American citizens pay the IRS a considerable portion of their daily wages, all of which is not required to be paid by law.
The following video contains interviews and speeches with noted attorneys, CPAs, jurists, and experts revealing the illegal enforcement of U.S. "income tax" laws by the IRS and the unconstitutional nature of the Federal Reserve.
by Ron Paul
Last week the House passed an emergency supplemental spending bill that was the worst of all worlds. The president’s request would have already set a spending record, but the Democratic leadership packed 21 billion additional dollars of mostly pork barrel spending in attempt to win Democrat votes. The total burden on the American taxpayer for this bill alone will be an astonishing 124 billion dollars. Democrats promised to oppose the war by adding more money to fight the war than even the president requested.
I am pleased to have joined with the majority of my Republican colleagues to oppose this bill.
Among the pork added to attract votes was more than 200 million dollars to the dairy industry, 74 million for peanut farmers, and 25 million dollars for spinach farmers. Also, the bill included more than two billion dollars in unconstitutional foreign aid, including half a billion dollars for Lebanon and Eastern Europe.
What might be most disturbing, however, is the treatment of veterans in the bill. Playing politics with the funding of critical veterans medical and other assistance by adding it onto a controversial bill to attract votes strikes me as highly inappropriate. Veterans’ funding should be included in a properly structured, comprehensive appropriations bill. Better still, veterans spending should be automatically funded and not subject to yearly politicking and nit-picking.
While I have been opposed to the war in Iraq from the beginning and do believe that there is a strong constitutional role for Congress when it comes to war, I could not support what appeared to be micro-management of the war in this bill. There is a distinction between the legitimate oversight role of Congress and attempts to meddle in the details of how the war is to be fought. The withdrawal and readiness benchmarks in this bill are in my view inappropriate. That is why the president has threatened to veto this bill.
In the last Congress I co-sponsored legislation urging the president to come up with a plan to conclude our military activity in Iraq, but that legislation contained no date-specific deadlines to complete withdrawal.
Once again Congress wants to have it both ways. Back in 2002, Congress passed the authorization for the president to attack Iraq if and when he saw fit. By ignoring the Constitution, which clearly requires a declaration of war, Congress could wash its hands of responsibility after the war began going badly by citing the ambiguity of its authorization. This time, 
House leaders want to appear to be opposing the war by including problematic benchmarks, but they include language to allow the president to waive these if he sees fit.
To top it off, House leadership may have actually made war with Iran more likely. The bill originally contained language making it clear that the president would need congressional authorization before attacking Iran – as the Constitution requires. But this language was dropped after special interests demanded its removal. This move can reasonably be interpreted as de facto congressional authority for an attack on Iran. Let’s hope that does not happen.
Ron Paul wants to abolish the privately-owned Federal Reserve bank, the single most important issue facing our people at this time. Bill Maher doesn't seem to care anything about that, nor any other issue that really matters.
Instead of discussing real issues, he wants to talk about the civil war, which he repeatedly mentions in a desperate and futile attempt to cast a bad light on Ron Paul, who is against the Civil War and against the notion that it was about slavery. Anyone who's looked beyond the B.S. in the matter knows this, but Bill Maher (or his handlers) probably doesn't much like "books" and things of that nature.
It figures though, because it turns out that Bill Maher is a Jew and I'm sure he'd hate to see other prominent Jews lose their monopoly over the money and banking systems. This is probably why you'll never see Maher talking about the Federal Reserve, nor will you hear him criticize the civil war, which was essentially a banking war, a war that was won by printing up interest free money without paying a fee to the banks for privately-monopolized money.
You simply can't trust guys like Maher, since they are going to look out for their own, before they look after the greater good of all people. Ron Paul wants a return to Constitutional rule and Maher didn't seem to have anything good to say about that.
The interview illustrates my point, since it clearly shows Maher attacking a perfectly good statesman on non-issues. Indeed, like Chomsky, Bill Maher is just a leftist counter-spinner, a controlled opposition gate-keeper. Ron Paul would put many of the scams that Maher and his people feed off of out of business. Were the American people to wise up to the good that Ron Paul's policies would do the world, we wouldn't need idiots like Maher providing controlled opposition rhetoric that does little more than destroy the REAL opposition's chances of defeating the controlling parties.RON PAUL ON REAL TIME W BILL MAHER 3-30-07
If you would like e-mail Bill Maher, please do, ask him why he didn't talk to Dr Paul about any important issues. Thanks!
Also, you can leave posts on his message board about this episode.
Compiled by Iain Mackenzie | AgoraCosmopolitan.com
Republican Congressman and Presidential candidate Ron Paul says U.S. President Bush has presided over a system wide doctrine of violating the Constitution, from the Iraq War in the "War on Terrorism" and pursuing a North American Union agenda, without legally required Congressional oversight. Such oversight is legally prescribed by the U.S. Constitution.
During an interview with Alex Jones on the GCN Radio network, Paul had outlined the likely scenario as to how impeachment proceedings would unfold.
"I'd be surprised if they win both - I think they're going to win one body and if they win the House right now they do not say they would have an impeachment but I think the way that place operates I think they probably will make every effort," said Paul.
"If they happened to have a ten or fifteen vote margin that would be a political thing - it would be payback time."
Paul said that Bush should be impeached not under the umbrella of partisan vengeance but for ceaselessly breaking the laws of the land.
"I would have trouble arguing that he's been a Constitutional President and once you violate the Constitution and be proven to do that I think these people should be removed from office."
Opining that the U.S. had entered a period of "soft fascism," Paul noted that the legacy of the Bush administration has been the total abandonment of Constitutional principles.
"Congress has generously ignored the Constitution while the President flaunts it, the courts have ignored it and they get in the business of legislating so there's no respect for the rule of law." said Paul.
"When the President signs all these bills and then adds statements after saying I have no intention of following it - he's in a way signing it and vetoing - so in his mind he's vetoing a lot of bills, in our mind under the rule of law he hasn't vetoed a thing."
North American Union agenda toward an anti-democratic "New World Order"
Asked what the ultimate agenda was behind the American Union and the push on behalf of the Bush administration to homogenize the US with Mexico and Canada, Paul was clear in his response.
"I think the goal is one world government... we have the WTO, the IMF, the World Bank, then we have all the subsidiaries like NAFTA and hemispheric governments, highways coming in."
"I just hope and pray that we can wake up enough people," said Paul, noting that Texans in his own backyard were more aware of Bush selling out the country for an North American Union than anyone in Washington.
Ron Paul further says, "Globalists and one-world promoters never seem to tire of coming up with ways to undermine the sovereignty of the United States. The most recent attempt comes in the form of the misnamed Security and Prosperity Partnership Of North America (SPP). In reality, this new "partnership" will likely make us far less secure and certainly less prosperous."
According to the U.S. government website dedicated to the project, the SPP is neither a treaty nor a formal agreement. Rather, it is a "dialogue" launched by the heads of government of Canada, Mexico, and the United States at a summit in Waco, Texas in March, 2005.
Republican Presidential candidate Paul then remarks, "What is a dialogue? We don't know. What we do know, however, is that Congressional oversight of what might be one of the most significant developments in recent history is non-existent. Congress has had no role at all in a "dialogue" that many see as a plan for a North American union."
Ron Paul elaborates on a prospective anti-democratic NAU "shadow government" which effectively destroys Canada and the U.S. as democracies:
"According to the SPP website, this dialogue will create new supra-national organizations to "coordinate" border security, health policy, economic and trade policy, and energy policy between the governments of Mexico, Canada, and the United States. As such, it is but an extension of NAFTA- and CAFTA-like agreements that have far less to do with the free movement of goods and services than they do with government coordination and management of international trade."
