On the latest kool-aid on world poverty by the pope of hope & co.

by Finian Cunningham
Global Research, September 23, 2010

US President Barack Obama is the latest voice from the “great and good” to bemoan the lack of achievement in the United Nation’s Millennium goals, first declared 10 years ago, to drastically reduce world poverty and generate sustainable development. Earlier in the week, former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and ex-UN chief Kofi Annan espoused similar sentiments of disappointment with the fight against poverty and all its miseries. Welcome to the Theatre of Absurd. Here we have the very managers and apologists for the economic system that generates poverty and environmental destruction on a massive scale seeming to lament those manifestations. Not only that, but they affect a demeanour of brooding puzzlement over why poverty remains so entrenched across the world, with over one billion people (and counting) deprived of basic necessities for a decent life. Obama’s foray was particularly absurd and insidious. While he oversees a foreign policy involving mass murder and war crimes in several countries, Obama exhorts to the world to get serious about fighting poverty and human suffering. With his typical rhetoric of “deep concern” that sounds increasingly hollow, the US president said that we need to move beyond “managing poverty… to provide paths out of poverty”. He deplored “dependence” on Western aid (sic) and called for greater accountability among poorer nations. There are several self-serving myths here that, if inculcated, help to reduce not poverty but the public’s understanding of the real cause of poverty. First of all, Obama and his ilk are projecting themselves as having some kind of moral authority because they appear concerned for humanity. This is particularly absurd in the case of Obama given his record of exacerbating poverty, suffering and death all over the planet. Thus, with rhetorical flourish, the enemies of genuine human development somehow are able to appear as guardian angels and escape accountability – accountability that Obama ostensibly recommends – for the misery that they help inflict on a daily basis. A second insidious mental framework being inculcated is with the use of the words “dependence” and “accountability”. The sanctimonious implication is that the scourge of poverty in Africa, Asia and the Americas is the curse of “backward people” who are resistant to adopting Western development (sic). Perhaps with his own African ethnicity, Obama felt entitled to spout such racist cant. The great irony is that it is not the people of Africa and elsewhere who are dependent on the West, but rather it is the Western economic system of elite enrichment that is dependent on maintaining conditions of poverty in Africa and the globe generally. A third myth that Obama’s soliloquy on world poverty attempts to inculcate is that poverty is somehow the exclusive domain of foreign, and again, backward lands. The implication is that there is a distinction between the structural causes of poverty in Africa, for example, and recession in North America. A few decades ago when US workers happened to have a relatively larger share of wealth, the distinction between “developed” and “undeveloped” nations may have had some semblance of credibility. But with as many as 20 million Americans now out of work and nearly 40 million individuals in the US receiving food aid, it is today clearer than ever that poverty and massive suffering is a worldwide human condition generated by the very economic system that Mr Obama presides over. The trouble for him and his other apologists is that the contradiction of elite wealth coexisting with massive poverty has become so patent and palpable that any rhetorical flourish to dissemble otherwise is now truly absurd. Finian Cunningham is a journalist and musician  www.myspace.com/finiancunninghammusic. Finian.Cunningham@yahoo.com

Finian Cunningham is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Finian Cunningham

That 'Official' Poverty Rate? It's Much Worse than You Think

From Alternet, September 23, 2010 

By David DeGraw

 The shocking poverty statistics released last week tell only part of the story.

While the shocking new poverty statistics from the Census Bureau indicating that a record 43.6 million Americans lived in poverty in 2009 emphatically demonstrates the severity of the economic crisis, the Census is drastically undercounting this demographic. Apparently the government's poverty statistics are as accurate as its unemployment statistics.

I have read many reports that simply restate what the government has said without questioning the fact that the metrics it uses to calculate poverty are extremely outdated.

News reports say that in 2009 the poverty rate “skyrocketed” to 43.6 million -- up from 39.8 million in 2008, which is the largest year-to-year increase, and the highest number since statistics have been recorded -- putting the poverty rate for 2009 at 14.3 percent. This is obviously a tragedy and horrific news. However, this is also the result of lazy reporting.

Let’s revisit the 2008 Census total stating that 39.8 million Americans lived in poverty. It turns out that the National Academy of Science did its own study and found that 47.4 million Americans actually lived in poverty in 2008. The Census missed 7.6 million Americans living in poverty that year.

