http://www.liveleak.com/browse?q=France Thu, 20 Jun 2013 05:31:01 -0400 Liveleak http://edge.liveleak.com/80281E/u/u/ll2/logo.gif http://www.liveleak.com/browse?q=France Wed, 19 Jun 2013 22:58:44 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=def_1371696985 Setright World Exclusive: US urges UK and France to join in supplying arms to Syrian rebels as MPs fear that UK will be drawn into growing conflict Robert Fisk Sunday, 16 June 2013 Washington's decision to arm Syria's Sunni Muslim rebels has plunged America into the great Sunni-Shia conflict of the Islamic Middle East, entering a struggle that now dwarfs the Arab revolutions which overthrew dictatorships across the region. For the first time, all of America's 'friends' in the region are Sunni Muslims and all of its enemies are Shiites. Breaking all President Barack Obama's rules of disengagement, the US is now fully engaged on the side of armed groups which include the most extreme Sunni Islamist movements in the Middle East. The Independent on Sunday has learned that a military decision has been taken in Iran - even before last week's presidential election - to send a first contingent of 4,000 Iranian Revolutionary Guards to Syria to support President Bashar al-Assad's forces against the largely Sunni rebellion that has cost almost 100,000 lives in just over two years. Iran is now fully committed to preserving Assad's regime, according to pro-Iranian sources which have been deeply involved in the Islamic Republic's security, even to the extent of proposing to open up a new 'Syrian' front on the Golan Heights against Israel. In years to come, historians will ask how America - after its defeat in Iraq and its humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan scheduled for 2014 - could have so blithely aligned itself with one side in a titanic Islamic struggle stretching back to the seventh century death of the Prophet Mohamed. The profound effects of this great schism, between Sunnis who believe that the father of Mohamed's wife was the new caliph of the Muslim world and Shias who regard his son in law Ali as his rightful successor - a seventh century battle swamped in blood around the present-day Iraqi cities of Najaf and Kerbala - continue across the region to this day. A 17th century Archbishop of Canterbury, George Abbott, compared this Muslim conflict to that between "Papists and Protestants". America's alliance now includes the wealthiest states of the Arab Gulf, the vast Sunni territories between Egypt and Morocco, as well as Turkey and the fragile British-created monarchy in Jordan. King Abdullah of Jordan - flooded, like so many neighbouring nations, by hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees - may also now find himself at the fulcrum of the Syrian battle. Up to 3,000 American 'advisers' are now believed to be in Jordan, and the creation of a southern Syria 'no-fly zone' - opposed by Syrian-controlled anti-aircraft batteries - will turn a crisis into a 'hot' war. So much for America's 'friends'. Its enemies include the Lebanese Hizballah, the Alawite Shiite regime in Damascus and, of course, Iran. And Iraq, a largely Shiite nation which America 'liberated' from Saddam Hussein's Sunni minority in the hope of balancing the Shiite power of Iran, has - against all US predictions - itself now largely fallen under Tehran's influence and power. Iraqi Shiites as well as Hizballah members, have both fought alongside Assad's forces. Washington's excuse for its new Middle East adventure - that it must arm Assad's enemies because the Damascus regime has used sarin gas against them - convinces no-one in the Middle East. Final proof of the use of gas by either side in Syria remains almost as nebulous as President George W. Bush's claim that Saddam's Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. For the real reason why America has thrown its military power behind Syria's Sunni rebels is because those same rebels are now losing their war against Assad. The Damascus regime's victory this month in the central Syrian town of Qusayr, at the cost of Hizballah lives as well as those of government forces, has thrown the Syrian revolution into turmoil, threatening to humiliate American and EU demands for Assad to abandon power. Arab dictators are supposed to be deposed - unless they are the friendly kings or emirs of the Gulf - not to be sustained. Yet Russia has given its total support to Assad, three times vetoing UN Security Council resolutions that might have allowed the West to intervene directly in the civil war. In the Middle East, there is cynical disbelief at the American contention that it can distribute arms - almost certainly including anti-aircraft missiles - only to secular Sunni rebel forces in Syria represented by the so-called Free Syria Army. The more powerful al-Nusrah Front, allied to al-Qaeda, dominates the battlefield on the rebel side and has been blamed for atrocities including the execution of Syrian government prisoners of war and the murder of a 14-year old boy for blasphemy. They will be able to take new American weapons from their Free Syria Army comrades with little effort. From now on, therefore, every suicide bombing in Damascus - every war crime committed by the rebels - will be regarded in the region as Washington's responsibility. The very Sunni-Wahabi Islamists who killed thousands of Americans on 11th September, 2011 - who are America's greatest enemies as well as Russia's - are going to be proxy allies of the Obama administration. This terrible irony can only be exacerbated by Russian President Vladimir Putin's adament refusal to tolerate any form of Sunni extremism. His experience in Chechenya, his anti-Muslim rhetoric - he has made obscene remarks about Muslim extremists in a press conference in Russian - and his belief that Russia's old ally in Syria is facing the same threat as Moscow fought in Chechenya, plays a far greater part in his policy towards Bashar al-Assad than the continued existence of Russia's naval port at the Syrian Mediterranean city of Tartous. For the Russians, of course, the 'Middle East' is not in the 'east' at all, but to the south of Moscow; and statistics are all-important. The Chechen capital of Grozny is scarcely 500 miles from the Syrian frontier. Fifteen per cent of Russians are Muslim. Six of the Soviet Union's communist republics had a Muslim majority, 90 per cent of whom were Sunni. And Sunnis around the world make up perhaps 85 per cent of all Muslims. For a Russia intent on repositioning itself across a land mass that includes most of the former Soviet Union, Sunni Islamists of the kind now fighting the Assad regime are its principal antagonists. Iranian sources say they liaise constantly with Moscow, and that while Hizballah's overall withdrawal from Syria is likely to be completed soon - with the maintenance of the militia's 'intelligence' teams inside Syria - Iran's support for Damascus will grow rather than wither. They point out that the Taliban recently sent a formal delegation for talks in Tehran and that