Category: Murder


Saturday, May 18, 2013

Funny Obamas

Dave Hodges
Activist Post

Mark Twain once talked about history not necessarily repeating, but he noted that history sure does rhyme.

Richard Nixon was unable to survive one direct hit upon his administration, namely, the Watergate scandal. Conversely, Obama is facing five scandals which dwarf Watergate in terms of criminality, abuse of power, malfeasance of office and outright treason.

The damage inflicted upon the American people by the criminal syndicate occupying the White House is unparalleled in American history. Yet, Obama is going to survive and this article will describe how Obama is this century’s version of the famous escape artist, Houdini.

The Alternative Media Is Doing Its Job

In Part One of this series, I detailed how various researchers have determined that it only takes 10% of the population to passionately hold to an ideal for the ideal to reach critical mass and go viral. I also described how the knowledge that this country is being run by a criminal syndicate is taking hold and we have likely passed the 10% threshold as evidenced by the fact that America is outraged by (1) Benghazi-Gate; (2) IRS-Gate; (3) AP Spy-Gate; (4) Whistleblower-Gate; and even (5) Fast and Furious is beginning to make a second pass. The alternative media is being so effective that it is forcing the MSM to jump off Obama’s ship and claim they do not support him any longer (e.g. MSNBC Chris Mathews).

The Calm Before the Storm

Even the great fence-sitter, Glenn Beck, is beginning to throw words around like “impeachment” in reference to Obama. And this is coming from a man who cannot decide if he is in the MSM or the alternative media. Remember, according to Beck, 9/11 is exactly as the Bush administration claims it was, an al-Qaeda venture. This is the same al-Qaeda that we are allegedly fighting in Afghanistan while supporting in Syria in our effort to oust Assad.
Regardless of the pedigree of many reporters who are now hinting at the fact that we are witnessing the last days of the Obama administration, the President himself seems unbelievably calm.

Obama is calm because he knows that he is going to survive the largest onslaught of simultaneous scandal exposures in our country’s history. There has never been a time in our history in which a sitting president has been besieged with this much exposed fodder aimed at his removal. If Watergate forced Nixon to resign, Obama should have been crushed by the comparative weight of his scandals and he should have already exited the White House. Why hasn’t this happened?

Sacrificial Lambs Buy Time

It is not likely that the Mafioso inhabitant presently residing in the White House will ever leave office prematurely. In fact, I think it is likely that Obama may not leave the Oval Office in 2016 as well.

If this were 1974, I would be advising Obama to pack his bags and I would also be advising him that he should be begging Joe Biden to grant him a pardon for his criminal acts including the facilitation of the murder of Ambassador Stevens. Make no mistake about it, Obama will survive these crises. However, Holder and possibly even DHS director, Janet Napolitano, may not.

Undoubtedly, Obama will offer up the head of Eric Holder as a sacrificial lamb and he will be gone by Labor day, if not much sooner, and this will buy Obama time to enact his endgame strategies which will negate the five Watergate wolves trying to break through his door.

Holder’s departure will bring celebrations in the alternative media and their followers will be dancing in the streets. We will also smell blood and want more removals. But the head of the president will never be touched despite the fact that all of us will soon be screaming for Obama’s scalp. It will just never happen.

What Will Save This President?

There is one game-changing event which will suddenly and irreversibly negate the momentum that the alternative media has achieved in terms of exposing and removing this criminal administration from power.

In the last eight months, I have repeated the mantra that most of what drives this government today is the preservation of the Petrodollar on behalf of the Federal Reserve. I have also detailed how Iran is selling its oil to Russia, China and India for gold, thus threatening the preeminence of the Petrodollar in which the other countries of the world must first purchase dollars from the Federal Reserve for the “privilege” of purchasing oil. This process provides the only backing that our dollar possesses.

Iran, China, Russia and India are destabilizing the dominance of our currency. Before you cheer the fact that the Federal Reserve is about ready to take a much-deserved bloodbath, please realize that you have a job to go to every Monday morning because of this one-sided arrangement and it is all about to end unless Iran can be toppled.

Why Syria?

Have you yet figured out why Obama will survive these crushing scandals and assume power in this country in a manner only reserved for such despots as Stalin? The road to Obama’s immediate survival runs through Damascus.

On the surface, Syria seems so very insignificant on the global chessboard. However, the key to invading Iran and seizing their oil fields is to first control Syria, because the occupation of Syria is an insurmountable checkmate against Russian ground troops’ intervention.

If the US takes over the Syrian revolution that we started through our al-Qaeda proxy forces, the US will gain a huge tactical advantage in the Middle East. The installation of short- and medium-range missile batteries in Syria will serve as a deterrent and a blocking mechanism for Russian ground troops’ ability to intervene in Iran.

If Russia allows the US to control Syria, Russia will lose any chance of preventing a US/NATO takeover of Iran. Russia and China have heavily vested themselves in gold. If Iran is stopped from selling its oil for gold, China, Russia and India will have wasted an enormous amount of the respective GNP’s in acquiring gold. And the acquisition of gold will be for naught if the US is about to re-establish the dominance of the Petrodollar as the world’s reserve currency through a successful invasion of Iran.

For awhile, it appeared as if Russia did not have the stomach for WWIII and they were going to let us topple Assad without so much as a whimper. I have been shocked as I have watched Russia apparently acquiesce to an impending takeover of Syria by US-led forces. However, recent Russian events make it clear that WWIII is on the horizon.

Read Full Article Here

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Sgt. John Russell pleaded guilty as part of a deal with prosecutors

UPDATED 6:42 PM CDT May 16, 2013

 

 

Troops in Fallujah, Iraq
DoD Image

(CNN) —A U.S. Army sergeant was sentenced Thursday to life in prison without parole for gunning down five fellow service members at a combat stress clinic in Iraq.

