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U.S. Intelligence Found Iran Nuke Document Was Forged

By Gareth Porter*

WASHINGTON, Dec 28 (IPS) – U.S. intelligence has concluded that the document published recently by the Times of London, which purportedly describes an Iranian plan to do experiments on what the newspaper described as a “neutron initiator” for an atomic weapon, is a fabrication, according to a former Central Intelligence Agency official.

Philip Giraldi, who was a CIA counterterrorism official from 1976 to 1992, told IPS that intelligence sources say that the United States had nothing to do with forging the document, and that Israel is the primary suspect. The sources do not rule out a British role in the fabrication, however.

The Times of London story published Dec. 14 did not identify the source of the document. But it quoted “an Asian intelligence source” – a term some news media have used for Israeli intelligence officials – as confirming that his government believes Iran was working on a neutron initiator as recently as 2007.

The story of the purported Iranian document prompted a new round of expressions of U.S. and European support for tougher sanctions against Iran and reminders of Israel’s threats to attack Iranian nuclear programme targets if diplomacy fails.

U.S. news media reporting has left the impression that U.S. intelligence analysts have not made up their mind about the document’s authenticity, although it has been widely reported that they have now had a full year to assess the issue.

Giraldi’s intelligence sources did not reveal all the reasons that led analysts to conclude that the purported Iran document had been fabricated by a foreign intelligence agency. But their suspicions of fraud were prompted in part by the source of the story, according to Giraldi.

“The Rupert Murdoch chain has been used extensively to publish false intelligence from the Israelis and occasionally from the British government,” Giraldi said.

The Times is part of a Murdoch publishing empire that includes the Sunday Times, Fox News and the New York Post. All Murdoch-owned news media report on Iran with an aggressively pro-Israeli slant.

The document itself also had a number of red flags suggesting possible or likely fraud.

The subject of the two-page document which the Times published in English translation would be highly classified under any state’s security system. Yet there is no confidentiality marking on the document, as can be seen from the photograph of the Farsi-language original published by the Times.

The absence of security markings has been cited by the Iranian ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, as evidence that the “alleged studies” documents, which were supposedly purloined from an alleged Iranian nuclear weapons-related programme early in this decade, are forgeries.

The document also lacks any information identifying either the issuing office or the intended recipients. The document refers cryptically to “the Centre”, “the Institute”, “the Committee”, and the “neutron group”.

The document’s extreme vagueness about the institutions does not appear to match the concreteness of the plans, which call for hiring eight individuals for different tasks for very specific numbers of hours for a four-year time frame.

Including security markings and such identifying information in a document increases the likelihood of errors that would give the fraud away.

The absence of any date on the document also conflicts with the specificity of much of the information. The Times reported that unidentified “foreign intelligence agencies” had dated the document to early 2007, but gave no reason for that judgment.

An obvious motive for suggesting the early 2007 date is that it would discredit the U.S. intelligence community’s November 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, which concluded that Iran had discontinued unidentified work on nuclear weapons and had not resumed it as of the time of the estimate.

Discrediting the NIE has been a major objective of the Israeli government for the past two years, and the British and French governments have supported the Israeli effort.

The biggest reason for suspecting that the document is a fraud is its obvious effort to suggest past Iranian experiments related to a neutron initiator. After proposing experiments on detecting pulsed neutrons, the document refers to “locations where such experiments used to be conducted”.

That reference plays to the widespread assumption, which has been embraced by the International Atomic Energy Agency, that Iran had carried out experiments with Polonium-210 in the late 1980s, indicating an interest in neutron initiators. The IAEA referred in reports from 2004 through 2007 to its belief that the experiment with Polonium-210 had potential relevance to making “a neutron initiator in some designs of nuclear weapons”.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the political arm of the terrorist organisation Mujahedeen-e Khalq, claimed in February 2005 that Iran’s research with Polonium-210 was continuing and that it was now close to producing a neutron initiator for a nuclear weapon.

Sanger and Broad were so convinced that the Polonium-210 experiments proved Iran’s interest in a neutron initiator that they referred in their story on the leaked document to both the IAEA reports on the experiments in the late 1980s and the claim by NCRI of continuing Iranian work on such a nuclear trigger.

What Sanger and Broad failed to report, however, is that the IAEA has acknowledged that it was mistaken in its earlier assessment that the Polonium-210 experiments were related to a neutron initiator.

