Laws of Nature and Free Will

By Mogens Michaelsen

An article by Behind My Screen: "There is no Free Will: A Secular Argument" inspired me to write a little about the relation between the laws of nature and free will.

Many people think, that since the universe is governed by natural laws, it must necessarily be determined in a way that excludes free will.

The first argument against this, is the fact, that according to science the world we live in is not fully pre-determined in the sense that it is possible to calculate the present state if you knew everything about a state in the past. According to the so-called Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum Mechanics this is due to the "Uncertainty Principle" which makes it impossible to measure both the exact location and the impulse of an electron at the same time. I will not go further into this here, but the implication of it is, that there is an element of randomness in the world/universe. Because Albert Einstein was opposed to this theory he said something like: "I don't think God plays dice". This is often used to argue, that Einstein believed in a personal "God" - which is actually not the case. It is more correct to view it as a metaphor, referring only to the question of randomness.

If we look at another interpretation of Quantum Mechanics called MWI (Many Worlds Interpretation) it is a little more complicated. Here you have to make a distinction between a "world" and the universe as a whole. The reality which most people call "the universe" is only a single world in this theory, and this is only a part of the universe - a part of the universe in which we exist as observers. In contrast to the Copenhagen interpretation, MWI claims that there is no real randomness, because all the possibilities are actually realized, but any observer in our world will observe that he or she is still living in "the world". Since the state of this world is not fully predictable, there appears to be some randomness in the chain of events. The interesting question then is, if it is correct to say, that this apparent randomness is simply an illusion? Personally I would say that it is relative to the observer. If it was possible for an observer to observe the whole universe, there is no randomness. But if you are an observer in a "world" (which human observers normally are!) there actually is randomness in this world - objectively, that is.

My explanation of the interpretations of Quantum Mechanics is very far from complete, but that is actually not my intention here. My intention is to explain, that no matter which interpretation of Quantum Mechanics is used, the existence of a given person in the world is not pre-determined, not even if the universe is 100 pct. deterministic!

The implication of this is, that your own existence as a living human being, is not a necessity, meaning that it is not simply a necessary consequence of the laws of nature. To be, or not to be, that is the question...

Where do all this connect to the question of free will?

Well, it doesn't prove that we have a free will, but it certainly doesn't exclude it either. Most people will probably say, that if everything is pre-determined in the simple sense of the word, you can hardly give any meaning to the concept of "free will". Free will would at best be an illusion, or something like that.

Now I will try to view the laws of nature from a different perspective. And I will do that by a simple example:

1) Imagine a person holding a small object in his hand, e.g. a cigarette lighter.

2) Ask this person to decide whether to drop the lighter or not. And tell him he is free to make the decision himself.

3) Tell the person, that if he drops the lighter within a minute, he will get 10 dollars. If he doesn't drop the lighter within a minute, it will be chosen by random, whether he will get 100 dollars, or no money at all.

Now, what you can "predict" is, that the person will perform some thinking before deciding whether to drop the lighter or not. But can you predict much else than that? Some might say, that his decision will depend on how much he needs how much money, but do you know that for sure? I don't think so - it is also possible that he choose to do the opposite of what he thinks the instructor expects, in order to demonstrate that he has a free will.

Does that mean, that you cannot predict much else than that?

Actually there is another important thing you can predict: If he choose to drop the lighter, you will see the lighter move towards the floor, due to gravity! Or to be more correct: If you see the lighter move towards the floor, you know that he must have decided to drop it. You also know, that the lighter would move towards the floor with an acceleration of 9.8 m/sec^2, if it was not for air-resistance. Of course the exact value of the lighter's acceleration is not relevant, but the fact that there is a natural law - the law of gravity - governing this movement certainly is. If the lighter could just as well move in a random direction with a random speed, the person cannot choose to drop the lighter, since he is not able to predict the movement, and since "dropping" is defined as involving a movement towards the floor. In short: he can only choose to drop the lighter if the laws of nature is like they actually are.

Conclusion: The laws of nature does not contradict free choices. The laws of nature is a necessary precondition for free choice.

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Links:
Newsvine: Laws of Nature and Free Will
Newsvine: There is no Free Will: A Secular Argument

President Ahmadinejad's speech at UN General Assembly

20 September 2006 (source: www.president.ir)

Madam President,
Distinguished Heads of State and Government,
Distinguished Heads of Delegation,
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen

I praise the Merciful, All-Knowing and Almighty God for blessing me with another opportunity to address this Assembly on behalf of the great nation of Iran and to bring a number of issues to the attention of the international community.

I also praise the Almighty for the increasing vigilance of peoples across the globe, their courageous presence in different international settings, and the brave expression of their views and aspirations regarding global issues.

Today, humanity passionately craves commitment to the Truth, devotion to God, quest for Justice and respect for the dignity of human beings. Rejection of domination and aggression, defense of the oppressed. And longing for peace constitute the legitimate demand of the peoples of the world, particularly the new generations and the spirited youth, who aspire a world free from decadence, aggression and injustice, and replete with love and compassion. The youth have a right to seek justice and the Truth; and they have a right to build their own future on the foundations of love, compassion and tranquility. And, I praise the Almighty for this immense blessing.


Madame President,
Excellencies,

What afflicts humanity today is certainly not compatible with human dignity; the Almighty has not created human beings so that they could transgress against others and oppress them.

By causing war and conflict, some are fast expanding their domination, accumulating greater wealth and usurping all the resources, while others endure the resulting poverty, suffering and misery.

Some seek to rule the world relying on weapons and threats, while others live in perpetual insecurity and danger.

Some occupy the homeland of others, thousands of kilometers away from their borders, interfere in their affairs and control their oil and other resources and strategic routes, while others are bombarded daily in their own homes; their children murdered in the streets and alleys of their own country and their homes reduced to rubble.

Such behavior is not worthy of human beings and runs counter to the Truth, to justice and to human dignity. The fundamental question is that under such conditions, where should the oppressed seek justice? Who or what organization defends the rights of the oppressed, and suppresses acts of aggression and oppression? Where is the seat of global justice?

A brief glance at a few examples of the most pressing global issues can further illustrate the problem.

A. The unbridled expansion of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons

Some powers proudly announce their production of second and third generations of nuclear weapons. What do they need these weapons for? Is the development and stockpiling of these deadly weapons designed to promote peace and democracy? Or, are these weapons, in fact, instruments of coercion and threat against other peoples and governments? How long should the people of the world live with the nightmare of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons? What bounds the powers producing and possessing these weapons? How can they be held accountable before the international community? And, are the inhabitants of these countries content with the waste of their wealth and resources for the production of such destructive arsenals? Is it not possible to rely on justice, ethics and wisdom instead of these instruments of death? Aren't wisdom and justice more compatible with peace and tranquility than nuclear, chemical and biological weapons? If wisdom, ethics and justice prevail, then oppression and aggression will be uprooted, threats will wither away and no reason will remain for conflict. This is a solid proposition because most global conflicts emanate from injustice, and from the powerful, not being contented with their own rights, striving to devour the rights of others.
People across the globe embrace justice and are willing to sacrifice for its sake.

Would it not be easier for global powers to ensure their longevity and win hearts and minds through the championing of real promotion of justice, compassion and peace, than through continuing the proliferation of nuclear and chemical weapons and the threat of their use?

The experience of the threat and the use of nuclear weapons is before us. Has it achieved anything for the perpetrators other than exacerbation of tension, hatred and animosity among nations?

B. Occupation of countries and exacerbation of hostilities

Occupation of countries, including Iraq, has continued for the last three years. Not a day goes by without hundreds of people getting killed in cold blood. The occupiers are incapable of establishing security in Iraq. Despite the establishment of the lawful Government and National Assembly of Iraq, there are covert and overt efforts to heighten insecurity, magnify and aggravate differences within Iraqi society, and instigate civil strife.

There is no indication that the occupiers have the necessary political will to eliminate the sources of instability. Numerous terrorists were apprehended by the Government of Iraq, only to be let loose under various pretexts by the occupiers.

It seems that intensification of hostilities and terrorism serves as a pretext for the continued presence of foreign forces in Iraq.

Where can the people of Iraq seek refuge, and from whom should the Government of Iraq seek justice?

Who can ensure Iraq's security? Insecurity in Iraq affects the entire region. Can the Security Council play a role in restoring peace and security in Iraq, while the occupiers are themselves permanent members of the Council? Can the Security Council adopt a fair decision in this regard?

