http://www.liveleak.com/browse?q=set+her+free Sun, 19 May 2013 06:43:34 -0400 Liveleak http://edge.liveleak.com/80281E/u/u/ll2/logo.gif http://www.liveleak.com/browse?q=set+her+free Sat, 18 May 2013 11:37:21 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=91c_1368891242 SMELLYMONKEY Do you recognise men carrying unexploded tank shells they'd picked up from Dorset beauty spot? 9:51am Wednesday 15th May 2013 in News Do you recognise men carrying unexploded tank shells they'd picked up from Dorset beauty spot? Two men were pictured strolling through a Dorset beauty spot while each was shouldering a potentially lethal 120 millimetre tank shell. The unbelievable scene took place between Worbarrow Bay and Tyneham, where hundreds of local people and visitors were out enjoying Monday afternoon's fine spring weather. It was captured by a woman on her mobile phone's camera at around 2.30pm while she and her family were walking from the beach to the car park. The area is used by the Army for firing practice. "I thought they were carrying rugs, but as they walked past, I saw they were enormous shells. "I was with somebody who used to be in the Army and he said that because their ends were intact, they were unexploded," she said. "I was really scared. As they were walking past, my little girl was alongside them. They could have gone on the Sandbanks Ferry or on the motorway. I just think they're idiots." A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Defence said it was impossible to tell from the photograph whether the shells were live or practice rounds. "The men should immediately contact the police who will arrange for bomb disposal experts to examine the shells. There is no guarantee theseitems are free from explosive and they could therefore be extremely dangerous. "The MOD takes the safety of the public extremely seriously and all pathways at Lulworth Ranges that are open to the public are cleared of military objects, including shells, before access is permitted. "The MOD urges members of the public using the ranges to keep to the designated pathways and be advised that it is extremely dangerous to touch any military material they may find." South Dorset MP and former soldier Richard Drax said: "Unexploded shells can be very unstable. If they are picked up or dropped, it can set them off." The MOD is appealing for the individuals in the photograph, or anybodywho knows their identity, to contact the Ministry of Defence Police Central Control Room on 01371 854500 quoting Incident Number 63 10-03-2013, as a matter of urgency. http://www.dorsetecho.co.uk/news/10419941.Do_you_recognise_men_carrying_unexploded_tank_shells_they_d_picked_up_from_Dorset_beauty_spot_/?ref=mc http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=91c_1368891242 SMELLYMONKEY Men carrying unexploded tank shells they'd picked up from Dorset beauty spot SHELLS, DORSET, UXB Thu, 16 May 2013 13:32:45 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=235_1368721981 omniradar A web of control - with fingers in every pie The influence of Jewish moneylenders has been woven into the history of the West for centuries and runs like a thread throughout all events, hidden in many guises, yet ever present. An insidious, dangerous, secret coterie that works behind the scenes. But, like a jigsaw puzzle, out of the mesh of intrigue the pieces fit together to form a pattern. Thread Number One: England The watershed for Europe was the Reformation. Henry VIII of England was in need of a son and a new wife. Thomas Cromwell was happy to oblige. The split away from the old church, brought the Bible into prominence and thereby increased Jewish influence. After an embargo of almost 400 years, Jews were allowed to return to England in 1656 thanks to a "financial arrangement" between Oliver Cromwell and the Jewish Sanhedrin. As a "National Debt" is an essential first ingredient of financial control, and wars are the prime cause of debt, it took only to 1693 before England found herself unable to meet her commitments, thanks to the continental wars of William of Orange which had been financed by the Jewish moneylenders of Amsterdam. Despite the many dissident voices against the establishment of the Bank of England, (i.e. a method whereby the State finance was taken out of the control of the State and into the hands of bankers) the bill went through the House of Commons and, although the House of Lords asserted it was intended to enrich usurers at the expense of the nobility, the Bank came into being and was founded in 1694. Fueled by the gold and silver bled from South America that poured into Europe to fill the coffers of the bankers, the Industrial Revolution produced a false face of prosperity whilst at the same time destroying cottage industry, producing urban factory squalor and commencing the start of economic control by the moneylenders. This phase continued into the mid-nineteenth century when the first Jewish Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, commented: "...the world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes..." The stage was now set for the British Empire and underneath the Pomp and Circumstance came the steady infiltration into the economics of the east - and its riches. Max Weber, a historian, published "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism" (By that time usury had achieved respectability under the new title of Capitalism.) In his book he claimed that Protestantism - more specifically, its Calvinist branches - promoted the rise of modern capitalism. In England the need to muzzle the old ruling order was achieved, not by assassination or execution as in France and Russia, but by erosion, i.e. via a Land Tax and then by marriage. Lord Rosebery started the trend by marrying a Rothschild and Arthur Balfour, the signatory of the fallacious "Balfour Declaration", set the stage for the creation of Israel. The trend towards the formation of a new Jewish aristocracy continues with Blair's "title for money" policy, orchestrated by the chief fundraiser for the Labour Party, "Lord" Levy. Queen Victoria may have been the Empress of India but it was Disraeli the agent of the "City" of London who engineered the means whereby the east was conquered using the manpower of the British Isles. Thread Number Two: France In France the monarchy foundered on bankrupcy, stemming from Louis X1V's continental wars. Necker (supposedly Protestant but probably of Jewish origin) lauded as a financial genius, employed the dangerous tactics of using ruinous short-term loans at exorbitant interest to shore up the shaky finances, which spelt ultimate disaster. At the same time the necklace conspiracy engineered through Cagliostro (a Freemason) and the Jewish jewellers, Bassenge and Bohmer, fueled anger against the extravagance of the queen. The dismissal of Necker led to the attack on the Bastille, and the aristocracy - a much more top heavy group than the English variety - were effectively eradicated by the guillotine. France by this time had acquired a National Debt and the Bank of France was created in Paris in 1800. Napoleon wanted the country to break free from the power of the bankers and the debt. According to him: "when the Government is dependent on bankers for money, the bankers, not the leaders of the Government, are in control.... The hand that gives is above the hand that takes. Money has no motherland. Financiers are without patriotism or decency. Their sole object is gain." In 1806, he remarked: "By what miracle did whole provinces of France become heavily mortgaged to the Jews, when there are only sixty thousand of them in this country?" (MSS of Napoleon, 1811.) In 1882 the collapse of the Union Gen http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=235_1368721981 omniradar All Wars Are Bankers' Wars . Not in School History Books Strangely. All Wars & Both Sides & Financed By Zionist Bankers ! Wed, 15 May 2013 12:25:12 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=75c_1368634950 Donegal Halloween is a 1978 American independent horror film directed, produced, and scored by John Carpenter, co-written with Debra Hill, and starring Donald Pleasence and Jamie Lee Curtis in her film debut. The film is set in the fictional midwestern town of Haddonfield, Illinois. On Halloween, six year old Michael Myers murders his older sister by stabbing her with a kitchen knife. Fifteen years later, he escapes from a psychiatric hospital, returns home, and stalks teenager Laurie Strode and her friends. Michael's psychiatrist Dr. Sam Loomis suspects Michael's intentions, and follows him to Haddonfield to try to prevent him from killing. The limited budget also dictated the filming location and time schedule. Halloween was filmed in 21 days in the spring of 1978 in South Pasadena, California and Sierra Madre, California (cemetery). An abandoned house owned by a church stood in as the Myers house. Two homes on Orange Grove Avenue (near Sunset Boulevard) in Hollywood were used for the film's climax. The crew had difficulty finding pumpkins in the spring, and artificial fall leaves had to be reused for multiple scenes. Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) is sometimes given the distinction of also starting the slasher craze and preceding Halloween in originating the stylistic techniques as well as the usual plot devices. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, released five years prior to Halloween, has several things in common with the film: a group of free-spirited teenagers falling into the clutches of a sadistic, weapon-wielding masked villain ( Leatherface ) with a lone heroine. The film has also gone onto significantly influence the horror genre, much like Halloween. Several subsequent films with similar stylistic elements and themes became popular with audiences, including Friday the 13th, and later, A Nightmare on Elm Street . http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=75c_1368634950 Donegal Halloween 1978 - How it Looks Now 2013 - Filming Location Halloween, Herve Attia Mon, 13 May 2013 16:25:59 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=7b1_1368475463 Setright The black flag of al-Qaeda flies high over Raqqa's main square in front of the smart new governor's palace, its former occupant last seen in their prison. Their fighters, clad also in black, patrol the streets, or set up positions behind sandbags. By Richard Spencer, and David Rose 7:00AM BST 12 May 2013 The Islamists smashed up one of the two shops that sold alcohol. That much was pretty inevitable, the locals agreed. The other off-licence had already closed, as had the casino on the outskirts of town. They brought in a radical cleric from Egypt to preach Friday prayers, and set up a sharia court in the city's new sports centre with the support of other brigades. They had their fiefdom - an entire city to run only 60 miles from Nato'S border. Then, one night, 10 men came for Nagham and Nour al-Rifaie, two teenage sisters from a well-known liberal family. They were at home with a family friend, Yusra Omran, 30, and their male cousin, 32 . All these guys came in with guns and wearing masks and with handcuffs," said Nagham, 19, a civil engineering student. "They started searching everything, and shouting. "They were saying, 'Put on more clothes than you are wearing, put on a headscarf.' I just said I'm wearing clothes and I'm not putting on a headscarf'." The men took them to the sports centre. There the girls were charged with being alone with a man and interrogated. "The guy with us was so mean," Miss Rifaie said. "He was speaking in a horrible way, as if he was disgusted to be with us." In Raqqa, a once conservative but by all accounts not religious city, the triumph of al-Qaeda's Syrian arm, Jabhat al-Nusra, would seem to be complete. The town is largely under the control of Jabhat al-Nusra, affiliated to al-Qaeda (David Rose for the Telegraph). Little known a year ago but suspected of having being founded by al-Qaeda in Iraq, they have grown in stature, leading many of the rebels' most successful recent battles. Last month they publicly declared their loyalty to al-Qaeda's supreme leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri. Their new-found power is such that it is changing international calculations over the conflict. After first being discouraged from action by their presence in rebel ranks, Britain now has a revised diplomatic strategy. David Cameron put it to Russia's president Vladimir Putin on Friday and will discuss it this week with a nervous President Obama in Washington. Mr Cameron's officials now feel Jabhat al-Nusra has to be defeated by actively supporting the less militant rebels, including with arms. Many of Jabhat's rival militias are being marginalised in cities like Raqqa across the north. On Tuesday, Britain will seek to have Jabhat al-Nusra added to an official list of sanctions at the United Nations. Destroyed buildings near the Ahrar al-Sham Brigade Headquarters in the centre of Al Raqqa. The base was targeted by a regime airstrike last week (David Rose for the Telegraph) In taking Raqqa two months ago al-Qaeda achieved its greatest coup in the war to date: it was the first provincial capital to fall outright to the rebels, and allowed Jabhat to assume a leadership role over a large swathe of north-eastern Syria, to the Iraqi border. To many in it is a welcome development. "Jabhat are excellent for us," said Abdullah Mohammed, a man from the nearby village of Mansoura. "They deal with us according to Islamic rules, so there are no problems. They are honest and they run everything pretty well." As a police officer, Mr Mohammed said he was in a position to know the difference between life under al-Qaeda and the Assad regime. He was in prison when the revolution broke out - he had stopped a car for jumping a red light and found to his cost it was being driven by a regime official. He said he was in a cell with four members of President Bashar al-Assad's Alawite minority sect, and when the protests started the guards were taken away to