Osama Bin Laden: Dead Or Alive?

The Eight-Year-Long Psychological Operation. Review of a new book by David Ray Griffin

by Tod Fletcher

Global Research, May 26, 2009

Information Clearing House Osama Bin Laden: Dead Or Alive? by David Ray Griffin is a crucially important and timely examination of the whole range of  evidence bearing on the question, is Osama bin Laden still alive?  The importance of this question for the present comes from the fact that the United States under its new president is escalating its offensive in Afghanistan and expanding the war into Pakistan, and has claimed that the “hunt for bin Laden” is one of its principal motivations for doing so.  Either explicitly or implicitly, the US government and major media outlets such as The New York Times and Washington Post continue to assert that bin Laden is alive, hiding in the tribal territories on the “AfPak” border, posing an undiminished threat to US security.    In his gripping new book, Griffin strikes at the root of this pretext for war by closely examining all the evidence that has come out since September 11, 2001, either indicating that bin Laden is still alive or that he is in fact dead. His conclusion is that bin Laden is certainly dead, and that in all likelihood he died in very late 2001.  Griffin shows that many US experts in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency came to this very same conclusion long ago, but their views, which do not support the continuation of what President Obama, borrowing the term from Dick Cheney, calls “the long war,” have received very little media attention. Were they to do so, one of the main props for the war regime would be undermined.   In Chapter 1, “Evidence that Osama bin Laden is Dead”, Griffin surveys in detail the many different indications published in the major media in late 2001 and early 2002 that bin Laden had been very ill and had died.  These included a December, 2001 video in which he appeared to be at death’s door (as admitted by a Bush administration spokesperson), analyses by medical experts of the grave state of his health, the sudden and total cessation in December, 2001 of any surveillance intercepts of communications from him, and even reports of his funeral.  In this early period, various high-level officials in the US and Pakistani governments, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and President Pervez Musharraf, speculated that he was dead.  By mid-2002 many experts had concluded that he was dead, including FBI counterterrorism official Dale Watson, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, and Israeli intelligence officials. The conviction that he died in 2001 is held today by former intelligence operatives Robert Baer and Angelo Codevilla.   In Chapter 2, “Two Fake bin Laden Videos in 2001?”,  Griffin shows that two videos which purportedly showed bin Laden taking credit for the attacks of 9/11 and thus established his guilt for them, were not only very conveniently timed for the Bush and Blair administrations’ legislative and military agendas, but also were highly suspect for other reasons.  One of them was never actually released, but simply claimed by the Blair government.  The other showed a bin Laden who did not physically resemble the genuine bin Laden of earlier videos, in which he in fact denied responsibility for the 9/11 attacks.  Griffin presents strong arguments that both claimed videos were faked, suggests likely motivations behind such a risky undertaking, and cites the opinions of experts (including the FBI) who came to this conclusion long ago.   In Chapter 3, “Purported bin Laden Messages After 2001”, Griffin argues that if fake bin Laden videos were produced in this early period, when he was probably still alive, then there is even stronger reason to be suspicious of “bin Laden videos” or other claimed “messages” that were released later, after all communications intercepts from him had ceased and many experts had concluded that he was dead.  Yet, in subsequent years, a long series of such dubious “bin Laden messages” were released. Griffin presents an exhaustive survey of 19 of these, from an “email message” of March, 2002 to the “bin Laden audiotape” of January 14, 2009.  For each and every one, Griffin identifies key indications of fakery or strong reasons to be suspicious of its authenticity.  In the course of the discussion of the messages, he establishes that the technical capability to fabricate fake messages of the different types already existed.   In Chapter 4, Griffin turns to the important question “Who Might Have Been Motivated To Fabricate Messages?”  He shows that the US military in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 employed a psychological operations unit to produce bogus evidence of a link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, as a pretext for the invasion.  The psyops unit produced a “letter” from a Jordanian in Iraq, Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi,  that was then “intercepted”, purportedly enroute to Al Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan.  The psyop was advanced after the invasion by the New York Times reporter Dexter Filkins, who wrote front-page stories presenting the “evidence” as genuine.  Journalists at other organizations, including Newsweek magazine and The Telegraph of London, however, thought it highly likely at the time that the letter was bogus.  Griffin concludes that the target of the psychological operation was the US public.  He asks, could something very similar have been going on with the “bin Laden messages”?  Does the US government desire to expand its war operations anywhere, say into the precise places it claims bin Laden is still living in?  Based on the evidence Griffin presents, there is no reason to assume that comparable psyops would not be utilized to achieve this goal.   In Chapter 5, “The Convenient Timing of Many of the Messages”, Griffin shows that another reason to suspect the inauthenticity of the “bin Laden messages” is that they frequently were released at key moments when they would benefit the Bush administration in the pursuit of particular objectives.  In other words, the “messages” were almost always objectively detrimental to the enemies of the US, and beneficial to the Bush administration or the Blair government.  Griffin lists 11 specific instances of this unusual characteristic of the “messages.”    Osama Bin Laden: Dead Or Alive? by David Ray Griffin is a book to rally around – that is, a basis on which we can mobilize and organize resistance to yet another incalculably bloody war of aggression by the predatory military-industrial-financial elite that runs this country, and is running it into the abyss.  Griffin has placed a strong weapon of truth in our hands with which to stop the brutal war in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Let’s use it!

Why I am a Climate Realist

Dr Willem de Lange

23 May 2009

 In 1996 the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Second Assessment Report was released, and I was listed as one of approximately 3000 “scientists” who agreed that there was a discernable human influence on climate.

I was an invited reviewer for a chapter dealing with the economic impact of sea level rise on small island nations. In keeping with IPCC procedures, the chapter was written and reviewed in isolation from the rest of the report, and I had no input into the process after my review of the chapter draft. I was not asked if I supported the view expressed in my name, and my understanding at the time was that no evidence of a discernable human influence on global climate existed.

