All over the world in different countries, cultures, tongues, and colors are people who have the same basic desire for happiness and respect from his fellow men. We are the same all over as members of the human race. If we honor each other's boundaries with propriety and consideration our voyage thru life can be rich in knowledge and friendship..........AMOR PATRIAE
All over the world in different countries, cultures, tongues, and colors are people who have the same basic desire for happiness and respect from his fellow men. We are the same all over as members of the human race. If we honor each other's boundaries with propriety and consideration our voyage thru life can be rich in knowledge and friendship..........AMOR PATRIAE
Saturday, August 5, 2023
THE 20TH ANNIVERSARY OF OUR BIGGEST BLUNDER IN THE MIDDLE EAST
Iraq War's 20th Anniversary: The Invasion
A decade ago, the U.S. and its allies invaded Iraq on the premise that the country was hiding weapons of mass destruction. Despite worldwide protest and a lack of UN authorization, 200,000 thousand troops deployed into Iraq in March of 2003, following massive airstrikes. The coalition faced minimal opposition, and Baghdad quickly fell. For years after President George W. Bush's "mission accomplished" speech, the war raged on, fueled by sectarian conflicts, al Qaeda insurgencies, outside agencies, and mismanagement of the occupation. Ten years later, we look back in a three-part series. Today's entry focuses on the March 20, 2003, invasion of Iraq, and the weeks immediately following.
Smoke covers Saddam Hussein's presidential palace compound during a massive US-led air raid on Baghdad, Iraq on March 21, 2003. Allied forces unleashed a devastating blitz on Baghdad, triggering giant fireballs and deafening explosions and sending huge mushroom clouds above the city center. Missiles slammed into the main palace complex of President Saddam Hussein on the bank of the Tigris River, and key government buildings. (Ramzi Haidar/AFP/Getty Images)
Let’s make this crystal clear ~ The Bush/Blair illegal war against Iraq was the willful planned destruction of a civilization.
THEDESTRUCTION OF A CIVILIZATION ~ ” The sustained bloody purge of Iraq under US occupation resulted in killing 1.3 million Iraqi civilians during the first seven years after Bush invaded in March 2003 …The militarist strategy of conquest and occupation of Iraq was designed to establish a long-term colonial military presence in the form of strategic military bases with a significant and sustained contingent of colonial military advisors and combat units. The Iraq war was driven by an influential group of neo-conservatives. They viewed the success of the Iraq war ( by success they meant the total dismemberment of the country ) as the first ‘ domino’ in a series of wars to ‘ re-colonize’ the MIddle East .. Health: Iraq’s child mortality rate has increased by 150% since 1990, when U.N. sanctions were first imposed.
Education: By 2008, only 50% of primary school-age children were attending class, down from 80% in 2005, and approximately 1,500 children were known to be held in detention facilities.
Children: In 2007, there were 5 million Iraqi orphans~ according to government officials.
Refugees: More than two million Iraqis are refugees and almost three million internally displaced : 33% percent ( 500,000 people ) live as squatters in slum areas.
Water: 70% of Iraqis do not have access to potable water.
Jobs: Unemployment is as high as 50% officially, 70% unofficially.
Poverty: 43% of Iraqis live in abject poverty.
Sanitation: 80% of Iraqis do not have access to effective sanitation.
As Frank Rich wrote recently in the New York Times ~ “It’s too early to say what the war’s lasting impact on America (or Iraq or the Middle East) will be, but as for the current impact at home, any accounting must begin with the human cost. As David Rieff, a war opponent, wrote this week: “Could anyone who supported this war today encounter a relative, spouse, or friend of one of the American soldiers who was killed or grievously injured in Iraq and tell them with a straight face that this war was worth their sacrifice?” See article~
Iraq cries out for justice but our war crimes still remain unpunished and unacknowledged. Nicolas J.S. Davies makes the same point recently in AlterNet ~ ” The reality of the “accumulated evil” unleashed on the people of Iraq by the “supreme international crime” of aggression has been painstakingly obscured behind a tapestry of lies. Our military leaders may be chronically unable to win a war in another country, but they sure know how to wage a propaganda war in America:
Davies correctly asserts the most disturbing face regarding this illegal and uneccessary occupation of a foreign country
And who made money on the Iraq war ? Dick Cheney’s Halliburton cashed in for $39 billion on the shame and shock of Iraq.
” I believe very deeply in the proposition that what we did in Iraq was the right thing to do. It was hard to do. It took a long time. There were significant costs involved.” Dick Cheney
“freedom and fear, justice and cruelty have always been at war, and we know that God is not neutral between them.” George W. Bush
“Iraq is sort of a situation where you’ve got a guy who drove the bus into the ditch. You obviously have to get the bus out of the ditch, and that’s not easy to do, although you probably should fire the driver.” Barack Obama, The Daily Show, Nov. 7, 2005
“Never in these long years have we offered any other prayer but this: Lord, grant to our people peace at home, and grant and preserve to them peace from the foreign foe!” : Adolf Hitler – Nuremberg Sept. 13, 1936.
U.S. President George W. Bush, watched by Vice President Dick Cheney, speaks before signing a $355 billion military spending bill in the Rose Garden of the White House October 23, 2002. The bill gave the Pentagon a nearly $40 billion boost as it prepared for possible war with Iraq, the White House said.
A Message to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney From a Dying Veteran
Last Letter to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney
…from Tomas Young - a Known Veteran
Tomas Young
I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans. I write this letter on behalf of the 4,488 soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq.
I write this letter on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have been wounded and on behalf of those whose wounds, physical and psychological, have destroyed their lives.
I am one of those gravely wounded. I was paralyzed in an insurgent ambush in 2004 in Sadr City. My life is coming to an end. I am living under hospice care.
I write this letter on behalf of husbands and wives who have lost spouses, on behalf of children who have lost a parent, on behalf of the fathers and mothers who have lost sons and daughters and on behalf of those who care for the many thousands of my fellow veterans who have brain injuries.
I write this letter on behalf of those veterans whose trauma and self-revulsion for what they have witnessed, endured and done in Iraq have led to suicide and on behalf of the active-duty soldiers and Marines who commit, on average, a suicide a day.
I write this letter on behalf of the some 1 million Iraqi dead and on behalf of the countless Iraqi wounded. I write this letter on behalf of us all—the human detritus your war has left behind, those who will spend their lives in unending pain and grief.
You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole.
I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power.
I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done.
You can’t stop the judgement of histroy waiting for you Mr. Bush
You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole.
Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, your privilege and your power cannot mask the hollowness of your character.
You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr. Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam, and you, Mr. Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit.
Your cowardice and selfishness were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our nation but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men and women to be sacrificed in a senseless war with no more thought than it takes to put out the garbage.
Dick Cheney as a young man
I joined the Army two days after the 9/11 attacks. I joined the Army because our country had been attacked. I wanted to strike back at those who had killed some 3,000 of my fellow citizens.
I did not join the Army to go to Iraq, a country that had no part in the September 2001 attacks and did not pose a threat to its neighbors, much less to the United States.
I did not join the Army to “liberate” Iraqis or to shut down mythical weapons-of-mass-destruction facilities or to implant what you cynically called “democracy” in Baghdad and the Middle East.
I did not join the Army to rebuild Iraq, which at the time you told us could be paid for by Iraq’s oil revenues. Instead, this war has cost the United States over $3 trillion.
I especially did not join the Army to carry out pre-emptive war. Pre-emptive war is illegal under international law. And as a soldier in Iraq I was, I now know, abetting your idiocy and your crimes.
The Iraq War is the largest strategic blunder in U.S. history. It obliterated the balance of power in the Middle East. It installed a corrupt and brutal pro-Iranian government in Baghdad, one cemented in power through the use of torture, death squads and terror. And it has left Iran as the dominant force in the region.
On every level—moral, strategic, military and economic—Iraq was a failure. And it was you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who started this war. It is you who should pay the consequences.
I would not be writing this letter if I had been wounded fighting in Afghanistan against those forces that carried out the attacks of 9/11. Had I been wounded there I would still be miserable because of my physical deterioration and imminent death, but I would at least have the comfort of knowing that my injuries were a consequence of my own decision to defend the country I love.
I would not have to lie in my bed, my body filled with painkillers, my life ebbing away, and deal with the fact that hundreds of thousands of human beings, including children, including myself, were sacrificed by you for little more than the greed of oil companies, for your alliance with the oil sheiks in Saudi Arabia, and your insane visions of empire.
Americans expect Veteran Hospice to be used by the old guys
I have, like many other disabled veterans, suffered from the inadequate and often inept care provided by the Veterans Administration.
I have, like many other disabled veterans, come to realize that our mental and physical wounds are of no interest to you, perhaps of no interest to any politician. We were used. We were betrayed. And we have been abandoned.
You, Mr. Bush, make much pretense of being a Christian. But isn’t lying a sin? Isn’t murder a sin? Aren’t theft and selfish ambition sins?
I am not a Christian. But I believe in the Christian ideal. I believe that what you do to the least of your brothers you finally do to yourself, to your own soul.
My day of reckoning is upon me. Yours will come. I hope you will be put on trial. But mostly I hope, for your sakes, that you find the moral courage to face what you have done to me and to many, many others who deserved to live.
I hope that before your time on earth ends, as mine is now ending, you will find the strength of character to stand before the American public and the world, and in particular the Iraqi people, and beg for forgiveness.
THE 20TH ANNIVERSARY OF OUR BIGGEST BLUNDER IN THE MIDDLE EAST
US Army Sergeant Craig Zentkovich from Connecticut of the 1st Brigade Combat Team photographs a pink bedroom at Saddam Hussein's presidential palace 13 April 2003. (Romeo Gacad/AFP/Getty Images) #
Iraqi National Museum Deputy Director Mushin Hasan holds his head in his hands as he sits on destroyed artifacts April 13, 2003 in Bagdhad, Iraq. The museum was severely looted in the preceding days. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images) #
U.S. Marines from Task Force Tarawa 1/2 Charlie Company read letters that arrived in the mail from home April 14, 2003 near Al Kut, Iraq. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) #
A U.S. Marine takes away a man suspected of looting April 14, 2003 in Baghdad, Iraq. The Marines began to crack down on looters after Baghdad residents complained of the lack of law and order in the capital. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) #
US Marines kick in a door while securing a building next to the main hospital in central Baghdad April 15, 2003, which would be used as a temporary Iraqi police headquarters. REUTERS/Jerry Lampen #
A man lies handcuffed with his artificial leg near his head after U.S. Marines caught him and other looters robbing from a bank April 16, 2003 in Baghdad, Iraq. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) #
A U.S. Marine pulls down a picture of Saddam Hussein at a school April 16, 2003 in Al-Kut, Iraq. A combination team of Marines, Army and Special Forces went to schools and other facilities in Al-Kut looking for weapons caches and unexploded bombs in preparation for removing and neutralizing them. (Photo by Chris Hondros/Getty Images) #
President Bush declares the end of major combat in Iraq on May 1, 2003 as he spoke aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln off the California coast. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) #
A woman cries out the name of her missing son as U.S. Marines searched for evidence at a mass grave on May 14, 2003 in Hillah, Iraq. At least 2,000 bodies had been dug out at the site making it the largest mass grave discovered in Iraq following the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images) #
An Iraqi child jumps over a line of remains in a school where bodies had been brought from a mass grave discovered in the desert in the outskirts of Al Musayyib, 50 km south of Baghdad, May 27, 2003 in Iraq. People had been searching for days for identity cards or other clues among the skeletons to try to find the remains of family members, including children, from the grave that locals say contained the remains of hundreds of Shi'ite Muslims executed by Saddam Hussein's regime after their uprising following the 1991 Gulf War. (Photo by Marco Di Lauro/Getty Images) #
A Kurdish girl, Leiwan, 2, attends a traditional wedding celebration June 15, 2003 in Bakochek, Iraq. Saddam Hussein's regime killed an estimated 180,000 Kurds from 1988-1991 in a genocidal campaign involving both chemical and conventional weapons. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images) #
Off-duty U.S. soldiers enjoy Saddam Hussein's swimming pool at the Republican Palace July 14, 2003 in Baghdad, Iraq. (Photo by Marco Di Lauro/Getty Images) #
Iraqi mini-bus driver Sami Kadum Sadiq is wheeled through a Baghdad hospital after he was injured when a homemade bomb exploded Wednesday, Sept 24, 2003 along a road in Baghdad, missing a U.S. military patrol but killing at least one Iraqi, injuring 18, and destroying two civilian buses. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder) #
Iraqis run through the neighborhood of al-Qurtan in the Iraqi town of Khaldiyah Monday Sept. 29, 2003 as U.S. troops withdrew from the area after a firefight backed by U.S. attack aircraft, helicopters and tanks. One American soldier was killed and three others wounded in two roadside bombings, one prompting the firefight. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder) #
An Iraqi prisoner of war comforts his 4-year-old son at a regroupment center for POWs of the 101st Airborne Division near An Najaf, March 31, 2003. The man was seized in An Najaf with his son, and the U.S. military did not want to separate them. (AP Photo/Jean-Marc Bouju) #
U.S. paratroopers with the 1-504th regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division from Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, nicknamed the "Red Devils," shine lights onto the face of a detained man while they try to identify him during a raid November 26, 2003 in Nassar el al Salaam, Iraq. The man was questioned and later released. The overnight raid netted two men suspected of militant activities against American forces. (Photo by Chris Hondros/Getty Images) #
Fearful women and children watch paratroopers in the 1-504th regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division, nicknamed the "Red Devils" raid their house, a suspected militant compound on November 26, 2003 at in Nassar el al Salaam, Iraq. (Photo by Chris Hondros/Getty Images) #
American soldiers in the 4th Infantry Division stand over the opening of the "spider hole" where Saddam Hussein was captured December 15, 2003 in Ad Dawr, Iraq. Iraq's notorious dictator was captured in a raid at the compound on December 13, 2003. (Photo by Chris Hondros/Getty Images) #
U.S. Army combat medic Sgt. Luis Pacheco of the 1st Brigade, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division, from Chicago, Illinois, treats an Iraqi "insurgent" for a gunshot wound to the chest as another soldier searches the home during early morning raids January 6, 2004 in Fallujah, Iraq. The Army said the man was fired upon by U.S. soldiers after brandishing a rifle. The raids netted four suspects including an Iraqi man suspected of constructing IED's for insurgents. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images) #
A U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter crew works on a runway prior to flying in the violent so-called Sunni Triangle area January 19, 2004 at Forward Operating Base Ridgway, Iraq. The helicopter's crew was one of many from the 2nd Battalion, 82nd Aviation Brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division based at Forward Operating Base Ridgway located near the restive town of Fallujah. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images) #
US Army First Armored Division Spc. Robert Laux of Sacramento, California attempts to open the hood of an Army vehicle during a maintenance check at Baghdad's police academy February 16, 2004 in Baghdad, Iraq. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images) #
Iraqis enjoy an amusement park as they celebrate the last day of the Eid al-Adha holiday February 4, 2004 in Baghdad, Iraq. The Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha (Festival of Sacrifice), takes place on the tenth day of the Islamic month Dhul-Hijjah, the last month of the Islamic calendar in which millions of Muslims from around the world make an annual pilgrimage to Makkah in order to worship Allah and to commemorate the willingness of the Prophet Abraham to sacrifice his son, Ishmael. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images) #
Victims of an explosion are wheeled away from the scene on March 2, 2004 in Karbala, Iraq. According to reports, as many as 25 people were killed after at least 6 blasts hit the holy city, where many thousands of Muslims were celebrating the festival of Ashura. (Photo by Marco Di Lauro/Getty Images) #
Iraqis chant anti-American slogans as charred bodies hang from a bridge over the Euphrates River in Fallujah, west of Baghdad, Wednesday, March 31 2004. Enraged Iraqis killed four foreigners, including at least one U.S. national, took the charred bodies from a burning SUV, dragged them through the streets, and hung them from the bridge. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed) #
U.S. Marines pray over a fallen comrade at a first aid point after he died from wounds suffered in fighting in Fallujah, Iraq, Thursday, April 8, 2004. Hundreds of U.S. Marines had been fighting insurgents in several neighborhoods in the western Iraqi city of Fallujah in order to regain control of the city. (AP Photo/Murad Sezer) #
An Iraqi man celebrates atop of a burning U.S. Army Humvee in the northern part of Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, April 26, 2004. An explosion leveled a building in northern Baghdad, setting four U.S. Humvees nearby on fire. At least one U.S. soldier and several Iraqis were wounded. The cause of the explosion was not immediately known. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen) #
Coffins of U.S. military personnel are prepared to be offloaded at Dover Air Force Base in Dover, Delaware in this undated photo. The U.S. Air Force, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, released to Web site www.thememoryhold.org on April 14 more than 300 photographs showing the remains of U.S. service members returning home. The Pentagon tightly restricted publication of photographs of coffins with the remains of U.S. troops and had forbidden journalists from taking pictures at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, the first stop for the bodies of troops being sent home. REUTERS/USAF #
The father of 12-year-old Ali Basem Karim mourns his loss as Hussam Hassan washes the body of Ali Basem Karim on May 6, 2004 in Najaf, Iraq. Karim was killed in Basra when the wedding he was attending was attacked by extremist militias. The wedding was attacked because they were celebrating, which the militia considerers inappropriate. Another child was wounded in the attack. (Photo by Brent Stirton/Getty Images) #
Two men, who are overcome with emotion after being released from Abu Ghraib prison, hug May 14, 2004 in the city of Baquba, outside of Baghdad, Iraq. One hundred and eight-three prisoners were released from Abu Ghraib prison on May 14 after they were driven up through Tikrit and finally released in Baquba. (Photo by Brent Stirton/Getty Images) #
U.S. Army soldiers rush to evacuate an injured comrade in the center of Baghdad, Iraq, after thunderous explosions at the capital, Tuesday, May 25, 2004. A U.S. helicopter landed in the square and evacuated at least one wounded person as American troops and military vehicles provided security. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen) #
An Iraqi militiaman loyal to the radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr fires a mortar round during fighting between Sadr's Mahdi army and U.S. forces June 5, 2004 in the eastern Baghdad district of Sadr city, Iraq. Fighting continues in the capital despite a cease fire brokered between U.S. forces and the cleric's militia in Najaf and Kufa. (Photo by Ghaith Abdul-Ahad/Getty Images) #
Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is lead in shackles away from an Iraqi courtroom July 1, 2004 in Baghdad, Iraq, after hearing a list of charges against him and 11 of his top lieutenants. Hussein was transferred into the legal custody of Iraqi authorities on June 30, 2004 but remained in the physical custody of the U.S. Military at an undisclosed location. (Photo by Karen Ballard/Pool/Getty Images) #
An injured child is comforted by a neighbor as he is treated at Kindi hospital after suffering injuries when two apparent car bombs exploded just minutes apart outside nearby churches August 1, 2004 in Baghdad, Iraq. Car bombs exploded outside at least six Christian churches in Iraq on Sunday in an apparent coordinated attack timed with evening prayers. (Photo by Ghaith Abdul- Ahad/Getty Images) #
Iraqi Shiite militiamen prepare to fire their weapons during clashes with U.S. Marines August 7, 2004 in Najaf, Iraq. Fighting continued for the third day between Iraqi combatants and multinational forces in the holy city of al-Najaf. (Photo by Ghaith Abdul-Ahad/Getty Images) #
Iraqi Shiite demonstrators flee from unknown gunmen as bullets fly overhead on August 26, 2004 in Najaf, Iraq. The Shiite demonstration came under fire whilst en route to the Imam Ali Shrine, further inflaming a situation already tense after at least 25 people were killed in a suspected mortar attack on a mosque filled with protesters preparing to travel to Najaf, August 26, in Kufa, Iraq. (Photo by Ghaith Abdul-Ahad/Getty Images). #
An Iraqi Shiite militia man prepares to fire his RPG rocket launcher at US tanks as another militia man warns fighters on the other side of the road, in the Shiite area of Sadr city east of Baghdad on September 5, 2004. U.S forces continued to fight rebels in Northern Iraq for the second day, adding to the violence over the weekend including a suicide bomb in Kirkuk September 4 which killed 17. (Photo by Ghaith Abdul-Ahad/Getty Images) #
Iraqi firefighters extinguish fire from a burning vehicle at the site of a car bomb attack September 22, 2004 in a busy shop area in western Baghdad, Iraq. Six people were killed and another 54 wounded in the blast. (Photo by Ghaith Abdul-Ahad/Getty Images) #
A U.S. soldier carries an Iraqi girl away from the scene of three explosions September 30, 2004 in Baghdad, Iraq. Three separate explosions near a U.S. military convoy which was passing the opening ceremony for a sewage station killed at least 35 people and wounded more than 100 others in southern Baghdad according to Iraqi police. (Photo by Wathiq Khuzaie/Getty Images) #
British private contractor Michael Fitzpatrick thanks his U.S. Army nurse Jayme Sells while recovering from a suicide bomb attack in an American military hospital in Baghdad, Iraq Friday, Oct. 15, 2004. Fitzpatrick said that he was drinking coffee in the Green Zone Cafe when a suicide bomber detonated in one of two explosions that killed 6 people and wounded many more. The U.S. embassy and Iraqi government buildings are located in the heavily fortified area. (AP Photo/John Moore) #
Marine Lance Cpl. James Blake Miller, 20, of Kentucky, a member of Charlie Company of the U.S. Marines First Division, Eighth regiment, smokes a cigarette in Fallujah, Iraq, on Nov. 9, 2004. (AP Photo/Los Angeles Times, Luis Sinco) #
Although wounded, Staff Sgt. Shannon Kay, of 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment, fires on an enemy position after being attacked with a car bomb, Saturday, Dec. 11, 2004, in Mosul, Iraq. (AP Photo/Army Times, M. Scott Mahaskey, via USA Today) #
U.S. Marine platoon Gunnery Sergeant, Ryan P. Shane (C), from the 1st Battalion of the 8th Marine Regiment and another member of 1/8 pull a fatally wounded comrade to safety while under fire during a military operation in the Iraqi western city of Falluja, in this photograph released on December 17, 2004. Seconds later Sgt. Shane was also injured by nearby enemy fire, U.S. Marine officer said. REUTERS/HO/USMC/Cpl. Joel A. Chaverri #
Shia Iraqi men crush in to get election pamphlets from the United Iraqi Alliance, a coalition of various Shia political and religious parties, as they are handed out Buratha Mosque December 31, 2004, in Baghdad, Iraq. (Photo by Chris Hondros/Getty Images) #
U.S. soldiers with the 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry Stryker Brigade Combat Team of the 25th Infantry Division out of Ft. Lewis, Washington fire at insurgents during a firefight January 16, 2005 in Tal Afar, Iraq. A routine patrol in the insurgent stronghold turned into an hour-long running gun battle January 16, with a combined U.S. and Iraqi police force battling insurgents across alleys and down boulevards. Despite several close calls, there were no U.S. or Iraqi police casualties. (Photo by Chris Hondros/Getty Images) #
Journalists, U.S. troops and Iraqi police run for cover during a firefight with insurgents January 16, 2005 in Tal Afar, Iraq. (Photo by Chris Hondros/Getty Images) #
Spc. Franklin Smith pulls away as a 120mm mortar blasts out of a tube January 17, 2005 at the edge of the US airbase in Tal Afar, Iraq. US mortaring teams frequently fire "harassment and interdiction" mortar fusillades from the base to suspected enemy positions or watched areas nearby. (Photo by Chris Hondros/Getty Images) #
Samar Hassan, 5, screams after her parents were killed by U.S. Soldiers with the 25th Infantry Division in a shooting January 18, 2005 in Tal Afar, Iraq. The troops fired on the Hassan family car when it unwittingly approached them during a dusk patrol in the tense northern Iraqi town. Parents Hussein and Camila Hassan were killed instantly, and a son Racan, 11, was seriously wounded in the abdomen. Racan, paralyzed from the waist down, was treated later in the U.S. (Photo by Chris Hondros/Getty Images) #
Racan Hassan, 11, is carried by hospital staff after being shot by U.S. soldiers of the 25th Infantry Division January 18, 2005 in Tal Afar, Iraq. The troops fired on the Hassan family car when it unwittingly approached them during a dusk patrol in the tense northern Iraqi town. Parents Hussein and Camila Hassan were killed instantly, and their son Racan was seriously wounded in the abdomen. Racan, who lost the use of his legs, was treated later in the U.S. (Photo by Chris Hondros/Getty Images) #
A car bomb went off next to a school in south of Baghdad one hour after a suicide bomber targeted a police station in the same area on January 28, 2005, Baghdad, Iraq. Baghdad was witnessing a surge of violence as the country prepared for elections. (Photo by Ghaith Abdul-Ahad/Getty Images).#
British solders with the Welsh Guards battle group man a heavy machine gun at the back of a Chinook helicopter February 8, 2005 above the southern Iraqi city of Ammarah. (Photo by Ghaith Abdul-Ahad/Getty Images) #
U.S. Army Sergeant 1st Class Troy Hawkins of the 1st Cavalry, Task Force 1-9, falls to the ground after being wounded during a firefight while on patrol with an Iraqi Army unit February 16, 2005 in the Haifa Street neighborhood of Baghdad, Iraq. After being tended to by a medic he continued to fight in the narrow streets. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) #
An suspected Iraqi insurgent is detained by commandos of the 3rd battalion of the Commandos brigade after raids against suspected insurgents, 30km north of Baghdad, on February 18, 2005 In Taji, Iraq. Most of the members of the Commandos Elite Force were members of the security apparatus under the former regime. (Photo by Ghaith Abdul-Ahad/Getty Images). #
An american soldier of the 3rd Battalion of 21st Infantry Regiment prepares to enter a house as the door opens in the northern city of Mosul, March 03, 2005. As curfew goes into effect each night American solders come out looking for suspects and searching houses looking for weapons. In a conservative society like the one in Mosul, knocking on doors and searching houses in the middle of the night is believed to be a major source of anti-American feelings in the city. (Photo by Ghaith Abdul-Ahad/Getty Images). #
Combat Support Hospital Army Nurse supervisor Patrick McAndrew tries to save the life of an American soldier by giving him CPR upon arrival at the Combat Support Hospital in Baghdad, Iraq on April 4, 2005. (AP Photo/John Moore) #
Support Squadron -SPC Carlos Riverarosado, of Narantito, Puerto Rico sits on his cot with his Rosary Beads at camp Striker in Iraq. He said spirituality had always been a big part of his life. He prays the Rosary every night at 8:00 PM. (Craig F. Walker/The Denver Post) #
An Iraqi man raises his hands as he is approached by U.S. soldiers during a night raid June 18, 2005 on the outskirts of Baquba, 70 kilometers (43.5 miles) northeast of Baghdad, Iraq. (Photo by Ghaith Abdul-Ahad/Getty Images). #
In this photo released by the Iraqi Special Tribunal, former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein is seen as he is questioned by Chief Investigative Judge Raid Juhi, not seen, in this Aug. 23, 2005, photo at an unknown location. (AP Photo/Iraqi Special Tribunial, Pool) #
A British soldier makes his way out of a burning Warrior fighting vehicle in Basra, 550 kilometers (340 miles) southeast of Baghdad Monday Sept. 19, 2005. British forces and demonstrators exchanged gunfire in the southern city of Basra leaving two civilians dead after two British men were arrested for allegedly gunning down an Iraqi police officer, authorities and witnesses said Monday. Additional information on the status of the soldier emerging from the tank is unavailable. (AP Photo/Nabil al-Jurani) #
Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, front center, and Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, back center, berate the court during their trial in Baghdad, in this Dec. 5, 2005, file photo. (AP Photo/David Furst, Pool) #
An Iraqi man is held against a Humvee by a US Marine after being searched during snap vehicle checks on February 8, 2006 in Ramadi, Iraq. Marines of the 3rd Battalion, 7th Regiment frequently took to Ramadi's tense streets in Humvee convoys, randomly stopping vehicles to search for weapons and insurgents. Sniper attacks were common, so the Marines usually set off smoke bombs to screen them from attackers. (Photo by Chris Hondros/Getty Images) #
Major Hans Bakken, a U.S. Army neurosurgeon from Decorah, Iowa, enters a surgical ward with his unloaded rifle on his back March 16, 2006 in Balad, Iraq. Balad was one of the primary hospitals for troops and civilians injured in the conflict in Iraq. (Photo by Chris Hondros/Getty Images) #
President Bush, center, stands with, from left, Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Peter Pace as he talks with reporters about a meeting with his national security team Thursday, Dec. 28, 2006 in Crawford, Texas. Bush met with his national security team at his Texas ranch, and declared he had moved one step closer to devising a new Iraq strategy but would seek more advice before settling on a final plan. "We're making good progress," Bush said. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) #
A British soldier guards a position as two armored vehicles burn after a roadside bomb hit his unit patrol in the southern city of Basra, 29 December 2006, killing an unidentified soldier. The death came as the country was on high alert ahead of the anticipated execution of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. (ESSAM AL-SUDANI/AFP/Getty Images) #
In this television screen grab taken from Iraqi national television station Al-iraqia, a video shows the moments leading up to the execution of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein as he was prepared for hanging and the noose is put over his head on the gallows, on December 30, 2006 in Baghdad, Iraq. The former Iraqi president was executed by hanging at 0600 (0300 GMT) in a secure facility in the Northern Baghdad suburb of Khadimeya. (Photo by Al-iraqia via Getty Images) #
An effigy of Saddam Hussein hangs in a central Baghdad street 30 December 2006, as Iraqis reeled from the news that ousted Iraqi despot Saddam Hussein was executed by hanging. More than 50 Iraqis were killed and dozens more wounded in a series of bloody car bombings that caused chaos after the government's pre-dawn execution of Saddam Hussein. (AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/AFP/Getty Images) #
Her mother, no first name available, comforts 18 year old Fatimah Krim at a hospital in Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday Jan. 17, 2007. Twin car bombs tore through a leading Baghdad University as students left classes in the deadliest attack in Iraq in nearly two months killing at least 65 students. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim) #
