Machiavellian dance of the Devil will end pretty badly soonest.....

Fouad MOSSAD SINIORA, Samir CIA-MOSSAD GEAGEA the assassin..., Amine CIA GEMAYEL the despicable clown...;Marwan MOSSAD Hamade and Walid CIA-MOSSAD Jumblatt are stooges and Lackeys for DECADES....their Machiavellian dance with the Devil will end pretty badly soonest.

مروان حماده لا يعرف إلا الكلام بلغة رئيسه ساركوزي الذي اثبت ولاءه للصهيونية وكذلك كل زعران 14 آذار تحت راية عقالات النفط الصهيونية

NATO Conceals Preparations for Military Action against Syria and Lebanon....

NATO Conceals Preparations for Military Action against Syria and Lebanon....


by Vadim Trukhachev

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaSN-CnEiK8&feature=player_embedded

The United States has decided to disengage itself from certain obligations under the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty (CFE). In particular, the USA will no longer inform Russia about plans connected with the redeployment of its forces. Those restrictions are not touching upon any other country.

"Today the United States announced in Vienna, Austria, that it would cease carrying out certain obligations under the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty with regard to Russia. This announcement in the CFE Treaty's implementation group comes after the United States and NATO Allies have tried over the past 4 years to find a diplomatic solution following Russia's decision in 2007 to cease implementation with respect to all other 29 CFE States. Since then, Russia has refused to accept inspections and ceased to provide information to other CFE Treaty parties on its military forces as required by the Treaty," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said on Tuesday.

...http://http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=27867

The remarks from the US diplomat look like another attempt to turn everything upside down again. It is worth mentioning here that the first version of the CFE Treaty was signed in 1990, during the existence of both NATO and the Warsaw Pact. The document stipulated a reduction of the number of tanks, armored vehicles, artillery (larger than 100 mm in caliber), combat planes and helicopters, as well as information exchange.

A renewed variant of the treaty was signed in 1999. The new edition reflected such changes in Europe as the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the expansion of NATO. However, only Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan ratified the new treaty. Russia moved a big part of its arms behind the Ural mountains, but the Western countries did not even want to execute it. The expansion of the North Atlantic Alliance continued, and NATO neared Russian borders.

At the end of 2007, Vladimir Putin decided to suspend Russia's participation in the CFE until the USA and its European allies ratified the renewed variant of the treaty. The Americans did not want to make any moves in that direction. Now they have decided not to inform Russia about the redeployment of its forces. This is obviously another violation of the treaty which the United States committed.

What consequences may Russia face as a result of the US decision? Pravda.Ru asked an expert opinion from the director of the Center for Military Forecasts, Anatoly Tsyganok.

"The USA will stop informing Russia about military redeployments. The Americans can technically send their troops to Latvia, Lithuania or Estonia, which did not sign the treaty. Will the Baltic states turn into an uncontrollable military center near Russia's borders?"

"When Russia suspended its participation in the CFE Treaty, she had the right to say that some NATO's newcomers, such as the Baltic states and Slovenia, had never signed the treaty. Now NATO eyes Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Lithuania and all other former members of the Warsaw Pact.

"When they were deciding on the unification of Germany in 1990, Germany and France said in the appendix to the agreement that NATO would not move beyond the Oder River (the river separates Germany and Poland - ed.). However, the West does not take this appendix into consideration. They only follow the agreement itself, which does not say a word about the non-expansion of the North Atlantic Alliance. It just so happens that the USA and its allies played a trick on Russia.

"Why did it take the United States four years to decide not to inform Russia about military redeployments?"

"Apparently, it is connected with the situation in the Mediterranean Sea. One may assume that NATO will create a military group near Russia's southern borders to strike Syria. They will most likely raise this issue at a NATO meeting in December. They will try to analyze Syria's actions in case NATO conducts a military operation against the country, like it already happened in Libya."

"Is Russia a big obstacle for conducting NATO's operation against Syria? Does the USA have anything to conceal from us at this point?"

"Russia is an obstacle, yes. We have a naval base in Syria's Tartus. The base is protected with air defense complexes, so the chances for aggression from NATO or Israel from the sea are slim. If they decide to attack, it will most likely happen from the side of Saudi Arabia. So the USA has something to conceal.

"There is another aspect to this. There are approximately 120,000 Russian citizens living in Syria. Presumably, a lot are Russian women who married local men. Russia can use this detail to interfere into the events in Syria.

In addition, 20 percent of the Russian defense complex will simply tip off the perch in case Russia loses the Syrian market. It is not ruled out that they are regrouping NATO forces to get ready for a war against Syria, and they don't want to notify Russia of that....

Meanwhile: Just another day in the Zioconned US Crumbling Empire of assassins.....

IAEA Exposed as Israeli Spy Front

IAEA Cries ‘Wolf’ Over Iran Nukes.....

By Gordon Duff, Senior Editor

This week, the media, all of it, traced stories about Iran’s nuclear weapons program to its real source.

The IAEA, which has been unable to locate the vast Dimona nuclear facility in Israel or even begin to ask questions about Israel’s illegal nuclear arsenal, has put together a “rigged” report built of rumors and spin.

The IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), a “quasi-official” group is, in fact, an Israeli intelligence organization, long infiltrated, long engulfed, long ago a force for propaganda and, primarily, an organization tasked with helping Israel “hide” its nuclear arsenal “in plain sight” while fabricating evidence.

To make it more plain, the IAEA is, in fact, a clandestine intelligence organization tasked by Israel to bring about a conflict between the United States and certain European powers and Iran.

It is a conflict that may eventually involve Russia, China, a conflict that is intended to manipulate fuel markets, crash currencies, sell arms and do everything but make the world more secure.

Were the IAEA to put out a report based on known falsehoods and spin under such circumstances, and we believe this fact to be easily supportable, members of the IAEA would be war criminals and should be considered combatants were any conflict to be entered upon based on their transgressions....

http://www.counterpunch.org/2004/06/04/who-is-john-negroponte/Ambassador to Death Squads

Who is John Negroponte?
by GHALI HASSAN

The White House has appointed Mr. John Dimitris Negroponte to be United States ambassador to Iraq. He will preside over the largest embassy in the world, and housed in the Republic Palace (misleadingly named Saddam’s Palace by the U.S. occupation). He will be protected by high concrete walls, barbed wires and more than 150,000 occupation force, including several thousands of foreign mercenaries armed to the teeth with the most violent tools. Mr. Negroponte is Greek-American diplomat. He is currently leading the diplomatic war against the people of Iraq as the U.S. envoy at the United Nations (UN) in New York. Negroponte is Jewish. A friend in Spain expressed his deep concern to me recently: " to appoint a Jew as ambassador to the Arab country that has been devastated because of the will of a cabal of Jewish neocons headed by Wolfowitz ­ Bush is just an accessory -, is like trying to put off a fire using buckets of gasoline".

