http://www.kitco.com/ind/willie/jul302009.html
USGovt Yuan Bond Threat
By Jim Willie CB, www.GoldenJackass.com, Jul 30 2009
Use the above link to subscribe to the paid research reports, which include coverage of several smallcap companies positioned to rise during the ongoing panicky attempt to sustain an unsustainable system burdened by numerous imbalances aggravated by global village forces. An historically unprecedented mess has been created by compromised central bankers and inept economic advisors, whose interference has irreversibly altered and damaged the world financial system, urgently pushed after the removed anchor of money to gold. Analysis features Gold, Crude Oil, USDollar, Treasury bonds, and inter-market dynamics with the US Economy and US Federal Reserve monetary policy.
The tables are fast turning against the deeply indebted USGovt officials. USA Inc is in deep trouble. Its productive engines in both finance and industry are either wrecked or sputtering, even as its debt burden grows exponentially. Debt default litters the landscape. Next its sovereign bonds will have to be sold to some extent outside the US$ Sphere, which will put at great risk its stock, namely the USDollar itself. Let’s call them USGovt Dragon Bonds. The custodians desperately seek creditors to supply much needed capital in order to fund the gigantic and growing USGovt debts, which by the way are grossly understated. The last resort is to monetize the USTreasury Bond issuance, a process well along. With the aid of the USDollar Swap Facility, the USFed has been able to secretly bid on USTBonds from foreign soil, have it appear like foreign bids, and conceal the continued and broadening monetization initiative. The United States is boldly defying the creditor nations, printing money, and buying its own debt. When more fully revealed, the USDollar will suffer the consequences. A sense of betrayal will surely come, much like discovery that the lemonade stand has been secretly watering down its product.
Andy Xie is a former colleague of Stephen Roach at Morgan Stanley, and now a board member of Rosetta Stone Advisors. He is an Asian financial expert. He believes the USFed is locked in a tight corner, while the investment community suffers from a massive blind spot. He wrote, “The United States has no way out but to print money. Dollar weakness reflects the market’s wavering confidence in the Fed. If the wavering continues, it could lead to a dollar collapse. Markets are trading on imagination. The world is setting up for a big crash, again.” Contrast with a comment made by Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of General Electric. He believes the US should take a cue from the Chinese, who are growing fast, invest in industry, and make things. So the great financial engineering movement promoted by Greenspan and Wall Street mainly produced big bond fees and a wrecked banking system. Yes, without any equivocation or doubt, tragically. The financial engineering devices were based upon innovation in leverage and fraud without benefit of tangible production, serving as the vast illusory machinery atop a gigantic system totally dependent upon inflation. It imploded. Another alternative exists, beyond Xie’s radar. In addition to hidden monetization will come issuance of USGovt bonds outside the US$ Sphere. When the news breaks, it will hit like a tsunami.
MONETIZATION BACKFIRE
Talk is everywhere one turns that the USGovt has little recourse but to print money and cover their debts. Such moves shift the risk from the USTreasury Bond to the USDollar in clear fashion. The Chinese Govt and Bank officials have been extremely vocal in the last few months, especially in the last few weeks. They abhor and are angry at both the rising USGovt deficits and the rising risk from direct monetization of those deficits in debt issuance. One could fill an entire page with warnings by the Chinese against American profligacy, reckless policy, and more. Every week contains major news wire stories, which do not receive proper attention in the US financial press. The Chinese are noticing even more dangerous developments, such as ineffective official stimulus, unproductive rescue of dead banks, endless credit derivative covered costs (AIG and Fannie Mae), entirely new programs with staggering price tags (health care), refused disclosure of disbursed Congressional funds, and tremendous waste, all of which not only result in gargantuan government deficits, but add risk to the USDollar from a failure standpoint. Perhaps worse, the US Federal Reserve is under challenge by the US Congress (in charge of its contract) for disclosure and audit that could eventually reach the US Supreme Court.
The Chinese are in town to meet with the USGovt officials on continued debt support. The public will surely NOT be told what is discussed. The challenge to China is to protect its main core of US$-based reserves, and to protect future investments. Incremental commitments must come with new more concrete protective measures. The financial markets are NOT factoring this in! They seem to operate on a ‘Business as Usual’ assumption that is dying rapidly.
NO MORE INFLATE DEBTS AWAY
In the past, the USGovt has actually boasted of a policy to inflate debts away by permitting inflation, and to anticipate debt repayment in cheaper dollars. In other words, permit the foreign creditors to take losses on the loan balance in real terms, a major betrayal. A double blow occurs when the USDollar falls and USTreasury yields rise, in the foreign creditor accounts. THE FOREIGNERS RESENT THIS POLICY TO THE EXTREME. Harken back to the 1970 decade, when the Arabs quadrupled the crude oil price. They reaped huge new windfall profits, as they realized enormous trade surpluses. But they were duped into recycling surpluses into USTreasury Bonds, probably with reminders of USMilitary protection. They suffered 30% losses on up to $100 billion in USTBonds invested. They remember. When USGovt officials promote a plan to inflate debts away, they are announcing a planned betrayal of foreign creditors. Nowadays, the US has much less financial power, prestige, and influence to force feed a policy to the creditor nations. The creditors are in revolt, are organizing, and have taken action at the grass roots level.
Times have changed in the entire psychology of credit support for the USGovt and USEconomy in a manner that is shocking, if not revolutionary. The creditor nations have begun to discuss new terms of continued support. Foreign creditors are noticing Uncle Sam groveling and in growing desperate and confusion. Behind the curtains, the Chinese have clearly struck some important deals. Rumors are ripe that in a March trip to Beijing, Secy State Hillary cut a deal promising Eminent Domain on US property in return for continued USTreasury Bond support. So maybe a shopping basket of thousands of homes, hundreds of commercial buildings, scads of idle industrial plants, and a few million acres of farmland are soon to be seized by the Chinese in exchange for USTreasury Bond debt. One must wonder. Seemingly on a quarterly basis, something must be handed to the Chinese for continued USTBond support. Soon the Chinese are likely to make a fresh new demand.
USGOVT YUAN BONDS
The concept can be described in very simple terms. The vehicle is devastating in its effects and consequences. What are they exactly? The USGovt might soon issue bonds, except not in US$ denomination, but rather in Yuan currency. Out of the gate (with debt signposts), the USGovt must purchase gigantic swaths of Yuan and pay with USDollars. The result is a quantum decline in the US$ exchange rate relative to everything holding the Yuan together. The Chinese decided in 2005 to tie their Yuan currency to a basket of currencies, led by the US$, the Euro, the Yen, the British Pound, and a small additional group. So the direct purchase of Yuan by the Untied States, the newest upcoming member of the Third World, will have numerous profound effects to lift other currencies.
The direct consequences of USGovt Yuan Bonds would be vast, visible, lethal:
* The USDollar exchange rate would fall with each debt issuance
* The loan balance in USGovt debt would rise with a declining USDollar
* The Yuan currency would be further established as a global reserve alternative
* Continued trade settlement in Yuan terms would be enabled
* Rise in entire cost structure to the USEconomy from commodity pricing
* The risk of USTreasury Bond default grows with each passing new issuance
The Chinese want protection and assurance against the falling USDollar and even the growing principal risk of USTreasurys. Higher bond yields mean principal bond loss. Both currency and bond loss mean a powerful combined loss. Beijing wants protection and security in exchange for continued debt support. A Yuan-based bond issuance by the USDept Treasury, sold by the USFed would accomplish this to some degree. In a few years time, if the US$ exchange rate is 15% to 30% lower, the loan balance in Yuan terms would be unchanged. The cost to the USGovt grows by that percentage however. If the yield rises, then protection can be locked by means of making the debt securities of shorter maturity, like two to five years.
The Chinese have already been shifting their USTBond portfolio from long-term to short-term maturity. This has been the driving factor behind the rising 10-year USTreasury yield and the steeper yield curve. Perversely, the US banks enjoy a benefit. They can amplify their Carry Trade, borrow at the short end, invest in the long end, pocket the 2% to 3% difference, and even store their booty of bonds at the USFed itself. This is one reason the US banks are not lending to Main Street firms and households. They are too busy playing the USTBond Carry Trade under the aegis of the discredited US Federal Reserve. And the topic of Bank Consolidation has not even been raised, whereby the big US banks reverse the carry trade by buying up distressed regional banks.
BOTTOM UP BUT NEXT TOP DOWN
The USGovt Yuan Bond will be a significant blow to the US financial sector from a psychological standpoint, a deep undercut to US supremacy and arrogance. China has not been able to supplant the USDollar from the top down within banking circles. The Yuan Bond will serve as the sword that shatters the highest tables finally, their first phalanx attack. The grassroots approach in international contract trade settlement, the bottom up, has already seen much progress. In time, the US$ fortress will be pretty, shiny, and full of cheesy fake marble, as it washes away to the sea. Less US$ demand will be seen in international trade contract settlement as a result, A KEY UNDERMINE TO THE USDOLLAR. Combine with more sales of USDollars to purchase Yuan necessary for the new bonds, to make for a deadly mix. We are talking about potential avalanches of US$ sales. The US$ exchange rate is at very high risk.
When other foreign creditors observe the USGovt Yuan Bond completion, they will want to execute the same. Prepare on the second round for Euro Bonds, Yen Bonds, maybe even Ruble Bonds and Loonie Bonds, as the Europeans, Japanese, Russians, and Canadians will want protection. They can demand it. The Chinese are the primary spearhead against the USDollar and its primacy as global reserve currency. Other nations will follow. The impact of the USGovt Yuan Bonds will be doubled when additional issuances are ordered and executed. The USFed will therefore morph into an agency that also purchases Chinese Yuan currency. Usually that means Chinese Govt sponsored debt securities, but also Chinese Corporate debt securities. Later, the Chinese will figure it out, and issue Mortgage debt securities, even Automobile and Credit Card debt securities. Thus the practical impact will be vast development stimulus for the Chinese Economy, as the USEconomy will slide into a Third World zone of under-development, deprivation, and destitution. China will assume the role of a predatory creditor nation, with the full privilege of either influence or abuse at their disposal. Reality thus strikes soon. Welcome to the post-Lehman era, with gratitude to Wall Street. Never lose sight of the role the US Federal Reserve has had in the destruction of the financial, economic, and implicitly political structure of the United States, now the Untied States.
Some precedent is forming. The US-based discount retail giant chain Wal-Mart has sold $1.1 billion in Samurai Bonds, denominated in Yen currency. The bonds hit the Japanese market in two tranches comprised of ¥83.1 billion in fixed-rate bonds and ¥16.9 billion in floating-rate bonds. The fixed-rate bond coupon was set at 55 basis points above prevailing yen swaps, while that of the floating-rate bonds was set at 60 basis points above the six-month LIBOR offered rate for yen. So Wal-Mart must be watchful of the US$ exchange rate relative to the Yen. US corporations will watch and learn, perhaps with a certain amount of dismay and trepidation. Government debt will follow like night follows day. With Japanese bonds called Samurai Bonds, one should expect the Chinese bonds to be called Dragon Bonds. The name is suitable, since the hot dragon breath will burn US$ paper globally.
The Japanese are bracing politically for a shun of typical obedient USTreasury purchases, or at least an altered course. In May a prominent Japanese politician called for no more loans to the USGovt based in USDollars, only in Japanese Yen. At the same time, some influential currency traders in Tokyo predicted that the US$ exchange rate would fall by 50% against the yen. Listen to an audio tape from the British Broadcasting Corp (CLICK HERE) to hear the debate and to learn details of how Asian business has suffered. The benefit to the US in both business and finance has come at a chronic Asian heavy cost. To shore up the shaky USFed primary bond dealer crew, they signed up two Canadian banks. They also signed up Nomura Securities in Tokyo as primary dealer, making it the third firm to join the network of securities firms that underwrite the USGovt debt this year. Nomura was a primary dealer from 1986 through 2007, when it ended the role following a $656 million loss on US home loans. They are back for more losses.
THE RECKLESS BLAME GAME
We have come a long way from January when accusing China of currency manipulations, when accusing them of saving too much money and inflicting damage on the USEconomy, both absolute utter nonsense and extremely harmful propaganda. The USGovt officials and US bank officials have a remarkable ability to blame other nations for their own incredibly self-destructive policies and track record. These actions are without precedent, to insult and lay blame improperly on a creditor nation when the United States insolvent financial condition teeters toward bankruptcy, held up by more interventions, more fraud, and more phony money. Such accusations were delivered against China, immediately after the historic bank system breakdown in the United States tied directly to lending standard laxity for US home loans, excessive bond leverage and packaging by Wall Street firms, debt rating agency with profound collusion, and a USFed central bank asleep at the wheel for half a decade. The entire financial system within the United States suffered a near fatal heart attack from a designed inflation policy gone amok. The US bankers have since declared numerous errors committed, which is a euphemism for grand fraud. Even the London economists admit a collective error from excess enthusiasm, a euphemism for grotesque structural defects and reckless policy errors.
Yet in the wake of all this failed policy, repeated crises, deep embarrassment from falling off the pedestal, the American leaders saw fit to accuse China of currency manipulation, excessive savings, and irresponsible export of boatloads of funds into the US debt and inflation machinery. If the truth be known, the Chinese merely served as a device to provide the excessive debt collateralized by the US housing sector a round trip back to the USEconomy. The US households used the home equity funds to spend on Chinese exported finished products. The Chinese cooperatively and dutifully recycled their trade surpluses into USTreasury Bonds and USAgency Mortgage Bonds. Creditors led by China are now angry enough at baseless accusations in the past to make tougher rules for continued credit support.
The blame game is the grand footnote in the mythology chapters, after events go awry. The Chinese obediently permitted the US debt machinery to provide the desired destructive impetus to support the USEconomy, all at US request. Between the years 2002 and 2004, US firms at the urge of the USGovt installed over $23 billion in direct foreign investment. The battle cry for the US economists and bankers was to realize benefits within the USEconomy by means of ‘Low Cost Solutions’ in reckless heretical style. It served as the mythological ideological chapter of those years. How did that work out, Mr Greenspan, Mr Rubin, Mr Paulson? The Most Favored Nation status granted to China contributed mightily to the US financial structures. The United States not only has told mythology stories for years, but has integrated them into the USEconomic fabric and the US mindset. The latest mythology chapters have been centered on the nonsensical Green Shoots and a contradictory Jobless Recovery, both false, both baseless, both convenient.
USTBOND RISK BENEFITS GOLD
The credit market seems asleep once again at the wheel. A horrible USTreasury auction just was completed on Wednesday morning, with dreadful bid action, and surely too much volume. A whopping $250 billion in official USTreasury auctions is planned for this current week, which must seem like a misprint. That volume requires greater monetization, greater stock losses, or newer innovative programs to encourage foreign creditors. The bigger apparent misprint is the USGovt deficits. The Wednesday auction was for $39 billion, almost four times a typical entire month from over a year ago. It fetched only 1.92 bid/cover ratio, when a 2.20 ratio had been seen recently, with 2.689% in paid yield. One must be a moron to find USTBonds a safe prudent investment these days. Then again, there are plenty of blockheads who still manage funds. A few years ago these same nitwits bought mortgage bonds since they paid a higher yield. Look at the chart of the 10-year USTNote yield. It has reached a point of needed conclusion, where a near-term rising trend meets a long-term nearly flat trend. The relative strength is looking good. The stochastix index indicates a possible uptrend thrust. Watch the 20-week moving average (in blue) for a bullish crossover above the 50-wk MA (in red). By bullish is meant rising yield, which leads to falling bond principal value.
Typically, when the USTreasury Bonds lose value, the principal beneficiary is Gold. Today, the financial markets are still celebrating an increase in home sales and a home price index that is no longer falling. OVERLOOKED ARE MANY KEY THREATS TO THE USTREASURY COMPLEX, EACH BENEFITS TO GOLD. They overlook the tremendous hidden home supply covered up by the banks, in REO properties withheld from the market. They overlook the miserable USTreasury auction, with more bad auctions to come. They overlook the 96% decline in US corporate profits since October 2007, in a gutted USEconomy. They overlook the skyrocketing USGovt debt finance needs, sure to continue even worse. They overlook the global revolt against the USDollar as reserve currency, where broad initiatives have considerable support, enough at least to chip away at the throne for the US$ trade settlement. They overlook the ineffective stimulus to date, and the criminal disbursement of Congressional funds, most likely for Wall Street benefit purposes. They overlook the nearly universal global debasement (if not destruction) of money and the financial structures, and the failed central bank franchise model. So, easily translated, the Gold price is a bargain made even cheaper by a $10 discount offered today. Paper money is gradually being recognized as ruined.
