Obama's White House Press Corps warned about asking certain questions (Re: Business International Corporation (BIC) a CIA front)

WMR has learned from a veteran member of the White House Press Corps that the Obama administration has made it known through White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and other White House Communications officials that certain questions posed by the reporters who cover the White House are definitely off-limits. On the banned list are any questions about Obama's post-Columbia University employment with Business International Corporation (BIC), a global financial and political information company that WMR previously reported was a front for the CIA.

White House Press Corps members have been quietly told that any questions related to BIC, Obama's withheld records while he was a student at Occidental College in Los Angeles from 1979 to 1981, or his records at Columbia, are forbidden. At the same time he was attending Occidental, Obama, using the name Barry Soetoro and an Indonesian passport issued under the same name, traveled to Pakistan during the U.S. buildup to assist the Afghan mujaheddin. WMR has learned from informed sources in Kabul that Obama has been extremely friendly, through personal correspondence on White House letterhead, with a private military company that counts among its senior personnel a number of Afghan mujaheddin-Soviet war veterans who fought alongside the late Northern Alliance commander Ahmad Shah Masood. The firm is also involved in counter-insurgency operations in Colombia, where Obama is building seven new military bases, and Iraq.

In 1981, Obama spent time in Jacobabad and Karachi, Pakistan, and appeared to have an older American "handler," possibly a CIA officer. WMR previously reported that Obama also crossed the border from Pakistan and spent some time in India. At the time of Obama's stay in Pakistan, the country was being built up as a base for the anti-Soviet Afghan insurgency by President Carter's National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski and later by President Reagan's CIA director William Casey.

Obama has suspiciously refused to release his transcripts from Occidental or Columbia University and he has remained cagey about his post-Columbia employment with BIC.

The word from the White House Press Corps is that if anyone were to ask Obama about BIC or possible past CIA work, domestically or abroad, the offending reporter would see a quick pulling of the White House press credential.

The White House website states the following about openness and transparency by the Obama administration:

"My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.

BARACK OBAMA"

Message from Cynthia McKinney and Israel Shamir in Turkey. The truth from the Middle East: unvarnished and de-Zionized.

As evidence mounts of a "Made in Washington and Tel Aviv" conspiracy to overthrow the Turkish government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan with the help of loyal members of the Turkish military, WMR received from Cynthia McKinney the following communiques from Ankara:

"I can hardly believe this moment!! Israel Shamir has written about me and lifted my spirits when I was most down. Even from faraway Israel, he understood my plight and dared give voice to the truth. They say that sometimes distance gives clarity--and certainly in Israel's case, in observing my serial targeting, he saw what many inside the United States could not see. Despite his writings, I never met him until this moment, just a few minutes ago!! We are speaking together this afternoon in Ankara, Turkey. He has already sent his message out on his list and so I include it here for you. I will send my message to you later. I will bring these contacts from around the world that I have made on behalf of peace, home to the United States so that we can more easily achieve our objectives for justice and peace and dignity in the area of policy where we and the world need it the most. We are a part of something much bigger than us individually, and our moment is now.

Here is Israel's presentation for this afternoon:

Dear friend,

Best regards from Ankara, the capital of Turkey, where I am now at a conference on Palestine, together with wonderful Cynthia McKinney and other good and great persons. Turkey is changing its course, from very pro-American and pro-Israeli to more independent, and subsequently less zionized.

The Turks are proud of the brave stand of their prime minister for Palestine and against an Israeli leader at Davos last year, and they consider it a pivotal event.

Turkey is changing from violently secular, anti-religious, so 1940s Kemalist regime, but there are still a lot of vestiges, as huge portraits of the supreme leader are still hanging on the capital buildings while student girls in headscarfs are being frowned upon if not actually forbidden to enter university. Though kemalism was supposed to be the proponent of modernisation, it is so dated, so old-fashioned! There is nothing more dated than yesterday's modernism. In Russia, they took this sort of portraits down in 1955, and even Taiwan removed its Chiang Kai Shek portraits in 1980s.


Surely it is not only portraits that annoy. They have a Supreme Court which tried to outlaw the majority ruling party because its very soft Islamic leanings do not agree with strict kemalism. It seems that Turkey's parliament has still much work to do on the way to democracy - they should downgrade their unelected Supreme Court, bring army and intelligence generals into obedience, provide for religious freedom for majority Muslims. But first, they should remove American military bases and kick NATO out. In an interview to a Turkish newspaper I called Turkey "to make peace with its own past" - the splendid past of the Caliphate, the ruler of the East, the head of the Muslim believers and the protector of the Christians.

Here is the talk I give today with its advices What To Do in Palestine:

What to Do in and about Palestine

Israel Shamir’s Talk at the Ankara Conference

http://www.israelsh amir.net/ English/Turkey. htm

Dear Turkish friends and fellow guests from abroad,

I am glad to speak again to you, the people of our great neighbour and former sovereign Turkey . Your latest developments inspire optimism. You are doing fine! Turkey is growing stronger and more independent; your leaders’ obsession with joining the European Union has been exorcised. You have restored the power of the parliament, bridled military excesses, streamlined your economy and improved relations with Syria and Iran .

Turkey is no longer an American colony. You stopped joint air force exercises with Israel and the US . You expressed your clear anger over the horrors of Gaza . Now you pay more attention to the area where you live; you play an important role already and are destined to play an even greater role. So much depends on you! We feel it every day in Palestine .

I will not waste your time describing the horrors of Zionist rule in Palestine . You already know them, you’ve seen them on TV – dreadful pictures of burned schools and napalmed children, of the Gaza blockade, of check points, of night arrests. It is now exactly one year since the Jewish onslaught on Gaza , last year's Christmas war which Israel began while the world was holidaying.

Your president, Mr Gul, said a few days ago to our president, Mr Peres, that he will not visit Israel while the siege of Gaza continues, and that was a very good decision. Indeed, it is urgent to lift the Gaza siege, because no building materials are being allowed to enter Gaza for the repair of homes. Instead, the Israeli siege is being tightened with active help of Egypt .

However beyond Gaza problem we must look for a bigger picture.

We are being told that the Gaza problem is that of Hamas intransigence, that it is Gaza ’s own fault. If only Gaza wouldn’t embrace radical Islam , Israel would accommodate Gaza ’s needs.

Let us have a look outside of Gaza , at the West Bank’s jewel, el Bireh, the twin city of Ramallah , the seat of Israel-approved ruler Mahmud Abbas. This is a most prosperous city of wonderful villas with a lot of greenery and purring Mercedes cars, and a beautiful view. El Bireh decided to build a football stadium; they asked for money and they received funds from France , Germany and the World Football Association, FIFA. The football stadium was built within the city of el Bireh 's limits. Immediately, the Israeli court ruled: the stadium must be destroyed, because it is within the eyesight of a Jew.

Do you understand this? Mahmud Abbas is the most compliant Palestinian leader now or ever; he is doing everything that Israel asks. His police kindly retreat when Israeli security jeeps drive into his cities to arrest whomever they wish. He arrests every activist who speaks against Israeli excesses. He even fired the most senior Palestinian diplomat, Dr. Afif Safieh, the former ambassador to Washington , London , Vatican and Moscow because he spoke out against the Israeli war on Gaza .

Every Islamist, every supporter of Islam in the West Bank is (or was) in Abbas’ jail.

Abbas is an implacable enemy of radical Islam. You can’t be more conciliatory towards Israel than Mahmud Abbas. And still, he can’t even build a stadium for kids to kick ball in his own city, because the Jews will not allow it.

So, although Gaza is in a dreadful situation, the problem is not only Gaza . Islam or not Islam is not even a question we should be pondering. It makes no difference. Islamists are in Abbas’ jail, yet Abbas can’t even build a stadium. Stadium, not medreseh ( = School in Arabic S1000+).

Fatah member Marwan Barghuti and leftist PFLP leader Ahmed Sadat are in Israeli jails together with Hamas MPs.

The problem is the Jewish state. Not only does it besiege Gaza and destroy a football stadium in el Bireh. These are local problems, painful but local. The Jewish state (It is not a Jewish state. It is a Zionist state. S1000+) focuses Jewish power all over the world into action. Without a Jewish state, this power would disperse; it would remain local, it would remain chaotic, probably it would be subdued by the forces of assimilation. Israel focuses these chaotic forces and concentrates them into action.

This action is against Islam. Not only against Islam, but Dar ul Islam (the Islamic world) is a prime target. In the US , the Jewish Neocons led their country into a crusade against Iraq and Afghanistan ; now they are spearheading the push against Iran

. They have formed a powerful front against President Obama and have turned him into a laughing stock after he uttered a few words of wisdom about Palestine .