How did that happen? The Census Bureau uses a long outdated method to calculate the poverty rate. The Census is measuring poverty based on costs of living metrics established back in 1955 -- 55 years ago! They ignore many key factors, such as the increased costs of medical care, child care, education, transportation, and many other basic costs of living. They also don’t factor geographically based costs of living. For example, try finding a place to live in New York that costs the same as a place in Florida.

So the Census poverty rate increase of 3.8 million people will put the 2009 National Academy of Science (NAS) number at a minimum of 51.2 million Americans. And if the margin of discrepancy is equivalent to the 7.6 million of 2008, we are looking at a NAS number of at least 52 million people for 2009.

Let’s also consider the fact that more than 20 million people were on unemployment benefits last year. A Center on Budget and Policy Priorities analysis concluded that unemployment insurance temporarily kept 3.3 million people out of poverty. Food stamp assistance kept another 2.3 million people out of poverty. If we were to include all of these people, we'd be looking at almost 60 million Americans living in poverty. Which means the government number doesn't account for over 14.1 million Americans in poverty.

Now let’s look at the poverty line these numbers are based on: $22,050 for a family of four. Let me repeat that: $22,050 for a family of four. That breaks down to $5,513 per person, per year. I don’t know about you, but I can’t imagine living in the United States on $459 per month. That amount will barely get you a good health insurance policy, never mind food, clothes and a roof over your head. No wonder why a record 50.7 million Americans do not have health insurance. (Beware: 50.7 million Americans without health insurance is a government-based number. If you had health insurance for only one day last year, you are not counted in this total.) ... Read all
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Related: Orwellian DoubleThink: Collapse is Recovery

"Blackwater frat parties gone wild"

(no comment):

From TruthAlliance.net

The Nation | A Texas businessman who has worked extensively in Iraq claims that Blackwater paid him to purchase steroids and other drugs for its operatives in Baghdad, as well as more than 100 AK47s and massive amounts of ammunition on Baghdad's black market. Howard Lowry, who worked in Iraq from 2003-2009, also claims that he personally attended Blackwater parties where company personnel had large amounts of cocaine and blocks of hashish and would run around naked. At some of these parties, Lowry alleges, Blackwater operatives would randomly fire automatic weapons from their balconies into buildings full of Iraqi civilians. Lowry described the events as a "frat party gone wild" where "drug use was rampant." Lowry says he was told by Blackwater personnel that some of the men using the steroids he purchased were on the security detail of L. Paul Bremer, the original head of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). Lowry also claims that Blackwater's owner Erik Prince tried to enlist his help to win contracts for Blackwater with the Iraqi government using an off-shore security company, Greystone, which Prince owns. The purpose, Lowry says, was to conceal Greystone's relationship to Blackwater.

Official: Russia Pwned by Israel

Has Moscow switched to the camp of its foes?

By Gen. Vladimir Ivashov | Global Research | September 23, 2010

Russian army chief of staff Gen. N. Makarov broke the news on September 22 that Russia will not sell the S-300 air defense systems to Iran. Regardless of official explanations, it does not take an expert to realize that as a purely defensive system designed to shield a country from aircraft and cruise missile attacks the S-300 complexes cannot pose a threat to any country unless it attacks the one owning them.


As for the standoff between Iran and Israel, Tehran is constantly confronted with threats of massive air strikes, and taking steps to prevent the aggression is a must for any country seeking to sustain peace, especially for a permanent UN Security Council member sharing the responsibility for global security. Aggression is least likely in the situation of military parity or if the potential victim is able to inflict unacceptable damage on the aggressor. Iran’s possession of the S-300 complexes could expose Israel’s air forces to the risk of unacceptable damage in case the letter choses to attack the former. Denying Iran the right to efficient means of self-defense is tantamount to encouraging aggression against it. Isn’t Russia thus helping to unleash a disastrous war in the proximity of its own borders, a war against a country which, by the way, hosts a large colony of Russian specialists? On top of that, the refusal to supply the S-300 complexes to Iran clearly hurts Russia’s political and economic interests.


What could be the motivation behind Russia’s recent decision? Obviously, it stems from several regards. Ostensibly unaware of the existence of Israel’ nuclear arsenal, Moscow has for years been playing the game of taming Iran’s alleged nuclear ambitions and voted for sanctions against the country in the UN Security Council. Actually, Tehran proposed a number of times to turn the Middle East into a nuclear-free zone. The plan was welcomed by the majority of the Arab world but seems to be a taboo for Russia’s foreign ministry. Now, why is that?


