The Economic Collapse

10 Signs That Economic Riots And Civil Unrest Inside The United States Are Now More Likely Than Ever

You should let the video footage of the wild violence that just took place in London burn into your memory because the same things are going to be happening all over the United States as the economy continues to crumble. We have raised an entire generation of young people with an "entitlement mentality", but now the economy is producing very few good jobs that will actually enable our young people to work for what they feel they are entitled to. If you are under 30 in America today, things look really bleak. The vast majority of the good jobs are held by people that are older, and they aren't about to give them up if they can help it. It is easy for the rest of us to tell young Americans to "take whatever they can", but the reality is that there is intense competition for even the most basic jobs. For instance, McDonald's recently held a "National Hiring Day" during which a million Americans applied for jobs. Only 6.2% of the applicants were hired. In the old days you could walk down to McDonald's and get a job whenever you wanted to, but now any job is precious. The frustration among our young people is palpable. Most of them feel entitled to "the American Dream" and they feel like the system has failed them. Unfortunately, many of them are already turning to violence. But the economic riots and the civil unrest that we have already seen are nothing compared to what is coming. Americans are angry, and as the economy continues to collapse that anger is going to reach unprecedented heights.

In recent days, even many in the mainstream media have been openly wondering if the riots that happened in London could happen here too. There is a growing acknowledgement that this country is headed down a very dark path.

The sad thing is that these riots accomplish absolutely nothing. The recent London riots did not create any jobs and they certainly did not solve any economic problems. Instead, they actually hurt the economy even more because a huge am0unt of property was destroyed and people are even more afraid to continue with business as usual.

But when people get to the end of their ropes, most of the time they are not thinking rationally. When frustration erupts, the results can be very, very messy.

All over the United States we are already seeing some very troubling signs of the violence that is coming. The following are 10 signs that economic riots and civil unrest inside United States are now more likely then ever....

#1 Going to the state fair used to be such a fun thing for American families to do. But now no place is safe. The following is how one local ABC News affiliate described the "flash mob" attacks that took place at the Wisconsin state fair recently....

Milwaukee police said that around 11:10 p.m., squads were sent to the area for reports of battery, fighting and property damage being caused by an unruly crowd of "hundreds" of people. One officer described it as a "mob beating."

Police said the group of young people attacked fair goers who were leaving the fair grounds. Police said that some victims were attacked while walking. They said others were pulled out of cars and off of motorcycles before being beaten.

One eyewitness said that the flash mob attacks at the Wisconsin state fair absolutely overwhelmed the limited police presence that was there....

When I saw the amount of kids coming down the road, all I kept thinking was, 'There's not enough cops to handle this.' There's no way. It would have taken the National Guard to control the number of kids that were coming off the road. They were knocking people off their motorcycles.

#2 According to a new Rasmussen survey, 48% of Americans believe that reductions in government spending are "at least somewhat likely" to result in civil unrest inside the United States. Unfortunately, perception often greatly influences reality.

#3 U.S. consumer confidence is now at its lowest level in 30 years.

#4 Joblessness among young Americans is at an epidemic level, and when rioting does break out it is usually young people that are leading the way. That is why the following statistics from an article in The Atlantic are so troubling....

One in five Americans are between 15 and 29-years old. And one in five of those Americans are unemployed. For minorities and the under-educated, the picture is much worse. Black teenagers have an unemployment rate of 44 percent, twice the rate for white teens.

#5 We are starting to see mindless violence in a lot of areas that used to be considered safe. In Kansas City on Saturday night, three young people were hit with bullets as they walked the streets of the Country Club Plaza. Mayor Sly James was about 50 yards away when the gunfire erupted. Authorities in Kansas City are considering a stricter curfew for that area.

#6 "Flash mobs" have become such a problem in Philadelphia that the mayor has imposed a strict curfew on young people. Now all teens between the ages of 13 and 18 must be indoors by 9 o'clock at night. The mayor also says that teens need to start pulling up their pants....

"Pull your pants up and buy a belt ’cause no one wants to see your underwear or the crack of your butt."

#7 All over the United States we are seeing that many struggling Americans will do just about anything for money. For example, in Detroit recently three masked men crashed a vehicle through the entrance of a gas station and took off with an entire ATM machine.

#8 Desperate people do desperate things. Many of America's "forgotten poor" are trying to survive any way that they can. For instance, a group of vagrants recently set up "a makeshift camp" near Prospect Park lake in Brooklyn. According to the New York Post, many nearby residents have been disturbed by what these "drifters" are doing to survive....

The drifters have been illegally trapping and cooking up the critters that call the park home, including squirrels, ducks and swan-like cygnets.

They used crude tactics to hunt their prey, including barbed fishing hooks that ripped off the top half of one poor gosling's beak. They then cooked the meat over illegal fires. Some of the animals were eaten raw.

#9 According to CNN, sales of safes and vaults are absolutely soaring right now. One store owner told CNN that she believes that she is selling a lot more safes now because people are scared that civil unrest could be coming....

"Folks are worried about the decreasing value of the dollar, burglaries on the rise in their neighborhoods ... and even the possibility that the unrest we are seeing in other parts of the world slipping over to our country."

#10 Over the past 100 years, the American population has moved steadily into our big cities and the surrounding suburbs. This has created virtual "ghost towns" in our rural areas from coast to coast. Back in 1910, 72 percent of Americans lived in rural areas. Today, only 16 percent of Americans live in rural areas. But when you crowd huge masses of people close together that makes riots and civil unrest much more likely.

Most Americans are already fed up, and the economy is not even that bad yet. One recent survey found that 73 percent of Americans believe that the nation is "on the wrong track". Another recent poll found that only 17 percent of Americans now believe that the U.S. government has the consent of the governed.

Millions of very frustrated young people believe that the economic system has failed them and that the political system no longer holds any answers.

America is rapidly approaching a breaking point. I have written previously about the collapse of society that we are already witnessing all over the United States. When the economy totally breaks down, most Americans are not going to be able to handle it.

Sadly, instead of coming together and trying to do something productive, many Americans will resort to rioting, looting and civil unrest. We have already seen this during local emergencies such as Hurricane Katrina.

But mindless violence accomplishes absolutely nothing positive. It just always makes things worse.

Unfortunately, logic and reason are not going to be enough to stop the gigantic wave of frustration that is coming. For most of the rest of us, it will be hard enough to get out of the way and protect our own families from the economic riots and the civil unrest that are coming.

The thin veneer of civilization that we all take for granted is starting to disappear. Hatred and anger are growing by the day. The United States is becoming a very frightening place.

So get ready. Our politicians certainly don't have any answers for us. The debt ceiling deal was a complete and total joke, and corruption is absolutely rampant in Washington right now. Barack Obama is getting ready to leave for yet another vacation, and most of our politicians are only focused on the next election.

So don't expect a "miracle" from those that are supposed to be leading us.

They don't care about you.

You need to take care of yourself and your family and your friends.

A massive economic collapse is coming, and most Americans are going to be totally blindsided by it.

Don't let that happen to you.

The Journey From Conspiracy Theory to Conspiracy Fact

Activist Post

Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Programming

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

A 21-Truth Salute to Activists and the Alternative Media: The Journey From Conspiracy Theory to Conspiracy Fact

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. Martin Luther King, Strength to Love

Flickr/ photographer padawan *(xava du)

Activist Post
with contributions from Zen Gardner

Our media is mired in cynicism, regardless of the label of mainstream or alternative. Sadly, it is what seems to drive the news. People flock to the latest disaster, scenario of hopelessness, or individual story that proves things can get so much worse for us . . . personally. The media preys on our instinct of self-preservation, rather than promote this instinct as an example of what drives us toward self-empowerment.


