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An Uncanny Prediction Comes True
First we start off with an unusual and eerie prediction that was made by a most suspicious individual. This prediction, in unison with the status of the person of who made it, is extremely indicative and foretelling of who planned and executed 9/11.
In 1979, twenty-one years before September 11, 2001, Isser Harel predicted with uncanny accuracy the events of 9-11 to Michael D. Evans, an American supporter of Zionist extremists of the Jabotinsky sort.
On September 23, 1979, Evans visited Harel at his home in Israel and had dinner with him and Dr. Reuven Hecht, a senior adviser to then prime minister Menachem Begin.
In an editorial entitled "America the Target", published in the Jerusalem Post of September 30, 2001 Evans -- a Khazar Jew masquerading as a Christian -- asked Harel about Arab terrorism and if it would come to America. Harel told Evans that Arab terrorists would likely strike the "tallest building in New York City" because it was a "phallic symbol". The fact that 9/11 was planned by the Mossad through the admittance of Isser Harel is well documented and appears in a book written by Michael Evans
Isser Harel started out in 1930 as a young Russian immigrant to Israel on a kibbutz. He later founded his own orange company. He will be best remembered, however, as the first director of the Mossad.
By the 1940s Harel joined the Haganah and the British auxiliary forces to fight the Nazis. He headed the intelligence branch of the Haganah in 1942. It was Harel who sank the Irgun ship the Altalena, upon orders given by David Ben-Gurion.
Harel quickly climbed the ranks of the Israeli elite, ultimately becoming the first head of the Shin Bet, Israel's internal security service. He was the Mossad director from 1952-1963, where he directed both the Shin Bet and the Mossad.
He is credited with developing a close relationship with the CIA and, together the United States, Israel collected information about the Soviet Union. He also created the Trident Network in which Israel, Iran, and Turkey collected intelligence about the Egyptian government.
Harel was known for his dedication to defending Israel and protecting democracy within the Jewish state. During his tenure as the Mossad chief, he led two famous operations. The first was the capture in 1960 of Adolf Eichmann, one of the Nazi architects of the Final Solution. The other involved Yosseleh Schumacher, the grandson of an ultra-Orthodox Brooklynite, who, in 1959, was prevented from kidnaping his son and enrolling him in a religious school.
In 1962, Harel learned that the Germans were assisting the Egyptians in developing missile technology. According to Reuven Merhav, former long-time member of the intelligence community, the technology was far inferior to Israel's and not a threat to her security; nevertheless, Harel believed it necessary to intimidate Germany. This angered Ben-Gurion.
As a result of irreconcilable differences with the Prime Minister, Harel resigned from the Mossad in 1963.
After his career in intelligence, Harel was primarily a writer. His best known book, The House on Garibaldi Street (1975), recounts the capture of Eichmann.
He died in Israel on February 19, 2003.
1) Larry Silverstein -- Larry is a Jewish American businessman from New York. Larry obtained a 99 year lease on the entire world trade center complex on 24 July, 2001. The towers were nearly worthless,being filled with asbestos, yet Larry “felt a compelling urge to own them”. Larry had breakfast in "Windows on the World" restaurant (107th Floor North Tower) every single morning. Larry was absent from this routine meeting on the morning of September the 11th. Larry’s two children, who also worked in the WTC, conveniently decided to take the day off as well. Larry Silverstein scored more than $4.5 Billion in insurance money as a result of the destruction of his complex. Silverstein was personal friends with Zionist media-magnate Rupert Murdoch, former Israeli president & infamous Zionist war criminal Ariel Sharon, as well as Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. Silverstein was such good friends with Benjamin Netanyahu that he would speak with him on the phone every single sunday.
Silverstein Properties Not the Highest Bidder - Silverstein Properties’ bid for the WTC, at $3.22 billion, was the second highest after Vornado Realty Trust’s, at $3.25 billion. Silverstein Properties won the contract only after protracted negotiations between the Port Authority and Vornado Realty Trust failed. The privatization of the WTC has been overseen by Lewis M. Eisenberg, the chairman of the Port Authority. Eisenberg, a financier, is involved in Republican politics. (New York Times, 3/17/2001; Forward, 8/20/2004)
Fifty days before 9/11, Larry Silverstein's Silverstein Properties and Frank Lowy's Westfield America secured a 99-year lease on World Trade Center Buildings One, Two, Four and Five. Silverstein already owned Building Seven. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey handed over control of the World Trade Center to Silverstein and Lowy on July 24, 2001. Lowy leased the shopping concourse area called the Mall at the World Trade
Center, made up of approximately 427,000 square feet of retail floor space. Silverstein and Westfield America insured the complex for $3.55 billion, but after the attacks of September 11 lodged a claim for $7.1 billion on the premise that each plane collision constituted a separate act of terrorism, doubling the payout. Most people know about "Lucky" Larry Silverstein's part in 9/11 and his dubious connections to Binyamin Netanyahu et al, but not much has been reported on Lowy, so let's have a look.
Frank Lowy is a Hungarian Jew who arrived in Palestine in 1945 to fight with the Haganah in the Israeli "War of Independence", later joining Israel's Golani Brigade which was created in February 1948. In 1952 he moved to Sydney, Australia, where he started building shopping centers, before going on to work in investment banking in London, New York and Los Angeles. He co-founded the Westfield Group, which he still chairs. According to Wikipedia, "Westfield currently has interests in total assets worth A$41 billion, representing 121 shopping centres in four countries with over 10 million square meters of retail space. It is the world's largest retail property group by equity market capitalization". In California alone, he has overseen Westfield's regional growth from 6 shopping centers to at least 59. At $3.8 billion, he's ranked #2 in Forbes.Com's list of Australia and NZ's richest individuals - one of three men, all Jewish, who make up Australia's wealthiest elites - and by the same standard is the 174th richest man in the world.
Lowy's fondness for banking is not limited to the U.S. He's a board member of the Reserve Bank of Australia, Australia's central bank, which is the Australian version of the American Federal Reserve system and issuer of Australian banknotes. Lowy served a ten year term as director of the RBA.
Frank the Zionist is not at all disinterested in world politics. In 2001 he was the Associate International Chairman of the Israel Democracy Institute, and in 2003 he set up the Lowy Institute for International Policy, an international policy think tank devoted to foreign affairs, an endeavor which won him the Woodrow Wilson Award for Corporate Citizenship in 2005 (funnily enough, it was Wilson who signed the Federal Reserve Act). That same year, the Institute moved into its permanent home in Sydney’s CBD which was formally opened by Australia’s Prime Minister and Lowy's good mate, John Howard. He even joined Howard and Bill Clinton on an "evening Sydney Harbour cruise" when Clinton visited Australia in 1996 (source).
Other good friends of his include Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert and media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who has his own connections to 9/11 and who avidly supports the extremist Likud Party of Israel and the post-9/11 "war on terror". Israel has no better friend in the media than Murdoch and his empire. Like Silverstein, Lowy maintains close relationships with former Israeli prime ministers Ariel Sharon and Ehud Barak, and other high profile Zionists like Avinoam Brog, Barak's brother. Brog told the Sydney Morning Herald that Lowy's "influence is such that if he wanted to talk to any politician in Israel, then he could. And they will listen."
Post for Ex-Port Chairman
Lewis M Eisenberg, former chairman of Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, is chosen as committee co-chairman for 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City and will oversee planning and fund-raising; he will relinquish his position as chair of Republican National Finance Committee
Lewis M. Eisenberg
Board of Directors
For many years, Mr. Eisenberg was a partner of Goldman Sachs & Co. In 1990, he founded Granite Capital International Group, an investment management company headquartered in New York City. Mr. Eisenberg also served from 1995 to 2001 as Chairman of the Board of Commissioners of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The Port Authority is also, of course, the owner of the World Trade Center, and Mr. Eisenberg led the agency through the first three months of recovery and clean-up after the terrorist attacks of September 11. He was recently named a member of New York’s Lower Manhattan Redevelopment Authority, which will spearhead the rebuilding of Ground Zero.
His community and charitable activities include leadership in health and healthcare related institutions. He is on the Planning Board of UJA/United Jewish Federation.
Mr. Eisenberg is a long-time Republican activist and was recently elected Finance Chairman of the Republican National Committee. He has raised millions of dollars for the Republican Party and Republican candidates. He served on New York Governor George Pataki’s transition team and was a key advisor to New Jersey Governor Christine Whitman
Ronald Lauder - Billionaire Estée Lauder Cosmetics magnate. He was the chairman of NY Governor George Pataki's commission on privatization. He is the key individual who lobbied for the privatization of the WTC (Source, 9th pp) -- but he also got the former Stewart Air Force Base to become privatized. Oddly, the flight paths of flight 175 and flight 11 converged directly over this airport.
Dear President Obama:
I write today as a proud American and a proud Jew.
Jews around the world are concerned today. We are concerned about the nuclear ambitions of an Iranian regime that brags about its genocidal intentions against Israel. We are concerned that the Jewish state is being isolated and delegitimized.
Mr. President, we are concerned about the dramatic deterioration of diplomatic relations between the United States and Israel.
The Israeli housing bureaucracy made a poorly timed announcement and your Administration branded it an "insult." This diplomatic faux pas was over the fourth stage of a seven stage planning permission process - a plan to build homes years from now in a Jewish area of Jerusalem that under any peace agreement would remain an integral part of Israel.
Our concern grows to alarm as we consider some disturbing questions. Why does the thrust of this Administration's Middle East rhetoric seem to blame Israel for the lack of movement on peace talks? After all, it is the Palestinians, not Israel, who refuse to negotiate.