The sentence handed down at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, near Tacoma, Washington, came after Sgt. John Russell pleaded guilty to the killings in a deal in which prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty.

Russell pleaded guilty to the May 11, 2009, killings at Baghdad’s Camp Liberty, telling a military court last month that he “did it out of rage.”

The only question facing the judge, Col. David Conn, was whether Russell committed the slayings with premeditation, which the 48-year-old soldier disputed.

During a brief sentencing hearing, Conn ruled Russell killed with premeditation,” meaning the sergeant could not be given a lesser sentence.

Read Full Article Here

 

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May 16, 2013 19:23

Mine resistant ambush protected vehicles sit in a row on the Camp Liberty MRAP fielding site, Feb. 20, 2009. The day marks the introduction of the 10,000th vehicle into the Iraq theater of operations. Photo Credit: U.S. Army, Spc. Christopher Gaylord.

Mine resistant ambush protected vehicles sit in a row on the Camp Liberty MRAP fielding site, Feb. 20, 2009. The day marks the introduction of the 10,000th vehicle into the Iraq theater of operations. Photo Credit: U.S. Army, Spc. Christopher Gaylord.

LOS ANGELES (AFP) – A U.S. soldier convicted of killing five of his colleagues in Iraq in May 2009 was sentenced to life behind bars Thursday and dishonorably discharged.

Army Sgt. John Russell was convicted earlier this week over the murders at a clinic for soldiers suffering from war-related stress at Camp Liberty, the largest U.S. base in Iraq.

Russell, who previously denied responsibility, admitted the killings last month in a plea deal to escape a death sentence, worked out by his lawyers at Joint Base Lewis-McChord (JBLM), in the northwestern U.S. state of Washington.

On Thursday he was jailed for life, reduced to the rank of private and given a dishonorable discharge from the military, military spokeswoman Barbara Junius told AFP.

At the time of the Camp Liberty killings, the incident represented the single deadliest toll on U.S. forces in a month in Iraq, and came at a sensitive moment in the US military’s occupation of the country it invaded in 2003.

Russell was on his third tour of duty in Iraq, and his unit was preparing to leave the country.

Due to concerns over Russell’s mental state, his commanding officer had ordered about a week before the shooting that his weapon be confiscated and that he get counseling.

After pleading guilty last month, Russell gave an account of the killings for the first time. The victims were three soldiers receiving care at the clinic and two medical officers.

“I just did it out of rage, sir,” he told the military judge, Col. David Conn, describing how he walked from room to room firing at mental health workers and patients.

“I was upset. I do not remember being angry, but I know that everyone who witnessed me outside the combat stress clinic said I looked angry,” the Los Angeles Times quoted him as saying.

Read More Voice Of Russia Here

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Flag of U.S. - Israeli - Saudi Allegiance photo Flagofamericanisraelisaudiallegiance_zpsef286a11.jpg

Flag of U.S. – Israeli – Saudi Allegiance  

~Desert Rose~

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In Wake of US-Israeli Attack on Syria, UN Reveals Terrorists Not Government Used Sarin Gas

So-called “red line” both drawn and then crossed by US-Saudi-Israeli axis and their terrorist proxies. 

May 6, 2013 (LD) – The reasoning behind recent US-Israeli attacks on Syria has been undermined further as the UN reveals Western-backed terrorists, not the Syrian government, deployed sarin gas during the 2 year conflict. Reuters reported in their article, “U.N. has testimony that Syrian rebels used sarin gas: investigator,” that:

U.N. human rights investigators have gathered testimony from casualties of Syria’s civil war and medical staff indicating that rebel forces have used the nerve agent sarin, one of the lead investigators said on Sunday.

The United Nations independent commission of inquiry on Syria has not yet seen evidence of government forces having used chemical weapons, which are banned under international law, said commission member Carla Del Ponte.

“Our investigators have been in neighboring countries interviewing victims, doctors and field hospitals and, according to their report of last week which I have seen, there are strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof of the use of sarin gas, from the way the victims were treated,” Del Ponte said in an interview with Swiss-Italian television.

Why the Small Amounts of Sarin Cited by Washington, Riyadh, and Tel Aviv are a Set Up 

The small amounts of sarin gas reportedly used would defy any tactical or strategic sense had they been deployed by the Syrian government to tip the balance in the destructive 2-year conflict. According to the US military’s own assessments of chemical weapon use during the 1980′s Iran-Iraq War, only under ideal conditions and with massive amounts of chemical agents can tactical and strategic outcomes be achieved – and that conventional weapons were still, by far, superior to chemical weapons of any kind.

A document produced by the US Marine Corps, titled, “Lessons Learned: The Iran-Iraq War” under “Appendix B: Chemical Weapons,” provides a comprehensive look at the all-out chemical warfare that took place during the devastating 8 year Iranian-Iraqi conflict. Several engagements are studied in detail, revealing large amounts of chemical agents deployed mainly to create areas of denial, not mass casualties.

The effectiveness and lethality of chemical weapons is summarized in the document as follows (emphasis added):

Chemical weapons require quite particular weather and geographic conditions for optimum effectiveness. Given the relative nonpersistence of all agents employed during this war, including mustard, there was only a brief window of employment opportunity both daily and seasonally, when the agents could be used. Even though the Iraqis employed mustard agent in the rainy season and also in the marshes, its effectiveness was significantly reduced under those conditions. As the Iraqis learned to their chagrin, mustard is not a good agent to employ in the mountains, unless you own the high ground and your enemy is in the valleys.

We are uncertain as to the relative effectiveness of nerve agents since those which were employed are by nature much less persistent than mustard. In order to gain killing concentrations of these agents, predawn attacks are best, conducted in areas where the morning breezes are likely to blow away from friendly positions.

