Iran: No Sorcery But A Constitutional Struggle
Moon of Alabama | May 8, 2011
So there is sorcery within the Iranian government of president Ahmadinejad, allies of him have been arrested for it and he will step down?
Today Yves Smith links to a Raw Story piece which is headlined Iranian president may resign after allies arrested, charged with sorcery. Raw Story has no sources for that claim but a link to a Guardian piece which claims:
Several people said to be close to the president and his chief of staff, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, have been arrested in recent days and charged with being “magicians” and invoking djinns (spirits).Ayandeh, an Iranian news website, described one of the arrested men, Abbas Ghaffari, as “a man with special skills in metaphysics and connections with the unknown worlds”.
The Guardian provides no source for its report but that Iranian website Ayandeh it links to.
But there is little Iranian with that website except its use of Farsi language. It has an English title “Iranian Futurist”. It’s full domain name is www.ayandeh.nu and it is registered via Loopia Webbhotell AB in Vasteras, Sweden. The admin email for that website is info@ayandehnegar.org and that domain is registered to one Hossein Mola with an address in Kesta, Sweden.
Hossein Mola also registered the domain vahidthinktank.com. That site only has a Farsi Donation page (google translate link) and a button “English” which brings one to a blogspot page of one Vahid V. Motlagh who claims to be a futurist and looks into “Ideas for a deeper sense of life”.
But back to the Guardian’s source, the futurist Iranian/Swedish/Norwegian website ayandeh.nu. I can not find (google translate link) any article that would fit this as a source for the “sorcery” and “arrests” the Guardian reports. The website is a mix of futurology including from Vahid V. Motlagh, Iranian human rights stuff and a few news items about Iran. It is neither really Iranian nor a reliable source.
The whole sorcery and arrests claims are likely nonsense invented to make a little reported constitutional crisis within Iran’s ruling class look more mysterious than it is.
Now lets talk about that crisis.
While the “west” always claims that Ahmedinejad is a “hardliner” or “conservative” that claim has never been true. He is a rather progressive social democrat with a more laical and secular outlook than many of the “principalists” in the Iranian parliament and the conservative clerics. This was already obvious back in 2006 when Ahmedinejad allowed women into soccer stadiums but was overruled by conservatives and the supreme leader Khamenei.
After the 2009 elections, which he won with a comfortable 60% of the votes, an emboldened Ahmedinejad again pressed for a more laical society. His point man for this project was Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei. Mashaei, an engineer and politician, is a war-comrade of Ahmedinejad. His daughter is married to Ahmadenejad’s son. He is known for a relative liberal view especially with regards to women’s rights and even on relations to people in Israel.
In July 2009 Ahmedinejad made Mashaei his first vice president. Conservatives protested and within a week the supreme leader ordered him out. Ahmedinejad showed them the finger and made Mashaei his chief of staff and gave him most of the powers he would have had as first vice president. It is rumored that he is grooming him for taking up the presidency when Ahmedinejad will end his current last term.
Recently Mashaei made several comments which set out Iranian nationalism and Shia Islam as two equal pillars of Iranian strength. For the clerics this was an unbearable attack on their position and on the prerogative of Islam and they fought him bitterly. In early April this year Ahmedinejad was pressed to let Mashaei go and to get a new chief of staff. The conservative intelligence minister Hojatoleslam Haydar Moslehi, himself a hardline cleric and the cabinet watchdog of the supreme leader, was thought to have led the campaign against Mashaei.
But then Mashaei reasonably claimed that he found his office bugged and Haydar Moslehi was fingered as being behind the plot. The president did not liked being spied on by his intelligence minister and by mid April Ahmdinejhad fired Haydar Moslehi as minister and reinstated Mashaei as chief of staff. The supreme leader Khamenei then demanded the reinstatement of his spy Moslehi.
There was a lot of back and forth on the issue, including Friday sermons from the pulpit, but Ahmedinejad did not retreat. The Iranian constitution gives the president as the chief executive the right to seat and fire ministers. The supreme leader’s constitutional position is comparable a U.S. chief justice position in the supreme court. He is certainly not a dictator without bounds. As part of the judicature he has a (small) formal say in (vice-)presidential positions but no formal say at all in cabinet positions.
This led to a situation where Moslehi still acted as minister but was ignored by Ahmedinejad who either boycotted cabinet meetings when Moslehi was attending or ordered him out before they started. For some fourteen days the situation was hanging in balance.
Finally the Iranian parliament, the Majlis, stepped in. In the end a majority requested that Ahmedinejad follow the wishes of the supreme leader. As the parliament has the power to impeach the president Ahmedinejad had little choice but to, for now, give in.
Today Ahmedinejad attended a cabinet meeting with Moslehi present. Also present was Mashaei.
While this all may sound dramatic it was a quite normal situation in the Islamic Republic. Since its foundation, power struggles between the executive, legislative and judiciary branches are a regular occurrence. The conservatives and the Islamic judges, usually somewhat wrongly described as clerics, demand a higher ranking for the judiciary branch led by the supreme leader. The executive points to its democratic legitimation and sees this as an equal source of power. The legislative is usually split on the issues.
