Friday, February 20, 2009
CZECH PREZ COMPARES EU TO SOVIET UNION
8:17 am ET
BRUSSELS – The European Union has turned into an undemocratic and elitist project comparable to the Communist dictatorships of eastern Europe that forbade alternative thinking, Czech President Vaclav Klaus told the European Parliament on Thursday.
Klaus, whose country now holds the rotating EU presidency, set out a scathing attack on the EU project and its institutions, provoking boos from many lawmakers, some of whom walked out, but applause from nationalists and other anti-EU legislators.
Klaus is known for deep skepticism of the EU and has refused to fly the EU flag over his official seat in Prague during the Czech presidency, saying the country is not an EU province.
He said current EU practices smacked of communist times when the Soviet Union controlled much of eastern Europe, including the Czech Republic and when dissent or even discussions were not tolerated.
"Not so long ago, in our part of Europe we lived in a political system that permitted no alternatives and therefore also no parliamentary opposition," said Klaus. "We learned the bitter lesson that with no opposition, there is no freedom."
He said the 27-nation bloc should concentrate on offering prosperity to Europeans, rather than closer political union, and scrap a stalled EU reform treaty that Irish voters have already rejected.
Klaus said that questioning deeper integration has become an "uncriticizable assumption that there is only one possible and correct future of the European integration."
"The enforcement of these notions ... is unacceptable," Klaus said. "Those who dare thinking about a different option are labeled as enemies." Observers had been expecting Klaus to deliver a critical speech during his first and only visit to the EU chamber at a time when his country holds the EU limelight as chair of the 27-nation bloc.
"I have never experienced a situation where the presidency of the European Union ... compares the EU with the Soviet Union," said Belgian lawmaker Ivo Belet.
MEXICAN GUNMEN VOW TO KILL ONE POLICEMAN EVERY 48 HOURS
CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico — Ciudad Juarez's police chief stepped down Friday after criminal gangs made a chilling demand: Resign or we will kill more local officers.
Public Safety Secretary Roberto Orduna announced he was leaving his post only hours after gunmen killed a police officer and a jail guard and left signs on their bodies saying they had fulfilled a promise made Wednesday to slay at least one officer every 48 hours until Orduna quits.
The slayings were a sign that gangs are determined to control the police force of the biggest Mexican border city, with a population of 1.3 million people across from El Paso, Texas. Ciudad Juarez is a major entry point for drugs heading into the United States and a hot spot in a brutal, multi-front war involving ruthless drug cartels and Mexican security forces.
Ciudad Juarez Mayor Jose Reyes insisted earlier Friday the city would not back down.
"We will not allow the control of the police force to fall in the hands of criminal gangs," he said.
But Orduna said he didn't want to endanger more officers.
"We can't allow men who work defending our citizens to continue to lose their lives," he said. "That is why I am presenting my permanent resignation."
The resignation was effective immediately. Authorities said an interim chief would be named later Friday, and a permanent replacement would be found in the coming weeks.
Story continues below
A retired army major, Orduna took over as chief in May after former Public Safety Secretary Guillermo Prieto resigned and fled to El Paso following the slaying of his operations director.
For Orduna's protection, the city built his bedroom at the police station so he didn't have to go home. He also travels in different vehicles when he does go out.
Ciudad Juarez police have long come under attack, and many officers have quit out of fear for their lives, some after their names appeared on hit lists left in public throughout the city.
Police officer Cesar Ivan Portillo was the fifth officer killed this week in Mexico's deadliest city.
Police were placed on "red alert" _ meaning they could not patrol alone _ after cardboard signs with handwritten messages appeared taped to the doors and windows of businesses Wednesday, warning Orduna that one officer would be killed every two days if he did not quit.
That alert continued Friday after Orduna stepped down.
Police have also been asked to patrol with their guns in their hands.
More than 6,000 people have been killed in drug violence across Mexico over the past year as gangs battle each other for territory and fight off a nationwide crackdown by the army. Nearly a third of the slayings have taken place in Ciudad Juarez, and more than 50 of those dead are city police officers.
Violence also has spilled across the border into the U.S., where authorities report a spike in killings, kidnappings and home invasions connected to Mexico's murderous cartels.
Homeland Security officials have said they will bring in the military if the violence continues to grow and threatens the U.S. border region.
"The violence is spreading like wildfire across the Rio Grande," said George Grayson, a Mexico expert at the College of William & Mary in Virginia. "It's a major national security problem for us that is much more important than Iraq and Afghanistan."
Robert Almonte, executive director of the Texas Narcotics Officers Association, said that, while El Paso has been spared most of the violence, the escalating killings across the border in Juarez are worrisome.
"I think it's jarring ... we can't even fathom those kinds of things happening here in the United States," Almonte said.
Also Friday, the U.S. State Department renewed a travel advisory warning Americans about the increased violence along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Some Mexicans have questioned whether President Felipe Calderon's two-year, nationwide crackdown on drug gangs was worth all the killings.
But Calderon and his administration have defended the fight, with Economy Secretary Gerardo Ruiz Mateos saying on Wednesday that if Mexico gave up its fight against the cartels, "the next president of the republic would be a drug dealer."
Portillo and city jail guard Juan Pablo Ruiz were killed as they left their homes before dawn to head to work, city spokesman Jaime Torres said.
Three days earlier, assailants fatally shot police operations director Sacramento Perez, the chief's right-hand man, and three other officers who were sitting with him in a patrol car near the U.S. consulate.
_____
Associated Press writers Marina Montemayor and Alicia Caldwell contributed to this story from Ciudad Juarez and El Paso, Texas.
CHINA SLAMS RUSSIAN ATTITUDE TOWARDS SUNKEN SHIP
China slams Russian attitude to sunken ship: report
5 hours ago
BEIJING (AFP) — China's foreign ministry said Friday Russia's attitude to the sinking of a Chinese cargo ship by a Russian warship was "unacceptable", according to Chinese state media.
Eight of the 16 crew members on board were killed when shots from a Russian naval vessel sank the Chinese-owned cargo ship the New Star off Russia's east coast on Sunday.
Russia has blamed the cargo ship's captain for the incident.
The attitude of the Russian foreign ministry is "hard to understand and unacceptable" for China, said Zhang Xiyun, director-general for the Department of European-Central Asian Affairs, according to the official Xinhua news agency.
Earlier, China urged Russia to investigate the incident.
"The Chinese side expresses shock and deep concern over this incident," China's Vice Foreign Minister Li Hui told Russia's ambassador to China, according to a foreign ministry statement.
"We call on the Russian side to begin with a humanitarian spirit... and continue to make all efforts to find the missing personnel."
Russian diplomatic spokesman Andrey Nesterenko expressed regret over the incident but said the Chinese ship had failed to heed warning shots.
"We regret the tragic consequences of this incident," he told the Ria-Novosti news agency.
"But at the same time, we put all the responsibility on the captain of the New Star, who acted in a totally irresponsible manner.
"We took exhaustive measures to stop the boat: the border guards fired warning shots, but the New Star continued on its way without reacting to the orders," he added.
Russian prosecutors said 10 Chinese and six Indonesian sailors were on board the vessel, the Russian Interfax news agency reported.
