The English and American secret services were backing Islamic militants in Inguishetia as a way to bring down Russia just as the Soviet Union was ....

UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY RESOLUTION 63/162, and the Preservation of Historic Truth ....

"‘the English and American secret services were backing Islamic militants in Inguishetia as a way to bring down Russia just as the Soviet Union was brought down...’”

By Carla Stea, WMR’s United Nations Correspondent

March 6, 2009

United Nations General Assembly President Miguel d’Escoto Brockman delivered an address on January 27, 2009, on the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust. Point 4 of his presentation is particularly noteworthy. He stated: “The Nazi-perpetrated Holocaust took place in what was perceived to be one of the most sophisticated societies on Earth. It was not simply a horrific set of murderous events; it began with policies and campaigns that reflected a way of thinking about Others. It was a propaganda campaign that aimed to convince ordinary Germans, Poles, and so many others that their problems were a consequence of the presence of the Others in their countries – Roma, communists, gays and lesbians, and most of all Jews. Its logic led inexorably to the norm that the Others could be vilified, dispossessed, walled into crowded ghettos, arrested, tortured and ultimately killed with absolute impunity."

When the group designated as the “Other” has been completely devalued and discredited, and eventually dehumanized, or demonized, it becomes relatively simple to regard that group as less than human, or subhuman, and possible, psychologically to rationalize the eradication or extermination of that group, and the glorification of the group perpetrating the aggression against it. This occurred in Vietnam, with the U.S. army’s designation of the Vietnamese as subhuman “gooks,” ripe for slaughter. Of course, this occurred in Nazi Germany, with the displacement of blame for Germany’s devastated economy onto the Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, Communists, gays, all designated as inferior races, and thus easier, psychologically to “justify” exterminating. And it appears, now, that there is an Orwellian campaign to rewrite the facts of World War II, obscuring reality and truth. As Goebbels said, ‘a lie repeated one thousand times is eventually perceived as the truth. The Bush administration mastered this technique, which might help explain why the American people fell into the trap of electing Bush in 2004, which made possible Bush’s destruction of the U.S. economy, unleashing two wars under fraudulent pretexts, and bringing about what could well be the eventual collapse of the United States as a superpower.

But the process continues, and it seems that there is a new “Other” being fabricated, at this moment, a stealthy process still somewhat under the radar. At the United Nations Trusteeship Council on January 27, 2009, Russian Deputy Ambassador Illya Rogachev presented Opening remarks at the briefing: “Lessons of the Holocaust and the Present.”

“As you are aware, precisely 64 years ago on 27 January the Soviet Army liberated the Auschwitz concentration camp. This date is observed as the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust in accordance with the UN General Assembly Resolution 60/7 adopted in 2005, co-sponsored by Russia. I shall also recall that in 2007 the UN GA adopted another important resolution on the 'Denial of the Holocaust' which calls on UN Member-States to denounce not only the denial of the Holocaust as a historical fact but also any actions to that effect. It is regrettable that today increasingly more often we come across undisguised disregard for our common history. It sometimes seems that there are forces in some countries who are interested in revising the history of the mid-20^th century. The whole world witnesses actions which from the standpoint of historical truth and human morality are unacceptable. In our view, these include attempts made in the Baltic States and Ukraine to whitewash Fascist accomplices by declaring them heroes of national liberation movements as well as demolition and desecration of monuments to those who perished for the anti-Hitlerite coalition. In Russia, the Holocaust is perceived not only as a catastrophe of the Jewish people but also as a universal human tragedy. We hold as sacred the memory of those who were murdered in concentration camps and died while liberating Europe and the entire world from Fascism. Russia considers unacceptable both the ‘revisionist’ approach to the events and outcome of World War II and the desire to re-write history to suit opportunistic political goals. We are also concerned about the rise in neo-Nazism, anti-Semitism and xenophobia in the modern world.”

At the meeting in the UN Trusteeship Council, a veteran of World War II, representing the US Russian-Speaking Veterans Organization, Mr. Leonid B. Rozenberg offered the following statement: “During the War, when my friends and I fought with might and main to defend our Motherland and liberate it and other countries from the Nazi scum, nearly all my family and dear ones perished in the flames of that Catastrophe. The memory of those who died at the hand of the Nazi in World War II is sacred. I shall recall that it was the Soviet Army that liberated the Auschwitz concentration camp on January 27, 1945….Russia holds as sacred the memory of the Holocaust victims and soldiers-liberators, who freed the world from the Nazi plague of the 20^th century. Think about these statistics: the USSR lost 27 million people in that war! Out of the 6 million Jews who died in Nazi concentration camps 3 million came from the Soviet Union…The international community should not remain indifferent and unconcerned about the attempts made in certain European countries to whitewash Nazi accomplices and present them as heroes of national liberation movements. Regrettably, this happens in Ukraine, too, where Bendera, Shukhevich and other Nazis who fought on the side of the Fascists were declared national heroes, although it is known that most of the executors who killed Jews in Babi Yar were Ukrainian Nazis! Nothing can be more precious than historical memory. And one of the main lessons to be learned from the Holocaust is that we should preserve for future generations the memory of Nazi atrocities, we should show who wrought Evil and what grave consequences for humanity it leads to. It is inadmissible to let those who fought on the side of Evil trade places with those who fought on the side of Good or distort and rewrite history to suit political goals. It is particularly important to preserve history in the light of two memorable dates of this year – the 70^th Anniversary of the beginning of World War II and the 65^th Anniversary of the Opening of the Second Front.”

On February 13^th, 2009 Resolution 63/162 "Inadmissibility of Certain Practices That Contribute To Fueling Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance," adopted by the United Nations General Assembly was released as follows (on the report of the Third Committee A/63/428): “Inadmissibility of certain practices that contribute to fuelling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.” Point 2: “Expresses deep concern about the glorification of the Nazi movement and former members of the Waffen SS organization, including by erecting monuments and memorials and holding public demonstrations in the name of the glorification of the Nazi past, the Nazi movement and neo-Nazism, as well as by declaring or attempting to declare such members and those who fought against the anti-Hitler coalition and collaborated with the Nazi movement as participants in national liberation movements. Point 3. “Expresses concern at recurring attempts to desecrate or demolish monuments erected in remembrance of those who fought against Nazism during the Second World War, as well as to unlawfully exhume or remove the remains of such persons, and urges states in this regard to fully comply with their relevant obligations, inter alia, under Article 34 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions of 1949.”

Resolution 63/162 was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 18, 2008 by a vote of 129 in favor, 34 abstentions, and only two votes against: the United States, shamefully, voted against this Resolution, abdicating all moral authority. And considering the recently established commission on “Preventing Genocide,” co-chaired by such luminaries as former U.S. Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen, former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, and including former U.S. Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Stuart E. Eizenstat, the United States vote against UN Resolution 63/162 is a slap in the face of the members of this new commission. Toward what end is the United States violating truth, honor and human decency? Russia possesses the richest oil reserves on the planet, and other precious mineral resources, and in that fact may lie a clue to the United States’ abhorrent vote against UN General Assembly Resolution 63/162. By colluding with the glorification of Nazi collaborators, the United States perversely diminishes and devalues the heroic contribution and sacrifice made by the Soviet Union to defeating the Nazi scourge during World War II. By denying that the Soviet Union played a decisive and indispensable role in saving the world from the horrific plague of Nazism, Russia, which assumed the obligations and debts of the Soviet Union, but also the glory (and there was, indeed, great, unsurpassable glory in Soviet history), Russia is thereby devalued as a nation and as a people. This may be regarded as stage one in the designation of Russia as “the Other,” the devaluation and degradation of one of the noblest victories in human history, the Soviet defeat of Nazism, a struggle not only against Nazi Germany, but against Nazi collaborators in Ukraine, Byelorussia and the Baltics, whose bestiality frequently rivaled that of the German Nazi invaders.

Several years ago, at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York, during a panel discussion on input to civilization, a ranking member of the Democratic Party stated the Russia had contributed nothing to civilization and had missed almost everything in human development. Yale University was undoubtedly embarrassed to have graduated such a stupefyingly ignorant and illiterate student, and the Democratic Party, to which I belong, must be equally embarrassed to be represented by a man so intellectually “challenged” that he cannot recognize that Dostoyevsky’s “The Brothers Karamazov” is quite arguably the greatest work of literature in human history. (Indeed, even Laura Bush recognized that!). The human condition has perhaps nowhere else been so profoundly scrutinized. On October 4, 1959 the USSR launched the first artificial satellite orbiting the earth – the USA was in a panic, and had to scramble to catch up; on August 15, 2006, The New York Times reported that a Russian mathematician, Dr. Gregory Perelman had solved the “famous and intractable mathematical problem known as the Poincare conjecture about the nature of space”: as a result of Perelman’s work, “there is a growing feeling they have finally achieved a landmark not just of mathematics, but of human thought.”

To so scandalously devalue Russia’s contribution to human development is a position of such stupidity that it does not merit a reply. However, perhaps there is method to such madness, and it smacks of an insidious, subtle agenda, a relegation of Russia and the Russian people to inferior status, a designation as the “Other,” preparing a toxic psychological environment in which further aggression may be “rationalized.” Several months prior, on October 28, 2008, in United Nations Press Briefing room 226, the Russian Ambassador to the United Nations held an unusual press briefing: unusual because he specifically named the countries, Ukraine, the United States and the United Kingdom, attempting to force United Nations General Assembly President Miguel d’Escoto Brockman to include the issue of “Holodomor” onto the agenda of the United Nations 63^rd General Assembly. Ukranian President Viktor Yushchenko, with the strong encouragement of the United States and the United Kingdom has claimed that the famine of 1932-1933 was a deliberately planned Soviet policy of genocide against the Ukranian people. Yushchenko’s statistics claim that after 1929 the Ukranian population was halved, from 81 million to 42 million. But the All-Union census, held in 1926 states “the total number of Ukranians in the Soviet Union, including residents of the Western areas, was 30 million. Though it would be biologically almost impossible for the Ukranian population to have more than doubled between 1926 and 1932, the purpose of this Ukranian, US, UK backed exercise is to demonize the Soviet Union, and, by implication, its successor, the Russian Federation.