fight and the Alawite prisoners turned into guards. Other locals too, particularly shopkeepers, say the all-pervasive corruption of the Assad era has vanished with the regime's men. "I like Jabhat," said Ahmed al-Hindy, who runs an optician's shop. "They are better than the regime, at any rate." An Islamic militant in the centre of Al Raqqa (David Rose for the Telegraph) Part of it is money. Jabhat al-Nusra has always been well-funded compared to other militias - most people assume due to wealthy backers in the Gulf, though few have been able to track down the lines of the money supply. Now they have control of good sources of income and can pay salaries. From the city's main flour mill, they supply the all-important bakeries, and they have seized some of them too. At night, long queues of women form to buy their daily ration under the watchful eyes of Jabhat guards. They have also taken the oilfields in neighbouring Deir al-Zour province. Production is hardly booming, but they are able to sell enough on the local market to keep cash rolling in. It is not all plain sailing, though. Even in Raqqa, no single militia is all-powerful, even Jabhat, and they depend on an alliance with Ahrar al-Sham, another radical Islamist group. They also have to deal with a slew of other brigades with a variety of ideologies. The dynamic of Jabhat's rise is being challenged out of both envy and fear, leading to clashes. Two senior rival militiamen have been assassinated in the last 10 days: Abu Awad of the Farouq Brigade, and, on Thursday, the head of the Ahfad al-Rasool, Abu al-Zein. In both cases the method was the same - three men in black and masks drove up to the victims' cars, shot them, then sped off. Some say it could be a leftover squad of Assad's Shabiha, but members of their militias point out both were known for support for a civil state, not an Islamic one. Another militia leader, Abu Deeb of the Lions of Islam, was arrested after a fight on Tuesday with Jabhat al-Nusra that brought the city to a brief standstill. Different explanations have been given, but Abdullah al-Khalil, the civilian who heads the town's interim administration, said it was over control of the town's largest bakery. "After Assad falls, there will be a second revolution, against Jabhat al-Nusra," said Amar Abu Yasser, a battalion leader with the Farouq Brigade. The Farouq was once the most famous brigade in the Syrian revolution, spreading its power from its base in Homs across the north of the country, where it still operates several of the border crossings to Turkey, including Tal Abyad, the nearest to Raqqa. But its power and influence has been severely curbed by Jabhat al-Nusra. Abu Azzam, the Farouq head at Tal Abyad, survived an assassination attempt when a bomb was placed under his car. The flag of Jabhat al-Nusra flying over the Governer's Palace (David Rose for the Telegraph) "The problem is due to ideology," said Mr Abu Yasser, until two years ago a student of Arabic literature, now a tough, bearded warrior in fatigues and a black turban. "There is a conflict between the black flag and the revolutionary flag." The green, white and black banner with three red stars made famous by the revolution still flies in Raqqa, but in a secondary place. "It is not wise to try to make an Islamic state here," he went on. "There are Christians, Alawites, Druze living here. It will just be a big problem." He also said Jabhat al-Nusra was not as honest and Muslim as it seemed. He claimed it had stripped the town's factories and smuggled their goods, including nearly 200 tons of sugar, to Turkey for profit. Jabhat has withdrawn into itself as tensions rise, and particularly since the declaration of obedience to al-Qaeda was issued, which confirmed its status as an internationally proscribed terrorist group. It no longer gives interviews or defends itself from such allegations, and has banned its men from talking to foreign journalists. Those its men stop at checkpoints in the city are accused of being "foreign spies" Graffiti is painted on a wall by members of Civic Society, one of the more liberal youth organizations in Al Raqqa (David Rose for the Telegraph) Some locals regarded as fanciful the idea that Farouq and other group would ever again have the strength to rise up and throw out Jabhat. But most proclaimed defiantly that Syria would not become a radical Islamic state. "This is all just for the war," said Mr al-Khalil, the town leader, who is happy to cooperate with Jabhat as he tries to re-establish schools and keep the water running. A former human rights lawyer once jailed by the regime, he said he could tolerate the black flags for now. "But I think the modern Islamic project will win in the end," he added, using a phrase commonly used to refer to a civil state with a Muslim ethos, like booming Turkey next door. He added a refrain repeated now across rebel Syria: it will be harder to keep the Islamists out if the West does not come to the aid of this "modern" project. As a follower of Abu Deeb, the arrested militia leader put it: "This is a pact with the devil. We would rather ally with Obama than Jabhat." At first glance, Jabhat have tried to play safe. A small but visible minority of women go without the hijab, or headscarf. The town's handful of Christian families have stayed put, for now: the churches are closed, but untouched. But it may have made a major strategic error with its announcement of loyalty to al-Qaeda. It did not cause a big stir in the West, where the link had been assumed, but it shocked many who had begun to tolerate Jabhat's presence. Their main Islamist allies, Ahrar al-Sham, immediately denounced it. "It was like a thunderbolt," said Abu Abdullah, 40, an Ahrar al-Sham fighter outside their main base, largely abandoned after being hit by Assad missiles. "It really surprised me and is unacceptable. Our goal is just to liberate Syria. We don't care about other countries - we don't want to go and fight in Iraq or anywhere." Then there was the arrest of Nagham al-Rifaie, Nour, 18, and their cousin and friend. That was a "what the hell?" moment, said Mohammed Shuaib, a student who has helped found a human rights discussion group, Haquna. It led a 500-strong protest to the sharia court the morning after the arrest. But by then the girls were already free. What happened is a glimmer of hope to men like Mr Shuaib. On arrival at the court, the girls were told they would immediately face two judges, local worthies brought in by the ruling Islamist alliance. It was one o'clock in the morning. Nagham was told to put a headscarf on. Again she refused. "They said to me, 'It's a sharia court, you can't go in without a headscarf'. I said, 'That's fine by me!' "So we stood before the court with no headscarves on." One of the judges, a teacher called Mohammed al-Omar, referred them to the charge sheet."He said, 'It says you were alone with a man, what do you say.' I said, 'It is none of their business.' "And he said, 'I agree'." The girls were freed immediately. They asked who the men who arrested them were, but no one was able to provide an answer. Whether the rest of Raqqa will escape so lightly, the girls could not say. "Things will become difficult, that's sure," said Miss Rifaie, sitting in a coffee shop last week with her father, himself a human rights activist, the two girls the only women present. "The problem is with the people. Because of the regime, if someone speaks to them who has power, they just sit there. But my father has taught me to have opinions. So I cannot stop." http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=7b1_1368475463 Setright Under the black flag of al-Qaeda, the Syrian city ruled by gangs of extremists World News, Middle East, Syria Sun, 28 Apr 2013 18:13:21 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=3d9_1367187022 foghorn_leghorn Through the slit of the burqa she wore to blend in on the streets of Alexandria, Egypt, Kalli Atteya waited and watched until the boy climbed off the school bus. When she saw him, she moved quickly, grabbing his arm and steering him toward the waiting motorized cart. "Get in," she said to the 12-year-old, who recognized his mother's piercing blue eyes and obeyed wordlessly. Soon, they were speeding toward a safehouse where they would wait for three weeks before returning to the U.S., and ending a 20-month ordeal that began with another abduction - one the boy, Khalil Mohamed "Niko" Atteya, did not accept willingly. His father, Mohamed Atteya, who is wanted by the U.S. authorities, is accused of luring the mother and son to his homeland, then snatching the boy and leaving Kalli Atteya and her sister on the side of a desolate road between Cairo and Port Said on Aug. 1, 2011. "My Dad forced me to be Muslim, which I did not want to do," Niko, who has been back in Pennsylvania for more than a month, told FoxNews.com. A world away, he had a determined mother who would spare no expense and even risk her own safety to save her boy. After a torturous struggle that included false leads, false hopes and more than $100,000 spent, Kalli Atteya finally showed what the love and determination of a mom can do "I was really nervous, but I was bound and determined to take my son," she told FoxNews.com during an interview in Chambersburg, Pa., near where Atteya and her son now live. With the help of a local guide, the 45-year-old mother had tracked her only child and her ex-husband, a man she had married more than a dozen years earlier, after meeting him at the Harrisburg, Pa., restaurant where he worked as a dishwasher. Mohamed Atteya, 38, who speaks Arabic, English and Chinese, and is wanted by the U.S. State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security Service for making false statements and providing forged documents to obtain a U.S. passport, had no idea his tenacious ex-wife was on his trail. "I followed him," Kalli Atteya said. "I mean, I came really close to him several different times. didn't recognize me, but my son did and when he saw me for the first time, he turned pale." When the time came, neither mom nor son hesitated. "My first reaction was if that was my mom or not, and then I saw her eyes," Niko said. "I thought, 'Thank God. I'm going to finally get out of here. I'm going to be free.'" These days, Niko is preparing to be home-schooled soon and begin his long reintegration process. He hopes to one day play football on his junior high school team and is grateful to be back in America. His mother is happy, too, though there is the constant fear that Mohamed Atteya will again appear in their lives, tracking down his son and trying once again to drag the boy back to Egypt and force him to live as a strict Muslim. "My son told me to make him a Muslim," Atteya replied when asked why she thought her ex-husband snatched the boy. "He said that we lack the morality and the values that their system has. And he said that Americans were so violent, he said we are a rotting society." "I saw him and walked right up to him, grabbed him by the arm and said, 'Get in.'"- Kalliopi 'Kalli' Atteya Kalli Atteya's fears are stoked by the vivid memory of the downward spiral of their marriage that culminated in the cruel betrayal that almost cost her her son. It was in 1999 when Kalliopi "Kalli" Panagos fell hard for Mohamed Atteya. Within a year, they married and moved to nearby Chambersburg. But trouble began shortly after Niko's birth in July of 2000. "Three months after our boy was born, he left," Kalli Atteya told FoxNews.com. "He moved back to Harrisburg, and he dated many, many women. I tried to save my marriage but it didn't work. Basically, he married me for a visa." After years of failed reconciliation attempts, the couple divorced in 2005. Mohamed Atteya briefly stayed in Harrisburg before moving to China, where he focused on his exporting business. Niko remained with his mother, who stayed in contact with her ex-husband. "Mohamed always had a thing for moving everywhere all the time," Kalli Atteya said. "But we talked all the time. He would tell me he still loved me - to string me along, I guess." Some six years later, during the height of the Egyptian revolution, Mohamed Atteya convinced his ex-wife to come with their son to meet his dying mother. Kalli was reluctant, but finally agreed, and her sister, Maria Panagos, came along for support. WANTEDAnyone with information regarding Mohamed Atteya should contact U.S. State Department officials at (855) 847-4377 or DSSMostWanted@state.gov. "He kept pushing and pushing until I finally relented," Kalli Atteya said. "I didn't want his mother to die without seeing her grandson." During the second night of their stay in Egypt, Mohamed began asking for his son's passport, Kalli recounted. Several times, he tried to take him off for a "man talk," she said. Then, on Aug. 1, 2011, Mohamed Atteya made his move as the group traveled from Cairo to Port Said. He complained of car trouble and forced Kalli and Maria Panagos out of the car in extreme heat, leaving Niko, himself and a driver to speed away. "Mohamed threw me off to the side and ran to the car," she said. "I remember seeing dragging behind the car as my son pounded on the windows. It was so unreal to me. At that very moment, I knew this was all preplanned." Local authorities were less than helpful, and with no idea where her former husband had taken their son, Kalli turned to a Norwegian company for help. With each new bit of hope came a new charge until she had spent more than $100,000, depleting her savings and funds borrowed from relatives. Still, she seemed no closer to reuniting with her son. Kalli Atteya, who had already visited Egypt three times since the seeing her ex-husband drive off with their son, returned again in October, more determined than ever to bring back her boy. A local man whom she does not want to identify helped her find them and pull off the rescue. But Kalli will feel safer when the man she once loved is locked away and can no longer haunt the dreams of her and her son. State Department officials told FoxNews.com they are aware of Atteya's case, but declined to provide further details due to privacy concerns. "One of the Department's highest priorities is the welfare of U.S. citizens overseas," the statement reads. "This is particularly true for children, who our most vulnerable citizens." Attorney Jeffrey Evans, who lobbied a local district attorney to file charges against Atteya, acknowledged the possibility of his return to the U.S. in search of Niko. "I do think it is a possibility because what he accomplished while here to set up the abduction was pretty impressive," Evans said of Atteya's alleged forgery on Niko's birth certificate and passport. But Evans said he'd also never bet against Kalli, who is now working toward finishing her master's degree in special education now that she can again focus on bettering herself. "If there was ever a testament to the power of a mother's love, she embodies that," Evans said. "She persevered through some very dark times. She showed a tenacity that not many would have. She really is something special." Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/04/28/pennsylvania-mother-reunited-with-son-after-rescue-in-egypt-fearful-reprisal/#ixzz2Rna3upvm http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=3d9_1367187022 foghorn_leghorn 'I saw her eyes': Mom dons burqa, rescues kidnapped son in Egypt Hero mom save child from shitty islam. Sat, 27 Apr 2013 19:17:55 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=a32_1367103734 aydeo Dozens of women's rights activists came out in support of an initiative to fight violence against women within Arab society on Friday morning. Activists, alongside family members of victims of violence, set out in two separate motorcades that will pass through Arab villages and cities, in both northern and southern Israel, in opposition to violence against women and specifically murder, in Arab society. The southern motorcade which began in Be'er Sheva, will travel through central Israel as well, passing through towns such as Rahat, Ramle, Kod, Kafr Qasem, Tira, and Taibeh, and Kalansua. The northern motorcade is set to travel through Kafr Manda, Sakhnin, Kafr Kana, Nazareth, Umm al-Fahm, and Baka al-Garbiyeh. The two processions were planned to begin their journeys simultaneously, with a small number of vehicles in each one, in the hope that more vehicles would join with each town passed. They are scheduled to meet in Kfar Kara, in Wadi Ara, for a large joint demonstration on Friday afternoon. "We refuse to legitimize the murder of women, and point an accusing finger at the police, who appear powerless to stop murder against women, and we hope to build a society that shuns all violence against women, primarily murder," read an announcement published by the event's organizers. According to the group, 75 Arab women were murdered over the last ten years, simply for being women. Hend Salmaan, one of the activists from the Negev, said that the women want each and every person to feel personally responsible for shielding Arab society from violence, and to act against the terrible trend of murdering women, which results from the deterioration of society, and reflects the political and economic exclusion that the Arab public faces. Fauzia Faisal, whose daughter was killed by her husband in February 2012 in Nazareth. Her family will participate in the demonstration. "My message to Arab society is this: Do not remain silent, my daughter was a woman who suffered greatly for a long time, but remained silent, and we as a society, unfortunately, have encouraged silence, and in the end she paid with her life. Here three children will grow up without a mother, and with a father behind bars. The time has come to put an end to this violence, and to murdering women." Marwa Dahar, who lost her daughter Alla in 2011 will also be part of the demonstration. Ella Dahar was murdered while visiting her sister in Ramle. The police arrested a suspect, who was later released because of a lack of evidence. "Every I day I suffer, and feel the loss, while the murderer runs free. I feel anger and disappointment with all of the whole society, the police, and the state institutions that do nothing. I cannot close my eyes without thinking of my daughter's killer running free. I call on everyone to get out and take up our cry." Samah Salaime-Egbariya, a women's rights activist in Lod and Ramle also encouraged Arab MKs to join the efforts. "I think that today, this is the first test of the connection between Arab MKs and their voters on the ground. Those who are actually committed to this society's struggle against violence will wait for us outside of their village and hold up a sign that reads 'yes to life, no to murdering women.' Those MKs need to tell society, and especially the bereaved families, exactly what they are doing to bring the murders to justice." http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/israeli-arab-activists-set-out-in-motorcade-to-protest-anti-women-violence.premium-1.517754 Photos: Pregnent 19 yrs old torched to death as honor killing (2), Honor killings in Lod and Ramle (3-4) - In the 4th photo the young mother was shot to death while her child was with her in the car...Maya Pars, the young sister of the first Arab Druze beauty queen in Israel, was shot to death in honor killing during July 2011 (5) http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=a32_1367103734 aydeo Arab activists in Israel set out in motorcade to protest violence against women in the Arab society Arab activists, motorcades,Arab towns,Honor killings Fri, 10 May 2013 12:00:27 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e0e_1368201455 AntiPropagaanda Malcolm Shabazz Reveals FBI Harassment UPDATE: Malcolm-Latif Shabazz was killed in a robbery in Mexico today, May 9, 2013, exactly two months after publishing this account about alleged FBI harassment. http://freespeakblog.blogspot.com/2013/05/malcolm-shabazz-killed-in-mexico.html FROM OUR BROTHER MALCOLM-LATIF SHABAZZ: MY STATEMENT CONCERNING THE HARASSMENT FROM THE POLICE/FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION WHICH RESULTED IN MY UNJUST ARREST AND DETAINMENT IN FEBRUARY 2013, AND PLACED A HALT ON MY TRAVEL TO TEHRAN, IRAN TO PARTICIPATE IN THE INTERNATIONAL FAJR FILM FESTIVAL. I sincerely appreciate the care and concern of the People over my well-being after Press TV's report of the most recent events which have transpired regarding the F.B.I.'s harassment of me. Given the storm of lies, and half-truths that come with being associated with being the descendant of El Hajj Malik el Shabazz, also known as Minister Malcolm X, any and everything that I do; great or small, good or not so good, real or imagined is subject to controversy. However, in this missive I will take this opportunity to properly & fully disclose what transpired. In the beginning of 2012 I had been informed that I was under investigation by the F.B.I.'s Counter Terrorism Task Force Unit located in Goshen, N.Y. The agents of this division-and in collaboration with others-have visited several residences of which I was known by them to frequent. However, they would never come when they knew me to actually be there. They would leave their cards with the residents asking them to tell me to call them, and then would tell surrounding residents to observe the house and to notify them if they saw me. These are the homes of long-time friends, and very close supporters. Yet, when federal agents begin knocking on someone's door on multiple occasions to snoop, and ask questions, whether one is guilty of an offense or not, it's enough to coerce people into distancing themselves from you. This cheap tactic employed by the F.B.I. is a means of agitation & harassment. They seek to neutralize my networking abilities. They have visited locations in California, Chicago, Miami and most aggressively in New York. People were advising me that if I had nothing to hide, then I should just contact them as requested and cooperate. Though I must say that in these kind of matters I am of a particular ethic. For one, I have been engaged in no criminal activity of their concern, and they could have located me if they so chose. Secondly, I don't recognize the authority in them beckoning me. It wasn't even until my mother informed me that they had been contacting her that I truly became agitated. She advised me to see what they had to say, and so I obliged the next time they came around looking for me. My encounter was with 2 federal agents of Goshen, N.Y.'s Counter Terrorism Task Foci Unit. The primary agent identified himself as Special Agent Tom Brozicky. They expressed concern over-as they put it-my "international travels"; I have lived and studied in Damascus, Syria for over a year, and now the U.S. is instigating conflict within the very same region; I went on ex-congresswoman/former presidential candidate Cynthia Mckinney's delegation along with Dr. Randy Short to Libya, and met with Leader Muammar Gadhafi one week prior to N.A.T.O. intervention. And I was most recently getting ready to travel to Tehran, Iran to be a participant of the International Fajr Film Festival and give a lecture addressing the issues of Hollywood and violence: - Modern Violence and Terrorism, - Provoking clashes between religions and populations I was picked up by authorities after I filed for a visa to Iran, and two days prior to my departure, a detective squad from the City of Middletown Police Department surrounded me in the street about two blocks from where I was residing. They asked me my name, and I gave them an alias, but they were already well aware of who I actually was. I didn't tell them my real name because I didn't know what was going on. When I was brought before a Judge of City of Middletown court I was surprised to be informed that I was being charged with Grand Larceny, and False Impersonation charge. Then I was sent to jail, and told to appear again seven days later. Then following court date the bogus charge of Grand Larceny, which they only put to justify stopping me in first place, was dropped. And they left me to face the False Impersonation. I was offered 90 days for the offense of giving the authorities the wrong name which I declined before bailing out after 2 weeks. When I was being held within the belly of the beast on trumped up charges, to my rescue came the journalist at Press TV, based in Iran. My relationship with the powerful and progressive news outfit began in April of 2012, and prior to that I had discussions with their journalist regarding current events internationally. I developed a positive rapport with some of them and as a result, I was invited to travel to Iran to discuss the impact of Hollywood in stereotyping Muslims, Iranians and African people. From January 15th through 18th, 2013, I was a featured interviewee for the Press TV documentary "The Facade of the American Dream." Prior to my date of departure to Iran, Lifetime television released a television bio-picture called "Betty & Coretta" which was a sensationalistic misrepresentation of my grandparents, my mother and me. This film, aside from being poorly acted and shallow in depth, also threatened to inflame old controversies and open unhealed wounds and to remind the public of sad outcomes without ever identifying B.O.S.S.I., the C.I.A., F.B.I. and other forces that set the climate for my grandfather's assassination and made my family a long-suffering casualty of COINTELPRO and other anti-Black repression programs. Naturally, anything done to stir up old hatred of The Shabazz Family will impact me as the namesake, and first male heir of Malcolm X, and whether I am high or low in fortunes does not exempt me from this reality. The formula for a public assassination is: the character assassination before the physical assassination; so one has to be made killable before the eyes of the public in order for their eventual murder to then deemed justifiable. And when the time arrives for these hits to be carried out you're not going to see a C.I.A. agent with a suit & tie, and a badge that says "C.I.A." walk up to someone, and pull the trigger. What they will do is to out-source to local police departments in the region of their target, and to employ those that look like the target of interest to infiltrate the workings in order to set up the environment for the eventual assassination (character, physical/incarceration, exile) to take place. For several months prior to my arrest in late January, 2013 I faced a pattern of harassment from law enforcement which is usually reserved for important figures. On Thursday, November 1, 2012 @ 11:53pm in the park circle area of Middletown, N.Y. I was stopped by officers of the Middletown Police Department, and given a ticket for "J-Walking" (crossing in the middle of the street), which then escalated into a "Disorderly Conduct" supposedly because of the exchange of words that I had with the officers. I told them that they couldn't possibly be serious for writing me a "J-Walking ticket", that I didn't appreciate how they were treating me and that they shouldn't be looking at me as less of a man because they were in police uniform. For this I was arrested, the officers stole the little amount of money that I had on me, they then stripped me and threw me in a freezing precinct cell for the remainder of that early morning. I was finally taken before the "Judge Steven Brockett" around 1:30pm. He gave me an unreasonable bail, and then ordered that I be remanded to the Orange county Jail. This penalty may seem a bit extreme or harsh to most of you, but here is where it gets worse: On Tuesday, October 30th, exactly 2 nights prior to this incident, the same officer "J Berman" who wrote me the ticket for "J-Walking" & "Disorderly Conduct" stopped me coming from out of a store in the same area, and questioned me as to what I was doing. I told him that I was coming out of the store. He asked to see what I bought which was a pack of sun flower seeds. I had actually just so happened to be eating a few while he was talking to me, and