Russian news reports said eight people had been killed in the incident, although these figures have yet to be confirmed by authorities.
The Sierra Leone-flagged, Chinese-owned vessel New Star had earlier fled the Russian port of Nakhodka where it had been impounded for alleged smuggling, media reports said.
In a video posted online that purportedly captured the incident, a man, apparently a Russian naval officer, is heard repeatedly urging the New Star to halt.
The Russian navy fired over 500 rounds to try to force the cargo ship back to port, China's state-controlled Global Times newspaper said.
Russian news agencies said the eight surviving crew members were rescued and taken to hospital.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
BRZEZINSKI'S FEAR:CLASS WARFARE AND THE DESTRUCTION OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER
Infowars
February 18, 2009
featured-stories - Brzezinskis Fear: Class Warfare and Destruction of the New World Order
Zbigniew Brzezinski on the Morning Joe Show.
Making an appearance on the Morning Joe television show, the Rockefeller globalist Zbigniew Brzezinski said it is high time the rich who have made billions since the days of the Clinton administration help out the poor and struggling masses. Said Brzezinski:
Where is the monied class today? Why aren’t they doing something: the people who made billions, millions. I’m sort of thinking of Paulson, of Rubin. Why don’t they get together, and why don’t they organize a National Solidarity Fund in which they call on all of those who made these extraordinary amounts of money to kick some back in to [a] National Solidarity Fund?
Brzezinski almost looked grandfatherly as he said this (see video). He almost came off as a good-natured humanitarian… almost. It all sounded good, if implausible — that is until Brzezinski reached the end of his carefully crafted diatribe:
And if we don’t get some sort of voluntary National Solidarity Fund, at some point there’ll be such political pressure that Congress will start getting in the act, there’s going to be growing conflict between the classes and if people are unemployed and really hurting, hell, there could be even riots.
In other words, Brzezinski is afraid that if some filthy lucre is not dispensed among the unwashed, they will rise up and burn down the banks, sack the corporations, and destroy the globalist edifice so painfully erected over the last fifty or so years — and maybe even go so far as to string up Brzezinski and his fellow globalists from trees and overpasses, the sort of dirty and regrettable business that invariably occurs in the process of violent revolutions in response to decades of provocation.
* A d v e r t i s e m e n t
* efoods
It’s not the pain suffered by the unemployed and homeless that concerns Brzezinski and the one-world patricians. It is the prospect of class warfare. It is the horrific prospect of losing it all.
Brzezinski realizes the engineered financial crisis will have dire consequences and he wants to set aside a few crumbs to mollify the growing numbers of impoverished before they take to the streets. It is odd, however, that he mentioned fellow Trilateralist Robert Rubin as one of the people who should be donating to this proposed National Solidarity Fund. No doubt the former Goldman Sachs and Citigroup stooge Rubin had a good laugh over Brzezinski’s preposterous proposal.
If realized, it will be a National Solidarity Fund to save the bankers, not the people. Brzezinski and the global elite understand the last time they pulled this swindle — causing the so-called Great Depression — mass unemployment and bread lines transformed into widespread and popular political activism that seriously threatened the establishment. In response, the “New Deal” was cooked up to dissipate growing rebellion. It took a major world war and subsequently the creation of the military-industrial complex, the national security state, and highly orchestrated cold war to inflate a newly contrived “boom” bubble to get out of the banker engineered Great Depression.
Brzezinski’s National Solidarity Fund is another bankster scam devised to sideline the possibility of rebellion before it gets going. Needless to say, this shabby hustle is wholly insufficient and it will take more than a few billion dollars worth of crumbs from the likes of Hank Paulson and Robert Rubin to prevent the rebellion, class warfare, and violence of the coming storm.
February 18, 2009
featured-stories - Brzezinskis Fear: Class Warfare and Destruction of the New World Order
Zbigniew Brzezinski on the Morning Joe Show.
Making an appearance on the Morning Joe television show, the Rockefeller globalist Zbigniew Brzezinski said it is high time the rich who have made billions since the days of the Clinton administration help out the poor and struggling masses. Said Brzezinski:
Where is the monied class today? Why aren’t they doing something: the people who made billions, millions. I’m sort of thinking of Paulson, of Rubin. Why don’t they get together, and why don’t they organize a National Solidarity Fund in which they call on all of those who made these extraordinary amounts of money to kick some back in to [a] National Solidarity Fund?
Brzezinski almost looked grandfatherly as he said this (see video). He almost came off as a good-natured humanitarian… almost. It all sounded good, if implausible — that is until Brzezinski reached the end of his carefully crafted diatribe:
And if we don’t get some sort of voluntary National Solidarity Fund, at some point there’ll be such political pressure that Congress will start getting in the act, there’s going to be growing conflict between the classes and if people are unemployed and really hurting, hell, there could be even riots.
In other words, Brzezinski is afraid that if some filthy lucre is not dispensed among the unwashed, they will rise up and burn down the banks, sack the corporations, and destroy the globalist edifice so painfully erected over the last fifty or so years — and maybe even go so far as to string up Brzezinski and his fellow globalists from trees and overpasses, the sort of dirty and regrettable business that invariably occurs in the process of violent revolutions in response to decades of provocation.
* A d v e r t i s e m e n t
* efoods
It’s not the pain suffered by the unemployed and homeless that concerns Brzezinski and the one-world patricians. It is the prospect of class warfare. It is the horrific prospect of losing it all.
Brzezinski realizes the engineered financial crisis will have dire consequences and he wants to set aside a few crumbs to mollify the growing numbers of impoverished before they take to the streets. It is odd, however, that he mentioned fellow Trilateralist Robert Rubin as one of the people who should be donating to this proposed National Solidarity Fund. No doubt the former Goldman Sachs and Citigroup stooge Rubin had a good laugh over Brzezinski’s preposterous proposal.
If realized, it will be a National Solidarity Fund to save the bankers, not the people. Brzezinski and the global elite understand the last time they pulled this swindle — causing the so-called Great Depression — mass unemployment and bread lines transformed into widespread and popular political activism that seriously threatened the establishment. In response, the “New Deal” was cooked up to dissipate growing rebellion. It took a major world war and subsequently the creation of the military-industrial complex, the national security state, and highly orchestrated cold war to inflate a newly contrived “boom” bubble to get out of the banker engineered Great Depression.
Brzezinski’s National Solidarity Fund is another bankster scam devised to sideline the possibility of rebellion before it gets going. Needless to say, this shabby hustle is wholly insufficient and it will take more than a few billion dollars worth of crumbs from the likes of Hank Paulson and Robert Rubin to prevent the rebellion, class warfare, and violence of the coming storm.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
MISSING IRAQ BILLIONS COULD BE BIGGEST SCAM IN US HISTORY
The US Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR), the Army's criminal Investigation Command and the Justice Department are investigating US soldiers and officials in the alleged misuse of a portion of the $125 billion initially sent to Iraq for reconstruction shortly after the fall of Saddam.
Monday, The Independent's Iraq correspondent Patrick Cockburn reported the inspectors believe misuse may account for over $50 billion, exceeding the scope of Bernie Madoff's massive Ponzi scheme and making it potentially the "greatest fraud in US history."