Consider the situation in Palestine:

The roots of the Palestinian problem go back to the Second World War. Under the pretext of protecting some of the survivors of that War, the land of Palestine was occupied through war, aggression and the displacement of millions of its inhabitants; it was placed under the control of some of the War survivors, bringing even larger population groups from elsewhere in the world, who had not been even affected by the Second World War; and a government was established in the territory of others with a population collected from across the world at the expense of driving millions of the rightful inhabitants of the land into a Diaspora and homelessness. This is a great tragedy with hardly a precedent in history. Refugees continue to live in temporary refugee camps, and many have died still hoping to one day return to their land. Can any logic, law or legal reasoning justify this tragedy? Can any member of the United Nations accept such a tragedy occurring in their own homeland?

The pretexts for the creation of the regime occupying Al-Qods Al-Sharif are so weak that its proponents want to silence any voice trying to merely speak about them, as they are concerned that shedding light on the facts would undermine the raison d'être of this regime, as it has. The tragedy does not end with the establishment of a regime in the territory of others. Regrettably, from its inception, that regime has been a constant source of threat and insecurity in the Middle East region, waging war and spilling blood and impeding the progress of regional countries, and has also been used by some powers as an instrument of division, coercion, and pressure on the people of the region. Reference to these historical realities may cause some disquiet among supporters of this regime. But these are sheer facts and not myth. History has unfolded before our eyes.

Worst yet, is the blanket and unwarranted support provided to this regime.

Just watch what is happening in the Palestinian land. People are being bombarded in their own homes and their children murdered in their own streets and alleys. But no authority, not even the Security Council, can afford them any support or protection. Why?

At the same time, a Government is formed democratically and through the free choice of the electorate in a part of the Palestinian territory. But instead of receiving the support of the so-called champions of democracy, its Ministers and Members of Parliament are illegally abducted and incarcerated in full view of the international community.

Which council or international organization stands up to protect this brutally besieged Government? And why can't the Security Council take any steps?

Let me here address Lebanon:

For thirty-three long days, the Lebanese lived under the barrage of fire and bombs and close to 1.5 million of them were displaced; meanwhile some members of the Security Council practically chose a path that provided ample opportunity for the aggressor to achieve its objectives militarily. We witnessed that the Security Council of the United Nations was practically incapacitated by certain powers to even call for a ceasefire. The Security Council sat idly by for so many days, witnessing the cruel scenes of atrocities against the Lebanese while tragedies such as Qana were persistently repeated. Why?

In all these cases, the answer is self-evident. When the power behind the hostilities is itself a permanent member of the Security Council, how then can this Council fulfill its responsibilities?

C. Lack of respect for the rights of members of the international community

Excellencies,

I now wish to refer to some of the grievances of the Iranian people and speak to the injustices against them.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is a member of the IAEA and is committed to the NPT. All our nuclear activities are transparent, peaceful and under the watchful eyes of IAEA inspectors. Why then are there objections to our legally recognized rights? Which governments object to these rights? Governments that themselves benefit from nuclear energy and the fuel cycle. Some of them have abused nuclear technology for non-peaceful ends including the production of nuclear bombs, and some even have a bleak record of using them against humanity.

Which organization or Council should address these injustices? Is the Security Council in a position to address them? Can it stop violations of the inalienable rights of countries? Can it prevent certain powers from impeding scientific progress of other countries?

The abuse of the Security Council, as an instrument of threat and coercion, is indeed a source of grave concern.

Some permanent members of the Security Council, even when they are themselves parties to international disputes, conveniently threaten others with the Security Council and declare, even before any decision by the Council, the condemnation of their opponents by the Council. The question is: what can justify such exploitation of the Security Council, and doesn't it erode the credibility and effectiveness of the Council? Can such behavior contribute to the ability of the Council to maintain security?

Excellencies,

A review of the preceding historical realities would lead to the conclusion that regrettably, justice has become a victim of force and aggression.

- Many global arrangements have become unjust, discriminatory and irresponsible as a result of undue pressure from some of the powerful;

- Threats with nuclear weapons and other instruments of war by some powers have taken the place of respect for the rights of nations and the maintenance and promotion of peace and tranquility;

- For some powers, claims of promotion of human rights and democracy can only last as long as they can be used as instruments of pressure and intimidation against other nations. But when it comes to the interests of the claimants, concepts such as democracy, the right of self-determination of nations, respect for the rights and intelligence of peoples, international law and justice have no place or value. This is blatantly manifested in the way the elected Government of the Palestinian people is treated as well as in the support extended to the Zionist regime. It does not matter if people are murdered in Palestine, turned into refugees, captured, imprisoned or besieged; that must not violate human rights.

- Nations are not equal in exercising their rights recognized by international law. Enjoying these rights is dependent on the whim of certain major powers.

- Apparently the Security Council can only be used to ensure the security and the rights of some big powers. But when the oppressed are decimated under bombardment, the Security Council must remain aloof and not even call for a ceasefire. Is this not a tragedy of historic proportions for the Security Council, which is charged with maintaining the security of countries?

- The prevailing order of contemporary global interactions is such that certain powers equate themselves with the international community, and consider their decisions superseding that of over 180 countries. They consider themselves the masters and rulers of the entire world and other nations as only second class in the world order.

Excellencies,

The question needs to be asked: if the Governments of the United States or the United Kingdom, who are permanent members of the Security Council, commit aggression, occupation and violation of international law, which of the organs of the UN can take them to account? Can a Council in which they are privileged members address their violations? Has this ever happened? In fact, we have repeatedly seen the reverse. If they have differences with a nation or state, they drag it to the Security Council and as claimants, arrogate to themselves simultaneously the roles of prosecutor, judge and executioner. Is this a just order? Can there be a more vivid case of discrimination and more clear evidence of injustice?

Regrettably, the persistence of some hegemonic powers in imposing their exclusionist policies on international decision making mechanisms, including the Security Council, has resulted in a growing mistrust in global public opinion, undermining the credibility and effectiveness of this most universal system of collective security.

Excellencies,

How long can such a situation last in the world? It is evident that the behavior of some powers constitutes the greatest challenge before the Security Council, the entire organization and its affiliated agencies.

The present structure and working methods of the Security Council, which are legacies of the Second World War, are not responsive to the expectations of the current generation and the contemporary needs of humanity.

Today, it is undeniable that the Security Council, most critically and urgently, needs legitimacy and effectiveness. It must be acknowledged that as long as the Council is unable to act on behalf of the entire international community in a transparent, just and democratic manner, it will neither be legitimate nor effective. Furthermore, the direct relation between the abuse of veto and the erosion of the legitimacy and effectiveness of the Council has now been clearly and undeniably established. We cannot, and should not, expect the eradication, or even containment, of injustice, imposition and oppression without reforming the structure and working methods of the Council.

Is it appropriate to expect this generation to submit to the decisions and arrangements established over half a century ago? Doesn't this generation or future generations have the right to decide themselves about the world in which they want to live?

Today, serious reform in the structure and working methods of the Security Council is, more than ever before, necessary. Justice and democracy dictate that the role of the General Assembly, as the highest organ of the United Nations, must be respected. The General Assembly can then, through appropriate mechanisms, take on the task of reforming the Organization and particularly rescue the Security Council from its current state. In the interim, the Non-Aligned Movement, the Organization of the Islamic Conference and the African continent should each have a representative as a permanent member of the Security Council, with veto privilege. The resulting balance would hopefully prevent further trampling of the rights of nations.

Madame President,

Excellencies,

It is essential that spirituality and ethics find their rightful place in international relations. Without ethics and spirituality, attained in light of the teachings of Divine prophets, justice, freedom and human rights cannot be guaranteed.

Resolution of contemporary human crises lies in observing ethics and spirituality and the governance of righteous people of high competence and piety.

Should respect for the rights of human beings become the predominant objective, then injustice, ill-temperament, aggression and war will fade away.

Human beings are all God's creatures and are all endowed with dignity and respect.

No one has superiority over others. No individual or states can arrogate to themselves special privileges, nor can they disregard the rights of others and, through influence and pressure, position themselves as the "international community".

Citizens of Asia, Africa, Europe and America are all equal. Over six billion inhabitants of the earth are all equal and worthy of respect.

Justice and protection of human dignity are the two pillars in maintaining sustainable peace, security and tranquility in the world.

It is for this reason that we state:

Sustainable peace and tranquility in the world can only be attained through justice, spirituality, ethics, compassion and respect for human dignity.

All nations and states are entitled to peace, progress and security.

We are all members of the international community and we are all entitled to insist on the creation of a climate of compassion, love and justice.

All members of the United Nations are affected by both the bitter and the sweet events and developments in today's world.