Chemical weapons have a low kill ratio. Just as in WWl, during which the ratio of deaths to injured from chemicals was 2-3 percent, that figure appears to be borne out again in this war although reliable data on casualties are very difficult to obtain. We deem it remarkable that the death rate should hold at such a low level even with the introduction of nerve agents. If those rates are correct, as they well may be, this further reinforces the position that we must not think of chemical weapons as “a poor man’s nuclear weapon.” While such weapons have great psychological potential, they are not killers or destroyers on a scale with nuclear or biological weapons.

Clearly, the minute amounts of sarin the West has accused the Syrian government of using, makes no tactical, political, or strategic sense. However, these small amounts of sarin gas, now suspected to be the work of Western-backed terrorists, would have been perfect for establishing a pretext for Western military intervention, and in fact, have been in part cited by the US and Israel in their latest, unprovoked aerial assault on Damascus.

The terrorists operating in Syria possess the means and motivation to carry out such an operation, as do their Western sponsors.

Where Did Western-backed Terrorists Obtain Sarin? 

A number of methods could have lent sarin gas to terrorists operating in Syria – from Turkey, Israel, and the US simply handing select units the chemical agent in a clandestine operation, to Libyan terrorists confirmed to have been flooding into Syria for the past 2 years, bringing looted chemical stockpiles with them after NATO’s disastrous invasion in 2011 left them in the hands of a sectarian extremist regime.

Image: (via the Guardian) “Chemical containers in the Libyan desert. There are concerns unguarded weapons could fall into the hands of Islamist militants. Photograph: David Sperry/AP”

….

Indeed, Libya’s arsenal had fallen into the hands of sectarian extremists with NATO assistance in 2011 in the culmination of efforts to overthrow the North African nation . Since then, Libya’s militants led by commanders of Al Qaeda’s Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) have armed sectarian extremists across the Arab World, from as far West as Mali, to as far East as Syria.

Libyan LIFG terrorists are confirmed to be flooding into Syria from Libya. In November 2011, the Telegraph in their article, “Leading Libyan Islamist met Free Syrian Army opposition group,” would report:

Abdulhakim Belhadj, head of the Tripoli Military Council and the former leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, “met with Free Syrian Army leaders in Istanbul and on the border with Turkey,” said a military official working with Mr Belhadj. “Mustafa Abdul Jalil (the interim Libyan president) sent him there.”

Another Telegraph article, “Libya’s new rulers offer weapons to Syrian rebels,” would admit

Syrian rebels held secret talks with Libya’s new authorities on Friday, aiming to secure weapons and money for their insurgency against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, The Daily Telegraph has learned.

At the meeting, which was held in Istanbul and included Turkish officials, the Syrians requested “assistance” from the Libyan representatives and were offered arms, and potentially volunteers.
“There is something being planned to send weapons and even Libyan fighters to Syria,” said a Libyan source, speaking on condition of anonymity. “There is a military intervention on the way. Within a few weeks you will see.”

Later that month, some 600 Libyan terrorists would be reported to have entered Syria to begin combat operations and have been flooding into the country ever since.

Image: Libyan Mahdi al-Harati of the US State Department, United Nations, and the UK Home Office (page 5, .pdf)-listed terrorist organization, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), addressing fellow terrorists in Syria. Harati is now commanding a Libyan brigade operating inside of Syria attempting to destroy the Syrian government and subjugate the Syrian population. Traditionally, this is known as “foreign invasion.” 

….

In Time’s article, “Libya’s Fighters Export Their Revolution to Syria,” it is reported:

Some Syrians are more frank about the assistance the Libyans are providing. “They have heavier weapons than we do,” notes Firas Tamim, who has traveled in rebel-controlled areas to keep tabs on foreign fighters. “They brought these weapons to Syria, and they are being used on the front lines.” Among the arms Tamim has seen are Russian-made surface-to-air missiles, known as the SAM 7.

Libyan fighters largely brush off questions about weapon transfers, but in December they claimed they were doing just that. “We are in the process of collecting arms in Libya,” a Libyan fighter in Syria told the French daily Le Figaro. “Once this is done, we will have to find a way to bring them here.”

democracynow democracynow

Published on Apr 19, 2013

http://www.democracynow.org – In 1982, investigative journalist Allan Nairn interviewed a Guatemalan general named “Tito” on camera during the height of the indigenous massacres. It turns out the man was actually Otto Pérez Molina, the current Guatemalan president. We air the original interview footage and speak to Nairn about the U.S. role backing the Guatemalan dictatorship. Last week, Nairn flew to Guatemala where he had been scheduled to testify in the trial of former U.S.-backed dictator Efraín Ríos Montt, the first head of state in the Americas to stand trial for genocide. Ríos Montt was charged in connection with the slaughter of more than 1,700 people in Guatemala’s Ixil region after he seized power in 1982. His 17-month rule is seen as one of the bloodiest chapters in Guatemala’s decades-long campaign against Maya indigenous people, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands. The trial took a surprising turn last week when Guatemala President Gen. Otto Pérez Molina was directly accused of ordering executions. A former military mechanic named Hugo Reyes told the court that Pérez Molina, then serving as an army major and using the name Tito Arias, ordered soldiers to burn and pillage a Maya Ixil area in the 1980s.

