When Presidents Lie to Make a War

Lyndon Johnson’s repeated accusation that the Gulf of Tonkin attacks were unprovoked was the beginning of a disillusion that would lead Daniel Ellsberg to leak the Pentagon Papers. Photograph: Yoichi R Okamoto/AP

 Courtesy of DD Guttenplan @ The Guardian:

Once there was a president who warned the world about conduct his government would not tolerate. And when this “red line” was crossed, or seemed to be, he took the US to war. Though this might sound like America’s involvement in Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Belgrade, or Libya, and what may yet become a wider war in Syria, this story began 50 years ago, on 4 August 1964.

That was when Lyndon Johnson interrupted TV broadcasts shortly before midnight to announce that two US ships in the Gulf of Tonkin had come under fire in international waters, and that in response to what the president described as this “unprovoked” attack, “air action is now in execution” against “facilities in North Vietnam which have been used in these hostile operations”.

The Americans launched 64 bombing sorties, destroying an oil depot, a coal mine and a significant portion of the North Vietnamese navy. Three days later, both houses of Congress passed a joint resolution authorising “the president, as commander-in-chief, to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the US and to prevent further aggression”. Within three years the US would have 500,000 soldiers in Vietnam. Even today, the Gulf of Tonkin resolution remains the template for presidential war-making.

That 4 August, Daniel Ellsberg was starting work at the Pentagon. A young mathematician who had served as a captain in the marines, then gone on to graduate study at Harvard and a job as a civilian analyst for the Rand Corporation, where he had helped shape America’s response to the Cuban missile crisis, Ellsberg was among the first to receive the classified “flash” signal from the USS Turner Joy, the destroyer that claimed to be under attack.

The Royal Family are Exempt From Freedom of Information Requests and Can Veto BBC Programmes. Why Do We Put Up With This?

Courtesy of Yasmin Alibhai Brown @ The Independent:

As you know by now, Prince Andrew has been accused by a woman known as Jane Doe 3 of being “forced” by Jeremy Epstein to have sex with him when she was a teenager.
He was named in court documents in the US, although not as a party, and the tabloids have been full of further salacious claims. Buckingham Palace forcefully denies these allegations.

The story will not end there, but for now that is all we can say on this particular scandal. It should, however, raise questions about our monarchy, its role and position, the devious, secret way it operates.

The Magna Carta is now 800 years old. In June 1215, rebellious Barons got King John of England to sign a charter that guaranteed them status and entitlements and protected the Church from royal interference. The document did not give every subject fundamental equality and rights. It was a charter by and for the upper classes. Still, there will be events marking this much mythologised moment throughout 2015.

OK, so let join in with this latest national commemoration, part truth, part fantasy. It may encourage us all to contemplate and renew our faith in liberty, freedoms, fundamental human rights and democracy, which came much later.

But how is that possible when the family at the top of the social structure undermines every one of the ideals and principles that our nation proclaims at home and abroad? The incantations sound hollow and meaningless.

Leader of Al Qaeda Group in Iraq was Fictional, U.S. military Says

Courtesy of Michael R. Gordon @ The NY Times 2007:

BAGHDAD — For more than a year, the leader of one the most notorious insurgent groups in Iraq was said to be a mysterious Iraqi named Abdullah Rashid al-Baghdadi.

As the titular head of the Islamic State in Iraq, an organization publicly backed by Al Qaeda, Baghdadi issued a steady stream of incendiary pronouncements. Despite claims by Iraqi officials that he had been killed in May, Baghdadi appeared to have persevered unscathed.

On Wednesday, a senior American military spokesman provided a new explanation for Baghdadi’s ability to escape attack: He never existed.

Brigadier General Kevin Bergner, the chief American military spokesman, said the elusive Baghdadi was actually a fictional character whose audio-taped declarations were provided by an elderly actor named Abu Adullah al-Naima.

The ruse, Bergner said, was devised by Abu Ayub al-Masri, the Egyptian-born leader of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, who was trying to mask the dominant role that foreigners play in that insurgent organization.

The ploy was to invent Baghdadi, a figure whose very name establishes his Iraqi pedigree, install him as the head of a front organization called the Islamic State of Iraq and then arrange for Masri to swear allegiance to him. Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s deputy, sought to reinforce the deception by referring to Baghdadi in his video and Internet statements.