A U.S. Marine wakes another for his turn on guard duty as the Marines cluster for warmth while sleeping in a house captured by American and Iraqi forces from a man the military says is a former insurgent financier during an operation in Ramadi January 17, 2007 in the Anbar province of Iraq. The combined forces swept into Ramadi under the cover of darkness and began searching neighborhoods for insurgents. Ramadi, with daily combat between insurgents and U.S. led forces, has seen some of the highest casualty rates of the war. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images) #
A U.S. Marine guards an Iraqi mother and children while other Marines interrogate the father while on a search operation for insurgents in the early hours of February 1, 2007 in Ramadi in Iraq's Anbar province. American forces use night vision goggles, taking advantage of technology to aid the element of surprise and reduce the effectiveness of insurgent snipers on U.S. forces. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images) #
Members of the U.S. Marine Security Force walk through the halls of the U.S. Embassy February 6, 2007 in Baghdad, Iraq . The platoon of Marines from the Anti-Terrorism Battalion was tasked with defending the exterior of U.S. diplomatic mission against attacks in one of the most dangerous cities in the world. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images) #
Iraqis grieve in front of a burning building after a double car bomb attack in central Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, Feb. 12, 2007. Thunderous explosions and dense black smoke swirled through the center of Baghdad when at least one car bomb blew up in an underground parking garage, setting off dozens of secondary explosions and killing at least 59 people, police said. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed) #
A U.S. soldier in the 10th Mountain Division winces in pain as his gunshot wound to the leg is treated by medics of the 28th Combat Support Hospital based in Ft. Bragg, North Carolina February 27, 2007 in Baghdad, Iraq. Wounded children and adults were rushed to the 28th Combat Support Hospital in Baghdad, a military hospital that took wounded Iraqi and U.S. forces alike. The soldier had shrapnel wounds and a piece of shrapnel lodged in his skull but is expected to recover. (Photo by Chris Hondros/Getty Images) #
A child cries next to a person injured in an attack that lays in a hospital in Kirkuk, 290 kilometers (180 miles) north of Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday, March 10, 2007. A rocket hit an open market in central Kirkuk, killing two persons and injuring another 35, police said. (AP Photo/Emad Matti) #
An Iraqi woman washes dishes as US soldiers from Baker Company 2-12 Infantry Battalion temporarily occupy her home during a patrol in the Dora neighborhood of southern Baghdad, 16 March 2007. Shiite protesters demanded the removal of a US military base from Sadr City in east Baghdad as US commanders reported a surge of attacks on troops in a province near the capital. (DAVID FURST/AFP/Getty Images) #
Demonstrators wave Iraqi flags during an anti-U.S. protest called by fiery cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in Najaf, marking the fourth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad April 9, 2007. Baghdad was under curfew on the fourth anniversary of the fall of the capital to U.S. forces. REUTERS/Ceerwan Aziz #
Mary McHugh mourns her slain fiancŽ Sgt. James Regan at "Section 60" of the Arlington National Cemetery May 27, 2007. On March 24, 2008, four soldiers were killed when their patrol vehicle was blown up by a bomb in Baghdad, taking the US military personnel death toll in Iraq beyond 4000. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images) #
Family members mourn after funeral services for Spc. David William Behrle of Tipton, Iowa, 20, at the Tipton Middle School May 29, 2007 in Tipton, Iowa. Behrle along with five other members of the 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division from Fort Hood, Texas died of injuries sustained from an improvised explosive device detonated near their vehicle while serving in Iraq on May 19, 2007. (Photo by Scott Morgan/Getty Images) #
Two Iraqi girls watch Staff Sgt. Nick Gibson of the 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment of the 2nd Infantry Division June 21, 2007 as the unit was canvassing the tense Dora neighborhood of Baghdad, Iraq. U.S. soldiers patrolled the area almost daily in an effort to get to know the residents and find insurgents. (Photo by Chris Hondros/Getty Images) #
An Iraqi Army soldier (L) watches as medics of the Army's 2-12 Cavalry Battalion try to save a civilian man injured by a roadside bomb aimed at Iraqi troops by local militants at Joint Security Station Casino in the divided Gazaliyah neighborhood June 29, 2007 in Baghdad, Iraq. Gazaliyah, one of Baghdad's most troubled neighborhoods, is patrolled by the 2-12 Cavalry out of Joint Security Station Casino, one of the field bases that figures prominently in the "surge" strategy of General David Petraeus. (Photo by Chris Hondros/Getty Images) #
Pft. Daniel Sims of Clemson, South Carolina of the 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment of the U.S. Army sits during watch duties in a partially destroyed building that's being converted to an Army field post July 13, 2007 in the tense Amariyah neighborhood of Baghdad, Iraq. Insurgents who were in control of Amariyah attempted to destroy this building and an adjacent bunker with explosives and burning tires, but the Army was able to salvage the compound. (Photo by Chris Hondros/Getty Images) #
Family, friends and fellow soldiers salute as US Army 1st Lt. Mark Harold Dooley remains are carried to the graveside during his funeral at Arlington National Cemetery July 13, 2007 in Arlington, Virginia. A member of the Army National Guard's 3rd Battalion, 172nd Infantry Regiment (Mountain), 42nd Infantry Division, Dooley died in Ramadi, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle during patrol operations on September 19, 2005. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) #
An aerial view of the village of Kahtaniya, one of two villages struck by garbage trucks packed with explosives, west of Mosul, northwest of Baghdad August 16, 2007. Angry members of a minority sect said they feared annihilation and pleaded for help, after suicide attackers killed scores in possibly the worst such bomb attack of the Iraq conflict. REUTERS/Thaier al-Sudani #
U.S. soldiers blindfold an Iraqi man after arresting him during a night patrol at the Zafraniya neighborhood, southeast of Baghdad September 4, 2007. REUTERS/Carlos Barria #
American soldiers cheer as the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders take the stage as part of a military USO tour of Iraq September 15, 2007 in Baghdad, Iraq. The cheerleaders, on their first trip to Iraq, were doing 5 shows throughout the country for the soldiers, many of whom were on 15 month deployments. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images) #
Juvenile detainees wait for their turn outside portable bathrooms at the "House of Wisdom" school operated by the U.S. military near the Camp Cropper detention center September 19, 2007 in Baghdad Iraq. More than 800 juvenile detainees were in American custody at the center. Most were captured during this year's American troop "surge" in Baghdad. They attend six classes - Arabic, Science, Math, History, Civics and English every three days. Many of the detainees, ages 12-17 years old, were captured while planting roadside bombs or IEDs targeting U.S. forces, according to military officials. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images) #
A U.S. Army nurse takes the fading pulse of a dying American soldier at the 28th Combat Support Hospital September 22, 2007 in Baghdad, Iraq. The soldier was fatally wounded by a roadside bomb while on patrol in Baghdad. The hospital, located in Baghdad's Green Zone, received many of the nearly 30,000 U.S. soldiers wounded in Iraq. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images) #
A U.S. army soldier from Ghostrider Company, 3rd Squadron, 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment runs for cover during Operation Phantom Phoenix in the village of Abu Musa on the northern outskirts of Muqdadiyah, in the volatile Diyala province, about 90 kilometers (60 miles) north of Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, Jan. 10, 2008. (AP Photo/Marko Drobnjakovic) #
US Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain (R-AZ) unbuckles his flight helmet as he arrives at Sather Air Base in Baghdad, March 16, 2008. Picture taken March 16, 2008. REUTERS/U.S. Air Force/Tech. Sgt. Jeffrey Allen/Handout #
An Iraqi woman holds onto a truck while waiting for food supplies to be distributed by Iraqi's soldiers among the residents of the Shiite enclave of Sadr city in Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, May 8, 2008. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek) #
Detainees pray at a U.S. military detention facility Camp Bucca, Iraq, Monday, March 16, 2009. The United States aimed to shut down its largest detention center, Camp Bucca, by 2010. More than 9,600 detainees who were captured as national security threats were being held there; at its peak, the prison located 340 miles southeast of Baghdad held 26,000 detainees. (AP Photo/Dusan Vranic) #
A bugler stands at attention in the rain at the funeral of Sgt. 1st Class Edward Kramer at Wilmington National Cemetery on July 9, 2009 in Wilmington, North Carolina. Kramer and three others died when an IED went off near the Humvee they were in, according to a statement from the Defense Department. It was the last day of regular combat operations for U.S. forces in Iraqi cities. The four deaths marked the North Carolina National Guard's largest single combat loss since World War II. (Photo by Logan Mock-Bunting/Getty Images) #
Haidar Talib embraces his four-year-old son Mustafa as he is released from U.S. military custody in Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, Sept. 27, 2009. He was among 37 members of a militant group called Asaib Ahl al-Haq, or League of the Righteous, who were released. The group was allegedly involved in kidnapping of five British contractors in Baghdad in 2007. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed) #
A wounded man is seen after a bombing in Najaf, 100 miles (160 kilometers) south of Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, Jan. 14, 2010. Three explosions, including one caused by a car bomb, rocked the southern city of Najaf at about 5:45 p.m. near a commercial area, police said. An official in the city's health department said at least one person was killed and 50 were wounded. (AP Photo/Alaa al-Marjani) #
A U.S. Air Force Honor Guard leads members of the U.S. Air Force Band at the beginning of Captain David Anthony Wisniewski's burial service at Arlington National Cemetery August 23, 2010 in Arlington, Virginia. Originally from Moville, Iowa, the Air Force captain, 31, was the pilot of a Black Hawk helicopter that was shot down during a rescue mission in Afghanistan on June 9 and died of his injuries on July 2. Wisniewski is credited with saving more than 240 soldiers in seven tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, 40 of which were saved in his final rescue mission in June. He was awarded the Purple Heart on June 23. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) #
U.S. Marine Capt. Jill A. Leyden of Easton, Maryland, touches the grave of her friend Major Megan M. McClung at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia on Veterans Day, November 11, 2010. McClung was killed during Operation Iraqi Freedom on December 6, 2006. Leyden and McClung served together in Iraq. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque #
In this Nov. 30, 2010 photo, members of 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, based at Fort Stewart, Ga., sit in the belly of a C-17 aircraft at Sather Air Base in Baghdad as they begin their journey home after a year in Iraq. More than seven years after 1st Brigade entered Baghdad as the first conventional U.S. forces in Iraq, its soldiers were coming home from a yearlong deployment that saw the end of combat operations. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo) #
Sharon Olivieri says goodbye to her husband U.S. Army PFC Michael Olivieri, of Homer Glen, Illinois following a service at Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery on June 16, 2011 in Elwood, Illinois. Olivieri, who was assigned to 1st Battalion, 7th Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Heavy Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division was among five soldiers who were killed June 6 in Baghdad, Iraq when militants attacked their base. Killed alongside Olivieri were SPC Emilio Campo Jr., SPC Michael Cook Jr., SPC Christopher Fishbeck and SPC Robert Hartwick. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images) #
Shiite pilgrims pray at the Imam Moussa al-Kadhim shrine during the annual commemoration of the Saint's death, in the Shiite district of Kazimiyah, in Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, June 27, 2011. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban) #
Over 100 electric boxes connect homes in a building to a collective generator in a poor neighborhood on July 25, 2011 in Baghdad, Iraq. Despite a doubling of the megawatts of electricity available to Iraqis, many people still only receive a few hours of electricity a day from the national grid and therefore have to depend on generators and other private sources of electricity. With more homes owning computers, televisions, refrigerators and air conditioners there is an increased demand for electricity, especially in the scorching summers. The lack of dependable electricity has been one of the main sources of demonstrations against the government. As the deadline for the departure of the remaining American forces in Iraq approached, Iraqi politicians were increasingly pressured to give a final decision about extending the mandate for a small U.S. military presence beyond the end of the 2011 deadline. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) #
In this Monday, Aug. 8, 2011 photo, U.S. Army Pvt. 1st Class David Hedge from Bealeton, Va., front, and fellow soldiers from 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment are bathed in rotor wash moments after arriving by Blackhawk helicopter for an operation to disrupt weapons smuggling in Istaqlal, north of Baghdad, Iraq. A radical anti-American Shiite cleric was calling on U.S. troops in Iraq to leave the country and go back to their families or risk more attacks. The rare statement by Muqtada al-Sadr was translated into English and posted on his website. In it, the powerful Iraqi cleric appeals directly to the roughly 46,000 U.S. troops still in the country at the time. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo) #
U.S. Military personnel holding the US flag, Iraq flag, and the US Forces Iraq colors march during a casing ceremony where the United States Forces- Iraq flag was retired, signifying the departure of United States troops from Iraq, at the former Sather Air Base on December 15, 2011 in Baghdad, Iraq. United States forces were scheduled to entirely depart Iraq by December 31. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images) #
U.S. Army soldiers from the 2-82 Field Artillery, 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, place their bags on a truck as they prepare to board buses later in the evening to fly home to Fort Hood, Texas after being one of the last American combat units to exit from Iraq on December 15, 2011 at Camp Virginia, near Kuwait City, Kuwait. The U.S. military formally ended its mission in Iraq after eight years of war and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) #
U.S. Army Sergeant Quasim Singleton from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania of the 2-82 Field Artillery, 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, carries his gear out of his temporary housing to a staging area as he waits to fly home from Kuwait after their unit exited from Iraq on December 15, 2011 at Camp Virginia, near Kuwait City, Kuwait. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) #
The sun sets behind an empty staging area in Camp Adder which is the departure point for the last U.S. military convoy to leave the country on December 17, 2011 near Nasiriyah, Iraq. All U.S. troops were scheduled to have departed Iraq by December 31, 2011. (Photo by Lucas Jackson-Pool/Getty Images) #
Iraqi security forces patrol in the cemetery in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, 160 kilometers (100 miles) south of Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, March 22, 2012. The Iraqi government has tightened its security measures as al-Qaida's front group in Iraq claimed it was behind a wave of attacks to how weak the nation's security is heading into next week's Arab League summit in Baghdad. (AP Photo/Alaa al-Marjani) #
Ministry of Health staff carry a wounded colleague during a car bomb attack at the Health Department in Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, June 4, 2012. A suicide bomber detonated explosives in a car outside Iraq's main religious affairs office for Shiite Muslims, tearing down part of the three-story building and killed and wounded scores of people, police said. (AP Photo/Adil al-Khazali) #
In this photo taken on Friday, July 20, 2012, a woman and her child react as Iraqi soldiers raid her house in Arab Jabour, south of Baghdad, Iraq. Iraqi security forces raided some villages in Arab Jabour and detained 54 men suspected members of al-Qaida. (AP Photo/Alaa al-Marjani) #
Iraqis enjoy a ride at Amusement City fairgrounds during Eid al-Adha celebrations in Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, Oct. 29, 2012. Eid al-Adha is a Muslim holiday that commemorates the sacrifice by the Prophet Ibrahim, known to Christians and Jews as Abraham. It is a festive holiday where it is traditional for men, women and children to dress in new clothing and spend time with their families and outdoors. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim) #
U.S. President Barack Obama greets troops at Fort Bragg in North Carolina December 14, 2011. The visit was seen as marking the end of the Iraq war with a tribute to the troops who fought and died in a conflict Obama opposed from the start. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque #
U.S. President Barack Obama (R) greets a grieving family member in Section 60, an area where members of the U.S. military who were killed in action in Iraq and Afghanistan are buried, during Veterans Day observances at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, November 11, 2012. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst #
BUSH ADMINISTRATION EXPOSED: MONUMENTAL CRIME ON TORTURE AND CORRUPTION
'Push harder': A source said that 'for most of 2002 and into 2003, [Vice-President Dick] Cheney (far right) and [Defence Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld (far left) were also demanding proof of the links between al-Qaeda and Iraq' and demanded interrogators 'push harder' when no evidence was found
Former US Army psychiatrist says CIA questioning was driven by pressure link Saddam to 9/11 to justify invasion of Iraq
Maj. Charles Burney made claim to Senate Armed Services Committee
He was US Army psychiatrist at Guantanamo Bay following 9/11 attacks
Source says Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld put huge pressure on CIA
Source says they wanted evidence of links between Iraq and al-Qaeda
But Burney said when no proof found, they pushed for tougher tactics
The C.I.A. tortured al-Qaeda suspects in the wake of 9/11 in a bid to prove Saddam Hussein was behind the atrocity so they could justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq, it has been revealed.
The agency came under immense pressure from George W. Bush's administration to forge a link between the former Iraqi dictator and al-Qaeda as it sought to bolster its argument for war.
But an official 2009 report on detainee abuse - revealed byThe Independent - claimed that the increasingly brutal methods of interrogations used to extract confessions yielded no hard evidence to back the theory.
+6
Brutal: The C.I.A. tortured al-Qaeda suspects in the wake of 9/11 in a bid to prove Saddam Hussein was behind the atrocity and therefore justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq, it has been revealed (pictured: a terror suspect is carried back to his cell following interrogation at Guantanamo Bay)
Excuse for war: The agency came under immense pressure from the administration of then-President George W. Bush (left) to forge a link between Saddam Hussein (right) and al-Qaeda as it sought to bolster its argument for war
The claim came in a dossier compiled by the Senate Armed Services Committee, which quoted former US Army psychiatrist, Major Charles Burney, stationed at Guantanamo Bay as saying interrogators were told to focus on a single line of inquiry.
'A large part of the time we were focused on trying to establish a link between al-Qaeda and Iraq,' he said. 'There was more and more pressure to resort to measures that might produce more immediate results'.
A source told the McClatchy news agency that there were two reasons for wanting to prove Hussein's involvement:
First, senior White House officials wanted to prevent a second attack and, second, 'for most of 2002 and into 2003, [Vice-President Dick] Cheney and [Defence Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld were also demanding proof of the links between al-Qaeda and Iraq.'
+6
Back from the torture chamber: It follows a US Senate report which cast light on the range of 'brutal' interrogation techniques meted out on terror suspects in the years following the destruction of the Twin Towers
Torture: Waterboarding was deemed acceptable because it didn't cause the lengthy mental anguish needed to meet the legal standard of torture
But when told by the C.I.A. that the programme was producing no concrete results, Cheney and Rumsfeld pushed for tougher questioning.
The source added: 'There was constant pressure on the intelligence agencies and the interrogators to do whatever it took to get that information out of the detainees, and when people kept coming up empty, they were told by Cheney's and Rumsfeld's people to push harder.'
The CIA has defended its conduct by claiming that the relationship between torture and results was 'unknowable,' a claim rejected by the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Dianne Feinstein, who maintained that torture produced nothing of value.
It follows a US Senate report which cast light on the range of 'brutal' interrogation techniques meted out on terror suspects in the years following the destruction of the Twin Towers.
+6
'Push harder': A source said that 'for most of 2002 and into 2003, [Vice-President Dick] Cheney (far right) and [Defence Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld (far left) were also demanding proof of the links between al-Qaeda and Iraq' and demanded interrogators 'push harder' when no evidence was found
In one of several memos forming the legal underpinnings for brutal interrogation techniques, the CIA was told detainee Abu Zubaydah could lawfully be placed in a box with an insect, kept awake for days at a time and slapped multiple times in the face.
Waterboarding, too, was acceptable because it didn't cause the lengthy mental anguish needed to meet the legal standard of torture, the 2002 Justice Department memo says.
The release last week of a Senate report cataloging years of such interrogation tactics has revived debate about legal opinions since discredited and withdrawn and about the decision to not prosecute the program's architects or officers who used the methods. Civil rights groups in the United States and abroad are renewing calls to prosecute those who relied on techniques that President Barack Obama has called torture.
'How can we seriously use the phrase 'rule of law' if crimes of this magnitude go uninvestigated and unprosecuted?' said Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union.
The Justice Department, which spent years looking into the matter, says it lacks sufficient evidence to convict anyone and found no new information in the report. It also is far from clear that any international case could be brought.
"Globalization"and Secret Societies Exposed
What I tell you in the dark,
speak in the daylight;
what is whispered in your ear,
proclaim from the roofs."
St. Matthew, 10-26 & 27
Trillion Dollar Terror Exposed
LORD JAMES OF BLACKHEATH, EXPOSING "TRILLION DOLLAR TERROR"
Bush, Fed, Europe Banks in $15 Trillion Fraud, All Documented
Below is one of the strangest stories in financial history, one involving the US government lying about hundreds of thousands of tons of imaginary gold, illegal wire transfers and loans totalling $15 trillion. The video, from the House of Lords, is amazing in itself.
What it doesn’t express is where the money came from though Lord James of Blackheath proves conclusively that an effort was made to say it came from a gold reserve in Brunei that, in fact, never existed.
At surface, it appears we have stumbled upon the largest terrorist organization in the world and have found original documents tracing its funding to the Secretary of the Treasury and the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, two of the top financial officers in the US. A cursory review of terrorism statues in the US indicate that all transactions we will learn about are, in fact, to be assumed “terrorist money laundering” and that the only thing preventing the immediate arrest of hundreds of top financial officials is their political connections alone.
We will be able to offer an alternative, more insights, some hard intelligence and some very valuable background that we hope will offer insightful and realistic perspectives on this amazing story.
On February 16, 2012, Lord James of Blackheath, member of Britain’s House of Lords presented evidence of an illegal scheme begun, he has thus discovered, in 2009. His documents including originals signed by Alan Greenspan and Timothy Geithner, show the illegal “off the books” transfer by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York of $15 trillion to, initially, HSBC (Hong Kong Shanghai Banking Corporation) London and then to the Bank of Scotland.
The Bank of Scotland, under royal charter but restricted from involvement in any such transactions, simply “gave” the money to 20 European banks to use in a highly profitable scheme of co-trading “fresh cut” MTN’s (mid-term notes), generating trillions of dollars in profits over 3 years, none of which is shown on books, none has been taxed or has benefited shareholders in those banks.
As Blackheath outlines, the “deception and cover” for this transfer is the imaginary seizure of 750,000 tons of gold by agents of an unspoken entity (confirmed by the highest official sources as the Bush family and CIA), the listed “source” of the money.
The government of Indonesia confirms this to be an utter fabrication and that the individual named had 700 tons of gold (about half of what Gaddafi was holding), not 750,000. It is noted that only 1,500 tons of gold have ever been traded in world history, as stated in the House of Lords.
The issues that are initially brought out, issues inconsistent with international convention and starting the reader on what is only the surface discovery of two decades of crimes involving dozens of governments are as follows:
At no time has the Federal Reserve Bank of New York been authorized to hold the funds indicated
However, documents held by Lord Blackheath prove, conclusively that they did hold such funds and transfer them in a manner as to obscure their origin by using HSBC and the Bank of Scotland. This process, seemingly involving Alan Greenspan, Timothy Geithner and others would appear to be “money laundering” until some other explanation were found. None has been offered.
The “collateralization” of these funds, being 750,000 tons of gold, is proven to be fantasy. These funds then, in no way or manner, are related to Brunei. The presentation of this false transaction has been conclusively proven to be a “cover and deception” project such as an intelligence organization would use.
The transfer of these funds, all done without any authorizations, governmental or otherwise, particularly without agreements, payment of interest to the United States and without knowledge and approval of congress makes every aspect of this criminal in nature, a violation of innumerable statutes.
The receipt and use of these funds by the 20 banks, two of which are Wall Street’s largest, and the use of these funds to generate profits while the funds themselves are held “off the books” and the profits hidden and laundered, themselves the earnings of funds received through criminal acts makes any and all involved part of a criminal enterprise.
WHERE DID THE MONEY COME FROM
There is no record of the Federal Reserve being authorized to “create” $15 trillion, equal to the entire national debt of the United States. There is, however, proof that funds that totalled, at one time, $27 trillion had been earned surreptitiously, disposed of as part of an intelligence operation against the Soviet Union and then later stolen with accusations made against George H. W. Bush as being the perpetrator.
I have spoken with two individuals, one President Reagan’s intelligence coordinator and the other Chief Legal Cousel for the Central Intelligence Agency regarding these funds. Both have indicated that former President Bush had asked that these funds, totalling $27 trillion, be transferred to his control, that threats were made by Bush and that many involved in this operation suffered, issues including murder, illegal arrest, torture and detention among them.
The individuals I am speaking of repeatedly met with President Bush over these funds, disputed his claim to them, and indicate that the majority of the funds are the property of the people of the United States.
These funds are the mysterious “Wanta” funds, monies earned through years of currency trading aimed at collapsing the Soviet Union, a plan originated by President Ronald Reagan, then White House Intelligence Coordinator Lee Wanta and CIA Director William Casey. I have been told that, while this operation went forward under President Reagan, he had ordered that his successor, George H. W. Bush not be “briefed” out of “mistrust” for Bush.
The funds themselves were earned through a scheme of trading Soviet roubles at enormous profit, a practice that eventually collapsed their government. A portion of the profits are subject to current litigation in the Federal Court of the Eastern District of Virginia, Judge Lee presiding. I have over 2,000 pages of documents on this case which shows a remainder of the original funds had been transferred to the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond by the Bank of China, a party to the rouble trading practice, in 2006 and is claimed as totally owned by Ameritrust Corporation. That amount was $4.5 trillion of which we hold the SWIFT transfer documents.
The other monies, which “likely” make up from the unspent portion of the missing $27 trillion, may well constitute all that is recoverable.
Wanta, sole shareholder in Ameritrust, has offered his companies share, valued by the court now at $7.2 trillion, entirely to the American people as intended by President Reagan.
The origin of the additional funds, issued by the Federal Reserve during the 80s and 90s, totalling nearly $8 trillion is unknown. High ranking sources within the US government indicate that this can only be either the remainder of funds Wanta raised or profits made from them after the majority of funds were stolen.
Stories, some quite good actually, and personal interviews plus my own review of documents would place the theft or conversion of these funds initially with:
The Bush family
The “P2,” a Masonic lodge operating out of Switzerland involved in dozens of terror bombings tied to “Operation Gladio”
People around Wanta himself including the CIA
What is lacking is a source for half of these funds. Technically, they don’t exist as there is no record of them being originated by nor transferred to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York though there are clear and discernible records of them being transferred out of that institution which never possessed them, according to their 2010 audit, in the first place.
WANTA MONEY
The transfer of Wanta funds, they can be assumed to have no other origin as they track into the Federal Reserve banking system while in escrow and are currently awaiting payment based on the orders of President Obama in accordance with findings of the federal court, is complicated by the Scottish transfer.
Either Wanta has claim to the entire amount or it is the property of the US government. That no effort has been made to secure the funds or enforce criminal and civil remedies to recover enough money to pay the entire US national debt and more, as with earnings, we are nearing well over $30 trillion by this time, is an indication that a criminal conspiracy with enough influence to overrule our own government is involved. Whether that “conspiracy is, as noted, the Bush family, rouge sections of the CIA or a secret society such as P2, one we can prove or others we only suspect exist, is another story.
The lack of action, here or as requested by Lord James in Britain, is, in itself, proof of both the seriousness and actuality of these events and the powers that can prevent any inquiry when irrefutable documents such as SWIFT transfers are available. In fact, Lord James has offered a wealth of documents which, when combined with the 2000 pages of Wanta “discovery” from the Federal Court, constitutes more than prima facia evidence of money laundering, conversion, terrorism or worse.
Thus, the inaction in the face of overwhelming and unquestioned proof is inexplicable.
FLOOD OF WANTA LITIGATION AND INDICTMENTS COMING
Currently, Wanta’s legal status is as technical conservator and owner of $7.2 trillion. However, as nearly half that is owed in taxes and the court settlement required Wanta to purchase $1 trillion in treasury bonds, the federal government should show positive interest other than President Obama and a few others. More are being obstructionist with the payout and exercise of $3 trillion in US debt reduction.
This is, not only illegal but an indication of conspiracy.
In addition, Russian Prime Minister Putin has communicated that he awaits the agreed upon 3% payment of Russian taxes, initially on the $7.2 trillion. Will Putin want to be paid on the entire $15 trillion plus interest and will Russia and/or the US have interest in why the Bank of Scotland transferred these funds to 20 European banks to trade in MTN’s (mid term notes) without any authorization or agreement, any participation or sharing of profits.
As the funds, at least the half which the US government can claim ownership of, combined with the interest and earnings of, would quickly put the US “in the black,” again we look at, not just the press blackout on the Wanta litigation of the last 6 years but the press blackout on Lord James of Blackheath and the wealth of damning documentation he submitted to Parliament.
