On History and Intellectual Courage
I want to talk about something which is taboo yet cliche. It is widely accepted yet universally denied. Those who talk about this are ridiculed as conspiracy theorists and racists. On the other hand, many people freely admit this reality but dismiss it as inconsequential and ‘the way it is’.
Jews dominate Hollywood, the global news media, and the global financial system. By extension it is often argued that ‘Jews run the world’. Essentially, one group of people with a unifying ideology and vested interest, is controlling the institutions by which we receive news. In addition to this, the film industry and cinematic media is something which we develop a very profound emotional attachment to and identify with closely. In other words, we are talking about an instrument of brainwashing. Is this not something we should talk about? If, for example, Hollywood, the global news media, and our ‘fiat money’ financial institutions were dominated by Arab Muslims, would we perceive this as a problem?
Of course we would, and rightly so. But this is not the case currently – we are afraid of speaking out and tackling this. Why?
What other group would be capable of attacking the world’s most powerful superpower, killing thousands in a sophisticated terror attack, and get away with it, blaming it on someone else? 9/11 is but one example, the USS Liberty is another. Most Americans have not even heard about the Liberty – a false flag attack designed to draw the USA into nuclear war with Soviet Russia.
The truth of the matter is, Jews are largely exempted from criticism in the West, and this runs much much deeper than any of us care to admit. Most people reading this are subconsciously thinking: ‘He just hates Jews because he’s Muslim’, ‘He’s a conspiracy theorist and he’s got nothing better to do’. Well, no I don’t hate Jews. No I’m not Muslim. No I’m not a ‘conspiracy theorist’ either; I am merely trying to exercise intellectual courage. We are constantly singing the praises of freedom, liberalism and democracy, but we are nothing more than a servile herd of cattle when it comes to being intellectually courageous. Our claims of love for democracy and freedom are utterly hollow without this.
Even the more ‘enlightened’ activists and bloggers (no point talking about the bought-and-paid-for mainstreamers) are more obsessed with catering to their readers’ ignorance and stroking their own ego, than performing an honest appraisal of these issues. Let’s be honest – it’s nice to get lots of ‘likes’ and to be patted on the back by your nodding, agreeing peers. To paraphrase Mark Twain, if you find yourself on the side of the majority, then it’s time to check yourself.
It is clear – talking about this issue makes one severely unpopular. This fact alone is a startling clue as to the underlying truths. Those who discuss this topic are stigmatised and ostracised, and it would be silly to think that there is no reason for this.
On a not unrelated note, I want you to help me with something. The popular reading of history portrays Jewish people as perennial victims who are persecuted anywhere they go for no reason other than that they are Jews, and irrational ‘anti-Semites’ hate them. The ‘holocaust’ is a paradigmatic example of this, and this is another issue which cannot be discussed in an open forum (so much for democracy). What I would like help with is this: history is replete with massacres, murders, torture, wars, and a myriad of different crimes that have been perpetrated by everybody from the Romans to the Americans; can you name a single historical event wherein, in the popular reading of history, Jews are portrayed as the aggressors and criminals?
Perhaps Jews really are perennial victims and have never done anything wrong. Or perhaps our reading of history is manipulated, censored, and reconstructed to convey a certain narrative? We often repeat the adage: history is written by the victor. Is there some truth in the idea that history is written by the powerful? If so, are we not being subjected to what is essentially mind control, whereby we harbour a completely incorrect interpretation of history? And is it not time that we started to put all historical events, especially those which we are told not to question, under the microscope?
Why NasrAllah gave his support to Bashar
Why NasrAllah gave his support to Bashar
Hear the answer from the mouth of the Sayyed of Resisitance
Hassan Nasrallah sur la Syrie (18-7-2012)
Unjust War/The Forced War And The Forbidden Weapons
Since the victory of the Lebanese Resistance over Israel –consecutively in years 2000 and 2006, the world order scheme has been disturbed and disrupted. This disruption had started of course with the Iranian Revolution that marked the turning point in modern history. Before that Iran was part of the axis controlled by US since the fifties that grouped several Muslim countries including Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Iraq, KSA with the failed attempt at having the Egypt of Nasser join in. This Revolution in Iran with the creation of the Resistance in Lebanon has become a major player on the ground. It has materialized the will of people and their determination and hope to see Israel defeated, not just the hopes of Lebanese but that of all Arabs. The attempt at disarming the powerful victorious Resistance came as early as year 2005 with 1559 UN resolution that called for the disarmament of the Resistance.