We can adopt firm and logical decisions, thereby improving the prospects of a better life for current and future generations.

Together, we can eradicate the roots of bitter maladies and afflictions, and instead, through the promotion of universal and lasting values such as ethics, spirituality and justice, allow our nations to taste the sweetness of a better future.

Peoples, driven by their divine nature, intrinsically seek Good, Virtue, Perfection and Beauty. Relying on our peoples, we can take giant steps towards reform and pave the road for human perfection. Whether we like it or not, justice, peace and virtue will sooner or later prevail in the world with the will of Almighty God. It is imperative, and also desirable, that we too contribute to the promotion of justice and virtue.

The Almighty and Merciful God, who is the Creator of the Universe, is also its Lord and Ruler. Justice is His command. He commands His creatures to support one another in Good, virtue and piety, and not in decadence and corruption.

He commands His creatures to enjoin one another to righteousness and virtue and not to sin and transgression. All Divine prophets from the Prophet Adam (peace be upon him) to the Prophet Moses (peace be upon him), to the Prophet Jesus Christ (peace be upon him), to the Prophet Mohammad (peace be upon him), have all called humanity to monotheism, justice, brotherhood, love and compassion. Is it not possible to build a better world based on monotheism, justice, love and respect for the rights of human beings, and thereby transform animosities into friendship?

I emphatically declare that today's world, more than ever before, longs for just and righteous people with love for all humanity; and above all longs for the perfect righteous human being and the real savior who has been promised to all peoples and who will establish justice, peace and brotherhood on the planet.

O, Almighty God, all men and women are your creatures and you have ordained their guidance and salvation. Bestow upon humanity that thirsts for justice, the perfect human being promised to all by you, and make us among his followers and among those who strive for his return and his cause.

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source: CASMII

Secret Unit Expands Rumsfeld's Domain

New Espionage Branch Delving Into CIA Territory

By Barton Gellman
Washington Post Staff Writer

09/10/06 "Washington Post" -- -- The Pentagon, expanding into the CIA's historic bailiwick, has created a new espionage arm and is reinterpreting U.S. law to give Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld broad authority over clandestine operations abroad, according to interviews with participants and documents obtained by The Washington Post.

The previously undisclosed organization, called the Strategic Support Branch, arose from Rumsfeld's written order to end his "near total dependence on CIA" for what is known as human intelligence. Designed to operate without detection and under the defense secretary's direct control, the Strategic Support Branch deploys small teams of case officers, linguists, interrogators and technical specialists alongside newly empowered special operations forces.

Military and civilian participants said in interviews that the new unit has been operating in secret for two years -- in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places they declined to name. According to an early planning memorandum to Rumsfeld from Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the focus of the intelligence initiative is on "emerging target countries such as Somalia, Yemen, Indonesia, Philippines and Georgia." Myers and his staff declined to be interviewed.

The Strategic Support Branch was created to provide Rumsfeld with independent tools for the "full spectrum of humint operations," according to an internal account of its origin and mission. Human intelligence operations, a term used in counterpoint to technical means such as satellite photography, range from interrogation of prisoners and scouting of targets in wartime to the peacetime recruitment of foreign spies. A recent Pentagon memo states that recruited agents may include "notorious figures" whose links to the U.S. government would be embarrassing if disclosed.

Perhaps the most significant shift is the Defense Department's bid to conduct surreptitious missions, in friendly and unfriendly states, when conventional war is a distant or unlikely prospect -- activities that have traditionally been the province of the CIA's Directorate of Operations. Senior Rumsfeld advisers said those missions are central to what they called the department's predominant role in combating terrorist threats.

The Pentagon has a vast bureaucracy devoted to gathering and analyzing intelligence, often in concert with the CIA, and news reports over more than a year have described Rumsfeld's drive for more and better human intelligence. But the creation of the espionage branch, the scope of its clandestine operations and the breadth of Rumsfeld's asserted legal authority have not been detailed publicly before. Two longtime members of the House Intelligence Committee, a Democrat and a Republican, said they knew no details before being interviewed for this article.

Pentagon officials said they established the Strategic Support Branch using "reprogrammed" funds, without explicit congressional authority or appropriation. Defense intelligence missions, they said, are subject to less stringent congressional oversight than comparable operations by the CIA. Rumsfeld's dissatisfaction with the CIA's operations directorate, and his determination to build what amounts in some respects to a rival service, follows struggles with then-CIA Director George J. Tenet over intelligence collection priorities in Afghanistan and Iraq. Pentagon officials said the CIA naturally has interests that differ from those of military commanders, but they also criticized its operations directorate as understaffed, slow-moving and risk-averse. A recurring phrase in internal Pentagon documents is the requirement for a human intelligence branch "directly responsive to tasking from SecDef," or Rumsfeld.

The new unit's performance in the field -- and its latest commander, reserve Army Col. George Waldroup -- are controversial among those involved in the closely held program. Pentagon officials acknowledged that Waldroup and many of those brought quickly into his service lack the experience and training typical of intelligence officers and special operators. In his civilian career as a federal manager, according to a Justice Department inspector general's report, Waldroup was at the center of a 1996 probe into alleged deception of Congress concerning staffing problems at Miami International Airport. Navy Vice Adm. Lowell E. Jacoby, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, expressed "utmost confidence in Colonel Waldroup's capabilities" and said in an interview that Waldroup's unit has scored "a whole series of successes" that he could not reveal in public. He acknowledged the risks, however, of trying to expand human intelligence too fast: "It's not something you quickly constitute as a capability. It's going to take years to do."

Rumsfeld's ambitious plans rely principally on the Tampa-based U.S. Special Operations Command, or SOCOM, and on its clandestine component, the Joint Special Operations Command. Rumsfeld has designated SOCOM's leader, Army Gen. Bryan D. Brown, as the military commander in chief in the war on terrorism. He has also given Brown's subordinates new authority to pay foreign agents. The Strategic Support Branch is intended to add missing capabilities -- such as the skill to establish local spy networks and the technology for direct access to national intelligence databases -- to the military's much larger special operations squadrons. Some Pentagon officials refer to the combined units as the "secret army of Northern Virginia."

Known as "special mission units," Brown's elite forces are not acknowledged publicly. They include two squadrons of an Army unit popularly known as Delta Force, another Army squadron -- formerly code-named Gray Fox -- that specializes in close-in electronic surveillance, an Air Force human intelligence unit and the Navy unit popularly known as SEAL Team Six.

The Defense Department is planning for further growth. Among the proposals circulating are the establishment of a Pentagon-controlled espionage school, largely duplicating the CIA's Field Tradecraft Course at Camp Perry, Va., and of intelligence operations commands for every region overseas.

Rumsfeld's efforts, launched in October 2001, address two widely shared goals. One is to give combat forces, such as those fighting the insurgency in Iraq, more and better information about their immediate enemy. The other is to find new tools to penetrate and destroy the shadowy organizations, such as al Qaeda, that pose global threats to U.S. interests in conflicts with little resemblance to conventional war.

In pursuit of those aims, Rumsfeld is laying claim to greater independence of action as Congress seeks to subordinate the 15 U.S. intelligence departments and agencies -- most under Rumsfeld's control -- to the newly created and still unfilled position of national intelligence director. For months, Rumsfeld opposed the intelligence reorganization bill that created the position. He withdrew his objections late last year after House Republican leaders inserted language that he interprets as preserving much of the department's autonomy.

Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin, deputy undersecretary for intelligence, acknowledged that Rumsfeld intends to direct some missions previously undertaken by the CIA. He added that it is wrong to make "an assumption that what the secretary is trying to say is, 'Get the CIA out of this business, and we'll take it.' I don't interpret it that way at all."

"The secretary actually has more responsibility to collect intelligence for the national foreign intelligence program . . . than does the CIA director," Boykin said. "That's why you hear all this information being published about the secretary having 80 percent of the [intelligence] budget. Well, yeah, but he has 80 percent of the responsibility for collection, as well."

CIA spokeswoman Anya Guilsher said the agency would grant no interviews for this article.

Pentagon officials emphasized their intention to remain accountable to Congress, but they also asserted that defense intelligence missions are subject to fewer legal constraints than Rumsfeld's predecessors believed. That assertion involves new interpretations of Title 10 of the U.S. Code, which governs the armed services, and Title 50, which governs, among other things, foreign intelligence.

