Wednesday, June 18, 2008

The changing law of assassinations

by Liaquat Ali Khan
 
The war on terror is changing the international law of assassinations. Presently, the law prohibits all forms of extrajudicial executions, including state-sponsored assassinations, and requires that even the worst criminals be granted due process and fair trial. Nonetheless, the recent failure of the United Nations Security Council to condemn the assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin raises the question whether exceptions are emerging under which states may execute, without any judicial process, the rank and file of terrorist organizations.

No such exception has been written into international law--not yet. Israel is the most articulate proponent of the view that members of terrorist organizations are lawful targets for execution without trial. Israel's advocacy of extrajudicial executions is most intriguing, for it has otherwise outlawed capital punishment in its legal system. Close behind Israel is the United States, which hesitates to openly embrace the Israeli view of assassinations. And yet for all practical purposes, it seems to condone such executions. For it was the United States--the lone star on the Security Council--which actively opposed the resolution that denounced the assassination of Sheikh Yassin. (11 members voted for the resolution, 3 abstained.)

In vetoing the resolution, the United States was not posing as a morally blind ally of Israel. It was serving its own interests. Since September 11 attacks, the Bush administration has been openly advocating the killing of terrorists--of course without a trial. In Afghanistan and Iraq, US special operations snipers have actually killed several foreign nationals in forced and staged encounters. The most theatrical assassination occurred in 2002 when a CIA-operated pilotless plane, flying over the Yemeni desert, killed six terrorists speeding in a car below. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz called it a "very successful tactical operation."

In defending their lawless killings, Israel and the United States take a confederate stand. They vow not to let their citizens and soldiers be killed by known terrorists who plan or perpetrate acts of murder and mayhem. Calling it active self-defense or lawful interception, they argue that international law should not preclude executing terrorists determined to harm their citizens and soldiers.

Despite their united stand, Israel promotes a much broader exception to the rule than does the United States. Israel would kill not only persons poised to commit terror, but would execute even their spiritual and political leaders. These leaders are lawful targets, Israel argues, because they, by their rhetoric and blessing, foster and favor a culture of violence that spawns suicide bombers and other perpetrators of violence. In contrast, the United States pleads for a far narrower exception under which killing a terrorist leader is legally excusable when the leader has actually masterminded specific acts of murder.

From a legal viewpoint, however, even narrow exceptions may hurt the innocent. Any extrajudicial killing, no matter how narrowly conceived, cuts off fundamental human rights enshrined in universal treaties. For example, the defendant is slain without a fair hearing before an impartial tribunal. He is given no opportunity to impeach the evidence or witnesses against him. The killer state is accountable to no defense attorney, no jury, and no court. It simply says to the world: "Take my word. The man just executed was a terrorist!" Was he? Given the botched intelligence about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, not even a superpower can assure the world that its decision to kill without a trial is based on irrefutable evidence of criminality.

The Israeli version of extrajudicial executions is even more problematic, as it leads to sheer oppression. It shatters all distinctions between terrorists and insurgents fighting for self-determination. International law recognizes the right of peoples under colonial and racist regimes or other forms of alien domination to struggle and seek freedom. According to Israeli, however, no matter how oppressive are the conditions of servitude, occupation, and even genocide (Sabra and Shatila), the Palestinians have no right to armed struggle for independence. Moreover, any organization that uses force as a means of liberation espouses terrorism and, as such, its entire leadership is a lawful target for assassinations.

Furthermore, there is the domino effect. If international law opens the door to lawless executions, national systems will be emboldened to go even further. Fighting crime will mimic the mantra of fighting terrorism. Already, encounter killings, precipitated through shootouts between the police and alleged criminals, are commonplace in many countries, including Nepal, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka. The United States Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, issued in 2003, recounts how Indian security forces faked encounters to justify extrajudicial executions. While some victims were Muslim and Sikh militants, others were Dalits demanding fair wages. In Brazil, street children have been routinely killed as security risks and leaders of indigenous populations have been executed for demanding a better demarcation of their reservation lands to stop illegal encroachments.

Perhaps realizing the inherent perils embodied in the arguments for the Sheikh's assassination, the eleven members of the Security Council rightfully stood behind an undiluted prohibition against extrajudicial executions.

The writer is a professor at Washburn University School of Law in Topeka, Kansas.
 
 

Resurrected from the annals of Europhobia

The Conspiracy Behind The European Union: What Every Christian Should Know
A Lecture delivered at the Annual Autumn Conference of the United Protestant Council in London on Saturday, November 7, 1998
Professor Arthur Noble

Introduction

Fellow Protestants,

The actual title of my lecture is "The Conspiracy of the European Union: What every Christian should know". To deal comprehensively with such a vast topic in the space of one hour is, of course, quite impossible, so I am obliged to limit myself to the bare essentials. As with every conspiracy there are always several aspects which go to make up to the plot. They are always intertwined and interrelated, but not obvious in some immediate way. Nor do they do always run parallel to one another or even develop according to the original plan. Historically speaking, the European idea ostensibly began as a plan for economic co-operation, but it soon acquired a social dimension and very quickly thereafter developed into a full-blown scheme to unite the whole Continent politically. The underlying religious dimension has yet to be realised, as well as its full implications. What I want to try to show is that while these developments may reflect an apparent shifting of the original goalposts set for the new Europe, they were in fact carefully planned (or, rather, plotted) from the outset and pursued by stealth and with great determination. There is clear evidence, both in the successive European treaties themselves and in pronouncements by the would-be designers of Europe, that the European Union was intended from the outset as a gigantic confidence-trick which would eventually hurtle the nations of Europe into economic, social, political and religious union whether they liked it or not. The real nature of the final goal – a federal superstate – was deliberately concealed and distorted; it was to be released in small doses, to condition those who would never have accepted it, until it would be too late for the whole process to be reversed.

Background

In 1946 Sir Winston Churchill delivered his famous Zurich speech calling for the establishment of a United States of Europe. He envisaged a Western Europe of independent, free and sovereign States that would rise from the ashes of World War II and reach for a destiny of unprecedented harmony and democracy. Neutral Switzerland, with its centuries-old harmonious co-existence of four languages and cultures, was to be the blueprint for a multilingual and multicultural Europe which would never again see maniac dictators and supra-national demagogues bent on imposing their will on member nations.

Initially, Churchill's vision seemed to be advancing according to plan. Former fascist Germany and Italy decentralised power and became parliamentary democracies. Fascism became discredited throughout Europe.

Then, however, events took a different turn. The Schuman plan of 1950 proposed the supra-national pooling of the French and German coal and steel industries as a means of forging European economic unity. The two economies were interwoven to such an extent that war between these traditional enemies became virtually impossible.

The EEC, established in 1957 by the Treaty of Rome, brought Italy and the three Benelux countries into the union but represented a further step towards a pan-European economy by tying economic development to the city of Rome. Significantly, this Treaty also gave Europe a sense of supra-national religious unity and the Roman Catholic Church its protection against the then still existent threat of Communism.

The public was not told everything, but startling facts emerge from the great mass of papal encyclicals and pronouncements of those years.

At this stage in the Community's development Churchill's vision of a free Europe of sovereign States was in a sense hijacked by the Vatican. The public was not told everything, but startling facts emerge from the great mass of papal encyclicals and pronouncements of those years. I shall mention some of them later. The religious aspect of the European idea had at that time not yet emerged to the public view (nor is it yet overtly apparent). It was still to be concealed in the background while the emphasis remained on achieving political unity in economic disguise. Indeed, the Vatican's post-War diplomatic peace efforts were not particularly apparent to many: the eyes of the general public were too closely focused on space exploration, the rearmament contest, Berlin and the Viet Nam War to recognise the true significance of the Vatican's crusade.

1962 was the year of the Common Agricultural Policy resulting in a single European market with price fixing – a further step towards uniformity. In that year the Northwest Technocrat recognised the EEC as already much more than simply an economically united Europe and commented:

Fascism in Europe is about to be reborn in respectable business attire, and the Treaty of Rome will finally be implemented to its fullest extent. The dream of a Holy Roman Empire returning to power to dominate and direct the so-called forces of Christian mankind of the Western world is not dead, but still stalks through the antechambers of every national capital of continental Western Europe, in the determination of the leaders in the Common Market to restore the Holy Roman Empire with all that that means!

Pope John XXIII envisaged a European religio-political monster which he called "the Greatest [Roman] Catholic superstate the world has ever known".