Sayyed Hassan Nasrullah was clear when he said -in his last speech -that by disarmament were not meant the light weapons found in abundance in Lebanon within the hands of most factions; what was meant were the weapons threatening Israel like rockets and missiles. The other weapons threatening the internal local security were meant to stay in the hands of the various factions to be used in civil warfare and internal conflict. When implementing the 1559 Resolution failed, Israel and the world order resorted to war. The war that was supposed to last only one week had two goals beside freeing the two prisoners : to destroy the military capacity of Hizbullah and to destroy the infra structure so that people –dissatisfied- rally against the Resistance. After one month of war none of the goals were achieved, the prisoners were not delivered since the leader of the Resistance had said, that even if the whole world gathered together against the Resistance the prisoners shall not be delivered to the Israelis except in an exchange deal through a third party.
The weapons were not found and the Israelis were tricked and cheated into thinking that they had destroyed most of the long range missiles within the first 24 hours while the weapons were not touched. They continued the war thinking that the Resistance will fall soon short of the missiles that were falling inside the occupied territories. Also the people did not turn against the Resistance, on the contrary, people rallied to support the Resistance, they were ready to sacrifice and to assist each other and to back Hizbullah fully in their struggle .
Those who plotted and conspired were among politicians and certain officials affiliated to KSA or to the US administration and were a minority. The Resistance had really achieved victory, chased the Israelis out and defeated them, but the war continued through the International Court to prosecute the Resistance, through the sectarian warfare and media mobilization against the Resistance and –lately-through the assault on Syria by the fanatic thugs armed and funded by Qatar and KSA and trained in Turkey.
In all these places it is the same war against the Lebanese Resistance and its allies that is being launched targeting its strength and unity and its capacity to polarize the whole Arab and Muslim world that is the most threatening thing the world order ever confronted. The war on Syria is not different where what is sought is not of course democracy or the fall of a so called dictator. The three demands sent from Washington to the president of Syria -through an Arab mediator – were:
- to cut ties with Iran ,
- to stop supporting Hizbullah and
- stop asking for the right to return of Palestinians
which -if met by Syria -will prevent any foreign interference within the country.
But president Bashshar did not surrender, he stood beside his country and his people and the Resistance as he always did. Previously in 2004 a similar deal was offered to Assad according to which, Syria will be given full authority over Lebanon and will be given the permission to bring Syrian troops to the Lebanese Southern region, to the Lebanese borders with the occupied territories, if it takes upon itself to disarm Hizbullah, but president Bashshar refused saying that the Resistance is more fit to defend the Lebanese borders and the Syrian army cannot take upon itself such a task.
Internally the weapons of the Resistance are still a subject of controversy on behalf of local politicians who are affiliated to the US administration and who work for a US/Israeli agenda, they want the Resistance to surrender its weapons while they introduce tons of weapons to arm the thugs of the Syrian opposition, they will not say what to replace the Resistance with and how to defend the land and provide security for the villagers living in the south since the Lebanese army is neither equipped nor trained nor ready to take upon itself this difficult task. They have no answer to this question, of how to defend the people and the land and it is the least of their worries; all they care about is carry on the wishes of their US masters.
No one can disarm the Resistance let alone finding the mysterious weapons; no one knows the secret of the strength of the Resistance of which the weapons are only a part and not even an essential part, it is the strength and determination and faith that brought the weapons and not some deal or exchange of some sort; and where the determination and faith came from is another mystery more difficult to elucidate than the mysterious weapons. But the truth of the matter is very easy, the truth of the matter is that some people in a certain locality refused to surrender body, heart and soul to the enemies who came to invade their country and occupy and exploit their land threatening their lives and that of their parents and children .
These are people who simply refused to undergo this treatment imposed by the enemy and decided to face it and defeat the purposes of their enemy however powerful he is. They decided to develop their own inner strength, strength that they drew from whatever is theirs, be it culture or religion or environment or nature. Wherever they found strength they went for it, they did not rely on anything alien or foreign, it was all home made, things that they understood and could handle and deal with and use fully to their benefit, things that were part of them and of their fathers and ancestors. When they drew this strength and this self reliance the weapons became a mere extension of what already existed and had always been but has unfolded –fully- and developed to a great extent and become within reach; it is the man’s deep faith in what he has and what he is and what he is capable of by God’s help. All the heritage of their Holy Religion was at their disposal, the life of their Prophet, the struggle of their Imam and Karbala’ the saga of Karbala,’ , of unequaled heroism and Resistance and incomparable dignity and courage. This is Hizbullah, it is all these high qualities and divine meanings that became embodied and actualized in people, in simple villagers and average citizens who have acquired this strength from the righteousness of their cause and their commitment to the deepest meaning of religion. This what turned the Resistance into something that cannot be defeated and this is the mightiest of weapons that the enemy can neither find nor acquire.