Exclusive: Allan Nairn Exposes Role of U.S., New Guatemalan President in Indigenous Massacres 2 of 2

democracynow democracynow

Published on Apr 19, 2013

http://www.democracynow.org – In 1982, investigative journalist Allan Nairn interviewed a Guatemalan general named “Tito” on camera during the height of the indigenous massacres. It turns out the man was actually Otto Pérez Molina, the current Guatemalan president. We air the original interview footage and speak to Nairn about the U.S. role backing the Guatemalan dictatorship. Last week, Nairn flew to Guatemala where he had been scheduled to testify in the trial of former U.S.-backed dictator Efraín Ríos Montt, the first head of state in the Americas to stand trial for genocide. Ríos Montt was charged in connection with the slaughter of more than 1,700 people in Guatemala’s Ixil region after he seized power in 1982. His 17-month rule is seen as one of the bloodiest chapters in Guatemala’s decades-long campaign against Maya indigenous people, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands. The trial took a surprising turn last week when Guatemala President Gen. Otto Pérez Molina was directly accused of ordering executions. A former military mechanic named Hugo Reyes told the court that Pérez Molina, then serving as an army major and using the name Tito Arias, ordered soldiers to burn and pillage a Maya Ixil area in the 1980s.

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White House releases additional documents related to Benghazi response

 photo WhiteHousereleasesadditionaldocumentsrelatedtoBenghaziresponse_zpsf87a1d23.jpg

One hundred pages of emails were passed out by the White House Wednesday as the Obama administration tried to put an end to the long simmering dispute over what took place when the American compound in Benghazi was attacked. NBC’s Peter Alexander reports.

Under increasing scrutiny from congressional Republicans, the White House on Wednesday released copies of emails and other additional supporting documents related to its response to last fall’s attack on a U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya.

The White House released the materials in the wake of Republicans’ clamor for more information about how the Obama administration crafted its explanation for the incident, which came at the height of last year’s campaign season, and resulted in the deaths of four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens.

The emails convey different parts of the administration — the White House, the State Department, and the CIA — trading drafts of talking points for use not just by representatives of the administration, but also by members of Congress.

Read part one of the White House emails (.pdf)

From the very first draft, the talking points included references to “Islamic extremists” who might have participated in the attack.

The most significant changes involved removing references to Ansar al-Sharia to not hinder the investigation into the attack, and changing reference to the Benghazi location to a “mission” or “diplomatic post,” rather than a consulate.

Those talking points, though, were subjected to scrutiny and a series of tweaks from different agencies to ensure the talking points did not get out in front of investigators, who did not yet appear to have a full grasp of the underpinnings of the attack at that point.

Read Full Article and Watch Video Here

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Did the White House selectively leak e-mail to distort Benghazi timeline story? Update: Axelrod: Release all the Libya e-mails

posted at 9:21 am on May 15, 2013 by Ed Morrissey

In order to understand just how badly the White House may have fumbled this ball, let’s go back to last week.  Stephen Hayes at the Weekly Standard reported from Congressional sources on a White House-State Department e-mail string that made clear that the administration wanted the talking points on Benghazi massaged to protect sources and its own political goals.  ABCs Jon Karl later reported from the e-mails themselves, showing that the White House and State Department went through 12 versions of talking points before settling on the final version, which CIA Director Davod Petraeus called “useless” and advised against using.

Yesterday, however — not too long before Jay Carney’s press briefing at the White House — Jake Tapper got a leaked version of an e-mail sent by Ben Rhodes that seemed to contradict the reporting from Hayes and Karl:

CNN has obtained an e-mail sent by a top aide to President Barack Obama about White House reaction to the deadly attack last September 11 on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, that apparently differs from how sources characterized it to two different media organizations.

The actual e-mail from then-Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communications Ben Rhodes appears to show that whomever leaked it did so in a way that made it appear that the White House was primarily concerned with the State Department’s desire to remove references and warnings about specific terrorist groups so as to not bring criticism to the department.

During the press conference, Carney seized on this report to claim that the Benghazi story was a trumped-up non-story:


Read Full Article Here

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MSNBC Panelists Agree That Benghazi Scandal Makes White House Look Terrible

AIMArchives

Published on May 14, 2013

Guests n MSNBC’s Now with Alex Wagner were in general agreement that the Benghazi scandal makes the White House look terrible, with one even bringing up the possibility of impeaching Obama.

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State Department Conducts Secret Visit with Death Squad Leader in Syria

image source

Brandon Turbeville
Activist Post

As the Syrian army continues to gain the upper hand against the NATO-backed death squads made up of mercenaries, fanatics, and al-Qaeda terrorists, it appears that the Western powers responsible for the creation of the armed and violent rebellion have kicked into high gear as the advance of their proxy army has been stalled.

Even though the barbarism of death squad participants seems to have recently hit a fever pitch, while Israeli air strikes on sovereign Syrian soil are targeting military and civilian targets alike, and new found erroneous claims by Western nations of the use of chemical weapons by the Assad government, the Syrian army has managed to continue its mop up of the inappropriately named “rebels.”

Yet the Western agitators have not given up. This much is made clear by the recent “secret” visit by former U.S. Ambassador to Syria and notorious destabilization agent Robert Ford made to the current death squad leader, Gen. Salim Idriss.

This visit took place Wednesday, May 9, 2013 and was likely initiated via the Bab al-Salama crossing on the Turkey/Syria border. According to Deborah Thomas of NPR, “Ford met with the head of the Aleppo military council, Abdul Jabbar Okaidi, who thanked him for the shipment of nonlethal aid. Seven trucks transported some 65,000 MREs, or meals ready to eat, the U.S. military’s battlefield rations.”

Although no mention is made of the actual lethal aid that has been provided to the death squads by the generosity of the American taxpayer via Gulf State feudal monarchies such as Saudi Arabia, Thomas points out that the MREs were part of “an additional $10 million aid package” dedicated to the death squads by the U.S. government. Secretary of State John Kerry announced in April that the United States would be donating $123 million to the Syrian death squads, despite facing a worldwide economic depression, drastic levels of unemployment at home, and a manufactured crisis such as the “sequester” and a host of other domestic crises.