Igor Yurgens, chief of the Institute of Contemporary Development, a well-connected Russian thinktank, said at the Nixon Center Russia-US roundatable on July 28, 2010 that not everybody in Russia regards the collapse of the USSR as a geopolitical catastrophe (as Russia’s former president and current prime minister V. Putin described the historical development). Yurgens went on to assert that the goal of those who don’t is to integrate Russia into the Euro-Atlantic security architecture and to eventually bring the country into NATO. He praised Russian defense minister A. Serdyukov’s military reform and stated that in the nearest future Russia would – oddly enough – be importing at least 30% of the weapons and equipment for its army from Israel and NATO countries. Another roundtable speaker from Russia – Gen. V. Dvorkin who, incidentally, paid a visit to Israel a short time ago – urged US senators to OK launching an attack against Iran as soon as possible and even presented a computer model of the conflict to US partners.


Defense ministers of Russia and Israel A. Serdyukov and Ehud Barak signed a first-ever agreement on the military cooperation between the two countries on September 6, 2010. The sides went so far as to include intelligence data swaps in the package, leaving it open to interpretation whether from now on Russia is going to spy on Arab countries, Turkey, and Iran and pass sensitive information to Israel. Whereas in the past the Russian administration sought consensus with Tel Aviv to sell weapons to Middle Eastern countries, currently the impression is that it needs Israel’s explicit sanction for such deals. A similarly absurd arrangement was in effect in the days of the Gore-Chernomyrdin commission when Moscow did not even dare to supply ordinary mechanical equipment to Iran unless Washington greenlighted the deal.
It is an open secret that Israel assisted in organizing and launching the August, 2008 unprovoked Georgian aggression against South Ossetia and the deadly raid against the Russian peacekeepers deployed in the republic. Israeli advisers are in part responsible for the bloodshed, but one gets an impression that these days for Moscow no sacrifices are too great a price for an entry ticket to the Judeo-Atlantic civilization.


Decisions like the one announced by Gen. N. Makarov undermine Russia’s prestige and erode its security, making the world less safe for every one of us. At the moment the Islamic world has reasons to believe that Moscow has switched to the camp of its foes. Given the facts that Russia is locked in a protracted conflict in the Muslim part of the Caucasus and that over a million Muslims reside in Moscow, antagonizing Muslims worldwide is the last thing the country needs.


On the whole, Serdyukov’s military reform – the structural overhaul, the introduction of the brigade system, the acquisitions of Israeli and NATO weapons, joint Russia-West exercises in the US and in Europe, and the tide of military college closures – lead watchers to conclude that the broader plan behind it is to build what still remains of Russia’s army and navy into the US and NATO expedition corps.


Shall we really be taking the riskiest roles in the military escapades of the Anglo-Saxons and of the Israeli Zionist leadership in the name of the shadowy financial oligarchy’s global dominance? Let others judge what authors of the plan deserve.


Gen. Leonid Ivashov is the President of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems.

[Israeli crimes news of the day] UN report: wilful killing, torture or inhuman treatment and injury that would warrant prosecution within the Fourth Geneva Convention.

UN panel: Israel broke international laws in deadly flotilla raid 
By the CNN Wire Staff 

(CNN) — The United Nations' Human Rights Council concluded Wednesday that Israeli forces committed serious violations of international law when they conducted a mid-sea interception of a humanitarian aid flotilla in an incident that left nine people dead. 

"The fact-finding mission concluded that a series of violations of international law, including international humanitarian and human rights law, were committed by the Israeli forces," said the 56-page report. 

The report described the circumstances of the deaths of "at least six of the passengers" as being "consistent with ... an arbitrary and summary execution." 

Israel has maintained its troops used force on the activists in May after they were attacked by those on board one boat. Soldiers were attacked with knives, metal poles and other objects, Israeli officials have said. 

But passengers on board the boat insist Israeli troops fired on them without provocation. 

"The report published today is as biased and as one-sided as the body that has produced it," the Israeli government said. "Israel, therefore, is of the opinion that the flotilla incident is amply and sufficiently investigated as it is. All additional dealing with this issue is superfluous and unproductive." 

But Israel on Wednesday said it was conducting its own investigation and will participate in a panel of inquiry called by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. 

The Human Rights Council, which indicated it spoke with more than 100 witnesses, said Israeli troops "demonstrated levels of totally unnecessary and incredible violence" against flotilla passengers during the May 31 interception. 