"Critics of NAFTA and CAFTA warned at the time that the agreements were actually a move toward more government control over international trade and an eventual merging of North America into a border-free area. Proponents of these agreements dismissed this as preposterous and conspiratorial. Now we see that the criticisms appear to be justified."
Mr. Paul further enquires "Let's examine just a couple of the many troubling statements on the SPP's US government website...".
"We affirm our commitment to strengthen regulatory cooperation...and to have our central regulatory agencies complete a trilateral regulatory cooperation framework by 2007."
Though the U.S. administration insists that the SPP does not undermine U.S. sovereignty, how else can one take statements like this? How can establishing a "trilateral regulatory cooperation" not undermine our national sovereignty?
Mr. Paul then indicates that the cited website also states SPP's goal to "[i]mprove the health of our indigenous people through targeted bilateral and/or trilateral activities, including in health promotion, health education, disease prevention, and research." Who can read this and not see massive foreign aid transferred from the U.S. taxpayer to foreign governments and well-connected private companies?
Also alarming says Mr. Paul, are SPP pledges to "work towards the identification and adoption of best practices relating to the registration of medicinal products." That sounds like the much-criticized Codex Alimentarius, which seeks to radically limit Americans' health freedom.
Even more troubling are reports that under this new "partnership," a massive highway is being planned to stretch from Canada into Mexico, through the state of Texas. This is likely to cost the U.S. taxpayer untold billions of dollars, will require eminent domain takings on an almost unimaginable scale, and will make the U.S. more vulnerable to those who seek to enter our country to do us harm.
This all adds up to not only more and bigger government, but to the establishment of an unelected mega-government. As the SPP website itself admits, "The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America represents a broad and ambitious agenda." I hope my colleagues in Congress and American citizens will join me in opposing any "broad and ambitious" effort to undermine the security and sovereignty of the United States.
Ever since Rosie O'Donnell went public on The View with her views on: 9/11 conspiracy, U.S. media manipulation and the captured British soldiers, she has been relentlessly smeared by Joe Scarborough and his associates.
Scarborough has done everything possible to distract from the real issues. Instead of responding with facts and reason, he simply throws accusations at Rosie O'Donnell and executive producer Barbara Walters, him and his cronies repeatedly state that "Rosie should be fired," "something has to be done" and "this cannot be allowed to continue."
Danny Bonaduce, the washed out fossil from the Partridge Family, went ahead and showed his ass on the show when he called for Rosie O'Donnell to be hung by the neck and accused her of high treason, simply for stating what she believed. He also said that she "will not be tolerated" and that Rosie is "offering aid and comfort to the enemy."
Scarborough's clowns called Rosie a "Lunatic" and "Idiot" and criticized her for "blaming the British hostages" for being captured.
Apparently it was a major thought crime for Rosie to have an opinion other than the one expressed in the official version of events; an opinion based on solid facts and not the Mossad-sponsored Orwellian doublethink that Scarborough and his clown college subscribes to.
Indeed the Zionist-controlled media is desperate to stop this can of worms from opening up. If enough people gain an understanding of the real perpetrators behind the 911, sweeping changes are sure to hit America and the world. This, of course, endangers the careers of many of the yellow journalists, who have been making a nice living selling the people they are supposed to be informing down the river, all the while contributing to war mongering propaganda which causes the senseless slaughter of many innocents.
The same groups who today, call for conspiracy theorists to be hung, may one-day find themselves hung for aiding foreign and domestic enemies of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The people are raising their awareness and slipping away from the clutches of Zionist media. Indeed, they are tired of being used like toilet-paper, for Israel's blood-curdling agenda in the Middle-East.
AP News | Fri 30 Mar 2007 10:01:00 AM CDT
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration, facing heavy pressure to deal with soaring trade deficits, will impose economic sanctions against China as a way of protecting American paper producers from unfair Chinese government subsidies, a Commerce Department official said Friday.
The action will reverse 20 years of U.S. trade policy by treating China, which is classified as a nonmarket economy, in the same way that other U.S. trading partners are treated in disputes involving government subsidies.
The decision was to be announced by Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez. Department official said Friday.
A Commerce Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the public announcement, said that the determination had been made that China with its rapidly growing economy should now be treated the same as other developed nations in government subsidy cases.
The action means that China's imports of glossy paper will be subjected to stiff tariffs as a penalty for subsidies that the Chinese government is providing for its own companies.
The case, which was brought by NewPage Corp., was being closely watched by a number of other U.S. industries from steel to furniture.
For two decades, the U.S. government has held that American companies did not have a right to challenge government subsidies granted to their foreign competitors if those companies were in 'nonmarket economies' such as China.
However, last year, the administration let it be known that it was ready to consider reversing that policy.
President Bush is facing heavy political pressure from Congress, now in the hands of Democrats, to deal with soaring U.S. trade deficits, including a record $232.5 billion imbalance with China.
Officials at the United Steel Workers union, which represents many of the workers at U.S. paper plants, hailed the administration's decision, saying it would help protect jobs for workers at 22 paper mills in 13 states who produce the glossy paper being covered by the sanctions.
China suffered a defeat on Thursday in an effort to derail the administration's change in policy when the U.S. Court of International Trade, a federal court which handles trade matters, ruled that the administration did have the right to proceed with sanctions.
Judge Gregory W. Carman, who heard the case for the trade court, rejected China's request to grant an injunction to stop the U.S. government from proceeding.
This trade dispute is being followed closely by a number of other American industries -- from steel to furniture -- that have been battered in recent years by a flood of imports from China.
U.S. companies have always had the right to file dumping cases against China, which can result in penalty duties if Chinese companies are found to be selling products in the United States below cost.
But the ability to file subsidy cases could significantly expand the level of penalties that Chinese imports could face, giving American producers more protection.
The fact that the Bush administration made it known last year that it was now willing to consider cases against China involving government subsidies was seen as part of a new get-tough approach in the face of soaring U.S. trade deficits.
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is leading an effort to pressure China to allow its currency to rise in value against the dollar. American manufacturers contend that China is devaluing its currency by as much as 40 percent to give the country unfair trade advantages.
China would have the right to appeal the decision of the trade court, which is based in New York, to the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington. The Chinese Embassy and attorneys representing China did not immediately respond to telephone calls seeking comment.
In his decision, Carman said the court did not have jurisdiction in the case because China could seek redress from the courts once a Commerce decision had become final.
Gilbert Kaplan, an attorney with the Washington law firm of King & Spalding, which is representing New Page, called the ruling a 'significant win' because it allows Commerce to go forward with the subsidies case.
Well, at least Rosie O'Donnell has conscience enough speak out on the 911 on mainstream television. She was willing to argue with Bush-Loving-Ditz Barbie on the blue-haired lady show "The View."
She was later smeared by Joe Scarborough, the 9/11 official story media-clown.
T.V. is making kids fat, lazy, stupid and violent. Parents aren't doing their job, yet no-one seems to think that it is their place to do something about it.
Parents are supposed to teach and protect their children and ensure their future prosperity, but they don't love their kids enough to put an effort into raising them. Instead, they are letting corporations raise them and poison them with information that is dead wrong.
This is gross negligence and these ignorant parents will be forced to grow old watching the demise of their descendants and the dis-integration of their family traditions.