The chapter I reviewed dealt primarily with the economic consequences of an assumed sea level rise of 1 m causing extensive inundation. My response was that I could not comment on the economic analysis, however, I disagreed with the initial assumptions, particularly the assumed sea level rise in the stated time period. Further, there was good evidence at the time that sea level rise would not necessarily result in flooding of small island nations, because natural processes on coral atolls were likely to raise island levels.

The IPCC Second Assessment Report assessed sea level rise by AD 2100 as being in the range 0.20-0.86 m, with a most likely value of 0.49 m (less than half the rate assumed for the economic analysis). Subsequent research has demonstrated that coral atolls and associated islands are likely to increase in elevation as sea level rises. Hence, the assumptions were invalid, and I was convinced that IPCC projections were unrealistic and exaggerated the problem.

Following the release of IPCC Second Assessment Report I also co-authored the sea level rise section of the New Zealand impact report, and same section for a revised report following the release of IPCC Third Assessment Report (2001). The third report followed the trend of decreasing sea level rise projections evident in sea level rise literature, with a most likely projection of 0.44 m. However, some extreme scenarios were added at a late stage of the review process to give a wider range of projections from 0.09-0.88 m. There was little support in the literature for these extremes, and my view was that a range of 0.31-0.49 m was more reasonable. I also expected future projections to be lower.

For the New Zealand 2001 report, I was asked to state that sea level rise was accelerating, or at least could be accelerating. However, my own research and published literature shows that sea level fluctuates at decadal time scales. Therefore, although there was an increase in the rate of sea level rise around 1998, I expected sea level rise to slow and reverse early in the 21^st Century. The underlying long-term trend, however, was likely to decrease, and there were some tide gauge data to indicate that it had started to do so. In the 1980s, the New Zealand rate was 1.8 mm per year. By 1990, it was 1.7 mm per year, and by 2001 it was 1.6 mm per year. These changes are small, and were not enough to prove that sea level rise was slowing. However, they clearly did not show that sea level rise was accelerating.

After 2001, published studies continued to project lower global sea level rises over the 21^stCentury, and several reported a slowing of the rate of rise during the 20^th Century. Shortly before the IPCC Assessment Report 4 was published I undertook a literature review of all sea level studies, which: projected lower levels than the IPCC Third Assessment Report review; indicated a slowing of the rate of sea level rise; emphasised the role of decadal scale fluctuations; and there was concern about the discrepancy between satellite and tide gauge sea level measurements. It was recognised that, although satellite sensing gives a better overall measurement of global sea level, satellites reported twice the rate of sea level rise being measured at the coast. It was evident that satellite data could not be combined with tide gauge data.

The IPCC Assessment Report 4 report emphasises a single paper, which was not available when I conducted my review, which spliced the satellite data onto the tide gauge data to “find” acceleration in sea level rise over the period of satellite measurement. This is being used to imply that global sea level rise is accelerating due to global warming (now renamedClimate Change). The satellite data only covered the period of increasing sea level associated with decadal cycles, and the known discrepancy between satellite trends and tide gauge trends was not corrected for. This is poor science comparable to the splicing of proxy and instrument data in the infamous Hockey Stick graph, and the splicing of ice core and instrumental CO₂ measurements to exaggerate the changes.

Despite therefore finding accelerating sea level rise, the latest IPCC assessment projects lower sea level rises than the previous ones. The methodology used to report the projections was changed to make comparisons harder, but the range of 0.18-0.59 m equates to a most likely rise of around 0.39 m. The IPCC Assessment Report 4 also included an extra 0.20 m allowance for uncertainties associated with destabilisation of the Greenland and West Antarctic Ice Caps. Various groups have speculated that the collapse of these Ice Caps could produce a much higher additional sea level rise. In contrast, published studies that have specifically studied this contribution have concluded that given the worst possible scenarios, the maximum extra contribution is 0.18 m. Hence, the IPCC Assessment Report 4 allowance is a very conservative upper bound.

What has sea level actually done so far this century? There have been large regional variations, but the global rate has slowed and is currently negative, consistent with measured ocean cooling. Claims to the contrary are exaggerations and not realistic.

So, given my understanding of oceanography, what do I believe about climate change? Firstly climate change is real, and has occurred on Earth for at least 4 billion years – as long as an atmosphere and oceans have existed. Climate change occurs in cycles at various time scales, with the shorter time scales known as weather (by convention the distinction is 35 years). Trying to stop or control climate change is akin to stopping ocean tides. Secondly, I believe human activities affect climate, otherwise why would I bother with a mortgage. The climate inside my house is different to the climate that would exist if my house were gone.

There are many ways human activities affect climate on a small scale. Interestingly the concentration of CO₂ is not one of them (CO₂ are often elevated inside buildings). As the size of the area considered increases, the impact of human activities decreases. As the latest IPCC report notes, there is no convincing evidence of the impact of CO2 (or any other human influence on climate) at a continental scale. Yet, they say that the impact of a CO2 (and other gases treated as effective CO₂) is the dominant driver of climate at a global scale and will have catastrophic consequences. This conclusion I strongly disagree with. Why?

It is frequently pointed out that the Earth is approximately 32°C warmer than it would be without an atmosphere due to the Greenhouse Effect. This is misleading, as the climate system responsible for this extra warmth includes many components. Important ones omitted in most discussions are clouds and oceans. About 70 percent of the Earth’s surface is covered in water, which absorbs sunlight and warms up. The oceans retain heat better than land, and, while slow to warm up, they cool slowly and warm the surroundings (a maritime climate).