So there is nothing in this story about sorcery or arrests. There may have been rumors of such but those were likely more a part of a smear campaign against Mashaei than a real issue.
What astonished me was how little this whole issue was reported on in the “west” over the last weeks. That may well be because the “western” distorted viewpoint of Ahmedinejad as a “hardliner” who “lost the elections” and of the Iranian judiciary branch as “clerics” gives the wrong frame of reference to understand simple politics in Iran. Not understanding what was going on let reporters turn to nonsensical claims.
PS: The above overview on what happened in Iranian politics in the last month is based on many sources I read over the last month and which I currently have no time to collect and link appropriately. The best source to follow the issue was the blog of Nader Uskowi, not a fan of the Islamic Republic but knowing it reasonably well, who regularly posted on it over the last weeks. The, at times quite partisan, discussion in the Race for Iran comments also helped.
Bodyguard of Lies protects the truth about Osama bin Laden
Los Angeles Times Says: Time to Stop Doubting the Media and Government
With an Afterword by Michael Hoffman – May 7, 2011
OBSERVATIONS AND PROVOCATIONS
FROM THE OPINION STAFF OF THE LOS ANGELES TIMES
A note to selected readers: Osama bin Laden really is dead
May 6, 2011 | http://tinyurl.com/64u54y8
Sunday’s announcement by President Obama that a team of U.S. commandos had killed Osama bin Laden gave rise to a number of, umm, interesting comments on the blog and at the Opinion section’s Facebook page declaring that the whole thing was faked. Like the moon landing, I suppose, or Elvis’ death.
Convinced that the burial at sea was a telltale sign of a cover-up, some argued that bin Laden wasn’t really dead. Others said that he had been dead for years, but Obama staged an assault on a Pakistani compound in order to boost his popularity. Sometimes the same people made both arguments.
So I wonder what the skeptics will make of the Associated Press’ report Friday morning that Al Qaeda had confirmed its leader’s passing at the hands of the Great Satan? According to the AP, the shadowy terrorist group posted an 11-paragraph statement online that said, in part:
“The blood of the holy warrior sheik, Osama bin Laden, God bless him, is too precious to us and to all Muslims to go in vain. We will remain, God willing, a curse chasing the Americans and their agents, following them outside and inside their countries.”
Of course, there’s no proof that the statement actually came from Al Qaeda. Like the Mafia, the group doesn’t have an official spokesman. The new statement, dated Tuesday, appeared Friday on the same jihad-friendly websites that had posted previous statements purportedly from the terrorist organization’s upper echelon. So that may be too flimsy to convince hard-core skeptics.
Still, I thought I’d throw this out there so the naysayers would come forth again to explain how we’re all being suckered into believing that U.S. troops pulled off a Mission: Impossible in the shadow of an elite Pakistani military installation. Granted, the ever-shifting versions of what actually happened inside the compound haven’t helped the administration’s credibility. But given the apparent confirmation from Bin Laden’s comrades in improvised arms, why persist in the unbelief?
*****
Afterword by Michael Hofman
They really believe the American people are stupid. Or perhaps stupid is too inadequate a word to describe the depth of contempt the media and the government have for our intelligence.
Notice the resort to denunciation by association: moon flights, Elvis.
Hey media dorks, all we are asking for is a little something called e-v-i-d-e-n-c-e. We walk by faith when dealing with the Word of God. The government and the media are not God and do not speak the Word of God. With them, we walk by sight, because more often than not, they speak with a forked tongue.
For stating this truth we are ridiculed. For requiring forensic evidence we are mocked. For asking why the alleged body of Bin Laden was dumped at sea before being brought to the U.S. for forensic examination, we are scorned. For pointing to the imaginary story issued by the White House of a gun battle in the supposed Bin Laden compound, we are derided.
It is declared from the media on high, that we must believe Bin Laden was killed by Navy Seals in Pakistan last week because “Al Qaeda” has said so. Isn’t this the same Al Qaeda that issued a press release attacking George W. Bush, timed to coincide with the eve of the 2004 presidential election?
“President George W. Bush said his 2004 re-election victory over Sen. John Kerry was… aided by Osama bin Laden, who issued a taped diatribe against him the Friday before Americans went to the polls…’I thought it was going to help,’ Bush said. ‘I thought it would help remind people that if bin Laden doesn’t want Bush to be the president, something must be right with Bush.” (“Bush says bin Laden tape aided re-election,” Reuters, Feb. 28, 2005).
The record shows that, as if on cue, “Al Qaeda” issued proclamations from its leaders at crucial moments when George W. Bush needed a boost in his presidency. In addition to helping get Bush reelected in 2004, “Al Qaeda” conveniently responded to his State of the Union speech on Jan. 23, 2007 announcing an additional 21,000 troops for Iraq, by challenging Bush to “send the entire army.” (“Group Says Al-Qaida No. 2 Mocks Bush,” AP, Jan. 23, 2007).