The Russian Ambassador objected to attempts by the US and the UK to force a wedge of animosity between Ukraine and Russia, which share cultural and ethnic origins, and the Ambassador made explicit reference to the famous strategy of “divide and conquer.” Against recent Ukranian claims that the Soviet Union committed genocide against the Ukranian nation and people, the Russian Ambassador presented the irrefutable argument that the Soviet Union was a Marxist state, based on the concept of economic class conflict, and for whom the only enemy was the economic class enemy: even a superficial understanding of Marxist economic theory and practice makes obvious that no national group, nor ethnic nor racial group was targeted for persecution or extermination.. The Ukranian claim that they were victims of a Soviet policy of genocide is cynical, and their claim that they exclusively suffered mass starvation in 1932-1933 is solipsistic. Claims that Ukraine suffered more under Stalin than the victims of the Nazi holocaust are a form of holocaust denial, willfully ignorant of the heinous mass atrocities and crimes against humanity committed by the Nazis (including Ukranian Nazis), and an Orwellian attempt to rewrite the history of World War II, discrediting the heroic and almost superhuman victory of the Soviet Union over perhaps the most horrific orgy of mass insanity the human race has ever endured. Twenty seven million Soviet citizens died fighting Nazism, and while so much of the rest of Europe disgracefully collaborated with Nazi occupation, it was the USSR which saved the rest of the world from enslavement by the Nazi horror, a horror which caused even the great German writer Thomas Mann to call for the destruction of Germany, which, he wrote, in “Dr. Faustus,” had sunk to an abyss of barbarism from which it could never fully recover.

In the August 2007, Vanity Fair, the late Pulitzer Prize winning historian David Halberstam wrote: “Of all the fronts in the Second World War, the one least known in this country – our interest tends to disappear for those battles in which we did not participate – is ironically the most important: the Eastern Front, where the battle between the Germans and Russians took place and where, essentially the outcome of the war was decided. It began with a classic act of hubris-Hitler’s invasion of Russia, in June 1941, three years before we landed our troops in Normandy.. Some three million German troops were involved in the attack, and in the early months the penetrations were quick and decisive. Minsk was quickly taken, the Germans crossed the Dnieper by July 10, and Smolensk fell shortly after. Some 700,000 men of the Red Army…were captured by mid-September 1941. The Russian troops fell back and moved as much of their industry back east as they could. Then, slowly, the Russian lines stiffened, and the Germans, their supply lines too far extended, faltered as winter came on. The turning point was the Battle of Stalingrad, which began in late August 1942. It proved to be the most brutal battle of the war, with as many as two million combatants on both sides killed and wounded, but in the end the Russians held the city and captured what remained of the German Army there. In early 1943, the Red Army was on the offensive, the Germans in full retreat. By the middle of 1944, the Russians had 120 divisions driving west, some 2.3 million troops against an increasingly exhausted German Army of 800,000. By mid-July 1944, as the Allies were still trying to break out of the Normandy hedgerows, the Red Army was at the old Polish-Russian border. By the time of Yalta, they were closing in on Berlin.”

Pulitzer Prize winner Harrison Salisbury, another great American historian eloquently wrote: “As the clock ticked away that long spring evening (June 21, 1941), it brought Stalin and his Russia minute by minute closer to disaster. By the same token, it propelled Georgi Zhukov into perhaps the most striking military career of the 20^th Century. The names of many military men may be better known in the West – England’s Montgomery, Germany’s Rommel and Guderian, de Gaulle of France, America’s Eisenhower, MacArthur and Patton. But when history has completed its painful task of evaluation, when the grain of achievement is sifted from the chaff of notoriety, it seems certain that the name which will stand above all others as the master of the art of mass warfare in the twentieth century will be that of this broad-beamed, fierce, determined man, Marshal Zhukov, who turned the tide of battle against the Nazis, against Hitler, not once, but time after time after time.”

According to Christopher Simpson, in his epic “The Splendid Blonde Beast, Money, Law and Genocide in the Twentieth Century,” “President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s conflicts with the Foreign Service dated back to the first days of his administration. The dispute had often centered on what to do about Nazi Germany, and sometimes Ambassador Herbert Pell was involved. Roosevelt had come to distrust the European Division of the State Department, which disagreed with FDR’s politics and often pursued its own agenda regardless of directives from the White House. State’s Eastern European specialists, including William Bullitt, Loy Henderson, and George Kennan, leaned toward a strategy of rapprochement with Hitler and an anti-Bolshevik cordon sanitaire with Germany against the Soviets. Roosevelt favored normalized relations with the Soviets – in late 1933, he sent the first U.S. Ambassador to Moscow since the 1917 revolution – and as the decade wore on he increasingly viewed the German-Japanese Axis as the world’s most dangerous imperial force. Ambassador Herbert Pell agreed, strongly backing the President in his controversies with the Foreign Service. FDR even went so far as to dissolve State’s Division of Eastern European Affairs, believing that the group was disloyal to the Administration and was undermining efforts to strengthen international cooperation against the Axis.”

Perhaps the most incriminating evidence against Ukranian claims that they were targeted for mass starvation, and victims of a policy of genocide by Stalin, is precisely the year 1932-1933 in which “Holodomor” is said to have occurred. The year 1932 was the height – or abyss – of the Great Depression, and millions of people throughout the world, including millions in other regions of the Soviet Union, from Kazakhstan, through Russia, Belarus, and elsewhere, were dying of starvation. In the United States, where 30 million people were unemployed, three and one half million veterans of World War I were jobless, homeless, and often starving. These three and one half million destitute veterans had been promised bonuses for their service in World War I, and a huge number of them traveled by any available means, or walked huge distances to Washington, D.C. to demand their bonus, which was their only hope of avoiding starvation for themselves and their families.

From “The Bonus Army” by Paul Dickson and Thomas B. Allen:

“There was an old Hoover

Who lived in a shoe

He had so many veterans

He didn’t know what to do

So he gassed them and tanked them

And burned up their beds

And then told all the people

The vets were all Reds.”

“Mellon pulled the whistle

Hoover rang the bell

Wall Street gave the signal

And the country went to hell”

“On January 6, 1932 a vast army of unemployed workers, arrived in Washington to demand jobs. They were led by Father James Cox of Pittsburgh, a Roman Catholic priest who had served as a chaplain in the war…Cox lambasted President Hoover and his policies. ‘Our president is still trying to give money to the bankers, but none to the people, who need it badly. There is plenty of money in this country, but try and get it….The government sent Al Capone to jail for cheating it out of $100,000, yet John D. Rockefeller is giving $4,000,000 to his son to escape inheritance tax.’

“Then, on the cold, gray morning of March 7, 1932, approximately four thousand men and women marched from Detroit to the Ford Motor Company’s River Rouge plant in Dearborn to present a list of demands to company management. A fight broke out when the marchers were denied entry to the plant. Police opened fire on the unarmed mob. A photographer for the Detroit News, Ray Pillsbury reported: ‘I would guess that hundreds of shots were fired into the mob. I saw their leaders drop, writhing with their wounds, and the mob dropped back…people were pitching forward every few seconds and lying still. When the smoke cleared, four men lay dead or dying in what became known as the Ford Massacre. The four bodies lay in state for four days in Workers’ Hall in Detroit under a huge red flag, a portrait of Lenin, and a banner reading ‘Ford Gave Bullets for Bread’”

“Father Charles E. Coughlin, the ‘radio priest’ who railed against ‘the vested interests of wealth’ to a weekly network audience of between thirty and fifty million, said: ‘If the government can pay 2 billion dollars to the bankers and railroads (through the Reconstruction Finance Corporation) having had no obligation toward them, why cannot it pay the 2 billion dollars to the soldiers, already recognized as an obligation?” “Will Rogers warned his readers that ‘you can’t get a room in Washington…every hotel is jammed to the doors with bankers from all over America to get their ‘hand out’ from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. ‘The bankers’ it seemed to Rogers, ‘have the honor of being the first group to go on the dole in America’”

The Bonus Expeditionary Force:

“One of the veterans organizing the march on Washington was Wright Patman, who finished his war service ‘with an awakened sense of moral outrage, especially about the money spent and corporate profits assured by the sales of weapons. He learned to fire an artillery piece with an eight mile range, which he described to his sister in a letter. ‘What you would call a bullet is as big as a stove pipe and twice as long. It cost the government $1,250 to fire one of them.’ Patman then observed that the cost of firing the ‘bullet’ was ten times the cost of a new schoolhouse.’”

Almost a million veterans arrived in Washington to demand their bonus. Their living conditions were described by Roy Wilkins when he arrived at Anacostia. “There I found black toes and white toes sticking out side by side from a ramshackle town of pup tents, packing crates, and tar-paper shacks. Black men and white men, veterans of the segregated army that had fought in World War I, lined up equally, perspired in sick bays side by side.’ Gardner Jackson of Survey magazine saw something else there: “The men…indeed practiced the first large scale attempt to mimic Mahatma Gandhi’s passive resistance…He added in parenthesis, ‘I might be thrown out as a Red if I told them that in person.” “These men and their families were characterized with many labels, including, now, ‘nonviolent.’”

July 18, 1932: For months the veterans remained in Washington, pleading and begging for the bonus that the United States government had guaranteed them. These non-violent veterans who had risked their lives to fight for the United States during World War I, were now regarded by the U.S. government as an enemy, and by July 18, 1932 President Hoover decided that he wanted the huge numbers of veterans thrown out of Washington and evicted from their pathetic cardboard huts surrounding the “heart” of Washington, and in Anacostia. On July 23, 1932 General Douglas MacArthur declared: “We are going to break the back of the Bonus Expeditionary Force. Within a short time we will move down Pennsylvania Avenue, sweep through the billets there, and then clean out the other two big camps. The operation will be continuous. It will all be done tonight.’” “The force stepped off at 4:30PM. More than two hundred cavalrymen, carbines at the sling and sabers drawn spread across Pennsylvania Avenue, trotting from the Treasury Building toward the Capitol. The trucks carrying the tanks rolled slowly behind the cavalry. Then came about four hundred infantrymen…..From the roof of the Ford building, where the eviction had begun in the morning, Richard L. Strout, a reporter for the Christian Science Monitor looked down to see the soldiers assembling on the avenue, and fixing bayonets, while in the rubble of the billets some veterans were lining up for mess call”

“Without warning the soldiers started hurling gas grenades at the vets. Troops drove Strout and other onlookers off the roof and through gas-clouded floors to the street. An infantry squad rushed into another wrecked building still housing veterans, ran to the roof and hurled tear-gas grenades down the stairwells, clearing the place. The cavalry ‘made war’ on the spectators gathered to watch the eviction. J. F. Essary of the Baltimore Sun wrote: ‘Nothing like this cavalry charge has ever been witnessed in Washington. The mad dash of these armed horsemen against twenty to thirty thousand people who were guilty of nothing more atrocious than standing on private property observing the scene was bitterly commented on by spectators…A. Everett McIntyre, a member of the Federal Trade Commission saw the infantrymen in gas masks advancing on the veterans, jabbing with bayonets to move them on. ‘Soon almost everybody disappeared from view because tear gas bombs exploded. The entire block was covered with tear gas. Flames were coming up, where the soldiers had set fire to the buildings to drive these people out. I watched the soldiers moving from hut to hut starting the blaze,’ Richard Strout reported. Shanty after shanty went up in flames, along with the meager belongings of the vets and their families.”