Israel has made unprecedented concessions. It has enacted the most far reaching West Bank settlement moratorium in Israeli history.
Israel has publicly declared support for a two-state solution. Conversely, many Palestinians continue their refusal to even acknowledge Israel?s right to exist.
The conflict's root cause has always been the Palestinian refusal to accept Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people. Every American President who has tried to broker a peace agreement has collided with that Palestinian intransigence, sooner or later. Recall President Clinton's anguish when his peace proposals were bluntly rejected by the Palestinians in 2000. Settlements were not the key issue then.
They are not the key issue now.
Another important question is this: what is the Administration?s position on Israel's borders in any final status agreement? Ambiguity on this matter has provoked a wave of rumors and anxiety. Can it be true that America is no longer committed to a final status agreement that provides defensible borders for Israel? Is a new course being charted that would leave Israel with the indefensible borders that invited invasion prior to 1967?
There are significant moves from the Palestinian side to use those indefensible borders as the basis for a future unilateral declaration of independence. How would the United States respond to such a reckless course of action?
And what are America's strategic ambitions in the broader Middle East? The Administration's desire to improve relations with the Muslim world is well known. But is friction with Israel part of this new strategy? Is it assumed worsening relations with Israel can improve relations with Muslims? History is clear on the matter: appeasement does not work. It can achieve the opposite of what is intended.
And what about the most dangerous player in the region? Shouldn't the United States remain focused on the single biggest threat that confronts the world today? That threat is a nuclear armed Iran. Israel is not only America's closest ally in the Middle East, it is the one most committed to this Administration?s declared aim of ensuring Iran does not get nuclear weapons.
Mr. President, we embrace your sincerity in your quest to seek a lasting peace. But we urge you to take into consideration the concerns expressed above. Our great country and the tiny State of Israel have long shared the core values of freedom and democracy. It is a bond much treasured by the Jewish people. In that spirit I submit, most respectfully, that it is time to end our public feud with Israel and to confront the real challenges that we face together.
Yours sincerely,Ronald S. LauderPresidentWorld Jewish Congress
From Intrapreneur to Entrepreneur
Jeremy Kroll comes from an entrepreneurial family. His father, Jules Kroll, founded Kroll, Inc., which grew to become one of the world’s leading investigative and risk consulting firms. Jeremy joined his father’s company early on in his career and helped bring Kroll into new areas as an ““intrapreneur”, incubating nascent businesses within the company. He recently earned his MBA from TRIUM, where he honed his entrepreneurial skills, and has since launched a new venture with his father, called K2 Global Partners.
Kroll, Inc. was started in 1972, and over the next four decades, revolutionized the world of investigations. In an unprecedented move for the industry, Kroll hired talent from a variety of fields, ranging from law enforcement to academia. The firm achieved tremendous success through the use of progressive techniques in uncovering facts for individuals, corporations, and countries looking to mitigate risk.
Starting off as an investigator, Jeremy was involved with cases ranging from high-level business litigation suits to missing persons cases. Jeremy found his investigative and intelligence work fascinating, and appreciated the value of collaborating with colleagues of different backgrounds in order to find solutions to sophisticated issues. One such assignment came in 2001, when Kroll was hired by the United Nations to investigate the funneling of money by separatists out of the banking system. Kroll’s team came under attack and was taken hostage by Croats. Several of his staff was injured in the assault, fortunately, Jeremy was not with the initial team. Later that year, Jeremy returned with his team to finish the assignment. They seized equipment and gathered the evidence they needed to retrieve the U.N.’s stolen funds.
“It was a pretty dramatic life experience…. I got exposure to what makes human beings tick and what makes organizations tick, especially under the most extreme conditions imaginable.”
Jerome M. Hauer, one of the nation s true innovators in emergency management and medical/ public health planning and response to emergencies. disasters and terrorism is now the Chief Executive Officer of the Hauer Group.
The Hauer Group provides consulting services in the areas of Homeland Security, Emergency Management and Public Health and Medical Planning, Training and Response to disasters and assists governments and a variety of companies in achieving their strategic and tactical missions in these areas.
Hauer convinced the Indiana State legislature to Merge the State Emergency Management Agency with Emergency Medical Services Commission, the first State in the nation to bring these two agencies together so that they could better focus on the greatest unmet need in larger incidents, the emergency care of victims. Hauer and his staff in New York City developed the concept of Point s of Distribution or PODs, which is now used worldwide. He had the first Veterinary Response team in the nation, developed the first public health surveillance system in the nation was the first Director of the Mayor s Office of Emergency Management in New York City where he built an office that was recognized worldwide for its proactive approach to terrorism, and was the first Emergency Response Programs Manager for IBM worldwide.
Hauer was most recently the Director of the Response to Emergencies and Disasters Institute (READI) at The George Washington University. Appointed as the institute s first director Mr. Hauer was working with the Department of Homeland Security to coordinate and deliver first responder, medical and public health training for the National Capital Region (NCR). Mr. Hauer was an assistant professor in the School of Public Health & Health Services and the School of Medicine.
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Tommy G. Thompson named Jerome M. Hauer as the first Acting Assistant Secretary for the Office of Public Health Emergency Preparedness on June 28, 2002. In this role, Hauer was responsible for coordinating the country s medical and public health preparedness and response to emergencies, including acts of biological, chemical, and nuclear terrorism. The office oversees over $1 billion dollars per year in bioterrorism preparedness grant funding for state and local governments. Before his appointment as Acting Assistant Secretary in June, Mr. Hauer had served as Director of the Office of Public Health Preparedness. Mr. Hauer also served as senior advisor to the Secretary for National Security and Emergency Management during the events of September 11, 2001, and the nation s anthrax crisis.
Before coming to HHS, Mr. Hauer was named by Mayor Rudolf Giuliani s as New York City s first Director of the Mayor s Office of Emergency Management (OEM) for the City of New York. During his tenure at OEM, Mr. Hauer was charged with coordinating the city s planning for and response to natural and man-made events, including acts of terrorism. New York became the first city to develop a bioterrorism response plan and to do large-scale bioterrorism exercises.
Before coming to New York City Hauer served as the Executive Director of the State of Indiana s Emergency Management Agency and Director of the state s Emergency Medical Services, as well as its Department of Fire and Building Services. He also served as Co-chairman of the State of Indiana s Emergency Response Commission and as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the State s Public Safety Training Institute. He was on the Congressional Fire Caucus Urban Search and Rescue Advisory Committee as well as the National Institute for Urban Search and Rescue Advisory Council. In 1990 and 1991, he was named Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Central U.S. Earthquake Consortium.
In 1987, Hauer was named Deputy Director for Emergency Management for the City of New York s Emergency Medical Services. Four years earlier, Mr. Hauer joined the Biomedical Division of IBM as a clinical research coordinator, later taking responsibility for the company s Hazardous Material Response, Crisis Management, Fire Safety and Emergency Medical Response Programs. A series of hazardous materials training videos produced by Mr. Hauer earned him the International Film and TV Critics of New York Bronze Award in 1986.
He has appeared on hundreds of television and radio shows and has been an on air consultant to ABC network news for 5 years.
John Patrick O'Neil born in New Jersey grew up as a child watching programs about crime. His favourite program was a TV drama called F.B.I, which dramatised true FBI case files. John after graduating from high school went off to college in Washington in 1971. While there, he got himself a job as a fingerprint clerk at the FBI's Washington head offices. In 1973 he got himself a good degree in Administration of Justice from The American University and later achieved a Master's degree in forensics at the University. Noted by friends and colleagues as being a "'perfectionist'' and always "'top of his class'' his dream was to work for the FBI and that dream came true in 1976 when he was signed as an agent for what he believed to be the best investigative agency in the world, the FBI.
Over the next 15 years he worked his way investigating organised crime, white collar crime and later while at the Washington FBI office in counterintelligence. Bright, intelligent, ambitious and tenacious, everyone that worked with him said he was "'the best''. He was "'one of a kind'', maverick was the term often associated with him. Good looking, beautifully dressed with very expensive tastes, although well liked and admired, there were those less talented than him and those that had things to hide that felt threatened by John O'Neil.
Due to his professional success, in 1991 O'Neil was promoted and was moved to the FBI's field office in Chicago, where he was given the important role as Assistant Special Agent in Charge. He also worked to promote inter-agency cooperation and enhance ties and breakdown bureaucracy between the FBI and local law enforcement. A task that some found counter-productive and "'irritating''. He was later known as one of the "'top American anti-terrorism experts'' who eventually became the Assistant Director for The Federal Bureau of Investigation until late 2001.
O'Neil's connection with 9/11 really started back In 1993, after he was directly involved with the capture of Ramzi Yousef, the leader of the first WTC bomb plot. O'Neil went on to investigate the 1996 Khobar Towers bombings of Saudi Arabia. While investigating the Saudi bombings, he became frustrated by the lack of Saudi co operation and complained to then FBI director Lois Freeh that the Saudis were "'blowing smoke up your ass'' which wasn't taken lightly and wasn't meant to be! O'Neil was not only a brilliant agent with real balls, but he could not be bought! His experience in Islamic militants, middle eastern cells and counterintelligence was superior to many other senior counterintelligence agents and it was for this that later he became the subject of a frontline documentary "'The man that knew''.
By 1997 he was moved to the New York office where he was one of the senior agents in charge of counterterrorism and national security. In 1998, two United States Embassies were bombed in quick succession one in Nairobi, Kenya, and the other in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. O'Neil immediately put his hand up to say he was willing to be involved in the investigation as he already had vast knowledge of Islamic militants. However, people high up in Washington were starting to tire of O'Neil's successes and ways of obtaining information which one has to ask why! O'Neil was excluded from the Embassy bombings investigation and in his place, inferior and much less knowledgeable agents with no experience of the region were sent to "'pick up leads'' O'Neil was infuriated by this as he felt he could fast track the investigation but to no avail.