To what degree is Al Qaeda a creature of U.S. Intelligence agencies or their assets? Why is it naughty for America’s infantilized citizenry to ask these questions? Why are we being herded into Group Think on this subject?
Winston Churchill, the American government’s most esteemed foreign statesman, stated, “In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.”
Is this truism no longer the case? Have the Pentagon and the CIA suddenly been transformed into units of the Boy Scouts? Have they shuttered their psychological warfare departments? Of what does psy war consist?
What if the “truth” decided upon by the Cryptocracy is that Barrack Obama needed a boost in his sagging presidency, and that the ghost of Osama bin Laden had to be resurrected in order to achieve that objective? Bin Laden has not been seen in public in any verifiable appearance, since the American carpet-bombing of his redoubt in the Tora Bora mountains of Afghanistan in December, 2001, where it is believed by intelligence analysts such as Ghislaine Alleaume, a historian and Arabist at the French national research center, that he was killed.
There’s one final hole in the Obama administration/Establishment media account of the “raid on Bin Laden in Pakistan,” and it’s the size of the Grand Canyon. They now tell us there was no gun battle, just a lone sentry on the ground floor who was quickly neutralized. Everyone else in the compound was without a firearm. Navy Seal Force Six, possibly the most formidable commando unit on earth, then proceeded to kill Bin Laden and his aides rather than capture them alive.
Those of you who have a police detective or prosecuting attorney in your family, or among your acquaintances, without mentioning Bin Laden, please ask them which they would prefer the police do when they have apprehended a murderer and his gang — kill or capture them? Almost invariably, the answer will be “Capture them,” because no computer disk or hard drive is equivalent in intelligence value to what can be elicited by interrogators from the perpetrators themselves.
And yet, the Navy Seals needlessly executed the leader of the western world’s most feared terror network, thereby forfeiting priceless sources of intelligence on terrorist operations which could have been extracted from him. Anyone who questions why this would have been done if it really were Bin Laden that had been apprehended, is made the object of scorn and ridiculed as a “conspiracy theorist.”
We’re dealing with a case in which the story changes day to day, the body cannot be produced and the alleged execution of the master criminal violates the most basic procedures of any police department in the United States.
But how dare we doubt the tale? To do so is equivalent to doubting the death of Elvis. To be considered a patriot, we must believe and obey the bodyguard of lies in this, the low bottom twelve of the history of America.
Media Scrambles as Bin Laden Story Crumbles
By Alex Newman | The New American | 06 May 2011
While the establishment media was busy parroting President Obama’s announcement of Osama bin Laden’s supposed assassination, reporting the unsubstantiated claims as if they were unquestionable facts, much of the so-called “alternative” press was far more cautious — and accurate, it turns out. But more importantly, with the new official storyline indicating that bin Laden was in fact unarmed, bigger and much more important questions are beginning to emerge.
In terms of coverage, it turns out that the skeptical approach proved far superior in terms of getting it right. Countless mainstream sources were so confident in Obama’s word that they reported many of the claims as fact without even attributing them to the President.
But the official White House narrative has been changed so many times in recent days that now it’s almost unrecognizable. There wasn‘t even a fire fight; yet this was one of the crucial elements of the original story that justified the assassination of a person the government painted as the most valuable source of information on the planet — the leader of al-Qaeda. And in reporting the statements as fact, the establishment press has officially been left with egg all over its face again.
“[Bin Laden] was engaged in a firefight with those that entered the area of the house he was in,” said terror czar John Brennan. Similarly, Obama said that “after a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body.” The next day, however, the White House spokesman admitted bin Laden “was not armed.” Trying to save face and justify the killing of an unarmed man, the spokesman added, without elaborating, that “resistance does not require a firearm.”
More than a few other important parts of the storyline have been altered, contradicted, or simply exposed as false, too. Everything from which of bin Laden’s sons was supposedly killed to the claim that his wife was killed after being used as a “human shield” — all of it has changed for some reason or another. The transcript after Brennan’s speech was altered to change the name of the dead son. The new and improved narrative now says that not only was bin Laden’s wife not killed, but that she was not used as a human shield.
Originally the White House also suggested top officials watched the raid live through a video feed. Terror czar Brennan, for example, claimed that they “had real-time visibility into the progress of the operation.” CIA boss Leon Panetta later exposed that claim as false in an interview with PBS, saying: “There was a time period of almost 20 or 25 minutes that we really didn’t know just exactly what was going on.”
That means the “photo op” of Obama and other officials intently “watching” the operation in the “Situation Room” was almost certainly staged for the press. And almost every media outlet that ran the picture used inaccurate captions parroting the White House claims.
And there’s more. The night of the raid, one administration official told reporters that a helicopter was lost due to mechanical failure. During that same briefing, another administration official said, “We didn’t say it was mechanical.” Now they claim the crash had something to do with the temperature at bin Laden’s supposed compound.