“ ‘Be careful men, don’t burn any flags, ‘ an officer said. But the camps were full of flags, and they burned as well as scraps of wood and cardboard that had sheltered the vets….Paul V. Anderson heard an officer bark a command and then saw cavalrymen charge the crowd with drawn sabers. ‘Men women and children fled shrieking across the broken ground, falling into excavations as they strove to avoid the rearing hoofs and saber points. A woman at a shack pleaded for permission to go inside and snatch a suitcase with all the clothes she had for herself and her child. ‘Get out of here lady, before you get hurt,’ the soldier said. He then set the shack on fire…As a soft summer evening closed over Washington, flames silhouetted the Capitol and the Washington Monument. The day had ended, but not the Army’s battle against the veterans’ Bonus Expeditionary Force. At 9:00PM MacArthur told the ranking infantry and cavalry officers that ‘this command will proceed to Anacostia Flats and evacuate Bonus marchers from that property.’ Smoke could be seen rising from the ruins of the Bonus Army’s Anacostia camp on the morning after troops – using tear gas, bayonets and torches – drove out the veterans and their families. And this, said a veteran’s wife, ‘because they cry for food…because they beg for work.’”

In 1932 President Hoover unleashed the United States army to slaughter loyal American veterans who were starving, and, exercising their First Amendment Right of Assembly, gathered in Washington D.C. to lobby for the bonus which had been guaranteed them. Three and ¾ million veterans were promised that bonus, a promise betrayed by the government, which ordered the army to attack veterans claiming their rights. Starvation was rampant those years in the United States, 30 million Americans were unemployed, families often forced to eat their own pet animals, one step from cannibalism, conditions ripe for revolution. Ukraine has used the term “genocide” irresponsibly: using Ukranian government criteria, one could equally well make a valid case that President Hoover perpetrated genocide against impoverished American World War I veterans and their families, and deliberately engineered the starvation of an entire class of American citizens, jobless and destitute through no fault of their own.

There is a famous saying that: “Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it.” But when history is falsified, as governments in the Baltic countries, Ukraine and other neo-Nazi movements throughout Europe and in the USA are attempting to do, populations are hostage to lies, and incapable of defending themselves from cynical, avaricious manipulations by unscrupulous leaders. This is precisely the manipulation and perversion of truth that was feared and denounced by the great philosopher Nietzsche, (in “The Geneaology of Morals”) whose philosophy, not incidentally, was derived from and based upon the earlier writings of that Russian genius, Dostoyevsky.

When the Soviet victory over Nazism is degraded, and when Nazi collaborators are glorified, the unthinkable day may come when our own history may be betrayed, and America’s greatest president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, will be denounced and demonized for his fierce opposition to Nazism, and his willingness to commit American soldiers to the war in Europe against Nazi Germany. UN General Assembly President Miguel d’Escoto is protecting the accurate historical record, but the United States vote against General Assembly Resolution 63/162 has terrifying implications in a world confronting neo-Nazi movements during a global economic depression. And worse, many of the countries now warmly hosting neo-Nazi groups are NATO members.

The idea of Russia being defined as the “Other” would seem ludicrous, somewhat akin to the BBC broadcast, some years ago, which announced: “Storm over the English Channel. Continent isolated.” However, on February 16, 2009, The New York Times, Vladivostok, Russia, reported: “demonstrations by used car dealers protesting tariffs on their industry. The car dealer demonstrations in Vladivostok in the past two months have drawn thousands of people, more than events sponsored anywhere in Russia by liberal opponents of Vladimir V. Putin…Senior officials have portrayed the organizers as profiteers controlled by foreign agents who want this region to secede from Russia.” And on Saturday, February 28^th, The New York Times reported from Nazran, Russia: “In a recent interview with Novaya Gazeta, the new President of Ingushetia, Yanus-Bek Yevkurov stated that he believed that ‘the English and American secret services were backing Islamic militants in Inguishetia as a way to bring down Russia just as the Soviet Union was brought down.’” That was Brzezinski’s agenda. From the oil rich Caucasus to oil rich Siberia, Russia is being gnawed at, and the current insidious efforts to portray Russia as the “Other” may be part of this agenda – and a recipe for catastrophe.. Napoleon and Hitler attempted this, and the result was the downfall of Napoleonic France and the destruction of Nazi Germany. Those attempting to rewrite history today may find themselves “hoist on their own petard,” as the failure of free-market capitalism drags the world toward an abyss....

l'impact d'une bourse iranienne du pétrole sur le dollar et l'économie des Etats-Unis pourrait être pire que si l'Iran y lançait une bombe atomique

« l'impact d'une bourse iranienne du pétrole sur le dollar et l'économie des Etats-Unis pourrait être pire que si l'Iran y lançait une bombe atomique »,

(Il faut se rappeler que tout ce qui suit est dans le contexte "neo
conservateurs...."

La décision d'attaquer l'Iran a été prise par Washington et des
responsables gouvernementaux israéliens DES LE PRINTEMPS
2003.
Autrement dit le battage médiatique réalisé au sujet du nucléaire
iranien est de la poudre aux yeux.
Il faut aussi en conclure que l'Iran, la Russie et la Chine, ont eu tout
le temps nécessaire pour se « préparer».
Le camouflet subi par l'Empire états-unien en Irak a également retardé
considérablement les choses.

Face aux néo-conservateurs anglo-américains, européens et israéliens,
aveuglés par un semblant de puissance : un bloc de pays (la Russie, la
Chine et l'Iran) dirigés par des stratèges habiles en échecs.
Les néo¬conservateurs s'attendent à une victoire facile contre l'Iran ;
ils préparent leur « nuit des longs couteaux afin d'imposer une dictature.
En outre, l'effondrement économique approche à grands pas et d'ici trois
ans tout sera mis en place pour faciliter cet état de fait...

Dès le printemps 2003, C. Rice avouait que l'Iran serait la prochaine
cible des "néo-con"

Il y a deux ans, entre le 30 mars et le 1e` avril 2003, le Comité des
affaires publiques israélo-américain (American Israël Public Affaires
Committee - AIPAC) avait tenu son 44ème congrès politique dans un grand
hôtel de Washington.

Plusieurs milliers de personnes étaient présentes ainsi que des invités
prestigieux. Les interventions étaient centrées sur la guerre contre
l'Irak et le remodelage du Moyen-Orient. Plusieurs intervenants, comme
Colin Powell ou encore Silvan Shalom (ministre israélien des Affaires
étrangères) mettaient en avant l'importance de la convergence de vue
entre les Etats- Unis et Israël.

On y apprenait le rôle de conseil de petites unités de Tsahal auprès des
loupes Britanno-états¬uniennes en matière de maintien de l'ordre dans
les villes « libérées » en Irak.

Pas moins de la moitié des sénateurs et d'un tiers des représentants
assistèrent aux débats qui suivirent

Alors que les dirigeants de l'AIPAC déployaient leurs talents pour
convaincre les ministres et parlementaires présents, dans le même temps,
une réunion à huis clos était organisée au cours de laquelle intervenait
Condoleezza Rice, alors conseillère de sécurité nationale.

Cette réunion était importante puisque les journalistes présents
s'engagèrent à ne pas rendre compte de ses échanges.

Après s'être vue ovationnée, Madame Rice, qui a été formée par Josef
Kolber (père de Madeleine Albright), a, selon des sources de première
main, clairement laissé entendre que la Syrie et l'Iran seraient
probablement les prochaines cibles de la Coalition.

Par conséquent, dès le printemps 2003 l'Iran était déjà dans la ligne de
mire des dirigeants états- uniens. Cela signifie que la question du
nucléaire n'est donc... qu'un prétexte

Le prochain personnage préparé par le «Comité X» pour jouer un rôle clé
dans le déclenchement d'une Troisième Guerre mondiale s'appelle Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad.

A l'aube de la sixième année du nouveau millénaire, Adolf Hitler est
ressuscité, ou plus exactement, il s'est réincarné en Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, un individu petit et chétif comme lui, dont le discours est
dans la filiation idéologique de Mein Kampf.

Mais la différence entre Hitler et Ahmadinejad est que le premier a
échoué, là où le second est en train de réussir : accéder à la bombe
atomique.

Daniel Pipes, Administrateur de l'US Institute of Peace, et fondateur du
Middle East Forum ainsi qu'auteur de Militant Islam Reaches America a
tout à fait raison de mettre l'accent sur la mystique de Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad. «Grâce au président iranien Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, un nouveau
terme est apparu dans le vocabulaire politique : mandaviat.

Il s'agit d'un terme technique religieux se référant au mandi, élément
de la doctrine chiite désignant le restaurateur de la religion et de la
justice qui régnera avant la fin des temps.

Il est également appelé " retour du douzième imam ". Le mandaviatest
central dans les ambitions et les croyances d'Ahmadinejad.

Aussi bien comme maire de Téhéran que comme président de la République
islamique, il a mené des politiques et fait des discours en lien avec
cette croyance. Il a même conclu son allocution à l'ONU par une prière
pour l'arrivée du Mahdi.

Cette obsession lui donne la certitude de mener la politique adéquate.

Le comblement du fossé entre riches et pauvres en Iran, le défi lancé à
l'Amérique et à Israël et la création d'un programme d'armement
nucléaire, toutes ses initiatives s'inscrivent dans la préparation du
retour du Mahdi.

Or, que peut craindre un président persuadé que le Mahdi va arriver sous
peu ?

Les plus dangereux dirigeants de l'histoire moderne sont ceux qui (comme
Hitler) disposaient d'une idéologie totalitaire et d'une foi mystique en
leur propre mission. Ahmadinejad remplit ces deux critères ». (
Source : Jerusalem Post.)

(...)

Les leaders iraniens savent donc très bien ce qu'ils font.