Here is Negroponte's bio. One thing is screaming at me - he is listed as having served in the US Foreign Service from 1960 to 1997. It talks about what he did AFTER 1981 - and mere mention that he was in Asia before that. He also speaks fluent Vietnamese. He is in his 70s, old enough to have been some kind of operative during the Viet Nam war. Negroponte and those death squads

He was US ambassador to Honduras during the height of Iran Contra and he apparently helped create a significant US military presence in Honduras which aided the murderous government there - Negroponte is known to have been up to his eyeballs in it. As UN ambassador, he helped negotiate and bring to life the abomination called NAFTA. CIA guys all describe him as a cold ruthless guy beyond what is commonly found in intel circles - a spook even spooks fear basically. He is in CFR, also PNAC - PNAC is an ultra-Zionist neocon war-mongering cabal who helped lie us into the Iraq war - Negroponte famously sat behind Powell when Powell lied to the UN Security Council about Iraq's WMD.

Charming guy. We should give him the Nobel Peace Prize for this distinguished resume - he will shine next to fellow Nobel recipients, the war criminals and assassins of the infamous White House Murder INC, Kissinger and Obomba/CIA Skunks....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CdyezX3T08&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5L49L6iZSSg&feature=player_embedded

18 Former Senators Ask for the Release of “Israel’s Master Spy”


The best thing about keeping Jonathan Pollard in prison is that he then becomes a traitor-magnet, pulling all the Zionist Israeli firsters even more out into the open. Here is a list of 18 former US senators who this month have begged Israeli Vice President for American Affairs (IVPFAA) Baruch Obama to give Pollard a get-out-jail card so he can go to Israel and live in wealth.

Senator Steven Symms (R-ID); Senator Dennis DeConcini (D-AZ); Senator Alan Simpson (R-WY); Senator Arlen Specter (D-PA); Senator and Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham (R-MI); Senator Birch Evans Bayh II (D-IN); Senator Robert Bennett (R-UT); Senator Donald W. Stewart (D-AL); Senator Connie Mack (R-FL); Senator Joseph Davies Tydings (D-MD); Senator Conrad Burns (R-MT); Senator Timothy E. Wirth (D-CO); Senator Larry Pressler (R-SD); Senator Robert Burren Morgan (D-NC); Senator David Durenberger (R-MN); Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND); Senator Donald Nickles (R-OK); and Senator Larry Craig (R-ID).

Our perennial torture czar Negroponte allegedly was up to his eyeballs in Phoenix in Vietnam -

Who TRULY is John Dimitri Negroponte? ....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3Eo2YTQUr8&feature=player_embedded

http://www.businessweek.com/printer/magazine/palantir-the-vanguard-of-cyberterror-security-11222011.html

According to cryptogon - "And guess where they’re located? That’s right: Facebook’s former building.I couldn’t make it up if I tried."

An organization like the CIA or FBI can have thousands of different databases, each with its own quirks: financial records, DNA samples, sound samples, video clips, maps, floor plans, human intelligence reports from all over the world. Gluing all that into a coherent whole can take years. Even if that system comes together, it will struggle to handle different types of data—sales records on a spreadsheet, say, plus video surveillance images. What Palantir (pronounced Pal-an-TEER) does, says Avivah Litan, an analyst at Gartner (IT), is “make it really easy to mine these big data sets.” The company’s software pulls off one of the great computer science feats of the era: It combs through all available databases, identifying related pieces of information, and puts everything together in one place.

Depending where you fall on the spectrum between civil liberties absolutism and homeland security lockdown, Palantir’s technology is either creepy or heroic. Judging by the company’s growth, opinion in Washington and elsewhere has veered toward the latter. Palantir has built a customer list that includes the U.S. Defense Dept., CIA, FBI, Army, Marines, Air Force, the police departments of New York and Los Angeles, and a growing number of financial institutions trying to detect bank fraud. These deals have turned the company into one of the quietest success stories in Silicon Valley—it’s on track to hit $250 million in sales this year—and a candidate for an initial public offering. Palantir has been used to find suspects in a case involving the murder of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agent, and to uncover bombing networks in Syria, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. “It’s like plugging into the Matrix,” says a Special Forces member stationed in Afghanistan who requested anonymity out of security concerns.

…

Palantir’s engineers fill the former headquarters of Facebook along University Avenue in the heart of Palo Alto’s main commercial district. Over the past few years, Palantir has expanded to four other nearby buildings as well. Its security people—who wear black gloves and Secret Service-style earpieces—often pop out of the office to grab their lunch, making downtown Palo Alto feel, at times, a bit like Langley.

…

The origins of Palantir go back to PayPal, the online payments pioneer founded in 1998. A hit with consumers and businesses, PayPal also attracted criminals who used the service for money laundering and fraud. By 2000, PayPal looked like “it was just going to go out of business” because of the cost of keeping up with the bad guys, says Peter Thiel, a PayPal co-founder.

The antifraud tools of the time could not keep up with the crooks. PayPal’s engineers would train computers to look out for suspicious transfers—a number of large transactions between U.S. and Russian accounts, for example—and then have human analysts review each flagged deal. But each time PayPal cottoned to a new ploy, the criminals changed tactics. The computers would miss these shifts, and the humans were overwhelmed by the explosion of transactions the company handled.

PayPal’s computer scientists set to work building a software system that would treat each transaction as part of a pattern rather than just an entry in a database. They devised ways to get information about a person’s computer, the other people he did business with, and how all this fit into the history of transactions. These techniques let human analysts see networks of suspicious accounts and pick up on patterns missed by the computers. PayPal could start freezing dodgy payments before they were processed. “It saved hundreds of millions of dollars,” says Bob McGrew, a former PayPal engineer and the current director of engineering at Palantir.

After EBay (EBAY) acquired PayPal in 2002, Thiel left to start a hedge fund, Clarium Capital Management. He and Joe Lonsdale, a Clarium executive who’d been a PayPal intern, decided to turn PayPal’s fraud detection into a business by building a data analysis system that married artificial intelligence software with human skills. Washington, they guessed, would be a natural place to begin selling such technology.....LOL, how about Western Union, MoneyGramm and all that Jazz of USAID, NED, IRI, etc. and all the thousands upon thousands of store windows with such Perfect CIA Fronts in MENA, EURASIA and Beyond....LOL LOL LOL

CASPIAN REGION: THE GREAT GAME REMAKE....

CASPIAN REGION: THE GREAT GAME REMAKE....


Uzbekistan was an important recipient of new US aid, but has pulled towards Russia and China in the midst of Western criticism for its human rights violations. Since this shift, Russia and China have taken advantage the opportunity to fortify their position with Caspian states....

http://www.opinion-maker.org/2011/11/caspian-region-the-great-game-remake/#

By Ayesha Villalobos,

Times gone by and the history of the Caspian region is subjected by a cyclical pattern of conflict between global powers. The era of The Great Game is a historical period extraordinarily identified for the clashing of empires, the 19th Century, the Ottoman, British, and Czarist Russian Empires squabbled for power in and around the Caspian region.