After seeing the complete documentation on the original project, including complete copies of the reactor logbook for the entire period, the IAEA concluded in its Feb. 22, 2008 report that Iran’s explanations that the Polonium-210 project was fundamental research with the eventual aim of possible application to radio isotope batteries was “consistent with the Agency’s findings and with other information available to it”.

The IAEA report said the issue of Polonium-210 – and thus the earlier suspicion of an Iranian interest in using it as a neutron initiator for a nuclear weapon – was now considered “no longer outstanding”.

New York Times reporters David Sanger and William J. Broad reported U.S. intelligence officials as saying the intelligence analysts “have yet to authenticate the document”. Sanger and Broad explained the failure to do so, however, as a result of excessive caution left over from the CIA’s having failed to brand as a fabrication the document purporting to show an Iraqi effort to buy uranium in Niger.

The Washington Post’s Joby Warrick dismissed the possibility that the document might be found to be fraudulent. “There is no way to establish the authenticity or original source of the document…,” wrote Warrick.

But the line that the intelligence community had authenticated it evidently reflected the Barack Obama administration’s desire to avoid undercutting a story that supports its efforts to get Russian and Chinese support for tougher sanctions against Iran.

This is not the first time that Giraldi has been tipped off by his intelligence sources on forged documents. Giraldi identified the individual or office responsible for creating the two most notorious forged documents in recent U.S. intelligence history.

In 2005, Giraldi identified Michael Ledeen, the extreme right-wing former consultant to the National Security Council and the Pentagon, as an author of the fabricated letter purporting to show Iraqi interest in purchasing uranium from Niger. That letter was used by the George W. Bush administration to bolster its false case that Saddam Hussein had an active nuclear weapons programme.

Giraldi also identified officials in the “Office of Special Plans” who worked under Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith as having forged a letter purportedly written by Hussein’s intelligence director, Tahir Jalail Habbush al-Tikriti, to Hussein himself referring to an Iraqi intelligence operation to arrange for an unidentified shipment from Niger.

*Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specialising in U.S. national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book, “Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam”, was published in 2006.

December 28, 2009 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

US Aids S. Sudan Secession

IslamOnline.net & Newspapers

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“The United States government, one of their goals now, is to make sure southern Sudan in 2011 is a viable state,” Gatkuoth said. (Washington Times)

12/25/09 — CAIRO — The United States is pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into the pocket of South Sudan government to help it prepare for secession from the North.”The United States government, one of their goals now, is to make sure southern Sudan in 2011 is a viable state,” Ezekiel Lol Gatkuoth, representative of South Sudan in Washington, told The Washington Times Friday, December 25.

Washington offers $1 billion in annual aid to South Sudan.

The majority of the money is used to build roads, train police and professionalize a separate army in preparation for the Christian-majority region’s secession in 2011, said Gatkuoth, who also heads South Sudan’s mission to the UN.

Southern Sudanese will vote in a referendum in 2011 on whether to secede from the Muslim north.

The referendum is part of the 2005 north-south peace deal, which ended a two-decade civil war between the north and south.

The accord established an interim period, with a coalition government between the Muslim north and mostly Christian south and the sharing of oil wealth.

Last month, South Sudan President Salva Kiir publicly called for secession from Sudan.

Though southern officials have not concealed their intention to vote for secession, the region still lack the basics of a viable state.

The region is also plagued by tribal clashes, which have killed at least 2,500 people and displaced more than 350,000 others this year.

The International Crisis Group on Tuesday criticized South Sudan police for failing to keep security and end tribal clashes in the region.

War Again

Gatkuoth accused the Khartoum government of stumbling efforts of the South to secede.

“I do not think the North is ready to allow the South to go and have its independent state,” he said.

The southern official said that the next 12 months would be crucial in determining the fate of the country.

“In 2010, we either make it or break it,” he said.

“An election can lead to war if you feel cheated.”

The ruling Sudanese National Congress Party (NCP) and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) agreed Wednesday to review a disputed law on the 2011 referendum.

Parliament has passed the law even though SPLM walked out of the assembly objecting to an amendment allowing southerners living in the north to vote in the January 2011 referendum.

Gatkuoth threatened that the South will take up arms again if Khartoum government tried to postpone the 2011 referendum.

“Even if you postpone that for one day, the people of southern Sudan will not accept it.”

December 26, 2009 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Russia: No proof of military N-plans in Iran

Press TV – December 26, 2009

As Western powers batten down the hatches and prepare sanctions against Tehran, a senior Russian official says there still is no proof of an Iranian nuclear weapons program.