Subsequent Vatican pronouncements and developments in the Community vindicate that view. Pope John XXIII envisaged a European religio-political monster which he called "the Greatest [Roman] Catholic superstate the world has ever known". (The Papal Nuncio in Brussels was later to describe the EU as "a [Roman] Catholic confederation of States".) United within the ancient boundaries of the Holy Roman Empire by the common spiritual bond of religion, in a burgeoning and booming industrial economy, situated geographically in the world's most productive industrial complex, it would march onto the scene of world history – so said John XXIII – as "the greatest single human force ever seen by man".

The Brussels bureaucrats danced to Rome's tune, admitting in 1973 the Vatican's lackey the Irish Republic and the first two Protestant nations earmarked by the Pope: Denmark and the United Kingdom. We know very well why the UK took so long to make up its mind: joining the Continental Europeans meant a dramatic withdrawal from a global tradition of independence and democracy; but did we recognise the plot to undermine the Protestant heritage of our Nation, whose Queen is the Defender of the Faith? Romanism and Irish Republicanism, the traditional enemies of our British way of life which is founded on the principles of Protestant freedom, could thus once again in our history – this time in the guise of economic expediency – join forces against us.

This time, however, the gravity of the situation was increased by the perfidy and treachery of an administration which fell for the ploy. Never in our Nation's history did a succession of British governments become so anti-British, so busily and blindly engaged in selling our birthright to foreigners, denying to the people of Great Britain and Northern Ireland their right to a referendum on self-determination, content to sacrifice us against our will for some ill-conceived, naively misunderstood and politically fatal goal of European union.

After the first direct elections to the European Parliament in Strasbourg in 1979, the word "economic" was ominously dropped in favour of the description "European Community" (EC). Greece joined in 1981, Spain and Portugal in 1986, the year of the Single European Act which meant the gradual transfer of executive, legislative and judicial powers from member States to EC instrumentalities. Thus Europe could make ever-increasing political inroads into our national sovereignty and the London-Dublin conspiracy attempted to force the British people of Northern Ireland by stealth and terror towards a united Ireland under European rule, while arrogant and spineless politicians in Westminster continued politely to play the enemy's game, or, as Dr. Paisley once put it metaphorically, to "feed the brute instead of slaughtering it".

When the infamous Maastricht Treaty on European political Union was signed in 1992 with the aim of transforming the EC into a federal superstate – now significantly redesignated as the European Union (EU) – many of the politicians elected to Brussels, including those from Britain, fell for the confidence trick.

How Britain fell for a confidence trick

"Once in the Common Market we shall be a minority in an organisation in which the decisions of the majority will have the power to bind the minority, not only for a few years, but theoretically for all time."

Two decades earlier, in 1960, when Britain first sought entry into the (then EEC), the historian Sir Arthur Briant had issued an unheeded warning: "Once in the Common Market we shall be a minority in an organisation in which the decisions of the majority will have the power to bind the minority, not only for a few years, but theoretically for all time."

Sir Arthur could not have chosen a more apt word than 'bind'. Although Britain was twice saved from her own folly by President de Gaulle, in 1973 she not so much joined as bound herself to the Common Market, and agreed to be bound by the Treaty of Rome. Even at that time, the founders of the Common Market knew – but apparently Britain did not – that the Common Market was not a club to join or a free trade area with which to associate, but a superstate in the making. Its founders were in no doubt about this, even if British politicians were unaware of - or unwilling to face up to - the ultimate goal of the founders. Robert Schuman, while preparing the European Coal and Steel Community in 1950, had said: "These proposals will build the first concrete foundation of the European Federation. Article 189 of the Treaty of Rome is quite clear about what was involved: "Regulations [...] shall be binding in every respect and directly applicable [...]." "Directives shall bind any Member State [...]." "Decisions shall be binding in every respect [...]."

Unfortunately no more people read the Treaty of Rome than had read Mein Kampf before the Second World War, and many who should have known better accepted assurances that no loss of sovereignty was involved in acceding to the EEC. Looking back, we regret that they did not know better. After a quarter of a century , during which the EEC evolved into the EC and then the EU, experience ought to have taught us what the anti-Marketeers failed to teach.

The EU quickly adopted many symbols of nationhood – a passport, a flag, an anthem, a common currency.

When the EEC was transformed into a European Union, Britain loaded still more chains around her neck and became bound economically, politically and constitutionally to a Europe which is hostile to our traditions and way of life. In economic and foreign policy she became increasingly bound to institutions in Brussels. The EU quickly adopted many symbols of nationhood – a passport, a flag, an anthem, a common currency. What next? A common state religion – Roman Catholicism? Assuredly the EU as presently constituted is not in its final form.

Even after a quarter of a century it is still not easy to understand how any free people would consent to be bound, as the British people are bound, by membership of the EU. Wealth and power – if that is the goal of the EU – are not worth buying at the cost of independence. In any case it is not success but failure that has been purchased at so high a price and as the result of such extreme gullibility. Britain has progressively intricated herself into an organisation which has failed to fulfil and of the promises held out to her. In 1962 the Anti-Common Market League produced a booklet entitled Britain, not Europe, which argued that the hopes of economic gain were false and that the prospect was one of disadvantage and danger if we joined the EEC. Membership has not only failed to cure the ills it was supposed to cure: it has in fact added many new ills – food prices that soared at the beginning, the damaging Common Agricultural Policy, the ruin of our fishing and beef industries. Since then, the Single European Act has significantly reinforced the principle that the European Parliament should progressively take the place of our Parliament at Westminster or reduce it to the status of a county council.

The Single European Act of course reduced in several respects the requirement of the Treaty of Rome that in the Council of Ministers certain things require unanimity of voting to a requirement of only qualified majority voting. Now we are faced with the prospect of full majority voting and of the loss of our veto.

The plot to destroy our Sovereignty

I contend that behind the respectable European mask is a plot to destroy our sovereignty and to re-align the whole balance of power world-wide.

What is the real nature and purpose of this Europe into whose heart the British people are being dragged with increasing resistance? I contend that behind the respectable European mask is a plot to destroy our sovereignty and to re-align the whole balance of power world-wide.

It should be remembered that, strategically, Europe's unification drive began at a time when the entire Atlantic Alliance was coming to grips with the relative decline of the United States both as a world economic power and as leader of the West. America's generosity to the world has reduced her riches and necessitated a serious reassessment of her global strategic commitment. Trade frictions between the US and Western Europe have long been a reality and have moved from the agricultural sector into advanced technological areas. Doubts also grew about the reliability of the US "nuclear umbrella" protecting Western Europe, and a subsequent reduction of American forces and the withdrawal of Russian forces on the Continent following the collapse of the Soviet Union has been paralleled by increasing calls for a solely European self-defence capability. A European army and a European police force already exist in more than embryonic form.

The Daily Mail headline of July 26, 1994, summed up Britain's blundering blindness to the danger of these events: "Hurd's amazing support for major rearmament. All power to the Germans." Meanwhile, the British Government's folly extended to the closure of naval and air bases; and President Clinton abandoned America's 'special relationship' with Britain, encouraged the Germans to play a more active role in world politics, and aided and abetted Britain's avowed enemy Sinn Féin/IRA. Today he stands disgraced but unrepentant for defiling the White House, and it has yet to be revealed to what extent his financial and propagandistic facilitation of Irish Republican terrorists is responsible for the slaughter of the Protestant people of Northern Ireland.

The dangers inherent in the 1986 Act were recognised by eminent author and journalist Paul Johnson, who tried hard in The Times of June 23, 1986, to shake Britons out of their lethargic view of Europe. He saw the Act as requiring "a fundamental alteration in Britain's relationship to the Common Market" and was amazed that it nevertheless "aroused no passion in the Cabinet, in the Commons or the media". It was, in effect, endorsement of "a completely new treaty, which ought properly to have been placed on a level of significance equivalent to that of the original treaty of Rome".

Yet the British people, whether misled or inadequately informed, had no say, and chose to ignore the serious implications of this so-called "European Communities (Amendment) Bill", which Johnson says should more correctly have been entitled "The European Political Union Treaty". Johnson asks why the proposed legislation was not presented to Parliament as "an act to create a European superstate" since, he said, it "will transform relations among the EEC states into a European union and it will invest the union with the necessary means of action." His explanation is significant:

To do so would have been to tell the truth, and the EEC establishment, and our own government, know that the truth would be much more difficult for the public to swallow.

