Thursday, April 30, 2009
Lawsuit Charges Baxter Used Dangerous Ingredients In Vaccines To Increase Profits
Questions remain over company chosen to develop swine flu vaccine.
Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Thursday, April 30, 2009
A scandal dating from January 2008, that is continuing to unfold, raises more disturbing questions over the safety of U.S. pharmaceutical company Baxter International’s vaccines.
Last year Baxter recalled almost all of its injections of the blood thinning heparin drug in the US after some patients experienced extreme - and in some cases fatal - allergic reactions, after being administered the products.
There were similar recalls by other manufacturers of Chinese-sourced heparin in Denmark, Italy, France Germany and Japan, but initial investigations found that only Baxter’s heparin vaccines were tainted.
The FDA has accused two Chinese manufacturers of being responsible for the production and shipment of the tainted vaccines, suggesting that a cheaper synthetic heparin mimic, subsequently identified as over-sulfated chondroitin sulfate (OSCS), was used to decrease costs.
However, in January 2009 a new lawsuit was filed specifically against Baxter for it’s role in the scandal.
The allegation is that the pharmaceutical giant purposefully altered an ingredient in heparin that flowed through heparin syringes to patients, resulting in pain and suffering, and sometimes death, to those affected, reported legal website Lawyers and Settlements
Somewhat ironically, the natural ingredient in heparin that was substituted in order to cut costs was a substance extracted from cooked swine intestines.
The lawsuit notes that OSCS is not found in nature, and is not approved in the United States. It accuses Baxter of using a more dangerous ingredient to “reap greater profits as a result of utilizing cheap component parts.”
As we reported earlier this week, Baxter has been chosen by the WHO to head up efforts to produce a vaccine for the Mexican swine flu that is spreading throughout the U.S. and Europe.
The decision was made despite further revelations last month that vaccines contaminated with deadly live H5N1 avian flu virus were recently distributed to 18 countries by a lab at an Austrian branch of Baxter.
Initially, the company attempted to stonewall questions by invoking “trade secrets” and refused to reveal how the vaccines were contaminated with H5N1. After increased pressure they then claimed that pure H5N1 batches were sent by accident.
However, as we have highlighted, the probability of mixing a live virus biological weapon with vaccine material by accident is virtually impossible.
Top Books on Drug Company Scams
Mom says Patriot Act Stripped Son of his Rights
Ashton Lundeby is being held under the USA Patriot Act on a criminal complaint that a bomb threat was made from his Oxford home the night of Feb. 15.
Highlights of The USA Patriot Act
HR: 3162: The USA Patriot Act (full text)
HR 1800: National Security Letters Reform Act of 2009
Mom says Patriot Act stripped son of due process
Posted: Apr. 29 6:00 p.m.
Updated: Apr. 29 6:54 p.m.
OXFORD, N.C. — Sixteen-year-old Ashton Lundeby's bedroom in his mother's Granville County home is nothing, if not patriotic. Images of American flags are everywhere – on the bed, on the floor, on the wall.
But according to the United States government, the tenth-grade home-schooler is being held on a criminal complaint that he made a bomb threat from his home on the night of Feb. 15.
WATCH VIDEO
Teen's mom questions Patriot Act
The family was at a church function that night, his mother, Annette Lundeby, said.
"Undoubtedly, they were given false information, or they would not have had 12 agents in my house with a widow and two children and three cats," Lundeby said.
Around 10 p.m. on March 5, Lundeby said, armed FBI agents along with three local law enforcement officers stormed her home looking for her son. They handcuffed him and presented her with a search warrant.
"I was terrified," Lundeby's mother said. "There were guns, and I don't allow guns around my children. I don't believe in guns."
Lundeby told the officers that someone had hacked into her son's IP address and was using it to make crank calls connected through the Internet, making it look like the calls had originated from her home when they did not.
Her argument was ignored, she said. Agents seized a computer, a cell phone, gaming console, routers, bank statements and school records, according to federal search warrants.
"There were no bomb-making materials, not even a blasting cap, not even a wire," Lundeby said.
Ashton now sits in a juvenile facility in South Bend, Ind. His mother has had little access to him since his arrest. She has gone to her state representatives as well as attorneys, seeking assistance, but, she said, there is nothing she can do.
Lundeby said the USA Patriot Act stripped her son of his due process rights.
"We have no rights under the Patriot Act to even defend them, because the Patriot Act basically supersedes the Constitution," she said. "It wasn't intended to drag your barely 16-year-old, 120-pound son out in the middle of the night on a charge that we can't even defend."
Passed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S., the Patriot Act allows federal agents to investigate suspected cases of terrorism swiftly to better protect the country. In part, it gives the federal government more latitude to search telephone records, e-mails and other records.
"They're saying that 'We feel this individual is a terrorist or an enemy combatant against the United States, and we're going to suspend all of those due process rights because this person is an enemy of the United States," said Dan Boyce, a defense attorney and former U.S. attorney not connected to the Lundeby case.
Critics of the statute say it threatens the most basic of liberties.
"There's nothing a matter of public record," Boyce said "All those normal rights are just suspended in the air."
In a bi-partisan effort, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., and Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., last month introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives a bill that would narrow subpoena power in a provision of the Patriot Act, called the National Security Letters, to curb what some consider to be abuse of power by federal law enforcement officers.
Boyce said the Patriot Act was written with good intentions, but he said he believes it has gone too far in some cases. Lundeby's might be one of them, he said.
"It very well could be a case of overreaction, where an agent leaped to certain conclusions or has made certain assumptions about this individual and about how serious the threat really is," Boyce said.
Because a federal judge issued a gag order in the case, the U.S. attorney in Indiana cannot comment on the case, nor can the FBI. The North Carolina Highway Patrol did confirm that officers assisted with the FBI operation at the Lundeby home on March 5.
"Never in my worst nightmare did I ever think that it would be my own government that I would have to protect my children from," Lundeby said. "This is the United States, and I feel like I live in a third world country now."
Lundeby said she does not think this type of case is what the Patriot Act was intended for. Boyce agrees.
"It was to protect the public, but what we need to do is to make sure there are checks and balances to make sure those new laws are not abused," he said.
Reporter: Amanda Lamb
Photographer: Chad Flowers
Web Editor: Kelly Gardner
Top Books on the Patriot Act
9/11 Studies Find Aircraft Positioning Mechanism Working on 9/11
Enhanced GPS service (WAAS) now in use by the U.S. commercial aviation industry and activated 13 months prior to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, provided virtual aerial navigation corridors only 243 wide and a 95% confidence that an aircraft's true position will fall within such a corridor . Such corridors can be navigated entirely by autopilot and flight management systems scheduled in 1996 and 1998 to be contained by United and American airlines Boeing 757 and 767 aircraft like those used during the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001
View 9/11 Studies Research
Secession Movement Ignites in Montana
By DANIEL PERSON Chronicle Staff Writer
HELENA - Whether a resolution debated on the House floor Wednesday was a call for secession or an affirmation of the U.S. Constitution depended on who was doing the talking at any given moment.
House Resolution 3, sponsored by Rep. Michael More, R-Gallatin Gateway, was a sweeping statement on state rights.
“For those of you who would like the abbreviated version, here it is: The right to govern is derived from the consent of the governed. That is what this resolution is all about,” More said.
Among other things, the resolution states that “any acts of Congress that abridge protected individual freedoms are not law and are void” and “every state has a right to ignore or reject all unwarranted assumptions of power by other entities within its boundaries.”
Knowing the charges were coming, More said the resolution was not about seceding from the union, only an affirmation of the rights granted by the Constitution.
But those charges came anyway from several Democrats.
Pointing to the last line of the resolution, which states that Montana’s contract with the United States should be considered broken if Congress passes a law breaching the “reservations” of the resolution, Rep. Mike Menahan, D-Helena, said, “If this isn’t groundwork for seceding from the union, I don’t know what is.”
Rep. Franke Wilmer, D-Bozeman, said Texas Gov. Rick Perry had just signed a similar resolution in his state before speaking to a rally at which chants of “secession” arose.
“We don’t serve the Constitution of our government by passing anti-government resolutions like this,” Wilmer said.
Many Republicans countered there was nothing anti-American about the resolution.
“There is no revolution. There are some very angry people about the overreaching of government,” said Rep. Ed Butcher, R-Winifred. “This is very pro-government, because government is of and by the people,”
Yet some Republicans didn’t shirk at the thought of secession.
“This is a federal government be-good stick,” said Rep. Krayton Kerns, R-Laurel. “Now there is talk of secession. (The resolution) isn’t saying that. But that is the big stick in the room that we have to occasionally display.
“This is a shot across the bow that says, ‘Hey, don’t forget about us out here,’” Kerns said.
Rep. Robyn Driscoll, D-Billings, said such shots could lead to dangerous places.
“Buried in this resolution is the same confrontational language and ideals that the Freemen and Timothy McVeigh stood for,” she said. “This resolution sends us down a similar path as the Freemen.”
Some wanted the 35-minute debate to continue, but the House voted to close the debate.
The resolution failed on a 50-50 vote. All 50 Republicans voted for the resolution. All 50 Democrats voted against.
Daniel Person can be reached at dperson@dailychronicle.com.
The End of America: Movie
9/11 Visibility Website
The Exceptional Patriot: Dr. David Ray Griffin
The Exceptional Patriot: Naomi Wolf
The Exceptional Patriot: Charlie Sheen
The Exceptional Patriot: Ed Asner
The Exceptional Patriot: Jesse Ventura
The Exceptional Patriot: Richard Gage
The Exceptional Patriot: Dr. Richard Gardener
The Exceptional Patriot: Kenny Johannemann
Primitive Evil Resurrected in Bedford, Pennsylvania
The Brainwashing of Children in America
Zeitgeist: Addendum---The true source of Terrorism and Slavery
Top Lists
HELENA - Whether a resolution debated on the House floor Wednesday was a call for secession or an affirmation of the U.S. Constitution depended on who was doing the talking at any given moment.
House Resolution 3, sponsored by Rep. Michael More, R-Gallatin Gateway, was a sweeping statement on state rights.
“For those of you who would like the abbreviated version, here it is: The right to govern is derived from the consent of the governed. That is what this resolution is all about,” More said.
