on peut manifester librement a cuba

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http://www.voltairenet.org/article146615.html

La faillite morale de l’Union européenne

par Salim Lamrani*

L’Union européenne agonise en tant qu’entité politique. Son rôle sur la scène internationale est insignifiant car elle est incapable d’adopter une politique étrangère indépendante de la ligne prônée par Washington. Elle suit docilement l’aventurisme belliqueux de l’administration Bush notamment à l’égard de Cuba. En effet, elle se prête aux campagnes contre le gouvernement de La Havane avec une servilité déconcertante. Pire encore, elle se rend complice des violations massives des droits de l’homme commises par la CIA, complicité qui l’entraîne vers une faillite morale sans précédents.

L’hypocrisie de la Suède

Le 12 mars 2007, lors de la réunion de la Commission des droits de l’homme des Nations unies à Genèvre, le ministre des Affaires étrangères suédois, Carl Bildt, a accusé Cuba de ne pas respecter les droits de l’homme. Cette stigmatisation est purement idéologique car, selon le rapport 2006 d’Amnesty International, Cuba est, de loin, la nation qui viole le moins les droits de l’homme sur le continent américain, du Canada jusqu’à l’Argentine [1]. Elle illustre également l’hypocrisie de la Suède et de l’Europe en général, promptes à s’en prendre à la petite nation caribéenne agressée depuis près d’un demi-siècle par les Etats-Unis, tout en maintenant un silence assourdissant sur les crimes commis par la Maison-Blanche à travers le monde [2].

Le délégué cubain, Rodolfo Reyes Rodríguez, a pour sa part regretté que la Suède se prête à la stratégie de propagande étasunienne, dont le but n’est autre que de justifier les implacables sanctions économiques dont est victime la population cubaine depuis 1960. Il a également pointé du doigt le manque d’autorité morale du gouvernement scandinave pour donner des leçons sur les droits de l’homme [3].

En effet, en mai 2005, le Comité contre la torture de l’ONU a condamné la Suède pour avoir expulsé vers le Bangladesh une jeune réfugiée politique qui avait été violée par des policiers. Selon le Comité, les autorités suédoises n’avaient pas nié le fait qu’elle avait été persécutée, emprisonnée, torturée et violée, mais avaient quand même procédé à son expulsion [4].

En novembre 2005, la Cour européenne des droits de l’homme a considéré de manière unanime que l’expulsion de quatre Syriens s’apparentait « à une violation de leur droit à la vie et de l’interdiction de tout traitement inhumain ou dégradant ». La Suède a également procédé à d’autres expulsions vers des pays pratiquant la torture, toutes condamnées par le Comité contre la torture. Les droits des réfugiés et demandeurs d’asile ont été bafoués surtout lorsqu’il s’agissait de Roms, dont les demandes étaient considérées par les autorités comme « manifestement infondées [5] ».

En guise de réponse, Stockholm a dénoncé les déclarations « inacceptables » du responsable cubain devant la Commission de Genèvre et a évoqué la possibilité d’une crise diplomatique entre les deux pays. Visiblement, certaines vérités ne sont pas du goût de tout le monde [6].

La provocation des députés italiens

Le 18 mars 2007, un groupe de cinq députés italiens en quête de sensationnalisme a orchestré une provocation dans les rues de La Havane en défilant avec des panneaux politiques exigeant la « liberté » pour les « prisonniers de conscience ». L’objectif recherché par le député européen Marco Capatto, le vice-président du Sénat italien Maurizio Turco, les députés Mateo Meccati et Elisabetta Zamparutti et l’ex députée María Fida Moro, tous membres du parti radical, était de créer un incident avec les autorités cubaines et de déclencher ainsi une campagne médiatique internationale à leur encontre. Mais la provocation était tellement grossière que le gouvernement cubain les a superbement ignorés. Ils ont déambulés dans les rues de la capitale sans être aucunement inquiétés [7].

« A notre grande surprise, il ne s’est rien passé lors de notre manifestation dans les rues. Nous y sommes restés environ une demi-heure et tout était tranquille. Le fait que nous n’ayons pas été arrêtés est quelque chose que je laisse à votre réflexion », a déclaré Marco Capatto, avouant ainsi le but qu’il recherchait. Frustrés, ces derniers se sont résignés à quitter l’Île sans même obtenir la satisfaction d’être expulsés [8].

Deux jours plus tard, le 20 mars 2007, les députés ont effectué une visite à Miami. Cette escale n’avait pas pour but de manifester contre le fait que cette ville abrite et protège des terroristes anti-cubains confessés tels que Orlando Bosch ou José Basulto. Il ne s’agissait pas non plus de dénoncer le fait que Miami organise des activités publiques en faveur de la libération du Ben Laden latino-américain qu’est Luis Posada Carriles, responsable de plus d’une centaine d’assassinats contre des civils innocents. Non, leur voyage n’avait d’autre but que de se réunir l’organisation d’extrême droite cubaine, Madres contra la Represión et de tenir une conférence de presse en sa compagnie. Il s’avère que ce groupuscule, qui reçoit d’importantes subventions de la part de Washington, a entièrement financé le voyage des cinq députés, de Rome jusqu’à Miami en passant par La Havane et Panama, ce qui explique l’étape en Floride [9].

Les députés italiens savaient pertinemment qu’ils ne risquaient strictement rien à Cuba et c’est ce qui explique leur activisme. Auraient-ils le courage d’aller soutenir les dissidents colombiens, guatémaltèques ou honduriens ? Auraient-ils le courage de manifester dans les rues de Washington dénonçant les crimes contre l’humanité commis quotidiennement en Irak, en Afghanistan et à Guantanamo ? Auraient-ils le courage de manifester devant le bureau des services italiens de la sécurité militaire (SISMI) « qui ont joué un rôle actif dans l’enlèvement de l’Imam Abou Omar à Milan en 2003 » avec la complicité du gouvernement de Silvio Berlusconi, selon le rapport de l’Union européenne sur les disparitions orchestrées par la CIA ? La veulerie et la duplicité semblent décidément être à la mode [10].

La complicité de l’Union européenne dans les vols secrets de la CIA et les cas de disparition

Le 14 février 2007, le Parlement européen a rendu public son rapport qui accuse les gouvernements du vieux continent de complicité flagrante avec les cas de disparitions forcées et les enlèvements clandestins orchestrés par la CIA. Comble de la fourberie, une semaine auparavant, le 7 février 2007, ces mêmes gouvernements signaient la Convention des Nations unies contre les « disparitions forcées », qui criminalise l’emploi des geôles secrètes. L’Union européenne est experte dans ce genre de suicide moral [11].