"In one case, auditors working for SIGIR discovered that $57.8m was sent in 'pallet upon pallet of hundred-dollar bills' to the US comptroller for south-central Iraq, Robert J Stein Jr, who had himself photographed standing with the mound of money," wrote Cockburn. "He is among the few US officials who were in Iraq to be convicted of fraud and money-laundering.
"Despite the vast sums expended on rebuilding by the US since 2003, there have been no cranes visible on the Baghdad skyline except those at work building a new US embassy and others rusting beside a half-built giant mosque that Saddam was constructing when he was overthrown."
The SIGIR auditor's report, entitled "Hard Lessons," was published in early February.
"'Hard Lessons,' a draft of which was leaked to the news media in December, concludes that the U.S. reconstruction effort in Iraq was a failure, largely because there was no overall strategy behind it," reported the Washington Post. "Goals shifted from 'liberation' and an early military exit to massive, ill-conceived and expensive building projects under the Coalition Provisional Authority of 2003 and 2004. Many of those projects -- over budget, poorly executed or, often, barely begun -- were abandoned as security worsened.
"In a preface to the 456-page book, Bowen writes that he knew the reconstruction was in trouble when he first visited Iraq in January 2004 and saw duffel bags full of cash being carried out of the Republican Palace, which housed the U.S. occupation government."
"As part of the inquiry, the authorities are taking a fresh look at information given to them by Dale Stoffel, an American arms dealer and contractor who was killed in Iraq in late 2004," reported the International Herald Tribune on Sunday.
"Before he was shot on a road north of Baghdad, Stoffel drew a portrait worthy of a pulp crime novel: tens of thousands of dollars stuffed into pizza boxes and delivered surreptitiously to the American contracting offices in Baghdad, and payoffs made in paper bags that were scattered in 'dead drops' around the Green Zone, the nerve center of the United States government's presence in Iraq, two senior federal officials said."
"Prosecutors have won 35 convictions on cases related to reconstruction in Iraq, yet most of them involved private contractors or midlevel officials. The current inquiry is aiming at higher-level officials, according to investigators involved in the case, and is also trying to determine if there are connections between those officials and figures in the other cases. Although Bell and Hirtle were military officers, they worked in a civilian contracting office."
So far, there have been just 35 convictions for the misuse of government funds during the reconstruction of Iraq.
Monday, The Independent's Iraq correspondent Patrick Cockburn reported the inspectors believe misuse may account for over $50 billion, exceeding the scope of Bernie Madoff's massive Ponzi scheme and making it potentially the "greatest fraud in US history."
"In one case, auditors working for SIGIR discovered that $57.8m was sent in 'pallet upon pallet of hundred-dollar bills' to the US comptroller for south-central Iraq, Robert J Stein Jr, who had himself photographed standing with the mound of money," wrote Cockburn. "He is among the few US officials who were in Iraq to be convicted of fraud and money-laundering.
"Despite the vast sums expended on rebuilding by the US since 2003, there have been no cranes visible on the Baghdad skyline except those at work building a new US embassy and others rusting beside a half-built giant mosque that Saddam was constructing when he was overthrown."
The SIGIR auditor's report, entitled "Hard Lessons," was published in early February.
"'Hard Lessons,' a draft of which was leaked to the news media in December, concludes that the U.S. reconstruction effort in Iraq was a failure, largely because there was no overall strategy behind it," reported the Washington Post. "Goals shifted from 'liberation' and an early military exit to massive, ill-conceived and expensive building projects under the Coalition Provisional Authority of 2003 and 2004. Many of those projects -- over budget, poorly executed or, often, barely begun -- were abandoned as security worsened.
"In a preface to the 456-page book, Bowen writes that he knew the reconstruction was in trouble when he first visited Iraq in January 2004 and saw duffel bags full of cash being carried out of the Republican Palace, which housed the U.S. occupation government."
"As part of the inquiry, the authorities are taking a fresh look at information given to them by Dale Stoffel, an American arms dealer and contractor who was killed in Iraq in late 2004," reported the International Herald Tribune on Sunday.
"Before he was shot on a road north of Baghdad, Stoffel drew a portrait worthy of a pulp crime novel: tens of thousands of dollars stuffed into pizza boxes and delivered surreptitiously to the American contracting offices in Baghdad, and payoffs made in paper bags that were scattered in 'dead drops' around the Green Zone, the nerve center of the United States government's presence in Iraq, two senior federal officials said."
"Prosecutors have won 35 convictions on cases related to reconstruction in Iraq, yet most of them involved private contractors or midlevel officials. The current inquiry is aiming at higher-level officials, according to investigators involved in the case, and is also trying to determine if there are connections between those officials and figures in the other cases. Although Bell and Hirtle were military officers, they worked in a civilian contracting office."
So far, there have been just 35 convictions for the misuse of government funds during the reconstruction of Iraq.
21 STATES CLAIMING SOVEREIGNTY:MORE TO FOLLOW
21 States Claiming Sovereignty: AZ, AL, AK, AR, CA, CO, GA, HI, ID, IN, KS, ME, MI, MO, MT, NH, NV, OK, PA, TX, & WA
http://www.mrstep.com/politics/az-wa-mo-nh-ok-claiming-sovereignty/
Wow… it will be interesting to see how this turns out… it’s about time people started stepping up and speaking out. As people have pointed out in comments, all of these (except for HI) are explicit restatements of what has always been in place, but not necessarily enforced, as detailed by the 10th Amendment. HI is actually aiming for total sovereignty as it is claimed that HI was never really a state of the U.S. to begin with. However, I believe the intent of these bills is to let the federal government know that the states’ sovereignty will not be overwritten… say in case certain gun ban laws get passed… or other “War Time / Martial Law” type plans come into play. Check them out:
AZ: http://www.azleg.gov/FormatDocument.asp?inDoc=/legtext/49leg/1r/bills/hcr2024p.htm
AL: (Still searching for link - not officially posted, but analysts expect it is in the works)
AK: (Still searching for link - not officially posted, but analysts expect it is in the works)
AR: (Still searching for link - not officially posted, but analysts expect it is in the works)
CA: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/93-94/bill/sen/sb_0001-0050/sjr_44_bill_940829_chaptered
CO: (Still searching for link - not officially posted, but analysts expect it is in the works)
GA: http://www.legis.state.ga.us/legis/1995_96/leg/fulltext/sr308.htm
HI: http://www.supremecourtus.gov/docket/07-1372.htm
ID: (Still searching for link - not officially posted, but analysts expect it is in the works)
IN: (Still searching for link - not officially posted, but analysts expect it is in the works)
KS: (Still searching for link - not officially posted, but analysts expect it is in the works)
ME: (Still searching for link - not officially posted, but analysts expect it is in the works)
MI: http://www.legislature.mi.gov/(S(21rmjiv1sl0wvw55yxurwl55))/documents/2009-2010/Journal/House/pdf/2009-HJ-01-22-002.pdf
MO: http://www.house.mo.gov/content.aspx?info=/bills091/bills/HR212.HTM
MT: http://data.opi.mt.gov/bills/2009/billhtml/HB0246.htm
NH: http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/legislation/2009/HCR0006.html
NV: (Still searching for link - not officially posted, but analysts expect it is in the works)
OK: http://www.ok-safe.com/files/documents/1/HJR1089_int.pdf
PA: (Still searching for link - not officially posted, but analysts expect it is in the works)
TX: (not officially declared recently, but is supposedly sovereign since it was never willfully ceded to the States - put on planning list)
WA: http://apps.leg.wa.gov/billinfo/summary.aspx?year=2009&bill=4009
featured-stories - 21 States Claiming Sovereignty
SOMALI INSURGENTS TELL AGENCIES TO HAND OUT FOOD OR LEAVE
KISMAYU, Somalia, Feb 17 (Reuters) - Hardline Islamist insurgents in southern Somalia told international aid agencies on Tuesday to hand out all the food aid in their warehouses, or leave the Horn of Africa nation.