America will need Iran's help in withdrawing from Afghanistan. The US, the Iranians say, will not be able to take its armour and equipment out of the country during its continuing war against the Taliban without Iran's active assistance. One of the sources claimed - not without some mirth -- that the French were forced to leave 50 tanks behind when they left because they did not have Tehran's help. It is a sign of the changing historical template in the Middle East that within the framework of old Cold War rivalries between Washington and Moscow, Israel's security has taken second place to the conflict in Syria. Indeed, Israel's policies in the region have been knocked askew by the Arab revolutions, leaving its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, hopelessly adrift amid the historic changes. Only once over the past two years has Israel fully condemned atrocities committed by the Assad regime, and while it has given medical help to wounded rebels on the Israeli-Syrian border, it fears an Islamist caliphate in Damascus far more than a continuation of Assad's rule. One former Israel intelligence commander recently described Assad as "Israel's man in Damascus". Only days before President Mubarak was overthrown, both Netanyahu and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia called Washington to ask Obama to save the Egyptian dictator. In vain. If the Arab world has itself been overwhelmed by the two years of revolutions, none will have suffered from the Syrian war in the long term more than the Palestinians. The land they wish to call their future state has been so populated with Jewish Israeli colonists that it can no longer be either secure or 'viable'. 'Peace' envoy Tony Blair's attempts to create such a state have been laughable. A future 'Palestine' would be a Sunni nation. But today, Washington scarcely mentions the Palestinians. Another of the region's supreme ironies is that Hamas, supposedly the 'super-terrorists' of Gaza, have abandoned Damascus and now support the Gulf Arabs' desire to crush Assad. Syrian government forces claim that Hamas has even trained Syrian rebels in the manufacture and use of home-made rockets. In Arab eyes, Israel's 2006 war against the Shia Hizballah was an attempt to strike at the heart of Iran. The West's support for Syrian rebels is a strategic attempt to crush Iran. But Iran is going to take the offensive. Even for the Middle East, these are high stakes. Against this fearful background, the Palestinian tragedy continues. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=def_1371696985 Setright Iran to send 4,000 troops to aid President Assad forces in Syria Syria, Middle East, World News Wed, 19 Jun 2013 17:15:53 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=48d_1371676278 plokiju LE BOURGET, France -- Sure, there are electric vehicles on the road now. But aviation company AgustaWestland thinks they may have a place in the air, too. At the Paris Air Show here, the Finmeccanica subsidiary showed off an exotic tiltrotor aircraft called Project Zero that's powered by lithium batteries. It flies, but project manager Jianye Zhang wouldn't say how far or how fast. The single-passenger aircraft looks like a flying wing, but it's got two propellers built into the surface of the wing. For takeoff, the propellers push air downward to thrust the aircraft up like a helicopter; to fly, the propellers rotate toward a vertical orientation to thrust the aircraft forward. "For us, this is a demonstration -- an incubator," Zhang said. There are three technology goals AgustaWestland wanted to accomplish with the design: an all-electric motor, a very precise propeller blade control that adjusts each blade's pitch 18 times a second, and a complete absence of the hydraulic systems commonly found in helicopters. Hydraulics are a maintenance hassle and must be checked for leaks before every flight, so the company wanted to see what could be done without them. Project Zero is very light, Zhang said, through use of a lot of carbon fiber and other weight-saving materials. He wouldn't say precisely how much the aircraft weighed, but said it was more than 500 kilograms. http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-57589874-76/project-zero-tiltrotor-shows-off-battery-powered-flight/ http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=48d_1371676278 plokiju AugustaWestland's sleek new tilt rotor debuts at Paris Air Show AugustaWestland's, sleek, new, tilt, rotor, debuts, a,t Paris, Air, Show, project, zero Wed, 19 Jun 2013 12:42:15 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e05_1371659875 socialism-rocks Who was the first president of the United States? Ask any school child and they will readily tell you "George Washington." And of course, they would be wrong-at least technically. Washington was not inaugurated until April 30, 1789. And yet, the United States continually had functioning governments from as early as September 5, 1774 and operated as a confederated nation from as early as July 4, 1776. During that nearly fifteen year interval, Congress-first the Continental Congress and then later the Confederation Congress-was always moderated by a duly elected president. As the chief executive officer of the government of the United States, the president was recognized as the head of state. Washington was thus the fifteenth in a long line of distinguished presidents-and he led the seventeenth administration-he just happened to be the first under the current constitution. So who were the luminaries who preceded him? The following brief biographies profile these "forgotten presidents." Peyton Randolph of Virginia (1723-1775) When delegates gathered in Philadelphia for the first Continental Congress, they promptly elected the former King's Attorney of Virginia as the moderator and president of their convocation. He was a propitious choice. He was a legal prodigy-having studied at the Inner Temple in London, served as his native colony's Attorney General, and tutored many of the most able men of the South at William and Mary College-including the young Patrick Henry. His home in Williamsburg was the gathering place for Virginia's legal and political gentry-and it remains a popular attraction in the restored colonial capital. He had served as a delegate in the Virginia House of Burgesses, and had been a commander under William Byrd in the colonial militia. He was a scholar of some renown-having begun a self-guided reading of the classics when he was thirteen. Despite suffering poor health served the Continental Congress as president twice, in 1774 from September 5 to October 21, and then again for a few days in 1775 from May 10 to May 23. He never lived to see independence, yet was numbered among the nation's most revered founders. Henry Middleton (1717-1784) America's second elected president was one of the wealthiest planters in the South, the patriarch of the most powerful families anywhere in the nation. His public spirit was evident from an early age. He was a member of his state's Common House from 