Considering the available data, it is clear that the oceans warmed over the 20^th Century by about the same amount as the atmosphere. This agreement should not be entirely surprising as 70 percent of the mean global air temperature comes from over oceans. The inconvenient truth that is generally ignored, is that the atmosphere is not capable of warming the oceans to any significant degree – 99.9 percent of ocean heat is derived from sunlight at wavelengths less than 3 microns. The balance is mostly from heat leaking from the interior of the Earth. The Greenhouse Effect involves a delay in the loss of infra-red radiation at wavelengths greater than 5 microns.

What does this mean for climate change? It means that variations in the amount of sunlight reaching the oceans will control the rate at which the oceans warm. This is influenced at long time scales by changes in the Earth’s orbit. At short time scales there are changes in the amount of sunlight associated with the sunspot cycle. These changes are small, but due to the ability of the oceans to store heat it may be possible to have a cumulative effect as sunspot cycles wax and wane. However, the main control is the amount of cloud and ice cover. Clouds and sea ice reflect sunlight before it can be absorbed by the oceans, and is referred to as albedo. Albedo changes have a greater influence on climate than the Greenhouse Effect, and are usually invoked to produce the catastrophic consequences of “Climate Change” (aka Accelerated Global Warming).

Oceans lose heat through evaporation (53 percent), infra-red radiation (41 percent) and conduction (6 percent). The Greenhouse Effect can slow the loss of the infra-red radiation, thereby warming the atmosphere but not the oceans. However, evaporation accounts for more than half the heat loss. Evaporation produces clouds, and hence there is a feedback loop – warming the oceans results in more evaporation, producing more clouds, which increases albedo, which cools the oceans. This is exactly what was observed during The Tropical Ocean Global Atmosphere Coupled Ocean Atmosphere Response Experiment (TOGA COARE) that was set up to investigate the Pacific Warm Pool – the warmest ocean water in the western equatorial Pacific Ocean. COARE also found that rainfall would cool the ocean surface, so increased evaporation producing rain is another feedback loop.

What does this have to do with the 20^th Century? Well the observed climate change is consistent with variations in albedo and associated ocean warming and cooling, suggesting that it is just a natural cycle. This pattern of behaviour is evident in palaeoclimate data for most of the last 10,000 years. None of this is simulated in climate models. Instead they focus on the 20^th Century increase in CO₂, CH₄ and a few other greenhouse gases. The increasing concentrations correlate well with global temperature. This is taken as proof that the greenhouse effect is driving temperature.

However, it is also correct that changing ocean temperatures affect the concentration of these gases in the atmosphere. At annual and 2-7 year time scales it is clear that the concentration of CO₂ in the atmosphere is strongly driven by the ocean. At longer time scales it is also clear that the concentration of greenhouse gases lags behind, and therefore is driven by, temperature. Once again the oceans are the likely control on atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations. The IPCC position requires that for 50-100 year periods everything works in reverse, which still showing an oceanic influence at shorter timeperiods. It is more likely that the warming of the oceans since the Little Ice Age is a major contributor to the observed increase in CO₂. Carbon isotopic ratios indicate that while there is a contribution from the burning of fossil fuels, it is of the order 1-5 percent of the increase.

So, I am a climate realist because the available evidence indicates that climate change is predominantly, if not entirely, natural. It occurs mostly in response to variations in solar heating of the oceans, and the consequences this has for the rest of the Earth’s climate system. There is no evidence to support the hypothesis runaway catastrophic climate change due to human activities.

Government to Push H1N1 Vaccine Propaganda

Infowars
May 25, 2009

Are the governments of the world preparing to vaccinate the entire populace? It seems that may be the case. According to Reuters 4.9 billion vaccinations against the supposed swine flu could be ready shortly. Documents have been leaked that suggest the CDC is preparing to have a Day of Planning for an H1N1 Vaccination Campaign. The WHO” is also now saying that because of the outbreak in Japan they may be forced to declare a level 6 pandemic

FBI Lured “Jihadis” with Piles of Cash, Gifts, Weed

LORENA MONGELLI and LUKAS I. ALPERT
The New York Post
May 25, 2009

A slick FBI informant roped four Muslim converts into a horrific terror plot to blow up synagogues and military jets by handing them piles of cash and gifts and even bags of weed, relatives of the suspects said today.

“Brother whatever you need, I will get it for you,” said the man who the four petty thieves knew as Maqsood, according to Kathleen Baynes, whose long-time boyfriend, James Cromitie is alleged to be the ringleader of the plot.

She said Cromitie, 45, met Maqsood at the Masjid al-Ikhlas mosque about a year ago and promised to teach him the truth about Islam.

The man soon was coming by their apartment with increasing frequency and was always flush with cash.

“He was very persistent and every time he came for James he took him away. They said they were going out to eat dinner,” she said. “Whenever we needed anything Maqsood would help — like financially — he gave us money to pay rent.

Read entire article

FBI stops supposed ‘Temple Plot’ in New York City

Robert Taylor
The Examiner 
May 25, 2009

Last week, four men from Newburgh, New York were arrested in what the FBI says was a plot to bomb two synagogues in the Bronx and shoot down military planes with Stinger missiles. The Muslim men had planted the bombs outside the Riverdale Temple and the Riverdale Jewish Center, but didn’t know that they were fake explosives given to them by an FBI informant.

Some are claiming that this “foiled plot” is another example of why we need  surveillance and warrantless wiretaps to "protect" us from terrorist attacks and a supposed reminder of the constant “threat” that terrorism continues to pose. Here’s Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, doing his best to scare every New Yorker he can:

‘This latest attempt to attack our freedoms shows that the homeland security threats against New York City are sadly all too real and underscores why we must remain vigilant in our efforts to prevent terrorism,’ Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said in a statement.