In remarks published on Friday, deputy Russian foreign minister Alexander Saltanov reiterated that Moscow is not convinced that Iran seeks to weoponize its nuclear program, and moreover he has not been shown any corroborative evidence confirming that the country has any such plans.

“Russia has no concrete information that Iran is planning to construct a weapon. It may be more like Japan, which has nuclear readiness but does not have a bomb,” Primakov told The Jerusalem Post.

In order to pressure Iran into halting its nuclear work, Washington and a number of European countries have vowed to push for new UN sanctions early next year.

But the calls for renewed pressure were once again snubbed by China and Russia.

Saltanov said while “Iran has a positive potential” to cooperate with the West on its nuclear case, it is most evident that a military solution against the Tehran government would only make matters worse.

“If Israel attacks Iran it will cause great instability and will only postpone the Iranian program, not end it,” noted the Russian official.

Israel routinely threatens to bomb Iran’s enrichment sites, arguing that the country’s nuclear work is a mortal threat to Tel Aviv, which ironically is reported to have the Middle East’s sole nuclear arsenal and 200 nuclear warheads at its disposal.

This is while Iran, unlike Tel Aviv, is a signatory of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and has opened its nuclear facilities to routine inspections by the UN nuclear watchdog.

In response to Israeli war threats, Tehran warns that if Tel Aviv steps out of line, it will close the strategic Strait of Hormuz to maritime traffic, including the 15 or so supertankers that sail through on a daily basis to deliver the world’s oil supplies.

A recent report by the US Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) has confirmed that if the United States or Israel decide to bomb Tehran’s nuclear sites, Iran’s naval modernization and maritime capabilities have reached a point where it can shut down the strategic Strait of Hormuz.

“Given the importance of the Strait, disrupting traffic flow or even threatening to do so may be an effective tool for Iran,” said the intelligence report, which was revealed by Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin in November.

It notes that while Iran’s ability to shut down the Strait of Hormuz may be transitory, the impact would undoubtedly have far-reaching consequences for the already-fragile world economy.

“[World economies would suffer] a serious economic impact from a sustain closure of the Strait of Hormuz due to greatly reduced supplies of crude oil, petroleum supplies and (liquefied natural gas),” ONI said.

December 26, 2009 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering | Leave a comment

Relocating Guantánamo

Silence of the Lamb-like Lawyers

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS | 12-22-09

Obama’s dwindling band of true believers has taken heart that their man has finally delivered on one of his many promises–the closing of the Guantanamo prison. But the prison is not being closed. It is being moved to Illinois, if the Republicans permit.

In truth, Obama has handed his supporters another defeat. Closing Guantanamo meant ceasing to hold people in violation of our legal principles of habeas corpus and due process and ceasing to torture them in violation of US and international laws.

All Obama would be doing would be moving 100 people, against whom the US government is unable to bring a case, from the prison in Guantanamo to a prison in Thomson, Illinois.

Are the residents of Thomson despondent that the US government has chosen their town as the site on which to continue its blatant violation of US legal principles? No, the residents are happy. It means jobs.

The hapless prisoners had a better chance of obtaining release from Guantanamo. Now the prisoners are up against two US senators, a US representative, a mayor, and a state governor who have a vested interest in the prisoners’ permanent detention in order to protect the new prison jobs in the hamlet devastated by unemployment.

Neither the public nor the media have ever shown any interest in how the detainees came to be incarcerated. Most of the detainees were unprotected people who were captured by Afghan war lords and sold to the Americans as “terrorists” in order to collect a proffered bounty. It was enough for the public and the media that the Defense Secretary at the time, Donald Rumsfeld, declared the Guantanamo detainees to be the “780 most dangerous people on earth.”

The vast majority have been released after years of abuse. The 100 who are slated to be removed to Illinois have apparently been so badly abused that the US government is afraid to release them because of the testimony the prisoners could give to human rights organizations and foreign media about their mistreatment.

Our British allies are showing more moral conscience than Americans are able to muster. Former PM Tony Blair, who provided cover for President Bush’s illegal invasion of Iraq, is being damned for his crimes by UK officialdom testifying before the Chilcot Inquiry.

The London Times on December 14 summed up the case against Blair in a headline: “Intoxicated by Power, Blair Tricked Us Into War.” Two days later the British First Post declared: “War Crime Case Against Tony Blair Now Rock-solid.” In an unguarded moment Blair let it slip that he favored a conspiracy for war regardless of the validity of the excuse [weapons of mass destruction] used to justify the invasion.