Its time to unplug the cable and discard the T.V., throw out the microwave, buy some good pans, plant a garden and return to the sustainable ways that have been so conveniently forgotten. There is simply too much at stake to do nothing about it.
Forget Big Tobacco, Big Food Kills
Marie Cocco | Washington Post
WASHINGTON—If we are what we eat and we eat what is advertised, then American children are facing death by junk food.
Half of all the advertising time on children's television shows is devoted to food ads, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation study of food advertising aimed at kids. And what do the commercials pitch? Candy, cereal, fast-food and other restaurants, soda and other sweetened drinks.
Just as surely as the tobacco industry tried for years—and succeeded—in hooking young kids on its deadly weed, the food industry is spending billions to advertise products that will make the next generation look and live like its porky parents: overweight, and at great risk of debilitating disease and early deaths linked to obesity.
Concerned by the lack of publicly available information about food advertising to kids, the Kaiser foundation went well beyond the 40 to 50 hours of programming that had typically been reviewed in earlier studies and examined 1,600 hours of TV fare. More important, the foundation reviewed all types of programs that children see—not just cartoons and other children's shows but sitcoms, reality shows, movies and others that older children prefer.
The result is an alarming portrait of kids who are bombarded with precisely the opposite message about food and fitness than the one the government and the medical profession agree is needed for good health. Children between ages 2 and 7 see 12 food ads per day—that's more than 4,000 per year. Those in the next age group—the pre-adolescent "tweens" between 8 and 12—see even more. They're tuned in to 21 food ads every day, or more than 7,000 every year. Teenagers see somewhat fewer ads, but even they will view 17 food ads a day.
The foods that star in the ads aren't broccoli or even bread. Kids are pitched a super-sized lineup of ads for candy and snack food, which account for 34 percent of food ads aimed at them. Another third of the ads are for cereal—and not the low-sugar kind.
While young children might beg parents for Pop-Tarts instead of oatmeal, the apparent targeting of pre-adolescents is aimed at a group that is just beginning to get out on its own, have its own pocket money, and begin choosing what to eat. "The tweens are really a big target of food advertising," says Vicky Rideout, director of the Kaiser foundation's Program for the Study of Entertainment Media and Health.
And while a tween sees as many as 21 ads a day for sweets or sugary sodas, the same kid is exposed to only one public service announcement promoting fitness and health every two to three days. "There are very few of them on the air," Rideout says.
Baby boomer parents who remember Tony the Tiger and the Trix Rabbit may not leap to concern. But they might also recall those long after-school bike rides and endless afternoons of neighborhood kickball—not hour upon hour plopped in front of video games or the television. The combination of saturation advertising for junk food and the sedentary lives that today's kids lead already has caused an unprecedented jump in childhood obesity—more than 30 percent of children between 6 and 11 are overweight and 15 percent are obese. The diseases they develop, such as diabetes and high blood pressure, weren't commonly seen in kids a generation ago. Treating them already is costing insurers, employers and taxpayers billions.
It took more than four decades from the time of the earliest government warnings about tobacco's ill health effects to bring that industry under what is a minimal level of control—and even that came only after lawsuits, some of them still moving slowly through the courts. The food industry shouldn't follow this contentious path. It must step up what are now only preliminary efforts to voluntarily change the content of the ads it produces for children.
Otherwise it too could stand accused of killing our kids for profit. There's no way to sugarcoat that.
When are these morons going to realize that they are in the minority? These clowns squabble over how "obviously" insane Rosie O'Donnell is, yet their refutations to her claims about the 911 are simply non-existent.
Yes, its time they do what they do best. Its time for these clowns to join the circus where they can continue making people laugh. This would be far more productive than touting the standard and already debunked lies of 9/11 as truth.
Recent events suggest that a war is about to begin with the nation of Iran. I expect that this war can begin in a variety of ways. It could start with attacks, either real or promulgated, on U.S. or British assets. The situation involving the captured British solders who were trespassing in Iranian water could bring about a conflict in any number of ways as well.
The circumstances and the propaganda are starting to solidify. This is the globalists wet dream and we may see an unstoppable world war unfold before our eyes; a war that goes far beyond any war the world has ever seen.
Watching these events unfold gives me a bad feeling about the horrible future that awaits us if these events transpire as expected. I hope the profiteers and apologists are proud of themselves for bringing about circumstances that are this unstable and deadly. May their children forgive them for the legacy that they have left behind.
Operation Bite - April 6 Sneak Attack By US Forces On Iran Planned
Posted on Tuesday, March 27, 2007
General Ivashov Calls For Emergency Session Of UN Security Council To Ward Off Looming US Aggression
WASHINGTON DC -- The long awaited US military attack on Iran is now on track for the first week of April, specifically for 4 AM on April 6, the Good Friday opening of Easter weekend, writes the well-known Russian journalist Andrei Uglanov in the Moscow weekly "Argumenty Nedeli." Uglanov cites Russian military experts close to the Russian General Staff for his account.
The attack is slated to last for twelve hours, according to Uglanov, lasting from 4 AM until 4 PM local time. Friday is a holiday in Iran. In the course of the attack, code named Operation Bite, about 20 targets are marked for bombing; the list includes uranium enrichment facilities, research centers, and laboratories.
The first reactor at the Bushehr nuclear plant, where Russian engineers are working, is supposed to be spared from destruction. The US attack plan reportedly calls for the Iranian air defense system to be degraded, for numerous Iranian warships to be sunk in the Persian Gulf, and the for the most important headquarters of the Iranian armed forces to be wiped out.
more...
Massive US Navy exercise continues off coast of Iran
Posted on Wednesday, March 28, 2007
ABOARD THE USS JOHN C STENNIS: US fighter jets battled imaginary enemy ships and aircraft off the coast of Iran yesterday during the second and final day of the largest US Navy exercise in the Arabian Gulf since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. US commanders said the maneuvers were not a direct response to Iran's seizure on Friday of 15 British sailors and Marines, but the parade of two aircraft carriers, 13 support ships and 125 aircraft only 42 miles off Iran's coast was clearly intended to send a message of US military prowess. Rear Admiral Kevin Quinn, commander of Strike Group Three, which includes the USS John C Stennis said the purpose of the exercises was to show "the commitment of the US to stability and security in the region." Commander Chris Rentfrow said that although the Iranians were watching, the operations had not elicited a reaction.
"Operations are pretty much normal," he said, "we've seen some activity from their patrol aircraft, which is entirely normal." The relationship between the US and Iran has grown increasingly strained in recent months over Iran's nuclear program and its alleged support for Shiite militias in Iraq.
more...
Iran puts detained British sailors on television
Posted on Wednesday, March 28, 2007
LONDON (Reuters) - Iranian television on Wednesday displayed some of 15 British sailors and marines detained at sea last week and showed the only woman crew member saying they had "trespassed" into Iranian waters.
Britain, which earlier broke all official contacts with Iran except those related to the detained crew, said it feared they may have been coerced into appearing on television. It insists they were seized in Iraqi waters.
"It is completely unacceptable to parade our people in this way," British Defence Minister Des Browne said.
After the broadcast, Iran's foreign minister told Reuters London must accept the sailors were arrested in Iranian territory, while repeating an earlier announcement the woman would be freed "as soon as possible".
more...
Iran raises the hostage stakes
Posted on Saturday, March 24, 2007
THE 15 British sailors and Royal Marines captured by Iranian Revolutionary Guards in a waterway separating Iran and Iraq were yesterday trapped in an outbreak of aggressive political brinkmanship that may mark a bleak turning point in the West’s relations with Tehran.