Islamist al Shabaab rebels and allied groups control large swathes of southern and central Somalia while the government has little influence on the ground beyond a few blocks of the capital Mogadishu.
After a two-year Islamist insurgency and a prolonged dry spell, Somalia is wrestling with one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. There are a million internal refugees and more than a third of the population depends on food aid
Hussein Abdi Gheddi, the governor of middle Jubba region in southern Somalia and a member of al Shabaab, told the World Food Programme (WFP) and World Vision to hand out their food.
"We are telling them to leave the region, or else to distribute the food aid in the stores for the people in the region," Gheddi told Reuters by telephone from the town of Buale.
Gunmen killed two WFP workers in January and the U.N. agency said on Tuesday it was seeking new security commitments from armed groups to conduct food distribution.
"We are sending our teams around south, central Somalia asking for a security commitment that we will be allowed to operate and our staff will not be attacked," said WFP spokesman, Peter Smerdon, in neighbouring Kenya.
"We will not risk the lives of our staff if armed groups don't give us such commitments," he said.
WFP said it was in the process of distributing 57,000 tonnes of food to last 2.5 million people until mid March.
Despite the withdrawal from Somalia of their main foe, the Ethiopian army, Islamist rebels have vowed to continue fighting both the 3,500-strong African Union (AU) mission in Mogadishu and the government of new President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed. (Additional reporting and writing by Frank Nyakairu)
NEW NAVY FUNDED REPORT WARNS OF WAR ROBOTS GOING "TERMINATOR"
New Navy-funded Report Warns of War Robots Going "Terminator"
Jason Mick (Blog) - February 17, 2009 8:58 AM
A new Navy-funded report warns against a hasty deployment of war robots, and urges programmers to include ethics subroutines -- a warrior code of sorts. The alternative they say, is the possibility of a robotic atrocity, akin to the Terminator or other sci-fi movies. (Source: Warner Brothers)
Robots must learn to obey a warrior code, but increasing intelligence may make keeping the robots from turning on their masters increasingly difficult
Robots gone rogue killing their human masters is rich science fiction fodder, but could it become reality? Some researchers are beginning to ask that question as artificial intelligence advances continue, and the world's high-tech nations begin to deploy war-robots to the battlefront. Currently, the U.S. armed forces use many robots, but they all ultimately have a human behind the trigger. However, there are many plans to develop and deploy fully independent solutions as the technology improves.
Some mistakenly believe that such robots would only be able to operate within a defined set of behaviors. Describes Patrick Lin, the chief compiler of a new U.S. Navy-funded report, "There is a common misconception that robots will do only what we have programmed them to do. Unfortunately, such a belief is sorely outdated, harking back to a time when . . . programs could be written and understood by a single person."
The new report points out that the size of artificial intelligence projects will likely make their code impossible to fully analyze and dissect for possible dangers. With hundreds of programmers working on millions of lines of code for a single war robot, says Dr. Lin, no one has a clear understanding of what going on, at a small scale, across the entire code base.
He says the key to avoiding robotic rebellion is to include "learning" logic which teaches the robot the rights and wrongs of ethical warfare. This logic would be mixed with traditional rules based programming.
The new report looks at many issues surrounding the field of killer robots. In addition to code malfunction, another potential threat would be a terrorist attack which reprogrammed the robots, turning them on their owners. And one tricky issue discussed is the question of who would take the blame for a robotic atrocity -- the robot, the programmers, the military, or the U.S. President.
The Ethics and Emerging Technology department of California State Polytechnic University created the report of the U.S. Navy's Office of Naval Research. It warns the Navy about the dangers of premature deployment or complacency on potential issues. U.S. Congress has currently mandated that by 2010 a "deep strike" unmanned aircraft must be operational, and by 2015 on third of the ground combat vehicles must be unmanned.
The report warns, "A rush to market increases the risk for inadequate design or programming. Worse, without a sustained and significant effort to build in ethical controls in autonomous systems . . . there is little hope that the early generations of such systems and robots will be adequate, making mistakes that may cost human lives."
Simple laws of ethics, such as Isaac Asimov's three laws of robotics, the first of which forbids robots from harming humans, will not be sufficient, say the report's authors. War robots will have to kill, but they will have to understand the difference between enemies and noncombatants. Dr. Lin describes this challenge stating, "We are going to need a code. These things are military, and they can’t be pacifists, so we have to think in terms of battlefield ethics. We are going to need a warrior code."
The U.S. Army had a scare earlier this year when a software malfunction caused war robots deployed in the field to aim at friendly targets. While the humans still had control of the trigger, the incident highlighted the challenges a fully autonomous system would face. The offending robots were serviced and are still deployed in Iraq.
OBAMA TURNS US OVER TO "NEW WORLD ORDER" ON FEBUARY 17TH
Russian reports coming from the G-7 meetings being held in Rome are stating that under pressure from his European Union peers, President Obama has ‘agreed in principal’ to totally surrender the sovereignty of the United States to the New World Order before this year has passed.
News reports coming from the United States are further stating that in his acceptance of his Nations destruction, President Obama, this coming Tuesday, will sign the most important bill in his country’s entire history (and also the most expensive in all of history) at the planned World Headquarters for this New World Order, Denver, Colorado, and not in Washington D.C. as had been expected.
Further evidence of President Obama’s capitulation to the New World Order lies not only in the location he has chosen to open this new, and catastrophic, chapter of his Nation, but also in the date he has chosen to sign this bill overturning all the American people have held sacred, February 17th.
The reason for this being so is that February 17, 2009, falls upon one of the most important Illuminati astrological ‘signs of great changes’ with the conjunction of Mars and Jupiter, and which in its most simplistic sense means “With the conjunction of Mars and Jupiter, you have an abundance of energy and enthusiasm to take on tasks that would frighten all but the most courageous.”
To his choosing of Denver to be the location of his capitulation to the New World Order for his American people, President Obama has plunged his Nation deep into the heart of Illuminati symbolism, and nowhere is this more evident than in the mysterious Denver International Airport [2nd photo left], and of its vast strangeness we can read:
“Even though the area is basically flat (with a stunning view of mountains all around, since it’s in a valley), the expense and time was taken to extensively lower some areas and raise others. They moved 110 million cubic yards of earth around. This is about 1/3rd of the amount of earth they moved when they dug out the Panama Canal.
The airport has a fiber optic communications core made of 5,300 miles of cable. That’s longer than the Nile River. That’s from New York City to Buenos Aires, Argentina. The airport also has 11,365 miles of copper cable communications network.