Selon le rapport, les avions de la CIA, transportant en toute illégalité des personnes soupçonnées de liens avec le terrorisme, à destination des centres de torture de Guantanamo, d’Afrique et… d’Europe, ont effectué au moins 1 245 escales dans les aéroports européens. Aucun gouvernement n’ignorait le caractère criminel de ces vols secrets. Des pays européens – dont certains sont membres de l’Union européenne – tels que la Pologne et la Roumanie ont même ouvert sur leurs territoires des centres de torture mis à la disposition des bourreaux étasuniens. D’autres tels que le Royaume-Uni, l’Autriche, l’Allemagne, la Pologne, le Portugal, le Danemark, la Roumanie, l’Espagne et, ironie de l’histoire !, l’Italie et la Suède, ont participé à l’enlèvement de suspects sur leur territoire [12].

Le Parlement a condamné « l’acceptation et la dissimulation de cette pratique, en plusieurs occasions, par les services secrets et les autorités gouvernementales de certains pays européens ». Dans la majorité des cas, ces enlèvements s’accompagnaient d’une « détention au secret et un usage de la torture durant les interrogatoires ». Selon l’ancien ambassadeur du Royaume-Uni en Ouzbékistan, Craig Murray, les échanges de renseignements obtenus sous la torture par les services de pays tiers « avec les services secrets britanniques étaient une pratique connue et tolérée par le gouvernement britannique [13] ».

Ces graves violations des droits de l’homme ont été réalisées avec la pleine connaissance des plus hauts dirigeants de l’Union européenne tels que Javier Solana, secrétaire général du Conseil de l’UE, et Gijs de Vries, coordinateur de la lutte antiterroriste, qui ont été « incapables de fournir des réponses satisfaisantes » sur leur rôle dans ces exactions. Personne ne peut prétendre ignorer cette terrible réalité. Ainsi, tant que l’Union européenne fera preuve de ce genre de double morale et de dépravation en s’en prenant lâchement à une petite nation du Tiers-monde tout en occultant ses crimes, elle continuera de se morfondre dans les affres du discrédit sur la scène internationale et aux yeux du monde.

[1] Salim Lamrani, Cuba, l’Union européenne et les droits de l’homme (Pantin : Le Temps des Cerises, 2007), à paraître

[2] Agence France Presse, « Tensos los vínculos entre Cuba y Suecia », 22 mars 2007

[3] Ibid

[4] Amnesty International, « Rapport annuel 2006 : Suède », avril 2006

[5] Ibid

[6] Agence France Presse, « Tensos los vínculos entre Cuba y Suecia », op. Cit

[7] Javier Galeano, « Diputados italianos se suman a protesta de las Damas de Blanco », 19 mars 2007

[8] Rui Ferreira, « En Miami diputados italianos que protestaron en Cuba », El Nuevo Herald, 20 mars 2007

[9] Ibid. ; El Duende, « Por donde le entra el agua al coco a los italianos », La Radio Miami, 21 mars 2007

[10] Parlement européen, « Activités de la CIA en Europe : le Parlement adopte son rapport final et presse el Conseil d’obtenir davantage d’informations des Etats membres », 14 février 2007 http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/... (site consulté le 26 mars 2007) ; Ignacio Ramonet, « CIA, vols secrets », Le Monde Diplomatique, mars 2007, p. 1.

[11] Ibid

[12] Ibid

[13] Ibid

Salim Lamrani Enseignant chargé de cours à l’Université Paris-Descartes et à l’Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée et journaliste français, spécialiste des relations entre Cuba et les États-Unis. Auteur de Cuba face à l’empire : Propagande, guerre économique et terrorisme d’État, dernier ouvrage publié en français : Double Morale. Cuba, l’Union européenne et les droits de l’homme.

bin laden not "most wanted" by fbi!

muckrakerreport.com

FBI says, "No hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11"


June 6, 2006 – This past weekend, a thought provoking e-mail circulated through Internet news groups, and was sent to the Muckraker Report by Mr. Paul V. Sheridan (Winner of the 2005 Civil Justice Foundation Award), bringing attention to the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorist web page for Usama Bin Laden.[1] (See bottom of this web page for Most Wanted page) In the e-mail, the question is asked, “Why doesn’t Usama Bin Laden’s Most Wanted poster make any direct connection with the events of September 11, 2001?” The FBI says on its Bin Laden web page that Usama Bin Laden is wanted in connection with the August 7, 1998 bombings of the United States Embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya. According to the FBI, these attacks killed over 200 people. The FBI concludes its reason for “wanting” Bin Laden by saying, “In addition, Bin Laden is a suspect in other terrorists attacks throughout the world.”

On June 5, 2006, the Muckraker Report contacted the FBI Headquarters, (202) 324-3000, to learn why Bin Laden’s Most Wanted poster did not indicate that Usama was also wanted in connection with 9/11. The Muckraker Report spoke with Rex Tomb, Chief of Investigative Publicity for the FBI. When asked why there is no mention of 9/11 on Bin Laden’s Most Wanted web page, Tomb said, “The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Usama Bin Laden’s Most Wanted page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11.”

Surprised by the ease in which this FBI spokesman made such an astonishing statement, I asked, “How this was possible?” Tomb continued, “Bin Laden has not been formally charged in connection to 9/11.” I asked, “How does that work?” Tomb continued, “The FBI gathers evidence. Once evidence is gathered, it is turned over to the Department of Justice. The Department of Justice than decides whether it has enough evidence to present to a federal grand jury. In the case of the 1998 United States Embassies being bombed, Bin Laden has been formally indicted and charged by a grand jury. He has not been formally indicted and charged in connection with 9/11 because the FBI has no hard evidence connected Bin Laden to 9/11.”

It shouldn’t take long before the full meaning of these FBI statements start to prick your brain and raise your blood pressure. If you think the way I think, in quick order you will be wrestling with a barrage of very powerful questions that must be answered. First and foremost, if the U.S. government does not have enough hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11, how is it possible that it had enough evidence to invade Afghanistan to “smoke him out of his cave?” The federal government claims to have invaded Afghanistan to “root out” Bin Laden and the Taliban. Through the talking heads in the mainstream media, the Bush Administration told the American people that Usama Bin Laden was Public Enemy Number One and responsible for the deaths of nearly 3000 people on September 11, 2001. Yet nearly five years later, the FBI says that it has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11.