In Europe , if you inspect the coffers of anti-Muslim neo-Nazi groups, you'll find that they thrive on Jewish support. In Russia , Jewish nationalists and Zionists try to rally the Russians against their Muslim brethren.Sometimes they do it under cover of the Russian Church , or of Russian nationalism. I wrote about this recently, as I had discovered that the most fervently anti-Muslim forces in Russia are organised by crypto-Zionists.

Even if a Palestinian state were to be established and recognised, it wouldn’t stop Israeli attempts to undermine its neighbours, to bomb Iran , to sow the seeds of discord from Russia to France , from Turkey to India . Israel 's too powerful intelligence services would keep meddling. Neither would it neutralise the armed forces of Israel , and you know as well as anybody that the generals do not give up their toys, their privileges or their influence easily. The Israeli military machine is so powerful that it would seek to exercise its might.

Remember the Israel-Egypt peace treaty: when it was concluded, the first thing Israel did was invade Lebanon .

The bad influence of Zionism on Jews all over the world would not vanish in case of a “two states’ solution.

In 1920, Winston Churchill published an article (Illustrated Sunday Herald, February 8, 1920, pg 5) titled: «Zionism or Bolshevism». (http://www.library. flawlesslogic. com/ish.htm ). There he noted that many Jews tend to embrace the cause of social equality (for him it was “impossible equality”), and the best way to stop by far too dynamic and powerful Jews from promoting equality is to infect them with Zionism. His project was supported by the might of the British Empire and by money of wealthy anti-equality Jews.

Zionism won. Equality was defeated. If we defeat Zionism, equality will have another chance. And a two states’ solution will not defeat Zionism.

In short, even if Mahmud Abbas’s dream of limited independence were to be realised, it wouldn’t be good enough for the region, and it wouldn’t be good enough for the world: Israel in its form of Jewish-supremacist state can’t become a peaceful neighbour.

Supremacism leads to wars. Only a democratic state, the successor of Israel and the PNA, would be able to live in peace. Compare it to South Africa : as long as it was a white-supremacist state, it was the source of warfare and trouble all over Africa . After its supremacism was exorcized, it became peaceful. In the same vein, independent Palestine would be just another Bantustan of the type rightly rejected by South Africans.

But I do not think that even this very limited cause of limited independence for Palestine is likely to be achieved.

We have been told – for sixteen years! – that there is a peace process that will lead to a “two states solution”. This is a fairy tale. If the Jews will not allow even the most loyal and obedient of el Bireh’s kids to play football, do you think they will allow them to have an independent state? Why would they?

The Jews write frequently of how they envisage Palestinian independence. (I refer here to the most enlightened left-wing Jewish politicians! ) They speak of a Palestine broken into a few enclaves surrounded by a wall and barbed wire, its airspace and all of its borders controlled by Israel; its water to remain under Jewish control. And this is the best they can dream of.

If you want to have Two States, it can happen only if the Jews plead for it like they did in 1947. They did so then, and they will do so again only if they feel that the alternative, a single democratic state for all inhabitants of Palestine , is on the table. This is what they are afraid of: full democracy, full equality in the whole of the land. So even for practical reasons, we should call, not for independence of some partitioned bits and pieces, but for the whole lot: Let Palestine be united, let all of its inhabitants have equal rights, and afterwards they can discuss two states for ever and ever. The first thing is equality, the rest can wait.
Speaking frankly, this mythic Two State Solution can’t even be envisaged. Jews and Palestinians live all over Palestine , and they can’t be physically separated without a huge turmoil that would remind us of 1921 in Turkey and Greece , with Turks leaving Salonika and Greeks leaving Smyrna . This is not something one would like to see happen.

The West gave Nansen his Nobel Peace prize for the transfer of Greeks and Turks. In my view, this was a terrible calamity, never to be repeated. Partitions are awful; it is like sawing a living man into two parts. Nor is it necessary. Greeks and Turks could live together as they did for four hundred years; separation did nothing good for them. Separation of Israelis and Palestinians would be equally evil.

Now, Zionists often remind Turks of your so-called “Kurd problem”. This comparison is wrong, because every Kurd in Turkey has Turkish citizenship and has all the rights every Turkish citizen has; while Palestinians usually have no citizenship of the state of Israel and enjoy no rights. But in one sense this comparison is right: it is impossible to separate Kurds from Turkey , because people of Kurdish descent live everywhere from Diyarbakir to Istanbul . Likewise, it is impossible to separate Palestinians from the immigrant populations which are called “Jews”.

Indeed, the whole story of Palestine is a story of immigrants taking over a country. Such things happen: immigrants from Britain took over North America and Australia . This is a sad thing, but it happened. Now it is not realistic to hope that they will sail back to England – they won’t. It is wrong to try and create an “independent state” for the native Americans – such independent states are called “reservations” . The right answer is equality for native and immigrant alike. Some Jews would complain that they want a state of their own. We shall answer them: you have built on sand, and a house built on sand can’t stand forever. If you want a state of your own without anybody else, find yourself a lonely uninhabited island. Palestine was, and is, populated; the best you can wish is to be equal citizens in Palestine with everybody else.

I spoke about this solution in the year 2001, when our country was torn by intifada al Aksa. It was right then, and it is right now. At that time I said: there is no other solution but a one-state solution. People, and even good people, activists, friends of Palestine said: no, we are very close to the two states’ solution. I did not believe it then, I do not believe it now. There is only one good way out, and that is the way of equality and democracy, of deconstructing the Jewish state by forcing it to give full rights to all Palestinians under its rule.

So this is the goal we should strive for: full equality and integration of Palestine and Israel , South African style. Nothing less.

This does not mean that there is nothing to be done until that moment. Turkey can do a lot even now, even today, beyond expressions of solidarity. The Jewish state is a horrible example of injustice gone unpunished. For instance, an Israeli officer Captain R murdered a 13-year old girl, Iman al Hams. He shot her within eyesight of his soldiers and said that even a three-year-old Palestinian should be killed if she comes close to Jewish positions. The Jewish court absolved Captain R of all guilt; the Israeli Army promoted him to major and another court awarded him damages for the mere discussion of his crime. Last week, yet another Jewish judge gave another huge compensation to the same murderer.

Turkey, as the former ruler of Palestine , could fill in the void of justice by bringing this Captain R to trial. Sooner or later he will leave the sanctuary of the Jewish state and travel somewhere for a holiday. A Turkish warrant for his arrest should await him wherever he goes. And not only him, but the Jewish ‘judges’ who covered up his crime and became accessories after the murder should be tried too. This is not a job for amateurs, but for a state with all its tools. If present Turkish law does not allow for this, let the law be updated by taking a leaf from the Israeli book. According to Israeli law, if a Turk does wrong to a Jew in Turkey , he may be snatched, arrested, tried and punished in Israel . Turkey should introduce a symmetrical law, covering offences against Palestinians who otherwise are not protected by law.

Turkey could also take the initiative to stop the still looming Israeli-American aggression against Iran . If they do take Iran , Turkey will be encircled and cut off. The fate of Palestine also depends on the fate of Tehran .

My New Year's wish to you: be yourself, be Turks, and live in harmony and friendship with your neighbours, with Russia , Iran , Syria , Greece and with all the successor states of the Ottoman Empire . You are needed for the world and for Palestine .

Who let security fail at Schiphol Airport and why? ICTS is also linked with Israeli espionage against the United States.

Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, the University College London student from Nigeria accused of trying to detonate a mixed liquid-powder device on a Northwest Airlines/Delta Airbus 330, flight 253, as it approached Detroit from Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport on Christmas Day appears to have received some special treatment from security at the Amsterdam airport. The Mutallab case also resembles that of another attempted plane bombing, that of the hapless "shoe bomber" Richard Reid.

It has also been revealed that Mutallab is the son of Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, the former chairman of First Bank of Nigeria. According to This Day of Lagos, the elder Mutallab claims he reported the extremist views of his son to Nigerian security agencies, as well as to the U.S. embassy in Abuja, yet no attempt was made to prevent the radically-inclined Nigerian student to board the plane in Schiphol. The attempted plane bomber was schooled at the British International School in Lome, Togo and attended college in London and moved to Egypt and Dubai. The elder Mutallab is a frequent visitor to the United States and he is married to a Yemeni woman. The elder Mutallab is also close to Nigerian President Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar'Adua, who is recovering from an unspecified illness in Saudi Arabia. Mutallab and Yar'Adua are both members of the Old Boys Association of prestigious Barewa College, which counts among its members the elite of Nigeria, including former head of state Yakubu Gowon, former President Alhaji Shehu Shagari, Sultan of Sokoto Alhaji Muhammad Sa'ad Abubakar III, and Emir of Zazzau Alhaji Shehu Idris. Mutallab serves as the President of the Old Boys Association, seen as the "Eton of Nigeria."

