Sent: Wednesday, April 29, 2009 10:26 AM
Subject: FEVER...the cure for flu viruses [or "The Tamiflu Myth"]
[MM: Like AMA-sanctioned, allopathic medicine...Tamiflu is
a sick joke! Even as children, we'd learned to bring a bottle
of water into the sauna to "burn out" colds by raising our
body temperatures. Just as important, remember to get lots
of Vitamin D. It's also no coincidence that the "Spanish" Flu
Pandemic got going in November of 1918...cold winters are
critical for the rapid propagation of viruses. Of course, the
body's Vitamin D levels are usually at rock-bottom levels at
this time, because there's virtually no direct-sunlight exposure.
Supplementation therefore becomes an absolute must.]
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, April 27, 2009 12:15 PM
Subject: Fw: FEVER...the cure for flu viruses [or "The Tamiflu Myth"]
Thanks Steve: I totally agree. If you get a fever stay with it, and ride it out, unless it goes over 105F. It is probably the best way to kill a virus. This is lifesaving advice, and I hope it is widely circulated. Tom
Subject: FEVER...the cure for flu viruses [or "The Tamiflu Myth"]
Ignore the profiteering, fear mongering and complicit/ignorant press........
Our children have gone through several bouts of fevers caused by colds and flu as well as gastrointestinal illness during the first half decade of their lives. It didn't take long before we realized that allowing the fevers to do their thing caused much more rapid healing. Their little bodies will engage in attacking the invading viruses by increasing core temperature and amazingly, in our experience, their bodies never allowed the measured temperature to exceed the high 105s. Never have I ever measured a temperature above 105.7F even as we blanketed our ill child to help the body achieve its goal. You could graph the temprature and see that as soon as the temperature bumped up near 105.7, the temperature would decrease on its own to anywhere from 103F to 104F and then go for the 105s again, a little while later. In the morning, the temperature would subside and by mid-morning, the cycle would start again. Cycling like a Swiss watch. One time, years ago, my daughter broke her fever with a mild febrile seizure (that was a an abrupt increase in her fever at a time before we realized that lowering a high fever was dangerous). A tepid bath lowers fever in more controlled fashion to about 102 for more than a couple hours, chemical free. Keeping tabs on their temperatures, at least at the onset of high fevers was a must to ensure meningitis etc., were not the cause, as the body can breach 106F if that's the case and that warrants a 911 call to EMS (sunstroke can also cause dangerously high temperatures). When a small child has a high temperature, it's no time to chemically reduce fever just for comfort's sake so that you get your beauty rest. It's time to be a parent and if needed, cat-nap with'em throughout the night.
"Most medical doctors mistakenly believe in the "anti-body" response of the immune system as the method by which the body fights viral infections. But not so.
The body causes a fever above 101 degrees which stops the telomeres on the ends of the virus from allowing any viral replication.
The fever is the human or mammalian body's primary generalized immune system response to any viral infection. Any palliative treatment which reduces the fever of flu infections will prolong the infection and may lead to irreparable damage or death, mostly from the resulting viral pneumonia. But the pneumonia was caused by lowering the fever and allowing uncontrolled viral replication in the lungs. Most cold and flu medications, including aspirin and Tamiflu are in this palliative class. "
HOW TO INSTANTLY STOP THE VIRAL REPLICATION PROCESS
Why Mammals are Different from Reptiles and Birds
.....reducing the fever with Nyquil, or Aspirin or other cold and flu medications can kill you when the Viral RNA is allowed to unzip millions of copies of the original single Viral DNA molecule."
What causes the RNA copy to completely release the newly made copy, and unzip the new DNA virus from the RNA master copy is something at the end of the molecule chain, called a TELOMERE. When the DNA copy is complete, the electrical charge on the RNA Telomere changes, like flipping an electrical switch, and it then releases and repels the new DNA copy by electrical forces. But the RNA Telomere is temperature sensitive, it won't release a new copy if it is too warm.
If the temperature of the Telomere on the end of the RNA chain is too hot -- meaning above 102 degrees F, then the Telomere cannot unzip and release the new DNA copy. The RNA and the new DNA viral copy are electrically bonded together -- and they are stuck -- they can't unzip and separate. Thus, the original viral DNA cannot replicate even one copy of itself using the RNA if you have a fever of about 101 to 102 degrees. That is why humans and all warm-blooded mammals on earth produce a fever when infected with a virus, since it prevents the original viral DNA from replicating any copies of itself at all. Thus -- the end of the line for the original virus and any viral replication. That is also why most viruses on earth come from birds and reptiles, since they cannot raise their body temperature to cause a fever, and the viruses can run rampant among those animals. Sometimes a viral infections can wipe out and cause complete extinctions among reptiles, amphibians and birds. This is rare among warm-blooded mammals which can create fevers when infected with viruses.
That's also why we have fevers. And that is why reducing the fever with Nyquil, or Aspirin or other cold and flu medications can kill you when the Viral RNA is allowed to unzip millions of copies of the original single Viral DNA molecule. Each new copy of the original viral DNA can then repeat the process and quickly produce billions of copies of itself in an hour or so, and start infecting more and more of your cells, until it kills you. But the high temperature or a fever will stop the viral replication process instantly.
Article:
THE TAMIFLU MYTH [article also attached to email in PDF format]
"It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows." ~ Epictetus (c.55-c.135
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Flying Pigs, Tamiflu and Factory Farms
Flying Pigs, Tamiflu and Factory Farms
By F. William Engdahl
URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13408
Global Research, April 29, 2009
If we are to believe what our trusted international media report, the world is on the brink of a global pandemic outbreak of a new deadly strain of flu, H1N1 as it has been labelled, or more popularly, Swine Flu. As the story goes, the outbreak of the deadly flu was first discovered in Mexico. According to press reports, after several days, headlines reported as many as perhaps 150 deaths in Mexico were believed caused by this virulent people-killing pig virus that has spread to humans and now is allegedly being further spread from human to human. Cases were being reported hourly from Canada to Spain and beyond. The only thing wrong with this story is that it is largely based on lies, hype and coverup of possible real causes of Mexican deaths.
One website, revealingly named Swine Flu Vaccine, reports the alarming news, ‘One out of every five residents of Mexico's most populous city wore masks to protect themselves against the virus as Mexico City seems to be the epicenter of the outbreak. As many as 103 deaths have been attributed to the swine flu so far with many more feared to be on the horizon. The health department of Mexico said an additional 1,614 reported cases have been documented.' We are told that the H1N1 ‘shares genetic material from human, avian and swine influenza viruses.'1
Airports around the world have installed passenger temperature scans to identify anyone with above normal body temperature as possible suspect for swine flu. Travel to Mexico has collapsed. Sales of flu vaccines, above all Tamiflu from Roche Inc., have exploded in days. People have stopped buying pork fearing certain death. The World Health Organization has declared a ‘a public health emergency of international concern,' defined by them as ‘an occurrence or imminent threat of illness or health conditions caused by bioterrorism, epidemic or pandemic disease, or highly fatal infectious agents or toxins that pose serious risk to a significant number of people.'2
What are the symptoms of this purported Swine Flu? That's not at all clear according to virologists and public health experts. They say Swine Flu symptoms are relatively general and nonspecific. ‘So many different things can cause these symptoms. it is a dilemma,' says one doctor interviewed by CNN. ‘There is not a perfect test right now to let a doctor know that a person has the Swine Flu.' It has been noted that most individuals with Swine Flu had an early on set of fever. Also it was common to see dizziness, body aches and vomiting in addition to the common sneezing, headache and other cold symptoms. These are symptoms so general as to say nothing.
The US Government's Center for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta states on its official website, ‘Swine Influenza (swine flu) is a respiratory disease of pigs caused by type A influenza viruses that causes regular outbreaks in pigs. People do not normally get swine flu, but human infections can and do happen. Swine flu viruses have been reported to spread from person-to-person, but in the past, this transmission was limited and not sustained beyond three people.' Nonetheless they add, ‘CDC has determined that this swine influenza A (H1N1) virus is contagious and is spreading from human to human. However, at this time, it is not known how easily the virus spreads between people.'3
How many media that have grabbed on the headline ‘suspected case of Swine Flu' in recent days bother to double check with the local health authorities to ask some basic questions? For example, the number of confirmed cases of H1N1 and their location? The number of deaths confirmed to have resulted from H1N1? Dates of both? Number of suspected cases and of suspected deaths related to the Swine Flu disease?
Some known facts
According to Biosurveillance, itself part of Veratect, a US Pentagon and Government-linked epidemic reporting center, on April 6, 2009 local health officials declared a health alert due to a respiratory disease outbreak in La Gloria, Perote Municipality, Veracruz State, Mexico.
They reported, ‘Sources characterized the event as a ‘strange' outbreak of acute respiratory infection, which led to bronchial pneumonia in some pediatric cases. According to a local resident, symptoms included fever, severe cough, and large amounts of phlegm. Health officials recorded 400 cases that sought medical treatment in the last week in La Gloria, which has a population of 3,000; officials indicated that 60% of the town's population (approximately 1,800 cases) has been affected. No precise timeframe was provided, but sources reported that a local official had been seeking health assistance for the town since February.' What they later say is ‘strange' is not the form of the illness but the time of year as most flu cases occur in Mexico in the period October to February.
The report went on to note, ‘Residents claimed that three pediatric cases, all under two years of age, died from the outbreak. However, health officials stated that there was no direct link between the pediatric deaths and the outbreak; they stated the three fatal cases were "isolated" and "not related" to each other.'
Then, most revealingly, the aspect of the story which has been largely ignored by major media, they reported, ‘Residents believed the outbreak had been caused by contamination from pig breeding farms located in the area. They believed that the farms, operated by Granjas Carroll, polluted the atmosphere and local water bodies, which in turn led to the disease outbreak. According to residents, the company denied responsibility for the outbreak and attributed the cases to "flu." However, a municipal health official stated that preliminary investigations indicated that the disease vector was a type of fly that reproduces in pig waste and that the outbreak was linked to the pig farms.'4
Since the dawn of American ‘agribusiness,' a project initiated with funding by the Rockefeller Foundation in the 1950's to turn farming into a pure profit maximization business, US pig or hog production has been transformed into a highly efficient, mass production industrialized enterprise from birth to slaughter. Pigs are caged in what are called Factory Farms, industrial concentrations which are run with the efficiency of a Dachau or Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. They are all conceived by artificial insemination and once born, are regularly injected with antibiotics, not because of illnesses which abound in the hyper-crowded growing pens, but in order to make them grow and add weight faster. Turn around time to slaughter is a profit factor of highest priority. The entire operation is vertically integrated from conception to slaughter to transport distribution to supermarket.
Granjas Carroll de Mexico (GCM) happens to be such a Factory Farm concentration facility for hogs. In 2008 they produced almost one million factory hogs, 950,000 according to their own statistics. GCM is a joint venture operation owned 50% by the world's largest pig producing industrial company, Smithfield Foods of Virginia.5 The pigs are grown in a tiny rural area of Mexico, a member of the North American Free Trade Agreement, and primarily trucked across the border to supermarkets in the USA, under the Smithfields' family of labels. Most American consumers have no idea where the meat was raised.
Now the story becomes interesting.
Manure Lagoons and other playing fields
The Times of London interviewed the mother of 4-year-old Edgar Hernandez of La Gloria in Veracruz, the location of the giant Smithfield Foods hog production facility. Their local reporter notes, ‘Edgar Hernández plays among the dogs and goats that roam through the streets, seemingly unaware that the swine flu he contracted a few weeks ago — the first known case — has almost brought his country to a standstill and put the rest of the world on alert. ‘I feel great,' the five-year-old boy said. ‘But I had a headache and a sore throat and a fever for a while. I had to lay down in bed.''
The reporters add, ‘It was confirmed on Monday (April 27 2009-w.e.) that Edgar was the first known sufferer of swine flu, a revelation that has put La Gloria and its surrounding factory pig farms and ‘manure lagoons' at the centre of a global race to find how this new and deadly strain of swine flu emerged.' 6
That's quite interesting. They speak of ‘La Gloria and its surrounding factory pig farms and ‘manure lagoons.'' Presumably the manure lagoons around the LaGloria factory pig farm of Smithfield Foods are the waste dumping place for the feces and urine waste from at least 950,000 pigs a year that pass through the facility. The Smithfield's Mexico joint venture, Norson, states that alone they slaughter 2,300 pigs daily. That's a lot. It gives an idea of the volumes of pig waste involved in the concentration facility at La Gloria.
Significantly, according to the Times reporters, ‘residents of La Gloria have been complaining since March that the odour from Granjas Carroll's pig waste was causing severe respiratory infections. They held a demonstration this month at which they carried signs of pigs crossed with an X and marked with the word peligro (danger).'7 There have been calls to exhume the bodies of the children who died of pneumonia so that they could be tested. The state legislature of Veracruz has demanded that Smithfield's Granjas Carroll release documents about its waste-handling practices. Smithfield Foods reportedly declined to comment on the request, saying that it would ‘not respond to rumours.'8
A research compilation by Ed Harris reported, ‘According to residents, the company denied responsibility for the outbreak and attributed the cases to ‘flu.' However, a municipal health official stated that preliminary investigations indicated that the disease vector was a type of fly that reproduces in pig waste and that the outbreak was linked to the pig farms.'9 That would imply that the entire Swine Flu scare might have originated from the PR spin doctors of the world's largest industrial pig factory farm operation, Smithfield Foods.
The Vera Cruz-based newspaper La Marcha blames Smithfield's Granjos Carroll for the outbreak, highlighting inadequate treatment of massive quantities of animal waste from hog production.10
Understandably the company is perhaps more than a bit uncomfortable with the sudden attention. The company, which supplies the McDonald's and Subway fast-food chains, was fined $12.3 million in the United States 1997 for violating the Clean Water Act. Perhaps they are in a remote tiny Mexican rural area enjoying a relatively lax regulatory climate where they need not worry about being cited for violations of any Clean Water Act.
Pig Factory Farm Industrial Production is a classic breeder of disease and toxins but little attention is being paid to this source
Factory Farms as toxic concentrations
At the very least the driving force for giant industrial agribusiness outsourcing of facilities to third world sites such as Veracruz, Mexico has more to do with further cost reduction and lack of health and safety scrutiny than it does with improving the health and safety quality of the food end product. It has been widely documented and subject of US Congressional reports that large-scale indoor animal production facilities such as that of Granjos Carroll are notorious breeding grounds for toxic pathogens.
A recent report by the US Pew Foundation in cooperation with the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health notes, ‘the method of producing food animals in the United States has changed from the extensive system of small and medium-sized farms owned by a single family to a system of large, intensive operations where the animals are housed in large numbers in enclosed structures that resemble industrial buildings more than they do a traditional barn. That change has happened primarily out of view of consumers but has come at a cost to the environment and a negative impact on public health, rural communities, and the health and well-being of the animals themselves. 11
The Pew study notes, ‘The diversified, independent, family-owned farms of 40 years ago that produced a variety of crops and a few animals are disappearing as an economic entity, replaced by much larger, and often highly leveraged, farm factories. The animals that many of these farms produce are owned by the meat packing companies from the time they are born
or hatched right through their arrival at the processing plant and from there to market.' 12
The study emphasizes that application of ‘untreated animal waste on cropland can contribute to excessive nutrient loading, contaminate surface waters, and stimulate bacteria and algal
growth and subsequent reductions in dissolved oxygen concentrations in surface waters.'13
That is where the real investigation ought to begin, with the health and sanitary dangers of the industrial factory pig farms like the one at Perote in Veracruz. The media spread of panic-mongering reports of every person in the world who happens to contract ‘symptoms' which vaguely resemble flu or even Swine Flu and the statements to date of authorities such as WHO or CDC are far from conducive to a rational scientific investigation..
Tamiflu and Rummy
In October 2005 the Pentagon ordered vaccination of all US military personnel worldwide against what it called Avian Flu, H5N1. Scare stories filled world media. Then, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announced he had budgeted more than $1 billion to stockpile the vaccine, Oseltamivir sold under the name, Tamiflu. President Bush called on Congress to appropriate another $2 billion for Tamiflu stocks.
What Rumsfeld neglected to report at the time was a colossal conflict of interest. Prior to coming to Washington in January 2001, Rumsfeld had been chairman of a California pharmaceutical company, Gilead Sciences. Gilead Sciences held exclusive world patent rights to Tamiflu, a drug it had developed and whose world marketing rights were sold to the Swiss pharma giant, Roche. Rumsfeld was reportedly the largest stock holder in Gilead which got 10% of every Tamiflu dose Roche sold. 14 When it leaked out, the Pentagon issued a curt statement to the effect that Secretary Rumsfeld had decided not to sell but to retain his stock in Gilead, claiming that to sell would have indicated something to hide.' That agonizing decision won him reported added millions as the Gilead share price soared more than 700% in weeks.
Tamiflu is no mild candy to be taken lightly. It has heavy side effects. It contains matter that could have potentially deadly consequences for a person's breathing and often reportedly leads to nausea, dizziness and other flu-like symptoms.
Since the outbreak of Swine Flu Panic (not Swine Flu but Swine Flu Panic) sales of Tamiflu as well as any and every possible drug marketed as flu related have exploded. Wall Street firms have rushed to issue ‘buy' recommendations for the company. ‘Gimme me a shot Doc, I don't care what it is...I don' wanna die...'
Panic and fear of death was used by the Bush Administration skilfully to promote the Avian Flu fraud. With ominous echoes of the current Swine Flu scare, Avian Flu was traced back to huge chicken factory farms in Thailand and other parts of Asia whose products were shipped across the world. Instead of a serious investigation into the sanitary conditions of those chicken factory farms, the Bush Administration and WHO blamed ‘free-roaming chickens' on small family farms, a move that had devastating economic consequences to the farmers whose chickens were being raised in the most sanitary natural conditions. Tyson Foods of Arkansas and CG Group of Thailand reportedly smiled all the way to the bank.
Now it remains to be seen if the Obama Administration will use the scare around so-called Swine Flu to repeat the same scenario, this time with ‘flying pigs' instead of flying birds. Already Mexican authorities have reported that the number of deaths confirmed from so-called Swine Flu is 7 not the 150 or more bandied in the media and that most other suspected cases were ordinary flu or influenza.
(To be continued)
F. William Engdahl is author of Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation (Global Rersearch, 2007, see below) and A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order (Pluto Press). His new book, Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order (Third Millennium Press) is due out end of May. He may be contacted through his website: www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net.
Notes
1 Health Advisory, accessed in http://www.swine-flu-vaccine.info/.
2 Ibid.
3 Centers for Disease Control, Swine Influenza and You, accessed in
http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/swineflu_you.htm.
4 Biosurveillance, Swine Flu in Mexico- Timeline of Events, April 24, 2009, accessed in
http://biosurveillance.typepad.com/biosurveillance/2009/04/swine-flu-in-mexico-timeline-of-events.html.
5 Smithfield Foods website, accessed in
http://www.smithfieldfoods.com/our_company/our_family/Norson.aspx.
6] Ruth Maclean in La Gloria and Chris Ayres in Mexico City, I had a headache and fever' says boy who survived, London Times, April 28, 2009.
7] Ibid.
8 Ibid.
9 Ed Harris, Bloggers Examine Environmental Role in Mexico Swine Flu Outbreak, April 27, 2009, accessed in
http://www.planetthoughts.org/?pg=pt/Whole&qid=2870.