An established fact, the Caspian Sea is the largest inland body of water in the world and borders Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, and Iran. Oil and gas are the sea’s most precious natural resources. Caspian oil production currently accounts for 2.8 percent of the world’s oil supply, whereas, gas production accounts for about 5 percent. Estimates of the Caspian Sea region’s proven oil reserves vary widely by source.

The United States Department of Energy estimates that the region holds between 17 to billion barrels. The British Petroleum’s estimates are 47.1 billion barrels. These figures

indicate that the Caspian’s oil resources are much less than those of the Middle East.

Stated differently, the Caspian Sea will not replace the Middle East as the main reservoir of world oil. Still, production from the Caspian will add more oil to international markets and contribute to global energy security. The sea has yet to be divided among the littoral states, and each is in quest to gain the biggest share possible.

The Caspian region does not only consist of the littoral states but also Armenia, Georgia, Turkey, and Uzbekistan. Russia is treated uniquely as a global power. Due to the Caspian Sea location within the geographical area. Its oil rich resources, strategic location, and history of global conflict combine to make this region vital to its neighbours.

A global level competition within the Caspian region. During the early 19th Century, Britain and Tsarist Russia were both expanding their empires into Central Asia. Both of these powers soon congregated on the borders of the Ottoman Empire. As these empires are closer with each other, a period of competition known as The Great Game was created.

Apprehension that the Russians would use Afghanistan to stage an invasion of India, the British initiated the First Afghan War in 1838. The objective was to set up a puppet government in Afghanistan which would provide a buffer against advanced Russian intrusion. The First Afghan War ended with the retreat of British troops from an Afghanistan that rejected to be submissive. For a while Russia and Britain shifted to coercion and proxies but rapidly a Second Afghan War was fought, only to suffer the same fate. A momentary peace followed. When that agreement was upset by the Bolshevik Revolution, a Third Afghan War erupted. Similarly, this rivalry ended in stalemate, and The Great Game was briefly abandoned and the world became entangled in World War II.

Subsequently, World War II, a destabilized Britain was replaced by the United States as a global power. The Cold War period saw the development of a global balance between Soviet Russia and the United States. In the Caspian region this balance of powers resembled like another Great Game, and Afghanistan found itself entangled once again. This time around it was the USSR that attempted to suppress this defiant country. The Afghanis resisted fiercely and bloodily repulsed the invading Soviets. Soviet expansion ground to a halt, and the Soviet Union disintegrated thereafter.

Presently, the Caspian region remains a crucial point in international affairs, motivated by the value of oil and a reinvigorated US presence. Russia, China, and the US now find themselves engaged in this blueprint of global rivalry. Beyond doubt, this has the unfolding of a dramatic sequel of The Great Game, and all three powers juxtaposed. These three states will be referred to as the global powers.

Russia

Russia has had the longest history of participation in the power struggles within the Caspian region. Even throughout the era when its power has declined, Russia has never completely abandoned its stake in the regional game. It has had vested interests in this region since it affirmed its power in the commencement of The Great Game. Today, control in this sphere is not just an issue of regional security, or energy requirements, but one of supremacy. This region is Russia’s backyard. The collapse of the Berlin wall, in 1989, signifies the end of the Cold War, and it marked the beginning, of re-examination and identification of international relations, filling the void left by the collapse of Cold War alliances. As the Cold War ended and the USSR started to disintegrate, Soviet treaties with Iran came into question. To guarantee the stability of the Caspian region, the Minsk Agreement was ratified on December 21, 1991. The Russian Federation, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and other former soviet republics signed this accord to affirm compliance with all treaties signed with the former Soviet Union.

Four days later, the Soviet Union ceased to exist as a state. The agreements between Iran and the USSR concerning control of the Caspian Sea, on the other hand, were annulled in the wake of this disintegration. Now Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan would want a fraction of this sea’s wealth. This issue swiftly drew controversy. In 1994, Kazakhstan proposed the first draft convention on the legal status of the Caspian Sea. This prompted other states to each one to propose and construe their own convenient interpretation with regard to the procedural division of the sea.

In 1996, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkmenistan signed the Ashgabat Declaration. In this declaration, all approved on a single plan for the division of the Caspian. In the wake of this agreement, Azerbaijan was in peril of being locked out of Caspian negotiations. In 1997, oil disputes broke out between Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, as well as with Iran. Russia stepped promptly into both of these conflicts, and demonstrating Russia’s continuing influence among the Caspian states. Once these disagreements settled, Azerbaijan began to work more closely with Russia. In April 1998, both states stunned the world by establishing a formal agreement to divide the seabed on their coasts. Still, a unanimous agreement on the division of the Caspian has yet to be realized.

In the wake of September 11th, Russia cooperated with the increased US military presence in the region. Both states share a common interest in fighting terrorism. Collaboration in counterterrorism, nonetheless, does not mean that Russia is indifferent with the US presence. The United States’ amplified involvement has changed the military power balance in the region. Prior to US intervention in the region, Russia and China were providing security through the entities like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). In light of new US military participation, Russia is working to strengthen its security structures in the region. Russia has consistently pursued policies that would make the Caspian states dependent upon it for security. In 2002, Russia formed the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSO) with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Belarus, and Armenia. Russia is clearly the dominant state and acts as a “security manager.”

In addition to its security concerns, Russia has economic priorities in Central Asia. Among the greatest economic issues for Russia has been the division of the Caspian Sea. Russia has worked to create an agreement that would be mutually beneficial for all the littoral states while preserving Russian hegemony. Russia does not appear interested in seeing the development of regional cooperation that would undermine its role as a regional hegemony. For Russia and China, economic advantages appear to be practically as valuable as military or security advantages.

China

Chinese entry into The Great Game is a new development, but should not be surprising. China can no longer be considered just an East-Asian power. It has established trade missions in every Central Asian state and “offered to help Uzbekistan develop several small oil fields.” China has also turned its north-western region (Xinjiang) into a hub that will facilitate economic growth. This region shares its border with Mongolia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. Pakistan can only benefit if it should act quickly to draw pipelines for India and Gawadar for onward despatch to outside world. To date, China possesses trade ties with more than 100 countries and regions.

Demographically, China’s presence is being felt as well. Kazakhstan now has 100,000 Chinese living within its borders. The geographical proximity of the Caspian region makes it a Chinese priority for both economic and security reasons. As China engages this region, it has an interest in balancing the influence of the US and Russia. US bases in Central Asia place US military forces closer to China’s western border than ever before. China, Russia, and the other members of the SCO, have called for the United States to set a deadline to withdraw from military bases in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.

Russian and Chinese relations have been relatively cooperative to date. It would be noteworthy to mention, though, that these two are competing for oil. Cooperation agreements on security issues may find themselves secondary to China’s demand for oil.

The economic growth in China has produced an insatiable need for energy resources. While China wants to import Caspian oil, Russia wants to direct it to the West. The rising demand for oil is doubtless one of the most vital factors motivating Chinese foreign policy in the region. It also has the potential to be one of the most unstable issues in the new stage of this global game.

