had been made. British Museum keeper John Curtis, who received the request during his visit to Baghdad
last month, told The Art Newspaper that "the museum would do its best to cooperate." 4 The proposed reconstructed library at Nineveh would hold copies of all of the British
Museum's tablets, and it is planned as both a scholarly center and tourist attraction. Alongside the library, the Saddam [Hussein] Institute for Cuneiform Studies will be set
up as part of the University of Mosul. Plans are also being made to excavate one of the 4 wings of King Ashurbanipal's palace, in Kuyunjik Mound, where it is hoped that thousands of other tablets lie buried.
There are 10,000 archaeological sites scattered through the country, most of them not fully excavated. In Iraq historical monuments are a matter of national security. This is
because they mark the locations of the secrets of the Shining Ones. It's absolutely impossible to get close to the legendary ziggurat of Ur without a letter
of authorization. Ur, the Biblical city of the Chaldeans, is the land of the prophet Abraham, father of the three great monotheist religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
What is presented as the ruins of his house from around 4000 BC can also be seen near the ziggurat. The ziggurat was re-engineered by Nebuchadnezzar. A monumental
staircase -rebuilt by order of Saddam Hussein -allows the visitor to ascend to the second stage. The facade of the ziggurat still bears traces of American bombing during the Gulf
War -or "Mother of All Battle s" as it's known in Iraq. According to archaeologists, gang leaders sometimes drive through provincial towns
with trucks and shovels, recruiting people to dig at poorly guarded sites. 5 What are they after? As in the example set by a recent robbery the mo nument robbers
want knowledge. Thieves smashed the doors of an Iraqi museum and a glass display case, absconding with cuneiform tablets and cylinders from the 6th century B. C. They left
behind gold jewelry that might have tempted amateurs. Cylinders from the 6 th century B. C. are more valuable than gold for the information they record.
The looting began in the tumultuous immediate aftermath of the Gulf War. In the Kurdish areas of northern Iraq, and the southern area populated by Iraq's restless Shiite
Muslims, most of the provincial museums were ransacked. Iraqi authorities charge -and their accusations are backed up by some archaeologists
abroad -that Sumerian antiquities are smuggled out of the country by diplomats and U. N. relief workers. Last summer, a landlord was cleaning out a Baghdad villa that had been recently vacated by a diplomat. Inside, he found two cartons of archaeologist fragments. The Iraqi government hasn't named the diplomat or his country.
Saddam believes he is to unite the Arab world under Islam. By recreating ancient Babylon, and by uncovering and disseminating the texts from ancient Iraq he can
simultaneously duplicate the feats of Nebuchadnezzar and potentially pull the intellectual rug out from underneath Judaism and Christianity. The pre-history of both of these
religions is found in Iraq. Saddam controls the temples that housed the "back story" of Judaism and Christianity. He seeks to retrieve the rest of the story and destroy these
religions. If Saddam launches a storm of ancient knowledge it could turn current biblical
scholarship into gumbo, and release a potentially debilitating thought virus into the Global Mind.
This may explain why the pace of archaeological work being done by in Iraq is increasing from the little activity of the past decade due to the ongoing international crisis
over Baghdad's weapons programs and the economic effects of sanctions. Saddam assuredly knows that the release of documentation proving Judaism and Christianity as
derivatives or copies of an ancient Sumerian religion could have a devastating effect on global affairs. Millions of people who partake in the Christian ceremony of communion
may be surprised to learn that this procedure is derived from an alchemical teaching of E. A., the god of wisdom of ancient Sumeria, modern-day Iraq.
An expedition sponsored this past winter by the Deutsches Archaeologisches Institut (German Archaeology Institute) in Berlin sent a team of researchers to make a partial
map of a buried Mesopotamian city using a magnetometer. The sensitive instrument is able to detect the presence of man-made objects beneath the soil and reveal the remnants
of walls, canals, and residential districts. 6 The team zeroed in on the legendary city of Uruk, immortalized in a famous
Sumerian epic poem --"The Song of Gilgamesh." The poem, which today is the earliest surviving work of literature, tells the story of a Sumerian hero, Gilgamesh, whom many
researchers believe may have been one of Uruk's early kings. In the story, Gilgamesh goes in search of the Stairway to Heaven and the Abode of the Gods.
According to prophecy, additional primary targets of Saddam's duplication of Nebuchadnezzar's feats involve London, New York and Egypt. Each of these locations is home to obelisks known as "the images of Bethshemesh". These "images" are referred to in Jeremiah 43: 9-13. Bethshemesh (literally "House of the Son God") is in the land of Egypt. "The houses of the gods of the Egyptians shall he burn with fire," says Jeremiah. "Bethshemesh, that is in the land of Egypt" is the city of Heliopolis, which is 6 miles NE of Cairo, Egypt. It was the center of an ancient cult of an Egyptian Sun of God, who was symbolized by the phoenix or heron. Heliopolis was the location of the Temple of
the Phoenix (or heron), the Egyptian sun god and savior. The symbolism of the phoenix or heron was later attached to Jesus, including the hieroglyph for the heron , which was duplicated in the fish symbol of Jesus . Something of profound significance appears to reside at Heliopolis. Located just across the Nile from Giza and the pyramids, Heliopolis was the center of Egyptian religion. It is a place of enormous mystery. In the Bible the name given to Heliopolis was
"On" or "An." Sumerian texts record this is also one of the names of Planet X, and was derived from
"Anu," the name of the ruler of Planet X. 7 The Greek Heliopolis means "City of Helios," literally the "city of the sun god Helios" (" light of life") 8 being the sun/ son of An or Anu.
Heliopolis, An, or Tula, as it was also known, became the center for the priesthood of the sun god, Ra, sometime around 3350 BC.
Thutmose III originally erected the obelisks of Heliopolis about 1500 BC. Thuthmosis III is known as the 'Napoleon of ancient Egypt'. Historians note that his
martial accomplishments matched precisely the impressive resume of the biblical King David, the ancestor of Jesus, and father of King Solomon. His ruler ship would witness
the founding one of the most mysterious dynasties in all Egyptian history, a dynasty that included such illustrious names as Akhenaton and Tutankhamun. According to Laurence
Gardner, it was also Tuthmosis III who established a mystery school of the original Rosicrucians, the Essene Therapeutate – meaning 'physicians of the soul'. 10 The Essenes
later adopted this name. If Tuthmosis III was the original biblical 'King David', as some scholars now
suspect, 11 this would mean that the descendents of David, including Solo mon and Jesus, would have carried the 'sang azure', the royal blue blood of the Pharaohs.
The obelisks in New York and London are the property of this family. In this profound scenario, Jesus, who came from the Royal House of David,
potentially emerges as one of the last, if not the last, of the Egyptian Pharaohs. 12 If the Davids were a group of people (possibly pharaohs) it would not be easy for them to
simply disappear. Is there any evidence of their continued influence in worldly affairs, even as absurd as it sounds, in the affairs of America?
As it turns our there is evidence of the pharaohs continued existence as the Celtic Druids. Scholars debate the origins of the word Druid. In Gaelic druidh means 'wise
man' or 'instructor'. This is another appellation of the Shining Ones. Larousse's World Mythology says Druid came from daru-vid, meaning 'skilled'. One art in which the
Druids were highly skilled was the transmutation of the elements.
One classical scholar from the third century, Diogenes Laertius, said the Druids were the cult of the Magi, the sect of the Three Wise Men who sought out the Christ child
Jesus. Does the Druid connection to the line of David explain why they sought the Christ child?
It was at Heliopolis that the Pyramid Texts were discovered. The Pyramid Texts are hieroglyphic writings written on the walls of the pyramids that contain the instructions
for the rebirth and resurrection of the pharaohs. It was also a center of an alchemical priesthood that guarded the secrets of transmuting the elements.
Nebuchadnezzar's expedition into Egypt gave the ancient fulfillment of this prophecy. However, modern fulfillment of this prophecy will be seen in New York City and London.
The "images of Bethshemesh" are literally, the "obelisks of Heliopolis". These obelisks are also known as Cleopatra's Needles. Cleopatra's Needles are two ancient obelisks presented by the khedive of Egypt to Great Britain (1878) and the United States (1880). Each weighs about 200 tons and
stands about 70 feet tall. The British installed their obelisk on the Thames (River) Embankment in London (1878). The Americans installed their obelisk in Central Park in New York City (1881). Jeremiah prophesied the destruction of these obelisks by the "king of Babylon".
The concern the United States must contend with is that this modern Nebuchadnezzar can obtain nuclear weapons -almost at will -through the Russian or Chinese black market. According to the blueprint provided by biblical prophecy, he may choose to use these weapons against these three targets. The primary target is Jerusalem.
Nebuchadnezzar is the only foreign invader to destroy Jerusalem. Saddam believes he must match him.
The United States and Israel is prepared to use nuclear force against Iraq if necessary. Revelation 18: 21-23, in fact, tells of the future and utter annihilation of the City of Babylon, "And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall
be found no more at all. And the voice of harpers, and musicians, and of pipers, and trumpeters, shall be heard no more at all in thee; and no craftsman, of whatsoever craft he
be, shall be found any more in thee; and the sound of a millstone shall be heard no more at all in thee; And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of
the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee: Bible prophecies concerning Babylon's destruction have not yet been fulfilled. Isaiah 13: 19 says, "And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah."
Isaiah's "burden" for Babylon, in chapter thirteen also included a terse warning: "Howl ye; for the day of the LORD is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty," (verse six). Sodom and Gomorrah were erased from the map by a premeditated and preventable thunderbolt from the sky of atomic proportions. In a scene reminiscent of the obliteration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, at dawn one morning, as Abraham looked upon the valley
below, fire came down from "the Lord out of heaven." 22 "The smoke of the land went up like the smoke of a furnace" 23 Sodom and Gomorrah were gone. God promised Israel that they would someday take up this taunt against the King of Babylon (Saddam Hussein?), "How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased!"
(Isaiah 14: 4.) Here, the utter destruction of the city of Babylon is linked to 1.) God's overthrow of
Sodom and Gomorrah (a blast of light from heaven) and 2.) the Day of the Lord (the return of Planet X).
If and when such an event took place, every thing Saddam has rebuilt could suddenly reduce to vitrified green glass that no one could even go near for thousands of years.
As we can see, Saddam is a far more complex figure than the comic book head of the 'axis of evil' presented on the evening news. He is a man in search of himself and the
alchemical secrets of the ancient past. He may also be in a race against time. If Planet X is due to make a rendezvous with Earth in the near future he does not have much time.
Let us now turn the ultimate quest of this man: the duplication of Nebuchadnezzar's stargate encounter.
Nebuchadnezzar's stargate encounter began in 576 BC when he conquered Jerusalem, flattened its walls, stripped Solomon's Temple of all its treasure , set the city ablaze, and returned home to Babylon with the treasure of the Temple 16 and a group of royal prisoners of war.
The Temple priests supposedly were forewarned before the attack. To save the Ark of the Covenant the priests took it to 'Solomon's Vault' beneath the Temple, sealed
themselves inside, and committed ritual suicide so no one would know where they hid it. Nebuchadnezzar also took captive thousands and thousands of Jerusalem's citizens,
including the holy men at the Temple, and forcibly moved them to Babylon, the ruins of which are buried beneath the sands of Iraq about twenty miles from modern-day
Baghdad. During this Babylonian Captivity many strange things happened. Included among the captives were three wise men from the Temple, a young man and 'master magician' named Daniel, and another prominent prophet, Ezekiel (who had visions of 'the kingdom of Heaven on Earth' while imprisoned in Babylon and later left the planet in what many consider to be a starship).
Surprisingly, the Jews discovered that the Babylonians possessed long sought answers concerning their past. This is because the Jewish and Babylonian histories
emerged from the same original source in Sumeria. From the Sumerian stories the Hebrews found missing pieces to their own Flood story
and story of Creation. With a few name changes here and there both traditions match. Most scholars now believe it was here in Babylon during the captivity of
Nebuchadnezzar that the first five books of the Old Testament, including Daniel and Ezekiel, were constructed (with a lot help from the original Sumerian stories).
Most Christians are shocked to learn the stories that form the foundation of their religion are copies of original stories that belonged to another time, place and people.
Only the names have been changed. As important as it is to realize the context in which these books were assembled --the
captivity of their authors --it is more important to realize that they are a compilation of actual history, mythology, literary devices and fond memories of a past that never was
Hebrew, but Sumerian. Separating Hebrew from Sumerian is crucial. The original stories provide valuable and accurate knowledge
The marriage between the Sumerian and Hebrew mythologies was a match made in heaven. It was as if each carried the missing half to the other's message. What both sides
apparently wanted was access to the stargate of the Shining Ones. This was the gift of the gods of Planet X. As we shall see, Nebuchadnezzar's story bears this out.