10 Ibid.
11 The Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production, Putting Meat on the Table: Industrial Farm
Animal Production in America, accessed in http://www.ncifap.org/_images/PCIFAPFin.pdf.
12 Ibid.
13 Ibid.
14 F. William Engdahl, Is Avian Flu another Pentagon Hoax?, GlobalResearch, October 30, 2005.
Seeds of Destruction
The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation
by F. William Engdahl
Global Research, 2007 ISBN 978-0-937147-2-2
To order click here
This skillfully researched book focuses on how a small socio-political American elite seeks to establish control over the very basis of human survival: the provision of our daily bread. "Control the food and you control the people."
This is no ordinary book about the perils of GMO. Engdahl takes the reader inside the corridors of power, into the backrooms of the science labs, behind closed doors in the corporate boardrooms.
The author cogently reveals a diabolical World of profit-driven political intrigue, government corruption and coercion, where genetic manipulation and the patenting of life forms are used to gain worldwide control over food production. If the book often reads as a crime story, that should come as no surprise. For that is what it is.
Engdahl's carefully argued critique goes far beyond the familiar controversies surrounding the practice of genetic modification as a scientific technique. The book is an eye-opener, a must-read for all those committed to the causes of social justice and World peace.
What is so frightening about Engdahl's vision of the world is that it is so real. Although our civilization has been built on humanistic ideals, in this new age of "free markets", everything-- science, commerce, agriculture and even seeds-- have become weapons in the hands of a few global corporation barons and their political fellow travelers. To achieve world domination, they no longer rely on bayonet-wielding soldiers. All they need is to control food production. (Dr. Arpad Pusztai, biochemist, formerly of the Rowett Research Institute Institute, Scotland)
If you want to learn about the socio-political agenda --why biotech corporations insist on spreading GMO seeds around the World-- you should read this carefully researched book. You will learn how these corporations want to achieve control over all mankind, and why we must resist... (Marijan Jost, Professor of Genetics, Krizevci, Croatia)
The book reads like a murder mystery of an incredible dimension, in which four giant Anglo-American agribusiness conglomerates have no hesitation to use GMO to gain control over our very means of subsistence.. (Anton Moser, Professor of Biotechnology, Graz, Austria).
To order Seeds of Destruction click here
Please support Global Research
Global Research relies on the financial support of its readers.
By F. William Engdahl
URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13408
Global Research, April 29, 2009
If we are to believe what our trusted international media report, the world is on the brink of a global pandemic outbreak of a new deadly strain of flu, H1N1 as it has been labelled, or more popularly, Swine Flu. As the story goes, the outbreak of the deadly flu was first discovered in Mexico. According to press reports, after several days, headlines reported as many as perhaps 150 deaths in Mexico were believed caused by this virulent people-killing pig virus that has spread to humans and now is allegedly being further spread from human to human. Cases were being reported hourly from Canada to Spain and beyond. The only thing wrong with this story is that it is largely based on lies, hype and coverup of possible real causes of Mexican deaths.
One website, revealingly named Swine Flu Vaccine, reports the alarming news, ‘One out of every five residents of Mexico's most populous city wore masks to protect themselves against the virus as Mexico City seems to be the epicenter of the outbreak. As many as 103 deaths have been attributed to the swine flu so far with many more feared to be on the horizon. The health department of Mexico said an additional 1,614 reported cases have been documented.' We are told that the H1N1 ‘shares genetic material from human, avian and swine influenza viruses.'1
Airports around the world have installed passenger temperature scans to identify anyone with above normal body temperature as possible suspect for swine flu. Travel to Mexico has collapsed. Sales of flu vaccines, above all Tamiflu from Roche Inc., have exploded in days. People have stopped buying pork fearing certain death. The World Health Organization has declared a ‘a public health emergency of international concern,' defined by them as ‘an occurrence or imminent threat of illness or health conditions caused by bioterrorism, epidemic or pandemic disease, or highly fatal infectious agents or toxins that pose serious risk to a significant number of people.'2
What are the symptoms of this purported Swine Flu? That's not at all clear according to virologists and public health experts. They say Swine Flu symptoms are relatively general and nonspecific. ‘So many different things can cause these symptoms. it is a dilemma,' says one doctor interviewed by CNN. ‘There is not a perfect test right now to let a doctor know that a person has the Swine Flu.' It has been noted that most individuals with Swine Flu had an early on set of fever. Also it was common to see dizziness, body aches and vomiting in addition to the common sneezing, headache and other cold symptoms. These are symptoms so general as to say nothing.
The US Government's Center for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta states on its official website, ‘Swine Influenza (swine flu) is a respiratory disease of pigs caused by type A influenza viruses that causes regular outbreaks in pigs. People do not normally get swine flu, but human infections can and do happen. Swine flu viruses have been reported to spread from person-to-person, but in the past, this transmission was limited and not sustained beyond three people.' Nonetheless they add, ‘CDC has determined that this swine influenza A (H1N1) virus is contagious and is spreading from human to human. However, at this time, it is not known how easily the virus spreads between people.'3
How many media that have grabbed on the headline ‘suspected case of Swine Flu' in recent days bother to double check with the local health authorities to ask some basic questions? For example, the number of confirmed cases of H1N1 and their location? The number of deaths confirmed to have resulted from H1N1? Dates of both? Number of suspected cases and of suspected deaths related to the Swine Flu disease?
Some known facts
According to Biosurveillance, itself part of Veratect, a US Pentagon and Government-linked epidemic reporting center, on April 6, 2009 local health officials declared a health alert due to a respiratory disease outbreak in La Gloria, Perote Municipality, Veracruz State, Mexico.
They reported, ‘Sources characterized the event as a ‘strange' outbreak of acute respiratory infection, which led to bronchial pneumonia in some pediatric cases. According to a local resident, symptoms included fever, severe cough, and large amounts of phlegm. Health officials recorded 400 cases that sought medical treatment in the last week in La Gloria, which has a population of 3,000; officials indicated that 60% of the town's population (approximately 1,800 cases) has been affected. No precise timeframe was provided, but sources reported that a local official had been seeking health assistance for the town since February.' What they later say is ‘strange' is not the form of the illness but the time of year as most flu cases occur in Mexico in the period October to February.
The report went on to note, ‘Residents claimed that three pediatric cases, all under two years of age, died from the outbreak. However, health officials stated that there was no direct link between the pediatric deaths and the outbreak; they stated the three fatal cases were "isolated" and "not related" to each other.'
Then, most revealingly, the aspect of the story which has been largely ignored by major media, they reported, ‘Residents believed the outbreak had been caused by contamination from pig breeding farms located in the area. They believed that the farms, operated by Granjas Carroll, polluted the atmosphere and local water bodies, which in turn led to the disease outbreak. According to residents, the company denied responsibility for the outbreak and attributed the cases to "flu." However, a municipal health official stated that preliminary investigations indicated that the disease vector was a type of fly that reproduces in pig waste and that the outbreak was linked to the pig farms.'4
Since the dawn of American ‘agribusiness,' a project initiated with funding by the Rockefeller Foundation in the 1950's to turn farming into a pure profit maximization business, US pig or hog production has been transformed into a highly efficient, mass production industrialized enterprise from birth to slaughter. Pigs are caged in what are called Factory Farms, industrial concentrations which are run with the efficiency of a Dachau or Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. They are all conceived by artificial insemination and once born, are regularly injected with antibiotics, not because of illnesses which abound in the hyper-crowded growing pens, but in order to make them grow and add weight faster. Turn around time to slaughter is a profit factor of highest priority. The entire operation is vertically integrated from conception to slaughter to transport distribution to supermarket.
Granjas Carroll de Mexico (GCM) happens to be such a Factory Farm concentration facility for hogs. In 2008 they produced almost one million factory hogs, 950,000 according to their own statistics. GCM is a joint venture operation owned 50% by the world's largest pig producing industrial company, Smithfield Foods of Virginia.5 The pigs are grown in a tiny rural area of Mexico, a member of the North American Free Trade Agreement, and primarily trucked across the border to supermarkets in the USA, under the Smithfields' family of labels. Most American consumers have no idea where the meat was raised.
Now the story becomes interesting.
Manure Lagoons and other playing fields
The Times of London interviewed the mother of 4-year-old Edgar Hernandez of La Gloria in Veracruz, the location of the giant Smithfield Foods hog production facility. Their local reporter notes, ‘Edgar Hernández plays among the dogs and goats that roam through the streets, seemingly unaware that the swine flu he contracted a few weeks ago — the first known case — has almost brought his country to a standstill and put the rest of the world on alert. ‘I feel great,' the five-year-old boy said. ‘But I had a headache and a sore throat and a fever for a while. I had to lay down in bed.''
The reporters add, ‘It was confirmed on Monday (April 27 2009-w.e.) that Edgar was the first known sufferer of swine flu, a revelation that has put La Gloria and its surrounding factory pig farms and ‘manure lagoons' at the centre of a global race to find how this new and deadly strain of swine flu emerged.' 6
That's quite interesting. They speak of ‘La Gloria and its surrounding factory pig farms and ‘manure lagoons.'' Presumably the manure lagoons around the LaGloria factory pig farm of Smithfield Foods are the waste dumping place for the feces and urine waste from at least 950,000 pigs a year that pass through the facility. The Smithfield's Mexico joint venture, Norson, states that alone they slaughter 2,300 pigs daily. That's a lot. It gives an idea of the volumes of pig waste involved in the concentration facility at La Gloria.
Significantly, according to the Times reporters, ‘residents of La Gloria have been complaining since March that the odour from Granjas Carroll's pig waste was causing severe respiratory infections. They held a demonstration this month at which they carried signs of pigs crossed with an X and marked with the word peligro (danger).'7 There have been calls to exhume the bodies of the children who died of pneumonia so that they could be tested. The state legislature of Veracruz has demanded that Smithfield's Granjas Carroll release documents about its waste-handling practices. Smithfield Foods reportedly declined to comment on the request, saying that it would ‘not respond to rumours.'8
A research compilation by Ed Harris reported, ‘According to residents, the company denied responsibility for the outbreak and attributed the cases to ‘flu.' However, a municipal health official stated that preliminary investigations indicated that the disease vector was a type of fly that reproduces in pig waste and that the outbreak was linked to the pig farms.'9 That would imply that the entire Swine Flu scare might have originated from the PR spin doctors of the world's largest industrial pig factory farm operation, Smithfield Foods.
The Vera Cruz-based newspaper La Marcha blames Smithfield's Granjos Carroll for the outbreak, highlighting inadequate treatment of massive quantities of animal waste from hog production.10
Understandably the company is perhaps more than a bit uncomfortable with the sudden attention. The company, which supplies the McDonald's and Subway fast-food chains, was fined $12.3 million in the United States 1997 for violating the Clean Water Act. Perhaps they are in a remote tiny Mexican rural area enjoying a relatively lax regulatory climate where they need not worry about being cited for violations of any Clean Water Act.
Pig Factory Farm Industrial Production is a classic breeder of disease and toxins but little attention is being paid to this source
Factory Farms as toxic concentrations
At the very least the driving force for giant industrial agribusiness outsourcing of facilities to third world sites such as Veracruz, Mexico has more to do with further cost reduction and lack of health and safety scrutiny than it does with improving the health and safety quality of the food end product. It has been widely documented and subject of US Congressional reports that large-scale indoor animal production facilities such as that of Granjos Carroll are notorious breeding grounds for toxic pathogens.
A recent report by the US Pew Foundation in cooperation with the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health notes, ‘the method of producing food animals in the United States has changed from the extensive system of small and medium-sized farms owned by a single family to a system of large, intensive operations where the animals are housed in large numbers in enclosed structures that resemble industrial buildings more than they do a traditional barn. That change has happened primarily out of view of consumers but has come at a cost to the environment and a negative impact on public health, rural communities, and the health and well-being of the animals themselves. 11
The Pew study notes, ‘The diversified, independent, family-owned farms of 40 years ago that produced a variety of crops and a few animals are disappearing as an economic entity, replaced by much larger, and often highly leveraged, farm factories. The animals that many of these farms produce are owned by the meat packing companies from the time they are born
or hatched right through their arrival at the processing plant and from there to market.' 12
The study emphasizes that application of ‘untreated animal waste on cropland can contribute to excessive nutrient loading, contaminate surface waters, and stimulate bacteria and algal
growth and subsequent reductions in dissolved oxygen concentrations in surface waters.'13
That is where the real investigation ought to begin, with the health and sanitary dangers of the industrial factory pig farms like the one at Perote in Veracruz. The media spread of panic-mongering reports of every person in the world who happens to contract ‘symptoms' which vaguely resemble flu or even Swine Flu and the statements to date of authorities such as WHO or CDC are far from conducive to a rational scientific investigation..
Tamiflu and Rummy
In October 2005 the Pentagon ordered vaccination of all US military personnel worldwide against what it called Avian Flu, H5N1. Scare stories filled world media. Then, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announced he had budgeted more than $1 billion to stockpile the vaccine, Oseltamivir sold under the name, Tamiflu. President Bush called on Congress to appropriate another $2 billion for Tamiflu stocks.
What Rumsfeld neglected to report at the time was a colossal conflict of interest. Prior to coming to Washington in January 2001, Rumsfeld had been chairman of a California pharmaceutical company, Gilead Sciences. Gilead Sciences held exclusive world patent rights to Tamiflu, a drug it had developed and whose world marketing rights were sold to the Swiss pharma giant, Roche. Rumsfeld was reportedly the largest stock holder in Gilead which got 10% of every Tamiflu dose Roche sold. 14 When it leaked out, the Pentagon issued a curt statement to the effect that Secretary Rumsfeld had decided not to sell but to retain his stock in Gilead, claiming that to sell would have indicated something to hide.' That agonizing decision won him reported added millions as the Gilead share price soared more than 700% in weeks.
Tamiflu is no mild candy to be taken lightly. It has heavy side effects. It contains matter that could have potentially deadly consequences for a person's breathing and often reportedly leads to nausea, dizziness and other flu-like symptoms.
Since the outbreak of Swine Flu Panic (not Swine Flu but Swine Flu Panic) sales of Tamiflu as well as any and every possible drug marketed as flu related have exploded. Wall Street firms have rushed to issue ‘buy' recommendations for the company. ‘Gimme me a shot Doc, I don't care what it is...I don' wanna die...'
Panic and fear of death was used by the Bush Administration skilfully to promote the Avian Flu fraud. With ominous echoes of the current Swine Flu scare, Avian Flu was traced back to huge chicken factory farms in Thailand and other parts of Asia whose products were shipped across the world. Instead of a serious investigation into the sanitary conditions of those chicken factory farms, the Bush Administration and WHO blamed ‘free-roaming chickens' on small family farms, a move that had devastating economic consequences to the farmers whose chickens were being raised in the most sanitary natural conditions. Tyson Foods of Arkansas and CG Group of Thailand reportedly smiled all the way to the bank.
Now it remains to be seen if the Obama Administration will use the scare around so-called Swine Flu to repeat the same scenario, this time with ‘flying pigs' instead of flying birds. Already Mexican authorities have reported that the number of deaths confirmed from so-called Swine Flu is 7 not the 150 or more bandied in the media and that most other suspected cases were ordinary flu or influenza.
(To be continued)
F. William Engdahl is author of Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation (Global Rersearch, 2007, see below) and A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order (Pluto Press). His new book, Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order (Third Millennium Press) is due out end of May. He may be contacted through his website: www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net.
Notes
1 Health Advisory, accessed in http://www.swine-flu-vaccine.info/.
2 Ibid.
3 Centers for Disease Control, Swine Influenza and You, accessed in
http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/swineflu_you.htm.
4 Biosurveillance, Swine Flu in Mexico- Timeline of Events, April 24, 2009, accessed in
http://biosurveillance.typepad.com/biosurveillance/2009/04/swine-flu-in-mexico-timeline-of-events.html.
5 Smithfield Foods website, accessed in
http://www.smithfieldfoods.com/our_company/our_family/Norson.aspx.
6] Ruth Maclean in La Gloria and Chris Ayres in Mexico City, I had a headache and fever' says boy who survived, London Times, April 28, 2009.
7] Ibid.
8 Ibid.
9 Ed Harris, Bloggers Examine Environmental Role in Mexico Swine Flu Outbreak, April 27, 2009, accessed in
http://www.planetthoughts.org/?pg=pt/Whole&qid=2870.
10 Ibid.
11 The Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production, Putting Meat on the Table: Industrial Farm
Animal Production in America, accessed in http://www.ncifap.org/_images/PCIFAPFin.pdf.
12 Ibid.
13 Ibid.
14 F. William Engdahl, Is Avian Flu another Pentagon Hoax?, GlobalResearch, October 30, 2005.
Seeds of Destruction
The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation
by F. William Engdahl
Global Research, 2007 ISBN 978-0-937147-2-2
To order click here
This skillfully researched book focuses on how a small socio-political American elite seeks to establish control over the very basis of human survival: the provision of our daily bread. "Control the food and you control the people."
This is no ordinary book about the perils of GMO. Engdahl takes the reader inside the corridors of power, into the backrooms of the science labs, behind closed doors in the corporate boardrooms.
The author cogently reveals a diabolical World of profit-driven political intrigue, government corruption and coercion, where genetic manipulation and the patenting of life forms are used to gain worldwide control over food production. If the book often reads as a crime story, that should come as no surprise. For that is what it is.
Engdahl's carefully argued critique goes far beyond the familiar controversies surrounding the practice of genetic modification as a scientific technique. The book is an eye-opener, a must-read for all those committed to the causes of social justice and World peace.
What is so frightening about Engdahl's vision of the world is that it is so real. Although our civilization has been built on humanistic ideals, in this new age of "free markets", everything-- science, commerce, agriculture and even seeds-- have become weapons in the hands of a few global corporation barons and their political fellow travelers. To achieve world domination, they no longer rely on bayonet-wielding soldiers. All they need is to control food production. (Dr. Arpad Pusztai, biochemist, formerly of the Rowett Research Institute Institute, Scotland)
If you want to learn about the socio-political agenda --why biotech corporations insist on spreading GMO seeds around the World-- you should read this carefully researched book. You will learn how these corporations want to achieve control over all mankind, and why we must resist... (Marijan Jost, Professor of Genetics, Krizevci, Croatia)
The book reads like a murder mystery of an incredible dimension, in which four giant Anglo-American agribusiness conglomerates have no hesitation to use GMO to gain control over our very means of subsistence.. (Anton Moser, Professor of Biotechnology, Graz, Austria).
To order Seeds of Destruction click here
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Henry Kissinger Obama's envoy to Moscow was suspected of being a spy for Nazi Germany - Wayne Madsen Report
February 11, 2009 -- Henry Kissinger: Obama's envoy to Moscow was suspected of being a spy for Nazi Germany
publication date: Feb 10, 2009
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February 11, 2009 -- Henry Kissinger: Obama's envoy to Moscow was suspected of being a spy for Nazi Germany
On February 6, 2009, the Daily Telegraph of the UK featured a story that 85-year old former Nixon and Ford Secretary of State Henry Kissinger served as then-President-elect Barack Obama's special envoy to Moscow in December to secretly discuss mutual nuclear arms reductions. The choice of Kissinger to act as Obama's envoy shocked many in the progressive community who view Kissinger as a war criminal. Even President Ronald Reagan, suspicious of Kissinger's long-time ties to the Rockefellers, studiously kept Kissinger away from his administration. Kissinger withdrew his name from consideration as President George W. Bush's nominee to be chairman of the 9/11 Commission after widespread protests over his conflict-of-interests.