I spit one of the shells on the ground. At this point officer "J Berman" threatened to write me a ticket for littering. Needless to say, I was dumbfounded, but I went home that night. Yet, it still doesn't even begin there. I had an encounter with other officers of the Midletown Police Department one week prior to officer "J Berman's" threats to write me a ticket for spitting a sun flower seed on the ground: I was coming out of a restaurant with my mother, and her friend. As the 3 of us entered the car to leave two police cars converged on our vehicle, and boxed us in. My mother was petrified. With guns drawn I was then ordered to step out of the back seat. I asked them why to which they replied that I had several warrants for my arrest. I told them that they were mistaken, but I still complied with their request. Humiliated in front of all on-lookers, I was then thrown on the car while the officers ripped through my pockets. After they were done they said that it was my lucky day because I actually didn't have any warrants at all, and so I was free to go! One of these officer's name was "R. Ribeiro"... You may wonder if it could possibly get any worse than this. Well, it does! Approximately three weeks prior to the public humiliation of my mother, and me by "R Ribeiro" and another officer of the Middletown Police Department I found myself subject to the discrimination & prejudice of Mayor Joseph M. Destefano of Middletown, N.Y. himself. A friend, and I went out to eat at a restaurant in Middletown, N.Y. which is owned by the Mayor, and to our surprise he appeared from nowhere and asked us to leave. When we inquired as to why he stated that officials of the Middletown Police Department told him not to let us patronize his establishment. Mind you that this goes without incident. As I stand for the people, God-Willing, I would pray that the same people wouldn't hesitate to stand for me. If these unjust & heinous actions are tolerated & allowed to be done to me without recourse, then no one is safe. Just as Huewy P Newton of the Black Panther Party stated that police are in the white community to protect & serve, yet occupy ours like a foreign troop ... I tell you that we shouldn't fall victim to the conditioning of feeling inferior or fearful at the presence of law enforcement for no apparent reason. With that being said, I was not arrested by federal agents. I was taken in by a squad from the City of Middletown, N.Y.'s Police Department. I was not being held in an "undisclosed location" so to speak. I was actually being held in the Orange County Jail in Goshen, N.Y. However, from the time that I was booked at the precinct, to standing before a Judge the next day who told me to come back in seven more, to being processed at the Orange County Jail and up until seven days later I was not permitted to make any calls to notify anyone of my status; as though I had just been kidnapped from of the street. Unfortunately, until this day my family hasn't been fully abreast of my situation as I haven't had the opportunity to properly consult with any of them. Dr. Randy Short, who notified Press TV of my situation, is a close comrade of mine who was on our delegation in Libya. Media reports from Press TV about my situation were not intended to create controversy. In reality, I have a few associates that are affiliated with this reputable International media outlet, and they had expected to meet with me in Iran. So when I disappeared and rumors spread, the inability to get concise information from a credible source prompted them to rouse public attention on my behalf, for which I am grateful. In April of 2012,I had the opportunity to be a guest analyst/contributor on Press TV. This network has a large following all over the world, and millions find it's news, documentaries and programming to be both an educational, and insightful alternative to the conglomerated, and highly biased mainstream American & British news media. Regarding the Source magazine, nothing that they published was vetted by me, and was made by persons, at best, vaguely familiar with my situation. Further, I have never had an affiliation or relationship with The Source, nor have they ever directly consulted with me about anything. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e0e_1368201455 AntiPropagaanda Malcolm Shabazz Reveals FBI Harassment FBI, Assassination, Terror, Malcolm X, Grand Son, Human right, Writer, Fri, 10 May 2013 06:13:46 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=5e4_1368179317 forbes1973 The inheritance of Abraham. A report on the 'promised land' May 2013 May Introduction Ten years ago the General Assembly received the report Theology of Land and Covenant, from the Board of World Mission, Church and Nation Committee and the Panel on Doctrine.1 This report concluded with encouragement for us to listen more to others, "enriched by new insights through continuing questions that need to be faced". Since 2003, two new insights have been noted by the General Assembly: in 2007, in the report What Hope for the Middle East?2 the Church of Scotland responded to a declaration from Church leaders in Jerusalem, and endorsed their criticism of Christian Zionism and encouraged members of the Church of Scotland to reject it, and in 2009 Christians in the Holy Land came together and produced Kairos Palestine: a moment of truth, offered as a word of faith, hope and love from the heart of Palestinian Suffering3 (information at http://www.kairospalestine.ps). With the co-operation and support of the World Mission Council, we present this report in 2013 as our latest reflection on the 'questions that need to be faced', as the political and humanitarian situation in the Holy Land continues to be a source of pain and concern for us all. The Bible and the land of Israel There has been a widespread assumption by many Christians as well as many Jewish people that the Bible supports an essentially Jewish state of Israel. This raises an increasing number of difficulties and current Israeli policies regarding the Palestinians have sharpened this questioning. This assumption of biblical support is based on views of promises about land in the Hebrew Bible.4 These views are disputed. The guidance in the Bible, notably the interpretation in the New Testament, provides more help in responding to questions about land and covenant. It also provides insight (discussed later in the report) into how Christians might understand the occupation of Palestinian land by the state of Israel, threats to Middle East peace and security, human rights, and racial intolerance, especially in the forms of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. The phrase "the land of Israel" has a range of understandings amongst the three world faiths, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The city of Jerusalem, which is a holy place for all three religions, is the most contentious religious and political issue. In general terms there have been three main ways of understanding the promises about land in the Bible: 1. A territorial guarantee 2. A land held in trust 3. A land with a universal mission. 1. A territorial guarantee This idea presents scripture as making unconditional, literal promises referring to a specific, identifiable territorial area for the Israelites. Such texts as the following have been cited to support this view: 1 The 2003 report Theology of Land and Covenant is available at http://www.churchofscotland.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/13230/Theology_of_Land_and_Covenant.pdf 2 The 2007 report What Hope for the Middle East is available at: http://www.churchofscotland.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/3776/middle_east_07.pdf 3 Information about Kairos Palestine is at http://www.kairospalestine.ps 4 The Hebrew Bible corresponds with the Christian Old Testament. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=5e4_1368179317 forbes1973 Church of Scotland upsets Jews (Who doesn't?) with report which questioned the divine right of Jews to the land of Israel. Jewish, Church of Scotland, Israel, Criticism of Israel is not Antisemitism. Thu, 09 May 2013 20:54:09 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=8f2_1368146661 SvenVonErick Image found here . Police hire state registered confidential informants to beat up, kill, and set up police targets. It is for retaliation, revenue collection, property confiscation, and to protect the racketeering turf, prostitution rings, heroin and crack cocaine trafficking, house break-in rings, vandalism for charging property owners fines for having broken windows and damaged siding, and for making police, lawyers, government insiders, organized crime, international bankers, and corporate criminals more money. So what does that have to do with Libya, Hillary Clinton, and the murder of US Libyan Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens ]? Were rocket propelled grenade launchers and shoulder fire missiles gotten into the hands of alleged Barack Obama and international banker run Al Qaeda? Is there to be attacks on US Aircraft in the US to put the US under Martial Law where DHS and military contractors can run check points to further rip off and abuse all Americans? Why is the US Department of Homeland Security buying billions of rounds of ammunition and driving wheeled tanks on US roads? Was Chris Stevens murdered to cover up a CIA and international banker plot? Should Hillary Clinton be prosecuted. Should Obama and US Attorney Barack Obama be prosecuted for their roles in the taxpayers scammed out tax dollars for the ATF' "Fast and Furious" program/Psy-Op to end the 2nd Amendment? Should Obama and Eric Holder be prosecuted for being accessories to murders having facilitated guns getting into the hands of Mexican Drug gangs to commit murders? Were Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton, Arkansas State Police brass, and other Clinton cronies cocaine traffickers for the CIA and international bankers. Did Hillary Clinton order the murder of citizens who knew too much? Meet the Clintons ] Should Hillary Clinton be prosecuted for her role in the lying, cover up, and the murder of Christopher Stevens? Should Hillary and Bill be prosecuted for their roles as druglords and kingpins and for their past murder spree? A post to go with the below video ] Vermont US Senator Patrick Leahy shut up after the Connecticut version of the CIA allegedly sent him Antrax in a letter. Was Leahy terrorized into being a puppet for international bankers and US police organized crime? What do former US Attorney, former Connecticut State Police Commissioner and now Judge John A. Danaher III and former UConn student Tomas Foral have to do with the Anthrax Hoax back in 2001? That story ] Text and Links to go with Alex Jones video: Text with video: Published on May 9, 2013 Top U.S. Diplomat in Libya Knew Benghazi Was Terrorism Daily Beast For eleven days after the 9/11 anniversary assault on the U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi, top Obama administration officials told the public that the assault stemmed from a protest of an anti-Muslim YouTube video. That was the public line from the White House in the closing weeks of a presidential election season, but it was not the view of several State Department officials at the time or the U.S. personnel on the ground in Libya. At a hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Benghazi Wednesday, Trey Goudy, a Republican from South Carolina, read into the record an email from Beth Jones, the acting assistant secretary of state for Near East Affairs. The September 12 email-disclosed for the first time on Wednesday-said Jones had spoken to Libya's ambassador to Washington who said the attack was the work of former Gadhafi regime loyalists. Jones said she told the ambassador: "The group that conducted the attacks, Ansar al-Sharia, is affiliated with Islamic terrorists." Jones was not the only one who viewed the attack as the work of terrorists. Gregory Hicks, the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. embassy in Tripoli at the time, said there were no reports from U.S. personnel in Libya there was a demonstration. In often-dramatic testimony, Hicks provided new details of the attack in the evening of Benghazi. He said he had no doubt the assault on the U.S. compound in Benghazi at the time was a terrorist attack, noting that Ansar al-Sharia had claimed credit for the assault on its twitter feed. Indeed, the U.S. embassy in Tripoli believed it would be attacked next. Hicks said embassy personnel smashed hard drives, loaded weapons into armored vehicles and that the 55 embassy employees in Tripoli that evening were gathered in a safe annex all in anticipation of the attack. http://www.infowars.com/latest-on-ben... https://twitter.com/RealAlexJones https://www.facebook.com/AlexanderEme... * * * * Click here for Steven G. Erickson LiveLeak.com posts and video uploads ] Text and Links to go with Connecticut State Police state registered confidential informant video: Uploaded on Jan 26, 2008 Police hire informants to kill, MORE: http://starkravingviking.blogspot.com... keywords: informants, Connecticut, police, prosecutorial, prosecutor, judge, judicial, judiciary, misconduct, brutality, Hartford, Capitol, legislative, building, Colchester, Troop K, Connecticut State Police, Briger, Lieutenant, Sargent, LT, Sgt., Richard, Nardella, Tom, Charles, Scott, Thomas, Ian, Steven, Stephen, Steve, Murzin, Rich, Richard, Phillip, Inkel, Todd, Vashon, kill, murder for hire, hit man, governor, rell, Kevin, Kane, States, Attorney, lawyer, counsel, FBI, IAD, Internal Affairs, investigation, indictment, prosecution, Richard C. Blumenthal, Attorney General, John G. Rowland, F. Mac Mack Buckley, Hartford, mafia, gang, gangland killing, prostitute, informant, tax, money, dollars, corruption, Massachusetts, New York, city, town, sealed, records, transcripts, protest, action, legal, docket, number, price, fee, district, bribe, perjury, lying, false, dead, Los Angeles, street