Nothing has been done since, it is as though the proof submitted was so dangerous that those moments in time have been erased by a mysterious g-dlike power.
What makes Wanta dangerous is that he has begun to distribute funds, some to government entities, counties and states, law enforcement agencies, giving them standing, not just in recovering funds intended for their use but in helping prosecute anyone involved in interfering with or attempting to divert funds.
One grand jury is being formed to investigate diversion of Wanta funds even at this early date. It is likely that Wanta/Ameritrust funds earmarked for border protection could lead to the indictment of high ranking US officials. This is only the beginning.
If the Royal Bank of Scotland doesn’t think it should be expecting the biggest chargeback in the history of the world, they are in for a shock.
Despite increasing personal financial hardship, most Americans remain unaware of the economic world war currently unfolding. An all-pervasive corporate and government propaganda campaign has effectively obscured this blatant reality. After extensive analysis, it is evident that World War III is a war between the richest one-tenth of one percent of the global population and 99.9 percent of humanity. Or, as I have called it, The Economic Elite Vs. The People. This war has been a one-sided attack thus far. However, as we have seen throughout the world in recent months, the people are beginning to fight back. The following report is a statistical analysis of the systemic economic attacks against the American people.
We know who’s really behind the Shadow Government, the New World Order, or the Global Union. They’re all one and the same. We not only know which secret organizations are in control, we now know the names of the two men at the very top.
The Elite Don’t Dare Let Us Tell the People unleashes alarming new evidence of the Elite’s monumental crimes against humanity. It unravels the darkest secrets of the secret societies, documenting the hideous threat posed to mankind by Freemasonry, the Bohemian Grove, and the Order of Skull & Bones. Also unmasked: elitist groups such as the Bilderbergs, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission.
Financially, grave dangers now confront us. The Elite project to de-industrialize the United States gathers steam. Shocking statistics document the devastation done to American workers. Millions have already been thrown out of work, and those still employed are under-employed. With documented facts the author pulls the curtains back, unveiling the secretive manipulations of the international bankers and their Central Banks. Is our economic system now in dire jeopardy? Are the Elite about to plunge the U.S.A. into a financial catastrophe? Obviously what started in mid-2008 is absolute proof. We are now in a depression, which, if not brought under control soon, could make the 1929 depression look like a cake-walk. Here are the answers you need to assure your economic survival and even prosper in the dangerous days ahead. Forewarned is forearmed.
Why do bloodshed and wars continue to plague America and the world? Is war just a racket? Are wars caused by oil and financial greed? What role do Zionist ambitions have in fomenting global conflict? Who’s really in charge?, Ross asks. Will these cunning men achieve their totalitarian goals and tighten their grip on our daily lives?
It has been said that:
“For every 1,000 hacking at the branches of evil, one hacks at the root.”
Assassinations
For those who want the real truth about the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Senator/Attorney General Robert Francis Kennedy and Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.,
War Crimes of Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, and Others
The primary reason for the need to try them for war crimes is that they have committed terrible crimes on just about everyone in the entire world and they must not be allowed to go scott free for these crimes. If others see that they will eventually pay the price, perhaps they will not commit such crimes in the future. Perhaps these criminals did their crimes out of what is called The Hubris Syndrom.
Let me first explain what the Hubris Syndrome is, by quoting Lord David Owen, from his book, The Hubris Syndrome, published in Wales, in 2007.
The Hubris Syndrome
By
Lord David Owen
It was in drama rather than philosophy that the notion was developed further to explore the patterns of hubristic behavior, its causes and consequences. A hubristic career proceeded along something like the following course. The hero wins glory and acclamation by achieving unwonted success against the odds. The experience then goes to their head: they begin to treat others, mere ordinary mortals, with contempt and disdain and they develop such confidence in their own ability that they begin to think themselves capable of anything. This excessive self-confidence leads them into misinterpreting the reality around them and into making mistakes.
Disillusionment with politicians has grown markedly in recent years and some people will think all politicians are hubristic. But this is not the case with most post-war heads of government in the USA and the UK. Truman, Attlee, Eisenhower, Macmillan, Douglas-Home, Ford, Carter, Callaghan, Reagan, Major and Bush Sr. showed no signs of hubris. Kennedy's cynicism curbed any hubris and his mood was affected by the steroids and amphetamines he was being given by his doctors. Any hubris in Eden was short lived and due to his illness, when he was being given a mixture of amphetamine and Benzedrine. The behavioral symptoms in a head of government which might trigger the diagnosis of hubristic syndrome typically grow in strength and are represented by more than three or four symptoms from the following tentative list, before any such diagnosis could be contemplated:
• a narcissistic propensity to see the world primarily as an arena in which they can exercise power and seek glory rather than as a place with problems that need approaching in a pragmatic and non-self-referential manner;
• a predisposition to take actions which seem likely to cast them in a good light - i.e. in order to enhance their image;
• a disproportionate concern with image and presentation;
• a messianic manner of talking about what they are doing and a tendency to exaltation;
• an identification of themselves with the state to the extent that they regard the outlook and interests of the two as identical;
• a tendency to talk of themselves in the third person or using the royal 'we';
• excessive confidence in their own judgment and contempt for the advice or criticism of others;
• exaggerated self-belief, bordering on a sense of omnipotence, in what they personally can achieve;
• a belief that, rather than being accountable to the mundane court of colleagues, or public opinion, the real court to which they answer is much greater: History or God;
• an unshakeable belief that in that court they will be vindicated;
• restlessness, recklessness and impulsiveness;
• loss of contact with reality; often associated with progressive isolation;
• a tendency to allow their 'broad vision', especially their conviction about the moral rectitude of a proposed course of action, to obviate the need to consider other aspects of it, such as its practicality, cost and the possibility of unwanted outcomes;
• a consequent type of incompetence in carrying out a policy, which could be called hubristic incompetence. This is where things go wrong precisely because too much self-confidence has led the leader not to bother worrying about the nuts and bolts of a policy.
It can be allied to an incurious nature. It is to be distinguished from ordinary incompetence, where the necessary detailed work on the complex issues involved is engaged in but mistakes in decision-making are made nonetheless.
Most syndromes of personality tend to manifest themselves in people by the age of eighteen and stay with them for the rest of their lives. Hubristic syndrome is different in that it should not be seen as a personality syndrome but as something which manifests itself in leaders only when in power - and usually only after they have been wielding it for some time - and which then may well abate once power is lost. In that sense it is an illness of position as much as of the person. And the circumstances in which the position is held clearly affect the likelihood that a leader will succumb to it. The key external factors would seem to be these: holding substantial power; minimal constraint on the leader exercising such personal authority; and the length of time they stay in power.
An atmosphere of omnipotence can easily grow around any leader, but political leaders are particularly vulnerable, even democratically elected ones.
It is not a condition, usually, which those leaders affected by it bring to office. Rather it appears to develop when heads of government have been in power for a while. Personality traits, though, do seem to make some leaders more susceptible to it than others, and factors to do with the external political situation seem to play a role too.
There is a case for working on the supposition that there is an underlying syndrome in which a combination of signs and features are more likely to appear together than independently, and which may yet be judged by the medical profession as forming a pathological category. I developed this argument in an article for the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, and I hope a debate will now ensue.
Tony Blair and George Bush's Health
At various times both Tony Blair and George Bush have sought to hide their medical history. We do not know whether any drugs or medication they may have taken in office predisposed them to hubristic syndrome. Secrecy, far from stopping speculation, has encouraged it.
George W. Bush 's Health
During the last week of George W. Bush's first presidential campaign, it became known that he had been arrested for driving a car under the influence of alcohol at the age of thirty. Starting in 1999, it had been made fairly clear in unattributable briefings that as a young man the candidate had been too fond of alcohol. This was presented as a passing phase of little consequence; in fact he was an alcoholic. On alcoholism there is no room for complacency. It is a condition that, once it has manifested itself, demands constant vigilance to ensure, alcohol abuse does not continue in total secrecy and with the patient in denial.
Since he has been President, records of Bush's medical condition have been published every year by his doctors. On only one occasion was there some delay. They reveal little of interest except that he has an abnormally low pulse rate. Yet for some years Bush has been uttering so many malapropisms that besides making him the butt of many jokes, they have focused doctors' minds on whether or not he has dyslexia, from which his brother Neil is reported to suffer. There has also been speculation on whether Bush has adult attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), a life-long disorder characterized by overactive behavior, short attention span and poor concentration. A further reason for speculation in Bush's case is that there is a well-established association between dyslexia and ADHD. Also ADHD is one of four psychiatric disorders, the others being depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and schizophrenia, which commonly occur with substance abuse disorders such as alcoholism. Bush claims he has drunk no alcohol since 1987, but there have been rumors in the press to the contrary. On 13 January 2002 he lost consciousness while sitting on a couch in the White House watching a football game. His head hit the floor, resulting in an abrasion on his left cheekbone. The incident was blamed on a combination of not feeling well in previous days and an improperly eaten pretzel. I was contacted by a British doctor who had visited Johns Hopkins University and in talking to a group of young doctors was told that, following this incident, though the President had been admitted to Walter Reed Hospital, a blood sample of his had been sent to Johns Hopkins which showed a blood alcohol level in the range of 200 mg. All such rumors have been emphatically denied by the White House and certainly there are no signs of Bush resuming his drinking habits. Personality was once thought to play an important role in alcoholism, although it is felt to play a somewhat lesser role today as a contributor to addiction. Yet it is obvious that some people's personalities are part and parcel of their addictive habit and influence whether they overcome their addiction. Bush has never made any secret of the fact that he does not read much and claims that he is no intellectual. But that does not mean - as some assume - that he has a low IQ. While he was a 'C' student, which means he had to rely on the strength of his family connections to get into Yale, he graduated from both Yale Law School and Harvard Business School, which is not possible without a fair amount of intelligence. Some who meet Bush one-on-one claim to be pleasantly surprised by his intelligence. Question marks about Bush relate, therefore, more to his inattention, his incurious nature and inarticulacy: in short, signs that his brain functions in an unusual way.
Armchair psychiatrists, according to one American magazine (New Yorker Magazine, 5 Feb. 2007) have for some time argued that Bush suffers from a classic case of narcissistic personality disorder. This, like other personality disorders, begins in early adulthood. Psychoanalytic studies of George Bush offer deeper insights. Psychoanalysts have often written about political leaders whom they have not treated as patients: Freud, for example, wrote a book about Woodrow Wilson using evidence provided by a colleague of Wilson's. Blair has been the subject of an analytical study by a former Labour MP, Leo Abse.
One of the analytical books on Bush is by Dr. Justin Frank, who believes that the characteristics of his personality overlap meaningfully with a description of what he defines as a megalomanic state:
The troubles in Bush's early childhood might have made a megalomaniac solution an attractive way to adapt - to cope with, and even triumph over, his circumstances. Both megalomania and mania exhibit three overtly similar defensive characteristics: control, contempt and triumph. Simple mania involves love and the need to deny dependency or loss of a loved person; megalomania involves hate and a need to triumph over paranoid fears. A manic person wants to repair the damage he's caused, once he recognizes it. He feels guilt. The megalomaniac is indifferent to any damage he caused, because he had a reason for his actions; he is without guilt or compassion, and incapable of even thinking about making reparation.
The relationship between such a megalomaniac disposition and hubris hardly needs spelling out.
Lord David Owen was Labour Foreign Secretary under James Callaghan. He co-founded and went on to lead the Social Democratic Party in Great Britain, and is now a cross-bencher in the Lords. He trained as a medical doctor, and has long been interested in the effect of ill health on heads of government. Lord Owen’s many books include Balkan Odyssey; Time to Declare, his powerful autobiography; and a poetry anthology, Seven Ages.
Lord Owen has studied this problem for many years and is convinced, beyond a shadow of doubt, that Margaret Thatcher and Winston Churchill had this illness while in office. He is also convinced that Tony Blair, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney became afflicted with this mental illness at least shortly after 9/11, and probably long before that time.
Some examples to illustrate President George W. Bush’s mental illness, Hubris Syndrome are:
"Mission Accomplished", a military phrase associated with completing a mission, is in recent years particularly associated with a sign displayed on the USS Abraham Lincoln during a televised address by United States President George W. Bush on May 1, 2003. Bush stated at the time that this was the end to major combat operations in Iraq. While this statement did coincide with an end to the conventional phase of the war, Bush's assertion — and the sign — became controversial after guerilla warfare in Iraq increased during the Iraqi insurgency. The vast majority of casualties, among both coalition (~96% as of November 2007) and Iraqi combatants, and among Iraqi civilians, have occurred after the speech.
Bush’s walk is like that of a western gunslinger, who swings his arms in a fashion so as to clear the six-shooters strapped to both sides of his hips.
His smile is more like a sneer as he addresses his “subjects” in public.
"My job is a job to make decisions. I'm a decision maker. -- if the job description were, what do you do -- it's decision maker." --George W. Bush, Tipp City, Ohio, April 19, 2007
"I’m the decider! My job is a decision-making job, and as a result, I make a lot of decisions." --George W. Bush, The Decider, Lancaster, Pa., Oct. 3, 2007
"I got a lot of Ph.D.-types and smart people around me who come into the Oval Office and say, 'Mr. President, here's what's on my mind.' And I listen carefully to their advice. But having gathered the device, I decide, you know, I say, 'This is what we're going to do.'" --George W. Bush, Lancaster, Pa., Oct. 3, 2007
"We're also talking to different finance ministers about how we can send a message to the Iranian government that the free world is not going to tolerate the development of know-how in how to build a weapon, or at least gain the ability to make a weapon." --George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., Sept. 20, 2007
"We're kicking ass." --George W. Bush, on the security situation in Iraq, to Australian Deputy Prime Minister Mark Vaile, Sydney, Australia, Sept. 5, 2007
"I've got God's shoulder to cry on. And I cry a lot. I do a lot of crying in this job. I'll bet I've shed more tears than you can count, as president." --George W. Bush, as quoted by author Robert Draper in Dead Certain
"I'm going to try to see if I can remember as much to make it sound like I'm smart on the subject." --George W. Bush, answering a question about a possible flu pandemic, Cleveland, July 10, 2007
"You know, I guess I'm like any other political figure: Everybody wants to be loved." --George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., July 12, 2007
"I've heard he's been called Bush's poodle. He's bigger than that." --George W. Bush, on former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, as quoted by the Sun newspaper, June 27, 2007
"There's a lot of blowhards in the political process, you know, a lot of hot-air artists, people who have got something fancy to say." --George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., May 17, 2007
"My relationship with this good man is where I've been focused, and that's where my concentration is. And I don't regret any other aspect of it. And so I -- we filled a lot of space together." --George W. Bush, on British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Washington, D.C., May 17, 2007
"We're going to -- we'll be sending a person on the ground there pretty soon to help implement the malaria initiative, and that initiative will mean spreading nets and insecticides throughout the country so that we can see a reduction in death of young children that -- a death that we can cure." --George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., Oct. 18, 2007
"I fully understand those who say you can't win this thing militarily. That's exactly what the United States military says, that you can't win this military." --George W. Bush, on the need for political progress in Iraq, Washington, D.C., Oct. 17, 2007
"We're also talking to different finance ministers about how we can send a message to the Iranian government that the free world is not going to tolerate the development of know-how in how to build a weapon, or at least gain the ability to make a weapon." --George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., Sept. 20, 2007
"I heard somebody say, 'Where's (Nelson) Mandela?' Well, Mandela's dead. Because Saddam killed all the Mandelas." --George W. Bush, on the former South African president, who is still very much alive, Washington, D.C., Sept. 20, 2007
"The question is, who ought to make that decision? The Congress or the commanders? And as you know, my position is clear -- I'm a commander guy." --George W. Bush, who apparently is no longer "The Decider," Washington, D.C., May 2, 2007
"You know, when I campaigned here in 2000, I said, I want to be a war President. No President wants to be a war President, but I am one." --George W. Bush, Des Moines, Iowa, Oct. 26, 2006
So, before much of the world is thrown into endless wars, the only legal answer is to impeach President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, and possibly others involved in the planning and execution of the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and impending invasions of Iran, Syria, Lebanon and other nations of the Middle East. In that light, I propose the following Articles of Impeachment.
Articles of War Crimes
Articles of War Crimes against George Walker Bush, President of the United States of America, and other officials, for high crimes and misdemeanors.
RESOLUTION
Resolved, that George Walker Bush, President of the United States, is charged with high crimes and misdemeanors, and that the following Articles of Impeachment be exhibited to the United States Senate:
Articles of War Crimes exhibited by the people of the United States of America, against George Walker Bush, President of the United States of America, and other officials, in maintenance and support of its charges against him for high crimes and misdemeanors. Be it resolved that:
ARTICLE I - FAILURE TO PRESERVE, PROTECT AND DEFEND THE CONSTITUTION
In violation of the oath of office, which reads: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States,” George Walker Bush, in his conduct while President of the United States has demonstrated a pattern of abuse of office and of executive privilege, and disregard for the Constitution itself. This conduct includes the following:
Manipulating Intelligence and Lying to Justify War
In violation of the separation of powers under the Constitution and his subsequent obligation to share intelligence with the Congress, George Walker Bush, while serving as President of the United States of America, in preparing for the invasion of Iraq, did withhold intelligence from the Congress, by refusing to provide Congress with the full intelligence picture that he was being given, by redacting information by, for example, removing portions of reports such as the August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing, and actively manipulating the intelligence on Iraq’s alleged weapons programs by pressuring the Central Intelligence Agency and other intelligence agencies to provide intelligence such that “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy” as revealed in the “Downing Street Memo.” To this end, President George Walker Bush and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld created the Office of Special Plans inside the Pentagon to override existing intelligence reports by providing unreliable evidence that supported the claim that Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction posed an imminent threat to the United States of America. By justifying the invasion of Iraq with false and misleading statements linking Iraq to the attacks of September 11, 2001, and falsely asserting that Iraq had a nuclear weapons program for which it was importing aluminum tubes and uranium, these assertions being either false, or based on “fixed” intelligence, with the intent to misinform the people and their representatives in Congress in order to gain their support for invading Iraq, denying both the people and their representatives in Congress the right to make an informed choice, George Walker Bush, President of the United States, did commit and was guilty of high crimes against the United States of America.
ARTICLE II - ABUSE OF OFFICE AND OF EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE.
In violation of his oath to “faithfully execute the office of President of the United States,” George Walker Bush, in his conduct while President of the United States, has consistently demonstrated disregard for that oath by obstructing and hindering the work of Congressional investigative bodies and by seeking to expand the scope of the powers of his office. This conduct includes the following:
Failure to Uphold Accountability
In abrogation of his responsibility under the oath of office to take care that the Laws be faithfully executed, by which he agreed to act in good faith and accept responsibility for the overall conduct of the Executive Branch, a duty vested in his office alone under the Constitution, George Walker Bush, failed to take responsibility for, investigate or discipline those responsible for an ongoing pattern of negligence, incompetence and malfeasance to the detriment of the American people.
Those whom George Walker Bush, as President of the United States of America, has failed to hold to account include, but are not limited to, the following top-level officials in his administration:
(a) Richard Cheney. In violation of his oath of office to support and defend the Constitution, Richard Cheney, Vice President of the United States of America, played a key role in manipulating intelligence in the interest of promoting the illegal invasion of Iraq by pressuring analysts at the Central Intelligence Agency to “fix” their intelligence estimates of the danger posed by Iraq in relation to weapons of mass destruction, whereby Richard Cheney, Vice President of the United States, did commit and was guilty of high crimes against the United States of America.
(b) Condoleezza Rice, In violation of her Constitutional duty to share and provide accurate and truthful intelligence information with the Congress, as former National Security Advisor to the President, did play a leading role in deceiving Congress and the American public by repeating and propagating false statements concerning Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction program, including false information that the purchase of aluminum tubes demonstrated that Iraq was pursuing a nuclear weapons program, false information that Iraq was seeking to purchase uranium and false information that Iraq sought help in developing a chemical and biological weapons program; whereby Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State of the United States of America, did commit and was guilty of high misdemeanors against the United States of America. By neglecting to superintend the conduct of these officials and to hold members of the Executive Branch responsible for their negligence or violations of law, Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State of the United States, did commit and was guilty of high misdemeanors against the United States of America.
(c) Failure to demand accountability and to punish those behind the trillions of dollars missing and unexplained in the Defense Department budget.
ARTICLE III - FAILURE TO ENSURE THE LAWS ARE FAITHFULLY EXECUTED
In violation of his duty under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution of the United States of America to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,” George Walker Bush, during his tenure as President of the United States, has violated the letter and spirit of laws and rules of criminal procedure used by civilian and military courts, and has violated or ignored regulatory codes and practices that carry out the law. This conduct includes, but is not limited to the following:
Excessive and Improper Use of Signing Statements
President George W. Bush is flouting the Constitution and undermining the rule of law by claiming the power to disregard selected provisions of bills he signed, using so-called signing statements.
Torture
Very clear violation of the Geneva Convention on torture, by directing the CIA, DOD and other agencies to use torture in the attempt to gain information from individuals. Besides being illegal, there are clear examples of cases where torture does not reveal the truth. A tortured person is likely to say anything that will stop the pain and suffering. Bush/Cheney/Rise’s way around admitting torture is to re-define the term torture.
Illegal Domestic Spying
In violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) [50 USC Chapter 36], George Walker Bush did clandestinely direct the National Security Agency and various other intelligence agencies, in secret and outside the lawful scope of their mandates, for purposes unrelated to any lawful function of his offices, to conduct electronic surveillance of citizens of the United States on U.S. soil without seeking to obtain, before or after, a judicial warrant, thereby subverting the powers of the Congress and the Judiciary by circumventing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) courts established by Congress, whose express purpose is to check such abuses of executive power, provoking the presiding judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to file a complaint and another judge to resign in protest, the said program having been subsequently ruled illegal (ACLU vs. NSA); he has also concealed the existence of this unlawful program of spying on American citizens from the people and all but a few of their representatives in Congress, even resorting to outright public deceit as on 20 April, 2004, when he told an audience in Buffalo, New York: “any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires . . . a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so,” whereby said George Walker Bush, President of the United States, did commit and was guilty of high crimes against the United States of America.
In all of this, George Walker Bush has repeatedly and unapologetically misled the American people and has sought to undermine the system of checks and balances established by the Founding Founders. Wherefore George Walker Bush, by such conduct, and in the interest of saving our Constitution and our democracy from the threat of arbitrary government, investigation, trial and sentences as War Criminals.
Protect and Defend the Constitution
Article 2, Section 1 of the United States Constitution ends with the following oath that a new President must swear to prior to taking office:
Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:
"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
Seaports - Since 9/11, only 2% of the containers entering the U.S. are inspected, and this is after they are already in port. This means that, of the cargo containers that reached our shores last year (2006) aboard ships from virtually every port in the world, some 26.5 million of these containers were shuffled through our ports with no inspections of any kind.
Illegal Immigrants – Official sources within our government estimate that there are somewhere between 12 million and 20 million illegal immigrants in the United States. Nobody knows for sure. It is more likely 30 million, or even more, who have entered the U.S. illegally. As they cross our borders, who knows how much disease, illegal drugs and possible weapons of mass destruction that they bring with them?
It is the responsibility of the President to provide the security of this nation. Not only has he not done so, but he has deliberately encourage illegal immigration by such policies as “Catch and Release”, failure to hire sufficient Border Patrol Agents, failure to erect 2,000 miles of inpenetratable fences along the Mexican border, failure to punish companies that hire illegals, failure to provide sufficient facilities to house captured illegals, and failure to follow up on persons who have overstayed their visas. In addition, the Bush Administration has refused to allow the Social Security Agency and the Homeland Security Agency to work together to find all duplicate uses of Social Security Card numbers within the system. The Justice Department has prosecuted Border Control Agents Compion and Ramos for trying to do their duties, while letting a known drug smuggler off scot-free for testifying against these Border Control Agents. Known Mexican criminals, who have warrants for their arrest in the system for committing crimes, have been simply deported. Within hours, or days, these criminals are back on the U.S. streets committing crimes again.
Failure to protect the Economic Well Being of this Nation
Under Jimmy Carter the admitted debt was $930 billion, then $2.6 trillion under Ronald Reagan, $4 trillion under G.H.W. Bush, $5.6 trillion under Bill Clinton, and the G.W. Bush Administration openly admits that the Federal Debt is now 9,137,339,617,420 (as of November 27, 2007). Recent expert testimony before Congress said that it would take an immediate injection of $100 trillion to put the country on a "sustainable course." This is hidden from the public because the Federal Government is keeping two sets of financial books. Our great-great-great-great grandchildren will not be able to pay off this enormous debt.
1. Failure to stop the exportation of U.S. jobs to the lowest wage-paying nations of the world. Much lower wages of those still employed could even be tax exempt.
2. Entered into Trade Agreements with most nations around the world, which included the elimination of tariffs on all their goods entering the U.S., but not the elimination of tariffs on U.S. goods entering these nations.
3. Declaring war on Iraq and Afghanistan, which is producing an unending cost of conducting these wars. In August 2007 the Iraq War was costing $177 mil./ day.
4. Exploding the Federal payroll by hiring unlimited bureaucracy to support their policies.
5. Hiding the real cost of war by hiring contractors to do much of the work of wars all around the world.
6. The U.S. military has over 730 military installations and bases in over 50 countries around the world. Our fine men and women serving in the military are easily put in harms way to accomplish the goals of this immoral and inconsiderate administration.
7. The Bush/Cheney Administration is encouraging NASA projects in space that will not produce any material gain for the U.S. taxpayers.
The Bush/Cheney Administration has failed to protect the U.S. manufacturing base, and has encouraged U.S. corporations to move their manufacturing operations to China, purchase raw materials and finished goods from China, and allow China to operate ports within the U.S. and the Panama Canal, which generates enormous cash accounts for China to use to build up its military capabilities. The movement of high skilled manufacturing jobs to China depletes the U.S. of very high-skilled jobs, such as tool and die makers, pattern makers, electronic technicians, and so on, which require many years service as apprentices in order to become these very high skilled craftsmen – a national security risk. As China becomes militarily powerful, the surrounding nations will be exposed to the risk of attack and takeover, such as Taiwan, and others. Because the U.S. has agreed to defend Taiwan, this will automatically bring the U.S. into war with China. After the U.S. has moved most of the manufacturing jobs and facilities to China, if the U.S. must eventually go to war with China, where does the U.S. get its weapons - from China?
The Bush/Cheney Administration has failed to alleviate the energy crisis facing the U.S. citizens. Because of Bush/Cheney’s petroleum background and the influence of the petroleum industry lobbyist on Congress and the Administration, this nation now imports 68% of its oil needs from overseas – an extremely high national security risk. Domestic refineries are running at an excess of 90% of capacity. The oil companies are refusing to build new refineries for various reasons, so foreign sources of refined products are growing. Failure to require transparency regarding proven oil/gas reserves causes much doubt as to the real energy problems around the world. The oil companies are deliberately keeping the law of supply and demand in their favor, artificially keeping oil/gasoline/diesel prices high.
2. Threatening to declare war against Iran and Syria without these nations posing a threat to the U.S.
3. Kidnapping individuals around the world and transporting them to secret torture facilities in nations that permit torture.
4. Condoning and encouraging torture around the world by CIA, DOD and other U.S. agencies and contractors in facilities such as Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, and many others.
5. Intentionally lying to Congress and the American people about the above actions or inactions.
These trials for war crimes should commence immediately.
Should there be another attack on the US, like 9/11, and/or an economic collapse of the US economy (as of mid 2007), the president can and may declare martial law, thereby nullifying the US Constitution, and leading to the creation of the North American Union and a new Constitution covering the US, Canada and Mexico.
Trials for the war crimes of George Walker Bush, Richard Cheney and Condoleezza Rice, and others, as soon as possible is important for another reason – to demonstrate that illegal, immoral and incompetent behavior by any elected government official will not be tolerated, as an example to others now holding office, and those holding future offices. George W. Bush is basically incompetent. Can you imagine what the next president might do to us if they are competent? (President Barak Obama is VERY competent)
Globalization
The conspiracy facts are that Elite inner circle members of the Bilderbergs (BB), Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), and Trilateral Commission (TC) are conspiring to politically and economically dominate the entire world under their New World Order, more recently called Globalization, or Global Union, Global Economy, Global Order, Global Environment, and like terms. When President G.H.W. Bush used the term New World Order in several of his speeches, it aroused suspicion and concern among the public. So, the Elite selected a generic term "Globalization" to use, and now Americans are no longer alarmed, because the business world uses this term daily, so it must not be so frightening. But, you cannot change a tiger's stripes. We're still talking about the New World Order. If you don't know about the BB, CFR, and TC, or who are the members of these secret organizations, then you must have a copy of Who's Who of the Elite.
Union of South American Nations
The UNASUR Constitutive Treaty was signed on May 23, 2008, at the Third Summit of Heads of State, held in Brasília, Brazil. According to the Constitutive Treaty, the Union's headquarters will be located in Quito, Ecuador. The South American Parliament will be located in Cochabamba, Bolivia, while its bank, the Bank of the South will be located in Caracas, Venezuela. The Union's former designation, the South American Community of Nations, abbreviated as CSN, was dropped at the First South American Energy Summit on April 16, 2007.