The British Parliament was noticeably weakened: European institutions began to infringe on British sovereignty on a whole range of subjects from seatbelts to spanking children.

The essential point of the Act was to abolish the national veto over a whole range of social policies. The British Parliament was noticeably weakened: European institutions began to infringe on British sovereignty on a whole range of subjects from seatbelts to spanking children. British law started its retreat. Subsequent parliamentary legislation intensified and enhanced this process. Johnson predicted at that time: "Within the area of social legislation, Britain will no longer be able to impede further reductions of its sovereignty, however fundamental."

So much for the "democracy" promised as the goal of this Treaty. The political and economic system which it imposed is nothing short of rabid federalism, a technocratic confidence-trick, fundamentally anti-democratic and anti-liberal.

The British people have continued to ignore at their peril a most solemn warning issued by Dr Paisley in the DUP's policy document The Surrender of Maastricht. What it means for Ulster. At that time he wrote:

What European countries could not do by force through the centuries – destroy the sovereignty of the United Kingdom – they are now accomplishing with the government's help.

Only through the incorporation of the UK in a European superstate as opposed to Churchill's vision of a Europe of co-operating Sovereign States could such a policy succeed. Call it federalism or centralism: the principle is essentially contained in the Eurojargon term 'subsidiarity', a concept which, Dr Paisley reminds us, has its origins in Roman Catholic dogma and denotes the downward devolvement of certain powers for the practical outworking of the Supreme Power's objectives while pre-supposing that the latter has all power.

Defence Implications

The implications for Britain's defence are serious. European history decisively demonstrates that Britain is secure only as long as no Power or group of Powers on the Continent can obtain a supremacy that would enable them to attack her. Whenever practically the whole Continent was ruled by one Power, Great Britain lost her liberty. The earliest example was ancient Rome's supremacy on the mainland of Europe. This inevitably led to the invasion of this country on Caesar's plea that the Britons had assisted the Gauls against Rome. There followed centuries of national servitude.

The lesson of the Roman conquest was never forgotten by the British people. Therefore, when Spain, France and Russia in turn tried to obtain supremacy in Europe by land, and when Holland did so on the sea, each of those nations came into collision with this country, and each was prevented by Great Britain from attaining that supremacy which would undoubtedly have endangered our national existence.

The ganging up of all Europe in Napoleon's European System to crush Britain is another lesson. Socialist and pacifist elements had their way between the two World Wars, despite the unheeded warnings of Sir Winston Churchill, and we relied so well on the policy of collective security that we disarmed ourselves blindly, almost to the point of national suicide.

The fate of the Franco-British Alliance in the Second World War, when Britain was left alone in the world to face her "finest hour" (which could easily but for the grace of God been her last hour), is a further case in point.

Today the old players have reappeared in economic guise, perfectly illustrating the already quoted warning of Dr Paisley about how a change in tactics can obscure and achieve the real, concealed goal.

History has consistently taught Britain that her safety lies in supporting the weaker Powers in Europe against the stronger; but Britain today, through her European policies, is actively supporting the strong; and the threat posed by the Holy European Empire emerging on the Continent has largely gone unheeded. Not content with the progressive sellout of the United Kingdom's sovereignty to Brussels, the Major Government busily dismantled the United Kingdom's defences through substantial reductions in our air and naval bases. The Blair Government has continued this policy. A report published by the Institute for European Defence and Strategic Studies in October, 1994, severely criticised the Government for "defence cuts that it knows should not be made", describing the principle of contracting out to our NATO Allies as "a rather generous interpretation of national security". The report specifically warns of the folly of troop reductions in Northern Ireland and asks:

Will the IRA really surrender its arsenal of weapons, [...] its 650 semi-automatic rifles, its forty RPG grenade launchers, its millions of rounds of ammunition? [...] It would not want to compromise itself should the struggle start up again.

Events in Ulster are, indeed, a commentary on the growing crisis within the United Kingdom as a whole: the sneering contempt for patriotism, the scorn for the democratic will of the people, the progressive undermining of our Constitutional rights by what Michael Portillo famously described as "the rot from Brussels", above all the abandonment by the Churches of Biblically-based Christian doctrine – all these and other symptoms are facets of a spiritual malaise which would drag us irretrievably into the European snare if they are not halted.

Seen in this light, the role of the Sinn Féin/IRA campaign against Britain in the European context becomes glaringly obvious. They are not freedom fighters at all but advocates and facilitators of an "imperialist" Europe. As a letter to the editor of the Belfast News Letter put it some time ago:

Mr Adams should be repeatedly questioned on his statement that the Single European Act "will place all of Ireland under imperialist control" (especially with Eire having had the previous presidency of this "imperialist" movement). We never hear these words being exhumed as they do not suit the agenda being pursued.

The Vatican and the EU

Which brings me to the subject of religion. What further aspects of our national sovereignty are envisaged for the sellout in later treaty amendments? Will an attempt at religious unity follow in the wake of monetary and political unity in this "imperialist" Europe? After all, that is the confessed vision of Pope John Paul II when he speaks about European unity on his numerous propaganda jaunts, now numbering about sixty. His message has consistently been that European identity is "incomprehensible without Christianity" (for "Christianity", of course, read "Romanism"). In other words, his vision of European unity is based on the principle of strong Vatican influence on political governments, reminiscent of the situation in the Middle Ages.

Developments in Europe are not planned to end with merely economic and political union. The envisaged European superstate plans to go even further.

Developments in Europe are not planned to end with merely economic and political union. The envisaged European superstate plans to go even further. Although – as is characteristic of the planners' tactics – no formal mention of the next step has yet been made or foreshadowed in any treaty, it is clear that the stage has been set, and is already well constructed, for the greatest politico-religious revolution ever witnessed in the history of mankind. Tragically, widespread indifference on the part of our national leaders, and especially of the leaders of the established Churches, indicates that they are either totally ignorant of these developments or else willing accomplices in this evil design. The latter explanation quite clearly applies to Church leaders in particular – and it is here that the hidden significance of the Ecumenical Movement emerges in its relationship to the ideal of European unity.

For the past three quarters of a century the Popes have laid careful plans for this organisation which is aimed at reclaiming all those regions of Europe which were wrested from Rome through the Great Schism of the eleventh century, the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth, and, more recently, the communisation of Eastern Europe. Before his death in 1903, Pope Leo XIII had already encouraged political rulers of whatever allegiance to re-ally themselves with the Roman Church: "To princes and other rulers of the State," he said, "we have offered [i.e. historically] the protection of [the Roman Catholic] religion. Our present object is to make rulers understand that this protection, which is stronger than any, is again offered to them [...]." It is that same principle that the Vatican is offering to present-day governments if they will submit to the Vatican's jackboot and return to the Romanist fold.

In an address to the European Parliament in May, 1985, this carefully-chosen first Slavic Pope called for an intensification of the search for European unity and for work toward eliminating the East-West division. Speaking of the two Europes (East and West) he designated Methodius and Cyril - the two patron saints who brought Christianity to the Slavic world in the ninth century - as patron saints of Europe. On June 26, 1985, the Wall Street Journal spoke of the symbolic importance of the choice of these two missionaries to the Slavic peoples as highlighting the Pope's vision of a united Europe.

Thus Romanism can again be clearly seen rearing its ugly head as the one constant force that has bedevilled all European history and politics and conducted a vicious campaign against Protestant Britain for centuries.

MEP Otto von Habsburg, once heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, an ardent Papist and descendant of the family that ruled over the Holy Roman Empire in almost unbroken succession from 1273 till 1806, dreams of a return to the days of former Vatican-assisted ill-gotten influence over much of Europe. He advocates a modern European superstate as a means to this end, working towards the concept of Europe as one large supranational entity.

In the European Parliament in 1989 he claimed: "Europe is living largely by the heritage of the Holy Roman Empire, though the great majority [...] doesn't know it." He stressed how the "religious and Christian element" (for "Christian" read "Romanist") plays "an absolutely decisive role" in Europe's heritage". Like the Pope, he spoke of an "obligation [...] to rethink Europe on the cultural and spiritual levels" and added as a measure of his blatantly anti-democratic aims: "whether it pleases political leaders or not". In the Roman Catholic countries of the Continent, nostalgia is growing for the old systems, especially the Austro-Hungarian Empire of Central Europe – the major successor state to the Holy Roman Empire. Significantly, The Independent of January 11, 1987, observed: "The ghost of Central Europe has come back to haunt, or perhaps tempt us."