A poorly photo-shopped image of a dead bin Laden embarrassed a large swath of the world press and several Senators, too. Shortly after newspapers and television stations around the globe ran the image, it was exposed as a shoddy forgery that had been circulating for years. Now Obama said he “decided” not to release any pictures — or any other evidence that any element of the story is true, for that matter.
And then there’s the burial issue. The Obama administration originally claimed no country would accept the body; so, it was dumped at sea — Mafia style — in accordance with what Obama alleged were Islamic traditions and customs. When prominent Muslim theological leaders repudiated that lie and noted that it was actually a violation of Islamic tenets to bury Osama bin Laden in the ocean, the new line was that the decision was to avoid the creation of a “shrine.” That lie fell apart, too, when it was widely reported that bin Laden’s brand of Islam calls for unmarked graves — building any sort of shrine would have been blasphemous. So far, no new excuses have been concocted for allegedly feeding the body to the fish.
After the numerous discrepancies and falsehoods in the storyline became painfully obvious, the Associated Press, USA Today, Fox News and other outlets slowly and begrudgingly started to report it. “From the first moments, a good number of the details about bin Laden’s killing, on points large and small, have been wrong,” admitted a Fox reporter in one of the more candid acknowledgements to appear in the mainstream press.
But of course, most of the media were also dutifully offering and parroting all manner of excuses. “Fog of war” was to blame for the confusion, claimed the White House spokesman after that excuse was suggested to him by a member of the “press” corps asking a question. Virtually every major news outlet reporting the changes in the official story promptly blamed “fog of war,” too.
An apologist reporter at USA Today wrote that “the administration did its best to get the story quickly,” adding “it’s common situation with military action.” The paper quoted a Pentagon spokesperson under the Bush administration to bolster its case.
The AP offered a similar excuse along with the “fog of combat” line offered by the White House. “The contradictions and misstatements reflect the fact that even in the case of a highly successful and popular mission, the confusion inherent in a fast-paced, unpredictable military raid conducted under intense pressure in a foreign country does not lend itself immediately to a tidy story line,” the reporter claimed, citing “some experts.”
Several excuses for the ever-changing story were offered by other publications, too. The possibility that they were deliberate lies or worse was virtually never addressed. But the U.K. Independent noted: “The impression persists that the administration sought to cast the operation in the most heroic light possible, at the expense of the facts.”
Now, the President and his spokespeople and subordinates are refusing to offer more details or explanations. The government has also announced that it will not be releasing pictures or any other evidence to support its claims even as suspicions continue to mount.
But as analysts pointed out, the newly revealed fact that there was no fire fight begs the question about where the “fog” may have come from. And even more importantly: Why, in the absence of a fire fight, would U.S. forces put a bullet through the brain supposedly containing the most valuable intelligence on the planet? What if bin Laden knew where that alleged nuclear bomb in Europe was located that was set to detonate after his capture or death? None of those questions have been addressed so far.
But prominent critics are sounding the alarm. “When such a foundational story as the demise of bin Laden cannot last 48 hours without acknowledged ‘discrepancies’ that require fundamental alternations to the story, there are grounds for suspicion in addition to the suspicions arising from the absence of a dead body, from the absence of any evidence that bin Laden was killed in the raid or that a raid even took place,” noted Paul Craig Roberts, a senior official in the former Reagan administration in a piece entitled “The Agendas Behind the bin Laden News Event.”
Roberts raised several important questions, too, as well as some comparisons. “The entire episode could just be another event like the August 4, 1964, Gulf of Tonkin event that never happened but succeeded in launching open warfare against North Vietnam at a huge cost to Americans and Vietnamese and enormous profits to the military/security complex,” he suggested, citing a series of government deceptions that have led to war based on lies and other atrocities.
Roberts suspects there are more lies about the bin Laden narrative than those exposed so far. And he’s certainly not alone. It emerged recently that the man who owned the house next to bin Laden’s supposed compound doesn’t even believe the story either. “To be honest, it’s not true,” he told Al Jazeera.
As the official story continues to be re-written by the administration and those in the media who simply re-package government press releases, critics and skeptics would seem to be justified in wondering what other lies and “fog of war” changes may emerge in the coming weeks and months. And perhaps even more importantly, we might also wonder if there are lies that may never be exposed in their entirety?
Dial ‘M’ for murder
Iftekhar A Khan | The News | May 05, 2011
The US corporate media and members of US Congress and Senate have brazenly advised Obama administration to assassinate Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi and members of his extended family. Senator Lindsey Graham, member of the Senate Armed Services committee, said on CNN: “My recommendation to Nato and administration is to cut the head of the snake off. Go to Tripoli, start bombing Qaddafi’s inner circle, their compounds, their military headquarters.”