gang, gun, shoot, knife, chain, handcuffs, prison, prisoner, probation, parole, terms, years, months, days, hours, guard, DOC, DMR, UConn, Stafford Springs, Ellington, Vernon, Rockville, Judge Jonathan J. Kaplan, Steven G. Erickson, Jeffrey R. Yeaw, Arthur L. Spada, Commissioner, department, deputy, sheriff, marshal, senator, representative, crime, punishment, slander, false, statement, political, error, freedom, reform, rally, rights, civil, US, America, Constitution, George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton, election, propaganda, free enterprise, speech, redress, grievances, complain, testify, oath, promise, breach, downtown, urban, blight, riot, unrest, peace, California, Washington, DC, cell phone, files, hidden, private, juvenile, detective, narcotics, thug, trooper, officer, retaliation, intimidation, circumvent, tease, taser, mayhem, rape, robbery, mugging, mugger, self defense, hospital, care, intensive, ambulance, mercy, prayer, confidence, secret, priest, pedophile, list, sex, offender, bicycle, mask, badge, police misconduct complaint, Connecticut, Martial Law, racism, bias, blatant, http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=8f2_1368146661 SvenVonErick Police hire informants to Kill, and Hillary's Benghazi Cover-Up? UN, US, gun, ban, confiscation, censorship, Martial Law, Patriot Act, NDAA, Connecticut, State, Police, brutality, Boston, bombing, Newtown, Sandyhook, Schoolyard, shooting, OWS, media, mainstream, lies, hoax Wed, 08 May 2013 10:00:05 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=192_1368021144 omniradar It is quite a long piece, but very informative indeed. Was the Syria Chemical Weapons Probe "Torpedoed" by the West? By Adam Larson Global Research, May 02, 2013 Region: Middle East & North Africa Theme: US NATO War Agenda In-depth Report: SYRIA: NATO'S NEXT WAR? Since the perplexing conflict in Syria first broke out two years ago, the Western powers' assistance to the anti-government side has been consistent, but relatively indirect. The Americans and Europeans lay the mental, legal, diplomatic, and financial groundwork for regime change in Syria. Meanwhile, Arab/Muslim allies in Turkey and the Persian Gulf are left with the heavy lifting of directly supporting Syrian rebels, and getting weapons and supplementary fighters in place. The involvement of the United States in particular has been extremely lackluster, at least in comparison to its aggressive stance on a similar crisis in Libya not long ago. Hopes of securing major American and allied force, preferrably a Libya-style "no-fly zone," always leaned most on U.S. president Obama's announcement of December 3, 2012, that any use of chemical weapons (CW) by the Assad regime - or perhaps their simple transfer - will cross a "red line." And that, he implied, would trigger direct U.S. intervention. This was followed by vague allegations by the Syrian opposition - on December 6, 8, and 23 - of government CW attacks. Nothing changed, and the allegations stopped for a while. However, as the war entered its third year in mid-March, 2013, a slew of new allegations came flying in. This started with a March 19 attack on Khan Al-Assal, a contested western district of Aleppo, killing a reported 25-31 people. Dramatic imagery run by state news agency SANA and from a Reuters photographer showed people - including children - suffering breathing problems, some already deceased. The Syrian government and related sources were the first to report it, blaming "terrorists" as usual. In an equally predictable answer, rebels accused the Syrian military of launching the attack. Syria demanded an investigation into the event by the United Nations, and everyone else agreed. A team was assembled, but then in early April Syria blocked them, for reasons that come across as mysterious. Soon, the world was hearing unprecedent recognition that perhaps Obama's "red line" had been crossed - not by "terrorists" but by the Assad regime - somewhere, at some times since December. The deadly nerve agent sarin is increasingly specified for reasons that aren't entirely clear. All this has kicked off a renewed drive for intervention based on intelligence assessments of WMD dangers, evoking widely-noted memories of the bogus U.S. case for war on Syria's ally Iraq one decade ago. Although the latest developments cast doubt on the imminence of outright military involvement - yet again - the danger persists, and the purported reasons deserve scrutiny. It's only been six weeks since this saga began, but they were weeks of the whirlwind sort. Considering where all the twirling has left us - horribly confused, if not on the brink of war - I offer this article towards unspinning the record to discover just what happened in that time. Three Highlighted Chemical Weapons Allegations At the start of the six weeks was the March 19 incident in Khan al-Assal, Aleppo and Syria's dramatic charges over it. But before considering that or the investigation saga, it might be useful to briefly outline the three reported attacks forced now into question, as they are confused. The investigation model now prevailing, first prposed by the Bristish and French governments on March 21, involved three incidents singled out; Khan al-Assal and a same-day incident in the Damascus area, as well as another one in the city of Homs, on December 23, 2012. The opposition Local Coordination Committees (LCC), drawing on front-line fighters, reported the incident at Otaybah (Ateiba) near Damascus, in their daily summary of March 19. (interestingly, this mentions two CW incidents, while failing to mention the Aleppo incident. In its place they mentioned a possible gas attack in Baba Amr, Homs, which no one else has repeated since). The LCC said "fierce shelling with chemical rockets targeted Ateibeh town today," causing "a large number" of people to suffer breathing problems, nausea, and "hysteria," as well as causing the death of some "martyrs." The number of fatalities is not stated, here or anywhere easily found. Otaybah is reported to have been a rebel-held area, but very near Syrian military positions, adding plausibility to the report. Also of interest is that SANA and the Syrian government had nothing immediately to say on the incident there. There would be further CW allegations in the east Damascus suburbs: Aadra March 24, Jobar April 6, and Otaybah again April 9, at least. All came with some evidence but slim details, and are sure to increase interest in investigating there. One or more of these sites would allegedly yield soil samples with possible traces of sarin gas (see below). The December Homs Attack listed in the Anglo-French letter was talked about at the time, in many dramatic news reports. A handful of videos from a clinic in the Al-Bayada district show patients gasping horribly for breath. All victims seem to be rebel fighters in civilian dress. The death toll was said to be six, with as many as 100 people exposed. People took this charge seriously, but it was dismissed by mid-January as not a CW attack. CNN reported then on a State Department investigation that found it was probably a riot-control gas used in the wrong concentration. Further, CNN hear that Turkey also looked into this case "but found the claims to be unsubstantiated." The methodology was not explained, and the dismissal is not certain. Now the incident is back in the limelight, thought by the British and French to require urgent scrutiny. Khan Al-Assal But however important those other cases are, all this investigation drama began immediately after the well-documented incident in Aleppo. Little about the event is agreed on by both sides, but where the strike happened is one commonality. Khan al-Assal has been in rebel hands, but almost everyone agrees to consider it government-held by the 19th (aside from a rebel-occupied police academy). Channel 4's Alex Thomson heard that authorities only re-established full control two days before the attack (he also heard it was a predominately Shi'ite district.) Rebels say the regime hit its own area either on accident, or to make it look like rebels did it. That Syrians were killed in moderate numbers is not contested. The early reports specified 25-26 fatalities, with some rebel estimates lower, and the government tally later adjusted to 31. In the images publicized, some victims are civilians, including women and children, and some are fighting age males in Syrian army uniforms. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), an opposition group but with a variety of sources, reported a "rocket" (no mention of gas) causing 26 fatalities - ten civilians, 16 soldiers. SANA said the rocket hit "in a region populated by civilians," but only 300 meters from a Syrian Arab Army post. No one disputes the date. This itself is a clue, coming as it does after several events that invited a crossing of Obama's "red line." From March 15-18, the rebellion's second anniversary passed, the U.S. treasury freed citizens to finance Syria's opposition, NATO reminded everyone they were prepared for war, and a U.S. citizen from Texas was elected prime minister of the Syrian National Coalition. When Ghassan Hitto was chosen on March 18, the Syrian-American Council "said the decision should assuage the Obama administration's concerns about who would lead Syria should President Bashar al-Assad be deposed." Why Damascus would decided to test Obama's chemical ultimatum on the morning of the 19th, of all times, is difficult to understand. Further, the approximate time of that test is one more undisputed point: around 7:30-8:00 am by all accounts. But just about everything else is disagreed. Various chemical agents have been suggested by rebels and their supporters, but sarin is not one of them; the later talk of that seems to surround soil from one of the Damascus area attacks. However, an industrial accident has been suggested, along with "super strength tear gas" and something with "traces of cyanide." Israeli DEBKA file heard from "Western military sources" an educated guess that chlorine, phosphorous, and a nerve agent (BZ or Agent 15) were used in "the Scud B rocket which exploded in the Aleppo neighborhood of Khan al-Assal." Perhaps most intriguingly, the U.S.-based Syrian Support Group intriguingly cited "echothiophate" for both March 19 attacks, Damascus and Aleppo. Widely used as a treatment for the eye ailment glaucoma, this could be a clue that president Bashar Al-Assad, a former eye doctor, personally made the poison choice. Besides these, there seem to be no other concrete guesses as to what hit Khan al-Assal. The way the gas was delivered comes across in opposition reports, vaguely, as something rebels don't have. At least two alleged witnesses cite fighter jets, one specifying that they missed their target by about 5 km. The more widely accepted explanation is a surface-to-surface missile, probably a Scud. But this too has problems; CNN spoke to "a senior State Department official" who said there was no radar or satellite data to "indicate there was a launch of a missile at the time Syrians say the alleged attack occurred." That's the same time rebels say an alleged Scud was launched, so whether he meant to or not, the official contradicted the rebel claim here. In contrast, the government claims a smaller homemade rocket, armed with a chlorine and saline warhead, was fired on their forces. Supporting the chemical claim, the first reports had noted that residents said they could smell chlorine in the area following the attack. And consider that the launch of a smaller projectile like this should probably not show up in the data CNN referred to, meaning that clue (if it's even true) does not coflict with the government version, the way it does the rebel one. One issue working against the Damascus version is the two firing locations specified. First SANA reported the rocket came from Kafr Dael (Kafr Taal on Wikimapia, 13 km west of Khan al-Assal). Later Alex Thomson heard that al-Bab, 47 km northeast, was the suspected origin. While no more than one of those can be correct, either is entirely plausible. Rockets that could reach from al-Bab are rare, but one improvised model launched on video, near Damascus in February, was said by its handlers to have a range of 60 kilometers. This, or some equivalent weapon, could work from either specified locale the following month. As for the chlorine, it's known to be held by rebels in large amounts. CNN's Aryn Baker related how the reported smell of the attack stood out to "the owner of Syria's only chlorine-gas manufacturing plant," Mohammad Sabbagh. He had fled to Lebanon, and spoke to Baker in Beirut. He says the plant, just east of Aleppo, was taken over by Jabhat al-Nusra (Al Qaeda in Syria) in August 2012. "There is no other factory in Syria that can make this gas, and now it is under opposition control," he says." He hears that the plant is not operating now, but Sabbagh "has no idea what has happened, if anything," to the one-ton tanks of chlorine gas, roughly 400 of which once stored there. Sabbagh is supported in his account by a head of the Aleppo Chamber of Industry. Passing through Beirut, he told Baker "we warned back then that chemical components were in the hands of terrorists, but no one listened." At play then are: plenty of chlorine, rockets with range, expertise obtainable to serious terrorist networks, and many basing areas within range of loyalist-held Khan al-Assal. Given all that, it's little comfort to hear as a denial, from opposition spokesman Louay Meqdad,"we have neither long-range missiles nor chemical weapons. And if we did, we wouldn't use them against a rebel target." Syria, in contrast, swears if they had CW, they would never use them against their own people at all. As we examine the battle over an investigation, it should be noted from the start that the case for a rebel attack in Aleppo is stronger and clearer than most realize. In fact it seems clearer by a healthy margin than the version rebels have so far offered. Yet that narrative and that attack in