Is this an attempt by the Latin American Nations to protect themselves from the Elite, by forming a protective alliance of their own, or is this somethinng that the Elite have accomplished from behind the curtains? Will this be the South American Union?
American Union
The Elite originally planed to create the American Union some time during 2005 or 2006. This would include all of the nations of North, Central and South America and the Caribbean Islands, and function just like the present European Union. There will be only one monetary system, one central bank, one (unelected) governing body, one military force, one judicial system, no borders, and no Constitution and Bill of Rights. The Elite have invented a new term for expanded NAFTA, which they now call FTAA, or Free Trade Area of the Americas. The Council of the Americas, at the Quebec City conference in March, 2001, stated very clearly that they plan to complete the FTAA by the year 2005.
Vice President Dick Cheney was thanked for his remarks at the Council of the Americas conference on May 6, 2002, by founder and Honorary Chairman, David Rockefeller. Cheney said that "the FTAA would be completed by January 1st, 2005". There seems to be a problem in doing just that. The members of the Senate, who must ratify any new treaty, are dragging their feet. They know what it's all about, but don't openly say it is a bad treaty, and is certainly not good for the citizens of the United States.
(Reference paragraph 18 of Cheney's speech at http://207.21.242.176/coa/events/2002-CheneySpeech.html and
Paragraph 12 of Otto Reich's speech at http://207.21.242.176/coa/events/2002-ReichSpeech.html)
It is obvious that they are really talking about the American Union.
The American Union follows the first step, the European Union, and then the African Union, in the Elite's plan to control the entire world. Next will be the Asian Union, and the Soviet Union, all to be completed between the years 2010 and 2015. This is not my speculation, it's their stated plans, as detailed in a UN document titled "Our Global Neighborhood" (available in any bookstore, on special order).
Thanks to the single handed efforts of a regional hero, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, the creation of the American Union has been delayed until the Elite can get rid of Chavez (one way or another). So, until Chavez can be eliminated, the Elite must settle for the creation of the North American Union.
North American Union
The Bush Administration has been operating in secret to establish what may only be described as a North American Union with the U.S., Mexico and Canada, designed along the same lines as the European Union. It eventually means an end of the U.S. Constitution as our ruling document, to be replaced with a new North American government.
At their meeting in Waco, Texas, at the end of March 23, 2005, U.S. President George W. Bush, Mexican President Vicente Fox, and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin committed their governments to a path of cooperation and joint action.
It will eventually lead to the surrender of U.S. sovereignty, independence and national borders. It will result in the establishment of a North American currency called the “Amero,” as the dollar is junked. The U.S. will provide the army for defense. The U.S. will provide Social Security benefits for those who are now citizens of Mexico and Canada. Gone will be U.S. citizenship. Gone will be any kind of border control between the three nations of North America (the current flood of illegal aliens will look like a picnic when our borders are gone). Plans are well underway to establish a N.A.F.T.A. Super Highway, to be the width of eight football fields. It will run from Mexico to Canada, running through the middle of the United States. No tariffs and no inspections will be enforced as trucks from Mexico and Canada drive through what was once our nation. Kansas City, Missouri has been selected to serve as an “inland port” to handle imports and exports among the three nations. Operating quietly, Kansas City has already designated $2.5 million of its taxpayers' money to establish the port. Now, some say, the land on which the port sits will become officially Mexican sovereign territory. The effort to bring this about began on March 23, 2005, after a summit that was held in Waco, Texas. It was attended by President Bush, Mexican President Vicente Fox, and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin. Fox and Martin have since retired. The three leaders signed an agreement to create common policies about various economic and security areas among the three nations. For obvious cover of official denyability the term “North American Union” is not being used. Instead the agreement officially authorized eight tri-national “working groups” to establish the “Security and Prosperity Partnership” (S.P.P.). The concept is being sold simply as a new framework within which the member nations can create free trade and security within the North American continent. However, from the information in the working documents the intent to create the North American Union is impossible to hide. The trilateral agreement, signed as a joint declaration, has not been submitted to Congress for review. There is no congressional oversight. Nobody will have the opportunity to vote on it.
Security and Prosperity Partnership (S.P.P.)
The joint statement on the S.P.P., issued on March, 23, 2005, described it as an initiative to “establish a common approach to security to protect North America from external threats, prevent and respond to threats within North America, and further streamline the security and efficient movement of legitimate, low-risk traffic across our shared borders.” The working groups are now laying the foundation for a European Union-style integration of the North American continent. The White House has established the S.P.P. office in the North American Free Trade Agreement (N.A.F.T.A.) office in the U.S. Department of Commerce, where it has worked in virtual secrecy ever since it was established. As the plan proceeds, the S.P.P. groups have not released public reports of their activity. Since its inception, at least 20 S.P.P. working groups have produced a number of memorandums of understanding and trilateral declarations of agreement. These agreements cover a wide variety of issues, including e-commerce, aviation policy, border and immigration policy and the means for multiple governmental agencies to interact. They may be viewed on the Internet at www.spp.gov.
Source:
This report (North American Union) has been produced by The American Policy Center, 70 Main Street, Suite 23, Warrenton, VA 20186. 540-341-8911 , www.americanpolicy.org. Much of the information for this report was contained in material produced by investigative journalist Jerome Corsi. His reports on the North American Union may be found on World Net Daily, www.worldnetdaily.com, Human Events, www.humanevents.com. More information was provided by Dr. Steven Yates, “The United States of North America,” The Ecologic Powerhouse, www.freedom.org. The blueprint for the North American Union may be viewed in its entirety on the web site of the Council on Foreign Relations, www.cfr.org, and the official reports of the S.P.P. working groups, now operating out of the U.S. Department of Commerce, may be viewed at www.spp.gov. [Additional editing and format contributed by George Bushnell.]
Note: Neither Congress, nor the U.S. Citizens have had a chance to review this S.P.P effort, nor vote on it. The founders say that this is an Agreement, not a Treaty, so Congress and the U.S. Citizens have no right, or authority, to review this effort, or to vote on it.
False flag operations are covert operations conducted by governments, corporations, or other organizations, which are designed to appear as if they are being carried out by other entities. The name is derived from the military concept of flying false colors; that is, a ship flying the flag of a country other than one's own. False flag operations are not limited to war and counter-insurgency operations, and have been used in peacetime: for example, during Italy's strategy of tension.
Feb. 15, 1898 - The Maine Bombing – At 9:40 PM an explosion destroyed the American battleship Maine in Havana Harbor and helped propel the United States into a war with Spain. In 1976, Adm. Hyman Rickover, of the U.S. Navy, mounted yet another investigation into the cause of the Maine disaster. His team of experts found that the ship's demise was self-inflicted. Spontaneous combustion of the coal in bunker A16 created a fire that detonated the nearby magazines. 274 crewmen died in this sinking.
May 7, 1915 - The Lusitania - The sinking of the British cargo and passenger ship Lusitania by a German submarine caused serious tension between the United States and Germany and led to America's declaration of war against Germany. There were 5,246 total people on board, including 128 Americans when it sank. A total of 1,272 died in this sinking. 10,351,813 died as a result of WW I.
December 7, 1941 – Pearl Harbor attack by Japanese – Roosevelt knew 12 days before the attack that the Japanese were going to attack and did not warn the Military. The purpose was to have a reason to declare war against Japan. 2,403 military and civilians died this day. 72,155,800 died as a result of WW II.
March 13, 1962 – Operation Northwoods - by L. L. Lemnitzer, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff – a plan to invade Cuba and blame it on the Cubans. JFK turned down his request.
August 2nd & 4th, 1964 – Gulf of Tonkin Incident - The Gulf of Tonkin Incident was an alleged pair of attacks by naval forces of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (commonly referred to as North Vietnam) against two American destroyers, the USS Maddox and the USS Turner Joy. This did not happen. This was drummed up by the US military and President Johnson as an excuse to ratchet up the war in Vietnam. 8.744 million military served in this war, 58,169 Americans killed & 153,303 wounded, and 1,948 MIA; 1.7 mil. KIA, WIA & MIA N. Vietnamese military; 4,000,000 million Vietnamese (N. & S.) civilians died; 3 mil Vietnamese (N. & S.) casualties due to Agent Orange; 700,000 Cambodians civilians killed; and 50,000 Laotian civilians killed; 4,900 S. Koreans KIA; 1,446 Chinese Military; 16 Soviet Military KIA; 552 Philippine Military; 351 KIA Tailand; 520 KIA Australians; 37 KIA New Zealanders, during Vietnamese War. At least a total of 6,167,979 lost their lives in the Vietnam War. Total KIA/WIA/MIA casualties -11,091,282.
February 26, 1993 - World Trade Center Bombing - The Muslim group involved had been infiltrated by Emad Salem, a former Egyptian intelligence agent who was hired by the FBI and ultimately paid $1 million. The FBI even provided the Egyptian with a timer for the bomb. 6 died and 1,042 injured.
April 19, 1995 – Murrah Building, Oklahoma City– A classified report prepared by two independent Pentagon experts has concluded that the destruction of the federal building in Oklahoma City in April 1995 was caused by five separate bombs, and no ATF or FBI agents were in their offices at the time of the blast (about 9:05 AM) 168 died and800+ injured in this blast.
September 11, 2001 – World Trade Center & Pentagon attacks – Dozens of researchers have accumulated hundreds of facts proving the complicity, if not full responsibility for these events, on persons within the US Government. 2,993 died, including 19 “terrorist”.
October 7, 2001 – Invasion of Afghanistan– Predicated on the 9/11 false flag. Osama bin Laden was given full credit for 9/11 by Bush/Cheney/Rice. Another reason given was to remove the Taliban regime, which had provided support and safe harbor to Al-Qaeda.
By December 20, 2001, well over 2,000 Afghan civilians had already perished.
July 2007 – 407 US military killed and 1,636 wounded. 226 other nation’s military killed.
March 20, 2003 – Invasion of Iraq – predicated on WMD, links of Al-Qaeda. to Saddam Hussein and Saddam Hussein's support for terrorism, to free the Iraqi people and to bring democracy to Iraq.
As of July 30, 2007 – US military deaths – 3,651, British – 163, other Coalition forces – 129
Iraqi military – between 4,900-6,375 died.
Between 68,009 and 74,403 Iraqi civilians died.
May 2005, Imad Khadduri, the Iraqi-exile physicist whose writings helped to discredit American and British fabrications about weapons of mass destruction, reported a story that in Baghdad a driver whose license had been confiscated at an American check-point was told "to report to an American military camp near Baghdad airport for interrogation and in order to retrieve his license." After being questioned for half an hour, he was informed that there was nothing against him, but that his license had been forwarded to the Iraqi police at the al-Khadimiya station "for processing"—and that he should get there quickly before the lieutenant whose name he was given went off his shift.
"The driver did leave in a hurry, but was soon alarmed with a feeling that his car was driving as if carrying a heavy load, and he also became suspicious of a low flying helicopter that kept hovering overhead, as if trailing him. He stopped the car and inspected it carefully. He found nearly 100 kilograms of explosives hidden in the back seat and along the two back doors. The only feasible explanation for this incident is that the car was indeed booby trapped by the Americans and intended for the al-Khadimiya Shiite district of Baghdad. The helicopter was monitoring his movement and witnessing the anticipated ‘hideous attack by foreign elements’."
September 20, 2005 – Two British soldiers dressed in Arab clothes, in a civilian car loaded with explosives and timers were arrested in Basra by Iraqi police. The British military attacked the police station to rescue these two British soldiers.
So, who knows who is REALLY responsible for the bombing of Mosques and Iraqi military and police facilities, businesses and shopping areas? It could be Palestinians on contract with Israeli Mossad without their knowledge of who is paying them; it could be British SAS or MI6 agents in disguise; it could be US Special Forces or CIA in disguise; it could be contractors working for the Israeli Mossad, or; it could be KGB (now FSB), it could be former members of the KGB working as contractors for any nation or secret service; or it could just be someone who just got out of the bed on the wrong side that day.
Why would the Mossad, FSB, CIA, MI6, SAS or other intelligence agencies want to destroy religious shrines and Iraqi facilities? Almost all problems around the world can be traced back to MONEY.
The international bankers have always gotten richer because of wars. They finance both sides of all wars, then they finance the reconstruction of the nations destroyed by wars.
The US wants control of the Iraqi oil and gas. That is one of the reasons why Iraq was attacked in the first place.
The Military/financial/ industrial/Zionist complex profit greatly from wars, so part of the justification for extending the wars is to keep military spending up in the budget.
The financial crisis of 2007 has been building for a couple of years. The Dow Jones Industrial Average Intra-day Theoretical peaked at 14,121.04 on July 19, 2007. About a month later, on Friday, August 16, 2007 the Dow hit a low of 12,735.71, a loss of 1,385.33 points from the peak, or 9.8% drop. This drop triggered action by the Plunge Protection Team. As of February 3, 2008, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was 7,935, almost half the average on July 19, 2007.
New York Post recently ran a piece on Washington’s tight-lipped Plunge Protection Team, or, the "Working Group," as it is formally known. Essentially, the role of this group is to prevent another 1987 "Black Monday" in the stock market. It was put into law in 1988, as Executive Order 12631, by Ronald Reagan. If you read the Executive Order you’ll note that it essentially allows the government (actually the Federal Reserve System, which is NOT a part of the Federal Government) to intervene in the stock market – should a crash or foreseeable dip appear to be on the horizon – via legislative law, administrative fiat, or the manipulation of private bodies via coercive tactics on the part of the Federal Reserve, Treasury Department, or the executive office. Section Two of the order states that its purpose and function is to recognize "the goals of enhancing the integrity, efficiency, orderliness, and competitiveness of our Nation's financial markets and maintaining investor confidence."
The Working Group was established in order to identify issues – which studies have vetted out – in regards to the events surrounding the 1987 market crash. Its purpose is to gather recommendations from anointed experts and consider what government actions, under existing laws and regulations, can be undertaken in order to carry out those recommendations. The last step is to "appropriately consult" with private sector bodies and participants in order to seek any possible private solutions. These "private solutions," however, will come from puppet organizations of the corporatist (banking) establishment.
The final goal, then, is to "maintain investor confidence" in the market in the case of sudden declines. When a rally immediately follows a downturn, the European press will refer to this as a "PPT Rally." Even the American press has not been shy about discussing plunge protection. This is from a 1997 piece by the Washington Post:
These quiet meetings of the Working Group are the financial world’s equivalent of the war room. The officials gather regularly to discuss options and review crisis scenarios because they know that the government’s reaction to a crumbling stock market would have a critical impact on investor confidence around the world.
"The government has a real role to play to make a 1987-style sudden market break less likely. That is an issue we all spent a lot of time thinking about and planning for," said a former government official who attended Working Group meetings. "You go through lots of fire drills and scenarios. You make sure you have thought ahead of time of what kind of information you will need and what you have the legal authority to do."
...The Working Group’s main goal, officials say, would be to keep the markets operating in the event of a sudden, stomach-churning plunge in stock prices – and to prevent a panicky run on banks, brokerage firms and mutual funds. Officials worry that if investors all tried to head for the exit at the same time, there wouldn’t be enough room – or in financial terms, liquidity – for them all to get through. In that event, the smoothly running global financial machine would begin to lock up.
So, the FED regularly intervenes in the stock, bond and commodities markets without transparency. Only the insiders know which stocks, bonds and commodities are being bought or sold by the FED. Obviously, if you are "in" on what is about to happen, you can "make a killing". Then, the insiders pump enough money into the pockets of the President and his Administration and both houses of Congress, so that they can get away with looting the public's pockets.
Money Supply
Deflation is defined as a decrease in the nations money supply, and inflation is therefore defined as an increase in the money supply.
M1 Money Supply - is defined as a basic measure of the money supply that includes all coins and currency held by the public, traveler's checks, checking account balances, NOW accounts, automatic transfer service accounts, and balances in credit unions.
M2 Money Supply - is defined as M1, plus savings and small time deposits, overnight repos at commercial banks, and non-institutional money market accounts.
Here is a 2006 statement on the FED's action on M3:
"Federal Reserve System announced that, as of March 23, 2006, they will be ceasing the publication of the M3 monetary aggregate. According to a Fed spokesman, the Federal Reserve Board of Governors wants to “de-emphasize the role of M3.” Academically, they add, this measure of money supply receives less attention than M1 and M2 do. A Fed spokesman also suggested that M3 is “no longer closely tracked by policymakers.”
For those of you who are not econogeeks, M3 is the broadest measure of money supply in the U.S.
My personal view on the elimination of M3 reporting is that the FED planned massive infusions and withdrawals in the financial markets because they planned this crisis and wanted to cover their tracks by not reporting M3. The FED didn’t want us to know about the large time deposits, repos of maturity greater than one day at commercial banks, and institutional money market accounts. Both houses of Congress have chosen to overlook the curtailment of M3 Money Supply reporting. They have been paid to look the other way.
The REAL United States Federal Debt
Lastly, the US REAL federal debt is actually over US$99.2 trillion (as of May 2008). Who says so? The President of the Dallas Federal Reserve, Richard W. Fisher, in a May 2008 speech at the Commonwealth Club of California. Our descendants for the next century will not be able to pay this debt off. The Elite international bankers don't want it paid off, because they want the interest on this debt to keep flowing.
Though the Bush Administration’s official budget lists the national debt and deficit as being incredibly high, they are actually far worse than reported, according to Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN). But don’t just take his word for it, even if Cooper is a Rhodes Scholar and Harvard Law graduate. The following figures appear in the official U.S. Financial Report, released by the Treasury Department:
* The true national debt is $49 trillion, not the $8.3 trillion Bush reported
o That’s $156,000 for every citizen, or $375,000 for every working American
o This figure has more than doubled in the past five years
o We paid $327 billion last year on interest alone
* The true 2005 deficit was $760 billion, not the $318.5 billion Bush reported
o This is 6.2% of the GDP, not 2.6%
* It’s all getting worse
What accounts for the huge discrepancy? Unlike businesses, the government uses “cash” instead of “accrual” accounting. This means that the government does not report future spending promises like Medicare and Social Security, or even future spending guarantees like veterans’ benefits and federal employee pensions.
“Cash accounting tells you what’s in your bank account. Accrual accounting tells you what’s in your bank account and what’s on your credit card statement,” Cooper told BuzzFlash in an interview. “Whether you’re promising to buy a road or something at Target, you need to know what you promised to buy. That should be a binding obligation of the government. We’ve made a world of promises to folks that we need to keep.”
But wait, there’s more! The U.S. Financial Report does not mention that if Medicare and Social Security are factored into the equation (which the Treasury Department did not), the true deficit was actually a whopping $3.3 trillion last year, over ten times more than Bush claims. And when Social Security projections are adjusted to reflect current life expectancies instead of the old 75-year mark, Cooper said the true national debt is “probably closer to $65 trillion.”
For over 50 years the CIA has been involved in regime changes around the world. If they cannot get the citizens of a particular country to oust a particular leader from office at the voting poles, or by coup de gras, they have contract killers do the job for them.
Jan. 17, 1961 - Patrice Lumumba, Prime Min. - Republic of Congo
Nov. 1, 1963- Ngo Din Diem, President - South Vietnam
Nov. 22, 1963 – John F. Kennedy – President, United States
Jan. 17, 1973 - Salvador Allende, President - Chile
May 9, 1978 - Aldo Moro, Pres., Christian Dem. Party – Italy
Jul. 31, 1981 – Omar Efrain Torrijos, de facto leader - Panama 1968-81
May 24, 1981 – Jaime Roldos Aguilera, President - Ecuador 1979-81
Venezuela
Since President Hugo Chavez took office on February 2, 1999, the common people of Venezuela have backed him and his reforms. Chavez insists on keeping more of the oil export profits in Venezuela, so that his nation can recover from its chronic financial problems. His strong will has been the stumbling block to the completion of the American Union. The CIA has backed coup attempts to oust this "radical" leader, but the Venezuelans have turned out by the thousands to protest these attempts. The petroleum industry strikes were not strikes at all. They were lock-outs by the oil industry managers, in order to try to embarrass President Chavez, and to turn the public against him. (http://www.narconews.com/)
The Elite-owned mainstream news media and the current Bush Administration have been trying to smear Chavez as being a Communist, a Socialist, a Dictator, and the like, and have made several attempts to remove him from office. This is no differrent than the FBI smearing Reverand Martin Luther King, Jr. with a host of outright lies before they had him assassianted.
President Hugo Chavez is a true American hero. He thumbs his nose at the international bankers as he single-handedly stops the American Union. He has stunned the Elite with the following speech from the 7th African Union summit in Banjul, the Gambia:
July 02, 2006 Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Saturday proposed four areas of cooperation among the peoples of Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean in the spirit of South-South cooperation. In an extemporaneous speech to African leaders attending the 7th AU summit in Banjul, the Gambia, Chavez suggested the establishment of a joint commission to set up four projects, which he listed as "Petrosouth, Telesouth, Bank of the South and University for the South". He said through Petrosouth, the leaders would harness the power of oil, which he called a powerful instrument for social development, to develop their peoples. "It was used by the colonialists (to oppress us). We are now going to use it to liberate our peoples," the President said, adding that 15 percent of the world`s oil reserves are in Africa. He said Telesouth would involve the establishment of a TV station for the peoples, while the Bank of the South will be a development bank to assist the poor from the three areas. (Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela will provide the funds for this Central Bank, and its purpose is to provide low-interest loans to Latin American nations, so that they can get out from under the domination or the Elite international bankers and their IMF and World Bank.)
Chavez said the University of the South would help train the youths of Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean in key areas.
On December 13, 2002, Brazilian President Luis Inacio "Lula" da Silva appointed international financier Hernando Meirelles as head of the Central Bank of Brazil. Meirelles was the former president of FleetBoston Financial Corp., and served as a director of David Rockefeller’s Council of the Americas.
Argentina
On December 26, 2002, Argentina's Senate approved the appointment of Alfonso Prat-Gay as president of the Argentina's Central Bank. Prat-Gay was formerly the head of emerging market research for J. P. Morgan Chase bank. David Rockefeller is Chairman of the bank’s International Advisory Committee.
Fast Track Legislation
On August 6, 2002, President Bush signed into law the Trade Act of 2002 (or fast track legislation). This is also referred to as Trade Promotion Authority (TPA). This means that he may be able to complete the North American Union on schedule, because Congress will now only be allowed an up or down vote on treaties that he presents. The Elite will publicly shame and humiliate anyone in the Senate who votes against their treaties. They have reduced their opposition greatly by making sure that Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, and Congressmen Earl Hilliard, and Bob Barr were defeated in recent primaries. They had already ousted Jim Trafficant earlier. Congressman Ron Paul is next on their list.
Senate Majority Leader
Now we really know why Senator Trent Lott was replaced. Not because he made an improper statement (and it was improper), but because he was NOT a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. The Elite need to do many things within the next few years in order to complete the North American Union and the American Union, so they MUST have one of their own heading the U.S. Senate. The perfect replacement is Senator William (Bill) H. Frist, who was made a member of the CFR in 2002. Did they make him a member of the CFR because they knew that he would be the likely replacement for Trent Lott? Very likely.
Success out of Fear
"Today Americans would be outraged if U. N. troops entered Los Angeles to restore order; tomorrow they will be grateful! This is especially true if they were told there was an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all people of the world will plead with world leaders to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well being granted to them by their world government." - Henry Kissinger, in an address to the Bilderberg meeting at Evian, France, May 21, 1992. Transcribed using a concealed tape recording made by one of the Swiss delegates. Henry Kissinger is an inner-circle member of the Bilderbergs, Council on Foreign Relations, and Trilateral Commission, and a long-time right-hand-man of David Rockefeller, who aspires to be the Czar of the Global Union. Only Rockefeller has attended more Bilderberg meetings than Kissinger.
Terrorism
Is the current fear of terrorist what Kissinger was talking about? All of the evidence is not in yet linking the Elite to the Trade Center and Pentagon tragedies of 9/11, but you can rest assured that they are using these crashes and terrorist threats to tighten up, and eliminate many of our rights that are guaranteed by our Constitution and Bill of Rights. The next step is to destroy the Second Amendment to our Constitution - our right to private ownership of firearms.
Bush had appointed Kissinger to head up the commission to investigate the 9/11 terrorism tragedy. However, he withdrew from this position when the law required that he reveal his customer list at Kissinger & Associates. Kissinger is under indictment from several nations for his past crimes, including Italy, Chile, Spain, France and possibly others. He cannot travel to these nations without being arrested and brought to trial.
Gun Regulation
Amendment II to the U.S. Constitution A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
A major obstacle to the completion of the American Union is the fact that we have the right to private ownership of firearms. No dictator has ever taken control of his country without first confiscating the citizens guns. The Elite know this, so they have created the organization called "The Department of Homeland Security", which was formed with the expressed purpose of defending this nation against terrorist attacks from the outside. In reality, this is the beginning of a "police state", which will be used to "handle" the militias that will protest the confiscation of firearms owned by Americans. Every time that a firearm is used in an incident, the mainstream news media, and several members of Congress, such as Senator Dianne Feinstein (BB & TC), demand that we have much more restrictive control of weapons.
Will we find out twenty years from now that the "DC-Area Sniper" was actually a member of one of the CIA's black-operations organizations, or was under CIA mind control as he shot his victims? There is no doubt that Timothy McVeigh was under CIA mind control when he (allegedly) bombed the Alfred P. Murrah building in Oklahoma City.
Australia was once a penal colony for the British Empire, so most of the citizens of this nation are descendents of convicted criminals. Most U.S. citizens are not aware of the fact that Australia immediately outlawed private ownership of firearms after Martin Bryant, a so-called "mad murderer", killed 35 and wounded another eighteen people on the public streets of Port Author, Tasmania, in April 28, 1996, using an AR-15, .223 cal. assault rifle. Within twelve months after the outlawing of guns were passed by the Australian government, 640,381 guns were bought off the streets at the cost of over $500 million, Australian. Twelve months later, a study was made of the effects of such radical gun control, with the following results:
Australia-wide, homicides went up 3.2%. Australia-wide, assaults went up 8.6%. Australia-wide, armed-robberies went up 44%. In the state of Victoria, homicides-with-firearms went up 300%! The steady decrease in homicides-with-firearms that occurred during the previous 25 years became an increase in the 12 months following the ban on weapons. The steady decrease in armed-robbery-with-firearms that occurred during the previous 25 years became an increase in the 12 months following the ban on weapons. There has been a dramatic increase in breakins-and-assaults-of-the-elderly. At the time of the ban, the Prime Minister said "self-defense is not a reason for owning a firearm". From 1910 to present, homicides in Australia have averaged about 1.8-per-100,000 or lower, a safe society by any standard. The ban has destroyed Australia's standings in some international sport shooting competitions. The membership of the Australian Sports Shooting Association has increased by 200% in response to the ban and in an attempt to organize against further controls, which are expected. Australian politicians are on the spot and at a loss to explain why no improvement in "safety" has been observed after such monumental effort and expense was successfully expended in "ridding society of guns". Their response has been to "wait longer".
During the years 2001 and 2002, armed robberies, Australia wide, increased 34.1% over the period just before the elimination of private ownership of firearms.
Concentration Camps
The Elite have already established "concentration camps" on military bases in the U.S. to house the militia members and other protesting citizens once they have outlawed private ownership of weapons.
Los Angeles Times, Wednesday, 14 August, 2002 Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft's announced desire for camps for U.S. citizens he deems to be "enemy combatants" has moved him from merely being a political embarrassment to being a constitutional menace. Ashcroft's plan, disclosed last week but little publicized, would allow him to order the indefinite incarceration of U.S. citizens and summarily strip them of their constitutional rights and access to the courts by declaring them enemy combatants.
Martial Law
The Elite cannot accomplish their American Union (New World Order) without declaring Martial Law. In order to justify such a drastic measure, there must be a major crisis, such as a violent and widespread internal dissent or national opposition against a U.S. military invasion abroad, resistance to the outlawing of ownership of guns by U.S. citizens, or a major financial crisis. We are now on the verge of all of the above, with the invasion of Iraq, constant demands for tighter gun control to stop terrorist acts, and the Wall Street melt down. Opponents of this action would without doubt file civil action to stop Martial Law from being enacted, which means that it would doubtlessly end up in the U.S. Supreme Court. You might surmise then that this court would rule in our favor, until you learn that two sitting judges on this court are members of the CFR; Stephen G. Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. You might say that the chances of the CFR controlling the Supreme Court are slim, until you learn that during one of the recent changes in this court, on the short-list of five candidates, "only" CFR members were considered for the vacated position.
Spying on U.S. Citizens
There is now a proposal to open all snail-mail sent to Congress, digitize it, and make it available to the recipient by E-mail. The stated purpose of doing this is to protect members of Congress from anthrax, and to save their staff time in opening the mail. The REAL reason is to snoop the correspondence to see what is inside. All electronic means of correspondence are now being monitored by NSA's operation ECHELON. Once they have digitized the snail-mail, there will be no secrets between members of Congress and their constituents. They now snoop every electronic transmission (fax, E-mail, telephone, Telex, radio, etc.) by the N.S.A.'s Operation ECHELON. For details check out the following web sites: (http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/ECHELON/echelon.html) and (http://fly.hiwaay.net/~pspoole/echelon.html)
Now they are considering establishing a spy agency to monitor all U.S. citizens, just like the MI-5 spy agency does in Great Britain. This group of spooks will probably be positioned within the new Homeland Security Agency.