Bloomberg also awarded honorary certificates to more than 100 officers from the FBI, NYPD, and state police just two days after.

What is most interesting about this is not that we were protected from a supposed terrorist attack, but that the whole “plot” was invented by an FBI informant:

The defendants, in their efforts to acquire weapons, dealt with an informant acting under law enforcement supervision, authorities said. The FBI and other agencies monitored the men and provided an inactive missile and inert C-4 to the informant for the defendants, a federal complaint said.

In June 2008, the informant met Cromitie in Newburgh and Cromitie complained that his parents had lived in Afghanistan and he was upset about the war there and that many Muslim people were being killed in Afghanistan and Pakistan by U.S. military forces, officials said.

 

Did you catch the last sentence? He was upset that his fellow Muslims was beingmercilessly bombed, and when tricked into retaliating, he and his three accomplices were arrested. They did not “hate our liberties,” as nearly every media mouthpiece recites ad nauseum, they hated the fact the U.S. is brutally occupying and pummeling two-and-a-halfMuslim countries. This is just another example of how our global empire*, with over 800 bases in over 120 countries with soldiers ready to be deployed, creates a lot of backlash, and in the Middle Eastern world, this means terrorism.

 Switzerland, New Zealand, Costa Rica and many others are all countries that are far freer than us and do not feel the sting of terrorism because they mind their own business, engage in free trade (we should end the impoverishment embargo of Cuba, but that’s a subject for another day), and  don’t meddle militarily in other countries.

 The operation was simply entrapment by a KGB-esque agency, the perfect definition of a  false flag operation with the intention of scaring us into giving them more and more of our liberties so they can “protect” us from terrorists. Thankfully, many are starting to see through this latest federal fear-mongering-power-grab, like this excellent article at the Times of London:

 ‘This whole operation was a foolish waste of time and money,’ claimed Terence Kindlon, a defense lawyer who represented the last terror suspect to be tried in New York state. “It is almost as if the FBI cooked up the plot and found four idiots to install as defendants.

 The other question that U.S. security experts were debating was how much had been achieved by assigning more than 100 agents to a year-long investigation of three petty criminals and a mentally ill Haitian immigrant, none of whom had any connection with any known terrorist group. ‘They were all unsophisticated dimwits,’ said Kindlon.

 

Despite these glaring holes in this so-called “foiled plot,” we are supposed to be very, very afraid of Muslims, who are likely to blow up synagogues and shoot down airplanes at any given second.Periodic torture and indefinite imprisonment in the US Gulags is too good of a treatment for these “terrorists.”

 The real fundamental injustice is the existence of a federal police force that seduces people into committing crimes and then jailing them for it. The FBI has committed many crimes in itsinfamous past, and continues to be a rogue dog without a leash.

 Who exactly should we be afraid of again?

FBI ‘lured dimwits’ into terror plot

Tony Allen-Mills
Times Online
May 24, 2009

On the steps of New York city hall on Friday, Michael Bloomberg, the mayor, praised the police officers and federal agents who helped disrupt an apparent terrorist plot to blow up a synagogue and shoot down military aircraft.

The mayor was flanked by more than 100 homeland security and counter-terrorist specialists, all of whom had a hand in an elaborate sting that netted four alleged Muslim extremists. Their plan, according to FBI agents, was to detonate a “fireball that would make the country gasp”.

The operation was acclaimed by New York officials for its success in averting what David Paterson, the state governor, described as “a heinous crime”.

Yet not every New Yorker was impressed by the latest in a long line of purported anti-terrorist triumphs that have supposedly averted tragedy in New York, Chicago, Toronto and several other North American cities since September 11, 2001.

Read entire article

Orchestrated New York Terror Plot Exploited to Increase Funding

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars
May 22, 2009

As it turns out the so-called Muslim terrorists busted in New York, who supposedly wanted to blow up synagogues in the Bronx and shoot down military airplanes flying out of the New York Air National Guard base, were petty criminals set-up by the FBI.

The FBI admits James Cromitie was a wannabe terrorist with "limited means."

“Last year, the four men began communicating with an FBI informant who sold them fake explosives and inactive missiles,” reports theChristian Science Monitor. “While the bombs these terrorists attempted to plant tonight were — unbeknownst to them — fake, this latest attempt to attack our freedoms shows that the homeland security threats against New York City are sadly all too real,” said New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

In other words, the men were patsies that posed absolutely no threat to New York and without the involvement of the FBI there would have been no terror plot. In fact, as Paul Joseph Watsonnotes today, the men “have turned out to be semi-retarded potheads” that did not possess the intelligence or wherewithal to engage in terrorist activities. Even the Associated Press admits they were “amateurs every step of the way. They had trouble finding guns and bought cameras at Wal-Mart to photograph their targets. One was a convicted purse snatcher, another smoked marijuana the day the plot was to be carried out.”

The New York terror plot is reminiscent of the so-called Miami Seven case. In that case, the FBI promised a group of semi-retards and losers money and explosives for an FBI-cooked up plot to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago. It took two hung juries before 5 of the 7 supposed terrorists were convicted earlier this month.

It didn’t take long for officials to exploit the alleged terror plot and call for Congress to “increase anti-terror funding to New York and other areas that suffered a significant reduction a few years ago,” according to Fox News.

“There isn’t enough money devoted to states and cities to foil these kinds of plots,” complained Michael Greenberger, a professor at the University of Maryland School and Law and the director of the Center for Health and Homeland Security. “When you compare the amount of money given to failing banks and insurance companies to the amount not given to highly motivated local enforcement agencies, it really is a tragedy,” he said.