There have been calls by the Nigerian opposition for the Vice President of Nigeria to assume presidential duties as required by the Constitution when the president is incapacitated.

The younger Mutallab has been linked to an "Al Qaeda" plot to destroy the American airplane over Detroit.

For a number of years, passengers at Schiphol flying to the United States have been subjected to intense grilling by security personnel linked to an Israeli firm. In fact, these procedures were in effect even prior to the 9/11 attacks and many were put into place after the Pan Am 103 bombing in December 1998. U.S.-bound passengers at Schiphol are asked a number of personal questions, including where they have stayed either in the Netherlands or in their country of origin. Hotel receipts are routinely requested by security personnel and the addresses of private temporary residences are recorded. Mutallab boarded a KLM flight in Lagos for Schiphol where he transited for his onward flight to Detroit on Northwest/Delta.

Six months prior to Reid's near shoe bombing of American Airlines flight 63 from Paris to Miami in December 2001, while memories of 9/11 were still fresh in everyone's mind, Reid attempted to board an El Al flight from Schiphol to Tel Aviv. Reid was taken aside by El Al security and identified as a terrorist suspect. Reid paid for a one-way ticket with cash and would not reveal what he planned to do in Israel. However, rather than turning Reid into Dutch security for further action, he was allowed to board the El Al flight by Israel's Shin Bet security so his movements during his five days in Israel could be monitored. Six months later, Reid attempted to ignite his shoe on the flight from Paris to Miami. Israel had not informed British, American, or any other security agency of the concerns about Reid. Reid's aunt, Claudette Lewis who raised Reid in south London, was quoted as saying she believed her nephew had been "brainwashed."

Reid later said El Al failed to detect that he had explosives in his shoes on the flight to Tel Aviv, an amazing revelation considering the Israeli airline's tight security.

The bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland; the attempted shoe bombing of American Airlines 63; and the near catastrophe involving NWA/Delta 253 while on final approach to Detroit all occurred on or around Christmas at the height of travel season.

The links between El Al security and Mossad are extremely close with abundant cross-pollination of senior personnel back and forth.

The security company that allowed Reid to board American Airlines 63 at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris was ICTS (International Consultants on Targeted Security) International. ICTS's senior management are all ex-Israeli security officials, many of whom worked for El Al security. In 2003, ICTS's chairman, Ezra Harel, and director Menachem Atzmon were detained and questioned by police in a criminal investigation of Harel's business dealings. Harel was accused of paying bribes to Israel Electric Corporation (IEC) director Dan Cohen, an Israeli attorney who subsequently fled to Peru, for a lucrative contract involving Harel's company Rogosin Industries and IEC. The illegal deals involved off-shore entities created by Cohen in the Channel Islands, Velsheda, CN, Cusley International Ltd. and APK Ltd. and Cobalt, an entity created by Harel to launder money through Bank Leumi in New York. Harel and Atzmon were also involved in a questionable deal in acquiring the port of Rostock, Germany through an entity called Kent Investment Holding Ltd. Atzmon operated through a number of entities, including Harmony Ventures, BV, Albermale Investment, Ltd., and Seehafen Rostock, the company that was managing the operations of thr port of Rostock.

ICTS's president was Lior Zouker. Zouker stepped down in 2004. Harel, who started ICTS in 1982, retired in 2003 and was replaced by Elie Housman. Harel, a U.S.-Israeli dual citizen, died shortly after retiring. Harel for years had used Delawar-based corporations to conduct his worldwide business activities while his Israeli banking partner, Atzmon, was based in Zurich.

It was ICTS that largely developed the passenger "profiling" procedures used at Schiphol and other airports around the world through its subsidiary, ICTS Holland Products BV.

A significant shareholder in ICTS is an entity called "Everest Special Situations Fund LP" of Platinum House, 21 Ha'arba'a St.. Tel Aviv. According to Securities and Exchange Commission filings, the Everest entity is also financially linked to Metro One Telecommunications of Beaverton, Oregon; Simon Worldwide, an advertising firm in Los Angeles; Gyrodyne of New York City, a non-residential building operator; and Concord Camera Corporation, which, significantly, was headquartered at 4000 Hollywood Boulevard, Presidential Circle, 6th Floor, North Tower, Hollywood, Florida. On September 11, 2008, SEC records show that Everest in Tel Aviv sent the following correspondence to Concord Camera's CEO and President Ira Lampert via Federal Express and fax:

"Dear Mr. Lampert: As you know Everest Special Situations Fund L.P. (we) owns approximately 7.29% of the outstanding capital stock of Concord Camera Corp. (Concord or the Company). During the past year, through multiple written letters, an in-person meeting and numerous telephone conference calls with management, we have expressed our deep concern over the future of the Company and provided our views on ways to maximize shareholder value. Unfortunately, despite your assurance that our serious concerns were being promptly addressed in a meaningful way, it appears our concerns and suggestions have fallen on deaf ears. The Company has not provided us with or implemented any substantive responses regarding the significant concerns we have raised, including:

*	the Companys disastrous operational performance, including 17 consecutive quarters of losses;

*	the Chief Executive Officers excessive compensation;

*	the Companys significant holdings in illiquid auction rate securities and how it intends to liquidate these positions; and

*	the inadequate response of the Special Committee of the Board as to why after 2 years it still has not suggested any strategic alternatives for the Company.

As we have repeatedly suggested, in order to maximize shareholder value, the Company should immediately begin a liquidation process and accept our offer to assist in this process. For all the reasons listed above and in our other public letters, we have lost faith in the ability of the Companys current Board and management to carry out a liquidation. If the Company had any intention of liquidating, management should have already communicated with the Companys clients in order to lead a prompt and orderly process which would maximize collection of the Companys account receivables and help the Company and its clients plan ahead. As management has not done so, shareholders can only reasonably draw two conclusions:

*	management is looking to entrench itself and not pursue a liquidation; or

*	management is not capable in carrying out a liquidation.

We demand that the Company immediately modify the Board of Directors composition to add representatives of the Companys shareholders to assist with and accelerate a liquidation or sale process. If the Company does not promptly meet our reasonable demand, we will not hesitate to enforce our rights as shareholders to seek Board representation or take any other actions which we deem appropriate. Specifically, we intend to nominate a slate of directors with experience in liquidations and sales processes at the Companys next annual meeting of shareholders and intend to take all necessary steps to maximize shareholder value immediately following the election of our slate.

Sincerely,

/s/ Elchanan Maoz

Elchanan Maoz

Everest Special Situations Fund L.P.

On October 31, 2008, Concord Camera, whch specialized in disposable cameras, announced its liquidation. According to Federal Electiion Commission records, Lampert, who appears as a trustee of the Mount Sinai Medical Center Foundation of Miami Beach, had contributed to the campagn of U.S. Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Florida Democrat who is strongly pro-Israel. Metro One had provided Directory Assistance Services for Nextel, Cingular Wireless, and AT&T Wireless. The following is an excerpt from a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) report on the suspicious pre-9/11 activities of Israeli "art students" in the United States:

"At approximately 1:26 am on 3/27/01, S/A's arrested Eran LIVNI, an Israeli male, Aran OFEK, and Israeli male, and Michal GAL, DOB 8/10/79, POB: Afula Israel, I&NS #A75-894-941, an Israel female in apartment 216. OFEK and GAL were recognized by FPS S/A Stokes as having been interviewed by FPS subsequent to attempting to sell paintings at the DEA Dallas F.D. on Regal Row. LIVNI admitted to the S/A's he had engaged in attempting to sell art. Also present in apartment 216 were Noam GAVRIEL an Israeli national, and Netta Kritzman, a U.S. citizen. Personal belongings were retrieved from apartment #259 for OFEK and GAL. Three other Israeli nationals were encountered in apartment 9259, however, they were not found to be in violation of I&NS status and not arrested (nor identified in the report).

AMDOCS is an Israeli communications software company, based in the U.S. at 1390 Timberlake Manor Parkway, Chesterfield (St. Louis), MO 63017-6041, telephone number 314-821-3242. AMDOCS is traded on the NYSE under DOX. On April 17, 2001, AMDOCS released a statement that he had signed a five-year outsourcing agreement with BellSouth. AMDOCS also lists an address of #1 Bell Plaza, St. Louis, Mo, which is the address for Bell South. AMDOCS also has a seven-year outsourcing agreement with Nextel Communications, a provider of digital wireless telecommunications services. Under this agreement, AMDOCS will provide Nextelwith a comprehensive billing and customer care information software and support services. The president of AMDOC in Texas is identified as Boaz DOTAN, address: 23 Abba Hillel, St. Ranat Gan, Israel. Treasurer is listed as Beverly A."WHITMAN, SSN: 400-88-4097. Secretary is listed as Gregory CHRISTOFFEL, SSN: 389-52-8560 at 91 Bell Plaza, St. Louis, MO.