There are indeed significant structural parallels between the Roman religious system and the political subsidiarity principle. Just as no member of the Roman Church may question the doctrines of the hierarchy, so too the nations of Europe are being asked to accept the dictate of Brussels through the gradual erosion of their right to veto; and just as the Roman Church interprets, decides and does all, so too the planned European superstate desires autocratic control of the lives of those forced to be its citizens. This indicates very clearly a close relationship between religion and politics in the structure of the EU.

Rome's plan to unite Europe politically and the world religiously by ushering in a seventh revival of the Empire was announced by Pope Pius XII as early as 1952 in his Christmas broadcast, which envisaged "a Christian order which alone is able to guarantee peace. To this goal the resources of the Church are now directed." This arrogant and cunning fanatic, who helped Hitler to power, blessed Mussolini's troops and colluded with the Nazi Ustashi in Yugoslavia in slaughtering 240,000 Orthodox Serbs and forcibly converting over 750,000 to Roman Catholicism, exhorted the faithful of Rome in February, 1952: "The whole world must be rebuilt from its foundations." The plans for this gigantic task, about which the world knows little, were subsequently laid under cover by the Vatican's diplomats. The concept of a United, Roman Catholic European superstate, which is presently emerging in Europe, was to be the first step in world domination.

The plot is now far advanced. The late Enoch Powell alluded in the Evening Standard (December 2, 1987) to a "profound rearrangement now taking place" involving the "dissolution of the North Atlantic Alliance versus Warsaw Pact confrontation" and resulting in an arrangement which would "reappear like some submerged landscape revealed when the floodwaters fall, an older pattern, which previous generations would have no difficulty in recognising. [...] Its old name is Holy Roman Empire." Significantly, the metaphor is strongly reminiscent of the prophecy in Revelation 17:8 of a beast ascending out of a bottomless pit.

The Vatican recognises once again that its aims can be achieved only by an international organisation which has iron teeth to crush opposition. "This organisation," said Pius XII already in his Christmas message of 1944, "will be vested by common consent with supreme authority and with power to smother in its germinal stage any threat of isolated or collective aggression." Foreshadowing the militaristic nature of the organisation envisaged, he added in 1951: "[...] disarmament is an unstable guarantee of lasting peace."

There is nothing new in Rome's tactics: from the Gunpowder Plot to Semtex they have merely kept pace with advancing technology. There is nothing new in Rome's aims: from then till now they are the destruction of the British Parliament and the subjugation of Protestantism and all other opposition.

The iniquitous Ecumenical Movement and its offshoots, disguised as a genuine conciliatory process, is in reality a parallel front to Rome's secret battle strategy in the new Europe. In the early sixties Cardinal Bea, President of the Vatican Secretariat for Promoting Church Unity, made that abundantly clear by admitting:

The Church would be gravely misunderstood if it should be concluded that her present ecumenical adventuresomeness and opinions meant that she was prepared to re-examine her fixed dogmatic positions. No concessions in dogma can be made by the Church for the sake of Christian Unity.

In his book Catholic Terror Today, Avro Manhattan describes the ecumenical revolution as "though seemingly alluring, [...] nothing more than a Trojan Horse via which Catholic power, apparelled in contemporary garb, continues to assert itself as effectively as ever." The American evangelist Dr de Haan calls it "the most cleverly planned piece of religious deception ever foisted upon an unsuspecting world".

It is so closely bound up with the European goal that I am tempted to invent the word 'Eurocumenism' to describe the conspiracy. At the time of the first European elections, the ardent pro-European Roman Catholic politician Shirley Williams unambiguously associated the vision of Europe with her Church's goal of assuming political and religious authority over the lives of all and sundry:

We will be joined to Europe in which the Catholic religion will be the dominant faith and in which the application of the Catholic Social Doctrine will be a major factor in everyday political and economic life.

Not long ago, The Times commented: "The soul of Britain is being reclaimed for Rome in a Catholic call to arms" and "by the next century Catholicism could be reorganised as the predominant faith in the land".

Not long ago, The Times commented: "The soul of Britain is being reclaimed for Rome in a Catholic call to arms" and "by the next century Catholicism could be reorganised as the predominant faith in the land". We now have a Prime Minister who actively promotes Romanism, and I read in the Catholic Herald Standard recently an article headed "Prime Minister 'very close' to Catholicism", in which he is reported as having confessed this closeness to Archbishop Bonicelli while on holiday in Siena. No wonder, after telling the country that Labour would "wait and see" about the single currency, his Government is now actively promoting monetary union in a federal superstate which will destroy the financial and therefore the political independence of the nation-state.

Historically, the concept of the nation-state has been anathema to the Vatican, whose tactics have been to rob sovereign nations of their nationhood and reduced to mere states or provinces of a single European nation-state controlled by her, even subdividing them internally where it suited her purposes.

Her present goal is unchanged – to recreate a re-mediaevalised Europe of small, ineffectual states which she can easily dominate. Already, the map of Europe is becoming strikingly reminiscent of the period before World War I. The dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy after the War had enabled the creation of independent sovereign nation-states on its former territory, such as Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Hungary. As Czechoslovakia recently split into its two constituent states, as Yugoslavia violently disintegrates into a jigsaw puzzle of its provinces and Hungary may still threaten to fall apart into ethnic regions, the familiar and unmistakable tactics of Rome become increasingly discernible.

History is repeating itself in a particularly obvious way in Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. In 1917 the Papal Nuncio in Munich, Pacelli, secretly negotiated with the Germans to accomplish the "Pope's Peace without Victory" in order to save both Germany and predominantly Papist Austria-Hungary from defeat and to strangle at birth two new nation-states: Yugoslavia, in which Roman Catholics would become a minority dominated by Orthodox Serbs, and Czechoslovakia, where they would be dominated by the Protestant Hussites and Liberals.

After the plan failed, Nazi-supporter Pope Pius XII resumed the plot to achieve his lifelong dream of destroying the Serbian Orthodox Church as a rival religion by overtly aiming at Yugoslav disintegration - the one prerequisite for attaining his goal. His plan was to detach Roman Catholic Croatia from the rule of Orthodox Serbia and make it an independent religious state, and eventually to set up a Roman Catholic Kingdom in the Balkans.

Ominously, the planned destruction of Yugoslavia has now actually been achieved. The Russian opposition leader Vladimir Zerenovski recently recognised and described Croatia's secession from the legally-constituted State of Yugoslavia as "a Vatican plot". On the other hand, the Romanist propaganda machine that has infiltrated the European media falsely portrays Serbia, our former ally, as the aggressor. Croatian atrocities are conveniently ignored, as are those of her Ustashi priests of the Nazi period.

The Vatican's dream of detaching Roman Catholic Slovakia and thus re-dividing Czechoslovakia has now also materialised.

Similar tactics are being employed in the case of Northern Ireland. Rome's clandestine aim is to detach it from the United Kingdom and turn its Protestant majority into a minority, at the same time destroying the United Kingdom as a nation-state and ethnic-cleansing the Protestants from the Island of Ireland.

Poland too has been thoroughly re-Romanised through the collusion of the Vatican with the Solidarnosc Movement, whose leader, Lec Walesa, an ardent Roman Catholic, subsequently became President. The significance of the election of a Polish Pope is almost too obvious to mention. Recent Polish history demonstrates that even countries where Roman Catholics are in the majority are jackbooted by Rome: the Vatican actively worked for centuries against Poland's independence from the Czars, a fact which inspired the great national Polish poet Julius Slowacki's famous warning: "Poland, thy doom cometh from Rome."

The former Soviet Union has disintegrated into small states, some of which, including Ukraine, have large Roman Catholic populations; and the Vatican is now aiming at other targets – the Protestant Scandinavian countries in particular. Democratic Switzerland, the land of Zwingli and Calvin, has been left till the last. By then it will have been literally surrounded.

Are our leaders blind to what is going on in Europe, or are they naively stupid, or knowing collaborators?

Are our leaders blind to what is going on in Europe, or are they naively stupid, or knowing collaborators?

In his book Power Beyond the Market – Europe 1992 – the title itself is significant – Otto von Habsburg lets the cat, or rather the Vatican beast, out of the bag:

One of these days the Middle and East Europeans are going to belong to us. The call for self-determination from Lithuania [in the Soviet Union] to Croatia [in Yugoslavia] and beyond is heard today so that even the adversaries of a greater Europe can no longer ignore it.

