President Zelaya of Honduras has just been kidnapped
[Note: As of 11:15am, Caracas time, President Zelaya is speaking live on Telesur from San Jose, Costa Rica. He has verified the soldiers entered his residence in the early morning hours, firing guns and threatening to kill him and his family if he resisted the coup. He was forced to go with the soldiers who took him to the air base and flew him to Costa Rica. He has requested the U.S. Government make a public statement condemning the coup, otherwise, it will indicate their compliance.]
Caracas, Venezuela - The text message that beeped on my cell phone this morning read “Alert, Zelaya has been kidnapped, coup d’etat underway in Honduras, spread the word.” It’s a rude awakening for a Sunday morning, especially for the millions of Hondurans that were preparing to exercise their sacred right to vote today for the first time on a consultative referendum concerning the future convening of a constitutional assembly to reform the constitution. Supposedly at the center of the controversary is today’s scheduled referendum, which is not a binding vote but merely an opinion poll to determine whether or not a majority of Hondurans desire to eventually enter into a process to modify their constitution.
Such an initiative has never taken place in the Central American nation, which has a very limited constitution that allows minimal participation by the people of Honduras in their political processes. The current constitution, written in 1982 during the height of the Reagan Administration’s dirty war in Central America, was designed to ensure those in power, both economic and political, would retain it with little interference from the people. Zelaya, elected in November 2005 on the platform of Honduras’ Liberal Party, had proposed the opinion poll be conducted to determine if a majority of citizens agreed that constitutional reform was necessary. He was backed by a majority of labor unions and social movements in the country. If the poll had occured, depending on the results, a referendum would have been conducted during the upcoming elections in November to vote on convening a constitutional assembly. Nevertheless, today’s scheduled poll was not binding by law.
In fact, several days before the poll was to occur, Honduras’ Supreme Court ruled it illegal, upon request by the Congress, both of which are led by anti-Zelaya majorities and members of the ultra-conservative party, National Party of Honduras (PNH). This move led to massive protests in the streets in favor of President Zelaya. On June 24, the president fired the head of the high military command, General Romeo Vásquez, after he refused to allow the military to distribute the electoral material for Sunday’s elections. General Romeo Vásquez held the material under tight military control, refusing to release it even to the president’s followers, stating that the scheduled referendum had been determined illegal by the Supreme Court and therefore he could not comply with the president’s order. As in the Unted States, the president of Honduras is Commander in Chief and has the final say on the military’s actions, and so he ordered the General’s removal. The Minister of Defense, Angel Edmundo Orellana, also resigned in response to this increasingly tense situation.
But the following day, Honduras’ Supreme Court reinstated General Romeo Vásquez to the high military command, ruling his firing as “unconstitutional’. Thousands poured into the streets of Honduras’ capital, Tegucigalpa, showing support for President Zelaya and evidencing their determination to ensure Sunday’s non-binding referendum would take place. On Friday, the president and a group of hundreds of supporters, marched to the nearby air base to collect the electoral material that had been previously held by the military. That evening, Zelaya gave a national press conference along with a group of politicians from different political parties and social movements, calling for unity and peace in the country.
As of Saturday, the situation in Honduras was reported as calm. But early Sunday morning, a group of approximately 60 armed soldiers entered the presidential residence and took Zelaya hostage. After several hours of confusion, reports surfaced claiming the president had been taken to a nearby air force base and flown to neighboring Costa Rica. No images have been seen of the president so far and it is unknown whether or not his life is still endangered.
President Zelaya’s wife, Xiomara Castro de Zelaya, speaking live on Telesur at approximately 10:00am Caracas time, denounced that in early hours of Sunday morning, the soldiers stormed their residence, firing shots throughout the house, beating and then taking the president. “It was an act of cowardness”, said the first lady, referring to the illegal kidnapping occuring during a time when no one would know or react until it was all over. Casto de Zelaya also called for the “preservation” of her husband’s life, indicating that she herself is unaware of his whereabouts. She claimed their lives are all still in “serious danger” and made a call for the international community to denounce this illegal coup d’etat and to act rapidly to reinstate constitutional order in the country, which includes the rescue and return of the democratically elected Zelaya.
Presidents Evo Morales of Bolivia and Hugo Chávez of Venezuela have both made public statements on Sunday morning condeming the coup d’etat in Honduras and calling on the international community to react to ensure democracy is restored and the constitutional president is reinstated. Last Wednesday, June 24, an extraordinary meeting of the member nations of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), of which Honduras is a member, was convened in Venezuela to welcome Ecuador, Antigua & Barbados and St. Vincent to its ranks. During the meeting, which was attended by Honduras’ Foreign Minister, Patricia Rodas, a statement was read supporting President Zelaya and condenming any attempts to undermine his mandate and Honduras’ democratic processes.
Reports coming out of Honduras have informed that the public television channel, Canal 8, has been shut down by the coup forces. Just minutes ago, Telesur announced that the military in Honduras is shutting down all electricity throughout the country. Those television and radio stations still transmitting are not reporting the coup d’etat or the kidnapping of President Zelaya, according to Foreign Minister Patricia Rodas. “Telephones and electricity are being cut off”, confirmed Rodas just minutes ago via Telesur. “The media are showing cartoons and soap operas and are not informing the people of Honduras about what is happening”. The situation is eerily reminiscent of the April 2002 coup d’etat against President Chávez in Venezuela, when the media played a key role by first manipulating information to support the coup and then later blacking out all information when the people began protesting and eventually overcame and defeated the coup forces, rescuing Chávez (who had also been kidnapped by the military) and restoring constitutional order.
Honduras is a nation that has been the victim of dictatorships and massive U.S. intervention during the past century, including several military invasions. The last major U.S. government intervention in Honduras occured during the 1980s, when the Reagain Administration funded death squads and paramilitaries to eliminate any potential “communist threats” in Central America. At the time, John Negroponte, was the U.S. Ambassador in Honduras and was responsible for directly funding and training Honduran death squads that were responsable for thousands of disappeared and assassinated throughout the region.
On Friday, the Organization of American States (OAS), convened a special meeting to discuss the crisis in Honduras, later issuing a statement condeming the threats to democracy and authorizing a convoy of representatives to travel to OAS to investigate further. Nevertheless, on Friday, Assistant Secretary of State of the United States, Phillip J. Crowley, refused to clarify the U.S. government’s position in reference to the potential coup against President Zelaya, and instead issued a more ambiguous statement that implied Washington’s support for the opposition to the Honduran president. While most other Latin American governments had clearly indicated their adamant condemnation of the coup plans underway in Honduras and their solid support for Honduras’ constitutionally elected president, Manual Zelaya, the U.S. spokesman stated the following, “We are concerned about the breakdown in the political dialogue among Honduran politicians over the proposed June 28 poll on constitutional reform. We urge all sides to seek a consensual democratic resolution in the current political impasse that adheres to the Honduran constitution and to Honduran laws consistent with the principles of the Inter-American Democratic Charter.”
As of 10:30am, Sunday morning, no further statements have been issued by the Washington concerning the military coup in Honduras. The Central American nation is highly dependent on the U.S. economy, which ensures one of its top sources of income, the monies sent from Hondurans working in the U.S. under the “temporary protected status” program that was implemented during Washington’s dirty war in the 1980s as a result of massive immigration to U.S. territory to escape the war zone. Another major source of funding in Honduras is USAID, providing over US$ 50 millon annually for “democracy promotion” programs, which generally supports NGOs and political parties favorable to U.S. interests, as has been the case in Venezuela, Bolivia and other nations in the region. The Pentagon also maintains a military base in Honduras in Soto Cano, equipped with approximately 500 troops and numerous air force combat planes and helicopters.
Foreign Minister Rodas has stated that she has repeatedly tried to make contact with the U.S. Ambassador in Honduras, Hugo Llorens, who has not responded to any of her calls thus far. The modus operandi of the coup makes clear that Washington is involved. Neither the Honduran military, which is majority trained by U.S. forces, nor the political and economic elite, would act to oust a democratically elected president without the backing and support of the U.S. government. President Zelaya has increasingly come under attack by the conservative forces in Honduras for his growing relationship with the ALBA countries, and particularly Venezuela and President Chávez. Many believe the coup has been executed as a method of ensuring Honduras does not continue to unify with the more leftist and socialist countries in Latin America.
evagolinger@hotmail.com or evagolinger@gmail.com
Showing posts with label americans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label americans. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Terrorists "Made in Miami, USA" by Nil Nikandrov
Miami, a coastal city in southeastern Florida, US, is known worldwide for its sandy beaches, high-class tourism and entertainment.
Well-off people from Latin America are striving to buy houses in Miami and join the clubs which are popular among American 'high society'.
Miami is a kind of Latin American bridgehead in the US territories. There you may see diverse people from countries located to the south of the Rio Grande: retired businessmen, politicians who worked for the State Department (harmfully to the national interests of their countries), popular actors, singers and also drug dealers and other criminals.
In the western media, Miami is rarely mentioned as a stronghold of terror organizations. And it is clear why. There are terrorists whom FBI, CIA and other services have long cooperated with, so the authorities and the partisan media do not view them as a threat to US national security.
The permanent anti-terror campaign launched after the 9/11 attacks in no way disturbs the terrorists in Miami. It seems that US ultra-right circles still believe those hirelings could help them in their fight against "alien" regimes in Cuba, Bolivia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Paraguay, Nicaragua and Salvador.
Secret camps for training terrorists in Miami appeared in the very first years of the CIA's existence. Their major goal was to suppress Communist-like regimes in Latin America and the countries of the Caribbean. They successfully worked in Guatemala at the time of Jacobo Arbenz`s rule (1951-1954). In late 1940s there was a wave of attacks on Soviet diplomatic missions in Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Cuba. Soviet diplomats were threatened also in Uruguay and Argentina. Those were the first years of the Cold War, and the demand was quite clear: “Soviets, get away from Latin America!” Thus Moscow had to close half of its embassies in the region.
The 'renaissance' of terror organizations in Miami happened after Fidel Castro`s triumphant guerrilla campaign. Dictator Fulgencio Batista fled Cuba, followed by hundreds of war criminals and police agents involved in bloody repressions. And they were hired into terrorist groups by the CIA to later again be sent to Cuba and serve the US there. Miami militants are responsible for hundreds of killings and assassinations in Havana and other cities. Since Fidel Castro was their major enemy, the CIA used everything - from an exploding cigar to a scuba tank with toxic gas.
The number of terrorists among Cuban immigrants grew so fast that they felt they could interfere in US domestic policies. A prominent American documentarist Michael Moore used to say that each serious incident in the US in the past few decades had Cuban trace: John Kennedy's murder, the Watergate scandal, the Iran-Contra affairs, etc.
Ramon Medina worked as the key CIA agent in the Iran-Contra case in 1985-1987. Medina (his real name is Luis Posada Carriles) was born in Cuba in 1928. Before the revolution he worked as chemist at a sugar factory. He was opposed to the regime of the Castro brothers and in February 1961 fled the country to escape detention. He decided to continue his fight...from abroad.
Posada was trained in Fort Benning (US) and soon was hired by the CIA. He is known as a very experienced militant.
In 1964 he led the training of rebels ofe so-called Revolutionary Junta.
In the 1960s he helped the CIA to develop its branches: Alpha 66, Comandos L, Movimiento de 30 Noviembre and others.
In 1967 he was sent to Venezuela to run a department of the DISIP secret police force. He pursued members of leftist parties and guerrilla brigades. An explosion on board a flight from Caracas to Havana, which took the lives of 73 passengers and all the crew, became the climax of his terror activity. Posada was arrested and jailed in Venezuela, where he stayed until 1985. He did not serve the whole term. His patrons in the CIA helped him to escape, gave him a new passport and sent him to Salvador to control the delivery of arms to the 'contras' in Nicaragua.
In 2000 Posada and three of his allies prepared an assassination on Fidel Castro in Panama .
The Cuban leader was taking part in the 10th Ibero-American summit, when his intelligence service told him about the plotted assassination attempt.
Castro disclosed the information during a press conference. The police found enough evidence, including 30 kilograms of explosives, and Posada and his team were arrested.
And again he was released by his US friends. Secretary of State Colin Powell arrived in Panama and settled the issue. His argumentation was that Panamian politician Martin Torrijos, who was one of Chavez's supporters, was about to take office as president and that he would certainly demand Posada`s extradition to try him on the Cuban plane blast.
Posada`s name has again attracted attention recently when it was made public that his agents in Central America had plotted an assassination on Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez and his Bolivian counterpart Evo Morales but luckily the two presidents were warned beforehand and escaped the danger.
The world media calls Posada “the No.1 terrorist in Western hemisphere” but the US prefers to ignore the obvious facts and accuses Posada only of 'violating migration laws'.
After the failed coup d'etat attempt and an unsuccessful oil sabotage in Venezuela in April 2002 and in early 2003, Miami terrorist organizations thought about recruiting new members. CIA agents who had given themselves away tried to escape, while migrants from Venezuela settled in Miami close to the Cuban community and aimed to solve “the problem with Chavez” by means of force. The US asked the Cuban militants to train their Venezuelan colleagues. Now it is difficult to say exactly how fruitful their joint work is, but still some facts are available already.