Aran OFEK stated that his father was a retired two-star general in the Israeli Army. (NFI). (ISP note: Israel recently launched its 5th spy satellite, identified as the OFEK 5. It is unknown if the name of the satellite and these persons is related.)

Michal GAL was subsequently held on a $10,000 cash bond. The bond was placed by Ophir BAER, DOB: 11-11-56, an Israeli male on a nonimmigrant H1B1 class visa. BAER was petitioned to work in the U.S. by AMDOCS, Inc. on Sept. 7, 1999, which was valid from Dec 10, 1999 to Sept 30, 2002. The visa was issued in Tel Aviv. BAER listed his address as 7845 La Cabeza Drive, Dallas, TX 75248 with telephone numbers (home) 972-392-0473 and (work) 214-576-5741, SSN: 627-70-0979. BAER also is identified with an address of 1125 East Campbell Road, Richardson, TX. BAER's SSN is also identified with a John BAER and Annie BAER at the 7845 La Cabeza address. BAER stated he was a relative of GAL. On the bond papers, it was reflected that GAL would be staying at 22 Palisade Terrace, Edgewater, NJ 07020 Tel: 201-224-0797 / 210-310-3521. A cashier check #0001594012 from Bank of America in the amount of $ 10,000 was posted."

A number of the Israeli "art students," in addition to some of the alleged 9/11 Arab hijackers, also resided in Hollywood, Florida, the headquarters of Concord Camera, which attracted the ire of Everest Special Situations Fund exactly seven years to the day from the 9/11 attacks.

ICTS is also linked with Israeli espionage against the United States. An ICTS board member, retired Major General Amos Lapidot, served as commander of the Israeli Air Force and authorized Israeli Air Force Colonel Aviem Sella, operating under official cover at the Israeli Consulate General in New York, and Rafael Eitan, head of LAKAM, an Israeli military technical intelligence gatherer, to accept U.S. Navy intelligence official Jonathan Pollard's offer to spy for Israel.

ICTS International, headquartered in Amstelveen, Netherlands, is also involved in providing various security controls at Schiphol airport. ICTS has a major presence around the world in airport security with contracts at Hong Kong, Bangkok, Suva, Auckland, Singapore, Macau, Chicago O'Hare, London Gatwick, Newark, Los Angeles, and Belfast. In 1999, Detroit airport abruptly canceled its security contract with Argenbright Security Inc. and replaced it with Huntleigh of St. Louis. Huntleigh had recently been purchased by ICTS. In December 2001, Huntleigh/ICTS screeners at San Diego Interntional Airport placed a dummy "test" grenade in the carry-on baggage of an unwitting Chicago-bound passenger. Huntleigh/ICTS also provided "security" at Boston's Logan Airport on September 11, 2001.

In June 2009, ICTS was reportedly teetering on the brink of bankruptcy and was attracting a number of potential buyers.

The Truth About Charlie Wilson’s War. What you heard is a Fantasy!

The Rallying Cry for an Arms Buildup & to End Public Debate about American Foreign Policy on Afghanistan

As the first journalists to enter Kabul in 1981 for CBS News following the expulsion of the Western media the previous year, we continue to be amazed at how the American disinformation campaign between Hollywood, Washington and Wall Street built around the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan lives on. We’ve seen this pattern from the media again and again. It was particularly disturbing to read Ken Herman’s December 18 interview, Charlie Wilson pessimistic about future of Afghanistan, in the AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN filled with CIA disinformation. The secret campaign was activated before the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan to sell the American people on financing the coming Muslim holy war against the Soviet Union

Let’s separate the child-like fantasy that has been resurrected over and over again from the true nature of Charlie Wilson and his war effort. From the interview:

“…the former East Texas congressman — immortalized in a book and a movie about his exploits that helped the Afghans drive out the Soviet Union.”

FACT: Covert funding for the mujahideen began long before the Soviet invasion, not after. This covert aid was intended to lure the Soviets into the Afghan trap and hold them there, not drive them out, as claimed by Charlie Wilson. Both Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Zbigniew Brzezinski – President Carter’s national security adviser, have admitted in print (Gates, in his 1997 book, From the Shadows; Brzezinski, 1998 interview in Le Nouvel Observateur, that the U.S. had been secretly undermining its own diplomatic efforts in order to give the Soviets their own Vietnam in Afghanistan.

The American press failed to report these revelations from high-ranking government officials as news, back then. More recently, Brzezinski’s remarks were addressed in an interview with Samira Goetschel for her film, Our Own Private Bin Laden. She asked:

“In your 1998 interview with the French Magazine Le Nouvel Observateur you said that you knowingly increased the probability of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.”

Brzezinski responded:

“The point very simply was this. We knew the Soviets were already conducting operations in Afghanistan. We knew there was opposition in Afghanistan to the progressive effort which had been made by the Soviets to take over. And we felt therefore it made a lot of sense to support those that were resisting. And we decided to do that. Of course this probably convinced the Soviets even more to do what they were planning to do…”

FACT: As we document in our book, “Invisible History: Afghanistan’s Untold Story,” the record contradicts Brzezinski’s assumption that the Soviets would have invaded had it not been for his intentional provocation to lure the Soviet’s into the “Afghan trap.”

FACT: It is well documented that Charlie Wilson’s war prolonged Afghanistan’s agony for another six years, provided a secure multibillion-dollar technological training base for Islamic terrorism, and set the stage for a privatized heroin industry of historic proportions. It’s bad enough that a Hollywood film continues to project the propaganda campaign that kept Americans in the dark about America’s role in helping terrorism grow in Afghanistan. At this late date, it is unconscionable for any media to perpetuate the fantasy that Charlie Wilson or the Congress wanted the Soviets out of Afghanistan.

FACT: America’s mistake in Afghanistan was not “the endgame” problem depicted by “Charlie Wilson’s War.” The problem was in the conceptual framework created by America’s Cold War policy makers in the first place that made Afghanistan the bleeding ground it remains to this day.

FACT: Charlie Wilson’s War became the rallying cry for an arms buildup that would end­ public debate about American foreign policy on Afghanistan. The world was remade with the Soviet folly in Afghanistan, a Communist empire destroyed and the West’s pre-eminence assured. But the price in human suffering in Afghanistan and the impact on our democratic freedoms has yet to be understood.

# # # #

Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould, a husband and wife team, began their experience in Afghanistan when they were the first American journalists to acquire permission to enter behind Soviet lines in 1981 for CBS News and produced a documentary, Afghanistan Between Three Worlds, for PBS. In 1983 they returned to Kabul with Harvard Negotiation project director Roger Fisher for ABC Nightline and contributed to the MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour. They continued to research, write and lecture about the long-term run-up that led to the US invasion of Afghanistan. They are featured in an award winning documentary by Samira Goetschel. Titled, Our own Private Bin Laden which traces the creation of the Osama bin Laden mythology in Afghanistan and how that mythology has been used to maintain the “war on terror” approach of the Bush administration. Invisible History: Afghanistan’s Untold Story published by City Lights, January 2009 chronicles their three-decade-focus on Afghanistan and the media.

A Christmas Remembrance

By William A. Cook*

"The white civilized man (is) the most ferocious animal on the face of the earth."
(Herman Melville, 1840s)

In 1841, Melville sailed aboard the Acushnet, a whaling vessel, on a three year trip to the South Seas. By July of 1842, Melville and a shipmate, Toby Greene, jumped ship revolting against the tyrannical powers that brutalized the crew by oppressing these men of many races. Having witnessed American warships firing their guns at naked islanders in the Marquesas, Tahiti, and Hawaii and watched "rapacious hordes of enlightened individuals" seizing the "depopulated land" from the natives, reducing them to starving "interlopers" in their own country, he realized that the superior white Christian civilization epitomized absolute savagery and that cannibals treated others with more humanity than these self-identified enlightened men. That understanding of the civilized white man struck me with its absoluteness, its certainty, its expressive force the moment I opened my file of little four year old Kaukab Al Dayah, whose tender face rests on top of the rubble of her home, an unsuspecting victim of white Zionist brutality that delivered her family a missile as a Christmas gift just over a year ago. (See Salaman, "The true Jew is the European Ashkenazi … of whitish appearance," in Sand's The Invention of the Jewish People). (To see the picture of Kaukab Al Dayah, google her name. Two sites have photos: Getty Images and Laweranceofcyberia).