On entering ancient Babylon the visitor passed the E-mah, the temple of the mother goddess Ninmah or Ninharsag, which has recently been restored by Saddam. E-mah is a highly significant word. It is the Hebrew word for 'terror'. Beyond the Emah was Babylon's most important temple, the Esagila, the dwelling-place of the sun god Marduk,
the Babylonian name for Planet X. Nebuchadnezzar says that he covered its wall with sparkling gold in order to make it shine like the sun. In this temple was found a chapel or
sanctuary for Marduk's father, E. A, whom Zecharia Sitchin upholds as the genetic engineer responsible for the creation of humanity.
Second only to Nebuchadnezzar's famous Hanging Gardens Babylon's most famous monument was the staged tower or ziggurat, Etemenaki, 'the house that is the foundation
of heaven and earth', situated north of Marduk's temple. The Marduk temp le housed the golden image of Bel (' the Lord') and a strange golden table, which combined weighed nearly fifty thousand pounds of solid gold!
Nebuchadnezzar's Hanging Gardens of Babylon were one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Growing on a huge seventy-five-foot high artificial seven-stage
mountain known as of the fantastic ziggurat of Marduk, the well-known Tower of Babel, which Nebuchadnezzar restored, the Hanging Gardens could be seen for fifty miles
across the flat desert. The seven terraces held trees, vines and flowers and were watered by a system of wells and fountains. King Nebuchadnezzar had this wonder built for his
queen who longed to return to her mountain homeland. Babylon must have been a spectacular, perhaps unbelievable, sight to Daniel and the
rest of the Jewish captives, sort of like placing a war-torn refugee child in Disneyland today.
In its glory the city of Babylon was the greatest city in Mesopotamia --the center of the new world order. It was a veritable playground for the gods.
Babel originates from the word Bab-li, which in the Babylonian language meant 'Gate of God'. This is our first tip-off that Nebuchadnezzar attempted to construct a means --perhaps even a stargate --to transcend earth life and travel the cosmos. Our primary interest is in the image of gold Nebuchadnezzar set-up in Babylon.
This isn't some ancient status symbol the king kept on his desk. The image is a massive three score (60) cubits high and six cubits wide.
A cubit is 18 inches, making the image 540 inches high (three score or thirty times 18 inches high). 540 inches is 45 feet high, about the size of a four and a half story building!
Undoubtedly, this massive structure could be seen from miles around. Nebuchadnezzar could not make this gleaming image (the Pillar of Osiris) work. This was a major failure. Like the tribal leader David, who ruled Jerusalem five hundred years before him, the king had planned to unify his kingdom, and the golden image was the
unifying force. He tried using music to get it to work. He demanded that when the people heard the music play they were to fall down and worship the golden image (as if this act would impress the lifeless heap). If they didn't they would be tossed into a burning fiery furnace. 21
Nebuchadnezzar acknowledged that Daniel had immense prophetic gifts, including the ability to interpret dreams. In chapter four of Daniel, he is asked to interpret a dream
in which Nebuchadnezzar saw: 'a tree in the midst of the Earth, and the height thereof was great. The tree grew,
and was strong, and the height thereof reached into heaven, and the sight thereof to the end of the Earth'.
There was great fruit in this tree and the birds of Heaven lived in its branches. From this tree the king saw a "watcher" and a "holy one" from Heaven emerge. They told him to destroy the tree, and leave its 'stump' in the Earth. This was a confusing dream to the king, but not to us. The "watchers" is another
name for the Shining Ones. It is also the Egyptian name for "divine being" or "god" NTR, or neter, which means "one who watches". Neter-neter land is the name of the
place in the stars where these beings dwell. Sumeria, another earthly land of the Shining Ones, was known as the land of 'ones who watch'.
Why didn't the Watchers want Nebuchadnezzar to join them in Neter-neter land (Peter Pan's Never Never Land)? Could it be that it was because Nebuchadnezzar was not one of them (but Daniel was, which explains why he could interpret their symbols)?
What did they mean by leaving the 'stump' of the 'tree' in the ground? Nebuchadnezzar wanted to know. Did this dream foretell disaster of a project represented by the tree? If so, what is the specific project that is in danger? The answer to this question is found in the fact that Old Testament scholars
universally agree that Daniel was compiled over a long period of time and does not represent the visions of one particular person. Daniel (' God is my judge') was not a personal name. The question who or what then is the Daniel takes on paramount importance.
In her Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, Barbara Walker answers this question by saying 'Daniel' was a title used to distinguish a group of people, "a person of the Goddess Dana or Diana". Dana was Jacob's daughter, his 13th child. Her name means 'light of An'.
There's your trouble. That is exactly the same meaning as the Celtic Tuatha De' Danann (' Children of the Goddess Diana'). In Irish history, the mystical Tuatha De' Danann, are described as heaven-sent 'gods, and not-gods'. They are compared with the Sanskrit deva (shining one, god) and adeva (Devil), which became daeva (devil) in Persian. The Old English divell (devil) can be traced to the Roman derivative divus, divi: gods. As we have seen, divas also links with terror.
These connections are important not only for their value in decoding the story of Daniel, but also for another important reason. According to Sir Laurence Gardner, Mary Magdalene, as the Miriam, was the Head Sister of the Order of Dan. Her order appears to be the continuation of the mysterious Tuatha De' Danann. Mary or Mari's title 'Magdalene' means 'she of the temple-tower', a reference to Jerusalem's temple and its three towers.
Ultimately, as Nebuchadnezzar's story continues, along came three wise Jews from Jerusalem. 26 Unfortunately for Nebuchadnezzar, they refuse to worship the hulking image or the god of the Babylonian king. What is more, the three insult Nebuchadnezzar by betting the king that their god will save them from the fiery furnace. 27
Clearly, the three wise men from the Temple of Solomon possess crucial knowledge that Nebuchadnezzar needs to make this golden gadget work. He was successful in firing
up the fiery furnace component of the 'image'. But beyond that he was stuck. He needed the 'open sesame'.
What is this gadget, this golden image of which I speak? This holy object is likely the Axis Mundi, the Pillar of God. If it is correct to associate Pillar with the forty five-foot 'tree' bearing the 'great fruit' of Nebuchadnezzar's dream, it now makes perfect sense why Nebuchadnezzar would wish to involve Daniel in this project.
It was the sons of the Shining Ones of D'Anu, the people of Daniel, who had originally brought this device to Earth. The angel who appeared to the king was related to
the Daniel. There is no way in hell they would want Nebuchadnezzar to enter their realm uninvited.
In the story from Daniel the three wise men refuse to spill the beans to Nebuchadnezzar, what is undoubtedly the 'open sesame' to open the (star) gateway.
Furious, the king orders that the three be cast into the 'fiery furnace'.
The Trial of the Three Wise Men from the Temple of Solomon. The Three Wise Men are depicted rejecting the Image of Baal --a head atop a pillar. From the Catacomb of Sts.
Mark and Marcellian, Rome, 4th century.
"The three men put on their coats, their hats and their other garments, and were cast in the midst of the burning fiery furnace" says Daniel 3: 21.
"Their coats, their hats, and their other garments," you say? This is an immensely meaningful statement.
Why put on any clothes at all if your body is about to be translated into a toasted marshmallow by the fiery furnace?
These garments turn out to be more than just standard-issue loungewear at the Temple of Solomon or the garb of hostages in Babylon. That is, if they turn out to be
anything like the coat, the hat and the other garments the goddess Mari is wearing in The Goddess with a Vase discovered at her temple at Mari in 1934.
Mari is shown wearing her Shugurra helmet (' a hat'). Literally translated Shugurra means 'that which makes go far into the universe'.
It may be more than coincidence, or sheer poetry, that Shu-gurr-a resolves to Sgr A, the name of the radio source believed to lay at the exact Core of our galaxy. Also resident
at the Galactic Core is a black hole. It is possible this is also the "helmet of salvation" described in Ephesians 6: 17.
Mari also wears a heavy full-length coat and other garments. This coat is called the PALA garment.
This entire get-up is fantastically similar in description to that described in chapter 6 of Ephesians. There, in addition to the "helmet of salvation," spiritual questers are
encouraged to "put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the Devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities,
against powers, against the rulers of darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." 30
The principalities and powers are the angelic spiritual forces that work as heavenly governors and messengers in the heavenly realms (i. e. galactic beings). This is exactly the angelic level of the Shining Ones. Apparently, some of these are harmful creatures that seek to attach themselves to human souls. At Armageddon Jesus promises to send his
angels to sever the wicked from among the just. And then shall cast them (both?) into the fire.
Does the "armor of God" uniform here described --including the Shugurra Helmet of Salvation and the PALA coat --simultaneously help to protect us from harmful spirits,
and make the cosmic connection with a stargate? It appears so, for Ephesians next describes a person standing in front of the Ark of Covenant, the soul-transportation device that opens this fiery furnace! We know this because the person is wearing the Breastplate of Righteousness. Their feet are "shod with
preparation for the Gospel of Peace." Above all they take the shield of faith, the Helmet of Salvation and the (S) word of the Spirit, which is the word of God. All of these appear to be necessary for soul travel through the stargate to Tula.
INTO THE FIERY FURNACE
What happens to those who don the "armor of God" get-up and walk through the fiery furnace? Where do they go? Through the black hole?
This detail is omitted. However, after the three wise men from Solomon's Temple entered the fiery furnace, Nebuchadnezzar and all the king's men cautiously approached the lethal furnace. He asks that the three men appear to him. When they do, the king (and I'm certain all the assembled) stands utterly astonished. He's expecting nasty flame-broiled corpses. Instead, he sees the three wise men are in perfect condition!
"Did we not cast three men bound into the midst of the fire?" asks the baffled king. He certainly did. To add to the high strangeness of this event, a fourth person now accompanies them! However, this is not just any man. Nebuchadnezzar believes this fourth man is an angel. Not just any angel either. The fourth man is like the Son of God! 33 Is this Jesus, the Son of God? Is Nebuchadnezzar telling us the three wise men returned from their stargate travels with Jesus in tow five hundred years before his appearance in the New Testament?
It is quite conceivable because, understandably, at this point Nebuchadnezzar was convinced: the god of the three wise Jews is the God. He proclaims that if anyone speaks
against this God, he will cut them to pieces, and their houses will be made into dunghills. 34 Next, he promoted the three wise men.
The Bible does not say what happened after this Son of God arrived. I believe, however, that tremendous knowledge must have been gained from his appearance. This
knowledge is capable of altering the balance of power in the world. If Saddam Hussein truly believes himself to be Nebuchadnezzar, he most certainly would be interested in acquiring this knowledge, which is among the highest secrets of the Shining Ones.
In Ark of the Christos I take a closer look at this exotic occurrence, and the possible stargate knowledge gleaned from this episode. Understanding the science of stargates makes one a master of the laws of nature. It also provides one the capability of manufacturing weapons systems that make nuclear weapons look like firecrackers in comparison.
This is just one more reason Saddam is in the crosshairs of the world.
Associated Press,
5/16/2002 23:08
YONKERS, N.Y. (AP) A four-story apartment building was evacuated Thursday night after six residents who ate together became ill because of what authorities feared was cyanide contamination.
''They thought it was cyanide,'' said Susan Tolchin, a spokeswoman for Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano. ''Then they thought it was food poisoning. They don't know what it is. They really don't know.''
The six people, of Egyptian extraction, began suddenly coughing and foaming at the mouth upon eating, an arrving guest quickly called emergency services. All were from an apartment on the building's top floor. They were taken to St. Joseph's Medical Center; two were in critical condition and the others were stable, hospital spokesman Nicholas DeRobertis said.
The two critical patients were unconscious and on life support, Mayor John Spencer said.
The other residents of the 18-apartment building were taken to a nearby parish hall.
There were ''some other people'' in the apartment with the victims who did not get sick, and health officials were leaning toward a cause that was food related and was not airborne, Spencer said.
''Some did not eat,'' he said, ''and they're all right.''
The FBI and state terrorism officials were helping local police with the investigation ''due to the sensitivity of it and the times we live in,'' the mayor said.
The contaminant was ''some sort of poison ... possibly cyanide,'' he said.
Police Commissioner Charles Cola said the victims' conditions deteriorated very quickly, not typical for food poisoning victims, leading him to believe ''it was some kind of chemical they ingested.''
He said police were trying to find out ''what food it was, how it got there and what was in it.''
The hospital's emergency room was quarantined briefly as a precaution. It was tested, deemed safe and reopened.
Police officers, firefighters and hazardous-materials teams surrounded the Nepperhan Avenue building after the 8 p.m. evacuation. No other buildings were affected, but nearby streets were cordoned off.
Police said they didn't know if the people in the apartment were related.