The National Security Act of 1947 established the CIA, and prohibited it's operations within the United States. However, the CIA was granted legal authority to spy on U.S. citizens by Executive Order 12333, dated Dec. 4, 1981, signed by Ronald Reagan. This E.O. reads: Article 1.8 (c) Conduct counterintelligence activities outside the United States and, without assuming or performing any internal security functions, conduct counterintelligence activities within the United States in coordination with the FBI as required by procedures agreed upon by the Director of Central Intelligence and the Attorney General; Article (i) Conduct such administrative and technical support activities within and outside the United States as are necessary to perform the functions described in sections (a) through (h) above, including procurement and essential cover and proprietary arrangements. (http://www.cia.gov/cia/information/eo12333.html)
Nanobots
Now, you are going to say that I've really gone crazy! But, what if the Elite invented a very small robot, or nanobot, and injected it into your bloodstream when you get your next injection, and when the time is right, they send a signal to your body activating these little devils to do their programmed duty? This duty could be either beneficial or detrimental - who knows? There are frequent scares about anthrax and other biological agents threatening our lives. Could this be an opportunity to inject these nanobots into your bloodstream? Now if you don't believe me, do a web search on Nanobots, or check out one of these sites: (http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/review/crh275.htm) or (http://www.spacedaily.com/news/nanotech-02a.html) or (http://www.expressnews.ualberta.ca/expressnews/articles/news.cfm?p_ID=2275)
Bohemian Club
Many of the Elite leaders are members of the Bohemian Club, who meet annually at the Bohemian Grove in Northern California, where they worship their Moloch, in the form of a giant concrete owl, as they march around the sacrificial table in their medieval robes, uttering their pagan chants. Alex Jones secretly took a video camera into one of the Bohemian Grove meetings, and recorded a very disturbing ritual. Check it out at: (http://www.infowars.com)
International Bankers as the Ruling Class
There are several terms used to describe those in the inner circle who direct the Elite, such as central bankers, international banking families, world banking cabal, and the like, but the two families whoreally are in charge are the Rockefellers, headed by David Rockefeller, and the Western European and United Kingdom's House of Rothschild, headed by David de Rothschild. In 1998 the Rockefeller family was worth $11.48 trillion, and the Rothschild family was worth somewhere between $100 and 900 trillion. When they need money, they just print it. They create their money out of thin air, and it is backed by nothing. You cannot trade it in for gold or silver. These International bankers own the Central Banks in every nation in the world, except the so-called seven rogue nations. The U.S. State Dept. defines "rogue nations" as any nation that harbors of supports terrorists. The present nations that meet this definition are/were: Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Cuba, North Korea, and Sudan. There is no evidence that Cuba or North Korea harbor or support terrorist, so the only common thread between these countries is that none of them allow the International bankers to control their central banks. (Afghanistan and Iraq were removed from this list when the U.S. Invaded them. One of the first acts after the invasion was to set up an Elite controlled Central Bank.)
Oil & Gas
The world's total oil reserves are around 928 billion barrels (Gb), with about 63% resting within the Middle Eastern nations. Saudi Arabia has about 280 Gb (about 25-30%) of this oil in its reserves, with about 8.3 million barrels a day (mbd) of production, while Iraq has about 102 Gb in reserve (or about 11% of the worlds total supply) and produces about 2 million barrels a day. The typical cost to lift a barrel of oil to the surface in the Middle East is about $3.00 per barrel, while the cost to lift a barrel in Iraq is about $1.00 per barrel. According to Mike Ruppert, of "From The Wilderness" newsletter, the total world "conventional" production of oil peaked around the year 2000. As new wells are completed, many others are abandoned for lack of economic production. The world's consumption rate, in 2001, was 22 Gb/year, and the current discovery rate is about 6 Gb/year. There is no significant substitute for oil on the horizon. This means that whoever controls oil, controls the rest of the world. As the available supply diminishes, the price will climb (a simple supply/demand reality).
Global demand for oil is increasing by between 1.5 and 2 mbd each year, and could grow from the current 77 mbd to 120 mbd within the next 20 years. OPEC production is expected to grow from 28 mbd (in 1998), to 60 mbd by 2020. Saudi Arabia supplies around 1.7 mbd of the roughly 10 mbd imported into the U. S. at present, and sells its oil for about $1.00 per barrel less to the U.S. than it charges other nations of the world.
Russia is gaining on Saudi Arabia as the world's greatest producer. In 1996 the Soviets production amounted to about 7 mbd, but just before the Soviet collapse, they produced around 12.5 mbd. The estimated Caspian Sea reserves have been disappointing after recent studies. There were a number of pipelines planned in order to deliver this oil to the consumers.
Bosnia
The war in Bosnia was simply to gain a possible route for an oil and/or gas pipeline from the Caspian Sea oil fields to the West to a salt water port.
Afghanistan
The war in Afghanistan was simply to establish a route for oil and/or gas from the Caspian Sea oil fields through Pakistan to a salt water port to the South, and oil and/or gas pipelines from these same fields to China.
Iraq was invaded simply to gain control of its massive oil reserves and Iraq's Central Bank. When Saddam Hussein said this, the Elite's puppet news media scoff at him, and keep on demanding that the reason was to destroy his weapons of mass destruction.
Is it a coincidence that President Bush I and II, and Vice President Cheney are from the oil industry? In fact, Bush I was partners with Saddam Hussein in the oil business before the Gulf War.
Skull & Bones Society
One stepping stone into these secret societies is the Skull & Bones Society at Yale University, as well depicted in the movie "The Skulls". The 1995 edition of Who's Who of the Elite names all of the members of this shadow government, and reveals where they work, the secret societies that they belong to, and their job titles, so that you can see the stranglehold that they have on our federal government, the mainstream news media, industry, labor unions, universities, foundations, the Supreme Court, and all facets of the financial world. Senator Prescot Bush, President G.H.W. Bush and President G.W. Bush were all members of the Skull & Bones Society, a stepping stone into the main secret societies.
Freedom of the Press
BILL of Rights - 1st Amendment
Congress shall make no laws respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
So, Congress cannot destroy freedom of the press, but the Elite can, and have done so since the beginning of the twentieth century. If they are to be successful in establishing their New World Order, or Global Union, in enhancing their wealth and securing this wealth, they must maintain absolute secrecy concerning their organizations and activities. Therefore they must control the newspapers, news magazines and the television networks. Then, they must swear all their members to absolute secrecy. They can easily enforce this secrecy by threatening, or implying threats of, financial ruin to, and character destruction of, anyone who divulges the contents of any of their meetings, or discussing their activities.
Article II of the by-laws of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) states: “It is an express condition of membership in the Council, to which condition every member accedes by virtue of his or her membership, that members will observe such rules, and regulations as may be prescribed from time to time by the Board of Directors concerning the conduct of Council meetings or the attribution of statements made therein, and that any disclosure, public, or other action by a member in contravention thereof may be regarded by the Board of Directors in its sole discretion as grounds for termination or suspension of membership pursuant to Article I of the by-laws.”
Is it not surprising then that the anchors of all of the major television networks remember this by-law very vividly as they report the daily "news". Members of the secret societies who bring us this "news" are: Peter Jennings (BB), Dianne Sawyer (Director of CFR '98-99), Garrick Utley (Dir. of CFR '93-), Barbara Walters (CFR), George Will (TC), Lesley Stahl (CFR), Ed Bradley (CFR), Marvin Kalb (CFR), Dan Rather (CFR), Jesse Jackson (CFR), Bernard Kalb (CFR), Frank Sesno (CFR), Tom Brokaw (CFR), John Chancellor (CFR), Elizabeth Drew (CFR), Bill Moyers (BB), George Stephanopolos (BB, CFR), Michael Beschloss (CFR), and Paula Zahn (CFR). Other prominent Elite in TV who are/were: Roone Arledge (CFR), Laurence Tisch (CFR), Thomas Wyman (CFR), Thomas Murphy (CFR), David Brinkley (CFR), Carl Zelnick (CFR), Barbara Cochran (CFR), Roland Evans (CFR), Joan Richman (CFR), Joan Cooney (CFR), Wyatt Johnson (CFR, TC), Carl T. Rowan (TC), Jane Pfeiffer (CFR), Herbert Schlosser (CFR), Robert Frederick (CFR), Sharon Rockefeller (CFR), and Michael Eisner (CFR). You can find out who else in the mainstream news media belong to the secret groups, BB, CFR and TC, in our first book, "Who's Who of the Elite".
Neither Sam Donaldson, nor Cokie Roberts (ABC's This Week, Sundays) were members of the CFR, so to make sure that they had control, the Elite replaced them with George Stephanopolos (BB, CFR). Now we see more members of the CFR on this show, such as Robin Wright (CFR) and George Will (TC).
An example of how the Elite deny us the facts was during the 32nd Washington Conference of the Council of the Americas, held May 5 - 7, 2002. I was watching CNN at the beginning of the hour when they show brief 1-2 second snippits of what will be covered in the following hour. On this occasion they showed David Rockefeller shaking Secretary of State Colin Powell's hand after introducing him as the next speaker. I watched CNN for the next 3-4 hours without seeing this event being covered. Some CNN executive saw this on his TV monitor, and probably ran to the control room and told them NOT to show this event. All mainstream news media have been carefully instructed to NEVER cover any event that David Rockefeller, or the Rothschild family are involved in. Now, I ask - why is this?
You can read Colin Powell's speech at: http://207.21.242.176/coa/events/2002-PowellSpeech.html
Voting Scams
Our current voting procedures are a sham. In an effort to speed up the vote counting process (or so "they" would like you to believe), they have, in most instances, gone to computer assisted voting. Once the votes have been digitized, they are easily manipulated, and in most cases a recount is impossible. Is this how the Elite have controlled the White House, The Senate and the House of Representatives. Is this by accident, or was this accomplished by rigging the voting process?
Was Senator Paul Wellstone's death an accident? Many, including some members of Congress, are concerned. If you have not learned it by now, there are many in our elected offices who will do ANYTHING to reach their goals, or to protect their interests.
Many of our nation’s problems are caused by the lack of adequate Legislative oversight. This failing has gotten worse since around 1975 (when David Rockefeller became Chairman of the CFR), and regardless of which party is in control. Below are my suggestions of what they should be investigating: 1. Great Depression of 1929 - The Federal Reserve System deliberately caused the ’29 depression by manipulating the U.S. money supply. From 1915 to early 1929, the money supply was very loose. You could get a loan to do almost anything. The Standard & Poor’s Index followed the same pattern during this same period. Both went into free-fall from ’29 to ’33. The Fed drastically tightened the money supply, and loans were almost unavailable, resulting in a panic. Unable to pay their massive debts, many committed suicide. Those who try to cover for the Fed say that the depression was caused by the Glass-Spiegal Act, which is far from the truth. 2. The Attack on Pearl Harbor - President Franklin D. Roosevelt knew that the Japanese Navy was heading for Hawaii twelve days before the attack on Pearl Harbor, and he failed to warn the military leaders stationed on this island. His purpose was to create an excuse to declare war against Japan during WW-II. Source – Gregory Douglas, author of "Gestapo Chief". 3. The Vietnam War – The U.S. State Dept. said that at 3:40 a.m. EDT (3:40 p.m. Saigon time), August 2, 1964, the destroyer Maddox, on patrol in the Gulf of Tonkin, reported that it was "being approached by high speed craft with apparent intention of torpedo attack. Intend open fire in necessary self defense." (Message 020740Z to Commander Seventh Fleet; Department of State, Vietnam Working Group Files: Lot 72 D 219, DeSoto Patrols, August) Twenty-seven minutes later, the Maddox reported that it was being attacked by three North Vietnamese patrol craft and had opened fire. (Message 020807Z to Commander Seventh Fleet; ibid.) In the ensuing engagement, the Maddox and aircraft from the U.S.S. Ticonderoga damaged two of the patrol craft, which retreated to the North, and left one dead in the water. Reports on the incident reached Washington shortly after 4 a.m. U. S. military escalation was justified on the basis of the Gulf of Tonkin attack against U. S. ships. We know today that this incident was fabricated purely to deceive the American people in order to win their support for additional military action. Expert witnesses – 1970–1971 Emmy Award winning, CBS’s "60 Minutes" anchor, Morley Safer and his producer, Joe Wershba, blew the whistle on the phony Gulf of Tonkin attack tale, the start of the domino effect in Vietnam. 4. Operation Northwoods – March 13, 1962, L. L. Limnitzer, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, proposed that a bevy of lies be spread upon the U.S. public to justify the invasion of Cuba. Typical lies that were to be spread: “….We could blow up a US ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba. …We could blow up a drone (unmanned) vessel anywhere in Cuba waters ….We could develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington. …We could sink a boatload of Cubans en route to Florida (real or simulated). ….Exploding a few plastic bombs in carefully chosen spots, the arrest of Cuban agents and the release of prepared documents substantiating Cuban involvement… …Use of MIG type aircraft by US pilots could provide additional provocation. Harassment of civil air, attacks on surface shipping and destruction of US military drone aircraft by MIG type planes would be useful as complimentary actions. An F-86 properly painted would convince air passengers that they saw a Cuban MIG, especially if the pilot of the transport were to announce such fact. … Hijacking attempts against civil air and surface craft could appear to continue as harassing measures condoned by the government of Cuba. … It is possible to create an incident which will demonstrate convincingly that a Cuban aircraft has attacked and shot down a chartered civil aircraft…”
Luckily, this plan was shot down by President Kennedy before it could take place, but this was a clear example of the top military commander at the time, Limnitzer, losing control of his senses and risking war with the Russians. Source – James Bamford, author of "Body of Secrets". 5. Assassination of President John F. Kennedy – This tragic murder directly involved Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, Director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, and many other prominent men of the time. The Warren Commission was used to keep Congress from doing it’s own investigation. Source – Robert Gaylon Ross, Sr., author of The Elite Serial Killers of Lincoln, JFK, RFK & MLK.
6. Assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy – Those involved in the JFK killing were also involved in this murder. Lyndon Johnson made sure that Congress looked the other way on this one as well. Source – Robert Gaylon Ross, Sr., author of The Elite Serial Killers of Lincoln, JFK, RFK & MLK. 7. The assassination of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. – The same people who planned the killings of the Kennedy brothers were also directly involved in the murder of King. J. Edgar Hoover’s efforts were exposed by the Senator Frank Church Select Committee to Study Government Operations in 1976, which laid out Hoover’s and the FBI’s efforts to discredit MLK. Source – Robert Gaylon Ross, Sr., author of The Elite Serial Killers of Lincoln, JFK, RFK & MLK. 8. The Gulf War – Ambassador April Glaspie told Saddam Hussein - “But we have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait.” This was President George Herbert Walker Bush’s direct invitation for Iraq to invade Kuwait, so that he could become a hero by saving Kuwait and Saudi Arabia from the invading Iraq army. "THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL" SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 1990, quoted from the transcripts of the meeting between Hussein and Glaspie. 9. War with Yugoslavia – The Elite needed to change the government of Yugoslavia so that they could run pipelines from the Caspian Sea oil fields to the West to a salt water port. Source - William F. Hagel, author of "The Hidden History of the War Against Yugoslavia". 10. War in Afghanistan – The Elite needed to change the government of Afghanistan so that they could run pipelines from the Caspian Sea oil fields to China, and South to a salt water port, without going through Iran. The wars in both Yugoslavia and Afghanistan were necessary to protect the interests of big oil, big banking, money laundering, and illegal drug trafficking. They also wanted to take over the Central Bank of Afghanistan, which they immediately did after the U.S. invasion. Equally important was the need to remove the Taliban, which had outlawed the growing of opium plants. Just prior to the U.S. invasion the production of opium was headed to zero. Immediately after this invasion, production was resumed. 11. The 9-11 attacks on America - There is no evidence (yet) that the Elite were directly involved in the 9-11 attacks, but they certainly have used this event to destroy our Bill of Rights and Constitution. Perhaps some day in the future someone who was directly involved in these attacks will have a major attack of guilty conscience and spill the beans. That is unless they can kill him/her before the beans are spilt.
12. Executive Orders – The powers of the Presidency have been greatly enhanced through the use of Executive Orders, to the great loss of control by Congress. Laws must originate in Congress, not the White House. Perhaps one day Congress will regain the courage required to stop the use of Executive orders to enact laws. 13. The Secret Elite have taken over the U.S. – Members of the Bilderbergs, Council on Foreign Relations, and Trilateral Commission have quietly taken over almost all key positions within our government, the news media, the Labor Unions, academia, banking, foundations, industry, and on and on. Their goal is to subvert the Bill of Rights and Constitution, to destroy the sovereignty of this nation, and to bring it under the control of the Global Union. Those who participate in this conspiracy are committing Treason. "Today Americans would be outraged if U. N. troops entered Los Angeles to restore order; tomorrow they will be grateful! This is especially true if they were told there was an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all people of the world will plead with world leaders to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well being granted to them by their world government." - Henry Kissinger in an address to the Bilderberg Conference at Evian, France, May 21, 1992. Transcribed from a tape recording made by one of the Swiss delegates. Henry Kissinger has attended most of the Bilderberg Conferences, and is a long-time member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and Trilateral Commission. It is absolutely necessary that both houses of Congress hold extensive hearings on the above, as soon as possible, and before the United States becomes the second phase of Globalization - the American Union.
Treason
The definition of Treason is: The offense of attempting to overthrow the government of the state to which the offender owes allegiance, or of betraying the state into the hands of a foreign power.
Before the federal elected officials take office, they must first swear the following oath: I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of ___________________, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the constitution of the United States.
Therefore, anyone who is a federally elected official, and who violates this oath is very simply committing absolute TREASON. Then, if all of the above is true, then we have hundreds within our federal government who are very clearly committing treason. Why is nobody charging them with treason? Why don't you ask your elected officials this question.
Quotes That You Should Remember
The modern theory of the perpetuation of debt has drenched the earth with blood, and crushes its inhabitants under burdens ever accumulating. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks. . . will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. . . the issuing power should be taken from the banks, and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs. - Thomas Jefferson History records that the money-changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent plans possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money, and its issuance. - James Madison I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me, and causes me to tremble for the safety of our country. Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people, until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the republic is destroyed. The Government should create, issue, and circulate all the currency, and credits needed to satisfy the spending power of the Government, and the buying power of consumers. By the adoption of these principals, the taxpayers will be saving immense sums of interest. Money will cease to be master, and become the servant of humanity. - Abraham Lincoln If Congress has the right under the Constitution to issue paper money, it was given them to use themselves, not to be delegated to individuals or corporations. - Andrew Jackson The modern banking system manufactures money out of nothing. The process is perhaps the most astonishing piece of slight of hand ever invented. Banking was conceived in iniquity, and born in sin. Bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create money, and with the flick of a pen, they will create enough money to buy it back again. Take this great power away from them, and all great fortunes like mine will disappear. And, they ought to disappear, for then this would be a better and happier world to live in. But if you want to continue to be the slaves of the bankers, and pay the cost of your own slavery, then let bankers continue to create money, and control credit. - Sir John Stamp (former governor of the Bank of England) No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent. . . . These United States of America can never be destroyed from forces outside its borders. If America falls, it will fall from within. Brought down by apathy. When good people do nothing, Anarchy reigns. - Abraham Lincoln in a 1854 letter to Congress We the people are the rightful masters of Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow men who pervert the Constitution. - Abraham Lincoln The aim of socialism is not only to abolish the present division of mankind into small states, and all national isolation, not only to bring the nations closer to each other, but also to merge them. The merging of states is inevitable. - Lenin in his Imperialism and the Right to Self-determination For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. – Ephesians (6: 12) Expose the works of darkness. - Ephesians (5:11)
With this knowledge, you will be better prepared to interpret the news media's reporting, and the governments actions as time moves on toward the completion of the American Union.
Financial Terrorism In America: How The Economic Elite Made Off With $46 Trillion
By David De Graw Analysis of Financial Terrorism in America
Despite increasing personal financial hardship, most Americans remain unaware of the economic world war currently unfolding. An all-pervasive corporate and government propaganda campaign has effectively obscured this blatant reality. After extensive analysis, it is evident that World War III is a war between the richest one-tenth of one percent of the global population and 99.9 percent of humanity. Or, as I have called it, The Economic Elite Vs. The People. This war has been a one-sided attack thus far. However, as we have seen throughout the world in recent months, the people are beginning to fight back. The following report is a statistical analysis of the systemic economic attacks against the American people.
Introduction
The American public has sustained intensive economic attacks across broad segments of the population. While the attacks have been increasingly severe in scale over the past four years, they have been implemented with technocratic precision. They have been incrementally applied thus far, successfully keeping the population passive and avoiding any large-scale civilian unrest, while effectively reducing living standards for the majority of the population. As you will see in this report, the 55 million Americans that have been hit the hardest have thus far acquiesced due to temporary financial assistance, such as food stamps and extended unemployment benefits.
The global Economic Elite have been much more strategic in handling the American public, as they are potentially the greatest threat to their continued consolidation of wealth, resources and power. National populations that are not as powerful, and on the periphery of the Economic Elite’s global empire, have been dealt with in much harsher fashion. In many smaller and less powerful countries the dramatic rise in food prices and costs of living have led to all-out revolt — Tunisia, Algeria, Albania and Egypt were among the first to rebel. While the contagion of rebellion has rapidly spread throughout Northern Africa and the Middle East, it is also spreading in a decentralized manner throughout most of the world, now threatening popular rebellion throughout Europe. Like the US population, the geographically clustered European nations represent a potentially powerful countervailing force to the Economic Elite’s continued domination.
Within the United States, the technocratic suppression of the population has been extensive. Increasingly severe economic and governmental policies have systematically eroded civilian wealth, power and rights. Intensive propaganda has effectively distracted, confused, isolated, marginalized and divided the US population. Despite the success of these efforts thus far, given the severe, prolonged, unsustainable and escalating level of economic suffering, outbreaks of civil unrest are inevitable. The US population, if a critical mass is reached, represents the greatest threat to the Economic Elite. In this regard, the American people are their primary adversary.
In writing this report, I will clearly demonstrate the severity and scale of the deliberate systemic economic attacks against the US population, in hope that we can urgently build a critical mass of aware and engaged citizens.
Part One :: The Economic Devastation
Snapshot: According to most recent Census Bureau data, from 2005 – 2009, average US household wealth declined by 28%. This represents a loss of $27,000 per household. Currently, at least 62 million Americans, 20% of US households, have zero or negative net worth.
The Census figures cited above are based on statistics that have been consistently proven to be lowball estimates. The government and corporate media spread propaganda on vital economic statistics that mask the severity of our economic crisis. Deceptive inflation, unemployment, poverty and GDP measures, which cast the illusion of recovery, are easily exposed with some research and a closer look at the data. Throughout this report, we will explore significant examples of government economic propaganda. In several cases, the government has been forced to revise their numbers due to proven inaccuracies. The government’s “revisions” are most always for the worse, and are usually just a footnote correction that the public is rarely ever aware of. All that being said, for many statistics we are forced to use government data, as there are not any other extensive data sets available from alternative sources.
I :: Record Breaking Poverty
The Census Bureau poverty rate is a horribly flawed measurement that uses outdated methodology. The Census measures poverty based on costs of living metrics established in 1955 – 56 years ago. They ignore many key factors, such as the increased costs of medical care, child care, education, transportation, and many other basic costs. They also don’t factor geographically-based costs of living. The National Academy of Science measure, which gets little if any corporate media coverage, gives a much more accurate account of poverty, as they factor in these vital cost of living variables.
The most current Census data revealed that 43.6 million Americans, 14.3% of the population, lived in poverty in 2009. While that is a staggering number that represents the highest number of American people to ever live in poverty, and a dramatic increase of four million people since 2008, it significantly under-counted the total. Last year, in my analysis, extrapolating data from 2008 National Academy of Science findings, I estimated that the number of Americans living in poverty in 2009 was at least 52 million. Recently, the National Academy of Science released their latest findings, backing up my claim by revealing that 52,765,000 Americans, 17.3% of the population, lived in poverty in 2009.
The poverty rate for children is even worse. According to Census data, a total of 15.5 million American children lived in poverty in 2009, which is 20% of all children. The number of children in poverty increased 28% since 2000, and jumped 10% from 2008 to 2009. Extrapolating data from the 2009 National Academy of Science poverty rate, in relation to the Census childhood poverty data, the number of American children living in poverty in 2009 is more accurately 18.8 million, which is 24%, or nearly one in four.
Other than this rapidly increasing number children who are in families that have recently fallen into poverty, “every day in America 2,573 babies are born into poverty.”
As the chart to the right shows, even with the lower Census numbers, nine major American cities have a poverty rate over 25%.
It is important to note, based on many key indicators, as you will see throughout this report, the overall poverty totals have increased since 2009. Also consider that the recent deficit reduction plan is going to cut “anti-poverty” programs that currently assist tens of millions of Americans. A study by the National Bureau of Economic Research estimates that “the poverty rate would double without these programs.” It is predicted that the new deficit deal will cut the funding for these programs in half, which, based on these estimates, would bring the total number of Americans living in poverty up to 80 million people, 26% of the population.
II :: Record Breaking Food Insecurity
For another revealing statistic, which has been quickly increasing, we can look at the number of Americans currently surviving off of food stamps. In 2005, 25.7 million Americans needed food stamps, currently 45.8 million people rely on them. As the chart to the right shows, the number of people in need of food stamps has been rapidly increasing year-over-year.
Meanwhile, Congress is cutting the funding for the food stamp program at a time when the Department of Agriculture estimates that an additional 22.5 million people will need them, bringing the total number of Americans in need of food assistance to a stunning 68.3 million people.
III :: Record Breaking Unemployment
While the “official” unemployment rate hovers around 9%, 14 million people, the government’s numbers are deceptively low once again. The only reason unemployment has stayed below 10% for the past few months is because millions of long-term unemployed, and part-time workers who are looking for full-time work, are not included in the baseline government unemployment rate. John Williams, from ShadowStats.com, has a consistently proven method of tracking unemployment that provides a much more accurate view of the overall situation. As shocking as it may sound, when you apply his SGS method, counting the total number people in need of employment, you get a current unemployment rate of 22.5%, which is an all-time record total of 34 million people currently in need of work. Here is how the SGS rate is calculated:
“The seasonally-adjusted SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate reflects current unemployment reporting methodology adjusted for SGS-estimated long-term discouraged workers, who were defined out of official existence in 1994. That estimate is added to the BLS estimate of U-6 unemployment, which includes short-term discouraged workers.
The U-3 unemployment rate is the monthly headline number. The U-6 unemployment rate is the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) broadest unemployment measure, including short-term discouraged and other marginally-attached workers as well as those forced to work part-time because they cannot find full-time employment.”
On top of these shocking figures, the labor force participation rate, which measures the percentage of the total population currently working, has fallen to a 27-year low of 63.9%.
Currently, an all-time record 6.3 million people have been unemployed for over six months. As the chart to the right shows, the average time it takes for a person to find a job has also just hit an all-time high of 40.4 weeks.
As companies continue to downsize and shift jobs overseas, unemployment is once again accelerating. Private-sector job cuts in July surged 60% to a 16-month high. When accounting for population growth within the total labor force, from December 2007 to present, we have lost 10.6 million jobs.
With the implementation of state and federal budget cuts, public-sector unemployment is accelerating as well. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, since August 2008, state and local governments have cut 577,000 jobs. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that cuts in the new deficit deal will lead to an additional 1.8 million job losses.
Of the new jobs that have been added in 2010, 60% of them are in low-wage fields. Since December 2007, the official unemployment rate has masked the fact that 2.8 million of the news jobs created have been part-time jobs.
Breaking down the data, over the last 12 months, the National Employment Law Project found that well-paying jobs are rapidly decreasing, while low-paying jobs are helping to mask an increasingly dire employment crisis:
· Lower-wage industries constituted 23% of job loss, but fully 49% of recent growth
· Mid-wage industries constituted 36% of job loss, and 37% of recent growth
· Higher-wage industries constituted 40% of job loss, but only 14% of recent growth
When considering the effects of unemployment, to the human devastation of joblessness, it is important to consider the terrible emotional and psychological effects of such unemployment. Such effects are well-documented, but rarely mentioned in articles or blog postings.
A well-regarded 2010 study by the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, “The Anguish of Unemployment,” quantified the tremendous emotional suffering engendered by unemployment. “‘The lack of income and loss of health benefits hurts greatly, but losing the ability to provide for my wife and myself is killing me emotionally,’ wrote one respondent to the survey.” (See PDF for Powerpoint presentation of results.)
Just last April, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) released a study that showed that suicide rates rise and fall in tandem with the business cycle. The study covered the years 1928-2007. According to the CDC press release:
The overall suicide rate rises and falls in connection with the economy, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study released online today by the American Journal of Public Health. The study, “Impact of Business Cycles on the U.S. Suicide Rates, 1928–2007″ is the first to examine the relationships between age-specific suicide rates and business cycles. The study found the strongest association between business cycles and suicide among people in prime working ages, 25-64 years old.