In the year 2000 again investigations led him to the Arab world, and Yemen where he was sent to investigate the USS Cole Bombing
His trips to Yemen in the late 90's had opened up vital new sources of information for him and it was in Yemen that O'Neil made many important underworld Arab connections that started to feed him vital information, not only about the dynamics of the Islamic Militant cells, but who those cells were connected to and funded by. O'Neil kept his sources close to his chest as he knew even the best agencies had infiltrators.
On his arrival in Yemen in 2000 O'Neil complained about the "'lack of security'' for his team surrounding his investigation for the USS Cole bombings. At this time the US Ambassador to Yemen was Barbara Bodine. The ambassador didn't like O'Neil and was petty about his style and approach. She was possessive about what she felt to be her territory and created obstacles to O'Neil's modus operandi. After the first month of investigation, O'Neil returned to The US with new information and 9 kilos less in weight. His friends said they noticed O'Neil was "'concerned'' "'worried'' "'edgy'' certainly not his usual self. They believed he had received information from his connections which was connected to the CIA. Whatever O'Neil had learned it was certainly something "'significant''. A few weeks later, O'Neil told his superiors that he needed to return to Yemen to conclude his investigation. Barbara Bodine and "'others'' in Washington blocked his return and refused to authorise his permits required for travel to the Yemen region.
Bodine was later quoted as saying;
"' "Too much is being made of John O'Neill's being in Yemen or not," "John O'Neill did not discover Al Qaeda. He did not discover Osama bin Laden. So the idea that John or his people or the F.B.I. were somehow barred from doing their job is insulting to the U.S. government, which was working on Al Qaeda before John ever showed up. This is all my embassy did for ten months. The fact that not every single thing John O'Neill asked for was appropriate or possible does not mean that we did not support the investigation."
It was at this time things started to get confusing. O'Neil was accused of "'losing a briefcase'' of highly classified documents at a FBI conference when he "'popped outside'' from a room with over 350 FBI agents to hear a badly connected cell phone call. When he returned minutes later the case was gone. Strangely enough, the briefcase "'turned up'' a few hours later with nothing missing or even touched! Forensic analysis proved this, as the papers were so highly sensitive they were subjected to tests. One has to ask, how could a briefcase be "'stolen'' in the midst of 350 FBI agents? Oh, one may think; must have been a mistake, wrong bag picked up by the wrong person, but if that was the case why was the bag returned anonymously? Why did no one own up to the taking of the bag if it was a genuine error? He was then accused of being "'negligent'' after "'losing a cell phone'' and a "'Palm''. O Neil said that he never "'lost'' anything and if anything went missing it was taken by people that knew it was there.
He was then subjected to a series of "'internal FBI investigations'' Colleagues of O'Neil came to his defence and suggest that he was the victim of a "'senior'' smear campaign and that he had "'worried'' people about "'what he had learned '' while in Yemen. Eventually O'Neil was forced into resigning from the FBI after constant hounding from his superiors and bypassing O'Neil when he should have been promoted. O'Neil knew his career with the FBI had come to a very dead end. But while he was contemplating his leave from the FBI he was "'headhunted'' by Jerome Hauer.
Hauer was a national security advisor with the Dept. of Health and Human Services and also the managing director with Kroll Associates a company that specializes in security and terrorism prevention. Hauer had a solid background in counter-terror and a specialized knowledge of biological warfare.
Hauer had previously been employed by his pal Mayor Giuliani from 1996 to 2000 as the director of The office of Emergency Management. Hauer came up with a job for O'Neil. Hauer told O'Neil that his "'client'' Larry Silverstein wanted him to be Chief of Security at the WTC, this was now the end of August 2001. O'Neil liked the offer which was a generous one, US$350.000 P.A plus perks, but O'Neil wanted a few days off before he started his new job. He was told that Silverstein "'wanted him in the office no later than 11th September'' So September 11th was to be John O'Neil's first day at work in the WTC. Others since have said that O'Neil started his job on the 26th of August 2001 but that was when he was contracted. Confirmation of his start date can be heard in an interview with New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik;
"That Tuesday was his first or second day on the job," (Kerik in an interview with CNN's Larry King Live.)
Both of Larry's children, directors of Silverstein properties were miraculously late to work on 9/11. Larry would as a habit have breakfast each morning in the WTC, not that day though, Larry was miraculously lucky in that he had cancelled the mornings business meetings in favour of a last minute dermatologist's appointment and therefore none of the Silverstein family perished in the collapse that day, even though all three of them should have been at their desks. Not so lucky was Larry's newest employee, former FBI counterintelligence agent John O'Neil.
Out of the 2,780 victims of the WTC only 12 bodies were found physically intact, John O'Neil was one of those rare 12 bodies that were identifiable by sight. John's body was found at the bottom of a stairwell in the south tower on Sept 22nd where he had supposedly lain for 11 days, he was formally identified by Jerome Hauer.
ICTS International, Harel and Atzmon have questionable backgrounds. In a June 26, 2001 report (see www.union-network.org...) the AFL-CIO urged sharelholders of ICTS to vote against a proposal for issuing more stock, because "ICTS continues to make major investments outside of its core business of aviation security services. Many of these investments may be high risk and also raise conflict of interest concerns as many involved businesses affiliated with Supervisory Board Chairman, Ezra Harel, and boardmember Menachem Atzmon, or their holding company Leedan Business Enterprises...ICTS's investment strategy shows disturbing similarities to a previous Harel venture, AP Industries, where bondholders may have lost up to half of their original investment. According to a New York Times article, 'AP Industries sold $100 million in "junk bonds" to finance an acquisition binge. Numerous acquisitions later, the case [was] spent, mostly on money-losing operations, including one bought from the company's chairman' (NY Times, 7/28/89). AP Industries was forced to file for bankruptcy shortly after."
ICTS International NV Change of Control to Conform to Transportation Security Administration
Thursday, 5 Sep 2002 11:22am EDT
ICTS International NV reported that Mr. Ezra Harel, the Chairman of the Board of the Company and a United States citizen, has acquired through a wholly owned Delaware corporation approximately 3,842,190 shares of the Company's common stock at a price of $9.00 per share from various foreign stockholders. Included in this group are the shares owned by Mr. Lior Zouker, the President of the Company. This brings Mr. Harel's ownership in the Company with his present holdings to approximately 64.5% of the Company. The primary purpose of this acquisition was to satisfy the requirements of the Transportation Security Administration requirement that in order for a company to bid and participate in the pilot program whereby several airports will remain in private hands for performing the security function that the ownership be United States owned and controlled by at least 75%. Through Mr. Harel's ownership and shares held in public hands, United States ownership of the Company is now in excess of 85%. The Company is bidding on all 5 airports that are currently in the pilot program.
Dual citizen of Israel and U.S. Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, seeks to adopt airport standards from his other homeland, like biometric behavior detection technology, and implement them here in the US.
Never mind the fact that airport security from where all four planes were high jacked on 9/11 were Israeli-owned (ICTS International), and it's owner and operator, Menachem Atzmon, was convicted for money laundering for the Likud Party of Israel.
"U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said on Thursday he will seek to adopt novel Israeli methods, like behavior-detection technologies, to better secure America's airports.
"That's a scenario where Israel has a lot of experience," Chertoff said in an interview with Reuters. "I think that it is of interest to us to see if there is any adaptation there."
Ben-Gurion International Airport, known for its strict security measures, relies heavily on techniques that detect suspicious behaviour among travelers.
Chertoff said such methods, as well as Israeli technologies that detect explosives, are some of the things that may help protect U.S. airports and other public places against attacks.
Chertoff, at a conference in Jerusalem for public and homeland security ministers from around the world, signed an agreement with Israel to share technology and information on methods to improve homeland security.
One of the new systems presented at the conference, developed by the Israeli technology company WeCU, uses behavioural science, together with biometric sensors, to detect sinister intentions among travelers.
The U.S. homeland security chief said that not all methods developed and used in Israel, such as questioning every passenger, are practical in larger U.S. airports."
The following are excerpts from the 'Peace & Security' chapter of the Likud Party platform. The other chapters are currently being translated.
The Foundations of Peace
Peace is a primary objective of the State of Israel. The Likud will strengthen the existing peace agreements with the Arab states and strive to achieve peace agreements with all of Israel's neighbors with the aim of reaching a comprehensive solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The Likud will seek to achieve peace and permanent borders in the framework of peace treaties between Israel and its neighbors and will seek cooperation with them on the practical level. The peace agreements will include full diplomatic relations, borders open to free movement, economic cooperation, and the establishment of joint projects in the fields of science, technology, tourism, and industry.
The Arab states' desire for peace will be measured by their efforts to prevent hostile activities by terrorist organizations from their territory and to dismantle the infrastructure of the organizations. This includes closing their headquarters and preventing economic and political warfare and all hostile acts during the negotiations.
On February 15, 2005, Judge Michael Chertoff was unanimously confirmed by the Senate and sworn in as the second Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. He formerly served as United States Circuit Judge for the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, after his June 2003 Senate confirmation. Chertoff stepped down as Secretary in January 2009.
Chertoff was previously confirmed by the Senate in 2001 to serve as Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division at the Department of Justice. As Assistant Attorney General, he oversaw the investigation of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He also formed the Enron Task Force, which produced more than 20 convictions, including those of CEOs Jeffrey Skilling and Ken Lay.