Le cas irakien est, bien évidemment, dans tous les esprits.

L'Iran se sait menacé depuis les invasions de l'Afghanistan et de l'Irak.
Le Pakistan, la Géorgie et l'Ouzbékistan sont passés dans la sphère
d'influence états-unienne.
Le QG de l'armée états-unienne s'est installé au Qatar, les porte-avions
mouillent dans la zone et Israël menace.

L'Iran se sent encerclé par une armée hostile et le cas irakien renforce
sa détermination.

Il suit la Corée du Nord sur le chemin du nucléaire... et fourbit ses
armes économiques.

Des armes puissantes grâce au pétrole, dont il est le deuxième
producteur, juste derrière l'Arabie Saoudite.

Il y a quelques semaines, dans son numéro 102, LIES! publiait
l'information selon laquelle les autorités iraniennes avaient pris la
décision de rapatrier leurs capitaux de la sphère européenne vers les
pays du Sud- est asiatique.

Or, quelle est dans le monde la région qui détient le plus gros stock de
dollars US ?

D'après le Fond Monétaire International (FMI), ce sont les banques
centrales d'Asie. En 2002, elles détenaient près de 66 % des réserves en
dollars du monde. Cela a un peu baissé depuis, puisque tout doucement
ces banques vendent leurs dollars, mais ces réserves en dollars sont
encore de 63 % et de 20 % en euros.

Dans le précédent numéro nous avions évoqué les « pétro-euros » après
les «pétro-dollars ».

Ajoutons maintenant le terme de « sino-dollars ».

Maintenant, il faut savoir que les banques centrales asiatiques
renflouent 75 % du déficit américain. Pour résumer, ce sont donc les
Chinois et les Japonais qui payent les soldes des GI coincés en Irak.
Si le premier créancier des Etats-Unis est toujours le Japon, avec 840
milliards de dollars dans ses coffres, c'est la Chine qui est son
deuxième créancier, avec 610 milliards de dollars.

Devant l'Europe, et devant les pétro¬monarchies du Golfe arabo-persique.
Pour la Chine, cela représente 40 % de son PIB !

LIES! dispose de sérieuses archives dans lesquelles il s'avère judicieux
de piocher de temps en temps pour expliquer des événements à venir et
montrer que ces derniers s'inscrivent dans une logique...

Souvenez-nous de ce qui se passait il y a tout juste un an... alors que
le monopole du dollar comme monnaie de réserve était de plus en plus
contesté.

Fin février 2005, un rapport de la Banque de Corée indiquait qu'elle
voulait «diversifier son portefeuille de devises » - ce qui avait été
interprété comme une volonté de réduire la part des dollars dans ses
réserves de changes.

Cela avait sonné le dollar pendant quelques jours.
Puis, en mars de la même année, deux autres informations confirmaient
cette tendance. Tout d'abord, au Japon, le Premier ministre japonais
Junichiro Koizumi disait: « Je pense qu'il est nécessaire de diversifier
nos investissements » en réserves de change.

Dès le lendemain, un rapport de la banque d'affaires Lehman Brothers
signalait que la part du dollar dans les réserves de changes chinoises
avait reculé de 82 % à 76 % en 2004.

Une tendance qui n'a cessé de se confirmer. Fin janvier 2006, une étude
de la revue Central Banking Publications révélait qu'un nombre croissant
de gestionnaires de banques centrales avaient commencé à modifier la
composition de leur portefeuille de réserves. Selon cette étude, 70 %
des gestionnaires de réserves auraient augmenté en 2004 leurs réserves
en euros.

Depuis le discours de Mme Rice, la Russie et la Chine ont augmenté de
manière significative leurs encaisses de banques centrales en euro et en
or métal, au détriment du dollar.

Doit Doit-on préciser qu'il s'agit d'un mouvement coordonné ?

Bombes militaires américaines contre bombes économiques iraniennes


Al Jazeera se réjouit de la situation et conclut que « l'impact d'une
bourse iranienne du pétrole sur le dollar et l'économie des Etats-Unis
pourrait être pire que si l'Iran y lançait une bombe atomique », ce que
relève aussi l'Asie Times.

Même si les Etats-Unis voulaient encore soutenir la suprématie du dollar
avec des canons, cela est historiquement impossible.

Quand les armes deviennent l'agent pour fixer une devise, c'est un signe
clair d'une calamité dévastatrice.

Manifestement, les dirigeants de l'Iran ont été formidablement
«conseillés » pour caler leurcalendrier d'ouverture de la bourse du
pétrole en euro au moment où les Etats-Unis vont se trouver dans une
situation d'extrême vulnérabilité à l'intérieur comme à l'extérieur.

Au-delà de la géopolitique pure, la dette et les déficits astronomiques
des Etats-Unis ont livré l'économie de la dernière « hyper puissance »
aux mains des banques centrales asiatiques.

Cette ouverture de la bourse de Téhéran coïncide avec un moment où les
gouverneurs de plusieurs banques centrales ont annoncé qu'ils allaient
procéder à un rééquilibrage de leurs avoirs au détriment du dollar, et
en faveur de l'euro... et de l'or.

Mais personne n'a intérêt à ce que l'élastique soit cassé. On manipule,
on arrange, on tronque et on ment sur l'état de santé de l'économie
américaine jusqu'à ce que le fameux MARCHE des LIBERAUX impose sa loi !


Les 7 et 8 février (2006), les marchés mondiaux de matières premières
ont enregistré une soudaine vague de ventes, sans motif particulier
apparent. Ces derniers mois, les cours de presque tous ces produits sont
montés en flèche, en partie à cause de la spéculation des hedge funds
(fonds spéculatifs anglo-américains), mais aussi de l'absence générale
de confiance dans le système global de titres financiers.

A cela viennent s'ajouter, bien sûr, les craintes d'une attaque
militaire contre l'Iran.

Cette dynamique s'est brusquement inversée, temporairement, le 7
février, lorsque le prix de l'or a chuté de neuf dollars, marquant le
plus fort recul en un jour depuis neuf ans ! La contagion a gagné tous
les métaux précieux et industriels. En l'espace de vingt-quatre heures,
à partir de l'après-midi du 7, l'or a baissé de 4,5% après avoir
augmenté de 22 % depuis septembre 2005.

La presse financière a avancé comme explication des pertes importantes
subies par certains hedge funds, ce qui pourrait expliquer des ventes
paniques sur les marchés suite à la liquidation forcée de certains
contrats.

LIESI a tendance à privilégier d'autres informations obtenues
d'Executive Intelligence Review: « une MAIN INVISIBLE... Une source
digne de foi dans la communauté bancaire européenne estimait, dans une
discussion privée, que les autorités financières américaines ou
européennes seraient intervenues.

Ces institutions, d'après elle, considèrent que les cours des matières
premières ont grimpé si rapidement depuis le début de l'année que la
moindre escalade de la crise iranienne leur ferait "crever le plafond".

Par conséquent, une vente concertée a été orchestrée pour interrompre la
dynamique, faute de la stopper. Cette source pense que l'effet ne durera
pas longtemps et que la montée continuera tant qu'il n'y aura pas de
désescalade de la crise iranienne ».

C'est exactement ce qui est train de se produire puisque les cours de
l'or sont repartis à la hausse...

Le départ de Greenspan... une clé

Récemment, un homme a compris le danger et il s'en est allé... Nous
parlons d'A. Greenspan, le patron de la Banque centrale américaine
durant dix-huit ans, de 1987 à 2005.

Il a quitté son poste et ses employeurs et il a été remplacé par un
certain Ben SHALOM Bernanke... un juif sépharade !

Ceux qui auront compris la subtilité après la lecture de la conférence
de Benjamin Freedman (proposée dans le numéro 103) en tireront de justes
conclusions. Pour LIESI, M. Bernanke n'est pas du tout au courant du
scénario à venir... Nous l'avons écouté lors de son intervention devant
le Congrès puis le Sénat. C'était plutôt minable....

Syria US relations....while US diplomats babble, CIA still runs the show, in and from Damascus...

Syria US relations....while US diplomats babble, CIA still runs the show in and from... Damascus...keeping the State department at bay....and far away from the ongoing and infamous White House Murder INC, headed by Asef Shawkat in Damascus.

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33487.pdf

http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=5866

http://italy.usembassy.gov/pdf/other/RL33487.pdf

Silence, they say, is the voice of complicity... But silence is impossible... Silence screams... Silence is a message, just as doing nothing is an act. Let who you are ring out & resonate in every word & every deed. There's no sidestepping your own being or your own responsibility. What you do is who you are. You are your own comeuppance. You become your own message. You are the message. In the Spirit of HK....Elie HOBEIKA, a Lebanese Nationalist and a Hero.

http://newhk.blogspot.com/2011/01/obama-perpetuates-utter-lies-between.html

http://newhk.blogspot.com/2011/01/components-of-white-house-murder-incs.html

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cornering one aspect related to the Jewish "Lobby"....


The power behind the power in USA and their favorite sweet heart deal with "Court Jews", AIPAC and the "Lobby" as a whole....

It's the US Government agencies who are most benefiting from the arrangement with the "Lobby" and its "Court Jews"...always has, always will...until something BIG Gives somewhere...but there is no sign of that YET...we are still in a Honeymoon phase as far as I can see.... But, depending on how "revolutions" go in MENA and beyond....we might witness some changes to that sweet heart deal....

In the world of CIA, the playbook never seems to change...

AIPAC, JINSA and all other "Court Jewish" PACs and ORGs. are a convenient Cover for CIA, NSA, DIA, NRO, FBI, DEA, and all the other 18 US Intelligence agencies to hide behind...Hence no need to do any significant disclosures to Congress or its Intelligence Committees about any significant covert activities or extra-judicial operations spanning decades. The only exceptions, which won't be repeated anytime soon, were BCCI or Iran-Contra, to name a few ...

AIPAC is a perfect "cover", it gives overwhelming control of Congress to CIA without having to move a finger...and to Hell with the Foreign Policies of Foggy Bottom or any Justice for Palestinians, Lebanese, or Freedom, the rule of law, good governance and Democracy in faraway places...

AIPAC & Co. and all the other 18 US Intelligence agencies are priceless for CIA, and the Middle East can go to Hell as far as they are concerned, and that has been proven to be the case since the 1960s!

AIPAC, Jstreet, Jinsa, WINEP, their coteries etc. and all the NGOs, NED, Freedom House, USAID or the likes, work hand in hand with CIA and their Israeli counterparts everywhere... The world is changing fast. Will that change the equation described here above???

