The Future Children of Fukushima
Cancer, Deformities and Chronic Diseases
By JOE GIAMBRONE | CounterPunch | May 3, 2011
“[A] woman in her fourth month of pregnancy was contaminated with 137Cs [radioactive cesium]… The concentration of 137Cs in the mother (0.91 kBq/kg bw) was similar to that in her newborn child (0.97 kBq/kg bw).” 1
Children in Belarus, Ukraine and certain provinces of Russia tell us what to expect from a massive radiation contamination such as Japan is currently experiencing. Radiation attacks the young to a harsher degree than it does adults, and yet we do know that it kills adults. Radioactivity causes numerous illnesses including terminal cancers, and not just from a large initial dose but over time from absorbed emitting particles inside the body.
A senior nuclear adviser to the Japanese Prime Minister, professor Toshiso Kosako resigned in protest from his government. This as the Japanese government raised the level of permissible exposure to schoolchildren twenty fold, from 1mSv/year to 20mSv.
The atomic power industry, it can be proved, has been an unprecedented catastrophe for mankind.
One of the world’s leading experts on radionuclide contamination is Dr. Yury Bandashevsky based in Minsk, Belarus. Near Chernobyl’s “ground zero” Bandazhevsky has published hundreds of scientific papers and has studied the radioactive contamination absorbed by children there for decades.
The parents of northern Japan had best investigate Dr. Bandashevsky’s dietary recommendations. He’s found that apple pectin helps remove radioactive cesium-137 from the body.
However, food grown and animals grazed in contaminated regions will pass along radiation to human populations for centuries. The Japanese reliance on fish will soon produce another shock to their nation as larger fish absorb more radioactive particles up the food chain.
Dr. Bandashevsky has placed hard numbers on the dangers of internal contamination from radiation,
“Chronic Cs-137 levels over 30 Bq/kg body weight is often associated with serious cardiovascular diseases 2.”
For children with cesium 137 in excess of 50 Becquerels/kg body weight, “pathological disorders of the vital organs or systems will occur 3.” These levels can produce grotesque malformations in newborn babies and increase the risk of spontaneous abortions.
The U.S. Center for Disease Control (CDC) says, “Both 134Cs and 137Cs emit beta particles and gamma rays, which may ionize molecules within cells penetrated by these emissions and result in tissue damage and disruption of cellular function 4.”
Expecting Japanese mothers should flee the north of Japan as quickly as possible. Abandon the region for the sake of their children’s safety. Fetuses are in imminent danger and are many times more vulnerable to radiation than are adults.
How much radiation is Japan bathed in right now?
Nature magazine online reported that soil 40km northwest of the plant contained, “Cesium-137 levels of 163,000 becquerels per kilogram (Bq/kg) and iodine-131 levels of 1,170,000 Bq/kg, according to Japan’s science ministry 5.”
Tellingly, the new official “exclusion zone” is only a 30km radius from the plant. This means that those living atop the irradiated soil described above will not even be prompted to leave. Most will not. They will eventually return to life as usual. Only the colorless, tasteless, odorless radioactive isotopes will poison their families ceaselessly for the rest of their lives. Cesium, strontium, iodine and other radionuclides will continue to attack life forms in that contaminated environment despite any hollow assurances to the contrary.
Plutonium, the most toxic substance on earth, has been detected at eight different monitoring stations in Korea.
Radioactivity is a highly contested and controversial subject. Vast caches of medical evidence are routinely ignored in the mainstream media. At the nerve center of the controversy is the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), whose entire purpose is to promote the atomic power industry worldwide. Many don’t know, but the IAEA has the authority on all health matters concerning radiation, both military and civil.
The World Health Organization can simply be blocked – by the IAEA – from publishing its findings concerning radioactive disasters like Chernobyl. This exact scenario occurred in 1995 under the tenure of WHO Director Dr. Hiroshi Nakajima 6.
A Swiss documentary team discovered that Dr. Nakajima’s 1995 international conference of “700 experts and physicians” was prevented from publishing its findings on Chernobyl by the IAEA. The 2004 Swiss film Nuclear Controversies documents this battle between doctors and scientists on the scene vs. the IAEA.
Regarding the IAEA, Dr. Nakajima said, “for atomic affairs, military use and civil use, peaceful or civil use they have the authority. They command 7.”
The elephant in the room is that word “military,” and the desire of Western militaries to pummel other lands with “depleted uranium” (sic) munitions. As NATO currently plasters Libya with uranium tipped bombs, it must deny that the uranium contamination will harm the civilian population there. That admission alone would constitute a confession of war crimes, and so the fiction continues.
Radiation attacks DNA and causes horrific malformations, sudden mortality, and diseases that persist for the rest of the person’s life.