The Telegraphalso revealed that Obama forged close ties to Kissinger during the presidential campaign and quotes Kissinger as saying Obama could bring about a "new world order" after the Bush administration. Kissinger seemed to be implying that Obama could repair the damage caused by the neocons who infiltrated the Bush administration, yet it is Kissinger who is the granddaddy of all neocons - an individual whose bloody fingerprints are found throughout the world through his overt and covert support for all sorts of nasty fascists and corrupt and murderous dictators. Kissinger's association with Obama during the presidential campaign is even more troubling considering that Kissinger publicly endorsed John McCain for president.
For Obama to choose as his envoy to Moscow an individual who has outstanding bench warrants for his arrest in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, and France for his role in not only supporting, bit directing "Operation Condor," which saw thousands of leftists and progressives, incluidng U.S. citizens, "disappeared" by fascist regimes in South America during the 1970s is a slap in the face of every decent American who hoped that with the end of the Bush regime would come a change in U.S. relations with the rest of the world. Sadly, Obama, in choosing Kissinger to represent him, is not much better than Bush when it comes to shoving fascism in the face of the American people.
Kissinger's bloody past has involved the slaughter of millions in Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, East Pakistan/Bangladesh, East Timor, Cyprus, South America, southern Africa, and elsewhere.
Some ten years ago, this editor was contacted by two top investigative journalists for one of Germany's top news magazines who were looking into a story that Henry Kissinger was planted as a refugee by German Abwehr military intelligence in the United States to spy on the German Jewish refugee community that was arriving in increasing numbers in the United States after Adolf Hitler's rise to power. They said documentation was sketchy since it was believed that Reinhard Gehlen, a former German military intelligence Major General, had incriminating evidence against Kissinger either destroyed or hidden after he became the head of the post-war German Federal Intelligence Service, the Bundesnachrichtendienstor BND. Kissinger was very close to one of Gehlen's top agents, Eberhard Blum, who served as the BND's station chief in London for four years and Washington for twelve years. Blum, a Brigadier in Nazi Germany's Abwehr, was recruited personally by Gehlen.
I told the two journalists that I had not heard of the story before and was rather floored by the notion that Kissinger, who is Jewish, could have been a spy for the Nazis.
Kissinger arrived with his parents from Germany in 1938. His parents, Louis and Paula Stern Kissinger, changed Henry's name from "Heinz" to "Henry" because they felt "Heinz Kissinger" sounded "too German." In 1943, the former Heinz Kissinger was drafted into the U.S. Army and was assigned to the 970th Counterintelligence Corps (CIC) as a German translator earning the rank of Sergeant. Kissinger had access to the Army's most sensitive codes used to encrypt classified military communications. After the war, Kissinger was sent to Germany where he was an instructor at the European Command Intelligence School, a position from which he could re-establish any pre-war and war links with former Nazi intelligence officers who had then working for the Americans.
According to America's Secret Army by Ian Sayer and Douglas Botting, Kissinger, a mere Staff Sergeant, managed to evict a German from his villa and supposedly sought out Gestapo and SS officers for arrest. However, the CIC made exceptions, for example, in recruiting "Butcher of Lyons" Klaus Barbie who killed hundreds of French citizens and who was a wanted Nazi war criminal, as an agent for United States intelligence.
According to Sayer and Botting, in Germany, Staff Sergeant Kissinger had a German cook, a German housekeeper, a German secretary, and a German girlfriend. And Kissinger drove around in a Mercedes Benz.
Kissinger returned to the United States from Germany in 1947.
With documentation on Kissinger's alleged Nazi past either destroyed or hidden, there was a seeming dead end to the story of America's most diabolical and dastardly foreign policy official. Until a trip to London's Foyle's bookstore and the discovery of a book titled Hitler's Jewish Spy: The Most Extraordinary True Spy Story of World War II, written in 1985 by Israeli author Michael Bar-Zohar, who also wrote an acclaimed biography of Israel's first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion.
The book describes the exploits of decorated World War I veteran Paul Fackenheim, a German Jew who was an old wartime friend of Hermann Goring but who was interned as Prisoner Number 26,336 at the Dachau concentration camp. Fackenheim was ordered released from Dachau by the Abwehr to be trained as a spy for the Nazis and be parachuted into Palestine to learn about British military preparations to stop Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps from seizing the Suez Canal.
The Abwehr gave Fackenheim a new identity -- Paul Koch -- and trained him how to use German military intelligence code books and radio transmitters as a training center in Brussels. After being transported through Sofia, Bulgaria and Athens, Fackenheim/Koch was parachuted into Palestine on October 10, 1941. He was then captured by the British and imprisoned as a German spy in Haifa.
Fackenheim was disturbed by the British treatment of Jewish immigrants in Palestine, even equating it to the Nazi treatment of the Jews in Germany. The British intelligence headquarters in Cairo was convinced that Fackenheim was only pretending to be Jewish after he was arrested by the British. The British were convinced that they had captured an SS agent in Lebanon and Syria named Paula Koch. Others within British Staff Intelligence Middle East (SIME) were aware of a German intelligence colonel operating a spy network in Lebanon and Syria. Ironically, his last name was Falkenheim, very close to Fackenheim.
The British Information Services circulated pamphlets and other material in the United States claiming that illegal Jewish immigration into Palestine was being run by the Gestapo. Bar-Zohar's book quotes one such British circular: "Many of the German immigrants are disguised Nazis who intend to establish espionage networks in the Middle East." Bar-Zohar, although finding the claim revolting, admits that "Fackenheim seemed to be living proof that it wasn't totally false."
In 1940, the British government rounded up 30,000 German Jewish refugees suspected of being German agents and shipped them to an internment camp on the Isle of Man. Many of these were later shipped to Canada and Australia. MI-5 discovered that one German Jewish refugee, Hans Arnheim, was sending intelligence reports to German intelligence agents in the Netherlands. The New Zealand government also believed that many German Jews entering that country as refugees were Nazi spies. The New Zealand Returned Services Association, the chief veterans group, launched a campaign against spies in the ranks of the Jewish refugees from Germany.
In wartime South Africa, a number of Jews collaborated with the right-wing National Party, which advocated apartheid. The Nationalists supported the aims of Nazi Germany.
After the war, Fackenheim was prosecuted at Nuremberg. Another concentration camp inmate, Josef Jakobs, a Luxemburgish Jew, was freed from his camp, trained as an agent, and parachuted into Huntingdonshire, England in 1941 with espionage gear. Like Fackenheim, Jakobs proclaimed that he was coerced into being a Nazi agent. Jakobs was sentenced to death and shot in the Tower of London in August 1941.
Dr. Ivar Lissner, who was half Jewish, was a valued Abwehr agent. Lissner was a correspondent for the German newspaper Vuelkischer Beobachterbut was actually an Abwehr agent who established a Nazi intelligence network in Manchuria from his bases in Shanghai and Harbin. Lissner was made a member of the Nazi Party and he later claimed he was the Gestapo chief in Japanese-occupied Manchukuo Hans Mosberg was another German of Jewish origin who worked for the Abwehr station in Shanghai.
On March 2, 2007, WMR reported on a Kissinger connection to an intelligence agent for the Japanese during World War II: "Israeli multi-billionaire tycoon Shaul Eisenberg began supplying weapons to Cambodia's genocidal Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s. Eisenberg, a close business partner of China's military, was also an early arms supplier to Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot. Eisenberg was active with Asia's Jewish community during World War II, not as an compatriot of the Allies but as a close intelligence and business partner of Japan's Imperial government, which was allied with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy in the Axis Alliance. Escaping Nazi-controlled Europe, Eisenberg settled in the Far East, making his primary bases of operation Japanese-occupied Shanghai and Japan itself. In Shanghai, Eisenberg, along with Imperial Japanese military intelligence units, formed units of future Jewish terrorist groups -- the Irgun and the Shanghai Betar (Betar was founded in the 1930s by the Polish Zionist Yakob Jabotinsky, a supporter of Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini, to battle the British for control of Palestine and the ideological godfather of later neoconservative oracle Leo Strauss). The Japanese taught the Jewish paramilitary forces in Shanghai, including some who escaped from Joseph Stalin's Jewish Autonomous Region creation in the Soviet Far East on the Chinese border, how to disrupt colonial occupiers' logistics and command and control elements, strategies that had been successful against the British, Dutch, French, and American colonial authorities in Asia. The Irgun and Betar gangs would eventually use the knowledge gained from the Japanese in their terror campaign against British and Arab forces in Palestine following World War II. Eventually, Irgun and Betar veterans would form the present-day Likud Party, now headed by Binyamin Netanyahu, a noted extreme right-winger . . . As the United States faced imminent defeat in the Indochina War at the hands of the Vietnamese, Laotian, and Cambodian communist-nationalist forces, Eisenberg wasted no time in cashing in on America's defeat and the new power alignments in Southeast Asia. He began selling weapons from his new business partner - China - to the Cambodian forces of Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot. After the defeat of the U.S.-backed military government of General Lon Nol, installed after Richard Nixon's National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger, a close friend of Eisenberg, ordered the CIA to overthrow Cambodian head of state Prince Norodom Sihanouk, Cambodia fell victim to a bloody civil war between Vietnamese troops backing Pol Pot's one-time ally Hun Sen and the Chinese-backed 'Democratic Kampuchea' government of Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot. It was no mistake that the Gerald Ford administration and Secretary of State Kissinger backed the Khmer Rouge. Kissinger and Ford's long-time Michigan financial backer, industrialist Max Fisher were both financially and ideologically linked to Eisenberg. Ford's supposed "grand moment" -- the repatriation in 1975 of the crew of the U.S. 'merchant' (spy) ship, the SS Mayaguez, from Khmer Rouge forces was a Kissinger- and Eisenberg-designed ruse designed to build up Ford's support in the face of the American military defeat in Southeast Asia That ruse came at the cost of 41 Marines and countless Cambodian military forces and civilians.
Obama White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel's father, Benjamin Emanuel, fought with the Irgun terrorists during the British mandate in Palestine.
However, just proving that one of Hitler's spies was Jewish is not proof, in itself, that Kissinger could also have been a Nazi agent. That perception changed, however, when Bryan Mark Rigg, a Marine Corps officer who served in the Israeli army but who is not Jewish, wrote Hitler’s Jewish Soldiers,published in 2002. The book describes the history of the "mischlinge," literally translated as "mongrels," 1200 German soldiers of Jewish descent, including two Field Marshals, including Goring's Luftwaffe deputy Erhard Milch, a war criminal, and 15 generals. Hitler, himself, approved special waivers for hundreds of Jewish officers under Germany's racial purity laws by certifying them as "Aryan," to the utter dismay of racial purists like SS chief Heinrich Himmler. Goring defended Jewish officers in his Luftwaffe and once berated the SS, which did not wish to see such a policy, by declaring, "I decide who is a Jew."
But even Himmler's SS was not averse to using Jews as their own agents. In 1944, the SS used two Jewish agents, Joel Brand and Bandi Grosz, to cut a deal with the Americans and British to exchange 1 million Jews for 10,000 trucks and other supplies. The negotiationd were condcuted without Hitler's knolwedge. In 1943, Jewish leaders in Slovakia, including Zionists, conducted secret negotiations with Gestapo agent Dieter Wisliceny on exchanging imprisoned Jews for money. Wisliceny was a close friend of Adolf Eichmann, later captured by Israeli agents in Argentina and convicted and hanged in Israel.
And there were German Jews who actually supported the Nazi cause, including Max Naumann who led the "Organization of National-German Jews," which welcomed the establishment of Nazi rule in Germany and Arthur Trebitsch, who supported the Austrian Nazis and welcomed the Nazi union of Germany and Austria.
With the question now settled that Kissinger's religion would not have barred him from being recruited as an agent for the Third Reich, the nascent investigation by the two German journalists on Kissinger's alleged past espionage activities appears to have had some merit.
With that in mind, President Obama had a choice between to very different representatives of the American people as his special envoy to Moscow: Kissinger, who may have been an agent for the Nazis who ravaged Soviet Russia, or former President Jimmy Carter, who best reflects the true policies of America enshrined by our nation's founders. Kissinger is at home in the neocons' "homeland" of America while Carter represents the democratic republic of the United States.
Shame on Obama for making the wrong choice.
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publication date: Feb 10, 2009
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February 11, 2009 -- Henry Kissinger: Obama's envoy to Moscow was suspected of being a spy for Nazi Germany
On February 6, 2009, the Daily Telegraph of the UK featured a story that 85-year old former Nixon and Ford Secretary of State Henry Kissinger served as then-President-elect Barack Obama's special envoy to Moscow in December to secretly discuss mutual nuclear arms reductions. The choice of Kissinger to act as Obama's envoy shocked many in the progressive community who view Kissinger as a war criminal. Even President Ronald Reagan, suspicious of Kissinger's long-time ties to the Rockefellers, studiously kept Kissinger away from his administration. Kissinger withdrew his name from consideration as President George W. Bush's nominee to be chairman of the 9/11 Commission after widespread protests over his conflict-of-interests.
The Telegraphalso revealed that Obama forged close ties to Kissinger during the presidential campaign and quotes Kissinger as saying Obama could bring about a "new world order" after the Bush administration. Kissinger seemed to be implying that Obama could repair the damage caused by the neocons who infiltrated the Bush administration, yet it is Kissinger who is the granddaddy of all neocons - an individual whose bloody fingerprints are found throughout the world through his overt and covert support for all sorts of nasty fascists and corrupt and murderous dictators. Kissinger's association with Obama during the presidential campaign is even more troubling considering that Kissinger publicly endorsed John McCain for president.
For Obama to choose as his envoy to Moscow an individual who has outstanding bench warrants for his arrest in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, and France for his role in not only supporting, bit directing "Operation Condor," which saw thousands of leftists and progressives, incluidng U.S. citizens, "disappeared" by fascist regimes in South America during the 1970s is a slap in the face of every decent American who hoped that with the end of the Bush regime would come a change in U.S. relations with the rest of the world. Sadly, Obama, in choosing Kissinger to represent him, is not much better than Bush when it comes to shoving fascism in the face of the American people.
Kissinger's bloody past has involved the slaughter of millions in Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, East Pakistan/Bangladesh, East Timor, Cyprus, South America, southern Africa, and elsewhere.
Some ten years ago, this editor was contacted by two top investigative journalists for one of Germany's top news magazines who were looking into a story that Henry Kissinger was planted as a refugee by German Abwehr military intelligence in the United States to spy on the German Jewish refugee community that was arriving in increasing numbers in the United States after Adolf Hitler's rise to power. They said documentation was sketchy since it was believed that Reinhard Gehlen, a former German military intelligence Major General, had incriminating evidence against Kissinger either destroyed or hidden after he became the head of the post-war German Federal Intelligence Service, the Bundesnachrichtendienstor BND. Kissinger was very close to one of Gehlen's top agents, Eberhard Blum, who served as the BND's station chief in London for four years and Washington for twelve years. Blum, a Brigadier in Nazi Germany's Abwehr, was recruited personally by Gehlen.
I told the two journalists that I had not heard of the story before and was rather floored by the notion that Kissinger, who is Jewish, could have been a spy for the Nazis.
Kissinger arrived with his parents from Germany in 1938. His parents, Louis and Paula Stern Kissinger, changed Henry's name from "Heinz" to "Henry" because they felt "Heinz Kissinger" sounded "too German." In 1943, the former Heinz Kissinger was drafted into the U.S. Army and was assigned to the 970th Counterintelligence Corps (CIC) as a German translator earning the rank of Sergeant. Kissinger had access to the Army's most sensitive codes used to encrypt classified military communications. After the war, Kissinger was sent to Germany where he was an instructor at the European Command Intelligence School, a position from which he could re-establish any pre-war and war links with former Nazi intelligence officers who had then working for the Americans.
According to America's Secret Army by Ian Sayer and Douglas Botting, Kissinger, a mere Staff Sergeant, managed to evict a German from his villa and supposedly sought out Gestapo and SS officers for arrest. However, the CIC made exceptions, for example, in recruiting "Butcher of Lyons" Klaus Barbie who killed hundreds of French citizens and who was a wanted Nazi war criminal, as an agent for United States intelligence.
According to Sayer and Botting, in Germany, Staff Sergeant Kissinger had a German cook, a German housekeeper, a German secretary, and a German girlfriend. And Kissinger drove around in a Mercedes Benz.
Kissinger returned to the United States from Germany in 1947.
With documentation on Kissinger's alleged Nazi past either destroyed or hidden, there was a seeming dead end to the story of America's most diabolical and dastardly foreign policy official. Until a trip to London's Foyle's bookstore and the discovery of a book titled Hitler's Jewish Spy: The Most Extraordinary True Spy Story of World War II, written in 1985 by Israeli author Michael Bar-Zohar, who also wrote an acclaimed biography of Israel's first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion.
The book describes the exploits of decorated World War I veteran Paul Fackenheim, a German Jew who was an old wartime friend of Hermann Goring but who was interned as Prisoner Number 26,336 at the Dachau concentration camp. Fackenheim was ordered released from Dachau by the Abwehr to be trained as a spy for the Nazis and be parachuted into Palestine to learn about British military preparations to stop Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps from seizing the Suez Canal.
The Abwehr gave Fackenheim a new identity -- Paul Koch -- and trained him how to use German military intelligence code books and radio transmitters as a training center in Brussels. After being transported through Sofia, Bulgaria and Athens, Fackenheim/Koch was parachuted into Palestine on October 10, 1941. He was then captured by the British and imprisoned as a German spy in Haifa.
Fackenheim was disturbed by the British treatment of Jewish immigrants in Palestine, even equating it to the Nazi treatment of the Jews in Germany. The British intelligence headquarters in Cairo was convinced that Fackenheim was only pretending to be Jewish after he was arrested by the British. The British were convinced that they had captured an SS agent in Lebanon and Syria named Paula Koch. Others within British Staff Intelligence Middle East (SIME) were aware of a German intelligence colonel operating a spy network in Lebanon and Syria. Ironically, his last name was Falkenheim, very close to Fackenheim.
The British Information Services circulated pamphlets and other material in the United States claiming that illegal Jewish immigration into Palestine was being run by the Gestapo. Bar-Zohar's book quotes one such British circular: "Many of the German immigrants are disguised Nazis who intend to establish espionage networks in the Middle East." Bar-Zohar, although finding the claim revolting, admits that "Fackenheim seemed to be living proof that it wasn't totally false."
In 1940, the British government rounded up 30,000 German Jewish refugees suspected of being German agents and shipped them to an internment camp on the Isle of Man. Many of these were later shipped to Canada and Australia. MI-5 discovered that one German Jewish refugee, Hans Arnheim, was sending intelligence reports to German intelligence agents in the Netherlands. The New Zealand government also believed that many German Jews entering that country as refugees were Nazi spies. The New Zealand Returned Services Association, the chief veterans group, launched a campaign against spies in the ranks of the Jewish refugees from Germany.