Before joining the George W. Bush Administration, Chertoff was a Partner in the law firm of Latham & Watkins. From 1995 to 1996, he served as Special Counsel for the U.S. Senate Whitewater Committee.
Prior to that, Chertoff spent more than a decade as a federal prosecutor, including service as U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, and Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. As a federal prosecutor, Chertoff investigated and personally prosecuted significant cases of political corruption, organized crime, and corporate fraud. Among them was the “Mafia Commission” case, in which the leaders of La Cosa Nostra were all convicted and sentenced to 100 years in prison for directing the criminal activities of the American Mafia.
Chertoff graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College in 1975 and magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1978. From 1979-1980 he served as a clerk to Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, Jr
Oussama Ziade. [Source: Beta Consulting]Ptech is founded in 1994 by Oussama Ziade, Hussein Ibrahim, and James Cerrato. Ziade came from Lebanon to study at Harvard University. As the Associated Press will describe it, Ptech’s “idea was to help complicated organizations like the military and large companies create a picture of how their assets—people and technology—work together. Then the software could show how little changes, like combining two departments, might affect the whole.” They raise $20 million to start the company. A number of Ptech employees and investors will later be suspected of having ties to groups that have been designated by the US as terrorist organizations:
computer control backdoor
Most national security computerized systems that would have scrambled jets in the event of national emergencies such as multiple hijackings were running on Ptech software. A list of Ptech clients includes the FAA, N.A.T.O, United States Armed Forces, Congress, Dept. Of Energy, Dept. of Justice, FBI, Customs, the IRS, the Secret Service, and even the White House.
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Saturday, July 18, 2009
Oussama Ziade Indictment
Prosecutors this week arrested Oussama Ziade, former CEO of Ptech, a firm based in Quincy, Massachusetts. Ptech's biggest investor was Yassin Al Kadi (sometimes spelled Al Qadi), an alleged terrorist financier. This sealed indictment was filed in 2005 and was unsealed this week.
7/27/2005: Indictment of Oussama Ziade
Labels: INTELFILES, Oussama-Ziade, Ptech, Yassin-Al-Kadi
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PTECH: 911 Software?
We know less about Ptech software than we do about PROMIS. But the new software is much more powerful and important, because our defense against terror depends upon its effectiveness. Unlike PROMIS, it appears to be owned by private interests. However, we should not be surprised if the US government somehow had some ownership rights.
Ptech is a high tech command and control system is probably the most advanced command and control and data mining software in the world. Experts call this “data blueprinting software”. This software combines artificia.l intelligence and interoperability, the capacity to read, modify source codes, and operate other programs --all without being detected thereafter. It is commonly called "Ptech" after the name of the firm that builds it. . It is a very advanced version of PROMIS and its progeny. It is used in a variety of areas including finance, medicine, intelligence, warfare, and aviation. The military uses it in a number of ways and looks to the day when it can be used from space to provide a "God's-eye view" of the battlefield. Some might think that reliance on this Saudi-owned computer software company might be more dangerous to the US than having most ports operated by a UAE company.
FBI REPORTEDLY DIDN'T ACT ON P-TECH TIPS
by Ralph Ranalli, Boston Globe Staff
Dec 8, 2002
The Boston FBI office received two reports that a Quincy software
company had financial ties to a suspected terrorist financier but acted on
neither, according to law enforcement and government officials and a
televised report.
A whistle-blower from Ptech, Inc., told the Boston FBI in October
2001 that the company was being financially backed by Yasin al-Qadi, a
Saudi businessman whose US assets were frozen after the Sept. 11 attacks
amid allegations that he has funded terrorist groups, including al-Qaida
and Hamas, a Bush administration official and a former Clinton
administration official involved in the case said yesterday.
WBZ-TV reported Friday night that a second whistle-blower went to
the Boston FBI office this past June with allegations that the company had
financial ties to the suspected terrorist financier
John Vincent. [Source: Patriot TV]FBI agent Robert Wright will later recall that at this time, he is pleasantly surprised when FBI management provides his Vulgar Betrayal investigation with a 10 year veteran agent to assist with his efforts. According to Wright, the unnamed agent is assigned to “investigate a company and its 20-plus subsidiaries which were linked to a major financer of international terrorism.” However, Wright and fellow agent John Vincent will soon become dismayed when they realize the agent is not actually doing any work. He merely shuffles papers to look busy when people walk by. He will continue to do no work on this important assignment until the Vulgar Betrayal investigation is effectively shut down one year later (see August 3, 1999). Wright will claim in 2003, “The important assignment he was given involved both the founder and the financier of Ptech.” Presumably these could be references to Oussama Ziade, the president and chief founder of Ptech, and Yassin al-Qadi, apparently Ptech’s largest investor.
By contrast, however, Blair gave the impression of being a man who did not need any briefings. Was this because, unbeknown to the rest of us, Blair already knew in advance exactly what the score was?
As time passes it becomes increasingly clear that the British government knew a great deal about was in the offing by the end of the summer of 2001, and that it was communicating its knowledge to the Bush administration. A few press reports provide something of an outline in this respect:
According to the London Times, 14 June 2002 "Britain's spy chiefs warned the Prime Minister less than two months before September 11 that Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda group was in 'the final stages' of preparing a terrorist attack in the West, it was disclosed yesterday....Their warning was included in a report sent to Tony Blair and other senior Cabinet Ministers on July 16.....The JIC [Cabinet Office Joint Intelligence Committee] prediction of an al-Qaeda attack was based on intelligence gleaned not just from MI6 and GCHQ but also from US agencies, including the CIA and the National Security Agency, which has staff working jointly with GCHQ. The CIA sometimes has a representative on the JIC. The contents of the July 16 warning would have been passed to the Americans, Whitehall sources confirmed. ... John Scarlett, who took over as chairman of the JIC a few days before the attacks in America, told the committee, according to the report, that there was 'an acute awareness in the period before September 11' that bin Laden and his associates 'represented a very serious threat' and that there was 'planning activity'..."
The London Times 17 July also relays some of Prime Minister Blair's own comments made to a recent meeting of the House of Commons Liaison Committee. These shed further light on the extent of Britain's prior knowledge: “We knew about al-Qaeda for a long time. They were committing terrorist acts, they were planning, they were organising. Everybody knew, we all knew..."
So it seems fairly clear that Tony Blair had a good idea, and may be very good idea, of at least the general nature of what was coming.
But did Britain also have good information on the specifics about when the attacks were coming and the targets? And if it did, why was America seemingly so unprepared for them? Additional published material encourages further examination of these questions:
On 31 July the Times disclosed that Sir David Manning was in the United States on Sept 11. The paper describes Sir David as "the new Downing St foreign policy adviser".
However, a week after the attacks a report by the Guardian had been more specific about Sir David's Downing St role describing him as "The man emerging as No 10 White House-style 'national security adviser' ".
The BBC reported 8 October 2001 that he is also "head of the cabinet office defence and overseas secretariat" and was already "well known and respected in the White House".
So what was the UK's 'national security adviser' doing in America on Sept 11? Was his visit prompted by the terrorist threat that Tony Blair now confirms 'everybody knew' was being planned?
Despite his de facto status as Blair's special envoy on foreign affairs and security matters the US State Department appointment records show no scheduled meetings for Manning with Secretary Powell himself during the days immediately prior to the attacks.
Those records do, however, show that he was meeting with Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage on September 10th. Armitage is second in command to Colin Powell who left for a trip to Peru later that day, meaning that the Bush administration's principal 'dove' was out of the country when the attacks happened. In Powell's absence "when the storm breaks [on 911] Richard Armitage... is at its heart" according to the BBC's Edward Stourton (Radio 4, 27 August: 'With Us or Against Us').
For those of you who don’t know who Dov Zakheim is, let me refresh your memory. The ordained rabbi served as comptroller of the Pentagon from May 4, 2001, to March 10, 2004, when he resigned to go to Booz Allen Hamilton, a leading consulting firm.
I documented his days before, during and after his Pentagon stint, during which a total of $3.2 trillion went missing from Pentagon coffers, in an article for Online Journal, Following Dov Zakheim and Pentagon trillions to 9-11 and Israel, which you should all read in full.
In fact, the second loss of $2.3 trillion was announced on September 10, 2001, by Donald Rumsfeld and the story was buried the next day under the rubble of 9/11.
News of the dual Israel-US citizen/rabbi’s retirement came to me from a reader in an email that contained Mr. Zakheim’s retirement announcement above the original invitation from his sec EA (Executive Assistant).
Dov Zakheim. Not many Americans know who he is, but they ignore him at their own peril. If for no other reason, a dual Israeli-American citizen as Comptroller and Chief Financial Officer of the United States Dept. of Defense should raise some eyebrows. He was also President Bush's senior foreign policy advisor during the 2000 campaign.
He was (is?) Corporate VP1 at System Planning Corporation, a major player in the "Homeland Security" industry. One of the products that SysPlan sells is the Command Transmitter System, a remote control system for planes, boats, missiles and other vehicles2 . It's highly customable and configurable to interface with an almost limitless number of vehicle types.
The remote control theory of 9/11 looks a little better every day.
Statement Of Principles
June 3, 1997
American foreign and defense policy is adrift. Conservatives have criticized the incoherent policies of the Clinton Administration. They have also resisted isolationist impulses from within their own ranks. But conservatives have not confidently advanced a strategic vision of America's role in the world. They have not set forth guiding principles for American foreign policy. They have allowed differences over tactics to obscure potential agreement on strategic objectives. And they have not fought for a defense budget that would maintain American security and advance American interests in the new century.