It said there was also evidence of wilful killing, torture or inhuman treatment and injury that would warrant prosecution within the Fourth Geneva Convention. 

"The Mission is satisfied not only that the flotilla presented no imminent threat but that the interception was motivated by concerns about the possible propaganda victory that might be claimed by the organizers of the flotilla," the council's fact-finding mission declared. 

After Israeli forces landed on one vessel, a struggle for control of the ship began. Israeli forces fired at wounded people and killed several people who posed no threat, the report said. "The circumstances of the killing of at least six of the passengers were in a manner consistent with an extra-legal, arbitrary and summary execution," it added. 

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has said that Israel went to great diplomatic lengths to stop the flotilla heading to the Palestinian territory of Gaza, and when that didn't work, it considered the implications of the use of force and weighed the possibility of simply letting the flotilla through. 

In the end, Israel made the right decision, Barak said recently in testimony before an Israeli commission looking into the incident. 

The incident left a wide-ranging military and diplomatic alliance between the Jewish state and Turkey, its powerful regional ally, badly shaken. The flotilla departed from Turkey. 
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Related: Killing Palestinians with Impunity
CNN Censors War Story, Boy Shot In Head

How Globalism Emerges - in a Rush

From The Daily Bell, Thursday, September 23, 2010 – by  Staff Report

IMF signs agreements totalling SDR 5.3 bln with four countries ... The International Monetary Fund (IMF), as trustee of the poverty reduction and growth trust (PRGT), has signed agreements with Japan, the Banque de France, the United Kingdom (UK) and the People's Bank of China to secure a total of special drawing rights (SDR) 5.256 billion (about US$8 billion) in new loan resources for low-income countries. According to its statement, IMF's concessional lending agreements were signed with the Japanese authorities for SDR1.8 billion (about US$2.7 billion), the UK authorities for SDR1.328 billion (about US$2 billion), and the People's Bank of China for SDR800 million (about US$1.2 billion). – Borneo Post


Dominant Social Theme: The IMF keeps on helping the poor.


Free-Market Analysis: The power elite used to move along the waters of the world like a majestic supertanker with plenty of time to take evasive action when an obstacle was sighted. These days it races along like nuclear-powered destroyer. An additional dominant social theme might be, "We've come too far to turn back, so get out of the way because we're not deviating from our route."


Of course, the route the power elite has in mind is one that soon arrives at world government. In the early 21st century, the elite has seemed in an ungodly hurry. There is almost no doubt, for instance, that the EU was built up patiently over 60 years time to be a building block for a world currency. But now things are moving a good deal faster. The idea of regional currency building-blocks for a one-world currency seems in the process of being discarded, so far as we can tell.


What seems to be taking place, instead, is the idea of an IMF-created international currency that would be built out of the IMF's current Special Drawing Rights,  (SDRs.) As we can see from the above article excerpt from the Borneo Post, the IMF is busy transferring wealth from "richer" countries to poorer ones. But the process is still fairly clunky, as there is the need to secure loans.


What would be far more convenient for the powers-that-be is a currency that the IMF itself could print out of thin air – as central banks do now for their respective countries. This currency might be called the bancor, and by issuing it the IMF would basically become a global central bank. The question of course is whether the world's largest powers would go along with the IMF as a global central bank.


One might think China especially would be reluctant to cooperate with an IMF that is distinctly a Western-controlled invention. But in fact, the Anglo-American axis has been offering China additional seats on the IMF board that would bring Chinese control closer to parity. Additionally, the old men running the Chinese communist party are under severe stress right now. The country is basically under attack from fairly virulent price inflation that has spread outward from real estate to food.


Perhaps if China continues to have trouble controlling yuan price inflation, a global currency will start to look like a palatable alternative. In the meantime, the elite is not letting the grass grow beneath its collective feet. The UN has organized a major, upcoming gab-fest with about 60 countries, the idea being to make progress toward the always-ephemeral global tax.


The upcoming meeting will focus on alleviating poverty (as opposed to the shattered dominant social theme of global warming) as a way of producing a global tax. But from our humble point of view, the establishment of an international tax may have more to do with a putative globalist currency than any intention of feeding the poor or comforting the afflicted.


Why is that? The ability to levy a tax on a given region is very important, apparently, from a central banking standpoint. The idea, perhaps, is that the tax goes at least partially to defraying interest costs of the inevitable debt money that is to be issued. This was perhaps why the bill authorizing central banking in the US was passed around the same time as the income tax came into being. If the IMF is to become an international central bank, then some august body will have to collect international taxes as well – presumably the UN.