Several films have documented the radiation effects on the children of Chernobyl including the Academy Award winning Chernobyl Heart (2003). This film shows harrowing images of deformed infants and numerous teenagers who suffer from thyroid cancers and other thyroid diseases. Fewer than 20% of children in the nation of Belarus can be classified as “healthy,” according to official government studies.
A Ukrainian study found that, “for each case of thyroid cancer there were 29 other thyroid pathologies 8.”
Dr. Bandashevsky found further health effects at even lower levels of cesium contamination. For “children having 5 Bq/kg more than 80% are healthy, while having 11 Bq/kg only 35% of children are healthy 9.”
Chernobyl Heart, The Battle of Chernobyl (2006) and Nuclear Controversies (2004) have been available streaming online for all to see. The evidence that radiation destroys the lives of entire populations is irrefutable.
Official United Nations studies have failed to reflect this reality on the ground. What the UN has fallen back on as a rationale for its behavior is found in the 2008 UNSCEAR report on Chernobyl:
“As discussed previously in the section on the attribution of effects to radiation exposure, because presently there are no biomarkers specific to radiation, it is not possible to state scientifically that radiation caused a particular cancer in an individual 10.”
By their own logic it is also not possible to scientifically rule out that radiation caused the epidemic of cancers found in the highly contaminated regions. But, that’s exactly what the UN has shamelessly done in a series of reports that deliberately under-count the deaths from the Chernobyl catastrophe.
While the IAEA refuses to accept medical consequences of the radioactivity it promotes, it does acknowledge that radiation has spread from the crippled Fukushima plant. Readings as high as 25 Megabecquerels per sq. meter iodine-131, and 3.7 Megabecquerels per sq. meter cesium-137 were reported “at distances of 25 to 58 km 11” from the still out of control plant. These numbers should prompt massive evacuations at much greater distances than the official exclusion zone (read: uninhabitable zone) of 30km.
Facing that reality would render a large chunk of Japan a wasteland with economic costs beyond calculation. The numbers of refugees would surpass anything that the government could possibly manage. The absolute insanity of atomic power would instantly become an unavoidable fact to the entire (sane) world.
All exposures to radiation increase the risks of cancer, and there is no such thing as a “safe dose.” This is the determination of the National Academy of Sciences 12, the EPA 13, NRC 14, CDC 15 etcetera. Thus, when a population is exposed to any increase in radioactive particles, some percentage of people and animals will be adversely affected. The exact number is difficult to determine, but estimates are made through extrapolation.
Dr. Chris Busby has predicted “400,000” cases of cancer for the population within 200 kilometers of Fukushima 16. That includes the suburbs of Tokyo. Studies from Europe after Chernobyl were used in his calculations. Cancers include thyroid, leukemia, pancreas, prostate, lung, skin, bone – every type of cancer that exists. This is what radiation does to living organisms.
The evidence is clear. Children living “in contaminated regions, in a radius of 250 – 300 km from Chernobyl show an increase in mutations 17.” From the years 1987 to 2004, “the incidence of brain tumors in children up to 3 years of age doubled and in infants it increased 7.5-fold 18.”
Thousands of studies from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and the surrounding countries were compiled in 2009 by Dr. Alexey Yablokov and Drs. Vassily and Alexey Nesterenko. Chernobyl, Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment was published by the New York Academy of Sciences and cites 5,000 studies. Forty percent of Europe was dosed with significant radiation. Radioactivity spread across the northern hemisphere where it continues to affect human health to this day.
The most contaminated provinces show human devastation directly correlated to radiation levels. Gomel province in Belarus had 90% healthy children in 1985, the year before the meltdown. By 2000, “fewer than 10% of children were well 19.” Effects were directly related to the levels of contamination, eliminating other possible factors.
Rare deformities in infants increased radically. Severe Congenital Malformations (CMs) “such as polydactyly, deformed internal organs, absent or deformed limbs, and retarded growth increased significantly in the contaminated districts… officially registered CMs increased 5.7-fold during the first 12 years after the catastrophe 20.”
This is what the parents of Northern Japan should expect if they decide to stay. This is what the promotion of high risk atomic power has bequeathed to the next generations of those who live near the contaminated zone.
The IAEA’s methodology showed obvious holes in the counting of victims, post-Chernobyl. Stillbirths aren’t counted at all. The reality is that up to 2004, “the estimated total number of miscarriages and stillbirths in Ukraine as a result of Chernobyl was about 50,000 21.”
Those are fifty thousand human deaths in the single nation of Ukraine that did not even merit a mention in the UN’s so-called “official death toll.”
How many really died from Chernobyl’s meltdown?
The Yablokov/Nesterenko book places the death toll at about one million.
“Thus the overall mortality for the period from April 1986 to the end of 2004 from the Chernobyl catastrophe was estimated at 985,000 additional deaths. This estimate of the number of additional deaths is similar to those of Gofman (1994a) and Bertell (2006). 22”
Three independent studies arrived at similar findings.