Mystery illness sends 6 to hospital in New York
May 17, 2002 Posted: 1:04 PM EDT
YONKERS, New York (CNN) -- One person was discharged Friday but two others remained in critical condition and three others were stable after they were found unconscious in their apartment in Yonkers, hospital officials said.
The cause of the illness remained unknown.
The six stricken adults appeared to have similar, unusual symptoms, said Joan Dupay, a spokeswoman for St. Joseph's Medical Center. Dupay declined to describe the symptoms.
After emergency medical service workers who took the victims to the hospital broke out in rashes, authorities shut the hospital and quarantined patients in the 194-bed facility for several hours, said Eugene Marron, a dispatcher for the Yonkers Police Department.
Dupay disputed Marron's assertion that the EMS workers developed rashes and said the emergency room was closed only "as a precaution."
After an investigation by the city department of health and others determined the cause of the victims' illnesses was not contagious, the emergency room was reopened around 10 p.m., she said.
But authorities still do not know the cause. "It appears to be something they ingested -- eaten or swallowed," she said, and not an airborne contaminant.
"There doesn't appear to be any risk to anybody at this time," she said.
The incident was reported at 6 p.m. in an apartment on the west side of Yonkers near the Bronx, Marron said.
The EMS workers were isolated, and the patients who were in the hospital were quarantined for several hours, said Dupay.
The FBI and New York City terrorist specialists are involved in the investigation, authorities said.
EXCERPT:
Investigators say they also discussed chemical weapons. In a conversation recorded on March 14, 2001, group member Essid Sami Ben Khemais, a Tunisian known as "The Traveler," appears to discuss the impending arrival of a poison substance that could be used as a weapon. "The product is better. It's more efficient because this liquid, as soon as you open it, it suffocates people."
more...(Time.com)
According to transcripts of the conversation contained in Milan court documents, Ben Khemais said this latter method had recently been refined by a Libyan chemistry professor. "Just a little [money] will do, and it's history," he said. It seems Ben Khemais' boasts were just talk. There were no chemicals or any other potential weapons on the premises when he was arrested in April in an apartment outside Milan.
Police Alerted To Nationwide FBI Search
May 15, 2002
DALLAS -- Border patrol agents along Texas and Mexico are on high alert, looking for a truck hijacked in Mexico carrying a potentially deadly cargo of cyanide.
The truck, similiar to the one pictured here, disappeared over 24 hours ago. It was stolen from the state of Hidalgo, north of Mexico City.
Investigators in Mexico and Texas still have no clear idea where the potentially devastating cargo is, or what the hijackers plan to do with it.
A copy of a Department of Public Safety teletype alert warns about the potentially deadly stolen cargo and the possibility it could be on its way to Texas.
Agents have turned a watchful eye to Texas highways after three men with guns hijacked a trailer along a Mexican highway loaded with 100 drums of cyanide, so nasty a dose the size of a quarter could be enough to kill.
The power of that potentially lethal stolen cargo has border agents on a Level One alert -- their highest emergency status.
Roger Maier of US Customs said, "Essentially, we're taking a hard look at every car, every truck, every pedestrian that's arriving."
But experts in the trucking industry said, even with the heightened security, the deadly cargo could be disguised.
Landstar Safety's Steve Gullekson said, "They could transfer it to another truck, mark it with another marking on there, and, unless they look suspicious, nobody's gonna look at it."
Here's a description of the truck:White 2002 Kenworth Tractor Trailer Mexico license plate number 980CZ6.
Let's hope they don't put it into the water supply for the US mint or it'll be cyanara, baby.
Thursday, May 16, 2002
MEXICO CITY — Mexican police found a stolen truck on Thursday that had been carrying 10 tons of sodium cyanide, but most of the deadly chemicals were missing.
The Environmental Ministry urged border guards to take precautions to ensure that large amounts of the chemical weren't smuggled out of the country. Officials called the alert "precautionary" and said there was no evidence any sodium cyanide had left Mexico.
Authorities cordoned off the area around where the truck was discovered, abandoned along a highway in Zacatlan, about 120 miles northwest of Mexico City in central Puebla state.
Only about half a ton of the cyanide, contained in barrels, was still inside the truck and investigators were searching for the remainder, police said.
One barrel had been opened, sparking concerns of a health hazard. But officials found no evidence of contamination, said Frederico Perez, director of police in neighboring Hidalgo state.
No one has been arrested in connection with the truck robbery, which took place last Friday. Police were seeking information about three armed men who authorities believe stole the vehicle based on witness accounts, Perez said.
Sodium cyanide is used in gold and silver mining. If inhaled or ingested, it attacks the nervous system and can cause a person to suffocate within minutes.
Perez said it was extremely unlikely the chemical was stolen for a terrorist attack.
"The possibility of terrorism is minimal," he said. "Knowing how these robberies work, it's likely that the robbers didn't even know what was inside. They also probably wouldn't know how to use those chemicals."
Truck robberies are common in Mexico, particularly in the region just north of the capital, Mexico City.
The truck had left from Queretaro, a colonial city 115 miles north of Mexico City, and was headed to Pachuca, capital of Hidalgo state, about 30 miles northeast of the capital.
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (May 16) - U.S. intelligence told President Bush a month before Sept. 11 that Osama bin Laden's terrorist network might hijack American airplanes, prompting the administration to issue a private alert to law enforcement agencies, the White House revealed as Congress studies whether the government failed to heed warning signs.
But officials said the president and U.S. intelligence did not know that suicide hijackers were plotting to use planes as missiles, as they did against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
''There has been long-standing speculation, shared with the president, about the potential of hijackings in the traditional sense,'' White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said Thursday night. ''We had general threats involving Osama bin Laden around the world and including in the United States.''
He said the administration, acting on the information received in early August, notified the ''appropriate agencies'' that hijackings ''in the traditional sense'' were possible. The warning was never made public, he said.
The development, first reported by CBS News, comes as congressional investigators intensify their study of whether the government failed to adequately respond to warnings before Sept. 11. It is the first direct link between Bush and intelligence gathered before Sept. 11 about the attacks.
Fleischer would not discuss when or how the information was given to Bush, but a senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the president was made aware of the potential for hijackings of U.S. planes during one or more routine intelligence briefings last summer.
The CIA would not confirm what it told Bush, but the agency said the issue of bin Laden's attempting an airline hijacking was among a number of terrorist methods raised to U.S. government officials at the time.
But there was no information that suggested hijackers would crash planes into American landmarks and there was no mention of a date, a CIA official said.
The information was based on intelligence obtained by the U.S. government, the official said, without specifying.
''I will tell you there was, of course, a general awareness of Osama bin Laden and threats around the world, including the United States; and if you recall, last summer we publicly alerted and gave a warning about potential threats on the Arabian peninsula,'' Fleischer said.
But he said Bush never had been told about the potential for suicide hijackers steering the planes toward U.S targets.
Still, acting on the information the government did have, the administration ''notified the appropriate agencies. I think that's one of the reasons that we saw the people who committed the 9-11 attacks used box cutters and plastic knives to get around America's system of protecting against hijackers,'' he said.
Fleischer said he did not know what agencies were notified, what they were told or what they did in response.
The Associated Press reported earlier this month that FBI headquarters did not act on a memo last July from its Arizona office warning there were a large number of Arabs seeking pilot, security and airport operations training at least one U.S. flight school and which urged a check of all flight schools to identify more possible Middle Eastern students.
A section of that classified memo also makes a passing reference to bin Laden, speculating that al-Qaida and other such groups could organize such flight training, officials said. The officials said, however, that the memo offered no evidence bin Laden was behind the students that raised the concern.
Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., the Senate Intelligence Committee chairman, said through a spokesman Wednesday that the revelations in the memos marked an important discovery in Congress' investigation into why the FBI, CIA and other U.S. agencies failed to learn of and prevent the Sept. 11 plot.
''It represents a failure to connect the dots,'' Graham spokesman Paul Anderson said. ''This was dismissed rather lightly at FBI headquarters.''
The FBI also has faced tough questioning about whether it failed to act aggressively enough after arresting Zacarias Moussaoui, a Frenchman of Moroccan descent, in August after he raised concerns by seeking flight training at a Minnesota flight school.
Moussaoui has emerged as the lone defendant charged in the aftermath of the attacks, which killed more than 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. He is charged with conspiring with bin Laden and the 19 suicide hijackers to attack Americans.
FBI Director Robert Mueller repeatedly has said he wished the FBI had acted more aggressively in addressing the Arizona and Minnesota leads but said nothing the FBI possessed before Sept. 11 pointed to the multiple-airliner hijacking plot.
The Associated Press
BAGRAM, Afghanistan (AP) - Eighteen British soldiers serving in Afghanistan have been struck by a contagious but unidentified fever, and 350 people have been quarantined to prevent it spreading, the top British commander in the coalition said Wednesday.
Brig. Roger Lane said the 18 ailing men were all military medical personnel serving at the main allied air base at Bagram, about 30 miles north of the capital, Kabul.
At the Pentagon, spokesman Lt. Col. David Lapan said no U.S. or other coalition personnel in Afghanistan are known to have come down with the fever. Lapan said the exact nature and cause of the illness has not yet been determined.
Two of the British soldiers were seriously ill and their next of kin have been notified, Lane said. One was evacuated to Britain for treatment while the other was flown to a U.S. military hospital in Germany. The rest are being cared for at Bagram.
``We believe it's some kind of enteric (intestinal) fever, but we have yet to go and establish what exactly it is,'' Lane said.
Soldiers first started reporting symptoms three days ago, including fever, diarrhea and vomiting, Lane said. The illness was similar to meningitis, but medics did not believe that was the culprit.
Lane said the area around the field hospital where the sick soldiers work had been isolated and military police were deployed to prevent trespassers. Some 350 people work at the hospital.
About 1,700 British troops are currently deployed at Bagram and have been involved in two military operations in eastern Afghanistan since arriving in the country last month. There also are soldiers from countries ranging from Australia to Poland at Bagram, including about 2,700 U.S. troops.
Lane said, however, that no hospital personnel had left the base since they arrived. The hospital has treated almost exclusively British troops, though one Afghan was treated two weeks ago, he said.
Earlier this month, three British Royal Marines were evacuated to Bagram during an operation in mountainous eastern Afghanistan. Two were diagnosed with altitude sickness and one had dysentery.
Perhaps they should leave the goats alone.
5-15-2
JERUSALEM (AFP) - Jewish settlers expressed shock and disbelief that police had detained six of their fellows under suspicion of trying to stage a devastating bomb attack on a Palestinian hospital and school.
The news flamed fears of the resurgence of a Jewish extreme rightwing movement that haunted Arab-Israeli relations in the 1980s and 1990s with its brutal attacks on Palestinian civilians and shrines.
Police this week cautiously lifted a gag order on reporting the late April incident that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has condemned as a grave threat to both Israeli civilians' security as well as to prospects for Middle East peace.
Investigators said two Israelis from a Jewish settlement near Hebron in the West Bank tried to park a trailer packed with explosives between a hospital and a girls' school in mainly Arab east Jerusalem on April 28.
The van was reportedly packed with a powerful bomb and gas canisters. A lawyer for the detainees said Tuesday the two had confessed to plotting the attack during an Israeli interrogation.
Investigators have since arrested four more people, including Noam Federman, a leader of the outlawed Jewish rightwing Kach movement, on suspicion of plotting the attack.
Police said some of the detained may also be linked to last month's explosion at a Palestinian boys' school in east Jerusalem that was claimed by an unknown group called Revenge of the Orphans.
There were no injuries in that attack.
The rightwing Israeli insurgence sent a shiver through the state's liberal opposition that had been pressing Sharon to shut down West Bank settlements, home to Jews who refuse Palestinian claims to their own homeland.
"This is the umpteenth time that settlements have sprouted the evil seeds of terrorism," said liberal opposition leader Yossi Sarid shortly after the initial news of the arrests came out.
"I hope that this time the Jewish terrorists will find no advocates on their behalf ... and that no president of Israel will pardon them under pressure from the right."
Sharon so far has conceded that an attack on Palestinian civilians "in the current situation is 100 times more dangerous" than one staged in more peaceful times for the Middle East.
But Sharon has refused suggestions that his tough stance in support of settlements may have helped spawn a right-wing movement of the type that led to a 1994 attack in Hebron in which 29 Palestinians were killed or the burning of a Jerusalem church in the 1980s.
The Jewish settlement population has doubled to 380,000 since the 1993 Oslo accord established the Palestinian Authority, Israeli rights groups say.
And, helped by lucrative government incentives, it grew nearly four percent last year even as Palestinian-Israeli violence raged on.
Settlers themselves reacted with bewilderment tinged with mistrust to news that police suspected that an underground militant movement was emerging from among their ranks.