Rothschilds’ BCCI Shake Down of Arabs
(Excerpted from Chapter 6: The Bank of Crooks & Criminals International: Big Oil & Their Bankers…)
The Black Network
The Bank of Credit & Commerce International’s (BCCI) most notorious acts were hatched out of its Karachi branch, where the bank’s Black Network (BN) operated. BN was a global intelligence and enforcement unit that specialized in transporting arms, drugs and gold. BN operations overlapped with the operations of CIA, Israeli Mossad, the Pakistani ISI and Saudi intelligence, all of whom had accounts at BCCI. BN served as middleman for Saudi aid to both the Nicaraguan contras and the Afghan mujahadeen, aid which was being solicited by Richard Secord. [1]
BN worked extensively with the Israeli Mossad to coordinate Israeli arms deals, especially to Arab countries. Saudi billionaire Adnan Khashoggi was often at the middle of these deals, along with Manucher Gorbanifar, the former SAVAK agent for the Shah of Iran, whose prowess in the fine arts of torture had landed him a job at Mossad.
BN had close ties to Lieutenant Colonel Amatzia Shuali, an Israeli who split time training Nicaraguan contras and Guatemalan death squads. BCCI was banker to Columbian drug kingpin Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha and had numerous branches in that country. In 1984, at the height of the contra war, BCCI founder Abedi bought Banco Mercantil in Columbia. In 1989 when Columbian officials raided Gacha’s farm they found Galil assault rifles in crates marked “Israeli Military Industries”. The guns had been used in Mossad’s training of Gacha’s paramilitary army, which was instructed to assassinate Columbian union leaders. Another Israeli with close ties to BN was Ari Ben-Menashe, who helped the Reagan Administration arm Iran.
BN helped Iraqi President Saddam Hussein stash $30 million in skimmed oil revenues from his country’s Treasury, while simultaneously brokering Iraqi Scud missile purchases. The bank brokered nuclear weapons deals for Iraq, Libya, Argentina and Pakistan. It financed Italian tank sales to Abu Dhabi, North Korean artillery sales to Dubai, Chinese Silkworm missile sales to Saudi Arabia, Brazilian rocket launcher sales to Iran and Iraq, Argentine tank sales to Iraq and French Mirage fighter plane sales to Pakistan, India, Peru, Libya and the GCC Gulf States. They even supplied the tanks to the Kuwaitis for the victory march following Operation Desert Storm, along with Eastern European personnel to drive the tanks while the inept Kuwaitis rode on top waving flags.
In 1985 following the bombing of the US Marine Corps barracks in Beirut, Lebanon which killed nearly 300 Marines, CIA Director Bill Casey ordered retaliation. BCCI financed the CIA assassination units who hunted Hezbollah operatives. One of those units killed 80 civilians and injured 200 more in a botched attempt to kill Hezbollah leader Sheik Fadlallah. [2]
BN intelligence operations were set up with help from Refaat Assad, brother of Syria’s President Hafez Assad. Both were friends of Manzer al-Kassar, whose heroin ring was sending arms from Secord to Noriega for the contras and whose operations were protected in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. It is possible that Refaat Assad was himself part of the super secret CIA COREA unit to which al-Kassar belonged.
BN bought F-15 escorts for Pakistani drug smugglers connected to the Afghan mujahadeen, and wrote paychecks to contra pilots like Eugene Hasenfus. BCCI was the oil for guns for drugs quid pro quo. It had its GCC-funded predecessors, including the World Finance Corporation (WFC).
Abdullah Darwaish headed the UAE branch of the WFC. Darwaish received $100 million from Abu Dhabi’s al-Nahiyan monarchy to purchase Financial General Bancshares, a major drug money laundry. WFC was run by Bay of Pigs veteran Guillermo Hernandez Cartaya, who scammed $30 million through a Saudi “loan” at Ajman Arab Bank in 1978. It’s main line of business was financing and arranging CIA arms for drugs swaps. One prominent agent was Ed Wilson, the jailed TF-157 veteran who ran EATSCO.
WFC’s founding directors included Walter Sterling Surrey, an OSS veteran, and Juan Romanach, a close associate of Miami mob boss Santos Trafficante. A WFC affiliate called Dominican Mortgage helped Trafficante supply drugs to the Las Vegas market and once tried to buy Caesar’s Palace. WFC had ties to the wealthy Venezuelan Cisneros family through Oswaldo Cisneros Fajardo. A WFC subsidiary in Panama known as Unibank controlled outlets in London, the UAE, the Netherland Antilles and the Cayman Islands. BCCI later bought the distressed bank. [3] Hernandez-Cartaya and Saudi billionaire Lockheed arms peddler Adnan Khoshoggi, are old friends.
Hernandez-Cartaya also worked with former Nugan Hand sanitation expert Donald Beazley who ran the Great American Bank in Miami. Columbian CIA associate Fernando Birbragher was busted in 1982 for laundering Medellin Cartel drug money through Beazley’s bank, which was actually owned by Marvin Warner, who served as US Ambassador to Switzerland under President Carter. Warner’s good friend Hugh Culverhouse Sr. sat on the board of Cincinnati financial mogul Carl Lindner’s American Financial Corporation, whose United Brands subsidiary is a major conduit for US-bound Columbian cocaine. [4] Donald Beazley also ran Miami’s City National Bank for Alberto Duque, son of a wealthy Columbian coffee magnate whose start-up funds for the bank had come from a Bahraini oil sheik.