1744-1747. During the last two years he served as the Speaker. During 1755 he was the King's Commissioner of Indian Affairs. He was a member of the South Carolina Council from 1755-1770. His valor in the War with the Cherokees during 1760-1761 earned him wide recognition throughout the colonies-and demonstrated his cool leadership abilities while under pressure. He was elected as a delegate to the first session of the Continental Congress and when Peyton Randolph was forced to resign the presidency, his peers immediately turned to Middleton to complete the term. He served as the fledgling coalition's president from October 22, 1774 until Randolph was able to resume his duties briefly beginning on May 10, 1775. Afterward, he was a member of the Congressional Council of Safety and helped to establish the young nation's policy toward the encouragement and support of education. In February 1776 he resigned his political involvements in order to prepare his family and lands for what he believed was inevitable war-but he was replaced by his son Arthur who eventually became a signer of both the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation, served time as an English prisoner of war, and was twice elected Governor of his state. John Hancock (1737-1793) The third president was a patriot, rebel leader, merchant who signed his name into immortality in giant strokes on the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The boldness of his signature has made it live in American minds as a perfect expression of the strength and freedom-and defiance-of the individual in the face of British tyranny. As President of the Continental Congress during two widely spaced terms-the first from May 24 1775 to October 30 1777 and the second from November 23 1885 to June 5, 1786-Hancock was the presiding officer when the members approved the Declaration of Independence. Because of his position, it was his official duty to sign the document first-but not necessarily as dramatically as he did. Hancock figured prominently in another historic event-the battle at Lexington: British troops who fought there April 10, 1775, had known Hancock and Samuel Adams were in Lexington and had come there to capture these rebel leaders. And the two would have been captured, if they had not been warned by Paul Revere. As early as 1768, Hancock defied the British by refusing to pay customs charges on the cargo of one of his ships. One of Boston's wealthiest merchants, he was recognized by the citizens, as well as by the British, as a rebel leader-and was elected President of the first Massachusetts Provincial Congress. After he was chosen President of the Continental Congress in 1775, Hancock became known beyond the borders of Massachusetts, and, having served as colonel of the Massachusetts Governor's Guards he hoped to be named commander of the American forces-until John Adams nominated George Washington. In 1778 Hancock was commissioned Major General and took part in an unsuccessful campaign in Rhode Island. But it was as a political leader that his real distinction was earned-as the first Governor of Massachusetts, as President of Congress, and as President of the Massachusetts constitutional ratification convention. He helped win ratification in Massachusetts, gaining enough popular recognition to make him a contender for the newly created Presidency of the United States, but again he saw Washington gain the prize. Like his rival, George Washington, Hancock was a wealthy man who risked much for the cause of independence. He was the wealthiest New Englander supporting the patriotic cause, and, although he lacked the brilliance of John Adams or the capacity to inspire of Samuel Adams, he became one of the foremost leaders of the new nation-perhaps, in part, because he was willing to commit so much at such risk to the cause of freedom. Henry Laurens (1724-1792) The only American president ever to be held as a prisoner of war by a foreign power, Laurens was heralded after he was released as "the father of our country," by no less a personage than George Washington. He was of Huguenot extraction, his ancestors having come to America from France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes made the Reformed faith illegal. Raised and educated for a life of mercantilism at his home in Charleston, he also had the opportunity to spend more than a year in continental travel. It was while in Europe that he began to write revolutionary pamphlets-gaining him renown as a patriot. He served as vice-president of South Carolina in1776. He was then elected to the Continental Congress. He succeeded John Hancock as President of the newly independent but war beleaguered United States on November 1, 1777. He served until December 9, 1778 at which time he was appointed Ambassador to the Netherlands. Unfortunately for the cause of the young nation, he was captured by an English warship during his cross-Atlantic voyage and was confined to the Tower of London until the end of the war. After the Battle of Yorktown, the American government regained his freedom in a dramatic prisoner exchange-President Laurens for Lord Cornwallis. Ever the patriot, Laurens continued to serve his nation as one of the three representatives selected to negotiate terms at the Paris Peace Conference in 1782. John Jay (1745-1829) America's first Secretary of State, first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, one of its first ambassadors, and author of some of the celebrated Federalist Papers, Jay was a Founding Father who, by a quirk of fate, missed signing the Declaration of Independence-at the time of the vote for independence and the signing, he had temporarily left the Continental Congress to serve in New York's revolutionary legislature. Nevertheless, he was chosen by his peers to succeed Henry Laurens as President of the United States-serving a term from December 10, 1778 to September 27, 1779. A conservative New York lawyer who was at first against the idea of independence for the colonies, the aristocratic Jay in 1776 turned into a patriot who was willing to give the next twenty-five years of his life to help establish the new nation. During those years, he won the regard of his peers as a dedicated and accomplished statesman and a man of unwavering principle. In the Continental Congress Jay prepared addresses to the people of Canada and Great Britain. In New York he drafted the State constitution and served as Chief Justice during the war. He was President of the Continental Congress before he undertook the difficult assignment, as ambassador, of trying to gain support and funds from Spain. After helping Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, and Laurens complete peace negotiations in Paris in 1783, Jay returned to become the first Secretary of State, called "Secretary of Foreign Affairs" under the Articles of Confederation. He negotiated valuable commercial treaties with Russia and Morocco, and dealt with the continuing controversy with Britain and Spain over the southern and western boundaries