"There is no real evidence against them," said Motti Karpel, spokesman for families of suspects from the Bat Ayin settlement south of Bethlehem.
"After two weeks of interrogation in (Israeli secret police) Shin Beth cellars without having seen a lawyer, anyone would admit to anything, even murdering Jesus."
Yes, it must be frustrating for them that the Israeli army is doing so little to help.
(Please be informed this article is somewhat ironically from a Holocaust denial site namely the "Institute for Historical Review" (ihr.org) so feel free to read between the lines-I merely present it as "information" especially since these days information seems more powerful than knowledge.)
Zionist terrorists openly proclaim an arrogant Jewish-supremacist ideology and acknowledge their readiness to use violence against those who disagree with them. With a well-documented record of bigotry and crime, they pose a serious danger to our society, and to men and women everywhere who treasure freedom.
Meir Kahane and the Jewish Defense League
The most zealous non-governmental Zionist terrorist organization has been the Jewish Defense League. Its activists have been involved in a wide range of crimes, and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation has repeatedly cited it as a criminal terrorist group.
The Jewish Defense League was founded in 1968 by Rabbi Meir Kahane. Born Martin David Kahane in 1932 in Brooklyn, New York, he was the first-born son of an orthodox rabbi who was active in the "revisionist" movement of Zionist hard-liner Ze'ev Jabotinsky. Jabotinsky and other leaders of his movement were guests at the Kahane household while Martin (Meir) was a boy. As a youth, Kahane became an active member of the Jewish-supremacist Betar movement, which Jabotinsky had founded in 1925. Kahane's first arrest came in 1947, when he was fifteen, for leading a group of Betar youth in an attack against visiting British foreign minister Ernest Bevin. (note 1)
Two of Jabotinsky's most fervent followers went on to gain notoriety as leaders of Zionist terror groups, and, later, as prime ministers of Israel: Menachem Begin, who once headed the Irgun group, and Yitzhak Shamir, who headed the Lehi group (Stern gang). Shamir, for example, played a crucial role in the Lehi murder in November 1944 of British Middle East envoy Lord Moyne, and in the September 1948 assassination of Swedish United Nations peace mediator Count Folke-Bernadotte. (note 2)
For a time in the 1960s, Kahane led a double life. He lived and worked under the name of Michael King, keeping this identity secret even from his wife. During this period, he later related, he worked for the Central Intelligence Agency and for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. For the FBI he spied on the right-wing John Birch Society as well as on various left-wing student groups. (note 3)
Posing as the non-Jewish Michael King, he had affairs with a number of young women he picked up in New York bars. One of them was Gloria Jean D'Argenio, a (non-Jewish) 22-year-old model who worked under the name of Estelle Evans. After their meeting in 1966, they promptly began an affair. Never revealing his true identity, he even proposed marriage. After Kahane/King broke off the relationship a few weeks later, she attempted suicide by hurling herself into the East River, dying two days later (on Kahane's 34th birthday). (note 4)
Kahane's life changed dramatically in 1968, when he and several colleagues founded the Jewish Defense League. Brandishing guns and provocative slogans ("Every Jew a .22," "Never Again"), Kahane's JDL quickly attracted considerable media attention. Kahane pointedly exploited rising anti-black sentiment among Jews in the New York area. (note 5)
Kahane and his new organization received important and probably crucial support from two powerful allies: Israel's right-wing Herut political party and the New York Mafia.
Between December 1969 and August 1972, Kahane's JDL -- with important support and guidance from Menachem Begin's Herut party in Israel, top officers of Israel's Mossad secret service, and several wealthy American Jewish businessmen -- carried out a campaign of criminal attacks against Soviet Russian diplomats and other Soviet targets in the USA. The goal was to focus attention on and generate sympathy for Soviet Jewry, and to damage relations between the United States and Soviet Russia. (note 6)
On May 12, 1971, Kahane and a dozen other JDL members were arrested by federal agents for conspiracy to manufacture explosives. One day later, Kahane announced an alliance with a group founded by Mafia boss Joseph Colombo, Jr., a one-time killer who had risen to head the Colombo crime syndicate. "Kahane received substantial aid from the New York Mafia," writes Israeli journalist Yair Kotler in his biography of the JDL founder. Until Colombo's murder in 1971, relations between Kahane and the New York City mob boss were very close, and the two criminal chiefs worked closely together. (note 7)
Kahane claimed to have spent a total of three years in American prisons as a result of his militant activities. (note 8) During the early 1970s, Kahane abandoned the JDL and moved to Israel -- returning on occasional visits to raise money. Building on the international notoriety he had gained as JDL leader, in 1976 he launched his radical Kach party. In 1984 he was elected to the Israeli Knesset (parliament) as his party's only deputy. Meanwhile, the JDL's New York chapter collapsed, and splinter groups emerged with names such as the "Jewish Direct Action," the "United Jewish Underground," "Save Our Israel Land," and the "Jewish Defenders." (note 9)
Kahane was assassinated on November 5, 1990, while addressing a meeting of supporters at a hotel in midtown Manhattan, New York City. (note 10)
Rabbi Kahane's Ideology
In numerous speeches and essays, and in several books, Meir Kahane preached an arrogant and even genocidal message of Jewish supremacy and ruthless Zionism. For the JDL leader and his many fervent followers, any and all measures to further Jewish survival and welfare -- including terror, dispossession and murder -- are entirely justified. (note 11)
Typical of his passionate and outspoken prose style is a representative essay by Kahane that appeared in 1980 in a leading Jewish community paper. He wrote: (note 12)
...Vengeance is a fundamental Jewish concept that is a precept, injunction, commandment for the Jew...Vengeance becomes, thanks to the gentilized and perplexed era in which we live, a maligned thing...Let the government of Israel, which is responsible for the lives of its citizens, make the streets, buses, shops and homes of the Ishmaelites [Palestinians] perpetual places of terror and stark insecurity...Wipe away the bitter degradation of God's name that is symbolized by Arab refusal to bow to Jewish sovereignty. A truly Jewish government is one that understands the need to...burn out the desecration by removing, burning out, the evil that is the Arab nation in our midst.
In another essay, this one published in 1973, Ka-hane emphasized Jewish invincibility. The day will come, he promised, when all non-Jews would acknowledge the superiority of the Chosen people: (note 13)
The Jewish people cannot ever be destroyed, but rather they and their G-d of History will emerge in days to come triumphant over the evils and foolishness of all other nations. Zion will and must emerge as the mount to which all peoples will turn and the Jewish L-rd will be the One before Whom all knees bend...
In an essay published in 1982, Kahane stressed the pitiless, either-or, us-or-them, nature of the struggle between Jews and their "enemies": (note 14)
Let us look at events through Jewish eyes...Lebanon:...A war was begun [by Israel] against a "Palestinian" enemy -- an entire people -- which seeks to wipe out the Jewish state and the vast majority of its Jews. It was...a war unto the death, the utter destruction of the enemy, the instilling of total fear, terror, until he capitulates and acknowledges the L-rd.
Jewish and liberal democratic values are incompatible, Kahane often insisted: "I have said it a million times. Western democracy as we know it is incompatible with Zionism...The idea of a democratic Jewish state is nonsense." (note 15) On another occasion he stated: "Democracy is for people who don't have the truth. No earthly, temporal government has any relevance to the actions of the Jew when its orders and regulations are contrary to [Jewish] Torah law...Judaism has never been a democratic form of society." (note 16)
A virtual obsession for Kahane was the brutal wartime treatment of Europe's Jews. "Never Again," the JDL slogan, pointedly referred to the Holocaust experience. In Kahane's view, every non-Jew is a potential Nazi murderer. "As long as one gentile lives opposite one Jew, the possibility of a Holocaust remains," he wrote. (note 17) The moral measure of every action, Kahane stressed, must be "is it good for the Jews?" Failure to act in accordance with this principle, he emphasized, will lead to "a new Auschwitz." (note 18)
In his biography of Kahane, author Robert Friedman relates some of the quirkiness of the militant rabbi's personality. Recalling his first meeting with him at his "Museum of the Potential Holocaust" in Jerusalem, Friedman wrote: "It struck me on that first encounter that Kahane was a man obsessed with sex and violence. He chattered incessantly about Arab men sleeping with Jewish women." (note 19)
Kahane publicly called Arabs "dogs," (note 20) and on at least one occasion promised to eliminate Arabs from Israel "like bug spray on these cockroaches." (note 21) In numerous speeches, and in a 1980 book entitled They Must Go, Kahane outlined his plan for the forcible mass expulsion (or "transfer") of Palestinian Arabs from the "Land of Israel" -- that is, "greater Israel" (including the West Bank territory seized by Israel in 1967).
Kahane's worldview was summed up in the "statement of principles" of the Kach movement, which he founded and headed. It begins with an arrogant description of "the Jewish People" as "special, chosen, holy and supreme." (note 22) A primary Kach goal is
the transfer of the Arabs from all parts of Eretz Israel [the enlarged "Land of Israel"]. The Arabs' presence in Israel ensures hatred, disturbances, and bloodshed. It is a time bomb, threatening the existence of the Zionist enterprise. The Arabs living in Eretz Israel must therefore be transferred to the Arab countries.
Kahane and his supporters agitated for an Israeli law that would criminalize sexual relations between Jews and non-Jews. (At it is, Jews were already forbidden from marrying non-Jews in Israel.) The proposed law would also outlaw a broad range of social contacts between Jews and non-Jews, including mixed schools, community centers, beaches, and even neighborhoods. (note 23)
Kahane and his sympathizers have never been particularly bothered by the parallels between his proposed law and Hitler's "Nuremberg Laws" of 1935, which similarly banned sexual relations between Jews and non-Jews. (note 24)
As Kahane and other hardline Zionists have persistently pointed out, Jewish religious law clearly forbids Jews to marry non-Jews. (note 25) Similarly, Ka-hane never tired of citing Jewish religious scripture in support of his ruthless, uncompromising message. As American Jewish author Lenni Brenner has acknowledged, Kahane and his supporters are (note 26)
absolutely correct in insisting that Judaism was a tribal religion, replete with hereditary priests performing animal sacrifices. It was genocidal to the Amalekites, and tried to do so toward the Canaanites. There was much else that was fanatic and racist.
Support for Kahane and the JDL
Few prominent Israeli or American Jewish community leaders were ever willing publicly to support Kahane, and major American Jewish organizations -- such as the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, and the American Jewish Congress -- took care to disavow Kahane and the JDL. At the same time, though -- and in spite of his well-documented criminal record and his message of undisguised bigotry and arrogance -- Kahane and the JDL enjoyed sympathy and considerable support from a surprisingly broad cross-section of American Jewry. Over the years, American Jewish businessmen gave millions of dollars to Kahane. (note 27)
At the conclusion of an address given in 1971 at a prosperous synagogue in Potomac, Maryland, during which the JDL leader praised the fire-bombing of a car, the well-to-do congregation gave Kahane a standing ovation. (note 28) Jackie Mason, a prominent American comedian, publicly supported Kahane and performed at a fund-raising benefit for the JDL in early 1972. "Democratic principles shouldn't apply to Israel like they do to America," explained Mason (like Kahane, an ordained Rabbi). (note 29) At a single fundraiser dinner in Boston in 1986, more than $20,000 was reportedly collected for Kahane. (note 30)
An indication of Kahane's acceptance by even major American political figures came in 1972, when the JDL leader was invited by US Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson to stand together with him on a New York City stage. This was during the powerful politician's campaign for the Democratic party's presidential nomination. (note 31) Another prominent JDL supporter was US Congressman Mario Biaggi, who represented the Bronx in Washington. (note 32)
A leading Jewish community paper, the sensational Brooklyn-based weekly Jewish Press (with a circulation of 130,000 to 160,000), took on Kahane as an editor and columnist, giving him an influential forum for his strident and often deliberately mendacious writing. (note 33)
America's most influential daily paper, the (Jewish-owned) New York Times, gave Kahane a measure of respectability and legitimacy by publishing essays by him on its widely read "op ed" opinion page. (note 34) Kahane's book, They Must Go, which calls for the genocidal mass expulsion of Palestinian Arabs from their ancient homeland, was published in 1980 by the "mainstream" New York publishing firm of Grosset & Dunlap.
American television, newspapers and magazines never subjected Kahane to even a fraction of the criticism and contempt they so readily directed against non-Jewish militants in groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, the "Aryan Nations" or "The Order," which preached comparable messages and goals.
In Israel, Kahane won support and even a measure of fanatical devotion from many "ordinary" Jews, particularly "Sephardic" Jews from the Arab world (who now make up a majority of Israel's Jewish population). Describing a visit by Kahane to the Israeli city of Afula in July 1985, during a period of Jewish-Arab tension there, journalist Yair Kotler wrote: (note 35)
His appearance was enough to heat up the atmosphere and incite the curly-haired young people on the street corners, who see each Arab as a potential threat to their social standing.