Officials in London and Washington remained publicly optimistic that Iran would respond to international pressure and free them within days, despite claims by a senior military official in Tehran that the captives had “confessed” to illegally entering Iranian territorial waters on Friday in a pair of rigid inflatable boats known as RIBs.
Yet there were ominous signs from Tehran that hardline religious elements were seeking to turn the incident into a major confrontation with the West. Several conservative student groups called on the Iranian government not to release the service personnel until five Iranians detained by US forces in Iraq earlier this year were released.
The groups also called for the cancellation of United Nations sanctions imposed on Iran after a unanimous security council vote in New York last night. The new sanctions were in response to Tehran’s refusal to suspend its uranium enrichment programme, which may be used to build nuclear weapons.
more...
Iran's military warns US against "stupid move"
Posted on Sunday, March 18, 2007
LONDON, March 18 (IranMania) - Iran's army commander has warned the United States and other Western powers not to make any "stupid move" over Tehran's nuclear work, and suggested they would be surprised by Iran's military response if they attacked, Reuters reported.
The comments by the commander-in-chief of the army, reported by newspapers on Saturday, were the latest in a series of defiant statements by Iran's leadership as the United Nations prepares to vote on new sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
Iran is embroiled in an escalating dispute over its uranium enrichment, which Iran says is for fuel for power generation but the West suspects is aimed at making nuclear bombs.
The United States says it would prefer a negotiated solution to the crisis, but has not ruled out military options.
Armed forces chief Ataollah Salehi said Iran's military was stronger now than when Iran fought against Iraq in 1980-88.
"And if our bullying enemies make a stupid move, they will certainly be surprised," the daily Siyasat-e Rouz quoted him as saying on Friday.
more...
Peter Graff and Sophie Walker | The Star Online
LONDON (Reuters) - Iranian television on Wednesday displayed some of 15 British sailors and marines detained at sea last week and showed the only woman crew member saying they had "trespassed" into Iranian waters.
Britain, which earlier broke all official contacts with Iran except those related to the detained crew, said it feared they may have been coerced into appearing on television. It insists they were seized in Iraqi waters.
"It is completely unacceptable to parade our people in this way," British Defence Minister Des Browne said.
After the broadcast, Iran's foreign minister told Reuters London must accept the sailors were arrested in Iranian territory, while repeating an earlier announcement the woman would be freed "as soon as possible".
London said it had no confirmation of any imminent release and that it was awaiting details of a reported undertaking by Tehran to grant consular access to the group, detained amid high tension between Iran and the West over Iran's nuclear programme.
Al-Alam, a state-run Arabic-language television channel, showed the woman, Faye Turney, and several of the other sailors in uniform eating off plastic plates in a well-lit room.
It also showed a separate interview with Turney, who British media said was married with a 3-year-old daughter, wearing a black headscarf, smoking a cigarette and speaking about her detention and treatment.
"I was arrested on Friday the 23rd of March. Obviously we trespassed into their waters," Turney said in an even voice. A letter from Turney to her parents, released by Iran, said she had written "to the Iranian people to apologise".
Britain's Defence Ministry said global positioning data showed the British sailors and marines were 1.7 nautical miles within Iraqi waters when they were captured by Iranian gunboats near the waterway that separates Iran and Iraq.
"The boats remained throughout well within Iraqi territorial waters," Britain's Deputy Chief of Defence Staff, Vice Admiral Charles Style, told a news conference.
"ROUTINE OPERATION"
Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki disagreed.
"The real picture is that the British sailors were arrested in the territorial waters of Iran ... this must be accepted by the government of the UK," Mottaki told Reuters in Riyadh.
Britain will seek approval from the United Nations Security Council on Thursday for a statement that would "deplore" the detention of the sailors and call for their immediate release, according to a draft of the text obtained by Reuters.
British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett earlier told parliament Britain would freeze all official bilateral business with Iran apart from efforts to resolve the crisis.
"I am very concerned about these pictures and any indication of pressure on or coercion of our personnel who were carrying out a routine operation in accordance with international law," Beckett said in a statement after the broadcast.
With the United States conducting naval exercises in the Gulf, the rising tension rattled global markets. Oil prices rose more than $1 a barrel on Wednesday to settle at around $64 after an overnight spike by as much as $5. Gold jumped to a four-week high on safe-haven buying before prices eased.
The price rises were fuelled by rumours, quickly denied, of a clash between Iran and U.S. military forces.
"Although it didn't happen this time, people think it could happen," said Christopher Bellew, a broker at Bache Financial.
For the first time since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, a second U.S. aircraft carrier, the John C. Stennis, arrived in the Gulf for previously scheduled naval war games.
Both the United States and Iran played down the U.S. naval exercises. Washington insisted they did not escalate tensions and a headline on Iranian state television screens read: "Iran: 'no concern about Pentagon's war games in the Persian Gulf'."
A U.N. Security Council resolution passed at the weekend tightened sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme.
The Security Council wants Iran to stop enriching uranium, which could be used for weapons or power plants. Iran says its nuclear programme is peaceful and calls the sanctions illegal.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair said the detention of the sailors was "wrong and illegal".
U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns called Iran's behaviour "reprehensible". "We and all the other allies and many other countries that aren't even allied to Britain around the world think this is odious behaviour on the part of the Iranian authorities," he told BBC television.
Iran's embassy in London said the British sailors and marines were 0.5 km inside Iranian waters at the time. Britain says they had searched a merchant ship in Iraqi waters, with a U.N. mandate, when they were captured.
In a similar incident, Iran freed eight British service members after holding them for three days in 2004, a time of less tension with the West. In 1979, Iranian students seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran and captured 90 hostages; 52 were held captive for 444 days.
KuwaitTimes.net
ABOARD THE USS JOHN C STENNIS: US fighter jets battled imaginary enemy ships and aircraft off the coast of Iran yesterday during the second and final day of the largest US Navy exercise in the Arabian Gulf since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. US commanders said the maneuvers were not a direct response to Iran's seizure on Friday of 15 British sailors and Marines, but the parade of two aircraft carriers, 13 support ships and 125 aircraft only 42 miles off Iran's coast was clearly intended to send a message of US military prowess. Rear Admiral Kevin Quinn, commander of Strike Group Three, which includes the USS John C Stennis said the purpose of the exercises was to show "the commitment of the US to stability and security in the region." Commander Chris Rentfrow said that although the Iranians were watching, the operations had not elicited a reaction.
"Operations are pretty much normal," he said, "we've seen some activity from their patrol aircraft, which is entirely normal." The relationship between the US and Iran has grown increasingly strained in recent months over Iran's nuclear program and its alleged support for Shiite militias in Iraq.
Tensions increased even further after Friday, when Iranian forces captured 15 British sailors for allegedly entering Iranian territorial waters. US and British officials insist the team was operating under a UN mandate and with the permission of the Iraqi government to search cargo vessels inside Iraqi waters. Operations onboard the Stennis continued at breakneck pace yesterday as a mass of men and machines conducted their highly coordinated routine. Hundreds of sailors dressed in green, yellow and blue jackets to indicate their functions waved hand signals at each other to communicate through the noise. The smell of jet fuel permeated the air. With one final salute to the men and women on the deck, pilots catapulted off the carrier in waves, producing a shockwave strong enough to knock observers back a step. The deck of the USS Stennis is so large that two planes can land on it, and two can take off, simultaneously.