“Knowing suicides increased during economic recessions and fell during expansions underscores the need for additional suicide prevention measures when the economy weakens,” said James Mercy, Ph.D., acting director of CDC’s Injury Center’s Division of Violence Prevention. “It is an important finding for policy makers and those working to prevent suicide.”
“After unemployment, symptoms of somatization, depression, and anxiety were significantly greater in the unemployed than employed.” — Effects of unemployment on mental and physical health. American Journal of Public Health, May 1985.
“Controlling for a number of individual characteristics, unemployed individuals are found to suffer significantly higher odds of experiencing a marked rise in anxiety, depression and loss of confidence and a reduction in self-esteem and the level of general happiness even compared with individuals in low-paid employment. This finding highlights the involuntary nature of unemployment.” — “The effects of low-pay and unemployment on psychological well-being: A logistic regression approach.” Journal of Health Economics, January 1998.
“Unemployment was associated with an increased risk of suicide and death from undetermined causes. Low education, personality characteristics, use of sleeping pills or tranquilizers, and serious or long-lasting illness tended to strengthen the association between unemployment and early mortality.” — “Unemployment and Early Cause-Specific Mortality: A Study Based on the Swedish Twin Registry.” American Journal of Public Health, January 2004.
“SPRC conducted a literature review of relevant research published in the past two decades. The review shows that a strong relationship exists between unemployment, the economy, and suicide. A common “chain of adversity” can begin with job loss and move toward depression through financial strain and loss of personal control. In fact, this chain leads to myriad financial, social, health and mental health outcomes—all of them negative. The most common (but by no means the only) mental health outcome is depression, which significantly increases suicide risk. The associated financial outcomes (such as mortgage foreclosures and loss of retirement security) have not been researched with respect to suicide. However, the potential link is that for vulnerable individuals, losses (whether real or anticipated) that result in humiliation, shame, or despair can trigger suicide attempts.” — “Relationship between the Economy, Unemployment and Suicide.” Suicide Prevention Resource Center (SPRC), November 2008.
“There was a strong independent association between suicide and individuals who were unemployed (odds ratio 2.6; 95% confidence interval 2.0 to 3.4) and permanently sick (2.5; 1.6 to 4.0)…. The association between suicide and unemployment is more important than the association with other socioeconomic measures.” — “Suicide, deprivation, and unemployment: record linkage study.” British Medical Journal, Nov. 1998.
“Socioeconomic events are known to produce important fluctuations in suicide mortality. Unemployment, in particular, seems related to suicide risk along direct and indirect pathways. Blakely and co- workers’ paper in this issue adds to evidence indicating a causal association between unemployment and suicide. Their results indicate that this association is not attributable to confounding factors linked to the socioeconomic status and that it is only partly related to health selection or mental disorders.” — “Unemployment and Suicide.” Journal of Epidemiological Community Health, 2003.
Anemic Jobs Help from Washington Assures More Suffering
According to news reports, President Barack Obama has announced that he will be proposing in September a “jobs package” meant to stimulate job growth. The program, which reportedly will include yet more tax cuts, along with some infrastructure spending, appears yet another tepid approach to a problem that is seriously affecting millions of people. In fact, the government has sat and twiddled its thumbs while millions have languished in despair.
Unemployment is deadly. The effects of the capitalist boom-and-bust system seriously damage millions of lives. But with an almost daily bombast of propaganda about terrorism, the populace lives in fear, while wondering how they will make their bills, ground down between anxiety over ghostly terrorists and eviction, or how to put gas in their car, or afford a bus pass. Hopelessness stalks the land, not Al Qaeda. And yet the politicians in D.C. care little or nothing about the suffering their policies cause. Indeed, their pockets are lined with campaign donations from corporations that routinely layoff hundreds of thousands, and ship many thousands more jobs overseas.
Callous disregard for human lives is what links the terrible policies of war and torture with the policies of neglect and indifference towards the jobless. Such callousness is the by-product of a get-rich-quick ethos that worships profit over all else, over worship of a capitalist system that has brought about terrible world wars, massive depressions, colonial atrocities, and even genocide. U.S. society awaits its turn through the meat-grinder of history.
Meanwhile, the politicians only care about getting re-elected. Indeed, the blogosphere is too infected with following the minutiae of the fake political campaigns, while daily, minute by minute, people’s lives are destroyed. Somewhere today, perhaps while you were reading this, someone has taken their life because they felt useless, with no hope of gainful employment, their self-esteem ground down, the sense of meaning and connection severed by redundancy and societal disconnection.
We need dramatic, radical change in this country, and we need it now. For many thousands, however, it will come too late. How many more individual lives, how many more families lives will be shattered by mental illness and suicide due to joblessness? The right to a job is the most fundamental of human rights.
IV :: Declining Income
While the cost of living from 1990 – 2010 increased by 67%, worker income has declined. According to the most recent available IRS data, covering the year of 2009, average income fell 6.1%, a loss of $3,516 per worker, that year alone. Average income has declined 13.7% from 2007 – 2009, representing a $8,588 loss per worker.
The decline in worker income is due to the dramatic increase in CEO pay. CEO pay has consistently increased year-over-year since the mid-1970s. From 1975 – 2010, worker productivity increased 80%. Over this time frame, CEO pay and the income of the economic top 0.1% (one-tenth of one percent) of the population quadrupled. The income of the top 0.01% (one-hundredth of one percent) quintupled.
To understand the affect CEO pay increases have had on workers’ declining share of income on an annual basis, after analyzing 2008 tax data, leading tax reporter David Cay Johnston summed up the situation with these revealing statistics:
“Had income growth from 1950 to 1980 continued at the same rate for the next 28 years, the average income of the bottom 90 percent in 2008 would have been 68 percent higher…. That would have meant an average income for the vast majority of $52,051, or $21,110 more than actual 2008 incomes. How different America would be today if the typical family had $406 more each week…”
As shocking as that is, over the last two years, workers have lost an even higher share of income to CEOs. In the last year alone, CEO pay skyrocketed by 28%. Looking at 2009, according to a recent Dollars & Sense report, workers lost nearly $2 trillion in wages that year alone:
“In 2009, stock owners, bankers, brokers, hedge-fund wizards, highly paid corporate executives, corporations, and mid-ranking managers pocketed—as either income, benefits, or perks such as corporate jets—an estimated $1.91 trillion that 40 years ago would have collectively gone to non-supervisory and production workers in the form of higher wages and benefits.”
As bad as these numbers are, consider that the attack on American workers has increased significantly since 2009. From 2009 to the fourth-quarter of 2010, 88% of income growth went to corporate profits (i.e. CEOs), while just 1% went to workers.
As the NY Times reported in an article entitled, “Our Banana Republic,” from 1980 – 2005, “more than four-fifths of the total increase in American incomes went to the richest 1 percent.” Again, as bad as that was, since 2005 it has gotten even worse, as Zero Hedge recently reported, labor’s current “share of national income has fallen to its lowest level in modern history.” This chart shows how workers’ percentage of income has been rapidly declining:
The bottom line, as statistics clearly demonstrate, these trends are getting worse and the attacks against us, as severe as they have been over the past four years, are dramatically escalating.
Part Two :: The Economic Elite
“There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class,
the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
– Warren Buffett, Chairman and CEO of Berkshire HathawayV :: How Much Wealth Do The Economic Elite Have?
While 68.3 million Americans struggle to get enough food to eat and wages are declining for 90% of the population, US millionaire household wealth has reached an unprecedented level. According to an extensive study by auditing and financial advisory firm Deloitte, US millionaire households now have $38.6 trillion in wealth. On top of the $38.6 trillion that this study reveals, they have an estimated $6.3 trillion hidden in offshore accounts.
In total, US millionaire households have at least $45.9 trillion in wealth, the majority of this wealth is held within the upper one-tenth of one percent of the population.
If all this isn’t obscene enough, to further demonstrate how the global economy has now been completely rigged, Deloitte’s analysis predicated, based on current trends, that US millionaire households will see a 225% increase in wealth to $87.1 trillion by 2020. Accounting for wealth hidden in offshore accounts, they are projected to have over $100 trillion in total within the next decade.
Most people cannot even comprehend how much $1 trillion is, let alone $46 trillion. One trillion is equal to 1000 billion, or $1,000,000,000,000. To put it in perspective, last year the entire cost of feeding all 40 million Americans on food stamps was $65 billion.
Now consider, according to the latest IRS data, only 0.076% of the population, less than one-tenth of one percent, earned over $1 million in 2009.
The graph below, based on data from the Tax Policy Center, shows how much income is earned by a household at any given percentile in income distribution:
The highest bracket for annual income is $50 million or more. Only 74 Americans are in this elite group. The average income within this category was $91.2 million in 2008. As astonishing as that is, in 2009 they averaged $518.8 million each, or about $10 million per week. This means, in the depths of the recession, the richest 74 Americans increased their income by more than 5 times within this one year. These 74 people made more money than 19 million workers combined.
In context, overall, the richest 400 people in the US have as much wealth as 154 million Americans combined, that’s 50% of the entire country. The top economic 1% of the US population now has a record 40% of all wealth, and have more wealth than 90% of the population combined.
VI :: Who Rules America? Revealing The Economic Top 0.1%
Here is an analysis from an investment manager with mega-wealthy clients breaking down the economic top 0.5% of the population, recently published by William Domhoff, sociology professor and author of Who Rules America?:
“Unlike those in the lower half of the top 1%, those in the top half and, particularly, top 0.1%, can often borrow for almost nothing, keep profits and production overseas, hold personal assets in tax havens, ride out down markets and economies, and influence legislation in the US. They have access to the very best in accounting firms, tax and other attorneys, numerous consultants, private wealth managers, a network of other wealthy and powerful friends, lucrative business opportunities, and many other benefits.
Folks in the top 0.1% come from many backgrounds but it’s infrequent to meet one whose wealth wasn’t acquired through direct or indirect participation in the financial and banking industries…. Most of the serious economic damage the US is struggling with today was done by the top 0.1% and they benefited greatly from it…. For example, in Q1 of 2011, America’s top corporations reported 31% profit growth and a 31% reduction in taxes, the latter due to profit outsourcing to low tax rate countries…. The year 2010 was a record year for compensation on Wall Street, while corporate CEO compensation rose by over 30%.…
In 2010 a dozen major companies, including GE, Verizon, Boeing, Wells Fargo, and Fed Ex paid US tax rates between -0.7% and -9.2%. Production, employment, profits, and taxes have all been outsourced….
I could go on and on, but the bottom line is this: A highly complex and largely discrete set of laws and exemptions from laws has been put in place by those in the uppermost reaches of the US financial system. It allows them to protect and increase their wealth and significantly affect the US political and legislative processes.
They have real power and real wealth. Ordinary citizens in the bottom 99.9% are largely not aware of these systems, do not understand how they work, are unlikely to participate in them, and have little likelihood of entering the top 0.5%, much less the top 0.1%….
… the American dream of striking it rich is merely a well-marketed fantasy that keeps the bottom 99.5% hoping for better and prevents social and political instability. The odds of getting into that top 0.5% are very slim and the door is kept firmly shut by those within it.”
To get into the top economic 0.01% (one-hundredth of one percent) of the population, you have to have a household income of over $27 million per year.
If you look at some of the central players who caused this economic crisis, you will see that they are among this Economic Elite group.
Former Goldman Sachs CEO and Bush Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson had already amassed at least $700 million prior to moving to the US Treasury in 2006. Current Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein and a few other top executives at Goldman Sachs just received $111.3 million in bonuses. Blankfein just took home $24.3 million, as part of a $67.9 million bonus he was awarded. Goldman’s President Gary Cohn took home $24 million, as part of a $66.9 million bonus he was awarded. Goldman’s CFO David Viniar and former co-president Jon Winkelried both took home over $20 million in bonuses.
Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit just took home $80 million, in what may eventually total more than $200 million in compensation and bonuses. Coming in at the top of the list is JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, who just took home $90 million.
If you think people in this income level don’t control the US political process, you are not paying attention. After they caused this economic crisis, they got the government to give them trillions of dollars in taxpayer support, and then, after taking our tax dollars, they gave themselves all-time record-breaking bonuses. 2009 was an all-time record-breaking year for Wall Street executives bringing in a total of $145 billion. And then, in 2010, they raised the bar even higher, breaking the all-time record set the year before by pulling in another $149 billion. The audacity of it all is stunning.
Finding people more grotesquely greedy than Wall Street executives would seem to be impossible. However, health insurance CEOs are giving them a run for their money. As the LA Times reported:
“Leaders of Cigna, Humana, UnitedHealth, WellPoint and Aetna received nearly $200 million in compensation in 2009, according to a report, while the companies sought rate increases as high as 39%….
H. Edward Hanway, former chief executive of Philadelphia-based Cigna, topped the list of high-paid executives, thanks to a retirement package worth $110.9 million. Cigna paid Hanway and his successor, David Cordani, a total of $136.3 million last year….
Ron Williams, the CEO of Hartford, Conn.-based Aetna Inc., earned nearly $18.2 million in total compensation, down from $24.4 million in 2008.”
Aetna CEO Ron Williams has recovered from his down year in 2009 by making $72 million in 2010.
Given this level of obscene profiteering within the health care industry, it is not surprising that Americans pay more for medical care than any other nation in the world. In fact, Americans are forced to pay twice as much as most nations, and get lower quality care in return. As health insurance companies admitted, they have been reaping windfall profits because people with health insurance plans still cannot afford to go to the doctors and have stopped going unless it is an absolute emergency. With well over 50 million people unable to afford health insurance and the skyrocketing costs, it is not surprising that over 60% of all personal bankruptcies are the result of medical bills. In fact, 75% of the medical bankruptcies filed are from people who have health insurance.
Within this Economic Elite group, you also have the war profiteering oil companies, which themselves are in large part owned by the big Wall Street banks. The biggest five oil companies, while gas prices have been skyrocketing, reaped $36 billion in profit last quarter. These companies also receive an average of $6 billion per year in tax subsidies.
VII :: Tax Breaks For The Rich, Budget Cuts For The Rest Of Us
To further demonstrate how the mega-wealthy have seized control our political process, consider that the richest 400 Americans paid 30% of their income in taxes in 1995, but they now pay only 18%.
In fact, 1,470 Americans earned over $1 million in 2009 and didn’t pay any taxes.
The average tax rate for millionaires was 22.4% in 2009, down from 30.4% in 1995. The average millionaire saves $136,000 a year due to reduced tax rates.
Looking at the tax rate from a long-term perspective, the amount of money the richest people and most profitable corporations pay in taxes has fallen dramatically since 1955. Corporate tax accounted for 27.3% of federal revenue in 1955. In 2010, corporate tax accounted for only 8.9% of federal revenue. Corporate taxes accounted for 4.3% of overall GDP in 1955, in 2010 they accounted for only 1.3%.
The cuts in taxes for the mega-wealthy have led to record wealth inequality and resulted in a record national deficit. Meanwhile, to make up for the deficit that the richest one-tenth of one percent of the population has created, Democrats and Republicans are committed to making draconian budget cuts to vital social services, which target the poor, middle class, elderly and sick, while handing out billions more in corporate welfare annually. (Inequality = Debt = Austerity)
Just as the government has done, to make up for tax revenue lost to the mega-wealthy, Americans have made up for the decline in income by taking on large amounts of debt as well. (Inequality = Debt)
In a severely unequal society, massive debt will always be created, thus forming a vicious cycle of increasing inequality and increasing debt, until the fragmentation of society reaches a breaking point when those in debt cannot afford to pay back their debts without starving to death. We are now reaching that breaking point. (Inequality = Debt = Austerity = Civil Unrest)
VIII :: Debt Slavery
The Indentured Servant Has Become The Indebted Citizen
As for statistics on Americans being buried in financial debt, the indentured servant has evolved into the indebted citizen. As mentioned before, from 1990 – 2010 costs of living have increased 67%, while wages have stagnated and declined. As the national debt has reached a record $14.6 trillion, total personal debt is now over $16 trillion. Consumer debt is $2.5 trillion. Credit card debt is $805 billion and student debt now exceeds $1 trillion.
Obviously, the more severe your debts are, the more you have to cut back in spending and the less money you have to buy new items. (Debt = Austerity)
Meanwhile, a perfect storm circles overhead as society breaks down and falls into an economic death spiral – health care, food and gas costs are skyrocketing, while income and home values are plummeting. (Inflation + Deflation = Stagflation)
Given these conditions, it is not surprising that over 250 million Americans, another record-breaking number, are currently living paycheck-to-paycheck struggling to make ends meet.
IX :: Inflation
The following charts, from Advisor Perspectives, show the increase in costs of living since 2000:
As you can see, the price of basic necessities are consistently increasing, only clothing (apparel) has declined. The second chart highlights the crucial skyrocketing cost of energy:
The third chart highlights the pernicious skyrocketing cost of education:
The cost of education essentially buries a young person in a debt that they will spend a significant portion of their life attempting to get out of. Given the increasing costs of living, and the decreasing ability to make an expected income from such an expensive level of education, this young demographic will most likely live an entire life locked into spiraling levels of debt that they will never be able to get out of.
Propaganda Inflation
When reporting on inflation, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has twice, since 1980, revised their methodology to mask the severity of inflation, similar to how they mask the severity of unemployment. In their Consumer Price Index (CPI), which measures inflation, they have heavily discounted the measurement weight of energy, food and education – three of the most significant costs for most American households.
To understand the significance in their revised methodology, current “official” CPI is at a 3.6% annual rate. However, if calculated the way it was before former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan altered it in 1980, it would be 11.1%, three times worse than officially stated.
So while the government and the Federal Reserve claim that inflation is low, at 3.6% over the past year, food prices have increased 39% and US gas prices have increased 34% over the same time frame.
The increase in gas cost over the past one-year masks the severity of total gas price inflation, which is currently 125% more expensive since December 2008, increasing from $1.67 per gallon to $3.75.
The Hidden Tax
The Federal Reserve’s strategic policy known as Quantitative Easing (QE) has been a significant factor in the rising cost of basic necessities by deliberately stimulating inflation, while decreasing the value of the dollar. Looking at their recent QE2 program, the dollar lost 7.5% of its value from January 2010 through March 2010. From August 2010 through March 2010, the dollar lost 17% of its value. To understand how this acts as a hidden tax, consider if you had $10,000 in the bank, over this time frame you would have lost $1700 in purchasing power. So your $10,000 would now be worth $8300. At the same time, the cost of gas and food drastically increased.
The Phantom Recovery
By decreasing the value of the dollar, the Federal Reserve is also inflating the stock market by creating the impression that stock prices are rising, which, when measured in dollars, they have. However, in real terms, their overall value has decreased. To understand how deceptive this strategy has been in giving the appearance of a rising market, instead of measuring overall stock value in dollars, let’s look at their overall value when measured in terms of gold:
Dow/Gold Chart from January 1, 2003 – August 8, 2011
As investor Michael Krieger explains:
“You can see from the chart above the downtrend of stock prices in real terms is completely intact and they have now hit a new low, below the previous low point in March 2009. In fact, although stocks did temporarily rise in real terms from the low in 2009 for the year as a whole, they were still down 5% in real terms. Then last year, stocks were 14% lower in terms of gold. Finally, despite a brief rally early in 2011, stocks in terms of gold are down 23% year-to-date.”
Dollar Vs. Gold
When comparing the value of the dollar to the value of gold, the dollar has lost a stunning 84% of its value since 2000. In 2000, gold was worth $279 per ounce, as of August 8, 2011, gold is $1,725 per ounce. In fact, the dollar continues to fall in value while gold continues to rise.
Stagflation
All these factors together create a perfect storm of stagflation. As 90% of Americans experience income declines, and the value of the dollar declines, the price of necessities are rising, while the one major asset many Americans have, a house, is also declining in value. Already, thanks to declining home values, 28% of US homeowners owe more on their mortgages than their home is currently worth. With 10.4 million American families having lost their homes to foreclosure since 2007, Amherst Securities, a leading broker/dealer focused on mortgage-related investments, estimates that another 10.8 million homes are at risk of default over the next six years. This will obviously continue downward pressure on home values.
X :: The Beaten Masses
Confronted With Severe Financial Hardship, Why Do Americans Remain Passive?
With an unprecedented sum of wealth, tens of trillions of dollars, held within the top one-tenth of one percent of the US population, we now have the highest and most severe inequality of wealth in US history. Not even the Robber Barons of the Gilded Age were as greedy as the modern day Economic Elite.
As famed American philosopher John Dewey once said, “There is no such thing as the liberty or effective power of an individual, group, or class, except in relation to the liberties, the effective powers, of other individuals, groups or classes.”
In The Economic Elite Vs. The People, I reported on the strategic withholding of wealth from 99% of the US population over the past generation. Since the mid-1970s, worker production and wealth creation has exploded. As the statistics throughout this report prove, the dramatic increase in wealth has been almost entirely absorbed by the economic top one-tenth of one percent of the population, with most of it going to the top one-hundredth of one percent.
If you are wondering why a critical mass of people desperately struggling to make ends meet are still not fighting back with overwhelming force and running the mega-wealthy aristocrats out of town, let’s consider two significant factors:
1) People are so busy trying to maintain their current standard of living that their energies are consumed by holding on to the little that they have left.
2) People have very little understanding of how much wealth has been consolidated within the top economic one-tenth of one percent.
Considering the first factor, it is obvious that people have become beaten down psychologically and financially. A report in the Guardian entitled, “Anxiety keeps the super-rich safe from middle-class rage,” suggests that people are so desperate to hold on to what they have that they are too busy looking down to look up: “As psychologists will tell you, fear of loss is more powerful than the prospect of gain. The struggling middle classes look down more anxiously than they look up, particularly in recession and sluggish recovery.”
Considering the second factor, people do not understand how much wealth has been withheld from them. The average person has never personally experienced or seen the excessive wealth and luxury that the mega-rich live in. Wealth inequality has grown so extreme and the wealthy have become so far removed from average society, it is as if the rich exist in some outer stratosphere beyond the comprehension of the average person. As the Guardian report mentioned above also states:
“… having little daily contact with the rich and little knowledge of how they lived, they simply didn’t think about inequality much, or regard the wealthy as direct competitors for resources. As the sociologist Garry Runciman observed: ‘Envy is a difficult emotion to sustain across a broad social distance.’… Even now most underestimate the rewards of bankers and executives. Top pay has reached such levels that, rather like interstellar distances, what the figures mean is hard to grasp.”
In fact, the average American vastly underestimates the severe wealth disparity that we currently have. This survey, featured in the NY Times, reveals that Americans think our society is far more equal than it actually is:
“In a recent survey of Americans, my colleague Dan Ariely and I found that Americans drastically underestimated the level of wealth inequality in the United States. While recent data indicates that the richest 20 percent of Americans own 84 percent of all wealth, people estimated that this group owned just 59 percent – believing that total wealth in this country is far more evenly divided among poorer Americans.
What’s more, when we asked them how they thought wealth should be distributed, they told us they wanted an even more equitable distribution, with the richest 20 percent owning just 32 percent of the wealth. This was true of Democrats and Republicans, rich and poor – all groups we surveyed approved of some inequality, but their ideal was far more equal than the current level.”
Here is a chart showing the results from their survey:
The fact of the matter is that the overwhelming majority of US population is unaware of the vast wealth at hand. An entire generation of unprecedented wealth creation has been concealed from 99% of the population for over 35 years. Having never personally experienced or known of this wealth, the average American cannot comprehend what is possible if even a fraction of it was used for the betterment of society as a whole.
In fact, given modern technology and wealth, not a single American citizen should live in poverty. The statistics clearly demonstrate that we now live in a Neo-Feudal society. In comparison to the wealthiest one-tenth of one percent of the population, who are sitting on top of tens of trillions of dollars in wealth, we are modern day serfs, essentially propagandized peasants.
The fact that the overwhelming majority of Americans are struggling to get by, while tens of trillions of dollars are consolidated within a small fraction of the population, is a crime against humanity.
The day the average American fully comprehends how much wealth is consolidated within just the top one-tenth of one percent of the population, there will be a massive uprising and all the paid off politicians will be run out of town.
The next time you are stressed out, struggling to make ends meet and pay off your debts, just think about the trillions of dollars sitting in the obscenely bloated pockets of one-tenth of one percent of the population. The first step in overcoming your peasant status is to understand that you are indeed a peasant. This is a bitter pill to swallow and most will prefer to, as they have been conditioned to do, continue on their path of media-induced delusion, denial, apathy and ignorance.
However, I still cling to the hope that once enough people become aware of this hidden and obscured fact, we can have the non-violent revolution we so urgently need. Until then, the rich get richer as a critical mass with increasingly dire economic prospects desperately struggles to make ends meet.
Part Four :: Fascism in America
Other than driving large segments of the American population into poverty, and pushing the majority into massive debt and a state of financial desperation, there is an ever darker side to what is unfolding today. The Economic Elite have turned America into a modern day fascist state.
Fascism is a very powerful word which evokes many strong feelings. People may think that the term cannot be applied to modern day America. However, as Benito Mussolini once summed it up: “Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power.” In the early 1900s, the Italians who invented the term fascism also described it as “estato corporativo,” meaning: the corporate state.
Very few Americans would argue the fact that corporations now control our government and have the dominant role in our society. Through a system of legalized bribery – campaign finance, lobbying and the revolving door between Washington and corporations – the most power global corporations dominant the legislative and political process like never before. Senator Huey Long had it right when he warned: “When fascism comes to America, it will come in the form of democracy.”
As President Franklin D. Roosevelt once described fascism: “The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it comes strong than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism — ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power.”
The most blatant modern example of this was the bailout of Wall Street, when the “too big to fail” banks got politicians to promptly hand out trillions of tax dollars in support and subsidies to the very people who caused the crisis, without any of them being held accountable.
XI :: Modern Day Slavery
Another shocking example of how far we have descended into fascism is the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which is a group of corporate executives who literally write government legislation. They have gone as far as setting up a system that imprisons the poor and then puts them to work, instead of paying living wages to non-imprisoned workers. Make no mistake, this is a modern day system of slavery unfolding before our eyes.
At the leadership of ALEC and various other Economic Elite organizations, poverty has essentially become a crime. To demonstrate these attacks against the poor, there was $17 billion cut from public housing programs, while there was an increase of $19 billion in programs for building prisons, “effectively making the construction of prisons the nation’s main housing program for the poor.” Before laws began to be rewritten in 1980, with direct input from ALEC, we had a prison population of 500,000 citizens. After laws were rewritten to target poor inner city citizens with much more severe penalties, the US prison population skyrocketed to 2.4 million people.
We now have the largest prison population in the world. With only 4% of the world’s population, we have 25% of the world’s prison population. As I reported previously, in a report entitled, “American Gulag: World’s Largest Prison Complex“:
“The US, by far, has more of its citizens in prison than any other nation on earth. China, with a billion citizens, doesn’t imprison as many people as the US, with only 308 million American citizens. The US per capita statistics are 700 per 100,000 citizens. In comparison, China has 110 per 100,000. In the Middle East, the repressive regime in Saudi Arabia imprisons 45 per 100,000. US per capita levels are equivalent to the darkest days of the Soviet Gulag.”
XII :: The Death Toll
The dramatic increase in poverty has obviously torn many families apart and caused a devastating psychological toll, but consider the increase in deaths as a result of poverty and severe wealth inequalities. This is a very difficult statistic to accurately measure, but Columbia University’s School of Public Health conducted an intensive examination of mortality and medical data and estimated that “875,000 deaths in the US in 2000 could be attributed to a cluster of social factors bound up with poverty and income inequality.”
As a report by Debra Watson sums up the study, “There is no reason to believe, after a decade that has seen sustained attacks on social programs and consistently high unemployment rates, that the social mortality rate has declined. On the contrary, it has likely risen.” Indeed, poverty and income inequality have skyrocketed since 2000.
Now, let’s consider the fact that, according to the Census Bureau, 31.1 million people lived in poverty in 2000, and according to Columbia’s study 875,000 deaths came as a result. This means that 1 out of every 35.5 people living in poverty die annually as a result of their impoverishment. If you extrapolate this data to the 2009 total of 52.8 million people living in poverty, you get an estimate of 1,486,338 deaths within that year. Even if you use the lower poverty totals from the Census Bureau, 43.6 million people, you get an estimate of 1,228,169 deaths in 2009.
XIII :: Deliberate Systemic Attacks
The dramatic increase in economic inequality and poverty, along with the unprecedented rise in wealth within the top one-tenth of one percent of the population has not happened by mistake. It is the designed result of deliberate governmental and economic policy. It is the result of the richest people in the world, and the “too big to fail” banks, using the campaign finance and lobbying system to buy off politicians who implement policies designed to exploit 99.9% of the population for their financial gain. To call what is happening a “financial terrorist attack” on the United States, is not using hyperbole, it is the technical term for what is currently occurring.