We'd like to present an overview of issues demonstrating that all is not lost. Just the opposite, in fact. The powers-that-be have admitted that they are scrambling for purchase amid humanity's global awakening. This new knowledge has led to an increasing number of people being exposed to alternative information that questions the official version of events, and the underlying secret mechanisms of control.

This worldwide wake-up call has led to a great many conspiracy theories becoming conspiracy facts. The only thing left for these agents of darkness to do now is spin the information that has been uncovered. Let's continue to keep in mind that if their overall intentions are as benevolent as they suggest, then why did it require investigation and research to dig them up as though the planet was one big crime scene?

So, instead of self-defeatism and relinquishing our power voluntarily through apathy and cynicism, let's revel in our 21 key victories of truth over lies. There are many more omitted, and many more to come:

Secret Societies: Once-secret societies denied by the mainstream media have had to be addressed due to courageous research and information sharing by alternative media. As a result, Skull and Bones made a 60 Minutes appearance, Bilderberg Group was finally covered by Time, and Bohemian Grove was the recent focus of a large outpouring of activist calls to major media. These secret societies were formally clandestine meeting grounds for world controllers to decide the fate of nations; now the light of awareness has been pointed in their direction and they are running for cover. The desire for secrecy forms the foundation for the overall campaign of deceit against the people of the world. Only by knowing who the controllers are can we continue to expose their divide-and-conquer strategies.

False Left-Right Political Paradigm: The fact that Democrats and Republicans are two heads on the body of the same vulture is now widely accepted across American society. Even those who choose to vote for one or the other have lost the illusion that it is a vote for anything other than the lesser of two evils. The whole political system is under intense criticism as it continues to operate without regard to the will of the American people. Even the current debt ceiling "crisis" theater is not fooling anyone, as both parties are being excoriated for their failure to entertain real solutions. Congress' approval is at an all-time low, with just 6% of those polled rating their job as "good" or "excellent." Although Ron Paul is running as a Republican, his platform is based on exposing the inconsistencies of both parties, and his poll numbers are rising rapidly as a result.

World Government (NWO): This was the grandaddy of all conspiracies shouted about for decades. Now, reference to a "new world order" can be found routinely across mainstream media, while globalists themselves write books called The New World Order. Just about all of their methods have been exposed by independent researchers who have looked into documents and books by the globalists that admit to plans involving staged revolutions, co-opting activists and youth movements, as well as a wide variety of political destablization programs. However, the implementation of this part of the agenda is being counterbalanced by a real revolution of understanding. The regionalization of economies such as the Eurozone, along with various free trade agreements were more than a subtle hint toward globalist intentions. They have managed to install a few of their puppets in destabalized countries, but the call for a return to sovereignty has begun to get louder as people awaken to life under such a regime.

Global Private Banking Cartel: In the back pocket of the globalists is a de facto one world government based on a one world currency. But even here independent researchers such as G. Edward Griffin have long been discussing an engineered collapse of the world economy by private banking interests in order to gain even more control. Ron Paul was another who accepted the "conspiracy theorist" label by suggesting that the Federal Reserve was not federal at all. As a result of these pioneers, the Fed recently admitted openly that its 12 banks are private. In fact, the Fed Reserve is one of the primary players in the push for global governance and currency. The entire scenario is being stage-managed by a banking cartel that will only ramp up its looting under a global structure, just as they have done to each sovereign nation they have put under IMF and World Bank receivership. The results of such control are becoming obvious and the globe has been alerted to their schemes. Encouragingly, Britain is showing signs of throwing out corrupt bankers and their media apologists.

Man-made Global Warming: Since the time that hacktivsts revealed what has come to be known as Climategate, it has become increasingly obvious that the science behind man-made global warming has been distorted. This attempted cover-up casts further doubt about the validity of the climate crusade and the proposed solutions to man-made global warming of the banking and globalist interests that have provably created other pyramid schemes to loot taxpayers. The proposed global carbon taxes associated will serve to enrich the very few who have already demonstrated little care about real environmental destruction such as GMOs and industrial pollution. The way that man-made global warming is being used is to "unite" the world against a common threat in order to justify global solutions.

Agenda 21: A big part of the globalist agenda is the all-encompassing management of resources under the direction of the United Nations. The fascist model proposed by Agenda 21 under the guise of saving the environment has now been shot through from all angles. Each country is quite obviously taking a coordinated action of land grabbing, land use restrictions, and the bureaucratic regulation over all human activity. As the mainstream media is beginning to announce smart meters, U.N. green helmet peacekeepers and tattletale energy squads, people are waking up to the real meaning of environmentalism under Agenda 21, as independent researchers have been exposing in the alternative media.

Big Brother: Once relegated to fiction, it has now been openly announced that all of the gadgets and technological conveniences that have been peddled to consumers are indeed for tracking your every move through a variety of built-in backdoor mechanisms. This electronic prison includes cell phones, the smart grid, computer applications, and the Internet itself. All data is collected, stored and filtered through by intelligence agencies within the electronic and virtual spectrum. Meanwhile, out in the real world, the presence of Big Brother has become undeniable, as surveillance cameras scan the streets of just about every modern country on the planet. The War on Terror has been the major justification for all of this. In America, the TSA, VIPR teams, and citizen spies represent the Orwellian Homeland Security Big Brother Grid of intimidation, surveillance, and brutality that "fringe" alternative media knew was coming due to the predictive programming in media by books such as Orwell's 1984.

Black ops (even black helicopters): Non-Western nations have known for a long time the tactics employed by economic (and real) hit men. This has included state sponsored assassinations, clandestine operations to overthrow democratically elected governments, sheltering of war criminals, and more. With the arrival of the War on Terror, this apparatus of killing, torture, and deception has come out into the open in the apparent hope that it will be embraced as a necessary evil. When Leon Panetta recently announced that black ops would be a major part of foreign policy, he was announcing that no man, woman, or child is truly safe on any part of the globe. Perhaps it always has been this way, but the steady uncovering of the network of intelligence agencies and mercenary crimes could be leading to their forced openness. We generally owe this revealing to the most courageous of all activists: whistleblowers; and, naturally, the government has waged war on them. These are the people who confront the system from the inside at the greatest of personal risk. Through their articles, books, and speaking engagements they have helped to break through the naive mindset that has been engineered through a steady dose of government propaganda. We'd better wake up quickly, because the black ops program and its mercenaries are apparently heading into cyberspace.

JohnPilger.com

War crimes: The establishment media of any country is loath to admit to war crimes. It is generally on-the-ground activists and independent journalists that have been most instrumental in revealing the atrocities which have occurred, and continue to occur in places such as Africa, Latin America, Gaza, and the six countries where the U.S. is currently engaged in widespread military activity. Drone attacks on civilians and depleted uranium that harms generations have been well documented and are leading people to question just how humanitarian these missions of democracy really are. As a consequence of these war crimes being revealed, protests have increased as the myth of imperialist democracy is beginning to shatter even within the nations responsible for such actions. We are now beginning to see the veil of false democracy lift, and the tyranny that lies beneath is showing its true face.

9/11 Truth: The mainstream media has been forced to tip-toe into the truth arena by at least acknowledging that Building 7 did exist and that its collapse makes no sense within the official version of events. The 10th anniversary this September will bring more people to this information as massive demonstrations are being planned, as well as new international hearings to be held in Toronto. Millions have now awoken to the concept of false flag terrorism.