Among other things, the resolution states that “any acts of Congress that abridge protected individual freedoms are not law and are void” and “every state has a right to ignore or reject all unwarranted assumptions of power by other entities within its boundaries.”
Knowing the charges were coming, More said the resolution was not about seceding from the union, only an affirmation of the rights granted by the Constitution.
But those charges came anyway from several Democrats.
Pointing to the last line of the resolution, which states that Montana’s contract with the United States should be considered broken if Congress passes a law breaching the “reservations” of the resolution, Rep. Mike Menahan, D-Helena, said, “If this isn’t groundwork for seceding from the union, I don’t know what is.”
Rep. Franke Wilmer, D-Bozeman, said Texas Gov. Rick Perry had just signed a similar resolution in his state before speaking to a rally at which chants of “secession” arose.
“We don’t serve the Constitution of our government by passing anti-government resolutions like this,” Wilmer said.
Many Republicans countered there was nothing anti-American about the resolution.
“There is no revolution. There are some very angry people about the overreaching of government,” said Rep. Ed Butcher, R-Winifred. “This is very pro-government, because government is of and by the people,”
Yet some Republicans didn’t shirk at the thought of secession.
“This is a federal government be-good stick,” said Rep. Krayton Kerns, R-Laurel. “Now there is talk of secession. (The resolution) isn’t saying that. But that is the big stick in the room that we have to occasionally display.
“This is a shot across the bow that says, ‘Hey, don’t forget about us out here,’” Kerns said.
Rep. Robyn Driscoll, D-Billings, said such shots could lead to dangerous places.
“Buried in this resolution is the same confrontational language and ideals that the Freemen and Timothy McVeigh stood for,” she said. “This resolution sends us down a similar path as the Freemen.”
Some wanted the 35-minute debate to continue, but the House voted to close the debate.
The resolution failed on a 50-50 vote. All 50 Republicans voted for the resolution. All 50 Democrats voted against.
Daniel Person can be reached at dperson@dailychronicle.com.
The End of America: Movie
9/11 Visibility Website
The Exceptional Patriot: Dr. David Ray Griffin
The Exceptional Patriot: Naomi Wolf
The Exceptional Patriot: Charlie Sheen
The Exceptional Patriot: Ed Asner
The Exceptional Patriot: Jesse Ventura
The Exceptional Patriot: Richard Gage
The Exceptional Patriot: Dr. Richard Gardener
The Exceptional Patriot: Kenny Johannemann
Primitive Evil Resurrected in Bedford, Pennsylvania
The Brainwashing of Children in America
Zeitgeist: Addendum---The true source of Terrorism and Slavery
Top Lists
Swine Flu Far Worse than Reported, Says Doctor
Up to 25 times more victims than official figure, hospitals overwhelmed, virus already at level 6 pandemic phase
A doctor in Texas claims that swine flu cases are at least ten times worse than officials are letting on, and that hospitals are becoming overwhelmed as the virus has already crossed the threshold to be considered a phase 6 global pandemic.
Dr. Marcus Gitterle, an emergency medicine physician based out of New Braunfels, Texas, sent out an e mail alert to his patients which contains several stunning claims about swine flu that, if true, officials have presumably sought to keep from the public.
“After I returned from a public health meeting yesterday with community leaders and school officials in Comal County and Hays County, (name removed) suggested I send an update to my patients in the area, because what we are hearing privately from the CDC and Health Department is different from what you are hearing in the media,” writes Gitterle.
The doctor claims that the actual number of confirmed cases of swine flu is 10 to 25 times worse than has been reported, and that people are not recovering easily, as has been claimed, but that many Americans are in fact seriously ill.
“The way they fudge on reporting this is that it takes 3 days to get the confirmatory nod from the CDC on a given viral culture, but based on epidemiological grounds, we know that there are more than 10 cases for each “confirmed” case right now,” claims Gitterle.
“This has not been in the media, but a 23 month old in Houston is fighting for his life, and a pregnant woman just south of San Antonio is fighting for her life,” he writes.
Gitterle’s mention of a “23 month old in Houston” obviously refers to the Mexican toddler who died on Monday night and was announced as the first U.S. fatality on Tuesday morning.
Quick access to drugs like Tamiflu and Relenza, as well as ventilators, is preventing fatalities on the scale of Mexico, but Gitterle warns that “within a couple of weeks, regional hospitals will likely become overwhelmed”.
Gitterle warns, “ER’s south of here are becoming overwhelmed — and I mean that — already. It is coming in waves, but the waves are getting bigger.”
The doctor states that the severity of the situation has already crossed the threshold of the definition of a WHO phase 6 pandemic. “This has not happened in any of our lifetimes so far. We are in uncharted territory,” he writes.
Gitterle claims that President Obama is being advised to declare a national emergency and that this could happen within the next 48 hours.
“This may not happen, but if it doesn’t, I will be surprised. When this happens, all public gathering will be cancelled for 10 days minimum,” writes the doctor.
Gitterle advises people to avoid all public gatherings, especially those held indoors, to avoid going to their ER if they feel ill, and to take the nutritional supplements N-Acetyl-Cysteine and Oscillococinum. He recommends Relenza as a more powerful drug than Tamiflu but warns that supplies of both drugs are running out fast.
The doctor states that swine flu is infectious for about two days prior to symptom onset and that the virus can spread for more than seven days after symptom onset. The symptoms are the same as normal flu, although it has been discovered that swine flu causes a distinctive “hoarseness” in many victims.
“Since it is such a novel (new) virus, there is no “herd immunity,” so the “attack rate” is very high. This is the percentage of people who come down with a virus if exposed. Almost everyone who is exposed to this virus will become infected, though not all will be symptomatic. That is much higher than seasonal flu, which averages 10-15%. The “clinical attack rate” estimation from CDC and WHO may be around 40-50%. This is the number of people who show symptoms. This is a huge number. It is hard to convey the seriousness of this to those outside of the medical fields,” he writes.
Top Books on Pandemics
The End of America: Movie
9/11 Visibility Website
The Exceptional Patriot: Dr. David Ray Griffin
The Exceptional Patriot: Naomi Wolf
The Exceptional Patriot: Charlie Sheen
The Exceptional Patriot: Ed Asner
The Exceptional Patriot: Jesse Ventura
The Exceptional Patriot: Richard Gage
The Exceptional Patriot: Dr. Richard Gardener
The Exceptional Patriot: Kenny Johannemann
Primitive Evil Resurrected in Bedford, Pennsylvania
The Brainwashing of Children in America
Zeitgeist: Addendum---The true source of Terrorism and Slavery
Top Lists
A doctor in Texas claims that swine flu cases are at least ten times worse than officials are letting on, and that hospitals are becoming overwhelmed as the virus has already crossed the threshold to be considered a phase 6 global pandemic.
Dr. Marcus Gitterle, an emergency medicine physician based out of New Braunfels, Texas, sent out an e mail alert to his patients which contains several stunning claims about swine flu that, if true, officials have presumably sought to keep from the public.
“After I returned from a public health meeting yesterday with community leaders and school officials in Comal County and Hays County, (name removed) suggested I send an update to my patients in the area, because what we are hearing privately from the CDC and Health Department is different from what you are hearing in the media,” writes Gitterle.
The doctor claims that the actual number of confirmed cases of swine flu is 10 to 25 times worse than has been reported, and that people are not recovering easily, as has been claimed, but that many Americans are in fact seriously ill.
“The way they fudge on reporting this is that it takes 3 days to get the confirmatory nod from the CDC on a given viral culture, but based on epidemiological grounds, we know that there are more than 10 cases for each “confirmed” case right now,” claims Gitterle.
“This has not been in the media, but a 23 month old in Houston is fighting for his life, and a pregnant woman just south of San Antonio is fighting for her life,” he writes.
Gitterle’s mention of a “23 month old in Houston” obviously refers to the Mexican toddler who died on Monday night and was announced as the first U.S. fatality on Tuesday morning.
Quick access to drugs like Tamiflu and Relenza, as well as ventilators, is preventing fatalities on the scale of Mexico, but Gitterle warns that “within a couple of weeks, regional hospitals will likely become overwhelmed”.
Gitterle warns, “ER’s south of here are becoming overwhelmed — and I mean that — already. It is coming in waves, but the waves are getting bigger.”
The doctor states that the severity of the situation has already crossed the threshold of the definition of a WHO phase 6 pandemic. “This has not happened in any of our lifetimes so far. We are in uncharted territory,” he writes.
Gitterle claims that President Obama is being advised to declare a national emergency and that this could happen within the next 48 hours.
“This may not happen, but if it doesn’t, I will be surprised. When this happens, all public gathering will be cancelled for 10 days minimum,” writes the doctor.
Gitterle advises people to avoid all public gatherings, especially those held indoors, to avoid going to their ER if they feel ill, and to take the nutritional supplements N-Acetyl-Cysteine and Oscillococinum. He recommends Relenza as a more powerful drug than Tamiflu but warns that supplies of both drugs are running out fast.
The doctor states that swine flu is infectious for about two days prior to symptom onset and that the virus can spread for more than seven days after symptom onset. The symptoms are the same as normal flu, although it has been discovered that swine flu causes a distinctive “hoarseness” in many victims.
“Since it is such a novel (new) virus, there is no “herd immunity,” so the “attack rate” is very high. This is the percentage of people who come down with a virus if exposed. Almost everyone who is exposed to this virus will become infected, though not all will be symptomatic. That is much higher than seasonal flu, which averages 10-15%. The “clinical attack rate” estimation from CDC and WHO may be around 40-50%. This is the number of people who show symptoms. This is a huge number. It is hard to convey the seriousness of this to those outside of the medical fields,” he writes.