The movement to bring Blair to trial as a war criminal is gathering steam. Writing in the First Post Neil Clark reported: “There is widespread contempt for a man [Blair] who has made millions [his reward from the Bush regime] while Iraqis die in their hundreds of thousands due to the havoc unleashed by the illegal invasion, and who, with breathtaking arrogance, seems to regard himself as above the rules of international law.” Clark notes that the West’s practice of shipping Serbian and African leaders off to the War Crimes Tribunal, while exempting itself, is wearing thin.

In the US, of course, there is no such attempt to hold to account Bush, Cheney, Condi Rice, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and the large number of war criminals that comprised the Bush Regime. Indeed, Obama, whom Republicans love to hate, has gone out of his way to protect the Bush cohort from being held accountable.

Here in Great Moral America we only hold accountable celebrities and politicians for their sexual indiscretions. Tiger Woods is paying a bigger price for his girlfriends than Bush or Cheney will ever pay for the deaths and ruined lives of millions of people. The consulting company, Accenture Plc, which based its marketing program on Tiger Woods, has removed Woods from its Web site. Gillette announced that the company is dropping Woods from its print and broadcast ads. AT&T says it is re-evaluating the company’s relationship with Woods.

Apparently, Americans regard sexual infidelity as far more serious than invading countries on the basis of false charges and deception, invasions that have caused the deaths and displacement of millions of innocent people. Remember, the House impeached President Clinton not for his war crimes in Serbia, but for lying about his affair with Monica Lewinsky.

Americans are more upset by Tiger Woods’ sexual affairs than they are by the Bush and Obama administrations’ destruction of US civil liberty. Americans don’t seem to mind that “their” government for the last 8 years has resorted to the detention practices of 1,000 years ago–simply grab a person and throw him into a dungeon forever without bringing charges and obtaining a conviction.

According to polls, Americans support torture, a violation of both US and international law, and Americans don’t mind that their government violates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and spies on them without obtaining warrants from a court. Apparently, the brave citizens of the “sole remaining superpower” are so afraid of terrorists that they are content to give up liberty for safety, an impossible feat.

With stunning insouciance, Americans have given up the rule of law that protected their liberty. The silence of law schools and bar associations indicates that the age of liberty has passed. In short, the American people support tyranny. And that’s where they are headed.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions. His new book, How the Economy was Lost, will be published next month by AK Press / CounterPunch. He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com

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December 22, 2009 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite, Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

Nuoviso: “9/11 False Flag”

Purchase DVD: http://www.nuoviso.com

The world has changed after September 11th. Its changed because were no longer safe.

These words were used by the George W. Bush, elected President of the United States in 2000, to dictate the political direction for the 21st Century.

Whereas Americans launch attacks relatively quickly, first on Afghanistan and later on Iraq, using falsified evidence, doubts about the official version of the events of September 11th grows.

The speculations that surfaced on the internet directly after the attacks were considered to be just wild conspiracy theories until this now. Yet the circumstantial evidence and even the substantial evidence itself paints a clear picture. The responsibility for the terrible attacks seems to lie not with Islamic Terrorists but with several high-ranking members of the military and administration of the U.S. Government.

This documentary focuses on the inconsistencies in the official version of the events as well as on the evidence which has been suppressed regarding September 11th. In addition, it answers the questions of why we still know nothing about it to this day and why we are being deceived also in european countries.

December 19, 2009 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Islamophobia, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Science and Pseudo-Science, Solidarity and Activism, Video, War Crimes | Leave a comment

Steal this Film

THERE HAVE BEEN A FEW DOCUMENTARIES BY ‘OLD MEDIA’ CREWS WHO DON’T UNDERSTAND THE NET AND SEE PEER-TO-PEER ORGANISATION AS A THREAT TO THEIR LIVELIHOODS. THEY HAVE NO REASON TO REPRESENT THE FILESHARING MOVEMENT POSITIVELY, AND NO CAPACITY TO REPRESENT IT LUCIDLY. WE WANTED TO MAKE A FILM THAT WOULD EXPLORE THIS HUGE POPULAR MOVEMENT IN A WAY THAT EXCITED US, ENGAGED US, AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, FOCUSSED ON WHAT WE KNOW TO BE THE POSITIVE AND OPTIMISTIC VISION MANY FILESHARERS AND ARTISTS (THEY ARE OFTEN ONE) HAVE FOR THE FUTURE OF CREATIVITY.