Significantly, these two regions, with Poland and Hungary, are strongly Roman Catholic. The deception, however, lies in the phrase "self-determination", a principle totally hostile to Romanism, as evidenced by its attempt to remove the same inalienable right from the British people of Northern Ireland. Croatia, Lithuania, Poland and Hungary are merely passing from the dictatorship of communism to the dictatorship of Romanism.

Pope John Paul II symptomatically called Eastern Europe "that other lung of our common European homeland". He told the European Parliament in 1988 of his wish that Europe might "one day expand to the dimensions bestowed on it by geography and above all by history" (cunningly avoiding the word "religion").

It has taken years of undercover plotting to advance the goal of unifying Europe under the Romish doctrine. Preparations for the religious unity of the new Europe were made by the Vatican even before the end of the War. Because they were not recognised before much of the damage has been done, they could result in the absorption of millions of nominal Protestants into the Roman Catholic fold before they even realise what is happening. Many nominally Protestant Churches have already defected from their Reformation faith.

Adrian Hilton has published a brilliant study The Principality and Power of Europe, subtitled Britain and the Emerging Holy European Empire. Every British patriot and every Christian should read it. It was published by Dorchester House in1997. Hilton exposes the emerging Europe as a Vatican plot and links it with the role of the Ecumenical Movement. He mentions how Roman Catholicism has as strong tendency towards centralism and views it as wholly necessary for individual nations and churches to merge their individual identities into a larger body, beneath the guise of avoiding future wars and uniting Christian witness. The spiritual values of the Church of Rome, however, as well as its perceived right to rule in the temporal affairs of the world and its role in global politics, constitute an ethos which is alien to the Biblical Protestant traditions of Britain, which are more than 400 years old. Today's climate of compromising ecumenism would have us believe it is possible for the two to co-exist, yet the laws and the constitution of the United Kingdom are diametrically opposed by European laws. One has to submit to the other.

In 1953 the Queen swore an oath at her Coronation 'to govern the peoples of the United Kingdom according to their laws and customs' and 'to maintain the Protestant Reformed religion established by law'. Both these are negated by the process of deeper European integration. In a continent in which 61 million claim a Protestant heritage and 199 million profess to be Roman Catholics, it is simply not possible to maintain Protestantism by democratic law. The Protestant constitution of the United Kingdom has long been a strong defence against Rome's desires for the 'evangelisation' of Britain, which the Pope refers to as 'Mary's Dowry - hers by right. The Vatican recognises that the defeat of Protestantism here would weaken it throughout all Europe, and this has been its aim since the Reformation. All of the direct military assaults on Britain from the Spanish Armada to World War II were manifest failures, but the modern tactics of encirclement and erosion and bearing fruit.

The Catholic Herald recently stated: 'The days of the Anglican Church are numbered, and most of its worshippers will return to the true faith of their distant mediaeval forebears.' It is almost a symbolic fulfilment of that prophecy that the 20-pence coin of the British colony Gibraltar, issued by Parliament and approved by the Queen, bears an engraving of Mary crowned 'Queen of Heaven' and titles 'Our Lady of Europa'. The head of the Queen on the other side is simply titled 'Elizabeth II - Gibraltar', without her usual titles of D.G., REG., F.D. - Queen by the Grace of God, Defender of the Faith. As portentous as such Roman Catholic symbolism is, the British postage stamps issued in 1984 to commemorate the second election to the European Parliament went even further. They depicted a whore riding a beast over seven mounds or waves. Such imagery has startling similarities to passages from the book of Revelation which a succession of theologians from Wycliffe to Spurgeon has identified as representing Papal Rome.

Roman Catholic imagery is endemic in Europe, and has been wholeheartedly embraced by the European government. The design of the European flag was inspired by the halo of 12 stars around pictures of the Madonna, and appears prominently on the Council of Europe stained-glass window in Strasbourg Cathedral. The window was unveiled to the world on 11th December 1955, co-inciding with the Roman Catholic feast of the Immaculate Conception.

[...] Strasbourg is a city which symbolises the dream of Franco-German integration - the heart of the Empire of Charlemagne. [...] It is also concerning, though some may dismiss it as trivially amusing, that a Roman Catholic Englishman sent a letter to Jacques Delors, with the suggestion of dedicating the European Union to the 'Blessed Virgin Mary'. He had presumably noted that Delors has been responsible for promoting the European flag, with its unmistakable Marian symbolism showing a circle of 12 stars on a blue background. The member of Delors' private office responsible for the Commission President's relations with the Catholic Church replied that the suggestion was gratefully received, but that the President didn't feel that it was within his authority to respond affirmatively. Was this because such a decision has to be placed before the European Council, or the Parliament or even before the peoples of Europe in a referendum? Sadly, no. Elucidation came as the President stated that he would make the suggestion known to the Holy Father. If, 'after prayerful consideration', the Holy Father considered it appropriate, Delors would do everything he could to implement it. Is this an indication of the real spiritual bodies ruling Europe? Thankfully, since nothing more was heard, presumably the Pope didn't like the idea.

The Role of the European Institutions

I had intended to talk about the European institutions, but time has beaten me. I must conclude very briefly.

...the Vatican is the prime mover behind the EU conspiracy.

If I seem to have digressed into religion, that is because, as I hope to have shown, the Vatican is the prime mover behind the EU conspiracy. Let me repeat that the British people were deceived about Europe from the start. The Europe proclaimed as a free-trade area consisting of sovereign nation states and requiring a negligible membership cost was a cover-up for a planned politico-religious superstate. The various institutions and bodies of this superstate in embryo have already steadily encroached on our sovereignty to such an extent that they are reducing our Parliament to the status of a glorified county council. The Daily Mail of May 9, 1996, put it succinctly:

Our laws are now worthless. Fifteen judges in Luxembourg – only one a Briton – are now the supreme arbiters of British law; and they base their decisions on Roman law, unknown in this country since the Roman withdrawal.

The European Court of Justice has made itself an ever more intrusive agent for ensuring that the British Parliament is no longer sovereign, even when Britain's national interest and security are involved.

EU directives are crippling Britain's businesses. British industry is finally waking up to the true price of the EU's single market, as it struggles to comply with 20,000 directives and regulations which have made Brussels the biggest law-factory in the world.

The move towards monetary union and a single currency must be stopped.

The move towards monetary union and a single currency must be stopped. In a recent debate with Mr Lammers about the single currency, Normal Lamont said he was opposed to it because he believed it would "lead to the political unification of Europe". Mr Lammers then said that there was no point in any debate taking place, because he entirely agreed that that was the purpose of the single currency: "It is part of political unification as we have said all the time." The Chief Executive of the Bundesbank, Dr Issing, said recently: "There is no example in history of lasting monetary union not linked to one single state." Dr Tietmayer, the President of the Bundesbank, said: "A European currency will lead to member nations transferring their sovereignty over financial and wage policy as well as monetary affairs. It is an illusion to think that states can hold on to their autonomy over taxation policies." Bill Cash has warned that monetary union even threatens the rule of law in Europe.

One single currency would be managed by one Central Bank empowered to implement EU monetary policy. If the United Kingdom abandons the Pound Sterling and signs up to monetary union, this would be an irreversible step towards the complete destruction of our national sovereignty.

What is equally unacceptable is to use majority voting for European governmental policy. Majority voting causes unaccountability because ministers can be outvoted in the Council: they are then not accountable for their decisions to their national parliaments, and the Council itself is not accountable to any electorate or parliament. Majority voting cuts the link between voter in a member state and law-maker, which is the bedrock of all democracy. At the time when he voted for the Single European Act, Bill Cash tabled an amendment which said: "Nothing is this act shall undermine the sovereignty of the United Kingdom Parliament." That amendment was not passed. National parliaments, as expressions or national sovereignty, are the very cornerstone of democracy.

Conclusion

If we do not pray and if we do not act, Rome will once again succeed in establishing her evil system in this country. When William Tyndale, captured and burned in 1535 by Belgian Papists for having dared to translate the New Testament, uttered his dying cry: "Lord, open the King of England's eyes!" God's eventual mighty answer came in the form of the King James (or "Authorised") Version of the Bible (1611). It fell to Protestant Britain to spread the Gospel worldwide and check the power of Rome. I am convinced that that is our divinely-appointed task once again. We can no longer rely on our political leaders or even our Royal Family to carry the torch of Biblical Truth. Let us therefore pray: "Lord, open the eyes of the British nation!"

