The Myth Of The Suicide Bomber

[UniverseSeven]

www.smh.com.au/news/world/cars-stolen-in-us-used-in-suicide-attacks/2005/10/03/1128191658703.html

Cars stolen in US used in suicide attacks

By Bryan Bender in Washington
October 4, 2005


The FBI´s counterterrorism unit has launched a broad investigation of US-based theft rings after discovering some vehicles used in deadly car bombings in Iraq, including attacks that killed US troops and Iraqi civilians, were probably stolen in the United States, according to senior US Government officials.

The FBI´s deputy assistant director for counterterrorism, Inspector John Lewis, said the investigation did not prove the vehicles were stolen specifically for car bombings in the Middle East, but there was evidence they were smuggled out of the US by organised criminal networks that included terrorists and insurgents.

Cracking the car-theft rings and tracing the cars could help identify insurgent leaders and shut down one of the means used to attack the US-led coalition and the Iraqi Government, the officials said.

The inquiry began after coalition troops raided a Falluja bomb factory last November and found a Texas-registered four-wheel-drive being prepared for a bombing mission. Investigators said there were several other cases where vehicles evidently stolen in the US wound up in Syria or other Middle Eastern countries and ultimately in the hands of Iraqi insurgent groups, including al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Investigators believed the cars were stolen by local car thieves in US cities, then smuggled to waiting ships at ports in Los Angeles, Seattle, and Houston, among other cities. Terrorism specialists said they believed Iraqi insurgents preferred American stolen cars because they tended to be larger, blended in more easily with US convoys, and were harder to identify as stolen.

The Boston Globe

[jonnygemini]

Support Pentagon torture, or Rummy makes you a 'sex pervert'


Those military personnel moral enough to stand up against Rumsfeld's torture policies find themselves fired for "sexual misconduct."

Capt. James Yee, the Muslim chaplain at Camp X-Ray who was locked up for "spying" and eventually honorably discharged but smeared with a violation for having pictures of naked women, was one of many to learn how Rumsfeld's America works.

Lee's real crimes were being sickened by the torture of the Guantanamo prisoners and having weekly prayers with other Muslim soldiers, which made the mostly born-again Jesus fanatic soldiers uncomfortable.

Such tactics have become common at Rumfeld's Pentagon. Not even judges or commanders are immune to the Rumsfeld smear:

* Maj. Gen. Thomas J. Fiscus, Judge Advocate General of the Air Force -- known to have criticized rules on treatment of detainees -- accused of sexual misconduct

* Lt. Gen. John Riggs -- questioned the level of troop commitments to the Iraq campaign -- accused of sexual misconduct and technical contract infractions

* Gen. Kevin Byrnes -- responsible for incorporating changes in doctrine on interrogation and treatment of detainees, rumored to have had reservations about changes hammered through by Rumsfeld -- accused of sexual misconduct.

And let's not forget Army Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer.

Shaffer was about to testify before Congress on a little matter known as "Able Danger." This was the program that identified various 9/11 figures more than a year before the attacks, including ringleader Mohammed Atta.

But orders came directly from Dick Cheney to stop this testimony. Why? Because the White House destroyed all records of this program just two months before the Sept. 11 attacks. Because the White House directed all efforts to kill investigation of the 9/11 attacks, as well as directing the squelching of all pre-9/11 investigations that could've stopped the attacks.

And what became of Shaffer? The White House and Pentagon went to work smearing him as some kind of crazy criminal ... saying he stole pens from his office.

[jonnygemini]

It is the most perplexing "non story" of the current American terror era: For the first time ever, a half-dozen of the bioweapons air sensors installed around Washington, D.C., all set off alarms. Over a single 24-hour period, each had collected evidence of airborne quantities of the deadly bacteria francisella tularensis.

The bacteria is "one of six biological weapons most likely to be used against the United States," according to the federal government. It causes a deadly disease known as tularemia, which responds to treatment with antibiotics but otherwise kills half of its victims ... many of whom would assume they had common flu until it was too late.

And on the day those six sensors detected the deadly bacteria over a miles-long area of Washington concentrated on the National Mall, the largest anti-war demonstration since the Vietnam era was in progress.