History has always had a soft spot for the political couple: Anthony
and Cleopatra, Bill and Hillary, and, of course, that odd-couple of
American political consulting James Carville and Mary Matalin. Yet
what is one to make of the oddest couple of all: Joachim Martillo
(a.k.a. Juan Carlo Santos Martillo Ajami) and Karin Friedemann (a.k.a.
Karin Maria Friedemann-Hussain, a.k.a. Maria Hussain).

The name Karin Friedemann (without the aliases) may ring a bell to
readers of the Somerville Journal. On May 5, she wrote a standout
letter to the editor supporting divestment that included the following
gem:

"Soon after the governor of New Jersey invested all of his state
employees' 401K plans in Israel, it was revealed that the governor was
being poked from behind by an Israeli agent."

For anyone unfamiliar with the reference, Friedemann was talking about
the former governor of New Jersey, James McGreevey, who recently
resigned due to a scandal involving his closeted homosexuality. The
401K accusation is total nonsense, and simply used as a hook for a
homophobic slur directed at McGreevey's male lover (who was Israeli).

Lest anyone think Friedemann's anti-gay crack was an inadvertent slip
of the tongue, here is what this outspoken woman and convert to Islam
(under one of her many pseudonyms Maria Hussain) had to say about
Islam, feminism and homosexuality in an article entitled "Observations
on the Palestinian Solidarity Conference":

"Muslims ... are not seeking peace. We get peace from Allah. In
Palestine, we will stop only at victory, which will be, inshaAllah, in
the end, a just implementation of Islamic religion. We have to guard
against the Palestine movement being represented primarily by
homosexuals and feminists."

Karin/Maria's involvement in the Somerville Divestment Project has
been both clear and long term. In an October, 2004 communication with
her comrades, Freiedmann/Hussain was in a near panic when the city's
aldermen decided to make the SDP's activities known to the public:

"the remaining Alderman threw us for a loop by insisting that 'the
other side' be allowed to speak ... before letting the vote go
through"

Needless to say, her fear was justified given how their movement
shriveled to dust once it's activities was exposed to the light of
truth

If Friedemann/Hussain, whose writing appears on various Islamist and
anti-Jewish Web sites (including former KKK head David Duke's white
supremacist publication WhiteCivilRights.org) is a strange one, she
has nothing on al Jezeera's favorite "scholar" of Jewish history and
anthropology, Joachim Martillo.

In addition to his many activities on various hate publications such
as JewishTribalReview.org, Martillo has also been featured prominently
on the Somerville Divestment Project's Web site which features a
telling little essay in it's Counterpoints Section titled "How to Talk
About Zionism: The New Improved Guide" which includes the following
over-the-top talking point:

"...Zionist propaganda reinterprets the Ashkenazi ethnic group as the
pan-Judaic ethnonational group in order to make a ridiculous
primordialist claim to Palestine just as German Nazi propaganda
equated modern Germans to ancient Teutonic and Gothic tribes in order
to claim that only pure Germans had a right to reside in German
territories."

If the bizarre ethno-history and discussion of "promordialism" causes
a few blank stares, Martillo (and, one presumes, the SDP which has
posted his "analysis") is struggling with the same problem faced by
right-wing Jew haters who also fancy themselves religious Christians:
how to continue to revere the Jews of the Old Testament (which they
embrace) while leaving room to despise the Jews living amongst us
today. Their solution is a witches brew of religion and ideology
called "Identify Christianity" that claims the Jews of today have
nothing to do with the Jews of the Old Testament, but are in fact
descendents of Eastern European tribes called the Khazars who embraced
Judaism centuries ago (much as the Slavs converted to Orthodox
Christianity).

Middle Eastern nations and political movements that define themselves
in opposition to the Jewish state face a similar problem: how to
negate Israel's claim to being the historic homeland to the Jewish
people, despite the chronicles of Old Testament prophets whom many
Muslims also claim to revere. Their solution has been to import themes
of Identity Christianity, mixed with claims that the Palestinians are
not, in fact, Arabs (and thus recent conquerors of the region), but
are actually descendents of the Philistines whose claim to the region
pre-dates both modern and ancient Jewish history.

Into this maelstrom comes Joachim Martillo with his own wacked-out
analysis of Ashkenazi and "primordialism," pseudo-scholarship embraced
only by the Jew-hating fringes of the far Right and Left (which
clearly includes the Somerville Divestment Project).

In compiling research on these two activists in the local divestment
movement, a friend discovered this happy (if odd) wedding
announcement:

"On July 1, 2004, Joachim Martillo and the former Maria Hussain joined
forces a match made in heaven..."

While one could make jokes about which set of pseudonyms the happy
couple used to give their vows, or explore the bizarre conversations
that must take place at their dinner table, I am more struck at how
this marriage of an Islamic hater of Jews and gays and a pseudo-
scholarly negator of Jewish history reflects trends in anti-Israel
political history generally, and the Somerville Divestment Project in
particular.

This site has already noted the degeneration of tactics and discourse
of the divestment movement as it moved from lobbying Somerville's
alderman last year to pushing for a ballot initiative in 2005.
Friedemann's screed in the Somerville Journal combined with Martillo's
race-baiting "Guide" on the SDP Web site only confirms what I've
suspected about the movement's move to ideology so extreme that even
the most smothering blanket of human-rights vocabulary cannot obscure
it's true nature.

Another ingredient in this mix is an organization called One Palestine
whose members (not including one who was recently deported to Jordan)
moved into high positions within the SDP after last year's defeat. As
the name implies, members of One Palestine are not particularly
interested in a two-state solution, or any other elements of a peace
process that does not give Arabs exclusive possession of the entire
region, from the River to the Sea. Like the SDP (whose favorite
scholar Joachim Martillo once wrote to a friend of mine that "The only
downside to Palestinian terrorism is the death of the Palestinian
attacker."), One Palestine does not have any moral dilemmas about
blowing up children in a Jerusalem Pizzeria as a legitimate political
tactic. And, like the SDP, their attempt to cloud the air with the
progressive language of human rights cannot camouflage their true
face.

Having spent time in the hothouses of Internet debate in the years
before I hung up my keyboard and started raising children, this cast
of characters (the religious spewer of anti-Jewish and anti-gay hate;
the pretentious, aging Ivy League grad who has learned the format of
scholarship, but none of its substance or integrity; the hypocritical
"human rights" supporter of terror) are all familiar to me.

The trouble is, when divestment was allowed through the door last
year, this freak show moved from virtual reality to the pages of my
weekly newspaper and into my neighborhood. While I never felt
resentment towards Somerville's political leaders who allowed
themselves to be manipulated and thus let this circus commence, I
would hope that all those who thought they were battling simply for
human rights in last year's debate would now would turn left and
right, look at just whom they are being asked to embrace, and get the
toxin of divestment out of Somerville's bloodstream for good.


http://www.somervillemejustice.com/marriage.html

Stories Jews Were Told:
Israel, Zionism, and Palestine
by Donna Nevel

What is the story American Jews have been told about Israel and Zionism,
and how does it differ from the reality of what happened in Palestine?
Like many American Jews, I was told by my teachers at Hebrew School and
in the Jewish Day School I attended that the creation of Israel meant
that Jews would never again have to live through another Holocaust.
That slogan, "Never Again," popularized by the notorious Jewish Defense
League, reverberated throughout the Jewish community. As part of the
story, I learned that Arabs, like the Germans, hated Jews and wanted to
destroy us. They were our enemies. The refrain, "they want to throw us
into the sea," was etched into my consciousness. I was told that they
-- the amorphous they -- didn't value human life and were not like us.
The process of dehumanization wasn't subtle.

I learned about the Zionist dream, of deserts blooming, of our people, a
third of whom had been murdered, able, at long last, to live freely and
fully in our own homeland. I learned a variation of "a land without a
people for a people without a land." And when I studied Zionism more
seriously in college and afterwards, I learned a new variation of that
refrain -- that, in fact, people were living there, but they were
peasants, wanderers, who did not have a cultural or national identity.
In other words, they weren't really a people so could easily integrate
as a minority into the new Jewish state.

At home, I learned about Zionism and Israel without the hateful
rhetoric. I grew up in a home imbued with Jewish culture and rooted in
Jewish experience -- "Yiddishkeit" -- with parents who were civil and
human rights activists and were extraordinarily ethical people. I
learned Jewish history and to be proud of who I was without adhering to
the concept of the "chosen people." Because my father served as an
assistant to Jewish leader Rabbi Stephen Wise, who had trusted President
Roosevelt to take action to save the Jews, I grew up hearing stories
about the ways the U.S. government failed to rescue Jews and how Israel
would be the safe haven that Jews desperately needed. I learned about
struggles for self-determination and about Israel as the national
liberation movement of the Jewish people.

But, regardless of the tone or intention, this story that I and so many
Jews accepted as a given was fundamentally flawed. That is, the story
failed to include that, as Jews were migrating to Palestine to fulfill
the Zionist dream, Palestinians were already living there, and, yes,
they identified as a people with cultural and national identities and
aspirations. And overwhelmingly and profoundly different from the
Zionist dream, the Palestinians' expression of their cultural and
national aspirations was being fulfilled in their homeland and didn't
require displacing another people. But this reality did not become part
of the Hebrew school curriculum or make it into the American Jewish
psyche. This part of the story simply wasn't being acknowledged or told.

Today, when American Jews look at the Israeli massacre in Gaza and the
occupation, and hear that, according to the Israeli government and
American Jewish establishment, the Palestinians and Hamas want to
destroy Israel, how can we forget that it was the Zionist movement that
came and took over another people's homes and land? How can American
Jews not understand the Palestinian yearning for their homeland,
particularly a homeland that was taken from them by force?

Any discussion among American Jews of Israel and Palestine requires us
to push ourselves as a community to reflect on our history and on the
story many of us blindly digested; it requires us to understand that the
current massacre grows out of a long history of dehumanization of a
people and denial of their national rights in the land of Palestine.
Understanding that reality -- that is, re-telling the story to include
the impact of Zionism on the Palestinian people -- doesn't minimize or
ignore the horror of the Holocaust or our commitment to insuring that it
never happens again to Jews or to anyone else. Rather, the memory of
those who perished in the Holocaust is best honored by our involvement,
as Jews, in speaking the truth and participating in movements for
justice that insure the right of the Palestinians and all peoples to
live with dignity.