In the second half of 2002 the sides, represented by the Cuban Comandos F-4 led by Rodolfo Frometa and the Venezuela Patriotic Union under Luis Garcia Morales, reached an agreement on joint terror activity. Under the deal, the two groups have to share information and carry out joint operations in times which can be described as 'critical' either for Cuba or Venezuela. After being defeated by Chavez supporters, members of the Venezuelan resistance movement do not feel like coming back home 'to put an end to the dictatorship'. They prefer to hire militants from Colombia or Argentine and offer huge sums to lure them in.
The group of Venezuelan militants in Miami already have their 'heroes': several fugitive officers, who had organized attacks on Spanish and Colombian embassies in Caracas in order to demonize Bolivia. Another group of Venezuelan militants were accused of killing Danilo Anderson, a Venezuelan environmental state prosecutor, who investigated the 2002 failed coup d'etat attempt. The organizers of the oil sabotage, which almost put Venezuela on the brink of an ecological catastrophe, also live in Miami as if they had not committed any crimes. Each time Venezuela asks the US to extradite them, Washington gives vague answers or does not reply at all.
Special forces of the countries which in the western media are called 'populist' are aware of the main channels through which terrorists are being transported from Miami to the south. Many of the militants are tasked with long-term missions: to legally settle in a country and wait for the X-day. On their way the terrorists usually stay in some port cities in Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Panama, in the capital of Costa Rica - San Jose - and in the Colombian city of Cucuta, bordered to the east by Venezuela. Recently, Mexican territories have been actively used for such kinds of operations for under President Calderon the country's special forces have practically fallen under US control. The main Carribean states, especially those bordering Venezuela, are also involved in the campaign against 'alien regimes'.
Concerned over the remaining terror threats coming from Miami, the progressive governments of Latin America are trying to get authentic information about the plotted conspiracies. In Havana they did not ever doubt that Washington helped those criminals who organized terror attacks in hotels and restaurants in Cuba or mass poisoning of humans and animals and provocations on marine and air borders.
Agents were planted into the anti-Cuban terror organization to report about the plotted operations beforehand. Gerardo Hernandez, Antonio Guerrero, Ramon Labanino, Fernando Gonzalez, and Rene Gonzalez were among the volunteers. They managed to prevent more than 170 terror attacks. Cuba sent to Washington all data these five agents had collected in the hotbed of terrorists in Miami. But Washington used the information in fighting against those who opposed the idea of terror.
In 1998 the five Cubans were arrested and tried. The whole process turned into an infamous show. The judges were intimidated by the mafia. The process was highly politicized and lacked solid evidence. In spite of this, the detainees were sentenced to prison for crimes they did not commit, like 'espionage' against the Miami-based Southern Command of the U.S Armed forces. It is worth mentioning that some retired generals of the US army attended the hearings of this case (which lasted for seven months) and testified that the five agents had not attempted to get intelligence information.
Now the release of the five agents is a matter of honor for Cuba. In many countries, including the US, people take to the streets to voice their protest over illegal imprisonment of the heroes. Some 300 committees have been operating worldwide where people can express their sympathy with the detained. The UN Human Rights Commission's working group urged the US government to undertake adequate steps to settle the issue, otherwise Washington's 'war on terror' was nothing but a fraud.
Terror organizations in Miami are posing a danger not only to the Latin American countries and its leaders. Everyone who knows the truth about the life in Miami understand that there are no 'accidental' deaths: if a person dares to think and talk differently and defend his views, he is doomed to be killed.
The long list of victims features those who wanted better relations with Havana, who welcomed Bolivarian reforms in Venezuela or supported socialists in Nicaragua and Ecuador. For example, the staff of La Replica magazine were intimidated several times for their dialog with Cuba. Most Americans cannot even imagine what cruelty and extremism are hidden under the mask of luxury and resort entertainment.
It was exactly in Miami where the cream of the CIA, the FBI, the State Department and the Cuban mafia plotted John Kennedy's assassination. The incumbent US President Barack Obama has been more than once criticized by the Miami extremists for not implementing a hard-line policy towards Cuba. So, who could guarantee security to Mr. Obama then?
Well-off people from Latin America are striving to buy houses in Miami and join the clubs which are popular among American 'high society'.
Miami is a kind of Latin American bridgehead in the US territories. There you may see diverse people from countries located to the south of the Rio Grande: retired businessmen, politicians who worked for the State Department (harmfully to the national interests of their countries), popular actors, singers and also drug dealers and other criminals.
In the western media, Miami is rarely mentioned as a stronghold of terror organizations. And it is clear why. There are terrorists whom FBI, CIA and other services have long cooperated with, so the authorities and the partisan media do not view them as a threat to US national security.
The permanent anti-terror campaign launched after the 9/11 attacks in no way disturbs the terrorists in Miami. It seems that US ultra-right circles still believe those hirelings could help them in their fight against "alien" regimes in Cuba, Bolivia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Paraguay, Nicaragua and Salvador.
Secret camps for training terrorists in Miami appeared in the very first years of the CIA's existence. Their major goal was to suppress Communist-like regimes in Latin America and the countries of the Caribbean. They successfully worked in Guatemala at the time of Jacobo Arbenz`s rule (1951-1954). In late 1940s there was a wave of attacks on Soviet diplomatic missions in Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Cuba. Soviet diplomats were threatened also in Uruguay and Argentina. Those were the first years of the Cold War, and the demand was quite clear: “Soviets, get away from Latin America!” Thus Moscow had to close half of its embassies in the region.
The 'renaissance' of terror organizations in Miami happened after Fidel Castro`s triumphant guerrilla campaign. Dictator Fulgencio Batista fled Cuba, followed by hundreds of war criminals and police agents involved in bloody repressions. And they were hired into terrorist groups by the CIA to later again be sent to Cuba and serve the US there. Miami militants are responsible for hundreds of killings and assassinations in Havana and other cities. Since Fidel Castro was their major enemy, the CIA used everything - from an exploding cigar to a scuba tank with toxic gas.
The number of terrorists among Cuban immigrants grew so fast that they felt they could interfere in US domestic policies. A prominent American documentarist Michael Moore used to say that each serious incident in the US in the past few decades had Cuban trace: John Kennedy's murder, the Watergate scandal, the Iran-Contra affairs, etc.
Ramon Medina worked as the key CIA agent in the Iran-Contra case in 1985-1987. Medina (his real name is Luis Posada Carriles) was born in Cuba in 1928. Before the revolution he worked as chemist at a sugar factory. He was opposed to the regime of the Castro brothers and in February 1961 fled the country to escape detention. He decided to continue his fight...from abroad.
Posada was trained in Fort Benning (US) and soon was hired by the CIA. He is known as a very experienced militant.
In 1964 he led the training of rebels ofe so-called Revolutionary Junta.
In the 1960s he helped the CIA to develop its branches: Alpha 66, Comandos L, Movimiento de 30 Noviembre and others.
In 1967 he was sent to Venezuela to run a department of the DISIP secret police force. He pursued members of leftist parties and guerrilla brigades. An explosion on board a flight from Caracas to Havana, which took the lives of 73 passengers and all the crew, became the climax of his terror activity. Posada was arrested and jailed in Venezuela, where he stayed until 1985. He did not serve the whole term. His patrons in the CIA helped him to escape, gave him a new passport and sent him to Salvador to control the delivery of arms to the 'contras' in Nicaragua.
In 2000 Posada and three of his allies prepared an assassination on Fidel Castro in Panama .
The Cuban leader was taking part in the 10th Ibero-American summit, when his intelligence service told him about the plotted assassination attempt.
Castro disclosed the information during a press conference. The police found enough evidence, including 30 kilograms of explosives, and Posada and his team were arrested.
And again he was released by his US friends. Secretary of State Colin Powell arrived in Panama and settled the issue. His argumentation was that Panamian politician Martin Torrijos, who was one of Chavez's supporters, was about to take office as president and that he would certainly demand Posada`s extradition to try him on the Cuban plane blast.
Posada`s name has again attracted attention recently when it was made public that his agents in Central America had plotted an assassination on Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez and his Bolivian counterpart Evo Morales but luckily the two presidents were warned beforehand and escaped the danger.
The world media calls Posada “the No.1 terrorist in Western hemisphere” but the US prefers to ignore the obvious facts and accuses Posada only of 'violating migration laws'.
After the failed coup d'etat attempt and an unsuccessful oil sabotage in Venezuela in April 2002 and in early 2003, Miami terrorist organizations thought about recruiting new members. CIA agents who had given themselves away tried to escape, while migrants from Venezuela settled in Miami close to the Cuban community and aimed to solve “the problem with Chavez” by means of force. The US asked the Cuban militants to train their Venezuelan colleagues. Now it is difficult to say exactly how fruitful their joint work is, but still some facts are available already.
In the second half of 2002 the sides, represented by the Cuban Comandos F-4 led by Rodolfo Frometa and the Venezuela Patriotic Union under Luis Garcia Morales, reached an agreement on joint terror activity. Under the deal, the two groups have to share information and carry out joint operations in times which can be described as 'critical' either for Cuba or Venezuela. After being defeated by Chavez supporters, members of the Venezuelan resistance movement do not feel like coming back home 'to put an end to the dictatorship'. They prefer to hire militants from Colombia or Argentine and offer huge sums to lure them in.
The group of Venezuelan militants in Miami already have their 'heroes': several fugitive officers, who had organized attacks on Spanish and Colombian embassies in Caracas in order to demonize Bolivia. Another group of Venezuelan militants were accused of killing Danilo Anderson, a Venezuelan environmental state prosecutor, who investigated the 2002 failed coup d'etat attempt. The organizers of the oil sabotage, which almost put Venezuela on the brink of an ecological catastrophe, also live in Miami as if they had not committed any crimes. Each time Venezuela asks the US to extradite them, Washington gives vague answers or does not reply at all.
Special forces of the countries which in the western media are called 'populist' are aware of the main channels through which terrorists are being transported from Miami to the south. Many of the militants are tasked with long-term missions: to legally settle in a country and wait for the X-day. On their way the terrorists usually stay in some port cities in Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Panama, in the capital of Costa Rica - San Jose - and in the Colombian city of Cucuta, bordered to the east by Venezuela. Recently, Mexican territories have been actively used for such kinds of operations for under President Calderon the country's special forces have practically fallen under US control. The main Carribean states, especially those bordering Venezuela, are also involved in the campaign against 'alien regimes'.
Concerned over the remaining terror threats coming from Miami, the progressive governments of Latin America are trying to get authentic information about the plotted conspiracies. In Havana they did not ever doubt that Washington helped those criminals who organized terror attacks in hotels and restaurants in Cuba or mass poisoning of humans and animals and provocations on marine and air borders.
Agents were planted into the anti-Cuban terror organization to report about the plotted operations beforehand. Gerardo Hernandez, Antonio Guerrero, Ramon Labanino, Fernando Gonzalez, and Rene Gonzalez were among the volunteers. They managed to prevent more than 170 terror attacks. Cuba sent to Washington all data these five agents had collected in the hotbed of terrorists in Miami. But Washington used the information in fighting against those who opposed the idea of terror.
In 1998 the five Cubans were arrested and tried. The whole process turned into an infamous show. The judges were intimidated by the mafia. The process was highly politicized and lacked solid evidence. In spite of this, the detainees were sentenced to prison for crimes they did not commit, like 'espionage' against the Miami-based Southern Command of the U.S Armed forces. It is worth mentioning that some retired generals of the US army attended the hearings of this case (which lasted for seven months) and testified that the five agents had not attempted to get intelligence information.
Now the release of the five agents is a matter of honor for Cuba. In many countries, including the US, people take to the streets to voice their protest over illegal imprisonment of the heroes. Some 300 committees have been operating worldwide where people can express their sympathy with the detained. The UN Human Rights Commission's working group urged the US government to undertake adequate steps to settle the issue, otherwise Washington's 'war on terror' was nothing but a fraud.
Terror organizations in Miami are posing a danger not only to the Latin American countries and its leaders. Everyone who knows the truth about the life in Miami understand that there are no 'accidental' deaths: if a person dares to think and talk differently and defend his views, he is doomed to be killed.
The long list of victims features those who wanted better relations with Havana, who welcomed Bolivarian reforms in Venezuela or supported socialists in Nicaragua and Ecuador. For example, the staff of La Replica magazine were intimidated several times for their dialog with Cuba. Most Americans cannot even imagine what cruelty and extremism are hidden under the mask of luxury and resort entertainment.
It was exactly in Miami where the cream of the CIA, the FBI, the State Department and the Cuban mafia plotted John Kennedy's assassination. The incumbent US President Barack Obama has been more than once criticized by the Miami extremists for not implementing a hard-line policy towards Cuba. So, who could guarantee security to Mr. Obama then?
Neo-Cons Are Cheerleading For A Terrorist Who Helped Kill Hundreds Of U.S. Marines
The new “patriotism” - Phony conservatives throw their support behind Butcher of Beirut who directed bloody terror campaign against U.S.
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
The horrible irony to arise out of the riots and protests in Iran is that many Neo-Cons and phony conservatives, in their unified effort to enthusiastically embrace the Anglo-American establishment’s agenda for regime change, are cheerleading for a brutal thug who directed a terrorist campaign that killed hundreds of U.S. Marines in the 1980’s.