general have been effectively sidelined, in favor of whole other alleged attacks. Conflicting Urgencies at the U.N.: The Battle Over Scope Both initial versions of the gas attack on Khan Al-Assal, reported by the warring Syrian parties, came with moral denunciation of the perpetators on the other side, and these were echoed by outside supporters along unsurprising lines. Russia's foreign ministry, for example, said "the use of chemical weapons by the armed opposition ... (is) a new and extremely alarming and dangerous turn." They added "we are extremely, seriously concerned by the fact that weapons of mass destruction have gotten into militants' hands." The demand for an investigation began with Syria's government, the day after the attack. Their representative at the U.N., Dr. Bashar Al-Ja'afari, on the 20th requested the Secretary-General to form a "mission to investigate the use by the terrorist groups operating in Syria of chemical weapons yesterday against civilians." He specified that the effort should be "technical" "independent," and "neutral." Russia supported that, with deputy foreign minister Gennady Gatilov saying "we expect that the UN secretary general will promptly react to Syria's request." Iran backed the call, and continued pressing various nations and leaders, with little success, to condemn the attack as an opposition one. Western powers always publicly doubted rebels were behind the incident, but agreed it was worthy of investigation; every party was clear that they wanted the truth. Both sides agreed on using terms like "impartial" and "urgent" to describe their solutions, yet the best approach was consistently disagreed on. Both Russia and Syria complained on the 20th, the same day Syria first asked for a probe, that the UK and France had blocked it, in a "stalling" measure. The Western powers used the stall to explain, in a letter from France and the UK on the 21st, why the U.N. should instead "launch an urgent investigation into all allegations." In particular, they added the Otaybah attack, Reuters heard, "and one in Homs in December." On hearing a demand to investigate the Otaybah incident, representative al-Ja'afari said he'd never heard of it, proposing that it "was set up on purpose to torpedo the investigation on the real use of chemical weapons which took place in Aleppo." Russia's U.N. envoy Vitaly Churkin voiced suspicion that "this was really a way to delay the need for immediate, urgent investigation of allegations pertaining to March 19 by raising all sorts of issues." This "unjustified step" of widening the probe, Russia's foreign ministry warned (perhaps with some hyperbole) "wrecks the investigation of concrete information." U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon first seemed favorable to Syria's position; he announced on March 21 that "I am of course aware that there are other allegations of similar cases involving the reported use of chemical weapons," but the probe would focus on "the specific incident brought to my attention by the Syrian government." However, he announced on the 25th that it might be broadened, and asked for more information from everyone. Reuters was given letters between U.N. Disarmament director Angela Kane and Syria's Ja'afari, discussing the investigation's terms. In one, Kane said Aleppo would be the main focus, but "we must remain mindful of the other allegations that chemical weapons were used elsewhere in the country." It was apparently the U.N. end that leaked the conversation; an April 6 letter had Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem complaining to Secretary-General Ban that the leaks "left the impression of a lack of seriousness on the part of the (U.N.) secretariat on cooperation in good faith." That too was shared with Reuters. Syria's stern and narrow insistence on its initial request is clearly part of the impasse that resulted. Given the risks of war, it would seem unwise to refuse cooperation, and the exact reasons they didn't are not widely or clearly understood. There is the pride issue, and other considerations, like signs of bad faith (leaking letters), and of deeper duplicity. For example, it was promised that the Khan al-Assal portion of the probe would be handled "initially" and/or "primarily." But a Western diplomat told Reuters on March 27 that the U.N. team would be based in Beirut, Lebanon. That's clear across Syria from Aleppo, but quite near the sites around Damascus and Homs, which were the "primary" interests, it seems. Rather than blocking the investigation they requested, Damascus held open the door to Khan Al-Assal this whole time. Foreign minister Moualem even modified the offer on April 6, as a Reuters reported suumed it up, "the inspectors should go first to Aleppo and if they are seen to be impartial, the possibility of visiting Homs could be discussed." The Jerusalem Post reported that "Western delegations" didn't like this; they "said the Syrian response of April 6 was unacceptable and that the chemical weapons team must have assurances now that it can visit both Aleppo and Homs." (And also the Damascus area, presumably.) Whatever suspicion about what would happen afterwards, one site could be agreed to by all and investigated without delay. As the U.S. representative to the U.N., Susan Rice, said on the 21st, as Aleppo seemed to be the priority: "the United States supports an investigation that pursues any and all credible allegations ... as swiftly as possible." But Secretary-General Ban re-affirmed in a public statement of April 9 that it could wait. He said: "It is a matter of principle that when there is an allegation, whether it is one or two or multiple allegations, all these allegations should be investigated. Only then will we be sure that there was or there were uses of chemical weapons. Without that nobody can be sure." He does not explain why investigators needed to knowing what happened at x number of other sites in order to know what happened in Aleppo. But without bending to that inexplicably holistic philosophy, and its growing list of interlocking allegations, Syria would get no U.N. investigation at all. Perhaps for dramatic effect, as Ban noted, "an advance team was in Cyprus, ready to go to Syria within 24 hours. ... All we are waiting for is the go-ahead from the Syrian government ... to determine whether any chemicals weapons were used, in any location." It was quite an impasse. Syria's request, it could be argued, had been torpedoed. Rejecting Regime Change Maneuvers Besides the issue of which incidents to study, the Russian foreign ministry felt there was a shift from Syria's request for help to increasingly invasive demands on the government. They stated that the shift came "under pressure from Western members of the (security) council," and might represent "attempts to drag this issue out and turn an investigation under the aegis of the United Nations ... into an additional element of pressure for regime change." Russia said that for geopolitical balance, all permanent five (P5) members of the Security Council (US, UK, France, Russia, China) should send experts for the probe. Secretary-General Ban answered by banning scientists from all P5 members, as well as from other involved parties, like Gulf Arab states and Turkey. Syra thought they should have a say in staffing the investigation, but the U.N.'s Ban reserved the right. However, Ban decided the probe would instead be staffed by varied scientists from elsewhere, selected by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). As nice as that sounds, the OPCW's director-general is Ahmet "Uz"umc"u, a Turkish career diplomat with possibly compromising links to his belligerent nation. According to his Wikipedia entry, "Uz"umc"u was previously Turkey's consul in Aleppo, as well as ambassador in Israel and the permanent representative of Turkey to NATO. This could hardly help Syria to feel anything other than threatened; the selected scientists would be, in effect, deciding if they could turn up justification for the US/NATO to openly join in the war against Syria, waged most fiercely so far from Mr. "Uz"umc"u's home nation. From the outset, there were signs that the West and the U.N.'s leadership intended the requested investigation(s) to lead into Iraq-style inspections of Syria's closely-watched CW stockpiles. Ban Ki Moon insisted that the investigation would require "unfettered access" to locales not clearly defined, and cryptically noted "It is my hope that the mission would contribute to ensuring the safety and security of chemical weapons stockpiles in Syria." He didn't specify how a narrow, blame-free, technical mission to investigate what happened in one or even three locations would help make Syria's alleged CW more secure. That it would become a sneak inspections regime in the Iraq vein, however, might explain that strange hope. Syria's decision-makers can hardly have missed these further clues that this was the plan: 1) The investigation, staff, mandate, etc. was to be negotiated between Syria and, specifically, the U.N.'s office for Disarmament Affairs. 2) Swedish scientist Ake Sellstr"om was put in charge. He had previously been a chief inspector for UNSCOM, the U.N. inspection team of the 1990s, and worked with UNMOVIC in 2002, which found no basis for the claims on which the war on Iraq was launched anyway. 3) The "investigators" as originally tasked were increasingly referred to as "inspectors." More important yet were signs of invasive intent. Ban specified, publicly even, that the U.N. would have to investigate "in any location." Russia's foreign ministry announced on April 6, as a Reuters report summed up, that the U.N. "was seeking overly broad access for investigators to facilities and individuals (note: not crime scenes) in Syria and wanted to use aircraft for transportation. "This approach brings to mind the line taken over an investigation into the presence of chemical weapons in Iraq, which was based on deliberately false data and led to well-known consequences," it said, ... "We consider such actions unacceptable and inadmissible by any party and moreover by the leadership of the U.N. Secretariat."" While the full details remain unclear, Russia's accusations in this area remained dramatic and troubling. Foreign ministry spokesman Aleksandr Lukashevich told RT on April 27 that: "The management of the UN Secretariat demanded that Damascus agree to the establishment of a permanent mechanism for inspection throughout Syrian territory with unlimited access to everywhere. ... The proposed scheme of inspections is similar to those used at the end of the last century in Iraq, which, unlike Syria, was under UN sanctions." Syria's information minister, Omran al-Zouabi, told RT that one of the goals of the investigation as configured "is to repeat Iraq's scenario, to pave the way for other investigation inspections. To provide, based on their results, maps, photos of rockets and other fabricated materials to the UN, which as we know, opened the way to the occupation of Iraq." It was just after all of this was established that access was explicitly denied. Just as Ban and the West made it most clear by April 8/9 that the inspection must be all-or-nothing, Damascus announced, essentially, that it would have to be nothing. Syria's foreign ministry on April 8th said Ban has "suggested a supplementary mission to deploy throughout Syrian territory" and placed "additional tasks" that would constitute a "violation of Syrian sovereignty." He did so, they said, under "pressure exercised by states known for their support for the shedding of Syrian blood," and which intended to kill the investigation. And so, they announced, "Syria cannot accept these maneuvers from the UN's Secretariat-General, taking into account the truth of the negative role it played in Iraq." Most Western media reports blame the impasse on Syria. They did in fact block the U.N. team's entry into Syria. However, as this article shows, there were several questionable actions (and alleged actions) by the other side determining what the "no" came in response to. And most reports cite the scope of attacks to investigate as the only dispute. But these inexplicably invasive aspects seems to be the straws that broke the camel's back, and were laid more quietly, right before the audible snap. Therefore, they deserve more scrutiny and explanation. Consider this: if the government had been demanded to surrender and disband before any inspection, no one could blame them for refusing. That extreme example set one end of the scale on which Damascus' decision was made. On one end is a design to force Syria to reject its own investigation in a way that can be easily blamed on them alone. On the other end is a regime so desperate to conceal its patterns of abuse that it blocked the most reasonable of demands. U.S. State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell took this view, saying "if the regime has nothing to hide they should let the UN investigators in immediately so we can get to the bottom of this." After strongly suggesting they did have something to hide, Ventrell threatened that all options - including military ones - remained open. Sarin After the Failure: Confusion Yields to "Confidence" To be clear, the investigation was not quite fatally sabotaged. In lieu of in-country investigation, the U.N. says Sellstr"om's team was working on Cyprus, investigating what they could from there. Spokesman Martin Nesirky told a press briefing "you need to be able to go into Syria to be able to do that investigation properly on site, but in the meantime ... information is available without actually visiting Syria." Hypothetically, this could still expand into something more substantial, but past events leave little room to suspect it will. For more on-the-ground work, independent alleged investigations took over. British intelligence MI6 secured soil samples from Aleppo, the Sunday Times reported, and gave it to analysts at Porton Down military research institute. They dismissed the incident there as