Florida Governor Jeb Bush flew on Duque’s private jet when he attended a Presidential inauguration in Costa Rica. Jeb also built a 30-story Miami office building for Duque’s General Coffee Corporation. Duque was later convicted on fraud charges. Marvin Warner is tight with Denver oil man Marvin Davis, who owned Silverado S&L in partnership with Neil Bush. In 1981 Davis bought 20th Century Fox with help from the Apex Law Firm. Apex represents the Chicago Gouletas mob family, shady San Francisco 49ers ex-owner and shopping mall king Edward DeBartolo, and S&L looter extraordinaire Charles Keating. When the Davis/Bush-owned Silverado folded most of the money mysteriously ended up in the hands of the Canadian Bronfman family. [5]
One of the most incredible examples of BCCI’s global reach was the case of BCCI China. Henry Kissinger had gotten BCCI into China. Pakistani Sultan Mohammed Khan had been that country’s ambassador to China before becoming Pakistani Ambassador to the US. There he met Kissinger, then Nixon Secretary of State. Kissinger used Khan to gain access to China, where in 1971 he began meeting with Premier Zhou En-lai in a series of visits that would culminate in detente between China and the US. Soon after Kissinger’s first trip, BCCI was granted a banking license in China, the first such license ever granted to a foreign bank. Khan went to China to run the bank’s operations. Later he oversaw BCCI operations in the US.
BCCI had close relations with Chinese Premier Deng Xiaoping’s family. Reagan CIA Director Bill Casey used BCCI China to spy on its host government. Shortly after Casey’s appointment as DCI, he set up an off-the-shelf spy network of personal friends known as the Hardy Boys. One Hardy Boys, John Shaheen, set up two Hong Kong banks, Tetra Finance and Hong Kong Deposit & Guaranty. A director at both was Ghanim al-Mazrui, top lieutenant to Sheik Zayed, the Abu Dhabi emir and largest stockholder in BCCI. Another director was Hassan Yassin, a former Saudi official who Saudi intelligence chief Sheik Kamal Adham claimed brought him into the First American Bank buyout. Both banks eventually went under BCCI-style, bilking scores of middle-class Hong Kong depositors. Shortly after the two banks failed, Hardy Boy John Shaheen received a top intelligence medal. [6]
Leaving the Arabs Holding the Bag
When Sheik Kamal Adham was indicted for his role in the BCCI spook house, he referred to the bank’s closure as a conspiracy by Western bankers bent on keeping the Arab world out of the game of international finance. Speaking to a pan-Arab conference in Cairo, Egypt in 1992, Adham stated angrily, “This bank (BCCI) is not any bank. It is a bank that owns 66 banks around the world… This is not much appreciated by the big powers, who were somehow like the guardians to the younger students in school. They…used to monitor what the Third World used to do… Suddenly a new vehicle appeared on the scene which belonged to the Third World, instead of using the vehicle they usually assigned to us, (the Third World) have their own vehicle now so the money that came from the oil business went to this vehicle instead of to the banks of the Western world… If you look around in the banking world, you will see that most of the Arab banking organizations with international branches are being hit one after the other, and it cannot appear coincidental. I believe some of it is intentionally done because the New World Order does not allow anyone to have his own vehicles.”
When the Bank of England moved in to shut down BCCI in 1991 Adham wasn’t the only Arab leader crying foul. One Pakistani official from Sind Province stated, “The West and Israel were responsible for the closing of the bank. BCCI was a Third World bank, and it took the challenge of breaking the hegemonic control of the Jewish Lobby and the world’s financial institutions.” The way BCCI was shut down merely bolsters these claims.
In July 1991 Bank of England Governor Robin Leigh-Pemberton successfully solicited an $8 million cash infusion into BCCI from Sheik Zayed- BCCI’s biggest shareholder. The very next day, the Bank of England ordered regulators around the world to shut BCCI down. N. M. Rothschild & Sons, which owns a big chunk of the Bank of England and another big chunk of Bank of America, is also cozy with al-Nahayan’s Abu Dhabi Investment Fund. The London bank had been at the heart of the BCCI scandal. Before British investigators could move in, a warehouse full of BCCI documents in London mysteriously burned to the ground.
In the months before the closure, Sheik Zayed had begun pumping millions into BCCI. He had done so on the advice of his US real estate investment lawyer Sandy Martin. Martin was a former National Security Adviser to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Within months of the BCCI shutdown, Martin hung his client out to dry. He walked into the office of the Federal Reserve Board’s general counsel with a list of Zayed’s alleged improprieties. Sheik Zayed’s personal income was around $30 billion/year and a good bit of that was going into shady US real estate being handled by Martin.