The news was dumped on a Friday night a whole week later, and it promptly vanished -- despite a quiet nationwide warning by the Centers for Disease Control for doctors to look for patients with tularemia symptoms. And in vivid contrast to this morning's fictional terror freakout in Baltimore and the New York subway hysteria of two weeks ago, the Department of Homeland Security expressed no concern for the hundreds of thousands of anti-war demonstrators who may have been infected with a biological weapon.

Tularemia has been developed as a weapon by the U.S. military and is stockpiled at America's bioweapons labs:

In the 1950s and 1960s, the US military developed weapons that would disseminate F tularensis aerosols; concurrently, it conducted research to better understand the pathophysiology of tularemia and to develop vaccines and antibiotic prophylaxis and treatment regimens. In some studies, volunteers were infected with F tularensis by direct aerosol delivery systems and by exposures in an aerosol chamber.

Today, Salon.com revisits the possible bioweapons attack on the nation's capital. Experts are bewildered by the lack of government concern, and raise a question that should have sent the American news media into a frenzy:

Another possibility is that somebody was testing U.S. biological weapons defenses. How sensitive are the sensors? How quickly and effectively can the government react?

"The Department of Homeland Security would have to consider the possibility that it was neither natural nor an attack, but that it was a testing of the system," says Alan Pearson, a former DHS official, who is now the biological and chemical weapons director at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, a nonpartisan organization. "Was somebody trying to see what would happen?"

"Somebody" testing U.S. biological weapons defenses ... on Washington's Mall, on the very day an estimated 300,000 Americans gathered to protest the White House's endless war. If somebody within the government was running an experiment to "see what would happen," were they satisfied that the news media would all but ignore the event if not directed to cause hysteria?

The Bangor (Maine) Daily News seems to be the only other publication to revisit what could have been either the biggest biological terror attack in U.S. history or a government "drill" using live bioweapons on citizens who oppose the nation's wars.
* * *

While government health officials say it's all fine, as nobody got tularemia, people did get sick at the Mall. Some of those who spoke to Salon.com say they were treated with antibiotics for flu-like symptoms, the same medicines that would be used to kill tularemia.

Of course, there are countless benign explanations for these symptoms. And it could be true that nobody got sick from F. tularensis on Sept. 24. But bioterror experts say that doesn't prove it wasn't a terrorist attack. The Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo, they point out, made several unsuccessful biological weapons attacks before the sarin attack in the Tokyo subway system on March 20, 1995. Previous efforts by the cult to release a botulin toxin from a vehicle in 1990, and anthrax spores from a building in 1993, apparently failed to sicken or kill anyone because of faulty dispersal methods.

Terrorists may have made a similar screw-up in Washington on Sept. 24. "One of my working hypotheses is that there was an attack and they failed in their dispersion system," says Stanhope. "They dispersed an incredibly low concentration."

Government assurances that there is "nothing to see here" are reminiscent of the federal government's initial response to the infamous anthrax attacks in fall of 2001. In an Oct. 4, 2001, press conference, then-Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson emphasized that anthrax occurs naturally in the environment and that "there's no evidence of terrorism."

"I want everyone to understand that sporadic cases of anthrax do [naturally] occur in the United States," Thompson said. Thompson said the first victim to fall ill, a Florida man, was an "outdoorsman" and that investigators were looking into a stream he may have drank from in North Carolina. That man, Bob Stevens, 63, died the next day from inhaling weaponized anthrax that was apparently sent to the offices of American Media Inc. in Boca Raton, Fla.

[jonnygemini]

(A Speech for the New York Petrocollapse Conference – October 5, 2005)

by
Michael C. Ruppert

October 5, 2005 (FTW) – NEW YORK -- Most people who have come to this conference; indeed, perhaps even some of the presenters here today, have come with a serious misconception. That misconception is a belief that there is an urgent need to somehow make key decision makers and leaders of American and global life aware of the immediate problems of Peak Oil and Natural Gas.

Nothing could be more off base. The world´s key decision makers have been aware of and planning for this crisis for years.

In fact, by understanding clearly that political, economic and business elites have been aware of Peak Oil and its deadly implications, we can see that remedial actions designed to save lives and minimize the effects of collapse can and will only be initiated by individuals working through and as part of local communities.