Next is the Bin Laden “confession” video that was released by the U.S. government on December 13, 2001. Most Americans remember this video. It was the video showing Bin Laden with a few of his comrades recounting with delight the September 11 terrorist attacks against the United States. The Department of Defense issued a press release to accompany this video in which Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said, “There was no doubt of bin Laden’s responsibility for the September 11 attacks before the tape was discovered.”[2] What Rumsfeld implied by his statement was that Bin Laden was the known mastermind behind 9/11 even before the “confession video” and that the video simply served to confirm what the U.S. government already knew; that Bin Laden was responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

In a BBC News article[3] reporting on the “9/11 confession video” release, President Bush is said to have been hesitant to release the tape because he knew it would be a vivid reminder to many people of their loss. But, he also knew it would be “a devastating declaration” of Bin Laden’s guilt. “Were going to get him,” said President Bush. “Dead or alive, it doesn’t matter to me.”

In a CNN article[4] regarding the Bin Laden tape, then New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said that “the tape removes any doubt that the U.S. military campaign targeting bin Laden and his associates is more than justified.” Senator Richard Shelby, R-Alabama, the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said, “The tape’s release is central to informing people in the outside world who don’t believe bin Laden was involved in the September 11 attacks.” Shelby went on to say “I don’t know how they can be in denial after they see this tape.” Well Senator Shelby, apparently the Federal Bureau of Investigation isn’t convinced by the taped confession, so why are you?

The Muckraker Report attempted to secure a reference to the U.S. government authenticating the Bin Laden “confession video”, to no avail. However, it is conclusive that the Bush Administration and U.S. Congress, along with the dead stream media, played the video as if it was authentic. So why doesn’t the FBI view the “confession video” as hard evidence? After all, if the FBI is investigating a crime such as drug trafficking, and it discovers a video of members of a drug cartel openly talking about a successful distribution operation in the United States, that video would be presented to a federal grand jury. The identified participants of the video would be indicted, and if captured, the video alone would serve as sufficient evidence to net a conviction in a federal court. So why is the Bin Laden “confession video” not carrying the same weight with the FBI?

Remember, on June 5, 2006, FBI spokesman, Chief of Investigative Publicity Rex Tomb said, “The FBI has no hard evidence connecting Usama Bin Laden to 9/11.” This should be headline news worldwide. The challenge to the reader is to find out why it is not. Why has the U.S. media blindly read the government-provided 9/11 scripts, rather than investigate without passion, prejudice, or bias, the events of September 11, 2001? Why has the U.S. media blacklisted any guest that might speak of a government sponsored 9/11 cover-up, rather than seeking out those people who have something to say about 9/11 that is contrary to the government’s account? And on those few rare occasions when a 9/11 dissenter has made it upon the airways, why has the mainstream media ridiculed the guest as a conspiracy nut, rather than listen to the evidence that clearly raises valid questions about the government’s 9/11 account? Why is the Big Media Conglomeration blindly content with the government’s 9/11 story when so much verifiable information to the contrary is available with a few clicks of a computer mouse?

Who is it that is controlling the media message, and how is it that the U.S. media has indicted Usama Bin Laden for the events of September 11, 2001, but the U.S. government has not? How is it that the FBI has no “hard evidence” connecting Usama Bin Laden to the events of September 11, 2001, while the U.S. media has played the Bin Laden - 9/11 connection story for five years now as if it has conclusive evidence that Bin Laden is responsible for the collapse of the twin towers, the Pentagon attack, and the demise of United Flight 93?

…No hard evidence connecting Usama Bin Laden to 9/11… Think about it.

[1] Federal Bureau of Investigation, Most Wanted Terrorists, Usama Bin Laden, http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/terrorists/terbinladen.htm, [Accessed May 31, 2006]
[2] United States Department of Defense, News Release, U.S. Releases Videotape of Osama bin Laden, December 13, 2001, http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/2001/b12132001_bt630-01.html, [Accessed June 5, 2006]
[3] BBC News, Bin Laden video angers New Yorkers, December 14, 2001, Peter Gould, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1711874.stm, [Accessed June 5, 2006]
[4] CNN, Bin Laden on tape: Attacks ‘benefited Islam greatly”, December 14, 2001, http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/12/13/ret.bin.laden.videotape, [Accessed June 5, 2006]

"james bond" plot to down putin behind litvinenko

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http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/articles/20070430_117

Wayne Madsen is a former US Navy officer and a former NSA employee..

The Litvinenko radiation poisoning and a mysterious plane crash

March 21, 2007

Amid the hype over the radiation poisoning death of ex-Russian intelligence agent and Boris Berezovsky colleague Alexander Litvinenko last November, a little-reported story about a helicopter crash went largely unnoticed. In what may have been an indication of who and what was behind the Litvinenko poisoning and the attempts by Italian right-wing politicians to discredit both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, the activities of a mysterious firm tied to Berezovsky and his former Yukos Oil business partner, Tel Aviv-based Leonid Nevzlin, are under renewed scrutiny.

On January 2, 2007, WMR reported: "In another full circle between Tel Aviv and Italy, Menatep's [Group Menatep -- the Gibraltar-based firm behind Yukos since renamed GML] former chief for investment management Alexei Globuvich said, after his arrest last Spring in Italy, that Nevzlin may have tried to poison him and his family after mercury was found in his office, home, and car. Globuvich said he was a threat because he knew where Yukos and Menatep assets were located. Shortly thereafter, a Scotland Yard officer handed over to the British security firm ISC Global plans by the British government to extradite a number of Russian-Israeli exiles in Britain to Russia. ISC Global had been part of Menatep and Nevzlin was one of its chief customers. The London offices of ISC Global, now known as RISC Management, were visited in November 2006 by Litvinenko and Russian businessmen Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun and traces of polonium-210 were discovered there. According to the Sunday Times of London, Russian police are also investigating whether the poisoning of Litvinenko and the attempted poisoning of Globuvich are connected to the radiation poisoning death two years ago of Roman Tsepov, a former bodyguard of Putin when he was deputy Mayor of St. Petersburg. Tsepov was involved in the Russian government's tracking of Yukos assets. Also of interest are connections to the June 2004 assassination of Forbes Russian edition editor-in-chief Paul Klebnikov, a U.S. citizen who wrote a damaging expose of Berezovsky. Three Chechen contract killers were charged in Klebnikov's murder. The same Russian-Israeli mob ring is also being looked at in the investigation of the assassination of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya of Novaya Gazeta as a way to embarrass Putin."

Attention is being drawn to a May 14, 2006 article in the Times of London. In March 2004, British attorney Stephen Curtis, the chairman of ISC Global, died, along with his pilot, in a helicopter crash near Bournemouth Airport. The two were on their way to Dublin. The Times reported a James Bond-like secret project by ISC Global, jailed Yukos tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and Nevzlin to launch an international smear campaign to discredit Putin and other members of the Russian government, including Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, other ministers, and officials of state-owned energy companies. Doctored "compromising" photographs were to be used in the smear campaign. Also targeted by the Russian gangsters was Russian tycoon and Chelsea football team owner Roman Abramovich, who had earned the wrath of Nevzlin, Berezovsky, and others because Putin allowed Abramovich to retain his billions in wealth and travel freely to and from Russia.