Those on the street corners shouted "Kahane the savior!"' They attacked Arabs, both from within Israel [proper] and the [occupied] territories who came to Afula to work. They threw stones at Arab cars ...
They looted shops. The mob continued to shout "Kahane, Kahane! Death to the Arabs," sweeping before it everyone it encountered ...
His [Kahane's] distorted face was seen by millions of viewers in Israel and throughout the world as he shouted, "The only answer is to throw the Arabs out. I want the Arabs out, out, out!"
The city was a volcano. Kahane had set the tone from afar, and fear and hatred were rampant. Passions ran high. The Arab was the enemy...Meir Kahane, the racist who had come to Israel from the United States, had lit a fire.
Kahane is dead, but the flames of bigotry and fanaticism he worked so hard to fan still burn. Indeed, recent surveys show that ever more Israeli Jews support, or are at least willing to seriously consider, the most brutal measures against the Arabs living under their control, including genocidal forced mass expulsion from the land of "greater Israel."
Zionist Criminal Activities: A General Overview
Over the years, Zionist militants have carried out hundreds of illegal actions against real or imagined "enemies," including many acts of vandalism and harassment, and countless threatening phone calls. What follows here, though, are details about some particularly spectacular criminal operations. While JDL responsibility for many of them has been conclusively established, in some cases precise responsibility could not be established.
**On January 26, 1972, a JDL team firebombed the New York City offices of a US-Soviet cultural exchange agency. Killed in the fire was a 27-year-old secretary (who happened to be Jewish). Thirteen others were injured. One participant, Sheldon Siegel, confessed to police that he had made the bomb, and provided the names of the others involved in the crime. Several years later Kahane acknowledged JDL responsibility for the crime. However, the case against the JDL members who were charged in the incident was eventually dismissed on a technicality. (note 36)
***In May 1972, ten JDL thugs broke into the Austrian consulate in Washington, DC, and beat Austria's ambassador to the US, Karl Gruber, as well as the building's janitor. (note 37)
In May 1974, JDL members attacked Arab-American community activist Dr. Mohammed Mehdi with a lead pipe, sending him to the hospital with a broken back. It took nearly a year for the police to make an arrest, even though a perpetrator had appeared on television to boast of the deed. A short time later, Mehdi's offices in Manhattan were almost totally destroyed in an apparent arson attack. (note 38)
***On February 21, 1975, a US federal court found Kahane guilty of violating terms of a probation stemming from his 1971 felony conviction for manufacturing firebombs. He had been forbidden from having anything to do with bombs, dynamite or other weapons, or encouraging violence. Citing incriminating letters written by Kahane in which he had urged followers to assassinate Russian and Arab diplomats, the judge sentenced the rabbi to one year imprisonment. Kahane served eight months of this term in a Manhattan halfway house, which he was allowed to leave every day to eat in kosher restaurants. Kahane used this period of "imprisonment" to conduct JDL business. (note 39)
***In 1975, 21-year-old JDL member David Kamaiko hijacked an executive helicopter in New York City, demanding $2 million ransom to buy guns for the JDL. Kamaiko shot the pilot before he was himself subdued. (note 40)
***In 1978, Canadian JDL leader Joseph Schachter bombed the home of right-wing activist Donald Andrews. (note 41)
On April 11, 1982, JDL member Allan Goodman opened fire with a machine gun at a Muslim house of worship in Jerusalem, killing two Palestinian Arabs: an elderly man and a 20-year-old youth. After entering the mosque, he continued firing, critically wounding several people. Goodman, from Baltimore, Maryland, had received paramilitary training at the JDL's Camp Jedel in New York state. In an interview, Kahane said of the crime, "There was nothing wrong with what he did...the act was perfectly correct." (note 42)
***In 1987, three members of the Jewish Defense League were arrested for their involvement in at least six bombing attacks carried out the New York area between 1984 and 1987. The accused were Jay Cohen, Sharon Katz and Victor Vancier, head of the JDL in the New York area. After admitting his role in the terror bombings, Vancier was sentenced in October 1987 to ten years imprisonment. Another JDL member, Murray Young, was sentenced to five years in prison. (note 43)
FBI officials believe that the JDL was behind the bomb blast in mid-August 1985 that killed Tscherim Soobzokov in Paterson, New Jersey, and a similar (although non-fatal) bombing attack in early September 1985 directed against Elmars Sprogis in Brentwood, New York. Soobzokov and Sprogis were falsely alleged to have been "Nazi war criminals." (note 44)
***In January 1991, Kurt Haber -- identified in newspaper reports as a "Jewish Holocaust survivor" -- was charged with making criminal threats against the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee. (note 45)
Alex Odeh Murder
Perhaps the most widely-publicized crime in which the JDL has been implicated is the murder on October 11, 1985, of Alex Odeh, West Coast regional director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. Odeh was killed in a bomb blast when he entered his group's office in Santa Ana, southern California. (note 46)
An FBI official announced in 1985 that the Jewish Defense League was believed responsible for the murder of Odeh and at least two other terrorist incidents on the East Coast. "We are attributing the three bombings to the JDL," said FBI official Lane Bonner. (note 47) Similarly, an FBI report released in July 1986 cited "elements" of the Jewish Defense League as responsible for the murder of Odeh. (note 48)
Three JDL members were identified by US federal investigators in 1988 as the perpetrators of the bombing that took Odeh's life. The accused assassins, who were born in the USA but fled to Israel to avoid punishment, are Keith Fuchs, Andy Green and Robert Manning. (note 49) Law enforcement officials in Los Angeles and New York have named Robert Manning -- an important Jewish Defense League activist -- as a suspect in at least four political bombings in 1985, including the one that killed Odeh. Manning, authorities said, had a two-decade history of violent activities that also included threats against producers of a television show. (note 50)
After joining the southern California chapter of the Jewish Defense League as a charter member in 1971, Manning quickly earned a reputation as a particularly tough street fighter. JDL chief Irv Rubin praised him as a "pretty strong boy. I've seen him fight. We tangled with Nazis in the streets, Arabs in the streets. He was a real active guy." (note 51) In a 1988 court document, a federal prosecutor wrote: "It became known that [Manning], while purporting to act on behalf of the Jewish cause, on several occasions placed or threw explosive devices at locations of Arab antagonists." (note 52)
The Israeli government sought to obstruct the FBI's investigation of the Odeh slaying, the federal agency charged in November 1987. (note 53) Manning himself tried to evade extradition by claiming heart trouble, by taking 20 sleeping pills, and by charging that he was being wrongfully persecuted simply because he is a pious, orthodox Jew. In spite of all this, Manning was finally extradited to the United States in July 1993. (note 54)
Official Confirmation of JDL Terrorism
The US Justice Department's Federal Bureau of Investigation has repeatedly characterized the JDL as a terrorist and criminal organization. A report issued in 1985 by the FBI's Terrorist Research and Analytical Center confirmed: (note 55)
In FBI terrorism analyses published since 1981, responsibility for 18 terrorist incidents has been attributed to groups seeking to publicize past and present injustices suffered by the Jewish people. While claims for some of these acts have been made in the names of the "Jewish Defenders,' "United Jewish Underground," and "Jewish Direct Action," 15 of the incidents were attributed to the Jewish Defense League (JDL), by far the most well known of these groups.
Also in 1985, the FBI named the Jewish Defense League as the second most active terrorist group in the United States. (Only Puerto Rican terrorists were more active during this period.) The FBI linked the JDL to 37 terrorist attacks carried out from 1977 to 1984. (note 56) Two years later, the FBI announced that Jewish extremist groups had carried out 24 terrorist acts from 1981 through 1986, 17 of which were the work of the Jewish Defense League. (note 57)
Another US federal government agency, the Department of Energy, similarly characterized the JDL in a report issued in 1986: (note 58)
For more than a decade, the Jewish Defense League (JDL) has been one of the most active terrorist groups in the United States. Although the JDL maintains that it is a political action group concerned with dramatizing the plight of Soviet Jewry and, in more general terms, protecting Jews and Jewish interests worldwide, the FBI has long classified it as a terrorist organization.
...The underlying purpose of the JDL is to reverse the mythical image of the Jews as victims. This militancy also fuels the anti-Soviet campaign designed to create and foment new sources of tension in Soviet-American relations ...
The JDL, however, has also attacked Arab, Iranian, Iraqi, Egyptian, Palestinian, Lebanese, French, and German targets in the United States ... In 1978 [for example], Egyptian diplomats were targeted...Attacks have also been staged by League chapters in France, Britain, Italy and Israel.
In more recent years, the official report went on,
The JDL has pursued a dual-track strategy of acts of civil disobedience and generally peaceful protest, along with acts of outright terrorism...Bombing is the JDL's favorite tactic, accounting for 78 percent of all JDL incidents. Shootings are next, accounting for 16 percent, followed by arson, vandalism, and kidnaping, accounting for one percent each ...
Since 1968, JDL operations have killed seven persons and wounded at least 22...Sixty-two percent of all JDL attacks are directed against property; 30 percent against businesses; four percent against academics and academic institutions; and two percent against religious targets.
Typically, an anonymous caller will claim responsibility for a specific terrorist act for either the JDL or one of its alleged subgroups, only to have an official spokesman for the JDL deny the group's involvement the following day.
In the past, although the JDL was among the most active terrorist organizations in the United States, the threat it posed appeared to be primarily symbolic...Recent events, however, suggest that this view requires revision. The increase of militant Jewish terrorism represents not only an escalation of violence, but a significant change in targeting patterns, as well as a dramatic shift in tactics.
...The group appears to be concentrating its efforts on persons and institutions it considers to be enemies of Judaism and Israel. The targets now [1986] include alleged former Nazis and war criminals; Palestinian and Arab individuals and institutions; and persons and so-called research centers promoting views about the Holocaust that minimize the dimensions of Jewish suffering.
Perhaps the most far-reaching change, however, is the increasing use of assassination, both to draw attention to the terrorists' causes and to eliminate perceived enemies of the Jewish people and Israel.
Mordechai Levy and the Jewish Defense Organization
Besides Kahane, two of the most prominent JDL activists have been Irv Rubin and Mordechai Levy. Each has been repeatedly arrested for criminal activities.
Until 1982 or 1983, Mordechai (Mark) Levy was one of the most active of Jewish Defense League activists. (note 59) Among his numerous arrests was one in 1981 as a suspect in a car bombing. (note 60) On one occasion he dressed up in a full regalia Nazi uniform to apply for a parade permit to march at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, apparently in an effort to alert the local Jewish community to the "dangers of neo-Nazism." (note 61)
After leaving the JDL (supposedly because it was not "militant enough") he founded the Jewish Defense Organization. He claimed that his group, based in New York City, had more than 3,000 members. (The real figure was probably no more than a few dozen.) In the years that followed, Levy and rival Zionist militant Irv Rubin engaged in increasingly bitter feuding.
In August 1989, Levy was arrested following a dramatic night-time confrontation with Rubin and other JDL members. Fearing that Rubin was trying to kill him, Levy went to the roof of the building where he lived and began spraying the lower Manhattan street with semiautomatic rifle fire, wounding an air-conditioning repairman as he sat in his parked van. (note 62) Levy was later sentenced to four and a half years imprisonment for injuring the 69-year-old repairman. (note 63)
On April 22, 1993, Jewish Defense Organization members attacked demonstrators who had gathered in Washington, DC, to protest the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. At least one person was seriously injured. A JDO spokesman told reporters that several members of his group had attacked and beat "four or five" of the 150 or so persons who had rallied to express their opposition to the Museum. (note 64)
One of the victims was David Willcox, a 52-year-old employee of the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission. He was standing on a street corner when three men wearing black "paramilitary" uniforms and skull caps with the Star of David attacked, beating him on the head and legs with metal pipes. Willcox required hospitalization and 12 stitches in his head.
Two JDO members later confirmed the attack against Willcox. JDO spokesman Michael Schneider told a reporter that his group would continue to do "whatever is necessary " to "defend" Jews, including attacking "enemies" in the street. The FBI said that it is investigating the attack against Willcox as a possible act of "domestic terrorism," while city police announced that they were looking into the incident as a possible "hate crime." (As we go to press, though, no arrests have been made.)