United States

The United States has a distinctive position in the game, as a power from half-way around the globe. After the downfall of the USSR, the US was slow to engage itself in the Caspian region. US interests for this region, on the other hand, was designed to develop notably in the post-Cold War period. Between 1992 and 1999, the US would afford approximately $1.9 billion to the Caspian states under the Freedom Support Act. In 1994, the Clinton administration established an agency committed exclusively to designing the Caspian policy. By 1998, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright travelled to this region and met with various leaders. Also in 1998, President Clinton appointed a special advisor for the Caspian region.

Oil has always been one of the United States’ leading interests in the Caspian but should not be regarded as a lone motivation of US policy. As a global hegemony (though presently, seen in a crepuscular stage), the US also has a concentration in scrutinising the intensification of Russian and Chinese power. After September 11th, the global War on Terror also became a key factor in determining US foreign policy. At present, the administration of Barack Obama appears to place anti-terrorism beyond economic considerations, and US interests in the region have never been as vigorously exerted as they are at the present. Strong US financial and military concern quickly followed the devastation of the twin towers. This integrated the establishment of the military bases within and outside the Caspian region that alarmed China. Massive financial aid was granted in exchange for state cooperation. Such commitment of troops and finances has made the US a major player in the Caspian region but the rules of the game are presently determined by Russia and China.” The US is left with modest choice but to employ these powers, due to its commitment to Afghanistan and enormous financial and manpower outlay.

United States aid was a smart enticement for Caspian states, but the US presence weighs greatly in the region. As its propensity to use bi-lateral agreements signify, the US has revealed an inclination to act autonomously. This commitment to unilateralism causes some tensions among regional states. US normative aspirations could also amplify this feeling of isolation, as authoritarian states feels imperilled by US endorsement of democracy. This is evident in the case of Uzbekistan.

Uzbekistan was an important recipient of new US aid, but has pulled towards Russia and China in the midst of Western criticism for its human rights violations. Since this shift, Russia and China have taken advantage the opportunity to fortify their position with Caspian states. Despite all these, nonetheless, the US has acquired some success in its oil priorities. In December of 2006, the Shah Denis field began supplying the new South Caucasus pipeline, carrying natural gas to Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey. This pipeline is intended to expand to Europe and reveal a US desire to bypass Russia and Iran. These current power struggles between the three global powers pursue a pattern similar to The Great Game. The greatest security threat to the Caspian region may not come from external forces but from interstate conflict. Evaluation of that threat will speak to the cohesiveness of the Islamic civilization.....

ايلي حبيقة افتدى لبنان واللبنانيين

ايلي حبيقة افتدى لبنان واللبنانيين

إن الإنسان المؤمن بربه وبكتبه المقدسة وبتعاليمه وبموت وقيامة السيد المسيح لا يموت، بل يرقد على رجاء القيامة بانتظار يوم الحساب الأخير، والرب الذي وهب الإنسان نعمة الحياة هو وحده يقرر متى يستردها وليس أي مخلوق أخر.

اليوم ونحن نصلي في الذكرى التاسعة لروح الشهيد النائب والوزير الراحل ايلي حبيقة نردد بايمان وخشوع ووقار ما قاله النبي أيوب رغم كل المصائب التي حلت عليه فيما كان الشيطان يحاول جاهداً إيقاعه في التجربة دون أن يتمكن من أن يحقق هدفه اللعين هذا كون إيمان أيوب بربه كان قوياً وراسخاً: "عرياناً خرجت من بطن أمي، وعرياناً أعود إلى هناك، الرب أعطى والرب أخذ تبارك اسم الرب". (ايوب01/21).

يقول السيد المسيح: "أَنَا هُوَ الْقِيَامَةُ وَالْحَيَاةُ. مَنْ آمَنَ بِي، وَإِنْ مَاتَ فَسَيَحْيَا" (يوحنا 25/11). إن تعلقنا بلبناننا الحبيب حتى الشهادة يعزينا ويقوي إيماننا ويرسخ الرجاء في نفوسنا ويساعدنا على تقبل غياب الشهداء الأبرار برضوخ كامل لمشيئة أبينا السماوي فهم لا يموتون بل يبقون أحياء في وجداننا وضمائرنا وقلوبنا وعقولنا وفي كل عمل نقوم به يهدف لخدمة ومساعدة الآخرين الذين هم بحاجة إلينا.

يقول الشاعر: "ما استحق أن يعيش، من عاش لنفسه فقط". لذلك فالشخص المؤمن يجد لذته في أن يحيا لأجل غيره، عملاًً بقول الرب، "تحب قريبك كنفسك" (متى39/22). ولهذا يحب كل الناس من أعماق قلبه وتكون محبته للآخرين محبة عملية حسبما قال الرسول يوحنا: "يا أبنائي، لا تكن محبتنا بالكلام أو باللسان بل بالعمل والحق". (1يو18:3).

هذه المحبة العظيمة، والله هو محبة، تتميز بالعطاء والبذل والتفاني سواء من الناحية الجسدية، أو الناحية الروحية. لذلك فإن الشخص المؤمن والمعطاء والصادق هو بطبيعته إنسان نقي وتقي وشفاف وصادق ومحب يخاف الله الذي خلقه على صورته ومثاله.

هذا الإنسان يجهد بفرح كبير ليكون خادماً يخدم غيره في كل المجالات، لا لأنه مطالب بهذا، وإنما لأن الخدمة جزء من طبيعته ونفسيته وثقافته، ومكون أساسي من مكونات كيانه الإيماني. في خدمة الآخرين يشعر بالحب ويتغذى روحياً من تقديم الخدمات أكثر مما يغذي غيره بها. وإذا كانت الخدمة هي من عمل الملائكة (عبرانيين14:1)، فكم بالأولى البشر. وقد أعطانا السيد المسيح المثال الأبلغ في هذا الشأن إذ قال: "ومن أراد أن يكون الأول فيكم، فليكن لكم عبدا، وهكذا ابن الإنسان جاء لا ليخدمه الناس، بل ليخدمهم ويفدي بحياته كثيراً منهم". (متى 20/27 و28)

جاء في إنجيل القديس يوحنا (15/13): "ما من حب أعظم من هذا: أن يضحي الإنسان بنفسه في سبيل أحبائه". وقال الشهيد النائب والوزير الراحل ايلي حبيقة: "إن الوطن الذي لا يفتديه شبابه بأرواحهم لا يستمر ويزول. إن خدمة الآخرين وبذل الذات من أجلهم هي أعمال مقدسة والمسيح الإله قبل الصلب والعذاب والإهانات وقدم نفسه على الصليب فداء للإنسان ليعتقه من نير وعبودية الخطيئة ويحرره.

إن الشهيد لا يطلب شيئاً لنفسه من مقتنيات هذه الدنيا الفانية، وإنما يسعي لنيل بركات الله ليستحق بجدارة أفعاله وإيمانه العودة إلى منزل أبيه السماوي، والمسيح قال لنا: "ماذا ينفع الإنسان لو ربح العالم كله وخسر نفسه". (متى 16/26).

