Honduras: Old Coup Strategy, Different Stage

Written by Michael Fox

Monday, 29 June 2009

Coup in Honduras. Photo: Miguel Yuste, El Pais. The Presidential residence is surrounded; the president is kidnapped and flown out of the country. The opposition says the president has resigned and a conservative pro-business leader is appointed de-facto president, immediately shutting down the state television and cracking down on the dissidence. Unconfirmed reports say arrest warrants have been issued for all mayors in support of the defunct government. Thousands take to the streets, but the mainstream television stations report nothing. No, this is not Venezuela in 2002. Nor is it Haiti, 2004. It’s Honduras, 2009, but roughly the same story is once again being told, on a different stage with different actors. But that difference could mean everything. Even as of halfway through last week, both the Civic Council of Indigenous and Grassroots Organizations of Honduras (COPINH) and Honduran President Jose Manuel Zelaya Rosales had already denounced the impending coup. For months, Zelaya had been planning a non-binding consultative referendum to take place this Sunday that would have asked the Honduran people if the issue of a 2010 constitutional assembly should be added to the ballot of this November’s upcoming elections. Then, last week, a politically motivated Honduran Supreme Court ruled the referendum "illegal." General Romeo Vásquez Velásquez, head of the Armed Forces, refused to distribute the ballot boxes. Last Thursday, June 25th, Zelaya removed the general from his post, and accompanied by members of the country’s grassroots social movements, Zelaya went personally to recover the 15,000 ballot boxes. But Defense Minister Ángel Edmundo Orellana resigned in solidarity with Vásquez Velásquez and soldiers took to the streets. An emergency session of the Organization of American States (OAS) was called to evaluate the deteriorating situation. Despite opposition in the National Congress, the Supreme Court, the majority of the major parties, the chamber of commerce, and the Catholic Church, Zelaya was steadfast. Supported by the grassroots movements, the non-binding referendum would go on. Just a day later, the world has changed. President Zelaya is now in Nicaragua, after having been "kidnapped", and thrown on a plane to Costa Rica in the early hours of Sunday morning. The head of the National Congress, Roberto Micheletti was sworn in as de facto President of Honduras on Sunday afternoon, declaring, "I did not reach this position because of a coup. I am here because of an absolutely legal transition process." Like Pedro Carmona—the head of the Venezuelan chamber of commerce, Fedecameras, who took power when Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was briefly ousted on April 11, 2002—Micheletti received a round of applause as he was sworn in. Like Carmona, outside, the people protested. But unlike Carmona, the rest of the planet doesn’t buy it. That is the difference. Not one country has recognized the de facto Micheletti government. On Sunday, the U.S. ambassador to Honduras declared, "The only president the United States recognizes is President Manuel Zelaya." U.S. Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton declared, "The action taken against Honduran President Mel Zelaya violates the precepts of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, and thus should be condemned by all." The OAS, which held an emergency meeting on Sunday afternoon, issued a resolution condemning the coup and calling for the immediate reinstatement of Zelaya as president. The president of the United Nations General Assembly, Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, called the Honduran military intervention a "criminal action". Although the Micheletti government has not been recognized, that hasn’t stopped the international media from acting as though it has. CNN online is airing an interview with the conservative former Venezuelan Ambassador Diego Arria, who blames not the military, but Zelaya for "attempting a coup against the [Honduran] constitution". The BBC asked their English-speaking readers in Honduras if they thought the Honduran Constitution should be changed. By reading many of the comments, it would also appear as though Zelaya was the criminal: "The events that ocurred today ARE NOT an attack to the Honduran democracy. There is no coup in Honduras. Finally we have peace in our country." Many in opposition to Sunday’s non-binding referendum feared Zelaya was attempting to alter the constitution in order to eliminate term limits and be re-elected beyond the end of his term early next year. Brazil’s largest media chain, Rede Globo, echoed the fears in an article on Sunday evening. Nevertheless, Sunday’s non-binding referendum was simply meant to test the waters for the possibility for a referendum for a Venezuela-style Constitutional Assembly. Since the 1999 Constitution, Ecuador and Bolivia have followed, holding Constitutional Assemblies in each of their countries and passing democratically written constitutions with large participation. Zelaya’s re-election was not on Sunday’s ballot. "Today's proposed referendum was non-binding and merely consultative. Thus no one could argue that allowing it to go forward could cause irreparable harm," said Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research on Sunday. "There was no excuse for the Honduran military to intervene, regardless of the constitutional issues at stake." Meanwhile, in Honduras, thousands have been in the streets protesting. COPINH wrote in a communiqué, "We tell everyone that the Honduran people are carrying out large demonstrations, actions in their communities, in the municipalities; there are occupations of bridges, and a protest in front of the presidential residence, among others. From the lands of Lempira, Morazán and Visitación Padilla, we call on the Honduran people in general to demonstrate in defense of their rights and of real and direct democracy for the people, to the fascists we say that they will NOT silence us, that this cowardly act will turn back on them, with great force." Mexico-based reporter, Kristin Bricker, has been reporting for Narco News that according to Radio Es Lo De Menos, the military has set up roadblocks all over the country in an attempt to prevent Zelaya supporters from reaching the capital. The soldiers are also reportedly attempting to shut down public transportation. Honduran labor leader Ángel Alvarado told TeleSUR that he has called a national strike for Monday in Honduras to protest of the coup. According to Daniel Ortega, President of Nicaragua, the Honduran military has closed the border between the two countries. Only time will tell what course the next few days will bring, but the around the clock coverage by Telesur, and the immediate international solidarity echoed around the globe may have changed the face of military coup d’etats in Latin America. Only a few short decades ago, military dictatorships ruled much of the region, and in Central America, those that weren’t, were steeped in brutal civil wars. In less than 24 hours after the Honduran coup, President Zelaya was joined by the countries of the progressive trading block, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas, (ALBA) in Nicaragua for an emergency presidential summit. The Presidents of Ecuador, Rafael Correa; Venezuela, Hugo Chávez; Bolivia, Evo Morales; Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega and others joined together with Zelaya and demanded the Honduran president be returned to power. This is the new face of Latin America, and only with this international solidarity, and overwhelming repudiation against the blatant disregard for the rule of law, will these actions be isolated, overturned and hopefully never again repeated. That is the difference. It is the same story as before. Told with similar actors—some of whom even studied at the School of the Americas in Ft. Benning, Georgia — only this time we live in a different age; under a shifting geo-political backdrop. On the presidential level, the coup has been denounced across the planet, and governments are standing behind Zelaya. On the local level, Honduras’ Radio Es Lo De Menos has called on international activists to march on Honduran embassies across the globe. There is a necessary active roll for all to play. The difference could mean everything. Like in Venezuela, where the people remember the way they flooded into the streets to demand the return of their President Hugo Chavez just two days after he had been taken from office, "Every April 11th has its April 13th". For more information… En Español http://chiapas.indymedia.org/ http://www.aporrea.org/internacionales/n137491.html http://www.aporrea.org/temas/70 http://www.telesurtv.net/solotexto/senal_vivo.php In English http://www.narconews.com/ http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/kristin-bricker/2009/06/resistance-and-repression-honduras

EARLY EDITION. GUEST ARTICLE. Democratic Plan To Woo Karl Rove’s Alabama Friends With Justice Post May Backfire

Alabama Congressman Artur Davis, the current favorite to become the state's Democratic nominee for governor in 2010, reportedly advocates retention of Republican Middle District U.S. Attorney Leura Canary to woo business and Republican support for his candidacy.

Sources report that the plan to let Canary keep her job at least temporarily is gaining traction among Washington's Democratic power brokers as a brilliant centrist strategy to help the Harvard-educated Davis win election as state's first African-American governor.&

But critics believe the plan would ultimately doom the Davis campaign and further erode confidence in Alabama's already disgraced federal court system. Perhaps even more important, it would create a national embarrassment for Democratic leaders who would end up snookered yet again by the master Republican strategist Karl Rove, whose Alabama ties run deep and dark This is because retention of Canary -- wife of Rove's close friend Alabama Business Council President William Canary -- would inflame Alabama's progressive community.

Progressives regard her as a central villain in the 2006 federal conviction of former Democratic Gov. Don Siegelman on hoked-up corruption charges that made his seven-year prison sentence an international disgrace. Many of the state's progressives have since rallied around Siegelman along with outside legal experts, helping to make Siegelman's case the most controversial U.S. criminal prosecution of the decade.