Ford’s visit to Syria is both part of the overarching attempt to further destabilize the country, organize death squad activity, and create a public relations campaign aimed at forming an image of Idriss as a figure around which popular support can be rallied. This, of course, is at least the third time Western interests have attempted to create a “freedom fighter” lead image for the Syrian death squads – Moaz al-Khatib and Ghassan Hitto being the more recent failures.

Idriss appears to be nothing more than the latest incarnation of a would-be puppet dictator set up to impose the Western will upon the Syrian people and act as a proxy stabilizing force in the event of the much-desired (on the part of NATO) removal of Assad. Idriss was actually a military officer in the Assad government himself until defecting in 2012. Now, he is the official commander of the Free Syrian Army and thus a comrade in arms of al-Qaeda, al-Nusra, and a ragtag band of fanatics, mental deficients, traitors, and mercenaries.

As Webster Tarpley commented on PressTV on May 10, 2013,

Well, I think we have some mixed signals from the Obama regime here. Let us hasten to say that anybody calling themselves “Free Syrian Army” is, in fact, a representative of the al-Nusra Front because we’re getting reports everyday of more and more units of the so-called FSA showing their true colors or going over to Nusra and proclaiming themselves full-fledged terrorists, al-Qaeda disciples, death squads in every sense of the word. Now, we had, in the last twenty four hours, Ambassador Robert Ford of the State Department, somebody who did a lot to get this tragic rebellion going in the first place . . . Ambassador Robert Ford who is a taskmaster of death squad deployments, having learned it from Negrponte in Baghdad some years ago, he crossed into Syria, not with the permission of the Syrian government, but to go and meet General Idriss. And this General, Salim Idriss, is the new golden boy here. He is the new darling of the CIA and the State Department. And it looks like Ford is trying to coordinate the next move with Idriss. You can think of Idriss as the new Ahmed Chalabi – somebody the U.S. is grooming to become dictator of the country.

Of course, this is not the first time that Ford has engaged in a publicity-based visit to the Syrian death squads inside Syria, thus drawing the ire of the Syrian government. In 2011, after his travel as U.S. Ambassador had been restricted due to his destabilization efforts already taking place, Ford traveled to Hama in order to promote and encourage the violent assault waged by the Western-backed death squads against innocent Syrian civilians as well as Syrian soldiers.

Ford’s very presence in Syria was never anything more than a destabilization tactic. Indeed, he has managed to draw quite a bit of international attention to himself by traveling across the country at will, “meeting with protestors” and turning terrorists into martyrs in the minds of the gullible Western public.

Logically, by “meeting with protestors” one can read “instigating terrorism.” The mainstream media, however, reported Ford’s terror encouragement tour as a heroic act of solidarity with “the people.”

Ford’s action in Syria, even as the official U.S. Ambassador, served exactly the same purpose as his presence in Iraq only a few years previous. With Syria, however, it seems that Ford attempted to take on a more central role in the affair. Indeed, many Syrians, if not aware of the more specific sinister acts of Ford, are at least aware that he has been instrumental in fomenting violent rebellion and negative Western public opinion against the ruling government. This is why Ford’s convoy was attacked by “pro-government” Syrians as he rode through town meeting with his terrorist pets.

The reality is that Ford is nothing more than a globalist chaos promoter who is merely taking over from his mentor John Negroponte, who became quite refined as a enabler of mass slaughter in Central America and Iraq. Indeed, Negroponte’s Iraq affair is where Ford himself was able to hone his skills in the arming and assistance of ruthless death squads who target innocent people in campaigns of terror and mass murder.

It should be noted that Prof. Michel Chossudovsky of GlobalResearch.ca has provided an excellent historical presentation of the connections of Negroponte, Ford, and even David Petraeus in relation to death squads and destabilization in his article “The Pentagon’s ‘Salvador Option’: The Deployment of Death Squads in Iraq and Syria.” I encourage everyone to read this excellent piece for context and analysis as a companion to my own article.

Read Full Article Here

Convicted abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell is spared death penalty

 

 

Dr. Kermit Gosnell

Dr. Kermit Gosnell is escorted to a police van upon leaving the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia after being convicted. (Yong Kim / Associated Press / May 13, 2013)

 

PHILADELPHIA — Kermit Gosnell, the abortion doctor convicted of killing three babies who were born alive in his grimy clinic, agreed Tuesday to give up his right to an appeal and now faces life in prison but will be spared a death sentence.

The 72-year-old Philadelphia doctor was found guilty Monday of first-degree murder in the deaths of the babies, who were killed with scissors.

In a case that became a flash point in the nation’s abortion debate, former clinic employees testified that Gosnell routinely performed illegal abortions past Pennsylvania’s 24-week limit, that he delivered babies who were still moving, whimpering or breathing, and that he and his assistants dispatched the newborns by “snipping” their spines, as he referred to it.

Prosecutors agreed to two life sentences without parole, and Gosnell was to be sentenced Wednesday in the death of the third baby, an involuntary manslaughter conviction in the death of a patient and hundreds of lesser counts.

Prosecutors had sought the death penalty because Gosnell killed more than one person, and his victims were especially vulnerable given their age. But Gosnell’s advanced age had made it unlikely he would ever be executed before his appeals ran out.

Gosnell has said he considered himself a pioneering inner-city doctor who helped desperate women get late-term abortions. Defense lawyer Jack McMahon said before the sentencing deal that his client’s bid for acquittal was a battle.

“The media has been overwhelmingly against him,” McMahon said. “But I think the jury listened to the evidence … and they found what they found.”