Donna Nevel, a community psychologist, is a long-time organizer for
Israeli-Palestinian peace and justice. She was a co-coordinator of
1989's Road to Peace conference, which brought together representatives
of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Israeli Knesset
(Parliament) for the first time in the United States.

URL: mrzine.monthlyreview.org/nevel070209.html

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www.uruknet.info?p=51907

www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45798

http://www.payvand.com/news/09/feb/1216.html

The Lebanese Armed Forces: Challenges and Opportunities in Post-Syria
Lebanon. http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/090210_lafsecurity.pdf

Iraq's Elections: A Win for Prime Minister Maliki and the United
States. http://www.heritage.org/Research/Iraq/upload/wm_2281.pdf

Nurturing Instability: Lebanon's Palestinian Refugee Camps.
http://www.crisisgroup.org/library/documents/middle_east___north_africa/arab_israeli_conflict/84_nurturing_instability___lebanon_s_palestinian_refugee_camps.pdf

Engaging Syria? U.S. Constraints and Opportunities.

http://www.crisisgroup.org/library/documents/middle_east___north_africa/arab_israeli_conflict/syria/83_engaging_syria___u.s._constraints_and_opportunities.pdf


http//www.JewishTribalReview.org/

http://www.somervillemejustice.com/marriage.html

http://www.blogcatalog.com/topic/cia+officer/

http://papoecia.blogspot.com/

http://photobucket.com/

Lack of emotional intelligence, Tzipi Livni neither understands people nor likes them ?

Lack of emotional intelligence, Tzipi Livni neither understands people nor likes them ?

Over the past week I took statements from about a dozen people who know Tzipi Livni quite well. None of them is close to either Benjamin Netanyahu or Ehud Barak. Most support Kadima or parties on the left. Nevertheless, all are concerned. The portrait they paint of Livni is a disturbing one.

Kadima's chairwoman is a principled, patriotic, exemplary human being. She is intelligent and a quick study. But there is one fault that no one disputes: Livni is short-tempered. Her more serious critics believe she has an attention deficit. She is incapable of delving into the details of a document or of sustaining an extended discussion. She does not stay with a topic until it has been completely clarified. Her thinking is not clear and she cannot distinguish the wheat from the chaff. Unlike Netanyahu and Barak, who can get to the bottom of an issue and discuss it in all its complexity, Livni tends to oversimplify, to go for the schematic. One of the most respected figures in the country says she is opinionated and superficial.

Nor is there any disputing a second flaw of Livni's: She finds it very hard to make decisions. Even with noncritical decisions she deliberates, wavers, delays and changes her opinion over and over. Some people believe the combination of inexperience and lack of confidence paralyzes Livni. They think the foreign minister is incapable of deciding whether to launch a strike against Iran. Livni does not have the spine, levelheadedness and internal calm necessary to take the most critical decisions.

Her third flaw is her total lack of emotional intelligence. Livni neither understands people nor likes them. That is why she has no inner circle of confidants. With the exception of her husband, Naftali Spitzer, she has no trusted partners. Many people who made personal sacrifices on her behalf feel betrayed. Unlike Ariel Sharon and Ehud Barak, Livni lacks personal warmth or charm. Few top Kadima figures like or believe her. In the party's inner circles she is thought of as lacking leadership. The most common comment is that she simply doesn't have it. Her ability to lead after the election is in doubt.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1061380.html (For documentation; as entire text here.)

Livni has several other faults. She does not take the long view, is inconsistent, and her deep fear of failure prevents her from being daring and original. She disguises her internal panic with exaggerated displays of self-confidence that sometimes border on rudeness. Her appointments are mediocre and her teamwork is poor. Many people at the Foreign Ministry view her as some sort of country bumpkin.

All these issues, however, are dwarfed by the question of all questions that Livni evokes: Who is she and what is her inner core? A few of the people I spoke to this week had a disturbing response to this question: Tzipi Livni is hollow. They argued that Livni lacks the cultural baggage, historic vision, emotional tools and personal abilities of a leader. She has never shown civil courage, has no achievements to her name and has never gone against the tide. She recites a series of correct statements about dividing the country but does not know how to translate them into policy. That is why her negotiations with Ahmed Qureia failed and why her faith in Annapolis was proved false.

But Livni's Palestinian failure is tiny compared to her Iranian error. Livni did not understand the Iranian challenge in advance, did not take it on board and effectively did nothing in the international arena to deal with it. Iran's nuclear program is what turned Livni's term as foreign minister into a colossal failure.

One of the people I spoke to was especially agitated despite being a mature, restrained and conservative person. He told me he felt like a member of some cult with a terrible secret: Tzipi Livni is not fit to be prime minister. There is a black flag waving above her journey to the Prime Minister's Office.

The witness said it was inconceivable to him that the media are not revealing this secret; intolerable that the public does not know. That is why he spoke, that is why I recorded his words. That is why this piece was published. So the public will know - and decide.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s speech at the opening ceremony of the World Economic Forum Davos,

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s speech at the opening ceremony of the World Economic Forum Davos, Switzerland January 28, 2009

Good afternoon, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen,

I would like to thank the forum’s organisers for this opportunity to share my thoughts on global economic developments and to share our plans and proposals.

The world is now facing the first truly global economic crisis, which is continuing to develop at an unprecedented pace.

The current situation is often compared to the Great Depression of the late 1920s and the early 1930s. True, there are some similarities. However, there are also some basic differences. The crisis has affected everyone at this time of globalisation. Regardless of their political or economic system, all nations have found themselves in the same boat.

There is a certain concept, called the perfect storm, which denotes a situation when Nature’s forces converge in one point of the ocean and increase their destructive potential many times over. It appears that the present-day crisis resembles such a perfect storm.

Responsible and knowledgeable people must prepare for it. Nevertheless, it always flares up unexpectedly.

The current situation is no exception either. Although the crisis was simply hanging in the air, the majority strove to get their share of the pie, be it one dollar or a billion, and did not want to notice the rising wave.

In the last few months, virtually every speech on this subject started with criticism of the United States. But I will do nothing of the kind.

I just want to remind you that, just a year ago, American delegates speaking from this rostrum emphasised the US economy’s fundamental stability and its cloudless prospects. Today, investment banks, the pride of Wall Street, have virtually ceased to exist. In just 12 months, they have posted losses exceeding the profits they made in the last 25 years. This example alone reflects the real situation better than any criticism.

The time for enlightenment has come. We must calmly, and without gloating, assess the root causes of this situation and try to peek into the future.

In our opinion, the crisis was brought about by a combination of several factors.

The existing financial system has failed. Substandard regulation has contributed to the crisis, failing to duly heed tremendous risks. Add to this colossal disproportions that have accumulated over the last few years. This primarily concerns disproportions between the scale of financial operations and the fundamental value of assets, as well as those between the increased burden on international loans and the sources of their collateral.

The entire economic growth system, where one regional centre prints money without respite and consumes material wealth, while another regional centre manufactures inexpensive goods and saves money printed by other governments, has suffered a major setback.

I would like to add that this system has left entire regions, including Europe, on the outskirts of global economic processes and has prevented them from adopting key economic and financial decisions. Moreover, generated prosperity was distributed extremely unevenly among various population strata. This applies to differences between social strata in certain countries, including highly developed ones. And it equally applies to gaps between countries and regions. A considerable share of the world’s population still cannot afford comfortable housing, education and quality health care. Even a global recovery posted in the last few years has failed to radically change this situation. And, finally, this crisis was brought about by excessive expectations. Corporate appetites with regard to constantly growing demand swelled unjustifiably. The race between stock market indices and capitalisation began to overshadow rising labour productivity and real-life corporate effectiveness.

Unfortunately, excessive expectations were not only typical of the business community. They set the pace for rapidly growing personal consumption standards, primarily in the industrial world. We must openly admit that such growth was not backed by a real potential. This amounted to unearned wealth, a loan that will have to be repaid by future generations.

This pyramid of expectations would have collapsed sooner or later. In fact, this is happening right before our eyes.

Esteemed colleagues,

One is sorely tempted to make simple and popular decisions in times of crisis. However, we could face far greater complications if we merely treat the symptoms of the disease.

Naturally, all national governments and business leaders must take resolute actions. Nevertheless, it is important to avoid making decisions, even in such force majeure circumstances, that we will regret in the future.

This is why I would first like to mention specific measures which should be avoided and which will not be implemented by Russia. We must not revert to isolationism and unrestrained economic egotism. The leaders of the world’s largest economies agreed during the November 2008 G20 summit not to create barriers hindering global trade and capital flows. Russia shares these principles. Although additional protectionism will prove inevitable during the crisis, all of us must display a sense of proportion. Excessive intervention in economic activity and blind faith in the state’s omnipotence is another possible mistake. True, the state’s increased role in times of crisis is a natural reaction to market setbacks. Instead of streamlining market mechanisms, some are tempted to expand state economic intervention to the greatest possible extent. The concentration of surplus assets in the hands of the state is a negative aspect of anti-crisis measures in virtually every nation. In the 20th century, the Soviet Union made the state’s role absolute. In the long run, this made the Soviet economy totally uncompetitive. This lesson cost us dearly. I am sure nobody wants to see it repeated. Nor should we turn a blind eye to the fact that the spirit of free enterprise, including the principle of personal responsibility of businesspeople, investors and shareholders for their decisions, is being eroded in the last few months. There is no reason to believe that we can achieve better results by shifting responsibility onto the state. And one more point: anti-crisis measures should not escalate into financial populism and a refusal to implement responsible macroeconomic policies. The unjustified swelling of the budgetary deficit and the accumulation of public debts are just as destructive as adventurous stock-jobbing.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Unfortunately, we have so far failed to comprehend the true scale of the ongoing crisis. But one thing is obvious: the extent of the recession and its scale will largely depend on specific high-precision measures, due to be charted by governments and business communities and on our coordinated and professional efforts. In our opinion, we must first atone for the past and open our cards, so to speak. This means we must assess the real situation and write off all hopeless debts and “bad” assets. True, this will be an extremely painful and unpleasant process. Far from everyone can accept such measures, fearing for their capitalisation, bonuses or reputation. However, we would “conserve” and prolong the crisis, unless we clean up our balance sheets. I believe financial authorities must work out the required mechanism for writing off debts that corresponds to today’s needs. Second. Apart from cleaning up our balance sheets, it is high time we got rid of virtual money, exaggerated reports and dubious ratings. We must not harbour any illusions while assessing the state of the global economy and the real corporate standing, even if such assessments are made by major auditors and analysts.