To ignore those grassroots passions and widespread allegations of official misconduct by the Justice Department would thus undercut confidence in the Obama administration's political acumen and his campaign promises of change In this scenario, state Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks and a new entrant progressive African-American candidate would peel off support from Davis in a highly divisive Alabama gubernatorial primary. Davis, funded in part by business community dollars promised by Bill Canary, would probably still win the primary. But that Davis victory would come with lasting animosities that ensured Republican victory in the general election.

Asked for comment, a spokeswoman for Congressman Davis said that she's authorized only to say that Alabama's Republican Senators Jeff Sessions and Richard Shelby have rejected the congressman's two initial nominees, Michel Nicrosi of Mobile and Joseph Van Heest of Montgomery.

Theoretically, the case for Leura Canary's retention is plausible, especially for the gung-ho, fast-rising, ever-confident Davis -- and especially given the typical Democratic response to defer to Republicans who want to control the federal justice system as much as possible despite their party's recent election losses.

As background on Davis, he is a Montgomery native whose Harvard Law School education overlapped for a year with President Barack Obama's. Davis has parlayed their relationship then and since into a centerpiece of his political persona.

Davis has won his congressional re-election campaigns by huge margins in a district gerrymandered to assure large voting blocks of urban Birmingham voters. Republicans cleverly manipulate the federal Voting Rights Act to assure that African American voters in Southern states are concentrated in a few districts. The ostensibly pro-minority strategy was recently upheld by the Supreme Court. That kind of gerrymandering helps some minority office-holders such as Davis, while concentrating likely Democrats into a few districts and thereby keeping majority power concentrated in Republican hands.

But if Davis can build on his black support and his Obama relationship by neutralizing the business interests represented by William Canary, according to this rosy view, then Democrats could have a real shot at winning the state's governorship.

Additionally, conventional wisdom in national Democratic circles for many years has been that the party's voters aside from prospective office-holders care little about appointments to the lower federal courts and Department of Justice offices.

Instead, Democrats usually focus their rhetoric and media muscle on battling Republicans on Supreme Court appointments. These battles provide a win-win for activists in both parties who concentrate on abortion, gay rights, flag-burning and reverse discrimination (such as the Court's Ricci decision this week on white New Haven firefighters) and similar hot-button issues that distract the public.

Republicans, meanwhile, have quietly packed the lower courts and Justice Department political and career posts with "Loyal Bushies" recruited from the Federalist Society and other ultra-right breeder farms. These activist ideologues provide reliable, result-oriented jurisprudence on the full range of criminal and civil litigation.

In this context, letting an Obama-friendly Davis, one of Alabama's few remaining Democratic office-holders of significance, pursue his centrist campaign strategy as he sees fit seems relatively inconsequential to Democratic wonks in Washington. Alabama has become increasingly Republican anyway since Siegelman's re-election loss in a disputed 2002 election where his Election night victory by 3,000 votes suddenly disappeared. Late night voting machine changes in rural Baldwin County enabled enough vote switches for a 3,000-vote victory by the current Republican Gov. Bob Riley.

Furthermore, Alabama's black population is a lower percentage than in its neighboring Deep South states. To an outsider, this lower population of a reliably Democratic constituency argues even more for an innovative "centrist" strategy that will be applauded by the multimillion-dollar-per year leaders of Washington's media class of talking-head TV commentators, whose mantra is always that Democrats must accede to Republicans to show bipartisanship.

So why not retain a U.S. attorney that almost no one's ever heard of? Canary, who's that? Especially deference to Republicans would help Davis foster a centrist image and build support for Democratic Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor by persuading Sessions to lower his rhetoric a bit as the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee?

The answer is that still-unresolved prosecution misconduct allegations regarding the Siegelman conviction exploded nationally in 2007 along with revelations that the Bush administration orchestrated the firing of U.S. attorneys for political reasons, supposedly leaving Bush loyalists in place to serve the administration's goals. Congress failed to obtain testimony from those accused of wrongdoing. More recently, the Obama administration has stressed bipartisanship in failing to follow the country's tradition of requiring resignations of politically appointed U.S. attorneys en masse following a change of administration.

Indeed, the Obama administration (whether prompted by holdover Bush officials or by incoming top Obama appointees) recently asked for 20 years in prison for Siegelman at his upcoming resentencing. The Justice Department has declined to release specifics of its reasons to escalate prison time for Siegelman.

The former governor is now free on bail after serving nine months of his seven-year sentence for 2007 conviction on bribery-related charges. The charges primarily stemmed from Siegelman's 1999 reappointment of HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy to a state board after Scrushy arranged the first $250,000 of what became $500,000 in donations to the Alabama Education Foundation's efforts to improve Alabama public schools. Siegelman, Scrushy and 75 former state attorneys general from around the U.S. have argued that no one has ever been prosecuted in such a situation, and that both Alabama's current governor and Obama himself frequently appoint donors to major positions, not simply the kind of volunteer post that Scrushy received.

Indeed, Siegelman and Scrushy filed legal papers in recent days seeking a new trial on the basis of newly discovered evidence showing misconduct by Leura Canary, her Justice Department colleagues in Alabama and Washington, and Chief Middle District U.S. District Judge Mark E. Fuller. Fuller was a member of the Alabama Republican Party's Executive Committee before his nomination by President Bush to the federal bench in 2002.

In Fuller's confirmation hearing, Sessions and Shelby backed Fuller without notifying their Senate colleagues that Fuller held a full-time CEO job of a military contractor at the same time that he was supposedly working as a full-time Alabama state prosecutor from 1997-2002. By July 2003, that double-dipping led to claims by Missouri attorney Paul B. Weeks that Fuller should be impeached and indicted for in a blackmail scheme prompted by Fuller's military contracting work. In a 180-page binder of evidence, Weeks claimed that Fuller sought to appease blackmail pressure by conspiring to defraud Alabama's pension system of $330,000 for a subordinate who knew his secrets as a state prosecutor.

Weeks delivered his complaint to Fuller, to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees and to the Public Integrity Section of the U.S. Justice Department seeking action to protect the public against a judge that Weeks claimed was unfit to serve over any future litigant. Interviewed this spring, Weeks says no one has ever contacted him to pursue the allegations and that he is astonished that the same Public Integrity Section that should have been investigating Fuller was aggressively prosecuting Siegelman in cooperation with Canary's Alabama office on charges far less serious than those involving the judge.

The Justice Department has denied any misconduct on its part or bias by Fuller against Siegelman. Fuller has said complaints of his work as a state prosecutor are "politically motivated." He has since been promoted to run the court system in his district with a track record of highly controversial decisions approved by the heavily Republican Eleventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals based in Atlanta.

In this situation, Alabama's relatively small progressive community may be as doomed politically as the last Texans at the Alamo. But asking them to play nice with Karl Rove's friends such as Bill and Leura Canary may become a line in the sand -- equivalent to one that Col. Travis, according to legend, drew with his sword on the ground at the Alamo seeking volunteers for an all-out battle.

The former governor is now free on bail after serving nine months of his seven-year sentence for 2007 conviction on bribery-related charges. The charges primarily stemmed from Siegelman's 1999 reappointment of HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy to a state board after Scrushy arranged the first $250,000 of what became $500,000 in donations to the Alabama Education Foundation's efforts to improve Alabama public schools. Siegelman, Scrushy and 75 former state attorneys general from around the U.S. have argued that no one has ever been prosecuted in such a situation, and that both Alabama's current governor and Obama himself frequently appoint donors to major positions, not simply the kind of volunteer post that Scrushy received.

"Siegelman supporters down here aren't like others," says one political observer who's never voted for Siegelman in his decades of being one of the state's most popular Democrats, beginning with his 1978 election as state Attorney General. "It's like a religion. He used to reach out and hug these voters no matter who they were, even a garbageman in uniform. And lots of them are going to stand by him forever, through thick and thin."

Just last week, two events helped illustrate explosive potential of Leura Canary's role as a federal prosecutor. First, retired Chief U.S. District Judge U.W. Clemon of Alabama's Northern District said told a National Press Club audience in Washington, DC that the Justice Department's 2004 prosecution of Siegelman on corruption charges was the most unfounded criminal case that Clemon had presided over in nearly 30 years on the federal bench.