There is a record – much too long to describe fully here – that official awareness of Peak Oil and its implications has been a distinct and well-articulated part of US political and economic thinking going back at least to 1977. I will give you just a few brief examples to make the point. Many of these examples are included in my book “Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil” (New Society, 2004). If you listen closely to these few examples you will understand that even though the term Peak Oil is rarely mentioned, it is exactly what is being described.

In the same vein, it is foolish to believe that any governmental preparation for Peak Oil will be publicly labeled as such. Most preparations, so as to avoid panic and/or political risk, have been carefully concealed in other documents and legislation such as the PATRIOT Act and the Homeland Security Act. In my earlier presentation and throughout the day today, it should be growing clear to you that official preparations for Peak Oil have been underway for some time. And – as I document in “Rubicon” – they include the attacks of September 11th, 2001 and all US government foreign policy initiatives since then.

We are witnessing government response to Peak Oil now. In my earlier presentation I have made it clear that that response will include only measures which protect the financial elites and major corporations. They include:

1. Rationing
2. More Coal and Nuclear – Emphasis on Fisher-Tropsch Coal-to-Liquids Conversion.
3. Suspended Environmental and Drilling Restrictions
4. Protection of Critical Infrastructure
5. Strengthening and Reinforcing Domestic Military Operations – Suspension of Posse Comitatus
6. Suspension and Relaxation of Labor and Minimum Wage Laws.
7. Changing and Tightening the Bankruptcy Laws Allowing Fewer Distressed Consumers to Discharge Debts.
8. Allowing and Facilitating Population Reduction through Famine and Disease.
9. Strengthening and Giving More Power to FEMA.
10. Destroying Demand Through Economic Collapse and Allocating Scarce Resources – by Force if Necessary – to Protect the Interests of the Wealthiest Communities and Interests in the Country.

Accordingly, I have developed five rules which should be used as a guide for all who understand Peak Oil, who appreciate both its imminence and significance, and who wish to do something to increase their chances for survival as our long emergency now begins:

1. There is no combination of alternative energy sources anywhere that will enable current consumption and growth to continue.

2. Even if there were, it takes 30 years and lots of capital investment to change an energy infrastructure. Peak Oil is here now. The current infrastructure will not be rebuilt or even well maintained. The return on that investment for the financial elites is “uncertain” and they will not spend any more than they have to on band aid solutions until the crash becomes apparent.

3. No government entity (federal or state) will do (or be able to do) anything to solve Peak Oil and energy shortages. The political system is utterly and irretrievably broken.

4. Until you change the way money works, you change nothing. It will be more profitable to let decline, starvation, wars, disease and famine occur than it will be to prevent them (Disaster Capitalism).

5. All real solutions will be place-based, local and originate at the grass roots, independent of government. What saves you and your family will be determined by what and who is in your own neighborhood and what kind of cooperation has been achieved there.

These are stark and harsh words, I realize. But for many years now I and “From The Wilderness” have had an uncanny record – around 80% -- of accurately predicting future trends and events. >We are today just weeks away from one of the largest economic crashes to ever hit the United States. It is a crash that has actually been encouraged for some time through reckless fiscal policy, soaring deficits both in Washington and in our balance of payments accounts, the unbridled and inexcusable inflation of the housing bubble, expansion of consumer credit and a negative net savings rate to name a few.<

It is in this way that massive demand destruction will be achieved to maintain a degree of broader global stability as Peak Oil begins to claim casualties as it already has in Zimbabwe and Indonesia. With the United States consisting of 5% of the world´s population consuming 25% of the world´s energy output, it has been clear for some time that America was the only profligate spender which mattered and which needed to be “adjusted” before broader global desperation measures could be implemented.

[jonnygemini]

War by Remote Control :.

SkyNet v1.0:

As opposed to the expectations of many, the disengagement has not brought about real progress toward peace, but undoubtedly caused a revolutionary change in the way war is conducted. The violence of body touching body and eye meeting eye, the friction saturated with hatred at the checkpoints and in the alleyways, and the sight of spilled blood - the intimate violence of conflicted communities - is changing in front of our eyes, and has become a push-button war, shooting via TV screens, robots and computers, and long range artillery.