She, too, like the islanders in the South Seas 157 years ago, is a resident of a "depopulated land," or perhaps is an "interloper" that failed to flea when the merciful enlightened hordes shot their warning shots announcing the white man's civilized gesture to those about to be crushed, if they hoped to survive. How considerate. How truly enlightened. How like now in Gaza just a year ago, when Israel, our westernized culture in the Mid-East, the friendly democratic state of Europeanized enlightenment, attempted to crush the defenseless Gazans caught on their own island surrounded by the savage might of this most civilized state. How unfortunate since the intended target was the school next door; an unexplainable mistake since only precision missiles are used, $300,000 dollar weapons to ensure accuracy. "After all we are civilized; we don't permit such pictures to be made public. That's brutal, pornographic; at least blur the face as we do lest our people be shocked, or dismayed that the enemy seems so small, so sweet, so silent, so dead."

I look upon that serene face and see my own daughters asleep in their beds, no more than a yard apart when tucked in, sleeping now after the story's end, eyelids closed, lips parted, faces visible above the blankets as I turned out the lights. I remember because I was restoring a 1750 colonial house at the time and their room had not been touched yet. The heavy thick horse hair plaster was cracked on the ceiling, parts of it hung above the beds waiting the day I would tackle that room. But that night it crashed to the floor with a thunderous roar amid the screaming voices of the girls. How fear rushed to my throat; how relieved to find them untouched but sitting up in fright. How comforting for me to hold them and hug them till they fell asleep again. Remembering this moment, I find no words to express how a mother or a father or a grandmother or aunt or sister or brother would feel upon seeing the innocent face of little Kaukab shrouded in this pall of dirt and stone.

What horror strikes the soul to see that face encased in death, the weight of that shroud pressing around her tiny body, the cement wall rising beside her like the vault's side that receives the coffin, but there is no coffin. This is unnatural death. This is civilized death, the death of the innocent whose life was yet to be lived, whose eyes, shut now, will see no more the rising sun, whose hair, all matted now, will never flow in the warmth of the breeze, whose voice, silenced now, will never sing again. This is now the cold body of an unknown girl, unknown to the pilot of the F-16 that fired the missile, indeed, unconsidered by him lost as he is in his indifference to those he cannot see or hear or touch. How like Kaukab perhaps is that pilot's daughter. Was he happy, perhaps, upon his return home after his days work to lift his daughter's face to his lips before sitting down to dinner?

But he need not worry after all, Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira has already absolved him of any guilt with the recent publication of his book, The King's Torah, a best seller in Israel, but un-reviewed in America, not by the enlightened New York Times or the Washington Post or the Los Angeles Times. The good Rabbi writes "even babies and children can be killed if they pose a threat to the nation" (Haaretz 12/15/09). Many other Rabbis joined with Shapira in his call to kill Gentiles while absolving the soldier or citizen of Israel from guilt before the crime is committed. During Israel's Gaza New Year celebration last year, euphemistically dubbed Cast Lead, Rabbi Mordechai Elyahu, one of the leading Rabbis in Israel, "urged the army not to refrain from killing enemy children in order to save lives of Israel's soldiers" (EU Times, 11/11/09). After all, Christian morals are not binding on Jews. Certainly the civilized world can understand these perspectives since the ultra-orthodox Rabbis have only exonerated God's chosen from the guilt that attends Gentiles should they be so rash as to kill a Jew. Funny how we condemn Hamas as a terrorist organization and justify the carnage that took the life of little Kaukab Al Dayah. No doubt the F-16 pilot feared for his life if he did not destroy her before she got old enough to commit some yet to be determined evil against the IDF forces.

I think as I look upon this young girl's face of the mother who bore her, cherished her, dreamed for her; I think about her father who never thought that his daughter would find her grave in the ruins of her room as she slept; I think about her sisters and brothers who played with her just the evening before never imagining that her life would end in such suffering and pain; I think of her as a reflection of all who died in this wasted war that accomplished nothing but horrific pain for the Palestinian and provided only a junky's moment of ecstasy for Olmert, Barak, and Livni, as they sunk needles into their arms, feeling nothing but self-gratification, a sickness of the mind and spirit, a high that knows nothing of others, nothing of love or gratitude or peace, the ecstasy of nirvana that unites all in the human embrace.

As the year ends that opened with Israel's invasion of a people locked behind walls with no place to go, an invasion by the world's fourth largest military according to Israeli estimates, an invasion against a people that have no military, an invasion of a small speck of land that is home to 1.5 million people, an invasion that capped two years of siege by this same military that destroyed the infrastructure of Gaza, preventing food and medicine and oil and gas and water from entering Gaza, an invasion that was as merciless as that of any ferocious animal killing its prey, but here the prey is not one but 1400 with upwards of 5000 wounded and maimed, an invasion that can only mark the perpetrators as ruthless killers without compassion or conscience, a robotic mass that has lost all sense of humane sensitivity, a people that should be and must be isolated from the law abiding nations of the world.

Perhaps, if there is a God of mercy, He has left this image as a token of His love for those who died in this carnage, and a token of His compassion for those who inflicted it that they might learn. It is after all a mirror that both must look into, a symbolic image of life and death. For the Palestinian, it mirrors what life should be for little Kaukab and all children: the joy that should have been; the love showered upon her, lost forever; the home filled with laughter and hope and dreams and warmth and security, blasted now; the neighbors and friends and family, tightly knit in love and kinship, shattered now as this home is shattered. An image of what must be, for friend and foe alike, if this life of hope has meaning and promise.

For the Israeli, it mirrors what this state has become and what the future of the Jews might be under the pathological sickness imposed on them by the Zionists. What minister of God could conceive the slaughter of children and justify it unless he was mired in myth as recorded in Biblical lore. There we read of the Scourge inflicted by G-d on the first born of all who lived in Egypt on behalf of the Jews. There we read of Herod's slaughter of the innocents that first Christmas lest his throne be threatened by the Christ child. Why do such tales exist? They exist to give license to those who would inflict their will on those they fear; they are stories of minds distorted by self-indulgence, arrogance and pride; they impose what they will to ensure their power not through rational deliberation but through deceit, coercion and fear.

That child mirrors for the Zionist the perceived enemy next door grown into adulthood, the fear of what might be; the twisted steel bars rising from the rubble reflect the prison built around those who have been excluded from privilege; the crushed cement strewn on the ground beneath the grey walls reminds the Israeli of the Wall of Fear they have built around the Palestinians, a fear resident deep in the psyche of the Zionist, as all embracing as the rubble that encases little Al Dayah, a fear that those different from them might walk their streets and shop in their stores reminding them that the world is full of people to fear, people that must be controlled and isolated; and in that image they see themselves, the consequence of the corrosive acid that is destroying their faith that once stood for compassion and love seen in the sorrowful face of this innocent girl, the realization that they have destroyed their neighbors, those closest in blood and place to their lives, and in the reaction from people around the world to this unwarranted slaughter, they understand they have built their own ghetto wall around an enclave that exudes violence, vengeance, retaliation, and death to those who do not capitulate to their wants; they have in fact created what their fear predicted, a complete isolation from the civilized world.

What more can be said? Melville saw the cannibals as more civilized than the white Christians that ripped apart the indigenous people of the islands, denying that they had rights, and with impunity destroyed their cultures. It's not only the Christians now, the evangelical end timer Christians; it's the white Ashkenazi of Europe that act now with impunity, the enlightened offspring of the Eurocentric mind that believes in their own superiority fostered by their own myths, supported by the Congress of the United States, as they ravage the defenseless people of Palestine.

Let us all ask of the Child of Bethlehem that He offer this world once again the Beatitudes:

For little Kaukab, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven;

For her parents, Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God;

For the perpetrators of this havoc, Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy.

* William A. Cook is a professor of English at the University of La Verne in southern California and author of The Rape Of Palestine: Hope Destroyed, Justice Denied, Tracking Deception: Bush Mid-East Policy and The Chronicles Of Nefaria. He can be reached at: wcook@laverne.edu.
www.drwilliamacook.com

Is Israel a State or An Organ Harvesting Mafia?

By Kawther Salam •

After Israel conceded to committing the crime of theft of human organs in a program
which was aired on Israeli TV Channel 2, will the Abu Kabir butchery, the so-called “Autopsy Institute of Forensic Medicine” in Israel, be now named a strategic base for the harvesting of human beings?

How does the world look at the consequences of the organized Israeli organ theft practiced at Abu Kabir hospital? Which are the legal procedures that can be taken against the perpetrators, often IDF officers?