of the United States. He proposed that America and Britain establish a joint commission to arbitrate disputes that remained after the war-a proposal which, though not adopted, influenced the government's use of arbitration and diplomacy in settling later international problems. In this post Jay felt keenly the weakness of the Articles of Confederation and was one of the first to advocate a new governmental compact. He wrote five Federalist Papers supporting the Constitution, and he was a leader in the New York ratification convention. As first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Jay made the historic decision that a State could be sued by a citizen from another State, which led to the Eleventh Amendment to the Constitution. On a special mission to London he concluded the "Jay Treaty," which helped avert a renewal of hostilities with Britain but won little popular favor at home-and it is probably for this treaty that this Founding Father is best remembered. Samuel Huntington (1732-1796) An industrious youth who mastered his studies of the law without the advantage of a school, a tutor, or a master-borrowing books and snatching opportunities to read and research between odd jobs-he was one of the greatest self-made men among the Founders. He was also one of the greatest legal minds of the age-all the more remarkable for his lack of advantage as a youth. In 1764, in recognition of his obvious abilities and initiative, he was elected to the General Assembly of Connecticut. The next year he was chosen to serve on the Executive Council. In 1774 he was appointed Associate Judge of the Superior Court and, as a delegate to the Continental Congress, was acknowledged to be a legal scholar of some respect. He served in Congress for five consecutive terms, during the last of which he was elected President. He served in that off ice from September 28, 1779 until ill health forced him to resign on July 9, 1781. He returned to his home in Connecticut-and as he recuperated, he accepted more Counciliar and Bench duties. He again took his seat in Congress in 1783, but left it to become Chief Justice of his state's Superior Court. He was elected Lieutenant Governor in 1785 and Governor in 1786. According to John Jay, he was "the most precisely trained Christian jurists ever to serve his country." Thomas McKean (1734-1817) During his astonishingly varied fifty-year career in public life he held almost every possible position-from deputy county attorney to President of the United States under the Confederation. Besides signing the Declaration of Independence, he contributed significantly to the development and establishment of constitutional government in both his home state of Delaware and the nation. At the Stamp Act Congress he proposed the voting procedure that Congress adopted: that each colony, regardless of size or population, have one vote-the practice adopted by the Continental Congress and the Congress of the Confederation, and the principle of state equality manifest in the composition of the Senate. And as county judge in 1765, he defied the British by ordering his court to work only with documents that did not bear the hated stamps. In June 1776, at the Continental Congress, McKean joined with Caesar Rodney to register Delaware's approval of the Declaration of Independence, over the negative vote of the third Delaware delegate, George Read-permitting it to be "The unanimous declaration of the thirteen United States." And at a special Delaware convention, he drafted the constitution for that State. McKean also helped draft-and signed-the Articles of Confederation. It was during his tenure of service as President-from July 10, 1781 to November 4, 1782-when news arrived from General Washington in October 1781 that the British had surrendered following the Battle of Yorktown. As Chief Justice of the supreme court of Pennsylvania, he contributed to the establishment of the legal system in that State, and, in 1787, he strongly supported the Constitution at the Pennsylvania Ratification Convention, declaring it "the best the world has yet seen." At sixty-five, after over forty years of public service, McKean resigned from his post as Chief Justice. A candidate on the Democratic-Republican ticket in 1799, McKean was elected Governor of Pennsylvania. As Governor, he followed such a strict policy of appointing only fellow Republicans to office that he became the father of the spoils system in America. He served three tempestuous terms as Governor, completing one of the longest continuous careers of public service of any of the Founding Fathers. John Hanson (1715-1783) He was the heir of one of the greatest family traditions in the colonies and became the patriarch of a long line of American patriots-his great grandfather died at Lutzen beside the great King Gustavus Aldophus of Sweden; his grandfather was one of the founders of New Sweden along the Delaware River in Maryland; one of his nephews was the military secretary to George Washington; another was a signer of the Declaration; still another was a signer of the Constitution; yet another was Governor of Maryland during the Revolution; and still another was a member of the first Congress; two sons were killed in action with the Continental Army; a grandson served as a member of Congress under the new Constitution; and another grandson was a Maryland Senator. Thus, even if Hanson had not served as President himself, he would have greatly contributed to the life of the nation through his ancestry and progeny. As a youngster he began a self-guided reading of classics and rather quickly became an acknowledged expert in the juridicalism of Anselm and the practical philosophy of Seneca-both of which were influential in the development of the political philosophy of the great leaders of the Reformation. It was based upon these legal and theological studies that the young planter-his farm, Mulberry Grove was just across the Potomac from Mount Vernon-began to espouse the cause of the patriots. In 1775 he was elected to the Provincial Legislature of Maryland. Then in 1777, he became a member of Congress where he distinguished himself as a brilliant administrator. Thus, he was elected President in 1781. He served in that office from November 5, 1781 until November 3, 1782. He was the first President to serve a full term after the full ratification of the Articles of Confederation-and like so many of the Southern and New England Founders, he was strongly opposed to the Constitution when it was first discussed. He remained a confirmed anti-federalist until his untimely death. Elias Boudinot (1741-1802) He did not sign the Declaration, the Articles, or the Constitution. He did not serve in the Continental Army with distinction. He was not renowned for his legal mind or his political skills. He was instead a man who spent his entire career in foreign diplomacy. He earned the respect of his fellow patriots during the dangerous days following the traitorous action of Benedict Arnold. His deft handling of relations with Canada also earned