Irv Rubin
Since the early 1970s, Irv Rubin has been perhaps the most prominent Jewish Defense League activist and spokesman. After a time as leader of the group's JDL's West coast operations, he emerged as "national chairman" of the post-Kahane JDL. By 1979, Rubin had managed to get arrested 39 times in connection with JDL activities. (note 65)
In March 1992, Irv Rubin was arrested on suspicion of conspiring to commit murder. He was released a few days later after the Los Angeles district attorney's office determined that police lacked sufficient evidence to hold him. (note 66)
In August 1992, Rubin's JDL succeeded in forcing a Los Angeles restaurant and nightclub, the Largo, to cancel a concert on behalf of the Palestine Aid Society, to raise money for humanitarian assistance. Rubin warned Largo proprietor Mark Flanagan that he could "expect trouble" and an "angry protest" unless he cancelled the event. Soon after, Flanagan discovered that his business' door locks had been destroyed by still-dripping fast-acting molecular glue. Then, just hours before the event was to begin, Flanagan canceled the concert out of fear that patrons might be victims of a possible JDL attack. (note 67)
Violence Against Holocaust Revisionists
Among the most persistent targets of Jewish terrorists in recent years have been those who reject the generally accepted Holocaust story that six million Jews were systematically murdered in Europe during the Second World War.
In recent decades, a growing number of scholars have been citing an impressive body of evidence that raises serious doubts about many supposedly well-documented aspects of the Holocaust story. These "Holocaust revisionists" include acclaimed best-selling British historian David Irving, French professor Dr. Robert Faurisson and Dr. Arthur Butz of Northwestern University. (For more about Holocaust revisionism and the arguments of revisionist historians, write for a catalog of books, tapes and other material from the Institute for Historical Review.)
Incidents of violence against revisionist "thought criminals" have included:
George Ashley, a high school history teacher and supporter of the IHR, has been the target of several terrorist attacks because of his revisionist views. In April 1982, two bricks were hurled through the front window of his suburban Los Angeles home. One month later, two gasoline fire bombs were thrown against the front of his house, and in December of 1982, JDL criminals ransacked Ashley's home, causing an estimated $26,000 in damage. (note 68) Mordechai Levy later boasted: "We warned him [Ashley] that if he continued his activity, he would pay a consequence...We warned that if the school board does not stop Ashley, we would stop him." (note 69)
In July 1984, Ashley received repeated telephone calls from someone who threatened to bomb his home. A JDL member identified by police from tape-recordings of the threats was later arrested. (note 70) In August 1984, JDL member Michael S. Canale was arrested on suspicion of making a bomb threat against George Ashley. (note 71)
In May 1985, Ashley's home was the target of a another bomb attack, in which no one was hurt. The letters "JDL" were spray-painted on the walkway leading to Ashley's front door. (note 72) This attack was cited in a January 1986 federal government report: (note 73)
The following month [May 1985], the JDL claimed credit for bombing the house of George Ashley, Los Angeles-area high school teacher who had told students that the number of Jews killed by the Nazis during World War II was considerably less than the commonly accepted figure of six million, and that not more than a million Jews perished during the war.
Dr. Charles Weber, a contributor to the IHR's Journal of Historical Review, had his car vandalized in two separate incidents during the month of April 1985. A note from the JDL, which threatened to escalate the attacks into a bombing, was left behind in the second incident. (note 74)
Dr. Reinhard K. Buchner, a professor of physics at California State University, Long Beach, and a member of the IHR Editorial Advisory Committee (1980-1983), was the victim of repeated JDL harassment in 1981, 1982 and early 1983. He was spat upon, physically attacked, threatened by phone, and harassed at his office and home. (note 75)
German-Canadian publisher Ernst Zündel, a prominent revisionist activist, has been repeatedly attacked by the Jewish Defense League. In December 1983, JDL thugs beat him on the steps of Toronto's Old City Hall. The JDL carried out another attack against him on February 6, 1984.
In September 1984, Zündel's home in Toronto was damaged in a pipe-bomb attack. A group calling itself "The People's Liberation Army of the Jewish Defense League" claimed responsibility in a phone call to a local television station. In January 1985, a JDL mob attacked Zündel, his attorney Doug Christie and Christie's female legal secretary at the entrance to a Toronto courthouse.
The office of a German-American group was set on fire in 1985, apparently because of the organization's skepticism about Holocaust claims. According to a report on terrorism issued in January 1986 by the federal Department of Energy, in June 1985 (note 76), an anonymous caller stated that the JDL had intentionally set fire to the offices of the German-American Political Action Committee in Santa Monica, California. The German-American group probably incurred the JDL's wrath by its advocacy of the view that "Jews were not gassed by the Nazis...[and that] numbers and reports of predetermined extermination are greatly exaggerated by professional liars."
Target: Institute for Historical Review
Since its founding in 1978, the Institute for Historical Review has been the leading American publisher of books and other materials questioning the Holocaust extermination story. For this reason, its office in southern California, as well as individual IHR employees, soon became targets of a systematic campaign that included a drive-by shooting, three firebombings, vandalization of IHR employee-owned automobiles, slashings of 22 tires of employee automobiles, JDL-organized demonstrations outside the IHR office, and numerous telephone threats during office hours and at night to IHR employees at home. So intense did the harassment become that the family of one IHR employee was forced to move. (note 77)
During the course of a JDL demonstration in front of the IHR office on March 19, 1981, Mordechai Levy and other JDL protesters attacked the car of the landlord's agent, who had arrived to ensure security. While shouting threats, Levy smashed the right front passenger window of the man's car as he drove off. (note 78)
A few weeks later, on April 5, 1981, JDL hoodlums staged another violent demonstration outside the IHR office, during which an IHR employee was thrown to the ground and beaten.
In the early morning hours of June 25, 1981, came the first firebombing attack against the IHR office. Fortunately, the arson device -- similar to a "Molotov cocktail" -- caused only minor damage. A man claiming to represent the "Jewish Defenders" announced responsibility for the attack in phone calls to news agencies. (note 79)
The second arson attack against the IHR office came on April 25, 1982, in which a copy machine, a few pieces of furniture and some records were damaged. In a telephone message to a local news agency, a group calling itself "the Jewish Defenders" claimed responsibility. (note 80)
In an attack on September 5, 1982, the IHR office was riddled with gunfire, demolishing two windows and damaging the front door. Additionally, a small arson device caused some slight damage to the front of the office. Later that day, as throughout the week, came a barrage of murder-threatening telephone calls. Although the caller's voice was identified as that of Mordechai Levy, typically, no one was arrested in the case. (note 81)
Fire-Bombing Arson Attack
This terror campaign culminated in a devastating arson attack on the Institute's offices and warehouse in Torrance on July 4, 1984 -- the 209th anniversary of American independence. Damage in the attack, carried out in the early morning hours of the 4th, was estimated at $400,000. (note 82)
In a special edition of the IHR Newsletter (August 1984), IHR Director J. Marcellus summed up:
As a physical entity, the Institute for Historical Review has virtually ceased to exist. Ninety percent of our book and tape inventory -- the largest collection of revisionist historical literature to be found anywhere -- has been wiped out. Every last piece of office equipment and machinery -- including desks, chairs, files and shelves -- lay in charred heaps of useless, twisted scrap. Manuscripts, documents, artwork, galleys and film negatives -- products of more than six long years of a tough, dedicated effort to bring suppressed historical data to people the world over -- no longer exist. Tens of thousands of books...estimated at over $300,000 in value, are gone...More than 2,500 square feet of space that was once the world's most controversial publisher lies blackened in chaos and total ruin.
Two days later, JDL leader Irv Rubin showed up at the site of the gutted IHR offices to publicly praise the arson attack. The JDL, he declared, "wholeheartedly applauds the recent devastation of the offices of the Institute for Historical Review." Denying any personal responsibility himself, Rubin said that the criminal attack had been carried out by a former JDL activist named Larry Winston (Joel Cohen). "I believe, with all my heart, that he [Winston/Cohen] had something to do with this" arson, Rubin declared. (note 83)
Although no one was ever arrested in connection with the 1984 firebombing, the sophisticated nature of the attack suggests that it could have been the work of trained operatives of a foreign governmental agency.
Apart from local news coverage, American newspapers and television reported almost nothing about this act of criminal "book burning." This skewed media treatment moved noted journalist Alexander Cockburn to observe (in the pages of the liberal weekly The Nation): (note 84)
The outfit in the United States that does publish material belittling generally accepted accounts of the Nazi extermination of the Jews is called the Institute for Historical Review. I don't recall much fuss when its offices in Torrance, California, were firebombed in July 1984. Perhaps this is what Mailer meant by "sophistication" in handling such heterodox opinion.
At the same time, though, a few prominent voices courageously spoke out against the attack. American historian John Toland -- who received the Pulitzer prize for general non-fiction in 1971 for his book The Rising Sun -- wrote to the IHR: (note 85)
When I learned of the torching of the office-warehouse of the Institute for Historical Review, I was shocked. And when I heard no condemnation of this act of terrorism on television and read no protests in the editorial pages of our leading newspapers or from the halls of Academe, I was dismayed and incensed...I call on all true believers in democracy to join me in public denunciation of the recent burning of books in Torrance, California.
British historian David Irving, author of numerous acclaimed, best-selling works of history, declared: "I was deeply shocked to hear of the fire-bomb attack on your premises."
JDL Harassment of IHR Conference
In mid-February 1989, Jewish Defense League intimidation brought on the cancellation of a three-day Institute for Historical Review conference at two hotel sites in southern California.
Arrangements had been made months in advance to hold the Ninth IHR Conference at the Red Lion Inn hotel in Costa Mesa. Several days before it was to begin, the hotel received the first of a barrage of telephone threats warning that if it permitted the IHR gathering to take place as scheduled, there would be large, disruptive demonstrations in front of the hotel. It didn't take many such threats to persuade general manager Russell Cox to cave in to the Zionist group, and to cancel the hotel's contract with the IHR. Cox then added insult to injury by permitting JDL chief Rubin to hold a "news conference" in the hotel lobby.
Arrangements were then hastily made to relocate the IHR gathering to a nearby Holiday Inn hotel. However, just hours before it was to commence -- and as attendees were arriving -- the Holiday Inn likewise cancelled out, bowing to JDL threats similar to those made against the Red Lion Inn.
At this point, and with help from former US Congressman John Schmitz, IHR Director J. Marcellus made emergency arrangements with Joe Bischof, proprietor of the "Old World Village" shopping center in Huntington Beach, to hold the IHR Conference there. Bischof refused to bow to JDL intimidation, including a demonstration at the site by a handful of sorry-looking placard-waving JDLers led by Rubin, who shouted insults at passersby. In spite of the disruption, and some inconvenience for attendees, the Ninth IHR Conference proved one of the most successful and high-spirited ever. (note 86)
JDL Thugs Attack Young Jewish Revisionist
On January 22, 1992, revisionist activist David Cole was attacked by JDL thugs at a meeting held at the University of California at Los Angeles. Before the meeting began, JDL leader Rubin first tried to push the youthful Cole down a flight of stairs. JDL hoodlums also harassed and pushed around meeting organizer Robert Morrissey. After the meeting commenced, JDL punks tried to shout down the speakers, and then threw food at Cole. Finally, a JDL thug assaulted Cole -- who is Jewish -- hitting him in the face and bloodying his nose. (note 87)
The tumult was recorded on videotape by a camera crew of the CBS television news program "48 Hours," as well as by news crews of two local Los Angeles television stations. Neither of the two local stations mentioned a word of the incident in their nightly news broadcasts. Similarly, CBS officials decided not to air even a second of this outburst, not even in a segment about Holocaust revisionism that was part of the CBS television network's hour-long magazine-format program "48 Hours" broadcast of February 26, 1992. Network officials apparently decided that scenes of Zionist hoodlums beating a young Jewish revisionist would not "fit" with the image of revisionism that CBS wanted to project to its many viewers. (note 88)
Violence in Europe
The Murder of François Duprat
In France, François Duprat -- a gifted young historian, educator, and prolific writer -- was murdered in 1978, thereby becoming the first person to be killed because of his support for Holocaust revisionism. Duprat had publicized the writings of former concentration camp inmate Paul Rassinier, distributed a booklet, Did Six Million Really Die?, and had published a revisionist article of his own, "The Mystery of the Gas Chambers." (note 89)
As a result of such activism, the 38-year-old teacher was assassinated on March 18, 1978, when the car he was driving was blown up in a bomb blast. His wife, who was with him, lost the use of her legs in the attack. A Jewish "Remembrance Commando" and a "Jewish Revolutionary Group" promptly claimed responsibility for the murder. (note 90) So sophisticated was the attack that it is difficult to believe that no government agency was involved.
The Israel Connection
It is no secret that Israel provides training and weapons for local "Jewish defense groups" in the United States and many other countries. Victor Ostrovsky, a former intelligence case officer of the Mossad, Israel's spy and secret service agency, confirms this connection in his much-discussed book, By Way of Deception. (note 91) One department of the Mossad, writes Ostrovsky, is the Tsafririm, which is
responsible for setting up Jewish defense groups, called "frames," or misgerot, all over the world, now including some parts of the United States, where anti-Semitism is regarded as a threat ... The main job is to help the leaders of Jewish communities outside Israel plan for their own security. Part of this is done through the hets va-keshet, or "bow and arrow," Israel's paramilitary youth brigades.