This once again proves that slack-jawed Neo-Con twits, ditto-heads for phony conservative media whores like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, have no loyalty whatsoever to America, but only to the corrupt power structure which they like to believe they are a part of.
Apparently, the new form of ‘patriotism’, the new incarnation of ’support the troops’ - is to support someone who helped massacre hundreds of U.S. troops just two decades ago.
We are referring of course to Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the former Prime Minister of Iran who directed the bloody attacks on the U.S. embassy and Marine Corps barracks in Beirut in 1983. Sold by the media and hailed by Neo-Cons as the avatar of Iranian democracy, Mousavi was also “fingered Mousavi for the 1988 truck bombing of the U.S. Navy’s Fleet Center in Naples, Italy, that killed five persons, including the first Navy woman to die in a terrorist attack,” reports CQ Politics.
Regarding the Beirut bombings, which killed 220 U.S. Marines, CIA Middle East field officer Bob Baer wrote in TIME Magazine that Mousavi, “Dealt directly with Imad Mughniyah,” who ran the Beirut terrorist campaign and was “the man largely held responsible for both attacks.”
As Paul Craig Roberts writes, “The American media’s one-sided and propagandistic coverage of the Iranian election has made an American hero out of the defeated candidate, Mousavi.”
This charade has been vigorously amplified by phony right-wingers. As Raw Story notes, Neo-Cons have sided with the opposition against the boogeyman Ahmedinajed, to the point of grunting with delight at scenes broadcast by Fox News of police being beaten to a pulp by rioters. This makes for an odd contrast to their usual sentiment, towards anti-war protesters in the U.S. for example, for whom their newly found concern about police brutality towards demonstrators goes out of the window.
Similar feigned concern for demonstrators is being played out by TV talking heads across the networks. Take this former CIA agent for example, who informs Wolf Blitzer of his worries about how the Iranian Revolutionary Guard are treating protesters, warning that dissidents will be “disappeared”.
Oh the irony! For it was the CIA that trained the brutal Savak security force, copying techniques used by the Nazis to train the Gestapo, following the CIA’s overthrow of the democratically elected Mosaddeq government in 1953. Savak engaged in the systematic torture, disappearance, and execution of thousands of the new puppet regime’s opponents before the 1979 revolution, all with the blessing of the United States government.
Neo-Cons and establishment media figures have also seized upon the tragic death of “Neda” as another reason why regime change is needed, aghast at shocking scenes of an innocent women dying. This new found emotion at the sight of Middle Easterners bleeding to death on the streets was strangely absent during “shock and awe” and the eight year combined occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, during which hundreds of thousands have died in similar circumstances.
In a Free Republic thread about possible CIA involvement in Iran - which is a proven fact and not even up for debate - “Freepers” express their desire to see a little more meddling by way of CIA support for the opposition and the demonstrators - presumably by way of more money for Al-Qaeda offshoot terrorist groups like Jundullah and Mujahedeen-e Khalq to carry out more bombings and kill more people as part of the CIA’s now public destabilization program in Iran.
Of course, the talking heads, the establishment media whores, and the Neo-Con morons don’t really give a shit about the protesters or the opposition in Iran and indeed probably want them to be beaten and suppressed so that their real cause can be advanced - the demonization of the current Iranian government in the eyes of the world and a greasing of the skids for military invasion on behalf of the U.S., Britain and Israel.
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
The horrible irony to arise out of the riots and protests in Iran is that many Neo-Cons and phony conservatives, in their unified effort to enthusiastically embrace the Anglo-American establishment’s agenda for regime change, are cheerleading for a brutal thug who directed a terrorist campaign that killed hundreds of U.S. Marines in the 1980’s.
This once again proves that slack-jawed Neo-Con twits, ditto-heads for phony conservative media whores like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, have no loyalty whatsoever to America, but only to the corrupt power structure which they like to believe they are a part of.
Apparently, the new form of ‘patriotism’, the new incarnation of ’support the troops’ - is to support someone who helped massacre hundreds of U.S. troops just two decades ago.
We are referring of course to Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the former Prime Minister of Iran who directed the bloody attacks on the U.S. embassy and Marine Corps barracks in Beirut in 1983. Sold by the media and hailed by Neo-Cons as the avatar of Iranian democracy, Mousavi was also “fingered Mousavi for the 1988 truck bombing of the U.S. Navy’s Fleet Center in Naples, Italy, that killed five persons, including the first Navy woman to die in a terrorist attack,” reports CQ Politics.
Regarding the Beirut bombings, which killed 220 U.S. Marines, CIA Middle East field officer Bob Baer wrote in TIME Magazine that Mousavi, “Dealt directly with Imad Mughniyah,” who ran the Beirut terrorist campaign and was “the man largely held responsible for both attacks.”
As Paul Craig Roberts writes, “The American media’s one-sided and propagandistic coverage of the Iranian election has made an American hero out of the defeated candidate, Mousavi.”
This charade has been vigorously amplified by phony right-wingers. As Raw Story notes, Neo-Cons have sided with the opposition against the boogeyman Ahmedinajed, to the point of grunting with delight at scenes broadcast by Fox News of police being beaten to a pulp by rioters. This makes for an odd contrast to their usual sentiment, towards anti-war protesters in the U.S. for example, for whom their newly found concern about police brutality towards demonstrators goes out of the window.
Similar feigned concern for demonstrators is being played out by TV talking heads across the networks. Take this former CIA agent for example, who informs Wolf Blitzer of his worries about how the Iranian Revolutionary Guard are treating protesters, warning that dissidents will be “disappeared”.
Oh the irony! For it was the CIA that trained the brutal Savak security force, copying techniques used by the Nazis to train the Gestapo, following the CIA’s overthrow of the democratically elected Mosaddeq government in 1953. Savak engaged in the systematic torture, disappearance, and execution of thousands of the new puppet regime’s opponents before the 1979 revolution, all with the blessing of the United States government.
Neo-Cons and establishment media figures have also seized upon the tragic death of “Neda” as another reason why regime change is needed, aghast at shocking scenes of an innocent women dying. This new found emotion at the sight of Middle Easterners bleeding to death on the streets was strangely absent during “shock and awe” and the eight year combined occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, during which hundreds of thousands have died in similar circumstances.
In a Free Republic thread about possible CIA involvement in Iran - which is a proven fact and not even up for debate - “Freepers” express their desire to see a little more meddling by way of CIA support for the opposition and the demonstrators - presumably by way of more money for Al-Qaeda offshoot terrorist groups like Jundullah and Mujahedeen-e Khalq to carry out more bombings and kill more people as part of the CIA’s now public destabilization program in Iran.
Of course, the talking heads, the establishment media whores, and the Neo-Con morons don’t really give a shit about the protesters or the opposition in Iran and indeed probably want them to be beaten and suppressed so that their real cause can be advanced - the demonization of the current Iranian government in the eyes of the world and a greasing of the skids for military invasion on behalf of the U.S., Britain and Israel.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
9/11 FEMA videographer at Ground Zero goes public
Voltaire Net
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
As official videographer for the U.S. government, Kurt Sonnenfeld was detailed to Ground Zero on September 11, 2001, where he spent one month filming 29 tapes: “What I saw at certain moments and in certain places … is very disturbing!” He never handed them over to the authorities and has been persecuted ever since. Kurt Sonnenfeld lives in exile in Argentina, where he wrote « El Perseguido » (the persecuted). His recently-published book tells the story of his unending nightmare and drives another nail into the coffin of the government’s account of the 9/11 events. Below is an exclusive interview by Voltairenet.
Introduction
Kurt Sonnenfeld graduated from the University of Colorado (USA) with studies in International Affairs and Economics, as well as in Literature and Philosophy. He worked for the United States government as official videographer and served as Director of Broadcast Operations for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)’s National Emergency Response Team. Additionally, Kurt Sonnenfeld was contracted by several other governmental agencies and programs for classified and “sensitive” operations at military and scientific installations throughout the United States.
On September 11, 2001, the area known as “Ground Zero” was sealed from the public eye. Sonnenfeld, however, was given unrestricted access enabling him to document for the investigation (that never took place) and provide some “sanitized” pool video to virtually every news network in the world. The tapes that reveal some of the anomalies which he discovered at Ground Zero are still in his possession.
Accused of a crime that did not occur in a manifest frame-up scenario, Kurt Sonnenfeld has been persecuted across continents. After several years of fear, injustice and isolation, he has decided to take a public stand against the Government’s official story and is prepared to submit his material to the close scrutiny of reliable experts.
Voltaire Network: Your autobiographical book titled “El Perseguido” (the persecuted) was recently published in Argentina where you live in exile since 2003. Tell us who is persecuting you.
Kurt Sonnenfeld: Although it is autobiographical, it is not my life story. Rather it is a history of the extraordinary events that have happened to me and my family at the hands of U.S. authorities over the course of more than seven years, spanning two hemispheres, after my tour of duty at Ground Zero and becoming an inconvenient witness.
Voltaire Network: You explained that your request for refugee status within the terms of the Geneva 1951 Convention is still being considered by the Argentinean Senate, while in 2005 you were granted political asylum, albeit, on a provisional basis. That probably makes you the first U.S. citizen in that situation! And no doubt the first U.S. Government official with direct exposure to the events surrounding September 11, 2001 who has “blown the whistle”. Is this what drove you into exile?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: A refugee is a person who has been forced to leave (or stay away from) his or her country for reasons of persecution. It’s undeniable that many people have been persecuted unfairly as a result of the quasi-fascist laws and policies brought about by the shock of September 11, 2001, and they deserve refugee status. But the fact is, requesting refugee status is a risky and dangerous step to take. America is the world’s only remaining “superpower”, and dissent has been effectively repressed. Any person who requests refugee status on political grounds is by nature making an extreme statement of dissent. And if your request is denied, what do you do? Once you make the request, there can be no going back.
Personally, I wasn’t forced to leave the United States, and I certainly did not “flee”. At the time I was still fairly oblivious to what was actually brewing against me. I hadn’t connected the dots yet; so that when I left in early 2003 I had every intention of returning. I came to Argentina for a short respite; to try to recuperate after all that had happened to me. I travelled here freely, with my own passport, using my own credit cards. But because of an incredible series of events, I have since been forced into exile, and I haven’t been back.
Voltaire Network: What type of events are you referring to?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: I’ve suffered false accusations for “crimes” that demonstrably did not happen, abusive imprisonment and torture as a result of those accusations, as well as outrageous calumnies against my reputation, death threats, kidnap attempts and several other violations of civil and human rights as denounced by numerous international accords. My return to the United States would not only be a continuation of those violations, but would be aggregated by the separation - perhaps permanent - from my wife and three-year old twin daughters, the only thing remaining that I have to live for. And then, after the impossibility of receiving a fair trial for a crime that did not happen, I could be subject to the death penalty.
Voltaire Network: In 2005, the U.S. Government lodged a request to have you extradited, which was turned down by a Federal Judge. Then, in 2007, the Argentinean Supreme Court – in a show of integrity and independence - turned down the U.S. appeal, but your Government persisted. Can you shed some light on the situation ?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: In 2008, the US government appealed again, this time with absolutely no legal foundation, to the Supreme Court, which will surely uphold the two already unassailable rulings made by the Federal Judge.
In one of those rulings, it was also noted that there were too many “sombras”, or shadows, surrounding my case. There were many, many obvious fabrications in the extradition order sent here by US authorities, and, thankfully, we were able prove that. The fact that there were so many fabrications has actually served to support my request for asylum. We were also able to show that we had been subject to a prolonged campaign of harassment and intimidation from US intelligence services. As a result, since my family has been assigned round-the-clock police protection. As one senator has noted about my case: “It is their behavior that belies their true motivations”.
Voltaire Network: They want you pretty badly for a “crime that did not happen”! How do you account for such doggedness? As a FEMA official, you must have been trusted by your government. At what point did the situation capsize?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: In hindsight, I realize now that the situation had capsized some time before I actually became aware that it had capsized. Initially, the false accusation against me was completely irrational, and I was totally destroyed by it. It is incredibly difficult to have suffered the loss of someone you love to suicide, but to then be accused of it is too much to bear. The case was dismissed based on a mountain of evidence that overwhelmingly absolved me (Nancy, my wife, had left behind a suicide note and a journal of suicidal writings ; she had a family history of suicide ; etc.). The prosecution was 100% sure of my innocence before requesting the dismissal of charge.
But the sustained incarceration even AFTER it was indicated that I was to be freed was what proved to me that something was happening under the surface. I was held in jail for FOUR MONTHS after my lawyers were informed that the case was to be dismissed and was finally released in June 2002. During that time, an amazing series of strange events began to occur. While still being held, I had a telephone conversation with FEMA officials in an effort to resolve the issue, but I realized that I was considered “compromised”. I was told it had been agreed that “the agency had to be protected”, especially in light of the upheaval that was threatening with the implementation of the “ Patriot Act” and the expected usurpation that would come with the new Department of Homeland Security. After all the dangers I had risked, all hardship and difficulties I had endured for them for almost 10 years, I felt betrayed. It left a void in my soul.