Had such dreadful advice not been given by US policymakers to Nato, without any qualms of conscience, a suitable euphemism in place of ‘murder’ in the title of this piece could have been used to make Qaddafi’s proposed murder look less gruesome. Had Senator Graham read George Orwell on how grisly acts of war were euphemised to make them palatable, he could have asked to ‘silence Qaddafi’ instead of demanding the cutting off of his head. But the Senator must have chosen his words carefully for his warning to sound as stark, spiteful, and ghastly as it did.
When the CNN host pointed out that attacks on civilian areas of Tripoli were not covered by the UN resolution 1973, the Senator retorted, “The goal is to get rid of Qaddafi. The people around Qaddafi need to wake up every day wondering ‘will this be my last?’. So I wouldn’t let the UN mandate stop what is the right thing to do.” Hubris apart, what did Qaddafi do to earn the wrath of the imperialist powers is what bewilders large populations of Muslim countries, save many of their governments. Arab leaders who are aiding and abetting Libya’s destruction will do well to remember that they might soon face the predicament Qaddafi now faces.
Desert sands are proverbially treacherous. When they shift, one feels them slipping under the feet while one wistfully looks towards the Muslim brethren for help. But the brethren in cloaks choose to remain mute; they’re grateful to live a few more years in opulence. Had atrocities of the magnitude perpetrated against Libya been committed against any tiny Christian country, the Christian world would have crowed to high heavens. The Muslim world is in a deep slumber.
Without doubt, the wars of the last 10 plus years are predatory by any definition and corporate media have played a leading role in promoting them. For instance, the editorial desks and columnists of the New York Times and the Washington Post have actually been guiding the US administration in what to do and how to proceed in Libya. The Times has advised using A-130 Hercules turbo prop armed with 105mm cannon that fires 10 high explosive shells a minute, and three 25mm cannons that fire 7500 rounds a minute on their targets. The aircraft has been described as the ‘Angel of Death’ because shrapnel from its cannon fire spread across about 1500 metres. Further, this aircraft has been used with devastating impact in Iraq and Afghanistan. Human beings caught in the orbit of fire are blown to smithereens.
Noticeably, the main media outlets leading the Libyan war on the media front are Fox News, The Sun, The Times of London, Sunday Times, the Wall Street Journal, International Herald Tribune, and of course, the New York Times and the Washington Post. It is no surprise that the first five belong to one of the largest media conglomerates – News Corporation owned by Rupert Murdoch, an Australian Jew and now, a naturalised US citizen. Some of us rejoicing to watch two shows for the price of one in reading the International Herald Tribune – a dwarfed version of the New York Times – along with the English daily that is locally published, may like to know the origin of the paper, its editorial policy, and what it stands for.
Wouldn’t most of us like to read balanced news and articles and not distorted facts, slanted news, and carefully crafted untruth in the guise of gospel truth?
Nevertheless, the rhetoric going around paints a great humanitarian effort to save the Libyans, Qaddafi’s own people. The world is told that his forces are mercilessly killing people, and that the three imperial powers, the UK, France, and the US are now planning to land their troops to save them. Even though the mission is humanitarian, these powers are committed to the idea of regime change. Luckily, both missions are blending beautifully in Libya.
The writer is a freelance contributor based in Lahore. Email: pinecity@gmail.com
The Agendas Behind the bin Laden News Event
Paul Craig Roberts | LewRockwell.com | May 5, 2011
The US government’s bin Laden story was so poorly crafted that it did not last 48 hours before being fundamentally altered. Indeed, the new story put out on Tuesday by White House press secretary Jay Carney bears little resemblance to the original Sunday evening story. The fierce firefight did not occur. Osama bin Laden did not hide behind a woman. Indeed, bin Laden, Carney said, “was not armed.”
The firefight story was instantly suspicious as not a single SEAL got a scratch, despite being up against al Qaeda, described by former Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld as “the most dangerous, best-trained, vicious killers on the face of the earth.”
Every original story detail has been changed. It wasn’t bin Laden’s wife who was murdered by the Navy SEALs , but the wife of an aide. It wasn’t bin Laden’s son, Khalid, who was murdered by the Navy SEALs, but son Hamza.
Carney blamed the changed story on “the fog of war.” But there was no firefight, so where did the “fog of war” come from?
The White House has also had to abandon the story that President Obama and his national security team watched tensely as events unfolded in real time (despite the White House having released photos of the team watching tensely), with the operation conveyed into the White House by cameras on the SEALs helmets. If Obama was watching the event as it happened, he would have noticed, one would hope, that there was no firefight and, thus, would not have told the public that bin Laden was killed in a firefight. Another reason the story had to be abandoned is that if the event was captured on video, every news service in the world would be asking for the video, but if the event was orchestrated theater, there would be no video.
No explanation has been provided for why an unarmed bin Laden, in the absence of a firefight, was murdered by the SEALs with a shot to the head. For those who believe the government’s story that “we got bin Laden,” the operation can only appear as the most botched operation in history. What kind of incompetence does it require to senselessly and needlessly kill the most valuable intelligence asset on the planet?