Under Title 10, for example, the Defense Department must report to Congress all "deployment orders," or formal instructions from the Joint Chiefs of Staff to position U.S. forces for combat. But guidelines issued this month by Undersecretary for Intelligence Stephen A. Cambone state that special operations forces may "conduct clandestine HUMINT operations . . . before publication" of a deployment order, rendering notification unnecessary. Pentagon lawyers also define the "war on terror" as ongoing, indefinite and global in scope. That analysis effectively discards the limitation of the defense secretary's war powers to times and places of imminent combat.

Under Title 50, all departments of the executive branch are obliged to keep Congress "fully and currently informed of all intelligence activities." The law exempts "traditional . . . military activities" and their "routine support." Advisers said Rumsfeld, after requesting a fresh legal review by the Pentagon's general counsel, interprets "traditional" and "routine" more expansively than his predecessors.

"Operations the CIA runs have one set of restrictions and oversight, and the military has another," said a Republican member of Congress with a substantial role in national security oversight, declining to speak publicly against political allies. "It sounds like there's an angle here of, 'Let's get around having any oversight by having the military do something that normally the [CIA] does, and not tell anybody.' That immediately raises all kinds of red flags for me. Why aren't they telling us?"

The enumeration by Myers of "emerging target countries" for clandestine intelligence work illustrates the breadth of the Pentagon's new concept. All those named, save Somalia, have allied themselves with the United States -- if unevenly -- against al Qaeda and its jihadist allies.

A high-ranking official with direct responsibility for the initiative, declining to speak on the record about espionage in friendly nations, said the Defense Department sometimes has to work undetected inside "a country that we're not at war with, if you will, a country that maybe has ungoverned spaces, or a country that is tacitly allowing some kind of threatening activity to go on."

Assistant Secretary of Defense Thomas O'Connell, who oversees special operations policy, said Rumsfeld has discarded the "hide-bound way of thinking" and "risk-averse mentalities" of previous Pentagon officials under every president since Gerald R. Ford.

"Many of the restrictions imposed on the Defense Department were imposed by tradition, by legislation, and by interpretations of various leaders and legal advisors," O'Connell said in a written reply to follow-up questions. "The interpretations take on the force of law and may preclude activities that are legal. In my view, many of the authorities inherent to [the Defense Department] . . . were winnowed away over the years."

After reversing the restrictions, Boykin said, Rumsfeld's next question "was, 'Okay, do I have the capability?' And the answer was, 'No you don't have the capability. . . . And then it became a matter of, 'I want to build a capability to be able to do this.' "

Known by several names since its inception as Project Icon on April 25, 2002, the Strategic Support Branch is an arm of the DIA's nine-year-old Defense Human Intelligence Service, which until now has concentrated on managing military attachés assigned openly to U.S. embassies around the world.

Rumsfeld's initiatives are not connected to previously reported negotiations between the Defense Department and the CIA over control of paramilitary operations, such as the capture of individuals or the destruction of facilities.

According to written guidelines made available to The Post, the Defense Department has decided that it will coordinate its human intelligence missions with the CIA but will not, as in the past, await consent. It also reserves the right to bypass the agency's Langley headquarters, consulting CIA officers in the field instead. The Pentagon will deem a mission "coordinated" after giving 72 hours' notice to the CIA.

Four people with firsthand knowledge said defense personnel have already begun operating under "non-official cover" overseas, using false names and nationalities. Those missions, and others contemplated in the Pentagon, skirt the line between clandestine and covert operations. Under U.S. law, "clandestine" refers to actions that are meant to be undetected, and "covert" refers to those for which the U.S. government denies its responsibility. Covert action is subject to stricter legal requirements, including a written "finding" of necessity by the president and prompt notification of senior leaders of both parties in the House and Senate.

O'Connell, asked whether the Pentagon foresees greater involvement in covert action, said "that remains to be determined." He added: "A better answer yet might be, depends upon the situation. But no one I know of is raising their hand and saying at DOD, 'We want control of covert operations.' "

One scenario in which Pentagon operatives might play a role, O'Connell said, is this: "A hostile country close to our borders suddenly changes leadership. . . . We would want to make sure the successor is not hostile."

Researcher Rob Thomason contributed to this report.

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

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source: ICH

Meaning and Miracle

by Mogens Michaelsen

Today I heard about a Danish girl, who was out collecting money for poor children in Africa. She did that, in spite of the fact, that it was her 14-years birthday today.

Now, why should a young girl do that?

As I understood from the clip on TV, she had visited Mozambique in Africa just recently, and seen children living under very harsh and poor conditions. So her motive to collect money here in Denmark was clearly, that she wanted to help those children.

But that is not so special, after all - many people do that, and many young people too. I remember from my young days, when I was in Public School, that we were sometimes out collecting money for some organisation. Especially I remember selling postcards for UNICEF several times. But I also remember, that we were not only motivated by helping other children in the world through UNICEF. We were also highly motivated by the fact, that it gave us an opportunity to get away from the damned school!

So why should a young girl spend her valuable time doing something like that, on her own birthday?

Maybe she is simply a better person than most. Or maybe it is because she finds a lot of meaning in it?

I don't know if this girl is religious or not. You cannot judge that from her behavior, because non-religious people can certainly also show this behavior, and they are all good people - religious or not.

Suppose she is really not religious at all? Suppose she rejects faith, because she cannot believe in a God that allows human suffering, like the suffering of these African children?

Like many other people, she might not understand why God doesn't use his power to help people, since he is assumed to be a loving God. Why doesn't he make some more miracles?

Only fools would say, that she is a lost soul, going to hell when she dies, because she doesn't believe in God, Jesus, and the Holy Bible!

Of course this is not so. She is clearly motivated by clean and pure love to her fellow human beings. And, as you might know: God is love!


Mogens Michaelsen
http://mogmichs.blogspot.com/

---
source: Newsvine

From Mania to Depression

By Uri Avnery

08/17/06 "Information Clearing House" -- -- Tel Aviv. --- Thirty three days of war. The longest of our wars since 1949.

On the Israeli side: 154 dead--117 of them soldiers. 3970 rockets launched against us, 37 civilians dead, more than 422 civilians wounded.

On the Lebanese side: about a thousand dead civilians, thousands wounded. An unknown number of Hizbullah fighters dead and wounded.

More than a million refugees on both sides.

So what has been achieved for this terrible price?

"GLOOMY, HUMBLE, despondent," was how the journalist Yossef Werter described Ehud Olmert, a few hours after the cease-fire had come into effect.

Olmert? Humble? Is this the same Olmert we know? The same Olmert who thumped the table and shouted: "No more!" Who said: "After the war, the situation will be completely different than before!" Who promised a "New Middle East" as a result of the war?

THE RESULTS of the war are obvious:

* The prisoners, who served as casus belli (or pretext) for the war, have not been released. They will come back only as a result of an exchange of prisoners, exactly as Hassan Nasrallah proposed before the war.

* Hizbullah has remained as it was. It has not been destroyed, nor disarmed, nor even removed from where it was. Its fighters have proved themselves in battle and have even garnered compliments from Israeli soldiers. Its command and communication stucture has continued to function to the end. Its TV station is still broadcasting.

* Hassan Nasrallah is alive and kicking. Persistent attempts to kill him failed. His prestige is sky-high. Everywhere in the Arab world, from Morocco to Iraq, songs are being composed in his honor and his picture adorns the walls.

* The Lebanese army will be deployed along the border, side by side with a large international force. That is the only material change that has been achieved.

This will not replace Hizbullah. Hizbullah will remain in the area, in every village and town. The Israeli army has not succeeded in removing it from one single village. That was simply impossible without permanently removing the population to which it belongs.

The Lebanese army and the international force cannot and will not confront Hizbullah. Their very presence there depends on Hizbullah's consent. In practice, a kind of co-existence of the three forces will come into being, each one knowing that it has to come to terms with the other two.

Perhaps the international force will be able to prevent incursions by Hizbullah, such as the one that preceded this war. But it will also have to prevent Israeli actions, such as the reconnaissance flights of our Air Force over Lebanon. That's why the Israeli army objected, at the beginning, so strenuously to the introduction of this force.

IN ISRAEL, there is now a general atmosphere of disappointment and despondency. From mania to depression. It's not only that the politicians and the generals are firing accusations at each other, as we foresaw, but the general public is also voicing criticism from every possible angle. The soldiers criticize the conduct of the war, the reserve soldiers gripe about the chaos and the failure of supplies.

In all parties, there are new opposition groupings and threats of splits. In Kadima. In Labor. It seems that in Meretz, too, there is a lot of ferment, because most of its leaders supported the war dragon almost until the last moment, when they caught its tail and pierced it with their little lance.