The atomic energy industry today across many nations displays a reckless disregard for human life bordering on Crimes Against Humanity. The Rome Statute, employed by the International Criminal Court, added the following category to Crimes Against Humanity:
(k) Other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health.
As all nuclear plants regularly and routinely discharge harmful radioactive particles, which all governments admit are unsafe, the case is pretty clear. Nuclear power must be abolished while there is still enough uncontaminated arable farmland to sustain us.
In a strictly moral sense, these reckless plants endanger millions of other people’s children, perhaps 12,000 human generations yet to be born 23. Radioactive power generation places us in jeopardy at risk for catastrophic illnesses. This is a gross deliberate violation of millions of people’s human rights.
Plutonium remains a threat to future civilizations. This reckless, uncontrolled release of radioactive isotopes has fouled the earth.
The people of Japan should remember the people of Belarus. Birth defects in children “whose mothers live in contaminated zones is twice as high as compared to those, whose mothers live in clean regions 24.”
Notes
1. World Health Organization, International Agency for Research on Cancer IARC, Monographs on the Evaluatiion of Carcinogenic Risks to Humans, Vol. 78 Ionizing Radiation Part 2: Some Internally Depostited Radionuclides, 2001, IARCPress, Lyon France, p. 343.
2. Yuri Bandazhevsky, Chronic Cs-137 incorporation in children ‘s organs, 488 SWISS MED WKLY, 2003;133:488–490 · www.smw.ch (peer reviewed), Official journal of, the Swiss Society of Infectious disease
the Swiss Society of Internal Medicine, Swiss Respiratory Society
3., 17., 24. The Chernobyl Catastrophe and Health Care, By Dr. Michel Fernex, Professor emeritus, Medical Faculty of Basel, F-68480 Biederthal, France.
4: Center for Disease Control Publication p157-c2, CESIUM, 2. RELEVANCE TO PUBLIC HEALTH, CDC website.
5. Nature Journal Online, Radioactivity Spreads in Japan, March 29 2011, http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110329/full/471555a.html
6., 7. Nuclear Controversies, 2004, Swiss TV, Film by Wladimir Tchertkoff, Feldat Film Switzerland.
8. ,18., 19., 20., 21., 22. Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment, Alexey V. Yablokov, Vassily B. Nesterenko, Alexey V. Nesterenko, 2009, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Vol.1181.
9. V.B. Nesterenko’s report at the International conference “Medical Consequences of the Chernobyl Catastrophe: results of 15-year researches”, June 4-8, 2001, Kiev, Ukraine.
10. SOURCES AND EFFECTS OF IONIZING RADIATION, United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation UNSCEAR 2008 Report to the General Assembly with Scientific Annexes, VOLUME II Annex D Health effects due to radiation from the Chernobyl accident
11. IAEA website, Fukushima Nuclear Accident Update Log, March 30, 2011, http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/2011/fukushima300311.html
12. National Academy of Sciences, 2006, Health Risks from Exposure to Low Levels of Ionizing Radiation: BEIR VII Phase 2. http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11340&page=1#
13. EPA website, Radiation Risks and Realities, “The more radiation dose a person receives, the greater the chance of developing cancer… Current evidence suggests that any exposure to radiation poses some risk, however, risks at very low exposure levels have not been definitively demonstrated.” [“very low” not defined –JG] www.epa.gov/radiation/docs/402-k-07-006.pdf
14. NRC website, Fact Sheet on Biological Effects of Radiation, “This dose-response hypothesis suggests that any increase in dose, no matter how small, results in an incremental increase in risk.”
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/bio-effects-radiation.html
15. Center for Disease Control website, Prenatal Radiation Exposure: A Fact Sheet for Physicians, “However, the human embryo and fetus are particularly sensitive to ionizing radiation, and the health consequences of exposure can be severe, even at radiation doses too low to immediately affect the mother. Such consequences can include growth retardation, malformations, impaired brain function, and cancer.”
16. Dr. Chris Busby, Reuters, http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=S0H-mtsdsgg.
23. Al Jazeera, April 4, 2011, No safe levels’ of radiation in Japan by Dahr Jamail, quoting Dr. Kathleen Sullivan.
~
Joe Giambrone is a filmmaker and author of Hell of a Deal: A Supernatural Satire. He edits the Political Film Blog. He be reached at: polfilmblog at gmail.
Israel bans PFLP leader from Cairo meetings
Ma’an – 03/05/2011
RAMALLAH — Israeli authorities banned Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine leader Abdul Rahim Malouh from attending reconciliation meetings in Cairo, officials said Monday.
Malouh was appointed to head the PFLP delegation in talks ahead of the signing of a surprise agreement to reconcile Hamas and Fatah and reunite the Palestinian territories.
Israeli forces refused to grant him permission to leave the West Bank so he will be replaced by Dr Maher Al-Taher, a PFLP official in Syria, the leftist party said in a statement.