The fueling system can pump 1,000 gallons of jet fuel per minute through a 28-mile network of pipes. There are six fuel hold tanks that each hold 2.73 million gallons of jet fuel. This is somewhere in the "no one will ever ever need this much" range.
Granite was imported from all over the world - Asia, Africa, Europe, North and South America - and used in making the main terminal floor. This is a ridiculous expense, especially when you’re already over budget. They say, "The floor pattern echoes the roof design and subtly reinforces passenger flows". Ah... subliminal messages to move your ass. It might look pretty but would any of us know Chilean granite from Chinese granite? Or care? You can dye rock if it’s colors you’re after. Cheaper rocks. (I wonder what the "stones have power" people say about this...)
The huge, main terminal is Jeppesen Terminal, named after Elfrey Jeppesen, who was the first person to create maps specifically for aviation (the company is still in business today). This area is known as the "Great Hall"; it’s said this is what the Masons name their meeting place.
It is 900 feet by 210 feet big. This is over 1.5 million square feet of space. All told, there is over 6 million square feet of public space at DIA. The airport brags that they have room to build another terminal and two more concourses and could serve 100 million passengers a year. The airport flew 36 million in 2001.
The only way to get to the other two concourses/terminals from the Great Hall, or vice versa, is via the airport’s train system.
There are more than 19 miles (30 km) of conveyor belt track, luggage transport cars and road in their own underground tunnels that move baggage and goods. They’re so huge you can drive trucks through them, and some remain unused.
The entire roof of DIA is made of 15 acres of Teflon-coated, woven fiber glass. The same material is on the inside as a layer, also. The place looks like a bizarre scene out of "Dune", comprised of huge, spiked tent-like structures. The material reflects 90% of the sunlight and doesn’t conduct heat. So you can’t see into the place with radar or see heat signatures.”
Also to be noticed about this New World Order airport in Denver are its shocking murals [3rd and 4th photos left], also of which we can read:
“An African woman in colorful native garb; a Native American woman who’s heritage the airport’s art supposedly celebrates; a blonde girl with cupid bow lips, a Star of David on her chest and a bible in her hands. Each lay dead in open coffins for your viewing pleasure. A burning city, children sleeping on piles of bricks, a line of mourning women in rags with dead babies, limp in their arms. A huge, looming military figure in a gas mask brandishes a sword and machine gun. Part of an actual note written by a child interred in a Nazi death camp. Strange words embedded in the floor with no explanation about what they mean.”
Further anomalies of this New World Airport are nothing but chilling to comprehend, and include:
“What you don’t see are 8 sub-basements, low- and high- frequency sounds that make people sick, air vents jutting out of the surrounding barren acres of fenced lots that have barbed wire along their tops - pointing in. Whole buildings that were constructed below ground level and then buried as is, the excuse being they were "built wrong". An entire runway constructed, then buried under a layer of dirt and "forgotten". The layers of workers and companies who were fired so no one would have a Big Picture. And workers even reported seeing Aliens working there.”
Also to be noted about this area is that in 2005, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) relocated the headquarters of its domestic division, which is responsible for operations and recruitment in the United States, from the CIA's Langley headquarters to Denver and that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has based its much feared International and Domestic Counterterrorism Forces there too.
It is also important to note that the United States Northern Command, recently given new powers to unleash US Military Forces against its own citizens, and the US Space Command are both located less than 100 miles from Denver at Peterson Air Force Base, and which Russian Military Analysts state is the single most defensively protected area on our entire Earth.
Of these new powers granted to the US Northern Command we can also read as reported by the Washington Post News Service in their December 1, 2008, article titled “Pentagon to Detail Troops to Bolster Domestic Security”, and which states:
“The U.S. military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe, according to Pentagon officials.
The long-planned shift in the Defense Department's role in homeland security was recently backed with funding and troop commitments after years of prodding by Congress and outside experts, defense analysts said.”
As to why these US Troops are being prepared to be unleashed upon the American people one need look no further than the massive New World Order ‘stimulus’ bill President Obama is set to sign in Denver, and which unknown to virtually all of these poor souls had ‘slipped’ into it, in ink, and just minutes prior to its passing by the US Congress (rendering them unable to read it), a provision titled “Blair Holt’s Firearm Licensing and Record of Sale Act of 2009” and named after a 16-year old honor student in President Obama’s hometown of Chicago who was murdered in May, 2007.
It is no wonder that this new law has been kept secret from the American people by their propaganda media organs as with its coming into law means that every single American owning a firearm will have to possess a US National Firearms Permit [Section 922 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following]and that all guns in the United States will have to be registered and that no private sales of guns [Section 922 of title 18, United States Code, as amended by section 101 of this Act] between Americans will be allowed, all of which are designed to effectively disarm the entire population of this Nation exactly one year [SEC. 901. EFFECTIVE DATE OF AMENDMENTS.The amendments made by this Act shall take effect 1 year after the date of the enactment of this Act.] upon President Obama’s signing on February 17th.
Most astounding of all about these events are the American people themselves have virtually no knowledge of the New World Order they are becoming a part of, and called for by British Prime Minister Brown (British Prime Minister Gordon Brown says that the current financial crisis should be viewed as an opportunity to create a "new global order", ahead of a week of meetings with world leaders.), French President Sarkozy (Speech given to United Nations), and German Chancellor Merkel (Made in joint statement with Brown and Sarkozy).
But, perhaps nothing captures the true dynamic of these times better than the words of one of the New World Orders main architects, Henry Kissinger as reported by the World Net Daily News Service in their report titled “Kissinger: Obama primed to create 'New World Order', and which says:
“Conflicts across the globe and an international respect for Barack Obama have created the perfect setting for establishment of "a New World Order," according to Henry Kissinger, the Nobel Peace Prize winner and former secretary of state under President Nixon.
Kissinger has long been an integral figure in U.S. foreign policy, holding positions in the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations. Author of over a dozen books on foreign policy, Kissinger was also named by President Bush as the chairman of the Sept. 11 investigatory commission.
“The president-elect is coming into office at a moment when there is upheaval in many parts of the world simultaneously," Kissinger responded. “You have India, Pakistan; you have the jihadist movement. So he can't really say there is one problem, that it's the most important one. But he can give new impetus to American foreign policy partly because the reception of him is so extraordinary around the world. His task will be to develop an overall strategy for America in this period when, really, a new world order can be created. It's a great opportunity, it isn't just a crisis.”
© February 15 2009 EU and US all rights reserved
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ATTACK OF THE KILLER ROBOTS:THE PENTAGONS DREAM OF A TECHNO ARMY IS DOOMED TO FAIL
by Eric Stoner
One of the most captivating storylines in science fiction involves a nightmarish vision of the future in which autonomous killer robots turn on their creators and threaten the extinction of the human race. Hollywood blockbusters such as Terminator and The Matrix are versions of this cautionary tale, as was R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots), the 1920 Czech play by Karel Capek that marked the first use of the word “robot.”
In May 2007, the U.S. military reached an ominous milestone in the history of warfare—one that took an eerie step toward making this fiction a reality. After more than three years of development, the U.S. Army’s 3rd Infantry Division based south of Baghdad, deployed armed ground robots.