Congress scaled back funding for the Department of Homeland Security’s Urban Areas Security Initiative in 2006, cutting it about $125 million to $711 million. DHS cut its urban security funds for New York by 40 percent to provide more to mid-size cities, provoking criticism from lawmakers and local officials. The grant for New York was cut to $124 million from about $207 million in 2006.

“This alleged plot shows that — even though we have not been attacked domestically since 9/11 — we must remain vigilant concerning the potential radicalization and recruitment of individuals in the United States for terrorist activity,” declared Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., chairman of the Homeland Security Committee.

Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., the top Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee, told a New York radio station that the incident was another example of the FBI doing its job — that is to say, creating absurd terror cells out of whole cloth and then busting them in order to legitimatize throwing billions of dollars down a rat hole.

The orchestrated plot also takes heat off the DHS as it comes under scrutiny for producing the “rightwing extremist” document by turning the focus back on Muslims.

“It’s fair to say that homegrown terrorism is a serious threat and something that law enforcement agencies and the government are taking seriously at the federal and local levels,” said a Homeland official. “This is something that people have been concerned about for a number of years.”

Exactly As We Predicted; Deadly NY Terror Cell Are Semi-Retarded Potheads

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Friday, May 22, 2009

 

Exactly as we predicted in our headline story yesterday, two of the ringleaders in the “deadly” New York terror plot salaciously hyped by the media and government officials have turned out to be semi-retarded potheads.

“The men will likely turn out to be semi-retarded dropouts,” we stated in our article yesterday, basing our forecast on the fact that in every other major terror sting in the west given so much prominence by officials and the corporate media, the poor suckers rounded up by the feds always turn out to be low IQ petty criminals down on their luck, provocateured and armed by federal agents.

We already knew that the men were provided with an inert rocket launcher and fake C4 explosives by an FBI informant, and now as more details emerge, our original summation of the case is proving accurate.

According to an Associated Press report, the four men charged with planning to blow up synagogues and military planes, “Were amateurs every step of the way. They had trouble finding guns and bought cameras at Wal-Mart to photograph their targets. One was a convicted purse snatcher, another smoked marijuana the day the plot was to be carried out.”

The report continues,”Relatives said the defendants were down-on-their-luck men who worked at places like Wal-Mart, a landscaping company and a warehouse when they weren’t behind bars. Payen’s lawyer said he was “intellectually challenged” and on medication for schizophrenia. Marilyn Reader said he has “a very low borderline” IQ.”

Of course, it was only after an FBI informant radicalized these bums and provided them with weapons that they became any kind of threat, providing the feds the opportunity to swoop in, declare a victory in the war on terror and use the case as a poster child for Americans to accept police state measures and believe the hype surrounding “domestic terrorists” in the wake of controversy surrounding the MIAC report.

As the AP article concedes, “Some have criticized informants’ roles in such cases, saying they egged on and ensnared suspects who weren’t dangerous.”

As we reiterated yesterday, this same scam is played out every single time, but the media very rarely makes a big deal out of it when the suspects turn out to be retarded bums who couldn’t even have achieved whatever the provocateur prodded them into advocating without direct help from the feds. The original hyped story about the foiled deadly terror plot remains in the memory while the truth surrounding the case is buried near the back of the newspaper.

Nowhere was this more evident than in the case of the ‘Liberty City 7′, a group out of Miami that supposedly planned to “wage a full ground war against the United States” and bomb the Sears Tower, but who actually turned out to be “a bunch of dipshits living in a warehouse,” as The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart described them.

New York “Terror Plot” Another Government Provocateured Set-Up

Officials seize upon arrests with glee to propagandize for the police state and justify targeting American citizens in war on terror

 

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Thursday, May 21, 2009

The corporate media and the authorities are having a field day lavishing saturation coverage on the so-called New York “terror plot” in which four men, three of them U.S. citizens, supposedly planned to blow up a Jewish temple and shoot down military planes, feverishly citing it as another example of why we should accept police state measures in major cities and the targeting of American citizens as “domestic terrorists”.

The only problem with this premise, mirroring just about every other major terror plot and terror bust that we have ever studied, is that the men were radicalized and provocateured by an FBI informant, who provided the group with the fake weapons that led to their arrest.

Just as in every other case, the men will likely turn out to be semi-retarded dropouts who eagerly followed the fed’s lead in the pursuit of a promise of massive cash gifts and a way out of their miserable poverty-stricken lives. However, this won’t be reported with one iota of the gusto that the corporate media are pushing this story today.

What we already know for sure is that the men had been under FBI surveillance for nearly a year. The fact that it took the feds nearly 12 months to get the men to accept fake weapons in order for them to be charged with “conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction within the United States” is evidence in and of itself that this was a case of entrapment, which is only confirmed when we learn that, “The FBI and other agencies monitored the men and provided an inactive missile and inert C-4 to the informant for the defendants.”

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said that “the group was relatively unsophisticated, penetrated early and not connected to any outside group.”

Once again, the FBI identified a disparate group of men that shared the majority of the country’s opinion that the war on terror was wrong, radicalized them, offered them cash incentives for following the lead of the FBI informant and then finally, after a year, got them to accept fake weapons. As in every other case, Without the involvement of the FBI informant, there would have been no “terror plot” to speak of.

The feds cooked up a phony terror plot and pinned it on these poor suckers so that they could launch a new PR assault for the flagging war on terror and get Americans to submit to increased surveillance, bag searches and checkpoints that are now commonplace in New York City.

This whole PR stunt in another psychological trick designed to enlist public support for the wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq as well as a police state at home to deal with “domestic terrorists.” We learn that the suspects were upset about “Muslim people were being killed in Afghanistan and Pakistan by U.S. military forces,” according to officials, the implication being that anyone who opposes the “war on terror” is a potential terrorist themselves.