False Flag Terror: The War on Terror that began with a 9/11 false flag event has been the victim of blowback. The level of coverup on 9/11, and the extraordinary amount of research that has gone into demolishing the official version, has woken up nearly the entire globe to the concept of government-run false flag terror. Sadly, U.S. history is replete with many other examples of lies that have led to war. Governments the world over have staged false flag events throughout history as a pretext to grab more power -- it is the historical rule, rather than the exception. The world is now awake enough to correctly presume that major terrorist events will be the work of intelligence agencies and government sponsorship, rather than lone nuts and loosely organized groups of "extremists." Governments are responsible for over 200 million deaths in the 20th century -- perhaps approaching 400 million when combat-related deaths in various wars, civil wars, and rebellions are added to this number -- the greatest mass murderer in human history. The mainstream media was recently forced to confront a false flag setup program when the ATF was caught red-handed supplying guns to Mexican gangs which they knew would be used to kill Americans as part of the wider War on Drugs. Even though the operation has been admitted to, the event is already being used by the Obama administration to intimidate gun dealers to report on buyers, outside the rule of law.

Martial law in the U.S.: This is another area that until now has been primarily reserved for far-right conspiracy groups that seek to justify their building of militias, according to the mainstream media. Now it is undeniable, as martial law has been rolled out in various cities across America, such as Quartzsite, AZ. It will probably never be announced as such, but it is recognizable as the suspension of habeas corpus and posse comitatus, foreign troops on US soil, restriction of free speech, imposed curfews, arrests and convictions of Constitutional activities, and the militarization of police. Middle-class America might have deluded itself to think that police brutality was something heard about only in drug and crime infested inner cities -- or Third World dictatorships -- but any search of YouTube police brutality irrevocably alters that notion. The ongoing debt crisis in the U.S. has also generated discussion about possible economic martial law being declared. We saw this threat being leveled by Henry Paulson at the onset of the 2008 economic crisis. Alternative media trend forecaster, Gerald Celente, is already on the case to expose this as just another means of financially terrorizing the populace to adopt bankster austerity and a draconian open police state in America. However, despite these plans to turn our protectors against us, the terrific work of activist groups such as Oath Keepers, continue to encourage police and military to choose the side of liberty, which foreshadows the true resistance against tyranny.

FEMA camps: Large containment facilities have been videotaped and conclusively documented by activists as well as high-profile people such as former governor Jesse Ventura in his now infamous police state episode. Previous denial has turned to spin in a classic pattern of admission and redirection. These huge facilities are now admitted to, as well as large-scale disaster preparation drills for social chaos due to natural disaster or economic collapse, but they are asserted to be part of the normal course of sound preparation policies. The FEMA response from disasters such as Katrina and the BP Gulf Oil Spill have shown that FEMA is better prepared for roundup, detainment, and martial law, then it is for anything that could be called help. For additional information about the planned role for FEMA, see the list of FEMA executive orders.

Mind control: This takes many forms and works best through subliminal techniques such as predictive programming. However, mainstream media has been particularly open in discussing the mission of Big Pharma to literally control people's minds through drugs -- even suggesting that the anti-psychotic, Lithium, be added to the water supply to make people docile. Another example of direct mind control research comes from a DARPA admission that the military has announced that it is researching transcranial ultrasonic mind control in soldiers' helmets. We're definitely not in Kansas anymore and, yet, the concept of drugging and military mind control have been discussed in the alternative media for decades.

Weather Modification: Globalists have overplayed climate change by admitting to atmospheric geoengineering (aka chemtrails) and weather modification programs. The alternative media has been instrumental in warning the public about overlooked documents such as a white paper submitted to the Air Force in 1996 titled, Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025 (PDF). Elite think-tanks have openly published their gatherings about the structure of governing such an initiative. The great work of so many researchers who took the label of tin-foil-hat-wearing conspiracy theorists has lately been brought into the mainstream by the film What in the World are They Spraying? which presents the mounting evidence that these previously secret weather modification programs are indeed something to be very concerned about.

GMO Dangers: The full spectrum dangers of GM food continues to be exposed by researchers, activists, and honest science. Additionally, the horrendous deceptions and abuses conducted by the corporations like Monsanto have been thoroughly documented, leading to a mass awakening to the games and cover-ups being played in this arena. GM crops and pesticides are also being revealed as something straight out of a science fiction nightmare with the arrival of super weeds. The tampering with our food supply is one of the most irresponsible and unforgivable betrayals by science. The good news is that there is a global wave of consumer activism that has resulted in many recent victories toward at least providing accurate labeling of products. Meanwhile, in many countries, outright sabotage of GM crops has been the result of the ongoing environmental pollution and destruction of family farms and businesses.

Fluoride Dangers: Amazing research and activism has been conducted by Dr. Paul Connett in making a sound case against Fluoride. It is now becoming widely known that sodium fluoride was used by the Nazis to sterilize inmates and make them docile; it has no place being in the water supply. Furthermore, increasing evidence points to the fact that this was done knowingly, putting many millions of people at risk of adverse health effects. This movement against fluoride has led to a spreading crusade against water fluoridation in communities across the world, resulting in the successful removal in many cases. A recent study revealed that fluoride can damage the brain and should be avoided by children. The danger to children has increased the opposition to this toxin and is one of the imminent victories for health freedom.

Vaccine Dangers: Despite the worldwide campaign for compulsory vaccination (sometimes at gunpoint or delivered by GM Mosquitoes) conducted by partners of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the dangers of vaccines have hit the mainstream. This is another area that was once relegated only to religious opposition, or those thought to be the member of a cult to deny the efficacy of vaccines. The swine flu vaccine links to Guillain-Barre Syndrome, as well as the Gardasil debacle have entered the mainstream, forcing them to address the ongoing coverup by vaccine makers. The majority of people are now being exposed to the propaganda and faulty science behind the cocktail of vaccines delivered to children. Vaccine deaths of military personnel in the Gulf War are now common knowledge after being exposed by alternative media, calling into question continued military vaccination programs even as the corporate media has been forced to address mounting evidence.

Health vs. Wealth: As the world awakens to the multitude of food and water toxins, there is also a simultaneous awakening to the realization that the above major examples were not mistakes -- lives were put at risk purely for profit, at best. It is now out in the open that the regulatory agencies themselves are in the back pockets of corporations and have zero concern for public health. Fluoride dangers, vaccine dangers, GMO's and the dangers of Big Pharma -- not to mention the dangers of electromagnetic and industrial pollution -- have been hidden from the public for decades. The independent media, as well as informed activists, have made incredible strides that have cost this system countless billions of dollars. In addition to exposing their money-making schemes, there is a push toward exposing the vast death they have collectively caused as part of an unthinkable greater agenda: eugenics.

Eugenics: The plan for de-population has until recently been the ultimate unbelievable conspiracy for the average person to grasp. However, it is now being openly discussed under the guise of overpopulation, climate change, and "death panel" healthcare rationing. The backstory to this has been covered by the alternative media courageous enough to read the white papers and books of the globalists themselves. It is clear that their endgame is a world with a transhumanist agenda that includes a severe reduction of the global population. All of this death, destruction and genetic tampering is now being prepared to merge with the surveillance-military-industrial complex into one big global prison camp. Humanity has awakened to this and is now prepared to face the full magnitude of its condition.