~ Source: European Institute of Protestant Studies ~


U.S. school district to begin microchipping students

A Rhode Island school district has announced a pilot program to monitor student movements by means of radio frequency identification (RFID) chips implanted in their schoolbags.

The Middletown School District, in partnership with MAP Information Technology Corp., has launched a pilot program to implant RFID chips into the schoolbags of 80 children at the Aquidneck School. Each chip would be programmed with a student identification number, and would be read by an external device installed in one of two school buses. The buses would also be fitted with global positioning system (GPS) devices.

Parents or school officials could log onto a school web site to see whether and when specific children had entered or exited which bus, and to look up the bus’s current location as provided by the GPS device.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has criticized the plan as an invasion of children’s privacy and a potential risk to their safety.

“There’s absolutely no need to be tagging children,” said Stephen Brown, executive director of the ACLU’s Rhode Island chapter. According to Brown, the school district should already know where its students are.

“[This program is] a solution in search of a problem,” Brown said.

~ more... ~


Occult design of Washington D.C.







1818 map








As many know Masonic symbols are layed out in the design of Washington DC i.e. the upside down 5 pointed star that points to the White House, the Compass with HORNS on it and the Square as arms of the beast but no one ever shows the UPSIDE DOWN CROSS (as you face East) with beast (Satan) atop the cross with a 6 pointed star on its head so I took a map and highlighted these things and more.

There is a Pendulum that is in swing, to its left.
Union Station is the Right hand note the little left hand (left is lame).

Ancient Rome was the Satan of that time, Rome fell at the end of the 5th century hence the "deadly wound".
The Pilgrims came to this land in the 17th century (1620) to set up the "New Jerusalem" (the one that comes down out of heaven, meaning planned) America, the Revived Roman Empire (revived = wound healed).
Satan was "bound" a thousand years (6th - 16th centuries) and was loosed for a short season as of 1776 and the world has wondered after the beast, the greatest nation on gods green earth.


This beast is Satan the Antichrist.
The temptation story Satan is on a "hill", that hill in reality is Capital Hill (where the head of the beast is), capitalize by bowing to the beast Satan.

The "False Prophet", a man known only as The Professor did work with George Washington, Ben and others in 1775 setting up the flag/image of the first beast America.

The "great day of the lord " soon followed on May 19, 1780.
I quote from a book Prince Of Darkness p. 331 by Grant R. Jefferey. Grant used this story in his book to proudly boast of a brave and wise christian amongst fearful dummies all the while missing the extreme importance of the story, now THATS like a thief in the night.

On May 19, 1780 the sky across the United States was illuminated with meteor showers unlike those ever seen before. By 10:00 A.M. the next morning the sky became black as night and the moon turned blood red. In the State Legislature of Massachusetts panic set in among the distressed representatives. Some fearful members called for a motion to adjorn the hearings in the light of the possible return of the Lord. However, one of the wiser Christians legislators replied, "Gentlemen, bring candles. If it is not the Day of Judgement we should continue our deliberations. However, if it is the Day of Judgement we should be found at our post. Gentlmen...To buisness!"



The eye is deity and the capstone represents this deity being the Chief Cornerstone.

A woman rides (rides = guides) the beast, a likeness of her stands in New York, she is Lady Liberty/Ishtar.
7 spikes on her crown =
1. 7 continents
2. 7th and final beast empire
3. spiritual completeness, this is where it all comes down.

She is the greatest idol in the history of the world.

The "synagogue of satan" is DC.
A group of people that call themselves Jews but are not.


Satan is set up in the holy place, in otherwords, as the Chief Cornerstone.

Seperation of state ?
Seperation of your church and their State, not seperation of their church and their state, the church is the state.
Everything about DC is religious !!!

Darkness was/is upon the face of the deep !!!

There are 2 beasts, one is a political entity that is set up as male, the DC beast/Satan, it is not female (the other a man/human), 666/gold is in regards to the political beast. This beast is an economic power. The gold/money connection is this,

The “mark” of the beast =
1. The Great Seal of the USA (the Eye in the capstone), which is on the dollar bill (money), the most famous/handled piece of paper in the world.
2. The Bar Code (6-6-6), which is in regards to the use of money, buying and selling.

Both truths of the “mark”, in regards to the political beast, are connected to gold/money, buying and selling.

"image" of the beast =
1. the Eye in the capstone (the Eye is deity)
2. the Flag/banner of the USA/DC beast, pledge allegiance to it !!!

"number" of his (the dc beast is set up as a male) name =
1. 1776
2. 6-6-6 (the bar code)


The "mark" in the forehead =
1. to think for (design and run), the minions
2. to think with (patriots)
Pride/patriotism, goes before the fall.

The "mark" in the right hand =
1. to fight for
2. work for

The right hand is the Power hand.

~ From: The Masonic Washington DC beast ~

Agression drugs tested on U.S. troops



Wired Magazine, says in the future it won't be what kind of weapons we have but what drugs our soldiers are on. Alex Jones talks about aggression drugs, stamina drugs, pleasure drugs, and amnesia drugs being tested in Afghanistan at the beginning of the war. Also, Alex Jones reads a report where almost 25% of soldiers coming back from war have post traumatic stress disorder.

How far is the U.S. from food shortages and riots?

by Monica Davis

Even the United States is not immune from the potential for food shortages, food riots and food insecurity. We’re just blind to the possibility.

As Americans complain over high gasoline and food prices, many third world countries are experiencing food riots over price and scarcity of food. In some parts of the word rice is so expensive that it is transported in heavily guarded convoys and farmers guard their fields from thieves.

Food riots are becoming more common, as more land and crops are being diverted from the food chain by the world biofuels industry. According to an investment magazine, the crisis shows no signs of weakening. Food, the bread of life, is fast becoming the “gold” of the Twenty-first century.

Fatal food riots in Haiti. Violent food-price protests in Egypt and Ivory Coast. Rice so valuable it is transported in armoured convoys. Soldiers guarding fields and warehouses. Export bans to keep local populations from starving. (Globalinvestor.com)

The face of food security is rapidly changing around the world and there are no quick fixes experts say. What worries many is that food stockpiles are at historic lows. In the United States alone,
stockpiles of wheat hit a 60-year low in the United States as prices soared. Almost all other commodities, from rice and soybeans to sugar and corn, have posted triple-digit price increases in the past year or two. (Ibid)

Experts say the high prices will continue for years, putting billions of people at risk for malnutrition or starvation. World leaders continue to cast fearful eyes at the burgeoning bio-fuels industry, noting that the competition generated by the industrial biofuels industry and food agriculture is pushing up food prices and making it more profitable to grow fuel crops for industrialized countries than it is for big farmers in Third World countries to grow food for their own citizens.

What has put many world leaders on notice is the fact that this artificially generated food crisis has not yet peaked. As of this writing, no one knows when the situation will reach a crescendo, or to what extent this demand will affect food security and political stability in the world.
Many believe that the food crisis is in its infancy and they worry about increasing food-based political instability worldwide.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said this week he's worried that ethanol production is pushing up food prices everywhere, and he called for an urgent review of the issue. Economist Dr. Hazell has said that filling an SUV tank once with ethanol consumes more maize than the typical African eats in a year. (Ibid)

So far, Americans have been able to weather the storm. While rising fuel and food prices have generated grumbling from the populace and hand wringing from the politicians, this country has yet to experience the level of social unrest and rioting that high food prices have generated in other parts of the world.

In Haiti, ongoing instability and riots over food prices has led to the probable ousting of the nation’s Prime Minister. Newswires are reporting “A Haitian senator says that parliament has voted to dismiss Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis following deadly riots over rising food prices.” (Wire services)


A few analysts believe that the United States is on the verge of a major economic revolution, a process, which will change where we live, what we eat, and how we view agriculture. Looking at the rumbles from around the world we are already seeing wars over oil and energy resources, not to mention the violent eviction of traditional farmers in South America and other parts of the world by the industrialized bio-fuels industry.

The fight over finite land resources is slowly taking shape out of sight of most of the United States as agribusinesses lay claim to land around the world. Agro-conglomerates chase natives off tribal lands in South America, Indonesia and parts of the Far East at gunpoint. Murder over land continues in the Third World, as conglomerates move onto jungle and rain forest land, clearing acreage with slash and burn campaigns.