At the head of the critics are marching--surprise, surprise--the media. The entire horde of interviewers and commentators, correspondents and presstitutes, who (with very few exceptions) enthused about the war, who deceived, misled, falsified, ignored, duped and lied for the fatherland, who stifled all criticism and branded as traitors all who opposed the war--they are now running ahead of the lynch mob. How predictable, how ugly. Suddenly they remember what we have been saying right from the beginning of the war.

This phase is symbolized by Dan Halutz, the Chief-of-Staff. Only yesterday he was the hero of the masses, it was forbidden to utter a word against him. Now he is being described as a war profiteer. A moment before sending his soldiers into battle, he found the time to sell his shares, in expectation of a decline of the stock market. (Let us hope that a moment before the end he found the time to buy them back again.)

Victory, as is well known, has many fathers, and failure in war is an orphan.

FROM THE deluge of accusations and gripes, one slogan stands out , a slogan that must send a cold shiver down the spine of anyone with a good memory: "the politicians did not let the army win."

Exactly as I wrote two weeks ago, we see before our very eyes the resurrection of the old cry "they stabbed the army in the back!"

This is how it goes: At long last, two days before the end, the land offensive started to roll. Thanks to our heroic soldiers, the men of the reserves, it was a dazzling success. And then, when we were on the verge of a great victory, the cease-fire came into effect.

There is not a single word of truth in this. This operation, which was planned and which the army spent years training for, was not carried out earlier, because it was clear that it would not bring any meaningful gains but would be costly in lives. The army would, indeed, have occupied wide areas, but without being able to dislodge the Hizbullah fighters from them.

The town of Bint Jbeil, for example, right next to the border, was taken by the army three times, and the Hizbullah fighters remained there to the end. If we had occupied 20 towns and villages like this one, the soldiers and the tanks would have been exposed in twenty places to the mortal attacks of the guerillas with their highly effective anti-tank weapons.

If so, why was it decided, at the last moment, to carry out this operation after all--well after the UN had already called for an end to hostilities? The horrific answer: it was a cynical--not to say vile--exercise of the failed trio. Olmert, Peretz and Halutz wanted to create "a picture of victory", as was openly stated in the media. On this altar the lives of 33 soldiers (including a young woman) were sacrificed.

The aim was to photograph the victorious soldiers on the bank of the Litani. The operation could only last 48 hours, when the cease-fire would come into force. In spite of the fact that the army used helicopters to land the troops, the aim was not attained. At no point did the army reach the Litani.

For comparison: in the first Lebanon war, that of Sharon in 1982, the army crossed the Litani in the first few hours. (The Litani, by the way, is not a real river anymore, but just a shallow creek. Most of its waters are drawn off far from there, in the north. Its last stretch is about 25 km distant from the border, near Metulla the distance is only 4 km.)

This time, when the cease-fire took effect, all the units taking part had reached villages on the way to the river. There they became sitting ducks, surrounded by Hizbullah fighters, without secure supply lines. From that moment on, the army had only one aim: to get them out of there as quickly as possible, regardless of who might take their place.

If a commission of inquiry is set up--as it must be--and investigates all the moves of this war, starting from the way the decision to start it was made, it will also have to investigate the decision to start this last operation. The death of 33 soldiers (including the son of the writer David Grossman, who had supported the war) and the pain this caused their families demand that!

BUT THESE facts are not yet clear to the general public. The brain-washing by the military commentators and the ex-generals, who dominated the media at the time, has turned the foolish--I would almost say "criminal"--operation into a rousing victory parade. The decision of the political leadership to stop it is now being seen by many as an act of defeatist, spineless, corrupt and even treasonous politicians.

And that is exactly the new slogan of the fascist Right that is now raising its ugly head.

After World War I, in similar circumstances, the legend of the "knife in the back of the victorious army" grew up. Adolf Hitler used it to carry him to power--and on to World War II.

Now, even before the last fallen soldier has been buried, the incompetent generals are starting to talk shamelessly about "another round", the next war that will surely come "in a month or in a year", God willing. After all, we cannot end the matter like this, in failure. Where is our pride?

THE ISRAELI public is now in a state of shock and disorientation. Accusations--justified and unjustified--are flung around in all directions, and it cannot be foreseen how things will develop.

Perhaps, in the end, it is logic that will win. Logic says: what has thoroughly been demonstrated is that there is no military solution. That is true in the North. That is also true in the South, where we are confronting a whole people that has nothing to lose anymore. The success of the Lebanese guerilla will encourage the Palestinian guerilla.

For logic to win, we must be honest with ourselves: pinpoint the failures, investigate their deeper causes, draw the proper conclusions.

Some people want to prevent that at any price. President Bush declares vociferously that we have won the war. A glorious victory over the Evil Ones. Like his own victory in Iraq.

When a football team is able to choose the referee, it is no surprise if it is declared the winner.

Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom.

---
source: ICH

Pitch Black Void

Freefall

By Manuel Valenzuela

08/15/06 "Information Clearing House" -- -- The towers fell upon their own imprints, floor after floor cascading down upon the next in an avalanche of concrete, glass, steel and flesh, in the process pulverizing everything, and everybody, between them, over 200 combined stories of human ingenuity flattened in the span of seconds, their reign over gravity and the skies eviscerated, falling down to the land of mortals not with the chaos of randomness and malevolent physics but with the unexpected order and perfection of orchestration and wicked pre-planned intentions.

One building was followed by another in a near perfect duplication of the first, almost as if déjà vu had supplanted itself on Manhattan island, after morbidly disturbing airplane crashes had sent the collective conscious of the world on freefall, their fires blazing yet their inferno not scorching enough to melt the reinforced steel of towers designed to withstand airline crashes. Soon after the strikes black and gray smoke billowed out of the crash sites, proof that what had once burned was now dissipating, unable to breathe the oxygen it needed to burn or unable to chemically alter steel skeletons or cause the structural integrity of two separate skyscrapers to be compromised.

Yet less than one hour after each building was struck the monoliths of New York came crashing down, almost in perfect synchronization, more than half an hour apart, one after the other in a display of destruction too perfect to qualify as randomness, a form of controlled chaos never to befall a burning steel skyscraper in the histories of modern civilization or architecture. Strangely, not one hour passed before we were led to believe fire and heat compromised and melted reinforced steel, not for one but two separate buildings, as if lightning had struck twice in the same spot, as if the impossible had become normal, as if black smoke could bend, in the course of an hour, what usually would take multiple hours to achieve.

In America, however, where citizens have the attention spans of gnats, tuning out after ten-second sound bites, one minute news reports and having the patience only to accept rapid video flashes, even orchestrated, criminal mass murder must be accomplished on fast-forward time. And so the destruction by controlled demolition of the WTC, brilliantly executed, monstrously planned, hidden behind the charade of hijacked airliner crashes, yet so easily deciphered by open minds and through the magic of video and the passage of time, became a reality, in a few seconds of malevolent decimation killing close to 3,000 innocent human beings and plunging a nation of 300 million into the freefall of madness, shock, fear, hatred, rage and the collective blindness needed by criminals, warmongers and greed addicts to steer a nation down the precipice of human emotion and into the realm of total control and obedience.

While the nation, indeed the world entire, recovered its collective breath, paralyzed shock and ever-increasing fear at what we had just witnessed – and repeatedly seen over and over again thanks to the corporate media – a rather peculiar, and unexpected, event occurred that hundreds of millions were unable to see, either because of shock, fear or the blindness spawned by the psychological trauma we had just experienced. A few hours after the towers had fallen, entombing thousands and forever altering the course of history, another skyscraper came tumbling down, clandestinely falling almost inconspicuously to the ground below. This building, the fifty story WTC 7, seemingly untouched and unaffected by the destruction of her much larger brothers, with no fires or smoke apparent, with no structural damage noticeable, with no airplane smashing into her, decided to fall to earth in much the same way, falling exactly the way multiple buildings have fallen over the years thanks to controlled demolitions, seemingly imploding from within, her top falling down as if her structural skeleton had been turned to butter. It would later be said by authorities that WTC 7 fell due to structural and fire damage, yet video and eyewitness testimony, as well as the open eyes of any rational human being, beg to differ. If no rational reason can be found to explain how WTC 7 fell in such a “controlled” demolition sort of way, in the absence of damage, what, then, can be deduced? What, then, are we to make of the fate that befell the Twin Towers, in direct contradiction to the laws of physics and those of logic?