NetBio

Clones, human/animal hybrids, and genetic engineering: A casual announcement in The Daily Mail confirms what has been investigated by "kooky conspiracy theorists" who have warned of a Planet of Dr. Moreau scenario where mad science conducts experiments on creatures great and small. This announcement merely scratches the surface as this video demonstrates. A scientific elite is now coming out in the open to announce their endgame. This cracking and misuse of our genetic code is guaranteed to lead to many aberrations. They even have admitted to the crazy conspiracy theory of Super Soldiers (PDF) through military DNA collection. This attempt to identify "the perfect soldier" is a hallmark of a modern Hitlerian initiative brought to us by scientists at the JASON group, which has been featured in conspiracy-based novels. Activists are well aware of this part of the endgame and have exposed the secret DNA collection that already has been sold to the medical community, as well as current DNA collection ruses as proposed by DHS at airports, the unconstitional checkpoint system, and for anyone arrested. Independent media continues to expose these warped initiatives.


We are clearly at a major crossroads between the awakening of humanity and those who desire to limit its freedom of choice and expression. A large part of our current predicament is rooted in intellectual apathy and self-censorship. We must have the courage to ask controversial questions and explore some of the other conspiracy theories of today that could become the conspiracy facts of tomorrow.

Report: Intelligence Unit Told Before 9/11 to Stop Tracking Bin Laden

Report: Intelligence Unit Told Before 9/11 to Stop Tracking Bin Laden

Monday 23 May 2011

by: Jeffrey Kaye, Truthout

Smoke billows from the World Trade Center in New York, on September 11, 2001. (Photo: Ruth Fremson / The New York Times)

A great deal of con­trover­sy has aris­en about what was known about the move­ments and loc­a­tion of Osama bin Laden in the wake of his kill­ing by US Speci­al For­ces on May 2 in Ab­bot­tabad, Pakis­tan. Ques­tions about what in­tel­lig­ence agen­cies knew or didn't know about al-Qaeda ac­tivit­ies go back some years, most pro­minent­ly in the con­trover­sy over the ex­ist­ence of a joint US Speci­al For­ces Com­mand and De­fen­se In­tel­lig­ence Agen­cy (DIA) data min­ing ef­fort known as "Able Dang­er."

What hasn't been dis­cus­sed is a Sep­temb­er 2008 De­part­ment of De­fen­se (DoD) in­spec­tor gener­al (IG) re­port, sum­mariz­ing an in­ves­tiga­tion made in re­spon­se to an ac­cusa­tion by a Joint For­ces In­tel­lig­ence Com­mand (JFIC) whistleb­low­er, which in­dicated that a sen­ior JFIC com­mand­er had hal­ted ac­tions track­ing Osama bin Laden prior to 9/11. JFIC is tas­ked with an in­tel­lig­ence mis­s­ion in sup­port of Uni­ted States Joint Force Com­mand (USJFCOM).

The re­port, tit­led "Re­view of Joint For­ces In­tel­lig­ence Com­mand Re­spon­se to 9/11 Com­miss­ion," was de­clas­sified last year, in re­spon­se to a Freedom of In­for­ma­tion Act re­quest from Stev­en Af­tergood at the Federa­tion of American Scient­ists.

The whistleb­low­er, who the IG re­port iden­tified as a form­er JFIC em­ployee re­presen­ted only by his co­dename "IRON MAN," claimed in lett­ers writt­en to both the DoD in­spec­tor gener­al in May 2006 and, lack­ing any ap­parent ac­tion by the IG, to the Of­fice of the Nation­al Di­rec­tor of In­tel­lig­ence (ODNI) in Oc­tob­er 2007, that JFIC had with­held op­eration­al in­for­ma­tion about al-Qaeda when queried in March 2002 about its ac­tivit­ies by the DIA and high­er com­mand of­fici­als on be­half of the 9/11 Com­miss­ion. The ODNI pas­sed the com­plaint back to the IG, who then op­ened an in­ves­tiga­tion under the aus­pices of the de­puty in­spec­tor gener­al for in­tel­lig­ence.

Trut­hout sus­tains it­self through tax-deductible dona­tions from our rea­d­ers. Please make a con­tribu­tion today to keep truly in­depen­dent jour­nal­ism strong!

In a Novemb­er 27, 2007, lett­er from Ed­ward Maguire at the ODNI to Gen. Claude Kicklight­er at the DoD's IG of­fice, Maquire iden­tif­ies the whistleb­low­er as "a DIA em­ployee in the De­fen­se HUMINT Man­age­ment Of­fice, Poli­cy and Plans Di­vis­ion," who was "per­sonal­ly in­vol­ved in JFIC in­tel­lig­ence ac­tivit­ies re­lated to al-Qa'ida and the 9/11 at­tacks and had first hand know­ledge of cir­cumstan­ces sur­round­ing that al­leged false re­port­ing to the Sec­reta­ry of De­fen­se and Con­gress."

Maguire also of­fered to send clas­sified materi­al to the DoD IG that was in pos­sess­ion of the Di­rec­tor of Nation­al In­tel­ligen­ce's (DNI) in­spec­tor gener­al. He also told Kicklight­er that the DNI had not per­for­med even a pre­limina­ry in­qui­ry on the al­lega­tions.

The IG re­port, which does not ex­plain the 18-month delay in op­en­ing an in­ves­tiga­tion, cleared JFIC of any wrongdo­ing and de­clared that the in­tel­lig­ence agen­cy had "pro­vided a time­ly and ac­curate reply in re­spon­se to the 9/11 Com­miss­ion." In evi­dent re­spon­se, IRON MAN in­dicated to the IG in­ves­tigat­ing staff that "he had never seen the 9/11 Com­miss­ion ques­tions or JFIC's re­spon­se, but that Con­gress should have asked for files con­cern­ing the track­ing of Usama Bin Ladin."

Ac­cord­ing to the IG re­port, the 9/11 Com­miss­ion "had not re­ques­ted the di­rect sub­miss­ion of any files or re­ques­ted in­for­ma­tion re­gard­ing the track­ing of Usama Bin Ladin." The re­port said the com­miss­ion ques­tions "were very specific," and asked what the JFIC knew about "im­minent at­tack" or "hijack­ers in­vol­ved" in the 9/11 ter­ror­ist at­tack.

Track­ing Bin Laden had been un­der­tak­en by a sec­ret unit with­in the JFIC, the As­ym­metric Threats Di­vis­ion, for­med in 1999 "to take a non-traditional approach to an­alysis." Known by its DoD ac­ronym, DO5, it was tas­ked with pro­vid­ing "cur­rent in­tel­lig­ence brief­ings and pro­duced the Worldwide Ter­ror­ist Threat Sum­ma­ry in sup­port of the USJFCOM In­tel­lig­ence staff [J2]." Al­most no pub­lic sour­ce materi­al ex­ists on DO5 ac­tivit­ies, ex­cept what is in the IG re­port.

The IG re­port does not deny the track­ing of Bin Laden, but notes that the JFIC was to pro­vide gener­al and di­rect in­tel­lig­ence sup­port to USJFCOM and sub­or­dinate joint for­ces com­mands and that it did not have a mis­s­ion to track Osama bin Laden or pre­dict im­minent tar­gets of ter­ror­ism on US soil.