Because of their abandonment, I told them I didn’t have the tapes, that I gave them to “some bureaucrat” in New York, and that they would have to wait until I was released to retrieve any other documents in my possession. Soon after that conversation, my house was “seized”, the locks were changed, and men were observed by neighbors entering my house, though there is no record in the court of their entry, as would be required. When I was finally released, I discovered that my office had been ransacked, my computer was missing, and that my tape library in my basement had been dug through and several were missing. Men were constantly parked on the street near my house, my security system was “hacked” more than once, outdoor security lights were unscrewed, etc., to the point that I went to stay with some friends at their condo in the mountains, which was then ALSO broken into.
Anyone who looks for the truth recognizes that there has been an amazing series of irregularities in this case and that an appalling injustice is being carried out on me and my loved ones. This intense campaign to return me to American soil is a false pretext for other darker motives.
Voltaire Network: You have suggested that you observed things at Ground Zero that did not tally with the official account. Did you do or say anything to arouse suspicion in this respect?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: In that same telephone call I said that I would “go public”, not only with my suspicions about the events surrounding September 11, 2001, but about several contracts I had worked on in the past.
Voltaire Network: What are your suspicions based on?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: There were many things, in hindsight, that were disturbing at Ground Zero. It was odd to me that I was dispatched to go to New York even before the second plane hit the South Tower, while the media was still reporting only that a “small plane” had collided with the North Tower — far too small of a catastrophe at that point to involve FEMA . FEMA was mobilized within minutes, whereas it took ten days for it to deploy to New Orleans to respond to Hurricane Katrina, even with abundant advance warning! It was odd to me that all cameras were so fiercely prohibited within the secured perimeter of Ground Zero, that the entire area was declared a crime scene and yet the “evidence” within that crime scene was so rapidly removed and destroyed. And then it was very odd to me when I learned that FEMA and several other federal agencies had already moved into position at their command center at Pier 92 on September 10th, one day before the attacks!
We are asked to believe that all four of the “indestructible” black boxes of the two jets that struck the twin towers were never found because they were completely vaporized, yet I have footage of the rubber wheels of the landing gear nearly undamaged, as well as the seats, parts of the fuselage and a jet turbine that were absolutely not vaporized. This being said, I do find it rather odd that such objects could have survived fairly intact the type of destruction that turned most of the Twin Towers into thin dust. And I definitely harbor some doubts about the authenticity of the “jet” turbine, far too small to have come from one of the Boeings!
What happened with Building 7 is incredibly suspicious. I have video that shows how curiously small the rubble pile was, and how the buildings to either side were untouched by Building Seven when it collapsed. It had not been hit by an airplane; it had suffered only minor injuries when the Twin Towers collapsed, and there were only small fires on a couple of floors. There’s no way that building could have imploded the way it did without controlled demolition. Yet the collapse of Building 7 was hardly mentioned by the mainstream media and suspiciously ignored by the 911 Commission.
Voltaire Network: Reportedly, the underground levels of WTC7 contained sensitive and undoubtedly compromising archival material. Did you come across any of it?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: The Secret Service, the Department of Defense, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Internal Revenue Service, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Office of Emergency Management’s “Crisis Center” occupied huge amounts of space there, spanning several floors of the building. Other federal agencies had offices there as well. After September 11, it was discovered that concealed within Building Seven was the largest clandestine domestic station of the Central Intelligence Agency outside of Washington DC, a base of operations from which to spy on diplomats of the United Nations and to conduct counterterrorism and counterintelligence missions.
There was no underground parking level at Seven World Trade Center. And there was no underground vault. Instead, the federal agencies at Building Seven stored their vehicles, documents and evidence in the building of their associates across the street. Beneath the plaza level of US Customs House ( Building 6) was a large underground garage, separated off from the rest of the complex’s underground area and guarded under tight security. This was where the various government services parked their bomb-proofed cars and armored limousines, counterfeit taxi cabs and telephone company trucks used for undercover surveillance and covert operations, specialized vans and other vehicles. Also within that secured parking area was access to the sub-level vault of Building 6.
When the North Tower fell, the US Customs House ( Building 6) was crushed and totally incinerated. Much of the underground levels beneath it were also destroyed. But there were voids. And it was into one of those voids, recently uncovered, that I descended with a special Task Force to investigate. It was there we found the security antechamber to the vault, badly damaged. At the far end of the security office was the wide steel door to the vault, a combination code keypad in the cinderblock wall beside it. But the wall was cracked and partially crumbled, and the door was sprung partially open. So we checked inside with our flashlights. Except for several rows of empty shelves, there was nothing in the vault but dust and debris. It had been emptied. Why was it empty? And when could it have been emptied?
Voltaire Network: Is this what set alarm bells ringing for you?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: Yes, but not immediately. With so much chaos, it was difficult to think. It was only after digesting everything that the “alarm bells” went off.
Building Six was evacuated within twelve minutes after the first airplane struck the North Tower. The streets were immediately clogged with fire trucks, police cars and blocked traffic, and the vault was large enough, 15 meters by 15 meters by my estimate, to necessitate at least a big truck to carry out its contents. And after the towers fell and destroyed most of the parking level, a mission to recover the contents of the vault would have been impossible. The vault had to have been emptied before the attack.
I’ve described all of this extensively in my book, and it’s apparent that things of importance were taken out of harm’s way before the attacks. For example, the CIA didn’t seem too concerned about their losses. After the existence of their clandestine office in Building Seven was discovered, an agency spokesman told the newspapers that a special team had been dispatched to scour the rubble in search of secret documents and intelligence reports, though there were millions, if not billions of pages floating in the streets. Nevertheless, the spokesman was confident. “There shouldn’t be too much paper around,” he said.
And Customs at first claimed that everything was destroyed. That the heat was so intense that everything in the evidence safe had been baked to ash. But some months later, they announced that they had broken up a huge Colombian narco-trafficking and money-laundering ring after miraculously recovering crucial evidence from the safe, including surveillance photos and heat-sensitive cassette tapes of monitored calls. And when they moved in to their new building at 1 Penn Plaza in Manhattan, they proudly hung on the lobby wall their Commissioner’s Citation Plaque and their big round US Customs Service ensign, also miraculously recovered, in pristine condition, from their crushed and cremated former office building at the World Trade Center.
Voltaire Network: You weren’t alone on the Ground Zero assignment. Did the others notice the same anomalies? Do you know whether they have they also been harassed?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: Actually there were a few people on two different excursions that I know about. Some of us even discussed it afterwards. They know who they are and I hope that they will come forward, but I’m sure they have strong apprehensions as to what will happen to them if they do. I will leave it to them to decide, but there is strength in numbers.
Voltaire Network: With the publication of your book, you have become a “whistleblower” – yet another step on which there is no going back! There must be many people with inside knowledge about what really happened or did not happen on that fateful day. Yet, hardly any have stepped up to the plate and certainly no one who was directly involved in an official capacity. This is what makes your case so compelling. Judging from your ordeal, it is not difficult to imagine what is holding such people back.
Kurt Sonnenfeld: Actually, there are several other very smart and credible people blowing whistles, too. And they are being discredited and ignored. Some are being harassed and persecuted, as I am.
People are gripped by fear. Everybody knows that if you question US authority you will have problems in some way or another. At minimum you will be discredited and dehumanized. Most likely you’ll find yourself indicted for something completely unrelated, like tax evasion — or something even worse, as in my case. Look at what happened to Secret Service whistle-blower Abraham Bolden, for example, or to chess master Bobby Fischer after he showed his disdain for the US. There are countless other examples. In the past I asked friends and associates to speak out for me to counter all the lies being planted in the media, and all of them were terrified as to the ramifications to themselves and their families.
Voltaire Network: To what degree would your discoveries at Ground Zero expose the government’s involvement in those events? Are you familiar with the investigations that have been carried out by numerous scientists and qualified professionals which not only corroborate your own findings but, in some instances, far exceed them? Do you regard such people as “conspiracy nuts”?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: At the highest levels in Washington, DC, someone knew what was going to happen. They wanted a war so badly that they at least let it happen and most likely even helped it happen.
Sometimes it seems to me that the “nuts” are those who hold to what they’ve been told with an almost religious fervor despite all of the evidence to the contrary — the ones who won’t even consider that there was a conspiracy. There are so many anomalies to the “official” investigation that you can’t blame it on oversight or incompetence. I am familiar with the scientists and qualified professionals to whom you refer, and their findings are convincing, credible, and presented according to scientific protocol — in stark contrast to the findings of the “official” investigation. In addition, numerous intelligence agents and government officials have now come forward with their very informed opinions that the 911 Commission was a farce at best or a cover-up at worst. My experience at Ground Zero is but one more piece of the puzzle.
Voltaire Network: Those events are nearly 8 years behind us. Do you consider that uncovering the truth about 9/11 continues to be an important objective? Why?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: It is of absolute importance. And it will be equally as important in 10 years, or even 50 years if the truth still has not been exposed. It is an important objective because, at this point in history, many people are too credulous to whatever “authority” tells them and too willing to follow. People in a state of shock seek guidance. People who are afraid are manipulable. And being able to manipulate the masses results in unimaginable benefits to a lot of very rich and very powerful people. War is incredibly expensive, but the money has to go somewhere. War is very profitable for the very few. And somehow their sons always end up in Washington DC, making the decisions and writing the budgets, while the sons of the poor and the poorly-connected always end up on the enemy lines, taking their orders and fighting their battles. The enormous black-budget of the US Department of Defense represents an unlimited money machine for the military-industrial complex, figuring in the multi-trillions of dollars, and it will continue to be so until the masses wake up, recuperate their skepticism and demand accountability. Wars (and false pretexts for war) will not cease until the people realize the true motive of war and stop believing “official” explanations.
Voltaire Network: What is referred to as the 9/11 Truth Movement, has been asking for a new, independent investigation into those events. Do you think that the Obama Administration holds out some hope in this respect?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: I really hope so, but I’m skeptical. Why would the leadership of any established government willingly undertake any action that would result in a serious compromise to their authority? They will prefer to maintain the status quo and leave the things the way they are. The conductor of the train has been changed, but has the train changed its course? I doubt it. The push has to come from the public, not only domestically, but internationally, like your group is doing.
Voltaire Network: A number of human rights and activist groups are supporting your plight, not least Peace Nobel Prize winner Adolfo Pérez Esquivel. How have the Argentinean people in general responded to your situation?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: With an incredible outpouring of support. The military dictatorship is still fresh in the collective memory of most of the people here, along with the knowledge that the dictatorship (along with the other South American dictatorships at the time) was backed by the CIA, directed at the time by George Bush Senior. They remember well the torture centers, the secret prisons, the thousands of people “disappeared” for their opinions, the living in daily fear. They know that the United States today will do the same thing if they consider it beneficial, that they will invade a country to achieve their political and economic interests and then manipulate the media with fabricated “causus belli” to justify their conquests.
My family and I are honored to have Adolfo Pérez Esquiveland his advisors at Servicio de Paz y Justicia (SERPAJ) among our dearest friends. We have worked together on many causes, including the rights of refugees, the rights of women, for children without families and children with HIV/AIDS. We are also honored to have the support of the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo; Madres de Plaza de Mayo, Línea Fundadora; Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales (CELS); Asamblea Permanente de Derechos Humanos (APDH); Familiares de Detenidos y Desaparecidos por Razones Políticas; Asociación de Mujeres, Migrantes y Refugiados Argentina (AMUMRA); Comisión de Derechos Humanos de la Honorable Cámara de Diputados de la Provincia de Buenos Aires; Secretaría de Derechos Humanos de la Nación; and the Programa Nacional Anti-Impunidad. On an international level, Amicus Curiae have been presented in our favor by REPRIEVE of Great Britain, along with the collaboration of NIZKOR of Spain and Belgium. In addition, my wife, Paula, and I have been received in the Congress by La Comisión de Derechos Humanos y Garantías de la Honorable Cámara de Diputados de La Nación.
Voltaire Network: As we said, deciding to write this book and to go public was a huge step. What pushed you to do it?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: To save my family. And to let the world know that things are not what they seem.
Voltaire Network: Last but not least: what will you do with your tapes?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: I am convinced that my tapes reveal many more anomalies than I am capable of recognizing given my limited qualifications. I will therefore cooperate in any way that I can with serious and reliable experts in a common endeavour to expose the truth.
Voltaire Network: Thank you very much !
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
As official videographer for the U.S. government, Kurt Sonnenfeld was detailed to Ground Zero on September 11, 2001, where he spent one month filming 29 tapes: “What I saw at certain moments and in certain places … is very disturbing!” He never handed them over to the authorities and has been persecuted ever since. Kurt Sonnenfeld lives in exile in Argentina, where he wrote « El Perseguido » (the persecuted). His recently-published book tells the story of his unending nightmare and drives another nail into the coffin of the government’s account of the 9/11 events. Below is an exclusive interview by Voltairenet.
Introduction
Kurt Sonnenfeld graduated from the University of Colorado (USA) with studies in International Affairs and Economics, as well as in Literature and Philosophy. He worked for the United States government as official videographer and served as Director of Broadcast Operations for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)’s National Emergency Response Team. Additionally, Kurt Sonnenfeld was contracted by several other governmental agencies and programs for classified and “sensitive” operations at military and scientific installations throughout the United States.