We aim to change this. We aim to make the case and rally support for American global leadership.
As the 20th century draws to a close, the United States stands as the world's preeminent power. Having led the West to victory in the Cold War, America faces an opportunity and a challenge: Does the United States have the vision to build upon the achievements of past decades? Does the United States have the resolve to shape a new century favorable to American principles and interests?
We are in danger of squandering the opportunity and failing the challenge. We are living off the capital -- both the military investments and the foreign policy achievements -- built up by past administrations. Cuts in foreign affairs and defense spending, inattention to the tools of statecraft, and inconstant leadership are making it increasingly difficult to sustain American influence around the world. And the promise of short-term commercial benefits threatens to override strategic considerations. As a consequence, we are jeopardizing the nation's ability to meet present threats and to deal with potentially greater challenges that lie ahead.
We seem to have forgotten the essential elements of the Reagan Administration's success: a military that is strong and ready to meet both present and future challenges; a foreign policy that boldly and purposefully promotes American principles abroad; and national leadership that accepts the United States' global responsibilities.
Of course, the United States must be prudent in how it exercises its power. But we cannot safely avoid the responsibilities of global leadership or the costs that are associated with its exercise. America has a vital role in maintaining peace and security in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. If we shirk our responsibilities, we invite challenges to our fundamental interests. The history of the 20th century should have taught us that it is important to shape circumstances before crises emerge, and to meet threats before they become dire. The history of this century should have taught us to embrace the cause of American leadership.
Our aim is to remind Americans of these lessons and to draw their consequences for today. Here are four consequences:
• we need to increase defense spending significantly if we are to carry out our global
responsibilities today and modernize our armed forces for the future;
• we need to strengthen our ties to democratic allies and to challenge regimes hostile to our interests and values;
• we need to promote the cause of political and economic freedom abroad;
• we need to accept responsibility for America's unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles.
Such a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity may not be fashionable today. But it is necessary if the United States is to build on the successes of this past century and to ensure our security and our greatness in the next.
Elliott Abrams Gary Bauer William J. Bennett Jeb Bush
Dick Cheney Eliot A. Cohen Midge Decter Paula Dobriansky Steve Forbes
Aaron Friedberg Francis Fukuyama Frank Gaffney Fred C. Ikle
Donald Kagan Zalmay Khalilzad I. Lewis Libby Norman Podhoretz
Dan Quayle Peter W. Rodman Stephen P. Rosen Henry S. Rowen
Donald Rumsfeld Vin Weber George Weigel Paul Wolfowitz
7. A "New Pearl Harbor". PNAC says that what was needed for America to dominate much of humanity and the world’s resources, it said, was "some catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a new Pearl Harbor". The attacks of September 11, 2001 provided the "new Pearl Harbor", described as "the opportunity of ages". The extremists who have since exploited September 11 come from the era of Ronald Reagan, when far-right groups and "think-tanks" were established to avenge the American "defeat" in Vietnam. In the 1990s, there was an added agenda: to justify the denial of a "peace dividend" following the cold war. The Project for the New American Century was formed, along with the American Enterprise Institute, the Hudson Institute and others that have since merge the ambitions of the Reagan administration with those of the current Bush regime. Time and again, September 11 is described as an "opportunity". It provided the necessary catalyst to put the global war plan into effect. Congress quickly allocated $40 billion to fund the "war on terrorism" shortly after September 11. In the last April’s New Yorker, the investigative reporter Nicholas Lemann wrote that Bush’s most senior adviser, Condoleezze Rice, told him she had called together senior members of the National Security County and asked them "to think about ‘how do you capitalize on these opportunities, which she compared with those of "1945 to 1947"; the start of the cold war. Since September 11, America has established bases at the gateways to all the major sources of fossil fuels, especially central Asia. The Unocal oil company is to build a pipeline across Afghanistan. Bush as scrapped the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions, the war crimes provisions of the International Criminal Court and the anti-ballistic missile treaty. He has said he will use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states "if necessary". Under cover of propaganda about Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction, the Bush regime is developing new weapons of mass destruction that undermine international treaties on biological and chemical warfare.
On February 5, 2001, President Bush announced his intention to nominate Dr. Paul Wolfowitz to be Deputy Secretary of Defense. He was unanimously confirmed by the Senate on Feb. 28th and sworn in March 2, 2001 as the 28th Deputy Secretary of Defense. This is Dr. Wolfowitz's third tour of duty in the Pentagon.
For the last seven years, Dr. Wolfowitz has served as Dean and Professor of International Relations at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of The Johns Hopkins University. SAIS is widely regarded as one of the world's leading graduate schools of international relations with 750 students, studying on campuses in Washington, D.C.; Nanjing, China; and Bologna, Italy. As Dean, he led a successful capital campaign that raised more than $75 million and doubled the school's endowment. Also under his leadership, the curriculum and facilities were modernized and new faculty and programs were added to shift the school's focus from the Cold War to the era of globalization.
From 1989 to 1993, Dr. Wolfowitz served as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy in charge of the 700-person defense policy team that was responsible to Secretary Dick Cheney for matters concerning strategy, plans, and policy. During this period Secretary Wolfowitz and his staff had major responsibilities for the reshaping of strategy and force posture at the end of the Cold War.
Under his leadership, the Policy Staff played a major role in reviewing war plans for the Gulf War, and developing and executing plans that successfully raised more than $50 billion in Allied financial support for the war and prevented Iraq from opening a second front with Israel. Other key initiatives included the development of the Regional Defense Strategy, the Base Force, and two presidential nuclear initiatives that led to the elimination of tens of thousands of U.S. and Soviet nuclear weapons.
During the Reagan administration, Dr. Wolfowitz served for three years as U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia - the fourth largest country in the world and the largest in the Moslem world. There he earned a reputation as a highly popular and effective Ambassador, a tough negotiator on behalf of American intellectual property owners, and a public advocate of political openness and democratic values. During his tenure, Embassy Jakarta was cited as one of the four best-managed embassies inspected in 1988.
Prior to that posting, he served three and a half years as Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, where he was in charge of U.S. relations with more than twenty countries. In addition to contributing to substantial improvements in U.S. relations with Japan and China, Assistant Secretary Wolfowitz played a central role in coordinating the U.S. policy toward the Philippines that supported a peaceful transition from the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos to democracy.
Dr. Wolfowitz's previous government service included:
• Two years as head of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff (1981-82):
• An earlier Pentagon tour as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Regional Programs (1977-80), where he helped create the force that later became the United States Central Command and initiated the Maritime Pre-positioning Ships, the backbone of the initial U.S. deployment twelve years later in Operation Desert Shield;
• Four years (1973-77) in the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, working on the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks and a number of nuclear nonproliferation issues; and
A year as a Management Intern at the Bureau of the Budget (1966-67).
• Dr. Wolfowitz taught previously at Yale (1970-73) and Johns Hopkins (1981). In 1993, he was the George F. Kennan Professor of National Security Strategy at the National War College. He has written widely on the subject of national strategy and foreign policy and was a member of the advisory boards of the journals Foreign Affairs and National Interest .
Among his many awards for public service are:
• The Presidential Citizen's Medal,
• The Department of Defense's Distinguished Public Service Medal,
• The Department of State's Distinguished Honor Award,
• The Department of Defense's Distinguished Civilian Service Medal, and
• The Arms Control and Disarmament Agency's Distinguished Honor Award.
In January 2005 Wolfowitz was nominated to be President of the World Bank and he assumed that post in June.
Wolfowitz received his A.B. degree in mathematics and chemistry from Cornell University in 1965, and earned an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in political science and economics. He was born in New York on Dec. 22, 1943.
Background
The Foundation for the Future first became an issue of public interest inquiry in 2007, when GAP published the payroll records of Riza, girlfriend of then-World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz. The records showed that Riza, a British national who worked as a World Bank communications officer, was seconded to the U.S. State Department after Wolfowitz was appointed, where she was responsible for establishing the Foundation for the Future (FFF). The FFF was a nonprofit organization tasked with promoting democracy and reform in the Broader Middle East and North Africa (BMENA) region.
While seconded from the Bank to the State Department in 2005 and 2006, Riza received salary raises in excess of what Bank rules allowed, earning far more than Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. In October 2006, Riza’s secondment was transferred to the FFF itself, where she remained until returning to the Bank in early 2008, after Wolfowitz was forced to resign
Paul Wolfowitz
"Wolfowitz, on the other hand, is a preeminent hard-liner from the Reaganite side of the party which advocates an aggressive US policy of rolling back perceived threats. He is dean of Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies and former undersecretary of defense. 'Wolfowitz is one of the best representatives of the classical neo-conservative Reagan Republicans. He believes very strongly that power can be used very effectively to create more power,' Wurmser told The Forward of New York. For years Wolfowitz has been pushing hard to arm the Iraqi National Congress, complaining to the House International Relations Committee in February 1997: 'For all the talk about supporting the opposition, the United States has yet to deliver a single rifle.' More recently, Wolfowitz has advocated the use of US ground troops to carve out pieces of Iraqi territory, telling The New Republic in December: 'It will take American forces to create a protected area in which opposition forces can organize and to which units from Saddam's army can defect.' Gen. Anthony Zinni, commander of American forces in the Persian Gulf, called such plans 'a Bay of Goats' scenario." -- Rogues' Gallery: Who Advises Bush and Gore on the Middle East?
Wolfowitz Warns of 'Surprise like Pearl Harbor' Months Before 9/11 Attacks
Aaron Dykes / Jones Report | February 9, 2007
Video posted recently on Live Leak shows now World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz delivering a June 2001 West Point commencement speech wherein he focused on surprise attacks-- making heavy reference to Pearl Harbor.