PFLP said it encouraged all efforts to reunite Palestine and to end Israeli violations of Palestinians’ rights.
Delegations of several Palestinian factions left the Gaza Strip on Monday through the Rafah crossing on Egypt’s border to attend meetings in the Egyptian capital, set to begin on Tuesday.
Hamas leader in exile Khalid Mash’al and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas are expected to sign the unity deal on Wednesday, ending years of rivalry which divided the West Bank and Gaza under separate governments.
The Egyptian government invited all Palestinian political parties to Cairo to discuss and approve the implementation of the unity deal, and to attend the signing ceremony.
Israeli Army Seals Nabi Saleh Village
By Saed Bannoura – IMEMC & Agencies – May 03, 2011
Israeli soldiers sealed the entrances of Nabi Saleh village, west of the central West Bank city of Ramallah, late on Monday at night after closing its two main gates and installing roadblocks on minor roads leading to the village.
Eyewitnesses reported that dozens of soldiers invaded the village and engaged in clashes with local youths who hurled stones at them.
They added that armored military bulldozers were seen parked near the main entrance of the village, an issue that caused concern to the residents as the army intends to demolish more than ten homes.
Several months ago, owners of the ten homes in question received military orders informing them that the army intends to demolish their homes under the pretext of being constructed without permits.
The villages receive their construction permits from the local civil authorities run the Palestinian Authority.
On Sunday at night, soldiers sealed the entrance of the village for several hours.
The local Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements, one of dozens of nonviolent committee in the occupied West Bank, said that the army is targeting the village for its legitimate nonviolent resistance, and is practicing collective punishment against the residents.
Palestinians sign unity agreement
Press TV – May 3, 2011
A long-awaited unity deal between Palestinian movements of Hamas and Fatah has been signed in the Egyptian capital city of Cairo.
The signing ceremony was held as representatives of 13 Palestinian factions were present on Tuesday, AFP reported.
Acting Palestinian Authority Chief Mahmoud Abbas attended the meeting.
“We signed the deal despite several reservations. But we insisted on working for the higher national interest,” said Walid al-Awad, a politburo member of the Palestine People’s Party.
“We have discussed all the reservations. Everyone has agreed to take these points into consideration,” he told Egyptian state television.
“Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank will be celebrating this agreement… We must now work to implement what was agreed in the deal,” he noted.
The two sides reached an understanding in Cairo last Wednesday to establish an interim unity government and hold presidential and legislative elections within a year.
The two factions have been at odds since the Palestinian resistance movement of Hamas won the Palestinian parliamentary elections in January 2006.
Following Hamas’s election victory, Fatah set up headquarters in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, thus limiting governance by Hamas to the Gaza Strip, a comparably smaller portion of Palestinian territories.
Bahrain Arrests Opposition Leaders After Public Criticism
By Jason Ditz | Anti-war.com | May 02, 2011
Following an interview on al-Jazeera TV in which he blasted the regime, opposition MP Mattar Ibrahim Mattar was arrested by the Bahraini government today, along with MP Jawad Ferooz, the Vice President of the Wefaq Party.
The two were key members of the Shi’ite Wefaq faction, which backed the public protests among Bahrain’s Shi’ite majority, and both resigned (along with every single opposition MP) to protest the crackdown against protesters.
The arrests came after Mattar told al-Jazeera that his faction was receiving threats from the regime since the crackdown ended the protests, including killing the detained brother of a Wefaq MP. He added that while the government backed off its proposed ban of Wefaq the group remains under intense pressure.
Human rights groups were quick to criticize the arrests, and expressed concern that the regime has not revealed where the two are being held. The Bahraini Interior Ministry confirmed the killing of the detained protester, insisting he was causing problems at the detention center.
Osama Bin Laden has been dead for a while! Show me the body like Saddam Hussein’s two sons were put on display
LoneStarWatchDog | May 2, 2011
This smells to high heaven and seems like an act of political desperation. It has been confirmed by many sources Bin Laden could not survive in a cave because he needed kidney dialysis. The CIA asset died of natural causes many years ago. Every video and audio recording was a fake and a fraud concocted by our intelligence agencies to raise terrorist warnings for political purposes.
I want to see the body. What was the purpose to quickly bury Osama bin laden at sea. I want to see the body and then I will believe the news. I want to see the dialysis marks on his body. Then which Bin Laden is it. Was it the one smiling who was writing with his right hand when he is left handed? Was it the Bin Laden with the grey beard and the one with a regular brown beard? What ship buried Bin Laden at sea?
This seems like a political move because Barrack Obama the President is in trouble with very low approval ratings. If he really wants to prove it. At least President George W. Bush during the Iraq conflict had Saddam Hussein’s two sons on public display before they were laid to rest. There was no observance to Islamic law concerning burial of the bodies. They had no trouble hanging Saddam Hussein on video. Why so secretive if they really killed Osama Bin Laden. I want to see the body. Then I will believe the news.