The gruesome details of Gosnell’s operation came out more than two years ago during a grand jury investigation of prescription drug trafficking. Authorities raiding Gosnell’s clinic for drugs instead found bags and bottles of fetuses, including jars of severed feet, along with bloodstained furniture, dirty medical instruments and cats roaming the premises.

 

 

Read Full Article Here

corbettreport corbettreport

Published on May 8, 2013

TRANSCRIPT AND SOURCES: http://www.corbettreport.com/?p=7341

As investigative reporter Daniel Hopsicker has demonstrated, the address for the Congress of Chechen International Organizations just happened to be the home address of Graham E. Fuller, formerly Vice Chairman of the Reagan-era CIA’s National Intelligence Council. The relationship between Ruslan and this former top CIA official was not a loose one. Tsarni married Fuller’s daughter in the mid-1990s and lived in Fuller’s home for some time, basing his terror-supporting operation under Fuller’s own roof.

 

The BBC visits Lorain Avenue in Cleveland to find out how the missing girls cases impacted a community

 

Ohio prosecutors have said they plan to seek aggravated murder charges that could carry the death penalty, against the man suspected of imprisoning three women for about a decade.

 

The charges relate to alleged forced miscarriages suffered by one victim.

 

Ariel Castro, 52, was arraigned in court earlier for the kidnap and rape of Amanda Berry, 27, Gina DeJesus, 23 and Michelle Knight, 32.

 

Ms Berry escaped on Monday and was able to raise the alarm.

 

Cuyahoga County prosecutor Tim McGinty said the murder charges were based on evidence from one of the women held captive in Mr Castro’s house that he had impregnated her, then physically abused and starved her in order to induce miscarriages.

‘Private prison’

“I fully intend to seek charges for each and every act of sexual violence, rape, each day of kidnapping, every felonious assault, all his attempted murders, and each act of aggravated murder he committed by terminating pregnancies that the offender perpetuated against the hostages during this decade-long ordeal,” Mr McGinty told a news conference.

 

Tim McGinty, prosecutor: “These women desperately need a chance to heal before we seek further evidence”

 

“My office will also engage in a formal process in which we evaluate to seek charges eligible for the death penalty.

 

“This child kidnapper operated a torture chamber and private prison in the heart of our city,” he added.

 

Earlier on Thursday, Mr Castro appeared in court in Cleveland, handcuffed and dressed in blue overalls. He did not enter a plea.

 

He is charged with four counts of kidnapping, covering the three initial abduction victims and Jocelyn, Ms Berry’s six-year-old daughter, who was apparently conceived and born in captivity.

 

The former school bus driver also faces three counts of rape, one against each woman.

 

Read Full Article Here

 

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Cleveland rescue: The mystery of 2207 Seymour Avenue

 

A view of Seymour Avenue

 

 

Ariel Castro’s house at 2207 Seymour Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio, is yet to give up many of its secrets.

 

What lies inside the run-down clapboard house where Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight are said to have spent their captivity?

 

The house appears to have been the scene of a double life – as Mr Castro’s home and as a kidnap den where he is alleged to have held three women captive for almost a decade.

 

The two-storey building stands right in the middle of a tree-lined street in Cleveland’s West Side neighbourhood – a working-class area home to a close-knit community.

 

Few details have been confirmed about what it contains, but some facts are known.

 

Mr Castro bought the house in 1992 for $12,000 (£7,750), according to the Cuyahoga County Auditor’s office. In 2012, it was valued at $36,100 (£23,300).

 

The property currently faces repossession over the non-payment of taxes, with Mr Castro owing some $2,501 (£1,615) in taxes for the period 2010-12.

 

The property has four bedrooms, a bathroom, a 760sq ft (71sq m) basement, two porches and an attic. There is also a detached garage.

 

They [the women] had no ability to leave the home or interact with anyone other than each other, the child and the suspect”

US law enforcement official

 

The continuing investigation and charges of kidnap and rape levelled at Mr Castro centre on what happened to the women while they were in the house.

 

Ariel Castro’s son, Anthony – who says he visited the house just two weeks ago – told MailOnline that the doors to the basement, the attic and the garage were always padlocked and family members were not allowed to go there.

 

Anthony Castro described his father as a violent and controlling man, who beat him and nearly killed his mother in the early 1990s.

 

After years of abuse, his mother decided to move out of the house in 1996, taking him and his three sisters with her, Mr Castro said.

 

“It’s astonishing to even think… that I was so close to that. That I was physically at the house two weeks ago while that was going on, it’s a lot to grasp,” he said.

 

What did Ariel Castro’s neighbours know?

 

Police are yet to release any pictures from the inside of the property, but one law enforcement official has described the conditions there as “abysmal at best”.

 

“They (the women) had no ability to leave the home or interact with anyone other than each other, the child and the suspect,” the official told the New York Times.

 

Media reports also suggest that the authorities have discovered chains and tape inside the house allegedly used to restrain the women.

 

A police report suggests the women were all initially kept chained in the cellar, but eventually allowed to live on the second floor of the house.

 

One report cites the victims as saying the “big inside door” of the home was usually locked when Mr Castro went out. On Monday, he apparently forgot to lock it as he went to a nearby McDonald’s.

 

Even so, Amanda Berry was afraid to break open the locked storm door because “she thought Ariel (Castro) was testing her,” said the police report.

 

Instead, she tried to get the attention of neighbours to help; her screams were heard by Charles Ramsey who lived across the street and came to the rescue.

 

Police say officers were sent to the house twice, in 2000 and 2004.

 

In March 2000, Ariel Castro reported a fight on the street – but no arrests were made. In January 2004 police went to the address after Mr Castro, then a school bus driver, reportedly left a child on a bus. No-one appeared to be in the house.

 

An investigation later found no criminal intent by Mr Castro, police told local news site Cleveland.com.