From stealthisfilm.com

December 17, 2009 Posted by | Aletho News, Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Solidarity and Activism, Video | Leave a comment

The Great Global Warming Swindle

In this documentary by Martin Durkin, shortlisted for the “Best Documentary Award” at the 2008 Broadcast Awards, scientists and commentators argue that CO2 produced by human activity is not the main cause of climate change:

The Great Global Warming Swindle, part 1 of 9

The Great Global Warming Swindle, part 2 of 9

The Great Global Warming Swindle, part 3 of 9

The Great Global Warming Swindle, part 4 of 9

The Great Global Warming Swindle, part 5 of 9

The Great Global Warming Swindle, part 6 of 9

The Great Global Warming Swindle, part 7 of 9

The Great Global Warming Swindle, part 8 of 9

The Great Global Warming Swindle, part 9 of 9 (credits)

December 16, 2009 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Video | Leave a comment

Zero, an investigation into 9/11

View at Bitchute or Rumble

December 16, 2009 Posted by | Aletho News, Corruption, Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Islamophobia, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Video, Wars for Israel | | Leave a comment

Why the Promise of Biofuels is a Lie


Photo – Der Speigel

By ROBERT BRYCE
February 19, 2009

For years, the US has been inundated with claims that it should follow Brazil’s lead on biofuels. These arguments have largely been made by a small, but influential group of neoconservatives who claim that the US should quit using oil altogether. They claim that using more ethanol – produced from sugar cane, or corn, or some other substance – will impoverish OPEC and America will once again be returned to prosperity.

But these claims wither in the face of a story by Clemens Hoges in the January 22 issue of the German magazine Der Spiegel. Hoges writes that sugar cane “is considered an effective antidote to climate change, but hundreds of thousands of Brazilian plantation workers harvest the cane at slave wages.” The story is one of several published in recent years that have exposed the brutality of the Brazilian sugar cane fields. But before looking at Der Spiegel’s coverage, let’s do a quick review of the Brazilian ethanol boosters.

Thomas Friedman, the Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the New York Times has frequently advocated the mirage of “energy independence.” And he has cited Brazil as a model. In an August 2005 column, he conflated the issues of oil and terrorism “we are financing both sides in the war on terrorism: our soldiers and the fascist terrorists,” he wrote. He went on to claim that many of the technologies needed for energy independence are “already here – from hybrid engines to ethanol.” He then quoted Gal Luft, the neoconservative who heads the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security and created Set America Free, a group that advocates “energy independence.” Luft claimed that Brazil’s success in cutting its oil imports was due to the fact that the South American country was “bringing hydrocarbons and carbohydrates to live happily together in the same fuel tank.” In Luft’s view, ethanol has brought “Brazil close to energy independence” and insulated it from higher oil prices.

(Luft’s claim completely ignores the fact that since 1980, Petrobras, Brazil’s national oil company, has been growing its oil production by an average of 9 percent per year thanks to its offshore drilling prowess. Since 1998, Brazil has doubled its oil production and is now producing about 2 million barrels of oil per day. Neither Friedman nor Luft bothered to mention that fact.)

In late 2005, in a speech to the National Press Club, Pennsylvania governor Edward Rendell said that “No longer is investing in alternative fuels a fringe idea….Brazil is perhaps the world’s greatest success story. Due to 30 years of hard work, research and investment, Brazil will not need one drop of imported oil this time next year. If anyone suggests to you that these ideas aren’t ready for prime time and cost too much, they are living in the past.”

Venture capitalist Vinod Khosla and former Senate minority leader Tom Daschle have touted Brazil’s “energy independence miracle.” In a May 2006 opinion piece in the New York Times, they said that ethanol “could set America free from its dependence on foreign oil” and that Brazil proves that “an aggressive strategy of investing in petroleum substitutes like ethanol can end dependence on imported oil.”

In October 2006, former president Bill Clinton while in California stumping for Proposition 87 (an alternative energy initiative that later failed) declared that the initiative would “move California toward energy independence with cleaner fuels, with wind and solar power.” He continued, “There are people who don’t believe you can do it. I do. Look at Brazil. Don’t you think you can do it if they did it? They run their cars on ethanol.” Clinton later provided a sound bite for the pro-Proposition 87 forces in which he declared that “If Brazil can do it, so can California.”

The biofuels madness continued with a May 6, 2008 editorial in the Chicago Tribune, titled “Food vs. fuel, a global myth.” The piece, written by Set America Free’s Luft, and his fellow traveler, Robert Zubrin, a right-wing zealot who advocates colonizing Mars, claimed, incredibly, that “farm commodity prices have almost no effect on retail prices.” The two went on to declare that “rather than shut down biofuel programs, we need to radically augment them, to the point where we can take down” the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.