Top Books on Pandemics
The End of America: Movie
9/11 Visibility Website
The Exceptional Patriot: Dr. David Ray Griffin
The Exceptional Patriot: Naomi Wolf
The Exceptional Patriot: Charlie Sheen
The Exceptional Patriot: Ed Asner
The Exceptional Patriot: Jesse Ventura
The Exceptional Patriot: Richard Gage
The Exceptional Patriot: Dr. Richard Gardener
The Exceptional Patriot: Kenny Johannemann
Primitive Evil Resurrected in Bedford, Pennsylvania
The Brainwashing of Children in America
Zeitgeist: Addendum---The true source of Terrorism and Slavery
Top Lists
Alex Jones Under Cyber Attack: Special Transmission on Flu Pandemic
Earlier last evening, Alex Jones’ flagship website, Infowars.com, came under a concerted denial of service (DoS) attack. It is unavailable at the time of this report.
The attacks are coming out of Japan. A Whois database search reveals the origin to be the Asia Pacific Network Information Centre in Milton, Australia.
DoS attacks usually consist of concerted efforts to shut down a web server by flooding the computer with requests and consuming its resources so that it is no longer available to users. DoS attacks commonly constitute violations of the laws of individual nations.
Over the last few days, Alex Jones and his websites have covered the so-called swine flu “pandemic” and have built a solid case that the outbreak is part of a larger campaign by the government to frighten the populace and institute martial law as specifically detailed in the Department of Defense’s “Implementation Plan for Pandemic Influenza” and other government documents. Alex Jones is the primary media source calling the government’s bluff on the bogus “pandemic” elevated earlier today to a level 5 under World Health Organization guidelines.
WHO Director-General Margaret Chan declared the phase 5 alert after consulting with flu experts from around the world. “All countries should immediately now activate their pandemic preparedness plans,” Chan told reporters in Geneva. “It really is all of humanity that is under threat in a pandemic.”
“All countries should immediately activate their pandemic preparedness plans,” the WHO declares. “This change to a higher phase of alert is a signal to governments, to ministries of health and other ministries, to the pharmaceutical industry and the business community that certain actions should now be undertaken with increased urgency, and at an accelerated pace.”
The Department of Homeland Security’s National Response Plan follows the same criteria in the case of a flu pandemic or terrorist attack and relies on the military — specifically the Northern Command — to respond to such events.
Alex Jones has featured a number of guests on his nationally syndicated radio show in the last few days that have outlined the government’s plan to use a bogus pandemic as an excuse to impose martial law and engage in forced vaccination. Guests have also noted the eugenics endgame of the ruling elite, determined to reduce world population to 500 million, as stated on the Georgia Guidestones.
A number of U.S. military cyber attacks have originated out of Japan where there is a large military presence.
Over the last few years, the Pentagon has developed an “offensive” cyber capability against “adversaries,” including DoS attacks. In the Pentagon’s “Information Operation Roadmap” document, it is stated that the military “must fight the Net.” The Pentagon believes the internet needs to be dealt with as if it were an enemy “weapons system.”
Finally, here is a list of specific IP addresses and other information related to the attack:
118.11.79.219
122.26.194.245
121.95.152.130
122.29.155.93
58.70.103.234
122.135.86.170
116.80.25.116
p2219-ipbf14wakayama.wakayama.ocn.ne.jp
p3245-ipbf2810marunouchi.tokyo.ocn.ne.jp
ntchba319130.chba.nt.ftth.ppp.infoweb.ne.jp
p4093-ipbf3404marunouchi.tokyo.ocn.ne.jp
58-70-103-234.eonet.ne.jp
FL1-122-135-86-170.tky.mesh.ad.jp
nttkyo711116.tkyo.nt.ftth.ppp.infoweb.ne.jp
Nazi Money Stand to Reap Profits by Flu Pandemic
"NAZI MONEY BURIED IN NEW CORPORATIONS At the end of the war Hitler ordered Martin Bormann, financial director of the Third Reich, to bury the treasure not only for Germany's economic recovery, but for the rise of the Fourth Reich. So Bormann buried it into 750 corporations as determined by their partners I.G. Farben and the Rockefellers, to establish a monopoly over the world's pharmaceutical and chemical industries because this would be essential for the 'New Ordnung' or 'New Order'. Among the 750 corporations that received the money, one of the principle recipients was Merck and Co. ... Merck has remained a major biological weapons contractor for CIA's top secret project NKNaomi, and Kissinger has remained all these years a major consultant to Merck. Two of the most important financial contributors to world population reduction have been the Merck Fund and the Rockefeller Foundation ... "
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123659326420569463.html
In today's news: GILEAD, Glaxo and Roche, a few other pharmaceutical concerns, stand to make handsome profits in the near future: "Drug and vaccine makers on standby over swine flu," Apr 26, 2009, LONDON/ZURICH (Reuters) - "Drugmakers said on Sunday they could supply millions of doses of medicine and were ready to work on a vaccine against a new type of swine flu that has killed up to 81 people in Mexico and infected around a dozen in the United States. Roche Holding AG's Tamiflu, known generically as oseltamivir, and GlaxoSmithKline Plc's Relenza, or zanamivir, are both recommended drugs for seasonal flu and have been shown to work against viral samples of the new disease. ... The two companies have received contracts in recent years from individual governments and corporations for stockpiles of their medicines, following earlier fears over bird flu. Those sales provided windfall profits, especially for Roche, and also benefited their respective partners. Tamiflu was originally invented by U.S. biotech company Gilead Sciences Inc, while Relenza was licensed to Glaxo by Australia's Biota Holdings Ltd. ... Leading flu vaccine manufacturers include Sanofi Pasteur, the vaccines division of Sanofi-Aventis SA, Glaxo, Novartis AG and Baxter International Inc. Sanofi Pasteur, as the world leading producer of influenza vaccine, is standing ready to assess its capabilities to support public health efforts, should the WHO and other health authorities request support from influenza vaccine manufacturers," said spokesman Pascal Barollier."
http://uk.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUKTRE53P1IU20090426
Baxter International and Austria's Orth-Donau Facility May be the Source of the Current Swine Flu Contagion in Mexico
Baxter? As in ... "Baxter working on vaccine to stop swine flu, though admitted sending live pandemic flu viruses to subcontractor"
http://www.legitgov.org/baxter_flu_vaccine_260409.html
Baxter admits sending live avian flu viruses to subcontractor: People familiar with biosecurity rules are dismayed by evidence that human H3N2 and avian H5N1 viruses somehow co-mingled in the Orth-Donau facility. 27 Feb 2009 The company that released contaminated flu virus material from a plant in Austria confirmed Friday that the experimental product contained live H5N1 avian flu viruses. ...
Donau, Austria. [Source: The Canadian Press]
Compare with:
Spectre of pandemic 26 Apr 2009 The new strain contains gene sequences from North American and Eurasian swine flus, North American bird flu and North American human flu, according to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. Most of Mexico's dead were young, healthy adults, and none was aged older than 60 or or younger than three, the World Health Organization said. This has alarmed health officials... Pandemic flus - like the 1918 Spanish flu and the 1957 and 1968 pandemics - often strike young, healthy people the hardest. Mexican officials promised a huge immunisation campaign in the capital this week. ...
http://www.legitgov.org/baxter_flu_vaccine_260409.html
Baxter International and American Home Products
"Baxter Corporation, a subsidiary of American Home Products [now Wyeth]—another direct progeny of the decartelized German drug and chemical combine known as I.G. Farben. ... "
http://www.healingcelebrations.com/smallpoxandanthrax.htm
WARREN BUFFETT Stands to make a KILLING, too
Warren Buffett snaps up shares in Glaxo, Philip Scott, This is Money, 20 February 2008: "Warren Buffett, the world's most famous investor and the second richest man in the US, has recently invested in UK pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline ... "
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/investing/article.html?in_article_id=430704&in_page_id=166
Cheney (again), Bush, Rumsfeld and Gilead
John F. Cogan, CEO of Gilead, was economic advisor to President George W. Bush, appointed to serve on a bipartisan commission on Social Security reform in 2001.
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/hoover-institution
ON April 20, 2009, I reported: "I've been sifting through the known leads for a couple of months now, and can report that Dick Cheney is the key to the parapolitics of the [Flight 3407] crash ... "
Reported elsewhere: Shultz, Rusmfeld and Gilead Profit from the Bird Flu Scare
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?
"The Gilead model also suggests a parallel to the Halliburton Corporation, whose former CEO is Vice President Dick Cheney. Cheney’s company has so far gotten billions worth of US construction contracts in Iraq and elsewhere. Is it just a coincidence that Cheney’s closest political friend is Defense Secretary and Avian Flu beneficiary, Donald Rumsfeld?"
•••
Schering-Plough, Swine Flu Vaccine Makers and Flight 3407
From the DEADLINE investigation of 3407: " ... Schering Plough’s own links to Flight 3407 come second only to Amherst Systems and include the deaths of three employees, Jennifer Neil, Dawn Monachino and Dawn Mossop, (plus Mrs Mossop’s family members; her husband Donald, son Shawn and cousin Ferris Reid). Another 3407 passenger, Donald Macdonald, worked in pharmaceuticals as the quality control engineer for the Canadian pharmacy firm Pharmetics who sold vitamin supplied to the troops in Afghanistan. Pharmetics ... purchased its Canadian plant off Schering Plough client Patheon. ... Patheon ... was purchasing manufacturing plants in Cincinnati from drug manufacture Aventis (now Sanofi–Pasteur). ... "
STRATEGIC MOVE: NAZI MERCK BUYS IN
MARCH 10, 2009: " ... Merck & Co. agreed to buy rival Schering-Plough Corp. for $41.1 billion ... Schering-Plough brings to Merck biotech, consumer-health and animal-health businesses, as well as an expanded presence in Brazil, China and other emerging markets. ... "
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123659326420569463.html
MERCK, BORMANN, KISSINGER, ROCKEFELLER FOUNDATION, ETC.
Boston University and UMDNJ along side Schering Plough along pharmaceutical research firm and institutes like Kintex Hauptmanwoodward can all identified as key recipients of Department of Defence funding. Kintex, Schering Plough and Hauptman-Woodward can also be identified as financial supporters of the Niagara Medical Campus Buffolo.
Hauptman-Woodward, gained prominence recently after they were appointed to head a project on how viruses mutate and transfer between animals and humans.
Hauptman-Woodward former chairman is Donald Hess, the cofounder of Amherst Systems (purchased in 1999 by defence giant Northrop Grumman) who died in a plane crash in November 2008, just three months before his employees Jerome Krasuski, Darren Tolsma Steve Johnston and Ernest West died on Flight 3407.