Make no mistake, 9/11 was, and continues to be, a war upon the American people, a psychological operation directed at our minds and hearts that was, from the very start, nothing but the catalyst needed to launch Project Empire by the delusional criminals and miscreants in power. The events of 9/11, with the destruction of the World Trade Center, as well as the hit on the Pentagon, were designed by the architects of mass murder as the oil needed to fine-tune and start the engine of the American war machine as well as those sparkplugs of blind and unthinking support, the American people. The targets were largely symbolic, landmarks entrenched into the American psyche, easily recognizable as pillars of American strength, the strikes upon their infrastructure calculated not only to inflict mass murder, but to deeply affect the collective psychology of hundreds of millions of Americans. In 9/11 the enablers of terror would have the birth pangs of their new American Century.

The Throne Determined

The individuals who planned and executed 9/11 knew that with the ascension of George W. Bush to the throne of the American presidency their plans and projects, long since created and written yet for years lacking the keys to power, would have the green-light to commence wars upon the American people as well as those long-planned against the Arab world. Indeed, well before Bush became president the decision had already been made, deep in the dark closets of clandestine meetings and arrangements, where deal making and power decisions are made, to attack and invade Iraq, along with other nations deemed “important,” both for geopolitical and ideological reasons.

These wars and invasions, which were to be the centerpiece of the miscreants’ master plans, creating the birth pangs of a New American Century, one based on unilateralism, resource domination, protection of Israel’s vital interests and unequaled imperial hegemony, would, it was thought, catapult America into the realm of Empire, a kingdom untouched and unrivaled, in control of the world’s energy resources, in full mastery of all potential rivals, possessed of vitally important lands and locations. All that was needed was a stolen election or two, a little luck and a new Pearl Harbor from which to spawn their dogma of controlled chaos upon the globe.

When seen in this light, the importance to the miscreants that George W. Bush become president after the 2000 election, by any means necessary, is more readily understood. To the corporatist and neoconservative cabal that has declared war on the American people, it was imperative that Bush be declared the winner versus Al Gore. Only with a Bush victory could their projects and sinister intentions be born and implemented, thereby creating the conditions needed to control the country and its citizens, and by extension the entire planet, for years and even decades into the future.

Indeed, they knew that to succeed, years and even decades would be needed to transform the world according to their ideology. The Project for the New American Century, or PNAC, full of corporatists and neoconservatives, could only commence their blueprint with the selection, no matter how devious it became or how unscrupulous the methods chosen, of George W. Bush to the White House, and not just for one term. Thus, the stolen election of 2000, especially in the state of Florida, was but one more strategic maneuver designed specifically to set in place the mechanisms by which their ideology could, after years of frustration, finally be allowed to blossom. The ascension of George W. Bush to the American throne thus became an inevitable conclusion well before the first vote was cast. It was the individuals that counted the votes, and not those that cast them, who would decide the 2000 election.

The election of 2000 was orchestrated to perfection by the corporatists and neoconservatives who clandestinely or openly supported the Republican ticket. Using the television and the unrivaled power of the corporate media, with its images, sound bites, editing magic and legions of journalist lackeys, they set out to tarnish the reputation and achievements of Bill Clinton and by consequence, those of his vice-president and most likely Democratic candidate, Al Gore. Knowing how easy the buttons of manipulation can be pressed upon an unsuspecting and dumbed down American populace, they created Clinton fatigue and dislike among millions of potential voters, knowing full well that by destroying the president’s likeability they were at the same time decimating Al Gore’s potential votes among moderates and independents. Using the television to their advantage, they thereby eliminated the president from the election picture, knowing that Clinton, if allowed to campaign for Gore, and ever the political charmer and genius, could have delivered the election to the Democrats, or at the least made Gore a more marketable personality to the electorate.

With Clinton out of the picture, the smearing of Gore and the adulation of Bush commenced, with the corporate media using all tools at its disposal to turn Gore into an unlikable candidate, using clever editing of sound and video, combined with the negative comments of embedded lackey journalists, to turn Gore, a much worthier candidate than Bush could ever become, into a mediocre politician with no personality or popularity. He became the unlikable candidate, the elitist Washingtonian whose candidacy was imputed to Bill Clinton fatigue. The corporate media did everything in its power to sway the unsure voter that Gore was not the right man to be president. In the era of corporatism, it is the corporations that decide who will run and who will win. We the People can only vote for those deemed acceptable by the corporate establishment, those that have shown loyalty not to the People, but to the interests of the corporate world.

Meanwhile, with the complete backing of big business, the military industrial energy complex and the neoconservatives in and out of the media, Bush was transformed from east coast elitist into average Joe six-pack, with the tools of television propelling and marketing Bush as an average middle class American, with a recently purchased Texas ranch to prove it. The creation of the Bush persona was carefully orchestrated, following the results of research, polls and focus groups, trying to recreate or imitate, at least in some psychological way, shape or form, the qualities inherent in or sought by those groups needed for Bush and his still clandestine cabal to garner the most votes in the general election. Meanwhile, the corporate media gave the dimwit Bush a pass at every turn, forgiving his penchant for idiocy and his quite apparent lack of knowledge. His shady past was ignored; his repeated failures as a businessman were glossed over. The corporatist world had its man and the will of the People would not stand in their way.

As such, Bush’s persona is a fiction, in as much as he is made to represent the American middle-class, for deep inside, where genetics and environment and pathology meet on the superhighway of psychological fusion, Bush is a manifestation of the unthinking knuckle-dragger, a slight step above our primate cousins, incapable of deep thought, reasoned intelligence or logical decision making, preferring to dwell in the certainties of black and white thinking and the archaic beliefs of primitive theology. He remains a hollow poster child for elitist juniors, a pampered spoiled little boy given to temper tantrums when he does not get what he wants, a man who for too long nursed off the breast of superiority, apathy and greed, for decades living in a wealth-induced bubble devoid of discipline or suffering.

Deeply flawed mentally, never able to replicate the intelligence or the success of fathers and grandfathers, possessing a lack of empathy and a willingness to inflict suffering onto others, fully aware that everything he has achieved has been due to the laurels of his father and not the talents of his existence, Bush nonetheless exhibits many characteristics of a psychotic, with a penchant for incessant lying, for walking over anybody that gets in his way, for his appetite for destruction and murder, for his indifference for human life, in his ability to bully the world, in his love of greed and power, in his distaste for knowledge and intellectual stimulation, and in the unmistakable reality that whatever he has touched during his life has turned not to gold, but to pure, one-hundred percent fecal matter. This is the George W. Bush chosen by the cabal of corporatists and neoconservatives to help usher in a new era of American imperialism. With such a president at the helm of the most powerful state in the world, a man easily influenced and manipulated, lacking reason, logic and the wisdom of leaders, PNAC found itself the instrument of terror it so desperately needed.

Knowing for months the likely outcome of the 2000 election, after months of research, studies and historical analysis, and millions of dollars invested had shown them the direction, Bush’s handlers focused on the one state they knew would decide the outcome. And so, with months to go before the 2000 election, the Republican machine set out, with help from George W. Bush’s brother Jeb, to embed into the election system the mechanisms needed to steal Florida in favor of Bush, the Republicans, the neoconservatives and the corporatists.

They immediately set out to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of voters, most of them African-American, through a myriad of illegal yet methodical ways. Felons were purged from the voting records, as were thousands of law-abiding citizens whose names were erased from registration lists. Outdated voting machines, those most likely to tabulate wrong vote counts, were introduced into poor areas for the sole purpose of disenfranchising voters, most of whom would likely vote for Gore. The irregularities were many; the votes purged were in the hundreds of thousands. The corporatist/Republican voter disenfranchisement machine, so adept at Jim Crow, had come calling again.

This election, after all, was of paramount importance, both for the corporatists from the military industrial energy complex, who were depending on Bush for hundreds of billions of dollars in future oil and war profiteering profits, as well as a complete dismantling of burdensome corporate taxes, laws and environmental regulations, not to mention untold billions of dollars in stolen Iraqi money and American taxes, and the neoconservatives, whose main interests were ideological and strategic, through imperial domination of the Middle East and Central Asia, control of oil/gas resources and mechanisms, toward complete American hegemony and eventual Empire building through domination of potential rivals, not to mention the always present protection of Israel and her interests, assuring her regional domination in the Middle East through the elimination of her rivals. By any means necessary, the 2000 election would have to be won, irrespective of the will of the People.

After the Supreme Court selected their man as the new president of the United States, a decision that was a foregone conclusion, the wheels were set in motion, and soon the project for the New American Century would have its new and improved Pearl Harbor, a 21^st century Reichstag fire whose usefulness would never subside and whose demons could always, at the whim of expediency, be resurrected. The dreaded Arab terrorist was about to be born, entering the grand stage of American produced enemies, becoming the bogeyman striking fear at the heart of a cowardly majority.