A big reality check is in order.

First and foremost, over the past two years, 14 studies have found a direct link between the ethanol scam and higher food prices.

Second, Brazil is not the epicenter of ethanol production, the US is. In 2008, the US produced about 9.1 billion gallons of the fuel, all of it from corn. Brazil produced about 6.8 billion gallons. And while sugar cane may be a far better feedstock that corn, in terms of greenhouse gas emissions and energy balance, the key issue is one of labor. While US corn is harvested mechanically, the Brazilian sugar cane is harvested almost exclusively by hand. And it is dangerous, back-breaking work.

In 2007, London’s The Guardian newspaper ran a story which quoted human rights activists who said that the men who harvest sugar cane for ethanol production “are effectively slaves” and that Brazil’s ethanol industry was “a shadowy world of middle men and human rights abuses.” It cited figures provided by a Catholic nun, Sister Ines Facioli, who runs a support network in a small town about 200 miles west of São Paolo. She claimed that between 2004 and 2006, 17 cane workers died due to overwork or exhaustion. One laborer, Pedro Castro, told the Guardian’s Tom Phillips, that the hot climate, combined with the heavy protective clothing needed to protect his body from the sharp machete blades used to cut the cane, was like working “inside a bread oven.”

For their work, the average cane worker gets paid about $1 for every ton of sugar cane they cut. They often work 12-hour shifts. Their housing, according to Phillips’ article, consists of “squalid, overcrowded ‘guest houses’ rented to them at extortionate prices by unscrupulous landlords.” The average cane cutter makes less than $200 per month. And some, it appears, make nothing at all.

In July 2007, the Brazilian government freed 1,100 laborers who were found working in horrendous conditions on a sugar cane plantation in the northeastern state of Para. A story by the Associated Press said that the workers were forced to work 13-hour days and that they had no choice but to pay “exorbitant prices for food and medicine.” It then cited a source in Brazil’s labor ministry who claimed that many of the workers were “sick from spoiled food or unsafe water, slept in cramped quarters on hammocks and did not have proper sanitation facilities.” The government-backed raid of the plantation lasted three days. The plantation in question is owned by Para Pastoril e Agricola SA, which produces about 13 million gallons of ethanol per year. The workers were caught up in a situation known as debt slavery in which poor workers are taken to remote farms where they then rack up large debts to the plantation owners who force the workers to pay high prices for everything from food to transportation.

According to Land Pastoral, a group affiliated with Brazil’s Roman Catholic Church, about 25,000 workers in Brazil are living in slavery-like conditions, most of them in the Amazon, and many of them working in the sugar cane business. The 2007 raid is not the first. In 2005, 1,000 workers were found living in debt slavery on a sugar cane plantation in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso.

The article in Der Spiegel makes it clear that little has changed over the past few years. Hoges reports that one worker he interviewed, Antonio da Silva, makes just $172 per month during the harvest season, which lasts about six months. During the rest of the year, he has to rely on charity to feed his family. Da Silva’s home in the village of Araçoiaba Nova, Hoges reports, is the same as it was five years ago. “They threw plastic tarps over a handful of branches to build the hut where they still live today. The door consists of scraps of cloth nailed to a board, and boards placed around a hole in the tarp form the window. The furniture, arranged on the bare earth floor, consists of the plank beds and a cabinet.”

The most compelling quote in the piece is from Father Tiago, a 66 year-old Scottish monk who has been working in Brazil for decades. The Scotsman makes clear what he thinks about the issue: “The promise of biofuel is a lie. Anyone who buys ethanol is pumping blood into his tank,” he said. “Ethanol is produced by slaves.”

The photos that accompany Hoges’ story should be viewed by everyone who retains the misguided belief that the US should emulate Brazil’s biofuels industry. Here’s the link.

Alas, it doesn’t appear the members of Congress are paying much attention. Last month, US Rep. Eliot Engel, a New York Democrat, announced that he would be pushing legislation aimed at eliminating the $0.54-per-gallon tariff on imported ethanol. Doing so, Engel said, “would enable U.S. refiners to purchase cheaper and more climate-friendly ethanol, no matter where it comes from. The result would be an overall increase in the supply of fuel, a decrease in its price, and a decrease in our dependency on petroleum from the Middle East.”