In wartime South Africa, a number of Jews collaborated with the right-wing National Party, which advocated apartheid. The Nationalists supported the aims of Nazi Germany.
After the war, Fackenheim was prosecuted at Nuremberg. Another concentration camp inmate, Josef Jakobs, a Luxemburgish Jew, was freed from his camp, trained as an agent, and parachuted into Huntingdonshire, England in 1941 with espionage gear. Like Fackenheim, Jakobs proclaimed that he was coerced into being a Nazi agent. Jakobs was sentenced to death and shot in the Tower of London in August 1941.
Dr. Ivar Lissner, who was half Jewish, was a valued Abwehr agent. Lissner was a correspondent for the German newspaper Vuelkischer Beobachterbut was actually an Abwehr agent who established a Nazi intelligence network in Manchuria from his bases in Shanghai and Harbin. Lissner was made a member of the Nazi Party and he later claimed he was the Gestapo chief in Japanese-occupied Manchukuo Hans Mosberg was another German of Jewish origin who worked for the Abwehr station in Shanghai.
On March 2, 2007, WMR reported on a Kissinger connection to an intelligence agent for the Japanese during World War II: "Israeli multi-billionaire tycoon Shaul Eisenberg began supplying weapons to Cambodia's genocidal Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s. Eisenberg, a close business partner of China's military, was also an early arms supplier to Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot. Eisenberg was active with Asia's Jewish community during World War II, not as an compatriot of the Allies but as a close intelligence and business partner of Japan's Imperial government, which was allied with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy in the Axis Alliance. Escaping Nazi-controlled Europe, Eisenberg settled in the Far East, making his primary bases of operation Japanese-occupied Shanghai and Japan itself. In Shanghai, Eisenberg, along with Imperial Japanese military intelligence units, formed units of future Jewish terrorist groups -- the Irgun and the Shanghai Betar (Betar was founded in the 1930s by the Polish Zionist Yakob Jabotinsky, a supporter of Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini, to battle the British for control of Palestine and the ideological godfather of later neoconservative oracle Leo Strauss). The Japanese taught the Jewish paramilitary forces in Shanghai, including some who escaped from Joseph Stalin's Jewish Autonomous Region creation in the Soviet Far East on the Chinese border, how to disrupt colonial occupiers' logistics and command and control elements, strategies that had been successful against the British, Dutch, French, and American colonial authorities in Asia. The Irgun and Betar gangs would eventually use the knowledge gained from the Japanese in their terror campaign against British and Arab forces in Palestine following World War II. Eventually, Irgun and Betar veterans would form the present-day Likud Party, now headed by Binyamin Netanyahu, a noted extreme right-winger . . . As the United States faced imminent defeat in the Indochina War at the hands of the Vietnamese, Laotian, and Cambodian communist-nationalist forces, Eisenberg wasted no time in cashing in on America's defeat and the new power alignments in Southeast Asia. He began selling weapons from his new business partner - China - to the Cambodian forces of Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot. After the defeat of the U.S.-backed military government of General Lon Nol, installed after Richard Nixon's National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger, a close friend of Eisenberg, ordered the CIA to overthrow Cambodian head of state Prince Norodom Sihanouk, Cambodia fell victim to a bloody civil war between Vietnamese troops backing Pol Pot's one-time ally Hun Sen and the Chinese-backed 'Democratic Kampuchea' government of Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot. It was no mistake that the Gerald Ford administration and Secretary of State Kissinger backed the Khmer Rouge. Kissinger and Ford's long-time Michigan financial backer, industrialist Max Fisher were both financially and ideologically linked to Eisenberg. Ford's supposed "grand moment" -- the repatriation in 1975 of the crew of the U.S. 'merchant' (spy) ship, the SS Mayaguez, from Khmer Rouge forces was a Kissinger- and Eisenberg-designed ruse designed to build up Ford's support in the face of the American military defeat in Southeast Asia That ruse came at the cost of 41 Marines and countless Cambodian military forces and civilians.
Obama White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel's father, Benjamin Emanuel, fought with the Irgun terrorists during the British mandate in Palestine.
However, just proving that one of Hitler's spies was Jewish is not proof, in itself, that Kissinger could also have been a Nazi agent. That perception changed, however, when Bryan Mark Rigg, a Marine Corps officer who served in the Israeli army but who is not Jewish, wrote Hitler’s Jewish Soldiers,published in 2002. The book describes the history of the "mischlinge," literally translated as "mongrels," 1200 German soldiers of Jewish descent, including two Field Marshals, including Goring's Luftwaffe deputy Erhard Milch, a war criminal, and 15 generals. Hitler, himself, approved special waivers for hundreds of Jewish officers under Germany's racial purity laws by certifying them as "Aryan," to the utter dismay of racial purists like SS chief Heinrich Himmler. Goring defended Jewish officers in his Luftwaffe and once berated the SS, which did not wish to see such a policy, by declaring, "I decide who is a Jew."
But even Himmler's SS was not averse to using Jews as their own agents. In 1944, the SS used two Jewish agents, Joel Brand and Bandi Grosz, to cut a deal with the Americans and British to exchange 1 million Jews for 10,000 trucks and other supplies. The negotiationd were condcuted without Hitler's knolwedge. In 1943, Jewish leaders in Slovakia, including Zionists, conducted secret negotiations with Gestapo agent Dieter Wisliceny on exchanging imprisoned Jews for money. Wisliceny was a close friend of Adolf Eichmann, later captured by Israeli agents in Argentina and convicted and hanged in Israel.
And there were German Jews who actually supported the Nazi cause, including Max Naumann who led the "Organization of National-German Jews," which welcomed the establishment of Nazi rule in Germany and Arthur Trebitsch, who supported the Austrian Nazis and welcomed the Nazi union of Germany and Austria.
With the question now settled that Kissinger's religion would not have barred him from being recruited as an agent for the Third Reich, the nascent investigation by the two German journalists on Kissinger's alleged past espionage activities appears to have had some merit.
With that in mind, President Obama had a choice between to very different representatives of the American people as his special envoy to Moscow: Kissinger, who may have been an agent for the Nazis who ravaged Soviet Russia, or former President Jimmy Carter, who best reflects the true policies of America enshrined by our nation's founders. Kissinger is at home in the neocons' "homeland" of America while Carter represents the democratic republic of the United States.
Shame on Obama for making the wrong choice.
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How “The NAFTA Flu” Exploded
How “The NAFTA Flu” Exploded
Smithfield Farms Fled US Environmental Laws to Open a Gigantic Pig Farm in Mexico, and All We Got Was this Lousy Swine Flu
By Al Giordano
Special to The Narco News Bulletin
April 29, 2009
US and Mexico authorities claim that neither knew about the “swine flu” outbreak until April 24. But after hundreds of residents of a town in Veracruz, Mexico, came down with its symptoms, the story had already hit the Mexican national press by April 5. The daily La Jornada reported:
Clouds of flies emanate from the rusty lagoons where the Carroll Ranches business tosses the fecal wastes of its pig farms, and the open-air contamination is already generating an epidemic of respiratory infections in the town of La Gloria, in the Perote Valley, according to Town Administrator Bertha Crisóstomo López.
The town has 3,000 inhabitants, hundreds of whom reported severe flu symptoms in March.
CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta, reporting from Mexico, has identified a La Gloria child who contracted the first case of identified “swine flu” in February as “patient zero,” five-year-old Edgar Hernández, now a survivor of the disease.
By April 15 – nine days before Mexican federal authorities of the regime of President Felipe Calderon acknowledged any problem at all – the local daily newspaper, Marcha, reported that a company called Carroll Ranches was “the cause of the epidemic.”
La Jornada columnist Julio Hernández López connects the corporate dots to explain how the Virginia-based Smithfield Farms came to Mexico: In 1985, Smithfield Farms received what was, at the time, the most expensive fine in history – $12.6 million – for violating the US Clean Water Act at its pig facilities near the Pagan River in Smithfield, Virginia, a tributary that flows into the Chesapeake Bay. The company, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) dumped hog waste into the river.
It was a case in which US environmental law succeeded in forcing a polluter, Smithfield Farms, to construct a sewage treatment plant at that facility after decades of using the river as a mega-toilet. But “free trade” opened a path for Smithfield Farms to simply move its harmful practices next door into Mexico so that it could evade the tougher US regulators.
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) came into effect on January 1, 1994. That very same year Smithfield Farms opened the “Carroll Ranches” in the Mexican state of Veracruz through a new subsidiary corporation, “Agroindustrias de México.”
Unlike what law enforcers forced upon Smithfield Farms in the US, the new Mexican facility – processing 800,000 pigs into bacon and other products per year – does not have a sewage treatment plant.
According to Rolling Stone magazine, Smithfield slaughters an estimated 27 million hogs a year to produce more than six billion pounds of packaged pork products. (The Veracruz facility thus constitutes about three percent of its total production.)
Reporter Jeff Teitz reported in 2006 on the conditions in Smithfield’s US facilities (remember: what you are about to read describes conditions that are more sanitary and regulated than those in Mexico):
Smithfield’s pigs live by the hundreds or thousands in warehouse-like barns, in rows of wall-to-wall pens. Sows are artificially inseminated and fed and delivered of their piglets in cages so small they cannot turn around. Forty fully grown 250-pound male hogs often occupy a pen the size of a tiny apartment. They trample each other to death. There is no sunlight, straw, fresh air or earth. The floors are slatted to allow excrement to fall into a catchment pit under the pens, but many things besides excrement can wind up in the pits: afterbirths, piglets accidentally crushed by their mothers, old batteries, broken bottles of insecticide, antibiotic syringes, stillborn pigs—anything small enough to fit through the foot-wide pipes that drain the pits. The pipes remain closed until enough sewage accumulates in the pits to create good expulsion pressure; then the pipes are opened and everything bursts out into a large holding pond.
The temperature inside hog houses is often hotter than ninety degrees. The air, saturated almost to the point of precipitation with gases from shit and chemicals, can be lethal to the pigs. Enormous exhaust fans run twenty-four hours a day. The ventilation systems function like the ventilators of terminal patients: If they break down for any length of time, pigs start dying.
Consider what happens when such forms of massive pork production move to unregulated territory where Mexican authorities allow wealthy interests to do business without adequate oversight, abusing workers and the environment both. And there it is: The violence wrought by NAFTA in clear and understandable human terms.
The so-called “swine flu” exploded because an environmental disaster simply moved (and with it, took jobs from US workers) to Mexico where environmental and worker safety laws, if they exist, are not enforced against powerful multinational corporations.
False mental constructs of borders – the kind that cause US and Mexican citizens alike to imagine a flu strain like this one invading their nations from other lands – are taking a long overdue hit by the current “swine flu” media frenzy. In this case, US-Mexico trade policy created a time bomb in Veracruz that has already murdered more than 150 Mexican citizens, and at least one child in the US, by creating a gigantic Petri dish in the form pig farms to generate bacon and ham for international sale.
None of that indicates that this flu strain was born in Mexico, but, rather, that the North American Free Trade Agreement created the optimal conditions for the flu to gestate and become, at minimum, epidemic in La Gloria and, now, Mexico City, and threatens to become international pandemic.
Welcome to the aftermath of “free trade.” Authorities now want you to grab a hospital facemask and avoid human contact until the outbreak hopefully blows over. And if you start to feel dizzy, or a flush with fever, or other symptoms begin to molest you or your children, remember this: The real name of this infirmity is “The NAFTA Flu,” the first of what may well emerge as many new illnesses to emerge internationally as the direct result of “free trade” agreements that allow companies like Smithfield Farms to escape health, safety and environmental laws.
Discussion of this article from The Narcosphere
Smithfield Farms Fled US Environmental Laws to Open a Gigantic Pig Farm in Mexico, and All We Got Was this Lousy Swine Flu
By Al Giordano
Special to The Narco News Bulletin
April 29, 2009
US and Mexico authorities claim that neither knew about the “swine flu” outbreak until April 24. But after hundreds of residents of a town in Veracruz, Mexico, came down with its symptoms, the story had already hit the Mexican national press by April 5. The daily La Jornada reported:
Clouds of flies emanate from the rusty lagoons where the Carroll Ranches business tosses the fecal wastes of its pig farms, and the open-air contamination is already generating an epidemic of respiratory infections in the town of La Gloria, in the Perote Valley, according to Town Administrator Bertha Crisóstomo López.
The town has 3,000 inhabitants, hundreds of whom reported severe flu symptoms in March.
CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta, reporting from Mexico, has identified a La Gloria child who contracted the first case of identified “swine flu” in February as “patient zero,” five-year-old Edgar Hernández, now a survivor of the disease.
By April 15 – nine days before Mexican federal authorities of the regime of President Felipe Calderon acknowledged any problem at all – the local daily newspaper, Marcha, reported that a company called Carroll Ranches was “the cause of the epidemic.”
La Jornada columnist Julio Hernández López connects the corporate dots to explain how the Virginia-based Smithfield Farms came to Mexico: In 1985, Smithfield Farms received what was, at the time, the most expensive fine in history – $12.6 million – for violating the US Clean Water Act at its pig facilities near the Pagan River in Smithfield, Virginia, a tributary that flows into the Chesapeake Bay. The company, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) dumped hog waste into the river.
It was a case in which US environmental law succeeded in forcing a polluter, Smithfield Farms, to construct a sewage treatment plant at that facility after decades of using the river as a mega-toilet. But “free trade” opened a path for Smithfield Farms to simply move its harmful practices next door into Mexico so that it could evade the tougher US regulators.
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) came into effect on January 1, 1994. That very same year Smithfield Farms opened the “Carroll Ranches” in the Mexican state of Veracruz through a new subsidiary corporation, “Agroindustrias de México.”
Unlike what law enforcers forced upon Smithfield Farms in the US, the new Mexican facility – processing 800,000 pigs into bacon and other products per year – does not have a sewage treatment plant.
According to Rolling Stone magazine, Smithfield slaughters an estimated 27 million hogs a year to produce more than six billion pounds of packaged pork products. (The Veracruz facility thus constitutes about three percent of its total production.)
Reporter Jeff Teitz reported in 2006 on the conditions in Smithfield’s US facilities (remember: what you are about to read describes conditions that are more sanitary and regulated than those in Mexico):
Smithfield’s pigs live by the hundreds or thousands in warehouse-like barns, in rows of wall-to-wall pens. Sows are artificially inseminated and fed and delivered of their piglets in cages so small they cannot turn around. Forty fully grown 250-pound male hogs often occupy a pen the size of a tiny apartment. They trample each other to death. There is no sunlight, straw, fresh air or earth. The floors are slatted to allow excrement to fall into a catchment pit under the pens, but many things besides excrement can wind up in the pits: afterbirths, piglets accidentally crushed by their mothers, old batteries, broken bottles of insecticide, antibiotic syringes, stillborn pigs—anything small enough to fit through the foot-wide pipes that drain the pits. The pipes remain closed until enough sewage accumulates in the pits to create good expulsion pressure; then the pipes are opened and everything bursts out into a large holding pond.
The temperature inside hog houses is often hotter than ninety degrees. The air, saturated almost to the point of precipitation with gases from shit and chemicals, can be lethal to the pigs. Enormous exhaust fans run twenty-four hours a day. The ventilation systems function like the ventilators of terminal patients: If they break down for any length of time, pigs start dying.
Consider what happens when such forms of massive pork production move to unregulated territory where Mexican authorities allow wealthy interests to do business without adequate oversight, abusing workers and the environment both. And there it is: The violence wrought by NAFTA in clear and understandable human terms.
The so-called “swine flu” exploded because an environmental disaster simply moved (and with it, took jobs from US workers) to Mexico where environmental and worker safety laws, if they exist, are not enforced against powerful multinational corporations.
False mental constructs of borders – the kind that cause US and Mexican citizens alike to imagine a flu strain like this one invading their nations from other lands – are taking a long overdue hit by the current “swine flu” media frenzy. In this case, US-Mexico trade policy created a time bomb in Veracruz that has already murdered more than 150 Mexican citizens, and at least one child in the US, by creating a gigantic Petri dish in the form pig farms to generate bacon and ham for international sale.
None of that indicates that this flu strain was born in Mexico, but, rather, that the North American Free Trade Agreement created the optimal conditions for the flu to gestate and become, at minimum, epidemic in La Gloria and, now, Mexico City, and threatens to become international pandemic.
Welcome to the aftermath of “free trade.” Authorities now want you to grab a hospital facemask and avoid human contact until the outbreak hopefully blows over. And if you start to feel dizzy, or a flush with fever, or other symptoms begin to molest you or your children, remember this: The real name of this infirmity is “The NAFTA Flu,” the first of what may well emerge as many new illnesses to emerge internationally as the direct result of “free trade” agreements that allow companies like Smithfield Farms to escape health, safety and environmental laws.
Discussion of this article from The Narcosphere
A Chilling Effect on U.S. Counterterrorism
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A Chilling Effect on U.S. Counterterrorism
April 29, 2009
Global Security and Intelligence Report
By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart
Over the past couple of weeks, we have been carefully watching the fallout from the Obama administration’s decision to release four classified memos from former President George W. Bush’s administration that authorized “enhanced interrogation techniques.” In a visit to CIA headquarters last week, President Barack Obama promised not to prosecute agency personnel who carried out such interrogations, since they were following lawful orders. Critics of the techniques, such as Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., have called for the formation of a “truth commission” to investigate the matter, and Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., has called on Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a special prosecutor to launch a criminal inquiry into the matter.
Realistically, those most likely to face investigation and prosecution are those who wrote the memos, rather than the low-level field personnel who acted in good faith based upon the guidance the memos provided. Despite this fact and Obama’s reassurances, our contacts in the intelligence community report that the release of the memos has had a discernible “chilling effect” on those in the clandestine service who work on counterterrorism issues.
In some ways, the debate over the morality of such interrogation techniques — something we do not take a position on and will not be discussing here — has distracted many observers from examining the impact that the release of these memos is having on the ability of the U.S. government to fulfill its counterterrorism mission. And this impact has little to do with the ability to use torture to interrogate terrorist suspects.
Politics and moral arguments aside, the end effect of the memos’ release is that people who have put their lives on the line in U.S. counterterrorism efforts are now uncertain of whether they should be making that sacrifice. Many of these people are now questioning whether the administration that happens to be in power at any given time will recognize the fact that they were carrying out lawful orders under a previous administration. It is hard to retain officers and attract quality recruits in this kind of environment. It has become safer to work in programs other than counterterrorism.
The memos’ release will not have a catastrophic effect on U.S. counterterrorism efforts. Indeed, most of the information in the memos was leaked to the press years ago and has long been public knowledge. However, when the release of the memos is examined in a wider context, and combined with a few other dynamics, it appears that the U.S. counterterrorism community is quietly slipping back into an atmosphere of risk-aversion and malaise — an atmosphere not dissimilar to that described by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (also known as the 9/11 Commission) as a contributing factor to the intelligence failures that led to the 9/11 attacks.
Cycles Within Cycles
In March we wrote about the cycle of counterterrorism funding and discussed indications that the United States is entering a period of reduced counterterrorism funding. This decrease in funding not only will affect defensive counterterrorism initiatives like embassy security and countersurveillance programs, but also will impact offensive programs such as the number of CIA personnel dedicated to the counterterrorism role.