What was once climate producing tropical rain forest has become fields for sugar cane, corn and other biofuels. More profitable biofuel crops have now deprived the food chain of a large supply of corn and other crops, driving up the cost of corn-based food such as corn meal, tortillas, corn syrup and a hundred other crops and products which grace our tables at ever greater cost.

The food riots in Haiti are mirrored by riots in parts of Africa and Asia, sending shock waves throughout the Third World. According to a report from the United Nations, the 60 per cent price increase in the price of corn and feedstock over the past two years can be directly traced to the increased demand on corn and soybeans made by the biofuels industry. The United States, as the world’s largest exporter of corn, has diverted millions of pounds of corn and soybean crops to the growing biofuels industry, creating a market that makes fuel crops more profitable than food crops. National surpluses of grains have give way to increased demand for biofuels, driving up the price of corn and grains around the world. (World Bank)

Traditional food crops—rapeseed, maize (corn), palm and soybean are in demand by both food agriculture and the growing biofuels industry, creating an increased competition, which is driving up food costs by double digits, generating food riots around the world. Thai farmers and other farmers are now guarding rice crops, as skyrocketing grain prices are leading to crop theft and food riots around the world. According to international reports:

Rice farmers here (Thailand) are staying awake in shifts at night to guard their fields from thieves. In Peru, shortages of wheat flour are prompting the military to make bread with potato flour, a native crop. In Egypt, Cameroon, and Burkina Faso food riots have broken out in the past week. (Thoughtcriminal.org)

In Thailand and other rice and grain producing nations, food theft is rising. Crops are stolen directly from fields.

The reported thefts in five rice-growing provinces in central Thailand are the first signs of criminal activity in this region stemming from the sharpest global spike in commodity prices since the oil crisis in the mid-1970s. Across the world, higher food prices are triggering thefts and violence – both by people who can’t afford to eat and those who want to make an easy buck. (Ibid)

The United States produces 46% of the world’s biofuels, with Brazil coming in at a close second with 42%. (Biofuels: the Promise and the Risks). As a world leader in food exports, grain in particular, the United States has altered world grain markets by diverting grain into fuel production, thereby increasing demand for grains with a resultant rise in the price of the commodity because of demand. The ensuing market shortage has generated price increases in the world grain market, making food staples too expensive for much of the world’s poor to afford.

So far, Americans are mostly bystanders in the game, content to grumble at the gas pump and complain in the grocery aisles. As a “First World” nation, the United States so far has not been subject to the food riots, which we have seen in Haiti and other parts of the world. Americans have more per capita income than much of the world; hence the crisis of the Third World, so far, is inconvenience in the “First World” and in developed nations such as the United States.

That said, however, we must understand that this situation is not sustainable. While Americans do have more disposable income than the rest of the word, that income is not unlimited and our food supply is much more vulnerable than we think. When it comes to food security, both in terms of supply and accessibility, this country is much more vulnerable than we think.

As one retired grain salesman noted, most of the nation’s grain is moved around the country by just TWO railroads. Little is stored in the event of disaster and the whole system is extremely vulnerable. While we in the United States look at the food riots in other countries with a sense of disbelief, we are not immune. Under the right circumstances, we could be in the same boat. (Ibid)

In order for riots to break out the whole food supply doesn't have to be wiped out. It just has to be threatened sufficiently. When people realize their vulnerability and the fact that there is no short-term solution to a severe enough drought in the Midwest they will have no clue as to what they should do. Other nations can't make up the difference because no other nation has a surplus of grain in good times let alone in times when they are having droughts and floods also. (Robert Felix, “US Food Riots Much Closer than You Think”)

Critics say the US is currently too preoccupied with foreign excursions and oil to pay attention to food security, particularly how concentration of suppliers and processors threaten the food chain. The highly concentrated meat processing industry has generated millions of pounds of recalls this year. Outbreaks in e.coli and other food borne pathogens continue to haunt the headlines, as food prices rise around the world.

The concentration of food processing, cultivation and distribution into the hands of a few companies is wrecking havoc around the world. A Canadian reporter noted the connection between market concentration and price increases around the world:
In Mexico and most other countries, a handful of international companies is controlling more and more of the food production line—from growing crops to purchasing crops from farmers, to warehousing, processing and distribution.

Carlsen said investigations following the tortilla crisis found that huge stores of corn in warehouses had cut down the supply and led to a jump in prices. (Matthew Little, Epoch Times, “Food Prices Skyrocket Amidst Growing Shortages.”)

Food security, that is the availability and affordability of food, has been pushed aside by the War on Terror, and continues to lag behind our awareness, despite their being linked together in a dangerous dance of death, which has been created by the bio-fuels industry. Ultimately, the price of oil, depends on supply, demand and risk (War), and the price of food has now become dangerously linked to the energy market by the requirements of the fuel crop industry. We now are dealing with a ‘double whammy’ that is dangerously impeding our food supply.

Living in the “Breadbasket of the World,” it is hard for most Americans to even conceive of the idea that food could become scarce in this country. Few of us are paying attention to the close relationship between biofuel, grain crops and price inflation.

Think tank analyst Pat Mooney noted the close connection between corn and oil prices.

"The market place does now tie the price of a bushel of corn to the price of a barrel of crude and when it does that it means that poor people are going to lose out," said Mooney. (Ibid)

The world’s grain and food markets have been turned on their heads. Where once the price of fuel and oil-based fertilizers used to cultivate crops added to the cost of the crop, now the use of crops as fuel generates still another tier of demand on the world’s soils and crops.

With finite amounts of cropland, competition between fuel and food crops for land and economic resources, and unpredictable natural disasters, wars and pestilence waiting in the wings, our food supply is not as secure as we think it is.

Even the United States is not immune from the potential for food shortages, food riots and food insecurity. We’re just blind to the possibility.

The author is an activist/writer/public speaker based in the Midwest. She has written articles on the mortgage crisis, land theft, mis-education of ethnic youth and food security. Books include:
Land, Legacy and Lynching: Building a future for Black America, and Urban Asylum: Politics, Lunatics and the Refrigerator Woman.


Israeli ministers mull plans for military strike against Iran

The Israeli government no longer believes that sanctions can prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons. A broad consensus in favor of a military strike against Tehran's nuclear facilities -- without the Americans, if necessary -- is beginning to take shape.

Dani Yatom, a member of the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, was invited to attend a NATO conference in Brussels last year. While reviewing the agenda, Yatom, a retired major general, was surprised to see that the meeting was titled "The Iranian Challenge" and not "The Iranian Threat."

When a speaker with a French accent mentioned that a US military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities would be the most dangerous scenario of all, Yatom said, politely but firmly: "Sir, you are wrong. The worst scenario would be if Iran acquired an atom bomb."

~ From: Spiegel Online ~


Iran withdraws $75 billion from Europe

Iran has withdrawn around $75 billion from Europe to prevent the assets from being blocked under threatened new sanctions over Tehran's disputed nuclear ambitions, an Iranian weekly said.

Western powers are warning the Islamic Republic of more punitive measures if it rejects an incentives offer and presses on with sensitive nuclear work, but the world's fourth-largest oil exporter is showing no sign of backing down.

"Part of Iran's assets in European banks have been converted to gold and shares and another part has been transferred to Asian banks," Mohsen Talaie, deputy foreign minister in charge of economic affairs, was quoted as saying.

Iranian officials were not immediately available to comment on the report in Shahrvand-e Emrouz, a moderate weekly, which did not specify the time period for the withdrawals which it said were ordered by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

~ more... ~


Military lawyers objected to harsh interrogations

Military lawyers warned against the harsh detainee interrogation techniques approved by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in 2002, contending in separate memos weeks before Rumsfeld's endorsement that they could be illegal, a Senate panel has found.

The investigation by the Senate Armed Services Committee also has confirmed that senior administration officials, including the Pentagon's then-general counsel William "Jim" Haynes, sought the help of military psychologists early on to devise the more aggressive methods — which included the use of dogs, making a detainee stand for long periods of time and forced nudity, according to officials familiar with the findings.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the information has not been formally released. Details were to be discussed at an open committee hearing Tuesday.

Rumsfeld's December 2002 approval of the aggressive interrogation techniques and later objections by military lawyers have been widely reported. But the November protests by service lawyers had not, and the interest by Pentagon civilians in military psychologists has surfaced only piecemeal.

