December 31, 2008

Yellowstone Earthquake Swarm Puzzles Scientists

A swarm of small earthquakes in Yellowstone National Park is the most intense measured there in years, leaving scientists puzzled.

The region is known for such swarms — 1,000 to 2,000 quakes occur annually in the park. Yellowstone's 10,000 geysers and hot springs, including the Old Faithful Geyser, may be the result of this geologic activity.

But the latest shaking is notable for the number of tiny temblors and their intensity, according to a statement yesterday from the University of Utah, where scientists monitor seismic activity in Yellowstone. (Yellowstone is located mostly in the northwest corner of Wyoming.)

The largest of the earthquakes was a magnitude 3.9 at 10:15 pm MST on Dec. 27, a day after the swarm began. The sequence has included nine events of magnitude 3 to 3.9 and approximately 24 of magnitude 2 to 3 at the time of this release. A total of more than 250 events large enough to be located have occurred in this swarm.

"Scientists cannot identify any causative fault or other feature without further analysis," according to the statement.

Most of these temblors would not be felt by humans. Earthquakes generally have to exceed magnitude 4.0 to cause light damage.

Scientists wonder if the shaking might presage a larger event. This month's swarm is the most intense in this area for some years, scientists said. It is centered on the east side of the Yellowstone caldera, a giant basin created in a colossal eruption some 620,000 years ago.

Researchers have long predicted that the Yellowstone supervolcano will eventually erupt again, with devastating consequences for much of the United States. Half the country could be covered in ash up to 3 feet (1 meter) deep, one study predicts. But those same researchers say nothing suggests such an eruption is imminent. They point out, however, that Yellowstone seems to blow its top about every 600,000 years.

Meanwhile, the region's deep secrets are still being revealed.

Last year researchers reported on unusual slow movement below the surface that's tied to a newfound gradual sinking of the nearby Teton Range. And in 2006, scientists discovered that in the previous decade, the volcano had risen nearly 5 inches.

"Could it develop into a bigger fault or something related to hydrothermal activity?" wonders Robert Smith, a professor of geophysics at the University of Utah. "We don't know," he said this week.

Smith and his colleagues said they'll continue to monitor the activity.

America's Dollar Denominated "Toilet Paper"

How to Deflate the US Superpower and Restore Economic Sovereignty

The Shadow Money Lenders: The Real Significance of The Fed’s Zero-Interest-Rate Policy (ZIRP)

How to Deflate the US Superpower and Restore Economic Sovereignty

by Matthias Chang

Global Central Banks Acting In Concert-
Disinformation In Financial Dailies To Confuse The People
When The Truth Dawns On Hapless People, There Will Be Blood On The Streets.
This Is The Warning By IMF!


INTRODUCTION

The disinformation by the global financial dailies in the last twelve months as to the cause of the global financial tsunami, serve the same purpose as the global mass media when they perpetuated the lies that lulled the people to support the war criminals Bush, Blair and Howard to launch the barbaric war against Iraq and Afghanistan which resulted in the genocide of millions, the mutilation of hundreds of thousands, physically and psychologically, and the devastation of an entire nation.

The wars unleashed thus far, specifically the “War on Terror” were launched to preserve the shadow money-lenders’ political and military power.

This War on Terror is the greatest military sideshow that distracted the American people from the financial rape and plunder of their economy and the destruction of their Constitution.

Since the Summer of 2007, we have witnessed a concerted effort by the world’s central banks and global commercial and investment banks to preserve the shadow money-lenders’ financial power, one that is founded on fraud and structured in every detail as in the infamous Ponzi scheme.

In the last seven years, the Ponzi scheme was globalised by the Shadow Money-Lenders, siphoning hundreds of billions from so-called sophisticated investors and sovereign wealth funds. At its peak, the Ponzi scheme was estimated to be worth over $500 Trillion, with the Credit Default Swap (CDS) portion just under $60 Trillion!

Hidden behind the headlines of the financial destruction that is sweeping across the globe, lies another story – a dark tale of men who orchestrated the crisis and have amassed enormous wealth and power at the expense of the millions who are now unemployed and whose homes have been foreclosed. This select group of men is in absolute control of the unfolding events. Who are they? THE

HIDDEN POWER

The hidden power is almost indestructible because throughout the ages, any attempt to unveil their hidden agenda and to expose the men behind the screen has been labeled “a Conspiracy Theory” and those who risk their wealth and reputation to expose this power are accused of being “Conspiracy Theorists”.

This is notwithstanding the fact that many insiders who were previously seduced by the power and recanted, have written about such men and their global agendas.

Some “do-gooders” who have visited my website have pleaded with me not to make any reference to the hidden power as “I would be condemned as a conspiracy theorist and lose my credibility.” It is these do-gooders who are unconsciously, the allies and propaganda tools of the hidden power. They are the foot soldiers of the Hidden Power and the first to be slaughtered. They never learn and if they persist, must be considered collaborators.

I have made detail references to the hidden power in my books. I shall recap herein what the insiders have been saying for years. For those who are aware of these writings, it would serve them well to revisit these writings again so as to strengthen their resolve to expose the hidden power until total victory.

In essence, the hidden power is the Global Shadow Money-Lenders - the men and women who control and manage the Shadow Money-Lending System. And they also control all political leaders, directly and indirectly in every part of the world, in every country, Malaysia included!

Anyone who denies this is a fool from our perspective but an indispensable ally from the shadow money-lenders’ point of view.

Please consider the following exposé by renowned insiders.

Napoleon Bonaparte

“When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation, since the hand that gives is above the hand that takes. Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency; their sole object is gain.”

Niccolo Machiavelli

“For the great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearances as though they were realities, and are often more influenced by the things that seem than by those that are.”

President James Madison

“History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control of governments by controlling money and its issuance.”

President Abraham Lincoln

“The money power preys upon the nation in times of peace and conspires against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, more selfish than bureaucracy.”

President James A Garfield

“Whoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce.”

The Rt. Hon. Reginald McKenna – Chancellor of the Exchequer

I am afraid that the ordinary citizen will not like to be told that the banks can, and do, create money. The amount of money in existence varies only with the action of the banks in increasing and decreasing deposits and bank purchases. Every loan, overdraft, or bank purchase creates a deposit and every repayment of a loan, overdraft or bank sale destroys a deposit. And they who control the credit of a nation direct the policy of governments, and hold in the hollow of their hands the destiny of the people.”

Sir Josiah Stamp – Bank of England

“Banking was conceived in inequity and was born in sin. The bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create deposits, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again. However, take it away from them, and all the great fortunes like mine will disappear and they ought to disappear, for this would be a happier and better world to live in. But, if you wish to remain the slaves of bankers and pay the costs of your own salary, let them continue to create deposits.”

President Woodrow Wilson

A great Industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the world – no longer a government of free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and vote of majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of small groups of dominant men.

“I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country.”

(President regretted signing into law the Federal Reserve Act)

Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter

The real rulers in Washington are invisible and exercise power from behind the scenes.”

Louis T. McFadden, Chairman of Banking & Currency Committee

In 1932:

“The truth is the Federal Reserve Board has usurped the Government of the United States. It controls everything here and it controls all our foreign relations. It makes and breaks government at will …”

In 1933:

“Roosevelt has brought with him from Wall Street James P. Warburg, son of Paul M. Warburg, Organizer and first Chairman of the Board of the Federal Reserve System…”

In 1950:

“This same Warburg had the audacity and arrogance to proclaim before the U.S. Senate: ‘We shall have World Government whether or not we like it. The only question is whether World Government will be achieved by Conquest or Consent’.”

Senator Barry Goldwater

“Most Americans have no real understanding of the operation of the international money-lenders. The accounts of the Federal Reserve System have never been audited. It operates outside the control of Congress and manipulates the credit of the United States.”

Henry Ford

“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”

The above is the truth laid bare before your eyes and which the shadow money-lenders have spent billions over the years for the control of the global mass media, and paid handsomely specially cultivated economists, historians and politicians to disseminate lies, divert attention and to cover up their hidden agenda.