Zayed had risen to power in Abu Dhabi in 1966 when the British helped him overthrow his brother Sheik Shakbut, who had refused British demands that he spend his oil revenues on development schemes. Zayed, under British tutelage, immediately launched the Abu Dhabi Investment Fund to serve as a vessel through which oil revenues could be recycled into ventures more favorable to the British Crown. It now appeared as though the puppeteer was squeezing a little extra from his faithful old friend. US Ambassador to the UAE Ned Walker refused to discuss the situation.
The Federal Reserve claims it tried to get audits on BCCI for some time, but that neither the Bank of England nor BCCI auditor Price Waterhouse would turn over the papers. New York District Attorney Robert Morgenthau ran into similar roadblocks in his investigation of BCCI. Finally, the Federal Reserve sent a SWAT team into Price Waterhouse. They found that Price, one of the Big Five US accounting firms, had given BCCI an unqualified audit for years 1985-89, despite the fact that Price knew BCCI had no capital. Later it was revealed that Price Waterhouse had received $600,000 in loans from BCCI’s Barbados office and had never repaid them. [7] The Bank of England and Price Waterhouse were clearly engaged in a cover-up.
Officials at the CIA, NSC, FBI and the Justice Department would soon join in the BCCI whitewashing effort. Morgenthau said Justice was telling potential witnesses not to cooperate with him, while withholding documents which his office requested. Reagan Treasury Secretaries James Baker and Donald Regan had been tipped off about BCCI in 1985 and did nothing. This was around the same time Baker was selling his Texas Commerce Bank Tower to BCCI shareholder Sheik Khalid bin Mahfouz at a hugely inflated price. A Senate committee charged with investigating BCCI was chaired by Sen. John Kerry (D-MA). Kerry helped put a lid on the CIA role in contra drug trafficking. Kerry is part of the Eastern Establishment whose forefathers became rich smuggling Chinese opium. Kerry is a member of the Yale Skull & Bones secret society, where he and George Bush learned to recite cryptic incantations and to keep a good secret.
In 1988 Bush and Obama Defense Secretary Robert Gates – then Deputy Director of CIA – wrote a six-page report titled, BCCI: Bank of Crooks & Criminals. Director Casey shrugged off the report. The NSC received reports of BCCI brokering nuclear technology to Iran, Iraq and Libya, yet did nothing. In 1987 the FBI requested records pertaining to BCCI’s role in the Iran/Contra affair, then did nothing. Even after Sheik Zayed and other BCCI officials pleaded guilty to money laundering in Florida, the Justice Department pressured Florida Comptroller Gerald Lewis to keep BCCI open.
When the Bank of England closed BCCI a little-known list of US Congressmen who had taken bribes from the bank was made public for only 30 days. According to Chicago BCCI researcher Sherman Skolnick, on the list were the names of 108 members of the US House and 28 members of the US Senate. The most important Congressman to BCCI had been House Ways & Means Chairman Dan Rostenkowski (D-IL), who was later forced to resign and served jail time on corruption charges.
Rostenkowski was a large shareholder in Garfield Ridge Trust & Savings Bank, a Chicago-based S&L, which disguised Mena, AR drug money laundering as soybean and currency trades on Chicago’s Commodity Futures Trading Exchange (CFTE), where Capcom and Enron hid their tracks. Wendy Gramm, wife of Senate Banking Committee Chairman Phil Gramm (R-TX), was a key regulator at the CFTE during this time and helped cover up Rostenkowski’s improprieties. [8] Wendy later served on the board of Enron, chairing that company’s Audit Committee when it went belly up in December 2001, leaving small shareholders and employees holding the bag.
Skolnick says BCCI has been resurrected as Pinnacle Banc Group, whose flagship is the First National Bank of Cicero. Cicero is a suburb of Chicago and has earned the nickname Al Capone Land, owing to its long history of hosting organized crime families. Bishop Paul Marcinkus, the former Vatican Bank executive who had ties to Robert Calvi’s Banco Ambrosiano takeover of Continental Illinois Bank, controls the First National Bank of Cicero. Marcinkus is a long-time CIA liaison. [9]
BCCI was a principal bank for the GCC oil elite. No bank in the world ever grew faster. When the Bank of England shut BCCI down $20 billion in assets were gone forever, most of it belonging to Third World governments and citizens. A huge petrodollar slush fund had disappeared in a haze of covert operations, drug smuggling and IMF embezzlement of Third World governments. Now the anger of the Arab street was shared by many GCC sheiks, who knew that after faithfully serving as CIA paymasters, they had been shaken down by the Bank of England Rothschild crowd.