Officials have seized upon the arrests to propagandize for the police state with glee, as well as refocusing the apparatus of the war on terror to target U.S. citizens as “homegrown terrorists”.

“This latest attempt to attack our freedoms shows that the homeland security threats against New York City are sadly all too real and underscores why we must remain vigilant in our efforts to prevent terrorism,” New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in a statement.

“This was a long, well-planned investigation, and it shows how real the threat is from homegrown terrorists,” said Rep. Peter King, of New York.

“The shocking plan to blow up a Jewish house of prayer with what the jihadist terrorists thought were C-4 explosives is dramatic proof that the dangers from such fanaticism have not passed and that American Jews must maintain their vigilance,” said a statement released by the infamous Simon Wiesenthal Center, which routinely cites the threat of federally-provocateured extremists as a reason to crush everyone’s free speech and virtually outlaw criticism of the government Israel and Zionist policies.

Of course it’s no coincidence that this arrives on the heels of widespread fury surrounding the MIAC report and other similar federal documents that equate gun owners, people knowledgeable about the Constitution and people who display political bumper stickers, with dangerous “domestic terrorists”. Officials have seized upon these arrests as a means of reinforcing the notion that “domestic terrorism” is a real threat when in reality we have never come across a “domestic terrorist” that didn’t have a fed standing behind him pulling the strings.

The last such major “domestic terror plot” in America involved a group out of Miami that supposedly planned to “wage a full ground war against the United States” and bomb the Sears Tower, but who actually turned out to be “a bunch of dipshits living in a warehouse,” as The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart described them.

As in every other case we have studied, the men turned out to be a semi-retarded street gang that were provocateured by FBI agents into spewing violent rhetoric yet barely had the capability to make a cheese sandwich, never mind bring down the tallest building in America. What they were interested in was a promise of $50,000 in cash from the government informants who were sent in to radicalize them and create a phony victory for the war on terror.

As the Miami New Times newspaper described it, the “ragtag group couldn’t wage a ground war on a jar of peppercorns.” The whole case descended into a farce as judges repeatedly declared a mistrial while the government tried to save face. After three trials, three juries and nearly three years, the government finally managed to convict the men despite there being“little concrete evidence of an evolving plot,” as in one that was not wholly provocateured by the FBI informant.

While you watch today’s incessant government fearmongering and celebration of their latest “terror bust,” recall how last time they pulled this stunt, and the reality of the “dipshits in a warehouse” farce unfolded, it blew up in their faces and only exposed the entire “war on terror” for what it really is - a manufactured hoax designed purely around enlisting support for bombing brown people in broken-backed third world countries while convincing Americans to accept their own enslavement at home.

America’s Nightmare: The Obama Dystopia

Andrew Hughes
Global Research
May 23, 2009

After 8 years of the Bush-Cheney nightmare during which we saw the wanton destruction of Afghanistan and Iraq, the cynical negation of centuries of Law designed to protect the most basic human rights and a foreign policy worthy of Genghis Khan, there came along the “Great Black Hope” in the persona of Barack Obama. The collective world consciousness turned uncritically to what was presented as a new era for peace, change and trust in Government.

Never before had one witnessed such an accomplished use of manipulation, propaganda, imagery and public relations wizardry to sell the public a man who was to take the baton from Bush and run with it in the race to destroy the economy, the rights of the people and help birth a nation totally controlled by those who have always lurked in the shadows of power.

Never before had one witnessed such an accomplished use of manipulation, propaganda, imagery and public relations wizardry to sell the public a man who was to take the baton from Bush and run with it in the race to destroy the economy, the rights of the people and help birth a nation totally controlled by those who have always lurked in the shadows of power. “Change” was promised and was delivered in the form of a deepening of the already Dystopic nightmare.

Promises were broken with no apology, the same creative legalese that infested the Bush administration, in the form of John Yoo and Alberto Gonzalez, was again used to deny justice to the inmates of Guantanamo, It was used to justify more torture, more destruction of the Constitution and more illegal surveillance of U.S. citizens.

The President that extended the hand of peace to the Muslim world has murdered hundreds of Pakistani men, women and children. The President who promised accountability in Government has filled his staff with lobbyists, banksters and warmongers. His Attorney General refuses to prosecute some of the worst war crimes committed in modern history and continues to give legal cover to criminals who tortured with impunity.

The country has been further bankrupted by the continuing theft of taxpayer money as the Wall St. campaign donors receive their quid pro quo. Obama has stood by idly as Bernancke states that the private Federal Reserve is not answerable to either Congress of the American public. The U.S. taxpayer is now on the hook for $14.3 Trillion and rising. Foreclosures and unemployment are rising with no meaningful efforts by the administration to alleviate the symptoms, never mind the cause. The new image of America is one of tent cities, lengthening soup kitchen lines, sherrifs evicting countless thousands of young and old from their homes, once prosperous towns descending in to an eerie stillness and an increasingly disillusioned populace.

The “War on terrorism” has mutated in to a control grid for an increasingly aware population. The foundation for this had already been put in place by Bush with the Patriot Act, Patriot Act 2, Military commissions act and numerous executive orders that strangled what was left of Posse Comitatus and the Constitution.

Homeland Security now defines “Terrorists” as those who believe in the Constitution, the first, second and fourth amendments. Returning veterans are being targeted for a denial of their second amendment rights. A “Terrorist Watchlist” of more than a million and rapidly growing, is being used as the basis for denying citizens the rights to travel and to work.

Obama is now mulling over the idea of indefinite detention without trial for U.S. citizens. This, from a teacher of the Constitution ! Bills are in congress to criminalize free speech on the Internet via the Cyberbullying Act which will make hurting somebody’s feelings a felony. Just like the Patriot Act this will morph in to a criminalization of political free speech and any criticism of the Government.