The Gold price shows a clear rising trend when viewed from a certain perspective. With a price discount today, it has come down to the 20-week moving average in a move toward greater stability. It has also come down to a clear but unorthodox uptrend line of support, with five touch points to render it meaningful. Pressure mounts on the 1000 resistance level. What will take the Gold price finally over 1000? Very difficult question. Certainly, some kind of disturbance to the system, something factored incorrectly in recent months, a shock, a scandal. Perhaps a breakdown in an important sacred structure like the USTreasury auction system. The billionaires of the Arab world, who largely control far more Western banks than people notice, have been deeply involved with independent third party gold bullion bank audits since the spring. Many gold accounts might have more paper certificates than gold. The pressures mount toward a breakdown.
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Friday, July 31, 2009
Cheney assassination team involved Pentagon chain of command - Wayne Madsen Report
July 31-August 2, 2009 -- Cheney assassination team involved Pentagon chain of command
publication date: Jul 31, 2009
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August 2, 2009 -- Cheney assassination team involved Pentagon chain of command
Pentagon officials revealed important details of Vice President Dick Cheney's Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) assassination at a Special Operation/Low Intensity Conflict (SOLIC) conference in Arlington, Virginia just weeks before the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Reporting to the Pentagon's Undersecretary for Plans and Policy Douglas Feith, the assassination team was known as "Black Special Operations Forces" or "Black SOF" and the assassination team were part of a group responsible for "special programs," according to information revealed at the conference sponsored by the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA).
The special hit squads used by Cheney were part of a Bush White House program, initiated by the neo-conservative cell in the Pentagon around Feith and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz that, according to Pentagon officials consciously shifted policy "to the right." The policy, known as "defensive intervention," gave the U.S. military the authorization to pursue targets for the defense of the country. The actual implementer of the Cheney policy was Robert Andrews, the then-Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for SOLIC, who stated in his remark on February 11, "the U.S. must take quick action against likely sponsors of terrorists . . . without waiting for a basis of legal evidence." Andrews also stated that the standing orders for JSOC and SOF personnel were to "take asymmetric warfare into the heart of terrorism and destroy it."
Andrews also stated that "targeted assassinations" were one means for defensive intervention. He declared, "If I could take out Saddam Hussein, I'd do it. My Secretary wouldn't let me do it, but I'd do it." At the time, the assassination of the foreign leader such as Hussein was prohibited by Executive Order 12333, which bans such actions against foreign political leaders.
Andrews revealed the reason that SOF personnel were used by the Cheney team to carry out assassinations was because they could easily get into otherwise denied areas under the aegis of "training" and "counter-narcotics" programs. He cited the example of Uzbekistan as one country where U.S. SOF forces operated more or less freely after 9/11 Andrews added that SOF were "sources for collecting intelligence in host countries" and that "training contacts are fungible, we can use them for counter-narcotics but for 'other things,' as well." Andrews also stated that counter-narcotics "played a big role in the Summer [0f 2002] allowing us to go in." He revealed that SOF personnel were active in Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador in the Summer of 2002 and that they did "other things." Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez narrowly escaped a coup against him in April 2002 that was supported by U.S. SOF teams.
The Pentagon's Joint Combined Education and Training (JCET) program gave the JSOC Special Forces team carrying out "defensive intervention" access to 59 countries under the cover of 139 "training missions." Detainee operations in Guantanamo and other detention centers were also part of the JSOC/SOF mandate.
Much of the defensive intervention strategy originated with the contractor Booz Allen and was part of a larger "strategic psychological operations" program initiated by the Pentagon. Under the umbrella of "influence operations," the program also targeted, according to one Pentagon consultant, "activists, anarchists, as well as opportunists" as the new terrorists. Specifically, animal rights and environmental activists were cited in the "activist" category. Infuence operations were green-lighted by both Cheney and President George W. Bush. Bush justified the program to Pentagon officials by saying "we're bringing justice to the terrorists."
SOF personnel charged with assassinating suspected terrorists also operated in the Philippines in 2002 as part of Operation Balikatan, a joint operation with Philippines Special Operations personnel.
The JSOC/SOF personnel reportedly operated in sensitive locations abroad, including Bosnia. Personnel possessed Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information clearances and access for the Cheney-Wolfowitz-Feith "defensive intervention" program.
Pentagon officials also revealed that SOF personnel operated domestically under statute granted in the USA PATRIOT Act known as "consequence management."
JSOC/SOF also maintained a "less-than-lethal" program of using against their targets "pepper spray projectiles, ring-shaped rubber bullets, electro-static devices to immobilize vehicles, electro-magnetic devices to disable automobile electronics, light scattering particles to confuse crowds, and electro-shocking devices to immobilize crowds." It was conceded that the electric discharge devices could also immobilize pacemakers and aircraft, which could have lethal consequences.
Although the CIA claims it kept a wary distance from the Cheney assassination program, there was one country where the CIA directly funded an assassination in the waning days of the Clinton administration, an indication that at least part of the Cheney program was already in existence prior to his entering office. Shortly before the January 2001 assassination of Congolese President Laurent Kabila in the Democratic Republic of Congo, one State Department witness at the U.S. embassy in Kinshasa personally saw large sums of cash arriving at the CIA station at the embassy said to be sued for a "special operation." Four days before Cheney's inauguration as Vice President, Kabila was gunned down in a palace coup.
Readers are solely responsible for the content of the comments they post on this web site. Comments are subject to the site's terms and conditions of use and do not necessarily reflect the opinion or approval of Wayne Madsen Report.com. Readers whose comments violate the terms of use may have their comments removed or all of their content blocked from viewing by other users without notification.
publication date: Jul 31, 2009
Download Print
Previous | Next
August 2, 2009 -- Cheney assassination team involved Pentagon chain of command
Pentagon officials revealed important details of Vice President Dick Cheney's Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) assassination at a Special Operation/Low Intensity Conflict (SOLIC) conference in Arlington, Virginia just weeks before the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Reporting to the Pentagon's Undersecretary for Plans and Policy Douglas Feith, the assassination team was known as "Black Special Operations Forces" or "Black SOF" and the assassination team were part of a group responsible for "special programs," according to information revealed at the conference sponsored by the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA).
The special hit squads used by Cheney were part of a Bush White House program, initiated by the neo-conservative cell in the Pentagon around Feith and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz that, according to Pentagon officials consciously shifted policy "to the right." The policy, known as "defensive intervention," gave the U.S. military the authorization to pursue targets for the defense of the country. The actual implementer of the Cheney policy was Robert Andrews, the then-Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for SOLIC, who stated in his remark on February 11, "the U.S. must take quick action against likely sponsors of terrorists . . . without waiting for a basis of legal evidence." Andrews also stated that the standing orders for JSOC and SOF personnel were to "take asymmetric warfare into the heart of terrorism and destroy it."
Andrews also stated that "targeted assassinations" were one means for defensive intervention. He declared, "If I could take out Saddam Hussein, I'd do it. My Secretary wouldn't let me do it, but I'd do it." At the time, the assassination of the foreign leader such as Hussein was prohibited by Executive Order 12333, which bans such actions against foreign political leaders.
Andrews revealed the reason that SOF personnel were used by the Cheney team to carry out assassinations was because they could easily get into otherwise denied areas under the aegis of "training" and "counter-narcotics" programs. He cited the example of Uzbekistan as one country where U.S. SOF forces operated more or less freely after 9/11 Andrews added that SOF were "sources for collecting intelligence in host countries" and that "training contacts are fungible, we can use them for counter-narcotics but for 'other things,' as well." Andrews also stated that counter-narcotics "played a big role in the Summer [0f 2002] allowing us to go in." He revealed that SOF personnel were active in Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador in the Summer of 2002 and that they did "other things." Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez narrowly escaped a coup against him in April 2002 that was supported by U.S. SOF teams.
The Pentagon's Joint Combined Education and Training (JCET) program gave the JSOC Special Forces team carrying out "defensive intervention" access to 59 countries under the cover of 139 "training missions." Detainee operations in Guantanamo and other detention centers were also part of the JSOC/SOF mandate.
Much of the defensive intervention strategy originated with the contractor Booz Allen and was part of a larger "strategic psychological operations" program initiated by the Pentagon. Under the umbrella of "influence operations," the program also targeted, according to one Pentagon consultant, "activists, anarchists, as well as opportunists" as the new terrorists. Specifically, animal rights and environmental activists were cited in the "activist" category. Infuence operations were green-lighted by both Cheney and President George W. Bush. Bush justified the program to Pentagon officials by saying "we're bringing justice to the terrorists."
SOF personnel charged with assassinating suspected terrorists also operated in the Philippines in 2002 as part of Operation Balikatan, a joint operation with Philippines Special Operations personnel.
The JSOC/SOF personnel reportedly operated in sensitive locations abroad, including Bosnia. Personnel possessed Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information clearances and access for the Cheney-Wolfowitz-Feith "defensive intervention" program.
Pentagon officials also revealed that SOF personnel operated domestically under statute granted in the USA PATRIOT Act known as "consequence management."
JSOC/SOF also maintained a "less-than-lethal" program of using against their targets "pepper spray projectiles, ring-shaped rubber bullets, electro-static devices to immobilize vehicles, electro-magnetic devices to disable automobile electronics, light scattering particles to confuse crowds, and electro-shocking devices to immobilize crowds." It was conceded that the electric discharge devices could also immobilize pacemakers and aircraft, which could have lethal consequences.
Although the CIA claims it kept a wary distance from the Cheney assassination program, there was one country where the CIA directly funded an assassination in the waning days of the Clinton administration, an indication that at least part of the Cheney program was already in existence prior to his entering office. Shortly before the January 2001 assassination of Congolese President Laurent Kabila in the Democratic Republic of Congo, one State Department witness at the U.S. embassy in Kinshasa personally saw large sums of cash arriving at the CIA station at the embassy said to be sued for a "special operation." Four days before Cheney's inauguration as Vice President, Kabila was gunned down in a palace coup.
Readers are solely responsible for the content of the comments they post on this web site. Comments are subject to the site's terms and conditions of use and do not necessarily reflect the opinion or approval of Wayne Madsen Report.com. Readers whose comments violate the terms of use may have their comments removed or all of their content blocked from viewing by other users without notification.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
The Role of the Mexican Military in the Cartel War
from STRATFOR
The Role of the Mexican Military in the Cartel War
July 29, 2009 | 2026 GMT
Global Security and Intelligence Report
By Stephen Meiners and Fred Burton
Related Special Topic Page
* Tracking Mexico’s Drug Cartels
U.S. drug czar Gil Kerlikowske is in the middle of a four-day visit this week to Mexico, where he is meeting with Mexican government officials to discuss the two countries’ joint approach to Mexico’s ongoing cartel war. In prepared remarks at a July 27 press conference with Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora, Kerlikowske said Washington is focused on reducing drug use in the United States, supporting domestic law enforcement efforts against drug traffickers and working with other countries that serve as production areas or transshipment points for U.S.-bound drugs.
Absent from his remarks was any mention of the U.S. position on the role of the Mexican military in the country’s battle against the drug cartels. Kerlikowske’s visit comes amid a growing debate in Mexico over the role that the country’s armed forces should play in the cartel war. The debate has intensified in recent weeks, as human rights organizations in Mexico and the United States have expressed concern over civil rights abuses by Mexican troops assigned to counternarcotics missions in various parts of the country.
The director of Mexico’s independent National Human Rights Commission, for example, has encouraged the new legislature to re-examine the role of the Mexican military in the country’s cartel war, saying that the current approach is clearly not working. The number of citizen complaints against soldiers has increased over the last few years as the troops have become actively engaged in counternarcotics operations, and the commission director has expressed hope for greater accountability on the part of the armed forces.
Citing similar concerns, and the fact that such citizen complaints are handled by the military justice system — which has reportedly not successfully prosecuted a case in years — the independent U.S.-based Human Rights Watch has sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urging her not to certify Mexico’s human rights record to Congress, which would freeze the disbursement of a portion of the funds for the Merida Initiative, a U.S. counternarcotics aid package for Mexico.
More important than any possible funding freeze from Washington, though, is the potential response from the Mexican government. President Felipe Calderon has emphasized that the use of the military is a temporary move and is necessary until the country’s federal police reforms can be completed in 2012. Legislative leaders from both main opposition parties complained last week that Calderon’s approach has unnecessarily weakened the armed forces, while the leader of the Mexican senate — a member of Calderon’s National Action Party — said the legislature will examine the role of the military and seek to balance the needs of the cartel war with the civil rights of the Mexican people. In addition, the president of Mexico’s supreme court has said the court plans to review the appropriateness of military jurisdiction in cases involving citizen complaints against soldiers.
Domestic debate and international criticism of Calderon’s use of the military are not necessarily new. Indeed, Calderon was defending his approach to representatives of the United Nations back in early 2008. However, the renewed debate, combined with recent changes in the Mexican legislature, have set the stage for a general re-examination of the Mexican military’s role in the cartel war. And while it is still unclear exactly where the re-examination will end up, the eventual outcome could drastically change the way the Mexican government fights the cartels.
More than Just Law Enforcement
Since taking office in December 2006, Calderon’s decision to deploy more than 35,000 federal troops in security operations around the country has grabbed headlines. While previous presidents have used the armed forces for counternarcotics operations in isolated cases, the scope and scale of the military’s involvement under Calderon has reached new heights. This approach is due in no small part to the staggering level of corruption among federal police. But primarily, the use of the military is a reflection of the many tasks that must be performed under Calderon’s strategy, which is far more complex than simply putting boots on the ground and requires more than what traditional law enforcement agencies can provide.
This broad range of tasks can be grouped into three categories:
* The first involves duties traditionally carried out by the armed forces in Mexico, such as technical intelligence collection and maritime and aerial monitoring and interdiction. These tasks are well-suited to the armed forces, which have the equipment, training and experience to perform them. These are also key requirements in the country’s counternarcotics strategy, considering that Mexico is the primary transshipment point for South American-produced cocaine bound for the United States, the world’s largest market for the drug.
* The second category includes traditional civilian law enforcement and judicial duties. Specifically, this includes actions such as making arrests, prosecuting and convicting defendants and imposing punishment. With the exception of the military routinely detaining suspects and then turning them over to law enforcement authorities, the tasks in this second category have remained mainly in the hands of civilian authorities.
* The final category is more of a gray area. It involves tasks that overlap between Mexico’s armed forces and law enforcement agencies, and it is the area over the last few years in which the Mexican military has become increasingly involved. It is also the area that has caused the most controversy, primarily due to the fact that it has brought the troops into closer contact with the civilian population.
Some of the most noteworthy tasks in this final “gray” category include:
* Drug-crop eradication and meth-lab seizures. In addition to being the main transit point for U.S.-bound cocaine, Mexico is also estimated to be the largest producer of marijuana and methamphetamines consumed in the United States. The U.S. National Drug Intelligence Center estimates that more than 17,000 tons of marijuana were produced in Mexico during 2007, most of which was smuggled into the United States. Similarly, seizures of so-called meth superlabs in Mexico over the last few years — some capable of producing hundreds of tons annually — underscore the scale of meth production in Mexico. The destruction of marijuana crops and meth production facilities is a task that has been shared by both the military and law enforcement under Calderon.
* Immigration and customs inspections at points of entry and exit. Thorough inspections of inbound and outbound cargo and people at Mexico’s borders have played a key role in some of the more noteworthy drug seizures during the last few years, including the country’s largest cocaine seizure at the Pacific port of Manzanillo in November 2007. Similar inspections elsewhere have led to significant seizures of weapons and precursor chemicals used in the production of meth. In many cases, the Mexican armed forces have played a role in either stopping or inspecting suspect cargo.
* Raids and arrests of high-value cartel targets. Beyond simply stopping the flow of drugs and weapons into and out of Mexico, the federal government has also sought to disrupt the powerful organizations that control the drug trade by arresting drug cartel members. Given the federal police’s reputation for corruption, highly sensitive and risky operations such as the arrest of high-ranking cartel leaders have more often than not been carried out by the military’s elite Special Forces Airmobile Group (GAFE). In most cases, the suspects detained by GAFE units have been quickly handed over to the attorney general’s office, though in some cases military personnel have been accused of holding suspects for longer than necessary in order to extract information themselves.