According to the US government, the terrorist movements of the world operated through bin Laden, “the mastermind.” Thanks to a trigger-happy stupid SEAL, a bullet destroyed the most valuable terrorist information on the planet. Perhaps the SEAL was thinking that he could put a notch on his gun and brag for the rest of his life about being the macho tough guy who killed Osama bin Laden, the most dangerous man on the planet, who outwitted the US and its European and Israeli allies and inflicted humiliation on the “world’s only superpower” on 9/11.
When such a foundational story as the demise of bin Laden cannot last 48 hours without acknowledged “discrepancies” that require fundamental alternations to the story, there are grounds for suspicion in addition to the suspicions arising from the absence of a dead body, from the absence of any evidence that bin Laden was killed in the raid or that a raid even took place. The entire episode could just be another event like the August 4, 1964, Gulf of Tonkin event that never happened but succeeded in launching open warfare against North Vietnam at a huge cost to Americans and Vietnamese and enormous profits to the military/security complex.
There is no doubt that the US is sufficiently incompetent to have needlessly killed bin Laden instead of capturing him. But who can believe that the US would quickly dispose of the evidence that bin Laden had been terminated? The government’s story is not believable that the government dumped the proof of its success into the ocean, but has some photos that might be released, someday.
As one reader put it in an email to me: “What is really alarming is the increasingly arrogant sloppiness of these lies, as though the government has become so profoundly confident of their ability to deceive people that they make virtually no effort to even appear credible.”
Governments have known from the beginning of time that they can always deceive citizens and subjects by playing the patriot card. “Remember the Maine,” the “Gulf of Tonkin,” “weapons of mass destruction,” “the Reichstag fire”–the staged events and bogus evidence are endless. If Americans knew any history, they would not be so gullible.
The real question before us is: What agenda or agendas is the “death of bin Laden” designed to further?
There are many answers to this question. Many have noticed that Obama was facing re-election with poor approval ratings. Is anyone surprised that the New York Times/CBS Poll finds a strong rise in Obama’s poll numbers after the bin Laden raid? As the New York Times reported, “the glow of national pride” rose “above partisan politics, as support for the president rose significantly among both Republicans and independents. In all, 57 percent said they now approved of the president’s job performance, up from 46 percent.”
In Washington-think, an 11% rise in approval rating justifies a staged event.
Another possibility is that Obama realized that the the budget deficit and the dollar’s rescue from collapse require the end of the expensive Afghan war and occupation and spillover war into Pakistan. As the purpose of the war was to get bin Laden, success in this objective allows the US to withdraw without loss of face, thus making it possible to reduce the US budget deficit by several hundred billion dollars annually–an easy way to have a major spending cut.
If this is the agenda, then more power to it. However, if this was Obama’s agenda, the military/security complex has quickly moved against it. CIA director Leon Panetta opened the door to false flag attacks to keep the war going by declaring that al Qaeda would avenge bin Laden’s killing. Secretary of State Clinton declared that success in killing bin Laden justified more war and more success. Homeland Security declared that the killing of bin Laden would motivate “homegrown violent extremists” into making terrorist attacks. “Homegrown violent extremists” is an undefined term, but this newly created bogyman seems to include environmentalists and war protesters. Like “suspect,” the term will include anyone the government wants to pick up.
Various parts of the government quickly seized on the success in killing bin Laden to defend and advance their own agendas, such as torture. Americans were told that bin Laden was found as a result of information gleaned from torturing detainees held in Eastern European CIA secret prisons years ago.
This listing of possible agendas and add-on agendas is far from complete, but for those capable of skepticism and independent thought, it can serve as a starting point. The agendas behind the theater will reveal themselves as time goes on. All you have to do is to pay attention and to realize that most of what you hear from the mainstream media is designed to advance the agendas.
US not to publish dead bin Laden photos, Pakistanis doubt death account
Press TV – May 4, 2011
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney
The US administration says it will not release photos of Osama bin Laden’s corpse, deepening suspicions over Washington’s claim of killing the notorious terrorist.
In a prerecorded interview with CBS on Wednesday, US President Barack Obama said he has decided not to publish the disturbing images purportedly of al-Qaeda chief’s dead body, because of concerns that they might become “a propaganda tool”, AFP reported.
“I think that given the graphic nature of these photos, it would create some national security risk,” Obama stated.
“There is no doubt that bin Laden is dead. Certainly there is… no doubt among al-Qaeda members that he is dead. And so we don’t think that a photograph in and of itself is going to make any difference.” White House spokesman Jay Carney quoted Obama as saying, as he read an excerpt of the president’s interview to the reporters. […]
Obama’s decision not to offer any photographic evidence of the killing has thrown doubt on the reported US operation, with many analysts saying that that bin Laden is either still alive or had been dead several years ago. … Full article
Also from Press TV:
‘No trust in Osama death account’
The Pakistani people say they do not believe US reports that Osama bin Laden had lived in a compound near a Pakistani military base in Abbottabad since 2005. […]
Some analysts say there is a possibility that the al-Qaeda militants were living in the compound under the surveillance of ISI when the US military carried out the operation. They say the operation was a show prearranged between the US and ISI and that bin Laden was not in the house as he had already been killed. […]
Meanwhile, contradictory stories are emerging from the White House about the military operation. One of the contradictions includes comments that bin Laden was unarmed but put up resistance.