him great praise. After being elected to the Congress from his home state of New Jersey, he served as the new nation's Secretary for Foreign Affairs-managing the influx of aid from France, Spain, and Holland. The in 1783 he was elected to the Presidency. He served in that office from November 4, 1782 until November 2, 1783. Like so many of the other early presidents, he was a classically trained scholar, of the Reformed faith, and an anti-federalist in political matters. He was the father and grandfather of frontiersmen-and one of his grandchildren and namesakes eventually became a leader of the Cherokee nation in its bid for independence from the sprawling expansion of the United States. Thomas Mifflin (1744-1800) By an ironic sort of providence, Thomas Mifflin served as George Washington's first aide-de-camp at the beginning of the Revolutionary War, and, when the war was over, he was the man, as President of the United States, who accepted Washington's resignation of his commission. In the years between, Mifflin greatly served the cause of freedom-and, apparently, his own cause-while serving as the first Quartermaster General of the Continental Army. He obtained desperately needed supplies for the new army-and was suspected of making excessive profit himself. Although experienced in business and successful in obtaining supplies for the war, Mifflin preferred the front lines, and he distinguished himself in military actions on Long Island and near Philadelphia. Born and reared a Quaker, he was excluded from their meetings for his military activities. A controversial figure, Mifflin lost favor with Washington and was part of the Conway Cabal-a rather notorious plan to replace Washington with General Horatio Gates. And Mifflin narrowly missed court-martial action over his handling of funds by resigning his commission in 1778. In spite of these problems-and of repeated charges that he was a drunkard-Mifflin continued to be elected to positions of responsibility-as President and Governor of Pennsylvania, delegate to the Constitutional Convention, as well as the highest office in the land-where he served from November 3, 1783 to November 29, 1784. Most of Mifflin's significant contributions occurred in his earlier years-in the First and Second Continental Congresses he was firm in his stand for independence and for fighting for it, and he helped obtain both men and supplies for Washington's army in the early critical period. In 1784, as President, he signed the treaty with Great Britain which ended the war. Although a delegate to the Constitutional Convention, he did not make a significant contribution-beyond signing the document. As Governor of Pennsylvania, although he was accused of negligence, he supported improvements of roads, and reformed the State penal and judicial systems. He had gradually become sympathetic to Jefferson's principles regarding State's rights, even so, he directed the Pennsylvania militia to support the Federal tax collectors in the Whiskey Rebellion. In spite of charges of corruption, the affable Mifflin remained a popular figure. A magnetic personality and an effective speaker, he managed to hold a variety of elective offices for almost thirty years of the critical Revolutionary period. Richard Henry Lee (1732-1794) His resolution "that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States," approved by the Continental Congress July 2, 1776, was the first official act of the United Colonies that set them irrevocably on the road to independence. It was not surprising that it came from Lee's pen-as early as 1768 he proposed the idea of committees of correspondence among the colonies, and in 1774 he proposed that the colonies meet in what became the Continental Congress. From the first, his eye was on independence. A wealthy Virginia planter whose ancestors had been granted extensive lands by King Charles II, Lee disdained the traditional aristocratic role and the aristocratic view. In the House of Burgesses he flatly denounced the practice of slavery. He saw independent America as "an asylum where the unhappy may find solace, and the persecuted repose." In 1764, when news of the proposed Stamp Act reached Virginia, Lee was a member of the committee of the House of Burgesses that drew up an address to the King, an official protest against such a tax. After the tax was established, Lee organized the citizens of his county into the Westmoreland Association, a group pledged to buy no British goods until the Stamp Act was repealed. At the First Continental Congress, Lee persuaded representatives from all the colonies to adopt this non-importation idea, leading to the formation of the Continental Association, which was one of the first steps toward union of the colonies. Lee also proposed to the First Continental Congress that a militia be organized and armed-the year before the first shots were fired at Lexington; but this and other proposals of his were considered too radical-at the time. Three days after Lee introduced his resolution, in June of 1776, he was appointed by Congress to the committee responsible for drafting a declaration of independence, but he was called home when his wife fell ill, and his place was taken by his young prot'eg'e, Thomas Jefferson. Thus Lee missed the chance to draft the document-though his influence greatly shaped it and he was able to return in time to sign it. He was elected President-serving from November 30, 1784 to November 22, 1785 when he was succeeded by the second administration of John Hancock. Elected to the Constitutional Convention, Lee refused to attend, but as a member of the Congress of the Confederation, he contributed to another great document, the Northwest Ordinance, which provided for the formation of new States from the Northwest Territory. When the completed Constitution was sent to the States for ratification, Lee opposed it as anti-democratic and anti-Christian. However, as one of Virginia's first Senators, he helped assure passage of the amendments that, he felt, corrected many of the document's gravest faults-the Bill of Rights. He was the great uncle of Robert E. Lee and the scion of a great family tradition. Nathaniel Gorham (1738-1796) Another self-made man, Gorham was one of the many successful Boston merchants who risked all he had for the cause of freedom. He was first elected to the Massachusetts General Court in 1771. His honesty and integrity won his acclaim and was thus among the first delegates chose to serve in the Continental Congress. He remained in public service throughout the war and into the Constitutional period, though his greatest contribution was his call for a stronger central government. But even though he was an avid federalist, he did not believe that the union could-or even should-be maintained peaceably for more than a hundred years. He was convinced that eventually, in order to avoid civil or cultural war, smaller regional interests should pursue an independent course. His support of a new constitution was rooted more in pragmatism than ideology. When John