According to The Times, Curtis, who managed a £16 billion portfolio for Menatep, was under surveillance and had been threatened in the weeks before his death. He told a relative, "If anything happens in the next two weeks then it won't be an accident." After his death, Curtis' home was found to contain a small magnet used for a bugging device. It also was revealed at the Curtis death inquest that the British attorney had been in contact with British police "on many occasions" concerning the activities of his Russian clients.

ISC was to obtain a luxury yacht, the Constellation, that would become a headquarters for exiled Russian-Israeli oligarchs (a la "SPECTRE"-- SPecial Executive for Control, Terrorism, Extortion, and Revenge) wanted by Moscow for fraud. The yacht would have its own armed SWAT team and crew to repel any attacks. The yacht would be outfitted with bullet proof glass and "white noise" generators to prevent eavesdropping. Prostitutes invited on board would be specially screened by a "trusted agency." Nevzlin authorized the anti-Putin project in a 12-page dossier marked "Secret." In the document, Putin is referred to as "X." British ex-SAS commandos were to be used as personal bodyguards to protect the exiled Russian tycoons from kidnapping and extradition by Russian agents.

Fact vs. fiction: No difference with the forces out to bring down Russian President Putin.

On January 11 this year, Yuri Golubev, 64, a Yukos cofounder, along with Khodorkovsky, and colleague of former Yukos deputy chairman Nevzlin, was found dead in his bed in London. Police ruled the cause of death as "natural causes." Our sources in Britain report that the scandals surrounding British Prime Minister Tony Blair and key members of his government are part and parcel of the fact that Britain's government has been co-opted by the Russian-Israeli mobsters, much in the same way that their American colleagues, acting through neo-con proxies, have captured control of the Bush administration. The British honors-for-cash scandal, British defense contractor malfeasance, and phony intelligence about Iraqi WMDs laundered through the British government, are all results of the mobsters' control of Blair and his advisers.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/apr/13/topstories3.russia

I am plotting a new Russian revolution'

London exile Berezovsky says force necessary to bring down President Putin

Ian Cobain, Matthew Taylor and Luke Harding in Moscow

13 April 2007

Boris Berezovsky pictured in his London office. Photograph: Chris Young/PA

The Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky has told the Guardian he is plotting the violent overthrow of President Putin from his base in Britain after forging close contacts with members of Russia's ruling elite.
In comments which appear calculated to enrage the Kremlin, and which will further inflame relations between London and Moscow, the multimillionaire claimed he was already bankrolling people close to the president who are conspiring to mount a palace coup.
"We need to use force to change this regime," he said. "It isn't possible to change this regime through democratic means. There can be no change without force, pressure." Asked if he was effectively fomenting a revolution, he said: "You are absolutely correct."
Although Mr Berezovsky, with an estimated fortune of £850m, may have the means to finance such a plot, and although he enjoyed enormous political influence in Russia before being forced into exile, he said he could not provide details to back up his claims because the information was too sensitive.
Last night the Kremlin denounced Mr Berezovsky's comments as a criminal offence which it believed should undermine his refugee status in the UK.
Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin's chief spokesman, said: "In accordance with our legislation [his remarks are] being treated as a crime. It will cause some questions from the British authorities to Mr Berezovsky. We want to believe that official London will never grant asylum to someone who wants to use force to change the regime in Russia."
It will not be the first time the British government has faced accusations from the Kremlin that it is providing a safe haven for Mr Berezovsky. When he told a Moscow radio station last year that he wanted to see Mr Putin overthrown by force, Jack Straw, then foreign secretary, told the Commons that "advocating the violent overthrow of a sovereign state is unacceptable" and warned the tycoon he could be stripped of his refugee status.
Russian authorities subsequently sent an extradition request to London. That failed, however, when a district judge ruled Mr Berezovsky could not be extradited as long as he has asylum status.
In an interview with the Guardian, however, Mr Berezovsky goes much further than before, claiming to be in close contact with members of Russia's political elite who, he says, share his view that Mr Putin is damaging Russia by rolling back democratic reforms, smothering opposition, centralising power and flouting the country's constitution.
"There is no chance of regime change through democratic elections," he says. "If one part of the political elite disagrees with another part of the political elite - that is the only way in Russia to change the regime. I try to move that."
While declining to describe these contacts - and alleging that they would be murdered if they were identified - he maintained that he was offering his "experience and ideology" to members of the country's political elite, as well as "my understanding of how it could be done". He added: "There are also practical steps which I am doing now, and mostly it is financial."
Mr Berezovsky said he was unconcerned by any threat to strip him of his refugee status. "Straw wasn't in a position to take that decision. A judge in court said it wasn't in the jurisdiction of Straw."
He added that there was even less chance of such a decision being taken following the polonium-210 poisoning last November of his former employee, Alexander Litvinenko. "Today the reality is different because of the Litvinenko case."
Mr Berezovsky, 61, a former mathematician, turned to business during the Yeltsin years and made his fortune by capturing state assets at knockdown prices during Russia's rush towards privatisation.
Although he played a key role in ensuring Mr Putin's victory in the 2000 presidential elections, the two men fell out as the newly elected leader successfully wrested control of Russia back from the so-called oligarchy, the small group of tycoons who had come to dominate the country's economy.
A few months after the election Mr Berezovsky fled Russia, and applied successfully for asylum in the UK after Mr Litvinenko, an officer with the KGB's successor, the FSB, came forward to say he had been ordered to murder the tycoon.
Mr Berezovsky changed his name to Platon Elenin, Platon being the name of a character in a Russian film based loosely upon his life. He was subsequently given a British passport in this name.
As well as claiming to be financing and encouraging coup plotters in Moscow, Mr Berezovsky said he had dedicated much of the last six years to "trying to destroy the positive image of Putin" that many in the west held, portraying him whenever possible as a dangerously anti-democratic figure. He said he had also opposed the Russian president through Kommersant, the influential Russian newspaper which he controlled until last year.
Last month Mr Berezovsky was questioned by two detectives from the Russian prosecutor general's office who were in London to investigate the death of Mr Litvinenko. He has denied claims that he refused to answer many of their questions.
Last night the Kremlin said Russian authorities might want to question him again in the light of his interview with the Guardian. "I now believe our prosecutor general's office has got lots of questions for Mr Berezovsky," said Mr Peskov. He added: "His words are very interesting. This is a very sensitive issue."
The Foreign Office said it had nothing to add to Mr Straw's comments of last year.