On September 11, 2001, the area known as “Ground Zero” was sealed from the public eye. Sonnenfeld, however, was given unrestricted access enabling him to document for the investigation (that never took place) and provide some “sanitized” pool video to virtually every news network in the world. The tapes that reveal some of the anomalies which he discovered at Ground Zero are still in his possession.
Accused of a crime that did not occur in a manifest frame-up scenario, Kurt Sonnenfeld has been persecuted across continents. After several years of fear, injustice and isolation, he has decided to take a public stand against the Government’s official story and is prepared to submit his material to the close scrutiny of reliable experts.
Voltaire Network: Your autobiographical book titled “El Perseguido” (the persecuted) was recently published in Argentina where you live in exile since 2003. Tell us who is persecuting you.
Kurt Sonnenfeld: Although it is autobiographical, it is not my life story. Rather it is a history of the extraordinary events that have happened to me and my family at the hands of U.S. authorities over the course of more than seven years, spanning two hemispheres, after my tour of duty at Ground Zero and becoming an inconvenient witness.
Voltaire Network: You explained that your request for refugee status within the terms of the Geneva 1951 Convention is still being considered by the Argentinean Senate, while in 2005 you were granted political asylum, albeit, on a provisional basis. That probably makes you the first U.S. citizen in that situation! And no doubt the first U.S. Government official with direct exposure to the events surrounding September 11, 2001 who has “blown the whistle”. Is this what drove you into exile?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: A refugee is a person who has been forced to leave (or stay away from) his or her country for reasons of persecution. It’s undeniable that many people have been persecuted unfairly as a result of the quasi-fascist laws and policies brought about by the shock of September 11, 2001, and they deserve refugee status. But the fact is, requesting refugee status is a risky and dangerous step to take. America is the world’s only remaining “superpower”, and dissent has been effectively repressed. Any person who requests refugee status on political grounds is by nature making an extreme statement of dissent. And if your request is denied, what do you do? Once you make the request, there can be no going back.
Personally, I wasn’t forced to leave the United States, and I certainly did not “flee”. At the time I was still fairly oblivious to what was actually brewing against me. I hadn’t connected the dots yet; so that when I left in early 2003 I had every intention of returning. I came to Argentina for a short respite; to try to recuperate after all that had happened to me. I travelled here freely, with my own passport, using my own credit cards. But because of an incredible series of events, I have since been forced into exile, and I haven’t been back.
Voltaire Network: What type of events are you referring to?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: I’ve suffered false accusations for “crimes” that demonstrably did not happen, abusive imprisonment and torture as a result of those accusations, as well as outrageous calumnies against my reputation, death threats, kidnap attempts and several other violations of civil and human rights as denounced by numerous international accords. My return to the United States would not only be a continuation of those violations, but would be aggregated by the separation - perhaps permanent - from my wife and three-year old twin daughters, the only thing remaining that I have to live for. And then, after the impossibility of receiving a fair trial for a crime that did not happen, I could be subject to the death penalty.
Voltaire Network: In 2005, the U.S. Government lodged a request to have you extradited, which was turned down by a Federal Judge. Then, in 2007, the Argentinean Supreme Court – in a show of integrity and independence - turned down the U.S. appeal, but your Government persisted. Can you shed some light on the situation ?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: In 2008, the US government appealed again, this time with absolutely no legal foundation, to the Supreme Court, which will surely uphold the two already unassailable rulings made by the Federal Judge.
In one of those rulings, it was also noted that there were too many “sombras”, or shadows, surrounding my case. There were many, many obvious fabrications in the extradition order sent here by US authorities, and, thankfully, we were able prove that. The fact that there were so many fabrications has actually served to support my request for asylum. We were also able to show that we had been subject to a prolonged campaign of harassment and intimidation from US intelligence services. As a result, since my family has been assigned round-the-clock police protection. As one senator has noted about my case: “It is their behavior that belies their true motivations”.
Voltaire Network: They want you pretty badly for a “crime that did not happen”! How do you account for such doggedness? As a FEMA official, you must have been trusted by your government. At what point did the situation capsize?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: In hindsight, I realize now that the situation had capsized some time before I actually became aware that it had capsized. Initially, the false accusation against me was completely irrational, and I was totally destroyed by it. It is incredibly difficult to have suffered the loss of someone you love to suicide, but to then be accused of it is too much to bear. The case was dismissed based on a mountain of evidence that overwhelmingly absolved me (Nancy, my wife, had left behind a suicide note and a journal of suicidal writings ; she had a family history of suicide ; etc.). The prosecution was 100% sure of my innocence before requesting the dismissal of charge.
But the sustained incarceration even AFTER it was indicated that I was to be freed was what proved to me that something was happening under the surface. I was held in jail for FOUR MONTHS after my lawyers were informed that the case was to be dismissed and was finally released in June 2002. During that time, an amazing series of strange events began to occur. While still being held, I had a telephone conversation with FEMA officials in an effort to resolve the issue, but I realized that I was considered “compromised”. I was told it had been agreed that “the agency had to be protected”, especially in light of the upheaval that was threatening with the implementation of the “ Patriot Act” and the expected usurpation that would come with the new Department of Homeland Security. After all the dangers I had risked, all hardship and difficulties I had endured for them for almost 10 years, I felt betrayed. It left a void in my soul.
Because of their abandonment, I told them I didn’t have the tapes, that I gave them to “some bureaucrat” in New York, and that they would have to wait until I was released to retrieve any other documents in my possession. Soon after that conversation, my house was “seized”, the locks were changed, and men were observed by neighbors entering my house, though there is no record in the court of their entry, as would be required. When I was finally released, I discovered that my office had been ransacked, my computer was missing, and that my tape library in my basement had been dug through and several were missing. Men were constantly parked on the street near my house, my security system was “hacked” more than once, outdoor security lights were unscrewed, etc., to the point that I went to stay with some friends at their condo in the mountains, which was then ALSO broken into.
Anyone who looks for the truth recognizes that there has been an amazing series of irregularities in this case and that an appalling injustice is being carried out on me and my loved ones. This intense campaign to return me to American soil is a false pretext for other darker motives.
Voltaire Network: You have suggested that you observed things at Ground Zero that did not tally with the official account. Did you do or say anything to arouse suspicion in this respect?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: In that same telephone call I said that I would “go public”, not only with my suspicions about the events surrounding September 11, 2001, but about several contracts I had worked on in the past.
Voltaire Network: What are your suspicions based on?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: There were many things, in hindsight, that were disturbing at Ground Zero. It was odd to me that I was dispatched to go to New York even before the second plane hit the South Tower, while the media was still reporting only that a “small plane” had collided with the North Tower — far too small of a catastrophe at that point to involve FEMA . FEMA was mobilized within minutes, whereas it took ten days for it to deploy to New Orleans to respond to Hurricane Katrina, even with abundant advance warning! It was odd to me that all cameras were so fiercely prohibited within the secured perimeter of Ground Zero, that the entire area was declared a crime scene and yet the “evidence” within that crime scene was so rapidly removed and destroyed. And then it was very odd to me when I learned that FEMA and several other federal agencies had already moved into position at their command center at Pier 92 on September 10th, one day before the attacks!
We are asked to believe that all four of the “indestructible” black boxes of the two jets that struck the twin towers were never found because they were completely vaporized, yet I have footage of the rubber wheels of the landing gear nearly undamaged, as well as the seats, parts of the fuselage and a jet turbine that were absolutely not vaporized. This being said, I do find it rather odd that such objects could have survived fairly intact the type of destruction that turned most of the Twin Towers into thin dust. And I definitely harbor some doubts about the authenticity of the “jet” turbine, far too small to have come from one of the Boeings!
What happened with Building 7 is incredibly suspicious. I have video that shows how curiously small the rubble pile was, and how the buildings to either side were untouched by Building Seven when it collapsed. It had not been hit by an airplane; it had suffered only minor injuries when the Twin Towers collapsed, and there were only small fires on a couple of floors. There’s no way that building could have imploded the way it did without controlled demolition. Yet the collapse of Building 7 was hardly mentioned by the mainstream media and suspiciously ignored by the 911 Commission.
Voltaire Network: Reportedly, the underground levels of WTC7 contained sensitive and undoubtedly compromising archival material. Did you come across any of it?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: The Secret Service, the Department of Defense, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Internal Revenue Service, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Office of Emergency Management’s “Crisis Center” occupied huge amounts of space there, spanning several floors of the building. Other federal agencies had offices there as well. After September 11, it was discovered that concealed within Building Seven was the largest clandestine domestic station of the Central Intelligence Agency outside of Washington DC, a base of operations from which to spy on diplomats of the United Nations and to conduct counterterrorism and counterintelligence missions.
There was no underground parking level at Seven World Trade Center. And there was no underground vault. Instead, the federal agencies at Building Seven stored their vehicles, documents and evidence in the building of their associates across the street. Beneath the plaza level of US Customs House ( Building 6) was a large underground garage, separated off from the rest of the complex’s underground area and guarded under tight security. This was where the various government services parked their bomb-proofed cars and armored limousines, counterfeit taxi cabs and telephone company trucks used for undercover surveillance and covert operations, specialized vans and other vehicles. Also within that secured parking area was access to the sub-level vault of Building 6.
When the North Tower fell, the US Customs House ( Building 6) was crushed and totally incinerated. Much of the underground levels beneath it were also destroyed. But there were voids. And it was into one of those voids, recently uncovered, that I descended with a special Task Force to investigate. It was there we found the security antechamber to the vault, badly damaged. At the far end of the security office was the wide steel door to the vault, a combination code keypad in the cinderblock wall beside it. But the wall was cracked and partially crumbled, and the door was sprung partially open. So we checked inside with our flashlights. Except for several rows of empty shelves, there was nothing in the vault but dust and debris. It had been emptied. Why was it empty? And when could it have been emptied?
Voltaire Network: Is this what set alarm bells ringing for you?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: Yes, but not immediately. With so much chaos, it was difficult to think. It was only after digesting everything that the “alarm bells” went off.
Building Six was evacuated within twelve minutes after the first airplane struck the North Tower. The streets were immediately clogged with fire trucks, police cars and blocked traffic, and the vault was large enough, 15 meters by 15 meters by my estimate, to necessitate at least a big truck to carry out its contents. And after the towers fell and destroyed most of the parking level, a mission to recover the contents of the vault would have been impossible. The vault had to have been emptied before the attack.
I’ve described all of this extensively in my book, and it’s apparent that things of importance were taken out of harm’s way before the attacks. For example, the CIA didn’t seem too concerned about their losses. After the existence of their clandestine office in Building Seven was discovered, an agency spokesman told the newspapers that a special team had been dispatched to scour the rubble in search of secret documents and intelligence reports, though there were millions, if not billions of pages floating in the streets. Nevertheless, the spokesman was confident. “There shouldn’t be too much paper around,” he said.
And Customs at first claimed that everything was destroyed. That the heat was so intense that everything in the evidence safe had been baked to ash. But some months later, they announced that they had broken up a huge Colombian narco-trafficking and money-laundering ring after miraculously recovering crucial evidence from the safe, including surveillance photos and heat-sensitive cassette tapes of monitored calls. And when they moved in to their new building at 1 Penn Plaza in Manhattan, they proudly hung on the lobby wall their Commissioner’s Citation Plaque and their big round US Customs Service ensign, also miraculously recovered, in pristine condition, from their crushed and cremated former office building at the World Trade Center.
Voltaire Network: You weren’t alone on the Ground Zero assignment. Did the others notice the same anomalies? Do you know whether they have they also been harassed?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: Actually there were a few people on two different excursions that I know about. Some of us even discussed it afterwards. They know who they are and I hope that they will come forward, but I’m sure they have strong apprehensions as to what will happen to them if they do. I will leave it to them to decide, but there is strength in numbers.
Voltaire Network: With the publication of your book, you have become a “whistleblower” – yet another step on which there is no going back! There must be many people with inside knowledge about what really happened or did not happen on that fateful day. Yet, hardly any have stepped up to the plate and certainly no one who was directly involved in an official capacity. This is what makes your case so compelling. Judging from your ordeal, it is not difficult to imagine what is holding such people back.
Kurt Sonnenfeld: Actually, there are several other very smart and credible people blowing whistles, too. And they are being discredited and ignored. Some are being harassed and persecuted, as I am.
People are gripped by fear. Everybody knows that if you question US authority you will have problems in some way or another. At minimum you will be discredited and dehumanized. Most likely you’ll find yourself indicted for something completely unrelated, like tax evasion — or something even worse, as in my case. Look at what happened to Secret Service whistle-blower Abraham Bolden, for example, or to chess master Bobby Fischer after he showed his disdain for the US. There are countless other examples. In the past I asked friends and associates to speak out for me to counter all the lies being planted in the media, and all of them were terrified as to the ramifications to themselves and their families.
Voltaire Network: To what degree would your discoveries at Ground Zero expose the government’s involvement in those events? Are you familiar with the investigations that have been carried out by numerous scientists and qualified professionals which not only corroborate your own findings but, in some instances, far exceed them? Do you regard such people as “conspiracy nuts”?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: At the highest levels in Washington, DC, someone knew what was going to happen. They wanted a war so badly that they at least let it happen and most likely even helped it happen.