A new America was soon to be born from the smoke, dust and debris of falling monoliths and demolished lives. An obedient populace would soon surface, wide eyed in allegiance to fascism, ready to hate and fear and kill for the sake of the red, white and blue, proud to march lockstep with the drums of war, eager to unleash weapons of destruction upon the lands of the barbarians. Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Iran were only months away from being gobbled up, and the Bush cabal, assured by its delusions and its arrogance, could only salivate at the thoughts of what would surely soon arrive.

Enter the Darkness

If we ponder over the horizon of the last five years and ask ourselves who has benefited the most from the tragic events of 9/11 then surely the arrow would point to the Bush administration, along with the clandestine and known neoconservatives and corporatists controlling the military industrial energy complex. As a result of 9/11, these groups, the Bush cabal for short, have seemingly grown in absolute power and wealth, declaring wars, occupying nations, killing hundreds of thousands of human beings, manipulating the American populace, fleecing America’s treasury, making obscene profits from war and death, curtailing Americans’ civil liberties and rights, further instituting corporatist control over government and society, engendering fear and hatred into the people and ignoring the rule of law along with the Constitution of the United States.

The Bush cabal has succeeded in reaching many of the goals it had set for itself before taking office in 2000. In this war against the American people, the cabal has utterly defeated us, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. We are quite impotent, it seems, to their manipulation of our fears and the conditioning of our hatreds. It has been 9/11, that catalyst to population control and manipulation, that has cemented the Bush cabal firmly in power, doing with the American people as they wish, leading us further down the road to corporatism. The cabal has systematically declawed us of our bravery, making us babies crying out for our mother. It has succeeded at manipulating us through the use of fear and terror, actually convincing us to throw away liberties and flush down freedoms for the sake of protection and security, even though the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

It was 9/11, a devastating conduit of brain wave alteration, more than anything else, that has completely and systematically transformed the American people into the sheeple and lemmings needed by authoritarian rulers everywhere to govern and impose their tyrannical policies. The 9/11 psychological war upon the citizenry, or, in the words of the PNAC, the “new Pearl Harbor,” was designed to nurture perpetual fear and hatred in hundreds of millions of minds, in the process harvesting loyal and obedient citizen soldiers. The attack, taking place on a few city blocks of the largest metropolis in the country, devastated two giant buildings but left the rest of the country, besides the Pentagon, physically unscathed.

What September 11, 2001, did, however, more than anything else, was destroy not the physical infrastructure of America, but the mental energy of the nation and its citizens. It was both a mental manipulation dirty bomb and a weapon of mass deception rolled into one, a direct hit against the very foundation of America’s citizenry, creating the most fragile, and by extension subservient, populace since Nazi Germany. September 11^th’s tragedy, its morbid violence, its sinister evils were played and replayed countless times, from every possible angle, sending shockwaves into our pores, fear running through our veins, with every replay our mind succumbing further inside our fragile psyches, searching for answers, and vengeance. The thirst for Arab blood was what the cabal wanted, and it was what it got.

A direct hit upon the American psyche did more damage to the nation than two hits on colossal skyscrapers ever could, yet slowly but methodically, our mind became the dominion of the cabal. We became, over the course of a few days, possessed by the demons of fear and hatred, like zombies sleep-walking through our daily lives, not knowing what to do, experiencing emotions we had never felt, remembering tragedy we had just recently seen, searching in darkness for light, needing to place blind trust in the nation’s authorities, needing to trust our security and freedom and democracy upon the leaders of the country.

We became putty in the hands of the cabal, and they knew it. Everything they wanted we would gladly give them for we had become, in the span of a few days, corralled sheep and caged lemmings, robbed of free thought, our bravery supplanted by the fear hovering throughout the land, our reason destroyed by the hate in our hearts. We wanted security, safety and most of all, vengeance. We failed to think logically about the mess the cabal was immersing us in. We failed to understand the ramifications of entering a hornet’s nest and murdering tens of thousands of people. We failed to comprehend the vicious cycle of violence our acquiescence would soon spawn, nor the disaster that was to unfold. Standing behind the flag and our patriotism blind we became to the view of reality. We wanted revenge for 9/11; we wanted to unleash carnage upon Arab lands, whether they were a threat or not. We fell right into the cabal’s master plans.

The tragic events of 9/11 became an instant myth in our collective consciousness, its story firmly entrenched in our minds, its official narrative becoming both national tragedy and inspiration, its fable unable to be altered, its façade unbending, its reality hidden by blind rage and closed minds. We were conditioned never to question the official narrative, or the obvious 9/11 Commission white wash. To question and even seek truth was to delve in realities we could not bare or wish to understand. The implications would be unfathomable, and deeply disturbing. For if our protectors had committed mass murder in New York and Washington, if our leaders were responsible for 9/11, then who and what was running the nation? If they could kill 3,000 citizens, what was stopping them from murdering many more? It was better to be brainwashed with the official story than to question the uncomfortable. It was easier to never question than to seek the truth. In the end, it was easier to drink the Kool-Aid than enter the rabbit hole.

In the end, it was simple to believe that we had been attacked by what we did not know or understand, by entities that wished to destroy our freedom and our democracy, by brown-skinned bogey men lurking in every corner and underneath every bed, waiting to come out of closets, ready to murder and rape, pillage and devastate. We were made to fear, and with fear we lost reason. We were made to hate, and with hate born free thought died. The Arab and the Muslim had become our enemy; almost overnight more than a billion humans were condemned by a barrage of corporate media propaganda and government manipulation, seemingly too conveniently, too prepared and scripted, as if the enemy had been concocted months and years before, its fault carefully planned and orchestrated, marketed for all its faults and none of its virtues, transforming a group of people into the monsters of our imaginations and the madmen of our corporate media indoctrination.

The Bush cabal had succeeded in concocting an enemy from the same lands and region where it wanted to wage war and occupation. Geopolitics, geostrategy, oil, gas and pipelines, imperial hegemony and absolute power, how lucky for the cabal that America’s new bogeymen hailed from the same nations scheduled for invasion. The cabal’s actions, or inaction, depending on how one looks at 9/11, embedded the lust for vengeance, and thus for war, on the American population. The Bush cabal, fully aware that the American people would never consent or give approval to multiple wars of choice upon lands and peoples that had not done us harm, thus needed a catalyst, a new Pearl Harbor, a 9/11-like event from which to alter the minds of 300 million Americans, making warmongers out of pacifists, vengeance-seekers out of peaceful citizens. Without the trauma and the shock and the fear and the hatred and the blind rage spawned by 9/11, the Bush cabal would never have been able to embark on their warmongering and profiteering ways. The anger and hatred and blind trust engendered thanks to 9/11 made sure that the cabal could proceed with long-held plans and ideologies.

Thus we were fed the lies and the deceits and the manipulations that exist in the lands of authoritarianism, where the citizenry is too dumbed down and unable, or unwilling, to question its own government. We followed the fable and the bull manure, believing, still to this day, a government that has lied about every single issue to ever arise in five years since usurping power. In a world where war is peace, slavery is freedom and ignorance is knowledge, let it also be said that lies are truth in these new days of “new normals” and “birth pangs” and “bringing democracy to the Middle East.” Let it be said we have entered the darkness, from which light dare not enter.

Terrorist Cabal

The cabal, it must be understood, is comprised of pure blooded authoritarians, corporatist (fascists) tyrants that care not one ounce for the well-being of the population. To them we are but mere peasants, nothing but peons and pawns and patsies relegated to playing the grand game of geopolitical and greed-mongering chess, doing our part to advance the neocon Machiavelli wet dream of imperial hegemony. The death of 3,000 citizens means nothing to these monsters, much like the murder of 250,000 Iraqis or the death of 2,600 American soldiers. The Bush cabal is made up of madmen and monsters, incapable of living in reality or of understanding truth, yet tyrannical enough to create a new Pearl Harbor through the controlled demolition of the Twin Towers (not to mention WTC 7 and a strike on the Pentagon). They dwell in an infallible bubble of make believe and of unrealistic theories, a land of Kool-Aid drinkers and dependents of delusional cocktails.

The Bush cabal has no morals or scruples, preferring lies to truth, secrecy to transparency, life in a pitch black void over that in translucent light. They have no trouble murdering their own citizens to pursue and achieve their goals and ideology. They are authoritarians, tyrants more comfortable living in a police state than in an open society, inside their pores hating every facet of true democracy, for to them the will of the people should never be heeded. Democracy is a hindrance of governance, an uncomfortable principle that works to destroy their vision, though now made a charade for the masses to believe the system is as it has always been. The death of democracy and of the Constitution would send tears of joy running down their cheeks.