Compare the million people who die annually as a result of these economic attacks, to the 2,977 that died on 9/11. As someone who lived three blocks from the World Trade Center, as tragic as 9/11 was, these economic attacks are much more severe and damaging to us as a nation, albeit a much slower and unseen death toll. Nonetheless, the result is of genocidal proportions. One can statistically compare the economic attacks on the US to the invasion of Iraq, which some estimate as leading to one million deaths. Once again, many of those deaths came in brutal and spectacular fashion in bombing campaigns known as “shock and awe.” However, the death toll compares to the hidden brutality of a four-year campaign of economic “shock and awe.” Just as Iraq was invaded, the US has been invaded by a global banking cartel.
As shocking as that is to realize, consider that this is happening throughout the world. While the US poverty death rate is probably higher than in most European countries, the Federal Reserve’s economic policies — along with policies from the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and Bank of International Settlements — have caused rioting and uprisings over skyrocketing food prices and costs of living throughout the world. The fact of the matter, and very harsh and unfortunate reality of this crisis, is that the global economic central planners are deliberately carrying out genocidal economic policies.
As Che Guevara, a man who took on the global financial elite, once said, “The amount of poverty and suffering required for the emergence of a Rockefeller, and the amount of depravity that the accumulation of a fortune of such magnitude entails, are left out of the picture, and it is not always possible to make the people in general see this.”
When tens of trillions of dollars deliberately flow to the top economic one-tenth of one percent of the global population, while large percentages live in poverty, you have to conclude, in technical terms, that a Neo-Feudal-Fascist state is upon us. The rich have never been richer, while their paid off politicians make budget cuts for the poor and middle class, and cause the cost of basic necessities to skyrocket.
You can call me extreme, but the reality of this is extreme, these people, the global economic top one-tenth of one percent, are genocidal fascists carrying out a holocaust. Fascism has evolved. There is no need to get blood on your hands while rounding up people and putting them into concentration camps when you can do it through economic policy while sitting in a jacuzzi on a corporate jet, or in a three-piece custom-made Armani, completely detached and insulated from the world in which you plunder.
However, as what happens with all empires, greed and arrogance makes them overreach. The beaten down masses get to a point where they literally can’t live under these conditions. This desperation spreads throughout the population until it reaches a critical mass, then, suddenly, they rise up and the empire begins to collapse… Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Israel, (Northern Africa, the Middle East), Albania, Greece, Spain, Britain (Europe), Wisconsin…
The Economic Elite are overreaching and their empire is collapsing.
As a wise old friend once said, “You can’t be neutral on a moving train.”
Illuminati - New World order
These images, by photographers of the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information, are some of the only color photographs taken of the effects of the Depression on America’s rural and small town populations. The photographs and captions maybe the future events in this country as we deal with our economic survival, on cue with the demands of the Elite.
Five years ago, the war in Afghanistan began to escalate drastically. Troop surges soon pushed the number of NATO troops up to more than 140,000, and the levels of violence grew to match the surge. At the time, I felt the conflict was being under-reported relative to other international stories, especially considering the level of commitment involved, so I began a monthly series dedicated to covering the ongoing war in Afghanistan. Now, more than 60 monthly photo essays later, I'm ending the series as a regular feature. I will continue to post photos from Afghanistan through the withdrawal, as well as after the handover—but as an occasional entry, not monthly. In this time, I've been fortunate enough to feature more than 2,000 amazing images of Afghanistan taken by incredibly brave and skillful photographers—telling many aspects of a very difficult story. As of today, there are reportedly fewer than 30,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, with a withdrawal deadline looming at the end of the year. How many soldiers will stay after the deadline remains in question, as the outcome of the recent Afghan presidential election remains in dispute, and the signing of any long-term agreements is on hold. For the past year, many coalition forces have been involved with what they term retrograde operations, defined by the U.S. Army as "defensive tasks that involve organized movement away from the enemy." Gathered here are images of recent retrograde operations in Afghanistan, from demolition and remediation to demilitarization and evacuation.
Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles wait in a staging area for onward movement at an undisclosed base in Southwest Asia. The joint team of Marines, soldiers, sailors and airmen of the Central Command's Deployment Distribution Operations Center is playing a major role in moving the more than 50,000 coalition military vehicles in Afghanistan that will need to be recovered or pre-positioned in contingency stocks abroad. (U.S. Air Force/Senior Master Sgt. George Thompson)
An Australian soldier takes the Australian flag after it was lowered at Joint Multinational Base Tarin Kot, Afghanistan, on December 11, 2013. The base was transferred over to the Afghan National Army, as the last of Australian troops left Tarin Kot.(U.S. Army/Cpl. Harold Flynn) #
A CH-53E Super Stallion assigned with Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 462 (HMH-462) transports a Humvee over Helmand province, Afghanistan, on October 7, 2013, as part of demilitarization operations. (U.S. Marine Corps/Sgt. Gabriela Garcia) #
U.S. Soldiers with 229th Engineer Company, Wisconsin Army National Guard, help clear out Combat Outpost Talukan in the Panjwa'i District of Kandahar province. (U.S. Army/Sgt. Kimberly Hackbarth) #
U.S. Marine Cpl. Armondo Cortez (left), a data network specialist, and Cpl. Estevan D. Hernandez, a telephone switchboard and personal computer intermediate repairer, with Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 2d Marine Regiment, discuss their plan for the deconstruction of the command operation center during the retrograde of Patrol Base Boldak in Helmand Province on August 14, 2014.(USMC/Cpl. John A. Martinez Jr.) #
A member of the 376th Air Expeditionary Wing drags tent material through a tent at Transit Center at Manas, Kyrgyzstan, on March 6, 2014. Personnel from various units volunteered to assist in reduction efforts at the transit center, which was transferred to Kyrgyz control in June of 2014. (USAF/Senior Airman George Goslin) #
Col. Mirbek Imayev, Chief of Staff of the Kyrgyz National Guard, holds up a symbolic key as he departs a transfer ceremony held at the Transit Center at Manas, Kyrgyzstan, on June 3, 2014. The event signified the representative transfer of control of the Transit Center from the United States to the Kyrgyz government. The facility stood up 12 and a half years ago after the terrorist attacks in America on Sept. 11, 2001. The center was the premier transportation and logistics hub supporting combat operations in Afghanistan.(USAF/Capt. Cory O'Brien) #
Airmen from the 455th Expeditionary Aerial Port Squadron, Bagram Air Field, load MRAP All-Terrain Vehicles onto a C-17 from McChord Air Force Base, Washington, on August 11, 2014. (USAF/Maj. Brandon Lingle/Released) #
Army engineers with the 1223rd and 955th Engineer Companies deconstruct a building at Kandahar Air Field on February 18, 2014. The units have deconstructed over 1,000 structures during their deployment and have been vital in aiding with the closure of numerous bases. (US Army/Spc. Aaron Ellerman) #
Staff Sgt. Angel Tavarez (driving), a native of Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, consolidates excess metal scrap from base closure operations for reuse on different bases or to sell to Afghan locals, in the evening hours on Forward Operating Base Walton, on July 15, 2014.(US Army/Staff Sgt. Whitney Houston) #
An Afghan driver watches as Defense Logistics Agency personnel load a water truck purchased by his company onto his flatbed truck on Bagram Air Field on June 25, 2014, during the first white goods sale in the country. (US Army/Capt. Devon McRainey) #
A convoy of U.S. Marine Corps MRAP vehicles utilized by 1st Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment (1/7), carrying the last 1/7 Marines from Suicide Charley Company and material retrograding from Forward Operation Base (FOB) Sabit Qadam and FOB Nolay travel down Route 1, near Gereshk, Helmand province, on May 4, 2014. Operation Lee removed the last remaining ISAF presence in Sangin and turned control of FOBs Sabit Qadam and Nolay over to the Afghan National Army (ANA). (USMC/Lance Cpl. Lance Cpl. Cody Kelley) #
Task Force Guam Soldiers from 1st Battalion, 294th Infantry Regiment, Guam Army National Guard, sit tightly packed into a CH-47 Chinook filled with duffel bags and rucksacks during a flight out of Camp Phoenix, Kabul, Afghanistan.(US Army National Guard/Sgt. Eddie Siguenza) #
A U.S. Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt II with the 303rd Expeditionary Fighter Squadron, Bagram Air Field, peels away after being in-air refueled by a KC-135 Stratotanker over Eastern Afghanistan on August 16, 2014. (USAF/Staff Sgt. Vernon Young Jr.) #
Estonian soldiers, part of the Estonian contingent to Afghanistan, fold their nation's flag for the last time in a ceremonial flag lowering aboard Camp Leatherneck, Helmand province, Afghanistan, on May 9, 2014. The lowering of the Estonian flag formally concluded the county's participation in Operation Enduring Freedom. (USMC/Lance Cpl. Darien J. Bjorndal) #
A scrap wood pile created during retrograde operations at Forward Operating Base Pasab in Kandahar on June 2, 2014. Scrap wood is one of the reusable materials that ISAF allows others including the Afghan military to sort through and take what they need.(Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images) #
Army engineers with the 1223rd and 955th Engineer Companies deconstruct a building at Kandahar Air Field on February 18, 2014.(US Army/Spc. Aaron Ellerman) #
This photo taken on June 2, 2014 shows a member of the US Army using an M-88 to demolish Hesco barriers ahead of the withdrawal from Forward Operating Base Pasab in Kandahar province. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images) #
A sign still remains on a door of an abandoned hospital site which is in an area on Forward Operating Base (FOB) Shank that is no longer used due to a shrinking population on the FOB on April 3, 2014. (Scott Olson/Getty Images) #
Engineers with the Hammonton, New Jersey,-based 150th Engineer Company, attached to the Portland, Maine-based 133rd Engineer Battalion, use heavy equipment to clear the remains of structures from a deconstruction site at Bagram Air Field.(US Army/Sgt. 1st Class Jon Cupp) #
A guard tower that was once in a heavily populated area on Forward Operating Base (FOB) Shank is now surrounded by open land and abandoned building sites on April 3, 2014 near Pul-e Alam, Afghanistan. (Scott Olson/Getty Images) #
A welcome mat and foundation are all that remain of a building site in an area on Forward Operating Base Shank that is no longer used due to a shrinking population on April 3, 2014. (Scott Olson/Getty Images) #
From left to right: Spc. Jamie Morris, Spc. Daniel Adensam, Command Sgt. Maj. Kevin King, Spc. Ricky Schumann and Spc. William Banks, all serving with different battalions of 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 4th Inf. Division, retire and fold the U.S. flag on July 15, 2014, as base closure operations come to an end and U.S. troops prepare to leave Forward Operating Base Walton. The FOB served as a strategic joint operating base with Afghan National Security Forces during Operation Enduring Freedom, and was officially closed the next day. (US Army/Staff Sgt. Whitney Houston) #
Multiple vehicles with Combat Logistics Battalion 7 line up as they prepare to convoy back with the last supplies, equipment and team members of Security Force Assistance Advisor Team 4-215 from Forward Operating Base Delaram II, Nimroz province, Afghanistan, on April 8, 2014. The Marines and sailors of CLB-7 were instrumental in retrograding more than 300,000 pounds of equipment and supplies and the last of the Marines and sailors of SFAAT 4-215 back to Camp Leatherneck from FOB Delaram II.(USMC/Sgt. Frances Johnson) #
U.S. Air Force 1st Lt. Brent Stevens, right, and Maj. Devin Cummings, both pilots with the 774th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron, fly a C-130 Hercules aircraft out of Forward Operating Base Sharana, Paktika province, on September 28, 2013. Airmen with the unit transported the last cargo from FOB Sharana before command of the base was transferred to the Afghan Ministry of Defense.(USAF/Master Sgt. Ben Bloker) #
Soldiers with the Kingdom of Jordan fold their flag during a ceremony aboard Camp Leatherneck, Helmand province, on July 23, 2014. The ceremony marked the end of mission for the Jordanian army serving with Regional Command Southwest.(USMC/Sgt. Jessica Ostroska) #
This photo taken on June 1, 2014 shows a worker cutting metal while demolishing a building that once housed a TGI Fridays restaurant ahead of the withdrawal by military forces, at Kandahar Airfield in Kandahar province. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images) #
Airmen from the 376th Expeditionary Civil Engineer Squadron demilitarize camouflage netting in a waste holding yard here on May 9, 2014, in preparation for the Transit Center at Manas, Kyrgyzstan, closure this summer. The airmen tear the netting into small, unusable pieces that are less than 12 inches square. (USAF/Lt. Col. Max Despain) #
Marines with Combat Logistics Battalion 1, Regional Command (Southwest), motion to a Tractor, Rubber-Tired, Articulated Steering, Multi-Purpose vehicle operator during a retrograde operation aboard Patrol Base Boldak, Helmand province, on August 14, 2014.(USMC/Cpl. Cody Haas) #
Spc. Adam Alvarez, a native of Chicago, who serves as a mechanic with Special Troops Battalion, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 4th Inf. Division, guides trucks full of wood and other materials off Forward Operating Base Walton, on July 16, 2014. The FOB closed the next day, having served as a strategic joint operating base with Afghan National Security Forces during Operation Enduring Freedom.(US Army/Staff Sgt. Whitney Houston) #
Royal Tongan Marines assigned to Tranche 7, the seventh and final rotational contingent of Royal Tongan Marines to Afghanistan, participate in a "haka," a ceremonial dance, during a flag lowering ceremony aboard Camp Leatherneck, Helmand province, Afghanistan, on April 28, 2014. The lowering of the flag symbolized the end of the Kingdom of Tonga's participation in Operation Enduring Freedom and return to their homeland. (USMCLance Cpl. Darien J. Bjorndal) #
Australian soldiers load up the back of a plane before departing Joint Multinational Base Tarin Kot, Afghanistan. The base was transferred over the Afghan National Army as the last of Australian troops has left Tarin Kot. (US Army/Cpl. Harold Flynn) #
Lance Cpl. Matthew Ghibaudi, a UH-1Y Huey crew chief with Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 369, performs a weapons check before an aerial assault support mission covering ground convoys in Helmand province, on May 3, 2014. Before the last Marines and sailors of Forward Operating Bases Nolay and Sabit Qadam convoyed out of northern Helmand to return to Camp Leatherneck for the final time, the "Gunfighters" of HMLA-369 and "Heavyweights" of Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 466 provided overwatch for returning vehicle convoys as well as retrograde support. (USMC/Sgt. Frances Johnson) #
Soldiers with the Republic of Georgia lower their flag during a ceremony aboard Camp Leatherneck, Helmand province, Afghanistan, on July 15, 2014. The ceremony marked the end of mission for the Georgian army serving with Regional Command Southwest.(USMC/Sgt. Jessica Ostroska) #
Sgt. Charles Nelson, a heavy equipment operator for the Calhoun City, Mississippi,-based 858th Engineer Company, attached to the Portland, Maine-based 133rd Engineer Battalion, uses a bulldozer April 21 at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan to level an area where engineers with the 133rd recently deconstructed several structures. (US Army/Sgt. 1st Class Jon Cupp) #
U.S. Marine Cpl. Travis Shotland, a radio operator with Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 2d Marine Regiment, removes data cables from a command operation center during the retrograde of Patrol Base Boldak in Helmand Province on August 14, 2014.(USMC/Cpl. John A. Martinez Jr.) #
U.S. Marines with Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 462 (HMH-462) load a CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter into a C-17 Globemaster at Camp Bastion, Helmand province, on November 1, 2013. HMH-462 retrograded the aircraft as part of ongoing demilitarization efforts.(USMC/Sgt. Gabriela Garcia)
The food bubble is now starting to implode. What does it all mean? It means that as these economic and climate realities unfold, our world is facing massive starvation and food shortages. The first place this will be felt is in poor developing nations. It is there that people live on the edge of economic livelihood, where even a 20% rise in the price of basic food staples can put desperately-needed calories out of reach of tens of millions of families. If something is not done to rescue these people from their plight, they will starve to death.
Wealthy nations like America, Canada, the U.K., and others will be able to absorb the price increases, so you won’t see mass starvation in North America any time soon (unless, of course, all the honeybees die, in which case prepare to start chewing your shoelaces…), but it will lead to significant increases in the cost of living, annoying consumers and reducing the amount of money available for other purchases (like vacations, cars, fuel, etc.). That, of course, will put downward pressure on the national economy.
But what we’re seeing right now, is just a small foreshadowing of events to come in the next couple of decades. When gasoline is $10 a gallon in the U.S., how expensive will food be around the world? The answer, of course, is that it will triple or quadruple the current price. And that means many more people will starve.
One thing that has become abundantly clear in all this is that the era of cheap food and cheap fuel is over. Add to this the fact that global climate change is already underway, altering weather patterns and creating floods, droughts and other agricultural calamities, and you start to get the picture of just how bad things might get. That’s not even to mention the very serious problem of collapsing honeybee populations due to a mysterious condition called colony collapse disorder that’s devastating honeybee populations across North America. Honeybees, in case you didn’t know, pollinate plants that represent about 30% of all the calories consumed by Americans. That’s about one out of every three bites of your dinner, and it all depends on the “free” work performed by honeybees — bees who are apparently going on strike by refusing to keep working for us.
The global economy is doomed to implosion, and here are four charts which explain why.
Though the complexities may appear endless, the global economy's coming implosion is really fairly easy to understand: here are four charts which do the heavy lifting. It boils down to these basics:
1. When money is dear and difficult to borrow, then productivity and capital accumulation are encouraged, speculation, malinvestment and debt-based consumption are discouraged.
2. When money is "free" (zero-interest rate policy) and liquidity is unlimited, then the opposite conditions hold: speculation in risk assets, malinvestment and debt-based consumption are all encouraged, and productivity and capital accumulation are heavily discouraged.
3. When debts exceed the value of the underlying assets, the only way out of the Tyranny of Debt is to write off the debt on both the borrower and lender's balance sheets, wiping out their capital via liquidation and bankruptcy.
4. The "extend and pretend" policy pursued by all major nations is simply transferring the impaired debt from private hands to the taxpayers (public debt), crippling the economy with higher taxes and higher debt service.
5. The Central State's "extend and pretend" policy requires heavy borrowing every year to prop up the status quo, pushing the Central State (or equivalent, i.e. the Eurozone) in an inescapable double-bind: either continue increasing public debt and cripple the economy with high taxes and high public-debt servicing costs, or let the financial status quo of "profits are private, losses are public" implode.
The first path leads to default, as the Tyranny of Debt cannot be masked for long, while the second path wipes out the Financial Power Elite which feeds the politicians.
Here are the charts. Note how the speculative economy created the illusion of rising wealth for the bottom 90%, an illusion stripped away by the Default Economy.
In essence, the Financial Power Elites profited immensely from creating this illusory wealth which gave the bottom 90% the false sensation that their declining earnings and purchasing power were being offset by the "magic" of asset bubbles.
Then, when the bubble popped, the Financial Power Elites transferred the impaired assets to the taxpayers, a process which is still underway. The politicos of both parties are complicit; behind the simulacra of toothless "reforms," this process proceeds in myriad ways (Bank of America transferring toxic debt to Fannie/Freddie, etc.) Behind the smokescreen of conjuring a "wealth effect" to foster more consumption, the Fed's purchase of Treasuries (QE2) serves this transfer-of-debt-to-the-public process.
This same process is playing out throughout the global economy: Greece, Ireland, the U.S., and eventually, in China when its monumental property bubble pops.
Mr King Had 300 Tons Of Gold. After Selling 1,350 Tons, He Still Had 300 Tons Of Gold.
Video Rebel’s Blog
The following are a few examples of the New Math as practiced by the banking elite. Mervyn King was until just recently the Governor of the Bank of England. In April he sold 1,350 metric tons of gold to drive down the price of gold. But after selling all of that gold, he still had 300 tons of gold. How was this possible? He sold gold on deposit from foreign countries and from bullion banks. A bullion bank can lease gold from the Bank of England or the Federal Reserve and sell it 3, 4 or even 5 times. Of course if the price of gold goes up, then they are technically obligated to replace the gold which is why they needed to drive the price down. After the Germans asked the French, the English and the Americans to return just 350 metric tons of their gold on deposit at those central banks, they were told it would take 7 years to return it. We learned why it would take so long when French soldiers invaded their former colony Mali which had just discovered a large high grade gold deposit. The trouble was that the people of Mali had wanted to sell their gold to the Chinese at the highest price. But fortunately for the banks the government had just been taken over in a coup by a general who had been trained at Forts Benning and Huachuca in the USA. And then Al Qaeda showed up threatening the takeover of the entire West coast of Africa. This is the same Al Qaeda that invaded Bosnia, Libya and Syria for the NATO imperialists. That these people practice cannibalism and kill unarmed women and children is of no concern to their paymasters in NATO. Now they are helping the bankers steal Africa’s gold which is what the British and French armies had done in the 19th and 20th centuries.
There are other examples of new mathematics being demonstrated by the bankers. Every year the banks launder a trillion dollars a year in drugs and illegal weapons sales. A $20 bill weighs one gram. A trillion dollars in $20 bills would be a pile of 50,000,000 Federal Reserve Notes and would weigh 50,000,000 grams or 50 metric tons. One metric ton weighs 2,204.6 pounds. Asia Times magazine said that the banks launder 500 billion dollars in political bribes every year. That would be another 25 metric tons for a total of 75.
Does anyone imagine that there is some elderly Sicilian mobster from central casting who is wheeling almost a ton and a half of $20 bills into banks around the world every week of the year without the financial regulators finding out what he was doing?
Another example of new math applied to banking is the sentencing of common criminals versus what happens to bankers. It is as if a bank robber was caught, paid a thousand dollar fine from the million dollars he just stole and was allowed to keep the other $999,000. Bankers have been proven to rig interest rates and sell fraudulent mortgages. In fact Matt Taibbi in a now famous 14 page article in Rolling Stone magazine said he had 27 examples of rigged markets when he said the Conspiracy Theorists were right. I would love to see a comedy skit in which the cops catch bank robbers coming out of a bank with the loot. The bankers count the loot and pay a 1% fine which goes to the city hall slush fund allowing the criminals to walk away freely with 99% of the loot and no criminal indictment. That is the way America’s justice system actually works.
I would like to cite the US budget and America’s 17 trillion dollar debt as a final example of the New Math.
Dr Jim Willie has a PhD in statistics from Carnegie Mellon. He said that we have no justice system to prevent a bank which functions as one of the 21 primary dealers in US Treasury bonds to sell counterfeit bonds to the Federal Reserve. He said in the video below that WTC Tower 7 had the evidence of 2.3 trillion dollars in fake Treasury bondsfrom J P Morgan which were destroyed on 911.
This is a separate issue from the bankers looting federal spending in departments ranging from Housing to the Department of Defense. HUD lost 77.2 billion dollars in the last two years of the Clinton administration. On 9-10-2001 Donald Rumsfeld said that he could not trace 2.3 trillion dollars in DOD spending.
Let’s more closely examine the combination of the bankers ability to steal from federal spending and to sell fake Treasury bonds which the Federal Reserve must redeem so we can determine the real burden banker criminality has put upon our federal budget.
In June of 2010 approximately 17.3 billion dollars (at a rate of 4 billion dollars a week for 4.3 weeks) was stolen from unaudited government spending. But for the sake of believability I will cut that estimate by 3 billion down to 14.3 billion dollars. This helped run the deficit up from 53.7 billion dollars to 68 billion. So the Treasury in June of 2010 had to raise a total of 68 billion including the 14.3 billion of missing federal funds. The New York FED and the primary dealers sold a total of 211 billion dollars. If you subtract the 68 billion actually needed from the 211, you get a total of 143 billion dollars the bankers pocketed from the sale of phony Treasury bonds. Now go back and add in the 14.3 billion to the 143 billion and you get a total of 157.3 billion dollars the bankers stole in just one month from you. So what are you going to do about it?
If you add in the 6 trillion dollars we have spent on wars for Israel since we let them do 911 and get away with it, you are talking about most of the total of 17 trillion dollars in US federal debt. And the rest of the 17 trillion can probably be attributed to the right granted to the banks under the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 to charge interest to us on money they have created out of nothing.
The source added: 'There was constant pressure on the intelligence agencies and the interrogators to do whatever it took to get that information out of the detainees, and when people kept coming up empty, they were told by Cheney's and Rumsfeld's people to push harder.'
The CIA has defended its conduct by claiming that
These images, by photographers of the Farm Security Administration /Office of War Information, are some of the only color photographs taken of the effects of the Depression on America’s rural and small town populations. By 2012, the photographs and captions will haunt this generation as the cyclical downturn worsen due to high unemployment and huge tax burden.
Florence Thompson with three of her children in a photograph known as "Migrant Mother." This famous image is one of a series of photographs that photographer Dorothea Lange made of Florence Thompson and her children in early 1936 in Nipomo, California. More on the photo here. (LOC/Dorothea Lange) #
U.S. poverty totals hit a 50-year high Census Bureau’s grim statistics show recession’s lingering effects, as young adults move back home and 1 million more Americans go without health insurance … In a grim portrait of a nation in economic turmoil, the government reported that the number of people living in poverty last year surged to 46.2 million — the most in at least half a century — as 1 million more Americans went without health insurance and household incomes fell sharply. – Los Angeles Times
Dominant Social Theme: These things happen. No reason. Depressions spontaneously occur. They are “market mistakes.”
Free-Market Analysis: We’ve spent considerable time in the past three years (the past decade, actually), analyzing how the powers-that-be have reorganized society, especially American society, in a way that relentlessly reduces prosperity. Figures released yesterday from the US Census provide a startling illustration of just how effective elites have been. (See excerpt above.)
Why would a handful of wealthy central banking families want to impoverish the US and render its citizens penniless? Our conclusion is simple: World government is on the way and the American culture is still resistant to the kind of hyper-regulatory corporatism that is necessary to support this kind of governance.
America (the West, generally) has apparently been under attack by an organized cabal of inter-generational banking families and corporate, business and military enablers for at least 200 years now, and perhaps 300 years. In the past 50 years, the pace has accelerated.
One by one, the UN, IMF, World Bank, BIS, ICC (international court), WHO and countless other globalist organizations have been put in place. The mainstream media treats this evolution as inevitable. It cannot be. Each evolution must be planned, funded and promoted. When it comes to politics of this sort, there are no coincidences, as FDR once observed.
We have taken to calling what has evolved “directed history” – in which events including wars are planned to ensure maximum destruction of the culture as it is in order to further militarize, globalize (and impoverish) what remains.
Because America was a “great exception” – founded as a republic with a culture that was relentlessly entrepreneurial and agricultural – America has been under sustained attack to ensure that its culture is Europeanized and recreated as what we call “regulatory democracy.”
Regulatory democracy is one word for what has evolved. Corporatism is another. Fascism (of a sort) would be a third. No matter what word is used, the current Western model for nation states relies heavily on unelected bureaucrats, intelligence agencies and a military industrial complex that basically reports to the aforementioned elites and is not affected by voting or other democratic elements.
The modern nation state is funded by central banks, also seemingly controlled by these elite families, and the ultimate goal is formal global governance. Some question why a formal international government is necessary. The answer is that the elites like to work within a “lawful” environment of their own creation. The more that reality corresponds to their notions and plans, the easier it is to continually consolidate power.
Nothing else – no other sociopolitical model – seems to explain what has happened to America and Europe. The EU is a disaster and the euro has proven to be a currency that has brought ruin on the Southern crescent of that artificial entity. The one-size-fits all central banking policies of the union continue to collapse jobs and economies – something we’ve been forecasting for several years now.
European elites are on record as anticipating the disaster and welcoming it because it will allow for the creation a closer “political union.” But in the Internet era, people are not so easily manipulated as they were in the 20th Century. The pushback to elite plans is extreme. The fate of the EU is by no means pre-determined. Events could easily spin out of control.
In the US, the great merger between Canada, Mexico and America has been all-but-abandoned – for the time being. However, one of the primary figures behind that putative merger is Texas governor Rick Perry who spent much time and political energy in the early 2000s trying create a “North American Union.” In our view it is no accident that he is a front-runner for the presidency at this juncture.
The Rick Perry story is certainly illustrative of how the elites work. Perry actively supported a superhighway of some 20 lanes plus railroad tracks that was (and is) planned to bisect the US, running from Mexico to Canada. It would effectively turn the country into two separate halves, both of which would be economic backwaters, as trade and prosperity flowed between Canada and Mexico.
Perry also supported a kind of international health-care in which the US would subsidize medical treatments for Mexicans. He tried to portray this as a rare opportunity to address flaws in the health care system that a bi-national program would counteract. But in reality, it was more internationalism.
Perry was and is a globalist; he is likely a candidate of the elites and it is perhaps no coincidence that he is suddenly a leading GOP choice to run for president. Perry’s globalist sympathies were so evident in Texas that he had to write a book renouncing them.
In his book, from what we can tell, he basically repurposes most if not all of libertarian presidential candidate Ron Paul’s message of small government and reliance on the private sector. Perry’s statements were so extreme, however, that he has made himself a target on both sides of the aisle.
Perry is just one more unmoored and unprincipled politician, willing to undermine his country and its hundreds of millions for personal gain. (Some have compared him to a used car salesman and claimed in another, less corrupt era he would never have achieved his current position.) He has become a millionaire several times over during his political career, and no doubt millions more await him if he does by some chance become president.