Did Israel send their organ mafia to serve as IDF officers in the West Bank so that they could select and hunt Palestinian victims who had traits (and organs) corresponding to specific criteria, like the color of her skin, eyes and …?

This would help to explain many seemingly random murders by the IDF, of children, of people going about their business, people who often had no role in resistance and who were not involved in political activity of any kind.

How many innocent Palestinian were murdered by the IDF organ mafia? Were they executed for the theft of their organs, in order to make millions of gains for the IDF?

The answers to these questions will be more objective after reading the report translated from Arabic newspapers into English. The Arabic report includes excerpts of what was mentioned in the report of Channel 2 aired on December 19 2009 in Israel.

Sunday Dec 20 2009, Tel Aviv, The Israeli television Channel 2 reported that the organs of the dead Palestinians were stolen in hospitals. The TV report stated that many corneas and bones – long bones – and the skin from the back, were extracted from the bodies of Palestinians, without the consent of their families.

Despite the denials of the doctors who work in the autopsy institute stealing organs, the Israeli television showed a tape of length of 57 minutes which was filmed in the Institute by “Judea Hiss” (Yehuda Hiss), the director of Abu Kabir Institute, who served as an official medical autopsy and judiciary in Israel. Yehuda Hiss released the video which shows how doctors were extracting the organs of the dead, and what was happening in the dark rooms of the Institute of Autopsy.

According to what was seen in the film, since the early eighties until the end of 2000, while Hiss was in charge of the Institute of Forensic Medicine, everything was happening under the authority of Hiss and signed under his name. The organs of Palestinians and other dead people were taken and implanted in the bodies of Jewish patients.

The video showed how Dr. Hiss did not hesitate to tell to the doctors working with him to “Take from the dead very quickly! Take corneas and implant them into the patients in need”. The video also showed how Dr. Hiss was himself extracting organs from cadavers.
Hiss was heard in the video saying: “We were taking the corneas without taking out the eyes, and then we covered the place of the cornea and closed the eye. We did that as scientific research.”

According to the Law of autopsy in Israel, the extraction of organs from cadavers without the consent of the families of the dead is forbidden, but Dr. Yehuda Hiss was not taking the law into his consideration.

Hiss said in the film: “We gave these organs to the hospitals in Israel, particularly the Tel Hashomer Hospital in Tel Aviv. Because the doctors there were my friends, we did not take money in exchange for that, but the hospital gave us a microscope after 4 years. We also provided organs to the Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, who also gave us a video camera for the internal organs of the body in return for the organs which we gave to them.”

According to the Israeli television report, Abu Kabir doctors were doing that without the knowledge of the families of the deceased. According to the statement of a professor at the Institute “we were extracting the long bones of the dead, and sometimes we took parts of their heart.”

And to return to what was exposed in the TV film, the skin of the back was taken from the dead as well the cornea, as a treatment for wounded Israel soldiers.

According to Avi Itrg “We were taking the skin off the back of the deceased and this was not discovered by their families because they were not turning the body during the burial, and they did not know that we got the skin from the back of their dead relatives.”

In 1986, Israel set up the skin bank. The bank suffered from a lack of the skin, but the Abu Kabir autopsy institute provided the bank with the skin for wounded Israeli soldiers and citizens who suffered burns.”

According to the video tape, Arieh Eldad, a squatter in Kfar Adumim, who is a medical doctor specializing in plastic surgery and was the chief medical officer of the IDF from 1997-2000, and who is a member of the Knesset for the National Union, said “We had orders not to take the consent of the families while taking the organs of the dead”.

Arieh Eldad was born in Tel Aviv in 1950, His father, Israel Eldad was one of the leaders of the underground group in Lohamei Herut Yisrael or Lehi. He is a squatter in the West Bank settlement of Kfar Adumim. From 1997-2000 Eldad served as chief medical officer in the IDF with a rank of brigadier general. From 2000-2003, after leaving active military service, Eldad served as director of the plastic surgery unit at the Hadassah Ein-Kerem Hosptial in Jerusalem.

The Israeli television stated that the complaints started in the nineties by members of the families whose deceased relatives organs were stolen. Dr. Hiss, who denied that the organ theft had happened, did not know before denying that the video, which he recorded while stealing the organs, would find its way to the press.

Yehuda Hiss said that the Israeli army was sending them an expert in cosmetic plastic surgery (he meant by indirect way Dr. Arieh Eldad), and they were allowing them to be interns at the Abu Kabir autopsy institute. “These doctors were grabbing the skin from the dead for transplants into the bodies of wounded soldiers.”

A father of an Israeli officers who was killed, said during the Israeli television report that he was surprised when he opened the coffin of his son, and he saw how the doctors played with the body his son: they cut his neck, and pulled his eyes, even though he warned them not to touch the body of his son.

An expert from the University of Brooklyn said: “I heard about the subject of stealing the organs, and when I checked I found that Israel removed organs from Palestinians, and implanted them into the bodies of Israeli soldiers.” She strongly condemned the theft of the Palestinians organs, and she wondered how somebody can grab the organs from the body of the enemy and implant them into the bodies of his own soldiers, without the knowledge of their families. This is immoral behavior.”

For its part, the Israeli health ministry responded to the film which the Israeli TV showed by saying: “All what happened was in accordance with the law.”

The criminal IDF spokesman refused to give a comment on the film, and he asked to change the debate on the subject.

The Israeli hospitals have commented on the issue by saying “this topic is an old one and there is no reason to talk about it now again.”

Dr. Ahmed Al-Tibi, deputy of Knesset chairman, head of Arab Bloc for change, confirmed that the Abu Kabir institute grabbed skin patches and corneas from the bodies of Palestinians for Israeli soldiers in the 1990 years, and pointed out that the second channel of Israeli television presented a report and audio recordings of the director of the Forensics Institute at Abu Kabir with the facts which had not been published in the past.

These facts confirm that organs from all the bodies which were brought to the Institute in the nineties were stolen without the consent of the family, whether they belonged to a Jew or to a Palestinian. Al-Tibi added that skin patches were taken into the skin bank of the hospital and transferred to the soldiers who were subjected to injuries or burns, and also that corneas also taken from the eyes of the deceased.

The responsible for the theft project is the former IDF officer Arieh Eldad, who is today a member of the Israeli Knesset.

British professor Nancy Schaefer Dios, who met the director of Abu Kabir 10 years ago and recorded a talk with him about these facts, said: “It is true that corneas and skin were taken from the bodies of Palestinians and Israelis, but taking the skin from the Palestinian bodies to transfer it to the enemy soldiers, this is moral decline.”

She added: “you can take skin from the Israelis to Israelis, but with the consent of the family, but how is taking organs from Palestinians for the benefit of Israeli soldiers understandable?"

The Israeli military has admitted harvesting organs from dead Palestinians

Dr. Jehuda Hiss

The Israeli military has admitted harvesting organs from dead Palestinians after an interview conducted over the issue in 2000 was broadcast again.

Over the weekend, Israel's Channel 2 TV broadcast an interview conducted in 2000 with the then-head of Israel's Abu Kabir forensic institute, Dr. Jehuda Hiss who revealed that forensic pathologists harvested organs from dead bodies, including Palestinian corpses in the 1990s, the Associated Press reported.

"We started to harvest corneas ... Whatever was done was highly informal. No permission was asked from the family," said the doctor.

According to the report, the forensic specialists harvested skin, corneas, heart valves and bones from the bodies of Israeli soldiers, Israeli citizens, Palestinians and foreign workers, often without seeking permission from relatives.

Hiss also described how his doctors would cover up the removal of corneas from bodies.

"We'd glue the eyelid shut," he said, adding that "We wouldn't take corneas from families we knew would open the eyelids."

In response to the broadcast, the Israeli military confirmed the report in a statement but said, "This activity ended a decade ago and does not happen any longer."

The report was released after an article by Swedish journalist Donald Bostrom, accusing Israel of killing Palestinians in order to harvest their organs, caused a huge controversy.

The article, entitled They plunder the organs of our sons, published by the Swedish daily Aftonbladet, sparked outrage among Israeli officials, who called it "groundless," "outrageous" and "anti-Semitic."

Bostrom, however, said the purpose of his opinion article was to call for an investigation into numerous claims in the 1990s that such activity was going on.

Israel Admits Stealing Palestinian Organs

"If such is what they are willing to admit, imagine how much they are concealing," Knesset member Teibi told IOL.

By Khalid Amayreh* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — For the first time, Israel has tacitly admitted stealing Palestinian body parts for transplant in Jewish patients, vindicating accusations leveled by Palestinians and rights groups over the past years.