Beyond funding, however, there is another historical cycle of booms and busts that can be seen in the conduct of American clandestine intelligence activities. There are clearly discernible periods when clandestine activities are deemed very important and are widely employed. These periods are inevitably followed by a time of investigations, reductions in clandestine activities and a tightening of control and oversight over such activities.
After the widespread employment of clandestine activities in the Vietnam War era, the Church Committee was convened in 1975 to review (and ultimately restrict) such operations. Former President Ronald Reagan’s appointment of Bill Casey as director of the CIA ushered in a new era of growth as the United States became heavily engaged in clandestine activities in Afghanistan and Central America. Then, the revelation of the Iran-Contra affair in 1986 led to a period of hearings and controls.
There was a slight uptick in clandestine activities under the presidency of George H.W. Bush, but the fall of the Soviet Union led to another bust cycle for the intelligence community. By the mid-1990s, the number of CIA stations and bases was dramatically reduced (and virtually eliminated in much of Africa) for budgetary considerations. Then there was the case of Jennifer Harbury, a Harvard-educated lawyer who used little-known provisions in Texas common law to marry a dead Guatemalan guerrilla commander and gain legal standing as his widow. After it was uncovered that a CIA source was involved in the guerrilla commander’s execution, CIA stations in Latin America were gutted for political reasons. The Harbury case also led to the Torricelli Amendment, a law that made recruiting unsavory people, such as those with ties to death squads and terrorist groups, illegal without special approval. This bust cycle was well documented by both the Crowe Commission, which investigated the 1998 East Africa embassy bombings, and the 9/11 Commission.
After the 9/11 attacks, the pendulum swung radically to the permissive side and clandestine activity was rapidly and dramatically increased as the U.S. sought to close the intelligence gap and quickly develop intelligence on al Qaeda’s capability and plans. Developments over the past two years clearly indicate that the United States is once again entering an intelligence bust cycle, a period that will be marked by hearings, increased controls and a general decrease in clandestine activity.
Institutional Culture
It is also very important to realize that the counterterrorism community is just one small part of the larger intelligence community that is affected by this ebb and flow of covert activity. In fact, as noted above, the counterterrorism component of intelligence efforts has its own boom-and-bust cycle that is based on major attacks. Soon after a major attack, interest in counterterrorism spikes dramatically, but as time passes without a major attack, interest lags. Other than during the peak times of this cycle, counterterrorism is considered an ancillary program that is sometimes seen as an interesting side tour of duty, but more widely seen as being outside the mainstream career path — risky and not particularly career-enhancing. This assessment is reinforced by such events as the recent release of the memos.
At the CIA, being a counterterrorism specialist in the clandestine service means that you will most likely spend much of your life in places line Sanaa, Islamabad and Kabul instead of Vienna, Paris or London. This means that, in addition to hurting your chances for career advancement, your job also is quite dangerous, provides relatively poor living conditions for your family and offers the possibility of contracting serious diseases.
While being declared persona non grata and getting kicked out of a country as part of an intelligence spat is considered almost a badge of honor at the CIA, the threat of being arrested and indicted for participating in the rendition of a terrorist suspect from an allied country like Italy is not. Equally unappealing is being sued in civil court by a terrorist suspect or facing the possibility of prosecution after a change of government in the United States. Over the past few years, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of CIA case officers who are choosing to carry personal liability insurance because they do not trust the agency and the U.S. government to look out for their best interests.
Now, there are officers who are willing to endure hardship and who do not really care much about career advancement, but for those officers there is another hazard — frustration. Aggressive officers dedicated to the counterterrorism mission quickly learn that many of the people in the food chain above them are concerned about their careers, and these superiors often take measures to rein in their less-mainstream subordinates. Additionally, due to the restrictions brought about by laws and regulations like the Torricelli Amendment, case officers working counterterrorism are often tightly bound by myriad legal restrictions.
Unlike in television shows like “24,” it is not uncommon in the real world for a meeting called to plan a counterterrorism operation to feature more CIA lawyers than case officers or analysts. These staff lawyers are intricately involved in the operational decisions made at headquarters, and legal issues often trump operational considerations. The need to obtain legal approval often delays decisions long enough for a critical window of operational opportunity to be slammed shut. This restrictive legal environment goes back many years in the CIA and is not a new fixture brought in by the Obama administration. There was a sense of urgency that served to trump the lawyers to some extent after 9/11, but the lawyers never went away and have reasserted themselves firmly over the past several years.
Of course, the CIA is not the only agency with a culture that is less than supportive of the counterterrorism mission. Although the prevention of terrorist attacks in the United States is currently the FBI’s No. 1 priority on paper, the counterterrorism mission remains the bureau’s redheaded stepchild. The FBI is struggling to find agents willing to serve in the counterterrorism sections of field offices, resident agencies (smaller offices that report to a field office) and joint terrorism task forces.
While the CIA was very much built on the legacy of Wild Bill Donovan’s Office of Strategic Services, the FBI was founded by J. Edgar Hoover, a conservative and risk-averse administrator who served as FBI director from 1935-1972. Even today, Hoover’s influence is clearly evident in the FBI’s bureaucratic nature. FBI special agents are unable to do much at all, such as open an investigation, without a supervisor’s approval, and supervisors are reluctant to approve anything too adventurous because of the impact it might have on their chance for promotion. Unlike many other law enforcement agencies, such as the Drug Enforcement Administration or the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the FBI rarely uses its own special agents in an undercover capacity to penetrate criminal organizations. That practice is seen as being too risky; they prefer to use confidential informants rather than undercover operatives.
The FBI is also strongly tied to its roots in law enforcement and criminal investigation, and special agents who work major theft, public corruption or white-collar crime cases tend to receive more recognition — and advance more quickly — than their counterterrorism counterparts.
FBI special agents also see a considerable downside to working counterterrorism cases because of the potential for such cases to blow up in their faces if they make a mistake — such as in the New York field office’s highly publicized mishandling of the informant whom they had inserted into the group that later conducted the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. It is much safer, and far more rewarding from a career perspective, to work bank robberies or serve in the FBI’s Inspection Division.
After the 9/11 attacks — and the corresponding spike in the importance of counterterrorism operations — many of the resources of the CIA and FBI were focused on al Qaeda and terrorism, to the detriment of programs such as foreign counterintelligence. However, the more time that has passed since 9/11 without another major attack, the more the organizational culture of the U.S government has returned to normal. Once again, counterterrorism efforts are seen as being ancillary duties rather than the organizations’ driving mission. (The clash between organizational culture and the counterterrorism mission is by no means confined to the CIA and FBI. Fred’s book “Ghost: Confessions of a Counterterrorism Agent” provides a detailed examination of some of the bureaucratic and cultural challenges we faced while serving in the Counterterrorism Investigations Division of the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service.)
Liaison Services
One of the least well known, and perhaps most important, sources of intelligence in the counterterrorism field is the information that is obtained as a result of close relationships with allied intelligence agencies — often referred to as information obtained through “liaison channels.”
Like FBI agents, most CIA officers are well-educated, middle-aged white guys. This means they are better suited to use the cover of an American businessmen or diplomat than to pretend to be a young Muslim trying to join al Qaeda or Hezbollah. Like their counterparts in the FBI, CIA officers have far more success using informants than they do working undercover inside terrorist groups.
Services like the Jordanian General Intelligence Department, the Saudi Mabahith or the Yemeni National Security Agency not only can recruit sources, but also are far more successful in using young Muslim officers to penetrate terrorist groups. In addition to their source networks and penetration operations, many of these liaison services are not at all squeamish about using extremely enhanced interrogation techniques — this is the reason many of the terrorism suspects who were the subject of rendition operations ended up in such locations. Obviously, whenever the CIA is dealing with a liaison service, the political interests and objectives of the service must be considered — as should the possibility that the liaison service is fabricating the intelligence in question for whatever reason. Still, in the end, the CIA historically has received a significant amount of important intelligence (perhaps even most of its intelligence) via liaison channels.
Another concern that arises from the call for a truth commission is the impact a commission investigation could have on the liaison services that have helped the United States in its counterterrorism efforts since 9/11. Countries that hosted CIA detention facilities or were involved in the rendition or interrogation of terrorist suspects may find themselves exposed publicly or even held up for some sort of sanction by the U.S. Congress. Such activities could have a real impact on the amount of cooperation and information the CIA receives from these intelligence services.
Conclusion
As we’ve previously noted, it was a lack of intelligence that helped fuel the fear that led the Bush administration to authorize enhanced interrogation techniques. Ironically, the current investigation into those techniques and other practices (such as renditions) may very well lead to significant gaps in terrorism-related intelligence from both internal and liaison sources — again, not primarily because of the prohibition of torture, but because of larger implications.
When these implications are combined with the long-standing institutional aversion of U.S. government agencies toward counterterrorism, and with the difficulty of finding and retaining good people willing to serve in counterterrorism roles, the U.S. counterterrorism community may soon be facing challenges even more daunting than those posed by its already difficult mission.
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A Chilling Effect on U.S. Counterterrorism
April 29, 2009
Global Security and Intelligence Report
By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart
Over the past couple of weeks, we have been carefully watching the fallout from the Obama administration’s decision to release four classified memos from former President George W. Bush’s administration that authorized “enhanced interrogation techniques.” In a visit to CIA headquarters last week, President Barack Obama promised not to prosecute agency personnel who carried out such interrogations, since they were following lawful orders. Critics of the techniques, such as Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., have called for the formation of a “truth commission” to investigate the matter, and Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., has called on Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a special prosecutor to launch a criminal inquiry into the matter.
Realistically, those most likely to face investigation and prosecution are those who wrote the memos, rather than the low-level field personnel who acted in good faith based upon the guidance the memos provided. Despite this fact and Obama’s reassurances, our contacts in the intelligence community report that the release of the memos has had a discernible “chilling effect” on those in the clandestine service who work on counterterrorism issues.
In some ways, the debate over the morality of such interrogation techniques — something we do not take a position on and will not be discussing here — has distracted many observers from examining the impact that the release of these memos is having on the ability of the U.S. government to fulfill its counterterrorism mission. And this impact has little to do with the ability to use torture to interrogate terrorist suspects.
Politics and moral arguments aside, the end effect of the memos’ release is that people who have put their lives on the line in U.S. counterterrorism efforts are now uncertain of whether they should be making that sacrifice. Many of these people are now questioning whether the administration that happens to be in power at any given time will recognize the fact that they were carrying out lawful orders under a previous administration. It is hard to retain officers and attract quality recruits in this kind of environment. It has become safer to work in programs other than counterterrorism.
The memos’ release will not have a catastrophic effect on U.S. counterterrorism efforts. Indeed, most of the information in the memos was leaked to the press years ago and has long been public knowledge. However, when the release of the memos is examined in a wider context, and combined with a few other dynamics, it appears that the U.S. counterterrorism community is quietly slipping back into an atmosphere of risk-aversion and malaise — an atmosphere not dissimilar to that described by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (also known as the 9/11 Commission) as a contributing factor to the intelligence failures that led to the 9/11 attacks.
Cycles Within Cycles
In March we wrote about the cycle of counterterrorism funding and discussed indications that the United States is entering a period of reduced counterterrorism funding. This decrease in funding not only will affect defensive counterterrorism initiatives like embassy security and countersurveillance programs, but also will impact offensive programs such as the number of CIA personnel dedicated to the counterterrorism role.
Beyond funding, however, there is another historical cycle of booms and busts that can be seen in the conduct of American clandestine intelligence activities. There are clearly discernible periods when clandestine activities are deemed very important and are widely employed. These periods are inevitably followed by a time of investigations, reductions in clandestine activities and a tightening of control and oversight over such activities.
After the widespread employment of clandestine activities in the Vietnam War era, the Church Committee was convened in 1975 to review (and ultimately restrict) such operations. Former President Ronald Reagan’s appointment of Bill Casey as director of the CIA ushered in a new era of growth as the United States became heavily engaged in clandestine activities in Afghanistan and Central America. Then, the revelation of the Iran-Contra affair in 1986 led to a period of hearings and controls.
There was a slight uptick in clandestine activities under the presidency of George H.W. Bush, but the fall of the Soviet Union led to another bust cycle for the intelligence community. By the mid-1990s, the number of CIA stations and bases was dramatically reduced (and virtually eliminated in much of Africa) for budgetary considerations. Then there was the case of Jennifer Harbury, a Harvard-educated lawyer who used little-known provisions in Texas common law to marry a dead Guatemalan guerrilla commander and gain legal standing as his widow. After it was uncovered that a CIA source was involved in the guerrilla commander’s execution, CIA stations in Latin America were gutted for political reasons. The Harbury case also led to the Torricelli Amendment, a law that made recruiting unsavory people, such as those with ties to death squads and terrorist groups, illegal without special approval. This bust cycle was well documented by both the Crowe Commission, which investigated the 1998 East Africa embassy bombings, and the 9/11 Commission.
After the 9/11 attacks, the pendulum swung radically to the permissive side and clandestine activity was rapidly and dramatically increased as the U.S. sought to close the intelligence gap and quickly develop intelligence on al Qaeda’s capability and plans. Developments over the past two years clearly indicate that the United States is once again entering an intelligence bust cycle, a period that will be marked by hearings, increased controls and a general decrease in clandestine activity.
Institutional Culture
It is also very important to realize that the counterterrorism community is just one small part of the larger intelligence community that is affected by this ebb and flow of covert activity. In fact, as noted above, the counterterrorism component of intelligence efforts has its own boom-and-bust cycle that is based on major attacks. Soon after a major attack, interest in counterterrorism spikes dramatically, but as time passes without a major attack, interest lags. Other than during the peak times of this cycle, counterterrorism is considered an ancillary program that is sometimes seen as an interesting side tour of duty, but more widely seen as being outside the mainstream career path — risky and not particularly career-enhancing. This assessment is reinforced by such events as the recent release of the memos.
At the CIA, being a counterterrorism specialist in the clandestine service means that you will most likely spend much of your life in places line Sanaa, Islamabad and Kabul instead of Vienna, Paris or London. This means that, in addition to hurting your chances for career advancement, your job also is quite dangerous, provides relatively poor living conditions for your family and offers the possibility of contracting serious diseases.
While being declared persona non grata and getting kicked out of a country as part of an intelligence spat is considered almost a badge of honor at the CIA, the threat of being arrested and indicted for participating in the rendition of a terrorist suspect from an allied country like Italy is not. Equally unappealing is being sued in civil court by a terrorist suspect or facing the possibility of prosecution after a change of government in the United States. Over the past few years, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of CIA case officers who are choosing to carry personal liability insurance because they do not trust the agency and the U.S. government to look out for their best interests.
Now, there are officers who are willing to endure hardship and who do not really care much about career advancement, but for those officers there is another hazard — frustration. Aggressive officers dedicated to the counterterrorism mission quickly learn that many of the people in the food chain above them are concerned about their careers, and these superiors often take measures to rein in their less-mainstream subordinates. Additionally, due to the restrictions brought about by laws and regulations like the Torricelli Amendment, case officers working counterterrorism are often tightly bound by myriad legal restrictions.
Unlike in television shows like “24,” it is not uncommon in the real world for a meeting called to plan a counterterrorism operation to feature more CIA lawyers than case officers or analysts. These staff lawyers are intricately involved in the operational decisions made at headquarters, and legal issues often trump operational considerations. The need to obtain legal approval often delays decisions long enough for a critical window of operational opportunity to be slammed shut. This restrictive legal environment goes back many years in the CIA and is not a new fixture brought in by the Obama administration. There was a sense of urgency that served to trump the lawyers to some extent after 9/11, but the lawyers never went away and have reasserted themselves firmly over the past several years.
Of course, the CIA is not the only agency with a culture that is less than supportive of the counterterrorism mission. Although the prevention of terrorist attacks in the United States is currently the FBI’s No. 1 priority on paper, the counterterrorism mission remains the bureau’s redheaded stepchild. The FBI is struggling to find agents willing to serve in the counterterrorism sections of field offices, resident agencies (smaller offices that report to a field office) and joint terrorism task forces.
While the CIA was very much built on the legacy of Wild Bill Donovan’s Office of Strategic Services, the FBI was founded by J. Edgar Hoover, a conservative and risk-averse administrator who served as FBI director from 1935-1972. Even today, Hoover’s influence is clearly evident in the FBI’s bureaucratic nature. FBI special agents are unable to do much at all, such as open an investigation, without a supervisor’s approval, and supervisors are reluctant to approve anything too adventurous because of the impact it might have on their chance for promotion. Unlike many other law enforcement agencies, such as the Drug Enforcement Administration or the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the FBI rarely uses its own special agents in an undercover capacity to penetrate criminal organizations. That practice is seen as being too risky; they prefer to use confidential informants rather than undercover operatives.
The FBI is also strongly tied to its roots in law enforcement and criminal investigation, and special agents who work major theft, public corruption or white-collar crime cases tend to receive more recognition — and advance more quickly — than their counterterrorism counterparts.
FBI special agents also see a considerable downside to working counterterrorism cases because of the potential for such cases to blow up in their faces if they make a mistake — such as in the New York field office’s highly publicized mishandling of the informant whom they had inserted into the group that later conducted the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. It is much safer, and far more rewarding from a career perspective, to work bank robberies or serve in the FBI’s Inspection Division.
After the 9/11 attacks — and the corresponding spike in the importance of counterterrorism operations — many of the resources of the CIA and FBI were focused on al Qaeda and terrorism, to the detriment of programs such as foreign counterintelligence. However, the more time that has passed since 9/11 without another major attack, the more the organizational culture of the U.S government has returned to normal. Once again, counterterrorism efforts are seen as being ancillary duties rather than the organizations’ driving mission. (The clash between organizational culture and the counterterrorism mission is by no means confined to the CIA and FBI. Fred’s book “Ghost: Confessions of a Counterterrorism Agent” provides a detailed examination of some of the bureaucratic and cultural challenges we faced while serving in the Counterterrorism Investigations Division of the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service.)
Liaison Services
One of the least well known, and perhaps most important, sources of intelligence in the counterterrorism field is the information that is obtained as a result of close relationships with allied intelligence agencies — often referred to as information obtained through “liaison channels.”
Like FBI agents, most CIA officers are well-educated, middle-aged white guys. This means they are better suited to use the cover of an American businessmen or diplomat than to pretend to be a young Muslim trying to join al Qaeda or Hezbollah. Like their counterparts in the FBI, CIA officers have far more success using informants than they do working undercover inside terrorist groups.
Services like the Jordanian General Intelligence Department, the Saudi Mabahith or the Yemeni National Security Agency not only can recruit sources, but also are far more successful in using young Muslim officers to penetrate terrorist groups. In addition to their source networks and penetration operations, many of these liaison services are not at all squeamish about using extremely enhanced interrogation techniques — this is the reason many of the terrorism suspects who were the subject of rendition operations ended up in such locations. Obviously, whenever the CIA is dealing with a liaison service, the political interests and objectives of the service must be considered — as should the possibility that the liaison service is fabricating the intelligence in question for whatever reason. Still, in the end, the CIA historically has received a significant amount of important intelligence (perhaps even most of its intelligence) via liaison channels.
Another concern that arises from the call for a truth commission is the impact a commission investigation could have on the liaison services that have helped the United States in its counterterrorism efforts since 9/11. Countries that hosted CIA detention facilities or were involved in the rendition or interrogation of terrorist suspects may find themselves exposed publicly or even held up for some sort of sanction by the U.S. Congress. Such activities could have a real impact on the amount of cooperation and information the CIA receives from these intelligence services.