الشهيد هو قربان طاهر يقدم نفسه طواعية على مذبح الله بمحبة واندفاع وفرح من أجل أحبائه تماماً كما هو حال كل شهيد من شهداء لبنان الأبرار. عرفاناً بجميلهم نقول أنه وبفضل استشهادهم بقينا، وسوف نبقى بإذن الله طالما بقي الشباب اللبناني مؤمنا بلبنان وبرسالته وعلى استعداد تام ودائم للشهادة.

الشهيد النائب والوزير الراحل ايلي حبيقة لم يمت لأنه باق في كل جهد وعمل يقوم بهما أي لبناني من أجل الحفاظ على سيادة واستقلال وحرية وطنه الحبيب، ولصون كرامة وعزة اللبنانيين، كما أن عائلة حبيقة هي نبع معطاء لا ينضب في دفق الإيمان والوطنية والشهادة للحق والشهداء من أجل لبنان الرسالة والقداسة والقديسين.

نصلي من أجل أن يسكن الله روح الشهيد النائب والوزير الراحل ايلي حبيقة فسيح جناته إلى جوار البررة والقديسين وأن يلهم عائلته ومحبيه الصبر والسلوان

Western Militarization Of The Arctic....US rule may crumble under its own weight of its criminal and Zioconned Elite....

Western Militarization Of The Arctic....US rule may crumble under its own weight of its criminal and Zioconned Elite....

http://english.ruvr.ru/2011/11/11/60208973.html

November 11, 2011

Western militarization of the Arctic.... Part II

Nobody regards the Arctic as a dead zone anymore. Its vast ice caps hide 7% of the world’s oil and 33% of its gas reserves, together with gold, diamonds and other minerals. Global warming and the melting of the Arctic permafrost will soon unlock the Arctic Ocean treasures.

This prospective change has caused the Arctic to now be wrangled over by the Arctic Five – Russia, Canada, the US, Denmark and Norway, of which only Russia, it must be noted, is not a NATO member. The alliance clearly specified its interest in the Arctic at the November 2010 Lisbon summit. The situation gets more complicated due to internal bickering over territorial claims amongst the Five. The US and Canada can not reach agreement on the Beaufort Sea (a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean) while Canada is also battling over the Hans Island with Denmark.

Even China that lies far away from the Arctic wants a stake in the region. Its Snow Dragon icebreaker has entered the Arctic waters twice. S. Korea is also getting icebreakers ready.

The head of the Russian Center for Analysis of the World Arms Trade, Igor Korotchenko, says that a report for the US Navy says that America urgently needs to build up its military potential in the Arctic. It proposes that the Navy begin intensive Arctic training, acquire new Arctic-class vessels and icebreakers and set up ground and undersea surveillance and monitoring stations. US multipurpose nuclear subs are constantly patrolling the Arctic Ocean and their goals are far from being scientific he stated in an interview for the Voice of Russia:

The Pentagon has permanent rapid response missile groups at high latitudes including 3-4 cruisers and 4-6 destroyers. It has 11 Air Force fighters deployed in Alaska while the US Air Force and subs patrol the Arctic Ocean area and are equipped with high-precision weapons. The US Defense Department is also training ground forces for operations in the Arctic and plans to construct two naval bases in Alaska.

Canada allocated money to build a deep water port and a navy base in the abandoned town of Nanisivik and launched the renovation and the expansion of a military training base in Resolute Bay and ordered the construction of new Arctic patrol ships. The country’s Arctic military contingent has also been increased tenfold. Even though Canada has no constant military presence in the Arctic it has been carrying out annual drills called Operation Nanook to train for emergencies and disasters and since 2007 it has been conducting sovereignty patrols in the Arctic.

In 2010 the Canadian war games, for the first time, featured troops from the US and Denmark which gave Canada official status as a NATO observer in the Arctic. In summer 2011 the exercises were joined by the US and NATO air forces and included jet fighters, spy planes and cargo aircraft.

Norway, for its part, opened a new hi-tech Arctic Circle Centre north of Mo i Rana near the Arctic Circle. The country also moved its main military base to the location and used it as the venue for the Cold Response drills in the summer of 2011 which featured 10,000 NATO and Norwegian troops.

Russia, one-fifth of which is located in the Arctic, has to respond to the region’s militarization. It intends to create a separate Arctic division to provide for the safety of its Arctic territories in a changing military and political environment. Russia also has an Arctic strategy worked out by the country’s Security Council that envisages moving the region under the Federal Security Service’s jurisdiction and making it Russia’s leading resource base by 2016.

In the spring of 2011 Russia’s Minister of Defense stated that an Arctic motorized infantry unit had been created on the Kola Peninsula. The troops will be specially equipped for operating in the region. A Russian expert on the subject, Igor Korotchenko, told the VOR that Russia’s military equipment complies with the specific standards required and is resistant to high and low temperatures. Ground troops will be supported by ice-breaking warships that are capable of not only escorting vessels but also of carrying out military missions, he said.

Unfortunately the Arctic has become a militarized zone and the only way out is for the Arctic countries is to peacefully divide the area into zones of responsibility and to launch peaceful exploration of the region as soon as possible. They must thus not allow non-Arctic states the chance to make claims using military force....

U.S. Global Empire May Crumble Under Its Own Weight....

http://www.globaltimes.cn/NEWS/tabid/99/ID/683879/US-rule-may-crumple-under-its-own-weight.aspx

November 15, 2011

US rule may crumble under its own weight of its criminal and Zioconned Elite....

-Some in the US have forgotten that no empire lasts forever, and believe that superior firepower, a strong economy and unmatched soft power will lead to perpetual dominance status…US public opinion cannot bear any small country going against Washington’s will. The stronger it becomes, the more obscure the line between “leading the world” and “ruling the world” becomes.
-The world does not belong to the US as some of its leaders might think. Neither China, nor any other country, are to blame for that.

Public opinion in the US concerns every detail of the Obama administration’s China policy, including its “tough” stance that has seemingly become political mainstream.

In fact, a deliberately “tough” US is unnecessary since China has never doubted the country’s power. Instead, it is Americans and Europeans that seem to believe more in the decline of the US.

The national strength of the US will remain first and foremost for a long time. However, this has led to over-confidence since the Cold War. Some in the US have forgotten that no empire lasts forever, and believe that superior firepower, a strong economy and unmatched soft power will lead to perpetual dominance status. The US never expresses the intention to “rule the world,” but its desire to be the world leader is obvious. US public opinion cannot bear any small country going against Washington’s will. The stronger it becomes, the more obscure the line between “leading the world” and “ruling the world” becomes.

A worry that the US will lose its global position has resulted from the country’s current crisis. The Obama administration enhances strategic deployment in the Asian-Pacific region to safeguard this global presence. This will burden and drag down the US. The country is not really becoming weak, but its strategic demand surpasses its real capacity. In the Cold War era, the strength of the US could easily protect the Western world. However, as its economy is declining, it is not realistic for the US to regulate the world order along as before.