"We started to harvest corneas…whatever was done was highly informal. No permission was asked from the family," pathologist Yehuda Hiss, the former head of the Abu Akbar Center, also known as the L. Greenberg Institute for Forensic Medicine, told Nancy Sheppard-Hughes, now a professor of Anthropology at the University of California-Berkeley, in a documentary aired by the Israeli Channel Two.

The documentary revealed that in the 1990s, forensic specialists harvested corneas, heart valves and bones from the bodies of Israeli soldiers, Israeli citizens, Palestinians and foreign workers, often without permission from relatives.

Hiss said his doctors often sought to mask the removal of corneas from bodies.

"We'd glue the eyelid shut. We wouldn't take corneas from families we knew would open the eyelids."

Other body parts believed to have been harvested from deceased Palestinians and others included heart arteries, bones and corneal tissues.

"The skins were taken from the bodies and transmitted to Hadasah hospital in West Jerusalem on the request of the Israeli army to be transplanted to wounded soldiers and in case of disaster," said Hiss.

Hiss revealed that in the early 1990s, military surgeons began removing a thin layer of skin from bodies to treat burn victims, which he said was done without family consent.

Hughes reportedly decided to publish the interview, recorded in 2000 as part of her studies at the Israeli forensic institute, after a leading Swedish daily reported in August that Israeli soldiers killed Palestinians to trade in their organs.

A Swedish journalist revealed earlier this year that Israeli doctors at the Abu Akbar forensic institute had been harvesting organs from Palestinians killed by the Israeli army.

The Aftonbladet report, written by Donald Bostrom, cited an incident of Palestinian organ harvesting by Israel in 1992 during the first Intifada.

Incriminating

Ahmed Teibi, a member of the Israeli Knesset and head of the Arab nationalist Party, insists that the new evidence incriminates the Israeli army and government.

"If such is what they are willing to admit, imagine how much they are concealing," he told IslamOnline.net.

Teibi says the revelations amounted to irrefutable evidence proving that Israeli doctors at the Abu Akbar institute harvested appendages and corneas from bodies of slain Palestinians in the 1990s.

He says the latest revelations underscored the "inherent racism plaguing the Israeli Jewish society."

Teibi was the first to raise questions about the issue of Palestinian organ harvesting by Israeli doctors.

In January, 2002, then Israeli Health Minister Nessim Dahan said in response to a question by Teibi that he couldn't deny or confirm that organs of Palestinian youths and children killed by the Israeli army were taken out for transplants or scientific research.

"I couldn't say for sure that something like that didn't happen."

At that time, Teibi said he had received credible evidence proving that Israeli doctors at the forensic institute of Abu Akbar extracted such vital organs as the heart, kidneys and liver from the bodies of Palestinian youth and children killed by the Israeli army in Gaza and the West Bank.

The Israeli military confirmed to the Channel Two documentary that the practice of harvest Palestinian organs took place in the 1990ss.

"This activity ended a decade ago and does not happen any longer."

Palestinians, however, insist that the Israeli army continued to harvest Palestinian organs for transplant or for sale in the black market.

Earlier this year, relatives of several Palestinians killed by the Israeli army during Al-Aqsa uprising told IOL that their beloved ones were returned to them shortly after they were killed without their vital organs and with a huge cut from the stomach to the neck stitched up.

* Khalid Amayreh a journalist based in the Occupied Palestinian town of Dura. He obtained his MA in journalism from the University of Southern Illinois in 1983.

Israel has admitted to harvesting Palestinian organs…

GOD Promised Me Your Land, Your Corneas, and Your Bones

By Hanitizer

The cat is finally out of the bag and now Israel has admitted to harvesting Palestinian organs…when Aftonbladet, a Swedish newspaper featured an opinion piece by freelance journalist Donald Bostrom about the same subject four months earlier, the Israelis went ballistic and reached into their “name-calling” drawers and surprise…surprise, they called Sweden anti-sematic. The story reports that in the 90s, the Israeli hospitals used Palestinians among others as essentially body parts for their fallen soldiers.

The harvesting issue came to light again when an interview with the former head of Israel’s Abu Kabir forensic institute, Dr. Jehuda Hiss was made public. While the reporting is new, the interview itself was recorded in 2000 by an American scholar, who released it because of a big controversy that came to light last August over the allegation by the Swedish newspaper that accused Israel of killing Palestinians in order to harvest their organs. Israel aggressively denied the charge. While the Israeli might have not in purpose killed Palestinians for the sake of harvesting their body organs, the Israeli army and settlers however seldom need a reason to kill a Palestinian. In the broadcasted interview, Hiss can be heard saying, “We started to harvest corneas … Whatever was done was highly informal. No permission was asked from the family.”

The report on Channel 2 reported that in the 90s, forensic specialists at Abu Kabir harvested skin, corneas, heart valves and bones from the bodies of fallen Palestinians, foreign workers and Israeli citizens. In the same interview, Hiss described how his medical team would cover their track in the events of a removal of corneas from bodies. “We’d glue the eyelid shut,” he said. “We wouldn’t take corneas from families we knew would open the eyelids.”

Those frightening accounts make think of Israeli hospitals less of a place for treatment and more of a butcher shop. I know many Palestinians have benefited from medical care in Israeli hospitals including close relatives of mine. But this creepy report makes me question the ethics of those Israeli doctors who found no wrong in harvesting the body organs of Palestinians to batch up Israeli soldiers and not have the common courtesy of contacting the relatives.

This is not a verdict on the virtue of organ donors, there are many Palestinians who gladly donate organs to save lives—look up the story of Ahmad El-Khateeb, the Palestinian boy from Jenin refugee camp who was assassinated in November 2005 by the Israeli military for playing with a toy gun; his family willingly donated his organs to save the lives of five Israeli children who needed organs that Ahmad’s little dead body provided. The difference of course is choice! While Ahmad’s family had no choice in the death of their son, they did have a choice to save other lives. I find myself echo what Knesset Member Ahmad Tebi said about this matter “If such is what they are willing to admit, imagine how much they are concealing,”

Another Sorry Episode in American History: Agent Orange

Cycles of atrocities, Cycles of Shame & Regret, and Cycles of more atrocities…

This recent article by Time Magazine on Agent Orange in Vietnam opened up a floodgate of emotions I had thought I had gotten over with a year ago, after my own personal first-hand experiences there. The article was fairly well-written, that is, considering the publication. Here are some excerpts:

This lonely section of the abandoned Danang air base was once crawling with U.S. airmen and machines. It was here where giant orange drums were stored and the herbicides they contained were mixed and loaded onto waiting planes. Whatever sloshed out soaked into the soil and eventually seeped into the water supply. Thirty years later, the rare visitor to the former U.S. air base is provided with rubber boots and protective clothing. Residue from Agent Orange, which was sprayed to deny enemy troops jungle cover, remains so toxic that this patch of land is considered one of the most contaminated pieces of real estate in the country. A recent study indicates that even three decades after the war ended, the cancer-causing dioxins are at levels 300 to 400 times higher than what is deemed to be safe.

After years of meetings, signings and photo ops, the U.S. held another ceremony in Vietnam on Dec. 16 to sign yet another memorandum of understanding as part of the continuing effort to manage Agent Orange’s dark legacy. Yet there are grumblings that little — if anything — has been done to clean up the most contaminated sites. Since 2007, Congress has allocated a total of $6 million to help address Agent Orange issues in Vietnam. Not only does the amount not begin to scratch the surface of the problem or get rid of the tons of toxic soil around the nation, but there are questions about how the money is being spent.

Groups caring for children born with horrific deformities from Agent Orange — such as malformed limbs and no eyes — are wondering why they haven’t seen any of that money. Bedridden and unable to feed themselves, many patients need round-the-clock care. As they age, and parents die, who is going to look after them? asks Nguyen Thi Hien, director of the Danang Association of Victims of Agent Orange.

You can read the entire article here.

I spent the better part of the year 2008 in Vietnam. I traveled around the country, and was involved in interviewing and recording various children related charities and organizations there. While in the Da Nang area I had an opportunity to visit and interview a family who were victims of Agent Orange – bed-ridden twin men of age 28 and their parents.

The family lived in a village, in a shack, 3.5 miles from the nearest road. I had to walk the entire distance on a very hot and humid day, pass through many rice paddies, and after being chased by an angry water buffalo, I finally made it.

The following 5-minute video includes one of the interview segments I conducted with the parents, and brief footage of the twin’s horrendous condition. Before you watch the video:

• The footage of the Agent Orange victims is very graphic and may be disturbing to some.