Meanwhile, the larger American economy continues to suffer. Critics in the mainstream media will have plenty of explanations for how their country came to be in the shape that it is in. But from our humble perspective, there can only be one explanation; it’s part of a larger plan, at least to some degree. Here’s some more from the article, above:
The poverty rate for all Americans rose in 2010 for the third consecutive year, matching the 15.1% figure in 1993 and pushing many more young adults to double up or return to their parents’ home to avoid joining the ranks of the poor. Taken together, the annual income and poverty snapshot released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau underscored how the recession is casting a long shadow well after its official end in June 2009 …
The total number of Americans who fell below the official poverty line last year rose from 43.6 million in 2009. Of the 2.6-million increase, about two-thirds of the people said they did not work even one week last year. Those with jobs were much less likely to be poor, but the recession and weak recovery have wiped out income gains of prior years for a broad spectrum of workers and their families.
Inflation-adjusted median household income — the middle of the populace — fell 2.3% to $49,445 last year from a year ago and 7% from 2000. “It’s a lost decade for the middle class,” said Sheldon Danziger, a poverty expert at the University of Michigan. The number of poor children younger than 18 reached its highest level since 1962, said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution.
This is an unmitigated disaster, and it is hitting young people the hardest. Overall, the number of 25- to 34-year-old men and women who were living with their parents last spring totaled 5.9 million, the article tells us, and this is a 25.5% increase since the recession began in 2007.
Of course, we note the words that are used in the article to describe the current conflagration, specifically the “R” word, recession. This is no recession, from what we can tell. Nor has there been a “weak recovery.”
With 50 million or so Americans relying on food stamps and unemployment realistically hovering at least in the 20 percent area (we think its closer to 30 percent), one can use any words one wants to – even “banana” – but a depression is a depression.
The elites, of course, fear depression. While it is important to remove prosperity from people’s lives in order to make them malleable, too much hardship can cause social chaos and the kind of pushback that puts “civilized” institutions at risk. During the Great Depression, the elites were most worried about armed insurrection in America and Europe, especially because there were so many young men with military experience as a result of World War One.
But depression is the logical outcome of the economic system now in place throughout the West. Driven by central bank fiat money divorced from underlying value, powered by taxes, visible and invisible, that take up to 50 percent of the average person’s income, and rigorously controlled by a blizzard of incomprehensible and destructive regulations, the system in place now is Babylonian in its devious intricacy and seemingly beyond redemption.
Add in five or six regional wars in the Middle East and Africa (with more doubtless coming) and the general militarization of the population and the larger model of corporatism, and the results become clear. The economy of the West has been so distorted that price signals are simply not available. No one knows what to invest in because government subsidies, regulation and fiat money have made it impossible to tell a healthy enterprise from a fraudulent one.
There is an easy way out of the depression that is gradually lengthening over the West like a malevolent shadow. Return to free and unregulated markets, disband central banks and let money freely compete and circulate, especially gold and silver.
Stop distorting the economy with endless government fixes, phony wars and the saddlingof the larger culture with the inevitable failing prescriptions of “wise men.” These are simple solutions. They have worked in the past and sooner or later they will work again. The elites, as powerful as they are, cannot forever hold back the logic of the larger market.
It is, in fact, inevitable in our view. In this era of the Internet Reformation, it is likely impossible for the elites to fully complete their globalist campaign. Too much is known about what’s planned and as a result, the great families are turning more and more (ineffectively) to repression, wiretapping and violence to achieve their ends.
Conclusion: This is evidence of the weakness of their position and we have seen no evidence that their situation can much improve either in the long or short term. In the 21st Century we would tend to believe that people may not prove so malleable as the elite has hoped.
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Faro and Doris Caudill, homesteaders. Pie Town, New Mexico, October 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
In the eight years between invasion and withdrawal, more than 110,000 people suffered violent deaths as direct result of the Iraq conflict. Some estimates put that number at over a million. Hundreds of thousands of civilians and former combatants also suffered injury during the war, both physical and psychological. When the coalition finally withdrew in 2011, no significant weapons of mass destruction had been located, but Saddam Hussein's regime had been replaced by elected representatives. A mostly Sunni-led insurgency flared up, challenging the new government and security forces. Trillions of dollars were spent and millions of lives were affected, but the Iraqis are still struggling to find their post-war footing as near-constant violence hampers any efforts to move beyond poverty and pain. Ten years later, we look back in a three-part series. Today's entry focuses on the period from 2011 to present-day.
This Wednesday, March 13, 2013 photo shows a view of Firdos Square at the site of an Associated Press photograph taken by Jerome Delay as the statue of Saddam Hussein was pulled down by U.S. forces and Iraqis on April 9, 2003. Ten years ago on live television, U.S. Marines memorably hauled down a Soviet-style statue of Saddam, symbolically ending his rule. Today, that pedestal in central Baghdad stands empty. Bent iron beams sprout from the top, and posters of anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in military fatigues are pasted on the sides.(AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)
Sgt. 1st Class Justin Hathaway braves a sandstorm after leaving the 9th Air and Space Expeditionary Task Force-Iraq and U.S. Forces-Iraq Provost Marshal Office at Al Asad Air Base, Iraq, on September 27, 2011. (Master Sgt. Cecilio Ricardo/USAF) #
Copies of the Quran, Muslims holy book, splattered with blood, at Um al-Qura mosque in Baghdad, Iraq, on August 29, 2011. A suicide bomber blew himself up inside Baghdad's largest Sunni mosque, killing dozens during prayers, a shocking strike on a place of worship similar to the one that brought Iraq to the brink of civil war five years before. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed) #
A female taxi driver fetches a passenger in Arbil, about 350 km (220 miles) north of Baghdad, on November 19, 2011. Inspired by the success stories of the ladies' taxis services in Lebanon and Dubai, 25-year old civil engineer Lana Khoshabaan has recently started an all-women taxi firm, in the Kurdish city of Arbil. The black cars, imprinted with the words "PNK TAXI" are dispatched upon calls to pick up female passengers from all parts of Arbil. Currently, only three cars are in operation on two shifts daily. (Reuters/Azad Lashkari) #
An Iraqi boy is taken away from a suspected militant, who has been accused of killing his father at the height of the sectarian slaughter in 2006-07, during a presentation to the media at the Interior Ministry in Baghdad, on November 21, 2011. A total of 22 suspected militants were presented to the media as they awaited trial, according to the police. (Reuters/Saad Shalash) #
Soldiers with the 1452nd Combat Heavy Equipment Transportation Company, North Carolina Army National Guard, load an M1 Abrams tank onto the bed of a super heavy equipment transporter tractor-trailer on Contingency Operating Base Adder, on November 4, 2011. The 1452nd loaded two of the 60-ton tanks to transport to Kuwait in support of the U.S. Forces drawdown in Iraq.(Pvt. Andrew Slovensky/U.S. Army) #
U.S. Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles drive through Camp Adder before departing what is now known as Imam Ali Base near Nasiriyah, Iraq December 16, 2011. The last convoy of U.S. soldiers pulled out of Iraq, ending their withdrawal after nearly nine years of war and military intervention that cost almost 4,500 American and tens of thousands of Iraqi lives.(Reuters/Mario Tama/Pool) #
Sgt. Aaron Grudich of Oakfield, Wisconsin, walks back to the car with his family after returning from Iraq at the West Bend Armory, on November 19, 2011, in West Bend, Wisconsin. Soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, 135th General Aviation Support Battalion returned home from Iraq. After 51 weeks, the last Wisconsin National Guard Unit returned home. (AP Photo/West Bend Daily News, John Ehlke) #
The scarred hands of 12-year-old Iraqi Khitam Hamad, photographed as she participated in a class with other young victims of Iraq violence at a program operated by Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), on July 28, 2011 in Amman, Jordan. Khitam, who is from the city of Fallujah, was severely burned following a car bomb when she was walking with her sister. MSF has been running a reconstructive-surgery program for war-wounded Iraqis since August 2006. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images) #
(1 of 2) Iraqis throw stones after protesters attacked Iraq's deputy premier Saleh al-Mutlak on December 30, 2012, forcing him to flee a rally he was addressing on the outskirts of the western city of Ramadi, an AFP reporter said. The demonstrators, who blocked a key highway connecting Iraq to Syria and Jordan over the alleged targeting of their Sunni Arab minority by the Shiite-led government in Baghdad, threw water bottles, stones and shoes at Mutlak before grabbing and hitting him. (Azhar Shallal/AFP/Getty Images) #
(2 of 2) Iraqi security forces fire into the air as Iraqi deputy premier Saleh al-Mutlak is attacked as he arrived to give a speech on December 30, 2012, forcing him to flee the rally he was addressing in Ramadi. (Azhar Shallal/AFP/Getty Images) #
A suicide bomber in Iraq injured Marine veteran Keith Buckmon, native of Capitol Heights, Maryland, in 2008, resulting in the complete reconstruction of both of his legs and his right arm using bone grafts and metal plates. Buckmon has also struggled with losing the Marines who died during the attack and battles the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder every day. Now, Buckmon is an athlete in the 2013 Marine Corps Trials who competes in seated volleyball, wheelchair basketball, seated shot put, discus, and shooting. Buckmon says his wife and two daughters, Damaris Buckmon, Iz'Abella Amaris Buckmon (lower right) and Jy'Zella-leilani Grace Clark, are his motivation to keep pushing to get better because he strives to be a good husband and father. Buckmon has a tattoo on his shoulder that depicts a Purple Heart medal and the date he was injured. (USMC/Cpl. Tyler L. Main) #
Workers attend a training class at LUKOIL training center in Basra, Iraq, on December 25, 2012. Russian oil firm LUKOIL has opened its first training center located in al-Rumaila in the southern city of Basra to develop skilled staff to work in its oilfield. The firm, Russia's second-largest crude producer, won a contract to develop the West Qurna-2 oilfield. (Reuters/Atef Hassan) #
An aerial view of the Shrines of Imam al-Abbas and Imam al-Hussein during the religious ceremony of Arbain in Kerbala, about 80 km (50 miles) southwest of Baghdad, on January 1, 2013. (Reuters/Mohammed Ameen) #
Shi'ite pilgrims pray at the Imam Hussein shrine in the holy city of Kerbala, on November 24, 2012. The festival, commemorated by Shi'ite Muslims, marks the martyrdom of Hussein, the grandson of Prophet Mohammad. (Reuters/Mohammed Ameen) #
A film crew shoots a scene of an Iraqi film in a street in Baghdad October 18, 2012. The din of power generators, tangle of jury-rigged electric wiring and hassle of security checkpoints are all part of the movie business in Iraq, not to mention the lack of studio space and dearth of experienced crews. War and international sanctions have left most of Iraq's infrastructure and industry in shambles, including the movie industry. But the return of government funding means a new start for many local directors, even if the amounts are small by international standards. (Reuters/Mohammed Ameen) #
A little girl runs towards the Pacific Ocean, as she visits the Arlington West Iraq war memorial on Veterans Day, on the seashore in Santa Monica, California. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes) #
Samar Hassan, 16, looks at a photo of the family car after her family were shot at in 2005, during an interview with Reuters in Mosul, Iraq, on March 6, 2013. (Samar can be seen in a famous photo of the incident in yesterday's entry, photo 19.) Samar, a Turkman from the city of Tel Afar, is one of thousands of Iraqis who have relatives that were killed by U.S. forces, since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Samar said she was sitting in the back seat of the car with her brother and three sisters on their way back from the hospital on January 18, 2005, when a group of U.S. soldiers shot at them, killing her parents on the scene and seriously wounding her brother, Rakan. (Reuters/Thaier al-Sudani) #
Ministry of Health staff carry a wounded colleague during a car bomb attack at the Health Department in Baghdad, on June 4, 2012. A suicide bomber detonated explosives in a car outside Iraq's main religious affairs office for Shiite Muslims, tearing down part of the three-story building, killing and wounding scores of people, police said. (AP Photo/Adil al-Khazali) #
A man stands amid debris after a bomb attack in the Shuala district of Baghdad, on November 28, 2012. Three car bombings killed 23 Shi'ite Muslims during mourning processions in the Iraqi capital Baghdad, police and hospital sources said. The deadliest attack occurred in the Shuala district, where a car bomb parked outside a Shi'ite place of worship exploded as people were leaving the building, killing nine. (Reuters/Mohammed Ameen) #
Wounded Warrior Amputee Softball Team outfielder Brian Urruela warms up before their game against the Cooperstown, New York Fire & Police Department team at Abner Doubleday Field in Cooperstown, New York, on May 27, 2012. The Wounded Warrior Amputee Softball team is comprised of United States military personnel who lost limbs during their service in Iraq and Afghanistan.(Reuters/Gary Cameron) #
A woman and her child react as Iraqi soldiers raid her house in Arab Jabour, south of Baghdad, on July 20, 2012. Iraqi security forces raided some villages in Arab Jabour and detained 54 men suspected members of al-Qaida. (AP Photo/Alaa al-Marjani) #
Bryan Anderson talks about his new book titled "No Turning Back," at his home in Rolling Meadows, Illinois, on October 31, 2011. His story details enlisting with the Army and receiving a deployment date of September 11, 2001, serving two tours in Iraq as a sergeant in the military police, driving over a roadside bomb in his Humvee in October 2005, and recovering for 13 months at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where he was one of the few triple amputees to survive. (AP Photo/Daily Herald, Bob Chwedyk) #
Iraqi Shiite Muslim women attend the Eid al-Adha prayer, outside the party headquarters of the Supreme Islamic Council in Baghdad, on October 26, 2012. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban) #
An Iraqi biker prepares for a ride during a biker show on Abu Nawas street in Baghdad, on October 19, 2012. In some parts of Baghdad, youthful rebellion and American biker style clash with conservative mores, in a country where just a few years ago militias imposed their own radical Islamic views at gunpoint. (Reuters/Saad Shalash) #
An Iraqi security man inspects the wreckage of destroyed vehicles following a bomb attack on the previous day in north Baghdad, on December 18, 2012. The car bomb exploded at a car dealership, killing at least 11 people and wounding at least 40, security and medical officials said, as a wave of attacks targeting both Iraqi security forces and civilians killed 48 people ahead of the first anniversary of the withdrawal of US forces. (ALI AL-SAADI/AFP/Getty Images) #
A woman reacts near the site of a car bomb attack in Kirkuk, on November 14, 2012. A series of car bomb blasts killed at least 12 people across Iraq, police and hospital sources said. (Reuters/Ako Rasheed) #
Ryan Lamke of Washington, sits by the grave of his fellow U.S. Marine, Cpl. Benny G. Cockerham III, in Section 60 of Arlington National Cemetery Tuesday, on March 19, 2013, in Arlington, Virginia. Lamke visits his friend's grave about once a month. Capt. Tyler Swisher, Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Chris Thompson, and Marine Lance Cpl. Kenneth Butler also died with Cocherham when their Humvee was attacked by an improvised explosive device. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon) #
A stone decorated with "Love you Pappa", set on a headstone in Section 60 at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, on March 13, 2013. (Reuters/Kevin Lamarque) #
A visitor views pictures of British war veterans photographed by Canadian rock star Bryan Adams during the opening of his exhibition in Duesseldorf, Germany, on February 1, 2013. Adams shows 150 pictures of his photo work like celebrity portraits, but also a series of portraits of injured soldiers coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner) #
A student practices playing the oud at the Institute of Musical Studies in Baghdad, on October 21, 2012. The once quiet courtyards of Baghdad's Institute of Musical Studies, located in the busy Sinak area, where violence was rife during the height of Iraq's sectarian violence in 2006 and 2007, are thriving again as the Iraqi capital enjoys a noticeable ebb in violence. Many of Iraq's most talented musicians fled during the rule of Saddam Hussein, fearing persecution for their political views and suffering from a lack of funding and exposure if they refused to glorify the leader in their art. Now, gingerly, some musicians are making plans to come back, hoping to revive Iraq's rich musical tradition on home soil. (Reuters/Mohammed Ameen) #
(1 of 2) Matt Ecker points out a bullet hole in the back of his Champion, Ohio home, on April 19, 2012. On a warm summer afternoon in Champion, Michael Ecker, a 25-year-old Iraq war veteran, called out to his father from a leafy spot in their backyard. Then, as the two stood just steps apart, Michael saluted, raised a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. (Reuters/Jason Cohn) #
(2 of 2) Matt and Cheryl Ecker hold a photo of their son, Army veteran Michael Ecker, in Champion, Ohio, April 19, 2012. In 2009, Michael committed suicide, shooting himself in front of his father. Veteran suicides remain a serious problem in the U.S. A recent Veteran's Administration study using data from 21 states between 1999 and 2011 suggested that as many as 22 veterans were killing themselves every day. (Reuters/Jason Cohn) #
Brad Schwarz, with his service dog Panzer, attends a Chicago Cubs game with a group of veterans from the Wounded Warrior Project at Wrigley Field in Chicago, Illinois, on June 14, 2012. Schwarz uses Panzer to help him cope with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) issues related to his 2008 tour in Iraq. In addition to suffering from PTSD Schwarz has memory loss related to Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and he must walk with a cane because of vertebrae and nerve damage in his back and legs. Ten days before he was scheduled to rotate home from a 15-month deployment in Iraq, his second, the Humvee in which he was riding was struck by an IED. Of the 5 soldiers riding in the vehicle, which caught fire after the explosion, Schwarz was the only one to survive. (Scott Olson/Getty Images) #
This March 12, 2013 photo shows a view of Abu Nawas park in Baghdad, at the site of a photograph taken by Maya Alleruzzo showing Iraqi orphans playing soccer with a U.S. soldier from the Third Infantry Division in April of 2003. The park that runs along Abu Nawas Street, named after an Arabic poet, is now a popular destination for families who are drawn by the manicured gardens, playgrounds and restaurants famous for a fish called mazgouf. Ten years ago, the park was home to a tribe of children orphaned by the war and was rife with crime. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo) #
This March 14, 2013 photo shows the crossed swords monument at the site of an Associated Press photograph taken by Karim Kadim of U.S. soldiers taken on November 16, 2008. The crossed-sword archways Saddam Hussein commissioned during Iraq's nearly eight-year war with Iran stand defiantly on a little-used parade ground inside the Green Zone, the fortified district that houses the sprawling U.S. Embassy and several government offices. Iraqi officials began tearing down the archways in 2007 but quickly halted those plans and then started restoring the monument two years ago. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo) #
In this March 14, 2013 photo, Hussein, age 3, poses in Firdos Square in Baghdad, holding a photograph taken at the site by Jerome Delay of the Associated Press, showing the statue of Saddam Hussein being pulled down by U.S. forces and Iraqis on April 9, 2003.(AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)
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Connecticut town on the sea. Stonington, Connecticut, November 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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Farm auction. Derby, Connecticut, September 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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Children gathering potatoes on a large farm. Vicinity of Caribou, Aroostook County, Maine, October 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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Trucks outside of a starch factory. Caribou, Aroostook County, Maine, October 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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Headlines posted in street-corner window of newspaper office (Brockton Enterprise). Brockton, Massachusetts, December 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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Children in the tenement district. Brockton, Massachusetts, December 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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Going to town on Saturday afternoon. Greene County, Georgia, May 1941. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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Chopping cotton on rented land near White Plains. White Plains, Greene County, Georgia, June 1941. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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Barker at the grounds at the state fair. Rutland, Vermont, September 1941. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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Backstage at the "girlie" show at the state fair. Rutland, Vermont, September 1941. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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At the Vermont state fair. Rutland, Vermont, September 1941. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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Couples at square dance. McIntosh County, Oklahoma, 1939 or 1940, Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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Orchestra at square dance. McIntosh County, Oklahoma, 1939 or 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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Children asleep on bed during square dance. McIntosh County, Oklahoma, 1939 or 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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Jack Whinery, homesteader, and his family. Pie Town, New Mexico, October 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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The Faro Caudill family eating dinner in their dugout. Pie Town, New Mexico, October 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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Saying grace before the barbeque dinner at the New Mexico Fair. Pie Town, New Mexico, October 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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Homesteader and his children eating barbeque at the New Mexico Fair. Pie Town, New Mexico, October 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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School children singing. Pie Town, New Mexico, October 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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Garden adjacent to the dugout home of Jack Whinery, homesteader. Pie Town, New Mexico, September 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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Mill at the Camp Bird Mine. Ouray County, Colorado, October 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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Distributing surplus commodities. St. Johns, Arizona, October 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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Hauling crates of peaches from the orchard to the shipping shed. Delta County, Colorado, September 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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Hay stack and automobile of peach pickers. Delta County, Colorado, 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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On main street of Cascade. Cascade, Idaho, July 1941. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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Road cut into the barren hills which lead into Emmett. Emmett, Idaho, July 1941. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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Shasta dam under construction. California, June 1942. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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Boy building a model airplane as girl watches. Robstown, Texas, January 1942. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Arthur Rothstein. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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Grand Grocery Company. Lincoln, Nebraska, 1942. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by John Vachon. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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Young African American boy. Cincinnati, Ohio, 1942 or 1943. Photo by John Vachon. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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Wisdom, Montana, April 1942. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by John Vachon. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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A Fourth of July celebration. St. Helena Island, South Carolina, 1939. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Marion Post Wolcott. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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Planting corn along a river. Northeastern Tennessee, May 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Marion Post Wolcott. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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African Americans fishing in creek near cotton plantations. Belzoni, Mississippi, October 1939. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Marion Post Wolcott. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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Bayou Bourbeau plantation, a Farm Security Administration cooperative. Vicinity of Natchitoches, Louisiana, August 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Marion Post Wolcott. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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African American's tenant's home beside the Mississippi River levee. Near Lake Providence, Louisiana, June 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Marion Post Wolcott. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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A crossroads store, bar, "juke joint," and gas station in the cotton plantation area. Melrose, Louisiana, June 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Marion Post Wolcott. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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Boys fishing in a bayou. Schriever, Louisiana, June 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Marion Post Wolcott. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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A store with live fish for sale. Vicinity of Natchitoches, Louisiana, July 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Marion Post Wolcott. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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African American migratory workers by a "juke joint". Belle Glade, Florida, February 1941. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Marion Post Wolcott. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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Children aiming sticks as guns, lined up against a brick building. Washington, D.C.(?), between 1941 and 1942. Reproduction from color slide. Photographer Unknown. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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Shulman's market, on N at Union Street S.W. Washington, D.C., between 1941 and 1942. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Louise Rosskam. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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House. Washington, D.C.(?), between 1941 and 1942. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Louise Rosskam. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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Chapel, Vadito. Near Penasco, New Mexico, Spring 1943. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by John Collier. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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A welder who works in the round-house at the Chicago and Northwestern Railway Company's Proviso yard. Chicago, Illinois, December 1942. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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View in a departure yard at Chicago and Northwestern Railway Company's Proviso yard at twilight. Chicago, Illinois, December 1942. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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Switchman throwing a switch at Chicago and Northwest Railway Company's Proviso yard. Chicago, Illinois, April 1943. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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Mike Evans, a welder, at the rip tracks at Proviso yard of the Chicago and Northwest Railway Company. Chicago, Illinois, April 1943. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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Putting the finishing touches on a rebuilt caboose at the rip tracks at Proviso yard. Chicago, Illinois, April 1943. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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Switch engine in yard near Calumet Park stockyards, Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad. Calumet City, Illinois, January 1943. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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General view of part of the South Water Street freight depot of the Illinois Central Railroad Chicago, Illinois, May 1943. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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Mrs. Viola Sievers, one of the wipers at the roundhouse giving a giant "H" class locomotive a bath of live steam. Clinton, Iowa, April 1943. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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Women workers employed as wipers in the roundhouse having lunch in their rest room, Chicago and Northwest Railway Company. Clinton, Iowa, April 1943. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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Children stage a patriotic demonstration. Southington, Connecticut, May 1942. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Fenno Jacobs. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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At Beecher Street School. Southington, Connecticut, May 1942. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Fenno Jacobs. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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Street corner. Dillon, Montana, August 1942. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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Shepherd with his horse and dog on Gravelly Range Madison County, Montana, August 1942. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
!['Push harder': A source said that 'for most of 2002 and into 2003, [Vice-President Dick] Cheney (far right) and [Defence Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld (far left) were also demanding proof of the links between al-Qaeda and Iraq' and demanded interrogators 'push harder' when no evidence was found](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_vxLEoZ6LtYYBf6y5mgdQmbSeMKPdR2ieH_v9igPNpeDlHy7gUeiIMqaybZa-ZHBp9Bf0BOzjhDDpY1fRRqgRLWzpPRik1pen-_i5VZekRtLFAIf18iDNF25ehckeqD5-aXV9e3O_NAiBHAZXhSjX3rxDiooMqJrymEnX9p=s0-d)
The American public has sustained intensive economic attacks across broad segments of the population. While the attacks have been increasingly severe in scale over the past four years, they have been implemented with technocratic precision. They have been incrementally applied thus far, successfully keeping the population passive and avoiding any large-scale civilian unrest, while effectively reducing living standards for the majority of the population. As you will see in this report, the 55 million Americans that have been hit the hardest have thus far acquiesced due to temporary financial assistance, such as food stamps and extended unemployment benefits.
The most current Census data revealed that 43.6 million Americans, 14.3% of the population, lived in poverty in 2009. While that is a staggering number that represents the highest number of American people to ever live in poverty, and a dramatic increase of four million people since 2008, it significantly under-counted the total. Last year, in 
As the chart to the right shows, even with the lower Census numbers, nine major American cities have a poverty rate over 25%.
In 2005, 
While 68.3 million Americans struggle to get enough food to eat and wages are declining for 90% of the population, US millionaire household wealth has reached an unprecedented level. According to an extensive study by auditing and financial advisory firm Deloitte, US millionaire households now have 
If all this isn’t obscene enough, to further demonstrate how the global economy has now been completely rigged, Deloitte’s analysis predicated, based on current trends, that US millionaire households will see a 225% increase in wealth to $87.1 trillion by 2020. Accounting for wealth hidden in offshore accounts, they are projected to have over $100 trillion in total within the next decade.
The highest bracket for annual income is $50 million or more. Only 74 Americans are in this elite group. The average income within this category was 
Former Goldman Sachs CEO and Bush Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson had already amassed at least $700 million prior to moving to the US Treasury in 2006. Current Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein and a few other top executives at Goldman Sachs just received $111.3 million in bonuses. Blankfein just took home $24.3 million, as part of a $67.9 million bonus he was awarded. Goldman’s President Gary Cohn took home $24 million, as part of a $66.9 million bonus he was awarded. Goldman’s CFO David Viniar and former co-president Jon Winkelried both took home over $20 million in bonuses.
Given this level of obscene profiteering within the health care industry, it is not surprising that Americans pay more for medical care than any other nation in the world. In fact, Americans are forced to pay twice as much as most nations, and get lower quality care in return. As health insurance companies admitted, they have been reaping windfall profits because people with health insurance plans still cannot afford to go to the doctors and have stopped going unless it is an absolute emergency. With well over 50 million people unable to afford health insurance and the skyrocketing costs, it is not surprising that over 60% of all personal bankruptcies are the result of medical bills. In fact, 75% of the medical bankruptcies filed are from people who have health insurance.
As for statistics on Americans being buried in financial debt, the indentured servant has evolved into the indebted citizen. As mentioned before, from 1990 – 2010 costs of living have increased 67%, while wages have stagnated and declined. As the national debt has reached a record $14.6 trillion, total personal debt is now over 
The next time you are stressed out, struggling to make ends meet and pay off your debts, just think about the trillions of dollars sitting in the obscenely bloated pockets of one-tenth of one percent of the population. The first step in overcoming your peasant status is to understand that you are indeed a peasant. This is a bitter pill to swallow and most will prefer to, as they have been conditioned to do, continue on their path of media-induced delusion, denial, apathy and ignorance.
Now, let’s consider the fact that, according to the Census Bureau, 
The dramatic increase in economic inequality and poverty, along with the unprecedented rise in wealth within the top one-tenth of one percent of the population has not happened by mistake. It is the designed result of deliberate governmental and economic policy. It is the result of the richest people in the world, and the “too big to fail” banks, using the campaign finance and lobbying system to buy off politicians who implement policies designed to exploit 99.9% of the population for their financial gain. To call what is happening a “financial terrorist attack” on the United States, is not using hyperbole, it is the technical term for what is currently occurring.
Compare the million people who die annually as a result of these economic attacks, to the 2,977 that died on 9/11. As someone who lived three blocks from the World Trade Center, as tragic as 9/11 was, these economic attacks are much more severe and damaging to us as a nation, albeit a much slower and unseen death toll. Nonetheless, the result is of genocidal proportions. One can statistically compare the economic attacks on the US to the invasion of Iraq, which some estimate as leading to one million deaths. Once again, many of those deaths came in brutal and spectacular fashion in bombing campaigns known as “shock and awe.” However, the death toll compares to the hidden brutality of a four-year campaign of economic “shock and awe.” Just as Iraq was invaded, the US has been invaded by a global banking cartel.
Florence Thompson with three of her children in a photograph known as "Migrant Mother." This famous image is one of a series of photographs that photographer Dorothea Lange made of Florence Thompson and her children in early 1936 in Nipomo, California. More on the photo 
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