Hancock was unable to complete his second term as President, Gorham was elected to succeed him-serving from June 6, 1786 to February 1, 1787. It was during this time that the Congress actually entertained the idea of asking Prince Henry-the brother of Frederick II of Prussia-and Bonnie Prince Charlie-the leader of the ill-fated Scottish Jacobite Rising and heir of the Stuart royal line-to consider the possibility of establishing a constitutional monarch in America. It was a plan that had much to recommend it but eventually the advocates of republicanism held the day. During the final years of his life, Gorham was concerned with several speculative land deals which nearly cost him his entire fortune. Arthur St. Clair (1734-1818) Born and educated in Edinburgh, Scotland during the tumultuous days of the final Jacobite Rising and the Tartan Suppression, St. Clair was the only president of the United States born and bred on foreign soil. Though most of his family and friends abandoned their devastated homeland in the years following the Battle of Culloden-after which nearly a third of the land was depopulated through emigration to America-he stayed behind to learn the ways of the hated Hanoverian English in the Royal Navy. His plan was to learn of the enemy's military might in order to fight another day. During the global conflict of the Seven Years War-generally known as the French and Indian War-he was stationed in the American theater. Afterward, he decided to settle in Pennsylvania where many of his kin had established themselves. His civic-mindedness quickly became apparent: he helped to organize both the New Jersey and the Pennsylvania militias, led the Continental Army's Canadian expedition, and was elected Congress. His long years of training in the enemy camp was finally paying off. He was elected President in 1787-and he served from February 2 of that year until January 21 of the next. Following his term of duty in the highest office in the land, he became the first Governor of the Northwest Territory and the founder of Cincinnati. Though he briefly supported the idea of creating a constitutional monarchy under the Stuart's Bonnie Prince Charlie, he was a strident Anti-Federalist-believing that the proposed federal constitution would eventually allow for the intrusion of government into virtually every sphere and aspect of life. He even predicted that under the vastly expanded centralized power of the state the taxing powers of bureaucrats and other unelected officials would eventually confiscate as much as a quarter of the income of the citizens-a notion that seemed laughable at the time but that has proven to be ominously modest in light of our current governmental leviathan. St. Clair lived to see the hated English tyrants who destroyed his homeland defeated. But he despaired that his adopted home might actually create similar tyrannies and impose them upon themselves. Cyrus Griffin (1736-1796) Like Peyton Randolph, he was trained in London's Inner Temple to be a lawyer-and thus was counted among his nation's legal elite. Like so many other Virginians, he was an anti-federalist, though he eventually accepted the new Constitution with the promise of the Bill of Rights as a hedge against the establishment of an American monarchy-which still had a good deal of currency. The Articles of Confederation afforded such freedoms that he had become convinced that even with the incumbent loss of liberty, some new form of government would be required. A prot'eg'e of George Washington-having worked with him on several speculative land deals in the West-he was a reluctant supporter of the Constitutional ratifying process. It was during his term in the office of the Presidency-the last before the new national compact went into effect-that ratification was formalized and finalized. He served as the nation's chief executive from January 22, 1788 until George Washington's inauguration on April 30, 1789. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e05_1371659875 socialism-rocks The Forgotten Presidents (The presidents before George Washington) history Mon, 17 Jun 2013 10:56:42 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=655_1371480801 The Prodigy Saudi Arabia, with some French funds, began supplying anti-aircraft missiles to Syrian rebels "on a small scale" about two months ago, a Gulf source familiar with the matter said on Monday. The shoulder-fired weapons were obtained mostly from suppliers in France and Belgium, the source told Reuters. France had paid for the transport of the weapons to the region. The supplies were going to General Salim Idriss, leader of the Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), who was still the kingdom's main "point man" in the opposition, the source said. Speaking to Reuters on Friday, Idriss urged Western allies to supply anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles and to create a no-fly zone, saying if properly armed he could defeat the Syrian army within six months. The Gulf source said without elaborating that Saudi Arabia had begun taking a more active role in the Syrian conflict. The remarks come one day after German news weekly Der Spiegel reported that that Saudi Arabia was looking at sending European-made Mistral-class MANPADS, or man-portable air-defense systems. The article, citing a classified report received by the German foreign intelligence service and the German government last week, said the shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles can target low-flying aircraft including helicopters and had given mujahideen fighters in Afghanistan a decisive edge against Soviet troops in the 1980s. It wasn't immediately clear if these were the same anti-aircraft guns that the kingdom has already allegedly sent. The United States vowed last week to send military aid to rebel forces after accusing the government of using "small amounts" of chemical weapons. Washington has also sent F-16 jets and anti-aircraft guns to Jordan with talk of possibly enforcing a no-fly zone on Syria. Russia has repeatedly said that a unilateral US-imposed no-fly zone on Syria would violate international law, and on Monday said it would "not allow" such a scenario. "I think we fundamentally will not allow this scenario," Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich told a news briefing Monday. Lukashevich spoke before planned talks between President Vladimir Putin and US President Barack Obama on the sidelines of a G8 summit in Northern Ireland which were expected to focus on the conflict in Syria that has killed at least 93,000 people according to the UN. "All these manoeuvres about no-fly zones and humanitarian corridors are a direct consequence of a lack of respect for international law," Lukashevich said. He said Russia did not want a scenario in Syria that resembled the events in Libya after the imposition of a no-fly zone which enabled NATO aircraft to help rebels overthrow Muammar Gaddafi. (Reuters, AFP, Al-Akhbar) http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/saudi-arabia-france-sending-syria-rebels-anti-aircraft-guns-source