The evidence for the American assertions, Bergner announced at a news briefing, was provided by an Iraqi insurgent: Khalid Abdul Fatah Daud Mahmud al-Mashadani, who was said to have been captured by American forces in Mosul on July 4.

Stoke NHS Hospital Scanning Contract Won by Private Firm

Courtesy of The Sentinel:

A CONTRACT to diagnose illnesses in thousands of patients has been handed to a private firm even though the NHS offered to do the work for seven million pounds cheaper.

The scans for cancer and other conditions are performed on a state-of-the-art machine at the Royal Stoke University Hospital partly paid for by public donations.

But it is to be operated by staff from Alliance Medical which has been given the scanning service in Staffordshire, Cheshire, Shropshire and Lancashire by the Government.

A competing NHS bid led by Royal Stoke’s trust was turned down by NHS England which had put the work out to tender.

They are now set to remain following the award of the 10-year contract worth an estimated £80 million.

Health campaigners said the move was motivated by political dogma to get the private sector more involved in public services.

It comes as a bitter row continues over the decision to put £1.2 billion of cancer and end-of-of-life care on the market.

Most of the cash for the £3 million machine came from a bequest plus a £1 million Keele University research grant – but £250,000 was donated by the public.

Ron Alcock, aged 75, from Cheadle gave £1,000 after the death of wife Jeannette of leukaemia in 2009.

He said: “Because of Mr Cameron’s policies private firms are coming more into the NHS.

“That scares people that it will be privatised and could deter them from raising money for things in future.”

Dr. Ewen Cameron and psychiatric mind control

Bush Family Funded Adolf Hitler

Courtesy of Rense:

Have you ever wondered how Adolph Hitler – a mediocre painter of Austrian origin – transformed himself into Germany’s Fuhrer during the 1930s and 1940s?

The Nazi phenomenon was no historical coincidence, and far less a philosophical whim made real by just one man. Nazism had its followers, many of them exceptionally wealthy, veritable alchemists of the financial world back then.

According to research carried out over the last few years, Wall Street bankers (amongst others) financed Hitler’s rise to power whilst making large profits at the same time. What is yet still more deplorable is the fact that relatives of the current U.S. president were amongst this group of individuals.

U.S. authors Webster G. Tarpley and Anton Cheitkin reveal in the recently published George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography that Prescott Bush (George W. Bush’s grandfather) and other directors of the Union Banking Company (UBC) were Nazi collaborators.

The book relates how in 1922 – when national socialism was emerging – railroad impresario W. Averell Harriman traveled to Berlin and interviewed the Thyssen family with a view to founding a German-U.S. bank. The Thyssens were already behind-the-scenes owners of several financial institutions that allowed them to transfer their money from Germany to the Netherlands and from there onto the United States.

The banks in question were the August Thyssen Bank whose headquarters were located in Berlin; the Bank voor Handel (Netherlands) and the Union Banking Corporation (New York). At the beginning of the 1920s, one of the members of this family, Fritz Thyssen – author of I Paid Hitler – contributed some $25,000 USD to the recently formed German National Socialist Workers’ Party, becoming the prime and most important financier of the Fuhrer in his ascent to power.

Researchers Find Significant Link to Daily Physical Activity, Vascular Health

Courtesy of Missouri School of Medicine:

Even a few days of inactivity can decrease function in certain blood vessels

As millions of Americans resolve to live healthier lives in 2015, research from the University of Missouri School of Medicine shows just how important diligent, daily physical activity is. The researchers found that reducing daily physical activity for even a few days leads to decreases in the function of the inner lining of blood vessels in the legs of young, healthy subjects causing vascular dysfunction that can have prolonged effects.

Paul Fadel, associate professor of medical pharmacology and physiology, and John Thyfault, associate professor of nutrition and exercise physiology, also found that the vascular dysfunction induced by five days of inactivity requires more than one day of returning to physical activity and taking at least 10,000 steps a day to improve.

“We know the negative consequences from not engaging in physical activity can be reversed,” said Fadel. “There is much data to indicate that at any stage of a disease, and at any time in your life, you can get active and prolong your life. However, we found that skipping just five days of physical activity causes damage to blood vessels in the legs that can take a prolonged period of time to repair.”