* General public safety and law enforcement. The rise in organized crime-related violence across Mexico over the last few years has been a cause for great concern both within the government and among the population. A central part of the federal government’s effort to curb the violence has been the deployment of military forces to many areas, where the troops conduct such actions as security patrols, traffic stops and raids as well as man highway checkpoints. In some cities, the military has been called upon to assume all public-safety and law-enforcement responsibilities, disarming the local police force while looking for police links to organized crime. Another part of this militarization of law enforcement has involved the appointment of military officers — many of whom resign their commission a day before their appointment — to law enforcement posts such as police chief or public safety consultant.
It is this final trend that has led to most of the concerns and complaints regarding the military’s role in the cartel war. The federal government has been mindful of these concerns from the beginning and has tried to minimize the criticism by involving the federal police as much as possible. But it has been the armed forces that have provided the bulk of the manpower and coordination that federal police agencies — hampered by rampant corruption and a tumultuous reform process — have not been able to muster.
A Victim of its Own Success
The armed forces’ greater effectiveness, rapid deployment capability and early successes in some public security tasks made it inevitable that its role would evolve and expand. The result has been a classic case of mission creep. By the time additional duties were being assigned to the military, its resources had become stretched too thin to be as effective as before. This reality became apparent by early 2008 in public-safety roles, especially when the military was tasked with security operations in cities as large and as violent as Ciudad Juarez.
Even though the Mexican military was not designed or trained for law-enforcement duties or securing urban areas, it had been generally successful in improving the security situation of the smaller cities to which it had been deployed throughout 2007. But by early 2008, when soldiers were first deployed to Ciudad Juarez en masse, it became clear that they simply had too much on their plate. As the city’s security environment deteriorated disastrously during the second half of 2008, the military presence there proved incapable of controlling it, an outcome that has continued even today, despite the unprecedented concentration of forces that are currently in the city.
In addition to the military’s mission failures, it has also struggled with increasing civil rights complaints from citizens. In particular, soldiers have been accused of unauthorized searches and seizures, rough treatment and torture of suspects (which in some cases have included police officers), and improper rules of engagement, which have led several times to civilian deaths when soldiers mistook them for hostile shooters. In many cities, particularly in northern and western Mexico, exasperated residents have staged rallies and marches to protest the military presence in their towns.
While the military has certainly not acted flawlessly in its operations and undoubtedly bears guilt for some offenses, these complaints are not completely reliable records of the military’s performance. For one thing, many cartel enforcers routinely dress in military-style clothing and travel in vehicles painted to resemble military trucks, while many also have military backgrounds and operate using the tactics they were taught. This makes it difficult for residents, during the chaos of a raid, to distinguish between legitimate soldiers and cartel members. More important, however, is the fact that the Mexican drug cartels have been keenly aware of the threat posed to them by the military and of the controversy associated with the military’s involvement in the cartel war. For this reason, the cartels have been eager to exploit this vulnerability by paying residents to protest the military presence and spread reports of military abuses.
Outlook
As the Mexican congress and supreme court continue the debate over the appropriateness of the military in various roles in the cartel war, it is important to recall what the armed forces have done well. For all its faults and failures, the military remains the most reliable security tool available to the Mexican government. And continued problems with the federal police reforms mean that the military will remain the most reliable and versatile option for the foreseeable future.
Any legislative or judicial effort to withdraw the armed forces from certain tasks will leave the government with fewer options in battling the cartels and, ultimately, in an even more precarious position than it is in now. The loss of such a valuable tool in some areas of the cartel war would force the government to fundamentally alter its strategy in the cartel war, most likely requiring it to scale back its objectives.
The Role of the Mexican Military in the Cartel War
July 29, 2009 | 2026 GMT
Global Security and Intelligence Report
By Stephen Meiners and Fred Burton
Related Special Topic Page
* Tracking Mexico’s Drug Cartels
U.S. drug czar Gil Kerlikowske is in the middle of a four-day visit this week to Mexico, where he is meeting with Mexican government officials to discuss the two countries’ joint approach to Mexico’s ongoing cartel war. In prepared remarks at a July 27 press conference with Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora, Kerlikowske said Washington is focused on reducing drug use in the United States, supporting domestic law enforcement efforts against drug traffickers and working with other countries that serve as production areas or transshipment points for U.S.-bound drugs.
Absent from his remarks was any mention of the U.S. position on the role of the Mexican military in the country’s battle against the drug cartels. Kerlikowske’s visit comes amid a growing debate in Mexico over the role that the country’s armed forces should play in the cartel war. The debate has intensified in recent weeks, as human rights organizations in Mexico and the United States have expressed concern over civil rights abuses by Mexican troops assigned to counternarcotics missions in various parts of the country.
The director of Mexico’s independent National Human Rights Commission, for example, has encouraged the new legislature to re-examine the role of the Mexican military in the country’s cartel war, saying that the current approach is clearly not working. The number of citizen complaints against soldiers has increased over the last few years as the troops have become actively engaged in counternarcotics operations, and the commission director has expressed hope for greater accountability on the part of the armed forces.
Citing similar concerns, and the fact that such citizen complaints are handled by the military justice system — which has reportedly not successfully prosecuted a case in years — the independent U.S.-based Human Rights Watch has sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urging her not to certify Mexico’s human rights record to Congress, which would freeze the disbursement of a portion of the funds for the Merida Initiative, a U.S. counternarcotics aid package for Mexico.
More important than any possible funding freeze from Washington, though, is the potential response from the Mexican government. President Felipe Calderon has emphasized that the use of the military is a temporary move and is necessary until the country’s federal police reforms can be completed in 2012. Legislative leaders from both main opposition parties complained last week that Calderon’s approach has unnecessarily weakened the armed forces, while the leader of the Mexican senate — a member of Calderon’s National Action Party — said the legislature will examine the role of the military and seek to balance the needs of the cartel war with the civil rights of the Mexican people. In addition, the president of Mexico’s supreme court has said the court plans to review the appropriateness of military jurisdiction in cases involving citizen complaints against soldiers.
Domestic debate and international criticism of Calderon’s use of the military are not necessarily new. Indeed, Calderon was defending his approach to representatives of the United Nations back in early 2008. However, the renewed debate, combined with recent changes in the Mexican legislature, have set the stage for a general re-examination of the Mexican military’s role in the cartel war. And while it is still unclear exactly where the re-examination will end up, the eventual outcome could drastically change the way the Mexican government fights the cartels.
More than Just Law Enforcement
Since taking office in December 2006, Calderon’s decision to deploy more than 35,000 federal troops in security operations around the country has grabbed headlines. While previous presidents have used the armed forces for counternarcotics operations in isolated cases, the scope and scale of the military’s involvement under Calderon has reached new heights. This approach is due in no small part to the staggering level of corruption among federal police. But primarily, the use of the military is a reflection of the many tasks that must be performed under Calderon’s strategy, which is far more complex than simply putting boots on the ground and requires more than what traditional law enforcement agencies can provide.
This broad range of tasks can be grouped into three categories:
* The first involves duties traditionally carried out by the armed forces in Mexico, such as technical intelligence collection and maritime and aerial monitoring and interdiction. These tasks are well-suited to the armed forces, which have the equipment, training and experience to perform them. These are also key requirements in the country’s counternarcotics strategy, considering that Mexico is the primary transshipment point for South American-produced cocaine bound for the United States, the world’s largest market for the drug.
* The second category includes traditional civilian law enforcement and judicial duties. Specifically, this includes actions such as making arrests, prosecuting and convicting defendants and imposing punishment. With the exception of the military routinely detaining suspects and then turning them over to law enforcement authorities, the tasks in this second category have remained mainly in the hands of civilian authorities.
* The final category is more of a gray area. It involves tasks that overlap between Mexico’s armed forces and law enforcement agencies, and it is the area over the last few years in which the Mexican military has become increasingly involved. It is also the area that has caused the most controversy, primarily due to the fact that it has brought the troops into closer contact with the civilian population.
Some of the most noteworthy tasks in this final “gray” category include:
* Drug-crop eradication and meth-lab seizures. In addition to being the main transit point for U.S.-bound cocaine, Mexico is also estimated to be the largest producer of marijuana and methamphetamines consumed in the United States. The U.S. National Drug Intelligence Center estimates that more than 17,000 tons of marijuana were produced in Mexico during 2007, most of which was smuggled into the United States. Similarly, seizures of so-called meth superlabs in Mexico over the last few years — some capable of producing hundreds of tons annually — underscore the scale of meth production in Mexico. The destruction of marijuana crops and meth production facilities is a task that has been shared by both the military and law enforcement under Calderon.
* Immigration and customs inspections at points of entry and exit. Thorough inspections of inbound and outbound cargo and people at Mexico’s borders have played a key role in some of the more noteworthy drug seizures during the last few years, including the country’s largest cocaine seizure at the Pacific port of Manzanillo in November 2007. Similar inspections elsewhere have led to significant seizures of weapons and precursor chemicals used in the production of meth. In many cases, the Mexican armed forces have played a role in either stopping or inspecting suspect cargo.
* Raids and arrests of high-value cartel targets. Beyond simply stopping the flow of drugs and weapons into and out of Mexico, the federal government has also sought to disrupt the powerful organizations that control the drug trade by arresting drug cartel members. Given the federal police’s reputation for corruption, highly sensitive and risky operations such as the arrest of high-ranking cartel leaders have more often than not been carried out by the military’s elite Special Forces Airmobile Group (GAFE). In most cases, the suspects detained by GAFE units have been quickly handed over to the attorney general’s office, though in some cases military personnel have been accused of holding suspects for longer than necessary in order to extract information themselves.
* General public safety and law enforcement. The rise in organized crime-related violence across Mexico over the last few years has been a cause for great concern both within the government and among the population. A central part of the federal government’s effort to curb the violence has been the deployment of military forces to many areas, where the troops conduct such actions as security patrols, traffic stops and raids as well as man highway checkpoints. In some cities, the military has been called upon to assume all public-safety and law-enforcement responsibilities, disarming the local police force while looking for police links to organized crime. Another part of this militarization of law enforcement has involved the appointment of military officers — many of whom resign their commission a day before their appointment — to law enforcement posts such as police chief or public safety consultant.
It is this final trend that has led to most of the concerns and complaints regarding the military’s role in the cartel war. The federal government has been mindful of these concerns from the beginning and has tried to minimize the criticism by involving the federal police as much as possible. But it has been the armed forces that have provided the bulk of the manpower and coordination that federal police agencies — hampered by rampant corruption and a tumultuous reform process — have not been able to muster.
A Victim of its Own Success
The armed forces’ greater effectiveness, rapid deployment capability and early successes in some public security tasks made it inevitable that its role would evolve and expand. The result has been a classic case of mission creep. By the time additional duties were being assigned to the military, its resources had become stretched too thin to be as effective as before. This reality became apparent by early 2008 in public-safety roles, especially when the military was tasked with security operations in cities as large and as violent as Ciudad Juarez.
Even though the Mexican military was not designed or trained for law-enforcement duties or securing urban areas, it had been generally successful in improving the security situation of the smaller cities to which it had been deployed throughout 2007. But by early 2008, when soldiers were first deployed to Ciudad Juarez en masse, it became clear that they simply had too much on their plate. As the city’s security environment deteriorated disastrously during the second half of 2008, the military presence there proved incapable of controlling it, an outcome that has continued even today, despite the unprecedented concentration of forces that are currently in the city.
In addition to the military’s mission failures, it has also struggled with increasing civil rights complaints from citizens. In particular, soldiers have been accused of unauthorized searches and seizures, rough treatment and torture of suspects (which in some cases have included police officers), and improper rules of engagement, which have led several times to civilian deaths when soldiers mistook them for hostile shooters. In many cities, particularly in northern and western Mexico, exasperated residents have staged rallies and marches to protest the military presence in their towns.
While the military has certainly not acted flawlessly in its operations and undoubtedly bears guilt for some offenses, these complaints are not completely reliable records of the military’s performance. For one thing, many cartel enforcers routinely dress in military-style clothing and travel in vehicles painted to resemble military trucks, while many also have military backgrounds and operate using the tactics they were taught. This makes it difficult for residents, during the chaos of a raid, to distinguish between legitimate soldiers and cartel members. More important, however, is the fact that the Mexican drug cartels have been keenly aware of the threat posed to them by the military and of the controversy associated with the military’s involvement in the cartel war. For this reason, the cartels have been eager to exploit this vulnerability by paying residents to protest the military presence and spread reports of military abuses.
Outlook
As the Mexican congress and supreme court continue the debate over the appropriateness of the military in various roles in the cartel war, it is important to recall what the armed forces have done well. For all its faults and failures, the military remains the most reliable security tool available to the Mexican government. And continued problems with the federal police reforms mean that the military will remain the most reliable and versatile option for the foreseeable future.
Any legislative or judicial effort to withdraw the armed forces from certain tasks will leave the government with fewer options in battling the cartels and, ultimately, in an even more precarious position than it is in now. The loss of such a valuable tool in some areas of the cartel war would force the government to fundamentally alter its strategy in the cartel war, most likely requiring it to scale back its objectives.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Ten Things You're Not Supposed to Know about the Swine Flu Vaccine
Ten Things You're Not Supposed to Know about the Swine Flu Vaccine
by Mike Adams, The Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
(NaturalNews) She was deathly afraid of the flu.
So she asked her doc what she should do.
He jabbed her unseen
With a swine flu vaccine
Blurting, "Darling, I haven't a clue."
- by the Health Ranger
Let's not beat around the bush on this issue: The swine flu vaccines now being prepared for mass injection into infants, children, teens and adults have never been tested and won't be tested before the injections begin. In Europe, where flu vaccines are typically tested on hundreds (or thousands) of people before being unleashed on the masses, the European Medicines Agency is allowing companies to skip the testing process entirely.
And yet, amazingly, people are lining up to take the vaccine, absent any safety testing whatsoever. When the National Institutes of Health in the U.S. announced a swine flu vaccine trial beginning in early August, it was inundated with phone calls and emails from people desperate to play the role of human guinea pigs. The power of fear to herd sheeple into vaccine injections is simply amazing...
Back in Europe, of course, everybody gets to be a guinea pig since no testing will be done on the vaccine at all. Even worse, the European vaccines will be using adjuvants -- chemicals used to multiply the potency of the active ingredients in vaccines.
Notably, there is absolutely no safety data on the use of adjuvants in infants and expectant mothers -- the two groups being most aggressively targeted by the swine flu vaccine pushers. The leads us to the disturbing conclusion that the swine flu vaccine could be a modern medical disaster. It's untested and un-tried. Its ingredients are potentially quite dangerous, and the adjuvants being used in the European vaccines are suspected of causing neurological disorders.
Paralyzed by vaccines
I probably don't need to remind you that in 1976, a failed swine flu vaccine caused irreparable damage to the nervous systems of hundreds of people, paralyzing many. Medical doctors gave the problem a name, of course, to make it sound like they knew what they were talking about: Guillain-Barre syndrome. (Notably, they never called it "Toxic Vaccine Syndrome" because that would be too informative.)
But the fact remains that doctors never knew how the vaccines caused these severe problems, and if the same event played out today, all the doctors and vaccine pushers would undoubtedly deny any link between the vaccines and paralysis altogether. (That's what's happening today with the debate over vaccines and autism: Complete denial.)
In fact, there are a whole lot of things you'll never be told by health authorities about the upcoming swine flu vaccine. For your amusement, I've written down the ten most obvious ones and published them below.
Ten things you're not supposed to know about the swine flu vaccine
(At least, not by anyone in authority...)
#1 - The vaccine production was "rushed" and the vaccine has never been tested on humans. Do you like to play guinea pig for Big Pharma? If so, line up for your swine flu vaccine this fall...
#2 - Swine flu vaccines contain dangerous adjuvants that cause an inflammatory response in the body. This is why they are suspected of causing autism and other neurological disorders.
#3 - The swine flu vaccine could actually increase your risk of death from swine flu by altering (or suppressing) your immune system response. There is zero evidence that even seasonal flu shots offer any meaningful protection for people who take the jabs. Vaccines are the snake oil of modern medicine.
#4 - Doctors still don't know why the 1976 swine flu vaccines paralyzed so many people. And that means they really have no clue whether the upcoming vaccine might cause the same devastating side effects. (And they're not testing it, either...)
#5 - Even if the swine flu vaccine kills you, the drug companies aren't responsible. The U.S. government has granted drug companies complete immunity against vaccine product liability. Thanks to that blanket immunity, drug companies have no incentive to make safe vaccines, because they only get paid based on quantity, not safety (zero liability).