[(flickr photo by Marcus Ramberg)](flickr photo by Marcus Ramberg)
Although only three of these weaponized “unmanned systems” have hit Iraq’s streets, to date, National Defense magazine reported in September 2007 that the Army has placed an order for another 80.
A month after the robots arrived in Iraq, they received “urgent material release approval” to allow their use by soldiers in the field. The military, however, appears to be proceeding with caution.
According to a statement by Duane Gotvald, deputy project manager of the Defense Department’s Robotic Systems Joint Project Office, soldiers are using the robots “for surveillance and peacekeeping/guard operations” in Iraq. By all accounts, robots have not fired their weapons in combat since their deployment more than a year and a half ago.
But it is only a matter of time before that line is crossed.
Future fighting force?
For many in the military-industrial complex, this technological revolution could not come soon enough.
Robots’ strategic impact on the battlefield, however—along with the moral and ethical implications of their use in war—have yet to be debated.
Designed by Massachusetts-based defense contractor Foster-Miller, the Special Weapons Observation Remote Direct-Action System, or SWORDS, stands three feet tall and rolls on two tank treads.
It is similar to the company’s popular TALON bomb disposal robot—which the U.S. military has used on more than 20,000 missions since 2000—except, unlike TALON, SWORDS has a weapons platform fixed to its chassis.
Currently fitted with an M249 machine gun that fires 750 rounds per minute, the robot can accommodate other powerful weapons, including a 40 mm grenade launcher or an M202 rocket launcher.
Five cameras enable an operator to control SWORDS from up to 800 meters away with a modified laptop and two joysticks. The control unit also has a special “kill button” that turns the robot off should it malfunction. (During testing, it had the nasty habit of spinning out of control.)
Developed on a shoestring budget of about $4.5 million, SWORDS is a primitive robot that gives us but a glimpse of things to come. Future models—including several prototypes being tested by the military—promise to be more sophisticated.
Congress has been a steady backer of this budding industry, which has a long-term vision for technological transformation of the armed forces.
In 2001, the Defense Authorization Act directed the Pentagon to “aggressively develop and field” robotic systems in an effort to reach the ambitious goal of having one-third of the deep strike aircraft unmanned within 10 years, and one-third of the ground combat vehicles unmanned within 15 years.
To make this a reality, federal funding for military robotics has skyrocketed. From fiscal year 2006 through 2012, the government will spend an estimated $1.7 billion on research for ground-based robots, according to the congressionally funded National Center for Defense Robotics. This triples what was allocated annually for such projects as recently as 2004.
The centerpiece of this roboticized fighting force of the future will be the 14 networked, manned and unmanned systems that will make up the Army’s Future Combat System—should it ever get off the ground. The creation of the weapons systems is also one of the most controversial and expensive the Pentagon has ever undertaken.
In July 2006, the Defense Department’s Cost Analysis Improvement Group estimated that its price tag had risen to more than $300 billion—an increase of 225 percent over the Army’s original $92 billion estimate in 2003, and nearly half of President Obama’s proposed stimulus package.
‘War in a can’
Despite the defense world’s excitement and the dramatic affect robots have on how war is fought, U.S. mainstream media coverage of SWORDS has been virtually nonexistent.
Worse, the scant attention these robots have received has often been little more than free publicity. Time magazine, for example, named SWORDS one of the “coolest inventions” of 2004. “Insurgents, be afraid,” is how its brief puff piece began. And while most articles are not that one-sided, any skepticism is usually mentioned as a side note.
On the other hand, prior to the deployment of SWORDS, numerous arguments in their defense could regularly be found in the press. According to their proponents—generally the robot’s designers or defense officials—robots will not have any of the pesky weaknesses of flesh-and-blood soldiers.
“They don’t get hungry,” Gordon Johnson, who headed a program on unmanned systems at the Joint Forces Command at the Pentagon told the New York Times in 2005. “They’re not afraid. They don’t forget their orders. They don’t care if the guy next to them has just been shot. Will they do a better job than humans? Yes.”
Ronald Arkin, a leading roboticist at Georgia Tech, whose research the Defense Department funds, argues without a sense of irony that autonomous robots will be more humane than humans. Atrocities like the massacre by U.S. troops in Haditha, Iraq, would be less likely with robots, he told The Atlanta in November 2007, because they won’t have emotions that “cloud their judgment and cause them to get angry.”
Robots are also promoted as being cost-effective. On top of the annual salary and extra pay for combat duty, the government invests a great deal in recruiting, training, housing and feeding each soldier. Not to mention the costs of healthcare and death benefits, should a soldier be injured or killed.
By comparison, the current $245,000 price tag on SWORDS—which could drop to $115,000 per unit if they are mass-produced—is a steal.
After attending a conference on military robotics in Baltimore, journalist Steve Featherstone summed up their function in Harper’s in February 2007: “Robots are, quite literally, an off-the-shelf war-fighting capability—war in a can.”
And the most popular talking point in favor of armed robots is that they will save U.S. soldiers’ lives. To drive the point home, proponents pose this rhetorical question: Would you rather have a machine get blown up in Iraq, or your son or daughter?
Remove from reality
At first glance, these benefits of military robots sound sensible. But they fall apart upon examination.
Armed robots will be far from cost effective. Until these machines are given greater autonomy—which is currently a distant goal—the human soldier will not be taken out of the loop. And because each operator can now handle only one robot, the number of soldiers on the Pentagon’s payroll will not be slashed anytime soon. More realistically, SWORDS should best be viewed as an additional, expensive remote-controlled weapons system at the military’s disposal.
A different perspective is gained when the price of the robot is compared with the low-tech, low-cost weaponry that U.S. forces face on a daily basis in Iraq.
“You don’t want your defenses to be so expensive that they’ll bankrupt you,” says Sharon Weinberger, a reporter for Wired’s Danger Room blog. “If it costs us $100,000 to defeat a $500 roadside bomb, that doesn’t sound like such a good strategy—as pretty as it may look on YouTube and in press releases.”
The claim that robots would be more ethical than humans similarly runs contrary to both evidence and basic common sense.
Lt. Col. Dave Grossman writes in his 1996 book On Killing that despite the portrayal in our popular culture of violence being easy, “There is within most men an intense resistance to killing their fellow man. A resistance so strong that, in many circumstances, soldiers on the battlefield will die before they can overcome it.”
One of the most effective solutions to this quandary, the military has discovered, is to introduce distance into the equation. Studies show that the farther the would-be killer is from the victim, the easier it is to pull the trigger. Death and suffering become more sanitized—the humanity of the enemy can be more easily denied. By giving the Army and Marines the capability to kill from greater distances, armed robots will make it easier for soldiers to take life without troubling their consciences.
The Rev. G. Simon Harak, an ethicist and the director of the Marquette University Center for Peacemaking, says, “Effectively, what these remote control robots are doing is removing people farther and farther from the consequences of their actions.”
Moreover, the similarity that the robots have to the life-like video games that young people grow up playing will blur reality further.
“If guys in the field already have difficulties distinguishing between civilians and combatants,” Harak asks, “what about when they are looking through a video screen?”
Rather than being a cause for concern, however, Maj. Michael Pottratz at the Army’s Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center in Picatinny Arsenal, N.J., says in an e-mail that developers are in the process of making the control unit for the SWORDS more like a “Game Boy type controller.”