We have already pointed out the various support structures that are in place to support a grand global vision. The UN is the bureaucratic entity; the World Health Organization is responsible for public health policy; NATO, as we just pointed out in a recent article, is emerging as the globalists military entity (with a tryout in Afghanistan); a plethora of international judicial entities are suddenly blossoming as well – different kinds of world courts that are creating globalist judicial precedents under the guise of judging "war crimes." Interpol, in fact, just expressed considerable concern about the growth of "international terror" – and one would assume that Interpol is being groomed for a role as the world's policeman.


It is interesting that the above structure can be erected with steady efficiency but without any fanfare at all. In naïve science fiction, elements of international society get together to discuss this or that global strategy. There is much pontification and perhaps a wide-ranging referendum. But in the real world – a world in the grip of a 200-year old money power conspiracy – this is how a new world order is to be established, by stealth.


Conclusion: Do we think it will work out? No. Even violently expansionist empires of the past can claim legitimacy by virtue of the sword. But there is no legitimacy at all in the surreptitious process that is apparently taking place now, in our view. It is being erected hastily, shoddily and without putting in place the inevitable fear-based promotions that the elite has relied upon in the past centuries to generate acquiescence to its more radical schemes. As we noted above, the elite is moving at breakneck, even desperate, speed. Of course, it is not hard for us to track their progress through various, disparate articles on the Internet, which add up to an easily discernable pattern. Is this reason for the rush?

FEMA's Kurt Sonnenfeld: an Inconvenient Witness for the Persecution

From James Fetzer:

It was my pleasure to meet Kurt Sonnenfeld and his wife, Paula, just before the International Symposium on 9/11 Truth and Justice held at The National Library in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on 9 September 2009.  This was my second visit to this beautiful country, since I had been flown there the year before to present a series of three lectures on 9/11 and one on JFK, which had received considerable attention in the media, with seven substantial articles in the press, including two in TELAM, the National News Service of the Republic of Argentina.  I had also been featured during a 20-minute television interview that was broadcast across South America.

On this occasion, Kurt and I were among the members of a panel of experts who were concerned about the events of 9/11.  Kurt's wife, Paula, served as my translator as I presented a Powerpoint lecture, "Was 9/11 an 'Inside Job'?", which has been archived several places, including on the home page of Scholars for 9/11 Truth, http://911scholars.org.  Kurt and Paula are a wonderful pair and their daughters are terrific children.  The symposium was a very successful even, with more than 200 concerned citizens in the audience and six or seven television cameras covering the event.  I believe in Kurt and expect that his footage, which has now been made public, will eventually reveal clues as to how the towers were destroyed, which the government has yet to explain.
--------------------------------------
9/11, nine years later 
Kurt Sonnenfeld: A witness for the persecution 
by Thierry Meyssan*, Gaia Edwards* 
Kurt Sonnenfeld’s case is outstanding for at least two reasons. He is in possession of official documentation that contradicts the U.S. Government’s account of the 9/11 events. He is a high-profile U.S. citizen forced to seek refugee status because of his government’s dogged persecution. Any relation between these two facts is not purely coincidental. Voltaire Network’s second exclusive interview of Kurt Sonnenfeld, conducted in Buenos Aires, is presented below.

Former high-ranking FEMA official, Kurt Sonnenfeld, arrived in Buenos Aires, Argentina, seven years ago with a return ticket in his pocket. All he wanted was a short break from the ineffable injustice and increasing harassment which had been mounted against him in the United States. He hoped his troubles would drift away by the time he returned.
He dropped into his suitcase the rough footage from his five-week Ground Zero assignment as official videographer, with unlimited access to the scene of the crime. Because of Sonnenfeld’s emotionally and physically lacerating ordeal, which began shortly after the 9/11 events, he never turned the tapes over.
For the U.S. Government, Kurt Sonnenfeld is a troublesome witness on the loose, whose documented evidence can expose its fraudulent account of the attacks. This places him in a unique, but extremely vulnerable, position.
Washington’s determination to do whatever it takes to retrieve Sonnenfeld’s material and to silence him has converted him into the refugee he never intended to become. Only from reading his book “El Perseguido” (Persecuted) is it possible to fully appreciate the hell that Kurt Sonnenfeld has been suffering at the hands of his Government since before leaving his country.
Voltaire Network interviewedKurt Sonnenfeld for the first time in June 2009, when his book had just been published and after the decision of the Argentinian judicial authorities to twice deny the extradition requests presented by the U.S. under specious pretenses. Unfortunately, this chapter is far from closed.
Shortly before the ninth anniversary of 9/11, Voltaire Network paid Kurt Sonnenfeld a visit in Buenos Aires, where he still lives with his Argentinian wife Paula and two twin daughters Natasha and Scarlett, knowing that he will never return to the United States, if he can help it.
He replied to our questions, up-dating us on the recent developments that continue to put him and his family in harm’s way despite the round-the-clock police protection outside their door.