Sometimes it seems to me that the “nuts” are those who hold to what they’ve been told with an almost religious fervor despite all of the evidence to the contrary — the ones who won’t even consider that there was a conspiracy. There are so many anomalies to the “official” investigation that you can’t blame it on oversight or incompetence. I am familiar with the scientists and qualified professionals to whom you refer, and their findings are convincing, credible, and presented according to scientific protocol — in stark contrast to the findings of the “official” investigation. In addition, numerous intelligence agents and government officials have now come forward with their very informed opinions that the 911 Commission was a farce at best or a cover-up at worst. My experience at Ground Zero is but one more piece of the puzzle.
Voltaire Network: Those events are nearly 8 years behind us. Do you consider that uncovering the truth about 9/11 continues to be an important objective? Why?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: It is of absolute importance. And it will be equally as important in 10 years, or even 50 years if the truth still has not been exposed. It is an important objective because, at this point in history, many people are too credulous to whatever “authority” tells them and too willing to follow. People in a state of shock seek guidance. People who are afraid are manipulable. And being able to manipulate the masses results in unimaginable benefits to a lot of very rich and very powerful people. War is incredibly expensive, but the money has to go somewhere. War is very profitable for the very few. And somehow their sons always end up in Washington DC, making the decisions and writing the budgets, while the sons of the poor and the poorly-connected always end up on the enemy lines, taking their orders and fighting their battles. The enormous black-budget of the US Department of Defense represents an unlimited money machine for the military-industrial complex, figuring in the multi-trillions of dollars, and it will continue to be so until the masses wake up, recuperate their skepticism and demand accountability. Wars (and false pretexts for war) will not cease until the people realize the true motive of war and stop believing “official” explanations.
Voltaire Network: What is referred to as the 9/11 Truth Movement, has been asking for a new, independent investigation into those events. Do you think that the Obama Administration holds out some hope in this respect?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: I really hope so, but I’m skeptical. Why would the leadership of any established government willingly undertake any action that would result in a serious compromise to their authority? They will prefer to maintain the status quo and leave the things the way they are. The conductor of the train has been changed, but has the train changed its course? I doubt it. The push has to come from the public, not only domestically, but internationally, like your group is doing.
Voltaire Network: A number of human rights and activist groups are supporting your plight, not least Peace Nobel Prize winner Adolfo Pérez Esquivel. How have the Argentinean people in general responded to your situation?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: With an incredible outpouring of support. The military dictatorship is still fresh in the collective memory of most of the people here, along with the knowledge that the dictatorship (along with the other South American dictatorships at the time) was backed by the CIA, directed at the time by George Bush Senior. They remember well the torture centers, the secret prisons, the thousands of people “disappeared” for their opinions, the living in daily fear. They know that the United States today will do the same thing if they consider it beneficial, that they will invade a country to achieve their political and economic interests and then manipulate the media with fabricated “causus belli” to justify their conquests.
My family and I are honored to have Adolfo Pérez Esquiveland his advisors at Servicio de Paz y Justicia (SERPAJ) among our dearest friends. We have worked together on many causes, including the rights of refugees, the rights of women, for children without families and children with HIV/AIDS. We are also honored to have the support of the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo; Madres de Plaza de Mayo, Línea Fundadora; Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales (CELS); Asamblea Permanente de Derechos Humanos (APDH); Familiares de Detenidos y Desaparecidos por Razones Políticas; Asociación de Mujeres, Migrantes y Refugiados Argentina (AMUMRA); Comisión de Derechos Humanos de la Honorable Cámara de Diputados de la Provincia de Buenos Aires; Secretaría de Derechos Humanos de la Nación; and the Programa Nacional Anti-Impunidad. On an international level, Amicus Curiae have been presented in our favor by REPRIEVE of Great Britain, along with the collaboration of NIZKOR of Spain and Belgium. In addition, my wife, Paula, and I have been received in the Congress by La Comisión de Derechos Humanos y Garantías de la Honorable Cámara de Diputados de La Nación.
Voltaire Network: As we said, deciding to write this book and to go public was a huge step. What pushed you to do it?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: To save my family. And to let the world know that things are not what they seem.
Voltaire Network: Last but not least: what will you do with your tapes?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: I am convinced that my tapes reveal many more anomalies than I am capable of recognizing given my limited qualifications. I will therefore cooperate in any way that I can with serious and reliable experts in a common endeavour to expose the truth.
Voltaire Network: Thank you very much !
Monday, June 22, 2009
Neda Death Footage: Poster Child For A Million More Tragedies?
Establishment media falls over itself to broadcast footage showing death of young Iranian protester, yet completely refused to show victims of Iraq and Afghanistan wars, not to forget Israel!
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Monday, June 22, 2009
Western establishment media organs are tripping over themselves to broadcast tragic footage showing the death of a young Iranian woman allegedly at the hands of pro-Ahmadinejad forces in an effort to rally international opinion against the government of Iran, a stark contrast to their complete and total refusal to broadcast footage of the hundreds of thousands of innocent women and children killed in Afghanistan and Iraq by U.S. and UK troops.
Neda Agha-Soltan has become a poster child for the CIA-sponsored color revolution in Iran after tragic and shocking scenes of her death were uploaded to You Tube the day after she was gunned down in Tehran on Saturday.
Soltan is being hailed as a “martyr” and “the face of the Iranian protests” by major western media outlets in emotional news reports such as the following CNN piece.
The hypocrisy is almost impossible to stomach. Hundreds of thousands of innocent women and children have been slaughtered in similar fashion by coalition forces during the bombardment and occupation of both Iraq and Afghanistan, and many of these deaths have been caught on camera. And yet the establishment media has blindly refused to broadcast any of it. Indeed, it could be claimed that the footage of Neda’s death has already been broadcast more times by the corporate media than the thousands of victims whose deaths were caught on film in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last eight years.
There’s no doubt that Neda’s vivid and shocking death is tragic to witness and a terrible loss for her family. However, the repercussions of the video circulating the globe via You Tube and its propaganda-driven exploitation by the west to demonize the Iranian government could have tragic consequences for many more innocent Iranians in the years to come.
The propensity for western governments to manufacture or exploit intensely emotional stories such as Neda’s death, and tragic events involving young women and children in general, in order to hoodwink populations into supporting phony wars of “liberation” has been proven time and time again.
One of the stunts used to sell the invasion of Iraq to the American people was the alleged capture and mistreatment of young female POW Jessica Lynch, who the Pentagon claimed went down in a blaze of glory in an attempt to throw off her captors and was subsequently “rescued” by U.S. forces. Lynch later revealed that the Pentagon concocted a Rambo fable around her image and that she actually never fired her weapon and was treated very well by Iraqi doctors who released her back to the U.S. military without incident.
The first invasion of Iraq was preceded by a similarly manufactured fable perfectly designed to tug at the heart strings and create a sense of outrage that won over a hesitant population into supporting a war.
Following the (US approved) Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, an American PR company called Hill & Knowlton was paid $10.7 million by a Kuwaiti front group to devise a campaign to win American support for the war. Stories soon began to emerge of brutal Iraqi soldiers removing babies from incubators in Kuwait hospitals. A firestorm of outrage spread across the western media and the population demanded that something be done, completely unaware of the fact that the whole story had been completely manufactured with the intention of creating that exact reaction.
Despite the fact that the Neda video shows nothing other than the sudden death of the woman after she was shot in the heart, the BBC, which the Iranian government has repeatedly accused of fomenting riots by means of bias and false reporting, quotes in a report today the woman’s fiance Caspian Makan, who states;
“Eyewitnesses and video footage of shooting clearly show that probably Basij paramilitaries in civilian clothing deliberately targeted her.”
The unedited video offers no evidence whatsoever for who killed Neda. For all we know it could have been the Al-Qaeda terrorists that the CIA has been funding to destabilize Iran. It has not even been established whether Neda was killed by a rooftop sniper or a passing motorcyclist, and yet the BBC is carrying matter-of-fact explanations of her death based on nothing more than conjecture without any clarification whatsoever.
This follows an embarrassing faux pas last week when the BBC was forced to issue a retraction of a photo they originally claimed represented a pro-Mousavi rally, when in fact the image was taken at a pro-Ahmadinejad demonstration.
The tragic death of Neda Agha-Soltan and its vivid capture on film is already being used as a propaganda tool by American, British and Israeli media outlets to harden western opinion against the Mullahs in Iran and grease the skids for a future invasion.
If we don’t heed the lessons of history and understand how sophisticated PR campaigns are routinely crafted around such events by western governments in collusion with their establishment media fronts, then the tragic death of Neda will be the catalyst for a million more tragedies in the years to come - the only difference being that you won’t see the deaths of those victims being broadcast on the BBC, Fox News or CNN.
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Monday, June 22, 2009
Western establishment media organs are tripping over themselves to broadcast tragic footage showing the death of a young Iranian woman allegedly at the hands of pro-Ahmadinejad forces in an effort to rally international opinion against the government of Iran, a stark contrast to their complete and total refusal to broadcast footage of the hundreds of thousands of innocent women and children killed in Afghanistan and Iraq by U.S. and UK troops.
Neda Agha-Soltan has become a poster child for the CIA-sponsored color revolution in Iran after tragic and shocking scenes of her death were uploaded to You Tube the day after she was gunned down in Tehran on Saturday.
Soltan is being hailed as a “martyr” and “the face of the Iranian protests” by major western media outlets in emotional news reports such as the following CNN piece.
The hypocrisy is almost impossible to stomach. Hundreds of thousands of innocent women and children have been slaughtered in similar fashion by coalition forces during the bombardment and occupation of both Iraq and Afghanistan, and many of these deaths have been caught on camera. And yet the establishment media has blindly refused to broadcast any of it. Indeed, it could be claimed that the footage of Neda’s death has already been broadcast more times by the corporate media than the thousands of victims whose deaths were caught on film in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last eight years.
There’s no doubt that Neda’s vivid and shocking death is tragic to witness and a terrible loss for her family. However, the repercussions of the video circulating the globe via You Tube and its propaganda-driven exploitation by the west to demonize the Iranian government could have tragic consequences for many more innocent Iranians in the years to come.
The propensity for western governments to manufacture or exploit intensely emotional stories such as Neda’s death, and tragic events involving young women and children in general, in order to hoodwink populations into supporting phony wars of “liberation” has been proven time and time again.
One of the stunts used to sell the invasion of Iraq to the American people was the alleged capture and mistreatment of young female POW Jessica Lynch, who the Pentagon claimed went down in a blaze of glory in an attempt to throw off her captors and was subsequently “rescued” by U.S. forces. Lynch later revealed that the Pentagon concocted a Rambo fable around her image and that she actually never fired her weapon and was treated very well by Iraqi doctors who released her back to the U.S. military without incident.
The first invasion of Iraq was preceded by a similarly manufactured fable perfectly designed to tug at the heart strings and create a sense of outrage that won over a hesitant population into supporting a war.
Following the (US approved) Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, an American PR company called Hill & Knowlton was paid $10.7 million by a Kuwaiti front group to devise a campaign to win American support for the war. Stories soon began to emerge of brutal Iraqi soldiers removing babies from incubators in Kuwait hospitals. A firestorm of outrage spread across the western media and the population demanded that something be done, completely unaware of the fact that the whole story had been completely manufactured with the intention of creating that exact reaction.
Despite the fact that the Neda video shows nothing other than the sudden death of the woman after she was shot in the heart, the BBC, which the Iranian government has repeatedly accused of fomenting riots by means of bias and false reporting, quotes in a report today the woman’s fiance Caspian Makan, who states;
“Eyewitnesses and video footage of shooting clearly show that probably Basij paramilitaries in civilian clothing deliberately targeted her.”
The unedited video offers no evidence whatsoever for who killed Neda. For all we know it could have been the Al-Qaeda terrorists that the CIA has been funding to destabilize Iran. It has not even been established whether Neda was killed by a rooftop sniper or a passing motorcyclist, and yet the BBC is carrying matter-of-fact explanations of her death based on nothing more than conjecture without any clarification whatsoever.
This follows an embarrassing faux pas last week when the BBC was forced to issue a retraction of a photo they originally claimed represented a pro-Mousavi rally, when in fact the image was taken at a pro-Ahmadinejad demonstration.
The tragic death of Neda Agha-Soltan and its vivid capture on film is already being used as a propaganda tool by American, British and Israeli media outlets to harden western opinion against the Mullahs in Iran and grease the skids for a future invasion.
If we don’t heed the lessons of history and understand how sophisticated PR campaigns are routinely crafted around such events by western governments in collusion with their establishment media fronts, then the tragic death of Neda will be the catalyst for a million more tragedies in the years to come - the only difference being that you won’t see the deaths of those victims being broadcast on the BBC, Fox News or CNN.
DoD Training Manual Describes Protest As “Low-Level Terrorism”
Pentagon training course says engaging in First Amendment is terrorist activity
Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Monday, June 15, 2009
Current Department of Defense anti-terrorism training course material states that the exercise of First Amendment rights in the U.S. constitutes terrorist activity.