It is not only possible but likely that a surge of armed robots would lead to an increase in the number of civilian casualties, not a decrease.
The supposed conversation-ender that armed robots will save U.S. lives isn’t nearly as clear as it is often presented, either. “If you take a narrow view, fewer soldiers would die,” Harak says, “but that would be only on the battlefield.”
As happens in every war, however, those facing new technology will adapt to them.
“If those people being attacked feel helpless to strike at the robots themselves, they will try to strike at their command centers,” Harak says, “which might well be back in the United States or among civilian centers. That would then displace the battlefield to manufacturing plants and research facilities at universities where such things are being invented or assembled… The whole notion that we can be invulnerable is just a delusion.”
The new mercenaries
Even if gun-totting robots could reduce U.S. casualties, other dangerous consequences of their use are overlooked.
Frida Berrigan, a senior program associate at the New America Foundation’s Arms and Security Initiative and In These Times contributing editor, argues that similar to the tens of thousands of unaccountable private security contractors in Iraq, robots will help those in power “get around having a draft, higher casualty figures and a real political debate about how we want to be using our military force.”
In effect, by reducing the political capital at stake, robots will make it far easier for governments to start wars in the first place.
Since the rising U.S. death toll appears to be the primary factor that has turned Americans against the war—rather than its devastating economic costs or the far greater suffering of the Iraqi people—armed robots could also slow the speed with which future wars are brought to an end.
When Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) infamously remarked that he would be fine with staying in Iraq for 100 years, few noted that he qualified that statement by saying, “as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed.”
Robot soldiers will be similar to mercenaries in at least one more respect. They both serve to further erode the state’s longstanding monopoly on the use of force.
“If war no longer requires people, and robots are able to conduct war or acts of war on a large scale, then governments will no longer be needed to conduct war,” Col. Thomas Cowan Jr. wrote in a March 2007 paper for the U.S. Army War College. “Non-state actors with plenty of money, access to the technology and a few controllers will be able to take on an entire nation, particularly one which is not as technologically advanced.”
This may not be farfetched.
In December 2007, Fortune magazine told the story of Adam Gettings, “a 25-year-old self-taught engineer,” who started a company in Silicon Valley called Robotex. Within six months, the company built an armed robot similar to the SWORDS—except that it costs a mere $30,000 to $50,000. And these costs will drop.
As this happens, and as the lethal technology involved becomes more accessible, Noel Sharkey, a professor of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics at the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom, warns that it will be only a matter of time before extremist groups or terrorists develop and use robots.
Evidence now suggests that using armed robots to combat insurgencies would be counterproductive from a military perspective.
One study, published in the journal International Organization in June 2008, by Jason Lyall, an associate professor of international relations at Princeton, and Lt. Col. Isaiah Wilson III, who was the chief war planner for the 101st Airborne Division in Iraq and who currently teaches at West Point, looks at 285 insurgencies dating back to 1800.
After analyzing the cases, Lyall and Wilson conclude that the more mechanized a military is, the lower its probability of success.
“All counterinsurgent forces must solve a basic problem: How do you identify the insurgents hiding among noncombatant populations and deal with them in a selective, discriminate fashion?” Lyall writes in an e-mail.
To gain such knowledge, troops must cultivate relationships with the local population. This requires cultural awareness, language skills and, importantly, a willingness to share at least some of the same risks as the local population.
The Counterinsurgency Field Manual, which was released in December 2006 and co-authored by Gen. David Petraeus, would seem to agree.
“Ultimate success in COIN [counterinsurgency] is gained by protecting the populace, not the COIN force,” the manual states. “If military forces remain in their compounds, they lose touch with the people, appear to be running scared, and cede the initiative to the insurgents.”
Mechanized militaries, however, put greater emphasis on protecting their own soldiers. Consequently, Lyall and Wilson argue in their study that such forces lack the information necessary to use force discriminately, and therefore, “often inadvertently fuel, rather than suppress, insurgencies.”
Given such findings, deploying armed robots in greater numbers in Iraq or Afghanistan would likely only enflame resistance to the occupation, and, in turn, lead to greater carnage.
To understand this point, put yourself in the shoes of an Iraqi or Afghani. How could seeing a robot with a machine gun rumble down your street or point its weapon at your child illicit any reaction other than one of terror or extreme anger? What would you do under such circumstances? Who would not resist? And how would you know that someone is controlling the robot?
For all the Iraqis know, SWORDS is the autonomous killer of science fiction—American-made, of course.
The hope that killer robots will lower U.S. casualties may excite military officials and a war-weary public, but the grave moral and ethical implications—not to mention the dubious strategic impact—associated with their use should give pause to those in search of a quick technological fix to our woes.
By distancing soldiers from the horrors of war and making it easier for politicians to resort to military force, armed robots will likely give birth to a far more dangerous world.
Eric Stoner is a New York-based contributor to Foreign Policy in Focus. His articles have appeared in The Nation, NACLA, The Indypendent and The Huffington Post.
Copyright © 2009 In These Time
ISRAEL LAUNCHES COVERT WAR AGAINGST IRAN
It is using hitmen, sabotage, front companies and double agents to disrupt the regime's illicit weapons project, the experts say.
The most dramatic element of the "decapitation" programme is the planned assassination of top figures involved in Iran's atomic operations.
Despite fears in Israel and the US that Iran is approaching the point of no return in its ability to build atom bomb, Israeli officials are aware of the change in mood in Washington since President Barack Obama took office.
They privately acknowledge the new US administration is unlikely to sanction an air attack on Iran's nuclear installations and Mr Obama's offer to extend a hand of peace to Tehran puts any direct military action beyond reach for now.
The aim is to slow down or interrupt Iran's research programme, without the gamble of a direct confrontation that could lead to a wider war.
A former CIA officer on Iran told The Daily Telegraph: "Disruption is designed to slow progress on the programme, done in such a way that they don't realise what's happening. You are never going to stop it.
"The goal is delay, delay, delay until you can come up with some other solution or approach. We certainly don't want the current Iranian government to have those weapons. It's a good policy, short of taking them out militarily, which probably carries unacceptable risks."
Reva Bhalla, a senior analyst with Stratfor, the US private intelligence company with strong government security connections, said the strategy was to take out key people.
"With co-operation from the United States, Israeli covert operations have focused both on eliminating key human assets involved in the nuclear programme and in sabotaging the Iranian nuclear supply chain," she said.
"As US-Israeli relations are bound to come under strain over the Obama administration's outreach to Iran, and as the political atmosphere grows in complexity, an intensification of Israeli covert activity against Iran is likely to result."
Mossad was rumoured to be behind the death of Ardeshire Hassanpour, a top nuclear scientist at Iran's Isfahan uranium plant, who died in mysterious circumstances from reported "gas poisoning" in 2007.
Other recent deaths of important figures in the procurement and enrichment process in Iran and Europe have been the result of Israeli "hits", intended to deprive Tehran of key technical skills at the head of the programme, according to Western intelligence analysts.
"Israel has shown no hesitation in assassinating weapons scientists for hostile regimes in the past," said a European intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity. They did it with Iraq and they will do it with Iran when they can."