#6 - No swine flu vaccine works as well as vitamin D to protect you from influenza. That's an inconvenient scientific fact that the U.S. government, the FDA and Big Pharma hope the people never realize.
#7 - Even if the swine flu vaccine actually works, mathematically speaking if everyone else around you gets the vaccine, you don't need one! (Because it can't spread through the population you hang with.) So even if you believe in the vaccine, all you need to do is encourage your friends to go get vaccinated...
#8 - Drug companies are making billions of dollars from the production of swine flu vaccines. That money comes out of your pocket -- even if you don't get the jab -- because it's all paid by the taxpayers.
#9 - When people start dying in larger numbers from the swine flu, rest assured that many of them will be the very people who got the swine flu vaccine. Doctors will explain this away with their typical Big Pharma logic: "The number saved is far greater than the number lost." Of course, the number "saved" is entirely fictional... imaginary... and exists only in their own warped heads.
#10 - The swine flu vaccine centers that will crop up all over the world in the coming months aren't completely useless: They will provide an easy way to identify large groups of really stupid people. (Too bad there isn't some sort of blue dye that we could tag 'em with for future reference...)
The lottery, they say, is a tax on people who can't do math. Similarly, flu vaccines are a tax on people who don't understand health.
__________ Information from ESET Smart Security, version of virus signature database 4284 (20090728) __________
The message was checked by ESET Smart Security.
http://www.eset.com
by Mike Adams, The Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
(NaturalNews) She was deathly afraid of the flu.
So she asked her doc what she should do.
He jabbed her unseen
With a swine flu vaccine
Blurting, "Darling, I haven't a clue."
- by the Health Ranger
Let's not beat around the bush on this issue: The swine flu vaccines now being prepared for mass injection into infants, children, teens and adults have never been tested and won't be tested before the injections begin. In Europe, where flu vaccines are typically tested on hundreds (or thousands) of people before being unleashed on the masses, the European Medicines Agency is allowing companies to skip the testing process entirely.
And yet, amazingly, people are lining up to take the vaccine, absent any safety testing whatsoever. When the National Institutes of Health in the U.S. announced a swine flu vaccine trial beginning in early August, it was inundated with phone calls and emails from people desperate to play the role of human guinea pigs. The power of fear to herd sheeple into vaccine injections is simply amazing...
Back in Europe, of course, everybody gets to be a guinea pig since no testing will be done on the vaccine at all. Even worse, the European vaccines will be using adjuvants -- chemicals used to multiply the potency of the active ingredients in vaccines.
Notably, there is absolutely no safety data on the use of adjuvants in infants and expectant mothers -- the two groups being most aggressively targeted by the swine flu vaccine pushers. The leads us to the disturbing conclusion that the swine flu vaccine could be a modern medical disaster. It's untested and un-tried. Its ingredients are potentially quite dangerous, and the adjuvants being used in the European vaccines are suspected of causing neurological disorders.
Paralyzed by vaccines
I probably don't need to remind you that in 1976, a failed swine flu vaccine caused irreparable damage to the nervous systems of hundreds of people, paralyzing many. Medical doctors gave the problem a name, of course, to make it sound like they knew what they were talking about: Guillain-Barre syndrome. (Notably, they never called it "Toxic Vaccine Syndrome" because that would be too informative.)
But the fact remains that doctors never knew how the vaccines caused these severe problems, and if the same event played out today, all the doctors and vaccine pushers would undoubtedly deny any link between the vaccines and paralysis altogether. (That's what's happening today with the debate over vaccines and autism: Complete denial.)
In fact, there are a whole lot of things you'll never be told by health authorities about the upcoming swine flu vaccine. For your amusement, I've written down the ten most obvious ones and published them below.
Ten things you're not supposed to know about the swine flu vaccine
(At least, not by anyone in authority...)
#1 - The vaccine production was "rushed" and the vaccine has never been tested on humans. Do you like to play guinea pig for Big Pharma? If so, line up for your swine flu vaccine this fall...
#2 - Swine flu vaccines contain dangerous adjuvants that cause an inflammatory response in the body. This is why they are suspected of causing autism and other neurological disorders.
#3 - The swine flu vaccine could actually increase your risk of death from swine flu by altering (or suppressing) your immune system response. There is zero evidence that even seasonal flu shots offer any meaningful protection for people who take the jabs. Vaccines are the snake oil of modern medicine.
#4 - Doctors still don't know why the 1976 swine flu vaccines paralyzed so many people. And that means they really have no clue whether the upcoming vaccine might cause the same devastating side effects. (And they're not testing it, either...)
#5 - Even if the swine flu vaccine kills you, the drug companies aren't responsible. The U.S. government has granted drug companies complete immunity against vaccine product liability. Thanks to that blanket immunity, drug companies have no incentive to make safe vaccines, because they only get paid based on quantity, not safety (zero liability).
#6 - No swine flu vaccine works as well as vitamin D to protect you from influenza. That's an inconvenient scientific fact that the U.S. government, the FDA and Big Pharma hope the people never realize.
#7 - Even if the swine flu vaccine actually works, mathematically speaking if everyone else around you gets the vaccine, you don't need one! (Because it can't spread through the population you hang with.) So even if you believe in the vaccine, all you need to do is encourage your friends to go get vaccinated...
#8 - Drug companies are making billions of dollars from the production of swine flu vaccines. That money comes out of your pocket -- even if you don't get the jab -- because it's all paid by the taxpayers.
#9 - When people start dying in larger numbers from the swine flu, rest assured that many of them will be the very people who got the swine flu vaccine. Doctors will explain this away with their typical Big Pharma logic: "The number saved is far greater than the number lost." Of course, the number "saved" is entirely fictional... imaginary... and exists only in their own warped heads.
#10 - The swine flu vaccine centers that will crop up all over the world in the coming months aren't completely useless: They will provide an easy way to identify large groups of really stupid people. (Too bad there isn't some sort of blue dye that we could tag 'em with for future reference...)
The lottery, they say, is a tax on people who can't do math. Similarly, flu vaccines are a tax on people who don't understand health.
__________ Information from ESET Smart Security, version of virus signature database 4284 (20090728) __________
The message was checked by ESET Smart Security.
http://www.eset.com
The Russian Economy and Russian Power
from STRATFOR
The Russian Economy and Russian Power
By George Friedman | July 27, 2009
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden’s visit to Georgia and Ukraine partly answered questions over how U.S.-Russian talks went during U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to Russia in early July. That Biden’s visit took place at all reaffirms the U.S. commitment to the principle that Russia does not have the right to a sphere of influence in these countries or anywhere in the former Soviet Union.
The Americans’ willingness to confront the Russians on an issue of fundamental national interest to Russia therefore requires some explanation, as on the surface it seems a high-risk maneuver. Biden provided insights into the analytic framework of the Obama administration on Russia in a July 26 interview with The Wall Street Journal. In it, Biden said the United States “vastly” underestimates its hand. He added that “Russia has to make some very difficult, calculated decisions. They have a shrinking population base, they have a withering economy, they have a banking sector and structure that is not likely to be able to withstand the next 15 years, they’re in a situation where the world is changing before them and they’re clinging to something in the past that is not sustainable.” Read full article »
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Video: Rethinking Iran
Video
In the latest installment of the STRATFOR Insights video series, founder and CEO Dr. George Friedman discusses recent events in Tehran, Israeli naval movements and the possibility of a new U.S. policy emerging for Iran. Watch this video »
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Audio: Pugilist Politics in Iran as Clouds Gather Over Israel
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has sacked the country’s intelligence chief in the wake of a controversy that further exposed rifts within the political establishment in Tehran. A look at recent developments, as top U.S. officials gather for talks in Israel. Listen Now »
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The Russian Economy and Russian Power
By George Friedman | July 27, 2009
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden’s visit to Georgia and Ukraine partly answered questions over how U.S.-Russian talks went during U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to Russia in early July. That Biden’s visit took place at all reaffirms the U.S. commitment to the principle that Russia does not have the right to a sphere of influence in these countries or anywhere in the former Soviet Union.
The Americans’ willingness to confront the Russians on an issue of fundamental national interest to Russia therefore requires some explanation, as on the surface it seems a high-risk maneuver. Biden provided insights into the analytic framework of the Obama administration on Russia in a July 26 interview with The Wall Street Journal. In it, Biden said the United States “vastly” underestimates its hand. He added that “Russia has to make some very difficult, calculated decisions. They have a shrinking population base, they have a withering economy, they have a banking sector and structure that is not likely to be able to withstand the next 15 years, they’re in a situation where the world is changing before them and they’re clinging to something in the past that is not sustainable.” Read full article »
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Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has sacked the country’s intelligence chief in the wake of a controversy that further exposed rifts within the political establishment in Tehran. A look at recent developments, as top U.S. officials gather for talks in Israel. Listen Now »
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Martial Law and the Militarization of Public Health: The Worldwide H1N1 Flu Vaccination Program
Martial Law and the Militarization of Public Health: The Worldwide H1N1 Flu Vaccination Program
By Michel Chossudovsky
URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14543
Global Research, July 26, 2009
"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." (Mike Wallace, CBS, 60 Minutes, November 4, 1979)
"The federal officials and industry representatives had assembled to discuss a disturbing new study that raised alarming questions about the safety of a host of common childhood vaccines administered to infants and young children. According to a CDC epidemiologist named Tom Verstraeten, who had analyzed the agency's massive database containing the medical records of 100,000 children, a mercury-based preservative in the vaccines -- thimerosal -- appeared to be responsible for a dramatic increase in autism and a host of other neurological disorders among children....
"It's hard to calculate the damage to our country -- and to the international efforts to eradicate epidemic diseases -- if Third World nations come to believe that America's most heralded foreign-aid initiative is poisoning their children. It's not difficult to predict how this scenario will be interpreted by America's enemies abroad." (Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Vaccinations: Deadly Immunity, June 2005)
"Vaccines are supposed to be making us healthier; however, in twenty-five years of nursing I have never seen so many damaged, sick kids. Something very, very wrong is happening to our children."( Patti White, School nurse, statement to the House Government Reform Committee, 1999, quoted in Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Vaccinations: Deadly Immunity, June 2005)
"On the basis of ... expert assessments of the evidence, the scientific criteria for an influenza pandemic have been met. I have therefore decided to raise the level of influenza pandemic alert from Phase 5 to Phase 6. The world is now at the start of the 2009 influenza pandemic. ... Margaret Chan, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO), Press Briefing 11 June 2009)
"As many as 2 billion people could become infected over the next two years — nearly one-third of the world population." (World Health Organization as reported by the Western media, July 2009)
"Swine flu could strike up to 40 percent of Americans over the next two years and as many as several hundred thousand could die if a vaccine campaign and other measures aren't successful." (Official Statement of the US Administration, Associated Press, 24 July 2009).
"The U.S. expects to have 160 million doses of swine flu vaccine available sometime in October", (Associated Press, 23 July 2009)
"Vaccine makers could produce 4.9 billion pandemic flu shots per year in the best-case scenario", Margaret Chan, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO), quoted by Reuters, 21 July 2009)
Wealthier countries such as the U.S. and Britain will pay just under $10 per dose [of the H1N1 flu vaccine]. ... Developing countries will pay a lower price." [circa $400 billion for Big Pharma] (Business Week, July 2009)
War without borders, a great depression, a military adventure in the Middle East, a massive concentration of wealth resulting from the restructuring of the global financial system.
The unfolding economic and social dislocations are far-reaching.
People's lives are destroyed.
The World is at the juncture of the most serious crisis in modern history.
Bankruptcies, mass unemployment, the collapse of social programs, are the untold consequences.
But public opinion must remain ignorant of the causes of the global crisis.
"The worst of the recession is behind us";
"There are growing signs of economic recovery",
"The Middle East War is a 'Just War'", a humanitarian endeavor,
Coalition forces are involved in "peace-keeping," we are "fighting terrorism with democracy"
"We must defend ourselves against terrorist attacks"
Figures on civilian deaths are manipulated. War crimes are concealed.
People are misled on the nature and history of the New World Order.
The real causes and consequences of this Worldwide economic and social collapse remain unheralded. Realities are turned up side down. The "real crisis" must be obfuscated through political lies and media disinformation.
It is in the interest of the political powerbrokers and the dominant financial actors to divert public attention from an understanding of the global crisis.
How best to achieve this goal?
By artificially creating an atmosphere of fear and intimidation which serves to weaken and disarm organized dissent directed against the established economic and political order.
The objective is to undermine all forms of opposition and social resistance.
We are dealing with a diabolical project The public must not only remain in the dark. As the crisis worsens, as people become impoverished, the real causes must be replaced by a set of fictitious relationships.
A crisis based on fake causes is heralded: "the global war on terrorism" is central to misleading the public's understanding of the Middle East War, which is a battle for the control over extensive reserves of oil and natural gas.
The antiwar movement is weakened. People are unable to think. They unequivocally endorse the "war on terrorism" consensus. They accept the political lies. In their inner consciousness, terrorists are threatening their livelihood.
In this framework, the occurrence of "natural disasters", "pandemics", "environmental catastrophes" also plays a useful political role. It distorts the real causes of the crisis. It justifies a global public health emergency on humanitarian grounds.
The Worldwide H1N1 swine flu pandemic: Towards a Global Public Health Emergency?
The Worldwide H1N1 swine flu pandemic serves to mislead public opinion.
The 2009 pandemic, which started in Mexico in April, is timely: it coincides with a deepening economic depression. It takes place at a time of military escalation.
The epidemiological data is fabricated, falsified and manipulated. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), an epidemic of worldwide proportions now looms and threatens the livelihood of millions of people.
A "Catastrophic Emergency" is in the making. The WHO and the US Centre for Disease Control (CDC) are authoritative bodies. Why would they lie? The information released by these organizations, although subject to statistical errors, could not, by any stretch of the imagination, be falsified or manipulated.
People believe that the public health crisis at a global level is real and that government health officials are "working for the public good."
Press reports confirm the US government's intent to implement a mass H1N1 vaccination program in Fall-Winter of 2009. A major contract for 160 million doses has been established with Big Pharma, enough to inoculate more than half the US population. Similar plans are ongoing in other Western countries including France, Canada, the UK.
Volunteers are being recruited to test the swine flu vaccine during the month of August, with a view to implementing a nationwide vaccination program in the Fall.
Manipulating The Data
There is ample evidence, documented in numerous reports, that the WHO's level 6 pandemic alert is based on fabricated evidence and a manipulation of the figures on mortality and morbidity resulting from the N1H1 swine flu.
The data initially used to justify the WHO's Worldwide level 5 alert in April 2009 was extremely scanty. The WHO asserted without evidence that a "global outbreak of the disease is imminent". It distorted Mexico's mortality data pertaining to the swine flu pandemic. According to the WHO Director General Dr. Margaret Chan in her official April 29 statement: "So far, 176 people have been killed in Mexico". From what? Where does she get these numbers? 159 died from influenza out of which only seven deaths, corroborated by lab analysis, resulted from the H1N1 swine flu strain, according to the Mexican Ministry of Health.
Similarly in New York city in April, several hundred children were categorized as having the H1N1 influenza, yet in none of these cases, was the diagnosis corroborated on a laboratory test.
"Dr. Frieden said. Health officials reached their preliminary conclusion after conducting viral tests on nose or throat swabs from the eight students, which allowed them to eliminate other strains of flu."
Tests were conducted on school children in Queen's, but the tests were inconclusive: among theses "hundreds of school children", there were no reports of laboratory analysis leading to a positive identification of the influenza virus. In fact the reports are contradictory: according to the reports, the Atlanta based CDCP is the "only lab in the country that can positively confirm the new swine flu strain — which has been identified as H1N1." (Michel Chossudovsky, Political Lies and Media Disinformation regarding the Swine Flu Pandemic, Global Research, May 2009, last quotation is from the New York Times, April 25, 2009)
Influenza is a common disease. Unless there is a thorough lab examination, the identity if the virus cannot be established.
There are numerous cases of seasonal influenza across America, on an annual basis. "According to the Canadian Medical Association Journal, the flu kills up to 2,500 Canadians and about 36,000 Americans annually. Worldwide, the number of deaths attributed to the flu each year is between 250,000 and 500,000" (Thomas Walkom, The Toronto Star, May 1, 2009).
What the CDCP and the WHO are doing is routinely us re-categorizing a large number of cases of common influenza as H1N1 swine flu.