Many believe American Special Forces could have arrested the al-Qaeda leader without having to kill him and a question raised is why bin Laden’s body was buried at sea so soon after his death.
A US official says bin Laden’s body has been buried at sea, alleging that his hasty burial was in accordance with Islamic law, which requires burial within 24 hours of death. This while burial at sea is not an Islamic practice and Islam does not determine a time-frame for burial. – Full article
Corporate Crime of the Century Portrayed as Conspiracy Theory
NPR Ombudsman Says No Response Allowed to Mass Transit Mess Up
By RUSSELL MOKHIBER | May 3, 2011
The NPR Ombudsman says that no response will be allowed to a story about mass transit in Los Angeles.
On April 21, 2011, NPR’s All Things Considered ran a story about how – after a fifty year absence – light rail is coming back to Los Angeles.
NPR reporter Mandalit Del Barco reported that eighty years ago, electric mass transit dominated the city.
“By the roaring 1920’s, more than 1,000 miles of electric trolley lines and train rails ran through the ever-expanding Los Angeles,” Del Barco reported.
But then in the middle of the century, the electric trolley cars disappeared.
Why?
“LA replaced the last of its streetcars with a web of freeways and bus lines,” Del Barco reported. “That led to conspiracy theories that the streetcars were dismantled by private companies who stood to profit – General Motors, Standard Oil and tire companies. That villainous plot figured into the 1988 movie ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit.'”
In fact, it was more than just conspiracy theories.
It was an actual federal crime that led to the destruction of the nation’s electric mass transit.
The companies involved were indicted, convicted, and fined for destroying the nation’s electric mass transit systems.
Del Barco says she was familiar with the criminal history of the case, but didn’t report it.
We asked the NPR Ombudsman’s office to investigate and issue a clarification – at least tell NPR’s listeners that it wasn’t just a conspiracy theory – that it was an indicted and convicted federal crime.
The Ombudsman office said they would look into it.
Then, late last week, we got an e-mail from the NPR Ombudsman’s office.
“Our office talked to the reporter and editor of the piece,” wrote Lori Grisham of the NPR Ombudsman’s office. “They understand your concerns, but do not believe a correction is warranted. Time is one of the main constraints when it comes to producing a radio story and they were trying to condense a great deal of history into a small amount of time.”
Grisham passed along this from Jason DeRose, NPR’s Western Bureau Chief:
“The piece makes clear there had been better public transit in LA and that it was dismantled. We chose not to describe that demise in detail. There were many, many unproven allegations of conspiracy and two official fines. We chose to characterize the numerous unproven allegations as conspiracy theories to lead into the Roger Rabbit tape.”
Grisham ends her e-mail: “I apologize that NPR will not run a correction. Thank you again for taking time to contact us.”
And thank you Lori Grisham for looking into this.
But that’s just bad form – and one reason why America is angry with NPR.
We sent you the documented proven history of the criminal activity.
And still, Jason DeRose says that there were “many, many unproven allegations of conspiracy and two official fines.”
What gives?
This was proven and convicted criminal conduct.
There was nothing unproven about it.
In fact, the destruction of the nation’s electric mass transit system was perhaps one of the most egregious – and underreported – corporate crimes of the century.
Brad Snell is also not happy with the NPR Ombudsman’s decision.
Snell is in the final stages of writing a history of General Motors.
It will be published in 2013 by Knopf.
“Under our celebrated system of laws, the US Justice Department’s allegation of conspiracy by defendants General Motors, Standard Oil of California, and Firestone Tire to monopolize the sale of buses, fuel, and tires by eliminating electric transit was transformed from theory to fact upon their conviction by a Chicago jury in US District Court on March 19, 1949,” Snell told Corporate Crime Reporter. “That judgment was affirmed on appeal (186 F.2 562 (7th Cir. 1951)) and a further appeal by defendants to the US Supreme Court was denied (cert den. 341 US 916), leaving the judgment and convictions in National City Lines as final matters of settled fact and law.”
“In 1990, the Honorable George E. MacKinnon, Senior Judge of the US Court of Appeals in Washington DC, had occasion to review the entire trial record in the National City Lines case,” Snell said.
His conclusion appeared in the Washington Legal Times on May 7, 1990.
“That Chicago trial resulted in criminal conspiracy convictions of the General Motors Corp., Standard Oil of California, and the Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. for their concerted effort to replace electric streetcars with buses in numerous large and small cities,” Judge MacKinnon wrote.