The next quotation will shock most of you and will change your perspective of many global issues. It is written by a courageous Jew to another courageous Jew.

Benjamin H. Friedman

Letter to Dr. David Goldstein dated October 10, 1954

“The history of the world for the past several centuries and current events at home and abroad confirm the existence of such a conspiracy (to destroy Christianity and obtain global power). The world-wide net-work of diabolical conspirators implements this plot against the Christian faith while Christians appear to be sound asleep. The Christian clergy appear to be more ignorant or more indifferent about this conspiracy than other Christians … It seems so sad.”

A HISTORICAL DETOUR

To secure their global agenda, the shadow money-lenders needed a national base to first consolidate their power and to legislate laws that would secure their monopoly to issue money and credit. The target country was England and that is why the first central bank was the Bank of England. Almost all the laws that secured the money-lenders their unbridled economic and political power can be traced back to the legal basis for the establishment of the Bank of England as a central bank and their unfettered right to create “credits”.

The £ was the currency of choice for world conquest and the result was the mighty British Empire, where the sun never sets! It was an empire based on debt. When the £ Ponzi scheme unraveled, Britain outlived its usefulness and the shadow money-lenders relocated to structure another Ponzi scheme.

The next target country was the United States and the vehicle was the Federal Reserve System. It was a long struggle, but the shadow money-lenders finally prevailed. Thereafter, they established the greatest financial empire in history, but they are still short of their ultimate hidden agenda, as arrogantly proclaimed by James P. Warburg – the establishment of a World Government by conquest or by consent!

Today, the shadow money-lenders have achieved unrivalled military power, but in the process they have put at risk the fiat money system. This is because so much money was required to maintain and sustain the military might of the US and its military bases in client states all over the world and the occupation of Germany and Japan since their defeat in 1945.

What is important to understand is that the shadow money-lenders are parasitic in nature and they have to feed on a continuous diet of debts. The financing of military adventures ensures a continuous stream of debts and compound interests. Debts beget more debts!

When the debts reach saturation point, the Ponzi scheme will collapse and hence, the need to revive and or re-establish another Ponzi scheme, failing which the shadow money-lenders’ financial empire cannot be sustained.

BRETTON WOODS (I) – POST WORLD WAR II PONZI SCHEME

At the end of the Second World War, the United States was the indisputable super-power and largest creditor.

The shadow money-lenders created various covers for massive lending such as the Marshall Plan, supposedly to revive the devastated economies of Europe and Asia. Under the cover of the aforesaid altruistic economic plan of post war recovery, was the hidden agenda for the establishment of the US dollar as the one and only supreme currency to replace the £.

The shadow money-lenders had under their control the following sovereign debtors post World War II:

Canada

The countries of the South American Continent

The countries of Europe, west of the then “Iron Curtain”

The countries of the African continent

The countries of the Middle East

The countries of Asia, west of the then “Bamboo Curtain”

Australia and New Zealand

To secure the sovereign debtors’ consent to the use of the dollar as reserve currency, it was agreed that the dollar was redeemable in gold at US$35 per oz of gold.

The shadow money-lenders never had it so good. Then they got greedy.

Like the goldsmiths of yester-years, the shadow money-lenders created more credits than there was gold to sustain the dollar reserve currency. There were also the numerous wars that needed to be financed, principally the Vietnam War and the proxy wars in Africa and Latin America. There was a huge drain in the gold holdings at Fort Knox.

This gave rise to a crisis of confidence in the Bretton Woods (I) dollar system.

To resolve the crisis and to maintain the unrivalled position of the US dollar, the shadow money-lenders devise a brilliant scheme – a variation of Bretton Woods (I)

BRETTON WOODS (II) – PURE FIAT MONEY SYSTEM

The dollar would no longer be redeemable in gold as decreed by President Nixon.

There were two parts to the overall scheme to secure full compliance.

Part 1 was the use of the simple bully tactic. The Cold War was engineered and intensified to create the myth that the Soviet Union would unleash a nuclear war against the “free countries” and therefore there was a need for collective security in which only the United States could provide the necessary defense, as it was the most powerful nation in the world.

The quid pro quo for the protection under the umbrella of the US led collective security was that countries must continue to use the US dollar in all international trades.

Notwithstanding the fact that the client states agreed to the new arrangement, there was still the fear by the shadow money-lenders that sooner or later the debtors will wise up to the fact that they were holding mere toilet papers. Should this happen, the dollar would be dumped as toxic waste and that would spell the end of the shadow money-lending system.

Part 2 was therefore initiated and the man chosen to implement the con-game was none other than Henry Kissinger. He secured an agreement with the corrupt Saudi monarch and lesser tyrants in the region that the oil price would be manipulated to hit the roof and in return for their untold wealth and financial power, all future crude oil trades must be denominated in dollars, and the petro-dollars must be repatriated to the United States, to be invested in dollar assets.

In a warped sense, dollar was now backed by crude oil instead of gold, as without dollars, no nation could purchase crude oil.

The dollar toilet paper over-night regained its stature and value as the global reserve currency.

Yet, and once again the shadow money-lenders got greedy. They came to the insane conclusion that they could create limitless credits (debts) out of thin air and none would be wiser!

By the late eighties, it was apparent to the shadow money-lenders that the demand and use of crude oil would not be able to sustain the level of dollar credits needed to support the debt pyramid.

Plan B, the Yen Carry Trade was put into action – borrowing yen at zero interest rate to invest in dollar assets, bearing higher interest rates. The Japanese could not complain, being a conquered race and still under military occupation, and so for over a decade, they suffered in silence. The dollar as the global reserve currency was saved, but, not for long.

The instability in the Middle East became a major concern. Saddam Hussein had grandeur ideas. He aspired to be the regional power but Desert Storm scuttled his grand designs. Iran having recovered from the devastation of the eight-year war with Iraq, began to assert itself and their growing strength was perceived as a threat to the security interests of the shadow money-lenders and their partners-in-crime, the big oil companies.

A Plan C was needed. The China card had to be played!

THE CHINA FACTOR

Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s announced to the world that China would practice socialism with Chinese characteristics. Being Red was not critical, for the colour of the cat was not important so long as the cat catches mice!

China wanted to modernize and catch up with the West. It had abundant cheap labour and a disciplined workforce. But development was slow and foreign investments were confined to certain regions.

Back home in the US, manufacturing concerns were being clobbered by the Japanese and the Koreans. Industry after industry became less competitive and costs were rising. A solution had to be found.

The shadow money-lenders have their share of worries – How to accelerate the momentum of credit creation in an economy that is slowing down? Less debts mean less compound interests and therefore less profits. Q.E.D.

The shadow money-lenders realized soon enough that if debt-driven consumption is the solution, then there must be a manufacturing base that can produce the massive quantities of goods that would meet the demands for debt.

China loomed large in the overall scheme of things.

The shadow money-lenders entered into an agreement with the Chinese along the lines of the petro-dollar agreement. There will be massive relocation of industries to China, massive investments in plants and equipment to produce goods for the US and European markets in exchange for dollar denominated trade. And more importantly, it was agreed that the dollar trade surplus would be re-invested in dollar assets.

It was an offer that China found hard to refuse. It was the fast track to economic development and the rapid modernisation of China. China agreed and the rest is history!

Debt exploded in the US and in Europe. Consumers were borrowing as never before to purchase the goodies from China. The recycled dollars from China funded the consumer bubble from home ownership to motorcars, electronic goods, toys, clothing etc. China became the world’s factory and her economy surged. Within a decade, China accumulated dollar reserves amounting to $2 Trillion. Other Asian countries jumped on the bandwagon, and accumulated huge dollar reserves. These huge reserves must be invested and the US lured them to the exotic investments created by Nobel Laureates and rocket scientists.

THE DERIVATIVE CASINO

Financial engineering by the shadow money-lenders accelerated further credit creation. The United States led the way. During the past ten years, while income stagnated, consumer spending rose to a record $8.34 trillion fueled by cheap consumer loans – home mortgage, credit-card loans, car loans, holiday loans etc.