In their view citizens are incapable of making the right decision and should therefore be told what to think, how to act and who to follow and obey. The majority needs to be conditioned as to what to do and how to do it. To them the corporate media is but a tool of control and manipulation, a way to make good sheep and lemmings out of the citizenry, a loudspeaker to proclaim that the state is the only entity capable of protecting the nation, a disseminator of lies and half truths, a gatekeeper telling the people only what the cabal wants us to know.

The Bush cabal cares only about absolute power, hegemony, greed and wealth. They care nothing for American soldiers, all of whom are considered cannon fodder for the military industrial energy complex. Wars are fought not for defending “freedom and democracy,” which to them is nothing more than a catchy focus group catchphrase, rather to expand and defend the interests of American corporations, as well as to enrich the military industrial energy complex. After all, instability in the Middle East is great for energy corporations; the more instability the higher the price of a barrel of crude will be and the higher will thus be a gallon at the American pump. The cabal thinks in black and white, not in shades of grey; it makes policy based on ideology, not reality. It operates under the theory of controlled chaos, unleashing hell to get to an eventual heaven.

The cabal makes enormous profits at our expense, helping shrink our wallets while fattening theirs. The cabal supplies billions of dollars in military arms to the Middle East, and to the world, only to see nations declare war on each other, killing and murdering with our weapons. Human life and human rights, along with international law are but bumps in the road to total hegemony, to be sidestepped on the road to Empire. Civil rights and freedoms in America are contrary to the authoritarian dream; if it was up to them America would be under martial law and under severe police powers, our civil liberties curtailed severely, our freedoms eroded. In time they will inevitably get their wish; each year the threat to our liberties and freedoms is exacerbated, not by terrorists but by the Bush cabal.

For five years we have been told to look far and wide for so-called terrorists, across the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, given a magnifying glass into the Middle East. It is here, we are made to believe, where they hate us for our freedoms and our democracy, for our “grand” way of life, though certainly not for our occupations, undying support for Israel and brutal foreign policy. It is said they hate us for our democracy, yet we refuse to grant them the same freedoms. It is said they strike us for our open society, yet we exploit their lands, rape their women and subjugate their daily lives. For five years our minds have been distracted with the threats posed by Arabs and Muslims, most of which happen to live below the last remaining fields of oil. If the French or the Germans lived in the Middle East, they too would today be America’s enemy, our terrorist barbarians.

For five long years we alone have been responsible for sacrificing our civil liberties and our freedoms, not to mention our democracy, which in essence is today nothing but a charade, a banana republic façade exported to a first world nation. Our fear and cowardice has resulted in the loss of liberty at home and in warmongering escapades abroad, creating in Iraq the worst strategic disaster in the history of the nation. Our almost absurd over-reactions to bull manure infested terror warnings, nothing but control mechanisms implemented to remind us who is protecting us and who deserves our loyalty and our vote, make us the laughing stock of the world. Terror warnings laced in lies and manipulation should be questioned, not religiously followed. They should be understood for what they are, not feared like the end of the world. Terror warnings about dark-skinned Arabs and Muslims are but a ploy to control your thoughts and your lives, designed for you to place allegiance to the cabal, to distract you from the erosion of liberties or the disasters in the Middle East. They are, like 9/11, a figment of our imaginations, nightmares of our conditioned minds, stories meant to frighten us into giving away more of our freedoms and liberties. Sadly, however, these mechanisms seem to be working brilliantly.

All this time we have been looking to the Middle East for the dreaded terrorist, yet since 9/11 we should have been looking for terrorists within our own shores. It is the Bush corporatist and neocon cabal that is the real terrorist organization. It is they, a bunch of miscreants of the highest order, criminal minds addicted to power, wealth and greed, arrogant and monstrous in behavior, that are the cause of terror worldwide. It is they that have made our nation less safe, not more. It is they who are guilty of committing mass murder upon our shores and it is they who will not hesitate to murder many more if it suits their needs.

It is because of them that the so-called war on terror paralyzes and controls us. It is they that spawned it and continue nurturing it, carefully rearing it like a mother does a child, ever so proud of what it has become, looking forward to the greatness it can one day turn into. The war on terror is their brainchild, a creation designed to replicate its malevolent energy over and over, growing and expanding through the vicious cycle of hatred born and murder committed, repeated until a clash of cultures, civilizations and religions sustains and engorges it, creating the controlled chaos needed to satisfy the delusion of the Project for the New American Century.

The so-called war of terror is a figment of their imagination, now lingering in ours, a creation that has become a self-fulfilling prophesy. It was a war started by the cabal, a result of our foreign policy and our destruction of both people and land abroad, a vicious cycle that feeds itself more and more with each new death inflicted by our corporate controlled military. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, for every death or maiming the thirst for vengeance grows; for every brutal occupation calls for hatred and revenge arise. With every American made missile launched, artillery exploded, bullet released the war on terror is assured of new recruits, new reactions of opposite and intended consequences. This is the war on terror’s mantra, its slogan, the law created by the cabal so that it never ends, just as it never began. The war on terror is designed to last into perpetuity, for America always needs an enemy to quench its war culture thirst. It always needs war and enemies to cause fright among the populace, the easier to control millions. War means profit, wealth and the sustained viability of the economy. In America, war, and thus enemies, is good for business.

The war on terror is but an illusion, a concoction disseminated by the Bush cabal and its journalist hacks to control the population into submission, into forcing us to abandon the freedoms and democracy we once enjoyed. We are being frightened by the cabal of terrorists using the corporate media and government loudspeakers, our strength and courage evaporating with each new terror threat or warning, with each new sermon advocating still another war of choice. We are being used and abused, our lives transformed, slowly but surely, methodically creating a “new normal,” an American police state, an authoritarian system full of followers, full of yes-men and women, full of sheep and lemmings, unable to comprehend how we allowed our nation to become the reality of our nightmares.

We must open our eyes to the reality of the Bush cabal. They are the real terrorist organization. They are the murderers and the criminals, the destroyers of life and the butchers of the Middle East. They are preparing us for perpetual war, for a future devoid of security or freedom or democracy. The war on terror will not end; our troops will be in Iraq for decades to come; wars against Iran and Syria have been planned. There will be many more 9/11’s to come, some real and some concocted, yet the next one will undoubtedly open the doors to a perpetual police state, altering dramatically our way of life, making George Orwell roll in his grave. According to the cabal of terrorists, it is inevitable.

One more attack on our soil is all it will take for the bastion of democracy and freedom to turn into the cesspool of authoritarian rule. The cabal of terrorists is looking for an excuse, an opportunity. How many of us will die this time? How many of our children will be sent to the next war(s)? How many liberties will we have left? How many of our friends and neighbors will be made to disappear? Will we accept their rule, and continue fighting a charade, or will we finally put an end to this madness? Will we change our ways, or will we continue living like the sheep and lemmings we are being conditioned to become?

We must put a stop to the madness before the madness puts a stop to us. We must reclaim America from the claws of authoritarianism and corporatism. We must show we are not pawns or patsies in the games the neocons play. We must show we are brave and strong, not fearful and weak. They are few, we are many. Truth and fairness and justice are on our side; karma and malevolence on theirs. The time for indifference and passivity are over. Enough fear mongering and war making, enough terror threat manipulation. We must show that we do not hate, that we actually think for ourselves, that we seek peace and international harmony. Enough death and suffering has gone on in our name. America is being made the laughing stock of the world, hated like never before, stirring anger and boiling rage for all we allow to happen. Only this time, the peoples of the world no longer differentiate between the government and the people. We are all hated now. The time to take a stand is now, for if not now, when? We were once loved and admired, respected and an inspiration. Let not five years of disarray become a lifetime of disaster. We know who the real terrorists are. It is up to us to show them that their America is not our America. It is time we show them the door out of the country.

Their America is not our America, for we are the People of the World; they but the Scourge of Humanity. We are Peace and they are War, they are few and we are many, many more.

Manuel Valenzuela is a social critic and commentator, international affairs analyst and Internet columnist. His articles as well as his archive can be found at his blog, http://www.valenzuelasveritas.blogspot.com and at http://www.informationclearinghouse.info as well as at other alternative news websites from around the globe. Mr. Valenzuela is also author of Echoes in the Wind, a fiction novel. Mr. Valenzuela welcomes comments and can be reached at manuel@valenzuelas.net.

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source: Information Clearing House