The US attempts to mobilize global political and economic resources to refuel its capacity but this has worsened the country’s financial straits. The US has tried to subdue the world by its military and economic power and system in the past, but nowadays, it is pursuing private interests. Due to a worsened economy, the US is returning to a mixture of military and political power. However, such shortcuts do not guarantee success as seen in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The US intends to solve economic problems by exerting political pressure on China. Congressmen and politicians take the task of CEOs, blindly interfering politically in the marketplace.

Such a mission is hollow, and ultimately doomed to failure. Maybe the US should learn to accept the reality of a multi-polar world and change its mentality. As long as it lowers its defensive posture, it will remain a key player in the world. The difficulties the US faces today are controllable and will not lead to its decline.

It is understandable that the US feels insecure in front of a rising China, but if this insecurity becomes extreme, it will clash with this unrealistic ambition of dominating the world. The world does not belong to the US as some of its leaders might think. Neither China, nor any other country, are to blame for that....

Dead Men Tell No Tales: The CIA, the inside job of 9/11; Pentagon killers and the Awlaki Assassination....

Dead Men Tell No Tales: The CIA, the inside job of 9/11; Pentagon killers and the Awlaki Assassination....

On September 30, the CIA and Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) assets under the Agency's control, assassinated the alleged "external operations" chief of the Afghan-Arab database of disposable Western intelligence assets, also known as Al-Qaeda, Anwar al-Awlaki, and a second American citizen, Samir Khan, the 25-year-old editor of Inspire magazine, in a drone strike in Yemen.

As The Washington Post reported last month, the "commingling" of CIA officers, JSOC paramilitary troops and contractors "occupy an expanding netherworld between intelligence and military operations" where "congressional intelligence and armed services committees rarely get a comprehensive view."

Or any "view" at all, which is precisely what the CIA and Pentagon have long desired; an oversight-free zone where American policymakers operate, as Dick Cheney infamously put it, on the "dark side," a position fully-embraced by the "hope and change" administration of Barack Obama.

Awlaki's state-sponsored killing, like the May 2 murder of Osama Bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, resurface many unanswered questions concerning the 9/11 attacks, the so-called trigger for America's global "War on Terror."

But before turning to those issues, it is necessary to take a detour and examine administration actions; specifically the deliberations undertaken by Obama's national security team which culminated in Awlaki's death.

White House "Death Panel"

Unlike the fantasies of the corporate-controlled Tea Party who charged during the run-up to the White House sell-out of health care reform that the administration would create "death panels" to deny care to the elderly, it has since emerged that Team Obama has stood-up the authentic article.

According to The Washington Post, President Obama's Justice Department "wrote a secret memorandum authorizing the lethal targeting" of Awlaki. The Post reports that the memorandum "was produced following a review of the legal issues raised by striking a U.S. citizen and involved senior lawyers from across the administration. There was no dissent about the legality of killing Aulaqi."

That memorandum, according to The New York Times, was drafted in June 2010, some six months after Awlaki had been placed on the White House hit list, by Office of Legal Counsel attorneys "David Barron and Martin Lederman."

Both former OLC lawyers are prominent "liberals" from prestigious universities; Barron at Harvard and Lederman at Georgetown University.

Ironically enough, in several scholarly articles they had railed against the previous administration's adaptation of the "Unitary Executive Theory" promulgated by "torture memo" authors Jay Bybee and John Yoo.

Under Bush, OLC opinions were used to justify everything from warrantless wiretapping, the domestic deployment of the military to arrest Americans, to the torture and indefinite detention of "terrorist" suspects at the Guantánamo Bay prison gulag and CIA "black sites."

This of course begs the question: if Awlaki's murder was "legal," why then was the authorization to do so reached in camera by officials following a deliberative process which can't be shared with the public because of "national security"?

The answer should be chilling and shocking to all Americans: because the nucleus of a death squad state recalling those stood-up in Chile and Argentina during the "dirty war" period of the 1970s may now exist.

Reuters disclosed that Americans "are placed on a kill or capture list by a secretive panel of senior government officials, which then informs the president of its decisions, according to officials."

"There is no public record of the operations or decisions of the panel," reporter Mark Hosenball wrote, "which is a subset of the White House's National Security Council. ... Neither is there any law establishing its existence or setting out the rules by which it is supposed to operate."

According to Reuters, "targeting recommendations are drawn up by a committee of mid-level National Security Council and agency officials. Their recommendations are then sent to the panel of NSC 'principals,' meaning Cabinet secretaries and intelligence unit chiefs, for approval."

A "former official" told Hosenball that "one of the reasons for making senior officials principally responsible for nominating Americans for the target list was to 'protect' the president," i.e., provide Obama legal cover under the thin veneer afforded by "plausible deniability."

McClatchy News reported that "broadly speaking" White House orders to kill Awlaki were based on claims that "the nation's inherent right of self-defense [is] recognized under international law." However, "international law also imposes limits: Targeted killing is banned except to protect against 'concrete, specific and imminent' danger."

And although the administration now claims that Awlaki was targeted for death because "his role in AQAP had gone 'from inspirational to operational'," Reuters disclosed that "officials acknowledge that some of the intelligence purporting to show Awlaki's hands-on role in plotting attacks was patchy."

In fact, the White House has failed to provide any proof whatsoever that Awlaki posed an "imminent danger" to the United States, although there is considerable evidence that he was on the radar of U.S. and allied secret state intelligence agencies for more than a decade, had close ties to several of the 9/11 hijackers and could have been picked up and indicted at any time.

Instead, federal law enforcement officials gave Awlaki a green light to leave the United States, unlike thousands of innocent Muslim-Americans swept-up and detained by the FBI in the post-9/11 hysteria that followed the attacks.

A "former military intelligence officer who worked with special operations troops to hunt down high-value terrorism targets," told the right-wing Washington Times: "I think it's pretty easy to understand why they didn't take him alive. Would you want to deal with the hassle of trying to put him on trial, an American citizen that has gotten so much press for being the target of a CIA kill order? That would be a nightmare. The ACLU would be crawling all over the Justice Department for due process in an American court."

That about sums up the dominant mindset of an Empire in sharp decline: the rule of law and due process for criminal suspects reduced to a "hassle."

Slouching Towards Dictatorship

Obama's national security team justified whacking Awlaki, as with their earlier hit on Osama Bin Laden, by referencing the Bush-era Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), hastily passed by Congress in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

"A decade later," McClatchy reported, "the Obama administration contends that this wartime authority remains even if it's evolved for reasons the administration won't fully elucidate."

The relevant section of AUFM reads: "IN GENERAL -- That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons." (emphasis added)

Readers will undoubtedly note that in passing the resolution, Congress not only ceded its authority to declare war to the Executive Branch but also planted the seeds of the administration's preemptive war doctrines along with an unprecedented expansion of its domestic surveillance powers.

More pertinently, is the reason why the administration "won't fully elucidate" how the Bush-era AUMF "evolved" chiefly due to the fact that secret annexes now exist which authorize the killing of Americans, not only in Yemen or other "War on Terror" fronts, but right here in the United States itself?