The ACLU has written to the DoD regarding its Antiterrorism and Force Protection Annual Refresher Training Course, which advises personnel that political protest amounts to “low-level terrorism”.
“It has come to our attention that the Department of Defense’s Annual Level I Antiterrorism (AT) Training for 2009 misinforms Department of Defense (DoD) personnel that certain First Amendment-protected activity may amount to “low level terrorism” The ACLU writes.
“We are writing to ask that you take immediate steps to remedy this situation.” the letter to acting Under-Secretary Gail McGinn states.
A PDF of the ACLU’s letter also contains print outs of the relevant sections of the course material.
The training introduction reads:
“Anti-terrorism (AT) and Force Protection (FP) are two facets of the Department of Defense (DoD) Mission Assurance Program. It is DoD policy, as found in DoD I 2000.16, that the DoD Components and the DoD elements and personnel shall be protected from terrorist acts through a high priority, comprehensive, AT program. The DoD’s AT program shall be all encompassing using an integrated systems approach.”
The first question of the Terrorism Threat Factors, “Knowledge Check 1″ section reads:
Which of the following is an example of low-level terrorism activity?
Select the correct answer and then click Check Your Answer.
* Attacking the Pentagon
* IEDs
* Hate crimes against racial groups
* Protests
In order to proceed, users must give the “correct” answer as “Protests”.
According to the document, all DoD personnel are required to complete the course on a yearly basis.
The ACLU points out that although in and of itself the classification of protest as terrorism is deeply disturbing, it is even more alarming when viewed in the context of the Pentagon’s long term efforts to crack down on organized dissent.
The surveillance and pre-emptive arrest of protesters, on charges of “domestic terrorism”, at last year’s RNC by the FBI is also cited by the ACLU.
Other precedents that the ACLU neglected to mention in it’s letter include, most recently, the fact that the FBI were spying on “Tea Party” protesters nationwide.
One week prior to those revelations, we also reported that the Maryland National Guard was put on alert in anticipation of the nationwide protests, while a Homeland Security spokesman refused to deny that protesters would be under surveillance from the DHS.
The Maryland National Guard issued a Force Protection Advisory on April 11 which warned the National Guard to be on alert during the Tea Party protests because Guardsmen and Guard facilities might become “targets of opportunity.” The contact point for the document was listed as the Antiterrorism Program Coordinator.
The advisory was almost exactly the same as a United States Army Reserve Command Force Protection Advisory that was issued last November before the nationwide End the Fed protests, warning that protesters were congregating across the country to demonstrate against the private Federal Reserve.
Over the last few years we have seen countless examples of security assessment reports from the likes of the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI, as well as police training manuals, which state that anti-war protesters, gun owners, veterans, Ron Paul supporters and those who merely cite the Constitution should be equated with extremists.
The continued surveillance of protesters, in addition to the ongoing agenda to equate dissent with terrorism, highlights the fact that the architecture of the police state, which was massively expanded under George W. Bush, has not been dismantled or relaxed by an Obama administration that promised “change,”. If anything, it has only grown bigger.
The Obama administration’s announcement that the illegal warrantless surveillance of American citizens, a program initiated under Bush, will continue and in fact intensify under Obama, is another shining example of the fact that - no matter who is in power and no matter the political persuasion of those being watched - all Americans who have the temerity to exercise constitutional rights are considered dangerous and worthy of being targeted by the federal government with surveillance tools supposedly introduced to fight terrorists.
Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Monday, June 15, 2009
Current Department of Defense anti-terrorism training course material states that the exercise of First Amendment rights in the U.S. constitutes terrorist activity.
The ACLU has written to the DoD regarding its Antiterrorism and Force Protection Annual Refresher Training Course, which advises personnel that political protest amounts to “low-level terrorism”.
“It has come to our attention that the Department of Defense’s Annual Level I Antiterrorism (AT) Training for 2009 misinforms Department of Defense (DoD) personnel that certain First Amendment-protected activity may amount to “low level terrorism” The ACLU writes.
“We are writing to ask that you take immediate steps to remedy this situation.” the letter to acting Under-Secretary Gail McGinn states.
A PDF of the ACLU’s letter also contains print outs of the relevant sections of the course material.
The training introduction reads:
“Anti-terrorism (AT) and Force Protection (FP) are two facets of the Department of Defense (DoD) Mission Assurance Program. It is DoD policy, as found in DoD I 2000.16, that the DoD Components and the DoD elements and personnel shall be protected from terrorist acts through a high priority, comprehensive, AT program. The DoD’s AT program shall be all encompassing using an integrated systems approach.”
The first question of the Terrorism Threat Factors, “Knowledge Check 1″ section reads:
Which of the following is an example of low-level terrorism activity?
Select the correct answer and then click Check Your Answer.
* Attacking the Pentagon
* IEDs
* Hate crimes against racial groups
* Protests
In order to proceed, users must give the “correct” answer as “Protests”.
According to the document, all DoD personnel are required to complete the course on a yearly basis.
The ACLU points out that although in and of itself the classification of protest as terrorism is deeply disturbing, it is even more alarming when viewed in the context of the Pentagon’s long term efforts to crack down on organized dissent.
The surveillance and pre-emptive arrest of protesters, on charges of “domestic terrorism”, at last year’s RNC by the FBI is also cited by the ACLU.
Other precedents that the ACLU neglected to mention in it’s letter include, most recently, the fact that the FBI were spying on “Tea Party” protesters nationwide.
One week prior to those revelations, we also reported that the Maryland National Guard was put on alert in anticipation of the nationwide protests, while a Homeland Security spokesman refused to deny that protesters would be under surveillance from the DHS.
The Maryland National Guard issued a Force Protection Advisory on April 11 which warned the National Guard to be on alert during the Tea Party protests because Guardsmen and Guard facilities might become “targets of opportunity.” The contact point for the document was listed as the Antiterrorism Program Coordinator.
The advisory was almost exactly the same as a United States Army Reserve Command Force Protection Advisory that was issued last November before the nationwide End the Fed protests, warning that protesters were congregating across the country to demonstrate against the private Federal Reserve.
Over the last few years we have seen countless examples of security assessment reports from the likes of the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI, as well as police training manuals, which state that anti-war protesters, gun owners, veterans, Ron Paul supporters and those who merely cite the Constitution should be equated with extremists.
The continued surveillance of protesters, in addition to the ongoing agenda to equate dissent with terrorism, highlights the fact that the architecture of the police state, which was massively expanded under George W. Bush, has not been dismantled or relaxed by an Obama administration that promised “change,”. If anything, it has only grown bigger.
The Obama administration’s announcement that the illegal warrantless surveillance of American citizens, a program initiated under Bush, will continue and in fact intensify under Obama, is another shining example of the fact that - no matter who is in power and no matter the political persuasion of those being watched - all Americans who have the temerity to exercise constitutional rights are considered dangerous and worthy of being targeted by the federal government with surveillance tools supposedly introduced to fight terrorists.
Iran election: Guardian Council admits vote was flawed
The admission was made as the main presidential challenger, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, implored supporters to renew street protests in Tehran on Monday and defy the threat of a brutal crackdown by the security forces.
Organisers of the campaign to overturn the result of the June 12 election, which gave Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the incumbent president, a landslide victory said demonstrations must continue after petering out on Sunday.
The campaign called on people to march with black candles or turn on the lights on their cars during an afternoon rally.
The calls came as the Guardian Council, the body charged with reviewing the contested election, said it had concluded an investigation but would not be overturning the result. Its spokesman, Abbas-Ali Kadkhodaei, said the number of votes collected in 50 cities was more than the number of eligible voters but the discrepancy was not sufficent to account for Mr Ahmadinejad's margin of victory.
Mr Mousavi reiterated his backing of the protests at the end of a tense weekend in which at least 10 people were killed in the Iranian capital. Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, gave the greet light to the repression when on Friday he declared the protests were illegal.
But Mr Mousavi said: "The country belongs to you ... protesting lies and fraud is your right."
The former prime minister warned supporters of the danger ahead, and said he would stand by the protesters "at all times". But he would "never allow anybody's life to be endangered because of my actions" and called for pursuing fraud claims through an independent board, not the Guardian Council.
A former president, Mohammad Khatami, backed the call. "Protest in a civil manner and avoiding disturbances in the definite right of the people and all must respect that," he said.
Meanwhile the authorities released the daughter of another former president, Hashemi Rafsanjani. Faezeh Hashemi was detained while travelling to a Mousavi rally on Saturday. Officials said she and several other relatives were held for their own safety.
Iran's foreign ministry lashed out at foreign media and Western governments. Its spokesman Hasan Qashqavi accused them of "a racial mentality that Iranians belong to the Third World".
"Meddling by Western powers and international media is unacceptable," he said.
Meanwhile, the authorities in Bahrain shut down a newspaper after it published a claim that Mr Ahmadinejad is of Jewish origin.
Samira Rajab, an MP made the allegation in Akhbar Al-Khaleej and the paper, the Gulf state's oldest, was found guilty of violating the country's press code.
Organisers of the campaign to overturn the result of the June 12 election, which gave Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the incumbent president, a landslide victory said demonstrations must continue after petering out on Sunday.
The campaign called on people to march with black candles or turn on the lights on their cars during an afternoon rally.
The calls came as the Guardian Council, the body charged with reviewing the contested election, said it had concluded an investigation but would not be overturning the result. Its spokesman, Abbas-Ali Kadkhodaei, said the number of votes collected in 50 cities was more than the number of eligible voters but the discrepancy was not sufficent to account for Mr Ahmadinejad's margin of victory.
Mr Mousavi reiterated his backing of the protests at the end of a tense weekend in which at least 10 people were killed in the Iranian capital. Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, gave the greet light to the repression when on Friday he declared the protests were illegal.
But Mr Mousavi said: "The country belongs to you ... protesting lies and fraud is your right."
The former prime minister warned supporters of the danger ahead, and said he would stand by the protesters "at all times". But he would "never allow anybody's life to be endangered because of my actions" and called for pursuing fraud claims through an independent board, not the Guardian Council.
A former president, Mohammad Khatami, backed the call. "Protest in a civil manner and avoiding disturbances in the definite right of the people and all must respect that," he said.
Meanwhile the authorities released the daughter of another former president, Hashemi Rafsanjani. Faezeh Hashemi was detained while travelling to a Mousavi rally on Saturday. Officials said she and several other relatives were held for their own safety.
Iran's foreign ministry lashed out at foreign media and Western governments. Its spokesman Hasan Qashqavi accused them of "a racial mentality that Iranians belong to the Third World".
"Meddling by Western powers and international media is unacceptable," he said.
Meanwhile, the authorities in Bahrain shut down a newspaper after it published a claim that Mr Ahmadinejad is of Jewish origin.
Samira Rajab, an MP made the allegation in Akhbar Al-Khaleej and the paper, the Gulf state's oldest, was found guilty of violating the country's press code.
Iranian leadership feud too close to call
Iran's intensifying political crisis remains dangerously unpredictable. It's still too early to determine if the bitter feud within Tehran's political establishment will lead to a revolution against Iran's Islamic government that so many foreigners hope for, or eventually burn out.
Caution is advised. Much of the opinions we are getting on Iran's current crisis come from bitterly anti-regime Iranian exiles, "experts" with an axe to grind and U.S. neocons yearning for war with Iran. In viewing the Muslim world, westerners keep listening to those who tell them what they want to hear, rather than the facts. President Barack Obama properly stated he would refrain from being seen to meddle in Iran's internal affairs. He did the right thing by apologizing for the U.S.-British coup that overthrew Iran's democratic government in 1953.
But Washington also has been actively attempting to undermine Iran's Islamic government since the 1979 revolution.
The U.S. has laid economic siege to Iran for 30 years. Recently, Congress voted $120 million for anti-regime media broadcasts into Iran and $60-75 million in funding for opposition, violent underground Marxists and restive ethnic groups such as Azeris, Kurds and Arabs under the "Iran Democracy Program." Pakistani intelligence sources put the CIA's recent spending on "black operations" to subvert Iran's government at $400 million.
While the majority of protests we see in Tehran are genuine and spontaneous, western intelligence agencies are playing a key role in sustaining them and providing communications, including the newest method, via Twitter.
Repress
The Tehran government made things worse by limiting foreign news reports and trying to cover up or brutally repress massive protests.
We also hear a lot of hypocritical humbug from western capitals. Washington, Ottawa, London and Paris accused Iran of improper electoral procedures while utterly ignoring their autocratic Mideast allies such as Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, which hold only fake elections and savage any real opposition.
U.S. senators, led by John McCain, blasted Iran for not respecting human rights. That's pretty rich after they just voted to bar the public release of ghastly torture photos from U.S. prisons in Iraq.
Iran is a weird hybrid of repressive theocratic state and democracy. Its political powers are fragmented to prevent re-emergence of another despotic shah. At least Iran holds elections and allows often fierce political debate, though it often bars candidates. Its recent electoral turnout was an impressive 85%.
Popularity
There are many questions about Iran's vote, of which incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won 60. But however much foreigners may detest Iran's abrasive, incendiary elected leader, he remains widely popular at home thanks to his populist programs, generous subsidies and ascetic lifestyle. He is particularly popular among farmers, the poor, pensioners, the military and religious people. Pre-election polls that showed him headed for a big win may have been right.