This President is in hot water with the American people. The people no longer have confidence in his leadership and his ability to lead. Using the Osama Bin Laden card was an act of political desperation. Next there might be a false flag attack claiming to be in retaliation to killing Osama Bin Laden might be in the cards. I approach this breaking news with great skepticism because there is no evidence there was any operation took place. No video of burial at sea or the body. All we have to go on is the President’s words in which we have no confidence in what he says because the words he is speaking are coming from a teleprompter.
Osama bin Laden’s Second Death
By Paul Craig Roberts | Lew Rockwell | May 2, 2011
If today were April 1 and not May 2, we could dismiss as an April fool’s joke this morning’s headline that Osama bin Laden was killed in a firefight in Pakistan and quickly buried at sea. As it is, we must take it as more evidence that the US government has unlimited belief in the gullibility of Americans.
Think about it. What are the chances that a person allegedly suffering from kidney disease and requiring dialysis and, in addition, afflicted with diabetes and low blood pressure, survived in mountain hideaways for a decade? If bin Laden was able to acquire dialysis equipment and medical care that his condition required, would not the shipment of dialysis equipment point to his location? Why did it take ten years to find him?
Consider also the claims, repeated by a triumphalist US media celebrating bin Laden’s death, that “bin Laden used his millions to bankroll terrorist training camps in Sudan, the Philippines, and Afghanistan, sending ‘holy warriors’ to foment revolution and fight with fundamentalist Muslim forces across North Africa, in Chechnya, Tajikistan and Bosnia.” That’s a lot of activity for mere millions to bankroll (perhaps the US should have put him in charge of the Pentagon), but the main question is: how was bin Laden able to move his money about? What banking system was helping him? The US government succeeds in seizing the assets of people and of entire countries, Libya being the most recent. Why not bin Laden’s? Was he carrying around with him $100 million dollars in gold coins and sending emissaries to distribute payments to his far-flung operations?
This morning’s headline has the odor of a staged event. The smell reeks from the triumphalist news reports loaded with exaggerations, from celebrants waving flags and chanting “USA USA.” Could something else be going on?
No doubt President Obama is in desperate need of a victory. He committed the fool’s error of restarting the war in Afghanistan, and now after a decade of fighting the US faces stalemate, if not defeat. The wars of the Bush/Obama regimes have bankrupted the US, leaving huge deficits and a declining dollar in their wake. And re-election time is approaching.
The various lies and deceptions, such as “weapons of mass destruction,” of the last several administrations had terrible consequences for the US and the world. But not all deceptions are the same. Remember, the entire reason for invading Afghanistan in the first place was to get bin Laden. Now that President Obama has declared bin Laden to have been shot in the head by US special forces operating in an independent country and buried at sea, there is no reason for continuing the war.
Perhaps the precipitous decline in the US dollar in foreign exchange markets has forced some real budget reductions, which can only come from stopping the open-ended wars. Until the decline of the dollar reached the breaking point, Osama bin Laden, who many experts believe to have been dead for years, was a useful bogeyman to use to feed the profits of the US military/security complex.
Paul Craig Roberts, a former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury and former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal, has been reporting shocking cases of prosecutorial abuse for two decades. A new edition of his book, The Tyranny of Good Intentions, co-authored with Lawrence Stratton, a documented account of how Americans lost the protection of law, has been released by Random House.
Copyright © 2011 Paul Craig Roberts
OSAMA BIN LADEN: DEAD – YET AGAIN!
By Damian Lataan | May 02, 2011
With the US in the doldrums everywhere including at home, Obama and his advisors clearly thought now would be a really good time to bring great and humungous tidings to a hurting American people. A royal marriage seems to have worked for the recession hit British, why not the death of a make believe arch enemy for millions of ordinary American suffering the financial hardships derived – ironically – from the expense of the wars meant, so we were told, to have put an end to the actions of people like bin Laden.The Western media circus will now play the news of bin Laden’s ‘death’ up to the hilt around the world. Ignored will be the evidence that bin Laden died years ago. Supporters of the bin Laden myth will argue that there was never any concrete evidence that bin Laden was dead ages ago but then nor will they be able to show any concrete independently verifiable evidence that he was killed in Islamabad yesterday despite the Americans saying they have his body.
It was convenient for the Western propaganda machine to keep bin Laden alive all these years since his death probably at the end of 2001, just as it is convenient for the Western propaganda machine to now announce his death.
His death, regardless of when it was, also happens to be convenient in terms of the world now never being able to hear his side of the story had he been captured and tried. Osama bin Laden denied having had anything to do with 9/11 and, since the US was already after his blood anyway, there was no reason at all for him to lie. A later video of a not very good look-alike claiming responsibility appeared and was presented as final proof that he had, indeed, confessed to being responsible for 9/11.