Conclusion
As we’ve previously noted, it was a lack of intelligence that helped fuel the fear that led the Bush administration to authorize enhanced interrogation techniques. Ironically, the current investigation into those techniques and other practices (such as renditions) may very well lead to significant gaps in terrorism-related intelligence from both internal and liaison sources — again, not primarily because of the prohibition of torture, but because of larger implications.
When these implications are combined with the long-standing institutional aversion of U.S. government agencies toward counterterrorism, and with the difficulty of finding and retaining good people willing to serve in counterterrorism roles, the U.S. counterterrorism community may soon be facing challenges even more daunting than those posed by its already difficult mission.
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SYMPTOMS OF SWINE FLU
Yes, I did. Very interesting reads. Looks like the Indonesian Health Minister is echoing the same.
See report below:-
Swine flu could be man-made
'I'm not sure whether the virus was genetically engineered but it's a possibility,' said Indonesian Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari (left). -- PHOTO: REUTERS
JAKARTA - INDONESIAN Heath Minister Siti Fadilah Supari said on Tuesday the deadly swine flu virus could have been man-made, as she urged calm over its spread around the world.
The controversial minister did not elaborate but in the past she has said Western governments could be making and spreading viruses in the developing world to boost pharmaceutical companies' profits.
'I'm not sure whether the virus was genetically engineered but it's a possibility,' she told reporters at a press conference called to reassure the public over the government's response to the swine flu threat.
No cases of the disease have been reported in Indonesia, the country worst hit by the bird flu virus which has killed about 250 people worldwide since 2003.
Indonesian authorities have increased body temperature scanners at airports and banned imports of live pigs and pork products, amid World Health Organisation (WHO) warnings of a pandemic.
Ms Supari, a cardiologist, also claimed that the H1N1 strain of swine flu, which is believed to have killed more than 150 people in Mexico, could not survive in tropical countries like Indonesia.
'We have to be alert at all times although swine flu in Indonesia is not a cause for panic,' she said. 'H1N1 survives in countries with four seasons. The type A H1N1 virus hopefully won't be able to sustain itself once it enters the tropical climate of Indonesia.'
The virus has been found in 11 countries including Mexico, the United States and Spain, while several other countries from Colombia to New Zealand are investigating suspected cases.
Ms Supari said the health ministry had prepared 100 hospitals to handle swine flu cases should the disease enter Indonesia.
The minister has refused since 2006 to share all but a handful of Indonesia's bird flu virus samples with WHO researchers, saying the system is being abused by rich countries to develop profitable vaccines which poor countries must buy. -- AFP
See report below:-
Swine flu could be man-made
'I'm not sure whether the virus was genetically engineered but it's a possibility,' said Indonesian Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari (left). -- PHOTO: REUTERS
JAKARTA - INDONESIAN Heath Minister Siti Fadilah Supari said on Tuesday the deadly swine flu virus could have been man-made, as she urged calm over its spread around the world.
The controversial minister did not elaborate but in the past she has said Western governments could be making and spreading viruses in the developing world to boost pharmaceutical companies' profits.
'I'm not sure whether the virus was genetically engineered but it's a possibility,' she told reporters at a press conference called to reassure the public over the government's response to the swine flu threat.
No cases of the disease have been reported in Indonesia, the country worst hit by the bird flu virus which has killed about 250 people worldwide since 2003.
Indonesian authorities have increased body temperature scanners at airports and banned imports of live pigs and pork products, amid World Health Organisation (WHO) warnings of a pandemic.
Ms Supari, a cardiologist, also claimed that the H1N1 strain of swine flu, which is believed to have killed more than 150 people in Mexico, could not survive in tropical countries like Indonesia.
'We have to be alert at all times although swine flu in Indonesia is not a cause for panic,' she said. 'H1N1 survives in countries with four seasons. The type A H1N1 virus hopefully won't be able to sustain itself once it enters the tropical climate of Indonesia.'
The virus has been found in 11 countries including Mexico, the United States and Spain, while several other countries from Colombia to New Zealand are investigating suspected cases.
Ms Supari said the health ministry had prepared 100 hospitals to handle swine flu cases should the disease enter Indonesia.
The minister has refused since 2006 to share all but a handful of Indonesia's bird flu virus samples with WHO researchers, saying the system is being abused by rich countries to develop profitable vaccines which poor countries must buy. -- AFP
Is the SWINE FLU Montezuma's revenge?
Could the SWINE FLU which is now confirmed to have started in the town of Gloria in Veracruz have been Aztec King Montezuma's revenge? Cortez, the Spanish Conquistador, landed in Mexico in Veracruz with only 1,000 men and yet close to 80% of the estimated 18 million Aztecs were wiped out, not by Conquistador sword and cannon, but by imported disease.
"Measles and Small Pox as an Allied Army of the Conquistadors of
America"
by Carlos Ruvalcaba, translated by Theresa M. Betz
in "Encounters" (Double Issue No. 5-6, pp. 44-45)
The year was 1520. Cortes had already entered the capital
of the Aztec empire and imprisoned Moctezuma when he received
notice of the arrival of Narvaez at the port of Veracruz, with
express orders to apprehend him.
Cortes left for Veracruz accompanied by a few men and
soundly defeated Narvaez in just a few hours. When he returned
victorious to Tenochtitlan, he discovered that the Aztecs were
readied for combat. Pedro de Alvarado, who had stayed behind in
Mexico as commander-in-chief during Cortes's absence, had
uncovered a secret insurrection under the guise of a fiesta and
proceeded to massacre women, old people, and warriors dressed in
festive costume,
as well as a large number of children in the
streets of the great city.
The massacre infuriated the Aztecs, who could not retaliate
because the Spaniards held their ruler Moctezuma prisoner.
Nevertheless, Hernan Cortes never imagined that the "Noche
Triste" was fast approaching, a night during which he would
suffer his greatest defeat and find his army on the verge of
extermination. But a natural element turned out to be Cortes's
principal deadly weapon, an element that was much more effective
than his cannons, horses, and crossbows. Smallpox and measles
epidemics joined the conquering army and laid waste to the great
Aztec empire.
Some historians think these diseases were not endemic to the
Aztec world and therefore Aztec doctors did not know of any type
of treatment, so the epidemics spread rapidly throughout the
Americas. The first data offered by the chroniclers situate
these illnesses--at least
in respect to the continent--in the
capital of the great empire, Tenochtitlan.
In the darkness of the "Noche Triste," while Cortes wept
beneath the historic tree, the Aztecs gathered bodies by the
thousands which were scattered through forests and over plains.
They had won their first great victory over the powerful
invaders, but the apocalyptic panorama, so costly in lives,
allowed for no type of celebration. There were many Spanish
soldiers among the thousands of warriors fallen in battle. There
was also a man who was neither Aztec nor Spanish, a person who
passed into history name unknown and who was nonetheless perhaps
one of the most powerful forces that helped secure the conquest
of the New World, even though he himself never knew it.
The Aztec warriors had abandoned their weapons, had even
decided not to pursue Cortes's very decimated army, in order to
recover their dead, but there were still more
surprises in store
for them. In the darkness of the late afternoon, a warrior
discovered a strange being who was dying. His black skin was a
rarity as unknown to the Aztecs as the very whiteness of the
Spaniards. The black man had been brought by Narvaez, probably
from Cuba or Haiti, and was on the brink of death, not from
battle wounds but from the virulence of an illness that caused
bleeding from the nose, much coughing, inflammation of the throat
and nose, and small and large ulcers all over his body.
The Aztec warrior who found him spread the news about the
existence of that strange being, and it is surmised that many
curious people came to see with their own eyes the color of that
strange skin. That nameless black man unintentionally
contributed one of the greatest weapons of the conquistadors, and
in a short time the Aztec capital and surrounding areas were
suffering the rigors of a great epidemic.
Thus was their
situation when Cortes and his soldiers had recovered from their
wounds and prepared the counterattack, helped by the
Tlaxcaltecas.
The chronicles of Columbus already speak of various
contagious communities afflicted by smallpox in 1507, in the
recently discovered islands and later in Haiti in 1517, which
makes credible the hypothesis of the black man as transmitter of
the disease.
Five years later, smallpox was also wreaking havoc among the
Incas in what is now Peru and Ecuador, although it has not been
possible to determine if the contagious disease came from the
Aztec world or if it was brought by people who traveled with
Pizarro. Some chronicle note that in 1525, when the Extremenian
conquistador was making a trip through those lands, he found the
village of Tumluz half destroyed, "because of a great pestilence
that happened to them." The hypotheses point with greater
insistence
toward the possibility that the illness came from
Mexico, since it is known that over the course of those five
years the epidemics destroyed the Mayas and Guatemaltecos,
implying a shifting towards the south that could well have
reached the Incas by means of traders.
There are some researchers who affirm that it wasn't
smallpox that devastated the Aztec people but measles, and they
support their theories with the Memorial de Tecpan Atitlan, which
explains the symptoms of the sickness that produced the epidemic.
These researchers affirm that the nasal hemorrhage, angina, and
bronchial pneumonia can be complications of smallpox, but the
symptoms don't form an obligatory part of the clinical picture,
as in the case of measles.
With respect to the chroniclers' continuous mentions of
smallpox, the same researchers referred to above say that the
chroniclers, when speaking about epidemics of smallpox,
were
referring to the illness with a generic name, lacking medical
knowledge. Another of their arguments, though perhaps weaker, is
that in a great smallpox epidemic the survivors are left marked
on the skin, and often blind, but no chronicler nor indigenous
codex tells of groups of people with scarred skin or who were
blind. This makes one think that the survivors of the epidemics
survived measles and not smallpox. To end this series of
arguments, it can be added that in 1532 Pedro de Alvarado sent a
letter to Carlos V, dated September 1st, in which he says: "In
all of New Spain there came a pestilence over the natives that
they call measles."
Archaeological specimens dating from before the conquest
have been found with human figures that show traces on the
figures' faces of something similar to the pits left by smallpox,
although these sculptural testimonies don't show anything
concrete either. It
is known that in pre-Cortes America there
was an illness that caused swelling and inflammation on the body
and face, and that even some Spaniards caught the disease, but it
hasn't been proven that that illness left pock marks, though some
speculate that the marks on these figures represent that
mysterious disease.
At any rate, we can't reject the possibility that smallpox
might have been known in America and that it cyclically caused
damage. What is certain is that measles was unknown, but the
Aztecs must have suffered epidemics of one or the other
illnesses. Thus the discussion comes down to which illness the
Aztecs were suffering from when they were defeated by Cortes and
his allies. That it might have been either smallpox or measles
is pecata minuta, compared with the results it produced in favor
of the fistful of men that dared to confront the great Aztec
empire.
When Cortes and his men regained
their strength and
reorganized their army, they constructed ships in order to attack
the capital of the New World from the great lake Texcoco. This
attack was a determining factor in the definitive victory and
capture of the sacred city and the other allied capitals that
formed the "One World." The small work boats of the Indians and
their fragile war canoes were easily sunk by the Spanish ships
and the cities were cruelly bombarded until they were destroyed,
due to the refusal of the Aztecs to surrender.
The Aztecs, victims of panic, confronted the cannon balls
with their lances and arrows, while afflicted with nasal
hemorrhages, angina, inflammation of the throat, and small ulcers
on their faces that had already begun to enlarge. Though it is
certain that the true conquest was yet to take place after the
capital was seized, it can't be denied that these epidemics were
an important ally to the army of
the conquerors of America.
"Measles and Small Pox as an Allied Army of the Conquistadors of
America"
by Carlos Ruvalcaba, translated by Theresa M. Betz
in "Encounters" (Double Issue No. 5-6, pp. 44-45)
The year was 1520. Cortes had already entered the capital
of the Aztec empire and imprisoned Moctezuma when he received
notice of the arrival of Narvaez at the port of Veracruz, with
express orders to apprehend him.
Cortes left for Veracruz accompanied by a few men and
soundly defeated Narvaez in just a few hours. When he returned
victorious to Tenochtitlan, he discovered that the Aztecs were
readied for combat. Pedro de Alvarado, who had stayed behind in
Mexico as commander-in-chief during Cortes's absence, had
uncovered a secret insurrection under the guise of a fiesta and
proceeded to massacre women, old people, and warriors dressed in
festive costume,
as well as a large number of children in the
streets of the great city.
The massacre infuriated the Aztecs, who could not retaliate
because the Spaniards held their ruler Moctezuma prisoner.
Nevertheless, Hernan Cortes never imagined that the "Noche
Triste" was fast approaching, a night during which he would
suffer his greatest defeat and find his army on the verge of
extermination. But a natural element turned out to be Cortes's
principal deadly weapon, an element that was much more effective
than his cannons, horses, and crossbows. Smallpox and measles
epidemics joined the conquering army and laid waste to the great
Aztec empire.
Some historians think these diseases were not endemic to the
Aztec world and therefore Aztec doctors did not know of any type
of treatment, so the epidemics spread rapidly throughout the
Americas. The first data offered by the chroniclers situate
these illnesses--at least
in respect to the continent--in the
capital of the great empire, Tenochtitlan.
In the darkness of the "Noche Triste," while Cortes wept
beneath the historic tree, the Aztecs gathered bodies by the
thousands which were scattered through forests and over plains.
They had won their first great victory over the powerful
invaders, but the apocalyptic panorama, so costly in lives,
allowed for no type of celebration. There were many Spanish
soldiers among the thousands of warriors fallen in battle. There
was also a man who was neither Aztec nor Spanish, a person who
passed into history name unknown and who was nonetheless perhaps
one of the most powerful forces that helped secure the conquest
of the New World, even though he himself never knew it.
The Aztec warriors had abandoned their weapons, had even
decided not to pursue Cortes's very decimated army, in order to
recover their dead, but there were still more
surprises in store
for them. In the darkness of the late afternoon, a warrior
discovered a strange being who was dying. His black skin was a
rarity as unknown to the Aztecs as the very whiteness of the
Spaniards. The black man had been brought by Narvaez, probably
from Cuba or Haiti, and was on the brink of death, not from
battle wounds but from the virulence of an illness that caused
bleeding from the nose, much coughing, inflammation of the throat
and nose, and small and large ulcers all over his body.
The Aztec warrior who found him spread the news about the
existence of that strange being, and it is surmised that many
curious people came to see with their own eyes the color of that
strange skin. That nameless black man unintentionally
contributed one of the greatest weapons of the conquistadors, and
in a short time the Aztec capital and surrounding areas were
suffering the rigors of a great epidemic.
Thus was their
situation when Cortes and his soldiers had recovered from their
wounds and prepared the counterattack, helped by the
Tlaxcaltecas.
The chronicles of Columbus already speak of various
contagious communities afflicted by smallpox in 1507, in the
recently discovered islands and later in Haiti in 1517, which
makes credible the hypothesis of the black man as transmitter of
the disease.
Five years later, smallpox was also wreaking havoc among the
Incas in what is now Peru and Ecuador, although it has not been
possible to determine if the contagious disease came from the
Aztec world or if it was brought by people who traveled with
Pizarro. Some chronicle note that in 1525, when the Extremenian
conquistador was making a trip through those lands, he found the
village of Tumluz half destroyed, "because of a great pestilence
that happened to them." The hypotheses point with greater
insistence
toward the possibility that the illness came from
Mexico, since it is known that over the course of those five
years the epidemics destroyed the Mayas and Guatemaltecos,
implying a shifting towards the south that could well have
reached the Incas by means of traders.
There are some researchers who affirm that it wasn't
smallpox that devastated the Aztec people but measles, and they
support their theories with the Memorial de Tecpan Atitlan, which
explains the symptoms of the sickness that produced the epidemic.
These researchers affirm that the nasal hemorrhage, angina, and
bronchial pneumonia can be complications of smallpox, but the
symptoms don't form an obligatory part of the clinical picture,
as in the case of measles.
With respect to the chroniclers' continuous mentions of
smallpox, the same researchers referred to above say that the
chroniclers, when speaking about epidemics of smallpox,
were
referring to the illness with a generic name, lacking medical
knowledge. Another of their arguments, though perhaps weaker, is
that in a great smallpox epidemic the survivors are left marked
on the skin, and often blind, but no chronicler nor indigenous
codex tells of groups of people with scarred skin or who were
blind. This makes one think that the survivors of the epidemics
survived measles and not smallpox. To end this series of
arguments, it can be added that in 1532 Pedro de Alvarado sent a
letter to Carlos V, dated September 1st, in which he says: "In
all of New Spain there came a pestilence over the natives that
they call measles."
Archaeological specimens dating from before the conquest
have been found with human figures that show traces on the
figures' faces of something similar to the pits left by smallpox,
although these sculptural testimonies don't show anything
concrete either. It
is known that in pre-Cortes America there
was an illness that caused swelling and inflammation on the body
and face, and that even some Spaniards caught the disease, but it
hasn't been proven that that illness left pock marks, though some
speculate that the marks on these figures represent that
mysterious disease.
At any rate, we can't reject the possibility that smallpox
might have been known in America and that it cyclically caused
damage. What is certain is that measles was unknown, but the
Aztecs must have suffered epidemics of one or the other
illnesses. Thus the discussion comes down to which illness the
Aztecs were suffering from when they were defeated by Cortes and
his allies. That it might have been either smallpox or measles
is pecata minuta, compared with the results it produced in favor
of the fistful of men that dared to confront the great Aztec
empire.
When Cortes and his men regained
their strength and
reorganized their army, they constructed ships in order to attack
the capital of the New World from the great lake Texcoco. This
attack was a determining factor in the definitive victory and
capture of the sacred city and the other allied capitals that
formed the "One World." The small work boats of the Indians and
their fragile war canoes were easily sunk by the Spanish ships
and the cities were cruelly bombarded until they were destroyed,
due to the refusal of the Aztecs to surrender.
The Aztecs, victims of panic, confronted the cannon balls
with their lances and arrows, while afflicted with nasal
hemorrhages, angina, inflammation of the throat, and small ulcers
on their faces that had already begun to enlarge. Though it is
certain that the true conquest was yet to take place after the
capital was seized, it can't be denied that these epidemics were
an important ally to the army of
the conquerors of America.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Investors Buy Up Shares of Flu Drug Makers
JR: If you will recall in the past couple of years the U.S. had paid to stockpile 10s of millions of Tamiflu as well as WHO and other countries to prepare for any emergency flu pandemic because of the 8 month time frame from start-up production to fullfil "global" needs. AND GUESS WHAT! THE SHELF LIFE OF TAMIFLU IS ONLY 36 MONTHS AND THERE IS POSSIBLY A HUNDRED MILLION DOSES STOCKPILED WORDLWIDE.
SEE: http://www.rocheusa.com/programs/TamifluChain2002.pdf
Of course there would have to be a panic created on a global scale to use up all the stockpiles before these "reserves" expire (36 MONTHS) so they can then start up new production(s) to replace the all the present "expired" global stockpiles. As always, follow the money and find there is something or someone behind every event where there are profits to be made. There has been some reports that this particular strain of "Swine Flu" is suspected to be lab created.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/28/business/global/28drug.html
April 28, 2009
Investors Buy Up Shares of Flu Drug Makers
By DAVID JOLLY
PARIS — Shares of GlaxoSmithKline and Roche, makers of prescription flu treatments, rose Monday amid expectations that the swine flu scare would lift demand for their products.