It was not exactly what Egyptian nationalist Gamal Abdel Nasser had envisioned when he called for a Bank of the South to be financed by OPEC oil revenues, with the money going to finance real development for the Third World poor. Instead, the poor had been fleeced one more time and their anger was increasingly being aimed at the United States.
Flying Dolphins
In the late 1990′s UAE Sheik Zayed was back to his old tricks, founding an air freight company known as Flying Dolphin. Sheik Zayed was UAE Ambassador to the US from 1989-1992, just after the BCCI failure. A decade later the UAE was becoming an al Qaeda haven. In the emirate of Sharjah, al Qaeda operatives linked up with Russian arms dealer Victor Bout, a former Soviet fighter pilot. Bout owned a Sharjah company appropriately named Air Cess. Both Air Cess and Flying Dolphin were cited in a UN report on gun-running in Africa as consistent violators of UN arms embargoes in places like Sierre Leone, Angola and Liberia. Bout and Zayed were described as “business partners”. Both companies began ferrying Eastern European weapons to the Taliban regime in Afghanistan following a 1996 meeting with Taliban officials at a Sharjah hotel. The UAE was one of only three countries to recognize the Taliban government, along with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
Air Cess and Flying Dolphin also supplied al Qaeda operatives with cyanide and other dangerous chemicals from Germany, the Czech Republic and Ukraine. [10] The US State Department says Bout has a fleet of 60 cargo planes based at Sharjah’s duty-free airport. The UN demanded an end to Flying Dolphin’s Afghan shuttles on January 21, 2001, stating that the flights were carrying contraband. When a UN team tried to inspect Air Cess planes on the runway at Sharjah, they were told by UAE officials to leave the country. Those who persisted had their movements severely restricted by the UAE government, according to Belgian team member Johan Peleman. In 2004 NPR reported that Victor Bout was supplying US contractors in Iraq. His clients included Halliburton’s Kellogg Brown & Root subsidiary. [11]
The US finally applied pressure to the UAE after the 1998 African embassy bombings carried out by al Qaeda. Both President Clinton and Defense Secretary William Cohen wrote their UAE counterparts urging them to clamp down on al Qaeda funding networks. A senior UAE sheik responded that it was difficult to separate criminal money from that which was going to fight US proxy wars in Bosnia and Chechnya.
While Sharjah’s free-trade airport handled contraband, the neighboring UAE emirate of Dubai handled the money laundering. Dubai is a duty-free port and gold bullion landing strip where US Naval vessels often berth. Suitcases full of cash often show up at branches of British and US mega-banks that preside over this unregulated offshore banking haven. The Financial Action Task Force, a conglomeration of Treasury officials from 29 nations which was formed after the 911 tragedy, concluded that money laundering was rife in Dubai.
The Taliban had accounts at the Dubai Islamic Bank, whose chairman is Mohammed Khalfan bin Karbash. bin Karbash is Minister for Financial & Industrial Affairs in the UAE government. Al Qaeda operatives often used the howala banking house known as al Barakaat, whose global headquarters is in the UAE. Al Barakaat was founded by Somali warlord Ahmed Nur Ali Jim’ale and serves as a quasi-central bank in Somalia. In November 2001 the US cut off al Barakaat’s channels to international money center banks, effectively wiping out the savings of middle class Somalis who kept their money at al Barakaat. [12]
Just before the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on America, a wave of gold couriers began showing up in Dubai with massive amounts of bullion taken from Afghanistan. The gold belonged to al Qaeda and the Taliban and was most likely derived from opium smuggling. In Dubai the couriers exchanged their gold for the US dollars they needed to pull off the coming attacks on the US.
Alleged hijacker ringleader Mohammed Atta received $120,000 to plan and carry out the terror attacks from accounts in Dubai controlled by operation paymaster Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi on orders from Pakistan’s ISI Chief Mahmud Ahmad. Another alleged hijacker and al-Hawsawi himself used accounts at the Dubai branch of the British Cecil Rhodes-founded Standard Chartered Bank to finance the 911 operation.
According to the June 19, 2007 Financial Times, the government of Dubai now owns a 2.7% stake in Standard Chartered via its Istithmar Corporation, which recently paid $100 million to Cunards for the QE2 luxury liner.
[1] “New Capitalism: Bank Fraud, Drug Trade, Espionage”. George Winslow. In These Times. October 30 to November 5, 1991. p.3
[2] The Outlaw Bank: A Wild Ride into the Secret Heart of BCCI. Jonathan Beaty and S.C. Gwynne. Random House. New York. 1993. p.315
[3] The Mafia, CIA and George Bush: The Untold Story of America’s Greatest Financial Debacle. Pete Brewton. SPI Books. New York. 1992.