For years the US administration and the West have presented Osama bin Laden as the Emmanuel Goldstein of the Twenty First century in order to perpetuate their ‘War Against Terrorism’ which ended up being nothing more than a war against Islam and the Muslim world, so the big question now is; who will replace him as the object of hate for the West?
UPDATE
According to the LA Times, US officials have said that “DNA tests had confirmed bin Laden’s identity”. One wonders how a DNA test was completed so quickly since even when in a rush (despite what you see on ‘CSI Miami’) they take about 48 hours to do. And the other question is; with what are they comparing his DNA with?
What were They Thinking? Suspicions will Inevitably Grow about the Extermination of Osama bin Laden
By Dave Lindorff – This Can’t Be Happening – 05/02/2011
According to the brief announcement made by President Barack Obama last night, the operation in Pakistan by US Navy SEAL special forces was a well-planned hit job.
“They took care to avoid civilian casualties,” the president said of the top-secret night-time raid by helicopter on a highly secure compound near a military base in Abbottadad, a city only about an hour’s drive drive from, Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital city. He added, “After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body.”
Not for long though. After “double-tapping” bin Laden–that is a military term for the illegal process of executing a wounded person–or insuring that a person is truly dead–that involves firing not one but two bullets into the head–his body was taken out of Pakistan by the departing SEAL raiding party, and reportedly buried (dumped) at sea.
According to the Washington Post, the US wanted to “prevent the creation of a shrine” to the late leader of Al Qaeda and alleged mastermind of the 9-11 attacks. “We don’t want a bunch of people going to the shrine forever,” the Post quoted one unidentified official as saying.
This is supposed to be “closure”?
Think about it a moment. The US had the living Osama bin Laden in their hands last night! After almost 10 years, they had successfully captured the guy who allegedly managed to mastermind the biggest, most disastrous attack on the US in the modern history of the country–perhaps of all time–a coordinated aerial assault on the financial and military hearts of the world’s most powerful country, carried out with nothing but box cutters–an attack which managed to neutralize the mightiest air defense system in the world! And instead of bundling him into an orange jump suit, putting a bag over his head and bringing him in for interrogation, like they’ve done to hundreds of other lesser captives in the so-called decade-long “War on Terror,” they “double-tapped” him on the spot?
What were they thinking?
Given the trove of information he could have offered about US terrorism vulnerabilities, about his far-flung terrorist organization and its future plans, I have to think the only conceivable answer is they had to have been thinking that this guy would have some pretty embarrassing things to say about the US and its dirty “War.”
There has been considerable controversy surrounding bin Laden’s origins, with news organizations such as the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the BBC, the Guardian and Der Spiegel, among others, all reporting that he had received funding, training and weapons during the 1980s from the CIA, which was reportedly using him as a conduit for supporting Arab volunteers fighting against the Soviet military forces in Afghanistan. The US has denied these claims, but the evidence is rather convincing that for at least some time, bin Laden was considered “our guy.” How embarrassing if he were to confirm that at a trial! How embarrassing if he went further, and said that his relationship with the CIA had extended beyond the defeat of the Soviets in Afghanistan.
But the potential for US discomfort with a living, talking Osama bin Laden goes well past his early relationship with the CIA. Shortly after the US invasion of Afghanistan in October, 2001, US forces, having toppled the Taliban government in Kabul, appeared to have surrounded and trapped bin Laden and his supporters in the mountains of Tora Bora. Then, suddenly, the siege was called off, and US forces were largely pulled out of the country, to join forces that were being assembled in Kuwait and the UAE in preparation for a war that the Bush/Cheney administration was secretly gearing up for against Iraq–a country that had nothing to do with 9-11, and that posed no threat to the US or its allies. How embarrassing for Washington if bin Laden were to tell about how close he had been to capture back then, only to suddenly find that he and his men were being given a free pass to escape to Pakistan!
And then there is the matter of 9-11 itself.
One doesn’t have to be a wild-eyed conspiracy theorist, conjuring up all kinds of ideas about the attacks being an “inside job” planned by some nefarious cabal of plotters within the US, to believe that the true story of how those attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were able to go off so flawlessly has yet to be told. The 9-11 Commission has been thoroughly discredited as a cover-up, even by its own members. My own reporting has confirmed that the FBI lied to that commission about not having the flight recorders of all four of the planes involved. There is also the mystery of the Israeli Mossad agents who, according to reports in the Jewish Forward newspaper, were observed filming the attacks from across the Hudson River and who were also seen apparently celebrating as the buildings came down, and who were later captured in their van by New Jersey police, only to be released under State Department pressure, and flown safely to Israel. There are the curious put options that were placed on a few companies that were certain to have their shares tank after the attack–American and United Airlines, and several of the financial companies that had offices in the Twin Towers–puts that were arranged through the investment bank Alex Brown, whose chairman, until 1998, was a guy, A.B. “Buzzy” Krongard, who at the time was a high-ranking member of the CIA. The commission never even tried to find out who placed those incredibly prescient puts and who collected on them.