The securitization of the growing stream of compound interests from the wide range of consumers’ debts was the natural and logical step in the next round of credit creation for the derivative casino. These debts were sliced and diced into tranches to form CDOs, synthetic CDOs, CLOs, MBS and CDS etc. and marketed worldwide. The demand for securitization was so great that banks and mortgage brokers were even willing to lend to borrowers on the barest of credit information. They were aptly called “Liars’ Loans”!

In 2004, $157 billion CDOs were issued but rocketed to an amazing $557 billion in 2006. And when there were insufficient mortgages to be securitized into CDOs, Wall Street created the “synthetic CDOs” – bonds which have no underlying loans and or security but allegedly have an income stream based on a parallel contract and on contingencies which may or may not result in any interest payments. Investment is risk, stupid! Higher risks, higher payouts!

In the first quarter of 2007, the creation of CDOs surged further, led by Merrill Lynch which sold nearly $29 billion in February and March, sixty per cent more than the preceding two-month period; Goldman Sachs pushed $10 billion in March which more than double the value in February and Citigroup sold $9 billion in March, one third more than the previous month. CDOs were the rave and the ticket to glorious wealth.

The US, specifically Wall Street became the “Mecca of debts”.

The rest of the world jumped on the bandwagon. So much CDOs were packaged and sold so quickly that no one even had the time to determine which and what securities were being securitized in the CDOs. “Just do the trade, just do the trade” was the chorus line for the traders.

The following table says it all – the Sub-Prime Fiasco.




The Shadow Money-lenders also came up with a scheme to protect investors and which brought another massive stream of revenue. The scheme was called “Credit Default Swaps” (CDS).

Total Face Amount of CDS was estimated as follows:

2001 $918.9 Billion
2002 $ 2.2 Trillion
2003 $ 3.8 Trillion
2004 $ 8.4 Trillion
2005 $ 17.1 Trillion
2006 $ 34.4 Trillion
2007 $ 62.2 Trillion
2008 $ 54.6 Trillion as of June 2008

The world became addicted to debt!

Then the housing bubble busted, and with it the gigantic Ponzi scheme.

Creditors are now faced with a dilemma, what to do with the loads and loads of dollar toilet paper, now derisively referred to as “toxic wastes” – stand pat, sell down, continue to be paid in dollar toilet papers or shut down the printing press?

We are now at this juncture.

THE SHADOW MONEY-LENDERS’ LAST GAMBIT

The Fed’s decision to cut the Fed Fund Rates to 0.25 percent means that the Fed has embarked on a Zero-Interest-Rate Policy (ZIRP) and to proceed with the policy of Quantitative Easing (QE) – to turn on the spigot for “limitless supply of credit”.

In layman’s jargon, to encourage more debts – mortgage debts, credit-card debts, car loans, and more importantly to revive the derivative casino, presently on life support. This was the drug addiction that sustained the global financial system in the last twenty years and more intensely in the last seven years!

The announced policy (ZIRP / QE) is the last bullet in the Fed’s arsenal or as I have stated earlier, using another analogy, the final gamble, the last chip on the betting table. There will be no more ammunition left after this.

This huge gamble will take six months to play out but it will end in failure as surely as the sun will rise in the East tomorrow.

But a more sinister aspect of the zero-interest-rate policy which has not been highlighted by any economist or financial commentator is that the United States under the present Bush regime has declared to the entire world that the United States cannot and will not service anymore interest payments on the nation’s outstanding debts amounting to trillions.

Bush has declared that the United States for all intent and purposes is bankrupt and have no means to service the interest due, what more the principal sum.

Bush, Bernanke and Paulson have therefore collectively agreed to give the “two-finger sign” to the world’s creditors and in no uncertain terms are saying that:

You creditors, you a@#holes, you can jerk off. You know, I know and the whole bloody world knows that the US of A have no income to even service the interest which amounts to a few hundred billion a year.

So let us stop the pretense. We owe trillions and interest on top of that runs to hundreds of billions, which when unpaid is capitalized. And every year we have to borrow from you guys just to pay the interest so as to avoid a call on default. There were so many occasions when we have defaulted, but you guys allowed us to roll over to maintain the façade that the US of A is still floating.

We ain’t floating like a bee, but we are sinking fast! Let’s cut the crap and be real.

So this is the offer. And you jerks better listen good because this will be said once and once only.

You guys should be more than happy with so much interests already accruing on the outstanding. All these years, you guys have been only too happy to see us print the toilet papers in payment of your goods and to service the interests. It was an incredible con and what a free ride we had all these years. You guys were part of the con as well.

If you insist that I continue to pay you in toilet papers, why do you insist that we issue more toilet papers as interest payments? It is just more toilet papers. You guys are swarmed with toilet papers!

The toilet paper is worthless. So what is the point of paying “toilet paper interest” on outstanding toilet papers?

This is it! We are not paying anymore toilet paper interest. We are going to print more toilet papers to pay for whatever we want to purchase. If you want to sell to us, you will get toilet papers but with no interest. Period!

This is the greatest irony. The Fed, the world’s biggest money-lender and its partners-in-crime are telling their creditors to stuff it! When debtors cannot pay the exorbitant interests and the principal, these financial predators demand that the debtors give their pound of flesh in lieu of cash. But when they borrow, they repay in toilet paper money abd get away with it!

And now they even have the audacity to give an ultimatum:

We are the biggest buyers in town. If you don’t want toilet papers from us, that is fine by us. You can get tissue papers from the Europeans, bamboo papers from the Japanese and whatever that is on offer. Who is going to argue whether tissue paper would do a better job than plain toilet paper? Hey, this is a free market. Pick your choice!

This is the ultimate poker game. Bush, Bernanke and Paulson is betting that no one will call their bluff, turn away and stop selling anymore goods to the US of A. Bush is counting that the fear of recession and or social unrest in the creditors’ countries will force the creditors to capitulate.

Unfortunately, this gambit will fail. The reason is simple. The US cannot supply the goods that the American consumers want, even the most basic stuff. The manufacturing industries are all anemic, while others are on life support. Without imports, the United States will have to shut down within six months.

There will be massive riots all over the US, with people killing for food and other basic necessities. Basic raw materials, commodities for manufacturing etc. will be unavailable. There will be no more cars on the freeways! Millions of Americans licensed to carry arms will stalk the streets for whatever scrap they can get their hands on.

You can bet your bottom dollar, the Shadow Money-Lenders and its military partner will impose martial law.

Preparation is already on the way.

PRESIDENT BUSH’S STARK WARNING

On Tuesday, December 9th 2008, President Bush in fascist speak stated that, “I have abandoned free market principles to save the free market system.”

If you guys out there still don’t get it, this is what Bush is saying:

I am imposing dictatorial rule!

This is because the opposite of “free market” according to conventional wisdom is “state-control economy”. In a word, Socialism – Big Government.

The Fed and the Treasury, in connivance with Congress, have already approved and financed big time, the acquisition of the major banks in Wall Street through the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF), and the $700 Billion bailout plan. Several US financial commentators have already conceded that this is outright nationalization of the financial institutions.

Soon it will be the nationalization of the big corporations like GE, GM, Ford and Chrysler, all too big to be allowed to fail.

Too far fetched? Just look back to the events leading to World War I and World War II and to the dictatorships in Latin America in the 1970s.

How did Franklin Roosevelt get out of the 1930s mess if not for big government policies and engaging in the wars in Europe, against Germany and Japan in Asia? He even decreed Americans could no longer own gold in any form. They were all confiscated. President Roosevelt ruled with an iron fist, and don’t you believe otherwise.

Now that the entire world knows that the Federal Reserve Note (the dollar bill) is toilet paper and even though in law is “legal tender” (i.e. by law the toilet paper must be accepted as full payment of any debt, failing which the debt is deemed paid), the Shadow Money-Lenders cannot afford the risk of an armed open rebellion and the fiat money system to be overthrown. It is therefore necessary in these circumstances to enforce the use of the US dollar toilet paper by military rule and brutality.