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 http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/articles/20070427_59

November 27, 2006

The poisoning death of former Russian KGB and Federal Security Service (FSB) colonel Alexander Litvinenko, a critic of the Russian government of Vladimir Putin, is being blamed on the Russian-Israeli Mafia by a number of Russian officials.  

The Russian officials point out that Litvinenko, described as a Russian-Israeli "double agent," was the perfect choice to set up for a false flag assassination just as Putin was attending a Russia-European Union summit in Helsinki.

Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya of the liberal newspaper Novaya Gazeta  and a fierce critic of Putin was assassinated a few days before Putin was due to make an important visit to Germany. Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, who is a shareholder of Novaya Gazeta along with billionaire Alexander Lebedev, wrote an editorial in the paper in which he correctly  noted that, "those who killed Anna Poltikovskaya wanted to hit Putin."

One Russian official told The Sunday Times of London, "If you ask the question who had the most to gain from all this, the answer can only be Berezovsky, a man who by his own admission is out on a campaign to discredit Putin and the Kremlin."

Litvinenko's assassination from poisoning with Polonium 210, a radioactive isotope, was quickly blamed on Putin by Russian-Israeli mafia figure Boris Abramovich Berezovsky. Litvinenko claimed he was sent by Moscow to London to assassinate  Berezovsky but refused to carry out his orders. Litvinenko defected to Britain via Turkey, the latter a major trans-shipment nexus for radioactive materials -- including cesium-137, radium, iridium, strontium-90, uranium, thorium, and plutonium-239 -- sold by the Russian-Israeli Mafia to the highest bidders.

It is also no coincidence that Turkey is the home to a major support network for the Chechen guerrillas and that one of their leaders, Ahmed Zakayev, is a close associate of Berezovsky and was also linked to Litvinenko.

Litvinenko reportedly passed classified information damaging to Russian leaders to Russian-Israeli businessman Leonid Nevzlin, the former chief executive officer of Yukos Oil who is the subject of a Russian government arrest warrant for murder, embezzlement, and tax evasion. Nevzlin, a former head of the Russian Jewish Congress, is currently living in Tel Aviv under the protection of the Israeli government. Nevzlin's exiled Russian-Israeli comrades include Vladimir Dubov, a major Yukos shareholder and wanted oligarch Vladimir Gusinsky. The wanted ex-Yukos officials have also been linked to wealthy British businessman Jacob Rothschild.

Nevzlin's former boss at Yukos, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, is in a Russian prison for tax evasion. The assassination of Litvinenko to embarrass Putin is similar to the false flag assassinations carried out by Russian-Israeli Mafia figures of Lebanese politicians in order to lay blame on Syria (as previously reported by WMR).

Litvinenko's dodgy association with leading Russian-Israeli mafia figures, most of whom are wanted by Russia for looting and misappropriating the the assets of the Soviet Union, likely made him a convenient target for an exotic gangland-style hit. His reported role as a Russian-Israeli double agent, selling secrets to the highest bidders, also shortened his life expectancy. Litvinenko also was problematic for a number of criminal syndicate leaders especially considering the fact that his special operations task in the FSB was the targeting of foreign businessmen -- many of whom are leading figures in the global Russian-Israeli Mafia and some with direct links to the White House. Litvinenko, therefore, knew many of the secrets about the Russian-Israeli Mafia -- secrets that may have cost him his life.

"Sasha" Litvinenko kept a number of dodgy friends and associates tied to the Russian-Israeli mob and Chechen guerrillas.

Britain is under tremendous financial pressure from the Kremlin to extradite Berezovsky to Moscow to stand trial. The assassination of Litvinenko and the blame placed by the neo-con media on Russia as the culprit buys Berezovsky some British sympathy and a little time.

The involvement of Litvinenko with Israeli organized crime bosses was reported at the same time the Washington Post reported on the counterfeiting of U.S. $100 bills by a South Ossetia-based organized crime ring operating with Russian-Israeli mobsters based in the Republic of Georgia and Israel.

On October 27, 2004, a courier for the counterfeit ring, Hazki Hen, met with an undercover Secret Service agent at a hotel in Linthicum, Maryland near Baltimore-Washington International Airport. Hen, who had just arrived from Tel Aviv, offered to exchange $230,000 in counterfeit Ben Franklin notes for $80,000 in real currency. Hen also agreed to supply an additional $1.5 million in counterfeit hundred dollar notes and discussed the potential of delivering as much as $100 million on counterfeit bills in the future. Hen was not charged by the Federal government until November 2005 and then, after he claimed he was too ill to stand trial, was permitted by federal prosecutors to return to Israel.

Russian-Israeli mobsters are also reported to be counterfeiting U.S. Postal money orders and American Express Traveler's Checks in Eastern Europe.

The Hen case is yet another example of the U.S. government failing to fully prosecute Israeli criminals, spies, and other threats to U.S. national security. The same scenario has played out with "Al Qaeda" financier Yehuda Abraham, a New York U.S-Israeli diamond dealer who was laundering money for the Russian-Israeli mob and a Malaysian linked to Al Qaeda affiliate Jemaah Islamiya; Asher Karni, a South African-Israeli who was shipping nuclear triggers from the United States to the A. Q. Khan network in Pakistan; and various Israeli spies caught around sensitive U.S. facilities posing as art students, movers, and tourists.

Note: The screenwriters of the new James Bond film, Casino Royale, are on to the real life mobsters. Not only is a Montenegro-based mob ring (Montenegro is one of the centers for the Russian-Israeli syndicate) featured as engaging in international terrorism in order to manipulate the stock market, but there is a reference by "M" (Judi Dench) that a similar mob ring engaged in stock "put" options before the 9/11 attacks in order to make tons of money on the world markets. It would seem that fictional spies know more about the threat from international mobsters than do their real life counterparts.

"M" (left) gets the threat, FBI's Robert Mueller (right) does not.