INTERVIEW

Voltaire Network: At the time of our first interview, you still felt like the title of your book, “Persecuted”. How would you characterize your situation today?
Kurt Sonnenfeld: In some ways it has improved because news of this injustice is spreading and our base of support is growing worldwide. In other ways, however, our situation has worsened because of the ongoing campaign of “dirty tricks” undertaken by US authorities. Fraudulent documents have been introduced into the courts, usually in an illegal manner — or at best, outside of protocol. This happened again just recently when Interpol Washington made a secret and unconstitutional intervention. In addition, we’ve been followed, our mail has been opened, our website was hacked, and even our garbage has been stolen. A while ago a radio station here — notorious for its close ties to the US embassy — issued a completely false report that there was an order for my capture. Just a couple of weeks ago we received an e-mail from someone claiming to be an American living in Buenos Aires who wanted to meet with us. We checked the IP address and discovered that the server was located just outside of Langley and is registered to the Department of Defense! It’s a difficult way to have to live. Our twin daughters are ready to begin kindergarten and we are extremely preoccupied about that.

 VN: As you suggest, the latest extradition request from Interpol Washington is totally groundless and completely out of line. Could it be seen as an attempt to undermine Argentina’s sovereignty and override the previous court rulings in your favor? KS: Absolutely! It wasn’t so much a request as it was an order to just go ahead and ignore the Argentine legal process and send me to the US. The Interpol agency has no place whatsoever in making such an order — their role is merely to act as a liaison. In fact, their own constitution prohibits them from intervening in any way in the judicial process of a sovereign nation. What’s most disconcerting is that it was very insidiously introduced during a period of recess in the courts, obviously with the hope of catching some inexperienced stand-ins off guard and pressuring them to concede to their demand. Of course, that didn’t happen. They also introduced it outside of the proper channels, violating legal protocol, and marked it “confidential” — in a court process where transparency is the rule. Incidentally, Interpol has a rather sinister background. Former presidents of Interpol include Otto Steinhäusl and Ernst Kaltenbrunner (both generals in the SS of Nazi Germany), Reinhard Heydrich (also a general in the Nazi SS, and chief executor of the "Final solution to the Jewish question"), and Arthur Nebe (yet another general in the Nazi SS and leader of the Einsatzgruppen, under whose command at least 46,000 people were exterminated). Very recently (July 2010), Interpol President Jackie Selebi was found guilty of corruption for accepting bribes from a drug trafficker. 

VN: A campaign to collect signatures was launched on 25 August from Plaza de Mayo, in the heart of bustling Buenos Aires, which has been garnering widespread support. What is it about?

A "junta de firmas" to support Kurt Sonnenfeld’s continuing plight, Buenos Aires, 8 September 2010.