To those who are not attuned to “dictatorship speak”, there is no clearer message to prepare the elites for the coming catastrophe that the announcement that free market principles will no longer apply. The emphasis is on the word “free” and not the word “market”.

We can argue till the cows come home whether my reading of events is correct. Time will be the final judge.

WORLD GOVERNMENT BY CONQUEST OR CONSENT

James P. Warburg, the son of Paul M. Warburg (first Chairman of the Board of the Federal Reserve System), had proclaimed that world government is their ultimate objective. But that objective cannot be achieved unless and until the United States is completely subdued. A world government can only come about if there is created a crisis that will engulf the entire world, starting from America. Such a crisis will not and cannot be resolved by any one country. It will have to be a global solution. And since countries can only work through a common mechanism, there is therefore a need for an international institution or mechanism.

The United Nations is the precedent from which a new world government will emerge.

Henry Kissinger, since the onset of the crisis, has been calling and cajoling world leaders to submit to such an endeavour if the world is to avoid a global calamity.

And it will be a socialist world government. Before anyone protest and declare that I have gone insane, let me state here once and for all, I am in full command of my faculties. I have done my research.

Capitalism and Socialism are two sides of the same money-lender’s coin. Both ideologies serve a common master - the global shadow money-lenders.

For doubting Thomases, please consider the following facts:

1) The Russian October Revolution, led by Lenin was financed by bankers, to be precise, the bankers in New York and Berlin. In New York, the money was organized by the banking firm of Kuhn, Loeb & Co whose directors included Mr. J. Schiff and Mr. Warburg, founder of the Federal Reserve System. In Berlin, the German banker was the brother of the New York Warburg.

2) On January 16, 1962, the Look and Life magazine published the following statement by David Ben Gurion, the first Prime Minister of Israel who was then still in office:

“The image of the world in 1987 as traced in my imagination: The Cold War will be a thing of the past. Internal pressure of the constantly growing intelligentia in Russia for more freedom and the pressure of the masses for raising their living standards may lead to a gradual democratization of the Soviet Union. On the other hand, the increasing influence of the workers and farmers and the rising political importance of men of science, may transform the United States into a welfare state with a planned economy. Western and Eastern Europe will become as federation of autonomous states having a socialist and democratic regime … countries will become united in a world alliance, at whose disposal will be an international police force. All armies will be abolished and there will be no more wars. In Jerusalem, the United Nations (a truly united nation) will build a shrine of the prophets to serve the federated union of all continents; this will be the seat of the Supreme Court of Mankind, to settle all controversies among the federated continents, as prophesied by Isaiah.”

3) On the success of the Russian October Revolution and the abdication of the Czar Nicholas II, the British Premier David Lloyd George said in Parliament, that Britain had achieved one of its major war aims.

4) The principal aim of Capitalism and Socialism is the centralized rule of an elite political group which owns and or controls all the means of production and the issuance of money and credits – in the case of the former, through various forms of monopoly and in the case of the latter, public monopoly.

WHY WAR IS INEVITABLE

To prove the point, let me use a simple analogy.

It is often reported in the headlines of newspapers that a certain gentleman or woman had been brutally beaten up for failing to pay the debts due to a money-lender. In Malaysia, money-lenders are often referred to as “Ah-Longs”. This is even the case when the debt is paltry. If the money-lender adopts the “soft method” in recovering a loan, it may encourage defaults and non-payments. Brutality ensures full compliance!

So is the case with nations. When the very survival of a nation is at stake because of economic and or currency warfare, do you really think that the nation at risk would not go to war?

The US invaded Iraq not because of the threat of Saddam’s WMD but for the crude oil and because Saddam was selling crude oil in Euros instead of the dollar toilet paper.

The shadow money-lenders are in a desperate situation and they will start a world war to avoid the collapse of the fiat money system. The war will be financed by the major central banks and their proxies – the 8 to 10 global commercial and investment banks. As in World War I and II, the elites of the City of London and Wall Street will be the primary movers of this insidious plot.

Anyone who doubts this scenario need only to ask one simple question – Do you think the financial powers centred in the West would accept and tolerate their loss of financial power?

I am using such graphic terms because the average Joe Six-Packs have yet to appreciate the full import of the latest announcements by President Bush that the US will abandon “Free market principles”, and by Bernanke of the Fed’s Zero-Interest-Rate Policy. Worst still, the majority of the political leaders of the third world are equally ignorant. This was evident in the APEC Summit in Peru. Like the average Joe Six-Packs, these leaders have no idea how the fiat money system works. When Washington and London say “print”, “open the spigots”, “lower interest rates”, and vice-versa they just follow blindly. There was just one rare exception, when Malaysia opted out during the 1997 financial crisis. Even then, this was temporary as the new Badawi regime has succumbed to the old ways.

Can this war be stopped?

There is a slim chance. If American patriots, who are lawfully armed, rebel and resist the imposition of martial law, world war may be averted.

The IMF has already warned that if the US fails to resolve the crisis, there will be massive social unrest. There will be blood flowing on the streets! Military power would be pitted against brave militias with a proud tradition of having once defeated the mighty British colonial power.

Dare we hope for a second American Revolution?

December 30, 2008

Jena Six Member Shot

Mychal Bell expected to survive

A Lesson From Jena

Western Voices readers

Mychal Bell, the convicted black "Jena Six" defendant whose case, involving the gang beating of a Jena, Louisiana white teen by a group of blacks made national headlines and stoked racial tensions, has been hospitalized after shooting himself. The shooting has been reported as either a suicide attempt or an accident in conflicting stories, which also report the location of the wound as either Bell's shoulder or chest.

Bell was rushed to a hospital in Monroe, Louisiana on Monday evening (December 29) with a single .22 gunshot wound that is not expected to be fatal.

The incident came shortly after Bell's Christmas Eve arrest on charges related to shoplifting at a local department store. Bell faces counts of shoplifting, resisting arrest, and simple battery after he allegedly attacked a store employee who found him hiding beneath a vehicle in possession of stolen clothing. (Bell pleaded guilty to a charge of simple battery in the "Jena Six" case and agreed to testify against his co-defendants). Bell is presently free on a $1300 bond.

The Associated Press initially surmised that Bell shot himself out of shame over his latest arrest, quoting Monroe Police Sgt. Cassandra Wooten: "I think he was upset over the incident ... and didn't want to be in the news again." But newer reports said the shooting was the result of an accidental discharge when Bell was cleaning a weapon. Why Bell, a convicted criminal, was in possession of a gun has not been explained.

Bell's Christmas Eve arrest did not make the general news outside of the area, an example of the selective coverage of the kind that generally occurs in racially sensitive cases of this kind, especially when the protagonist has been painted as a "victim."

An enormous media-driven campaign led by black special interest groups elevated Bell and his co-defendants to hero status after they were arrested for the gang beating of a white teenager in 2006 at the high school in tiny Jena, Louisiana. A white student at Jena High named Justin Barker was set upon and savagely beaten by Bell and five other blacks so badly that the blacks were charged with attempted murder. The mass media, which carried out advocacy in favor of the blacks, generated a "blame the victim" subtext because Barker had been released from the hospital the same day, as if that had any legal bearing on the charges. (The cost to Barker just of his emergency room visit came to over $5,000). The same media also made "links" between the attack on Barker and arson at the school as well as nooses hung from a tree on the school grounds. The tree, the media also said (in concert with radical black racist groups and demagogues like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson), had been a gathering place for "racist" white kids who supposedly violently kept blacks out of the vicinity. According to the confused tale, the existence and alleged role of the tree, which was subsequently chopped down, somehow ameliorated the attack on Barker.