Wolfowitz illustrated, just months before the infamous 9/11 attacks, that Pearl Harbor is interesting in that it was "preceded by an astonishing number of unheeded warnings and missed signals."
This surfacing video only reinforces the pre-meditation established by the Project for a New American Century (PNAC). Wolfowitz helped to pen the think tank's September 2000 document 'Rebuilding America's Defenses' which stated on pg. 51, amidst a larger call for dramatic military build-up, that:
"Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor."
Crimes and Misdemeanors
Although he entered the Reagan administration scandal-free, he left as a convicted criminal. Abrams, who entered the administration as its human rights chief and in 1985 became assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs, was indicted by the Iran-Contra special prosecutor for intentionally deceiving Congress about the administration s role in supporting the Contras, including his own central role in the Iran-Contra arms deal.
The U.S.-backed and organized Contras were spearheading a counterrevolution against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. Congress had prohibited U.S. government military support for the Contras because of their pattern of human rights abuses. Abrams pleaded guilty to two lesser offenses (including withholding information from Congress) to avoid a trial and a possible jail term.
Abrams and five other Iran-Contra figures were pardoned by President George H.W. Bush on Christmas Eve 1992, shortly before the senior Bush left office. By pardoning Abrams, John Poindexter, and other former Reagan officials, Bush was in effect protecting himself. At that time media and congressional investigations of Iran-Contra scandal were threatening to expose the role of Bush himself, who was Reagan s vice president during the executive branch s program of illegal support to the Nicaraguan Contras.
During the Reagan administration, Abrams was the government s nexus between the militarists in the National Security Council and the public-diplomacy operatives in the State Department, White House, and National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Abrams worked closely with Otto Reich, who directed the White House s Office of Public Diplomacy, which was in charge of disseminating white propaganda to the U.S. public, media, and policymakers to build support for the Reagan administration s interventionist policies in Latin America and elsewhere.
Elliott Abrams and 'Neocon-ing' Obama
By Robert Parry
December 18, 2009
For the eight years of the Bush-II administration, a key behind-the-scenes architect of U.S. strategy in the Middle East was Elliott Abrams, a neoconservative whose devotion to Israel is hard to overstate – and who is now engaged in what looks like a PR campaign to bend Barack Obama’s Mideast policies in the direction favored by Israel’s hard-line Likud government.
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However, unlike many neocons, Abrams has been surprisingly frank about his devotion to Israel as a Jewish state. He has even expressed resentment toward Christians who hold nuanced views about Israel or who show sympathy for the Palestinians uprooted from their ancestral homes
Donald Rumsfeld on 9/11: An enemy within
By Matthew Everett
Online Journal Contributing Writer
May 30, 2007, 00:27
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What was Rumsfeld doing on 9/11? He deserted his post. He disappeared. The country was under attack. Where was the guy who controls America’s defense? Out of touch! --A senior White House official
On September 11, 2001, the United States suffered its worst attack since Pearl Harbor. Yet, as evidence shows, the country was in many ways undefended for the entire duration of the assault. The Air Force was nowhere to be seen until it was too late. [1] The commander in chief of the armed forces, President George W. Bush, continued with a pre-planned photo op at a school in Florida, only leaving the place at 9:35, just before the time the Pentagon was struck. [2] The acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers was on Capitol Hill. Despite seeing the television reports of the World Trade Center after it was first hit, he continued with a scheduled meeting there, and supposedly was not notified when the second plane hit at 9:03. He therefore did not head back to the Pentagon until around the time it too was hit, and only joined the critical air threat conference call shortly before 10 a.m. By that time, the attacks were nearly over.
(8:00 a.m.-8:50 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Rumsfeld Holds Breakfast Meeting at Pentagon; Key Military Figures Present
Thomas White. [Source: US Department of Defense]Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld hosts a breakfast meeting in his private dining room at the Pentagon. [Associated Press, 9/12/2001; Larry King Live, 12/5/2001; 9/11 Commission, 3/23/2004] The meeting, which is attended by several members of Congress, is intended to discuss the Department of Defense’s Quadrennial Defense Review. As well as the secretary of defense, others in attendance include Rumsfeld’s senior military assistant, Navy Vice Admiral Edmund Giambastiani Jr.; Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz; and Republican Representatives John Mica, Mark Steven Kirk, Mac Thornberry, Roger Wicker, Robin Hayes, Kay Granger, John Shimkus, Randy “Duke” Cunningham, and Christopher Cox. [Federal Computer Week, 3/31/2003; Vanity Fair, 5/9/2003; US Department of Defense, 9/10/2004; American Forces Press Service, 9/8/2006] Secretary of the Army Thomas White, who is at the meeting, appears to say it is also attended by numerous key military figures, later telling PBS, “Don Rumsfeld had a breakfast, and virtually every one of the senior officials of the Department of Defense—service chiefs, secretary, deputy, everybody, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And as that breakfast was breaking up, the first plane had hit the World Trade tower.” [PBS Frontline, 10/26/2004; PBS, 10/26/2004] By “chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” he presumably means Richard Myers, who is the acting chairman on this day, in place of Henry Shelton who is out of the country. [American Forces Press Service, 9/8/2006] During the course of the meeting Rumsfeld predicts that some kind of “shocking” world event will occur in the near future (see (Before 8:46 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Most accounts suggest the meeting is adjourned soon after the time the first WTC tower is hit, presumably around 8:50 a.m., though one report says it ends at about 9 a.m. Just prior to the meeting ending, Rumsfeld is handed a note informing him of the crash (see Shortly After 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001). Edmund Giambastiani also sees this note. Whether the other people in attendance are notified of the crash at this time is unknown
○ American Values: President
○ Emergency Committee for Israel: Board member
○ Christians United for Israel: Board member
IPS Right Web neither represents nor endorses any of the individuals or groups profiled on this site.
Gary Bauer, director of the conservative group American Values is a key U.S. Christian Zionist leader and a former presidential candidate. He has helped lead a number of neoconservative and right-wing Christian groups that have advocated militarist U.S. foreign policies in the Middle East and right-wing domestic programs.
Quotes
"Adultery is a big deal. Harry Truman knew this, "How can I trust a man if his wife cannot?" the plainspoken man from Independence said." -- Bauer
"I often went to school fearful of a black eye or a bloody nose. There were plenty of thugs at my school that would love to pound me." -- Bauer
"I don't see why Christians should censor themselves out of any forum in which our perspectives can be heard. I disagree with the theology of many groups that I address; Jews, for example, who do not accept Jesus, or atheists." -- Bauer
Gary Bauer campaigns as a hard-right moralist, and has credentials to back it up from his years working in Reagan's White House. He's also one of the few candidates in either party from a humble background, having grown up as a janitor's son in Kentucky, where he led a crusade to clean up vice.
Unfortunately for him, his record isn't quite as squeaky clean as his speeches. And if you wanted to be mean, you could say he is barely 5 foot tall and looks like a cross between a gay Grinch and Mr. Bean, but that wouldn't be fair.
Consider these allegations:
• Affair with a 26-year old staff member
• Taking Big Money From the Moonies
• Avoided the Vietnam War
• Quotes
• Sources
With Mahmoud Ahmadinejad scheduled to speak at the UN in the coming days, the pro-Israel warlocks are out in force. The Israel lobby yesterday took out a full page N.Y. Times ad saying that ending U.S. use of foreign oil would stop Iran from getting the bomb. Not to be outdone, the Republican evangelical-right beast is stirring in its lair as well. Gary Bauer, under the tutelage of, or at least in homage to Lynne Cheney’s Keep America Safe, has launched Keep Israel Safe with what the Weekly Standard wildly errs in calling a “hard-hitting” video claiming that Barack Obama misguidedly snubs Israel’s prime minister while coddling the lunatics in Teheran. The campaign seems to also have direct or implict support from Bill Kristol and his Weekly Standard, which was the first media outlet to announce the group’s existence.
Gary Bauer
Bauer witnessed the attack on the Pentagon on Sept. 11.
“I happened to be driving into Washington, D.C. that morning. I was going to be doing a press conference on Capitol Hill about the issue of Sudan, where there is terrible Christian persecution taking place. In fact, there is a radical Islamic government in power. Millions of people have been killed. A number of groups in town felt that not enough was being done about that, so we were going to hold a press conference, put a little bit of pressure on the administration and on the Congress.
“I was in a massive traffic jam, hadn’t moved more than a hundred yards in twenty minutes. My office called to tell me about the first plane in New York, the reaction was ‘horrible accident.’ And then they called about the second plane, and clearly that meant something much worse was going on. It was only then that I really noticed where I was in that traffic jam. I was going past the Pentagon, really inching a yard or so every couple of minutes. I had just passed the closest place the Pentagon is to the exit on 395 . . . when all of a sudden I heard the roar of a jet engine.
“I looked at the woman sitting in the car next to me. She had this startled look on her face. We were all thinking the same thing. We looked out the front of our windows to try to see the plane, and it wasn’t until a few seconds later that we realized the jet was coming up behind us on that major highway. And it veered to the right into the Pentagon. The blast literally rocked all of our cars. It was an incredible moment.
Massachusetts News, December 2001
WS: On the morning of Sept 11 you were in your car. Did you literally see the plane go into the Pentagon?