Several miscarriages

Rather than celebrating their birthdays, in a bizarre ritual, the captor would apparently give his victims cake to mark their “abduction day”, one victim’s cousin was quoted as telling US media.

 

In recent years, the kidnapper was occasionally seen walking in the area with a young girl – apparently Jocelyn, whom he fathered with Ms Berry and with whom he also visited relatives, reported the New York Times.

 

One cousin from Ohio said Mr Castro had visited with a well-presented girl a couple of years ago, whom the suspect had introduced as his granddaughter.

 

Apparently the suspect had insisted Jocelyn was not told the names of Ms Knight or Ms DeJesus in case she repeated them in public.

 

Read Full Article Here

Gregory Hicks (Whistleblower) Embarrassed By Blame Placed On YouTube Video. Benghazi Hearing


Published on May 8, 2013

Trey Gowdy (R-SC) used his short time addressing former deputy chief of mission for the U.S. in Libya, Gregory Hicks, to establish the fact that the American diplomatic staff in Libya were “embarrassed” by the White House’s effort to blame the Benghazi attack on an inflammatory YouTube video. Gowdy established that the State Department had informed the Libyan government on the day after the attack that “Islamic terrorists” were likely behind the assault.

“When Ambassador [Christopher] Stevens talked to you perhaps minutes before he died, as a dying declaration, what did he say to you?” Gowdy asked.

“He said, ‘Greg, we’re under attack,” Hicks replied.

Gowdy and Hicks established that there was no demonstration outside the consulate that day. He noted that U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice proceeded to blame the attack on a video. When asked what his reaction to Rice’s statements was, Hick’s replied, “I was stunned. My jaw dropped. And I was embarrassed.”

RELATED: LIVE STREAM: Witnesses Testify At House Committee Hearing On Benghazi

Gowdy read from a portion of an email form an aide to former Sec. Hilary Clinton which stated that the State Department had informed the Libyan government that the individuals who carried out the attack were linked to “Islamic terrorists.”

“Mr. Hicks, I want to know, number one, why in the world would Susan Rice go on five Sunday talk shows and perpetuate a demonstrably false narrative?” Gowdy asked. “And secondarily, what impact did it have on the ground in Benghazi the fact that she contradicted the president of Libya?”

Hicks declined to answer the first question, but said Rice’s statements helped facilitate introducing FBI investigators into Libya. Bureacuracy in Llbya hampered the investigation’s progress, however, and the crime scene was left unsecured for 18 days.

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US officials blocked rescue effort while Benghazi burned, Congress told

Diplomat Gregory Hicks accuses State Department of cover-up in evidence that may yet hurt Hillary Clinton’s White House bid

Gregory Hicks testifies to the congressional hearing

Gregory Hicks claimed he was scolded for giving critical evidence to investigators without the presence of a ‘minder’ from State. Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images

While US diplomats were pulling bodies from a burning Libyan consulate and frantically smashing up hard drives last 11 September, their superiors blocked rescue efforts and later attempted to cover up security failings, according to damaging new evidence that may yet hurt Hillary Clinton‘s presidential hopes.

In vivid testimony to Congress on Wednesday, Gregory Hicks, deputy to murdered US ambassador Christopher Stevens, revealed for the first time in public a detailed account of the desperate few hours after the terrorist attacks on the US consulate in Benghazi.

He also said that Stevens went to Benghazi to beat a 30 September deadline to convert the mission to a permanent posting. There was additional time pressure because Clinton planned to visit Libya later in the year and to announce the opening of the post, Hicks said.

But Hicks and two other state department witnesses also singled out the government response for criticism. Until now that criticism had been largely dismissed as a partisan effort by Republican congressman to smear former Clinton, who was secretary of state at the time.

Hicks claimed Clinton’s chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, telephoned him to complain that he had given critical evidence to congressional investigators without the presence of a “minder” from the state department. “A phone call from that senior a person is generally considered not to be good news,” said Hicks, who said he had since been demoted. “She was upset. She was very upset.”

The career diplomat also alleged he was actively discouraged by officials from asking awkward questions about why other top Clinton aides, including the UN ambassador Susan Rice, initially blamed the attack on a spontaneous protest that got out of control. He described that briefing he described as “jaw-dropping, embarrassing and stunning”. It is now thought the attacks, involving up to 60 heavily armed militia, were co-ordinated by Ansar al-Sharia, a group affiliated to al-Qaida, and timed to coincide with the 11th anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington.

The allegations of a state department cover-up follow equally embarrassing claims that military leaders blocked efforts to dispatch special forces troops to the Benghazi consulate.

In testimony that first emerged on Monday, Hicks claims that four special forces soldiers with him in Tripoli were “furious” when they were told by superiors in Washington that they could not join a relief flight to Benghazi organised by the Libyan government in the hours after the initial attack.

Mark Thompson, a former marine who heads the foreign emergency support team, also alleged that the White House blocked his efforts to dispatch a specialist group from the US that is designed to respond to incidents such as the Benghazi attaack.

Hicks said he was told that US air force jets based in Italy could have reached the consulate in “two to three hours” but were blocked, out of fear of offending the Libyan government, and because a refuelling tanker could not be found.

Pentagon officials have repeatedly argued that none of the available military assets could have reached Benghazi in time to prevent the death of ambassador Stevens and three other consular staff. But Hicks insisted even if they had been too late, better attempts should have been made. “People in peril in future need to know that we will go to get them,” he said. “That night we needed to demonstrate that resolve even if we still had the same outcome.”

Hicks also rejected the defence given by Hillary Clinton when pressed on the initial delay in attributing the attack to terrorists, arguing the US undermined its Libyan allies who were rightly pointing to Ansar al-Sharia.