A crowd of as many as 20,000 people, mostly black, descended on Jena for a "free the Jena Six" march and rally hyped by wall to wall press coverage. Apart from Sharpton and Jackson, the black supremacist New Black Panther Party was in attendance, along with rap stars like Mos Def and Ice Cube, plus members of tiny Marxist sects such as Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER), a front group of the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) which has almost singlehandedly destroyed the antiwar effort. In fact, the first national exposure of the case may have been through Left Turn, a spinoff of the International Socialist Organization (ISO) which, like the PSL, has roots in Trotskyite Marxism.*

Like many such cases, Jena became a cause célèbre. David Bowie, the singer, gave $10,000 to the Jena Defense Fund, and John Cougar Mellencamp, last heard of in the 1980s, released a ridiculous song and video ("Jena, take your nooses down"). At the Black Entertainment Television (BET) Hip Hop Awards, defendants Bryant Purvis and Corwin Jones presented the Video of the Year prize and got a standing ovation along with a "boys will be boys" observation of rapper/comedian Katt Williams: "They don't look so tough, do they?" Purvis and Jones thanked the Jena marchers as well as the "hip hop nation" for support. Rapper Ludacris would later employ the noose issue in support of Barack Obama's presidential campaign. In his song "Politics: Obama Is Here," Ludacris dismissed Hillary Clinton ("that bitch is irrelevant"), called to "paint the White House black" and declared that "the threats ain't fazing us, the nooses or the jokes, so get off your ass, black people, it's time to get out and vote!"

All of the media and mob pressure resulted in many of the charges being reduced against the defendants in the kind of circus-like atmosphere surrounding cases with famous or important people that has often made the justice system in the United States a laughing stock around the world.

In the aftermath, the case took on a life of its own, replete with urban legends. Noose sightings began to be reported nationwide as nooses, which had never really been much of a symbol of "white racism" before, began to be reported appearing in various places. Madonna Constantine, a black female professor facing a plagiarism investigation said she found a noose on the door of her at Columbia office. In Ohio a high school performance of Agatha Christie's "Ten Little Indians" play was stopped partly because the 1939 original edition published in England had a noose on the cover. State governments considered making noose displays "hate crimes," and a teenager in Louisiana was even hit with serious federal charges for rashly hanging a noose on his vehicle. In Alabama, the Mobile Museum of Art ordered all employees into mandatory sensitivity training after a rope that may have resembled a noose was found inside a closet, despite the director's admission that it wasn't even a noose at all. Halloween 2007 was especially spooky. A Halloween store in New Jersey had to take down a display after a complaint, while police in Madison, Wisconsin, repeatedly demanded local residents cut down a noose that was part of their home's Halloween decorations. After the mayor, no less, intervened against the homeowners they relented, citing fears of violence. United States government officials even went before the United Nations to pledge that they would grapple with the supposed noose epidemic.

"Noose incidents" involved outright hoaxes, unsurprising given the manufactured climate of white guilt, the mob mentality stoked by the media, and the readiness of officialdom to pander to nonwhite demands. An East Baltimore firefighter admitted placing a noose and threatening note in his firehouse. Black journalist Earl Ofari Hutchinson, who had also pointed out the cynicism of "Civil Rights Leaders" exploiting the Jena phenomenon, questioned the interpretation of embattled Madonna Constantine's claims about the noose at her office at Columbia University while going on to urge caution, using the shameful Duke rape hoax as an example of how easily racial claims may spin out of control. (The white Duke defendants were eventually exonerated largely because online alternative media were able to challenge "mainstream" coverage). And just as the media, as Hutchinson said, sought to portray the noose sightings as evidence of a new uprising of racial hatred, so too the same media gleefully reported the crackpot "opinions" and wild statements of a tiny number of white cranks who were granted disproportionate coverage in the hope of smearing any dissent and all questions of the process as the work of dangerous, violent hatemongers and lunatics.

The landscape of race, hate, opinion and the law grew increasingly complex around the Jena 6 issue as time went on. Broadcaster James Edwards of the Political Cesspool radio program wrote about one such case, which saw "hate crimes" charges being dropped against a "14 year old white kid in the Chicago area who not only wrote "a racial slur" on the locker of a black female classmate, but also used his computer to draw a picture of a black person being hanged, and labeled it with her name." Why were the charges dropped in such a seemingly open and shut case? The white boy was the former boyfriend of the black girl, and thus he could not be guilty of a thought ("hate") crime.

The protagonists also continued making news, thanks no doubt to the fear of "mainstream" media at being caught out by the online dissident media which had provided not only news but in-depth analysis on a scale that rendered easily controlled old line local and regional coverage obsolete. In February of 2008, Jena 6 member Bryant Purvis, the guy who didn't "look so tough" on BET, was charged with "assault causing bodily injury" and sentenced to community service and a year's probation. His partner from the BET appearance, Corwin Jones, was arrested in May, 2008 and accused of hitting a man from behind as part of a group, some of whom were allegedly armed with baseball bats. Jones was charged with misdemeanor simple battery, adding to a separate, nonviolent misdemeanor charge earlier in 2008.

Another Jena 6 member, Jesse Ray Beard, has been accepted to the prestigious Canterbury School, an exclusive prep school in Connecticut founded in 1915 for the sons of wealthy Roman Catholics. But Canterbury has a tuition price tag of just under $40,000. Half of this annual cost was going to be reportedly paid out of Jena defense funds, news that prompted Justin Barker to press his civil case. One group alone raised more than $200,000 for the Jena 6. Other fundraising efforts have allegedly been less than open, and donations may have reached over half a million dollars. Controversy about funds ensued when defendant Robert Bailey was photographed apparently eating a large number of hundred dollar bills.

The "Jena 6" issue consumed the national "mainstream" media in a frenzy of melodrama meant to appeal to conditioned white liberals. The narrative came complete with rhetorical flourishes about the pickup driving, inbred, snaggletoothed white trash of the "Ku Klux Klan country" around Jena, concerns over the nefariously iconic "all white juries," and ominous lynching nooses hung by nightriding rednecks. There was also an almost religious pride displayed in a noble and dignified "new civil rights movement" arising, bearing righteous witness against remnant Jim Crow injustice and the wrongs wrought by Katrina.

But while the images were meant to convey something out of "To Kill a Mockingbird," the preaching has been mostly to the choir. White people have had generations of white guilt propaganda thrust at them, and it has gotten old in the face of unremitting nonwhite crime, the corruption of black officials, affirmative action, unending racial vilification of whites (especially whites in the South), and Third World immigration on such a scale that it is even being felt in "backwaters" like Jena.

In actual fact, the whole "Civil Rights" phenomenon as a whole is largely a fantasy created in Washington, Hollywood and Manhattan, with little white support. According to neoconservative pundit and activist David Horowitz, a "red diaper baby" from a Communist Party family, the politically correct version of cross racial unity in the face of the "white racism" of the Jim Crow South is largely a myth: "More than half the the freedom riders who had gone to the southern states were Jews, although Jews constituted only only 3 percent of the population. It was an unprecedented show of solidarity from one people to another. Jews had put their resources and lives on the line to support the black struggle for civil rights, and indeed, two of their sons, Schwerner and Goodman, had been murdered for their efforts. (David Horowitz, Radical Son, p. 275). Horowitz speaks from experience. A key supporter of the murderous Black Panthers "back in the day," Horowitz reportedly not only now has black grandchildren but is a mouthpiece for some of the most extreme Zionist neoconservatism. In short, far from "uniting" whites against the "racism" of their own leaders, the "Civil Rights" juggernaut was a media creation fueled by serious financing and spun with expert advertising tactics, drawing soldiers from an extremely small ethnic group with power and influence far beyond their numbers and expressing interests at odds with the whites who tolerated their behavior and agenda.

With only shallow organic roots in history, the Jena 6 narrative was ultimately unable to prevail with the general public, despite the kind of hype that went into overdrive around the issue. The extreme partisanship seen in the one sided television and newspaper coverage had long alienated consumers, but survived because of a lack of competition. But now, with the advent of the internet and other alternative new media, their oligopoly of information and spin is challenged, as reflected in collapsing newspaper circulations and advertising sales across the Western world.

As a result, one-sided coverage of racial issues no longer goes unopposed.