from "super strength tear gas," after looking at videos but before studying the dirt. This cursory guess effectively played the incident down, while Syria was pursuing an investigation. After the 8th, the mood of the science changed. The Times of Israel reported on the 13th that other soil MI6 collected, from "a neighborhood on the outskirts of Damascus," shows signs of "some kind of chemical weapon." The scientists wouldn't say which, but specified "it can't definitively be said to be Sarin nerve agent," suggesting perhaps that it was. Perhaps based on this, Britain and France wrote separately to the UN on or before April 18, more sure than ever that the Syrians were using chemical weapons, repeatedly, since December. Rebels have offered help quite publicly, with Free Syrian Army spokesman Louay Mekdad, offering to collect "testimony" and physical samples. The Americans might be trying get their own samples in the more clandestine manner of MI6, according to rebel commander "Majid," from the eastern Damascus suburbs where four recent CW attacks have been reported. He told the New York Times that the CIA wanted him to collect soil samples there, but he was actually in Jordan, and said it would take a while before he could get back on his home turf to help. In Israel, numerous actors in the military and intelligence arenas made a coordinated surprise push on April 23, recorded in a detailed report by the New York Times. This included information sent to Washington, "briefings earlier on Tuesday," where "the Israelis said they believed that the attacks March 19 involved the use of sarin gas," and dramatics dropped on Defense Secretary Hagel during his visit. Brig. Gen. Itai Brun, Israel's senior military intelligence analyst, said that Syria "has increasingly used chemical weapons. ... without any appropriate reaction," which "might signal that this is legitimate." General Brun cited "different signs" of this, including photographs of people "foaming at the mouth." An anonymous Israeli military official also told the Times' David E. Sanger that the Israeli opinion was based "mainly on what he described as publicly available photographs of victims, but said there was also corroborating "direct evidence" that he would not detail." Israel's intent here was clearly to influence the US into action (or at least into greater threat of it); the unnamed official said "if somebody would take any reaction" against Syria, maybe it would deter them from using it again." And the ominous inverse is that a failure to act would all-but guarantee a repetition. American officials refused to be instantly convinced, and made a few good points in explaining why. With British-French-Israeli collusion to attack a resistant Arab nation, and the U.S. holding back, President Obama almost seemed to be channeling Eisenhower in the Suez crisis. But it was apparently short-lived. On the 25th, CNN reported, the White House and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said that U.S. analysts now felt, "with varying degrees of confidence," that Syria has used chemical weapons including at least sarin, "on a small scale." The report noted there was still caution, especially over "chain of custody" issues, but this is the closest the Obama administration has come to saying its red line is crossed. Questioning the "Confidence" As we hover at this dangerous juncture, questions emerge. An informative April 25 report from McClatchy news service heard from unnamed but authoritative sources that the U.S. intelligence findings for sarin "were of "low or moderate" confidence," and that investigators "found trace amounts of a byproduct in soil, but there are also fertilizers that give out the same byproduct," the person said. "It's far from conclusive." This is especially so, as the chain of custody is far from certain and that the opposition forces likely involved in collection are notoriously dishonest. The Telegraph reported on senior members of UK parliament saying better evidence will be needed to escalate, and noted that the Ministry of Defence "said it would not publish details of the tests, an indication that it did not have full confidence in what it had found, analysts said." On the basic logic front, Max Fisher helpfully pointed out for a Washington Post blog "three important caveats" as we speak of red lines. One was on the danger of intervention Syria would face, noting "it's hard to imagine that using a "small amount" of chemical weapons would do the regime forces enough good to merit the risk." He also cited chemical weapons expert Ralf Trapp asking "why would the regime just put it on a grenade here or a rocket launcher there? It's just not the way you'd expect a military force to act." The picture of does fit, however, with a false flag provocateur. Let's consider again those who suffer little to no such risk - unknown opposition brigades who may have been behind the last Aleppo gas attack - alongside a mid-April repeat in Aleppo's sprawling Sheikh Maqsoud district. This time it looks better in that rebels had just conquered Sheikh Maqsoud for the first time, and were absorbing some attacks. Rebel sources blame a regime helicopter, not one of their own mortars, for dropping the unidentified gas early on the morning of April 13. The attack reportedly poisoned 16 people non-fatally, and killed two women and two young children. The CW victims "foaming at the mouth," as cited by Israel's General Brun , might refer to a horrible photo from this incident, released by the SOHR, of an apparently dead woman with mucous bubbling out of her mouth and nose. Brun said that image was consistent with sarin exposure, and the Centers for Disease Control (U.S.) cites runny nose, drooling, and more as signs of low-level exposure. But Mohammad Sabbagh's stolen chlorine should have effects at least as consistent, as it did in World War I: "a profuse exudation of a thin, light yellow, albuminous fluid by the bronchial mucous membrane." It would seem some enabled party was again gassing people in Aleppo, perhaps with regime "tear gas" again, just as the threat of discovering the truth there evaporated like the morning fog. The U.S. embrace of sarin use was apparently based on the "intelligence" Israel had sent - opinions, public images, and something secret - plus tests of unreliable samples yielding traces that could be fertilizer byproducts. This possibly fake "best guess" thrives in the climate of ignorance following the all-but fatal sabotage of the U.N. investigation. (That this unsound approach is applied to issues of war and national soverignty - at the United Nations, even - is a related problem with its own complex causes we shall not try to address here.) Growing "confidence" is troubling; that word is the origin of the "con" part of a "con job," where the confidence of the lie tricks the victim into giving away something unwarranted (belief, first and foremost). Perhaps this war drive is not so dissimilar from the deceit-greased build-up to war in Iraq ten years ago. Added here is the twist, perhaps a charade, of the U.S. being dragged into it reluctantly by allies. But that a mighty nation allows itself to be dragged into echoing the sarin rumors suggests, as does so much else, that they are not truly averse to this endeavor. The moral load of any possible war against Syria will also have to include the potential disgrace of punishing the victims of real-life, deployed and used weapons of mass destruction. Much credible evidence suggests the documented chemical warfare so far has been by the rebels, against soldiers and supporters of the same government slated to be blamed. Then it's slated to be attacked by what might well be the real criminals, enabled with air support, with the intent of total victory. To borrow Israeli general Brun's statement, it's not hard to see how this rewarding of terrorism "might signal that this is legitimate" and encourage more of the same - at least, so long as it suits Western interests. Postscript Syria's Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi seems at least reasonably justified in saying, as SANA reported on April 26, "the Western sides ... want now to hide behind this "fabricated and false" talk to justify their silence on failing the investigation mission requested by Syria and to exonerate the terrorists." Al-Zoubi was speaking to RT, who quoted him as saying the West's aims include, first, "to cover those who are really behind use of chemical weapons in Khan al-Assal," where many or most of the dead were government soldiers. And on that same day, there was an unconfirmed report from the Bazreh neighborhood of Damascus, that entrenched rebels gassed attacking army soldiers. Breaking News (Syria) reports medical sources for an unstated number of "martyrs, who have died due to inhalation of chemical gases," which causes an exudation of "white substance from their noses and mouths." http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=192_1368021144 omniradar US & Israel Duplicit In Attemted Downfall Of Syria ! US & Israel Duplicit In Attemted Downfall Of Syria ! Tue, 07 May 2013 11:24:50 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=bc6_1367940057 Zurm A Swedish appeals court has reduced a lower court's eight-year prison sentence for a 17-year-old boy found of guilty fatally stabbing his sister more than 100 times after she fled a forced marriage in Iraq, in what the court referred to as an "honour killing". In a ruling issued on Tuesday, the Malm"o Court of Appeals (H"ovr"atten), upheld the teen's guilty verdict, but discarded the lower court's eight-year prison sentence. The court instead sentenced the boy to four years in juvenile detention because he was 16 when he killed his sister. As the boy was only days away from his 17th birthday at the time of the attack, the lower court had decided to punish him as a 17-year-old rather than as a 16-year-old, allowing for a longer prison sentence. The appeals court verdict stated that had the the crime been committed by an adult, it would have warranted a sentence of life in prison. The appeals court's verdict also confirmed that there was enough evidence to tie the teen to the murder, restating that the apparent motive was the notion of protecting the family's honour. The 17-year-old's sister had previously fled a forced marriage in Iraq and returned to Sweden. Her body was found with multiple stab wounds in her Landskrona apartment in April 2012. Representatives of the Malm"o-based organization T"ank om, which works to stop honour crimes, told local media at the time that the woman had been in touch with them for one year since returning to Sweden and that she slept with a knife under her pillow for fear of reprisals over her escape. They claimed local authorities had ignored their warnings that the woman was under threat and needed protection. After being found guilty in district court, the victim's brother appealed his sentence and argued he should be set free. Upon learning of the verdict, attorney Elisabeth Massi Fritz, who represented the victim's sister, claimed the question of sentencing for violent crimes committed by young people should be tried in the Supreme Court (H"ogsta domstolen). "You have to look at what sort of murder we're dealing with. There are a number of complicating circumstances," she told the TT news agency. She added, however, that she was happy that the appeals court had confirmed the "honour" motive for the killing, seeing the verdict as a sign that the Swedish courts are starting to deal with a matter facing many young people in Sweden. "I'm even more pleased considering all of those who have actually been victims of honour crimes," she said. http://www.thelocal.se/47758/20130507/ http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=bc6_1367940057 Zurm Sweden Cuts Honor Killer's Sentence to 4 Years Sweden,Cuts,Honor,Killer,Sentence,muslim,islam Fri, 03 May 2013 00:39:45 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=a2e_1367555793 JMate Government lies are legion. So many are its lies, that narrowing them down to three of the most important is a demanding task. But our current crisis has been chiefly enabled by monetary policy, fiscal policy, and the global military empire. So I have chosen to focus on lies about each: the Federal Reserve, the orchestrator of monetary policy; the U.S. budget, the accounting of government fiscal policy; and a few of the Empire's war lies. I am sharing just a smattering of this astonishing record of duplicity in these areas, for life is short, or at least far too short to recount all of the state's lies about each. Lie #1: The Federal Reserve Is a Bank Practically everything the government says about banking is a lie. Central banks are not banks. The Federal Reserve, the central bank of the United States, is not a bank. A bank is a company in the free economy that competes with other banks offering willing customers a safe place to make deposits and earn an interest rate return, while also competing to offer loans from those deposits to willing borrowers. Central banks are government-created bureaucracies that do nothing of the sort. The Federal Reserve is typical of central banks. It is not a free market institution in which people willingly make deposits. Instead, it wields monopoly power over actual banks. In place of managing deposits and loans of its own, it creates money out of nothing by a variety of means including debt monetization, in which it buys government debt by simply creating a credit in the account of a commercial bank with nothing more than a booking entry. This is an act made possible only by the state's grant of a legal monopoly empowering the central bank to do what, if done by a private bank, would be a crime called counterfeiting. Central banks thus have the ability to unilaterally boom and bust their economies at will. And they have done so throughout their history, either to the benefit of the commercial bank cartels, in response to political pressure, or because of outright economic ineptitude . Writing at