KS: Actually, there is a sizable campaign underway to collect petitions demanding that this injustice be stopped, spearheaded by Professor Luis D’Elia, who heads an umbrella group of many social and human rights movements. He’s conducted several “juntas de firmas” and so far several thousand signatures have been collected. The number is growing daily. This past week alone we picked up a few thousand more. VN: Are you satisfied with the letter recently sent by the Argentinian authorities in response to Interpol’s abusive meddling? KS: Yes. It was essentially a signal to them that they cannot intervene. And the court of course followed the correct protocol, which is important. VN: It should be crystal clear by now that what Washington really wants is your Ground Zero footage which it fears may contain evidence countering it’s version of 9/11. Not only does that single you out as the most credible witness in a position to testify against the United States, but also as one of the few, if not the only, U.S. citizens, who has formally applied for refugee status vis-à-vis the world’s most powerful nation. That’s quite a burden! KS: It’s obvious to me by their actions that they’re equally as motivated by vengeance at this point. I am sure there are many people (entire nations even!) who wish to be protected from unjust persecution by the United States. I am not sure how many there are who could be actual citizens of the United States. But nationality should not be factored in to the decision to grant a person refugee status. If a person is being unjustly persecuted by any government, he or she should be granted permanent refugee status, regardless of which country he or she is from. The problem is that the entities involved in granting refugee status are closely tied to the United Nations, which is completely under the financial and political control of the United States. VN: Have you ever envisaged the possibility that you could be used as a bargaining chip between the two countries? KS: Knowing how America operates, of course I have. But my wife Paula, knowing full well Argentina’s commitment to the protection of Human Rights (the result of being subjected to a US-backed dictatorship a few decades ago), completely discounts that possibility and affirms that the current administration of President Cristina Kirchner would never use a human being as a “bargaining chip”. Rejecting my extradition is a testament to the Argentine government’s independence and commitment to human rights.
Aside from that, there are two different edicts written by the highest authorities of Argentina’s National Ministry of Human Rights establishing that the extradition cannot be conceded due to the “international responsibility that this would imply for the Nation of Argentina” and stipulating that my “migratory situation” must be regularized as well — as I have an Argentine wife and two Argentine daughters and we therefore comprise an Argentine family, deserving of protection. All of that is in ADDITION to two strong rulings in my favor by the Argentine Federal Court and two by the Argentine Supreme Court. If you include in that number the initial decision by the Denver court to dismiss the case against me back in 2002, you have a total of FIVE impartial courts that have now looked at the true evidence and have subsequently ruled in my favor. VN: Last year you said that you had decided to go public in order to protect your family. In hindsight, would you do it again?
KS: Yes!
VN: Sticking to the same logic, have you taken any steps to release your material?
KS: In fact, I have released photos, documents and videos to important investigators around the world — in the US, Argentina, Western Europe, Central Europe, etc. I’m in contact with many analysts, investigators and documentary producers, whose names, of course, I cannot reveal. I’ve read a lot of commentaries asking why I don’t just upload everything on YouTube. But I have some moral issues with that. It’s not for entertainment and should not be treated superficially. Secondly, you have to remember that the first time I agreed to show some of my footage and talk about my experiences on television back in 2004, I was arrested just days before the show was to air and imprisoned for 7 months. Since then my life and the lives of those close to me have been consumed by this fight against injustice and the world’s only superpower. We are in the midst of an ongoing legal battle. It’s like walking on a razor’s edge. I’m not in a position to just throw it out and see what happens. VN: Have you heard from any of your former FEMA colleagues who were with you at Ground Zero? KS: Initially, many of my colleagues rallied in my support and we were in frequent contact — through telephone, e-mail and even face-to-face. But one by one, they’ve dropped away. In a way, I expected that. I do know that at least one of them was recently awarded a fat “anti-terrorism” contract with the FBI. Still, I have many supportive and loyal friends in the United States outside of government.

           

Bunker containing M55 rockets armed with Sarin VX.                                                             

VN: As a U.S. Government employee, you were also detailed to a number of secret military and laboratory facilities where you filmed things which your government would certainly want you to keep quiet about. Is it part of the material that you are likely to release?
KS: Although many of my large format tapes were stolen during my first imprisonment, I still have some videos that were in a box of junk cassettes marked “recyle” that I kept under the stairs in my basement. They were not just from FEMA assignments. Some were from other contracts I had. Jobs I did for the Department of Defense, Department of Energy, etc. etc. For example, I still have footage of bunkers full of sarin VX and GB warheads, “tonne” containers full of neurotoxins and mustard gas, all of which were banned by the Chemical Weapons Ban Treaty. In addition I have footage of the disassembly of a nuclear weapon, nuclear transport vehicles, Department of Defense radars along the Bering Strait in Alaska, etc., etc. I’ve been to all of the national laboratories created in relation to the Manhattan Project, proving grounds, test sites and a lot of other very interesting places in addition to the World Trade Center.

Aerial view of enigmatic WTC6 cavity.

VN: When it comes to Ground Zero, the majority of experts have focused exclusively on WTC1, WTC2 and WTC7. Yet, you also referred to a bizarre phenomenon relating to WTC6 which few appear to have paid attention to. What was so strange about it? KS: Building Six struck me (and many others) as bizarre from my first days inside Ground Zero, and there are still no answers. Looking at aerial and satellite photos, you can see that there is a huge, nearly-empty crater from the roof all the way down to the ground floor. It looked like a gigantic crane had scooped out the insides. What happened to all the rubble that should have been inside that crater? I can’t explain it.