Nevertheless, DO5 was in­vol­ved in in­tel­lig­ence con­cerns domes­tical­ly. It pro­vided as­sis­tance to the Joint Task Force - Civil Sup­port (JTF-CS), which, like DO5, was for­med in 1999 and based out of Fort Mon­roe, Vir­ginia. The JTF-CS was tas­ked with as­sist­ing the DoD re­spon­se to domes­tic ter­ror in­cidents, in­clud­ing "man­ag­ing the con­sequ­ences of a domes­tic chem­ical, bi­olog­ical, radiolog­ical, nuc­lear and high-yield ex­plosive (CBRNE) situa­tion." At one point, DO5 as­sis­ted the JTF-CS by "es­tablish­ing fic­tion­al ter­ror­ist or­ganiza­tions that would mimic real world ter­ror­ist groups" that were utilized as part of JTF-CS "ex­er­cises."

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The ob­scur­ity of DO5's mis­s­ion was sum­med up by a form­er JFIC de­puty di­rec­tor of in­tel­lig­ence, who told in­ves­tigators that DO5 had "no theat­er specific mis­s­ion." Ac­cord­ing to the an­sw­ers the JFIC pro­vided to the 9/11 Com­miss­ion, the JFIC re­ceived over 2,200 mes­sages daily "from other agen­cies, JFCOM com­ponents, or ser­vices." It did "not con­duct any uni­later­al col­lec­tion" of any in­tel­lig­ence domes­tical­ly.

Ac­cord­ing to the nar­rative in the IG re­port, a pre­vi­ous JFIC de­puty di­rec­tor of in­tel­lig­ence said that the JFIC com­mand­er, iden­tified el­sewhere in the re­port as Capt. Janice Dun­das, US Navy, "di­rec­ted him to stop track­ing Usama Bin Ladin. The Com­mand­ing Of­fic­er stated that the track­ing of Usama Bin Ladin did not fall with­in JFIC's mis­s­ion." At the same time, JFIC an­alysis of pur­ported Afghanis­tan "ter­ror­ist train­ing camps" was also cur­tailed, with an ex­plana­tion that such ac­tivit­ies were out­side the agen­cy's Area of Op­era­tions and "that the is­sues where [sic] not in JFIC's swim lane."

Ac­cord­ing to the re­port, the As­ym­metric Threats Di­vis­ion was "rea­lig­ned" in summ­er 2001 under the "In­tel­lig­ence Watch Cent­er." The In­tel­lig­ence Watch Cent­er may be the Com­bined In­tel­lig­ence Watch Cent­er as­sociated with NORAD, which is an "in­dica­tions and warn­ing cent­er for worldwide threats from space, mis­sile and strategic air ac­tiv­ity, as well as geopolit­ical un­rest that could af­fect North America and US for­ces/in­terests ab­road." This would be con­sis­tent with the work DO5 did with the JTF-CS.

The order to stop track­ing Bin Laden, therefore, came some­time bet­ween the origin of DO5 in 1999 and its rea­lign­ment just prior to, or right after 9/11. In 2005, the JFIC it­self was re­named the Joint Trans­for­ma­tion Command-Intelligence, still sub­or­dinate to and serv­ing USJFCOM.

Other Al­lega­tions

Ac­cord­ing to the IG re­port, IRON MAN claimed that the JFIC had "origin­al materi­al created by DO5 re­levant to al-Qa'ida," and that the JFIC had con­struc­ted "numer­ous origin­al re­ports." But the IG in­ves­tigators found that in­ter­views with other JFIC per­son­nel and a re­view of his­tor­ical DO5 brief­ings did not sup­port these al­lega­tions. They claimed that DO5, which "re­cruited JFIC per­son­nel from the com­mand based upon their co­un­terin­tellig­ence and co­un­terter­ror­ism ex­pert­ise," mere­ly "monitored and com­piled in­tel­lig­ence re­port­ing" from other agen­cies.

IRON MAN told IG in­ves­tigators that he be­lieved that his agen­cy, JFIC, would deny the ex­ist­ence of the As­ym­metric Threat Di­vis­ion and its an­alyses. But the IG re­port aut­hors claimed, "JFIC cor­rect­ly iden­tified the DO5 in its re­spon­se to ques­tion 8" from the 9/11 Com­miss­ion and ex­plained, in ad­di­tion, that the JFIC noted that "D05's em­phasis was on force pro­tec­tion for the USJFCOM com­ponents."

But in the reply to ques­tion 8 re­produced in the IG re­port, there is no men­tion of eith­er DO5 or the As­ym­metric Threat Di­vis­ion. The an­sw­er states, "JFIC's Counter-terrorism focus has chan­ged over the years," and that from fall 1999 until Sep­temb­er 11, 2001, the JFIC's co­un­terter­ror­ism focus switched to "As­ym­metric Threats OC­ONUS [out­side the con­tinent­al US] to in­clude ter­ror­ism and CBRN [Chem­ical, Bi­olog­ical, Radiolog­ical and Nuc­lear] is­sues," with the aforemen­tioned em­phasis on USJFCOM force pro­tec­tion. Now­here does it in­dicate the ex­ist­ence of DO5 and there is no rea­son to be­lieve that 9/11 Com­miss­ion mem­b­ers were ever aware of its ex­ist­ence. The JFIC was never men­tioned in the sub­sequent 9/11 Com­miss­ion re­port.

In ad­di­tion, IRON MAN's al­lega­tions also in­cluded char­ges that the JFIC and specifical­ly DO5, had de­veloped in­for­ma­tion that the World Trade Cent­er and the Pen­tagon were the most li­ke­ly domes­tic tar­gets of an al-Qaeda at­tack. The IG re­port dis­putes this and claims, with less than de­finitive as­suran­ce, "Evi­d­ence in­dicated that the JFIC did not have know­ledge re­gard­ing im­minent domes­tic tar­gets prior to 9/11 or specific 9/11 hijack­er op­era­tions."

The IG re­port in­dicated that IG in­ves­tigators spoke with a numb­er of key rank­ing JFIC per­son­nel, as well as the pre­vi­ous USJFCOM di­rec­tor of in­tel­lig­ence, the JFIC Com­mand­ing Of­fic­er and per­son­nel from the As­ym­metric Threat Di­vis­ion.

Ear­li­er this year, a blogg­er, Susie Dow, who has been fol­low­ing the story of Kirk von Ac­kermann , a US Army contra­ctor in Iraq who dis­ap­peared on the road bet­ween Tik­rit and Kir­kuk in Oc­tob­er 2003, as­ser­ted that von Ac­kermann had ear­li­er be­lon­ged to JFIC's As­ym­metric Threat Di­vis­ion. Von Ac­kermann's vehic­le was found by the side of the road with a com­put­er and a brief­case con­tain­ing $40,000 in cash. An Army Crimin­al In­ves­tigative Di­vis­ion in­ves­tiga­tion later con­cluded that he was the vic­tim of a pro­b­able kid­napp­ing, while rumors per­sis­ted that he was pos­sib­ly going to blow the whistle on DoD cor­rup­tion.

An as­sociate of von Ac­kermann, Ryan Man­elick, a form­er Air Force In­tel­lig­ence of­fic­er, was shot and kil­led out­side a US milita­ry base near Baghdad two months later. Man­elick had ear­li­er told vari­ous peo­ple that he was in fear for his life. Both von Ac­kermann and Man­elick wor­ked for the contra­ctor Ultra Ser­vices, based in Tur­key. No par­ticular link bet­ween von Ac­kermann or Man­elick and the IRON MAN al­lega­tions has ever been pro­posed.