In effect, our proposal implies that the audit, accounting and ratings system reform must be based on a reversion to the fundamental asset value concept. In other words, assessments of each individual business must be based on its ability to generate added value, rather than on subjective concepts. In our opinion, the economy of the future must become an economy of real values. How to achieve this is not so clear-cut. Let us think about it together.

Third. Excessive dependence on a single reserve currency is dangerous for the global economy. Consequently, it would be sensible to encourage the objective process of creating several strong reserve currencies in the future. It is high time we launched a detailed discussion of methods to facilitate a smooth and irreversible switchover to the new model.

Fourth. Most nations convert their international reserves into foreign currencies and must therefore be convinced that they are reliable. Those issuing reserve and accounting currencies are objectively interested in their use by other states. This highlights mutual interests and interdependence. Consequently, it is important that reserve currency issuers must implement more open monetary policies. Moreover, these nations must pledge to abide by internationally recognised rules of macroeconomic and financial discipline. In our opinion, this demand is not excessive. At the same time, the global financial system is not the only element in need of reforms. We are facing a much broader range of problems. This means that a system based on cooperation between several major centres must replace the obsolete unipolar world concept. We must strengthen the system of global regulators based on international law and a system of multilateral agreements in order to prevent chaos and unpredictability in such a multipolar world. Consequently, it is very important that we reassess the role of leading international organisations and institutions.

I am convinced that we can build a more equitable and efficient global economic system. But it is impossible to create a detailed plan at this event today.

It is clear, however, that every nation must have guaranteed access to vital resources, new technology and development sources. What we need is guarantees that could minimise risks of recurring crises. Naturally, we must continue to discuss all these issues, including at the G20 meeting in London, which will take place in April.

Our decisions should match the present-day situation and heed the requirements of a new post-crisis world.

The global economy could face trite energy-resource shortages and the threat of thwarted future growth while overcoming the crisis. Three years ago, at a summit of the Group of Eight, we raised the issue of global energy security. We called for the shared responsibility of suppliers, consumers and transit countries. I think it is time to launch truly effective mechanisms ensuring such responsibility.

The only way to ensure truly global energy security is to form interdependence, including a swap of assets, without any discrimination or dual standards. It is such interdependence that generates real mutual responsibility.

Unfortunately, the existing Energy Charter has failed to become a working instrument able to regulate emerging problems.

I propose we start laying down a new international legal framework for energy security. Implementation of our initiative could play a political role comparable to the treaty establishing the European Coal and Steel Community. That is to say, consumers and producers would finally be bound into a real single energy partnership based on clear-cut legal foundations.

Every one of us realises that sharp and unpredictable fluctuations of energy prices are a colossal destabilising factor in the global economy. Today’s landslide fall of prices will lead to a growth in the consumption of resources.

On the one hand, investments in energy saving and alternative sources of energy will be curtailed. On the other, less money will be invested in oil production, which will result in its inevitable downturn. Which, in the final analysis, will escalate into another fit of uncontrolled price growth and a new crisis.

It is necessary to return to a balanced price based on an equilibrium between supply and demand, to strip pricing of a speculative element generated by many derivative financial instruments.

To guarantee the transit of energy resources remains a challenge. There are two ways of tackling it, and both must be used. The first is to go over to generally recognised market principles of fixing tariffs on transit services. They can be recorded in international legal documents. The second is to develop and diversify the routes of energy transportation. We have been working long and hard along these lines. In the past few years alone, we have implemented such projects as the Yamal-Europe and Blue Stream gas pipelines. Experience has proved their urgency and relevance. I am convinced that such projects as South Stream and North Stream are equally needed for Europe’s energy security. Their total estimated capacity is something like 85 billion cubic meters of gas a year. Gazprom, together with its partners – Shell, Mitsui and Mitsubishi – will soon launch capacities for liquefying and transporting natural gas produced in the Sakhalin area. And that is also Russia’s contribution to global energy security. We are developing the infrastructure of our oil pipelines. The first section of the Baltic Pipeline System (BPS) has already been completed. BPS-1 supplies up to 75 million tonnes of oil a year. It does this direct to consumers – via our ports on the Baltic Sea. Transit risks are completely eliminated in this way. Work is currently under way to design and build BPS-2 (its throughput capacity is 50 million tonnes of oil a year. We intend to build transport infrastructure in all directions. The first stage of the pipeline system Eastern Siberia – Pacific Ocean is in the final stage. Its terminal point will be a new oil port in Kozmina Bay and an oil refinery in the Vladivostok area. In the future a gas pipeline will be laid parallel to the oil pipeline, towards the Pacific and China. Addressing you here today, I cannot but mention the effects of the global crisis on the Russian economy. We have also been seriously affected.

However, unlike many other countries, we have accumulated large reserves. They expand our possibilities for confidently passing through the period of global instability.

The crisis has made the problems we had more evident. They concern the excessive emphasis on raw materials in exports and the economy in general and a weak financial market. The need to develop a number of fundamental market institutions, above all of a competitive environment, has become more acute.

We were aware of these problems and sought to address them gradually. The crisis is only making us move more actively towards the declared priorities, without changing the strategy itself, which is to effect a qualitative renewal of Russia in the next 10 to 12 years.

Our anti-crisis policy is aimed at supporting domestic demand, providing social guarantees for the population, and creating new jobs. Like many countries, we have reduced production taxes, leaving money in the economy. We have optimised state spending.

But, I repeat, along with measures of prompt response, we are also working to create a platform for post-crisis development.

We are convinced that those who will create attractive conditions for global investment already now and will be able to preserve and strengthen sources of strategically meaningful resources will become leaders of the restoration of the global economy.

This is why among our priorities we have the creation of a favourable business environment and development of competition; the establishment of a stable loan system resting on sufficient internal resources; and implementation of transport and other infrastructure projects.

Russia is already one of the major exporters of a number of food commodities. And our contribution to ensuring global food security will only increase.

We are also going to actively develop the innovation sectors of the economy. Above all, those in which Russia has a competitive edge – space, nuclear energy, aviation. In these areas, we are already actively establishing cooperative ties with other countries. A promising area for joint efforts could be the sphere of energy saving.

We see higher energy efficiency as one of the key factors for energy security and future development.

We will continue reforms in our energy industry. Adoption of a new system of internal pricing based on economically justified tariffs.

This is important, including for encouraging energy saving. We will continue our policy of openness to foreign investments.

I believe that the 21st century economy is an economy of people not of factories. The intellectual factor has become increasingly important in the economy. That is why we are planning to focus on providing additional opportunities for people to realise their potential.

We are already a highly educated nation. But we need for Russian citizens to obtain the highest quality and most up-to-date education, and such professional skills that will be widely in demand in today’s world. Therefore, we will be pro-active in promoting educational programmes in leading specialities.

We will expand student exchange programmes, arrange training for our students at the leading foreign colleges and universities and with the most advanced companies. We will also create such conditions that the best researchers and professors – regardless of their citizenship – will want to come and work in Russia.

History has given Russia a unique chance. Events urgently require that we reorganise our economy and update our social sphere. We do not intend to pass up this chance. Our country must emerge from the crisis renewed, stronger and more competitive.

Separately, I would like to comment on problems that go beyond the purely economic agenda, but nevertheless are very topical in present-day conditions. Unfortunately, we are increasingly hearing the argument that the build-up of military spending could solve today’s social and economic problems. The logic is simple enough. Additional military allocations create new jobs. At a glance, this sounds like a good way of fighting the crisis and unemployment. This policy might even be quite effective in the short term. But in the longer run, militarisation won’t solve the problem but will rather quell it temporarily. What it will do is squeeze huge financial and other resources from the economy instead of finding better and wiser uses for them.

My conviction is that reasonable restraint in military spending, especially coupled with efforts to enhance global stability and security, will certainly bring significant economic dividends. I hope that this viewpoint will eventually dominate globally. On our part, we are geared to intensive work on discussing further disarmament.

I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the economic crisis could aggravate the current negative trends in global politics. The world has lately come to face an unheard-of surge of violence and other aggressive actions, such as Georgia’s adventurous sortie in the Caucasus, recent terrorist attacks in India, and escalation of violence in Gaza Strip. Although not apparently linked directly, these developments still have common features.

First of all, I am referring to the existing international organisations’ inability to provide any constructive solutions to regional conflicts, or any effective proposals for interethnic and interstate settlement. Multilateral political mechanisms have proved as ineffective as global financial and economic regulators. Frankly speaking, we all know that provoking military and political instability, regional and other conflicts is a helpful means of distracting the public from growing social and economic problems. Such attempts cannot be ruled out, unfortunately.

To prevent this scenario, we need to improve the system of international relations, making it more effective, safe and stable. There are a lot of important issues on the global agenda in which most countries have shared interests. These include anti-crisis policies, joint efforts to reform international financial institutions, to improve regulatory mechanisms, ensure energy security and mitigate the global food crisis, which is an extremely pressing issue today.

Russia is willing to contribute to dealing with international priority issues. We expect all our partners in Europe, Asia and America, including the new US administration, to show interest in further constructive cooperation in dealing with all these issues and more. We wish the new team success.

Ladies and gentlemen,

The international community is facing a host of extremely complicated problems, which might seem overpowering at times. But, a journey of thousand miles begins with a single step, as the proverb goes. We must seek foothold relying on the moral values that have ensured the progress of our civilisation. Integrity and hard work, responsibility and self-confidence will eventually lead us to success. We should not despair. This crisis can and must be fought, also by pooling our intellectual, moral and material resources.

This kind of consolidation of effort is impossible without mutual trust, not only between business operators, but primarily between nations.

Therefore, finding this mutual trust is a key goal we should concentrate on now.

Trust and solidarity are key to overcoming the current problems and avoiding more shocks, to reaching prosperity and welfare in this new century.

Thank you.

Checkmate, 540 gates to the NWO, !

Checkmate, 540 gates to the NWO, !