Captain Bradley Johanson, the commanding officer of the Stennis, said the carrier flew 84 missions with 64 aircraft on Tuesday. Another 79 sorties were planned.
Lieutenant Dennis Cox, who selects weapons for the jets, said he could feel the excitement in the air. "Today, I talked with a few of the crew, and they were flying double hops," he said. "This is fairly unusual. I could tell by the looks on their faces that they had a big day." The war games involve over 13,000 US personnel mounting simulated attacks on enemy aircraft and ships, while hunting submarines and looking for mines. US officials have made it clear that US warships would stay out of Iran's territorial waters, which extend 12 miles off the Iranian coast. The US drills were the latest in a series of competing American and Iranian war games in the region.
Iran conducted naval maneuvers in November and April, while in October the Navy led a training exercise aimed at blocking nuclear smuggling. The Stennis strike group, with more than 6,500 sailors and marines, entered the Gulf late Monday or early Tuesday along with the guided-missile cruiser USS Antietam, the Navy said. The Stennis, which had been supporting military operations in Afghanistan from the Arabian Sea, joined the strike group led by the Eisenhower. It is the first time two US aircraft carriers have operated in the Gulf since the US-led invasion of Iraq.
The Eisenhower was operating off the coast of Somalia in January and February. Ships from Bahrain's navy were also operating in the region during the exercise, but US and Bahraini officials denied they were taking part in the maneuvers. US commanders have said that none of America's naval coalition partners in the region joined the exercise. - AP
FBLie released this security camera video recently from a hotel across from the Pentagon. Conspiracy theorists such as myself have been saying for years that there is no evidence of a 757 hitting the Pentagon. Now there is more evidence to dispute the officially sanctioned notion that a passenger jet hit the Pentagon.
I am inclined to believe that the Pentagon was loaded with shaped charges or hit by a missile. Its funny how the news anchor doesn't seem to think anything of this.
Russian Military Sources Warn
General Ivashov Calls For Emergency Session Of UN Security Council To Ward Off Looming US Aggression
By Webster G. Tarpley | Rense.com
3-25-7
WASHINGTON DC -- The long awaited US military attack on Iran is now on track for the first week of April, specifically for 4 AM on April 6, the Good Friday opening of Easter weekend, writes the well-known Russian journalist Andrei Uglanov in the Moscow weekly "Argumenty Nedeli." Uglanov cites Russian military experts close to the Russian General Staff for his account.
The attack is slated to last for twelve hours, according to Uglanov, lasting from 4 AM until 4 PM local time. Friday is a holiday in Iran. In the course of the attack, code named Operation Bite, about 20 targets are marked for bombing; the list includes uranium enrichment facilities, research centers, and laboratories.
The first reactor at the Bushehr nuclear plant, where Russian engineers are working, is supposed to be spared from destruction. The US attack plan reportedly calls for the Iranian air defense system to be degraded, for numerous Iranian warships to be sunk in the Persian Gulf, and the for the most important headquarters of the Iranian armed forces to be wiped out.
The attacks will be mounted from a number of bases, including the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. Diego Garcia is currently home to B-52 bombers equipped with standoff missiles. Also participating in the air strikes will be US naval aviation from aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf, as well as from those of the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean. Additional cruise missiles will be fired from submarines in the Indian Ocean and off the coast of the Arabian peninsula. The goal is allegedly to set back Iran's nuclear program by several years, writes Uglanov, whose article was re-issued by RIA-Novosti in various languages, but apparently not English, several days ago. The story is the top item on numerous Italian and German blogs, but so far appears to have been ignored by US websites.
Observers comment that this dispatch represents a high-level orchestrated leak from the Kremlin, in effect a war warning, which draws on the formidable resources of the Russian intelligence services, and which deserves to be taken with the utmost seriousness by pro-peace forces around the world.
Asked by RIA-Novosti to comment on the Uglanov report, retired Colonel General Leonid Ivashov confirmed its essential features in a March 21 interview: "I have no doubt that there will be an operation, or more precisely a violent action against Iran." Ivashov, who has reportedly served at various times as an informal advisor to Putin, is currently the Vice President of the Moscow Academy for Geopolitical Sciences.
Ivashov attributed decisive importance to the decision of the Democratic leadership of the US House of Representatives to remove language from the just-passed Iraq supplemental military appropriations bill which would have demanded that Bush come to Congress before launching an attack on Iran. Ivashov pointed out that the language was eliminated under pressure from AIPAC, the lobbing group representing the Israeli extreme right, and of Israeli Foreign Minister Tsipi Livni.
"We have drawn the unmistakable conclusion that this operation will take place," said Ivashov. In his opinion, the US planning does not include a land operation: " Most probably there will be no ground attack, but rather massive air attacks with the goal of annihilating Iran's capacity for military resistance, the centers of administration, the key economic assets, and quite possibly the Iranian political leadership, or at least part of it," he continued.
Ivashov noted that it was not to be excluded that the Pentagon would use smaller tactical nuclear weapons against targets of the Iranian nuclear industry. These attacks could paralyze everyday life, create panic in the population, and generally produce an atmosphere of chaos and uncertainty all over Iran, Ivashov told RIA-Novosti. "This will unleash a struggle for power inside Iran, and then there will be a peace delegation sent in to install a pro-American government in Teheran," Ivashov continued. One of the US goals was, in his estimation, to burnish the image of the current Republican administration, who would now be able to boast that they had wiped out the Iranian nuclear program.
Among the other outcomes, General Ivashov pointed to a partition of Iran along the same lines as Iraq, and a subsequent carving up of the Near and Middle East into smaller regions. "This concept worked well for them in the Balkans and will now be applied to the greater Middle East," he commented.
"Moscow must expert Russia's influence by demanding an emergency session of the United Nations Security Council to deal with the current preparations for an illegal use of force against Iran and the destruction of the basis of the United Nations Charter," said General Ivashov. "In this context Russia could cooperate with China, France and the non-permanent members of the Security Council. We need this kind of preventive action to ward off the use of force," he concluded.
http://fr.rian.ru/world/20070319/62260006.html
http://fr.rian.ru/world/20070321/62387717.html
Comment
Jim Kirwan
List of Attendees Copped by AFP; Trilats Push for Higher Gas Taxes
James P. Tucker Jr. | American Free Press
BRUSSELS—America should impose a $1-pergallon increase in the gasoline tax as penance for causing pollution, John Deutch, former head of the Central Intelligence Agency, told the Trilateral Commission’s secret meeting here.
When the TC called on the United States to increase gas taxes by 10 cents at a meeting in Tokyo in 1991, The Washington Post, which is always represented at TC and Bilderberg meetings, called for such an increase in an editorial the following day.
“The United States must adopt a carbon monoxide control policy,” Deutch said.
If the United States or any country in the Organization for Economic Development “that is a large producer of greenhouse gas emissions is to retain a leadership role in other areas, it cannot just opt out of the global climate change policy process.”
Deutch is most remembered for taking classified secrets home in his laptop, which led to the loss of his security clearance.
Later, CIA techies found that Deutch had been using the same computer, which contained national secrets, to surf the internet for pornography. The attorney general at the time, Janet “Butcher of Waco” Reno, declined to prosecute him.
The TC* got a ringing “chins up” about the pace of Europe’s becoming a superstate while greatly expanding its efforts to establish an “Asian-Pacific Union” similar to the European Union and its planned “American Union” covering the entire Western Hemisphere.
The ultimate goal of internationalist groups like the Trilateral-Bilderberg cabal is to divide the world into three great regions for the profit of the international plutocratic mattoids running the show.