The three million dollars in federal funding required for Hauptman-Woodward species jumping research can be identified as having come from the 2008 Department of Defence Appropriations Bill.
Hess also served on the board of Kinex Pharmaceutical, whose vice president Dr Allen Barnett is the former vice president of Schering-Plough and, like Hess, a member of the board of the University of Buffalo’s Niagara Medical Campus.
All lab facilities involved in the missing plague cases in Newark and Buffalo have another common link in that they were all designed by CUH2A whose client list includes US Bio Warfare military contractors Abbot Merck, Pfizer, Schering Plough, plus the New Jersey Economic Development Authority who lobbied pharmeseutical firms to set up their hazardous bio research in heavily populated areas.
http://aconstantineblacklist.blogspot.com/2009/04/flight-3407-crash-bugs-bombs-bucks.html
Ties things up rather nicely. But let's dig a bit further for the pre-history of the Swine (two-legged variety) Flu ...
- AC
••••••
Time Machine, 1976 ...
"Wallace: Where did this so called "deadly variety of flu", where did it first hit back in 1976? It began right here at Fort Dix in New Jersey in January of that year, when a number of recruits began to complain of respiratory ailments, something like the common cold. ... "
http://www.whale.to/vaccines/swine.html
MIKE WALLACE: The flu season is upon us. Which type will we worry about this year, and what kind of shots will we be told to take? Remember the swine flu scare of 1976? That was the year the U.S. government told us all that swine flu could turn out to be a killer that could spread across the nation, and Washington decided that every man, woman and child in the nation should get a shot to prevent a nation-wide outbreak, a pandemic.
Well, 46 million of us obediently took the shot, and now 4,000 Americans are claiming damages from Uncle Sam amounting to three and a half billion dollars because of what happened when they took that shot. By far the greatest number of the claims - two thirds of them are for neurological damage, or even death, allegedly triggered by the flu shot.
We pick up the story back in 1976, when the threat posed by the swine flu virus seemed very real indeed.
PRESIDENT GERALD FORD; This virus was the cause of a pandemic in 1918 and 1919 that resulted in over half a million deaths in the United States, as well as 20 million deaths around the world.
WALLACE: Thus the U.S. government's publicity machine was cranked into action to urge all America to protect itself against the swine flu menace. (Excerpt from TV commercial urging everyone to get a swine flu shot.) One of those who did roll up her sleeve was Judy Roberts. She was perfectly healthy, an active woman, when, in November of 1976, she took her shot. Two weeks later, she says, she began to feel a numbness starting up her legs.
JUDY ROBERTS: And I joked about it at that time. I said I'll be numb to the knees by Friday if this keeps up. By the following week, I was totally paralyzed.
WALLACE: So completely paralyzed, in fact, that they had to operate on her to enable her to breathe. And for six months, Judy Roberts was a quadriplegic. The diagnosis: A neurological disorder called "Guillian-Barre Syndrome" - GBS for short. These neurological diseases are little understood. They affect people in different ways.
As you can see in these home movies taken by a friend, Judy Roberts' paralysis confined her mostly to a wheelchair for over a year. But this disease can even kill. Indeed, there are 300 claims now pending from the families of GBS victims who died, alledgedly as a result of the swine flu shot. In other GBS victims, the crippling effects diminish and all but disappear. But for Judy Roberts, progress back to good health has been painful and partial.
Now, I notice that your smile, Judy, is a little bit constricted.
ROBERTS: Yes, it is.
WALLACE: Is it different from what it used to be?
ROBERTS: Very different, I have a – a greatly decreased mobility in my lips. AndI can't drink through a straw on the right-band side. I can't blow out birthday candles. I don't whistle any more, for which my husband is grateful.
WALLACE: It may be a little difficult for you to answer this question, but have you recovered as much as you are going to recover?
ROBERTS: Yes. This - this is it.
WALLACE: So you will now have a legacy of braces on your legs for the rest of your life?
ROBERTS: Yes. The weakness in my hands will stay and the leg braces will stay.
WALLACE: So Judy Roberts and her husband have filed a claim against the U.S. government. They're asking $12 million, though they don't expect to get nearly that much. Judy, why did you take the flu shot?
ROBERTS: I'd never taken any other flu shots, but I felt like this was going to be a major epidemic, and the only way to prevent a major epidemic of a - a really deadly variety of flu was for every body to be immunized.
WALLACE: Where did this so called "deadly variety of flu", where did it first hit back in 1976? It began right here at Fort Dix in New Jersey in January of that year, when a number of recruits began to complain of respiratory ailments, something like the common cold. An Army doctor here sent samples of their throat cultures to the New Jersey Public Health Lab to find our just what kind of bug was going around here. One of those samples was from a Private David Lewis, who had left his sick bed to go on a forced march. Private Lewis had collapsed on that march, and his sergeant had revived him by mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. But the sergeant showed no signs of illness. A few days later, Private Lewis died.
ROBERTS: If this disease is so potentially fatal that it's going to kill a young, healthy man, a middle-aged schoolteacher doesn't have a prayer.
WALLACE: The New Jersey lab identified most of those solders' throat cultures as the normal kind of flu virus going around that year, but they could not make out what kind of virus was in the culture from the dead soldier, and from four others who were sick. So they sent those cultures to the Federal Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia, for further study. A few days later they got the verdict: swine flu. But that much-publicized outbreak of swine flu at Fort Dix involved only Private Lewis, who died, and those four other soldiers, who recovered completely without the swine flu shot.
ROBERTS: If I had known at that time that the boy had been in a sick bed, got up, went out on a forced march and then collapsed and died, I would never have taken the shot.
DR DAVID SENCER: The rationale for our recommendation was not on the basis of the death of a - a single individual, but it was on the basis that when we do see a change in the characteristics of the influenza virus, it is a massive public-health problem in the country.
WALLACE: Dr David Sencer, then head of the CDS - the Center of Disease Control in Atlanta - is now in private industry. He devised the swine flu program and he pushed it.
You began to give flu shots to the American people in October of '76?
DR SENCER: October 1st.
WALLACE: By that time, how many cases of swine flu around the world had been reported?
DR SENCER: There had been several reported, but none confirmed. There had been cases in Australia that were reported by the press, by the news media. There were cases in -
WALLACE: None confirmed? Did you ever uncover any other outbreaks of swine flu anywhere in the world?
DR SENCER: No
WALLACE: Now, nearly everyone was to receive a shot in a public health facility where a doctor might not be present, therefore it was up to the CDC to come up with some kind of official consent form giving the public all the information it needed about the swine flu shot. This form stated that the swine flu vaccine had been tested. What it didn't say was that after those tests were completed, the scientists developed another vaccine and that it was the one given to most of the 46 million who took the shot. That vaccine was called "X-53a". Was X-53a ever field tested?
DR SENCER: I-I can't say. I would have to -
WALLACE: It wasn't
DR SENCER: I don't know
WALLACE: Well, I would think that you're in charge of the program
DR SENCER: 1 would have to check the records. I haven't looked at this in some time.
WALLACE: The information form the consent form was also supposed to warn people about any risk of serious complications following the shot. But did it?
ROBERTS: No, I had never heard of any reactions other than a sore arm, fever, this sort of thing.
WALLACE: Judy Roberts' husband, Gene, also took the shot.
GENE ROBERTS: Yes, I looked at that document, I signed it. Nothing on there said I was going to have a heart attack, or I can get Guillain Barre, which I'd never heard of.
WALLACE: What if people from the government, from the Center for Disease Control, what if they had indeed, known about it, what would be your feeling?
JUDY ROBERTS: They should have told us.
WALLACE: Did anyone ever come to you and say, "You know something, fellows, there's the possibility of neurological damage if you get into a mass immunization program?"
DR SENCER: No
WALLACE: No one ever did?
DR SENCER: No
WALLACE: Do you know Michael Hattwick?
DR SENCER: Yes, uh-hmm.
WALLACE: Dr Michael Hattwick directed the surveillance team for the swine flu program at the CDC. His job was to find out what possible complications could arise from taking the shot and to report his findings to those in charge. Did you know ahead of time, Dr Hattwick that there had been case reports of neurological disorders, neurological illness, apparently associated with the injection of influenza vaccine?
DR MICHAEL HNITWlCK: Absolutely
WALLACE: You did?
DR HATIWICK: Yes
WALLACE: How did you know that?
DR HATrwICK: By review of the literature.
WALLACE: So you told your superiors - the men in charge of the swine flu immunization program - about the possibility of neurological disorders?
DR RATTWICK: Absolutely
WALLACE: What would you say if I told you that your superiors say that you never told them about the possibility of neurological complications?
DR HAJTWICK: That's nonsense. I can't believe that they would say that they did not know that there were neurological illnesses associated with influenza vaccination. That simply is not true. We did know that.
DR SENCER: I have said that Dr Hattwick had never told me of his feelings on this subject.
WALLACE: Then he's lying?
DR SENCER: I guess you would have to make that assumption.
WALLACE: Then why does this report from your own agency, dated July 1976, list neurological complications as a possibility?
DR SENCER: I think the consensus of the scientific community was that the evidence relating neurologic disorders to influenza immunization was such that they did not feel that this association was a real one.
WALLACE: You didn't feel it was necessary to tell the American people that information
DR SENCER: I think that over the - the years we have tried to inform the American people as - as fully as possible.
WALLACE: As part of informing Americans about the swine flu threat, Dr Sencer's CDC also helped create the advertising to get the public to take the shot. Let me read to your from one of your own agency's memos planning the campaign to urge Americans to take the shot. "The swine flu vaccine has been taken by many important persons," he wrote. "Example: President Ford, Henry Kissinger, Elton John, Muhammad Ah, Mary Tyler Moore, Rudolf Nureyev, Walter Cronkite, Ralph Nader, Edward Kennedy" -etcetera, etcetera, True?
DR SENCER: I'm not familiar with that particular piece of paper, but I do know that, at least of that group, President Ford did take the vaccination.
WALLACE: Did you talk to these people beforehand to find out if they planned to take the shot?
DR SENCER: I did not, no.
WALLACE: Did anybody?