Speaking at a forum on selective prosecution and similar Justice Department misconduct by the Bush Administration, Clemon said federal prosecutors ultimately had to withdraw their much-publicized corruption charges against Siegelman for lack of evidence before announcing new charges a year later before Fuller just as Siegelman was gearing up for a re-election effort for the 2006 election.

The retired judge, a Democrat who holds the distinction of being the first African-American ever appointed to the federal bench in a Deep South state, said that he wrote U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder this spring to urge an investigation of Siegelman's prosecution in the second case. Siegelman was convicted in 2006 in large part based on the testimony of witness Nick Bailey, who denied wrongdoing by Siegelman in the 2004 case. But Bailey was reportedly coached in more than 70 interview sessions for the second trial without delivery to the defense of interview notes as legally required, helping Canary's office deliver a conviction in what whistleblower Tamarah Grimes described as "The Big Case" in middle district parlance in which no expense against Siegelman was to be spared.

The remarks by Clemon at the June 26 forum were cablecast nationally, as were those of legal experts and victims of purported political prosecutions by the Bush administration. Then white House strategist Karl Rove allegedly urged Justice Department officials to embark on a plan that would ultimately lead to hundreds of investigations of elected officials, who were Democrats by a 7:1 margin according to a leading study. The story has been largely ignored by the mainstream press for the past year, but C-SPAN has aired the June 26 program at least five times so far, and makes it available also on its website. http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/index.php?main_page=product_video_info&tID=5&src=atom&atom=todays_events.xml&products_id=287304-1 Rove has denied any wrongdoing, and is scheduled to testify to House Judiciary Committee staff on the claims sometime soon after nearly two years of fighting testimony.

As noted above, Scrushy filed an 85-page motion on Friday seeking a new trial. In it, Scrushy alleged that newly discovered evidence showed misconduct by federal prosecutors and the trial judge. For example, Scrushy cited evidence from a whistleblower in Leura Canary's office that Canary continued to monitor and indeed oversee Siegelman's prosecution even though she claimed to be recused because of her husband's longstanding friendship with Karl Rove as they sought to eliminate Democrats from elected office in Alabama throughout the 1990s. During that time, they worked with Alabama's Republican Party Executive Committee, working much of that time with Judge Fuller before President Bush nominated him to the bench in 2002.

Washington masterminds may consider such seldom-reported court filings as irrelevant to a nation pre-occupied, with war, the economy, the Supreme Court and, until recently, the fate of the ever-titillating Miss California.

But those planning on an Artur Davis victory via addition of voting blocs should remember that political math also includes subtraction. And to paraphrase the orator Daniel Webster in another context, Alabama may be a small place, but "there are those who care about it."

In Alabama, state politics remains a blood sport, as any review would show of the Siegelman court filings, a 2008 CBS 60 Minutes exposé on the Siegelman case, and the ongoing congressional investigation of Karl Rove.

It's the state where the young George W. Bush went on leave from the National Guard to campaign for a Republican Senate candidate, and to make lifelong friends. Also, it's where Karl Rove and former Republican National Committee Chief of Staff Bill Canary developed, in effect, a laboratory in the 1990s for controversial election tactics. These tactics reportedly include expertise in election software, disputing close elections and other by-now standard practices that would prove successful elsewhere nationally in the first part of this decade.

Washington operatives and pundits might regard Alabama as so reliably Republican in Presidential races that nothing of national significance could arise there statewide -- except perhaps an inspirational Democratic gubernatorial victory by the Obama centrist protégé Davis as a pioneering African American. But stay tuned for potential surprises. And as they say, if it bleeds it leads.

WMR's Madoff story picked up by DC Examiner newspaper

WMR's story on the powers that ran Ponzi scammer Bernie Madoff, sentenced yesterday to 150 years in prison, was picked up by the Washington, DC Examiner, which is owned by conservative Denver-based publisher Phil Anschutz. Earlier this month, Anschutz bought the neo-conservative Weekly Standard from Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.

The Examiner's Tim Barello writes: "Wayne Madsen, a veteran D.C. investigative journalist, revealed the depth of Madoff’s worldwide political connections later that month. In an contributing article at Online Journal, Madsen states that the Madoff ponzi scheme was 'part of a much larger operation, one involving top officials of both the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations, as well as the notorious Russian-Israeli Mafia.' These shocking allegations, which have not garnished so much as one mention in the mainstream media, have never been further clarified. In the interests of US national security, Madsen’s accusations must be investigated for substantiation, or debunking."

The entire Examiner article can be found by clicking here.

RT: U.S. supplied terrorists to Iraq

RT: U.S. supplied terrorists to Iraq

America's "Disappeared": the homeless of the big cities.

They were always seen by all who passed by, broke and idle in a number of Washington, DC parks and grassy nooks. After 9/11, however, they began to disappear and in large numbers. "They" were the familiar faces of Washington's homeless.

From Lafayette Park, across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House, to Virginia Avenue across from the State Department, and Franklin Square, amid the city's glass and steel towers housing DC's power elite to tony Georgetown, many homeless people, both those truly down on their luck and those who were mentally ill, began to disappear.

As one Washington homeless advocate told this editor, "These people simply vanished."

The disappearance of homeless people from the streets of Washington began under the administration of Mayor Anthony Williams and continues in force under that of Adrian Fenty. Both African-American mayors, Democrats but beholden to deep-pocketed land developers in a city that rarely elects Republicans to office, began to quietly make it tougher for the homeless to survive in the nation's capital. Last year, Fenty announced that the Franklin School Shelter at 13th an K Streets would be phased out, leaving the homeless residents of that shelter little choice but to move to the streets.

Last August, a number of homeless activists picketed Fenty's home over the plans to close the Franklin shelter. WMR was told by one spokesperson for the homeless that one of the protesters, John McDermott, has also now "vanished." The spokesperson added that there are many cases of people known to live on the streets of Washington simply "disappearing" without a trace.

Some major cities, including New York and Atlanta, have been discovered to be "dumping" their homeless residents on other smaller towns and cities. Others threaten their homeless with prison unless they leave town with usually a one-way bus ticket provided.

However, there is no evidence that Washington, DC has been dumping homeless on other cities or paying their transportation out of town. The homeless spokesperson interviewed by WMR said that DC's homeless are simply "vanishing" without a trace. DC officials in charge of the homeless are very tight-lipped when asked about the fate of unaccounted for homeless in the city.

Although the best case scenario is that these unfortunate people have, in fact, been relocated to other areas, the spokesman ended the interview on a chilling note. He said with federal camps and a high demand for any usable body parts by the lucrative transplant industry, he feared the worst may have befallen some of DC's "invisible residents."

Uncle Sam's "Al Qaeda Express Tour Service"

WMR has learned from an intelligence source who served in Kabul that the United States military has imported a number of veteran Bosnian Muslim fighters from the civil war in that former Yugoslav constituent republic. WMR previously reported on the United States imprting Taliban guerrillas from Afghanistan to fight as "Al Qaeda" insurgent groups in Iraq.

It now appears that the United States has done the same with regard to Bosnian Muslim guerrillas in Afghanistan. A number of the Bosnians were affiliated with groups financed and trained by Osama Bin Laden, as well as Saudi and Iranian military and intelligence services.

On July 5, 2007, WMR reported: ". . .during the Bosnia War in the 1990s, the United States provided hundeds of millions of dollars in assistance to the Bosnians that was collected from various Arab and Muslim countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Malaysia, Qatar, Egypt, and others.

The collection of most of the money was done via the Bosnia Federation Defense Fund, also known as the 'Bosnia Defense Fund,' which was run by Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Feith's law firm -- Feith and Zell (FANZ) -- Riggs Bank (a principal for which was Jonathan Bush, uncle of George W. Bush), and the Central Bank of Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) in Sarajevo. Feith's former law partner, Jerusalem-based Marc Zell, is now partnered in a Baghdad law firm with Salem Chalabi, the nephew of Ahmad Chalabi.

WMR learned from a CIA source involved with the Bosnia Defense Fund that the agency was concerned that money transferred by Riggs, the major bank serving Saudi ambassador to the U.S. Prince Bandar and his wife Princess Haifa, to the fund's account at the Central Bank in Sarajevo was 'bleeding' to terrorist elements believed to be linked to Osama bin Laden and 'Al Qaeda.'

When the CIA source complained about Bosnia Defense Fund cash falling into the hands of Islamic terrorists, including people linked to bin Laden, he was told by one of the major Bosnia Defense Fund principals to 'just make it fucking happen!'