[4] Ibid
[5] Ibid
[6] “BCCI Financial Iran Arms Deal-Witness”. Japan Times. 9-7-92. p.1
[7] Beaty & Gwynne. p.74
[8] “The Enron Black Magic, Part I”. Sherman Skolnick. www.skolnickreports.com. 12-2-01.
[9] Hot Money and the Politics of Debt. R.T. Naylor. The Linden Press/Simon & Schuster. New York. 1987. p.306
[10] “Emirates Looked Other Way While al Qaeda Funds Flowed”. Judy Pasternak and Stephen Braun. Los Angeles Times. 1-20-02.
[11] National Public Radio. 12-23-04
[12] Pasternak and Braun
Dean Henderson is the author of four books: Big Oil & Their Bankers in the Persian Gulf: Four Horsemen, Eight Families & Their Global Intelligence, Narcotics & Terror Network, The Grateful Unrich: Revolution in 50 Countries, Das Kartell der Federal Reserve & Stickin’ it to the Matrix. You can subscribe free to his weekly Left Hook column @ www.deanhenderson.wordpress.com
An American Spring?
The coming elections in America have become a contest between candidates who both try to be the leading panderer to Israel.
Watching grown men who aspire to lead America grovel and mollycoddle before Israeli puppet-masters is disturbing.
America is in the hands of a president who can’t decide whether to be imperious or fawning, an administration more devoted to Israel than to America, and a Congress that’s disdainful to most Americans and servile to AIPAC, ADL, AJC ZOA and 153 other American Jewish organizations.
The Republican candidate for the presidency is more deplorable than the legislature and the wretched administration combined.
Mitt Romney could hardly wait until he arrived in Israel before he started pampering Benjamin Netanyahu.
But then he was competing against Obama’s unpardonable generosity a day before when the President signed a bill giving Israel an extra 70 million dollars in military aid.
This, in addition to the 3 billion dollars Israel receives each year, comes out of American taxpayers’ earnings. Most American taxpayers are unaware that, in per capita terms, the United States gives each Israeli a direct subsidy worth about $500 per year.
This largesse to individual Israelis should provoke deep resentment among thousands of unemployed in America as well as to those who lost homes during the financial crisis.
Israel’s pawns in the US Congress refuse to tax the wealthiest one percent. They refuse relief for home-owners, refuse to fund the hiring of needed teachers, police and firemen, and refuse to allocate funds for infrastructure maintenance of bridges, roads and national forests.
The Israeli shills in Congress don’t think twice about funding the war-mongers who pushed America into a 4-trillion dollar war in Iraq, and are pressuring for an encore in Iran.
If Obama loses the election, he could regret the generosity designed to attract the Jewish vote.
With typical political manoeuvring, Romney had to play one-upmanship to the Associated Press. They report:
“The Republican’s campaign” says Romney “is happy steps being taken to enhance security cooperation with Israel. But the bill “does nothing” to address whether Obama recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.”
Propagandising Americans and flattering Israelis, Romney insisted that “America’s support of Israel should make every American proud.”
In a sickening lie, Romney grunted “No country or organization or individual should ever doubt this basic truth: A free and strong America will always stand with a free and strong Israel.”
Neither America nor Israel is free. America will only be free when it’s rid of the albatross of Israel around its neck; and Israel will never be free as long as it’s an apartheid state stealing land for illegal settlers.
The more he attempted to justify Israel’s false needs, the more Romney revealed either the ignorance a presidential candidate shouldn’t have or himself as a pathological liar.
“With Hezbollah rockets aimed at Israel from the north, and Hamas rockets aimed from the south, with much of the Middle East in tumult, and with Iran bent on nuclear arms, America’s vocal and demonstrated commitment to the defence of Israel is even more critical.”
In a brazen show of how he would lead America into war, Romney insisted “We must lead the effort to prevent Iran from building and possessing nuclear weapons capability.”
No honest reference to Israel’s nuclear capacity, no reference to Israel’s killer instincts in attacks in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, Israel forces an American presidential candidate to join yet another Middle East blood-letting by Israel.
Unless the American President and Congress change course, 2013 may welcome an American spring.
‘US, NATO seek repeat of Qaddafi end for Assad’
Another Federal Judge—Another Billboard Lawsuit
This time the location is Ann Arbor, Michigan.
And this time the billboard opposes Israel.
I have been reporting regularly about the ongoing “billboard wars” in America over the Palestine-Israeli conflict, and the right to promote one’s position on the matter by taking out billboard advertisements. (see here, here, here, and here ). The latest episode in the saga seems to be playing out in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where a lawsuit has been filed challenging the local transit agency’s refusal to accept ads containing skull and bones imagery and calling for a boycott of Israel. This AP report was posted today at Dearborn Boycotts Israel:
ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) – An Ann Arbor bus agency is vigorously defending itself in a lawsuit related to the rejection of a provocative ad on its vehicles.