* The ISO was founded by Yigael Gluckstein (alias Tony Cliff), who was key in constructing the Anti-Nazi League (better know as ANAL) with the help of powerful Jewish groups in the UK to carry out physical attacks with government collusion on the National Front in the 1970s. Cliff's nephew is Adam Kidron, the man behind "Nuestro Himno," the Spanish version of "The Star Spangled Banner" released as part of the amnesty for illegals campaign of 2006. Kidron, apparently thanks to his uncle's connection in the "Rock Against Racism" scene, originally worked as "a producer" for various bands, one of which blames him for ripping them off financially and ruining their recording. Steve Sailer of VDare quotes a band member: "We had a guy engineering called Adam Kidron, he was the millionaire son and heir of the Socialist publisher who owned Pluto Press. He was really funny and we were very naive and impressed by him. He talked us in to giving him producer royalties when we didn't even know what royalties were and we thought we were producing the album ourselves.... Adam hated guitars so we ended up with a far less powerful guitar sound than we would have liked. We were a guitar band after all."

Shocking Lies, Hate And Propaganda

http://www.nypost.com/seven/12292008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/damned_if_they_do_146263.htm

New Year’s Revolution

I have never liked New Year’s Eve. Americans might have voted for “change” recently, but I’ve rarely desired it, always finding the same-old, same-old to be as bright or brighter than any new horizons. As a child on New Year’s Eve, when everyone was looking toward a better new year, I was always wondering what was wrong with the last one.

To instinctively oppose change is what most would call a “reactionary” position and growing up in the comfortable, close-knit community of Hanahan, South Carolina very well might have turned me into one at an early age. Since putting away childish things, all the typical accusations lobbed at reactionaries; being anti-liberal, resisting “progress,” romanticizing the past, you name it - I’ve not only been guilty of each, but have considered such qualities bedrock conservative principles.

But while my politics remain conservative - my disposition does not. With the hometown of my youth now somewhat distant, and portions of it being overrun by foreigners of questionable legal status, change could not come fast enough. With a government constantly and forcibly wedding my own future fortunes to inept big government and big business, and spending our children’s and grandchildren’s inheritance without hesitation, a drastic change of course is undoubtedly in order. And after eight years of a utopian, big government, authoritarian-leaning president who some still mistake as a conservative, I cannot wait for any new leadership that might redefine the American Right – and given the current, sad state of affairs – the more radical the better. I suspect many might agree that the changing the status quo is no longer a simple matter of reform – but revolution.

Her Name Is Miss. Ann

Greek paper: World Jewish plutocracy behind Gaza strife, global financial crisis

A daily newspaper in Greece has blamed Jews both for the world financial crisis and the Israeli operation in Gaza, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported this week.

"After the American Jews acquired once again the world's wealth and plunged the planet into an unprecedented financial crisis, they started rehearsing for WWIII," JTA quoted the Avriani newspaper's front-page headline as reading
Sunday.

"Midway through the paper's story on Israel's operation in Gaza, the story, under the heading 'The Plan,' explains that a Jewish plutocracy, having made the 'wealth of the century at the expense of the economies of the world,' is preparing to put in motion 'war machines' in various hot spots around the world in order to control the price of oil, redistribute the world's natural resources and start a new cycle of weapons production," JTA said.

The paper also blamed U.S. President-elect Barack Obama for "playing dead" in the present crisis by not saying anything against the Jews, urging him to prove that he is not owned by the Jewish lobby.

The day that Obama was elected president, the paper ran a headline that said, "The end of Jewish domination. Everything changes in the U.S.A. and we hope that it will be more democratic and humane," drawing the ire of Jewish groups," JTA reported.

December 29, 2008

1/3 of Banks Will Disappear Next Year

http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=975644719&play=1

Murders Among Black Youths Rising

http://news.aol.com/article/murders-among-black-youths-rising/288527

Time To Stand

While we come from every class and creed, we are united in our pursuit of European American interests including freedom, genetic continuity, social justice, economic nationalism and environmental protection. In pursuit of these goals, we seek to educate those of our people who are not aware of important issues facing us, and help to organize effective activism for those of our people who wish to take a hand in positive change.


"

UK: This is Where the Marxists Are

Those who call for quotas continue and promote culture war against the West.

The Nail In the Coffin Of Marxist Theory

by Lee John Barnes

At the end of the Cold War the ideology that was Communism was totally defeated.

Its economic theories were revealed as false by the conquest of Capitalism. The theory of Dialectical Materialism was proved bogus by the failure of the Working Class to rise up and create the Communist state. Quantum Physics proved that Dialectical Materialism was not a science at all, and its ideological basis as a science (bogus in itself, as Marxism is only an ideology) was destroyed by chaos theory understandings of the chaos and randomness at the heart of the quantum universe.

All that was left for the Marxists to do was begin their Culture War against the West with Political Correctness and Multiculturalism.

The latest emanation of this Culture War is the "diversity" agenda as seen in the new demand by Marxists in the Fire Service for quotas.

Quotas are racist...they impact ONLY upon indigenous White British people.

Those who call for quotas are directly discriminating against the ethnic majority in order not to support ethnic minorities, but to continue and promote their culture war against the West.

From the Telegraph:

Politically correct brigade demands one woman on each fire engine

Fire engines will have to have at least one firewoman on board in order to meet diversity guidelines, town hall leaders claim.

The Local Government Association (LGA) has said that at least 15 per cent of those in operational roles should be female.

That means they will fill one of the five or six places for crew on each engine.

The LGA said an increased number of firewomen is necessary "to meet the needs of local people".

But critics warned that political correctness was being put above the ability to save lives.

Susie Squire, of the Taxpayers' Alliance, said: "Introducing this sort of quota to the fire service is a big mistake.

"If ever there was a job that should be awarded on physical fitness, it is that of a firefighter.

"This quota system will not only cost taxpayers money by introducing additional and unnecessary administration, but could risk the safety of all of us in the long run."

At present fewer than one in ten firefighters are female.

In future local councillors who are appointed to serve on the fire authorities will be asked to sign up to the "diversity charter".

One of the pledges they are expected to make is to "work to achieve recruitment targets of at least 15 per cent for women in operational roles".

The head of fire services at the LGA, said: "The fire service needs to be representative of the area it serves.

"It is important that the fire service attracts more women and ethnic minorities so that it can work more effectively in partnership with local authorities and other organisations to meet the needs of local people."

Somalis may be leaving Minn. for jihad

MINNEAPOLIS — Mohamud Ali Hassan once told the Somali grandmother who raised him that he'd become a doctor and care for her.

The Somali immigrant, who moved to the "Land of 10,000 Lakes" when he was 8, had good grades at the University of Minnesota and called Muslims to prayer at his mosque, where he also slept during the holy month of Ramadan.

But on Nov. 1, Hassan disappeared, as have a dozen other boys and young men here — two days after another young Muslim from Minnesota blew himself up as a suicide bomber in Somalia.

Hassan, 18, called his grandmother to say he was back in Somalia, where an Islamist militia is trying to take over the Horn of Africa nation. What he was doing there, he did not say.

Now the FBI is asking questions, as are members of the Somali community. The Abubakar As-Saddique Islamic Center denies any wrongdoing, but many here suspect that the mosque and its imam are radicalizing their youth to become jihadists in an Islamic holy war overseas or perhaps even in the United States

"They are very powerful, whoever got into his mind and got him to do this," says Hassan's grandmother Fadumo Elmi, 83. "We were forced out of our country one time. We don't want to be forced out of here."

Details of the disappearances are few, but what little is known is cause for concern, says Abdizirak Bihi, a community activist who represents six families of young men who disappeared in early November.

Among them was Bihi's nephew, Burhan Hassan, 17, a high school junior.

All were good students, had no problems with the law, Bihi says. All were raised by single mothers and spent a lot of time in the Abubakar As-Saddique Islamic Center.

The center is the largest mosque in the Twin Cities. Bihi worries it is preaching a radical Islamic ideology to vulnerable young men.

Shirwa Ahmed, 19, who left in August with no notice to his family, was among five terrorists who blew themselves up Oct. 29 in an attack that killed 24 people in Somalia, Bihi says.