Sound bites like the one from Engel ignore basic arithmetic: Even if the US imported all of Brazil’s ethanol — all 6.8 billion gallons per year — that quantity would only provide the energy equivalent of about 1.4 percent of America’s total oil consumption.

Despite those numbers — despite the ongoing evidence of slavery in the Brazilian ethanol trade — the energy discussion in America remains stuck in an absurdist fantasy about energy independence and freedom from the sticky problems of the Persian Gulf. But given what has happened in the past few months with regard to rising food prices and the myriad other problems associated with biofuels, one thing is becoming perfectly clear: Ethanol isn’t the answer to our energy challenge. Ethanol makes it worse.

Edward G. Rendell, “An American Energy Harvest Plan: Jobs, Prosperity, Independence,” December 1, 2005.

Tom Daschle and Vinod Khosla, “Miles Per Cob,” New York Times, May 8, 2006.

California Progress Report, “President Clinton: Why I Support Proposition 87 and Why the Oil Companies are Wrong – The Complete Speech Delivered at UCLA,” October 14, 2006.

Shopfloor.org, “In California, A Bad Proposition,” November 3, 2006.

http://archives.chicagotribune.com/2008/may/06/food/chi-oped0506fuelmay06

http://www.ethanolrfa.org/industry/statistics/#B

https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,602951,00.html

Tom Phillips, “Brazil’s ethanol slaves: 200,000 migrant sugar cutters who prop up renewable energy boom,” The Guardian, March 9, 2007.

Ibid.
Vivian Sequera, “Brazil Raid Frees Ethanol Plant Slaves,” Associated Press, July 3, 2007.

Clemens Hoges, The High Price of Clean, Cheap Ethanol,” Der Spiegel, January 22, 2009.

http://yonkerstribune.typepad.com/yonkers_tribune/2009/01/engel-outlines-energy-plan-for-the-future-1.html

Robert Bryce is the author of Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of “Energy Independence” available from the carousel at the bottom of this page.

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December 15, 2009 Posted by | Deception, Environmentalism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Why is Democracy Now shielding “war for oil” against reality?

By M. Idrees – 12/15/09

In its headlines for December 14, Democracy Now followed the report on Blair’s confession about his committment to regime change in Iraq regardless of the absence of WMDs, with this:

Iraq Signs Oil Deals with 10 Foreign Companies

Blair’s comments come just as Iraq has signed a series of major oil deals. A two-day auction ended Saturday with ten foreign companies winning access to Iraq’s massive reserves. The oil giant Royal Dutch Shell won the rights to the Manjoon oilfield near Basra, one of the world’s largest. The US-based Exxon Mobil and Occidental Petroleum also submitted winning bids.

The wording is careful: it appears to suggest a connection between what Blair said and the Iraqi oil contracts. The war in other words was for oil. That is a remrkable conclusion to draw from news about an auction in which US companies were the big losers (hence DN’s careful choice of the words ‘foreign companies’). Unless Democracy Now is suggesting that the US waged a war for Russia, Norway and China — biggest winners in the auction — it is not clear why it continues to insist on the discredited “war for oil” argument? Why is it so difficult to admit who actually conceived the war?

But some could argue that this may be a mere reflection of the changing balance of power: that US oil majors are unable to secure contracts doesn’t necessarilty mean that the war wasn’t for oil.

Consider this excerpt from the news report about the auction:

The 10 deals the Iraqi Oil Ministry reached with foreign oil companies suggest that China, Russia, and European oil firms are poised to play a major role in refurbishing Iraq’s oil industry, crippled by decades of war and sanctions.

American companies walked away with stakes in just two of the 10 auctioned fields. Seven American companies had paid to participate in the second auction, which began Friday. The only one that submitted a bid lost. Two American companies reached deals for fields auctioned in June.

The meager representation of American oil giants in Iraq’s opening oil industry surprised analysts.

“Iraq finally opened its doors after six years of war, and instead of U.S. companies, you have Asians and Europeans leading the way,” said Ruba Husari, the editor of Iraq Oil Forum, an online news outlet. “It will be a long time before anything else will be on offer in Iraq.”

Concerns over security, underscored by massive coordinated bombings Tuesday, and political instability as the U.S. military withdraws, likely kept American oil companies from venturing more forcefully in Iraq, which has the world’s third-largest proven crude reserves, analysts said.

Now compare it to this piece by Anthony Sampson from December 2002:

While Washington hawks depict a war against Iraq as achieving security of oil supplies, Western oil companies are worried about the short-term danger and the supposed long-term benefits of intervention…

Oil companies dread having supplies interrupted by burning oilfields, saboteurs and chaotic conditions. And any attempt to redraw the frontiers could increase the dangers in both Iran and Iraq, as rivals seek to regain territory.