http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=655_1371480801 The Prodigy Saudi Arabia, <span class="highlight">France</span> and Belgium sending Syria rebels anti-aircraft guns Syria, France, Belgium, Russia, USA Sun, 16 Jun 2013 10:19:23 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=0f4_1371391818 EnglishOffenceLeague In March of 2012 Sarkozy suggested reducing the number of migrants from 180 thousand to 100 thousand. A significant decrease in the number of migrants could be expected in five years. It seems that the government of Hollande has adopted such measures and is moving towards action There is another side to the coin. Many migrants, especially those from Arab countries-former colonies of France, are used to living on government subsidies. They have been doing it for years, and have been teaching their children this model of social behavior. According to the National Institute of Statistical Studies, children from immigrant families tend to be weaker students than their peers who are not immigrants. This is especially true for migrants from Turkey. In the labor market, only 14 percent of children of immigrants attain high social positions. it seem muslims are not wanted anywhere. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=0f4_1371391818 EnglishOffenceLeague <span class="highlight">France</span> Slashes Benefits by 83% france,EDL, EOL, islam kull, fightback,GENERATION IDENTITAIRE, Sat, 15 Jun 2013 21:38:45 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=155_1371346454 mvlazysusan France's Former Foreign Minister, Roland Dumas, has stated in a televised program on LCP that UK government officials had told him about preparations for war in Syria two years prior to the start of the 2011 protests and conflict. The reason given for this war is the Syrian government's anti-Israel stance that made Syria a target for Western-backed regime change. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=155_1371346454 mvlazysusan <span class="highlight">France</span>'s Former Foreign Minister: UK Government Prepared War in Syria Two Years Before 2011 Protests Syria, France, Britian, war, Israel, FSA, SAA, Rothschild, Thu, 13 Jun 2013 15:47:20 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e80_1371152650 white tigers france is being over taken by muslims http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e80_1371152650 white tigers Tour de <span class="highlight">france</span> muslim, france, cowards, surrender monkies , cheese , snails, garlic Tue, 18 Jun 2013 18:56:50 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=bbd_1371596115 omniradar Russian Advanced Weapons for Syria: Unrevealed Secrets of Vladimir Putin's Recent Visit to London By Global Research News Global Research, June 18, 2013 Dam Press Region: Middle East &amp; North Africa , Russia and FSU Theme: Militarization and WMD , US NATO War Agenda In-depth Report: SYRIA: NATO'S NEXT WAR? by Dam-Press. (Translated from the Arabic) During his recent visit to London and meeting with British Prime Minister Cameron, President Putin passed on a message to the US and France in response to their recent announcement that they will arm the fighters in Syria. As Russia is a sovereign nation dealing with the sovereign, legitimate government of Syria, some new arms which have never left Russia before will be delivered to the Syrian military. The Patriot Missiles will be hit and repealed with S 300 SAM . Putin also threatened to deliver the more advanced S400 anti-aircraft missiles ( see image below) far superior to the Patriot missiles and ranked as the World's most advanced air defense system. He added that Russia will also supply Syria with state-of -the-art 24-Barrell rocket launchers which have a range of 60 km ranked as the most developed artillery weapon of its kind.(see video below) He added that Russia will supply 400 of these launchers which will be able to destroy all targets around Syria's borders. Barrel 24 Launchers A British intelligence report stated that Putin went to London bringing his own Russian cooked food and did not consume anything from Britain including water as he even brought his own water with him reportedly because he had concerns of being poisoned. The British intelligence site stated that Putin threatened to send other secret Russian made weapons to Syria which would tip the balance of power even further in favour of Syria and re-iterated that these weapons will not be used against Israel on condition that Israel will not participate in the war within Syria and neighbouring countries. {Lebanon, Jordan] Reportedly, the British PM's response was very weak in relation to Putin's threats. Putin's response came just over 24 hours after Obama's statement on Saturday that he was going to arm the Syrian resistance. Putin clearly stated that the Middle East is going to witness a significant change. Syria will be armed with weapons that have never been seen before including computer guided smart missiles that never miss their target. He also added that Russia will supply Syria with Skean 5 ground -to-sea missiles that are capable of hitting and sinking any target up to 250 km off the Syrian coast. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=bbd_1371596115 omniradar RUSSIA V USA/UK/ <span class="highlight">FRANCE</span>/ISRAEL SYRIA Sun, 16 Jun 2013 17:27:20 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=22e_1371417824 english-patriot33 http://www.barenakedislam.com/2013/06/15/france-must-have-been-those-pesky-jeunes-muslim-youths-again-defacing-a-church/ FRANCE: Must have been those pesky "jeunes" (Muslim youths) again defacing a church "Death to France" - "Long Live Islam" - "Long live bin -Laden" messages were found on walls and pillars of the Saint John the Baptist church in Bourgoin-Jallieu. The messages were signed GIA, which may be a reference to the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria. Nothing to see here, folks, move along. I guess they are just warming up for Bastille Day, July 14th, when Muslims 'youts' traditionally torch hundreds/thousands of cars in the streets of Paris. And speaking of "jeunes," a soccer match descends into armed battle in Ivry-sur-Seine (Val-de-Marne), in the Greater Paris region. In the video you can see these "jeunes" (apparently North African) using various weapons, including at least one holding what looks like a machine gun (see photo below). http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=22e_1371417824 english-patriot33 muslims in <span class="highlight">france</span> islam, muslims Sat, 15 Jun 2013 20:32:08 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e98_1371342600 Eretz_Zen2 France's Former Foreign Minister, Roland Dumas, has stated in a televised program on LCP that UK government officials had told him about preparations for war in Syria two years prior to the start of the 2011 protests and conflict. The reason given for this war is the Syrian government's anti-Israel stance that made Syria a target for