... Often youths from other countries are brought over [to Israel] to spend the summer learning about security, picking up such skills as completing obstacle courses, pitching tents, and learning how to use a sniper rifle and Uzi assault rifle. Still others learn upgraded security skills, such as how to build a slick, for hiding weapons or documents, when and how to do security checks, as well as fundamentals of investigation and intelligence gathering.
Israel provides weapons for the many "Jewish defense groups," confirms Ostrovsky, indirectly through known arms dealers.
Tagar/Betar
In Europe the most important Zionist terrorist group is Tagar, the youth (or "student") branch of the radical Zionist movement Betar. The Tagar/Betar group has carried out numerous criminal attacks against "enemies," including Holocaust revisionists. Headquartered in Paris, Tagar/Betar has close ties with the Israeli government, and particularly with the political party of Begin and Shamir. Tagar is reportedly controlled by Israel's covert operations agency, the Mossad. (note 92)
Tagar activists have often boasted of their determination to "strike" against anyone who "denies the Holocaust." Tagar admitted responsibility for a physical assault against French revisionist historian Olivier Mathieu during a television interview in February 1990. Three months later, Tagar thugs sacked the "Ogmios" bookstore in Paris (which carried revisionist titles).
Tagar/Betar activists receive combat training along military lines from Israeli army officers. Tagar members wear paramilitary blue uniforms with white ties (the Zionist colors). Tagar/Betar has operated in Europe with the knowledge and approval of high French officials such as Prime Minister Laurent Fabius (who is Jewish). In more than one Tagar/Betar attack against opponents, French police have passively stood by. (note 93)
Tagar activists have operated in France under other names, including "Jewish Defense Organization" and "Jewish Combat Organization." Private para-military groups are strictly forbidden in France, except Jewish ones. Between June 1976 and April 1991, such Jewish "militias" have carried out 50 attacks. In effect, Jewish terrorists in Europe can attack their "enemies" with impunity. (note 94)
Tagar has also been active in the United States. In February 1992, the "Tagar Student Zionist Organization at the Ohio State University" in Columbus organized a protest meeting against Holocaust revisionism. The group distributed a leaflet -- which, typically, contained factual falsehoods -- specifically attacking revisionist activist Bradley Smith. (note 95)
Robert Faurisson
Dr. Robert Faurisson -- Europe's most prominent Holocaust revisionist (and a member of the Editorial Advisory Committee of the IHR's Journal of Historical Review) -- was severely injured in a nearly fatal attack on September 16, 1989. (note 96)
After spraying a stinging gas into his face, temporarily blinding him, three assailants punched him to the ground and then repeatedly kicked him in the face and chest. The 60-year-old scholar, who had been out walking his poodle in a park in his home town of Vichy, suffered a broken jaw and severe head injuries. Physicians operated for four and a half hours to repair his jaw and treat a broken rib and badly swollen face.
A group calling itself "The Sons of the Memory of the Jews" claimed responsibility for the savage attack. In a statement, the group threatened: "Professor Faurisson is the first, but will not be the last. Let those who deny the Shoah [Holocaust] beware." (note 97) While French police officially would acknowledge only that "three young Jewish activists from Paris" had carried out the assault, the attackers are strongly suspected to have been with the Tagar/Betar organization. (note 98)
Prominent individuals and organizations in France, along with the country's most influential daily newspaper, Le Monde, condemned the attack. However, French-Jewish "Nazi hunter" Serge Klarsfeld sought to excuse or justify the crime. "Someone who has provoked the Jewish community for years should expect this sort of thing," he said. "One cannot insult the memory of the victims without inviting the consequences." (note 99)
While the September 1989 attack against Faurisson was the most vicious, it was neither the first nor the last. Between November 1978 and May 1993, he was attacked on ten separate occasions. (note 100)
Other Terrorist Incidents in Europe
On November 5, 1980, an arson attack destroyed the office, warehouse and printing plant in Sussex, southern England, of the firm that prints Did Six Million Really Die? and other revisionist publications of the Historical Review Press. Damage was estimated at 50,000 pounds. A leftist journalist, Manny Carpel, was found guilty of the crime, and sentenced to two and a half years imprisonment. (He served only a little more than a year.)
In January 1984, in Cologne, Germany, Professor Hermann Greive, a non-Jewish authority on Jewish religious writings, was shot to death by a member of Kahane's Kach group. The murder was reportedly carried out in keeping with a Jewish scriptural injunction that demands death for non-Jews who "pry" into Jewish religious writings. (note 101)
On February 10, 1988, terrorists set fire to the automobile of German historian Ernst Nolte while it was parked at the Free University in Berlin, where he was a professor. An anonymous letter, signed with a five-pointed star, declared: "We attack Nolte because he is one of those who personally represents the continuity of fascism" and as co-founder of a "reactionary" group called the "Academic Freedom League." Nolte had been widely criticized for his moderately revisionist views of Second World War history. (note 102)
On April 20, 1991, Betar/Tagar thugs carried out a violent attack against several persons who were to attend a conference in Paris on the French writer Marc Augier. (Under the pen name of Saint-Loup, Augier wrote a series of books on the French "Legion of Volunteers," which fought on the eastern front during the Second World War.) Three or four of the victims were hospitalized. One, a 67-year-old woman, was in a coma for two months. Two Tagar members were arrested in connection with the attack, but two and a half years later they had still not been brought to trial. (note 103)
A bookstore in Paris had to be shut down for good in 1992 after repeated violent attacks by Jewish militants. The bookstore was targeted because it sold revisionist titles and was operated by revisionist publisher Pierre Guillaume.
On October 19, 1992, a team of about 30 Betar activists shoved and insulted pedestrians, smashed automobiles, and threw tear gas at police in the central plaza of the German city of Rostock. The group was led by the "Nazi-hunting" (and anti-revisionist) husband-wife team of Serge and Beate Klarsfeld. The Betar activists, some of them carrying Israeli flags, insulted passersby with shouts of "Dirty Germans! Dirty Nazis!". (note 104)
In December 1992, the chief of the Jewish Defense League in Israel announced that he was sending teams of killers to Germany to murder "neo-Nazis." Every German who cries "Heil Hitler," or otherwise identifies himself as a Nazi, declared 33-year-old Rabbi Baruch Ben-Joseph (Baruch Green), is a target for death. (note 105) Prominent German far-right political figures are not the only persons on the Israel JDL's hit list, confided one JDL member: "Persons behind the scenes are often more important, such as the professor who denies or whitewashes the Holocaust in a book." (note 106)
MOSSAD Colonel Salvador Guersson Smecke and Saur Ben Zvi were armed and carrying bomb materials
(The "source" (aztlan.net- aztlan is the large part of the US claimed historically by Mexico a la Danzig I guess)is this vehemently anti-Semitic publication, which, though operating in Mexico, is obsessed with U.S.-Israel ties. Incidentally, the only publication to give this item any credence was... Pravda! The more things change the more they stay the shame...)
Los Angeles, Alta California - October 15, 2001- (ACN) In a mind-blowing development, La Voz de Aztlan has learned that Mexican Army General Rafael Marcial Macedo de la Concha who heads the Procuraduría General de la República (Mexican Department of Justice) has released the retired Israeli Defense Forces colonel and presumed MOSSAD agent Salvador Guersson Smecke and Israeli illegal immigrant Saur Ben Zvi after both had penetrated the security of the Mexican Congress and where in possession of guns, hand grenades and explosives.
This morning La Voz de Aztlan had a personal telephone interview with the Mexican Congressional Press Secretary, Lic. Adriana Lopez, and verified the arrest of the two Israelis after they had entered through the highly secured front entrance of the Palacio Legislativo de San Lázaro. She stated to La Voz de Aztlan that the two terrorists had taken advantage of a situation that occurred around 1700 hours of Wednesday October 10 when a large contingent of Sugar Industry Unionists were entering through the metal detectors. The two Israelis followed about 50 of the unionists to the office of the President of the Mexican Congress Beatriz Paredes. The two Israelis were first pretending to be press photographers but called the attention of the sugar unionists because of their nervous and out of the ordinary behavior. About ten of the unionists confronted them and observed that they were carrying guns and and what looked to them to be explosives. They held the two Israelis until Official Congressional Security personnel took them into custody. The head of Congressional Security Salvador Alarcón verified that the Israelis had in their possession nine hand grenades, sticks of dynamite, detonators, wiring and two 9mm "Glock" automatics.
Mexican Congressional Press Secretary Lic. Adriana Lopez informed La Voz de Aztlan in the telephone interview that Congressional Security then turned the terrorists Salvador Guersson Smecke, age 34, and Saur Ben Zvi, age 27, to the Procuraduría General de la República (Mexican Department of Justice) which is headed by Mexican Army General Rafael Marcial Macedo de la Concha. Initial reports by the Procuraduría General de la República (PGR) were that both Israelis worked for a private security agency and that they both had gun permits. It turned out that there is no connection of either suspect to any private security agency. The PGR has released the retired Israeli I.D.F. colonel with the official explanation that he had a legal permit to carry a gun. They also released the illegal Israeli immigrant on about $4000 bail and the case turned over to the Mexican immigration authorities. Mexican Congressional Press Secretary Lic. Adriana Lopez was surprised to hear from La Voz de Aztlan of the release of the two Israelis.
La Voz de Aztlan has also learned that the Israeli Embassy used heavy handed measures to have the two Israelis released. Very high level emergency meetings took place between Mexican Secretary of Foreign Relations Jorge Gutman, General Macedo de la Concha and a top Ariel Sharon envoy who flew to Mexico City specially for that purpose. Elías Luf of the Israeli Embassy worked night and day and their official spokeswoman Hila Engelhart went into high gear after may hours of complete silence. What went one during those high levels meetings no ones knows, but many in Mexico are in disbelief at their release. Guns and any kind of explosive is highly illegal for Mexican citizens and the fact that these two Israelis had them inside the Mexican Congress makes their release highly suspect. What is really going on? Jorge Gutman, the Mexican Foreign Secretary, has very strong Zionist connections and himself is of Jewish descent. Mexican Army General Macedo de la Concha has strong connections to the U.S. Military Industrial-Complex and through this to the Israeli Defense Forces. Have any of these connections influenced the decision to release the two Zionist terrorists?
The initial arrests of the two Israelis inside the Palacio Legislativo de San Lázaro made top news on Mexico City television and radio on the evening of October 10. TV Azteca had extensive coverage on the first night and on the following day. La Cronica de Hoy Newspaper and El Universal Newspaper both covered the incident the following two days but now it seems that there is a lack of reports. The PGR has a Press Bulletin on their official website at http://www.pgr.gob.mx/cmsocial/bol01/oct/b69701.html but they have made no updates. No U.S. media has made any mention, that we know, except one by USAJewish.com this Sunday at: http://www.usajewish.com/scripts/usaj/paper/Article.asp?ArticleID=1307 Pravda of Moscow has a note of the initial La Voz de Aztlan article at: http://english.pravda.ru/main/2001/10/13/17982.html
What were the Israelis up to? We think we know. The Vicente Fox government has been very careful of involving Mexico in a war against Islam. The Mexican population as well as the two major opposition political parties, the PRI and the PRD will not allow it. President Bush and the U.S. Zionists want Mexico fully involved in the war principally because if things get tough in the middle east and the oil rich Arabs leave the coalition, the U.S. military machine is going to need alternative sources of oil and PEMEX is just across the border. We believe that the two Zionists terrorist were going to blow up the Mexican Congress. The second phase was to mobilize both the Mexican and US press to blame Osama bin Laden. Most likely then Mexico would declare war on Afghanistan as well, commit troops and all the oil it could spare to combat Islamic terrorism.
La Voz de Aztlan
Los Angeles, Alta California - 1/8/2002 - (ACN) The Pakistani English
daily Frontier Post has compared the attempted terrorist attack on the Mexican
Congress by two Israeli MOSSAD agents on October 10, 2001 to the actual attack
on India's Parliament that occurred on December 13, 2001. The daily newspaper
based in Peshawar, Pakistan published an article titled "Indian Drama, Israeli
Script" by Yusuf Ahmed in which they allege that the Indian ruling Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP) staged the terrorist attack and blamed Muslims in order to
win the upcoming elections in February of this year. According to the article,
the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) manipulates Hindu fear of Muslims to stay in
power in a similar way that some politicians in the US southwest manipulate fear
of La Raza by some white voters.