There were no immediate signs of shortages of flu drugs. Roche, the Swiss maker of Tamiflu, said Monday that the World Health Organization has enough stockpiled to treat up to 5 million people, on top of millions more doses held by governments. Tamiflu has been stockpiled for years by governments, companies and health authorities. Still, shares of Roche rose 4.1 percent in Zurich, and GlaxoSmithKline rose 5 percent in London after the W.H.O. warned that the new A (H1N1) swine flu virus, which originates in pigs, could become a pandemic. The disease has killed more than 100 people in Mexico and isolated cases have been detected in countries around the world.
The W.H.O. said Tamiflu and GlaxoSmithKline’s Relenza could be effective against the disease, while the virus was resistant to an older class of drugs, which includes amantadine and rimantadine.
Biota Holdings, the Australian company that discovered the chemical behind Relenza and licensed it to Glaxo, rose nearly 82 percent in Sydney. Chugai Pharmaceutical, a unit of Roche that markets Tamiflu in Japan, rose 14 percent Monday, while Eiken Chemical, a maker of clinical diagnostic tools, also rose 14 percent. Gilead Sciences, the California biotechnology company that invented Tamiflu, rose 3.8 percent in early New York trading Monday.
Novavax, an American vaccine maker, soared 75 percent last Friday in New York, though it was not clear if that movement reflected anything more than a rush by investors into any stock that might conceivably gain from the epidemic. It rose another 160 percent Monday in early trading.
“We’ve seen these kind of effects with outbreaks before,” said Richard Purkiss, a drug sector analyst at Atlantic Securities in London.
“Generally speaking, you get a rally in stocks that have any kind of links to influenza.”
He noted that there did not appear to be a shortage of either Relenza or Tamiflu.
“There are very significant stockpiles for those drugs already,” he said, “but if those stockpiles are distributed and used, then you’ll see replenishment of orders subsequent to the outbreak.”
Martina Rupp, a spokeswoman in Basel for Roche, said Roche had donated 5 million treatment courses of Tamiflu to the W.H.O. in 2006 for a “rapid response stockpile,” which is available on 24 hours notice. Half of that stockpile is stored in Switzerland, and the other half in the United States, she said.
Ms. Rupp said it takes about eight months to produce Tamiflu if production were to start from scratch, but because the company has stockpiled intermediate materials, it could ramp up production in weeks or months.
GlaxoSmithKline said in a statement that since the start of the outbreak, it had supplied 100,000 packs of Relenza and 170,000 additional doses of its seasonal influenza vaccine to the Mexican authorities. GlaxoSmithKline, based in London, said it was closely monitoring the situation with the W.H.O. and that it was “urgently assessing mechanisms to increase production of Relenza.”
Glaxo is also “ready to initiate discussions with local authorities for the manufacture of a vaccine to help prevent this new influenza strain, once a suitable candidate vaccine strain is available from the W.H.O.,” it said.
Sales of Relenza, which is inhaled, have outpaced Tamiflu of late as governments increase their purchases to balance stockpiles.
Mr. Purkiss cautioned that shares of vaccine makers might not hold their gains, because a long lead time is required from the identification of a virus to commercial production of a vaccine.
Relenza and Tamiflu, both neuraminidase inhibitors, are not without their dangers. They are suspected of causing neural and psychiatric side effects, including delirium and abnormal behavior, a committee of outside advisers to the Food and Drug Administration said in 2007.
SEE: http://www.rocheusa.com/programs/TamifluChain2002.pdf
Of course there would have to be a panic created on a global scale to use up all the stockpiles before these "reserves" expire (36 MONTHS) so they can then start up new production(s) to replace the all the present "expired" global stockpiles. As always, follow the money and find there is something or someone behind every event where there are profits to be made. There has been some reports that this particular strain of "Swine Flu" is suspected to be lab created.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/28/business/global/28drug.html
April 28, 2009
Investors Buy Up Shares of Flu Drug Makers
By DAVID JOLLY
PARIS — Shares of GlaxoSmithKline and Roche, makers of prescription flu treatments, rose Monday amid expectations that the swine flu scare would lift demand for their products.
There were no immediate signs of shortages of flu drugs. Roche, the Swiss maker of Tamiflu, said Monday that the World Health Organization has enough stockpiled to treat up to 5 million people, on top of millions more doses held by governments. Tamiflu has been stockpiled for years by governments, companies and health authorities. Still, shares of Roche rose 4.1 percent in Zurich, and GlaxoSmithKline rose 5 percent in London after the W.H.O. warned that the new A (H1N1) swine flu virus, which originates in pigs, could become a pandemic. The disease has killed more than 100 people in Mexico and isolated cases have been detected in countries around the world.
The W.H.O. said Tamiflu and GlaxoSmithKline’s Relenza could be effective against the disease, while the virus was resistant to an older class of drugs, which includes amantadine and rimantadine.
Biota Holdings, the Australian company that discovered the chemical behind Relenza and licensed it to Glaxo, rose nearly 82 percent in Sydney. Chugai Pharmaceutical, a unit of Roche that markets Tamiflu in Japan, rose 14 percent Monday, while Eiken Chemical, a maker of clinical diagnostic tools, also rose 14 percent. Gilead Sciences, the California biotechnology company that invented Tamiflu, rose 3.8 percent in early New York trading Monday.
Novavax, an American vaccine maker, soared 75 percent last Friday in New York, though it was not clear if that movement reflected anything more than a rush by investors into any stock that might conceivably gain from the epidemic. It rose another 160 percent Monday in early trading.
“We’ve seen these kind of effects with outbreaks before,” said Richard Purkiss, a drug sector analyst at Atlantic Securities in London.
“Generally speaking, you get a rally in stocks that have any kind of links to influenza.”
He noted that there did not appear to be a shortage of either Relenza or Tamiflu.
“There are very significant stockpiles for those drugs already,” he said, “but if those stockpiles are distributed and used, then you’ll see replenishment of orders subsequent to the outbreak.”
Martina Rupp, a spokeswoman in Basel for Roche, said Roche had donated 5 million treatment courses of Tamiflu to the W.H.O. in 2006 for a “rapid response stockpile,” which is available on 24 hours notice. Half of that stockpile is stored in Switzerland, and the other half in the United States, she said.
Ms. Rupp said it takes about eight months to produce Tamiflu if production were to start from scratch, but because the company has stockpiled intermediate materials, it could ramp up production in weeks or months.
GlaxoSmithKline said in a statement that since the start of the outbreak, it had supplied 100,000 packs of Relenza and 170,000 additional doses of its seasonal influenza vaccine to the Mexican authorities. GlaxoSmithKline, based in London, said it was closely monitoring the situation with the W.H.O. and that it was “urgently assessing mechanisms to increase production of Relenza.”
Glaxo is also “ready to initiate discussions with local authorities for the manufacture of a vaccine to help prevent this new influenza strain, once a suitable candidate vaccine strain is available from the W.H.O.,” it said.
Sales of Relenza, which is inhaled, have outpaced Tamiflu of late as governments increase their purchases to balance stockpiles.
Mr. Purkiss cautioned that shares of vaccine makers might not hold their gains, because a long lead time is required from the identification of a virus to commercial production of a vaccine.
Relenza and Tamiflu, both neuraminidase inhibitors, are not without their dangers. They are suspected of causing neural and psychiatric side effects, including delirium and abnormal behavior, a committee of outside advisers to the Food and Drug Administration said in 2007.
SWINE FLU OUTBREAKS?
SWINE FLU OUTBREAKS?
(THE GLOBAL MONETARY AND MEDICAL TRICK AND GIMMICK OF MEDICAL MAFIA, VACCINE INDUSTRY AND FINANCIERS)
By Eric V. Encina
“A man’s life begins to end the day he becomes silent about things that matter.” – Martin Luther King
WHAT IS THE NOBLE THING THAT MATTERS FOR HUMANITY? DEBT VIRUS? OR FABRICATED SWIND FLU VIRUS?
DON’T BE GULLIBLE!!!! False and exaggerated false alarms:
SWINE FLU is another subtle combination of “inside job” of series of dirty medical and monetary tricks and gimmicks as usual, conspiracy, deception, scam, racket and adroit propaganda of Medical Mafia, Virologists, Vaccine Industry Profiteers, Multinational Drug and Pharmaceutical Corporations and GLOBAL HEALTH AGENCIES such as WHO, and their medical practitioners and of course behind the scene: the international bankers!
TAKE A LOOK THE ROLE OF DEBT FINANCE IN SWINE FLU OUTBREAK:
WORLD BANK (WB) is now offering US$4BILLION AT INTEREST LOAN TO MEXICAN GOVERNMENT as claimed to ERADICATE SWINE FLU VIRUS!
THERE ARE CONTAMINATORS AND FINANCIERS FOR THIS SWINE FLU VIRUS.
There is no even a reliable information whether it is a swine flu or not!
This is a another climax of trick that at the end WORLD BANK would also offer loans to other nations for loans at interest in the name of aid to help eradicate THIS FABRICATED AND SPURIOUS/RIDICULOUS SWINE FLU!
These global manipulators are adroitly and reconditely creating health crisis and engaging in medical and monetary tricks to keep LARGE PERCENTAGE OF HUMANITY already in panic, IN THE BONDAGE OF DISEASES and thus to create FURTHER DEBTS FOR FURTHER SLAVERY AND MISERY OF HUMANITY!
DEBT CRISIS AND HEALTH CRISIS are the two major combined weapon or tool for MASS DESTRUCTION.
It is not the SWINE FLU that is in pandemic proportions! IT IS THE DEBT MONEY SYSTEM and its progenitors, lackeys and protectors – that has ALREADY REACHED PANDEMIC PROPORTIONS!
THE DEBT VIRUS HAS ALREADY PESTIFEROUSLY INFECTED BILLIONS OF PEOPLE ACROSS THE PLANET – now exactly to be candidates for death!
Medical Mafia is just one of the agents of the International Bankers!
Eric V. Encina
ericencina@yahoo.com
(THE GLOBAL MONETARY AND MEDICAL TRICK AND GIMMICK OF MEDICAL MAFIA, VACCINE INDUSTRY AND FINANCIERS)
By Eric V. Encina
“A man’s life begins to end the day he becomes silent about things that matter.” – Martin Luther King
WHAT IS THE NOBLE THING THAT MATTERS FOR HUMANITY? DEBT VIRUS? OR FABRICATED SWIND FLU VIRUS?
DON’T BE GULLIBLE!!!! False and exaggerated false alarms:
SWINE FLU is another subtle combination of “inside job” of series of dirty medical and monetary tricks and gimmicks as usual, conspiracy, deception, scam, racket and adroit propaganda of Medical Mafia, Virologists, Vaccine Industry Profiteers, Multinational Drug and Pharmaceutical Corporations and GLOBAL HEALTH AGENCIES such as WHO, and their medical practitioners and of course behind the scene: the international bankers!
TAKE A LOOK THE ROLE OF DEBT FINANCE IN SWINE FLU OUTBREAK:
WORLD BANK (WB) is now offering US$4BILLION AT INTEREST LOAN TO MEXICAN GOVERNMENT as claimed to ERADICATE SWINE FLU VIRUS!
THERE ARE CONTAMINATORS AND FINANCIERS FOR THIS SWINE FLU VIRUS.
There is no even a reliable information whether it is a swine flu or not!
This is a another climax of trick that at the end WORLD BANK would also offer loans to other nations for loans at interest in the name of aid to help eradicate THIS FABRICATED AND SPURIOUS/RIDICULOUS SWINE FLU!
These global manipulators are adroitly and reconditely creating health crisis and engaging in medical and monetary tricks to keep LARGE PERCENTAGE OF HUMANITY already in panic, IN THE BONDAGE OF DISEASES and thus to create FURTHER DEBTS FOR FURTHER SLAVERY AND MISERY OF HUMANITY!
DEBT CRISIS AND HEALTH CRISIS are the two major combined weapon or tool for MASS DESTRUCTION.
It is not the SWINE FLU that is in pandemic proportions! IT IS THE DEBT MONEY SYSTEM and its progenitors, lackeys and protectors – that has ALREADY REACHED PANDEMIC PROPORTIONS!
THE DEBT VIRUS HAS ALREADY PESTIFEROUSLY INFECTED BILLIONS OF PEOPLE ACROSS THE PLANET – now exactly to be candidates for death!
Medical Mafia is just one of the agents of the International Bankers!
Eric V. Encina
ericencina@yahoo.com
BIOLOGICAL WEAPON
The mysterious deaths of top microbiologists
It all began with Don Wiley.
On November 15th, Harvard Professor Don Wiley left a gathering of friends and colleagues some time after 10:30 PM. The next morning, Memphis police found his rental car stopped on a bridge, with a full tank of gas and keys still in the ignition. There was no financial or family trouble. Indeed Wiley was supposed to meet his family at the Memphis airport to continue on to an Icelandic vacation. Neither was there any history of depression or mental illness.
In the report printed in the New York Times on November 27th, the FBI's Memphis office distanced itself from the case saying that the available facts did not add up to a suspicion of foul play. I guess at the FBI it's a perfectly everyday occurrence for a Harvard Professor to stop his rental car on a bridge in the middle of the night before he is supposed to leave for Iceland and just walk away into the Tennessee dark.
The NYT report of November 27th also downplayed Professor Wiley's expertise in virology, quoting Gregory Verdine, a professor of chemical biology at Harvard, said, "If bioterrorists were to abduct Don Wiley, they'd be very disappointed," because his research was in studying the component parts of viruses, and "that doesn't really help you make a more dangerous version of the virus."
But this statement is not consistent with the facts of Professor Wiley's full range of knowledge. Wiley has, in conjunction with another Harvard Professor, Dr. Jack Strominger, won several academic prizes for their work in immunology, including a Lasker prize. Don Wiley is a Harvard professor, but he is also a researcher at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the National Institute of Health. The Howard Hughes Medical Institute is located in Chevy Chase, Maryland, and performs biological research, sometimes jointly funded by the Department of Defense and the NIH. Don Wiley's peers at Harvard include professors such as John Collier performing research on Anthrax.
So, contrary to the dismissive tone of the New York Times report, Professor Wiley would be of great value to anyone developing biological weapons. This makes the FBI's obvious disinterest in the case highly questionable, indeed reminiscent of the FBI's obvious disinterest in the numerous witnesses in Oklahoma City who had seen Tim McVeigh in the company of additional perpetrators not to mention the witnesses who had seen additional bombs.
Especially in light of the events of 9/11, the vanishing of a scientist with Professor Wiley's expertise in virology and immunology should have been expected to be an issue of critical national importance, yet the official tone of the government was that this is nothing to worry about. Move along citizen, nothing to see.
In the context of the Anthrax letters being sent through the mail, any disappearance of any microbiologist under questionable circumstances should have set off alarm bells across the nation. but it didn't. Professor Wiley was assumed to have committed suicide, end of story.
The professor's colleagues expressed doubts about the official "suicide" explanation for his disappearance.
Then, more biologists started to die under suspicious circumstances.
The Very Mysterious Deaths of Five Microbiologists.
The body count of infections disease experts continued to climb. Connections to weapons research began to surface.
As many as 14 world-class microbiologists died between 9/11/1 and 3/2/2, and on 6/24/2 yet another microbiologist was added to the list.
Still the US Government acted as if nothing was amiss, as silent on the question of dead microbiologists as they are on the question of the Israeli spies and their connection to 9-11.
In fact, the official silence on the question of how so many top experts in infectious diseases could die in such a short time span is deafening.
Now, statistically, it's possible, even likely, that one or two of these microbiologists legitimately were killed in random accidents. But for so many to die in such a short while exceeds all reasonable bounds of statistics. Prudence would demand an investigation, not the "ho hum" attitude of the government which even today continues to issue dire warnings to the general population of how much we are all in danger from "bioterrorism".
So, let's take a moment and step away from the perpetual fear-mongering of the media (and Rumsfeld) as they assure us another attack IS coming (with a certainty which suggests inside information on the subject) and assume for a moment that some party has indeed decided to "liquidate" weapons research infectious disease experts.
There is really only one reason to kill off a bunch of scientists. To keep them from doing something they are able to do.
What were these scientists able to do? Maybe blow the whistle if an artificially created disease was about to be used in a manner those who created it did not approve of.
Regardless of the exact reason, there does seem to be a clear pattern of targeted microbiologists, and paired with it, an obvious government disinterest in the matter.
I leave it to you to figure out why.
It all began with Don Wiley.
On November 15th, Harvard Professor Don Wiley left a gathering of friends and colleagues some time after 10:30 PM. The next morning, Memphis police found his rental car stopped on a bridge, with a full tank of gas and keys still in the ignition. There was no financial or family trouble. Indeed Wiley was supposed to meet his family at the Memphis airport to continue on to an Icelandic vacation. Neither was there any history of depression or mental illness.
In the report printed in the New York Times on November 27th, the FBI's Memphis office distanced itself from the case saying that the available facts did not add up to a suspicion of foul play. I guess at the FBI it's a perfectly everyday occurrence for a Harvard Professor to stop his rental car on a bridge in the middle of the night before he is supposed to leave for Iceland and just walk away into the Tennessee dark.
The NYT report of November 27th also downplayed Professor Wiley's expertise in virology, quoting Gregory Verdine, a professor of chemical biology at Harvard, said, "If bioterrorists were to abduct Don Wiley, they'd be very disappointed," because his research was in studying the component parts of viruses, and "that doesn't really help you make a more dangerous version of the virus."
But this statement is not consistent with the facts of Professor Wiley's full range of knowledge. Wiley has, in conjunction with another Harvard Professor, Dr. Jack Strominger, won several academic prizes for their work in immunology, including a Lasker prize. Don Wiley is a Harvard professor, but he is also a researcher at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the National Institute of Health. The Howard Hughes Medical Institute is located in Chevy Chase, Maryland, and performs biological research, sometimes jointly funded by the Department of Defense and the NIH. Don Wiley's peers at Harvard include professors such as John Collier performing research on Anthrax.
So, contrary to the dismissive tone of the New York Times report, Professor Wiley would be of great value to anyone developing biological weapons. This makes the FBI's obvious disinterest in the case highly questionable, indeed reminiscent of the FBI's obvious disinterest in the numerous witnesses in Oklahoma City who had seen Tim McVeigh in the company of additional perpetrators not to mention the witnesses who had seen additional bombs.
Especially in light of the events of 9/11, the vanishing of a scientist with Professor Wiley's expertise in virology and immunology should have been expected to be an issue of critical national importance, yet the official tone of the government was that this is nothing to worry about. Move along citizen, nothing to see.
In the context of the Anthrax letters being sent through the mail, any disappearance of any microbiologist under questionable circumstances should have set off alarm bells across the nation. but it didn't. Professor Wiley was assumed to have committed suicide, end of story.
The professor's colleagues expressed doubts about the official "suicide" explanation for his disappearance.
Then, more biologists started to die under suspicious circumstances.
The Very Mysterious Deaths of Five Microbiologists.
The body count of infections disease experts continued to climb. Connections to weapons research began to surface.
As many as 14 world-class microbiologists died between 9/11/1 and 3/2/2, and on 6/24/2 yet another microbiologist was added to the list.
Still the US Government acted as if nothing was amiss, as silent on the question of dead microbiologists as they are on the question of the Israeli spies and their connection to 9-11.