DR SENC ER: I do not know.
WALLACE: Did you get permission to use their names in your campaign?
DR SENCER: I do not know.
WALLACE: Mary, did you take a swine flu shot?
MARY TYLER MOORE: No, I did not.
WALLACE: Did you give them permission to use your name saying that you had or were going to?
MOORE: Absolutely not. Never did.
WALLACE: Did you ask your own doctor about taking the swine flu shot?
MOORE: Yes, and at the time he thought it might be a good idea. But I resisted it, because I was leery of having the symptoms that sometimes go with that kind of inoculation.
WALLACE: So you didn't?
MOORE: No, I didn't.
WALLACE: Have you spoken to your doctor since?
MOORE: Yes.
WALLACE: And?
MOORE: He's delighted that I didn't take that shot.
WALLACE: You're in charge. Somebody's in charge.
DR SENCER: There are -
WALLACE: This is your advertising strategy that I have a copy of here.
DR SENCER: Who's it signed by?
WALLACE: This one is unsigned. But you--you'll acknowledge that it was your baby so to speak?
DR SENCER: It could have been from the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. It could be from CDC. I don't know. I'll be happy to take responsibility for it.
WALLACE: It's been three years now since you fell ill by GBS right?
ROBERTS: Right.
WALLACE: Has the federal government, in your estimation, played fair with you about your claim?
ROBERTS: No, I don't think so. It seems to be dragging on and on and on, and really no end in sight that I can see at this point.
JOSEPH CALIFANO: With respect to the cases of Guillain Barre...
WALLACE: Former Secretary of HEW Joseph Caifano, too was disturbed that there was no end in sight. So a year and a half ago, he proposed that Uncle Sam would cut the bureaucratic red tape for victims suffering from GBS and would pay up quickly.
CALIFANO: We shouldn't hold them to an impossible or too difficult standard of proving that they were hurt. Even if we pay a few people a few thousand dollars that might not have deserved it, I think justice requires that we promptly pay those people who do deserve it.
WALLACE: Who's making the decision to be so hard-nosed about settling?
CALIFANO: Well, I assume the Justice Department is.
WALLACE: Griffin Bell, before he left?
CALIFANO: Well, the Justice Department agreed to the statement I made. It was cleared word for word with the lawyers in the Justice Department by my HEW lawyers.
CALIFANO: That-that statement said that we should pay Guillain Barre claims without regard to whether the federal government was negligent, if they - if they resulted from the swine flu shot.
GENE ROBERTS: I think the government knows its wrong.
JUDY ROBERTS: If it drags out long enough, that people will just give up, let it go.
GENE ROBERTS: I—I am a little more adament in my thoughts than my wife is, because I asked - told Judy to take the shot. She wasn't going to take it, and she never had had shots. And I'm mad with my government because they knew the fact, but they didn't realise those facts because they - if they had released them, the people wouldn't have taken it. And they can come out tomorrow and tell me there's going to be an epidemic, and they can drop off like flies to - next to me, I will not take another shot that my government tells me to take.
WALLACE: Meantime, Judy Roberts and some 4,000 others like her are still waiting for their day in court.
The End of America: Movie
9/11 Visibility Website
The Exceptional Patriot: Dr. David Ray Griffin
The Exceptional Patriot: Naomi Wolf
The Exceptional Patriot: Charlie Sheen
The Exceptional Patriot: Ed Asner
The Exceptional Patriot: Jesse Ventura
The Exceptional Patriot: Richard Gage
The Exceptional Patriot: Dr. Richard Gardener
The Exceptional Patriot: Kenny Johannemann
Primitive Evil Resurrected in Bedford, Pennsylvania
The Brainwashing of Children in America
Zeitgeist: Addendum---The true source of Terrorism and Slavery
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Ret. Army General Russell Honoré On CNN: Did Swine Flu Come Out Of a Lab?
Ret. Army General Russell HonorĂ© on CNN: “How did it start in Mexico, where did it eminate from? We’ve been able to find that out in all previous pandemics, the question now is to get at the heart of how this started - did it start from the occasion of viruses coming together or did it come out of a lab? All those questions have to be answered.”
Indonesia Floats Idea of Man-made Swine Flu
Tue, 28 Apr 2009 09:46:25 GMT
As swine flu continues to take its toll, claims surface that the deadly four-part flu virus could have been created for "bio-terror attacks."
Speaking at a conference to reassure the public over hers government's response to the swine flu threat, Indonesian Heath Minister Siti Fadilah Supari said Tuesday that the controversial virus could have been man-made.
She declined to elaborate on her claim but she had previously accused Western governments of making and spreading viruses in the developing world to boost pharmaceutical companies' profits, AFP reported.
"I'm not sure whether the virus was genetically engineered but it's a possibility," Supari said.
Supari assured Indonesians that the deadly virus could not survive in tropical countries like Indonesia which was the worst hit country by the bird flu virus.
"H1N1 survives in countries with four seasons. The type A H1N1 virus hopefully won't be able to sustain itself once it enters the tropical climate of Indonesia," she added.
No cases of swine flu have been reported in Indonesia. It has banned imports of live pigs and pork products.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has raised its pandemic alert to level four, which means the virus is capable of significant human-to-human transmission. The virus has so far killed nearly 150 people in Mexico and has been reported in eleven countries, including Mexico, the US and Spain.
Several other countries from Colombia to New Zealand are investigating suspected cases.
Health experts say the virus comes from the same strain of virus that causes seasonal outbreaks in humans. They point out that this newly-detected version, which is highly contagious and fast-mutating, also contains
genetic material from the types of influenza that afflict swine and birds.
The End of America: Movie
9/11 Visibility Website
The Exceptional Patriot: Dr. David Ray Griffin
The Exceptional Patriot: Naomi Wolf
The Exceptional Patriot: Charlie Sheen
The Exceptional Patriot: Ed Asner
The Exceptional Patriot: Jesse Ventura
The Exceptional Patriot: Richard Gage
The Exceptional Patriot: Dr. Richard Gardener
The Exceptional Patriot: Kenny Johannemann
Primitive Evil Resurrected in Bedford, Pennsylvania
The Brainwashing of Children in America
Zeitgeist: Addendum---The true source of Terrorism and Slavery
Top Lists
Alternative News Site Infowars.com Under Attack
Earlier this evening, Alex Jones’ flagship website, Infowars.com, came under a concerted denial of service (DoS) attack. It is unavailable at the time of this report.
The attacks are coming out of Japan. A Whois database search reveals the origin to be the Asia Pacific Network Information Centre in Milton, Australia.
DoS attacks usually consist of concerted efforts to shut down a web server by flooding the computer with requests and consuming its resources so that it is no longer available to users. DoS attacks commonly constitute violations of the laws of individual nations.
Over the last few days, Alex Jones and his websites have covered the so-called swine flu “pandemic” and have built a solid case that the outbreak is part of a larger campaign by the government to frighten the populace and institute martial law as specifically detailed in the Department of Defense’s “Implementation Plan for Pandemic Influenza” and other government documents. Alex Jones is the primary media source calling the government’s bluff on the bogus “pandemic” elevated earlier today to a level 5 under World Health Organization guidelines.
WHO Director-General Margaret Chan declared the phase 5 alert after consulting with flu experts from around the world. “All countries should immediately now activate their pandemic preparedness plans,” Chan told reporters in Geneva. “It really is all of humanity that is under threat in a pandemic.”
“All countries should immediately activate their pandemic preparedness plans,” the WHO declares. “This change to a higher phase of alert is a signal to governments, to ministries of health and other ministries, to the pharmaceutical industry and the business community that certain actions should now be undertaken with increased urgency, and at an accelerated pace.”
The Department of Homeland Security’s National Response Plan follows the same criteria in the case of a flu pandemic or terrorist attack and relies on the military — specifically the Northern Command — to respond to such events.
Alex Jones has featured a number of guests on his nationally syndicated radio show in the last few days that have outlined the government’s plan to use a bogus pandemic as an excuse to impose martial law and engage in forced vaccination. Guests have also noted the eugenics endgame of the ruling elite, determined to reduce world population to 500 million, as stated on the Georgia Guidestones.
A number of U.S. military cyber attacks have originated out of Japan where there is a large military presence.
Over the last few years, the Pentagon has developed an “offensive” cyber capability against “adversaries,” including DoS attacks. In the Pentagon’s “Information Operation Roadmap” document, it is stated that the military “must fight the Net.” The Pentagon believes the internet needs to be dealt with as if it were an enemy “weapons system.”
Finally, here is a list of specific IP addresses and other information related to the attack:
118.11.79.219
122.26.194.245
121.95.152.130
122.29.155.93
58.70.103.234
122.135.86.170
116.80.25.116
p2219-ipbf14wakayama.wakayama.ocn.ne.jp
p3245-ipbf2810marunouchi.tokyo.ocn.ne.jp
ntchba319130.chba.nt.ftth.ppp.infoweb.ne.jp
p4093-ipbf3404marunouchi.tokyo.ocn.ne.jp
58-70-103-234.eonet.ne.jp
FL1-122-135-86-170.tky.mesh.ad.jp
nttkyo711116.tkyo.nt.ftth.ppp.infoweb.ne.jp
Egypt Slaughters Pigs to Stop Flu, Christians Riot
Christian Fraser assesses the scene at a pig farm
Egypt has begun a mass slaughter of thousands of pigs in an effort to prevent swine flu spreading.
The cull was going ahead despite there being no cases of swine flu in Egypt. However, neighbouring Israel has two confirmed cases in humans.
"It is decided to slaughter all swine herds present in Egypt, starting from today," said Health Minister Hatem el-Gabali, according to Mena news agency.
Swine flu has spread from Mexico to several countries around the world.
From Muslim Qandeel, BBC Arabic
Zaraib, or Stables, is a shanty hidden away in Western Cairo. I had to gain access by jumping over a wall as police have blocked off the area.
Here they breed pigs that feed on refuse. Thousands of Christians live here - and there is one Muslim breeder too, despite the ban on pork in Islam. People are anxious about the cull, fearing it will destroy their livelihood and the government will not give compensation.
"We have been living here for years doing this. We will not surrender," one breeder said. They are threatening a strike. "Let Cairo drown in garbage."