"The increasing number of cases in many countries with sustained community transmission is making it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for countries to try and confirm them through laboratory testing. Moreover, the counting of individual cases is now no longer essential in such countries for monitoring either the level or nature of the risk posed by the pandemic virus or to guide implementation of the most appropriate response measures. (WHO, Briefing note, 2009)
The WHO admits that laboratory at a country level testing is often absent, while emphasising that lab confirmation it is not for data collection, with a view to ascertaining the spread of the disease:
A strategy that concentrates on the detection, laboratory confirmation and investigation of all cases, including those with mild illness, is extremely resource-intensive. In some countries, this strategy is absorbing most national laboratory and response capacity, leaving little capacity for the monitoring and investigation of severe cases and other exceptional events. ... For all of these reasons, WHO will no longer issue the global tables showing the numbers of confirmed cases for all countries. However, as part of continued efforts to document the global spread of the H1N1 pandemic, regular updates will be provided describing the situation in the newly affected countries. WHO will continue to request that these countries report the first confirmed cases and, as far as feasible, provide weekly aggregated case numbers and descriptive epidemiology of the early cases. (Ibid)
At a June 2009 WHO press conference, the issue of lab testing was raised:
Marion Falco, CNN Atlanta: My question may be a little basic but if you are not, and so forgive me for that, if you are not requiring testing in the countries that already have well established numbers of cases, then how are you distinguishing between seasonal flu and this particular flu. I mean how are you going to separate the numbers?
Dr Fukuda, WHO, Geneva: It is not that we are recommending not doing any testing at all. In fact when the guidance comes out, what it will suggest is what countries are to do is tailor down their testing so that they are not trying to test everybody but certainly keeping up testing of some people for exactly the kinds of reasons that you bring up. When people get sick with an influenza-like illness it will be important for us to know whether is it caused by the pandemic virus or whether is caused by seasonal viruses. What we are indicating is that if you ratchet down the level of testing we will still be able to figure that out and so we do not need to test everybody for that, but we will continue to recommend some level of testing – at a lower level of people who continue to get sick. See Transcript of WHO Virtual Press Conference, Dr Keiji Fukuda, Assistant Director-General for Health Security and Environment, WHO, Geneva, July 2009, emphasis added).
"Figure that out"? What the foregoing statements by the WHO suggest is that:
1) the WHO is not collecting data on the spread of H1N1 based on systematic lab confirmation.
2) the WHO in fact discourages national health officials to conduct detection and laboratory confirmation, while also pressuring the countries' public health authorities to duly deliver to the WHO on a weekly basis the data on H1N1 cases.
3) The WHO in its reporting only refers to "confirmed cases" It does not distinguish between confirmed and non-confirmed case. It would appear that the "non-confirmed" cases are categorized as confirmed cases and the numbers are then used by the WHO to prove that the disease is spreading. (See WHO tables: http://www.who.int/csr/don/2009_07_06/en/index.html)
The swine flu has the same symptoms as seasonal influenza: fever, cough and sore throat. What is happening is that the widespread incidence of the common flu is being used to generate the reports delivered to the WHO pertaining to the H1N1 swine flu. Nonetheless, in the tabulated release of country level data, the WHO uses the term: "number of laboratory-confirmed cases", while also admitting that the cases are, in many cases, not confirmed.
Worldwide Pandemic
The WHO establishes trends on the spread of the disease, essentially using unconfirmed data. Based on these extrapolations, the WHO is now claiming, in the absence of laboratory confirmation, that "as many as 2 billion people could become infected over the next two years — nearly one-third of the world population." In turn, in the US, the Atlanta based Centers for Disease Control (CDC) suggests that "swine flu could strike up to 40 percent of Americans over the next two years and as many as several hundred thousand could die if a vaccine campaign and other measures aren't successful." (AP, July 24, 2009).
How did they come up with these numbers?
The CDC estimate has nothing to do with an assessment of the spread of the H1N1 virus. It is based on a mechanical pro-rata extrapolation of trends underlying the 1957 pandemic, which resulted in 70,000 deaths in the US. The presumption here is that the H1N1 flu has the "same transmission path" as the 1957 epidemic.
Creating a Crisis where there is No Crisis
The underlying political intent is to use the WHO level six pandemic to divert public attention from an impending and far-reaching social crisis, which is largely the consequence of a deep-seated global economic depression.
On the basis of ... expert assessments of the evidence, the scientific criteria for an influenza pandemic have been met. I have therefore decided to raise the level of influenza pandemic alert from Phase 5 to Phase 6. The world is now at the start of the 2009 influenza pandemic. ... Calling a pandemic is also a signal to the international community. This is a time where the world's countries, rich or poor, big or small, must come together in the name of global solidarity to make sure that no countries because of poor resources, no countries' people should be left behind without help. ...The World Health Organization has been in contact with donor communities, development partners, resource poor countries, and also drug companies as well as vaccine companies. Margaret Chan, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO), Press Briefing, 11 June 2009
WHO Director General Margaret Chan
How best to tame the Nation's citizens, to rein in people's resentment in the face of mounting unemployment?
Create a Worldwide pandemic, instil an atmosphere of anxiety and intimidation, which demobilizes meaningful and organized public action against the programmed enrichment of a social minority. The flu pandemic is used to foreclose organized resistance against the government's economic policies in support of the financial elites. It provides both a pretext and a justification to adopt emergency procedures. Under the existing legislation in the US, Martial Law, implying the suspension of constitutional government, could be invoked in the case of "A Catastrophic Emergency" including a the H1N1 swine flu pandemic.
Martial Law
Legislation inherited from the Clinton administration, not to mention the post 9/11 Patriot Acts I and II, allow the military to intervene in judicial and civilian law enforcement activities. In 1996, legislation was passed which allowed the military to intervene in the case of a national emergency. In 1999, Clinton's Defense Authorization Act (DAA) extended those powers (under the 1996 legislation) by creating an "exception" to the Posse Comitatus Act, which permits the military to be involved in civilian affairs "regardless of whether there is an emergency". (See ACLU at http://www.aclu.org/NationalSecurity/NationalSecurity.cfm?ID=8683&c=24 )
The issue of a pandemic or public health emergency , however, was not explicitly outlined in the Clinton era legislation.
The Katrina disaster (2005) constitutes a dividing line, a watershed leading de facto to the militarization of emergency relief:
"The disaster that struck New Orleans and the southern Gulf Coast has given rise to the largest military mobilization in modern history on US soil. Nearly 65,000 US military personnel are now deployed in disaster area, transforming the devastated port city into a war zone," (Bill Van Auken, Wsws.org, September 2005).
Hurricanes Katrina (August 2005) and Rita (September 2005) contributed to justifying the role of the Military in natural disasters. They also contributed to shaping the formulation of presidential directives and subsequent legislation. President Bush called for the Military to become the "lead agency" in disaster relief:
".....The other question, of course, I asked, was, is there a circumstance in which the Department of Defense becomes the lead agency. Clearly, in the case of a terrorist attack, that would be the case, but is there a natural disaster which -- of a certain size that would then enable the Defense Department to become the lead agency in coordinating and leading the response effort. That's going to be a very important consideration for Congress to think about. (Press Conference, 25 Sept 2005 http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=BUS20050925&articleId=1004 )
Militarization of Public Health: The Avian Flu
The 2005 bird flu crisis followed barely a month after Hurricane Rita. It was presented to the US public as an issue of National Security. Following the 2005 outbreak of avian flu, president Bush confirmed that the military would be actively involved in the case of a pandemic, with the authority to detain large numbers of people:
"I am concerned about avian flu. I'm concerned about what an avian flu outbreak could mean for the United States and the world. ... I have thought through the scenarios of what an avian flu outbreak could mean....
The policy decisions for a president in dealing with an avian flu outbreak are difficult. ...
If we had an outbreak somewhere in the United States, do we not then quarantine that part of the country? And how do you, then, enforce a quarantine?
... One option is the use of a military that's able to plan and move. So that's why I put it on the table. I think it's an important debate for Congress to have.
... But Congress needs to take a look at circumstances that may need to vest the capacity of the president to move beyond that debate. And one such catastrophe or one such challenge could be an avian flu outbreak. (White House Press Conference, 4 October, 2005, emphasis added)
On the day following Bush`s October 4, 2005 Press Conference, a major piece of legislation was introduced in the US Senate. The Pandemic Preparedness and Response Act.
While the proposed legislation was never adopted, it nonetheless contributed to building a consensus among key members of the US Senate. The militarization of public health was subsequently embodied in the John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007.
"Public Health Emergency" and Martial Law: The John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007. H.R. 5122
New legislation is devised. The terms "epidemic", and "public health emergency" are explicitly included in a key piece of legislation, signed into law by President Bush in October 2006.
Lost in the midst of hundreds of pages, Public Law 109-364, better known as the "John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007" (H.R.5122) includes a specific section on the role of the Military in national emergencies.
Section 1076 of this legislation entitled "Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies" allows the President of the United States the deploy the armed forces and the National Guard across the US, to "restore public order and enforce the laws of the United States" in the case of "a natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency":
SEC. 1076. USE OF THE ARMED FORCES IN MAJOR PUBLIC EMERGENCIES.
(a) Use of the Armed Forces Authorized-
(1) IN GENERAL- Section 333 of title 10, United States Code, is amended to read as follows:
`Sec. 333. Major public emergencies; interference with State and Federal law
`(a) Use of Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies- (1) The President may employ the armed forces, including the National Guard in Federal service, to--
`(A) restore public order and enforce the laws of the United States when, as a result of a natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident, or other condition in any State or possession of the United States, the President determines that--
`(i) domestic violence has occurred to such an extent that the constituted authorities of the State or possession are incapable of maintaining public order; and
`(ii) such violence results in a condition described in paragraph (2); or
`(B) suppress, in a State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy if such insurrection, violation, combination, or conspiracy results in a condition described in paragraph (2).
`(2) A condition described in this paragraph is a condition that--
`(A) so hinders the execution of the laws of a State or possession, as applicable, and of the United States within that State or possession, that any part or class of its people is deprived of a right, privilege, immunity, or protection named in the Constitution and secured by law, and the constituted authorities of that State or possession are unable, fail, or refuse to protect that right, privilege, or immunity, or to give that protection; or
`(B) opposes or obstructs the execution of the laws of the United States or impedes the course of justice under those laws
`(3) In any situation covered by paragraph (1)(B), the State shall be considered to have denied the equal protection of the laws secured by the Constitution.
`(b) Notice to Congress- The President shall notify Congress of the determination to exercise the authority in subsection (a)(1)(A) as soon as practicable after the determination and every 14 days thereafter during the duration of the exercise of that authority.' (See ext of HR5122 http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c109:6:./temp/~c109bW9vKy:e939907: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h109-5122&tab=summary
These far-reaching provisions allow the Armed Forces to override the authority of civilian federal, state and local governments involved in disaster relief and public health. It also grants the Military a mandate in civilian police functions. Namely the legislation implies the militarization of law enforcement in the case of a national emergency
"Catastrophic Emergency" and "Continuity of Government,": The National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive NSPD 51/HSPD 20
Coinciding with the passage of the John Warner Defense Authorization Act, a National Security Presidential Directive was issued in May 2007, (National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive NSPD 51/HSPD 20) .
NSPD 51 /HSPD 20 is a combined National Security Directive emanating from the White House and Homeland Security. While it is formulated in relation to the domestic "war on terrorism", it also includes provisions which allow for Martial Law in case of a natural disaster including a flu pandemic.
The thrust and emphasis of NSPD 51, however, is different from that of Section 1076 of HR 5122. It defines the functions of the Department of Homeland Security in the case of a national emergency and its relationship to the White House and the Military. It also provides the President with sweeping powers to declare a national emergency, without Congressional approval.
The directive establishes procedures for "Continuity of Government" (COG) in the case of a "Catastrophic Emergency". The latter is defined in NSPD 51/HSPD 20 (henceforth referred to as NSPD 51), as "any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions."
"Continuity of Government," or "COG," is defined in NSPD 51 as "a coordinated effort within the Federal Government's executive branch to ensure that National Essential Functions continue to be performed during a Catastrophic Emergency."
The President shall lead the activities of the Federal Government for ensuring constitutional government. In order to advise and assist the President in that function, the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counter terrorism (APHS/CT) is hereby designated as the National Continuity Coordinator. The National Continuity Coordinator, in coordination with the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (APNSA), without exercising directive authority, shall coordinate the development and implementation of continuity policy for executive departments and agencies. The Continuity Policy Coordination Committee (CPCC), chaired by a Senior Director from the Homeland Security Council staff, designated by the National Continuity Coordinator, shall be the main day-to-day forum for such policy coordination. (National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive NSPD 51/HSPD 20, emphasis added)
This Combined Directive NSPD /51 HSPD 20 grants unprecedented powers to the Presidency and the Department of Homeland Security, overriding the foundations of Constitutional government. NSPD 51 allows the sitting president to declare a �national emergency� without Congressional approval The adoption of NSPD 51 would lead to the de facto closing down of the Legislature and the militarization of justice and law enforcement.
NSPD 51 grants extraordinary Police State powers to the White House and Homeland Security (DHS), in the event of a "Catastrophic Emergency".
A flu pandemic or public health emergency is part of the terms of reference of NSPD 51. "Catastrophic Emergency" is broadly defined in NSPD 51 as "any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions"
"The President shall lead the activities of the Federal Government for ensuring constitutional government. In order to advise and assist the President in that function, the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counter terrorism (APHS/CT) is hereby designated as the National Continuity Coordinator. The National Continuity Coordinator, in coordination with the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (APNSA), without exercising directive authority, shall coordinate the development and implementation of continuity policy for executive departments and agencies. The Continuity Policy Coordination Committee (CPCC), chaired by a Senior Director from the Homeland Security Council staff, designated by the National Continuity Coordinator, shall be the main day-to-day forum for such policy coordination. (National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive NSPD 51/HSPD 20, emphasis added)
The directive acknowledges the overriding power of the military in the case of a national emergency: The presidential directive "Shall not be construed to impair or otherwise affect... the authority of the Secretary of Defense over the Department of Defense, including the chain of command for military forces from the President, to the Secretary of Defense, to the commander of military forces, or military command and control procedures".
Since their enactment two years ago, neither the John Warner Defense Authorization Act nor NSPD 51 have been the object of media debate or discussion.
NSPD 51 and/or the John Warner H.R.5122 could be invoked at short notice following the declaration of a national health emergency and a nationwide forced vaccination program. The hidden agenda consists in using the threat of a pandemic and/or the plight of a natural disaster as a pretext to establish military rule, under the facade of a "functioning democracy".
Vaccination: From H5N1 to H1N1
A nationwide flu vaccination program has been in the pipeline in the US since 2005.
According to the Wall Street Journal (Oct 1, 2005), the Bush administration had asked Congress for an estimated $6-10 billion "to stockpile vaccines and antiviral medications as part of its plans to prepare the U.S. for a possible flu pandemic." A large part of this budget, namely 3.1 billion was used under the Bush administration to stockpile the antiviral drug oseltamivir (Tamiflu), of which the intellectual property rights belong to Gilead Science Inc, a company headed by Don Rumsfeld prior to becoming Secretary of Defense under the Bush administration.
Consistent with its role as "lead agency", more than half of the money earmarked by the Bush administration for the program was handed over to the Pentagon. In other words, what we are dealing with is a process of militarization of the civilian public health budget. . Part of the money for a public health is controlled by the Department of Defense, under the rules of DoD procurement.
"The US Senate voted [September 3, 2005] yesterday to provide $4 billion for antiviral drugs and other measures to prepare for a feared influenza pandemic, but whether the measure would clear Congress was uncertain.
The Senate attached the measure to a $440 billion defense-spending bill for 2006, according to the Associated Press (AP). But the House included no flu money in its version of the defense bill, and a key senator said he would try to keep the funds out of the House-Senate compromise version. The Senate is expected to vote on the overall bill next week.
Almost $3.1 billion of the money would be used to stockpile the antiviral drug oseltamivir (Tamiflu), and the rest would go for global flu surveillance, development of vaccines, and state and local preparedness, according to a Reuters report. The government currently has enough oseltamivir to treat a few million people, with a goal of acquiring enough to treat 20 million"
(CIDRAP, http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/influenza/panflu/news/sep3005avian.html)
The threat of the H5N1 bird flu pandemic in 2005 resulted in multibillion dollar earnings for the pharmaceutical and biotech industry. In this regard, a number of major pharmaceutical companies including GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi-Aventis, California based Chiron Corp, BioCryst Pharmaceuticals Inc, Novavax and Wave Biotech, Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche Holding, had already positioned themselves
In 2005,.a Maryland-based biotechnology company MedImmune which produces "an inhaled flu vaccine" had positioned itself to develop a vaccine against the H5N1 avian flu. Although it had no expertise in the avian flu virus, one of the major actors in the vaccine business, on contract to the Pentagon, was Bioport, a company part owned by the Carlyle Group, closely linked to the Bush Cabinet with Bush Senior on its board of directors.