Dow has writt­en on the two contra­ctors for the web­site e Pluribus Media. In a May 6 post­ing at her own web site, "The Mis­s­ing Man," Dow noted the IG re­port's con­clus­ion: "The an­alysis com­pleted by the Joint For­ces In­tel­lig­ence Com­mand, specifical­ly the As­ym­metric Threat Di­vis­ion, was not applic­able to the ques­tions asked by the 9/11 Com­miss­ion."

"Which leads me to be­lieve the 9/11 Com­miss­ion did not ask the cor­rect ques­tions," Dow said.

This work by Truthout is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

Monday 23 May 2011

by: Jeffrey Kaye, Truthout

Smoke billows from the World Trade Center in New York, on September 11, 2001. (Photo: Ruth Fremson / The New York Times)

A great deal of controversy has arisen about what was known about the movements and location of Osama bin Laden in the wake of his killing by US Special Forces on May 2 in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Questions about what intelligence agencies knew or didn't know about al-Qaeda activities go back some years, most prominently in the controversy over the existence of a joint US Special Forces Command and Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) data mining effort known as "Able Danger."

What hasn't been discussed is a September 2008 Department of Defense (DoD) inspector general (IG) report, summarizing an investigation made in response to an accusation by a Joint Forces Intelligence Command (JFIC) whistleblower, which indicated that a senior JFIC commander had halted actions tracking Osama bin Laden prior to 9/11. JFIC is tasked with an intelligence mission in support of United States Joint Force Command (USJFCOM).

The report, titled "Review of Joint Forces Intelligence Command Response to 9/11 Commission," was declassified last year, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from Steven Aftergood at the Federation of American Scientists.

The whistleblower, who the IG report identified as a former JFIC employee represented only by his codename "IRON MAN," claimed in letters written to both the DoD inspector general in May 2006 and, lacking any apparent action by the IG, to the Office of the National Director of Intelligence (ODNI) in October 2007, that JFIC had withheld operational information about al-Qaeda when queried in March 2002 about its activities by the DIA and higher command officials on behalf of the 9/11 Commission. The ODNI passed the complaint back to the IG, who then opened an investigation under the auspices of the deputy inspector general for intelligence.

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In a November 27, 2007, letter from Edward Maguire at the ODNI to Gen. Claude Kicklighter at the DoD's IG office, Maquire identifies the whistleblower as "a DIA employee in the Defense HUMINT Management Office, Policy and Plans Division," who was "personally involved in JFIC intelligence activities related to al-Qa'ida and the 9/11 attacks and had first hand knowledge of circumstances surrounding that alleged false reporting to the Secretary of Defense and Congress."

Maguire also offered to send classified material to the DoD IG that was in possession of the Director of National Intelligence's (DNI) inspector general. He also told Kicklighter that the DNI had not performed even a preliminary inquiry on the allegations.

The IG report, which does not explain the 18-month delay in opening an investigation, cleared JFIC of any wrongdoing and declared that the intelligence agency had "provided a timely and accurate reply in response to the 9/11 Commission." In evident response, IRON MAN indicated to the IG investigating staff that "he had never seen the 9/11 Commission questions or JFIC's response, but that Congress should have asked for files concerning the tracking of Usama Bin Ladin."

According to the IG report, the 9/11 Commission "had not requested the direct submission of any files or requested information regarding the tracking of Usama Bin Ladin." The report said the commission questions "were very specific," and asked what the JFIC knew about "imminent attack" or "hijackers involved" in the 9/11 terrorist attack.

Tracking Bin Laden had been undertaken by a secret unit within the JFIC, the Asymmetric Threats Division, formed in 1999 "to take a non-traditional approach to analysis." Known by its DoD acronym, DO5, it was tasked with providing "current intelligence briefings and produced the Worldwide Terrorist Threat Summary in support of the USJFCOM Intelligence staff [J2]." Almost no public source material exists on DO5 activities, except what is in the IG report.

The IG report does not deny the tracking of Bin Laden, but notes that the JFIC was to provide general and direct intelligence support to USJFCOM and subordinate joint forces commands and that it did not have a mission to track Osama bin Laden or predict imminent targets of terrorism on US soil.

Nevertheless, DO5 was involved in intelligence concerns domestically. It provided assistance to the Joint Task Force - Civil Support (JTF-CS), which, like DO5, was formed in 1999 and based out of Fort Monroe, Virginia. The JTF-CS was tasked with assisting the DoD response to domestic terror incidents, including "managing the consequences of a domestic chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and high-yield explosive (CBRNE) situation." At one point, DO5 assisted the JTF-CS by "establishing fictional terrorist organizations that would mimic real world terrorist groups" that were utilized as part of JTF-CS "exercises."

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The obscurity of DO5's mission was summed up by a former JFIC deputy director of intelligence, who told investigators that DO5 had "no theater specific mission." According to the answers the JFIC provided to the 9/11 Commission, the JFIC received over 2,200 messages daily "from other agencies, JFCOM components, or services." It did "not conduct any unilateral collection" of any intelligence domestically.

According to the narrative in the IG report, a previous JFIC deputy director of intelligence said that the JFIC commander, identified elsewhere in the report as Capt. Janice Dundas, US Navy, "directed him to stop tracking Usama Bin Ladin. The Commanding Officer stated that the tracking of Usama Bin Ladin did not fall within JFIC's mission." At the same time, JFIC analysis of purported Afghanistan "terrorist training camps" was also curtailed, with an explanation that such activities were outside the agency's Area of Operations and "that the issues where [sic] not in JFIC's swim lane."

According to the report, the Asymmetric Threats Division was "realigned" in summer 2001 under the "Intelligence Watch Center." The Intelligence Watch Center may be the Combined Intelligence Watch Center associated with NORAD, which is an "indications and warning center for worldwide threats from space, missile and strategic air activity, as well as geopolitical unrest that could affect North America and US forces/interests abroad." This would be consistent with the work DO5 did with the JTF-CS.

The order to stop tracking Bin Laden, therefore, came sometime between the origin of DO5 in 1999 and its realignment just prior to, or right after 9/11. In 2005, the JFIC itself was renamed the Joint Transformation Command-Intelligence, still subordinate to and serving USJFCOM.

Other Allegations

According to the IG report, IRON MAN claimed that the JFIC had "original material created by DO5 relevant to al-Qa'ida," and that the JFIC had constructed "numerous original reports." But the IG investigators found that interviews with other JFIC personnel and a review of historical DO5 briefings did not support these allegations. They claimed that DO5, which "recruited JFIC personnel from the command based upon their counterintelligence and counterterrorism expertise," merely "monitored and compiled intelligence reporting" from other agencies.

IRON MAN told IG investigators that he believed that his agency, JFIC, would deny the existence of the Asymmetric Threat Division and its analyses. But the IG report authors claimed, "JFIC correctly identified the DO5 in its response to question 8" from the 9/11 Commission and explained, in addition, that the JFIC noted that "D05's emphasis was on force protection for the USJFCOM components."

But in the reply to question 8 reproduced in the IG report, there is no mention of either DO5 or the Asymmetric Threat Division. The answer states, "JFIC's Counter-terrorism focus has changed over the years," and that from fall 1999 until September 11, 2001, the JFIC's counterterrorism focus switched to "Asymmetric Threats OCONUS [outside the continental US] to include terrorism and CBRN [Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear] issues," with the aforementioned emphasis on USJFCOM force protection. Nowhere does it indicate the existence of DO5 and there is no reason to believe that 9/11 Commission members were ever aware of its existence. The JFIC was never mentioned in the subsequent 9/11 Commission report.