The pigs in Egypt, a largely Muslim country, are raised by the Coptic Christian community.
Estimates of the number of pigs range from 250,000 to 400,000.
Up to 159 people are believed to have died in the outbreak - all but one of them in Mexico.
Confirmed cases of swine flu have been reported in numerous other countries, including New Zealand, Spain, Austria and Canada, but most have been mild cases.
Many of those victims had been to Mexico, prompting airport screening for passengers displaying potential flu symptoms.
Egyptian authorities increased numbers of medical staff at Cairo airport to check passengers arriving from Mexico and will monitor them during their stay.
Egypt suffered during the outbreak of bird flu, between 2004 and 2008, with 22 deaths reported.
The latest swine flu is a variation of H1N1, which causes seasonal outbreaks of flu in humans on a regular basis.
However, this strain contains genetic material that is typically found in strains of the virus that affect humans, birds and swine.
Pigs can act as a "melting pot" for several flu strains.
Egyptian leaders ordered the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of pigs today to help protect against swine flu, prompting angry protests from the poor Christan farmers who feed their animals with a country’s food scraps. The decision was also criticised as a “real mistake” by a senior UN food expert.
The Arab world’s most populous nation has been been badly hit by the H5N1 bird flu virus in recent years and the move to cull up to 400,000 pigs - seen by Muslims as unclean animals - was designed to calm fears of an impending pandemic.
But it left Egypt’s large Coptic Christian minority up in arms, especially the slum-dwelling “Zebaleen” rubbish collectors who rely on the hogs for their livelihood. Scores of them blocked the streets and stoned the vehicles of Health Ministry workers as they arrived to carry out the government’s order at pig farms on the outskirts of Cario this afternoon.
“Our pigs are healthy. They are our capital and they have no diseases,” said Adel Ishak, who feeds his pigs from the rubbish he collects in Manshiet Nasser, northeast of Cairo.
“We remind Hosni Mubarak that we are all Egyptians. Where does he want us to go?” added 46-year-old Gergis Faris, another pig farmer. “We are uneducated people, just living day by day and trying to make a living, and now if our pigs are taken from us without compensation, how are we supposed to live?”
The decison to cull the pigs was announced by Hatem al-Gabali, the Health Minister, after a meeting with President Mubarak. “It has been ordered to immediately begin the slaughter of all herds of pigs in Egypt,” he told reporters.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
WHO Officially Raises Alert Level to 5
MSNBC
April 29, 2009
The World Health Organization raised its pandemic alert for swine flu to the second highest level Wednesday, meaning that it believes a global outbreak of the disease is imminent.
WHO Director-General Margaret Chan declared the phase 5 alert after consulting with flu experts from around the world. The decision could lead the global body to recommend additional measures to combat the outbreak, including for vaccine manufacturers to switch production from seasonal flu vaccines to a pandemic vaccine.
“All countries should immediately now activate their pandemic preparedness plans,” Chan told reporters in Geneva. “It really is all of humanity that is under threat in a pandemic.”
A phase 5 alert means there is sustained transmission among people in at least two countries. Once the virus shows effective transmission in two different regions of the world a full pandemic outbreak would be declared.
WHO has confirmed human cases of swine flu in Mexico, the United States, Canada, Britain, Israel, New Zealand and Spain. Mexico and the U.S. have reported deaths.
“It is important to take this very seriously,” Chan told a press conference watched around the globe on Wednesday.
As fear and uncertainty about the disease ricocheted around the globe, nations took all sorts of precautions, some more useful than others.
Britain closed a school after a 12-year-old girl was found to have the disease. Egypt slaughtered all its pigs and the central African nation of Gabon became the latest nation to ban pork imports, despite assurances that swine flu was not related to eating pork.
Cuba eased its flight ban, deciding just to block flights coming in from Mexico. And Asian nations greeted returning airport travelers with teams of medical workers and carts of disinfectants, eager to keep swine flu from infecting their continent.
In Mexico City, the epicenter of the epidemic, the mayor said Wednesday the outbreak seemed to be stabilizing and he was considering easing the citywide shutdown that closed schools, restaurants, concert halls and sports arenas.
Swine flu is suspected of killing more than 150 people in Mexico and sickening over 2,400 there.
Nearly 100 cases have now been confirmed in the U.S. across 11 states, and health officials reported Wednesday that a 23-month-old Mexican boy had died in Texas.
Across Europe, Germany confirmed three swine flu cases and Austria one, while the number of confirmed cases rose to five in Britain and ten in Spain.
WHO conducted a scientific review Wednesday to determine exactly what is known about how the disease spreads, how it affects human health and how it can be treated.
The U.S., the European Union and other countries have discouraged nonessential travel to Mexico. Cuba suspended all regular and charter flights from Mexico to the island but was still allowing airlines to return travelers to Mexico.
In Australia, officials were testing more than 100 people with flu symptoms for the virus and the government gave health authorities wide powers to contain contagious diseases.
“(We can make) sure that people are isolated and perhaps detained if they don’t cooperate and are showing symptoms,” said Health Minister Nicola Roxon.
9/11 Commission Intimidated Witnesses with Government Minders
Somewhat lost within the flu pandemic media hype this week is an important new revelation concerning the cover up of the events of 9/11.
A recently uncovered 9/11 Commission memo dating from October 2003, half way through the panel’s investigation, addresses concerns that government “minders” were intimidating witnesses and shaping their testimonies.
The document was drafted by Kevin Scheid, a senior staffer who led the commission’s Team 2, which was responsible for reviewing the overarching structure of the US intelligence community.
Names also appearing on the memo are those of staffers Lorry Fenner, an air force intelligence officer, and lawyer Gordon Lederman.
The memo, entitled “Executive Branch Minders’ Intimidation of Witnesses,” states the following:
Minders “answer[ed] questions directed at witnesses;”
Minders acted as “monitors, reporting to their respective agencies on Commission staffs lines of inquiry and witnesses’ verbatim responses.” The staff thought this “conveys to witnesses that their superiors will review their statements and may engage in retribution;”
Minders’ notetaking “facilitates agencies in alerting future witnesses to the Commission’s lines of inquiry and permits agencies to prepare future witnesses either explicitly or implicitly.”
Minders “positioned themselves physically and have conducted themselves in a manner that we believe intimidates witnesses from giving full and candid responses to our questions.”
The staffers make it clear that intimidation by minders was widespread and had not only occurred with their team’s witnesses.
The memo was discovered by an independent researcher in the National Archives, to which it was added earlier this year.
(Article continues below)
The revelations come in the wake of an admission by the senior counsel to the 9/11 Commission - John Farmer - who said that the government agreed not to tell the truth about the events of 9/11.
Farmer’s book about his experiences working for the Commission, set to be released in September, unveils how “the public had been seriously misled about what occurred during the morning of the attacks,” and Farmer himself states that “at some level of the government, at some point in time…there was an agreement not to tell the truth about what happened.”
Farmer’s statements dovetail with those highlighted in an August 2006 Washington Post report, which stated that “Some staff members and commissioners of the Sept. 11 panel concluded that the Pentagon’s initial story of how it reacted to the 2001 terrorist attacks may have been part of a deliberate effort to mislead the commission and the public rather than a reflection of the fog of events on that day, according to sources involved in the debate.”
The report revealed how the 10-member commission deeply suspected deception to the point where they considered referring the matter to the Justice Department for criminal investigation.
These statements and testimonies, combined with the swathes of still unanswered questions surrounding the attacks, confirm that the 9/11 Commission was a complete whitewash and intensify the need to establish a new independent investigation.
A recently uncovered 9/11 Commission memo dating from October 2003, half way through the panel’s investigation, addresses concerns that government “minders” were intimidating witnesses and shaping their testimonies.
The document was drafted by Kevin Scheid, a senior staffer who led the commission’s Team 2, which was responsible for reviewing the overarching structure of the US intelligence community.
Names also appearing on the memo are those of staffers Lorry Fenner, an air force intelligence officer, and lawyer Gordon Lederman.
The memo, entitled “Executive Branch Minders’ Intimidation of Witnesses,” states the following:
Minders “answer[ed] questions directed at witnesses;”
Minders acted as “monitors, reporting to their respective agencies on Commission staffs lines of inquiry and witnesses’ verbatim responses.” The staff thought this “conveys to witnesses that their superiors will review their statements and may engage in retribution;”
Minders’ notetaking “facilitates agencies in alerting future witnesses to the Commission’s lines of inquiry and permits agencies to prepare future witnesses either explicitly or implicitly.”
Minders “positioned themselves physically and have conducted themselves in a manner that we believe intimidates witnesses from giving full and candid responses to our questions.”
The staffers make it clear that intimidation by minders was widespread and had not only occurred with their team’s witnesses.
The memo was discovered by an independent researcher in the National Archives, to which it was added earlier this year.
(Article continues below)
The revelations come in the wake of an admission by the senior counsel to the 9/11 Commission - John Farmer - who said that the government agreed not to tell the truth about the events of 9/11.
Farmer’s book about his experiences working for the Commission, set to be released in September, unveils how “the public had been seriously misled about what occurred during the morning of the attacks,” and Farmer himself states that “at some level of the government, at some point in time…there was an agreement not to tell the truth about what happened.”
Farmer’s statements dovetail with those highlighted in an August 2006 Washington Post report, which stated that “Some staff members and commissioners of the Sept. 11 panel concluded that the Pentagon’s initial story of how it reacted to the 2001 terrorist attacks may have been part of a deliberate effort to mislead the commission and the public rather than a reflection of the fog of events on that day, according to sources involved in the debate.”
The report revealed how the 10-member commission deeply suspected deception to the point where they considered referring the matter to the Justice Department for criminal investigation.
These statements and testimonies, combined with the swathes of still unanswered questions surrounding the attacks, confirm that the 9/11 Commission was a complete whitewash and intensify the need to establish a new independent investigation.