Vaccination under a Public Health Emergency. Multibillion Financial Bonanza for the BioTech Conglomerates
The 2005 bird flu hoax was in many regards a dress rehearsal. The 2009 H1N1 pandemic is a much larger multibillion dollar operation. A select number of biotech and pharmaceutical companies have been involved in negotiations behind closed doors with the WHO and the US Administration. Key agencies are the Atlanta based Center for Disease Control and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) which have close ties to the pharmaceutical industry. The conflicts of interest of these agencies is brought to light in Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s detailed study entitled Vaccinations: Deadly Immunity, June 2005:
"The story of how government health agencies colluded with Big Pharma to hide the risks of thimerosal from the public is a chilling case study of institutional arrogance, power and greed. I was drawn into the controversy only reluctantly. As an attorney and environmentalist who has spent years working on issues of mercury toxicity, I frequently met mothers of autistic children who were absolutely convinced that their kids had been injured by vaccines. .. "The elementary grades are overwhelmed with children who have symptoms of neurological or immune-system damage," Patti White, a school nurse, told the House Government Reform Committee in 1999. "Vaccines are supposed to be making us healthier; however, in twenty-five years of nursing I have never seen so many damaged, sick kids. Something very, very wrong is happening to our children." Robert F. Kennedy Jr, Vaccinations: Deadly Immunity, June 2005.
The WHO is planning for the production of 4.9 billion dose, enough to inoculate a large share of the World's population. Big Pharma including Baxter, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, Sanofi-Aventis and AstraZeneca have signed procurement contracts with some 50 governments. (Reuters, July 16, 2009). For these companies, compulsory vaccination is a highly lucrative undertaking:
"The WHO has refused to release the Minutes of a key meeting of an advisory vaccine group "packed with executives from Baxter, Novartis and Sanofi" that recommended compulsory vaccinations in the USA, Europe and other countries against the artificial H1N1 "swine flu" virus this autumn.
In an email this morning, a WHO spokesperson claimed there are no Minutes of the meeting that took place on July 7th in which guidelines on the need for worldwide vaccinations that WH0 adopted this Monday were formulated and in which Baxter and other Pharma executives participated.
Under the International Health Regulations, WHO guidelines have a binding character on all of WHO's 194 signatory countries in the event of a pandemic emergency of the kind anticipated this autumn when the second more lethal wave of the H1N1 virus "which is bioengineered to resemble the Spanish flu virus" emerges.
In short: WHO has the authority to force everyone in those 194 countries to take a vaccine this fall at gunpoint, impose quarantines and restrict travel." (Jane Burgermeister, WHO moves forward in secrecy to accomplish forced vaccination and population agenda, Global Research, July 2009).
On May 19th, the WHO Director General and senior officials met behind closed doors with the representatives of some 30 pharmaceutical companies.
"In a perfect world the planet's leading pharmaceutical companies could produce 4.9 billion H1N1 swine flu vaccinations over the course of the next year. This is the World Health Organization's latest assessment. WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan met with 30 pharmaceutical companies on Tuesday and briefed reporters on a WHO plan to secure vaccinations for poor countries who lack sufficient infrastructure to fight a possible pandemic. (Digital Journal, 19 May 2009)
According to recent report in Business Week, "Wealthier countries such as the U.S. and Britain will pay just under $10 per dose, the same price for the seasonal flu vaccine. Developing countries will pay a lower price, (Business Week, July 2009). The WHO suggests that the 4.9 billion doses will not suffice and that a second inoculation will be required.
4,9 billion doses at about ten dollars ($10.00) a shot and somewhat less in the developing countries, represents a windfall profit bonanza for Big Pharma of the order of 400 billion dollars in a single year. And the WHO claims that one dose per person may not suffice...
Dangerous Life Threatening Vaccine: Who owns the Patent?
While the production has been entrusted to a select number of companies, it would appear that the intellectual property rights belong to Illinois based pharmaceutical giant Baxter. Baxter is central in the negotiations between the US Administration and the World Health Organization (WHO). Moreover, "a full year before any reported case of the current alleged H1N1" Baxter had filed for a patent for the H1N1 vaccine:
Baxter Vaccine Patent Application US 2009/0060950 A1. (See William Engdahl, Now legal immunity for swine flu vaccine makers, Global Research, July 2009). Their application: states:
“the composition or vaccine comprises more than one antigen... such as influenza A and influenza B in particular selected from of one or more of the human H1N1, H2N2, H3N2, H5N1, H7N7, H1N2, H9N2, H7N2, H7N3, H10N7 subtypes, of the pig flu H1N1, H1N2, H3N1 and H3N2 subtypes, of the dog or horse flu H7N7, H3N8 subtypes or of the avian H5N1, H7N2, H1N7, H7N3, H13N6, H5N9, H11N6, H3N8, H9N2, H5N2, H4N8, H10N7, H2N2, H8N4, H14N5, H6N5, H12N5 subtypes."
The application further states, “Suitable adjuvants can be selected from mineral gels, aluminium hydroxide, surface active substances, lysolecithin, pluronic polyols, polyanions or oil emulsions such as water in oil or oil in water, or a combination thereof. Of course the selection of the adjuvant depends on the intended use. Eg. toxicity may depend on the destined subject organism and can vary from no toxicity to high toxicity."
With no legal liability, could it be that Baxter is preparing to sell hundreds of millions of doses containing highly toxic aluminium hydroxide as adjuvant? (Ibid)
The Los Angeles Times has reassured the US public with an article entitled: What are the odds that H1N1 will kill you? One might also ask, what are the odds that the H1N1 vaccine will kill you?
National Emergency Centers Establishment Act: H.R. 645
There are no indications that the Obama Adminstration is planning in the forseeable future a Public Health Emergency which would require the imposition of martial law. What we have emphasised in this article is the existence of various provisions (legislation and presidential directives) which would allow the President of the United States to instigate Martial Law in the case of a Public Health Emergency. If Martial Law were to be adopted in the context of a Public Health Emergency, what we would be dealing with is the "forced vaccination" of targeted population groups as well as the possible establishment of facilities for the internment of people who have been quarantined.
In this regard, it is worth noting that in January 2009, a piece of legislation entitled the National Emergency Centers Establishment Act (HR 645) was introduced in the US Congress.The bill calls for the establishment of six national emergency centers in major regions in the US to be located on existing military installations, which could be used to quarantine people in the case of a public health emergency or forced vaccination program.
The bill goes far beyond previous legislation (including H.R 5122). The stated purpose of the "national emergency centers" is to provide "temporary housing, medical, and humanitarian assistance to individuals and families dislocated due to an emergency or major disaster." In actuality, what we are dealing with are FEMA internment camps. HR 645 states that the camps can be used to "meet other appropriate needs, as determined by the Secretary of Homeland Security." (Michel Chossudovsky, Preparing for Civil Unrest in America Legislation to Establish Internment Camps on US Military Bases, Global Research, March 2009)
There has been virtually no press coverage of HR 645, which is currently being discussed by several congressional committees. There are no indications that the bill is on its way to being adopted.
These "civilian facilities" on US military bases are to be established in cooperation with the US Military.
Once a person is arrested and interned in a FEMA camp located on a military base, that person would in all likelihood, under a public health emergency, fall under the de facto jurisdiction of the Military: civilian justice and law enforcement including habeas corpus would no longer apply.
HR 645 could be used, were it to be adopted, in the case of public health emergency. It obviously bears a direct relationship to the economic crisis and the likelihood of mass protests across America. It constitutes a further move to militarize civilian law enforcement, repealing the Posse Comitatus Act.
In the words of Rep. Ron Paul:
"...the fusion centers, militarized police, surveillance cameras and a domestic military command is not enough.. Even though we know that detention facilities are already in place, they now want to legalize the construction of FEMA camps on military installations using the ever popular excuse that the facilities are for the purposes of a national emergency. With the phony debt-based economy getting worse and worse by the day, the possibility of civil unrest is becoming a greater threat to the establishment. One need only look at Iceland, Greece and other nations for what might happen in the United States next." (Daily Paul, September 2008, emphasis added)
The proposed internment camps should be seen in relation to the broader process of militarization of civilian institutions. The construction of internment camps predates the introduction of HR 645 (Establishment of Emergency Centers) in January 2009.
"Military Civil Support": The Role of US Northern Command in the Case of a Flu Pandemic
US Northern Command has a mandate to support and oversee civilian institutions in the case of a National Emergency.
"In addition to defending the nation, U.S. Northern Command provides defense support of civil authorities in accordance with U.S. laws and as directed by the President or Secretary of Defense. Military assistance is always in support of a lead federal agency, such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
Military civil support includes domestic disaster relief operations that occur during fires, hurricanes, floods, and earthquakes. Support also includes counter-drug operations and consequence management assistance, such as would occur after a terrorist event employing a weapon of mass destruction.
Generally, an emergency must exceed the management capabilities of local, state and federal agencies before U.S. Northern Command becomes involved. In providing civil support, the command operates through subordinate Joint Task Forces.
(See US Northcom website at http://www.northcom.mil/index.cfm?fuseaction=s.who_civil ).
The Katrina and Rita hurricane disasters played a key role in shaping the role of US Northern Command in "military civil support" activities. The emergency procedures were closely coordinated by US Northern Command out of the Peterson Air Force Base, together with Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA.
During Hurricane Rita (September 2005), US Northern Command Headquarters was directly in control of the movement of military personnel and hardware in the Gulf of Mexico, in some cases overriding, as in the case of Katrina, the actions of civilian bodies. The entire operation was under the jurisdiction of the military rather than FEMA. (Michel Chossudovsky, US Northern Command and Hurricane Rita, Global Research, September 24, 2005)
Northern Command would, as part of its mandate in the case of a national emergency, oversee a number of civilian functions. In the words of Preident Bush at the height of the Rita hurricane, "the Government and the US military needed broader authority to help handle major domestic crises such as hurricanes." Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff subsequently classified Hurricane Rita as an "incident of national significance," which justified the activation of a so-called "National Response Plan"(NRP). (For further details, consult the complete document at http://www.dhs.gov/interweb/assetlibrary/NRPbaseplan.pdf
Within the broader framework of "Disaster Relief", Northern Command has, in the course of the last two years, defined a mandate in the eventuality of a public health emergency or a flu pandemic. The emphasis is on the militarization of public health whereby NORTHCOM would oversee the activities of civilian institutions involved in health related services.
According Brig. Gen. Robert Felderman, deputy director of USNORTHCOM's Plans, Policy and Strategy Directorate: “USNORTHCOM is the global synchronizer – the global coordinator – for pandemic influenza across the combatant commands”(emphasis added) (See Gail Braymen, USNORTHCOM contributes pandemic flu contingency planning expertise to trilateral workshop, USNORTHCOM, April 14, 2008, See also USNORTHCOM. Pandemic Influenza Chain Training (U) pdf)
“Also, the United States in 1918 had the Spanish influenza. We were the ones who had the largest response to [a pandemic] in more recent history. So I discussed what we did then, what we expect to have happen now and the numbers that we would expect in a pandemic influenza.”
The potential number of fatalities in the United States in a modern pandemic influenza could reach nearly two million, according to Felderman. Not only would the nation's economy suffer, but the Department of Defense would still have to be ready and able to protect and defend the country and provide support of civil authorities in disaster situations. While virtually every aspect of society would be affected, “the implications for Northern Command will be very significant.”
“[A pandemic would have] a huge economic impact, in addition to the defense-of-our-nation impact,” Felderman said. The United States isn't alone in preparing for such a potential catastrophe. (Gail Braymen, op cit)
Also of relevance, was the repatriation of combat units from the war theater to assist US Northern Command in the case of a national emergency including a flu pandemic. In the last months of the Bush administration, the Department of Defense ordered the recall of the 3rd Infantry's 1st Brigade Combat Team from Iraq.
The BCT combat unit was attached to US Army North, the Army's component of US Northern Command (USNORTHCOM). The 1st BCT and other combat units would be called upon to perform specific military functions in the case of a national emergency or natural disaster including a public health emergency:
"The Army Times reports that the 3rd Infantry's 1st Brigade Combat Team is returning from Iraq to defend the Homeland, as "an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks." The BCT unit has been attached to US Army North, the Army's component of US Northern Command (USNORTHCOM). (See Gina Cavallaro, Brigade homeland tours start Oct 1, Army Times, September 8, 2008, emphasis added).
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By Michel Chossudovsky
URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14543
Global Research, July 26, 2009
"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." (Mike Wallace, CBS, 60 Minutes, November 4, 1979)
"The federal officials and industry representatives had assembled to discuss a disturbing new study that raised alarming questions about the safety of a host of common childhood vaccines administered to infants and young children. According to a CDC epidemiologist named Tom Verstraeten, who had analyzed the agency's massive database containing the medical records of 100,000 children, a mercury-based preservative in the vaccines -- thimerosal -- appeared to be responsible for a dramatic increase in autism and a host of other neurological disorders among children....
"It's hard to calculate the damage to our country -- and to the international efforts to eradicate epidemic diseases -- if Third World nations come to believe that America's most heralded foreign-aid initiative is poisoning their children. It's not difficult to predict how this scenario will be interpreted by America's enemies abroad." (Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Vaccinations: Deadly Immunity, June 2005)
"Vaccines are supposed to be making us healthier; however, in twenty-five years of nursing I have never seen so many damaged, sick kids. Something very, very wrong is happening to our children."( Patti White, School nurse, statement to the House Government Reform Committee, 1999, quoted in Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Vaccinations: Deadly Immunity, June 2005)
"On the basis of ... expert assessments of the evidence, the scientific criteria for an influenza pandemic have been met. I have therefore decided to raise the level of influenza pandemic alert from Phase 5 to Phase 6. The world is now at the start of the 2009 influenza pandemic. ... Margaret Chan, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO), Press Briefing 11 June 2009)
"As many as 2 billion people could become infected over the next two years — nearly one-third of the world population." (World Health Organization as reported by the Western media, July 2009)
"Swine flu could strike up to 40 percent of Americans over the next two years and as many as several hundred thousand could die if a vaccine campaign and other measures aren't successful." (Official Statement of the US Administration, Associated Press, 24 July 2009).
"The U.S. expects to have 160 million doses of swine flu vaccine available sometime in October", (Associated Press, 23 July 2009)
"Vaccine makers could produce 4.9 billion pandemic flu shots per year in the best-case scenario", Margaret Chan, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO), quoted by Reuters, 21 July 2009)
Wealthier countries such as the U.S. and Britain will pay just under $10 per dose [of the H1N1 flu vaccine]. ... Developing countries will pay a lower price." [circa $400 billion for Big Pharma] (Business Week, July 2009)
War without borders, a great depression, a military adventure in the Middle East, a massive concentration of wealth resulting from the restructuring of the global financial system.
The unfolding economic and social dislocations are far-reaching.
People's lives are destroyed.
The World is at the juncture of the most serious crisis in modern history.
Bankruptcies, mass unemployment, the collapse of social programs, are the untold consequences.
But public opinion must remain ignorant of the causes of the global crisis.
"The worst of the recession is behind us";
"There are growing signs of economic recovery",
"The Middle East War is a 'Just War'", a humanitarian endeavor,
Coalition forces are involved in "peace-keeping," we are "fighting terrorism with democracy"
"We must defend ourselves against terrorist attacks"
Figures on civilian deaths are manipulated. War crimes are concealed.
People are misled on the nature and history of the New World Order.
The real causes and consequences of this Worldwide economic and social collapse remain unheralded. Realities are turned up side down. The "real crisis" must be obfuscated through political lies and media disinformation.
It is in the interest of the political powerbrokers and the dominant financial actors to divert public attention from an understanding of the global crisis.
How best to achieve this goal?
By artificially creating an atmosphere of fear and intimidation which serves to weaken and disarm organized dissent directed against the established economic and political order.
The objective is to undermine all forms of opposition and social resistance.
We are dealing with a diabolical project The public must not only remain in the dark. As the crisis worsens, as people become impoverished, the real causes must be replaced by a set of fictitious relationships.
A crisis based on fake causes is heralded: "the global war on terrorism" is central to misleading the public's understanding of the Middle East War, which is a battle for the control over extensive reserves of oil and natural gas.