Related Articles:

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us academy colonel redraws middle east map

.
http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2006/06/1833899

Blood borders

How a better Middle East would look

Ralph Peters

related post and map: the bernard lewis map of the middle east


International borders are never completely just. But the degree of injustice they inflict upon those whom frontiers force together or separate makes an enormous difference — often the difference between freedom and oppression, tolerance and atrocity, the rule of law and terrorism, or even peace and war.
The most arbitrary and distorted borders in the world are in Africa and the Middle East. Drawn by self-interested Europeans (who have had sufficient trouble defining their own frontiers), Africa's borders continue to provoke the deaths of millions of local inhabitants. But the unjust borders in the Middle East — to borrow from Churchill — generate more trouble than can be consumed locally.
While the Middle East has far more problems than dysfunctional borders alone — from cultural stagnation through scandalous inequality to deadly religious extremism — the greatest taboo in striving to understand the region's comprehensive failure isn't Islam but the awful-but-sacrosanct international boundaries worshipped by our own diplomats.
Of course, no adjustment of borders, however draconian, could make every minority in the Middle East happy. In some instances, ethnic and religious groups live intermingled and have intermarried. Elsewhere, reunions based on blood or belief might not prove quite as joyous as their current proponents expect. The boundaries projected in the maps accompanying this article redress the wrongs suffered by the most significant "cheated" population groups, such as the Kurds, Baluch and Arab Shia, but still fail to account adequately for Middle Eastern Christians, Bahais, Ismailis, Naqshbandis and many another numerically lesser minorities. And one haunting wrong can never be redressed with a reward of territory: the genocide perpetrated against the Armenians by the dying Ottoman Empire.
Yet, for all the injustices the borders re-imagined here leave unaddressed, without such major boundary revisions, we shall never see a more peaceful Middle East.
Even those who abhor the topic of altering borders would be well-served to engage in an exercise that attempts to conceive a fairer, if still imperfect, amendment of national boundaries between the Bosporus and the Indus. Accepting that international statecraft has never developed effective tools — short of war — for readjusting faulty borders, a mental effort to grasp the Middle East's "organic" frontiers nonetheless helps us understand the extent of the difficulties we face and will continue to face. We are dealing with colossal, man-made deformities that will not stop generating hatred and violence until they are corrected.
As for those who refuse to "think the unthinkable," declaring that boundaries must not change and that's that, it pays to remember that boundaries have never stopped changing through the centuries. Borders have never been static, and many frontiers, from Congo through Kosovo to the Caucasus, are changing even now (as ambassadors and special representatives avert their eyes to study the shine on their wingtips).
Oh, and one other dirty little secret from 5,000 years of history: Ethnic cleansing works.
Begin with the border issue most sensitive to American readers: For Israel to have any hope of living in reasonable peace with its neighbors, it will have to return to its pre-1967 borders — with essential local adjustments for legitimate security concerns. But the issue of the territories surrounding Jerusalem, a city stained with thousands of years of blood, may prove intractable beyond our lifetimes. Where all parties have turned their god into a real-estate tycoon, literal turf battles have a tenacity unrivaled by mere greed for oil wealth or ethnic squabbles. So let us set aside this single overstudied issue and turn to those that are studiously ignored.
The most glaring injustice in the notoriously unjust lands between the Balkan Mountains and the Himalayas is the absence of an independent Kurdish state. There are between 27 million and 36 million Kurds living in contiguous regions in the Middle East (the figures are imprecise because no state has ever allowed an honest census). Greater than the population of present-day Iraq, even the lower figure makes the Kurds the world's largest ethnic group without a state of its own. Worse, Kurds have been oppressed by every government controlling the hills and mountains where they've lived since Xenophon's day.
The U.S. and its coalition partners missed a glorious chance to begin to correct this injustice after Baghdad's fall. A Frankenstein's monster of a state sewn together from ill-fitting parts, Iraq should have been divided into three smaller states immediately. We failed from cowardice and lack of vision, bullying Iraq's Kurds into supporting the new Iraqi government — which they do wistfully as a quid pro quo for our good will. But were a free plebiscite to be held, make no mistake: Nearly 100 percent of Iraq's Kurds would vote for independence.
As would the long-suffering Kurds of Turkey, who have endured decades of violent military oppression and a decades-long demotion to "mountain Turks" in an effort to eradicate their identity. While the Kurdish plight at Ankara's hands has eased somewhat over the past decade, the repression recently intensified again and the eastern fifth of Turkey should be viewed as occupied territory. As for the Kurds of Syria and Iran, they, too, would rush to join an independent Kurdistan if they could. The refusal by the world's legitimate democracies to champion Kurdish independence is a human-rights sin of omission far worse than the clumsy, minor sins of commission that routinely excite our media. And by the way: A Free Kurdistan, stretching from Diyarbakir through Tabriz, would be the most pro-Western state between Bulgaria and Japan.
A just alignment in the region would leave Iraq's three Sunni-majority provinces as a truncated state that might eventually choose to unify with a Syria that loses its littoral to a Mediterranean-oriented Greater Lebanon: Phoenecia reborn. The Shia south of old Iraq would form the basis of an Arab Shia State rimming much of the Persian Gulf. Jordan would retain its current territory, with some southward expansion at Saudi expense. For its part, the unnatural state of Saudi Arabia would suffer as great a dismantling as Pakistan.
A root cause of the broad stagnation in the Muslim world is the Saudi royal family's treatment of Mecca and Medina as their fiefdom. With Islam's holiest shrines under the police-state control of one of the world's most bigoted and oppressive regimes — a regime that commands vast, unearned oil wealth — the Saudis have been able to project their Wahhabi vision of a disciplinarian, intolerant faith far beyond their borders. The rise of the Saudis to wealth and, consequently, influence has been the worst thing to happen to the Muslim world as a whole since the time of the Prophet, and the worst thing to happen to Arabs since the Ottoman (if not the Mongol) conquest.
While non-Muslims could not effect a change in the control of Islam's holy cities, imagine how much healthier the Muslim world might become were Mecca and Medina ruled by a rotating council representative of the world's major Muslim schools and movements in an Islamic Sacred State — a sort of Muslim super-Vatican — where the future of a great faith might be debated rather than merely decreed. True justice — which we might not like — would also give Saudi Arabia's coastal oil fields to the Shia Arabs who populate that subregion, while a southeastern quadrant would go to Yemen. Confined to a rump Saudi Homelands Independent Territory around Riyadh, the House of Saud would be capable of far less mischief toward Islam and the world.
Iran, a state with madcap boundaries, would lose a great deal of territory to Unified Azerbaijan, Free Kurdistan, the Arab Shia State and Free Baluchistan, but would gain the provinces around Herat in today's Afghanistan — a region with a historical and linguistic affinity for Persia. Iran would, in effect, become an ethnic Persian state again, with the most difficult question being whether or not it should keep the port of Bandar Abbas or surrender it to the Arab Shia State.
What Afghanistan would lose to Persia in the west, it would gain in the east, as Pakistan's Northwest Frontier tribes would be reunited with their Afghan brethren (the point of this exercise is not to draw maps as we would like them but as local populations would prefer them). Pakistan, another unnatural state, would also lose its Baluch territory to Free Baluchistan. The remaining "natural" Pakistan would lie entirely east of the Indus, except for a westward spur near Karachi.
The city-states of the United Arab Emirates would have a mixed fate — as they probably will in reality. Some might be incorporated in the Arab Shia State ringing much of the Persian Gulf (a state more likely to evolve as a counterbalance to, rather than an ally of, Persian Iran). Since all puritanical cultures are hypocritical, Dubai, of necessity, would be allowed to retain its playground status for rich debauchees. Kuwait would remain within its current borders, as would Oman.
In each case, this hypothetical redrawing of boundaries reflects ethnic affinities and religious communalism — in some cases, both. Of course, if we could wave a magic wand and amend the borders under discussion, we would certainly prefer to do so selectively. Yet, studying the revised map, in contrast to the map illustrating today's boundaries, offers some sense of the great wrongs borders drawn by Frenchmen and Englishmen in the 20th century did to a region struggling to emerge from the humiliations and defeats of the 19th century.
Correcting borders to reflect the will of the people may be impossible. For now. But given time — and the inevitable attendant bloodshed — new and natural borders will emerge. Babylon has fallen more than once.
Meanwhile, our men and women in uniform will continue to fight for security from terrorism, for the prospect of democracy and for access to oil supplies in a region that is destined to fight itself. The current human divisions and forced unions between Ankara and Karachi, taken together with the region's self-inflicted woes, form as perfect a breeding ground for religious extremism, a culture of blame and the recruitment of terrorists as anyone could design. Where men and women look ruefully at their borders, they look enthusiastically for enemies.
From the world's oversupply of terrorists to its paucity of energy supplies, the current deformations of the Middle East promise a worsening, not an improving, situation. In a region where only the worst aspects of nationalism ever took hold and where the most debased aspects of religion threaten to dominate a disappointed faith, the U.S., its allies and, above all, our armed forces can look for crises without end. While Iraq may provide a counterexample of hope — if we do not quit its soil prematurely — the rest of this vast region offers worsening problems on almost every front.
If the borders of the greater Middle East cannot be amended to reflect the natural ties of blood and faith, we may take it as an article of faith that a portion of the bloodshed in the region will continue to be our own.
• • •
WHO WINS, WHO LOSES
Winners —
Afghanistan
Arab Shia State
Armenia
Azerbaijan
Free Baluchistan
Free Kurdistan
Iran
Islamic Sacred State
Jordan
Lebanon
Yemen
•
Losers —
Afghanistan
Iran
Iraq
Israel
Kuwait
Pakistan
Qatar
Saudi Arabia
Syria
Turkey
United Arab Emirates
West Bank