Western-backed regime change. Source: LCP http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e98_1371342600 Eretz_Zen2 <span class="highlight">France</span>'s Former Foreign Minister: UK Government Prepared War in Syria Two Years Before 2011 Protests syria, israel, uk, great, britain, england, regime, change, conspiracy, bashar, assad, saa, fsa, free, syrian, army, arab, nato, turkey, qatar, saudi, arabia, terrorists, jihadists, jihadis, salafis, salafists, wahhabis Thu, 13 Jun 2013 19:37:35 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=7cd_1371166286 The-British-Patriot http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2341113/Frances-burkha-ban-sparks-violence-Paris-police-try-arrest-woman-wearing-veil-pregnant-woman-attacked-covering-face.html France's burkha ban sparks violence across Paris after police try to arrest woman for wearing a veil and pregnant woman is attacked for covering her face :Two men put pregnant woman, 21, in hospital - undergoing treatment :Around 60 people attacked police in Argenteuil, north west of the capital :Women guilty of wearing niqabs can be fined the equivalent of around lb130 Violent clashes have broken out in a Paris suburb after police tried to arrest a Muslim woman for wearing a veil. It came as two men today put a 21-year-old pregnant woman in hospital for covering her face with a veil on the same council estate. In what is being viewed as a severe test of France's burka ban, around 60 people attacked police on Wednesday night in Argenteuil, a commuter town to the north west of the capital. Under a law which came into force in 2011, women found guilty of wearing niqabs in public can be fined the equivalent of around lb130. But when officers approached the unnamed woman, passers-by became involved in a 'riot' and police used tear gas and flash-ball shots to disperse them, according to a police source. 'The police were attacked' the source told Le Parisien newspaper. 'They were insulted and beaten, including punches'. Two men aged 23 and 37, including a cousin of the young veil-wearer, were arrested and placed in custody under suspicion of violence and public order offences. In the end, 40 riot police had to be called to the area to restore order, said the source. Today, the 21-year-old was attacked in Argenteuil, with 'two shaven-haired men tearing the veil from her face and pulling her hair,' said a police source close to the case. She was rushed to the emergency ward of Argenteuil hospital where she underwent treatment for unspecified injuries. Police said that the men had shouted racist insults at the girl, saying that the veil was no longer acceptable in France. The attack may have been caught on CCTV, said the police source. In a third incident, police confirmed that a 17-year-old, identified only as Rabia, was attacked in Argenteuil on May 20th for wearing a veil. Two men beat her up at around 9pm, shouting 'Dirty Arab' and 'Dirty Muslim' while laughing. Rabia said afterwards: 'One of them insulted me. I sped up not because I was scared, but the men turned around, one of them tore my veil, pushed me to the ground and them hit me while insulting me.' Rabia continued: 'Without the approach of a passerby who stopped the attackers, I do not know what would have happened.' In March, a Frenchman who ripped a Muslim woman's veil off her eyes was given a five-month suspended prison sentence. The 30-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said he was merely trying to 'enforce' his country's laws when he carried out the attack in the city of Nantes. He approached the woman in a fairground in September last year and pulled away the veil. A judgment against him released by the Nantes criminal court said: 'Ordinary citizens are not entitled to take the law into their own hands.' The man, who originally gave a false identity to police, said he was a firm believer in the law brought in by government of former President, Nicolas Sarkozy. But the judge said that he had acted like a 'vigilante' and carried out the attack solely because he was prejudiced against the women's faith. Mr Sarkozy had described Muslim face coverings as an affront to the principles of the French Republic, saying that they could be used by both shoplifters and terrorists to hide their own identities. The incidents are all in a long line triggered by Mr Sarkozy's ban. Last September, Louise-Marie Suisse, a Muslim teenager from Marseille received a two month prison sentence for biting a policewoman who arrested her for wearing a full-face veil. Amnesty International is among human rights groups who have condemned the law, saying it breaches the right of freedom of expression. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=7cd_1371166286 The-British-Patriot muslims rioting in <span class="highlight">france</span> again fance, burka, parasites, go home, your not welcome, Thu, 13 Jun 2013 07:54:48 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=bb8_1371123512 Muhammad_ibn_Abdullah A few years ago, Muslim cabbies at the Minneapolis airport began to refuse to carry passengers who were carrying alcohol. It became a big controversy, as some counter-jihad activists began asking whether the cab drivers would soon begin enforcing other Sharia rules upon their non-Muslim customers. Would they, for example, refuse to carry a passenger who had a ham sandwich? Such concerns were dismissed at the time as hysterical exaggerations of what was presented as a completely innocuous attempt by the cab drivers to exercise their religious freedom. But now, with this incident, we see the next step that we predicted all those years ago: the violent enforcement of Sharia provisions on non-Muslims -- in what still is, for the moment, a non-Muslim country. "France: Attacked By Two Muslims Because He Was Eating A Ham Sandwich," by Cheradenine Zakalwe for Islam Versus Europe, June 12 (thanks to Blazing Cat Fur): It sounds incredible but it is being treated with great seriousness by the police in Reims police station (Marne). A 23-year-old man filed a complaint on the 8th of June after having been attacked the previous evening at 9.30 pm in a city tramway by two strangers. They struck him several times on the face because he was eating a ham sandwich. The two attackers, who claimed to be Muslims, said they were offended by this consumption of pork in front of their eyes before attacking the young man. A witness, a friend of the young man who was present when the incident occurred, has been interviewed by the investigators and has confirmed the reality of the attack. The two attackers, who fled, have not yet been found. The CCTV tapes in the tramway are currently being examined. http://www.jihadwatch.org/2013/06/france-attacked-by-two-muslims-because-he-was-eating-a-ham-sandwich.html http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=bb8_1371123512 Muhammad_ibn_Abdullah (<span class="highlight">France</span>) Man Beaten for Eating Ham Sandwich... islam, muslims, jihad, lies, al taqiyya, muhammad, allah, beating, pig, ignorant, evil, satanic, devil, djinn,