“It is not a theory,” Snell said. “These are not ‘unproven allegations of conspiracy.’ It has been settled judicial fact for more than half a century. Beyond a reasonable doubt, as affirmed by the federal courts, and after denial of further review by the Supreme Court of the United States, it is an established and incontrovertible fact that General Motors, Standard Oil of California, and Firestone Tire conspired to replace electric transit in cities throughout America in order to effect a monopoly in the sale of buses and related products.”
“To suggest otherwise is to debase and mock our revered and time-honored system of American jurisprudence,” Snell said.
It is unconscionable that the NPR Ombudsman will not even consider running a response.
Russell Mokhiber edits the Corporate Crime Reporter.
Al-Aqsa spokesman denies bin Laden statement
Ma’an – 03/05/2011
GAZA CITY — The spokesman of Fatah’s military wing on Tuesday denied issuing a statement marking Osama bin Laden’s death.
Abu Uday of the Al-Aqsa Brigades said the group did not and had no plans to comment because bin Laden’s death was unrelated to Palestine.
He said a statement received by Ma’an’s Gaza City office must have been forced as the armed group “doesn’t know anything about it.”
The statement issued in Al-Aqsa’s name said the group was “shocked with the news that bin Laden had been killed by the non-believers.” “The fighters in Palestine and around the world … did not stop their mission,” it said.
Palestinian reactions to the death of bin Laden have been mixed.
Salam Fayyad, the premier in Ramallah, said it increased chances for peace, while Gaza-based prime minister Ismail Haniyeh condemned it as an extension of American’s foreign policy based on killing.
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
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
Featured Video
THE VITAMIN K DEBATE: SHOTS, DROPS, AND THE DATA
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
After all I am a Proper Zionist Jew
October 27, 2009 | Gilad Atzmon
I am a Holocaust survivor
Yes, I am a survivor, for I have managed to survive all the scary accounts of the Holocaust: the one about the soap (1), the one about the lamp shades, the one about the camps, the mass shooting, the one about the gas (2) and the one about the death march (3). I just managed to survive them all.
In spite of all these fear inflicting stories, that were purposely installed in my soul since I opened my eyes for the first time, I have become a functional and even a successful human being. I somehow survived the horror against all odds. I even manage to love my neighbour. In spite of all the fearful, traumatic indoctrination I miraculously managed to master my cheering alto saxophone rather than the sobbing violin. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Trita Parsi: Iran War Marks the End of American Primacy
- General strike across Italy in solidarity with Gaza and in protest against the attack on Sumud Flotilla
- Iran says any agreement with US must end war on all fronts, lift blockade and sanctions
- Iran asserts sovereign rights over Hormuz fiber-optic routes
- Thomas Massie Introduces Bill To Finally Force AIPAC To Register As A Foreign Agent Under FARA
- Thomas Massie Gives the ‘America First’ Leadership Trump Promised
- US to Spend Over $740Bln for 7,800 Space Interceptors in Golden Dome System
- More Wars and Rumors of Wars
- THE VITAMIN K DEBATE: SHOTS, DROPS, AND THE DATA
- Is Trump poised to restart the Iran war?
- If Americans Knew
- Israeli Soldiers Kill A Palestinian Teacher In Jenin
- Earworm Kars4Kids jingle yanked from California airwaves for false advertising
- Thousands of Colonizers, Soldiers Invade Nablus’s Joseph’s Tomb Area
- Guerillas in grey suits: K2, auditing firm tied to Israel and US, surveils Arab central banks
- Pro-Israel Pressure Campaign Against NYT Crashes and Burns
- Israel to Bari Weiss: ‘Thank You’ for whitewashing our war crimes
- Massie’s primary is the most expensive in history as Israel firsters try to oust him
- Israel becomes world’s most disliked country, global survey finds
- Why we can’t forget the Nakba
- We Analyzed Thousands of News Articles: Here’s the Proof of Pro-Israel Bias in Mainstream Media
- No Tricks Zone
- Even The DNA Of Single-Celled Plankton Can Upend Alarmist Arctic Sea Ice Melt Claims
- Scandal: Although Climate Panic Is Canceled By IPCC, Europe’s Policymakers Continue With Their Crushing Policies
- How Once Hardcore Climate Alarmist Lucy Biggers Realized It Was All A Scam, Brainwashing
- German Expert: “No Climate Crisis” …”Warming Generally Better For Humanity”
- New Paleo Research: Modern ‘Climate Change’ Has Had No Apparent Impact On Precipitation Patterns
- 90% Subsidized… Bielefeld Germany’s €7 Million Hydrogen Garbage Truck Fleet Sits Idle
- New Study: Declining Trends In 1980-2023 Tropical Cyclone Frequency, Accumulated Energy
- 46 IPCC Scientists Break Rank, Publicly Challenge Long-Standing Dogmatic Climate Claims
- Another Study Links Warming To Cloud Forcing, Shortwave Radiation, Natural Atmospheric Circulation
- Wind Energy Is Toxic, Hazardous To Human Health, Scientific Review Shows
Aletho News 