The Bosnia link to 'Al Qaeda' was important. In fact, bin Laden had reportedly not only visited Bosnia, but carried at least one Bosnian diplomatic passport and had interfaced with Bosnian diplomats in Vienna, Austria.

WMR has learned of a money pipeline between bin Laden and Bosnia that existed since 1993, during a time when French intelligence documents reported that bin Laden and his forces in Darunta, Afghanistan were still under the operational control of the CIA and British intelligence.

The financial pipeline between bin Laden and Bosnia included the Third World Relief Agency; an Egyptian-born Saudi businessman named Yasin Kadi (who was once based in Chicago); a Tunisian-born Bosnian named Chafik Ayadi bin Muhammad, who headed Kadi's operations in Zagreb, Croatia; the Sarajevo Deposit Bank of Kadi and Ayadi; and the First Austrian Bank. The Third World Relief Agency connection also provides a link between bin Laden and the Egyptian 'blind sheik,' Omar Abdel Rahman, convicted for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Yasin Kadi's Chicago link is important. During the time of the Bosnia Defense Fund's money flow to Sarajevo, a deal approved by the Clinton White House and the CIA, the current Democratic House Caucus Chairman and Chicago-based congressman Rahm Emanuel served as Assistant to the President for Political Affairs and Senior Advisor to the President for Policy and Strategy. Emanuel was closely involved with Clinton's foreign policy initiatives in Bosnia and Kosovo and he claims Clinton went to both places to deal with Al Qaeda training. It now appears that Emanuel was telling part of the truth -- the Clinton administration was, in fact, supporting Al Qaeda training in Bosnia and Kosovo.

In addition to Perle and Feith being involved with providing money to Bosnian Muslims, with the support of Rahm Emanuel, we also point out credible Serbian reports that fugitive American financier Marc Rich, pardoned by Bill Clinton, was involved in busting international sanctions by smuggling weapons to Bosnian Muslims. Rich's attorney was I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, who was recently spared a jail term by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. [Present U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, as then-Deputy Attorney General, shepherded the Rich pardon through at the eleventh hour of the Clinton administration].

During the fighting in Bosnia, NATO forces picked up a number of foreign Muslim irregulars. Two of those detained by Norwegian NATO forces later surfaced as Saudi hijackers of the U.S. aircraft on 9/11. There is also intelligence that Egyptian lead hijacker Mohammed Atta worked for U.S.-supported Muslim forces during the Bosnian civil war.

Kadi had used Chicago as a base to launder money to various groups affiliated to bin Laden's operations, including a deal involving a DuPage County real estate operation. After leaving the White House in 1999, Emanuel, possessing only a B.A. in Political Science, became a Chicago investment banker for Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein and earned some $20 million.

In 2002, Emanuel ran for the Democratic nomination for the open 5th district seat in Illinois against Nancy Kaszak. Emanuel's opponents charged that he held dual U.S.-Israeli citizenship, was a millionaire 'carpetbagger,' and had served in the Israeli army during Desert Storm. The pro-abortion Emily's List charged that Emanuel cost America jobs through his support of NAFTA. Emily's List endorsed Kaszak earning the women's rights group the condemnation of organizations and media allied with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

Ironically, Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein is part of Allianz AG, the firm that helped bankroll the Nazis in Germany in the early 1930s along with Brown Brothers Harriman, for whom George W. Bush's grandfather, Prescott, was a principal. Prescott also partnered in deals with German industrialist Fritz Thyssen, a smajor upporter of Adolf Hitler.

As head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Emanuel denied campaign funds to every pro-peace Democratic candidate advocating withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. In fac, Emanuel was an early Democratic supporter of George W. Bush's invasion and occupation of Iraq -- something many opponents of the war claim has led to a recruitment boon for 'Al Qaeda.'"

WMR has received word from our Kabul intelligence source that many of the Bosnian Muslim civil war veterans are now acting as United Nations election monitors for the upcoming Afghanistan presidential and provincial council elections scheduled for August 20. Our source said he witnessed the Bosnians and American election monitors sitting around their hotel in Kabul stoned on Afghan hashish.

U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke recently announced that the United States was ending its opium eradication program in Afghanistan. Afghanistan, under U.S. occupation, now supplied some 90 percent of the world's opium.

Between the Taliban in Iraq and some Bosnian Muslims trained by Al Qaeda who now serve in Afghanistan, "Uncle Sam's Express Tour Service" for terrorists, complete with drugs and cash payments, appears to be the best employment deal around.

State of Honduran media as of 29 June from Open Source Center of CIA/DNI

[Report originally For Official Use Only - FOUO)

As of 1800 GMT on 29 June, Honduran media monitored by OSC/PA are observed to behave as follows:

Television

Tegucigalpa Channel 3 Television in Spanish -- Private television station, part of the Televicentro Group, owned by the Ferrari family: Cartoons

Tegucigalpa Channel 5 Television in Spanish -- Private television station, part of the Televicentro Group, owned by the Ferrari family: Soap operas

Tegucigalpa Channel 7 Television in Spanish -- Private television station, part of the Televicentro Group, owned by the Ferrari family: Soap operas

Tegucigalpa Channel 8 Television in Spanish -- Official government television channel: off the air since 28 June

San Pedro Sula Channel 9 Vica Television in Spanish -- Private television station owned by the Sikaffy family: Movies

Tegucigalpa Channel 11 Television in Spanish -- Television station owned by the Rosenthal family, supporters of the Zelaya administration: Soap operas (this channel was one of the few that reported on the coup on 28 June)

Tegucigalpa Channel 12 Television in Spanish -- Private television station: Music videos (this channel was one of the few that reported on the coup on 28 June)

Tegucigalpa Channel 13 Hondured Television in Spanish -- Private television station rebroadcasting Caracas Telesur and Voice of America programming: Rebroadcast of sports program.

Tegucigalpa Channel 36 Pueblovision Television: Off the air since 28 June.

Tegucigalpa Channel 48 Television in Spanish -- Catholic Church-run television station: Program on health issues.

Tegucigalpa Channel 51 Televista Television in Spanish -- Private television station: news program reporting on the coup.

Tegucigalpa Maya TV in Spanish -- Cable television station: music videos

Tegucigalpa Channel 100 Television Educativa Nacional in Spanish -- Quasi-government sponsored television station: program on agricultural techniques to grow onions .

Split screen from Telesur: on the left, "what Honduran private media outlets are showing," and on the right, "the current situation in the Government Palace" (29 Jun)

Caracas Telesur Television in Spanish -- Venezuelan-led regional satellite channel -- claims to be "the only" television station reporting live from Tegucigalpa; says its reporters in Tegicugalpa "are running many risks" as they report live.

Radio

Tegucigalpa Voz de Honduras in Spanish -- Right of center; leading radio network: News program with reporting on coup.

Tegucigalpa Radio America in Spanish: News program with reporting on coup.

Internet newspapers

Front page of the hardcopy edition of Tiempo (29 Jun)

San Pedro Sula Tiempo.hn in Spanish -- Website of left-of-center daily owned by Grupo Continental; URL:

http://www.tiempo.hn/ http://www.tiempo.hn/ : updating regularly

San Pedro Sula La Prensa.hn in Spanish -- Website of independent daily published by Organizacion Publicitaria; Circulation 60,000; URL:

http://www.laprensahn.com/ http://www.laprensahn.com/ : updating regularly, including Twitter.

Tegucigalpa La Tribuna Online in Spanish -- Website of independent, pluralist daily; founded by Oscar Armando Flores and owned by family of former President Carlos Flores; URL:

http://www.latribuna.hn/ http://www.latribuna.hn/ : updating regularly

Tegucigalpa El Heraldo.hn in Spanish -- Website of national independent centrist daily published by Publicaciones y Noticias and founded by Jorge Larach; URL:

http://www.heraldohn.com/ez : updating regularly, including Twitter.

Government websites

Tegucigalpa Presidency of the Republic of Honduras in Spanish -- Official website of the Honduran Presidency; URL:

http://www.presidencia.gob.hn/ http://www.presidencia.gob.hn --unavailable

Tegucigalpa Secretaria de Relaciones Exteriores in Spanish -- Official website of the Honduran Ministry of Foreign Relations; URL:

http://www.sre.hn/ http://www.sre.hn -- has not updated since 25 June.