“President Magarief was insulted in front of his own people, in front of the world. His credibility was reduced. His ability to govern was [damaged]. He was angry … He was still steamed about the talk shows two weeks later. I definitely believe it negatively affected our ability to get the FBI team quickly to Benghazi.”

Read Full Article Here

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Gregory Hicks (Whistlesblower) Benghazi Testimony Pt1

Les Grossman


Published on May 8, 2013

Hicks said that the day of the attack was a routine day until they say news of the earlier Cairo embassy-storming attempt. He informed his superior, Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens of the attempt.

Later in the day he received a message the attack had started. He went to the tactical operations center, while on the phone with the ambassador. The call was cut due to poor cell performance. After reaching the center, Hicks received more information about the attack and next called the annex chief to activate their emergency response team.

He then called the operations center at the State Department to report the attack and their response. He then called senior officials in Libya to request assistance from the local government. After that was done he reported it to Washington.

According to Hicks, the night unfolded in four phases. There was an attack on the diplomatic annex. The villa was invaded were several of the casualties were. The 6 person response team from Bengazhi managed to temporarily clear the diplomatic compound. The body of Shawn Smith was pulled out during this time. There was a second wave of attackers and the teams evacuated to another location.

The second phase commenced when the team returned to the annex later in the night. They suffered several probing attacks but repelled them. The Tripoli response team begins to arrive during this phase.

Phase three is when the ambassador’s body was recovered. Reports came out that the ambassador was taken to hospital that was suspect to be controlled by Islamic militants. Hicks received conflicted reports of the location of the ambassador. He then received reports that the embassy in Tripoli was under attack and the staff prepared to evacuate. He is also keeping Washington informed

At 2:00 A.M. he receives a call from Sec. of State Clinton; They mostly talked about the search of the ambassador and the need to evacuate. Clinton agrees with evacuation. The PM of Libya called around 3:00 A.M. to inform Hicks of the ambassadors’ death. Hicks immediately telephoned Washington of the news.

The team destroyed all of the information in the annex as is standard US diplomatic procedure. They decided to evacuate at dawn and arrived at another compound. The mortar attack started when they arrived. The attack killed several.

Hicks claims that they were in them process of evacuating to a plane but the security officer who was in charge did not have authorization to go ahead.

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Reps. Chaffetz & Lynch Clash Over Intimidation Of Benghazi Witnesses On Fox News Sunday

Published on May 5, 2013

Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) and Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA) paid a visit to Fox News Sunday this week to talk Benghazi. Speaking of the investigation into the review and the charge that witnesses have been blocked from testifying, the pair clashed over the arguments, with Lynch asserting that Democrats have been left out of the whole process.

“The Republicans control the House,” Lynch said. “We don’t have the ability to hold a hearing. The Democrats have been completely kept out of this whole process. This has been a one-sided investigation, if you want to call it that. … I think it’s disgraceful.”

Chaffetz said that witnesses have “absolutely” been threatened and intimidated from coming forward. They’re “scared to the death” of what the State Department is doing, he asserted. Lynch jumped in to argue that Chaffetz’s assertions were “completely false” — that the attorneys have not asked for the information yet and, in fact, the State Department would cooperate.

Not surprisingly, Chaffetz was insistent about his story, further adding that Democrats are more than welcome to participate in the process. But they simply haven’t. The congressmen refuted nearly every point they made to each other, neither agreeing on much about where the situation stands.

Chris Wallace later jumped in to pose the question about how much then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton knew about the security requests (which she said she never saw). Every cable that goes to the department, he told Chaffetz, has Clinton’s name on it — so that’s not necessarily a way to argue that Clinton should have seen that cable. Chaffetz by asking for the release of the unclassified document.

Clinton, he argued, “claims” to take full responsibility for what happened, but simultaneously “pleads ignorance.”

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Diplomat: State Lawyers Told Me Not to Speak to GOP Lawmaker Probing Benghazi

May 8, 2013

Hicks, Thompson and Nordstrom at Benghazi hearing

Former deputy chief of mission in Libya Gregory Hicks, center, prepares to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on May 8, 2013. He is flanked by fellow witnesses Mark Thompson, deputy coordinator for operations in the State Department’s counterterrorism bureau, and Eric Nordstrom, formerly the department’s regional security officer in Libya. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

(CNSNews.com) – A senior U.S. diplomat in Libya was instructed by State Department lawyers – for the first time in his 22-year foreign service career – not to speak to a visiting lawmaker who was investigating last September’s attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, a congressional panel heard Wednesday.

“I was instructed not to allow the RSO [regional security officer], the acting deputy chief of mission and myself to be personally interviewed by Congressman Chaffetz,” Gregory Hicks, who was the number two official at the embassy in Libya at the time of the attack, told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), who chairs the committee’s subcommittee on national security, homeland defense and foreign operations, visited Libya to investigate the Sept. 11 attack in which U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, foreign service officer Sean Smith and Navy Seals Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty were killed.

“So, the people at State told you, ‘Don’t talk to the guy who’s coming to investigate’?” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) asked Hicks during Wednesday’s hearing.

“Yes, sir,” Hicks replied.

“Have you ever had anyone tell you, ‘Don’t talk with the people from Congress coming to find out what took place’?”

“Never.”

“Never,” Jordan continued. “And you’ve had dozens and dozens of congressional delegations that you’ve been a part of.”

“Yes, sir.”

“First time it’s ever happened.”

“Yes, sir.”

Hicks confirmed in response to further questioning that, when Chaffetz arrived in Libya a State Department lawyer had sought to be present at every meeting with the congressman.

Read Full Article Here

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Whistleblower on Amb. Rice’s 5 Talk Shows: “I Was Stunned. My Jaw Dropped. I Was Embarrassed.”

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