Mossad's covert operations cover a range of activities. The former CIA operative revealed how Israeli and US intelligence co-operated with European companies working in Iran to obtain photographs and other confidential material about Iranian nuclear and missile sites.
"It was a real company that operated from time to time in Iran and in the nature of their legitimate business came across information on various suspect Iranian facilities," he said.
Israel has also used front companies to infiltrate the Iranian purchasing network that the clerical regime uses to circumvent United Nations sanctions and obtain so-called "dual use" items – metals, valves, electronics, machinery – for its nuclear programme.
The businesses initially supply Iran with legitimate material, winning Tehran's trust, and then start to deliver faulty or defective items that "poison" the country's atomic activities.
"Without military strikes, there is still considerable scope for disrupting and damaging the Iranian programme and this has been done with some success," said Yossi Melman, a prominent Israeli journalist who covers security and intelligence issues for the Haaretz newspaper.
Mossad and Western intelligence operations have also infiltrated the Iranian nuclear programme and "bought" information from prominent atomic scientists. Israel has later selectively leaked some details to its allies, the media and United Nations atomic agency inspectors.
On one occasion, Iran itself is understood to have destroyed a nuclear facility near Tehran, bulldozing over the remains and replacing it with a football pitch, after its existence was revealed to UN inspectors. The regime feared that the discovery by inspectors of an undeclared nuclear facility would result in overwhelming pressure at the UN for tougher action against Iran.
The Iranian government has become so concerned about penetration of its programme that it has announced arrests of alleged spies in an attempt to discourage double agents. "Israel is part of a detailed and elaborate international effort to slow down the Iranian programme," said Mr Melman.
But Vince Canastraro, the former CIA counter-terrorism chief, expressed doubts about the efficacy of secret Israeli operations against Iran. "You cannot carry out foreign policy objectives via covert operations," he said. "You can't get rid of a couple of people and hope to affect Iran's nuclear capability."
Iran has consistently asserted that it is pursuing a nuclear capability for civilian energy generation purposes. But Israeli and Western intelligence agencies believe the 20-year-old programme, which was a secret until 2002, is designed to give the ruling mullahs an atom bomb.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
THE OBAMAS HAVE A RABBI IN THE FAMILY
The Obamas Have a Rabbi in the Family
Cousin of Candidate’s Wife Leads Synagogue on Chicago’s South Side
By Anthony Weiss
Published September 05, 2008, issue of September 12, 2008.
While Barack Obama has struggled to capture Jewish votes, it turns out that one of his wife’s cousins is the country’s most prominent black rabbi.
FUNNEYE: The country’s most prominent black rabbi.
Michelle Obama, wife of the Democratic presidential nominee, is a first cousin once removed of Rabbi Capers Funnye, spiritual leader of a mostly black synagogue on Chicago’s South Side. Funnye’s mother, Verdelle Robinson Funnye, and Michelle Obama’s paternal grandfather, Frasier Robinson Jr., were brother and sister.
Funnye (pronounced fuh-NAY) is the chief rabbi of the Beth Shalom B’nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation in southwest Chicago. He is well known in Jewish circles for acting as a bridge between mainstream Jewry and the much smaller, and largely separate, world of black Jewish congregations, sometimes known as black Hebrews, or Israelites. He has often urged the larger Jewish community to be more accepting of Jews who are not white.
In this presidential campaign, Funnye’s famous relative gives an unexpected twist to the much analyzed relationship between Barack Obama and the Jewish community. On the one hand, Jewish political organizers, voters and donors — including some of the city’s wealthiest and most prominent families — played an essential role in Obama’s rise to power in Chicago. But the Illinois senator has struggled to overcome suspicions in some parts of the Jewish community, including skepticism about his stance on Israel, and discredited but persistent rumors that he is secretly a Muslim.
Funnye, who describes himself as an independent, said he has not been involved with the Obama campaign. He noted, however, that he has donated money and that he was cheering Obama on.
“I know that her grandfather and her father and my mom and all of our relatives that are now deceased would be so very, very proud of both of them,” Funnye told the Forward.
Michelle Obama and the Obama campaign did not respond to requests for comment.
Funnye, 56, has known Michelle Obama (born Michelle Robinson), 44, since she was born. Both grew up on the South Side of Chicago, and Funnye’s mother and Obama’s father enjoyed a close relationship.
“Her father was like the glue of our family,” Funnye said. “He always wanted to keep the family very connected and to stay in touch with each other.” Funnye and Obama saw each other several times a year when they were growing up, mostly at family functions and on occasional visits to each other’s homes. Obama’s mother, Marian Robinson, recalled Funnye and his family coming over for visits and said that he and her children were “as close as cousins could be.”
The two fell out of touch when they grew older, but they reconnected years later when Obama was working for the University of Chicago and Funnye was leading a local social service organization called The Blue Gargoyle. Funnye also worked with Barack Obama, who, as a state senator, came and spoke at events for the organization. When Barack and Michelle Obama married, Funnye and his family attended the wedding. Funnye said that he and the Obamas have not been in touch since the presidential campaign began.
Although Funnye’s congregation describes itself as Ethiopian Hebrew, it is not connected to the Ethiopian Jews, commonly called the Beta Israel, who have immigrated to Israel en masse in recent decades. It is also separate from the Black Hebrews in the Israeli city of Dimona, and from the Hebrew Israelite black supremacist group, whose incendiary street harangues have become familiar spectacles in a number of American cities.
Funnye converted to Judaism and was ordained as a rabbi under the supervision of black Israelite rabbis. He then went through another conversion, supervised by Orthodox and Conservative rabbis. Funnye has worked to connect his own congregation with the rest of Chicago’s Jewish community. He serves on the Chicago Board of Rabbis and is vice president of the Israelite Board of Rabbis, the rabbinical association for black Israelite rabbis.
He has also traveled around the country, encouraging the mostly white Jewish establishment to be more welcoming of non-white Jews around the world. Last July, Funnye attended the installation of Gershom Sizomu, the new chief rabbi of Uganda.
The news of Funnye’s family connection may add a new gloss to the racial complexities of his own work and to those of the current presidential campaign.
“I think it tells us everything we need to know about modern America and modern Judaism that a biracial candidate has been nominated by the Democratic Party and he’s related to an African-American rabbi,” said Gary Tobin, president of the Institute for Jewish & Community Research, which has worked for greater acceptance of Jewish minorities.
Funnye’s relationship with the Obama family was reported in the Chicago Jewish News. Last April, a Wall Street Journal article reported that the aspiring first lady had a cousin (whom the paper mistakenly referred to as a second cousin) who is a prominent black rabbi, but the paper did not mention Funnye by name.
Though a few acquaintances of Funnye and the Obamas said they knew of the connection, the news came as a surprise to most members of the Chicago Jewish community. Neither Funnye nor the Obamas have made a point of mentioning their family ties. In Funnye’s synagogue, however, the rabbi’s link with the Democratic presidential nominee is a matter of common knowledge.
“He really jumped on everyone’s radar after the 2004 convention,” Funnye said. “That’s when some people said, ‘Isn’t he related to you or something?’ I said, ‘Yeah, he’s married to my cousin, and she’s making him everything that he is.’”
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