GB: Yeah. I was heading into Washington to take part in a press conference on the issue of Sudan, where there is a radical Muslim government, and I was sitting in a traffic jam just outside the Pentagon. The traffic jam hadn't gone 100 yards in 20 minutes when I got the first call about a plane crashing into the World Trade Center, which at the time people thought was an accident. Then -- not that long after, which made it clear it wasn't an accident -- another plane hit, and it was at that moment when I realized I was sitting at the closest point on the road that you could get to the Pentagon. I was less than 100 yards away at that particular exit and many of us in the traffic jam had our windows down. We were comparing notes -- what radio stations we were listening to -- when all of a sudden we heard a roar of a jet engine. I looked out of my front window and I saw movement over to the side. I turned and looked and the plane came from behind us and banked to the right and went into the Pentagon. That blast literally moved our cars, so it was a fairly dramatic moment.
I knew what had happened in New York and I had just seen what happened to the Pentagon. On the radio they were reporting there was flames and fire near the White House. There were a lot of false reports on DC radio stations that morning, so it was clear -- in a dramatic way -- that this was the most significant day that I had ever experienced.
The Charlotte World
In a review of the book for the libertarian-run Antiwar.com, Michael Scheuer writes, “The main goal of Mr. Weigel's book… is to harangue, condemn, and damn Americans because they do not see the world as do the neoconservatives, and because they find nothing consistent with America's history, interests, character, or ideals in the type of country and foreign policy Mr. Weigel advocates. And there is no room for debate in Mr. Weigel's new world order, which is to be dominated by something he calls the U.S.-led ‘freedom project,’ apparently to be patterned on current Iraq War. [p. 117] Americans who disagree with him … are not real Americans, they are rather members of the ‘Unhinged Left and the Unhinged Right’ [p. 137], men and women who do not now ‘deserve’ victory in the war against the Islamists [p. 109-10]” (January 11, 2008).
George Weigel's Anti-American Jeremiad
by Michael Scheuer
What, one wonders, can possibly inspire the neoconservatives' hate for Americans, their history, their traditions, and their ideas? In the context of this question, George Weigel's new book, Faith, Reason, and the War against Jihadism. A Call to Action, is more troubling than Norman Podhoretz's viciously anti-American World War IV. The Long War Against Islamofacism because of Mr. Weigel's reputation as a brilliant Catholic scholar, confidant of popes, and commentator on Catholicism's role in America. In Faith, Reason, and the War Against Jihadism, however, Mr. Weigel reveals himself as just one more America-hating neoconservative; he is a clone of Mr. Podhoretz and his acolytes, and, like them, can barely constrain his contempt for his countrymen, saying, for example, that it is the "sovereign prerogative" of these fools to elect non-neoconservative candidates who are incompetent, naive, and clueless. [p. 142] The book's one redeeming feature is the validation it gives to Sister Mary Lawrence's frequent admonition to my third grade class that "evil can be a contamination caught from evil companions" and that "you shall be known by the company you keep." The dust-jacket on Mr. Weigel's book is endorsed by: R. James Woolsey, Fouad Adjami, William Kristol, Senator Joseph Lieberman, and – of course – Norman Podhoretz. If she was still alive, and may God rest her soul, Sister Mary Lawrence could use the dust-jacket as irrefutable evidence that she knows of what she speaks in regard to the threat posed by keeping evil companions.
Areas of Expertise
• American Culture
• Religion
• Foreign Policy
Norman Podhoretz
Adjunct Fellow
Biographical Highlights
Norman Podhoretz is editor-at-large of Commentary magazine, where he served as editor-in-chief from 1960-1995. He is the author of 10 books, including The Norman Podhoretz Reader: A Selection of his Writings from the 1950’s through the 1990’s; The Prophets: Who They Were, What They Are; My Love Affair with America; Ex-Friends; The Bloody Crossroads: Where Literature and Politics Meet; Making It; Why We Were in Vietnam; The Present Danger; Breaking Ranks: A Political Memoir; and Doings and Undoings: The Fifties and After in American Writing.
Podhoretz has written hundreds of articles for most major American periodicals and lectured at many universities and before many civic and religious groups on foreign policy, American culture, and Jewish affairs. He appears frequently on radio and television.
He was a Pulitzer Scholar at Columbia University, earning his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1950. Podhoretz also holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Cambridge University, England, where he was a Fulbright Scholar and a Kellett Fellow. In addition, he has a Bachelor’s degree in Hebrew Literature from the Jewish Theological Seminary.
Publications and Media Exposure
Articles & Publications by Norman Podhoretz
•
• 09/10/2009 Why Are Jews Liberals?
• 03/29/2010 In Defense of Sarah Palin
• 06/14/2007 The Case for Bombing Iran
• 12/11/2006 A True American Hero
• 08/23/2000 Chutzpah: What the Lieberman Choice Means
• 07/07/2000 Patriotism and Its Enemies
• 04/17/2000 The Fight Over Elian—and Castro
• 02/27/2000 The Trouble with Authenticity
• 01/04/2000
The Millennium That Was
• 09/13/1999
Life of His Party; How Bill Clinton saved the Democrats
• 04/01/1999 Addicted to Utopia
• 06/01/1998 Israel, the U.S., and the Future of the "Peace Process"
Norman Podhoretz
From SourceWatch
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Norman Podhoretz is considered to be a "neo-con" (neo-conservative). He is connected with the Project for the New American Century.
He is the former editor-in-chief of "Commentary" (1960-95). From 1981-87, Podhoretz served with the U.S. Information Agency. He is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.
Contents
[hide]
• 1 Giuliani foreign policy team
• 2 "godfather of the neo-con movement"
• 3 Resources and articles
○ 3.1 Related SourceWatch articles
○ 3.2 References
○ 3.3 External articles
Giuliani foreign policy team
On July 10, 2007, Rudolph W. Giuliani announced the "line-up" of his foreign policy team, which included Podhoretz, Ed Lasky wrote in the American Thinker.[1] Podhoretz "has argued for a forthright approach toward Iran and Islamic extremism. Republicans increasingly measure their leaders by this yardstick: will they appease Islamic extremists or defend America from them?"
Podhoretz will serve as a member of the Senior Foreign Policy Advisory Board.[2]
"godfather of the neo-con movement"
The following comes from (and was adapted from) the March 9, 2003, Jim Lobe article "Family ties connect US right, Zionists":
"As godfather of the [neo-con] movement, Irving Kristol played mentor to Norman Podhoretz, the long-time but now-retired editor of Commentary, the influential monthly publication of the American Jewish Committee (AJC). Originally identified with the anti-war left in the mid-1960s, Podhoretz converted to neo-conservatism late in the decade and transformed the magazine into a main source of neo-conservative writing, despite the overwhelming majority of the Jewish community itself rejecting those positions.
"Podhoretz and his spouse, Midge Decter, a polemical powerhouse in her own right, created a formidable political team in the 1970s as they deserted the Democratic Party, and then, as leaders of the Committee on the Present Danger -- like (Project for the New American Century) PNAC a coalition of mainly Jewish, neo-conservatives and more traditional right-wing hawks like Defence Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld - helped lay the foreign-policy foundation for the rise of Ronald Reagan. After Reagan's victory, Decter and Rumsfeld co-chaired the international offshoot of the committee, called the Coalition for the Free World.
"Podhoretz is the father of John Podhoretz, a columnist for the Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post, who also acts as a ubiquitous booster of the hawks. And his son-in-law, Elliott Abrams, who held a number of controversial posts in Reagan's State Department and was eventually convicted in the Iran-Contra scandal for lying to Congress, now serves in George Walker Bush's National Security Council as his top Middle East adviser.
• Committee for the Free World: Founder
• Project for the New American Century: Founding Member
• Heritage Foundation: Board of Trustees
• Center for Security Policy: Board of Advisers
IPS Right Web neither represents nor endorses any of the individuals or groups profiled on this site.
Midge Decter is best known as a member of a leading neoconservative family, the Podhoretz clan. Her second husband, Norman Podhoretz, was editor of the neoconservative flagship magazine Commentary for decades and is considered one of the group's luminaries. Her son is newspaper columnist John Podhoretz, and her son-in-law is former Reagan State Department official and convicted (and later pardoned) Iran-Contra figure Elliott Abrams. Decter has been a prolific journalist and organizer, most notably as the founder and director of the hawkish Committee for the Free World in the 1980s (which she oversaw with the help of Donald Rumsfeld), and as an early and vociferous critic of feminism and the United Nations, which she regarded as a threat to the state of Israel.
The two conferences organized by the Jonathan Institute, in Jerusalem in July 1979 and in Washington, D.C., in June 1984, were major events and highly effective for Israeli and Western propaganda. Both drew in many high officials and big-name journalists and successfully attracted extensive press coverage on the threat of terrorism as portrayed in the Western model. The 1979 conference, held under heavy army and police guard, attracted some four hundred journalists. Attendees included Annie Kriegel and Jacques Soustelle from France; [4] Lord Alun Chalfont, Brian Crozier, Paul Johnson, and Robert Moss from Great Britain; George Bush, Ray Cline, Midge Decter, Norman Podhoretz, Claire Sterling, Ben Wattenberg, George Will, and Senators John Danforth and Henry Jackson from the United States; and numerous Israeli political, military, and intelligence figures.[5]
Netanyahu: My father foresaw 9/11 attacks in 1990s
Posted by inthesenewtimes on March 9, 2010
Voltairenet
8th March, 2010
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that his father predicted the 9/11 attacks on New York’s twin towers back in the ’90s.
Haaretz reported that the remark was made during the 100th birthday celebration of the premier’s father, Benzion Netanyahu, a historian and Zionist activist.
The Israeli prime minister added that those who do not know their past will not understand their presence and will not be able to predict their future.
The Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv on 17 April 2008 had reported that Benjamin Netanyahu, then Likud leader, told an audience at Bar Ilan University that the September 11, 2001 terror attacks had been beneficial for Israel.