In addition, IRON MAN's allegations also included charges that the JFIC and specifically DO5, had developed information that the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were the most likely domestic targets of an al-Qaeda attack. The IG report disputes this and claims, with less than definitive assurance, "Evidence indicated that the JFIC did not have knowledge regarding imminent domestic targets prior to 9/11 or specific 9/11 hijacker operations."

The IG report indicated that IG investigators spoke with a number of key ranking JFIC personnel, as well as the previous USJFCOM director of intelligence, the JFIC Commanding Officer and personnel from the Asymmetric Threat Division.

Earlier this year, a blogger, Susie Dow, who has been following the story of Kirk von Ackermann , a US Army contractor in Iraq who disappeared on the road between Tikrit and Kirkuk in October 2003, asserted that von Ackermann had earlier belonged to JFIC's Asymmetric Threat Division. Von Ackermann's vehicle was found by the side of the road with a computer and a briefcase containing $40,000 in cash. An Army Criminal Investigative Division investigation later concluded that he was the victim of a probable kidnapping, while rumors persisted that he was possibly going to blow the whistle on DoD corruption.

An associate of von Ackermann, Ryan Manelick, a former Air Force Intelligence officer, was shot and killed outside a US military base near Baghdad two months later. Manelick had earlier told various people that he was in fear for his life. Both von Ackermann and Manelick worked for the contractor Ultra Services, based in Turkey. No particular link between von Ackermann or Manelick and the IRON MAN allegations has ever been proposed.

Dow has written on the two contractors for the website e Pluribus Media. In a May 6 posting at her own web site, "The Missing Man," Dow noted the IG report's conclusion: "The analysis completed by the Joint Forces Intelligence Command, specifically the Asymmetric Threat Division, was not applicable to the questions asked by the 9/11 Commission."

"Which leads me to believe the 9/11 Commission did not ask the correct questions," Dow said.

This work by Truthout is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

Report: Intelligence Unit Told Before 9/11 to Stop Tracking Bin Laden

Report: Intelligence Unit Told Before 9/11 to Stop Tracking Bin Laden

Report: Intelligence Unit Told Before 9/11 to Stop Tracking Bin Laden

Regime Change at the IMF: The Frame-Up of Dominique Strauss-Kahn?

Regime Change at the IMF: The Frame-Up of Dominique Strauss-Kahn?

by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky



Global Research, May 19, 2011

The arrest of IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn has all the appearances of a frame-up ordered by powerful members of the financial establishment, in liaison with France's Nicolas Sarkozy, whose presidency has served the interests of the US at the expense of those of France and the European Union. While there is for the moment no proof of a plot, the unusual circumstances of his arrest and imprisonment require careful examination.

Immediately following Strauss Kahn's arrest, pressures were exerted by Washington to speed up his replacement as Managing Director of the IMF preferably by a non-European, an American or a handpicked candidate from an "emerging market economy" or a developing country.

Since the founding of the Bretton Woods institutions in 1945, the World Bank has been headed by an American whereas the IMF has been under the helm of a (Western) European.

Strauss-Kahn is a member of elite groups who meet behind closed doors. He belongs to the Bildeberger. Categorized as one of the world's most influential persons, he is an academic and politician rather than a banker. In contrast to his predecessors at the IMF, he has no direct affiliation to a banking or financial institution.

But at the same time he is the fall guy. His "gaffe" was to confront the Washington-Wall Street Consensus and push for reforms within the IMF, which challenged America's overriding role within the organization.

The demise of Strauss-Kahn potentially serves to strengthen the hegemony of the US and its control over the IMF at the expense of what former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called "Old Europe".

Blocking Strauss-Kahn, the Presidential Candidate

In recent years, a major shift has occurred in Europe's political landscape. Pro-American governments have been elected in both France and Germany. Social Democracy has been weakened.

Franco-American relations have been redefined, with Washington playing a significant role in grooming a new generation of European politicians.

The presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy has, in many regards, become a de facto US "client regime", broadly supportive of US corporate interests in the EU and closely aligned with US foreign policy.

There are two overlapping and interrelated issues in the DSK frame-up hypothesis.

The first pertains to regime change at the IMF, the second to Strauss-Kahn as a candidate in France's forthcoming presidential elections.

Both these processes are tied into the clash between competing US and European economic interests.

Strauss-Khan as a favorite of the Socialist Party, would have won the presidential elections leading to the demise of "Our Man in Paris" Nicolas Sarkozy.

As documented by Thierry Meyssan, the CIA played a central undercover role in destabilizing the Gaullist party and supporting the election of Nicolas Sarkozy (See Operation Sarkozy: How the CIA placed one of its agents at the presidency of the French Republic, Reseau Voltaire, September 4, 2008)

A Strauss-Kahn presidency and a "Socialist" government would have been a serious setback for Washington, contributing to a major shift in Franco-American relations. It would also have contributed to weakening America's role on the European political chessboard. It would also have changed the balance of power between America and "Old Europe" (namely the Franco-German alliance). It would have had repercussions on the internal structure of the Atlantic Alliance and the hegemonic role of the US within NATO.

The Frame-Up?

Fifty-seven percent of France's population, according to a May 17 poll, believe that Strauss-Kahn was framed, victim of a set-up. He was detained on alleged sexual assault and rape charges based on scanty evidence. He was detained based on a complaint filed by the Sofitel hotel where he was staying, on behalf of the alleged victim, an unnamed hotel chamber-maid:

The 32-year-old maid told authorities that she entered his suite early Saturday afternoon and he attacked her, New York Police Department spokesman Paul J. Browne. She said she had been told to clean the spacious $3,000-a-night suite, which she thought was empty.

According to an account the woman provided to police, Strauss-Kahn emerged from the bathroom naked, chased her down a hallway and pulled her into a bedroom, where he began to sexually assault her. She said she fought him off, then he dragged her into the bathroom, where he forced her to perform oral sex on him and tried to remove her underwear. The woman was able to break free again and escaped the room and told hotel staff what had happened, authorities said. They called police.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/7565485.html#ixzz1MfFWFlnY

Challenging the Washington Consensus

What is at stake in the immediate wake of Strauss Kahn's demise is "regime change" at the IMF.

The Obama administration has demanded his replacement by a more compliant individual. U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, former CEO of the New York Federal Reserve Bank is pushing for the replacement of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, "suggesting he can no longer perform his duties" as IMF Managing director.

"Geithner called for greater formal recognition by the IMF board that John Lipsky, the fund's second-in-command, will continue serving as temporary managing director for an interim period. Although Strauss-Kahn has yet to resign, sources say the IMF is in touch with his legal counsel to discuss his future at the organization."

What lies behind the frame-up scenario? What powerful interests are involved? Geithner had a close personal relationship with Strauss-Kahn.

On the floor of the US Senate (May 18), Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois, called for the resignation of DSK while calling upon the IMF's deputy managing director John Lipsky to "assume full responsibility of the IMF" as interim managing director. The process of "permanent replacement should "commence at once," he said. John Lipsky is a well connected Wall Street banker, a former Vice Chairman at JPMorgan Investment Bank.

While the IMF is in theory an intergovernmental organization, it has historically been controlled by Wall Street and the US Treasury. The IMF's "bitter economic medicine", the so-called Structural Adjustment Program (SAP), imposed on countless developing countries, essentially serves the interests of creditor banks and multinational corporations.

The IMF is not the main architect of these devastating economic reforms which have served to impoverish millions of people, while creating a "favorable environment" for foreign investors in Third World low wage economies.

The creditor banks call the shots. The IMF is a bureaucratic entity. Its role is to implement and enforce those economic policies on behalf of dominant economic interests.