Dr. Horowitz: Anglo-American Vaccine Industry Behind Swine Flu Outbreak
YouTube
April 29, 2009
This unprecedented H1N1-H5N1 flu outbreak implicates the Ango-American Vaccine Pipeline, says world leading consumer health protector, Dr. Leonard Horowitz
Consider the skyrocketing stock values of Novavax, Inc., precipitated by dozens of alleged flu deaths in Mexico. Then investigate the leading Anglo-American network of genetic engineers manipulating, mutating, and distributing these viruses. The evidence compels you, for the benefit of public health and safety to seriously consider, even decree, a conspiracy to commit genocide, according to this Harvard trained expert in emerging diseases.
Here, Dr. Horowitz urges an investigation of Dr. James S. Robertson, Englands leading bioengineer of flu viruses for the vaccine industry, and avid promoter of U.S. Government funding for lucrative biodefense contracts, along with collaborators at the US Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC). These suspects helped Novavax, Inc., in Bethesda, Maryland, produce genetically-modified recombinants of the avian, swine, and Spanish flu viruses, H5N1 and H1N1, nearly identical to the unprecedented Mexican virus that is allegedly spreading to the United States at the time of this posting. The outbreak was precisely timed to promote the companys new research and huge vaccine stockpiling contracts.
Scientists at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) are implicated through collaborations and publications involving private contracts with Novavax, a company that obtains its biosimulars through CDC Influenza Branch director, Ruben O. Donis, and Dr. Rick Bright, previously working with Donis at the CDC, now Novavaxs Vice President of Global Influenza Programs.
Descriptions of this virus is pathognomonic, or diagnostic, of a virus that came from Robertsons circle of friends, Dr. Horowitz charges. No other group in the world takes H5N1 Asian flu infected chickens, brings them to Europe, extracts their DNA, combines their proteins with H1N1 viruses from the 1918 Spanish flu isolate, additionally mixes in swine flu genes from pigs, then reverse engineers them to infect humans. The end product could only have ended up in Mexico via the United States from Britain in care of the CDC. The CDC had to have sent them to Novavax, where Rick Brights team is now implicated in a conspiracy to commit genocide—the mass killing of people for profit.
Air Force One Proves Deep Distrust of Government
One of President Barack Obama’s planes, escorted by two fighter jets, spread panic here Monday when they flew over New York at low altitude, triggering office evacuations in the city still scarred by the 9/11 attacks. The most significant aspect of this scare is that many New Yorkers knew it was Air Force One. They panicked anyway, revealing a deep distrust of the American government. This is highly significant for those who demand a new investigation into 9/11. Clearly, the official investigation has not relieved fears of a 9/11 inside job.
But the low-flying planes which buzzed parts of southern Manhattan and the Hudson River for about 30 minutes were out just for a Pentagon exercise.
“The presidential airlift group conducted an aerial photo in the New York city area today,” said US Air Force spokesman Major Richard Johnson.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) called the maneuver a “photo op.”
“The Defense Department is conducting a photo op that involves deploying two F-16s and escorting a military version of the Boeing 747″ close to lower Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty, FAA spokesman Jim Peters told AFP.
“The maneuver was not an emergency and was coordinated in advance with the FAA and state and local officials,” he added.
Fascism is Over...If We Want It
Many times, when I explain to people what's going on in our country today, they at first argue that things aren't really that bad, and that America could never go fascist.
After a couple of examples about what's been happening recently, and a brief overview of what fascism actually means, they get it.
But then they shrug their shoulders and say "there's nothing I can do", hoping that that's the end of discussion.
Are they right? Is there nothing we can do about fascism? Should we just hunker down and try to survive it?
Well, first of all, there is something we can do to break free of the fascist concrete which has been poured over America, before it really hardens.
Here is just one example:
2 million Americans could all peacefully surround the White House and Capitol Hill, and hold signs saying "we're not leaving until the Constitution and the rule of law are restored".
1 million people surround the White House. 1 million more surround Capitol Hill. Everyone wears red, white and blue to show that we are pro-America (and because it will be such a sight to see that the news cameras will be attracted like flies to honey).
If that happened, the spell of fascism would be broken, things would start to get done, and America would be freed. Says who?
Well, its happened repeatedly throughout history whenever people have been willing to stand up. The Ukranian people stood up to tyranny and won. The East German people stood up to tyranny and won. The people of the Philippines, Serbia, Czechoslovakia, Indonesia and other countries around the world have won against tyranny whenever ordinary people have poured into the streets in massive numbers and demanded freedom.
And here in the U.S., even though Nixon said he didn't care what the American people thought, he backed off on dropping a nuclear bomb on Vietnam when hundreds of thousands of people turned out to protest an escalation of the war (and see this).
But, but . . .
Now you might raise all sorts of potential problems with this option. I'll get to that in a minute. However, I want to stress that if 2 million people did this, it would work, and the fact that we're not doing it is only proof that we're too lazy or lack the commitment to do anything.
Okay, here are some possible objections and rebuttals to the objections . . .
1. There has never been that large a protest. We can't organize that many people.
With the web, we can do it.
2. If we use the web to organize, it would be infiltrated.
Well, with government already spying on our web usage, emails and phones, of course it would be infiltrated. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't do it.
3. Police might try to disrupt the protest.
Yes, they probably will try. That's why everyone should bring cellphone cameras or videocams. If police turn violent or use agents provocateur to incite violence, we film it all, and broadcast it worldwide on the web. That would make the government look really, really bad. Also, everyone should sign paper pledges in advance to be peaceful and not use any violence under any circumstance. And if you see anyone trying to incite violence, have a group of people escort them away from the protest.
4. Too busy, don't have the time off from work, or don't have the money to participate.
Yes, we might have to call in sick to work, spend some scarce funds, rearrange or cancel some commitments. It might be a sacrifice, but we could do it if we really wanted to.
There are many other possible objections, but there are responses to all of them. In short, it is doable and would be effective.
Conclusion
The bottom line is that it is not true that we are powerless or that there is nothing we can do to prevent fascism from consolidating its hold on the United States.
The option of surrounding the White House and Capitol Hill with millions of peaceful protesters is only one of many options which would turn things around. If we are not implementing such options, it is because we don't really care, or don't want to be bothered, or are not really committed to saving our country. It is not because there is nothing we can do.
The End of America: Movie
9/11 Visibility Website
The Exceptional Patriot: Dr. David Ray Griffin
The Exceptional Patriot: Naomi Wolf
The Exceptional Patriot: Charlie Sheen
The Exceptional Patriot: Ed Asner
The Exceptional Patriot: Jesse Ventura
The Exceptional Patriot: Richard Gage
The Exceptional Patriot: Dr. Richard Gardener
The Exceptional Patriot: Kenny Johannemann
Primitive Evil Resurrected in Bedford, Pennsylvania
The Brainwashing of Children in America
Zeitgeist: Addendum---The true source of Terrorism and Slavery
Top Lists
Torture May Have Killed More Americans than 9/11
Torture? It probably killed more Americans than 9/11
A US major reveals the inside story of military interrogation in Iraq. By Patrick Cockburn, winner of the 2009 Orwell Prize for journalism
Sunday, 26 April 2009
The use of torture by the US has proved so counter-productive that it may have led to the death of as many US soldiers as civilians killed in 9/11, says the leader of a crack US interrogation team in Iraq.
Related articles
US interpreter who witnessed torture in Iraq shot herself with service rifle
"The reason why foreign fighters joined al-Qa'ida in Iraq was overwhelmingly because of abuses at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib and not Islamic ideology," says Major Matthew Alexander, who personally conducted 300 interrogations of prisoners in Iraq. It was the team led by Major Alexander [a named assumed for security reasons] that obtained the information that led to the US military being able to locate Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of al-Qa'ida in Iraq. Zarqawi was then killed by bombs dropped by two US aircraft on the farm where he was hiding outside Baghdad on 7 June 2006. Major Alexander said that he learnt where Zarqawi was during a six-hour interrogation of a prisoner with whom he established relations of trust.
Major Alexander's attitude to torture by the US is a combination of moral outrage and professional contempt. "It plays into the hands of al-Qa'ida in Iraq because it shows us up as hypocrites when we talk about human rights," he says. An eloquent and highly intelligent man with experience as a criminal investigator within the US military, he says that torture is ineffective, as well as counter-productive. "People will only tell you the minimum to make the pain stop," he says. "They might tell you the location of a house used by insurgents but not that it is booby-trapped."
In his compelling book How to Break a Terrorist, Major Alexander explains that prisoners subjected to abuse usually clam up, say nothing, or provide misleading information. In an interview he was particularly dismissive of the "ticking bomb" argument often used in the justification of torture. This supposes that there is a bomb timed to explode on a bus or in the street which will kill many civilians. The authorities hold a prisoner who knows where the bomb is. Should they not torture him to find out in time where the bomb is before it explodes?
Major Alexander says he faced the "ticking time bomb" every day in Iraq because "we held people who knew about future suicide bombings". Leaving aside the moral arguments, he says torture simply does not work. "It hardens their resolve. They shut up." He points out that the FBI uses normal methods of interrogation to build up trust even when they are investigating a kidnapping and time is of the essence. He would do the same, he says, "even if my mother was on a bus" with a hypothetical ticking bomb on board. It is quite untrue to imagine that torture is the fastest way of obtaining information, he says.
A career officer, Major Alexander spent 14 years in the US air force, beginning by flying helicopters for special operations. He saw combat in Bosnia and Kosovo, was an air force counter-intelligence agent and criminal interrogator, and was stationed in Saudi Arabia, with an anti-terrorist role, during the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. Some years later, the US army was short of interrogators. He wanted to help shape developments in Iraq and volunteered.
Arriving in Iraq in early 2006 he found that the team he was working with were mostly dedicated, but young, men between 18 and 24. "Many of them had never been out of the States before," he recalls. "When they sat down to interrogate somebody it was often the first time they had met a Muslim." In addition to these inexperienced officers, Major Alexander says there was "an old guard" of interrogators using the methods employed at Guantanamo. He could not say exactly what they had been doing for legal reasons, though in the rest of the interview he left little doubt that prisoners were being tortured and abused. The "old guard's" methods, he says, were based on instilling "fear and control" in a prisoner.
He refused to take part in torture and abuse, and forbade the team he commanded to use such methods. Instead, he says, he used normal US police interrogation techniques which are "based on relationship building and a degree of deception". He adds that the deception was often of a simple kind such as saying untruthfully that another prisoner has already told all.