Some of the toasted cars lining FDR Parkway, half a mile from Ground Zero.

VN: In addition to Building 6, there were a wide range of anomalies within the Ground Zero perimeter and beyond, which few people have actually dwelled on, but which could have a strategic value for a future investigation. For example, the tons of unburned paper when everything else had turned to dust and the cars that literally melted as far as a half-mile away from the site of the actual attacks. Were you struck by any of these phenomena at the time? 

KS: There were many things even to the casual observer that didn’t seem to make much sense. I’m not the one to make educated observations about many of the physical anomalies, though. I studied International Relations and Economics and not a lot of hard science. 

"The man who saw everything ... and more"

VN: In Argentina, you have made several television appearances denouncing U.S. imperialism and its expanding military agenda. What is your assessment of the Obama administration? 

KS: Obediently following orders from above: the same very powerful people who profit by making machines that destroy and who then profit later by rebuilding the things that they destroyed! Haliburton recently was awarded a multi-billion dollar petroleum contract in Iraq. Blackwater (now Xe Services), the private “security company” which is actually a huge arms exporter, is raking in astronomical profits. Even Joe Allbaugh, Director of FEMA under Bush at the time of the attacks on the World Trade Center, is now doing lucrative business in Iraq. The war in Afghanistan continues, the occupation of Iraq continues. And more spoils are soon to be won! Drums of war are beating for Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, Yemen, etc. etc. US military bases are being installed in every part of the world, and the CIA is now converted into a paramilitary organization which is conducting secret wars around the globe, generously funded by the unlimited and unaccountable “black budget” of the US Department of Defense. 

What’s different? Guantanamo continues. The “Patriot Act” continues. “Selective assassinations” and “extraordinary renditions” continue. The withering away of civil and human rights continues. The war on terrorism is still being used as an excuse by the United States to militarize the globe and subvert the sovereignty and culture of other nations. The true motivation is hegemonic expansionism. 

With Obama, everything is still going exactly according to plan. The “New American Century” is now.

VN: A campaign has been unleashed against the Argentinian government by some of the most powerful, privately-owned media which accuse it of interfering with the right of expression. Siding with the media, the U.S. Government expressed its concern over the situation. Would you comment on this?
KS: Of course the US Government is “concerned”. They’re protecting their own interests, which are the same as those of the oligarchs who are trying to control the media throughout the world. 

Argentina’s legislation is similar to the law that existed in the United States before Ronald Reagan “de-regulated” the media and cleared the way for oligarchic media monopolies. And now we see the result of Reagan’s “de-regulation”. The US corporate media are now so outrageously “entrenched” in their role of adoring propagandists that you can almost hear the music of John Philip Sousa emanating from the newsroom. As Goebbels said, “He who controls the medium controls the message. And he who controls the message controls the masses.”

VN: Getting back to your personal situation, what do you think would happen to you in the event of a forceful return?
KS: Based on all of the malicious actions undertaken thus far by US authorities, it’s obvious that they have no intention of conducting a fair trial. They would probably claim that I “confessed on the flight back” — if in fact I actually made it back — or, worse still, that I “tried to escape” — and we know what that would mean. What is sure is that you would not hear from me again. Mission accomplished, as they say.
VN: What should ideally be the next step to guarantee your enduring safety and that of your family?
KS: Ideally, the next step would be that the prosecutor in Denver again requests the dismissal of the false charge against me, as she did in 2002 after studying the abundant evidence that exonerates me. But that’s highly improbable, since her ultimate boss at the time, Bush’s Attorney General John Ashcroft, intervened 2 years afterwords to pressure her to secure my return to US control. 

Absent of that, my family and I will wait for the Argentine Supreme Court to do what is right, what we are confident they will do: reject for the third time the US request for my extradition so that our family can live in peace.

VN: Thank you for your interview. Let’s hope the next one will bring good tidings.

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Thierry Meyssan
French political analyst, founder and chairman of theVoltaire Network and the Axis for Peace conference. He publishes columns dealing with international relations in daily newspapers and weekly magazines in Arabic, Spanish and Russian. Last books published in English :9/11 the Big Lie and Pentagate.
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Gaia Edwards
Political researcher and Voltaire Network editorial assistant, based partly in Buenos Aires (Argentina).
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