Would bin Laden have had anything to say about who or about which intelligence agencies might have had advance knowledge of his plans before the 9-11 attacks?
We’ll never know.
He is now crab bait at the bottom of the ocean somewhere.
Terminating Osama bin Laden might have offered brief primal satisfaction to a tribal element in the US that likes to mindlessly chant “USA, USA!” at particularly gruesome moments of American military mayhem, but the deliberate in situ execution of this particular villain, and the subsequent rapid and thorough obliteration of his mortal remains, has only ensured that, like the Kennedy assassination, the King murder, and the disappearance of Teamster leader Jimmy Hoffa, Osama bin Laden will become a permanent mystery and source of endless conspiracy theorizing.
And the mystery of 9-11, and how it was possible for a few guys armed with some box-cutting razors and with limited flying skills to destroy the financial center and a big chunk of the military headquarters of the most powerful nation in the world, will be that much harder to solve.
On the available evidence, the powers that be in Washington wanted it that way.
Please See Your Doctor Should Viagra Lead to Rape
By Kathleen Wallace Peine / Dissident Voice / May 2nd, 2011
It has been evident for years that the American MSM has been sliding into the dark role of government policy facilitator, but at least until recently there was something of a muddled attempt to feign credibility. That pretense is now completely gone. Hell, forget journalistic credibility; we’ve entered an era of storytelling freakery that knows no bounds.
This weekend, in particular, a breathless story was circulated for consumption; it was derived from the Reuters syndicate. One of the “progressive” sites out there presented the story as such: “HORROR: US Envoys Say Gaddafi Troops Raping, Issued Viagra”. This is a perfect example why I could never be an editor for a beard faux progressive site. I would insist the article be “WTF: US Envoys Say Gaddafi Troops Raping, Issued Viagra” because that’s what that nonsense merits.
I am in no way trying to diminish or trivialize the sickening pathology of sexual assault in wartime or anytime; it is a hideous companion to the basketful of horrors that we see during times of fighting. The fact that we are somehow not too startled by stories of maimed bombing victims shows how numb we’ve let the hawks make us. For some reason, though, rape still has a bit of shock value so I suspect that is why it’s power was tapped into for this story.
It was said that Susan Rice, the US Ambassador to the UN, made the bizarre allegation during a closed-door Security Council meeting. It has also been noted that there was no response to her statement. Now that I believe. Of course these types of stories make their way out into the world as they are intended.
The story is incredibly reminiscent of the babies being thrown from incubators tale which was remarkably effective in moving public opinion to enter into Gulf War I. As I’m sure most of the readers here have heard, that story was later proven to be fabricated. I wonder how much of the general population knows the real story in regard to this incident, however. If you don’t recall, this tale of dying babies was told by a 15 year old member of the Kuwaiti Royal family posing as an onlooker to the treachery. She was presented in an anonymous manner; it was said, so as to protect her family still in Kuwait. The girl was actually the daughter of the Kuwaiti Ambassador. She struck out with a breakthrough performance as she told of witnessing Iraqi soldiers tossing babies onto the cold floor to perish. Babies and Rape-they both pack a punch, especially if you aren’t a particularly creative PR strategist. Hey, if it works…
If you are like me, you recall the incident as being part of a Congressional hearing, quite official. At least that is how it plays out in my mind’s eye. The thing is, that spectacle was actually organized under a group called The Human Rights Caucus. It had all the appearance of an official Congressional hearing but none of the tedious details like “laws” against lying under oath to the actual body of Congress. This was pure performance art. Don’t feel bad if you were fooled, so was Amnesty International as they had to issue an apologetic retraction after being duped as well. The damage was done, and suddenly the girl was no longer available for questions.
When clownery like 15 year old best supporting actress performances can help goad a nation to war, I suppose the participants in future ad campaigns want to see how far they can go next time. You almost wonder if there is a competition among the PR firms to see how ridiculous the stories can get.
I would certainly advance the Viagra rapin’ maniacs as one of the goofiest attempts ever. Kermit Roosevelt they ain’t! They certainly couldn’t be accused of any finesse, but they’ve seen clumsy plots work out just fine in the past.
Of course rational people realize that it is highly unlikely that an erectile dysfunction medication would facilitate rape. If this theory holds water then I have great suspicions that those retired professional type guys … the ones who go around and ride motorcycles on weekends with pristine leather jackets. … you know- the ones who always have a trip to the vineyards planned…. Come on, you’ve seen them on the commercials! These are the guys who thought Dennis Hopper was still cool even after he did Ameritrade commercials. Well, they are all probably rapists.