Ralph Peters is the author of the new book "Never Quit the Fight," to be published on July 4th.
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http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=36919

Zaman's turkish pro governement daily comment:

Carved-up Map of Turkey at NATO Prompts US Apology

A map prepared by a retired U.S. military officer that sketches Turkey as a partitioned country was presented at the NATO’s Defense College in Rome, where Turkish officers attend.
The use of the map at a conference meeting by a colonel from the U.S. National War Academy angered Turkish military officers.
Turkish Chief of Staff Gen. Yasar Buyukanit called the U.S. Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Pace, and protested the incident. U.S. military authorities admitted the mistake, for which they apologized to Turkey.
According to the reports, the incident took place on Sept. 15.
An American colonel who came to the Defense College for a conference began a lecture on technology.
However, a few minutes later he presented a map that showed Turkey as separated, and included an “independent Kurdistan” on Turkish territories.
In reaction to the U.S. colonel’s elaboration on the map, previously characterized by U.S. authorities as not reflective of the American view, the Turkish officers left the conference room.
The Belgian commander of the College was then informed about the incident.
The commander reacted, saying that academic freedom did not mean everybody could say anything he wanted, and cited the incident as unacceptable.
Turkish officers also briefed Ankara about the developments relevant to the incident.
The U.S. State Department assured Ankara that the map did not reflect the official American view, and denounced it as unacceptable.
The new Middle East map, prepared by retired Col. Ralph Peters and published in the Armed Forces Journal in June, had sparked reactions in Ankara.

29.09.2006

Suleyman Kurt Ankara

nuke war likely to solve dollar economy problem

the Threat of a Nuclear War

by General Leonid Ivashov

Global Research, April 9, 2007
Strategic Culture Foundation - 2007-03-30

Analysis of the current state of the conflict with Iran shows that the world faces the possibility of a new war...