"I fully agree with General Washington, that we must protect this young nation from an insidious influence and impenetration. That menace, gentlemen, is the Jews. In whatever country Jews have settled in any great number, they have lowered its moral tone; depreciated its commercial integrity; have segregated themselves and have not been assimilated; have sneered at and tried to undermine the Christian religion upon which that nation was founded by objecting to its restrictions; have built up a state within a state; and when opposed have tried to strangle that country to death financially, as in the case of Spain and Portugal. For over 1700 hundred years, the Jews have been bewailing their sad fate in that they have been exiled from their homeland, as they call Palestine. But, gentlemen, did the world give it to them in fee simple, they would at once find some reason for not returning. Why? Because they are vampires, and vampires do not live on vampires. They cannot live only amongst themselves. They must subsist on Christians and other people not of their race. If you do not exclude them from these United States in the Constitution, in less than 200 years they will have swarmed here in such great numbers that they will dominate and devour the land, and change our form of government, for which we Americans have shed our blood, given our lives, our substance, and jeopardized our liberty. If you do not exclude them, in less than 200 years our descendants will be working in the fields to furnish them substance, while they will be in the counting houses rubbing their hands. I warn you, gentlemen, if you do not exclude the Jews for all time, your children will curse you in your graves. Jews, gentlemen, are Asiatics, let them be born where they will or how many generations they are away from Asia, they will never be otherwise. Their ideas do not conform to an American's, and will not even though they live among us ten generations. A leopard cannot change its spots. Jews are Asiatics, are a menace to this country if permitted entrance, and should be excluded by this Constitutional Convention."~ Ben Franklin at the 1787 Constitutional Convention.

http://www.freemasonrywatch.org/prioryofsion.html

Since topics are so loosely defined today, and since ... mentioned the Protocols, I thought I would share something about the origin of that "treatise", or propaganda, or whatever it was...

The Holy Blood and Holy Grail

by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln

Random House 1982, 1996

Seal of the Priory of Sion One of the most persuasive testimonials we found to the existence and activities of the Prieure de Sion dated from the late nineteenth century. The testimonial in question is well enough known - but it is not recognized as a testimonial. On the contrary it has always been associated with more sinister things. It has played a notorious role in recent history and still tends to arouse such violent emotions, bitter antagonisms and gruesome memories that most writers are happy to dismiss it out of hand. To the extent that this testimonial has contributed significantly to human prejudice and suffering, such a reaction is perfectly understandable. But if the testimonial has been criminally misused, our researches convinced us that it has also been seriously misunderstood.

The role of Rasputin at the court of Nicholas and Alexandra of Russia is more or less generally known. It is not generally known, however, that there were influential, even powerful esoteric enclaves at the Russian court long before Rasputin. During the 1890's and 1900's one such enclave formed itself around an individual known as Monsieur Philippe, and around his mentor, who made periodic visits to the imperial court at Petersburg. And Monsieur Philippe's mentor was none other than the man called Papus - the French esotericist associated with Jules Doinel (founder of the neo-Cathar church in the Languedoc.), Peladan (who claimed to have discovered Jesus's tomb), Emma Calve and Claude Debussy. In a word, the 'French occult revival' of the late nineteenth century had not only spread to Petersburg. It's representatives also enjoyed the privileged status of personal confidants to the czar and czarina.

Et in Arcadia Ego However, the esoteric enclave of Papus and Monsieur Philippe was actively opposed by certain other powerful interests - the Grand Duchess Elizabeth, for example, who was intent on installing her own favorites in proximity to the imperial throne. One of the grand duchess's favorites was a rather contemptible individual known to posterity under the pseudonym of Sergei Nilus. Sometime around 1903 Nilus presented a highly controversial document to the czar - a document that supposedly bore witness to a dangerous conspiracy. but if Nilus expected the czar's gratitude for his disclosure, he must have been grievously disappointed. The czar declared the document to be an outrageous fabrication, and ordered all copies of it to be destroyed. And Nilus was banished from the court in disgrace.

Of course the document - or, at any rate, a copy of it - survived. In 1903 it was serialized in a newspaper but failed to attract any interest. In 1905 it was published again - this time as an appendix to a book by a distinguished mystical, Vladimir Soloviov. At this point it began to attract attention. In the years that followed it became one of the single most infamous documents of the twentieth century.

New Order of the Ages The document in question was a tract, or, more strictly speaking, a purported social and political programme. It has appeared under a variety of slightly differing titles, the most common of which is The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The Protocols allegedly issued from specifically Jewish sources. And for a great many anti-Semites at the time they were convincing proof of an 'international Jewish conspiracy'. In 1919, for example, they were distributed to troops of the White Russian Army - and these troops, during the next two years, massacred some 60,000 Jews who were held responsible for the 1917 Revolution. by 1919 the Protocols were also being circulated by Alfred Rosenberg, later the chief racial theoretician and propagandist for the National Socialist Party in Germany. In Mein Kampf Hitler used the Protocols to fuel his own fanatical prejudices, and is said to have believed unquestioningly in their authenticity. In England the Protocols were immediately accorded credence by the Morning Post. Even The Times, in 1921, took them seriously and only later admitted its error. Experts today at least in their present form, are a vicious and insidious forgery. Nevertheless, they are still being circulated - in Latin America, in Spain, even in Britain - as anti-Semitic propaganda.

The Protocols propound in outline a blueprint for nothing less than total world domination. On first reading they would seem to be the Machiavellian programme - a kind of inter-office memo, so to speak - for a group of individuals determined to impose a new world order, with themselves as supreme despots. The text advocates a many-tentacled hydra-headed conspiracy dedicated to disorder and anarchy, to toppling certain existing regimes, infiltrating Freemasonry and other such organizations, and eventually seizing absolute control of the Western world's social, political and economic institutions. And the anonymous authors of the Protocols declare explicitly that they 'stage-managed' whole peoples 'according to a political plan which no one has so much as guessed at in the course of many centuries'.

Square and Compass To a modern reader the Protocols might seem to have been devised by some fictitious organization like SPECTRE - James Bond's adversary in Ian Fleming's novels. When they were first publicized, however, the Protocols were alleged to have been composed at an International Judaic Congress which convened in Basle in 1897. This allegation has long since been disproved. The earliest copies of the Protocols, for example, are known to have been written in French - and the 1897 Congress in Basle did not include a single French delegate. Moreover, a copy of the Protocols is known to have been in circulation as early as 1884 - a full thirteen years before the Basle Congress met. The 1884 copy of the Protocols surfaced in the hands of a member of a Masonic lodge - the same lodge of which Papus was a member and subsequently Grand Master. Moreover, it was in this same lodge that the tradition of Ormus had first appeared - the legendary Egyptian sage who amalgamated pagan and Christian mysteries and founded the Rose-Croix.

Modern scholars have established in fact that the Protocols, in their published form, are based at least in part on a satirical work written and printed in Geneva in 1864, The work was composed as an attack on Napoleon III by a man named Maurice Joly, who was subsequently imprisoned. Joly is said to have been a member of a Rose Croix order. Whether this is true or not, he was a friend of Vicor Hugo; and Hugo, who shared Joly's antipathy to Napoleon III, was a member of a Rose-Croix order.

It can thus be proved conclusively that the Protocols did not issue from the Judaic Congress at Basle in 1897. That being so, the obvious question is whence they did issue. Modern scholars have dismissed them as a total forgery, a wholly spurious document concocted by anti-Semitic interests intent in discrediting Judaism. And yet the Protocols themselves argue strongly against such a conclusion. They contain, for example, a number of enigmatic references - references that are clearly not Judaic. but these references are so clearly not Judaic that they cannot plausibly have been fabricated by a forger either. No anti-Semitic forger with even a modicum of intelligence would possibly have concocted such references in order to discredit Judaism. For no one would have believed these references to be of Judaic origin.

33rd Degree Thus for instance, the text of the Protocols ends with a single statement, 'Signed by the representatives of Sion of the 33rd Degree'.

Why would an anti-Semitic forger have made up such a statement? Why would he not have attempted to incriminate all Jews, rather than just a few - the few who constitute 'the representatives of Sion of the 33rd Degree'? Why would he not declare that the document was signed by, say, the representatives of the international Jewish conspiracy'. If anything, it would seem to refer to something specifically Masonic. And the 33rd Degree in Freemasonry is that of the so-called 'Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite' which emerges mysteriously out of French Freemasonry in the mid eighteenth century.

The Protocols contain other even more flagrant anomalies. The text speaks repeatedly, for example, of the advent of a 'Masonic Kingdom', and a 'King of the blood of Sion', who will preside over this 'Masonic Kingdom'. It asserts that the future king will be of the 'dynastic roots of King David'. It affirms that 'the King of the Jews will be the real Pope' and 'the patriarch of an international church'. And it concludes in a most cryptic fashion, 'Certain members of the seed of David will prepare the Kings and their heirs... Only the King and the three who stood sponsor for him will know what is coming'.

[...]

On the basis of prolonged and systematic research, we reached certain conclusions about the Protocols of the Elders of Sion. They are as follows.

1) There was an original text on which the published version the Protocols was based. This original text was not a forgery. On the contrary it was authentic. But it had nothing whatever to do with Judaism or an 'international Jewish conspiracy'. It was issued rather from some Masonic organization or Masonically oriented secret society which incorporated the word 'Sion'.

Asmodeus 2) The original text on which the published version of the Protocols was based need not have been provocative or inflammatory in its language. But it may well have included a programme for gaining power, for infiltrating Freemasonry, for controlling social, political and economic institutions. Such a programme would have been perfectly in keeping with the secret societies of the Renaissance, as well as with the Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement and the institutions of Andrea and Nodier.

3) The original text on which the published version of the Protocols was based fell into the hands of Sergei Nilus. Nilus did not first intend it to discredit Judaism. On the contrary, he brought it to the czar with the intention of discrediting the esoteric enclave at the imperial court - the enclave of Papus, Monsier Philippe and others who were members of the secret society in question. Before doing so, he almost certainly doctored the language, rendering it far more venomous and inflammatory than it initially was. When the czar spurned him, Nilus then released the Protocols in their doctored form for publication. They had failed in their primary objective of compromising Papus and Monsieur Philippe. But they might still serve a secondary purpose - that of fostering anti-Semitism. Although Nilus's chief targets had been Papus and Monsieur Philippe, he was hostile to Judaism as well.

4) The published version of the Protocols is not, therefore, a totally fabricated text. It is rather a radically altered text. But despite the alterations certain vestiges of the original version can be discerned - as in a palimpsest, or as in passages of the Bible. These vestiges - which referred to a king, a pope, an international church, and to Sion - probably meant little or nothing to Nilus. He certainly would not have invented them himself. But if they were already there, he would have had no reason, given his ignorance, to excise them. And while such vestiges might have been irrelevant to Judaism, they might have been extremely relevant to a secret society. As we learned subsequently, they were - and still are - of paramount importance to the Prieure de Sion.