Even in its own literature, the Trilateral Commission plays up the part that it was formed in 1973 by private citizens of Japan, Europe and North America to foster “closer cooperation”—today, that means globalization—among these industrialized regions. Since that time, the group meets throughout the year to discuss ways in which the group can advance world government.
An important weapon in their arsenal is fanning public hysteria over “global warming.”
But first, Peter Sutherland, TC’s European chairman, Bilderberg leader, former member of the European Commission and chairman of British Petroleum, lifted their spirits with assurances that a European constitution—the final step toward making the entire continent including Britain into a single nation—would be ratified. TC and Bilderberg had fretted about this since a draft had been rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005. The problem, he said, was letting people vote on the issue instead of having the proposed constitution approved by bureaucrats.
“There is a subdued mood in Europe for the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, the precursor of the European Union,” Sutherland said. “But the achievements are indeed remarkable . . . the free movement of goods, services, persons and capital has transformed Europe.
The effort succeeded because the integration process is based on a sharing
of sovereignty and a method of governance that has challenged the traditional competences of the nation-state.”
However, Sutherland remarked, “the decision by [British Prime Minister] Tony Blair to hold a referendum . . . set off a train of events that has plunged Europe into a crisis of confidence about the future that is not warranted. After all, 18 countries, some by referendum, have taken all steps to ratify the treaty and of the rest, a significant majority could do so tomorrow without difficulty.”
Since the 2005 rejection, countries from the former Soviet bloc and Iron Curtain countries have joined the union and would have to ratify.
Sutherland’s message was clear: a new, shorter constitution must be proposed and ratified without the voters. His comments were also reflected in his commentary in the March 17 International Herald Tribune, which is published by the Bilderberg-controlled New York Times.
There was no mention that, at the same moment, he was attending the TC meeting. An independent source confirmed that the commentary was the text of his TC speech. A universal battle cry arose for the world to address “global warming” with a single voice. This issue is also a source of big bucks for these sons of smokestack industrialists.
One of those voices belonged to “the General Lord Guthrie,” director of N.M. Rothschild & Sons, member of the House of Lords and former chief of the Defense Staff in London.
“We must address the global climate crisis with a single voice, and impose rules that apply worldwide,” he said. “Otherwise, our children and children’s children will endure starvation and unimaginable hardship. We cannot address this crisis as 180 separate nation-states. We must act as a single world state.”
America’s TC leaders are growing old and frail, and another generation is being prepared. Founder David Rockefeller is 90 and in poor health. His nephew, Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), a lineal descendant of John the Original, attended the TC for the first time in many years.
Familiar American faces included former House Speaker Tom Foley (D-Wash.), former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, assistant to President Jimmy Carter for national security Zbigniew Brzezinski, former House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.); former U.S. Trade Representative Carla Hills, former Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle, former Undersecretary of State Thomas Pickering, and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.
Newcomers included Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), former Rep. Jim Leach (R-Iowa) and Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.). All congressmen and senators were in violation of a federal law prohibiting public officials from attending secret meetings with private citizens to discuss public policy. They also traveled at taxpayers’ expense, and they do not fly coach.
Mac Johnson | HumanEvents.com
Tragedy struck leftists all across America last week when a federal appeals court reviewing the District of Columbia’s handgun ban, ruled that the right of the people to keep and bear arms cannot be infringed upon by the District. The court's inexplicable ruling was based on a "radical" interpretation of the recently rediscovered 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which reads:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.According to the Washington Post, which upon hearing of the decision had a small editorial seizure it called “A Dangerous Ruling,” the court’s plain reading of the Bill of Rights has given "a new and dangerous meaning to the 2nd Amendment." Apparently, when the Post reads the amendment according to the ancient and safe interpretation (which goes all the way back to the 1970s) all it sees is:
The Population of the nanny State, being composed of irresponsible rednecks, rejects, and retards, must not be allowed to have Arms."[T]his radical ruling will inevitably mean more people killed and wounded as keeping guns out of the city becomes harder," the Post continued, sagely foreseeing a day in the near future when the district might not be the safe gunfree enclave of sanity that it now is. One wonders if D.C. might someday even become the murder capital of the United States without its protective cloak of gun control disarming its law-abiding citizens.
I figured I'd share this thoughtful analysis of the North American Union, Islamic Fascism and the Left Gatekeepers. This author has been researching the matter for some time and has reached some interesting conclusions.
source: americaholds.blogspot.com
I want to bring to your attention the nature of two different battle-fronts in which America is currently embroiled: and some thoughts on how they are inter-related.
One is the threatening encroachment of a Islamic Caliphate, of Muslim intolerance for anything non-Muslim, and their stated goal of world-wide Shari’a Law, which involves converting Dar al-Harb to Dar al-Islam - essentially, rolling up the infidel world like a giant cigar, smoking it, then putting down a new carpet, called Islam, in which the world under Shari’a Law would know peace as Muhammad envisioned. Jews die, Infidels suck hind-tit.
The other battle-front concerns the current administration’s implementation of a pan-global plan to dissolve the borders and the sovereignty of the three countries of the United States, Canada and Mexico; that is, creating a North American Union purporting to achieve dominance on the world stage of commerce and trade.
The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America was conceived and hatched by the Council on Foreign Relations, long considered to be a sort of shadow-government of the United States. The CFR dates back to 1921 and several successive presidential administrations have been covertly putting this proposal of a New World Order in place. Robert Pastor is currently the chief proponent and author of several books advocating a North American Union; a coalition of corporate-government agencies, conceptually similar to, and competing with the EU, winner-take-all. Whoever has the most marbles when he dies, wins. I guess.
Implementation is by stealth agenda, which is being advanced in an almost identical manner in which the European countries have seen their national sovereignties dissolve. There is no official Congressional participation. This is an end-run around the will of the American people. The global elitists want to run the world, and they don’t want the great unwashed mucking things up with things like “freedom”, and “liberty”, and “sovereignty”.
My introduction to all this insanity came as I began investigating the illegal immigration situation in America. I had no goal; I just wanted to discover the forces behind a seemingly mad immigration policy. When I discovered the SPP/Superhighway plot and it’s logical extension, the North American Union (NAU), I had part of my answer: the Bush administration hasn’t been enforcing current immigrant/border laws because it intends to dissolve the border post-haste. While investigating the desert around the Tucson/Phoenix area, I learned that it has been the residence of choice for Islamic terrorists since the 1980’s, and that the University of Arizona is pandering them. Each time I learned something new, I kept casting my net wider until the larger academic community came into focus.
There I learned from David Horowitz that the Leftists professors have hi-jacked the academic world, and that the NEA is full of secular humanists who are serving at the pleasure of Gramscian philanthropic foundations, such as Rockerfeller and Ford Foundations. It was in the foundations themselves that I saw the inter-connectedness of Socialist/Fascist policies. The Socialists need the Fascists to gather the money up - something which the Socialists themselves have never been able to do.
The universities have come to rely on their money cows, and are thus beholden to them. So much for academic freedom and diversity of ideas. And our public school system is equally a disaster-by-design. Dumb ‘em down. Keep the parents, even the teachers out of the equation. I personally know of fine teachers who despair at the injustices the boards of education hands down.