After all, it's not beyond the Obama administration to play fast and loose with the truth or hide repressive policies under layers of top secret presidential "findings" or a multitude of CIA and Pentagon black programs, as did the previous Bush government.

Recall that during the run-up to the reauthorization of three expiring provisions of the USA Patriot Act, civil libertarians decried the use of secret legal memos justifying everything from unchecked access to internet and telephone records to the deployment of government-sanctioned malware on private computers during "national security" investigations.

Recall too, that the Obama administration, as The New York Times disclosed in June, handed the FBI "significant new powers to its roughly 14,000 agents, allowing them more leeway to search databases, go through household trash or use surveillance teams to scrutinize the lives of people who have attracted their attention."

These "news rules," the Times averred, will give agents "more latitude" to investigate citizens even when there is no evidence they have exhibited "signs of criminal or terrorist activity."

It gets worse.

Last month, The New York Times revealed that the FBI "is permitted to include people on the government's terrorist watch list even if they have been acquitted of terrorism-related offenses or the charges are dropped."

Under these new standards, the Bureau may deem someone a "known or suspected terrorist," not based on evidence gathered through a criminal investigation, but solely if officials have "particularized derogatory information," including that derived from First Amendment protected activities, to support to support an individuals' watch listing or placement on a "no-fly" list.

One administration wag, speaking on condition of anonymity because to do otherwise would reveal "closely held deliberations within the administration," but did so anyway because this was clearly a sanctioned leak to stenographer Peter Finn, told The Washington Post that "what constitutes due process in [the Awlaki case] is a due process in war."

"The administration officials refused to disclose the exact legal analysis used to authorize targeting Aulaqi," Finn wrote, "or how they considered any Fifth Amendment right to due process."

We now know, thanks to Reuters, that authorization came from a White House death panel, an extra-constitutional committee of anonymous officials operating outside the rule of law.

As we have seen since Barack Obama took office, as under the previous Bush government, the Constitution is a meaningless scrap of paper with some words on it, duly trotted out on national holidays only to be cast aside in practice; that is, when it isn't used as a rhetorical hammer against assorted "new Hitlers" or geopolitical rivals whose resources corporate America seek to "liberate."

Dead Men Tell No Tales

As toxic to democratic norms and the rule of law as the Awlaki affair clearly is, there are underlying parapolitical themes surrounding his murder which strengthen suspicions that what took place in Yemen on September 30 is more than just another story about an overt power grab by the Executive Branch.

While the government and media continue to cover-up the role played by the CIA and other secret state agencies in alleged intelligence "failures" leading up to the 9/11 attacks, evidence suggests that the Awlaki killing, as with last May's murder of former bête noire and on-again, off-again ally, Osama Bin Laden, may have been a "clean-up" operation designed to remove inconvenient witnesses with knowledge of Agency involvement in the plot.

As Antifascist Calling reported nearly two years ago in the wake of the aborted 2009 bombing of Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day over Detroit, a plot for which Awlaki was accused of orchestrating, though evidence can't be supplied because it's "secret," The Washington Post disclosed that Awlaki had extensive contacts with 9/11 hijackers Nawaf Alhazmi, Khalid Almihdhar and Hani Hanjour who "had spent time at his mosques in California and Falls Church."

In a series of 2010 articles (here, here, here and here), I reported on the stark parallels between September 11 and the Flight 253 affair.

And as with the 2001 attacks we were told "changed everything," far from being a failure to "connect the dots," intelligence and law enforcement officials possessed sufficient information that should have prevented accused bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, from boarding that plane and placing the lives of nearly 300 air passengers at risk.

And wile Awlaki wasn't given a free pass by the administration in that botched attack, earlier government failures to apprehend him certainly set the stage.

According to History Commons, "shortly before the [FBI] investigation [into Awlaki's alleged ties to the now-shuttered Holy Land Foundation] is closed," in 2000, Awlaki "is beginning to associate with hijackers Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar shortly before the investigation ends."

"For instance," History Commons avers, "on February 4, one month before the FBI investigation is closed, al-Awlaki talks on the telephone four times with hijacker associate [and suspected Saudi intelligence agent] Omar al-Bayoumi."

"The 9/11 Commission will later speculate that these calls are related to Alhazmi and Almihdhar, since al-Bayoumi is helping them that day, and that Alhazmi or Almihdhar may even have been using al-Bayoumi's phone at the time. Al-Bayoumi had also been the subject of an FBI counterterrorism investigation in 1999."

Keep in mind that at least two of the hijackers, Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar, figure prominently in recent revelations by researcher Kevin Fenton, the author of Disconnecting the Dots.

In a recent conversation with Boiling Frogs Post's Sibel Edmonds and Peter B. Collins, Fenton said that during the course of his investigation, drawn from the Congressional 9/11 Joint Inquiry, the 9/11 Commission, the Justice Department's Inspector General's report, and the CIA's still-redacted Inspector General's report, he discovered that the CIA had deliberately withheld information from the FBI that the future hijackers had entered the United States with multiple entry visas issued in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Even though the Agency had identified the pair as international terrorists who attended a 2000 Al-Qaeda summit in Malaysia where they and others, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Khallad Bin Attash, one of the principle architects of the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, planned the assault on the USS Cole and the 9/11 attacks, they kept this from the FBI, information that could have led straight to the heart of Al-Qaeda's "planes operation."

Fenton provides substantial evidence that the CIA's Alec Station Director Richard Blee and deputy, Tom Wilshire, concealed intelligence from investigators, concluding this "information was intentionally omitted in order to allow an al-Qaeda attack to go forward against the United States."

As part of this continuing cover-up, Awlaki's ties to the 9/11 hijackers were far more extensive than secret state officials have led us to believe.

In fact, although the Obama administration has justified killing Awlaki with false claims that he was AQAP's "external operations" chief, his role before 9/11 was substantially more significant from an investigatory perspective: that of a "fixer," first in San Diego where he assisted Saudi spook Omar al-Bayoumi in "settling" Alhazmi and Almihdhar, and later in Falls Church, Virginia, where he did the same for Hani Hanjour.

In 2002, Newsweek revealed that "some federal investigators suspect that al-Bayoumi could have been an advance man for the 9-11 hijackers, sent by Al Qaeda to assist the plot that ultimately claimed 3,000 lives."

"Two months after al-Bayoumi began aiding Alhazmi and Almihdhar," Newsweek disclosed, "al-Bayoumi's wife began receiving regular stipends, often monthly and usually around $2,000, totaling tens of thousands of dollars.

Payments arrived "in the form of cashier's checks, purchased from Washington's Riggs Bank by Princess Haifa bint Faisal, the daughter of the late King Faisal and wife of Prince Bandar, the Saudi envoy who is a prominent Washington figure and personal friend of the Bush family."

With startling similarities to the Awlaki case, ten days after the attacks, al-Bayoumi is picked up by British authorities in London, where he had relocated in July 2001, at the request of the FBI. Although his phone calls, bank accounts and associations are scrutinized, the Bureau claim they found no connections to terrorism.