The antiwar movement is weakened. People are unable to think. They unequivocally endorse the "war on terrorism" consensus. They accept the political lies. In their inner consciousness, terrorists are threatening their livelihood.
In this framework, the occurrence of "natural disasters", "pandemics", "environmental catastrophes" also plays a useful political role. It distorts the real causes of the crisis. It justifies a global public health emergency on humanitarian grounds.
The Worldwide H1N1 swine flu pandemic: Towards a Global Public Health Emergency?
The Worldwide H1N1 swine flu pandemic serves to mislead public opinion.
The 2009 pandemic, which started in Mexico in April, is timely: it coincides with a deepening economic depression. It takes place at a time of military escalation.
The epidemiological data is fabricated, falsified and manipulated. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), an epidemic of worldwide proportions now looms and threatens the livelihood of millions of people.
A "Catastrophic Emergency" is in the making. The WHO and the US Centre for Disease Control (CDC) are authoritative bodies. Why would they lie? The information released by these organizations, although subject to statistical errors, could not, by any stretch of the imagination, be falsified or manipulated.
People believe that the public health crisis at a global level is real and that government health officials are "working for the public good."
Press reports confirm the US government's intent to implement a mass H1N1 vaccination program in Fall-Winter of 2009. A major contract for 160 million doses has been established with Big Pharma, enough to inoculate more than half the US population. Similar plans are ongoing in other Western countries including France, Canada, the UK.
Volunteers are being recruited to test the swine flu vaccine during the month of August, with a view to implementing a nationwide vaccination program in the Fall.
Manipulating The Data
There is ample evidence, documented in numerous reports, that the WHO's level 6 pandemic alert is based on fabricated evidence and a manipulation of the figures on mortality and morbidity resulting from the N1H1 swine flu.
The data initially used to justify the WHO's Worldwide level 5 alert in April 2009 was extremely scanty. The WHO asserted without evidence that a "global outbreak of the disease is imminent". It distorted Mexico's mortality data pertaining to the swine flu pandemic. According to the WHO Director General Dr. Margaret Chan in her official April 29 statement: "So far, 176 people have been killed in Mexico". From what? Where does she get these numbers? 159 died from influenza out of which only seven deaths, corroborated by lab analysis, resulted from the H1N1 swine flu strain, according to the Mexican Ministry of Health.
Similarly in New York city in April, several hundred children were categorized as having the H1N1 influenza, yet in none of these cases, was the diagnosis corroborated on a laboratory test.
"Dr. Frieden said. Health officials reached their preliminary conclusion after conducting viral tests on nose or throat swabs from the eight students, which allowed them to eliminate other strains of flu."
Tests were conducted on school children in Queen's, but the tests were inconclusive: among theses "hundreds of school children", there were no reports of laboratory analysis leading to a positive identification of the influenza virus. In fact the reports are contradictory: according to the reports, the Atlanta based CDCP is the "only lab in the country that can positively confirm the new swine flu strain — which has been identified as H1N1." (Michel Chossudovsky, Political Lies and Media Disinformation regarding the Swine Flu Pandemic, Global Research, May 2009, last quotation is from the New York Times, April 25, 2009)
Influenza is a common disease. Unless there is a thorough lab examination, the identity if the virus cannot be established.
There are numerous cases of seasonal influenza across America, on an annual basis. "According to the Canadian Medical Association Journal, the flu kills up to 2,500 Canadians and about 36,000 Americans annually. Worldwide, the number of deaths attributed to the flu each year is between 250,000 and 500,000" (Thomas Walkom, The Toronto Star, May 1, 2009).
What the CDCP and the WHO are doing is routinely us re-categorizing a large number of cases of common influenza as H1N1 swine flu.
"The increasing number of cases in many countries with sustained community transmission is making it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for countries to try and confirm them through laboratory testing. Moreover, the counting of individual cases is now no longer essential in such countries for monitoring either the level or nature of the risk posed by the pandemic virus or to guide implementation of the most appropriate response measures. (WHO, Briefing note, 2009)
The WHO admits that laboratory at a country level testing is often absent, while emphasising that lab confirmation it is not for data collection, with a view to ascertaining the spread of the disease:
A strategy that concentrates on the detection, laboratory confirmation and investigation of all cases, including those with mild illness, is extremely resource-intensive. In some countries, this strategy is absorbing most national laboratory and response capacity, leaving little capacity for the monitoring and investigation of severe cases and other exceptional events. ... For all of these reasons, WHO will no longer issue the global tables showing the numbers of confirmed cases for all countries. However, as part of continued efforts to document the global spread of the H1N1 pandemic, regular updates will be provided describing the situation in the newly affected countries. WHO will continue to request that these countries report the first confirmed cases and, as far as feasible, provide weekly aggregated case numbers and descriptive epidemiology of the early cases. (Ibid)
At a June 2009 WHO press conference, the issue of lab testing was raised:
Marion Falco, CNN Atlanta: My question may be a little basic but if you are not, and so forgive me for that, if you are not requiring testing in the countries that already have well established numbers of cases, then how are you distinguishing between seasonal flu and this particular flu. I mean how are you going to separate the numbers?
Dr Fukuda, WHO, Geneva: It is not that we are recommending not doing any testing at all. In fact when the guidance comes out, what it will suggest is what countries are to do is tailor down their testing so that they are not trying to test everybody but certainly keeping up testing of some people for exactly the kinds of reasons that you bring up. When people get sick with an influenza-like illness it will be important for us to know whether is it caused by the pandemic virus or whether is caused by seasonal viruses. What we are indicating is that if you ratchet down the level of testing we will still be able to figure that out and so we do not need to test everybody for that, but we will continue to recommend some level of testing – at a lower level of people who continue to get sick. See Transcript of WHO Virtual Press Conference, Dr Keiji Fukuda, Assistant Director-General for Health Security and Environment, WHO, Geneva, July 2009, emphasis added).
"Figure that out"? What the foregoing statements by the WHO suggest is that:
1) the WHO is not collecting data on the spread of H1N1 based on systematic lab confirmation.
2) the WHO in fact discourages national health officials to conduct detection and laboratory confirmation, while also pressuring the countries' public health authorities to duly deliver to the WHO on a weekly basis the data on H1N1 cases.
3) The WHO in its reporting only refers to "confirmed cases" It does not distinguish between confirmed and non-confirmed case. It would appear that the "non-confirmed" cases are categorized as confirmed cases and the numbers are then used by the WHO to prove that the disease is spreading. (See WHO tables: http://www.who.int/csr/don/2009_07_06/en/index.html)
The swine flu has the same symptoms as seasonal influenza: fever, cough and sore throat. What is happening is that the widespread incidence of the common flu is being used to generate the reports delivered to the WHO pertaining to the H1N1 swine flu. Nonetheless, in the tabulated release of country level data, the WHO uses the term: "number of laboratory-confirmed cases", while also admitting that the cases are, in many cases, not confirmed.
Worldwide Pandemic
The WHO establishes trends on the spread of the disease, essentially using unconfirmed data. Based on these extrapolations, the WHO is now claiming, in the absence of laboratory confirmation, that "as many as 2 billion people could become infected over the next two years — nearly one-third of the world population." In turn, in the US, the Atlanta based Centers for Disease Control (CDC) suggests that "swine flu could strike up to 40 percent of Americans over the next two years and as many as several hundred thousand could die if a vaccine campaign and other measures aren't successful." (AP, July 24, 2009).
How did they come up with these numbers?
The CDC estimate has nothing to do with an assessment of the spread of the H1N1 virus. It is based on a mechanical pro-rata extrapolation of trends underlying the 1957 pandemic, which resulted in 70,000 deaths in the US. The presumption here is that the H1N1 flu has the "same transmission path" as the 1957 epidemic.
Creating a Crisis where there is No Crisis
The underlying political intent is to use the WHO level six pandemic to divert public attention from an impending and far-reaching social crisis, which is largely the consequence of a deep-seated global economic depression.
On the basis of ... expert assessments of the evidence, the scientific criteria for an influenza pandemic have been met. I have therefore decided to raise the level of influenza pandemic alert from Phase 5 to Phase 6. The world is now at the start of the 2009 influenza pandemic. ... Calling a pandemic is also a signal to the international community. This is a time where the world's countries, rich or poor, big or small, must come together in the name of global solidarity to make sure that no countries because of poor resources, no countries' people should be left behind without help. ...The World Health Organization has been in contact with donor communities, development partners, resource poor countries, and also drug companies as well as vaccine companies. Margaret Chan, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO), Press Briefing, 11 June 2009
WHO Director General Margaret Chan
How best to tame the Nation's citizens, to rein in people's resentment in the face of mounting unemployment?
Create a Worldwide pandemic, instil an atmosphere of anxiety and intimidation, which demobilizes meaningful and organized public action against the programmed enrichment of a social minority. The flu pandemic is used to foreclose organized resistance against the government's economic policies in support of the financial elites. It provides both a pretext and a justification to adopt emergency procedures. Under the existing legislation in the US, Martial Law, implying the suspension of constitutional government, could be invoked in the case of "A Catastrophic Emergency" including a the H1N1 swine flu pandemic.
Martial Law
Legislation inherited from the Clinton administration, not to mention the post 9/11 Patriot Acts I and II, allow the military to intervene in judicial and civilian law enforcement activities. In 1996, legislation was passed which allowed the military to intervene in the case of a national emergency. In 1999, Clinton's Defense Authorization Act (DAA) extended those powers (under the 1996 legislation) by creating an "exception" to the Posse Comitatus Act, which permits the military to be involved in civilian affairs "regardless of whether there is an emergency". (See ACLU at http://www.aclu.org/NationalSecurity/NationalSecurity.cfm?ID=8683&c=24 )
The issue of a pandemic or public health emergency , however, was not explicitly outlined in the Clinton era legislation.
The Katrina disaster (2005) constitutes a dividing line, a watershed leading de facto to the militarization of emergency relief:
"The disaster that struck New Orleans and the southern Gulf Coast has given rise to the largest military mobilization in modern history on US soil. Nearly 65,000 US military personnel are now deployed in disaster area, transforming the devastated port city into a war zone," (Bill Van Auken, Wsws.org, September 2005).
Hurricanes Katrina (August 2005) and Rita (September 2005) contributed to justifying the role of the Military in natural disasters. They also contributed to shaping the formulation of presidential directives and subsequent legislation. President Bush called for the Military to become the "lead agency" in disaster relief:
".....The other question, of course, I asked, was, is there a circumstance in which the Department of Defense becomes the lead agency. Clearly, in the case of a terrorist attack, that would be the case, but is there a natural disaster which -- of a certain size that would then enable the Defense Department to become the lead agency in coordinating and leading the response effort. That's going to be a very important consideration for Congress to think about. (Press Conference, 25 Sept 2005 http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=BUS20050925&articleId=1004 )
Militarization of Public Health: The Avian Flu
The 2005 bird flu crisis followed barely a month after Hurricane Rita. It was presented to the US public as an issue of National Security. Following the 2005 outbreak of avian flu, president Bush confirmed that the military would be actively involved in the case of a pandemic, with the authority to detain large numbers of people:
"I am concerned about avian flu. I'm concerned about what an avian flu outbreak could mean for the United States and the world. ... I have thought through the scenarios of what an avian flu outbreak could mean....
The policy decisions for a president in dealing with an avian flu outbreak are difficult. ...
If we had an outbreak somewhere in the United States, do we not then quarantine that part of the country? And how do you, then, enforce a quarantine?
... One option is the use of a military that's able to plan and move. So that's why I put it on the table. I think it's an important debate for Congress to have.
... But Congress needs to take a look at circumstances that may need to vest the capacity of the president to move beyond that debate. And one such catastrophe or one such challenge could be an avian flu outbreak. (White House Press Conference, 4 October, 2005, emphasis added)
On the day following Bush`s October 4, 2005 Press Conference, a major piece of legislation was introduced in the US Senate. The Pandemic Preparedness and Response Act.
While the proposed legislation was never adopted, it nonetheless contributed to building a consensus among key members of the US Senate. The militarization of public health was subsequently embodied in the John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007.
"Public Health Emergency" and Martial Law: The John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007. H.R. 5122
New legislation is devised. The terms "epidemic", and "public health emergency" are explicitly included in a key piece of legislation, signed into law by President Bush in October 2006.
Lost in the midst of hundreds of pages, Public Law 109-364, better known as the "John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007" (H.R.5122) includes a specific section on the role of the Military in national emergencies.
Section 1076 of this legislation entitled "Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies" allows the President of the United States the deploy the armed forces and the National Guard across the US, to "restore public order and enforce the laws of the United States" in the case of "a natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency":
SEC. 1076. USE OF THE ARMED FORCES IN MAJOR PUBLIC EMERGENCIES.
(a) Use of the Armed Forces Authorized-
(1) IN GENERAL- Section 333 of title 10, United States Code, is amended to read as follows:
`Sec. 333. Major public emergencies; interference with State and Federal law
`(a) Use of Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies- (1) The President may employ the armed forces, including the National Guard in Federal service, to--
`(A) restore public order and enforce the laws of the United States when, as a result of a natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident, or other condition in any State or possession of the United States, the President determines that--
`(i) domestic violence has occurred to such an extent that the constituted authorities of the State or possession are incapable of maintaining public order; and
`(ii) such violence results in a condition described in paragraph (2); or
`(B) suppress, in a State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy if such insurrection, violation, combination, or conspiracy results in a condition described in paragraph (2).
`(2) A condition described in this paragraph is a condition that--
`(A) so hinders the execution of the laws of a State or possession, as applicable, and of the United States within that State or possession, that any part or class of its people is deprived of a right, privilege, immunity, or protection named in the Constitution and secured by law, and the constituted authorities of that State or possession are unable, fail, or refuse to protect that right, privilege, or immunity, or to give that protection; or
`(B) opposes or obstructs the execution of the laws of the United States or impedes the course of justice under those laws
`(3) In any situation covered by paragraph (1)(B), the State shall be considered to have denied the equal protection of the laws secured by the Constitution.
`(b) Notice to Congress- The President shall notify Congress of the determination to exercise the authority in subsection (a)(1)(A) as soon as practicable after the determination and every 14 days thereafter during the duration of the exercise of that authority.' (See ext of HR5122 http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c109:6:./temp/~c109bW9vKy:e939907: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h109-5122&tab=summary
These far-reaching provisions allow the Armed Forces to override the authority of civilian federal, state and local governments involved in disaster relief and public health. It also grants the Military a mandate in civilian police functions. Namely the legislation implies the militarization of law enforcement in the case of a national emergency
"Catastrophic Emergency" and "Continuity of Government,": The National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive NSPD 51/HSPD 20
Coinciding with the passage of the John Warner Defense Authorization Act, a National Security Presidential Directive was issued in May 2007, (National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive NSPD 51/HSPD 20) .
NSPD 51 /HSPD 20 is a combined National Security Directive emanating from the White House and Homeland Security. While it is formulated in relation to the domestic "war on terrorism", it also includes provisions which allow for Martial Law in case of a natural disaster including a flu pandemic.
The thrust and emphasis of NSPD 51, however, is different from that of Section 1076 of HR 5122. It defines the functions of the Department of Homeland Security in the case of a national emergency and its relationship to the White House and the Military. It also provides the President with sweeping powers to declare a national emergency, without Congressional approval.
The directive establishes procedures for "Continuity of Government" (COG) in the case of a "Catastrophic Emergency". The latter is defined in NSPD 51/HSPD 20 (henceforth referred to as NSPD 51), as "any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions."
"Continuity of Government," or "COG," is defined in NSPD 51 as "a coordinated effort within the Federal Government's executive branch to ensure that National Essential Functions continue to be performed during a Catastrophic Emergency."
The President shall lead the activities of the Federal Government for ensuring constitutional government. In order to advise and assist the President in that function, the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counter terrorism (APHS/CT) is hereby designated as the National Continuity Coordinator. The National Continuity Coordinator, in coordination with the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (APNSA), without exercising directive authority, shall coordinate the development and implementation of continuity policy for executive departments and agencies. The Continuity Policy Coordination Committee (CPCC), chaired by a Senior Director from the Homeland Security Council staff, designated by the National Continuity Coordinator, shall be the main day-to-day forum for such policy coordination. (National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive NSPD 51/HSPD 20, emphasis added)
This Combined Directive NSPD /51 HSPD 20 grants unprecedented powers to the Presidency and the Department of Homeland Security, overriding the foundations of Constitutional government. NSPD 51 allows the sitting president to declare a �national emergency� without Congressional approval The adoption of NSPD 51 would lead to the de facto closing down of the Legislature and the militarization of justice and law enforcement.