Lew Rockwell.com about the myth that the Federal Reserve is a "bank," and independent, finance professor Michael Rozeff describes a central bank as a government's "fiat money bureau." "It is held up by the force of government law and power. It is imposed on the public." The representation of them as actual banks produces confusion in which central banks are said to earn "profits." For example, a January, 2012 Federal Reserve press release reporting its "earnings," announced $76.9 billion in 2011 net income. This was described in the New York Times and the Financial Times as the Fed's "profits," just as though it were the annual report of any commercial bank's profits. Yet in what sense does the Fed show a "profit" or have "earnings"? It is as inappropriate as describing the collections of the Internal Revenue Service as "profits." Where are these Federal Reserve "profits" derived? They are the result of printing new dollars to buy assets; that is, they are the result of diluting the purchasing power of every dollar you or anyone else has. It is not any different than a dairy watering down 100 gallons of milk to sell 110 gallons. It is fraud. But it is a fraud legalized by act of Congress. But the Federal Reserve is not alone. Another non-bank is the World Bank which loans money to governments and government enterprises. The World Bank has been a useful place to pasture failed U.S. government warmongers like the disastrous Vietnam War Secretary of Defense Robert Strange McNamara and Iraq war co-author Paul Wolfowitz. Both were named World Bank presidents even as their deadly wars raged on. The World Bank gets almost all of its money by way of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD),( also not a bank), which gets its money from taxes, the largest share coming from the American people. The IBRD also sells World Bank bonds, but they too are guaranteed by taxpayers. American tax dollars go to other multi-national organizations such as the Asian Development Bank, the African Development Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank. None of which are banks. Lie #2: War Lies Governments and politicians lies incessantly about war. They lie about the cause of war. They lie about the threat of war. They lie about the cost of war. And they lie about their lies about war. Governments lie relentlessly about war. Just in the last fifty years the people have been lied to about U.S. government wars from Vietnam to Iraq. The Gulf of Tonkin incident, a purported attack on U.S. ships by North Vietnam off its coast, was used by President Johnson (an "unprovoked" attack he told the nation) to win legislative authority, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, for a war in Vietnam. But it was an incident that did not happen and Johnson knew it even as he escalated Vietnam into the full-blown blood bath it became. "Hell," he told his secretary of state just a few days after the resolution passed, "those dumb, stupid sailors were just shooting at flying fish!" Lying is so intrinsic to the nature of government, that even the truth about old lies is concealed to protect new lies. In 2001, a National Security Agency study found that officials had actually doctored documents in covering up the truth about the Tonkin Gulf incident, the bogus war pretext that led to the needless deaths of millions of human beings. But the new report of that old cover-up was itself delayed for years for fear that it's release would cast doubt on the intelligence that the Bush administrations was using to justify an invasion of Iraq. In the case of the Iraq war, not only did defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld lie about knowing where the non-existent weapons of mass destruction were in Iraq ("We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat."), in a later exchange with my friend former CIA senior analyst Ray McGovern, Rumsfeld even denied he had made such a claim. "Simply stated," Dick Cheney said of the mythical WMDs in August of 2002, "there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction." "We know for a fact," said White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer in January of 2003, "that there are weapons there." "We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction," said Colin Powell in February of 2003, "is determined to make more." The government can be counted on to lie about the costs of war. Lawrence Lindsey, a Bush administration economist, was fired for suggesting in advance that the Iraq war would cost $100 billion to $200 billion. Although estimates in the trillions of dollars would have been closer, Rumsfeld called Lindsey's estimate "baloney." The government tries to conceal spending by keeping it off the budget books with supplementary, appropriations and emergency measures. It even spreads war costs off of the defense department budget and into the budget of other departments such as state and energy. I have written more about government's war lies in my new book Red and Blue and Broke All Over: Restoring America's Free Economy, but must finish the point here with a reminder of the government's lies about the case of Jessica Lynch, and about the way the government lied about the killing of Pat Tillman and even lied about lying about its lies about his death. Private Lynch was a 19-year-old clerk when her company was ambushed in Iraq after taking a wrong turn. She suffered injuries when her Humvee overturned and was taken by Iraqi soldiers to a nearby hospital. Although she suffered injuries when her Humvee overturned, "U.S. officials" reported that Lynch had gone down fighting and had been both shot and stabbed in action, and later even slapped around as he was interrogated on her hospital bed. The truth is she had no such wounds. She had never fired her weapon, and, by her own account, was well cared for in the Iraqi hospital. Although the Iraqi doctor who had cared for her tried himself to turn her over to the Americans, the Pentagon, with a propaganda campaign in mind and camera's rolling, staged a dramatic raid from helicopters to "rescue" Lynch. The video was edited up in no time and released by a Pentagon anxious to have a heroic feel-good war narrative to relate. But of course the Pentagon refused a request to release the full video of the "rescue" to clear up discrepancies in its account. While the Pentagon is perfectly capable of lying on its own initiative, members of congress pressured the Pentagon to award Lynch the Medal of Honor, even before an investigation was complete, saying it would be "good for women in the military." Pat Tillman, killed in action in Afghanistan, was posthumously awarded the Silver Star, a combat honor given for valor in action against an enemy. But there was no encounter with the enemy. Tillman was shot to death by his fellow soldiers. This was carefully concealed with fraudulent accounts of the incident. Senior commanders' prints were all over the cover-up about Tillman's death. General John Abizaid approved the Silver Star despite knowing within days of Tillman's death that he had been shot by "friendly fire." Lieutenant General Stanley McChrystal cited Tillman for actions "in the line of devastating enemy fire," but the very next day sent a confidential memo about the fratricide to senior government officials including Abizaid warning them to protect themselves and President Bush from embarrassment in the episode. Tillman's family charged the military with repeatedly lying to them about his death and about its investigation, as it delayed accounts of his friendly fire death until after a nationally televised memorial service orchestrated by the Bush administration. By one account, his fellow soldiers were even told to lie to the family at Tillman's funeral. Tillman's enlistment in the army after the 9/11 attacks was a national sensation. A good looking NFL player, Tillman gave up a multi-million dollar football career to join up. Thanks to his popularity, he was like a recruiting poster for the military. His father claimed that it was this usefulness to the military that helped drive the cover-up. "They purposely interfered with the investigation, they covered it up. I think they thought they could control it, and they realized that their recruiting efforts were going to go to hell in a handbasket if the truth about his death got out. They blew up their poster boy." Apparently the original cover-up, in which his comrades even burned the evidence of his body armor and uniform, was itself covered up. Lt. Gen. Philip Kensinger was censured by the army for lying to investigators about Tillman's death. Pat's mother, Mary Tillman, said that Kensinger was just a scapegoat. "There are a lot of people who played a role in this and they are getting off without any punishment." She singled out Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal and Gen. John Abizaid by name. The government not only lies about war, it routinely lies about its lies about war. Lie #3: The Real U.S. Debt This may be the most brazen and transparent lie of all, the one about the U.S. national debt, now over $15 trillion dollars. It is a number that hides the severity of our situation. Washington acts as though that is the real debt of the nation. Politicians posture for weeks at a time about it, devoting long debates to raising the ceiling on this visible portion of the national debt. And yet the real federal debt is much, much larger and like an iceberg below the water line, most of it is hidden out of sight. And like the Titanic, Republicans and Democrats have the country headed for a tragic collision with economic reality. Each year the federal government makes new promises and takes on trillions in new financial obligations that do not show up in the visible, official national debt. The persistent growth of these hidden debts each year far outpaces the increases in the visible debt. In 2010 for example, the visible federal debt grew by an astonishing $1.5 trillion. But the hidden debt - out of sight and without debate - grew by more than $5 trillion! When a private business takes on an obligation to pay something, it is required to report it as a liability. It shows up on the books. Not so for the state. This allows politicians to blithely make promises without adequate revenue to pay for them. It is easy to understand why this practice should persist. Giving things to constituents feels good. Making them pay for those things causes politicians to suffer pain. Like most living creatures, politicians like to feel good and avoid pain. So when they add to the obligations of the state, when politicians make commitments for the future or promise entitlements like Social Security and Medicare to win re-election, the means to pay are often inadequate. But there is no such thing as a free lunch, which is to say, that the cost will have to be borne eventually by somebody. For the time being though, the preferred political expediency is keeping the costs, the liabilities, off the books. Unfunded liabilities are the difference between a program's projected costs and its projected revenues, both valued in today's dollars. Medicare and Social Security both have promised benefits that outrace revenue streams. They are the largest components of the government's unfunded liabilities, the hidden debt of the nation. But there are other federal retirement programs with not merely inadequate funding like Medicare and Social Security, but with no revenue streams of their own at all. Among them are retirement programs for military and federal workers. In September 2011, USA Today analyzed dozens of overlapping programs for retired federal workers. It reported that despite the existing debt crisis, Congress continues to add to the promised benefits, so that retirement programs now have a $5.7 trillion unfunded liability. The newspaper sums up its report on the retirement programs this way: Private employers are legally required to put money into pension funds to match retirement promises. Private pensions have $2.3 trillion in stocks, bonds, real estate and other assets. State and local governments have $3 trillion in retirement funds. The federal government has nothing set aside. The total unfunded liabilities of the U.S. government have been calculated with a number of present value and discount models. Results of the shortfall from these methods range from about $70 trillion to $120 trillion dollars. For a family of four this represents a liability between $900,000 and $1.5 million. (You can follow the debt as it adds up at http://www.USdebt.org.) What does the state say about its unfunded liabilities? Here's a response from the Congressional Budget Office, which answers, "... no government obligation can be truly considered 'unfunded' because of the U.S. government's sovereign power to tax - which is the ultimate resource to meet its obligations." That is utter hooey. It conjures up an absurdity in which the government could meet its obligation by sending you a Social Security check, even as it raises a tax to take 100 percent of everything you get from Social Security. The reason that is an absurdity is that it is a two-step process to do what the government will do in just one step. By means either overt (legislative act) or covert (currency destruction), it will unilaterally reduce its "obligation," leaving millions of people betrayed. Because it is the government. And it lies about its obligations. Just like it lies about everything else. January 27, 2012 Charles Goyette is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Dollar Meltdown: Surviving the Impending Currency Crisis with Gold, Oil, and Other Unconventional Investments, now available in paperback. And coming in February 2012, Charles Goyette's Freedom & Prosperity Letter. His new book Red and Blue and Broke All Over: Restoring America's Free Economy will be released March 15. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=a2e_1367555793 JMate The Three Biggest Lies the Government Is Telling You The Three Biggest Lies the Government Is Telling You