The Washington Post will report that by 2002 the FBI had concluded, the same year Awlaki leaves the U.S., "that no evidence could be found of any organized domestic effort to aid the hijackers."

Recall that new information linking some members of the Saudi royal family and its intelligence apparatus to the attacks has recently surfaced. Last month, The Miami Herald revealed that two weeks before the kamikaze assaults on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, a Saudi family "abruptly vacated their luxury home near Sarasota, leaving a brand new car in the driveway, a refrigerator full of food, fruit on the counter--and an open safe in a master bedroom."

Investigative reporters Anthony Summers and Dan Christensen learned that "law enforcement agents not only discovered the home was visited by vehicles used by the hijackers, but phone calls were linked between the home and those who carried out the death flights--including leader Mohamed Atta--in discoveries never before revealed to the public."

"Ten years after the deadliest attack of terrorism on U.S. soil," Summers and Christensen wrote, "new information has emerged that shows the FBI found troubling ties between the hijackers and residents in the upscale community in southwest Florida, but the investigation wasn't reported to Congress or mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report."

In a follow-up piece that significantly advanced the story, researcher Russ Baker reported on the WhoWhatWhy web site "that those alleged confederates were closely tied to influential members of the Saudi ruling elite."

Building on information first disclosed by the Herald, Baker, the author of Family of Secrets, reports that this "now-revealed link" between those who consorted with the hijackers in Florida "and the highest ranks of the Saudi establishment, reopens questions about the White House's controversial approval for multiple charter flights allowing Saudi nationals to depart the U.S., beginning about 48 hours after the attacks, without the passengers being interviewed by law enforcement--despite the identification of the majority of the hijackers as Saudis."

Is there a pattern between the hands-off treatment afforded well-connected Saudis and Anwar al-Awlaki's casual, and inexplicable, flight from the United States?

"After 9/11" History Commons points out, "the FBI will question al-Awlaki, and he will admit to meeting with Alhazmi several times, but say he does not remember what they discussed. He will not claim to remember Almihdhar at all." Other accounts suggest that the relationship was much closer.

"The 9/11 Congressional Inquiry," History Commons avers, "claim that Alhazmi and Almihdhar 'were closely affiliated with [al-Awlaki] who reportedly served as their spiritual adviser during their time in San Diego. ... Several persons informed the FBI after September 11 that this imam had closed-door meetings in San Diego with Almihdhar, Alhazmi, and another individual, whom al-Bayoumi had asked to help the hijackers'."

"Around August 2000," History Commons reports, "al-Awlaki resigns as imam and travels to unknown 'various countries.' In early 2001, he will be appointed the imam to a much larger mosque in Falls Church, Virginia. During this time frame, Alhazmi, Almihdhar, and fellow hijacker Hani Hanjour will move to Virginia and attend al-Awlaki's mosque there."

Anecdotally, in 2003 Newsweek reports: "Lincoln Higgie, an antiques dealer who lived across the street from the mosque where Aulaqi used to lead prayer, told Newsweek that he distinctly recalls the imam knocking on his door in the first week of August 2001 to tell him he was leaving for Kuwait. 'He came over before he left and told me that something very big was going to happen, and that he had to be out of the country when it happened,' recalls Higgie."

The antiques dealer later told The New York Times, that when he learned that Awlaki would be permanently leaving San Diego, "he told the imam to stop by if he was ever in the area--and got a strange response." Higgie said, "'I don't think you'll be seeing me. I won't be coming back to San Diego again. Later on you'll find out why'."

Although the FBI suspected Awlaki "had some connection with the 9/11 plot," authorities claim there wasn't enough evidence to charge him, nor can he be deported because he's an American citizen. And when the Bureau hatched an ill-conceived plan to arrest him on an obscure charge of "transporting prostitutes across state lines," that plan collapsed when Awlaki left the U.S. in March 2002.

"But on October 10, 2002," History Commons reports, "he makes a surprise return to the U.S." Although his name is on a terrorist watch list and he is detained by Customs' officials when he lands in New York, they are informed by the FBI that "his name was taken off the watch list just the day before. He is released after only three hours."

"Throughout 2002," History Commons informs us, Awlaki is the "subject of an active Customs investigation into money laundering called Operation Greenquest, but he is not arrested for this either, or for the earlier contemplated prostitution charges. At the time, the FBI is fighting Greenquest, and Customs officials will later accuse the FBI of sabotaging Greenquest investigations."

Awlaki again leaves the U.S., this time for good. Although the FBI admits they were "very interested" in Awlaki, they fail to stop him leaving the country. One FBI source told U.S. News and World Report, "We don't know how he got out."

Inexplicably however, it was not until 2008 that secret state officials concluded that Awlaki was an Al-Qaeda operative! This beggars belief, and raises the question as to why he was allowed to leave in the first place. It certainly can't be for lack of evidence or that when Awlaki set-up shop, first in London and finally in Yemen, he is continually under surveillance by British, Yemeni and American intelligence agencies.

Although interviewed four times by the FBI after September 11, the Bureau concluded, according to The New York Times, that Awlaki's "contacts with the hijackers and other radicals were random."

Other investigators however, disagreed. "One detective," the Times reported, whose name has been scrubbed from 9/11 Commission files, told staff that he believed Awlaki "was at the center of the 9/11 story." At the time of the Flight 253 affair, I wrote that "despite, or possibly because of these dubious connections he was allowed to leave the country."

In fact, the curious disinterest exhibited by authorities in bringing Awlaki to ground following September 11, were neither "errors in judgement" nor "mistakes" by overtaxed investigators but are rather, a modus operandi which suggests that Awlaki and others were part of a CIA domestic operation which allowed the 9/11 plot to go forward.

• • •

Nothing in what I have written above should be construed as justification for the extrajudicial assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki. In fact, the opposite conclusion can be drawn. The available evidence indicates that Awlaki could have been arrested multiple times. At the least serious end of the criminal justice spectrum he could have been charged with providing "material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization," to whit, Al-Qaeda, and legally taken out of circulation.

That he wasn't and continued to operate freely as a propagandist, despite substantial corroboration from multiple law enforcement sources that he was a key figure in the pre-9/11 domestic support network, suggests that Awlaki may have been a double agent, albeit one who had decidedly gone "off the reservation."

Awlaki's handling by authorities raise serious questions about just how extensive U.S. support for Al-Qaeda was prior to, and possibly even after the September 11 attacks, particularly in resource-rich global hot-spots.

As numerous journalists and researchers have painstakingly documented, Al-Qaeda, allied terrorist outfits and international narco-trafficking networks have a long, sordid history of supporting U.S. covert operations that targeted America's geopolitical rivals even as Bin Laden's far-flung organization plotted to attack the United States itself.

In this light, Awlaki's "targeted killing" as with the earlier hit on Osama Bin Laden, may be part of a larger CIA/Pentagon operation to remove inconvenient participants and witnesses from the scene who might have a thing or two to say about the crimes and intrigues hatched by the imperialist Empire.

After all, dead men tell no tales...