"We are wanting the government and politicians to investigate who is responsible for sending our kids and we are requesting the American government to help us to get us back our kids." Bihi says.

Other Somali immigrants worry the disappearances may foretell dangers for their adopted nation. "That kid that blew himself up in Somalia could have done it here in Minneapolis," says Omar Jamal, executive director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center in St. Paul.

Special Agent E.K. Wilson of the FBI in Minneapolis would not say whether his agency is investigating the mosque. Bihi and Elmi said the FBI has talked to them and others about the missing.

Wilson said the FBI knows that Muslims here have been going overseas to fight.

"We're aware that a number of Somali men have traveled from around the United States including Minneapolis to potentially fight overseas," Wilson said.

A lawyer for the Abubaker As-Saddique Islamic Center denied any involvement in planning or financing the men's travels or any political indoctrination.

"The mosque has taken a position that it would never take a stand on any political issues," says lawyer Mahir Sherif in San Diego. "We do not support terrorism or any kind of suicide bombing or act of violence."

He said federal authorities last month prevented the mosque's religious leader, Sheik Abdirahman Ahmed, from flying to Mecca.

Somalia has been plagued by lawlessness, terrorism and warfare since the collapse of the military government in 1991. In recent years, a radical Islamist militia that seeks to impose Islamic law captured the capital of Mogadishu, where 18 U.S. soldiers died in the infamous "Blackhawk Down" battle of 1993. Troops from Ethiopia invaded in 2006 to counter the Islamists, who have been praised by Osama bin Laden.

Yusuf Shaba, who writes about Islamic ideology and radicalism for the Warsan Times, a Somali-English monthly newspaper published in Minneapolis, says he decided to speak out about what he considers Islamic indoctrination at Minneapolis mosques because he doesn't want his sons to follow the same path he did.

Shaba, 34, joined Al Ittihad Al-Islami (Islamic Union) at age 16 and was wounded at age 19 in Somalia. Al Ittihad was Somalia's largest Islamic terrorist group in the 1990s.

Shaba says jihadists generally recruit young men from among two groups: those shunned by their families because they've turned to drugs, gangs or alcohol; and the sons of families who forbid exposure to Western culture and allow them to socialize only at the mosque.

Shaba says he and his three teenage sons attended a program two months ago at Abubaker As-Saddique Islamic Center, where a former Somali warrior sat in a circle with other young people and delivered a passionate recitation of his experiences during the Somali civil war.

Some mosques also screen videos about the war in Afghanistan and about Muslim victims of perceived injustices in such places as Nigeria and the Palestinian territories. "They give them all the grievances that Osama Bin Laden has," Shaba says. "They talk about nothing but jihad and it's the best thing that can happen to a Muslim."

When the brainwashing is done and the teachers are confident students will do anything asked of them, the teachers give them tazkia, or clearance, to get more specialized training in the United States or abroad, Shaba says.

"The people who trained us encouraged us to not get married, to sever our ties with our families, so that when the mission comes we won't worry about family."

Shaba says similar activities occur at Minnesota Da'wah Institute in St. Paul, another mosque. Sheik Mahamud Hassan, the institute's imam, says nothing like that is happening as his mosque. "It's liars," he says. "I'm not missing any members."

Elmi wrapped herself in her shawl and sobbed as she thought of Hassan in her one bedroom apartment in a Minneapolis public housing high rise. Outside, snow covered the parking lot and temperatures were below zero.

They moved to the United States in 1996, when Hassan was 8 and after his father was killed in the civil war. Hassan was obedient, but after going to the mosque, "He was completely changed."

"I thought the mosque would be a much safer place than the night clubs and bars," she said, crying. "I don't want God to curse me because I say something bad about the mosque."

Press Freedom Threatened in Germany

New legislation that passed last month in the lower House of Germany's parliament, the Bundestag, is being criticized by opponents who say it is an effort to create a "super police" force. The new law is being dubbed the "Big Brother Law" by the German media, which claims the anti-terror measure could kill press freedom in the European nation. While Prime Minister Angela Merkel's governing coalition and the Interior Ministry insist the law is necessary to guard against international terrorism, journalists, publishers, and media lawyers are gearing up to fight it.

"It would be wrong to grant the BKA [German federal police] powers to demand research material from journalists as this would violate the protection of sources," said the president of the European Federation of Journalists, Arne König. "Our German affiliates, also in cooperation with all major media organisations have continuously criticized the draft law on anti terrorism, which had foreseen extended authority for the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) for the defence of serious crimes."

The Federal Association of German Newspaper Publishers called the draft law "an affront to the press" and said it is "concerned by the climate created by the government in which freedom of the press plays only a subordinate role."

According to Wolfgang Krach, the managing editor of the Süddeutsche Zeitung, an influential daily newspaper, the law is "one in a series of so-called security laws that have one thing in common: They endanger the freedom of the press and especially investigative journalism." His paper reported in an assessment of the law: "The BKA may now use secret investigative methods that up until now have been primarily the hallmarks of the intelligence services — without there being any of the parliamentary controls such as those underlying intelligence service activities."

Despite being turned down the first time in Germany's upper house of parliament, the Bundesrat, the proposed new law will likely be passed before the end of the year, according to the German newspaper Spiegel. The paper also reported that a "large number of Germans have fretted" over the proposal, worried that it would give federal police powers similar to those enjoyed by the FBI or even the Statsi, the secret police of the former East-Germany. Among the new powers that the BKA would receive are the right to tap phone conversations, install Trojan viruses on people's computers which could search through their hard drives, bug houses of suspects and even track the location of their cell phone calls. The most troubling part of the law for journalists, doctors, and lawyers is a provision that would significantly reduce their privacy. Traditionally, they were grouped together with clergy, politicians, and defense lawyers in having their private conversations protected by law. The new provision would break the group into two categories and allow federal police to monitor the phone calls and search the computers of journalists, doctors, and lawyers without even so much as probable cause. The new litmus test: do police see a "public interest" in doing so.

"Journalists' ability to protect the identity of their sources would be severely weakened if the law is passed as it is currently formulated," Hendrik Zörner, a spokesman for the German Federation of Journalists, told Spiegel. "Informants will no longer trust that their communication with journalists will remain secret and they won't pass along information anymore. That will result in less critical journalism — and democracy needs critical journalism." Lawyers for the German media are already getting ready to take the new law to court if it passes. "We will be looking for appropriate cases to challenge the constitutionality of the law if it goes through," said Johannes Weberling, a German media lawyer who defended a journalist in 2005 after federal police searched his office and apartment looking for information about a source.

A report on the effects of European anti-terror laws on press freedom issued by human-rights watchdog Privacy International and commissioned by the Council of Europe said these new laws have already had a negative effect on freedom of the press while providing few benefits in fighting terror. It concludes that governments seem to be using these sorts of laws for their own political purposes.

No Comment and No Leadership From Obama

by Joshua Frank

As President-elect Barack Obama vacationed in Hawaii on Dec. 26, stopping off to watch a dolphin show with his family at Sea Life Park, an Israeli air raid besieged the impoverished Gaza Strip, killing at least 285 people and injuring over 800 more.

It was the single deadliest attack on Gaza in over 20 years, and Obama's initial reaction on what could be his first real test as president was "no comment." Meanwhile, Israel has readied itself for a land invasion, amassing tanks along the border and calling up 6,500 reserve troops.

On Sunday's Face the Nation, Obama senior adviser David Axelrod explained to guest cost Chip Reid how an Obama administration would handle the situation, even if it turns for the worse.

"Well, certainly, the president-elect recognizes the special relationship between United States and Israel. It's an important bond, an important relationship. He's going to honor it. … And obviously, this situation has become even more complicated in the last couple of days and weeks. As Hamas began its shelling, Israel responded. But it's something that he's committed to."

Reiterating the rationale that Israel's bombing of Gaza was an act of retaliation and not of aggression, Axelrod, on behalf of the Obama administration, continued to spread the same misinformation as President Bush: that Hamas was the first to break the cease-fire agreement, which ended over a week ago, and Israel was simply responding judiciously.