General Ivashov

The US and its allies started the psychological preparation of world public opinion for the possibility of using tactical nuclear weapons to resolve 'the Iranian problem'. The US propaganda machine is working hard to create the impression that a 'surgically precise' use of the nuclear weapon with only limited consequences is possible. However, this has been known to be untrue since the 1945 US nuclear strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
After the very first nuclear strike, it will become totally impossible to prevent the use of all of the available means of mass destruction. In the situation of a mass extermination of their nations, the conflicting sides will resort to whatever means they have without limitations. Therefore, not only the nuclear arsenals of various countries, including those whose nuclear status is not recognized officially, will come into play. No doubt, chemical and biological warfare (and, generally, any poisonous substances), which can be produced on the basis of minimal industrial and economic resources, will be used.
Currently, one can assert that peace and mankind are in great danger.
Consider the military-technical aspect of the situation. Practically, the operation's objective declared by the US - destroying some 1,500 targets on the territory of Iran - cannot be accomplished by the forces already amassed for the mission. This objective can only be met if tactical nuclear munitions are used.
An examination of the military-political aspect of the matter reveals even more significant facts. The attack on Iran is not planned to include a ground offensive. Strikes on selected military and industrial installations can cause a severe damage to the Iranian defense potential and economy. Casualties are likely to be substantial, but not catastrophic from the military point of view. At the same time, it is impossible to gain control of the territory of a country as large as Iran without a ground operation. The planned offensive will entail a consolidation of forces not only in Iran, but also in other Muslim countries and among the public throughout the world. The support for the country suffering from the US-Israeli aggression will soar. Certainly, Washington is aware that the result will be not the strengthening but the loss of US positions in the world. Consequently, the goal of the US attack against Iran has to be seen in a different light. The nuclear offensive must boost the use of nuclear blackmail in global politics by the US and fundamentally transform the world order.
Further evidence of the radicalization of the goals of the US and its allies is available. The early 2007 leaks, which exposed Israel's plans to use three nukes against Iran, were quite dangerous for a country in a hostile environment, but certainly they were deliberate. They meant that the decision on the character of Israel's activity had already been made, and all that remained to be done was to influence public opinion accordingly.
The pretext for the operation against Iran does not appear serious. Judging from both the technical and the political points of view, there is no possibility of it developing nuclear weapons in the near future.
One must remember that allegations of Iraq's possessing weapons of mass destruction were used by the US as a pretext for the war against the country. As a result, Iraq was devastated, and the civilian death toll rose to hundreds of thousands, but no evidence for the claims had ever been discovered.
The really important question is not whether Iran is capable of making nuclear weapons. The only function of small stockpiles of nuclear weapons not backed by various forms of support is that of containment. The threat of a retaliation strike can stop any aggressor. As for attacking other countries and winning a nuclear war in the situation of a conflict with a coalition of major powers, this would require a potential that Iran neither has nor is going to have in the foreseeable future. The allegations that Iran can become a nuclear aggressor are absurd. Anyone having at least some theoretical knowledge of military affairs must understand this.
What is the real reason why the US is unleashing this military conflict?
The activities having consequences of global proportions can only be intended to deal with a global problem. This problem itself is by no means something secret - it is the possibility of a crash of the global financial system based on the US dollar. Currently the mass of US currency exceeds the total worth of US assets by more than a factor of ten. Everything in the US - industry, buildings, high-tech, and so on - has been mortgaged more than ten times all over the world. A debt of such proportions will never be repaid - it can only be relieved.
The dollar amounts on the accounts of individuals, organizations, and state treasuries are a virtual reality. These records are not secured by products, valuables or anything that exists in reality.
Writing-off this US indebtedness to the rest of the world would turn the majority of its population into deceived depositors. It would be the end of the well-established rule of the golden calf. The significance of the coming events is truly epic. This is why the aggressor ignores the global catastrophic consequences of its offensive. The bankrupt 'global bankers' need a force major event of global proportions to get out of the situation.
The solution is already in the plans. The US has nothing to offer the rest of the world to save the declining dollar except for military operations like the ones in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, and Iraq. But even these local conflicts only yield short-term effects. Something a lot greater is needed, and the need is urgent. The moment is drawing closer when the financial crisis will make the world realize that all of the US assets, all of its industrial, technological, and other potentials do not rightfully belong to the country. Then, it must be confiscated to compensate the victims, and the rights of ownership of everything bought for dollars all over the world - everything drawn from the wealth of various nations - are to be revised.
What might cause the force major event of the required scale? Everything seems to indicate that Israel will be sacrificed. Its involvement in a war with Iran - especially in a nuclear war - is bound to trigger a global catastrophe. The statehoods of Israel and Iran are based on the countries' official religions. A military conflict between Israel and Iran will immediately evolve into a religious one, a conflict between Judaism and Islam. Due to the presence of numerous Jewish and Muslim populations in the developed countries, this would make a global bloodbath inevitable. All of the active forces of most of the countries of the world would end up fighting, with almost no room for neutrality left. Judging by the increasingly massive acquisitions of the residential housing for the Israeli citizens, especially in Russia and Ukraine, a lot of people already have an idea of what the future holds. However, it is hard to imagine a quiet heaven where one might hide from the coming doom. Forecasts of the territorial distribution of the fighting, the quantities and the efficiency of the armaments involved, the profound character of the underlying roots of the conflict and the severity of the religious strife all leave no doubt that this clash will be in all respects much more nightmarish than WWII.
So far, the response of the world's major political players to the developments gives no cause for optimism. The inconsequent UN resolutions concerning Iran, the attempts to appease the aggressor who no longer disguises his intentions are reminiscent of the Munich Pact on the eve of WWII. The intense shuttle diplomacy focusing on all sorts of international problems except for the main one discussed above is also indicative of the problem. This is a usual practice on the eve of a war, aiming to provide for alliances with third-party countries or to ensure their neutrality. Such politics seeks to avert or soften the first strikes, which would be the most sudden and devastating ones.
Is it possible to prevent the bloodshed?
The only efficient argument that might stop the aggressors is the threat of their total global isolation for instigating a nuclear war. The implementation of the scenario described above can be made impossible by a complete absence of allies for the US-Israeli tandem, combined with loud public protests in the countries. Therefore, these days a definite and uncompromising stance of country leaders, governments, politicians, public figures, religious leaders, scientists, and artists with respect to the prepared nuclear aggression would be an invaluable service to mankind.
The coordinated public activities must be organized with the promptness adequate to the war-time conditions. The forces of aggression have already been amassed and concentrated at the starting positions in the state of full combat readiness. The US military do not make it a secret that everything can be a matter of weeks or even days. There are indirect indications that the US will launch a nuclear strike on Iran already in April, 2007. After the very first nuclear blast, mankind will find itself in an entirely new world, an absolutely inhumane one. The chances to prevent this outcome must be used completely.

General Leonid Ivashov is the vice-president of the Academy on geopolitical affairs. He was the chief of the department for General affairs in the Soviet Union’s ministry of Defense, secretary of the Council of defense ministers of the Community of independant states (CIS), chief of the Military cooperation department at the Russian federation’s Ministry of defense and Joint chief of staff of the Russian armies. General Ivashof is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Global Research Articles by Leonid Ivashov

british labour paedophiles links to casa pia

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Waynemadsenreport.com

april 5, 2007 -- While British Prime Minister Tony Blair is under criminal suspicion in the "honors-for-cash" scandal that has rocked his Labor government, we have been told that there is an even more explosive scandal that Blair, up to now, has managed to hide behind the draconian British policy of issuing "D-Notices," government orders that prohibit the British media from reporting on certain "national security" cases.

In 1999, an international investigation of child pornographers and pedophiles run by Britain's National Criminal Intelligence Service, code named Operation Ore, resulted in 7,250 suspects being identified in the United Kingdom alone. Some 1850 people were criminally charged in the case and there were 1451 convictions. Almost 500 people were interviewed "under caution" by police, meaning they were suspects. Some 900 individuals remain under investigation. In early 2003, British police began to close in on some top suspects in the Operation Ore investigation, including senior members of Blair's government. However, Blair issued a D-Notice, resulting in a gag order on the press from publishing any details of the investigation. Blair cited the impending war in Iraq as a reason for the D-Notice. Police also discovered links between British Labor government pedophile suspects and the trafficking of children for purposes of prostitution from Belgium and Portugal (including young boys from the Casa Pia orphanage in Portugal).

In the United States, Operation Ore's counterpart was Operation Avalanche. However, U.S. authorities only charged 100 people out of 35,000 investigated. The international pedophile investigation began when Dallas police and the US Postal Inspection Service raided the offices of Landslide Productions of Fort Worth, Texas and confiscated records on thousands of people around the world who were child pornography customers of the firm. Landslide's halcyon days as a Fort Worth-based international online marketplace of kiddie porn was during the term of Texas Governor George W. Bush.

WMR has learned that the Bush administration, like that of Blair, is rife with pedophiles in top positions. The pedophile network also extends to the U.S. defense industry, particularly some of the companies that have been involved in the sexual abuse of minors at overt and covert U.S. prisons in Abu Ghraib, Iraq; Guantanamo, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Thailand, and now, at three prisons in Ethiopia.