“We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq,” Ma’ariv quoted the former prime minister as saying. He reportedly added that these events “swung American public opinion in our favor.”
Professor Ben-Tzion Netanyahu was the personal secretary of Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the father of Revisionist Zionism. During the 80’s and 90’s – together with his son Benjamin and George H. Bush Sr. – he was responsible for supervising the Jonathan Institute (named after his elder son, Jonathan, killed in battle) and for developing the concept of “international terrorism” which was echoed by the media far and wide.[1]
In January 2001, the treasurer of both the Jonathan Institute and of Netanyahu’s electoral campaigns, real estate developer Larry Silverstein, secured a 99-year lease to the entire World Trade Center complex, including the twin towers. He took out a self-styled insurance policy which ’fortuitously’ covered acts of terrorism. After the 9/11 attacks he claimed – over and above the deductible – double compensation on the basis that there had been two separate attacks involving two different planes. At the end of a lengthy procedure, he pocketed 4.5 billion dollars, making a net profit of one billion dollars.
Vin Weber
Senior Fellow
Areas of Expertise
Former six-term congressman from Minnesota. Agriculture; federal and public sector budgeting; federal budget deficit/surplus; government finance; politics and political parties; state government; welfare system
Biography
Vin Weber served in Congress from 1980 to 1992, representing Minnesota's Second Congressional District. He is managing partner for the Washington, D.C., office of Clark and Weinstock, a consulting firm providing strategic advice to businesses interested in the policy-making process of the legislative and executive government branches. Prior to joining that firm, Weber established the nonprofit organization Empower America with Jack Kemp, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Willliam Bennett, and others. The organization advocates policies that emphasize individual responsibility and accountability in approaching economic, social welfare, and education problems.
Weber currently chairs the National Endowment for Democracy, a private, nonprofit organization created in 1983 to strengthen democratic institutions abroad. He also serves on the newly formed National Commission on Public Service, charged with improving performance and management in government agencies.
Weber is a trustee of the German Marshall Fund, co-chair of the Aspen Institute's Domestic Strategy Group, a member of the Visiting Committee for Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, a member of George Washington University's National Council for Political Management, and a senior fellow at the Center of the American Experiment. Weber also is a regular commentator on National Public Radio and is often sought as a political analyst for network programs, such as CNN's Capital Gang and Crossfire.
Summer 2002: Rumsfeld: ‘I’m Going to Create My Own Intelligence Agency’
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld invites a group of influential Washington lobbyists and consultants, including Haley Barbour and Vin Weber, to his office to discuss national security issues. At one point during the meeting he complains about the intelligence he is getting from the CIA and says, “I’m going to create my own intelligence agency.” Rumsfeld’s remark is likely a reference to the Office of Special Plans, which will be formally created in September (see September 2002)
Leadership Group on U.S.-Muslim Engagement
The Leadership Group on U.S.-Muslim Engagement drives the project.
The Leadership Group includes a former Secretary of State and a former Deputy Secretary of State, former members of Congress, a former U.S. envoy on the Middle East peace process, and leaders and experts from business, faith communities, foreign policy, social sciences and related fields. One third of the group is Muslim-American. The participating leaders have been drawn together by their collective recognition of the issue’s urgency and the need to create wise, broadly supportable solutions. In four plenary meetings and numerous exchanges since January 2007, they have reached an extraordinary convergence of views and have committed to see the project through to completion.
The PNAC Letter to Bush, Sept. 20, 2001
The PNAC Letter of 9/20/2001 reflects the dominant (neocon) conclusions from Rumsfeld's 2-day Defense Policy Board meeting.
Quotes from the Neocon Letter of 9/20/2001
"Even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the attack, ... remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq."
"... any war against terrorism must target Hezbollah."
"We should insist that the Palestinian Authority ... imprison those planning terrorist attacks against Israel."
Context and Summary: The authors appear to have little interest in bin Laden but are afraid of appearing to have an agenda unrelated to the present crisis. So bin Laden is mentioned first, but given only two sentences—65 words, compared with 154 for Iraq and 127 for Hezbollah, Israel’s nemesis.
Aside from the two sentences on Osama, the letter is unified by its focus on enemies of Israel: Iraq, Hezbollah, Syria, Iran and the Palestinian Authority, while it ignores entirely the two states most likely to supply bin Laden with nuclear weapons, North Korea and Pakistan. See discussion of Defense-Policy-Board meeting.
Page with this popNote and full text of letter.
The Honorable George W. Bush September 20, 2001
President of the United States
Dear Mr. President,
We write to endorse your admirable commitment to “lead the world to victory” in the war against terrorism. We fully support your call for “a broad and sustained campaign” against the “terrorist organizations and those who harbor and support them.” We agree with Secretary of State Powell that the United States must find and punish the perpetrators of the horrific attack of September 11, and we must, as he said, “go after terrorism wherever we find it in the world” and “get it by its branch and root.” We agree with the Secretary of State that U.S. policy must aim not only at finding the people responsible for this incident, but must also target those “other groups out there that mean us no good” and “that have conducted attacks previously against U.S. personnel, U.S. interests and our allies.”
In order to carry out this “first war of the 21st century” successfully, and in order, as you have said, to do future “generations a favor by coming together and whipping terrorism,” we believe the following steps are necessary parts of a comprehensive strategy.
Osama bin Laden
We agree that a key goal, but by no means the only goal, of the current war on terrorism should be to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, and to destroy his network of associates. To this end, we support the necessary military action in Afghanistan and the provision of substantial financial and military assistance to the anti-Taliban forces in that country.
Iraq
We agree with Secretary of State Powell’s recent statement that Saddam Hussein “is one of the leading terrorists on the face of the Earth….” It may be that the Iraqi government provided assistance in some form to the recent attack on the United States. But even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the attack, any strategy aiming at the eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must include a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq. Failure to undertake such an effort will constitute an early and perhaps decisive surrender in the war on international terrorism. The United States must therefore provide full military and financial support to the Iraqi opposition. American military force should be used to provide a “safe zone” in Iraq from which the opposition can operate. And American forces must be prepared to back up our commitment to the Iraqi opposition by all necessary means.
Hezbollah
Hezbollah is one of the leading terrorist organizations in the world. It is suspected of having been involved in the 1998 bombings of the American embassies in Africa, and implicated in the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983. Hezbollah clearly falls in the category cited by Secretary Powell of groups “that mean us no good” and “that have conducted attacks previously against U.S. personnel, U.S. interests and our allies.” Therefore, any war against terrorism must target Hezbollah. We believe the administration should demand that Iran and Syria immediately cease all military, financial, and political support for Hezbollah and its operations. Should Iran and Syria refuse to comply, the administration should consider appropriate measures of retaliation against these known state sponsors of terrorism.
Israel and the Palestinian Authority
Israel has been and remains America’s staunchest ally against international terrorism, especially in the Middle East. The United States should fully support our fellow democracy in its fight against terrorism. We should insist that the Palestinian Authority put a stop to terrorism emanating from territories under its control and imprison those planning terrorist attacks against Israel. Until the Palestinian Authority moves against terror, the United States should provide it no further assistance.
U.S. Defense Budget
A serious and victorious war on terrorism will require a large increase in defense spending. Fighting this war may well require the United States to engage a well-armed foe, and will also require that we remain capable of defending our interests elsewhere in the world. We urge that there be no hesitation in requesting whatever funds for defense are needed to allow us to win this war.
There is, of course, much more that will have to be done. Diplomatic efforts will be required to enlist other nations’ aid in this war on terrorism. Economic and financial tools at our disposal will have to be used. There are other actions of a military nature that may well be needed. However, in our judgement the steps outlined above constitute the minimum necessary if this war is to be fought effectively and brought to a successful conclusion. Our purpose in writing is to assure you of our support as you do what must be done to lead the nation to victory in this fight.
Sincerely, William Kristol
Richard V. Allen / Gary Bauer / Jeffrey Bell / William J. Bennett
Rudy Boshwitz / Jeffrey Bergner / Eliot Cohen / Seth Cropsey
Midge Decter / Thomas Donnelly / Nicholas Eberstadt / Hillel Fradkin
Aaron Friedberg / Francis Fukuyama / Frank Gaffney / Jeffrey Gedmin
Reuel Marc Gerecht / Charles Hill / Bruce P. Jackson / Eli S. Jacobs
Michael Joyce / Donald Kagan / Robert Kagan / Jeane Kirkpatrick
Charles Krauthammer / John Lehman / Clifford May / Martin Peretz
Richard Perle / Norman Podhoretz / Stephen P. Rosen / Randy Scheunemann
Gary Schmitt / William Schneider, Jr. / Richard H. Shultz / Henry Sokolski
Stephen J. Solarz / Vin Weber / Leon Wieseltier / Marshall Wittmann
The Global Dominance Group: 9/11 Pre-Warnings & Election Irregularities in Context By Peter Phillips, Bridget Thornton and Celeste Vogler The leadership class in the US is now dominated by a neo-conservative group of people with the shared goal of asserting US military power worldwide. This global dominance group, in cooperation with major military contractors, has become a powerful force in world military unilateralism and US political processes. This research study is an attempt to identify the general parameters of those who are the key actors supporting a global dominance agenda and how collectively this group has benefited from the events of September 11, 2001 and irregularities in the 2004 presidential election. This study examines how interlocking public private partnerships, including the corporate media, public relations firms, military contractors, policy elites, and government officials, jointly support a US military global domination agenda. We ask the traditional sociological questions regarding who wins, who decides, and who facilitates action inside the most powerful military-industrial complex in the world.