The lawyers' objections were sent to the Joint Staff, which would have relayed the messages to civilian leadership. There is no proof, however, that Rumsfeld or Haynes personally saw the memos.

Tuesday's hearing is the committee's first look at where the harsher methods — used at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and Abu Ghraib in Iraq — originated and how policy decisions on interrogations were vetted across the Defense Department.

~ more... ~


[ via War Crimes Research ]


How clean coal cooks your brain

Coal%20Power%20Plant.jpg

By Jeff Goodell

Several years ago, in Gillette, Wyoming, I fell into a long conversation with the vice-president of a large American coal company about coal's public image problem. Gillette is in the center of the Powder River Basin, the epicenter of the coal boom in America, where 60 foot seams of coal lay just below the surface.

This vice president, who did not want his name to appear in print, was deeply concerned about coal's future and expressed frustration with environmental attacks on coal, suggesting that it was all a problem of perception: "People don't like coal because it's black," he told me.

"If it were white, all our problems would be solved."

Whenever one of those slick ads for "clean coal" pops up on CNN, I think about that conversation in Gillette. The $35 million "clean coal" campaign, spearheaded by a coal industry front group called American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (formerly known as Americans for Balanced Energy Choices), is nothing less than a nationwide effort to paint coal white.

And to the coal industry's credit, they're doing a pretty good job."Clean coal" is touted by Republicans and Democrats alike as the solution to America's energy troubles.

The logic is simple: America has lots of coal. We are a technologically advanced society. Ergo, we can clean up coal. What's the problem?

Well, here's one: "clean coal" is not an actual invention, a physical thing – it is an advertising slogan. Like "fat-free donuts" or "interest-free loans," "clean coal" is a phrase that embodies the Bush-era faith that there is an easy answer for every hard question in America today. We can have a war in Iraq without sacrifice. We can borrow more than we can afford without worrying about how we'll pay it back. We can end our dependency on oil by powering our SUVs with ethanol made from corn. And we can keep the lights on without superheating the climate through the magic of "clean coal."

Here's another: mining and burning coal remains one of the most destructive things human beings do on this earth. It destroys mountains, poisons water, pollutes the air, and warms the atmosphere. True, if you look at it strictly from the point of view smog-producing chemicals like sulfur dioxide, new coal plants are cleaner than the old coal burners of yore. But going from four bottles of whiskey a week down to three does not make you clean and sober.

Of course, the "clean coal" campaign is not about reality – it's about perception. It's an exercise in re-branding. Madison Ave. did it for Harley Davidson motorcycles and Converse shoes. Why not Old King Coal?

It's not a difficult trick – just whip out some slick ads with upbeat music and lots of cool 21st century technology like fighter jets and computers. Run the ads long enough, and people will believe.

But the real goal of the campaign is not simply to re-brand coal as a clean and modern fuel – it's to convince energy-illiterate TV viewers that the American way of life depends on coal. The ads remind us (accurately) that half the electricity in America comes from coal, then shows images of little girls getting tucked into bed at night or Little Leaguers playing ball under the lights.

The subtext is not simply that, without the electricity from coal, the lights will go out and your family will be plunged into darkness. It's that, without coal, civilization as we know it will come to an end. As one utility industry executive asked me while I was reporting Big Coal, "Have you ever been in a blackout? Do you remember how scary it was?"

From the coal industry's point of view, this is a brilliant way to frame the argument. If the choice is, coal or chaos, they win. This framing also disarms environmental arguments – yes, it's too bad that mountaintop removal mining has destroyed or polluted 1200 miles of streams in Appalachia and that the Environmental Protection Agency projects a loss of more than 1.4 millionacres – an area the size of Delaware – by the end of the decade.

But hey, if it's a choice between losing flattening West Virginia and keeping our lights on, good-bye West Virginia!

That's a false choice, of course.

The coal industry may not want to acknowledge it, but we're living in the 21st century now. We have indeed figured out other ways to generate electricity besides burning out 30 million year old rocks. And with each passing year, those alternatives are getting cheaper and smarter.

Wind is already less expensive than coal in many parts of the country, and so is large-scale solar thermal. Google is exploring enhanced geothermal. The creaky old electricity grid will soon morph into a system that looks more like the internet, driving big gains in efficiency and allowing for real-time pricing of a kilowatt of power.

This does not mean we can shut down coal plants tomorrow. But it does mean that coal is no longer the engine of civilized life as it has been since the industrial revolution.

Big Coal is best understood as a beast of inertia, pushed along by hundreds of billions of dollars worth of heavy metal infrastructure, and kept on track by an army of lobbyists, and our own ignorance of what goes on behind the light switch.

That may be changing.

Even seven year-olds know that the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, especially carbon dioxide, is warming the planet. Coal is by far the most carbon-intensive of fossil fuels, with roughly twice the carbon content as natural gas.

Right now in the U.S., there is no financial cost to dumping CO2 into the atmosphere. That’s likely to change during the next administration. Big Coal is fighting for loopholes and safety valves to keep CO2 costs low, because if legislation passes that actually puts a serious price on CO2, coal's reign as a "cheap" energy source is officially over.

Big Coal insists they have solution for CO2. It's called carbon capture and storage. In most scenarios, capturing and storing CO2 from coal involves building a new kind of power plant that uses heat and pressure to gasify the coal, instead of burning it. In these new plants, the CO2 can be removed, compressed into an oil-like fluid, then injected underground in abandoned gas and oil wells or deep saline aquifers.

Big Coal would like us all to believe that capturing and storing CO2 from these new coal plants is a slam-dunk technology -- but one that's not quite ready for prime time yet (capturing CO2 from existing combustion coal plants, while theoretically possible, is far too expensive and ineffecient to be taken seriously by anyone but the most die-hard coal boosters).

Of course, Big Coal has always been better at touting new technology than actually deploying it. Yes, there are serious questions about how much it will cost to build new coal plants that can capture and store CO2, how soon will it happen, and whether or not the technology can scale up quickly enough to really make a difference. But it's not technology that's holding back CCS. It's politics. Without a price on carbon, there is little incentive to do anything serious about CO2 emissions from coal plants. Indeed, for Big Coal, the game now is not to prove that carbon capture and storage is a viable technology. It's to use the expense and complexity of it as leverage in negotiations over climate legislation.

Meanwhile, the need to reduce CO2 emissions grows more urgent every year. As NASA climatologist James Hansen has repeatedly pointed out, continuing to burn coal the old-fashioned way is a sure-fire way to melt Greenland and turn Miami into an aquarium.

In the end, the "clean coal" campaign is about using the tools of the 21st century to keep us locked in the 19th century. Like other greenwashing campaigns, it's about using the iconography of sexy technology and down-home Americana to maintain the status quo.

These campaigns always pretend to offer inspiration about we can do in America if we set our minds and hearts to it, but in fact the real message is what we can't do: we can't power America without coal, we can't keep our lights on without destroying Appalachia, and most important of all, we can't pass meaningful carbon legislation without wrecking the American economy.

This is why the false promise of "clean coal" is dangerous.

The goal is not to solve our problems, but to perpetuate our addiction. In one ad, the narrator even adopts the feel-good language of substance abuse and recovery: cleaning up coal is a "big challenge," he explains," but we've made a commitment – a commitment to clean."

After decades of stoking the engines of denial and obfuscation on global warming, it's nice that Big Coal wants to be a good citizen. But just because your pusher decides to shower and shave, don't delude yourself into thinking that he cares about your welfare.

His real goal is to keep you hooked.

Jeff Goodell is the author of Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America's Energy Future, (Houghton Mifflin, 2007).

This article originally appeared on Coal is Dirty.

Photo credit: Flickr/Daniel Shea, licensed by Creative Commons.


~ Source: WorldChanging ~


Talk by Michael C. Ruppert





Talk by Michael C. Ruppert author of "Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil" given January 15, 2005 at Kane Hall, UW Campus Seattle.

Michael Ruppert confronts CIA director about drug laundering



Michael Ruppert from FromTheWilderness.com confronts Bill Clinton's CIA Director John Deutch about the CIA's involvement in cocaine smuggling. He goes further in this documentary in detail about how exactly drug money is laundered into Wall Street. He concludes that 9/11 was orchestrated as a pretense to further Wall Street's cause of laundering opium money from Afghanistan and America's conquest in securing the world's natural resources in the face of PEAK OIL.

~ YouTube video ~