The Feds now have a tight grip on the educational processes. The Federal “No Child Left Behind” policy is part and parcel of a plot to keep our children bound by the cords of mediocrity. Keep them focused on meaningless testing, rather than educating our children. Thinkers are simply too dangerous, so they teach our children that they don’t need to think. Instead, they are taught what to think. It’s all part of the relative humanist’s plan to destroy family values. Destroy the family and people are so much easier to control. Phyllis Schaffly has written much about this, and about the collusion of the NEA with judicial branch of government. Activist judges. Activist feminist federal judges.
In a 1993 pamphlet to teachers, the NEA had this to say:
“Allegiance to a nation is the biggest stumbling block to the creation of international government. National boundaries and the concept of sovereignty must be abolished. The quickest way to do this is to condition the young to another and broader alliance. Opinion favorable to international government will be developed in the social studies curriculum in the public schools.”
I learned that our children are being taught never to offend anyone’s feelings (unless they are white), that gay is good, feminists need to be in power because men are the root of evil, Christianity sucks, two Mommies, or two daddies are just as good as a mother and father; that the ACLU is their friend in all things(especially decadent, gay sorts of things), and anyone who disagrees with NEA policies will be given further special sensitivity training, since the diversity training they get at the beginning of the year didn’t take. Parents have no say in the education of their children, nor do the teachers. They are left with no choice in the matter. Home school while you can. Oh, and if you are white, you are wrong by default. End of story. I could do a whole rant on this, but I won’t. There be treachery afoot, Gramscian ideas corrupting the liberal view of the world, and ideological intolerance contempt of a moral point of view. So much out of balance, and tilting to the left.
Investigation into school policies also revealed the true intentions of CAIR, which led me to the the process of propagation of radical Islam by the Wahhabi Islamists, and the grand scheme of the Islamic Caliphate; and how the Leftist organizations in academia, politics and the MSM are providing the PC cultural climate in which the white, educated, middle-class are the skunks and anyone with a brownish tint to their skin have been granted a de facto Federal most-favored status, because they are or were somehow victims of discrimination. The Muslims have been quick to cash in on that agenda.
As I began to write about what I was discovering, I learned of The 910 Group, shortly after its inception, on the Gates of Vienna. I got hooked up with them, and have continued my investigation into the nefarious doings of organizations such as CAIR, the Muslim Brotherhood, et al of that stripe.
But the problem of illegal immigration continues to plague me, and my investigation into that reveals a much more sinister plot. When I go after a story, I like to get at the root of it, but damn, the more I pulled at the root of illegal immigration, the worse it got. I have spent the past six weeks digging into this whole “Brave New World” thing. And what I am finding is simply staggering to behold. Even if you discount all the conspiracy theories going around, and I do not discount them - not all of them, anyway - the sheer brazenness, the treacherousness of the pan-global plan to integrate the countries of the United States, Canada and Mexico into a New World Order, with no Congressional oversight, or discussion even - well, let’s just say, it has my full attention.
Our government under George W. Bush has been re-organized with the SPP as a national priority of the highest order, involving DHS, the State Department, the Justice Department, as well as other coordinating agencies doing the bidding of the afore-mentioned. This is not conjecture. Go to Judicial Watch, read. I will post more sources as an update to this post.
I see two possibilities in America:
One, we step up, defeat and dismantle the global plan to take over the world, starting with hauling anyone who is involved in the SPP agenda before a Special Congressional Investigation, and uncover the true intent of this current administration regarding this whole sorry affair. Then take the steps to decommission this SPP/NAU project, and indict and convict anyone and everyone found guilty of high crimes and treason. This can all be accomplished by the power of the spoken word.
If we somehow manage to do that, we will have finally taken off our PC gloves, and will be in a position as a nation, to deal with the Leftists, and the Islamists. The Republic government will have prevailed, the will of the people restored. I am hopeful we can achieve victory mainly because the Bush administration has characteristically jumped the gun, and has also grossly under-estimated the will of the American people. Once we get the lid off this thing, the stink will be unbearable.
Two, we allow our country and its citizens to be sacrificed on the alter of the Global Elite Order of Wisdom and Beneficence, aka GREED. Then it’s good-night nurse. Democracy will simple vanish into the night. Our children will inherit a nightmare of unimaginable proportions.
You may not agree with my findings nor share my conclusions. But one thing is certain: America needs you. And the world need America. The real America, not the rotting politicians and corporations - not the Save The World contingent, either. The world needs to see real Americans stand up and guide our country back to sanity. They need to see that good can triumph over evil. Maybe we all need to see it.
We will only see it, if we fight for it.
Cross-posted at The 910 Group Blog
Hardliners demand British captives be used to teach West a lesson
Tony Allen-Mills in New York, Marie Colvin and Michael Smith | TheTimesOnline.co.uk
THE 15 British sailors and Royal Marines captured by Iranian Revolutionary Guards in a waterway separating Iran and Iraq were yesterday trapped in an outbreak of aggressive political brinkmanship that may mark a bleak turning point in the West’s relations with Tehran.
Officials in London and Washington remained publicly optimistic that Iran would respond to international pressure and free them within days, despite claims by a senior military official in Tehran that the captives had “confessed” to illegally entering Iranian territorial waters on Friday in a pair of rigid inflatable boats known as RIBs.
Yet there were ominous signs from Tehran that hardline religious elements were seeking to turn the incident into a major confrontation with the West. Several conservative student groups called on the Iranian government not to release the service personnel until five Iranians detained by US forces in Iraq earlier this year were released.
The groups also called for the cancellation of United Nations sanctions imposed on Iran after a unanimous security council vote in New York last night. The new sanctions were in response to Tehran’s refusal to suspend its uranium enrichment programme, which may be used to build nuclear weapons.
Iran shrugged off the vote and vowed to pursue its nuclear goals. “Suspension is neither an option nor a solution,” said Manouchehr Mottaki, the foreign minister. “I can assure you that pressure and intimidation will not change Iranian policy.”
There was also a demonstration by 500 student radicals gathered on the Iranian shore of the Shatt al-Arab waterway, where the Britons were seized shortly after they had completed a routine antismuggling inspection of a dhow laden with vehicles. In a sinister echo of the US embassy hostage crisis in Tehran in 1979, the students chanted “Death to Britain” and “Death to America”.
The British captives were said by one Iranian source to have been moved yesterday into the notorious dungeons of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) at the Ghasre Firouzeh military complex in Tehran.
Their seizure followed a series of embarrassing military setbacks for the IRGC, founded by the late Ayatollah Khomeini after the Iranian revolution of 1979, and which now answers directly to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme religious leader.
There was widespread speculation that the seizure may have been a reprisal for the arrest by US troops of five members of the IRGC’s elite al-Quds Brigade, which has been accused by the Pentagon of arming and assisting Shi’ite militias in Iraq. The IRGC has also been stung by a series of apparent defections of high-ranking officers.
Intelligence sources in the region had warned that the IRGC may have been planning retaliation for what it claimed was a western plot to destabilise Tehran’s military command.
The Sunday Times last week quoted Reza Falker, a writer for the Revolutionary Guards’ weekly newspaper, as saying: “We’ve got the ability to capture a nice bunch of blue-eyed blond-haired officers and feed them to our fighting cocks.”
The Sunday Times article also quoted a Jordanian intelligence officer as saying: “In Iraq, the Quds force can easily get hold of American and British officers.”
The Shatt al-Arab waterway was an obvious target for a premeditated kidnap. Its waters have been disputed for centuries and were a prime cause of the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. It is still littered with the wrecks of bombed-out ships.
“The problem is that nobody knows where the border is,” said Lawrence Potter, a professor of international affairs at Columbia University, New York. “The British might have thought they were on their side, the Iranians might have thought they were on their side.”