Blaine Coleman’s ad would have skulls and bones and say, ‘Boycott Israel. Boycott Apartheid.’ He believes the Israeli government treats Palestinians unfairly.
Coleman wants the ad on buses that travel near the University of Michigan, but the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority rejected it. In a court filing this week, the agency says it turns down ads that ridicule a group of people. Bus officials say Coleman’s ad would make people uncomfortable and have a ‘negative impact’ on ridership.
Federal Judge Mark Goldsmith appears close to making a decision on an injunction sought by Coleman’s lawyers. They say his free-speech rights are being violated.
The same story has also been carried by an ABC affiliate in Toledo, Ohio.
The really fascinating question that a lot of people are now going to be watching is: will the ruling by this judge, in this court, be consistent with the July 20 ruling by another federal judge in an almost identical case brought in New York?
Judge Paul Engelmayer believes this ad from the AFDI represents “core political speech” that must be “afforded the highest
level of protection under the First Amendment.”
In a post just over a week ago I discussed a lawsuit filed by the American Freedom Defense Initiative, which in September of last year attempted to place ads on the sides of New York City busses, only to have them turned down by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The MTA has a policy prohibiting “images or information that demean an individual or group of individuals on account of race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, gender, age, disability or sexual orientation.” The ad would have read: “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad.”
As I say, the New York case and the Ann Arbor case are practically identical, both involving billboards, with both billboards featuring messages addressing the Palestine-Israel conflict. In fact, the only significant difference in the two cases would seem to be that in the New York case the billboard is pro-Israel, while in Ann Arbor the sentiment expressed is against Israel.
The American Freedom Defense Initiative, or AFDI, is headed by Pamela Geller, of the Atlas Shrugged blog, a Jewish writer who has been outspoken in her opposition to the “Islamization of America.” Geller has called Islam a “genocidal ideology,” and has warned of the dangers of Sharia law coming to America—however, significantly, it was not a Muslim judge who presided over her case. In deciding the lawsuit in her favor, U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer ruled that the side of a public transportation vehicle is a “public forum” where free speech must be allowed to take place:
As a threshold matter, the Court notes that the AFDI Ad is not only protected speech—it is core political speech. The Ad expresses AFDI’s pro-Israel perspective on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict in the Middle East, and implicitly calls for a pro-Israel U.S. foreign policy with regard to that conflict. The AFDI Ad is, further, a form of response to political ads on the same subject that have appeared in the same space. As such, the AFDI Ad is afforded the highest level of protection under the First Amendment.
The decision means the MTA will be forced to accept the AFDI’s ad, which begs the question: Would Engelmayer, or any other judge in America for that matter, have issued a ruling requiring a transit authority to accept ads depicting Jews as “savages”? And will Goldsmith now take a position similar to Engelmayer’s with regard to the anti-Israel “skull and bones” ads in Ann Arbor? Inquiring minds want to know. As the AP story notes, a ruling in the matter “appears close.”
Al-Jaafari: Draft Resolution on Syria Hysteric and Misleading
Al-Jaafari: Draft Resolution on Syria Hysteric and Misleading
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| Syria’s Permanent Representative in the UN |
He went on to affirm that other countries that adopted the draft are among the direct contributors to the deterioration of the situation in Syria, and that they have no credibility in terms of commitment to UN resolution in light of prior experiences, as many of these countries manipulated such resolutions and tailored them to fit their interests as to permit them to partake in military intervention in other countries using pretexts of disarming weapons of mass destruction, protecting human rights, protecting civilians, and other noble principles that were never truly among these countries goals; rather they were mere slogans employed to interfere in other countries’ affairs, topple governments and plunge countries into chaos, civil wars and sectarian infighting.
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| “Halal” – “legal” – terrorism |
Al-Jaafari also pointed out to the contradiction in some countries – which always claimed to denounce terrorism and Al Qaeda and waged wars on this basis – are directly or indirectly supporting the growing terrorist activities of Al Qaeda and other extremist groups in Syria to serve “creative chaos” as it is well-known that some countries facilitated, funded and instigated the sending of terrorist to Syria, which explains why those who submitted the draft didn’t refer to these terrorists at all as this would indict them.
He went on to say that while many western countries are combating Salafi, Wahabi and Takfiri sleeper terrorists cells in their territories, the same countries are working hard to activate such cells in Syria, with some countries carrying out a methodical campaign of promoting violence and terrorism to Syria despite the fact that UN laws prohibit such acts and equate instigation of these crimes to committing them.
He called on member countries to not vote for it so that they do not become indirect accomplices in supporting chaos and terrorism and interfering in countries’ internal affairs and legalizing unilateral sanctions, calling on them to vote against it to support UN principles that equate countries in sovereignty and respect people’s right of self-determination.
| occupied saudi islands |