There's no more need to occupy territory and fill it with soldiers; it's possible to position a battery of cannons and mark out "killing zones" that are no less effective than the occupation in practice, and allow sticking to the fiction that "the occupation of Gaza is over." Land forces are envious of the air force, and also want to fight by pushing buttons. They also want to feel like the former air force commander and current chief of staff, who said, "I feel a slight knock in the plane as a result of releasing the bomb, and a second later it passes and that's all." True, innocent people are killed, but on the TV screen it doesn't look so terrible.

Therefore, the commanders of the ground forces devised a driverless armored vehicle, which patrols under remote control command and opens fire on the order of a youth sitting in front of a TV screen, who "identifies the enemy." Spanish TV recently broadcast a report on the arsenal of robots - on land and sea and in the air - that is turning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into a kind of computer game, of course, on condition that you're on the Israeli side. And if you're Palestinian, you should be grateful that at least you won't have to see the occupier at the Rafah crossing.

[jonnygemini]

Rep. Weldon says gov't knew 9/11 was coming; demands probe

Republican Congressman Curt Weldon gave a Capitol Hill press conference and went on CNN's Lou Dobbs show on Wednesday in attempts to keep the Able Danger story alive.

This time, Weldon described the Sept. 11 attacks as a "cover-up."

WELDON: That's Louis Freeh saying that two weeks ago. Able Danger was briefed to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in January of 2001. How could you call that historically insignificant?

Lou, this is a cover-up. It's not a third-rate political
burglary. It's a cover-up of information on the largest attack
in the history of the country.

DOBBS: Congressman, you are calling for a criminal
investigation. Obviously, you're not going to receive a great
deal of cooperation from the leadership, the Republican
leadership in the House or the Senate.

You're a Republican, what kind of reaction are you getting as
you go one on one with your fellow Congressman?

WELDON: Lou, the members of Congress want the facts to come out,
both parties. I did a briefing this afternoon for members of
Congress, we had dozens of their members and their staff show
up.

And just within two hours Lou, today, I got 100 signatures. One
hundred signatures from Republicans and Democrats across the
country. Liberals and conservatives to Secretary Rumsfeld
demanding that we allow these Able Danger military officers to
testify in an open hearing.

The American people need to know the facts. They need to know
the truth. Three thousand people were killed, 17 sailors were
killed in the U.S.S Cole. The 9/11 commission did not do its
job. It's time to get the facts out to the American people.

[jonnygemini]

Pentagon looking into report military paid to plant news in Iraqi press

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The
Pentagon said it is looking into a newspaper report that said the US military is secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to run stories written by US troops to burnish the US image in Iraq.

"If all of the elements in that story were accurate, there are some things in there that I find troubling, and that's why I've asked for the facts," said Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman.

"It was news to me," he said.

The Los Angeles Times said the articles were written by US military "information operations" troops, translated into Arabic and placed in Iraqi newspapers with the help of a defense contractor called Lincoln Group.

It said many of the articles were presented as unbiased news accounts trumpeting the work of US and Iraqi troops, denouncing the insurgents, and touting US efforts to rebuild the country.

The report, citing records and interviews, said the US military had paid Iraqi newspapers to publish dozens of the stories since the effort began this year.

Iraqi staff of the Washington-based Lincoln Group sometimes pose as freelance reporters or advertising executives in their approaches to Iraqi media outlets, masking their connection to the US military, according to the report.

Whitman said the report was troubling because the practices it described appeared to be in conflict with the Pentagon's overarching information policy. But he would not be more specific.

"That's what we want to look at: what they're doing and under what authority they believe they are executing some of these things," he said.

[jonnygemini]

The LA Times today exposed U.S. military operation that pays Iraqi newspapers to run stories written by "information operations" troops about how wonderful things are going. All together now: Talk about your American-style democracy. What bothers us isn't even that this manipulation of the press runs counter to the whole establishing-a-free-society objective that men and women are dying for -- it's that, as with the rest of the war, it doesn't seem to be working out very well. According to the LAT, one of the advertorials placed by the military was entitled "Iraqis Insist on Living Despite Terrorism." That is what you call your low bar. What were the competing stories? "BREAKING: Suicide Limited to Suicide Bombers." Maybe, "Death Just One of Many Options for Iraqis." I know: "Here, Have a Plastic Turkey on Us." Is it propaganda if it's as depressing as the news?