Before he started interrogating insurgent prisoners in Iraq, he had been told that they were highly ideological and committed to establishing an Islamic caliphate in Iraq, Major Alexander says. In the course of the hundreds of interrogations carried out by himself, as well as more than 1,000 that he supervised, he found that the motives of both foreign fighters joining al-Qa'ida in Iraq and Iraqi-born members were very different from the official stereotype.
In the case of foreign fighters – recruited mostly from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Yemen and North Africa – the reason cited by the great majority for coming to Iraq was what they had heard of the torture in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. These abuses, not fundamentalist Islam, had provoked so many of the foreign fighters volunteering to become suicide bombers.
For Iraqi Sunni Arabs joining al-Qa'ida, the abuses played a role, but more often the reason for their recruitment was political rather than religious. They had taken up arms because the Shia Arabs were taking power; de-Baathification marginalised the Sunni and took away their jobs; they feared an Iranian takeover. Above all, al-Qa'ida was able to provide money and arms to the insurgents. Once, Major Alexander recalls, the top US commander in Iraq, General George Casey, came to visit the prison where he was working. Asking about what motivated the suspected al-Qa'ida prisoners, he was at first given the official story that they were Islamic Jihadi full of religious zeal. Major Alexander intervened to say that this really was not true and there was a much more complicated series of motivations at work. General Casey did not respond.
The objective of Major Alexander's team was to find Zarqawi, the Jordanian born leader of al-Qa'ida who built it into a fearsome organisation. Attempts by US military intelligence to locate him had failed despite three years of trying. Major Alexander was finally able to persuade one of Zarqawi's associates to give away his location because the associate had come to reject his methods, such as the mass slaughter of civilians.
What the major discovered was that many of the Sunni fighters were members of, or allied to, al-Qa'ida through necessity. They did not share its extreme, puritanical Sunni beliefs or hatred of the Shia majority. He says that General Casey had ignored his findings but he was pleased when General David Petraeus became commander in Iraq and began to take account of the real motives of the Sunni fighters. "He peeled back those Sunnis from al-Qa'ida," he says.
In the aftermath of his experience in Iraq, which he left at the end of 2006, Major Alexander came to believe that the battle against the US using torture was more important than the war in Iraq. He sees President Obama's declaration against torture as "a historic victory", though he is concerned about loopholes remaining and the lack of accountability of senior officers. Reflecting on his own interrogations, he says he always monitored his actions by asking himself, "If the enemy was doing this to one of my troops, would I consider it torture?" His overall message is that the American people do not have to make a choice between torture and terror.
How to Break a Terrorist: The US interrogators who used brains, not brutality, to take down the deadliest man in Iraq, by Matthew Alexander and John R Bruning (The Free Press)
The End of America: Movie
9/11 Visibility Website
The Exceptional Patriot: Dr. David Ray Griffin
The Exceptional Patriot: Naomi Wolf
The Exceptional Patriot: Charlie Sheen
The Exceptional Patriot: Ed Asner
The Exceptional Patriot: Jesse Ventura
The Exceptional Patriot: Richard Gage
The Exceptional Patriot: Dr. Richard Gardener
The Exceptional Patriot: Kenny Johannemann
Primitive Evil Resurrected in Bedford, Pennsylvania
The Brainwashing of Children in America
Zeitgeist: Addendum---The true source of Terrorism and Slavery
Top Lists
A US major reveals the inside story of military interrogation in Iraq. By Patrick Cockburn, winner of the 2009 Orwell Prize for journalism
Sunday, 26 April 2009
The use of torture by the US has proved so counter-productive that it may have led to the death of as many US soldiers as civilians killed in 9/11, says the leader of a crack US interrogation team in Iraq.
Related articles
US interpreter who witnessed torture in Iraq shot herself with service rifle
"The reason why foreign fighters joined al-Qa'ida in Iraq was overwhelmingly because of abuses at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib and not Islamic ideology," says Major Matthew Alexander, who personally conducted 300 interrogations of prisoners in Iraq. It was the team led by Major Alexander [a named assumed for security reasons] that obtained the information that led to the US military being able to locate Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of al-Qa'ida in Iraq. Zarqawi was then killed by bombs dropped by two US aircraft on the farm where he was hiding outside Baghdad on 7 June 2006. Major Alexander said that he learnt where Zarqawi was during a six-hour interrogation of a prisoner with whom he established relations of trust.
Major Alexander's attitude to torture by the US is a combination of moral outrage and professional contempt. "It plays into the hands of al-Qa'ida in Iraq because it shows us up as hypocrites when we talk about human rights," he says. An eloquent and highly intelligent man with experience as a criminal investigator within the US military, he says that torture is ineffective, as well as counter-productive. "People will only tell you the minimum to make the pain stop," he says. "They might tell you the location of a house used by insurgents but not that it is booby-trapped."
In his compelling book How to Break a Terrorist, Major Alexander explains that prisoners subjected to abuse usually clam up, say nothing, or provide misleading information. In an interview he was particularly dismissive of the "ticking bomb" argument often used in the justification of torture. This supposes that there is a bomb timed to explode on a bus or in the street which will kill many civilians. The authorities hold a prisoner who knows where the bomb is. Should they not torture him to find out in time where the bomb is before it explodes?
Major Alexander says he faced the "ticking time bomb" every day in Iraq because "we held people who knew about future suicide bombings". Leaving aside the moral arguments, he says torture simply does not work. "It hardens their resolve. They shut up." He points out that the FBI uses normal methods of interrogation to build up trust even when they are investigating a kidnapping and time is of the essence. He would do the same, he says, "even if my mother was on a bus" with a hypothetical ticking bomb on board. It is quite untrue to imagine that torture is the fastest way of obtaining information, he says.
A career officer, Major Alexander spent 14 years in the US air force, beginning by flying helicopters for special operations. He saw combat in Bosnia and Kosovo, was an air force counter-intelligence agent and criminal interrogator, and was stationed in Saudi Arabia, with an anti-terrorist role, during the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. Some years later, the US army was short of interrogators. He wanted to help shape developments in Iraq and volunteered.
Arriving in Iraq in early 2006 he found that the team he was working with were mostly dedicated, but young, men between 18 and 24. "Many of them had never been out of the States before," he recalls. "When they sat down to interrogate somebody it was often the first time they had met a Muslim." In addition to these inexperienced officers, Major Alexander says there was "an old guard" of interrogators using the methods employed at Guantanamo. He could not say exactly what they had been doing for legal reasons, though in the rest of the interview he left little doubt that prisoners were being tortured and abused. The "old guard's" methods, he says, were based on instilling "fear and control" in a prisoner.
He refused to take part in torture and abuse, and forbade the team he commanded to use such methods. Instead, he says, he used normal US police interrogation techniques which are "based on relationship building and a degree of deception". He adds that the deception was often of a simple kind such as saying untruthfully that another prisoner has already told all.
Before he started interrogating insurgent prisoners in Iraq, he had been told that they were highly ideological and committed to establishing an Islamic caliphate in Iraq, Major Alexander says. In the course of the hundreds of interrogations carried out by himself, as well as more than 1,000 that he supervised, he found that the motives of both foreign fighters joining al-Qa'ida in Iraq and Iraqi-born members were very different from the official stereotype.
In the case of foreign fighters – recruited mostly from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Yemen and North Africa – the reason cited by the great majority for coming to Iraq was what they had heard of the torture in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. These abuses, not fundamentalist Islam, had provoked so many of the foreign fighters volunteering to become suicide bombers.
For Iraqi Sunni Arabs joining al-Qa'ida, the abuses played a role, but more often the reason for their recruitment was political rather than religious. They had taken up arms because the Shia Arabs were taking power; de-Baathification marginalised the Sunni and took away their jobs; they feared an Iranian takeover. Above all, al-Qa'ida was able to provide money and arms to the insurgents. Once, Major Alexander recalls, the top US commander in Iraq, General George Casey, came to visit the prison where he was working. Asking about what motivated the suspected al-Qa'ida prisoners, he was at first given the official story that they were Islamic Jihadi full of religious zeal. Major Alexander intervened to say that this really was not true and there was a much more complicated series of motivations at work. General Casey did not respond.
The objective of Major Alexander's team was to find Zarqawi, the Jordanian born leader of al-Qa'ida who built it into a fearsome organisation. Attempts by US military intelligence to locate him had failed despite three years of trying. Major Alexander was finally able to persuade one of Zarqawi's associates to give away his location because the associate had come to reject his methods, such as the mass slaughter of civilians.
What the major discovered was that many of the Sunni fighters were members of, or allied to, al-Qa'ida through necessity. They did not share its extreme, puritanical Sunni beliefs or hatred of the Shia majority. He says that General Casey had ignored his findings but he was pleased when General David Petraeus became commander in Iraq and began to take account of the real motives of the Sunni fighters. "He peeled back those Sunnis from al-Qa'ida," he says.
In the aftermath of his experience in Iraq, which he left at the end of 2006, Major Alexander came to believe that the battle against the US using torture was more important than the war in Iraq. He sees President Obama's declaration against torture as "a historic victory", though he is concerned about loopholes remaining and the lack of accountability of senior officers. Reflecting on his own interrogations, he says he always monitored his actions by asking himself, "If the enemy was doing this to one of my troops, would I consider it torture?" His overall message is that the American people do not have to make a choice between torture and terror.
How to Break a Terrorist: The US interrogators who used brains, not brutality, to take down the deadliest man in Iraq, by Matthew Alexander and John R Bruning (The Free Press)
The End of America: Movie
9/11 Visibility Website
The Exceptional Patriot: Dr. David Ray Griffin
The Exceptional Patriot: Naomi Wolf
The Exceptional Patriot: Charlie Sheen
The Exceptional Patriot: Ed Asner
The Exceptional Patriot: Jesse Ventura
The Exceptional Patriot: Richard Gage
The Exceptional Patriot: Dr. Richard Gardener
The Exceptional Patriot: Kenny Johannemann
Primitive Evil Resurrected in Bedford, Pennsylvania
The Brainwashing of Children in America
Zeitgeist: Addendum---The true source of Terrorism and Slavery
Top Lists
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