• I apologize for the quality of the video: I had to conduct the interview through my translator and overcome my own shock and emotional response, while recording the victims.

Here is my video, recorded in March 2008, near Da Nang, Vietnam:

I want to emphasize these facts from the Time Magazine article:

The U.S. government still spends billions every year on disability payments to those who served in Vietnam — including their children, many of whom are suffering from dioxin-associated cancers and birth defects. Since 2007, Congress has allocated a total of $6 million to help address Agent Orange issues in Vietnam.

And,

Some point out that the U.S. spends only a fraction on Agent Orange cleanup compared to the $50 million it spends every year on searching for the remains of American soldiers missing in action.

And I want to add a few other comparison points:

We spend billions per week on undeclared wars to injure, kill, and destroy. We spend hundreds of millions of dollars on fraudulent and wasteful defense contracts. We spend billions on drones and bombs which kill 687 civilians per 14 enemy targets, amounting to a ratio of nearly 50 civilians killed for each undeclared enemy killed…

And when it comes to cleaning up this huge mess we left behind in Vietnam, when it comes to a certain degree of reparation expected from a superpower nation with even a minute amount of moral decency, when it comes to…we go on denying responsibility, arguing irrational technicalities, and do nothing, absolute zilch.

President Gerald Ford had the following to say on February 19, 1976, on the anniversary of the Japanese Internment:

I call upon the American people to affirm with me the unhyphenated American promise that we have learned from the tragedy of that long ago experience-forever to treasure liberty and justice for each individual American and resolve that this kind of error shall never be made again.

Okay, for this post I am not going to dwell upon President Ford’s consciously chosen words to emphasize our responsibility to treasure liberty and justice only for individual Americans, and not for all humanity (Still- I’m grinding my teeth, and holding my tongue). Now, here is my question:

What is it with all these past lessons of tragedies we later come to admit to and regret?! Because we keep doing the same thing over and over again. Because we seem to always turn around afterwards and start the next vicious cycle again. And it seems we have been making the vicious cycles longer and crueler each time: Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, Bagram, Extraordinary Renditions …

Perhaps a president or two later, we’ll be hearing regrets along the same lines on all the atrocious acts we’ve been engaged in since 2001, in the name of a war on terror, in the name of national security. Perhaps, we’ll be taking a solemn oath or two to not repeat the same atrocious acts. Perhaps we’ll have a law or two written to emphasize and engrave our regrets and commitment to never do the same again… And then, perhaps, there will come another pretext, or something declared and used as pretext, and we’ll go about forgetting all past regrets, declare our previous oaths nullified, and have the previous laws replaced with the opposite of the original and name them ‘patriotic,’ and …there we’ll go repeating history, only making each cycle bigger and worse than the one before.

Am I just being cynical here? I don’t think so. But, what do you think?

The US Currently Has 189,000 Personnel in Afghanistan - INCLUDING MERCENARIES

Stunning Statistics About the War That Everyone Should Know

By JEREMY SCAHILL

A hearing in Sen. Claire McCaskill’s Contract Oversight Subcommittee on contracting in Afghanistan has highlighted some important statistics that provide a window into the extent to which the Obama administration has picked up the Bush-era war privatization baton and sprinted with it. Overall, contractors now comprise a whopping 69% of the Department of Defense’s total workforce, “the highest ratio of contractors to military personnel in US history.” That’s not in one war zone—that’s the Pentagon in its entirety.

In Afghanistan, the Obama administration blows the Bush administration out of the privatized water. According to a memo[PDF] released by McCaskill’s staff,

“From June 2009 to September 2009, there was a 40% increase in Defense Department contractors in Afghanistan. During the same period, the number of armed private security contractors working for the Defense Department in Afghanistan doubled, increasing from approximately 5,000 to more than 10,000.”

At present, there are 104,000 Department of Defense contractors in Afghanistan. According to a report this week from the Congressional Research Service, as a result of the coming surge of 30,000 troops in Afghanistan, there may be up to 56,000 additional contractors deployed. But here is another group of contractors that often goes unmentioned: 3,600 State Department contractors and 14,000 USAID contractors. That means that the current total US force in Afghanistan is approximately 189,000 personnel (68,000 US troops and 121,000 contractors). And remember, that’s right now. And that, according to McCaskill, is a conservative estimate. A year from now, we will likely see more than 220,000 US-funded personnel on the ground in Afghanistan.

The US has spent more than $23 billion on contracts in Afghanistan since 2002. By next year, the number of contractors will have doubled since 2008 when taxpayers funded over $8 billion in Afghanistan-related contracts.

Despite the massive number of contracts and contractors in Afghanistan, oversight is utterly lacking. “The increase in Afghanistan contracts has not seen a corresponding increase in contract management and oversight,” according to McCaskill’s briefing paper. “In May 2009, DCMA [Defense Contract Management Agency] Director Charlie Williams told the Commission on Wartime Contracting that as many as 362 positions for Contracting Officer’s Representatives (CORs) in Afghanistan were currently vacant.”

A former USAID official, Michael Walsh, the former director of USAID’s Office of Acquisition and Assistance and Chief Acquisition Officer, told the Commission that many USAID staff are “administering huge awards with limited knowledge of or experience with the rules and regulations.” According to one USAID official, the agency is “sending too much money, too fast with too few people looking over how it is spent.” As a result, the agency does not “know … where the money is going.”

The Obama administration is continuing the Bush-era policy of hiring contractors to oversee contractors. According to the McCaskill memo:

In Afghanistan, USAID is relying on contractors to provide oversight of its large reconstruction and development projects. According to information provided to the Subcommittee, International Relief and Development (IRD) was awarded a five-year contract in 2006 to oversee the $1.4 billion infrastructure contract awarded to a joint venture of the Louis Berger Group and Black and Veatch Special Projects. USAID has also awarded a contract Checci and Company to provide support for contracts in Afghanistan.

The private security industry and the US government have pointed to the Synchronized Predeployment and Operational Tracker(SPOT) as evidence of greater government oversight of contractor activities. But McCaskill’s subcommittee found that system utterly lacking, stating: “The Subcommittee obtained current SPOT data showing that there are currently 1,123 State Department contractors and no USAID contractors working in Afghanistan.” Remember, there are officially 14,000 USAID contractors and the official monitoring and tracking system found none of these people and less than half of the State Department contractors.

As for waste and abuse, the subcommittee says that the Defense Contract Audit Agency identified more than $950 million in questioned and unsupported costs submitted by Defense Department contracts for work in Afghanistan. That’s 16% of the total contract dollars reviewed.

Jeremy Scahill, an independent journalist who reports frequently for the national radio and TV program Democracy Now, has spent extensive time reporting from Iraq and Yugoslavia. He is currently a Puffin Writing Fellow at The Nation Institute. Scahill is the author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army.His new website is RebelReports.com

Wars to Come by Mumia Abu-Jamal

For many, the Obama candidacy represented a change so profound that they thought (or perhaps more accurately, hoped), that an Obama presidency would not only mean a deep domestic social transformation, but an end to the American cycle of war.

To them the news of an upsurge in U.S. troops in Afghanistan means those hopes were dashed.

They will not be the last ones.

For among those many are those who never regarded the U.S. as an empire, and thus were woefully unprepared for the hunger of any president for more executive power, or the necessities of any empire to expand rather than simply cede power.

Many of the most vociferous critics of the expansive powers of the Bush administration -- of his wiretaps, his secret prisons, of his penchant for total surveillance over Americans at home or abroad -- are strikingly silent now, when under Obama, these same powers reside in the executive.

Secret prisons? Yes - still there; illegal renditions ? Still there: Wire taps of Americans without court order? Yup.

Indeed, little has changed but the public tone of debate. There's little bombast, a good deal less bluster, and a whole lot less fear-talk, but the same programs are running -- full speed ahead.

And there's still wars -- begun in deception and greed; continued because of simple political necessity.

Yet, there's more.

In the next 5 years or so, many of the men who fought in these wars will be back in the States, working as prison guards, cops, security specialists and the like.

Many will be bitter as vinegar, as angry as a hornet's nest, because they'll know, as previous generations of veterans learned, that they fought, not for the people -- not even for the constitution -- but for the wealthy rulers who could not care less about their lives or their loss.

What will this mean for U.S. society? How will it impact the future?

Almost 90 years ago, at the end of World War I, soldiers, bitter at the loss of the war, and humiliated by the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, became a right wing political force that would years later re-emerge as the Nazis--which tore through Europe with a vengeance.

That is to say, wars don't necessarily end when politicians or diplomats shake hands and sign treaties. They fester and feed off of unresolved issues and re-emerge -- sometimes worse than before.

And they sometimes return to the land that birthed them.