Military Coup in Honduras

Read updates from the Narco News Bulletin here: http://narconews.com

A military coup has taken place in Honduras on Sunday, June 28, led by School of the Americas (SOA) graduate Romeo Vasquez. Members of the Honduran military surrounded the presidential palace and forced the democratically elected president, Manuel Zelaya, into custody. He was immediately flown to Costa Rica.

The Honduran state television was taken off the air. The electricity supply to the capital Tegucigalpa, as well telephone and cellphone lines were cut. The people of Honduras are going into the streets. Labor unions are planning for a general strike. From Costa Rica, President Zelaya has called for a non-violent response from the people of Honduras, and for international solidarity for the Honduran democracy.

Click here to read Kristin Bricker's article School of the Americas-Trained Military Detains and Expels Democratically-Elected President Zelaya

Click here to read an article by Eva Golinger

Click here to send a message to President Barack Obama.














Photos by Miguel Yuste, El Pais.

The people of Honduras show great bravery by taking to the streets to defend their democracy and rule of law. General Romeo Vasquez, the head of the armed forces who led the military coup against the democratically elected president Zelaya, is a graduate of the notorious School of the Americas (SOA).

"The U.S. Army School of the Americas...is a school that has run more dictators than any other school in the history of the world."
- Congressman Joseph Kennedy (In total, the School has produced at least eleven Latin American dictators.)

Honduras - like the rest of Latin America - has first hand experience with bloody work of School of the Americas graduates and with SOA trained military dictators:

In 1975, SOA Graduate General Juan Melgar Castro became the military dictator of Honduras. From 1980-1982 the dictatorial Honduran regime was headed by, yet another SOA graduate, Policarpo Paz Garcia, who intensified repression and murder by Battalion 3-16, one of the most feared death squads in all of Latin America (founded by Honduran SOA graduates with the help of Argentine SOA graduates).

"[I took] a course in intelligence at the school of the Americas [in which I saw] a lot of videos which showed the type of interrogation and torture they used in Vietnam. Although many people refuse to accept it, all this is organized by the U.S. government."
- José Valle, graduate of the SOA, admitted torturer, member of Battalion 316, Inside the School of Assassins, video

Click here to watch the full-length documentary about Father Roy Bourgeois, the School of the Americas and the U.S. military's involvement in teaching torture techniques

"Torturing was "a job, something I did to give food to my kids"
- Valle, Baltimore Sun, 6/11/95

"The intelligence unit, known as Battalion 316, used shock and suffocation as devices in interrogations. Prisoners often were kept naked and, when no longer useful, killed and buried in unmarked graves. Newly declassified documents and other sources show that the CIA and the U.S. Embassy knew of numerous crimes, including murder and torture, yet continued to support Battalion 316 and collaborate with its leaders."
- Baltimore Sun, 6/11/95

Battalion 316 is founded in the early eighties by General Luis Alonso Discua graduated from the SOA three times, in 1967, 1972, and 1982 while the nation is under the repressive dictatorship of SOA graduate General Policarpo Paz García, inducted into the SOA "Hall of Fame" in 1988. Also inducted in 1988 is General Humberto Regalado Hernández a four-time graduate in the late sixties and seventies who, as chief of Honduran armed forces, refuses to take action against soldiers involved in Battalion 316 death squad activity, and indeed appears to cover-up at least some of that activity.
- Americas Watch reports on Honduras, 1987 and 1994

Fresh from their own "Dirty War", Argentine SOA graduates such as Colonel Mario Davico move to Honduras in the early 1980s to teach Batalion 316 techniques such as arbitrary detention, torture, extrajudicial executions, and methods of disposing of the bodies of the victims.
- Americas Watch, 1994

The return

One year after he enters the SOA Hall of Fame, fellow officers accuse Regalado Hernández of misappropriating millions of dollars in U.S. military aid. Officers contend that equipment provided through U.S. military assistance was regularly sold to unit commanders by Regalado, who then deposited the money in a "special account". Military assistance supplies sold by Regalado ranged from batteries to tires to gasoline. Meanwhile, the Reagan administration in 1988, the year Regalado is inducted into the SOA Hall of Fame suspects Regalado of providing protection to Colombian drug traffickers living in Honduras. Regalado's half-brother (SOA graduate Rigoberto Regalado Lara, convicted and imprisoned in the U.S. on drug trafficking charges) tells authorities that his supplier was a close friend of General Regalado Hernández.
- New York Times, 10/15/89

In 1983, several key members of Battalion 316 somehow find time in their busy schedules of organizing death squad activity for renewed training at the SOA, including Lieutenant Colonel Luis Alonso Villatoro Villeda (trained in "Administration", then commander of Battalion 316 from 1986-1988), Second Lieutenant Ramón Mejia (in charge of transporting kidnap victims from various parts of Honduras to Tegucigalpa, one of the two officers most involved in torture, interrogation and murder) and General Walter López Reyes.
- Americas Watch, 1987 and 1994

Colonel Juan López Grijalva, another three-time graduate of the SOA in Battalion 316, returns to the SOA as a guest lecturer in both 1991 and 1992.


In April 2002, the democratically elected Chavez government of Venezuela was briefly overthrown and the School of the Americas trained militaries Efrain Vasquez Velasco, ex-army commander, and Gen. Ramirez Poveda, were key players in the coup attempt.

Over its 58 years, the SOA has trained over 60,000 Latin American soldiers in counter-insurgency techniques, sniper skills, commando and psychological warfare, military intelligence and interrogation tactics. Colombia, with over 10,000 troops trained at the school, is the SOA's largest customer. Colombia currently has the worst human rights record in Latin America. .

A Few Thoughts on the Coup in Honduras

A Few Thoughts on the Coup in Honduras

Jeremy Scahill

June 29, 2009 It is impossible to imagine that the US was not aware that the coup was in the works. At minimum, the US could have flexed its tremendous economic muscle before the coup and told the military coup plotters to stand down. By Jeremy Scahill There is a lot of great analysis circulating on the military coup against Manuel Zelaya in Honduras. I do not see a need to re-invent the wheel. (See here here here and here). However, a few key things jump out at me. First, we know that the coup was led by Gen. Romeo Vasquez, a graduate of the US Army School of the Americas. As we know very well from history, these "graduates" maintain ties to the US military as they climb the military career ladders in their respective countries. That is a major reason why the US trains these individuals. Secondly, the US has a fairly significant military presence in Honduras. Joint Task Force-Bravo is located at Soto Cano Air Base, Honduras. The base is home to some 550 US military personnel and more than 650 US and Honduran civilians: They work in six different areas including the Joint Staff, Air Force Forces (612th Air Base Squadron), Army Forces, Joint Security Forces and the Medical Element. 1st Battalion, 228th Aviation Regiment, a US Army South asset, is a tenant unit also based at Soto Cano. The J-Staff provides command and control for JTF-B. The New York Times reports that "The unit focuses on training Honduran military forces, counternarcotics operations, search and rescue, and disaster relief missions throughout Central America." Significantly, according to GlobalSecurity, "Soto Cano is a Honduran military installation and home of the Honduran Air Force." This connection to the Air Force is particularly significant given this report in NarcoNews: The head of the Air Force, Gen. Luis Javier Prince Suazo, studied in the School of the Americas in 1996. The Air Force has been a central protagonist in the Honduran crisis. When the military refused to distribute the ballot boxes for the opinion poll, the ballot boxes were stored on an Air Force base until citizens accompanied by Zelaya rescued them. Zelaya reports that after soldiers kidnapped him, they took him to an Air Force base, where he was put on a plane and sent to Costa Rica. It is impossible to imagine that the US was not aware that the coup was in the works. In fact, this was basically confirmed by The New York Times in Monday’s paper: As the crisis escalated, American officials began in the last few days to talk with Honduran government and military officials in an effort to head off a possible coup. A senior administration official, who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity, said the military broke off those discussions on Sunday. While the US has issued heavily-qualified statements critical of the coup—in the aftermath of the events in Honduras—the US could have flexed its tremendous economic muscle before the coup and told the military coup plotters to stand down. The US ties to the Honduran military and political establishment run far too deep for all of this to have gone down without at least tacit support or the turning of a blind eye by some US political or military official(s). Here are some facts to consider: the US is the top trading partner for Honduras. The coup plotters/supporters in the Honduran Congress are supporters of the "free trade agreements" Washington has imposed on the region. The coup leaders view their actions, in part, as a rejection of Hugo Chavez’s influence in Honduras and with Zelaya and an embrace of the United States and Washington’s "vision" for the region. Obama and the US military could likely have halted this coup with a simple series of phone calls. For an interesting take on all of this, make sure to check out Nikolas Kozloff’s piece on Counterpunch, where he writes: In November, Zelaya hailed Obama’s election in the U.S. as "a hope for the world," but just two months later tensions began to emerge. In an audacious letter sent personally to Obama, Zelaya accused the U.S. of "interventionism" and called on the new administration in Washington to respect the principle of non-interference in the political affairs of other nations. Here are some independent news sources on this story: School of the Americas Watch NarcoNews Eva Golinger’s Postcards from the Revolution