I hope you get my drift? So much for ‘war for oil’.

Source

December 15, 2009 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

HOW THE ‘JERUSALEM POST’ PROPAGANDISES ITS EXTREME VIEWS WITHOUT SEEMING TO BE EXTREME

By Damian Lataan
December 14, 2009

I suspect that many exiled Palestinians and their friends and supporters take the trouble to read the ‘Jerusalem Post’ on a regular basis if for no other reason than to get an Israeli perspective of how things are in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and elsewhere and in order to assess the Israeli point of view on these matters.

The ‘Jerusalem Post’ is a politically right of centre newspaper and generally pro-Zionist and pro-Likud though it occasionally publishes works that clearly do not support the right-wing of Israeli politics – but only occasionally, and then only to present it self as a ‘fair and balanced’ journal in support of what they consider is their idea of ‘democracy’. The ‘Jerusalem Post’ tries hard to present its right-wing Zionist views without seeming to be extreme. One of the ways that it does this is to write articles that argue the right-wing cause but without going ‘over the top’ with extremist rhetoric. It then allows its right-wing readership to do the rest by inviting them to comment. The ‘Jerusalem Post’ then censors comments so that the extremists view dominates. The ‘Jerusalem Post’ will publish irrational or just plain stupid comments that dissent from their article in order to belittle and demean the more progressive or left-wing side of the ‘debate’. Sensible progressive or left-wing comments rarely get published.

A good example of how all this works appeared in the ‘Jerusalem Post’ last week when it published an article entitled ‘Security and Defence: Round Two’ by Yaakov Katz. The article was about how Israel is gearing up for, and why the Israel people should expect, another ‘round’ of war against Hamas and the Palestinian people in the Gaza.

Katz is a skilled propagandist and is well practised in the art of expressing an extremist view with such eloquence as to make it seem almost moderate. This is done by presenting his writings as objective analysis rather than obvious propaganda and political rhetoric. As well as the content of his article conveying the message to Israelis and the rest of the world, (the message, incidentally, is; “The IDF believes this future conflict will be far different than its predecessor, and likely more lethal”) Katz leaves it to his readers to express what he really thinks. There’s this one for example:

Round two? Round umpteen! Only one way to fight ethically NOW. Territorial and demographic (non-violent [sic] transfer) VICTORY AND BUFFER to achieve true.. balance in ME (minimally “Big” Israel, how the British Mandate should have been divided anyway) with a minimal amount of casualties. It is NOT ethical anymore to send soldiers into battle without any clear and honest territorial gain. Honesty will win the day. Backed by a diplomatic “offensive” to finally put across Israel’s historical rights and position forthrightly and to explain to the Arabs/Mulsims (sic) and West that a “Big” Israel is the best psychological defense against Totalitarian Jihad. Israeli politicians have to back the jewish (sic) soldier! Shalom is the only defense, not rounds of hagana (sic)
No more rounds.

Unlike Katz, this reader is not constrained when it comes to saying what he/she as a Zionist really believes.

Then there’s this which highlights the Zionists belief in a God-given right to lands that don’t belong to them. It’s not something you’ll ever find Katz saying in the ’Jerusalem Post’ but he’d likely endorse the sentiment expressed:

Simon the Maccabbee took Gaza 2150 years ago. That’s what we will be forced to do sooner or later.
It is part of our land and the more we try to run away from it the more it chases after us. Most of the Arab there want to leave and would do so in a minute if helped to do so. Which would solve the problem of Gaza once and for all in a humane fashion. The world and especially the 22 Arab states sitting on 1/6 of the Earth’s land can certainly find room for these people who want simply to leave. Then the Gush Katif Jews can return rebuild and make the whole of Gaza into a paradise as their own small area was before the destruction.

And there’s this from a reader who calls himself ‘Pedro’ in Australia:

The question is, knowing all this what is Israel going to do about it and why in the first place do you allow this monsters to arm them self to this point?? Why must you wait for them to attack first?

If you link to the article and read it and the comments that follow you’ll soon understand how the propagandists work.

But what’s really frightening is how these people, Katz supported by his readers, can actually endorse blatant violence in order to achieve nothing less than conquest of lands that are not theirs. This is the mindset of the Zionists. The propagandist plants the pestilent seed; the readers that support him supply the manure to fertilise it.

December 13, 2009 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | Leave a comment

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