I almost feel sorry for Pfizer Inc. (almost).
On the absolutely, insanely improbable (did I say minuscule) chance that this has any basis in fact — suppose one bat-shit crazy commander did hand out some Viagra — I can find no plausible way this could be a widespread issue of note. Of course sexual assault is a horrible issue, but I suspect PR guys decided to piggyback on that volatile and scary topic with some mayhem and nonsense to get attention. I do think they finally miscalculated this time, however.
This propaganda is so completely over the top that even the comments following the article seemed to show a glimmer of critical thinking on the part of the readers. This is amazing and rare these days. Overwhelmingly the story was rejected and mocked. We are seeing our media slide into a Soviet era TASS irrelevance. The readers may not know the real story, but they know they are being fed nonsense.
The purveyors of these tales seem to have no agenda other than to incite support for this latest war. They are not hindered by the fact finding that tainted yesterday’s quaint journalism. One is thankful that North Korean style radios haven’t been placed in all of our homes. You can turn down the propaganda but never turn it off. I’m sure our policy jackals view that setup with lust.
If only this jaded disbelief could have been present the last decade or so. It seems to have taken personal lifestyle threats to question the legitimacy of continuous war and that is a very sad commentary on the American soul. You take what you can get though, and for whatever reason, every day more Americans seem to be seeing through the adolescent war propaganda machine.
The startling revelation that bin Laden is dead should be treated with similar skeptical consideration. This comes at a time when support is certainly waning in regard to these military escapades. Early indications seem to paint a bit of a giddy celebratory sense in the average American, but it will be fascinating to see if this translates over into any enhanced support of the multi-platform wars. At this point we truly only know what they are telling us, and little has dripped out as far as detailed facts. They do claim to have a body– we’ll have to see what is released, but one thing is for certain: this is the big one in the arsenal, possibly held until truly needed to goad and frenzy up the population again. I’m sure the best PR team is handling this one!
There’s truly no way to know if bin Laden’s location was verified long ago, but the kill was not ordered until this time. The long standing bizarre audio releases certainly made his death seem likely many years ago, though. None of this is seamless. Hopefully some of the skepticism beginning to show in regard to idiotic stories like the Viagra rape tales will at least translate over into a lack of blanket support for increased worldwide “interventions” even in the atmosphere surrounding this latest announcement.
Sadly this growing awareness does not seem to indicate a groundswell of activism that is just around the corner. This is all new to those of us living during the imperial overreach of the day and it will be up to us to determine how best to channel this growing distrust Americans are incubating. These clumsy propaganda attempts may actually do more good than we can know if they open the eyes of those previously in a trance.
Kathleen Wallace Peine can be reached at: kathypeine@gmail.com
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From the Archives
US-Israel War on Iran: The Myth of Limited Warfare
By James Petras :: 04.04.2012
Introduction
The mounting threat of a US-Israeli military attack against Iran is based on several factors including: (1) the recent military history of both countries in the region, (2) public pronouncements by US and Israeli political leaders, (3) recent and on-going attacks on Lebanon and Syria, prominent allies of Iran, (4) armed attacks and assassinations of Iranian scientists and security officials by proxy and/or terrorist groups under US or Mossad control, (5) the failure of economic sanctions and diplomatic coercion, (6) escalating hysteria and extreme demands for Iran to end legal, civilian use-related uranium enrichment, (7) provocative military ‘exercises’ on Iran’s borders and war games designed for intimidation and a dress rehearsal for a preemptive attack, (8) powerful pro-war pressure groups in both Washington and Tel Aviv including the major Israeli political parties and the powerful AIPAC in the US, (9) and lastly the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (Obama’s Orwellian Emergency Decree, March 16, 2012).
The US propaganda war operates along two tracks: (1) the dominant message emphasizes the proximity of war and the willingness of the US to use force and violence. This message is directed at Iran and coincides with Israeli announcements of war preparations. (2) The second track targets the ‘liberal public’ with a handful of marginal ‘knowledgeable academics’ (or State Department progressives) playing down the war threat and arguing that reasonable policy makers in Tel Aviv and Washington are aware that Iran does not possess nuclear weapons or any capacity to produce them now or in the near future. The purpose of this liberal backpedaling is to confuse and undermine the majority public opinion, which is clearly opposed to more war preparations, and to derail the burgeoning anti-war movement.
Needless to say the pronouncements of the ‘rational’ warmongers use a ‘double discourse’ based on the facile dismissal of all the historical and empirical evidence to the contrary. When the US and Israel talk of war, prepare for war and engage in pre-war provocations – they intend to go to war – just as they did against Iraq in 2003. Under present international political and military conditions an attack on Iran, initially by Israel with US support, is extremely likely, even as world economic conditions should dictate otherwise and even as the negative strategic consequences will most likely reverberate throughout the world for decades to come. … continue
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