:: Article nr. 55564 sent on 30-jun-2009 00:40 ECT
www.uruknet.info?p=55564

Link: rebelreports.com/post/132342133/a-few-thoughts-on-the-coup-in-honduras

U.S. fingerprints on Honduras coup d'etat

RT: U.S. fingerprints on Honduras coup d'etat

Ahmadinejad Won: The Real Source of Interference in the Iran Elections was the US

by John Chuckman

A recent article called “Ahmadinejad Won, Get Over It” by Flynt and Hillary Leverett is not the only source with serious credentials offering reasonable, non-sensational explanations for events around Iran’s presidential election.

Kaveh Afrasiabi, a scholar who once taught at Tehran University and is the author of several books, says many of the same things.

Close analysis of the election results gives absolutely no objective basis for making charges of a rigged election. Mousavi’s expected win – expected, that is, by the Western press and by Mousavi himself - never had any basis in fact.

Afrasiabi also tells us that Ahmadinejad is extremely popular with the poor in Iran, a very large constituency, and he tells us further that Ahmadinejad spent a great deal of time traveling through the country during his first term listening to them. Ahmadinejad is himself a man of fairly humble origins with a good deal of genuine sympathy for the poor.

Of course, the public in the West has been treated to a barrage of propaganda about Ahmadinejad, conditioned by countless disingenuous stories and editorials to regard him as the essence of evil, ready to stir up trouble at a moment’s notice. These perceptions, too, have no basis in fact.

Ahmadinejad is a highly educated man, ready and willing to communicate with leaders in the West, although given to poking fun at some of the shibboleths we hold to. His office as president is not a powerful one in an Iran where power is divided amongst several groups, just as it is in the United States. He has no war-making power.

Even his infamous statement about Israel – mistranslated consistently to make it sound terrible – was nothing more than the same kind of statement made by the CIA in its secret study predicting the peaceful end of today’s Israel in twenty years or the statement by Libya’s leader, Gaddafi, saying Israel would be drowned in a sea of Arabs. Unpleasant undoubtedly for some, the statement was neither criminal nor threatening when properly understood.

The post-election troubles in Iran definitely reflect the interference of security services from at least the United States and Britain. We have several serious pieces of evidence.

First, Iran discovered and arrested just recently a group with sophisticated bomb equipment from Britain. They were caught red-handed, although our press has chosen to be pretty much silent on the matter. Of course, we all recall the arrest of a group of fifteen British sailors a couple of years ago, an event treated in our press as the snatching of innocents on the high seas when in fact they were on a secret mission in disputed waters claimed by Iran.

Robert Fisk recently wrote an excellent piece about photocopies of what purported to be a confidential official government report to the head of state, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, regarding the election results. It attributed a ridiculously small share of the vote to Ahmadinejad and was somehow being waved by Mousavi’s followers all over the streets. It seems clearly invented as a provocation, much in the fashion of the famous “yellow cake” document before America’s invasion of Iraq.

We know that Bush committed several hundred million dollars towards a program creating instability in Iran and that Obama has never renounced the operation.
Iran, surrounded by threatening enemies and the daily recipient of dire threats from Israel and the United States, has absolutely no history of aggression: it has started no conflicts in its entire modern era, but naturally enough it becomes concerned about its security when threatened by nuclear-armed states.

Such threats from the United States are not regarded idly by anyone, coming as they do, from a nation occupying two nations of Western and Central Asia, a nation whose invasions have caused upwards of a million deaths and sent at least two million into exile as refugees.

It is a nation moreover that definitely threatened, behind the scenes, to use nuclear weapons against Afghanistan immediately after 9/11, helping end that threat being one of the main reasons for Britain’s joining the pointless invasion in the first place.

In assessing the genuine threats in the world, please remember what we all too often forget: the United States is the only nation ever actually to use nuclear weapons, twice, on civilians. It also came close to using them again in the early 1950s hysteria over communism – twice, once against China and once in a pre-emptive strike at the Soviet Union - and again later considered using them in Vietnam.

As for the other regular source of threats against, Israel, it is a nation which has attacked every neighbor that it has at one time or another. In the last two years alone, it has killed more people in Lebanon and Gaza than the number who perished in 9/11. It is also a secret nuclear power, having broken every rule and international law to obtain and assist in proliferating nuclear weapons.

Of course, there are many middle class people in Iran who would like a change of government. Such yearnings are no secret and exist everywhere in the world where liberal government is missing, including millions of Americans under years of George Bush and his motivating demon, Dick Cheney.

But saying that is not the same thing as saying that a majority of Iran’s people want a change in government or that the election was a fraud.

And remember, too, Iran had a democratic government more than half a century ago, that of Mohammed Mosaddeq, but it was overthrown in 1953 and the bloody Shah installed in its place by the very same governments now meddling in Iran, the United States and Britain.

UPDATE 1x. Message from Cynthia McKinney in Cyprus

The Israelis are hopping mad. And they're flexing their muscles in all the ugly places. They can't ram us again without sparking an international uproar, so they're trying to stop us from leaving the port at all. The Limasol, Cyprus Port Authority which controls the port of Larnaca also, sent their inspector to Larnaca with a letter saying that the boat failed inspection, only thing, the letter was written BEFORE he even arrived in Larnaca to do the inspection! Reuters is doing the story at this very moment saying that we were prevented from leaving due to Cypriot authorities. We just learned from a Cyprus government source that pressure is being applied by Israel to deny us departure credentials. It appears, then, that Israel is putting us into contortions because they don't want us to take cement into Gaza. After white phosphorus, depleted uranium, DIME, cluster bombs, F16s, death, destruction, and mayhem. All of *this* over a few bags of cement. Can you believe???

1. Read the Haaretz article here, showing Israeli concern about us taking cement to Gaza
2. Hear the interview with Don Debar on the contortions we're being put through by Cyprus Port Authority
3. Read the Reuters article here (interesting that the story broke in Israel and not Cyprus!!)
4. Individuals have already started to contact the Cyprus UN Mission and their DC Embassy to inquire why they are arbitrarily not allowing the Spirit of Humanity and the Free Gaza to set sail.

1. Here is the Ha'aretz article:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1093988.html

2. Hear Greta Berlin and I explain what is happening with the purposeful delay of our departure

http://www.livestream.com/wbaix

3. Read the Reuters article:

 12:54 25Jun09 -Cyprus halts aid boats bound for Gaza Strip

LARNACA, Cyprus, June 25 (Reuters) - Cyprus stopped two

boats planning to carry aid to the Gaza Strip in defiance of an

Israeli blockade from leaving port on Thursday, officials said.

The U.S.-based Free Gaza Movement had been planning to take

33 activists to Gaza with medical supplies and cement, a

material that Israel does not allow into the Palestinian

territory devastated by a short war that ended early this year.

The Free Gaza Movement started sending regular aid voyages

from Cyprus to Gaza in August 2008, but one of its boats was

involved in a collision with an Israeli vessel in December, and

was turned back on another mission in January.

Cypriot shipping officials cited inspection requirements for

stopping the two vessels, a small ferry and a sailing boat, from

leaving port two hours before their scheduled departure.

Both vessels had travelled to Gaza before.

"One of the ships was only recently registered in Cyprus and

under Cyprus law it has to undergo inspection before being given

permission to sail," said Serghios Serghiou, head of Cyprus's

Department of Merchant Shipping. "(The second) ... did not apply

for any inspections before sailing."

Israel tightened a blockade on Gaza in 2007 after the

Islamist group Hamas took control of the enclave, a tiny sliver

of territory home to some 1.5 million people.