“Cyberterrorism” is being used as a pretext to bring government regulation to the the last stronghold of unbiased information. Washington has realized that it’s getting harder to get away with their Fascist agenda and are moving to control the field. The populace have become more aware of just what kind of “Change” Obama intended to deliver.

There has been a growing resistance on a state level with several invoking their 9th and 10th Amendment rights in a valiant attempt to stop the Federal Vampire from draining the last drops of blood, the last vestiges of Freedom and Hope.

This is the Dystopic Nightmare that America finds itself in today and each day brings new assaults on Freedom and Sanity. The framework for total control of the citizenry, the economy and the media is being built upon in a relentless aggrandization of Govermental power. Obama sits atop his new Empire still smiling that sickeningly disingenuous smile surrounded by his seasoned courtiers who have worked for decades to bring America in to this new era of the New World Order.

Japanese University to Track Students with iPhones

The Mainichi Daily News
May 22, 2009

Aoyama Gakuin University is phasing out traditional methods of taking attendance at its School of Social Informatics, in favor of free GPS-enabled iPhones.

The faculty began providing Apple iPhone 3Gs to all 550 staff and students Friday, using the GPS function to determine whether they are in school or not. The university will initiate full operation of the system in the autumn. The school also has plans to expand their use to setting simple tests and questionnaires, submitting homework and reviewing class video materials.

The university is to pay the basic charges itself, ensuring no extra financial burdens will fall on students.

The same day, it also announced a tie-up with iPhone provider Softbank Mobile Corp., called “Mobile & Net Society Education and Training.”

The President Who Told The TRUTH

Obama's Double-Cross On Gitmo

Secret Societies Behind Empire City State

Four arrested for planning New York terror attacks

Four men were arrested on charges linked with planning attacks against a Jewish synagogue and US warplanes based at a New York military base, prosecutors said.

The men, who according to a US congressman were all born in the United States, were arrested “on charges arising from a plot to detonate explosives near a synagogue in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, New York,” according to the complaint filed at a White Plains, New York federal court.

The group, residing in New York, where Al-Qaeda extremists with hijacked commercial airliners destroyed the World Trade Center towers on September 11, 2001, also “planned to shoot down military planes located at the New York Air National Guard Base at Stewart Airport in Newburgh, New York, with Stinger surface-to-air guided missiles,” officials said.

The group was set to appear in court on Thursday. The charges hold a minimum sentence of 25 years in prison to a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

The suspects — identified as James Cromitie, also known as Abdul Rahman; David Williams, also known as Daoud or simply DL; Onta Williams, also known as Hamza; and Laguerre Payen, also known as Amin and Almondo — had been tracked for over a year, officials said.

In the major part of the plan, to obtain weapons for the attack, the defendants dealt with an FBI informant who provided the group “with an inactive missile and inert explosives.”

According to the complaint in June 2008 when a Federal Bureau of Investigations informant met with Cromitie in Newburgh, New York, the suspect explained his anger over the US-led war in Afghanistan.

At that time Cromitie “expressed an interest in ‘doing something to America,’” the complaint said.

Beginning in October 2008, the informant began meeting with Cromitie regularly along with David Williams, Onta Williams and Payen at a house in which the FBI had concealed video and audio equipment.

The group “expressed desire” to attack targets in New York, and Cromitie “asked the informant to supply surface-to-air guided missiles and explosives, according to prosecutors.

In April 2009 the group agreed on the synagogue they intended to attack and proceeded to conduct surveillance, including taking photographs of the warplanes at the military base.

“As alleged in the complaint, the defendants wanted to engage in terrorist attacks,” said acting US attorney Lev L Dassin.

“Fortunately, the defendants sought the assistance of a witness cooperating with the government. While the weapons provided to the defendants were fake, the defendants thought they were absolutely real,” Dassin added.

New York Congressman Peter King told CNN television that the attacks would have involved exploding bombs in cars parked outside the Jewish temple and a community center.

“This would have been a tragic loss of life if the FBI and the NYPD (New York Police Department) had not been monitoring it.”

King said he believed all four of the men were born in the United States, and that they were all Muslim. “One is of Afghan descent,” he said, adding that some of the group converted to Islam in prison.

“Thank God for the NYPD and it shows what a real threat we face from homegrown terrorists, and it shows especially those of us living in New York, we live with this every day,” he said.

“We can rest secured tonight because this plot was stopped but we don’t know how many others are out there, and it’s why we can never let our guard down and we have to be extremely vigilant and realize the true diabolic nature of this enemy.”

(emphases added by neilmcnasty)

US journo claims Bhutto was killed on Cheney’s orders

The story regarding Hersh’s reported claim that Cheney ordered the assassination of Benazir Bhutto was published on our website among other publications. We regret the error.

WASHINGTON: American journalist Seymour Hersh on Monday denied news reports that quoted him as saying a ‘special death squad’ working under former US vice president Dick Cheney had killed Benazir Bhutto.

The award-winning journalist described as ‘complete madness’ the reports that the squad headed by General Stanley McChrystal – the new commander of US army in Afghanistan – had also killed former Lebanese prime minister Rafique Al Hariri and a Lebanese army chief.

‘Vice President Cheney does not have a death squad. I have no idea who killed Mr Hariri or Ms Bhutto. I have never said that I did have such information. I most certainly did not say any thing remotely to that effect during an interview with an Arab media outlet,’ Hersh said.

‘General McChrystal ran a special forces unit that engaged in High Value Target activity. While I have been critical of some of that unit's activities in the pages of the New Yorker and in interviews, I have never suggested that he was involved in political assassinations or death squads on behalf of Mr Cheney, as the published stories state.’

‘I have never been asked by any journalist…about such allegations. This is another example of blogs going bonkers with misleading and fabricated stories and professional journalists repeating such rumours without doing their job -- and that is to verify such rumours,’ Hersh said.