Ahmadinejad's chief rival, the more moderate-sounding Mir Hossein Mousavi, is also a conservative who backs Iran's nuclear program. He is supported by Iran's young, many of whom are fed up with obscurantist restrictions imposed by the religious establishment.
In the wings, veteran politician Ali Akbar Rafsanjani is waiting to pounce. He heads the Assembly of Experts, which theoretically has the power to unseat Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The Machiavellian Rafsanjani might yet emerge the winner of the current crisis.
Dangerous decision
Ayatollah Khamenei is not a strong leader. He now faces the dangerous decision of whether to crack down on spreading protests, call a recount or a new election, any of which would undermine his authority. Khamenei's best hope is for a political compromise between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi. But he could end marginalized by a secular government.
Reuters reports Israel's intelligence chief, Meir Dagan, thinks Ahmadinejad will win out. Mossad boss Dagan reportedly worries that if Ahmadinejad falls, there will be less international pressure on Iran to end its nuclear programs. He is probably correct.
Other Mideast nations will look at Iran and conclude giving democratic rights is downright dangerous and must be avoided.
eric.margolis@sunmedia.ca
Caution is advised. Much of the opinions we are getting on Iran's current crisis come from bitterly anti-regime Iranian exiles, "experts" with an axe to grind and U.S. neocons yearning for war with Iran. In viewing the Muslim world, westerners keep listening to those who tell them what they want to hear, rather than the facts. President Barack Obama properly stated he would refrain from being seen to meddle in Iran's internal affairs. He did the right thing by apologizing for the U.S.-British coup that overthrew Iran's democratic government in 1953.
But Washington also has been actively attempting to undermine Iran's Islamic government since the 1979 revolution.
The U.S. has laid economic siege to Iran for 30 years. Recently, Congress voted $120 million for anti-regime media broadcasts into Iran and $60-75 million in funding for opposition, violent underground Marxists and restive ethnic groups such as Azeris, Kurds and Arabs under the "Iran Democracy Program." Pakistani intelligence sources put the CIA's recent spending on "black operations" to subvert Iran's government at $400 million.
While the majority of protests we see in Tehran are genuine and spontaneous, western intelligence agencies are playing a key role in sustaining them and providing communications, including the newest method, via Twitter.
Repress
The Tehran government made things worse by limiting foreign news reports and trying to cover up or brutally repress massive protests.
We also hear a lot of hypocritical humbug from western capitals. Washington, Ottawa, London and Paris accused Iran of improper electoral procedures while utterly ignoring their autocratic Mideast allies such as Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, which hold only fake elections and savage any real opposition.
U.S. senators, led by John McCain, blasted Iran for not respecting human rights. That's pretty rich after they just voted to bar the public release of ghastly torture photos from U.S. prisons in Iraq.
Iran is a weird hybrid of repressive theocratic state and democracy. Its political powers are fragmented to prevent re-emergence of another despotic shah. At least Iran holds elections and allows often fierce political debate, though it often bars candidates. Its recent electoral turnout was an impressive 85%.
Popularity
There are many questions about Iran's vote, of which incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won 60. But however much foreigners may detest Iran's abrasive, incendiary elected leader, he remains widely popular at home thanks to his populist programs, generous subsidies and ascetic lifestyle. He is particularly popular among farmers, the poor, pensioners, the military and religious people. Pre-election polls that showed him headed for a big win may have been right.
Ahmadinejad's chief rival, the more moderate-sounding Mir Hossein Mousavi, is also a conservative who backs Iran's nuclear program. He is supported by Iran's young, many of whom are fed up with obscurantist restrictions imposed by the religious establishment.
In the wings, veteran politician Ali Akbar Rafsanjani is waiting to pounce. He heads the Assembly of Experts, which theoretically has the power to unseat Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The Machiavellian Rafsanjani might yet emerge the winner of the current crisis.
Dangerous decision
Ayatollah Khamenei is not a strong leader. He now faces the dangerous decision of whether to crack down on spreading protests, call a recount or a new election, any of which would undermine his authority. Khamenei's best hope is for a political compromise between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi. But he could end marginalized by a secular government.
Reuters reports Israel's intelligence chief, Meir Dagan, thinks Ahmadinejad will win out. Mossad boss Dagan reportedly worries that if Ahmadinejad falls, there will be less international pressure on Iran to end its nuclear programs. He is probably correct.
Other Mideast nations will look at Iran and conclude giving democratic rights is downright dangerous and must be avoided.
eric.margolis@sunmedia.ca
Iran: fear of foreign plotters may be justified
by Simon Tisdall
Long-term instability in Iran is an alarming prospect for western countries keen to resolve disputes over the country’s nuclear programme and other contentious issues. But continuing political weakness in Tehran is also likely to produce the opposite effect — increased regime concern about external attempts to interfere, destabilise, and exploit its vulnerabilities. This paranoid trend threatens unpredictable, even dangerous consequences - but may be justified.
Pinning blame for Iran’s post-election turmoil on malign foreign enemies is already under way among so-called principalist, conservative factions. The pro-Ahmadinejad Keyhan newspaper on Tuesday denounced plots by “politically bankrupt dictators” to thwart the popular will. “The hopes of the imperialist triangle (America, U.K. and the Zionist regime) for a crawling coup d’etat in the Middle East and revival of the dead Middle East plan have been dashed,” it declared.
Javan newspaper was similarly acerbic. “Today democracy slogans have become a lever to provoke, interfere and overthrow,” it said. “By announcing results in the presidential elections that did not benefit their favourite candidate ... some foreign media such as BBC Persian [service], al-Arabiya, Fox News, CNN and some French media have started a new wave to create social and political division and cause riots.”
In largely cautious responses to Friday’s polls, Barack Obama’s administration has been careful not to feed the fires of xenophobic resentment. “It’s up to Iranians to make decisions about who Iran’s leaders will be. We respect Iran’s sovereignty and want to avoid the U.S. being the issue inside of Iran,” Mr. Obama said. But Iranian officials say U.S. protestations of non-interference would be more credible if the White House cancelled a $400m Bush era covert programme, authorised in 2007, which they say was intended to destabilise Iran, with the ultimate aim of regime change.
According to the journalist Seymour Hersh, writing in the New Yorker last year, covert operations by the CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command were used to support the PJAK Kurdish dissident group in northern Iran, the disaffected ethnic Arab minority in Khuzestan in the south-west, and militant Baluchi Sunni Muslim separatists in the south-east, bordering Pakistan.
While not officially acknowledged or disavowed in the U.S., the covert programme has been repeatedly linked by Iran to ongoing violence, bomb attacks and assassinations in all three areas, as well as to the main external opposition group, the Mojahedin-e-Khalq, which is allegedly funded and armed by the U.S. Iran also occasionally claims to have evidence of involvement by Israel’s Mossad spy agency and British intelligence.
Although the problem can be overstated, Iranian leaders of all political complexions have reason to worry about the so-called minorities question in a country comprising multiple ethno-linguistic groups, namely Persians, Azeris, Kurds, Arabs, Baluchis, Turkmen, Armenians, Assyrians, Jews and Georgians. Recent reports from Iranian Kurdistan, for example, speak of 100 or more checkpoints being erected by Revolutionary Guards and the shelling of PJAK positions inside northern Iraq.
Iranian officials have linked the recent suicide bombing of a Shia mosque in Zahedan, in Sistan-Baluchistan, to U.S., British and Israeli support for the Jundullah Sunni Muslim separatist group. A failed attempt last month to blow up a domestic airliner in Ahvaz, in Arab Khuzestan, brought similar claims.
Iran said on Tuesday that members of a foreign-backed “anti-revolutionary group” responsible for fomenting unrest and armed with bomb-making materials had been arrested. Intelligence minister Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei said the group “wanted to achieve its goal through explosions and terror and in this connection 50 people were arrested ... They were supported from outside the country.” Given the current uproar in Tehran, the temptation for the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, and President Ahmadinejad to deflect attention by hitting out at real or imagined foreign enemies, for instance by indirectly re-targeting U.S. forces in Iraq or causing problems for NATO forces in Afghanistan, is growing dangerously. But even such extreme measures may not work.
The moderate Seda-ye Edalat newspaper wasn’t swallowing the regime’s line about external threats on Tuesday. “Why does the government not let the people protest peacefully?” it asked. “Why do we always want to call Iranian protesters a group of hooligans bribed by foreigners to sabotage everything?”
Long-term instability in Iran is an alarming prospect for western countries keen to resolve disputes over the country’s nuclear programme and other contentious issues. But continuing political weakness in Tehran is also likely to produce the opposite effect — increased regime concern about external attempts to interfere, destabilise, and exploit its vulnerabilities. This paranoid trend threatens unpredictable, even dangerous consequences - but may be justified.
Pinning blame for Iran’s post-election turmoil on malign foreign enemies is already under way among so-called principalist, conservative factions. The pro-Ahmadinejad Keyhan newspaper on Tuesday denounced plots by “politically bankrupt dictators” to thwart the popular will. “The hopes of the imperialist triangle (America, U.K. and the Zionist regime) for a crawling coup d’etat in the Middle East and revival of the dead Middle East plan have been dashed,” it declared.
Javan newspaper was similarly acerbic. “Today democracy slogans have become a lever to provoke, interfere and overthrow,” it said. “By announcing results in the presidential elections that did not benefit their favourite candidate ... some foreign media such as BBC Persian [service], al-Arabiya, Fox News, CNN and some French media have started a new wave to create social and political division and cause riots.”
In largely cautious responses to Friday’s polls, Barack Obama’s administration has been careful not to feed the fires of xenophobic resentment. “It’s up to Iranians to make decisions about who Iran’s leaders will be. We respect Iran’s sovereignty and want to avoid the U.S. being the issue inside of Iran,” Mr. Obama said. But Iranian officials say U.S. protestations of non-interference would be more credible if the White House cancelled a $400m Bush era covert programme, authorised in 2007, which they say was intended to destabilise Iran, with the ultimate aim of regime change.
According to the journalist Seymour Hersh, writing in the New Yorker last year, covert operations by the CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command were used to support the PJAK Kurdish dissident group in northern Iran, the disaffected ethnic Arab minority in Khuzestan in the south-west, and militant Baluchi Sunni Muslim separatists in the south-east, bordering Pakistan.
While not officially acknowledged or disavowed in the U.S., the covert programme has been repeatedly linked by Iran to ongoing violence, bomb attacks and assassinations in all three areas, as well as to the main external opposition group, the Mojahedin-e-Khalq, which is allegedly funded and armed by the U.S. Iran also occasionally claims to have evidence of involvement by Israel’s Mossad spy agency and British intelligence.
Although the problem can be overstated, Iranian leaders of all political complexions have reason to worry about the so-called minorities question in a country comprising multiple ethno-linguistic groups, namely Persians, Azeris, Kurds, Arabs, Baluchis, Turkmen, Armenians, Assyrians, Jews and Georgians. Recent reports from Iranian Kurdistan, for example, speak of 100 or more checkpoints being erected by Revolutionary Guards and the shelling of PJAK positions inside northern Iraq.
Iranian officials have linked the recent suicide bombing of a Shia mosque in Zahedan, in Sistan-Baluchistan, to U.S., British and Israeli support for the Jundullah Sunni Muslim separatist group. A failed attempt last month to blow up a domestic airliner in Ahvaz, in Arab Khuzestan, brought similar claims.
Iran said on Tuesday that members of a foreign-backed “anti-revolutionary group” responsible for fomenting unrest and armed with bomb-making materials had been arrested. Intelligence minister Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei said the group “wanted to achieve its goal through explosions and terror and in this connection 50 people were arrested ... They were supported from outside the country.” Given the current uproar in Tehran, the temptation for the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, and President Ahmadinejad to deflect attention by hitting out at real or imagined foreign enemies, for instance by indirectly re-targeting U.S. forces in Iraq or causing problems for NATO forces in Afghanistan, is growing dangerously. But even such extreme measures may not work.
The moderate Seda-ye Edalat newspaper wasn’t swallowing the regime’s line about external threats on Tuesday. “Why does the government not let the people protest peacefully?” it asked. “Why do we always want to call Iranian protesters a group of hooligans bribed by foreigners to sabotage everything?”
Sunday, June 21, 2009
BBC accepts their Psy-Op deceiving millions
The crisis over the Iranian election has been our lead story for most of the week. As with all our coverage, we have been careful to report what both Ahmadinejad and Mousavi supporters are saying. Similarly, we have taken care to label the pictures we use, explaining what they are of.
BBC News story Obama refuses to 'meddle' in Iran. However, on Wednesday 17 June we made a mistake in a picture caption published on BBC News online. In the story Obama refuses to 'meddle' in Iran, we mistakenly stated that a Getty agency picture of a pro-Ahmadinejad rally was a pro-Mousavi rally.
Some blogs, including WhatReallyhappened.com, are pointing out that the LA Times used a similar photograph which showed President Ahmadinejad waving to supporters. The Getty pictures we received did not show Mr Ahmadinejad.
When a reader contacted us about it, we checked our caption and corrected it. We're sorry for the mistake and have added a note explaining the correction to the story.
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