British officials have long been aware of the area’s potential navigational hazards. In June 2004 eight sailors and marine commandos were seized in a similar incident when Tehran accused them of straying into Iranian waters. On that occasion the men were blindfolded and paraded on Iranian television, then released three days later. Tehran never returned their boats.
The British personnel seized on Friday were in Iraqi waters, according to their commanding officer, Commodore Nick Lambert of the frigate HMS Cornwall, who said he had “absolutely no doubt” about their position.
After their uneventful inspection of the dhow, the Britons were on their way out of the area when they were surrounded by six larger vessels armed with heavy machineguns. The crews of the RIBs had rifles and pistols.
A Royal Navy helicopter spotted the Iranian vessels towing the inflatables towards a military base on the Iranian shore. The helicopter made radio contact with the Iranians, and was told there had been no fighting and that nobody was hurt.
US military officials publicly supported Britain’s claim that the seized sailors and marines were inside Iraqi waters, but sources in Washington privately acknowledged it was a difficult case to prove. The Iraqi military commander in nominal charge of territorial waters cast further doubt on the British claim.
“We were informed by Iraqi fishermen . . . that there were British gunboats in an area that is out of Iraqi control,” said Brigadier-General Hakim Jassim in Basra. “We don’t know why they were there.” Yet the main concern in both London and Washington was that legal niceties would rapidly become irrelevant if the incident spirals into a stage-managed confrontation over Iran’s nuclear weapons programme and its alleged subversion in Iraq.
Yesterday’s UN resolution presents Tehran with a tougher sanctions regime, and several US analysts speculated that the Iranians may feel they have nothing to lose by precipitating a diplomatic crisis that has conveniently distracted popular attention from recent setbacks to the country’s nuclear programme, a source of intense national pride.
A Russian decision to suspend supplies of nuclear fuel to the Bushehr reactor in southern Iran had shaken confidence in the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But the Shatt al-Arab incident has “helpfully changed the subject”, said one Iranian opposition source.
The Tehran foreign ministry’s spokesman, Mohammad Ali-Hosseini, yesterday accused Britain of “illegal and interventionist” entry into Iranian waters. Kate Smith, the British chargé d’affaires in Tehran, was summoned to the Iranian foreign ministry on Friday to receive a formal protest. Geoffrey Adams, Britain’s ambassador to Iran, had been out of the country and was returning this weekend.
Most worrying for London were recent belligerent remarks by Khamenei, who was said by an Iranian source yesterday to have personally approved the order to abduct the Britons.
The fact that the IRGC has custody of the captives will further complicate efforts to find a diplomatic solution. The force, considered the elite of Iran, operates independently of Ahmadinejad’s government.
Sources in Tehran said the British prisoners were almost certain to be suffering similar conditions to those endured by the eight captives held in 2004. They were subjected to mock executions and told they would be put on trial as spies. If Tehran concludes this time that its status in the Middle East will be enhanced by a show trial of British “aggressors”, this crisis could last for months.
Looks like there are plenty of traitors within the United States Government; individuals who swore to protect the Constitution of the United States of America when they entered public office. I'd love to see this whole North American Empire thing blow over, should enough of the U.S. population get wind of the deliberate undermining of the Constitution by their public officials.
It used to be, when a traitor or group of traitors were uncovered, that these individuals would be dealt with swiftly utilizing a variety of unpleasant deterrents. Get a rope!
Communiqué shows SPP far more than just 'dialogue' with Canada, Mexico
Jerome R. Corsi | WorldNetDaily.com
While the Bush administration insists the controversial Security and Prosperity Partnership is just a dialogue with Canada and Mexico, a State Department cable released to WND shows Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez pressing to implement major trilateral initiatives to help "capture the vision of North American integration."
The cable was among some 150 pages of State Department SPP documents recently released to WND under a Freedom of Information Act request.
Howard Phillips, who has formed a coalition to block development of a "North American Union" and formation of NAFTA superhighways, told WND the document "makes clear that the agenda of SPP is to pursue major economic integration that redefines U.S. businesses into a 'North American' definition."
"By leading with economics, SPP is crafting a North American regulatory structure that transforms U.S. regulations by 'harmonizing' them with Mexican and Canadian regulations, all without specific congressional approval," said Phillips, chairman of the Conservative Caucus.
The State Department communiqué, dated May 20, 2005, documents a March 13, 2005, meeting between Gutierrez, Mexican Secretary of Economy Fernando Canales and Canadian Privy Council Assistant Secretary Phil Ventura. The meeting was held just prior to the announcement of SPP at the trilateral summit with the country's three leaders in Waco, Texas, March 23, 2005.
The cable notes Gutierrez opened the discussion by stressing that the July 23, 2005, "Report to Leaders" needed "to show results" that would be "enduring and create an on-going process."
Gutierrez suggested each working group should propose one "big ticket" issue, rather than the "50-60 smaller initiatives" that were then in the SPP "matrix," allowing the "SPP ministers" to capture the attention of the "SPP leaders" with major North American integration goals that were both tangible and important.
"This memo gives us an important 'behind the scenes' look at the trilateral bureaucratic process that gave rise to the "Report to Leaders.
The 2005 "Report to Leaders" on the SPP website, Phillips noted, resulted from a detailed process of trilateral bureaucratic meetings that led to cabinet-level discussions within the three governments. The end result, he said, was for the report to "focus on the major SPP working group initiatives that could advance the goal of North American integration."
Phillips contended a "close reading of the document makes a lie of the SPP 'myth vs. facts' contention that SPP is just a 'dialogue.'"
"The document quotes Canada's Ventura as stating that the three countries should prepare a joint document declaring their trilateral intention to 'integrate' a list of industries, including automobiles, pharmaceuticals, textiles, furniture, and steel," he argued. "Ventura said the more 'trilateral integrated' industries that could be listed, the better."
At the meeting, Gutierrez proposed that the SPP ministers think in terms of a trilateral "integrated" auto industry creating a "Made in North America Vehicle by 2009." He also suggested announcing "an IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) Violation Free Zone by 2010" and that SPP ministers should hold weekly conference calls to advance the agenda.
"The economic route being pursued behind closed doors by SPP working groups is a replay of the exact stealth route taken in Europe," Phillips noted.
"Right now the EU is celebrating with a series of television commercials the evolution over a 50-year period from an initial coal and steel agreement to a full-fledged European Union regional government with the euro as a regional currency," he said.
The recently uncovered State Department memo, Phillips added, makes clear the same bureaucratic process of regional integration is being implemented in North America within working group and minister meetings that are closed to the public and the press.
"The State Department memo also makes clear that Gutierrez is a major moving force driving the North American integration agenda for the Bush White House," Phillips said.
Supporting Phillips' contention, the State Department cable noted in the last paragraph the meeting got off to a slow start, but under Gutierrez's leadership "it resulted in concrete ideas and direction for the working groups."
Plainly put, the Honorable Ron Paul is America's last hope for a nonviolent end to the oppressive and suicidal policies that have been set in motion in the last few generations by leaders who amount to little more than glorified demagogues. He is a congressman from Austin, Texas who has proven his regard for the Constitution, The Bill of Rights and his love of the founding principles upon which these United States are built upon.
He has recently announced that he is running for President in the 2008 elections, he will be running in the Republican primaries so that he can, perhaps, get a chance at the Oval Office. If you are not familiar with him, I hope you will take a minute to review a few short talks by Congressman Paul. I think you will see, as many others have, that he is a fine statesman and a natural leader.