Pakistan's The Nation: 'US special squad killed Benazir'
The Nation (Online)
Published: May 18, 2009

NEW YORK (Online) - Former prime minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto was assassinated on the orders of the special death squad formed by former US vice-president Dick Cheney, which had already killed the Lebanese Prime Minister Rafique Al Hariri and the army chief of that country.

The squad was headed by General Stanley McChrystal, the newly-appointed commander of US army in Afghanistan. It was disclosed by reputed US journalist Seymour Hersh while talking to an Arab TV in an interview.

Hersh said former US vice-president Cheney was the chief of the Joint Special Operation Command and he clear the way for the US by exterminating opponents through the unit and the CIA. General Stanley was the in-charge of the unit.

Seymour also said that Rafiq Al Hariri and the Lebanese army chief were murdered for not safeguarding the US interests and refusing US setting up military bases in Lebanon. Ariel Sharon, the then prime minister of Israel, was also a key man in the plot.

A number of websites around the world are suspecting the same unit for killing of Benazir Bhutto because in an interview with Al-Jazeera TV on November 2, 2007, she had mentioned the assassination of Usama Bin Laden, Seymour said.

According to BB, Umar Saeed Sheikh murdered Usama, but her words were washed out from the David Frosts report, he said.

The US journalist opined that it might have been done on purpose because the US leadership did not like to declare Usama dead for in the case the justification of the presence of US army in Afghanistan could no more be there, hence no reason for operation against Taliban.

On the other hand, the diplomatic analysts believe that BB murder is still a fable and it is for the reason Asif Zardari and other govt authorities are stressing UN probe in the murder case, also paying huge sums for it.

Another website has disclosed that Benazir was put to death in order to roll back Pakistan nuclear programme and the take over its nukes and India, Israel and the US, were making hectic efforts to deprive Pakistan of its atomic capability so as to bring to under their control.

Intelligence officials ‘laughed’ at al Qaeda 7/7 bomb link

Senior intelligence officials initially dismissed suggestions the July 7 bombings were al Qaeda linked, it has been claimed.

By Duncan Gardham, Security Correspondent 
Last Updated: 7:00AM BST 19 May 2009

Chris Driver-Williams, a former senior IED analyst for the Defence Intelligence Staff said his claim provoked laughter at a meeting of intelligence agencies on the morning of the bombings.

One senior intelligence officer attending the Cobra meeting said the idea of an al Qaeda link was "absurd".

"When I suggested this at Cobra, I was met with laughter. This was by people in the intelligence community who knew their onions," Mr Driver-Williams said.

"Someone senior from an intelligence organisation said: 'Who are you and what possibly qualifies you to come out with such an absurd statement?"'

Later that day the al Qaida link was widely accepted by investigators as the details of the simultaneous planned attacks became clear.

Mr Driver-Williams, an expert in suicide terrorism, said the meeting showed the "information vortex" as the first reports of the blasts came in.

It comes as the Intelligence and Security Committee is due to publish its second report in to the bombings which claimed the lives of 52 people and left hundreds more injured.

It is expected to clear the Security Service of missing opportunities to prevent the attacks.

Victims of the bombings have hit out ahead of the report that they fear will be a "whitewash" and clear MI5 and the police of missing vital opportunities to stop the attacks.

A group of 25 people who were caught up in the attacks and relatives of those who died, have launched a legal battle for a public inquiry amid concerns that a report by MPs due out today will not give them the answers they are looking for.

The parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), appointed by the Prime Minister, is due to issue its second report on the bombings, after the first was accused of ignoring vital questions.

It later emerged that both Sidique Khan and Tanweer had been extensively photographed in 2004 by MI5 and the police as part of Operation Crevice, focused on Omar Khyam and his associates, who were planning a fertiliser bomb attack on the Bluewater Shopping Centre in Kent and the Ministry of Sound nightclub in central London.

The earlier ISC report concluded the decision of the security services not to prioritise Sidique Khan and Tanweer after the arrest of the fertiliser gang was "understandable" but the families think otherwise.

Rachel North, who survived the attacks and represents the 7/7 Inquiry Campaign Group, said: "It is not about who did right or who did wrong, it's about could it have been stopped."

Robert Webb, whose sister Laura died in the attacks, said: "Something has clearly gone wrong, whether it is an error of judgement, lack of resource or break-down in communication, there is a problem and there cannot be any other conclusion than that.

"I think we have just got to keep on the road for an independent review. If there are questions over the death of a loved one you want to try and find out the truth for them."

The families want to know why a number of potential leads were not followed up:

* Sidique Khan's name and telephone number were found in 2003 on the mobile phone of Mohammed Quayam Khan, who allegedly acted as a go-between for both the July 7 attackers and the fertiliser gang.

* MI5 knew Sidique Khan had attended a key meeting which led to the fertiliser bomb plot and considered him important enough to follow him back to his mother-in-law's address in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire on two separate occasions.

* The pair were observed meeting Khyam on four separate occasions between February and March 2004, three of which led to clear surveillance photographs of the men being taken at the Toddington services on the M1, outside a McDonald's in Crawley and walking towards an Islamic bookshop in Upton, east London.

* Had the photographs been shown to Mohammed Junaid Babar, a US supergrass who later spotted Sidique Khan in a newspaper story on the July 7 attacks, he could have told MI5 about a key al-Qaeda training camp the men attended in Pakistan in 2003.

* Police approached a garage that had given Mohammed Sidique Khan a courtesy car which he had used for meetings with the fertiliser gang and was given his correct name, address and telephone number in January 2005, but apparently took the matter no further. An inquiry a few weeks later showed he had insured another car in his own name.