Aside from the fact that Israel's response was anything but judicious, the idea that it was Hamas who broke the six-month truce is a complete fabrication.

On the night of the U.S. election, Israel fired missiles on Gaza that were aimed at closing down a tunnel operation they believed Hamas was building in order to kidnap Israeli soldiers. The carnage left in the wake of Israel's bombing of Gaza over the past six weeks has killed dozens of Palestinians.

"The escalation towards war could, and should, have been avoided. It was the State of Israel which broke the truce, in the 'ticking tunnel' raid … two months ago," the Israeli peace group Gush Shalom wrote in a press release. "Since then, the army went on stoking the fires of escalation with calculated raids and killings, whenever the shooting of missiles on Israel decreased."

Over the last seven years only 17 Israeli citizens have been killed by Palestinian rocket fire, which makes it extremely difficult for Israeli politicians, who are in the midst of an election, to argue that their response has been proportionate or defensible in any way.

The asymmetry of the conflict leaves an opening for harsh criticism from soon-to-be president Barack Obama. He has every right to oppose Israel's belligerence. The international community and public opinion are on his side. Certainly he knows Israel's disproportionate response has inflicted pain on Palestinians beyond what the blockade has done by keeping vital medical and other supplies from reaching Gaza, where hundreds have died as a result of inadequate medical treatment.

While bombs fall on a suffocating Palestinian population and Israeli forces prepare for a ground invasion, Obama is monitoring the situation from afar after a talk with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other Bush administration officials. This isn't leadership; it's a continuation of a policy that has left Palestinians with little recourse, let alone hope for lasting peace.

"The president-elect was in Sderot last July, in southern Israel, a town that's taken the brunt of the Hamas attacks," David Axelrod told Chip Reid on Face the Nation. "And he said then that, when bombs are raining down on your citizens, there is an urge to respond and act and try and put an end to that. So, you know, that's what he said then, and I think that's what he believes."

If Axelrod is correct, and Barack Obama does indeed support the bloodshed inflicted upon innocent Palestinians by the Israeli military, there should be no celebration on Inauguration Day 2009, only mass protest against a Middle East foreign policy that must change in order to begin a legitimate peace process in the region.

Johann Hari: The true story behind this war is not the one Israel is telling

The world isn't just watching the Israeli government commit a crime in Gaza; we are watching it self-harm. This morning, and tomorrow morning, and every morning until this punishment beating ends, the young people of the Gaza Strip are going to be more filled with hate, and more determined to fight back, with stones or suicide vests or rockets. Israeli leaders have convinced themselves that the harder you beat the Palestinians, the softer they will become. But when this is over, the rage against Israelis will have hardened, and the same old compromises will still be waiting by the roadside of history, untended and unmade.

To understand how frightening it is to be a Gazan this morning, you need to have stood in that small slab of concrete by the Mediterranean and smelled the claustrophobia. The Gaza Strip is smaller than the Isle of Wight but it is crammed with 1.5 million people who can never leave. They live out their lives on top of each other, jobless and hungry, in vast, sagging tower blocks. From the top floor, you can often see the borders of their world: the Mediterranean, and Israeli barbed wire. When bombs begin to fall – as they are doing now with more deadly force than at any time since 1967 – there is nowhere to hide.

There will now be a war over the story of this war. The Israeli government says, "We withdrew from Gaza in 2005 and in return we got Hamas and Qassam rockets being rained on our cities. Sixteen civilians have been murdered. How many more are we supposed to sacrifice?" It is a plausible narrative, and there are shards of truth in it, but it is also filled with holes. If we want to understand the reality and really stop the rockets, we need to rewind a few years and view the run-up to this war dispassionately.

The Israeli government did indeed withdraw from the Gaza Strip in 2005 – in order to be able to intensify control of the West Bank. Ariel Sharon's senior adviser, Dov Weisglass, was unequivocal about this, explaining: "The disengagement [from Gaza] is actually formaldehyde. It supplies the amount of formaldehyde that is necessary so that there will not be a political process with the Palestinians... this whole package that is called the Palestinian state has been removed from our agenda indefinitely."

Ordinary Palestinians were horrified by this, and by the fetid corruption of their own Fatah leaders, so they voted for Hamas. It certainly wouldn't have been my choice – an Islamist party is antithetical to all my convictions - but we have to be honest. It was a free and democratic election, and it was not a rejection of a two-state solution. The most detailed polling of Palestinians, by the University of Maryland, found that 72 per cent want a two-state solution on the 1967 borders, while fewer than 20 per cent want to reclaim the whole of historic Palestine. So, partly in response to this pressure, Hamas offered Israel a long, long ceasefire and a de facto acceptance of two states, if only Israel would return to its legal borders.

Rather than seize this opportunity and test Hamas's sincerity, the Israeli government reacted by punishing the entire civilian population. It announced that it was blockading the Gaza Strip in order to "pressure" its people to reverse the democratic process. The Israelis surrounded the Strip and refused to let anyone or anything out. They let in a small trickle of food, fuel and medicine – but not enough for survival. Weisglass quipped that the Gazans were being "put on a diet". According to Oxfam, only 137 trucks of food were allowed into Gaza last month to feed 1.5 million people. The United Nations says poverty has reached an "unprecedented level." When I was last in besieged Gaza, I saw hospitals turning away the sick because their machinery and medicine was running out. I met hungry children stumbling around the streets, scavenging for food.

It was in this context – under a collective punishment designed to topple a democracy – that some forces within Gaza did something immoral: they fired Qassam rockets indiscriminately at Israeli cities. These rockets have killed 16 Israeli citizens. This is abhorrent: targeting civilians is always murder. But it is hypocritical for the Israeli government to claim now to speak out for the safety of civilians when it has been terrorising civilians as a matter of state policy.

The American and European governments are responding with a lop-sidedness that ignores these realities. They say that Israel cannot be expected to negotiate while under rocket fire, but they demand that the Palestinians do so under siege in Gaza and violent military occupation in the West Bank.

Before it falls down the memory hole, we should remember that last week, Hamas offered a ceasefire in return for basic and achievable compromises. Don't take my word for it. According to the Israeli press, Yuval Diskin, the current head of the Israeli security service Shin Bet, "told the Israeli cabinet [on 23 December] that Hamas is interested in continuing the truce, but wants to improve its terms." Diskin explained that Hamas was requesting two things: an end to the blockade, and an Israeli ceasefire on the West Bank. The cabinet – high with election fever and eager to appear tough – rejected these terms.

The core of the situation has been starkly laid out by Ephraim Halevy, the former head of Mossad. He says that while Hamas militants – like much of the Israeli right-wing – dream of driving their opponents away, "they have recognised this ideological goal is not attainable and will not be in the foreseeable future." Instead, "they are ready and willing to see the establishment of a Palestinian state in the temporary borders of 1967." They are aware that this means they "will have to adopt a path that could lead them far from their original goals" – and towards a long-term peace based on compromise.

The rejectionists on both sides – from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran to Bibi Netanyahu of Israel – would then be marginalised. It is the only path that could yet end in peace but it is the Israeli government that refuses to choose it. Halevy explains: "Israel, for reasons of its own, did not want to turn the ceasefire into the start of a diplomatic process with Hamas."

Why would Israel act this way? The Israeli government wants peace, but only one imposed on its own terms, based on the acceptance of defeat by the Palestinians. It means the Israelis can keep the slabs of the West Bank on "their" side of the wall. It means they keep the largest settlements and control the water supply. And it means a divided Palestine, with responsibility for Gaza hived off to Egypt, and the broken-up West Bank standing alone. Negotiations threaten this vision: they would require Israel to give up more than it wants to. But an imposed peace will be no peace at all: it will not stop the rockets or the rage. For real safety, Israel will have to talk to the people it is blockading and bombing today, and compromise with them.

The sound of Gaza burning should be drowned out by the words of the Israeli writer Larry Derfner. He says: "Israel's war with Gaza has to be the most one-sided on earth... If the point is to end it, or at least begin to end it, the ball is not in Hamas's court – it is in ours."