Israel bans imports of cement, steel or other building

supplies to Gaza, saying militants could use them for military

purposes. One of the vessels was to carry 15 tonnes of cement.

Israeli forces bombed then invaded Gaza in late December

2008 with a declared aim of ending cross-border rocket attacks

from the Hamas-ruled territory.

The war damaged infrastructure and hurt an economy already

hobbled by years of isolation.

(Writing by Michele Kambas, editing by Lin Noueihed)

UPDATE 1X:

Subject: Public Advisory - We did not leave Cyprus today

PUBLIC ADVISORY

(25 June 2009, LARNACA) - This is not the statement we in the Free Gaza Movement intended to release today. We had hoped to announce that our two ships, the Free Gaza and the Spirit of Humanity, departed from Larnaca Port on a 30-hour voyage to besieged Gaza, carrying human rights activists who have travelled to Cyprus from all across the world for this journey, 3 tons of medical supplies, and 15 tons of badly needed concrete and reconstruction supplies.

Nobel peace laureate Mairead Maguire, returning for her second trip to Gaza aboard one of our ships, said “[The people of Gaza] must know that we have not and will not forget them.”

That was our hope, but that is not what happened.

Instead, our ships were not given permission to leave today due to concerns about our welfare and safety. Our friends in Cyprus tell us that the voyage to Gaza is too dangerous, and they are worried we will be harmed at sea.

Cyprus has been a wonderful home for the Free Gaza Movement over these last 10 months. Cypriots know first hand the terrible consequences of occupation. They too know what it is to suffer from violence, injustice, and exile. Since our first voyage to break through the siege of Gaza, the Cypriot authorities have been extremely helpful and understanding of our goals and intentions.

The journey to Gaza is dangerous. The Israeli navy rammed our flagship, the Dignity, when we attempted to deliver medical supplies to Gaza during their vicious assault in December/January. Israel has previously threatened to open fire on our unarmed ships, rather than allow us to deliver humanitarian and reconstruction supplies to the people of Gaza.

The risks we take on these trips are tiny compared to the risks imposed every day upon the people of Gaza.

The purpose of nonviolent direct action and civil resistance is to take risks - to put ourselves “in the way” of injustice. We take these risks well aware of what the possible consequences may be. We do so because the consequences of doing nothing are so much worse. Anytime we allow ourselves to be bullied, every time we pass by an evil and ignore it - we lower our standards and allow our world to be made that much harsher and unjust for us all.

In addition to the concerns expressed by our Cypriot friends today, the American consulate in Nicosia warned us not to go to Gaza, stating that:

“…[T]he Israeli Foreign Ministry informed U.S. officials at the American Embassy in Tel Aviv that Israel still considers Gaza an area of conflict and that any Free Gaza boats attempting to sail to the Gaza Strip will “not be permitted” to reach its destination.”

Former U.S. Congresswoman & presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney responded to this warning by pointing out that, “The White House says that cement and medical supplies should get into Gaza and that's exactly what we are attempting to take to Gaza.”

“Instead of quoting Israel policy to us,” McKinney continued, “…the U.S. should send a message to Israel reiterating the reported White House position that the blockade of Gaza should be eased, that medical supplies and building materials, including cement, should be allowed in. The Free Gaza boats should be allowed to reach their destination, traveling from Cyprus territorial waters, through international waters, and straight into Gaza territorial waters.”

“The State Department has chosen to advise us to take the Israeli notification seriously. Our question is, ‘Can we take President Obama seriously?’ Will he stand by his own words and allow us to provide relief for Gaza or will he back down?”

Tomorrow we will deliver a waiver, signed by all going to Gaza, that we absolve Cyprus of all responsibility for our safety. We would like to tell our friends here in Cyprus that though we understand and appreciate their concerns, we will not back down to Israel’s threats and intimidation.

New Cyber-Command at NSA, Fort Meade, Maryland

Special to WMR:

[Ed. Note: On June 23, Defense Secretary Robert Gates ordered that the new U.S. CyberCommand will be a part of the U.S. Stategic Command (Stratcom) and will come under the command of the Director of the National Security Agency (NSA). The CyberCommand will be at NSA's headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland.]

"Subject: New Cyber Command and NSA

If this is indeed correct, the assertion that StratCom will be in control of this new CyberCom is complete and utter hogwash. As StratCom has neither the expertise nor technical resources to conduct this mission, the default control of CyberCom will fall, by design, into the lap of NSA. This was similarly true of StratCom being given responsibility for military space after the demise of US Space Command, which effectively ceded control of space to the Air Force. Are we to believe that CyberCom being headquartered not at Omaha, NE, but rather at Fort Meade, MD, right next to NSA; and with NSA’s current director, Lieutenant General Keith Alexander, promoted to a four star general, as its head, is a coincidence? NSA has coveted control of cyber operations for some time and already exerts considerable influence in the mission field. Illegally, NSA has tapped into all domestic e-mail traffic within the United States. To allow them the ability to subject all U.S. domestic computer communications to offensive cyber attacks and the many other aspects of digital 'information warfare' should make all of America shudder in fear. Of course this supposedly will be subject to congressional oversight, federal statutes, executive orders, and agency regulations, and we all now know how steadfastly NSA is committed to these safeguards and to our constitutional liberties. With NSA now pulling the wool over our new president’s eyes, in conjunction with their contempt for congressional oversight, I am truly horrified of the prospect that NSA will usher us into a new dystopia where we will soon learn the mandatory newspeak language that will alter the concluding line of our national anthem from '… the land of the free and home of the brave” to, '… the land of the fear and the home of the depraved.'

This development indicates that SecDef Robert Gates is truly a creature of his former master.

Be afraid America, be very afraid, as NSA will soon be the number one 'clear a present danger' to your freedom and liberty.

Lord help us!"

Russ Tice

Former Intelligence Officer,

National Security Agency

& specialist in Offensive Information Warfare

RT: Hybrid flu genetically-engineered in U.S. and Canada

U.S. supplied Afghan insurgents for "Al Qaeda" in Iraq

WMR has learned from an intelligence source who served in 2007 at the Tallil Air Base in Iraq, also known as Camp Adder by the U.S. Army and Ali Air Base by the U.S. Air Force, that United States intelligence services imported Afghan mercenaries into Iraq in order to attack Iraqi civilians and military personnel, as well as coalition forces, including U.S. service personnel. The Afghans were recruited from Taliban ranks and were paid for their services in Iraq.

WMR has learned that during 2007, Iraqi police stopped a truck hauling a 40-foot trailer on the Kerrada Bridge in Baghdad. When the Iraqi police officers checked the truck's trailer they were amazed to discover between 30 and 40 Afghan Taliban. They said they were brought into Iraq by the United States and were tasked with stirring up trouble in Iraq., much of it ascribed by U.S. military commanders as the work of the dubiously-named Tanzim Qaidat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn (Organization of Jihad's Base in the Country of the Two Rivers) or, more commonly known as "Al Qaeda of Mesopotamia."

The Iraqi police were told by senior U.S. military commanders on the scene to allow the Afghani insurgents to depart the Kerrada Bridge without any further hindrance.

The Taliban cell in Iraq apparently operated in conjunction with a covert U.S. plan to look the other way as Mahdi Army cells planted bombs in Iraq. On April 9, 2009, WMR reported: "WMR has been informed by a former private military contractor in Iraq that the United States was aware of the identities and even the cell phone numbers of several bomb making operatives within Muqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army. The bomb cells were responsible for detonating a number of bombs in Iraq that targeted Sunnis and coalition personnel, including Americans." The failure of Generals David Petraeus and George Casey to act against the bomb-making cell was to not put in jeopardy a six-month extension of a cease-fire agreement agreed to by the MNF-I [Multi-national Force-Iraq] and [Muqtada] al Sadr's Shi'a militia in 2006.

One of the Shi'a bomb-making cells was located in the Kerrada district of Baghdad, the same area where the Taliban truck was stopped in Iraqi police. WMR has obtained a list [Part 1 and Part 2] provided to U.S. authorities by the coordinator of the Kerrada bomb cell. No action was taken by U.S. intelligence or military personnel to curtail the Shi'a militia bomb-making operation.