“Inactivity is typically going to lead to people being overweight and obese,” said Fadel. “The next step after that is insulin resistance which leads to Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 29 million Americans are living with diabetes. That number is expected to continue to increase: the CDC estimates one-third of people born after 2000 will have Type 2 diabetes in their lifetimes.

The Rigging Triangle Exposed: The JPMorgan-British Petroleum-Bank Of England Cartel Full Frontal

Courtesy of ZeroHedge:

The name Dick Usher is familiar to regular readers: he was the head of spot foreign exchange for JPMorgan, and the bank’s alleged chief FX market manipulator, who was promptly fired after it was revealed that JPM was the bank coordinating the biggest FX rigging scheme in history, as initially revealed in “Another JPMorganite Busted For “Bandits’ Club” Market Manipulation.” Subsequent revelations – which would have been impossible without the tremendous reporting of Bloomberg’s Liam Vaughan – showed that JPM was not alone: as recent legal actions confirmed, virtually every single bank was also a keen FX rigging participant. However, the undisputed ringleader was always America’s largest bank, which would make sense: having a virtually unlimited balance sheet, JPM could outlast practically any margin call, and make money while its far smaller peers were closed out of trades… and existence.

But while the past year revealed that FX rigging was a just as pervasive, if not even more profitable industry for banks than the great Libor-fixing scandal (for details see “How To Rig FX Like A Pro “Bandit”, And Make Millions In The Process”), the conventional wisdom was that it involved almost exclusively bankers at the largest global banks including JPM, Goldman, Deutsche, Barclays, RBS, HSBC, and UBS.

Now, courtesy of some more brilliant reporting by Vaughan, we can finally link banks with the other two facets of what has emerged to be an unprecedented FX-rigging “triangle” cartel: private sector companies that have no direct banking operations yet who have intimate prop trading exposure, as well as central banks themselves.

War Tribunal Finds Bush, Cheney Guilty of War Crimes

Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal president judge Tan Sri Lamin Mohd Yunus (center) delivering the verdict yesterday. He says reparations should be given to the complainant war crime victims. With him are Prof Salleh Buang (left) and Datuk Mohd Sa’ari Yusof. (Photo/Hasriyasyah Sabudin)

Starts to make sense why Malaysian Airlines keep on getting shot down/go missing, this article is from 2012. Courtesy of Common Dreams:

Former US President George W Bush, his Vice-President Dick Cheney and six other members of his administration have been found guilty of war crimes by a tribunal in Malaysia.

Bush, Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and five of their legal advisers were tried in their absence and convicted on Saturday.

Victims of torture told a panel of five judges in Kuala Lumpur of their suffering at the hands of US soldiers and contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Among the evidence, Briton Moazzam Begg, an ex-Guantanamo detainee, said he was beaten, put in a hood and left in solitary confinement. Iraqi woman Jameelah Abbas Hameedi said she was stripped and humiliated in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison.

Transcripts of the five-day trial will be sent to the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, the United Nations and the Security Council.

A member of the prosecution team, Professor Francis Boyle of Illinois University’s College of Law, said he was hopeful that Bush and his colleagues could soon find themselves facing similar trials elsewhere in the world.

The eight accused are Bush; former US Vice President Richard Cheney; former US Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld; former Counsel to Bush, Alberto Gonzales; former General Counsel to the Vice President, David Addington; former General Counsel to the Defense Secretary, William Haynes II; former Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo.

Cold Is Contagious

Courtesy of Ross Pomeroy @ Real Clear Science:

As the heart of the United States braces for a wicked cold snap next week, there’s also chilling news coming out of the journal PLoS ONE. On Wednesday, neuroscientists from the United Kingdom reported that cold is contagious. Yes, just looking at someone who’s shivering or experiencing frigid temperatures can cause parts of your own body to become colder.

For the study, the researchers had 36 participants sit in a temperature-controlled room and watch videos of actors placing one of their hands in either visibly steaming water, ice water, or neutral still water. Each subject watched ten total videos, four each featuring warm and cold water with different actors who used either their left or right hand, as well as two control videos. All of the videos lasted two minutes.