In fact, the official silence on the question of how so many top experts in infectious diseases could die in such a short time span is deafening.
Now, statistically, it's possible, even likely, that one or two of these microbiologists legitimately were killed in random accidents. But for so many to die in such a short while exceeds all reasonable bounds of statistics. Prudence would demand an investigation, not the "ho hum" attitude of the government which even today continues to issue dire warnings to the general population of how much we are all in danger from "bioterrorism".
So, let's take a moment and step away from the perpetual fear-mongering of the media (and Rumsfeld) as they assure us another attack IS coming (with a certainty which suggests inside information on the subject) and assume for a moment that some party has indeed decided to "liquidate" weapons research infectious disease experts.
There is really only one reason to kill off a bunch of scientists. To keep them from doing something they are able to do.
What were these scientists able to do? Maybe blow the whistle if an artificially created disease was about to be used in a manner those who created it did not approve of.
Regardless of the exact reason, there does seem to be a clear pattern of targeted microbiologists, and paired with it, an obvious government disinterest in the matter.
I leave it to you to figure out why.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Obama's First Hundred Days and U.S. Presidential Realities
from STRATFOR
Obama's First Hundred Days and U.S. Presidential Realities
April 27, 2009
Graphic for Geopolitical Intelligence Report
By George Friedman
Related Special Topic Page
* The 2008 U.S. Presidential Race
U.S. presidential candidates run for office as if they would be free to act however they wish once elected. But upon election, they govern as they must. The freedom of the campaign trail contrasts sharply with the constraints of reality.
The test of a president is how effectively he bridges the gap between what he said he would do and what he finds he must do. Great presidents achieve this seamlessly, while mediocre presidents never recover from the transition. All presidents make the shift, including Obama, who spent his first hundred days on this task.
Obama won the presidency with a much smaller margin than his supporters seem to believe. Despite his wide margin in the Electoral College, more than 47 percent of voters cast ballots against him. Obama was acutely aware of this and focused on making certain not to create a massive split in the country from the outset of his term. He did this in foreign policy by keeping Robert Gates on as defense secretary, bringing in Hillary Clinton, Richard Holbrooke and George Mitchell in key roles and essentially extrapolating from the Bush foreign policy. So far, this has worked. Obama’s approval rating rests at 69 percent, which The Washington Post notes is average for presidents at the hundred-day mark.
Obama, of course, came into office in circumstances he did not anticipate when he began campaigning — namely, the financial and economic crisis that really began to bite in September 2008. Obama had no problem bridging the gap between campaign and governance with regard to this matter, as his campaign neither anticipated nor proposed strategies for the crisis — it just hit. The general pattern for dealing with the crisis was set during the Bush administration, when the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve Board put in place a strategy of infusing money into failing institutions to prevent what they feared would be a calamitous economic chain reaction.
Obama continued the Bush policy, though he added a stimulus package. But such a package had been discussed in the Bush administration, and it is unlikely that Sen. John McCain would have avoided creating one had he been elected. Obviously, the particular projects funded and the particular interests favored would differ between McCain and Obama, but the essential principle would not. The financial crisis would have been handled the same way — just as everything from the Third World debt crisis to the Savings and Loan crisis would have been handled the same way no matter who was president. Under either man, the vast net worth of the United States (we estimate it at about $350 trillion) would have been tapped by printing money and raising taxes, and U.S. assets would have been used to underwrite bad investments, increase consumption and build political coalitions through pork. Obama had no plan for this. Instead, he expanded upon the Bush administration solution and followed tradition.
The Reality of International Affairs
The manner in which Obama was trapped by reality is most clear with regard to international affairs. At the heart of Obama’s campaign was the idea that one of the major failures of the Bush administration was alienating the European allies of the United States. Obama argued that a more forthcoming approach to the Europeans would yield a more forthcoming response. In fact, the Europeans were no more forthcoming with Obama than they were with Bush.
Obama’s latest trip to Europe focused on two American demands and one European — primarily German — demand. Obama wanted the Germans to increase their economic stimulus plan because Germany is the largest exporter in the world. With the United States stimulating its economy, the Germans could solve their economic problem simply by increasing exports into the United States. This would limit job creation in the United States, particularly because German exports involve automobiles as well as other things, and Obama has struggled to build domestic demand for U.S. autos. Thus, he wanted the Germans to build domestic demand and not just rely on the United States to pull Germany out of recession. But the Germans refused, arguing that they could not afford a major stimulus now (when in fact they have no reason to be flexible, because the U.S. stimulus is going to help them no matter what Germany does).
Germany’s and France’s unwillingness to provide substantially more support in Afghanistan gave Obama a second disappointment. Some European troops were sent, but their numbers were few and their mission was limited to a very short period. (In some cases, the European force contribution will focus on training indigenous police officers, which will take a year or more to really have an impact.) The French and Germans essentially were as unwilling to deal with Obama as they were with Bush on this matter.
The Europeans, on the other hand, wanted a major effort by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The Central European banking system, largely owned by banks from more established European countries, has reached a crisis state because of aggressive lending policies. The Germans in particular don’t want to bail out these banks; they want the IMF to do so. Put differently, they want the United States, China and Japan to help underwrite the European banking system. Obama did agree to contribute to this effort, but not nearly on the scale the Europeans wanted.
On the whole, the Europeans gave two big nos, while the Americans gave a mild yes. In substantive terms, the U.S.-European relationship is no better than it was under Bush. In terms of perception, however, the Obama administration managed a brilliant coup, shifting the focus to the changed atmosphere that prevailed at the meeting. Indeed, all parties wanted to emphasize the atmospherics, and judging from media coverage, they succeeded. The trip accordingly was perceived as a triumph.
Campaign Promises and Public Perception
This is not a trivial achievement. There are campaign promises, there is reality and there is public perception. All presidents must move from campaigning to governing; extremely skilled presidents manage the shift without appearing duplicitous. At least in the European case, Obama has managed the shift without suffering political damage. His core supporters appear prepared to support him independent of results. And that is an important foundation for effective governance.
We can see the same continuity in his treatment of Russia. When he ran for president, Obama pledged to abandon the U.S. ballistic missile defense (BMD) deployment in Poland amid a great show made about resetting U.S. Russia policy. On taking office, however, he encountered the reality of the Russian position, which is that Russia wants to be the pre-eminent power in the former Soviet Union. The Bush administration took the position that the United States must be free to maintain bilateral relations with any country, to include the ability to extend NATO membership to interested countries. Obama has reaffirmed this core U.S. position.
The United States has asked for Russian help in two areas. First, Washington asked for a second supply line into Afghanistan. Moscow agreed so long as no military equipment was shipped in. Second, Washington offered to withdraw its BMD system from Poland in return for help from Moscow in blocking Iran’s development of nuclear weapons and missiles. The Russians refused, understanding that the offer on BMD was not worth removing a massive thorn (i.e., Iran) from the Americans’ side.
In other words, U.S.-Russian relations are about where they were in the Bush administration, and Obama’s substantive position is not materially different from the Bush administration’s position. The BMD deal remains in place, the United States is not depending on Russian help on logistics in Afghanistan, and Washington has not backed off on the principle of NATO expansion (even if expansion is most unlikely).
In Iraq, Obama has essentially followed the reality created under the Bush administration, shifting withdrawal dates somewhat but following the Petraeus strategy there and extending it — or trying to extend it — to Afghanistan. The Pakistani problem, of course, presents the greatest challenge (as it would have for any president), and Obama is coping with it to the extent possible.
Obama’s managing of perceptions as opposed to actually making policy changes shows up most clearly in regard to Iran. Obama tried to open the door to Tehran by indicating that he was prepared to talk to the Iranians without preconditions — that is, without any prior commitment on the part of the Iranians regarding nuclear development. The Iranians reacted by rejecting the opening, essentially saying Obama’s overture was merely a gesture, not a substantial shift in American policy. The Iranians are, of course, quite correct in this. Obama fully understands that he cannot shift policy on Iran without a host of regional complications. For example, the Saudis would be enormously upset by such an opening, while the Syrians would have to re-evaluate their entire position on openings to Israel and the United States. Changing U.S. Iranian policy is hard to do. There is a reason Washington has the policy it does, and that reason extends beyond presidents and policymakers.
When we look at Obama’s substantive foreign policy, we see continuity rather than changes. Certainly, the rhetoric has changed, and that is not insignificant; atmospherics do play a role in foreign affairs. Nevertheless, when we look across the globe, we see the same configuration of relationships, the same partners, the same enemies and the same ambiguity that dominates most global relations.
Turkey and the Substantial U.S. Shift
One substantial shift has taken place, however, and that one is with Turkey. The Obama administration has made major overtures to Turkey in multiple forms, from a presidential visit to putting U.S. anti-piracy vessels under Turkish command. These are not symbolic moves. The United States needs Turkey to counterbalance Iran, protect U.S. interests in the Caucasus, help stabilize Iraq, serve as a bridge to Syria and help in Afghanistan. Obama has clearly shifted strategy here in response to changing conditions in the region.
Intriguingly, the change in U.S.-Turkish relations never surfaced as even a minor issue during the U.S. presidential campaign. It emerged after the election because of changes in the configuration of the international system. Shifts in Russian policy, the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and shifts within Turkey that allowed the country to begin its return to the international arena all came together to make this necessary, and Obama responded.
None of this is designed to denigrate Obama in the least. While many of his followers may be dismayed, and while many of his critics might be unwilling to notice, the fact is that a single concept dominated Obama’s first hundred days: continuity. In the face of the realities of his domestic political position and the U.S. strategic position, as well as the economic crisis, Obama did what he had to do, and what he had to do very much followed from what Bush did. It is fascinating that both Obama’s supporters and his critics think he has made far more changes than he really has.
Of course, this is only the first hundred days. Presidents look for room to maneuver after they do what they need to do in the short run. Some presidents use that room to pursue policies that weaken, and even destroy, their presidencies. Others find ways to enhance their position. But normally, the hardest thing a president faces is finding the space to do the things he wants to do rather than what he must do. Obama came through the first hundred days following the path laid out for him. It is only in Turkey where he made a move that he wasn’t compelled to make just now, but that had to happen at some point. It will be interesting to see how many more such moves he makes.
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Obama's First Hundred Days and U.S. Presidential Realities
April 27, 2009
Graphic for Geopolitical Intelligence Report
By George Friedman
Related Special Topic Page
* The 2008 U.S. Presidential Race
U.S. presidential candidates run for office as if they would be free to act however they wish once elected. But upon election, they govern as they must. The freedom of the campaign trail contrasts sharply with the constraints of reality.
The test of a president is how effectively he bridges the gap between what he said he would do and what he finds he must do. Great presidents achieve this seamlessly, while mediocre presidents never recover from the transition. All presidents make the shift, including Obama, who spent his first hundred days on this task.
Obama won the presidency with a much smaller margin than his supporters seem to believe. Despite his wide margin in the Electoral College, more than 47 percent of voters cast ballots against him. Obama was acutely aware of this and focused on making certain not to create a massive split in the country from the outset of his term. He did this in foreign policy by keeping Robert Gates on as defense secretary, bringing in Hillary Clinton, Richard Holbrooke and George Mitchell in key roles and essentially extrapolating from the Bush foreign policy. So far, this has worked. Obama’s approval rating rests at 69 percent, which The Washington Post notes is average for presidents at the hundred-day mark.
Obama, of course, came into office in circumstances he did not anticipate when he began campaigning — namely, the financial and economic crisis that really began to bite in September 2008. Obama had no problem bridging the gap between campaign and governance with regard to this matter, as his campaign neither anticipated nor proposed strategies for the crisis — it just hit. The general pattern for dealing with the crisis was set during the Bush administration, when the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve Board put in place a strategy of infusing money into failing institutions to prevent what they feared would be a calamitous economic chain reaction.
Obama continued the Bush policy, though he added a stimulus package. But such a package had been discussed in the Bush administration, and it is unlikely that Sen. John McCain would have avoided creating one had he been elected. Obviously, the particular projects funded and the particular interests favored would differ between McCain and Obama, but the essential principle would not. The financial crisis would have been handled the same way — just as everything from the Third World debt crisis to the Savings and Loan crisis would have been handled the same way no matter who was president. Under either man, the vast net worth of the United States (we estimate it at about $350 trillion) would have been tapped by printing money and raising taxes, and U.S. assets would have been used to underwrite bad investments, increase consumption and build political coalitions through pork. Obama had no plan for this. Instead, he expanded upon the Bush administration solution and followed tradition.
The Reality of International Affairs
The manner in which Obama was trapped by reality is most clear with regard to international affairs. At the heart of Obama’s campaign was the idea that one of the major failures of the Bush administration was alienating the European allies of the United States. Obama argued that a more forthcoming approach to the Europeans would yield a more forthcoming response. In fact, the Europeans were no more forthcoming with Obama than they were with Bush.
Obama’s latest trip to Europe focused on two American demands and one European — primarily German — demand. Obama wanted the Germans to increase their economic stimulus plan because Germany is the largest exporter in the world. With the United States stimulating its economy, the Germans could solve their economic problem simply by increasing exports into the United States. This would limit job creation in the United States, particularly because German exports involve automobiles as well as other things, and Obama has struggled to build domestic demand for U.S. autos. Thus, he wanted the Germans to build domestic demand and not just rely on the United States to pull Germany out of recession. But the Germans refused, arguing that they could not afford a major stimulus now (when in fact they have no reason to be flexible, because the U.S. stimulus is going to help them no matter what Germany does).
Germany’s and France’s unwillingness to provide substantially more support in Afghanistan gave Obama a second disappointment. Some European troops were sent, but their numbers were few and their mission was limited to a very short period. (In some cases, the European force contribution will focus on training indigenous police officers, which will take a year or more to really have an impact.) The French and Germans essentially were as unwilling to deal with Obama as they were with Bush on this matter.
The Europeans, on the other hand, wanted a major effort by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The Central European banking system, largely owned by banks from more established European countries, has reached a crisis state because of aggressive lending policies. The Germans in particular don’t want to bail out these banks; they want the IMF to do so. Put differently, they want the United States, China and Japan to help underwrite the European banking system. Obama did agree to contribute to this effort, but not nearly on the scale the Europeans wanted.
On the whole, the Europeans gave two big nos, while the Americans gave a mild yes. In substantive terms, the U.S.-European relationship is no better than it was under Bush. In terms of perception, however, the Obama administration managed a brilliant coup, shifting the focus to the changed atmosphere that prevailed at the meeting. Indeed, all parties wanted to emphasize the atmospherics, and judging from media coverage, they succeeded. The trip accordingly was perceived as a triumph.
Campaign Promises and Public Perception
This is not a trivial achievement. There are campaign promises, there is reality and there is public perception. All presidents must move from campaigning to governing; extremely skilled presidents manage the shift without appearing duplicitous. At least in the European case, Obama has managed the shift without suffering political damage. His core supporters appear prepared to support him independent of results. And that is an important foundation for effective governance.
We can see the same continuity in his treatment of Russia. When he ran for president, Obama pledged to abandon the U.S. ballistic missile defense (BMD) deployment in Poland amid a great show made about resetting U.S. Russia policy. On taking office, however, he encountered the reality of the Russian position, which is that Russia wants to be the pre-eminent power in the former Soviet Union. The Bush administration took the position that the United States must be free to maintain bilateral relations with any country, to include the ability to extend NATO membership to interested countries. Obama has reaffirmed this core U.S. position.
The United States has asked for Russian help in two areas. First, Washington asked for a second supply line into Afghanistan. Moscow agreed so long as no military equipment was shipped in. Second, Washington offered to withdraw its BMD system from Poland in return for help from Moscow in blocking Iran’s development of nuclear weapons and missiles. The Russians refused, understanding that the offer on BMD was not worth removing a massive thorn (i.e., Iran) from the Americans’ side.
In other words, U.S.-Russian relations are about where they were in the Bush administration, and Obama’s substantive position is not materially different from the Bush administration’s position. The BMD deal remains in place, the United States is not depending on Russian help on logistics in Afghanistan, and Washington has not backed off on the principle of NATO expansion (even if expansion is most unlikely).
In Iraq, Obama has essentially followed the reality created under the Bush administration, shifting withdrawal dates somewhat but following the Petraeus strategy there and extending it — or trying to extend it — to Afghanistan. The Pakistani problem, of course, presents the greatest challenge (as it would have for any president), and Obama is coping with it to the extent possible.
Obama’s managing of perceptions as opposed to actually making policy changes shows up most clearly in regard to Iran. Obama tried to open the door to Tehran by indicating that he was prepared to talk to the Iranians without preconditions — that is, without any prior commitment on the part of the Iranians regarding nuclear development. The Iranians reacted by rejecting the opening, essentially saying Obama’s overture was merely a gesture, not a substantial shift in American policy. The Iranians are, of course, quite correct in this. Obama fully understands that he cannot shift policy on Iran without a host of regional complications. For example, the Saudis would be enormously upset by such an opening, while the Syrians would have to re-evaluate their entire position on openings to Israel and the United States. Changing U.S. Iranian policy is hard to do. There is a reason Washington has the policy it does, and that reason extends beyond presidents and policymakers.
When we look at Obama’s substantive foreign policy, we see continuity rather than changes. Certainly, the rhetoric has changed, and that is not insignificant; atmospherics do play a role in foreign affairs. Nevertheless, when we look across the globe, we see the same configuration of relationships, the same partners, the same enemies and the same ambiguity that dominates most global relations.
Turkey and the Substantial U.S. Shift
One substantial shift has taken place, however, and that one is with Turkey. The Obama administration has made major overtures to Turkey in multiple forms, from a presidential visit to putting U.S. anti-piracy vessels under Turkish command. These are not symbolic moves. The United States needs Turkey to counterbalance Iran, protect U.S. interests in the Caucasus, help stabilize Iraq, serve as a bridge to Syria and help in Afghanistan. Obama has clearly shifted strategy here in response to changing conditions in the region.
Intriguingly, the change in U.S.-Turkish relations never surfaced as even a minor issue during the U.S. presidential campaign. It emerged after the election because of changes in the configuration of the international system. Shifts in Russian policy, the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and shifts within Turkey that allowed the country to begin its return to the international arena all came together to make this necessary, and Obama responded.
None of this is designed to denigrate Obama in the least. While many of his followers may be dismayed, and while many of his critics might be unwilling to notice, the fact is that a single concept dominated Obama’s first hundred days: continuity. In the face of the realities of his domestic political position and the U.S. strategic position, as well as the economic crisis, Obama did what he had to do, and what he had to do very much followed from what Bush did. It is fascinating that both Obama’s supporters and his critics think he has made far more changes than he really has.
Of course, this is only the first hundred days. Presidents look for room to maneuver after they do what they need to do in the short run. Some presidents use that room to pursue policies that weaken, and even destroy, their presidencies. Others find ways to enhance their position. But normally, the hardest thing a president faces is finding the space to do the things he wants to do rather than what he must do. Obama came through the first hundred days following the path laid out for him. It is only in Turkey where he made a move that he wasn’t compelled to make just now, but that had to happen at some point. It will be interesting to see how many more such moves he makes.
Tell STRATFOR What You Think
For Publication in Letters to STRATFOR
Not For Publication
This report may be forwarded or republished on your website with attribution to www.stratfor.com
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