NSPD 51 grants extraordinary Police State powers to the White House and Homeland Security (DHS), in the event of a "Catastrophic Emergency".
A flu pandemic or public health emergency is part of the terms of reference of NSPD 51. "Catastrophic Emergency" is broadly defined in NSPD 51 as "any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions"
"The President shall lead the activities of the Federal Government for ensuring constitutional government. In order to advise and assist the President in that function, the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counter terrorism (APHS/CT) is hereby designated as the National Continuity Coordinator. The National Continuity Coordinator, in coordination with the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (APNSA), without exercising directive authority, shall coordinate the development and implementation of continuity policy for executive departments and agencies. The Continuity Policy Coordination Committee (CPCC), chaired by a Senior Director from the Homeland Security Council staff, designated by the National Continuity Coordinator, shall be the main day-to-day forum for such policy coordination. (National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive NSPD 51/HSPD 20, emphasis added)
The directive acknowledges the overriding power of the military in the case of a national emergency: The presidential directive "Shall not be construed to impair or otherwise affect... the authority of the Secretary of Defense over the Department of Defense, including the chain of command for military forces from the President, to the Secretary of Defense, to the commander of military forces, or military command and control procedures".
Since their enactment two years ago, neither the John Warner Defense Authorization Act nor NSPD 51 have been the object of media debate or discussion.
NSPD 51 and/or the John Warner H.R.5122 could be invoked at short notice following the declaration of a national health emergency and a nationwide forced vaccination program. The hidden agenda consists in using the threat of a pandemic and/or the plight of a natural disaster as a pretext to establish military rule, under the facade of a "functioning democracy".
Vaccination: From H5N1 to H1N1
A nationwide flu vaccination program has been in the pipeline in the US since 2005.
According to the Wall Street Journal (Oct 1, 2005), the Bush administration had asked Congress for an estimated $6-10 billion "to stockpile vaccines and antiviral medications as part of its plans to prepare the U.S. for a possible flu pandemic." A large part of this budget, namely 3.1 billion was used under the Bush administration to stockpile the antiviral drug oseltamivir (Tamiflu), of which the intellectual property rights belong to Gilead Science Inc, a company headed by Don Rumsfeld prior to becoming Secretary of Defense under the Bush administration.
Consistent with its role as "lead agency", more than half of the money earmarked by the Bush administration for the program was handed over to the Pentagon. In other words, what we are dealing with is a process of militarization of the civilian public health budget. . Part of the money for a public health is controlled by the Department of Defense, under the rules of DoD procurement.
"The US Senate voted [September 3, 2005] yesterday to provide $4 billion for antiviral drugs and other measures to prepare for a feared influenza pandemic, but whether the measure would clear Congress was uncertain.
The Senate attached the measure to a $440 billion defense-spending bill for 2006, according to the Associated Press (AP). But the House included no flu money in its version of the defense bill, and a key senator said he would try to keep the funds out of the House-Senate compromise version. The Senate is expected to vote on the overall bill next week.
Almost $3.1 billion of the money would be used to stockpile the antiviral drug oseltamivir (Tamiflu), and the rest would go for global flu surveillance, development of vaccines, and state and local preparedness, according to a Reuters report. The government currently has enough oseltamivir to treat a few million people, with a goal of acquiring enough to treat 20 million"
(CIDRAP, http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/influenza/panflu/news/sep3005avian.html)
The threat of the H5N1 bird flu pandemic in 2005 resulted in multibillion dollar earnings for the pharmaceutical and biotech industry. In this regard, a number of major pharmaceutical companies including GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi-Aventis, California based Chiron Corp, BioCryst Pharmaceuticals Inc, Novavax and Wave Biotech, Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche Holding, had already positioned themselves
In 2005,.a Maryland-based biotechnology company MedImmune which produces "an inhaled flu vaccine" had positioned itself to develop a vaccine against the H5N1 avian flu. Although it had no expertise in the avian flu virus, one of the major actors in the vaccine business, on contract to the Pentagon, was Bioport, a company part owned by the Carlyle Group, closely linked to the Bush Cabinet with Bush Senior on its board of directors.
Vaccination under a Public Health Emergency. Multibillion Financial Bonanza for the BioTech Conglomerates
The 2005 bird flu hoax was in many regards a dress rehearsal. The 2009 H1N1 pandemic is a much larger multibillion dollar operation. A select number of biotech and pharmaceutical companies have been involved in negotiations behind closed doors with the WHO and the US Administration. Key agencies are the Atlanta based Center for Disease Control and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) which have close ties to the pharmaceutical industry. The conflicts of interest of these agencies is brought to light in Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s detailed study entitled Vaccinations: Deadly Immunity, June 2005:
"The story of how government health agencies colluded with Big Pharma to hide the risks of thimerosal from the public is a chilling case study of institutional arrogance, power and greed. I was drawn into the controversy only reluctantly. As an attorney and environmentalist who has spent years working on issues of mercury toxicity, I frequently met mothers of autistic children who were absolutely convinced that their kids had been injured by vaccines. .. "The elementary grades are overwhelmed with children who have symptoms of neurological or immune-system damage," Patti White, a school nurse, told the House Government Reform Committee in 1999. "Vaccines are supposed to be making us healthier; however, in twenty-five years of nursing I have never seen so many damaged, sick kids. Something very, very wrong is happening to our children." Robert F. Kennedy Jr, Vaccinations: Deadly Immunity, June 2005.
The WHO is planning for the production of 4.9 billion dose, enough to inoculate a large share of the World's population. Big Pharma including Baxter, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, Sanofi-Aventis and AstraZeneca have signed procurement contracts with some 50 governments. (Reuters, July 16, 2009). For these companies, compulsory vaccination is a highly lucrative undertaking:
"The WHO has refused to release the Minutes of a key meeting of an advisory vaccine group "packed with executives from Baxter, Novartis and Sanofi" that recommended compulsory vaccinations in the USA, Europe and other countries against the artificial H1N1 "swine flu" virus this autumn.
In an email this morning, a WHO spokesperson claimed there are no Minutes of the meeting that took place on July 7th in which guidelines on the need for worldwide vaccinations that WH0 adopted this Monday were formulated and in which Baxter and other Pharma executives participated.
Under the International Health Regulations, WHO guidelines have a binding character on all of WHO's 194 signatory countries in the event of a pandemic emergency of the kind anticipated this autumn when the second more lethal wave of the H1N1 virus "which is bioengineered to resemble the Spanish flu virus" emerges.
In short: WHO has the authority to force everyone in those 194 countries to take a vaccine this fall at gunpoint, impose quarantines and restrict travel." (Jane Burgermeister, WHO moves forward in secrecy to accomplish forced vaccination and population agenda, Global Research, July 2009).
On May 19th, the WHO Director General and senior officials met behind closed doors with the representatives of some 30 pharmaceutical companies.
"In a perfect world the planet's leading pharmaceutical companies could produce 4.9 billion H1N1 swine flu vaccinations over the course of the next year. This is the World Health Organization's latest assessment. WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan met with 30 pharmaceutical companies on Tuesday and briefed reporters on a WHO plan to secure vaccinations for poor countries who lack sufficient infrastructure to fight a possible pandemic. (Digital Journal, 19 May 2009)
According to recent report in Business Week, "Wealthier countries such as the U.S. and Britain will pay just under $10 per dose, the same price for the seasonal flu vaccine. Developing countries will pay a lower price, (Business Week, July 2009). The WHO suggests that the 4.9 billion doses will not suffice and that a second inoculation will be required.
4,9 billion doses at about ten dollars ($10.00) a shot and somewhat less in the developing countries, represents a windfall profit bonanza for Big Pharma of the order of 400 billion dollars in a single year. And the WHO claims that one dose per person may not suffice...
Dangerous Life Threatening Vaccine: Who owns the Patent?
While the production has been entrusted to a select number of companies, it would appear that the intellectual property rights belong to Illinois based pharmaceutical giant Baxter. Baxter is central in the negotiations between the US Administration and the World Health Organization (WHO). Moreover, "a full year before any reported case of the current alleged H1N1" Baxter had filed for a patent for the H1N1 vaccine:
Baxter Vaccine Patent Application US 2009/0060950 A1. (See William Engdahl, Now legal immunity for swine flu vaccine makers, Global Research, July 2009). Their application: states:
“the composition or vaccine comprises more than one antigen... such as influenza A and influenza B in particular selected from of one or more of the human H1N1, H2N2, H3N2, H5N1, H7N7, H1N2, H9N2, H7N2, H7N3, H10N7 subtypes, of the pig flu H1N1, H1N2, H3N1 and H3N2 subtypes, of the dog or horse flu H7N7, H3N8 subtypes or of the avian H5N1, H7N2, H1N7, H7N3, H13N6, H5N9, H11N6, H3N8, H9N2, H5N2, H4N8, H10N7, H2N2, H8N4, H14N5, H6N5, H12N5 subtypes."
The application further states, “Suitable adjuvants can be selected from mineral gels, aluminium hydroxide, surface active substances, lysolecithin, pluronic polyols, polyanions or oil emulsions such as water in oil or oil in water, or a combination thereof. Of course the selection of the adjuvant depends on the intended use. Eg. toxicity may depend on the destined subject organism and can vary from no toxicity to high toxicity."
With no legal liability, could it be that Baxter is preparing to sell hundreds of millions of doses containing highly toxic aluminium hydroxide as adjuvant? (Ibid)
The Los Angeles Times has reassured the US public with an article entitled: What are the odds that H1N1 will kill you? One might also ask, what are the odds that the H1N1 vaccine will kill you?
National Emergency Centers Establishment Act: H.R. 645
There are no indications that the Obama Adminstration is planning in the forseeable future a Public Health Emergency which would require the imposition of martial law. What we have emphasised in this article is the existence of various provisions (legislation and presidential directives) which would allow the President of the United States to instigate Martial Law in the case of a Public Health Emergency. If Martial Law were to be adopted in the context of a Public Health Emergency, what we would be dealing with is the "forced vaccination" of targeted population groups as well as the possible establishment of facilities for the internment of people who have been quarantined.
In this regard, it is worth noting that in January 2009, a piece of legislation entitled the National Emergency Centers Establishment Act (HR 645) was introduced in the US Congress.The bill calls for the establishment of six national emergency centers in major regions in the US to be located on existing military installations, which could be used to quarantine people in the case of a public health emergency or forced vaccination program.
The bill goes far beyond previous legislation (including H.R 5122). The stated purpose of the "national emergency centers" is to provide "temporary housing, medical, and humanitarian assistance to individuals and families dislocated due to an emergency or major disaster." In actuality, what we are dealing with are FEMA internment camps. HR 645 states that the camps can be used to "meet other appropriate needs, as determined by the Secretary of Homeland Security." (Michel Chossudovsky, Preparing for Civil Unrest in America Legislation to Establish Internment Camps on US Military Bases, Global Research, March 2009)
There has been virtually no press coverage of HR 645, which is currently being discussed by several congressional committees. There are no indications that the bill is on its way to being adopted.
These "civilian facilities" on US military bases are to be established in cooperation with the US Military.
Once a person is arrested and interned in a FEMA camp located on a military base, that person would in all likelihood, under a public health emergency, fall under the de facto jurisdiction of the Military: civilian justice and law enforcement including habeas corpus would no longer apply.
HR 645 could be used, were it to be adopted, in the case of public health emergency. It obviously bears a direct relationship to the economic crisis and the likelihood of mass protests across America. It constitutes a further move to militarize civilian law enforcement, repealing the Posse Comitatus Act.
In the words of Rep. Ron Paul:
"...the fusion centers, militarized police, surveillance cameras and a domestic military command is not enough.. Even though we know that detention facilities are already in place, they now want to legalize the construction of FEMA camps on military installations using the ever popular excuse that the facilities are for the purposes of a national emergency. With the phony debt-based economy getting worse and worse by the day, the possibility of civil unrest is becoming a greater threat to the establishment. One need only look at Iceland, Greece and other nations for what might happen in the United States next." (Daily Paul, September 2008, emphasis added)
The proposed internment camps should be seen in relation to the broader process of militarization of civilian institutions. The construction of internment camps predates the introduction of HR 645 (Establishment of Emergency Centers) in January 2009.
"Military Civil Support": The Role of US Northern Command in the Case of a Flu Pandemic
US Northern Command has a mandate to support and oversee civilian institutions in the case of a National Emergency.
"In addition to defending the nation, U.S. Northern Command provides defense support of civil authorities in accordance with U.S. laws and as directed by the President or Secretary of Defense. Military assistance is always in support of a lead federal agency, such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
Military civil support includes domestic disaster relief operations that occur during fires, hurricanes, floods, and earthquakes. Support also includes counter-drug operations and consequence management assistance, such as would occur after a terrorist event employing a weapon of mass destruction.
Generally, an emergency must exceed the management capabilities of local, state and federal agencies before U.S. Northern Command becomes involved. In providing civil support, the command operates through subordinate Joint Task Forces.
(See US Northcom website at http://www.northcom.mil/index.cfm?fuseaction=s.who_civil ).
The Katrina and Rita hurricane disasters played a key role in shaping the role of US Northern Command in "military civil support" activities. The emergency procedures were closely coordinated by US Northern Command out of the Peterson Air Force Base, together with Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA.
During Hurricane Rita (September 2005), US Northern Command Headquarters was directly in control of the movement of military personnel and hardware in the Gulf of Mexico, in some cases overriding, as in the case of Katrina, the actions of civilian bodies. The entire operation was under the jurisdiction of the military rather than FEMA. (Michel Chossudovsky, US Northern Command and Hurricane Rita, Global Research, September 24, 2005)
Northern Command would, as part of its mandate in the case of a national emergency, oversee a number of civilian functions. In the words of Preident Bush at the height of the Rita hurricane, "the Government and the US military needed broader authority to help handle major domestic crises such as hurricanes." Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff subsequently classified Hurricane Rita as an "incident of national significance," which justified the activation of a so-called "National Response Plan"(NRP). (For further details, consult the complete document at http://www.dhs.gov/interweb/assetlibrary/NRPbaseplan.pdf
Within the broader framework of "Disaster Relief", Northern Command has, in the course of the last two years, defined a mandate in the eventuality of a public health emergency or a flu pandemic. The emphasis is on the militarization of public health whereby NORTHCOM would oversee the activities of civilian institutions involved in health related services.
According Brig. Gen. Robert Felderman, deputy director of USNORTHCOM's Plans, Policy and Strategy Directorate: “USNORTHCOM is the global synchronizer – the global coordinator – for pandemic influenza across the combatant commands”(emphasis added) (See Gail Braymen, USNORTHCOM contributes pandemic flu contingency planning expertise to trilateral workshop, USNORTHCOM, April 14, 2008, See also USNORTHCOM. Pandemic Influenza Chain Training (U) pdf)
“Also, the United States in 1918 had the Spanish influenza. We were the ones who had the largest response to [a pandemic] in more recent history. So I discussed what we did then, what we expect to have happen now and the numbers that we would expect in a pandemic influenza.”
The potential number of fatalities in the United States in a modern pandemic influenza could reach nearly two million, according to Felderman. Not only would the nation's economy suffer, but the Department of Defense would still have to be ready and able to protect and defend the country and provide support of civil authorities in disaster situations. While virtually every aspect of society would be affected, “the implications for Northern Command will be very significant.”
“[A pandemic would have] a huge economic impact, in addition to the defense-of-our-nation impact,” Felderman said. The United States isn't alone in preparing for such a potential catastrophe. (Gail Braymen, op cit)
Also of relevance, was the repatriation of combat units from the war theater to assist US Northern Command in the case of a national emergency including a flu pandemic. In the last months of the Bush administration, the Department of Defense ordered the recall of the 3rd Infantry's 1st Brigade Combat Team from Iraq.
The BCT combat unit was attached to US Army North, the Army's component of US Northern Command (USNORTHCOM). The 1st BCT and other combat units would be called upon to perform specific military functions in the case of a national emergency or natural disaster including a public health emergency:
"The Army Times reports that the 3rd Infantry's 1st Brigade Combat Team is returning from Iraq to defend the Homeland, as "an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks." The BCT unit has been attached to US Army North, the Army's component of US Northern Command (USNORTHCOM). (See Gina Cavallaro, Brigade homeland tours start Oct 1, Army Times, September 8, 2008, emphasis added).
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