The Frontier Post quoted verbatim from La Voz de Aztlan's report on the intrusion into the Mexican
Congress, with explosives, by two Israelis, one a Colonel in the MOSSAD. The
article ("http://www.frontierpost.com.pk/articles.asp?id=5&date1=1/7/2002")"Indian
Drama, Israeli Script" mentions the conjecture by La Voz de Aztlan that the
attempted terrorist attack on the Mexican San Lazaro Legislative Palace may have
been planned in order to blame Muslims and to bring in Mexico and its PEMEX oil
supplies into the USA's war coalition against Islam.
It appears that the old Zionist trick of committing terrorist attacks and
than blaming their enemies of committing them, in order to further their
political and economic aims, may now be a prevalent strategy of other regimes
around the world. There is today a coalition of U.S. groups demanding that the
U.S. Congress form a congressional committee to investigate numerous unexplained
anomalies concerning the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon. In addition there is an effort to
href="http://www.petitiononline.com/11601TFS/petition.html">"Petition the U.S.
Senate to Investigate Oddities Involving 9/11 Terrorist Attacks"that will
hopefuly began the process of establishing the truth.
We live in extremely dangerous times where even 15 year old kids are turning
into terrorists as demonstrated by Charles Bishop in Tampa, Florida. What could
compel such a young boy to commit a "mini-WTC" terrorist attack? Something is
very wrong in our world!
La Voz de Aztlan has two reports and one taped radio interview concerning the
sinister Israeli attempted terrorist attack on the Mexican Congress. They are
located at:
1.Zionist Terrorists Arrested Inside Mexican Congress
http://www.aztlan.net/mexmossad.htm
2.Mexican Attorney General Releases "Zionist Terrorists"
http://www.aztlan.net/blowup.htm
Published 6:35 p.m. PDT Wednesday, May 15, 2002
San Francisco (AP) - - Microscopic particles of dust and soot more than just an ugly brown haze.
A report released today says they could be killing thousands of Californians each year.
The Environmental Working Group - a Washington D.C.-based research and advocacy organization - is reporting that floating particles cause more than 9,300 deaths in the state each year.
Most of those particles are from car exhaust and factories.
The report is based on figures compiled by the state Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment.
It is designed to push the state to approve stricter pollution standards. Critics believe the group is using faulty science.
The report said wafting particles cost Californians about one (b) billion dollars a year in health care and missed work.
May15th 2002
(CBS) It is America's new reality: security and surveillance. From intense scrutiny at airports to expanded government authority to track Internet use, federal agents now watch American citizens more closely than ever, reports CBS News Correspondent John Blackstone.
Such scrutiny seemed over the line to retired phone company worker Barry Reingold, after the FBI got interested in remarks Reingold made at his health club. After loudly criticizing the war in Afghanistan, Reingold had some unexpected visitors a few days later.
"I said, you know, 'Who's there?' And they said, 'It's the FBI,'" said Reingold, 60.
Reingold says the two agents wanted to know more about his locker room outburst.
"Someone's reported to us that you've been talking about what happened on 9/11 and terrorism and oil and Afghanistan," Reingold said the agents told him.
The FBI insists agents do not interview people because of their political views. But since 9/11, the agency says it needs to cast a wider net than ever in its search for information.
That's helped create fears the FBI could slip back to the days of J. Edgar Hoover, when the agency went outside the law to watch Americans whose politics Hoover disagreed with.
The current FBI director Robert Mueller says investigations today are lawful — and thorough.
"If we get a threat," Mueller said, "We will do everything we can to interview anybody who may have some information about that threat."
When a locker room bull session can bring questions from the FBI, it's clear agents are casting a wide net indeed.
Kate Rafael, a California peace activist, often takes part in anti-war demonstrations. But she was stunned when an FBI agent called her, seeking information about Muslim men.
"If it's your job to hunt Islamic fundamentalist terrorists," said Rafael, "Then it's your job to know that they don't hang out with Jewish lesbians in San Francisco."
Josh Thayer got a surprise, too.
"I'm about to go to a meeting, very stressful day, all of a sudden, the FBI calls."
The agent wanted to know about the computer systems at Independent Media, a leftist Web site where Josh occasionally works as a volunteer technician.
Thayer said he has no idea how the FBI got his name.
"I really don't. That is, to me, that's the scariest part. You are being watched, you know, like what you do isn't anonymous."
From left to right, government surveillance since Sept. 11 is raising privacy fears.
U.S. Rep. Bob Barr, a conservative Republican from Georgia, has joined liberal Democrats to back new privacy legislation.
"That sphere of what's left of privacy gets smaller and smaller and smaller," said Barr. "Each incremental taking away of that privacy by the government becomes much more important."
May 2002
(Atlantic Monthly)
by Steve Olson
A few years ago the Genealogical Office in Dublin moved from a back room of the Heraldic Museum up the street to the National Library. The old office wasn't big enough for all the people stopping by to track down their Irish ancestors, and even the new, much larger office is often crowded. Because of its history of oppression and Catholic fecundity, Ireland has been a remarkably productive exporter of people. The population of the island has never exceeded 10 million, but more than 70 million people worldwide claim Irish ancestry. On warm summer days, as tourists throng nearby Trinity College and Dublin Castle, the line of visitors waiting to consult one of the office's professional genealogists can stretch out the door.
I suspect that many people have had a fling with genealogy somewhat like mine. In my office I have a file containing the scattered lines of Olsons and Taylors, Richmans and Sigginses (my Irish ancestors), that I gathered several years ago in a paroxysm of family-mindedness. For the most part my ancestors were a steady stream of farmers, ministers, and malcontents. Yet a few of the Old World lines hint at something grander—they include a couple of knights, and even a baron. I've never taken the trouble to find out, but I bet with a little work I could achieve that nirvana of genealogical research, demonstrated descent from a royal family.
Earlier this year I went to Dublin to learn more about the Irish side of my family and to talk about genealogy with Mark Humphrys, a young computer scientist at Dublin City University. Humphrys has dark hair, deep-blue eyes, heavily freckled arms, and a pasty complexion. He became interested in genealogy as a teenager, after hearing romantic stories about his ancestors' roles in rebellions against the English. But when he tried to trace his family further into the past, the trail ran cold. The Penal Laws imposed by England in the early eighteenth century forbade Irish Catholics from buying land or joining professions, which meant that very few permanent records of their existence were generated. "Irish people of Catholic descent are almost completely cut off from the past," Humphrys told me, as we sat in his office overlooking a busy construction site. (Dublin City University, which specializes in information technology and the life sciences, is growing as rapidly as the northern Dublin suburb in which it is located.) "The great irony about Ireland is that even though we have this long, rich history, almost no person of Irish-Catholic descent can directly connect to that history."
While a graduate student at Cambridge University, Humphrys fell in love with and married an Englishwoman, and investigating her genealogy proved more fruitful. Her family knew that they were descended from an illegitimate son of the tenth Earl of Pembroke. After just a couple of hours in the Cambridge library, Humphrys showed that the Earl of Pembroke was a direct descendant of Edward III, making Humphrys's wife the King's great-granddaughter twenty generations removed. Humphrys began to gather other genealogical tidbits related to English royalty. Many of the famous Irish rebels he'd learned about in school turned out to have ancestors who had married into prominent Protestant families, which meant they were descended from English royalty. The majority of American presidents were also of royal descent, as were many of the well-known families of Europe.
Humphrys began to notice something odd. Whenever a reliable family tree was available, almost anyone of European ancestry turned out to be descended from English royalty—even such unlikely people as Hermann Göring and Daniel Boone. Humphrys began to think that such descent was the rule rather than the exception in the Western world, even if relatively few people had the documents to demonstrate it.
Humphrys compiled his family genealogies first on paper and then using computers. He did much of his work on royal genealogies in the mid-1990s, when the World Wide Web was just coming into general use. He began to put his findings on Web pages, with hyperlinks connecting various lines of descent. Suddenly dense networks of ancestry jumped out at him. "I'd known these descents were interconnected, but I'd never known how much," he told me. "You can't see the connections reading the printed genealogies, because it's so hard to jump from tree to tree. The problem is that genealogies aren't two-dimensional, so any attempt to put them on paper is more or less doomed from the start. They aren't three-dimensional, either, or you could make a structure. They have hundreds of dimensions."
Much of Humphrys's genealogical research now appears on his Web page Royal Descents of Famous People. Sitting in his office, I asked him to show me how it works. He clicked on the name Walt Disney. Up popped a genealogy done by Brigitte Gastel Lloyd (Humphrys links to the work of others whenever possible) showing the twenty-two generations separating Disney from Edward I. Humphrys pointed at the screen. "Here we have a sir, so this woman is the daughter of a knight. Maybe this woman will marry nobility, but there's a limited pool of nobility, so eventually someone here is going to marry someone who's just wealthy. Then one of their children could marry someone who doesn't have that much money. In ten generations you can easily get from princess to peasant."
he idea that virtually anyone with a European ancestor descends from English royalty seems bizarre, but it accords perfectly with some recent research done by Joseph Chang, a statistician at Yale University. The mathematics of our ancestry is exceedingly complex, because the number of our ancestors increases exponentially, not linearly. These numbers are manageable in the first few generations—two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, sixteen great-great-grandparents—but they quickly spiral out of control. Go back forty generations, or about a thousand years, and each of us theoretically has more than a trillion direct ancestors—a figure that far exceeds the total number of human beings who have ever lived.
In a 1999 paper titled "Recent Common Ancestors of All Present-Day Individuals," Chang showed how to reconcile the potentially huge number of our ancestors with the quantities of people who actually lived in the past. His model is a mathematical proof that relies on such abstractions as Poisson distributions and Markov chains, but it can readily be applied to the real world. Under the conditions laid out in his paper, the most recent common ancestor of every European today (except for recent immigrants to the Continent) was someone who lived in Europe in the surprisingly recent past—only about 600 years ago. In other words, all Europeans alive today have among their ancestors the same man or woman who lived around 1400. Before that date, according to Chang's model, the number of ancestors common to all Europeans today increased, until, about a thousand years ago, a peculiar situation prevailed: 20 percent of the adult Europeans alive in 1000 would turn out to be the ancestors of no one living today (that is, they had no children or all their descendants eventually died childless); each of the remaining 80 percent would turn out to be a direct ancestor of every European living today.
Chang's model incorporates one crucial assumption: random mating in the part of the world under consideration. For example, every person in Europe would have to have an equal chance of marrying every other European of the opposite sex. As Chang acknowledges in his paper, random mating clearly does not occur in reality; an Englishman is much likelier to marry a woman from England than a woman from Italy, and a princess is much likelier to marry a prince than a pauper. These departures from randomness must push back somewhat the date of Europeans' most recent common ancestor.
But Humphrys's Web page suggests that over many generations mating patterns may be much more random than expected. Social mobility accounts for part of the mixing—what Voltaire called the slippered feet going down the stairs as the hobnailed boots ascend them. At the same time, revolutions overturn established orders, countries invade and colonize other countries, and people sometimes choose mates from far away rather than from next door. Even the world's most isolated peoples—Pacific islanders, for example—continually exchange potential mates with neighboring groups.
This constant churning of people makes it possible to apply Chang's analysis to the world as a whole. For example, almost everyone in the New World must be descended from English royalty—even people of predominantly African or Native American ancestry, because of the long history of intermarriage in the Americas. Similarly, everyone of European ancestry must descend from Muhammad. The line of descent for which records exist is through the daughter of the Emir of Seville, who is reported to have converted from Islam to Catholicism in about 1200. But many other, unrecorded descents must also exist.
Chang's model has even more dramatic implications. Because people are always migrating from continent to continent, networks of descent quickly interconnect. This means that the most recent common ancestor of all six billion people on earth today probably lived just a couple of thousand years ago. And not long before that the majority of the people on the planet were the direct ancestors of everyone alive today. Confucius, Nefertiti, and just about any other ancient historical figure who was even moderately prolific must today be counted among everyone's ancestors.
Toward the end of our conversation Humphrys pointed out something I hadn't considered. The same process works going forward in time; in essence every one of us who has children and whose line does not go extinct is suspended at the center of an immense genetic hourglass. Just as we are descended from most of the people alive on the planet a few thousand years ago, several thousand years hence each of us will be an ancestor of the entire human race—or of no one at all.
The dense interconnectedness of the human family might seem to take some of the thrill out of genealogical research. Sure, I was able to show in the Genealogical Office that my Siggins ancestors are descended from the fourteenth-century Syggens of County Wexford; but I'm also descended from most of the other people who lived in Ireland in the fourteenth century. Humphrys took issue with my disillusionment. It's true that everyone's roots go back to the same family tree, he said. But each path to our common past is different, and reconstructing that path, using whatever records are available, is its own reward. "You can ask whether everyone in the Western world is descended from Charlemagne, and the answer is yes, we're all descended from Charlemagne. But can you prove it? That's the game of genealogy."
No wonder all those people think they were King Arthur or Guinivere in a past life rather than that small minority who believed they were Diogenes. Is it encoded in their genes?
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