An English translation of the bomb-making cell list follows:

My name is Fadil Salim Naji of Jaderiya 923/43 Baghdad,Mobile 07901289687. Before 2003 I was a Bathist party member and co-ordinator with the Iraqi government to the Iranian goverment. Since this time I have been working with the Iranian government in co-ordination with the Jeshil Mehdi army. My role has been to take money for arms purchases for the Mehdi army from the Iranian Intelligence and to place orders for weaponry. My meeting point with the Iranians was at the border point near to Maraghen City Iran....My orders were always from Athora City in Kerrada where I had contact to the Medhi army leaders. Akiel Salam Hamid nicknamed (Al Iranie) of Jaderiya Baghdad works with his father Hussein Salim Hamid who and are responsible for bomb making and arranging the planting of devices. Mobile 07702 668 185.,Land line govt issued - 7786495. Hussein Salim Hamid is responsible for counting military vehicles in the area of Jaderiya and is the main planning officer for appointing targets and building roadside bombs including the use of mainly semtex. He made the recent bomb which exploded outside the ice cream shop on Jaderiya street. Mobile - 0780 341 1480. Fathil Dabus, Basin Hyder/Salim No23 ? was told by Hussein Hamid he had three days to leave his job or he and his family would be killed. Fathil Mobile-079067 61723 of Athora City received two calls from Hussein Hamid 23/10/07 and 11/10/07. Fathil Dabus wife also threatened by Hussein Hamid infront of the Azur Girls school Jaderiya. Mr Rand Badri a supervisor teacher was killed a week ago by Hussein Salim Hamid and also Rand's father the headmaster at the school was killed by Hussein Salim Hamid. Fadil - Mobile 078016 575 66 Another leader of the Mehdi army. Ziuna City - 079022 72814 - Mobile of an assassin working for Hussein Hamid. The reg on the car No.26888 BMW white test Baghdad. A car used to transport arms from the border meet point. Saed Ahmed 07902272814 Enforcer for Hussein Hamid and responsible for many killings and bombs in the area

The use by U.S. special operations forces and covert U.S. intelligence agents of Taliban fighters from Afghanistan and Mahdi Army insurgents to foment violence and terrorism in Iraq represents yet another serious violation of international and domestic anti-terrorism treaties and laws by the Bush-Cheney administration. In the case of using Taliban fighters to stage attacks on U.S., coalition, and Iraqi targets and blaming them on "Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia," the Bush-Cheney administration once again has demonstrated that "Al Qaeda" is as much an invention of the last administration as the billing of "9/11" as a foreign terrorist attack.

Pearl Harbor, Part II? No Way!!!

The war in Afghanistan is ugly. The conflict in Iraq is still seething. The prospect of Pakistan's collapse is terrifying.

But the real nightmare scenario, or so the media headlines suggest, involves North Korea. Its leader is wacko. It's adding to its nuclear arsenal. It's making preparations for a missile launch aimed at Hawaii.

The Japanese attacked us 68 years ago. The Pentagon is bracing for Pearl Harbor, part II. This is serious stuff. The Taliban might be crazy, but they don't have nukes and we don't expect them to bomb Waikiki any time soon.

Never fear: the Obama administration has crafted a robust response to North Korea. We pushed through a UN resolution, with Chinese and Russian support, that ups the sanctions against Pyongyang and authorizes the naval interdiction of North Korean vessels suspected of delivering weapons or other suspicious materials. We sat down with South Korean leader Lee Myung-bak and reaffirmed our willingness to retaliate with nuclear weapons if the South is attacked. We've beefed up our defenses in Hawaii. We're currently tailing a North Korean ship as it heads toward Burma.
In his eagerness to show that he has the strength of will to confront a nuclear bully, President Barack Obama hopes to dispel any illusions - among conservatives here, among the leadership in North Korea - that he's a "cut-and-run" kind of guy. He can multitask. He can talk and prepare for war at the same time. This guy can take care of pesky flies like North Korea.

I'm not sure who's giving the president his advice on North Korea. But it's all wrong. His show of "resolve" has only made matters worse.

Myth 1: North Korea is about to attack Hawaii: North Korea has two long-range missiles, the Taepodong-1 and the Taepodong-2. The first, likely used only for satellite launches, can maybe go 2,500 miles. But it's never been successfully tested. The Taepondong-2 maybe could go about 3,700 miles. But it too has failed in its two tests: a quick fizzle in 2006 and a failure in the third stage this last April. Even if Pyongyang gets everything right for a possible July 4 test, it's 4,500 miles between Pyongyang and Honolulu. As for putting a nuclear warhead on the top of it, North Korea has shown no evidence that it has the necessary miniaturization technology.

Myth #2: North Korea is a military threat: North Korea has a lot of people in uniform, and its artillery can cause horrific damage to Seoul. But North Korea spends about half a billion dollars a year on its military. South Korea alone spends 40 times that amount. And the United States spends 1,000 times more. Neither China nor Russia would support any North Korean military action. Militarily speaking, North Korea is a kamikaze country. It can inflict damage, but only in a suicide attack and only close to home.

Myth 3: We really showed them at the UN: The Security Council statement in April and the resolution in June certainly communicated international anger at North Korea's rocket and nuclear tests. But we overreacted to the April launch. We should have treated it as a satellite launch and pressed forward with negotiations. Instead, North Korea responded to our fierce words by upping the ante and conducting a second nuclear test. The UN statement was as satisfying as hitting a problem with a baseball bat - except that the problem in this case was a hornet's nest. The more recent resolution, meanwhile, represents a dangerous escalation: a confrontation at sea might trigger a much larger conflict.

Myth 4: Kim Jong Il is crazy and North Korea is an unpredictable rogue state: Actually, North Korean reactions have been quite predictable and, at least within the North Korean context, rational. Pyongyang was unhappy with the course of negotiations and its relative lack of priority on Obama's to-do list. Rocket launches and nuclear tests have yielded both attention and concessions in the past, so they went with what works. And they telegraphed their moves well in advance. The leader of North Korea runs a brutal state and a mind-numbing personality cult. And North Korea's official statements often sound like the scripts from bad horror movies. But Kim Jong Il worked out shrewd deals in the past - with the Clinton and Bush administrations, with the Kim Dae-Jung and Roh-Moo Hyun governments in South Korea, and even with Junichiro Koizumi in Japan back in 2002. If he's mad, there's a method in his madness.

We are retracing the same steps as 1993-1994, a path of escalation that nearly led to war. As I write in The Obama-Lee Summit: Dangerous Consensus?, "North Korea, with so little to lose, is the master of brinksmanship. It is not wise to enter into a tit-for-tat match with such a country. At this point, more important than finding common ground between the United States and South Korea is establishing common ground between North Korea and the rest of the world. By all means, Washington and Seoul should coordinate policy. But they should also keep their eyes on the prize: resolving the current crisis with North Korea without resorting to force."

The United States should focus on nuclear nonproliferation, urges Foreign Policy In Focus contributor Wade Huntley, and make sure North Korea doesn't cross that red line. In the meantime, Washington should continue taking steps toward nuclear abolition. "Complete nuclear abolition need not be fully achieved in order to realize the constitution of a global security order that eliminates all threats of nuclear conflict," he writes in Dealing with North Korea's Tests. "And as the rest of this community becomes warmer, it will become increasingly tempting for North Korea to come in out of the cold."

It's definitely frustrating to negotiate with North Korea. And many respected analysts have serious doubts as to whether Pyongyang will ever give up its nuclear weapons. But when we were talking seriously with North Korea, it kept its plutonium program frozen (Clinton) or began dismantling it (Bush), and its long-range missile program was still rudimentary. That beats war every time. In 1994, former President Jimmy Carter helped avert confrontation by visiting Pyongyang and working out a compromise. Maybe the Man from Plains can get on the plane again. The escalation must stop: It's time to talk.


Links

Federation of American Scientists, "North Korea's Taepodong and Unha Missiles," http://www.fas.org/programs/ssp/nukes/nuclearweapons/Taepodong.html
Craig Covault, "North Korean Rocket Flew Further than Earlier Thought," Spaceflight Now, April 10, 2009; http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0904/10northkorea/
John Feffer, "The Obama-Lee Summit: Dangerous Consensus?" Foreign Policy In Focus (http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/6205); Washington and Seoul should coordinate policy. But they should also keep their eyes on the prize: resolving the current crisis with North Korea without resorting to force.
Wade Huntley, "Dealing with North Korea's Tests," Foreign Policy In Focus (http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/6204); Coming up with the proper response to North Korea's recent actions requires a careful assessment of Pyongyang motivations and regional geopolitics.