Strauss Kahn's proposed reforms while providing a "human face" to the IMF did not constitute a shift in direction. They were formulated within the realm of neoliberalism. They modified but they did not undermine the central role of IMF "economic medicine". The socially devastating impacts of IMF "shock treatment" under Strauss-Kahn's leadership have largely prevailed.

Dominique Strauss Kahn arrived at the helm of the IMF in November 2007, less than a year prior to September-October 2008 financial meltdown on Wall Street. The structural adjustment program (SAP) was not modified. Under DSK, IMF "shock treatment" which historically had been limited to developing countries was imposed on Greece, Ireland and Portugal.

Under the helm of DSK as Managing Director, the IMF demanded that developing countries remove food and fuel subsidies at a time of rising commodity prices on the New York and Chicago Mercantile exchanges.

The hikes in food and fuel prices, which preceded the September-October 2008 Wall Street crash, were in large part the result of market manipulation. Grain prices were boosted artificially by large scale speculative operations. Instead of taming the speculators and containing the rise in food and fuel prices, the IMF's role was to ensure that the governments of indebted developing countries would not in any way interfere in the "free market", by preventing these prices from going up.

These hikes in food prices, which are the result of outright manipulation (rather than scarcity) have served to impoverish people Worldwide. The surge in food prices constitutes a new phase of the process of global impoverishment.

DSK was complicit in this process of market manipulation. The removal of food and fuel subsidies in Tunisia and Egypt had been demanded by the IMF. Food and fuel prices skyrocketed, people were impoverished, paving the way towards the January 2011 social protest movement:

Fiscal prudence remains an overarching priority for the [Tunisian] authorities, who also see the need for maintaining a supportive fiscal policy in 2010 in the current international environment. Efforts in the last decade to bring down the public debt ratio significantly should not be jeopardized by a too lax fiscal policy. The authorities are committed to firmly control current expenditure, including subsidies,... (IMF Tunisia: 2010 Article IV Consultation - Staff Report; Public Information Notice on the Executive Board Discussion; and Statement by the Executive Director for Tunisia)

"[The IMF] encouraged the [Egyptian] authorities to press further with food and fuel subsidy reforms, and welcomed their intention to improve the efficiency and targeting of food subsidy programs. [meaning the selective elimination of food subsidies].

"Consideration should be given to introducing automatic adjustment mechanisms for domestic fuel prices to minimize distortions [meaning dramatic increases in fuel prices without State interference], while strengthening cash-based social programs to protect vulnerable groups. (IMF Executive Board Concludes 2008 Article IV Consultation with the Arab Republic of Egypt Public Information Notice, PIN No. 09/04, January 15, 2009)

Under the helm of DSK, the IMF also imposed sweeping austerity measures on Egypt in 2008, while supporting Hosni Mubarak's "efforts to broaden the privatization program".(Ibid)

The Frank G. Wisner Nicolas Sarkozy Connection

Strauss-Kahn was refused bail by Judge Melissa Jackson, an appointee and protégé of Michael Bloomberg, who in addition to his role as Mayor is a powerful figure on Wall Street.

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. charged (using scanty evidence) Strauss-Kahn "with seven crimes, including attempted rape, sexual abuse, forcible touching and unlawful imprisonment".

Who is Cyrus Vance Jr.?

He is the son of the late Cyrus Vance who served as Secretary of State in the Carter administration.

But there is more than meets the eye. Nicolas Sarkozy's step father Frank G. Wisner II, a prominent CIA official who married his step mother Christine de Ganay in 1977 served as Deputy Executive Secretary of State under the helm of Cyrus Vance Senior, father of District Attorney Cyrus Vance Junior.

Is it relevant?

The Vance and Wisner families had close personal ties. In turn Nicolas Sarkozy had close family ties with his step father Frank Wisner (and his half brothers and sisters in the US and one member of the Wisner family was involved in Sarkozy's election campaign).

It is also worth noting that Frank G. Wisner II was the son of one of America's most notorious spies, the late Frank Gardiner Wisner (1909- 1965), the mastermind behind the CIA sponsored coup which toppled the government of Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran in 1953. Wisner Jr. is also trustee of the Rockefeller Brothers Trust.

While these various personal ties do not prove that Strauss-Kahn was the object of a set-up, the matter of Sarkozy's ties to the CIA via his step father, not to mention the ties of Frank G. Wisner II to the Cyrus Vance family are certainly worth investigating. Frank G, Wisner also played a key role as Obama's special intelligence envoy to Egypt at the height of the January 2011 protest movement.

Did the CIA play a role?

Was Strauss-Kahn framed by people in his immediate political entourage including President Obama and Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner?

District Attorney Cyrus Vance Junior, son of the late Cyrus Vance, Secretary of State in the Carter administration

Sarkozy's Step Father Frank G Wisner II, Deputy Executive Secretary of State (1976-79)
under Cyrus Vance Senior during the Carter administration

In this courtroom drawing, Dominique Strauss-Khan, next to his lawyer

Benjamin Brafman, in front of Criminal Court Judge Melissa Jackson during his arraignment at the Manhattan Criminal Court (AP)

DSK and Timothy Geithner

DSK and Timothy Geithner

Fair Trial?

Innocent before proven guilty? The US media has already cast its verdict. Will the court procedures be manipulated?

One would expect that Strauss-Kahn be granted a fair trial, namely the same treatment as that granted to thousands of arrests on alleged sexual aggression charges in New York City.

How many similar or comparable alleged sexual aggressions occur on a monthly basis in New York City? What is the underlying pattern? How many of these are reported to the police? How many are the object of police follow-up once a complaint has been filed?

What is the percent of complaints submitted to police which are the object of police arrest? How many of these arrests lead to a judicial procedure? What are the delays in court procedures?

How many of these arrests lead to release without a judicial procedure?

How many of the cases submitted to a judicial procedure are dismissed by the presiding judge?

How many of the cases which are not dismissed are refused bail outright by the presiding judge? What is the basis for refusing bail?

How many are granted bail? What is the average amount of bail?

How many are imprisoned without bail based on scanty and incomplete evidence?

How many of those who are refused bail are sent to an infamous maximum security prison on Rikers Island on the orders of Michael Bloomberg.

Diplomatic Immunity

Press reports state that full diplomatic immunity does not apply to officials of the United Nations and the Bretton Woods institutions, namely that the US did not ratify the protocol.

"U.N. convention on privileges and immunities for international agencies that most countries have ratified. It gives the heads of U.N. agencies broad immunity in the countries where they are based. But the U.S. government never became a party to that treaty. Employees of international agencies are covered by a U.S. statute that gives only limited immunity."

The relevant question is how has this limited immunity provision been applied in practice? Namely how many people with limited immunity (UN officials, officials of the Bretton Woods institutions) have been arrested and sent to a high security prison?

Has Strauss Kahn been given the same treatment as those arrested under the provisions of "limited immunity"?

Does the Strauss Kahn arrest fit the pattern? Or is Strauss Kahn being treated in a way which does not correspond to the normal (average) pattern of police and judicial procedures applied in the numerous cases of persons arrested on alleged sexual assault charges?

Without a frame-up instrumented by very powerful people acting in the background, the head of the IMF would have been treated in an entirely different way. The mayor of New York Michael Bloomberg and Timothy Geithner would have come to his rescue. The matter would have been hushed up with a view to protecting the reputation of a powerful public figure. But that did not happen.



Rikers Island Prison where DSK was imprisoned.