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Posts Tagged ‘Department of Homeland Security’

Who Are The Real Terrorists?

May 27th, 2009

On May 18, 2009, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu assured President Obama that Iran posed a greater threat to peace in the Middle East than Israel’s six-decade occupation of Palestine. Three days later, headlines reported a “Jihad plot” to bomb synagogues in New York. Despite the repetitive pattern of such well-timed threats, few dare suggest a common pro-Israeli motive.

Criminal State readers will recall that on June 2, 2007, global headlines reported a “JFK Bomb Plot” featuring a “suspected Muslim terrorist cell.” According to U.S. Attorney Rosalyn Mauskopf, daughter of a Holocaust survivor, that threat was “one of the most chilling plots imaginable” that would “cause greater destruction than the Sept. 11 attacks.”

Suspects in that “homegrown terrorist plot” against New York’s JFK airport were motivated by “hatred toward the West” by those “eager to bring death to Jews.” The four suspects, closely monitored by an FBI informant, never obtained any explosives. Only one lived in the U.S.

May 21, 2009 saw a similar headline-grabbing arrest featuring the requisite “suspected Muslim terrorist cell.” According to assistant U.S. attorney Eric Snyder, “It’s hard to envision a more chilling plot” involving a “homegrown terrorist plot” motivated by “hatred of the West and Jews.” A FBI informant provided four suspects with inert explosives and a deactivated missile.

Both plots involved an informant whose role in provoking and facilitating the plot remains unclear. In the “JFK Bomb Plot,” the ringleader was a former baggage handler who had retired from his job. Airport security had since been significantly tightened and his knowledge of airport operations was severely outdated. Two other suspects were arrested in Trinidad.

In the “New York Synagogue Bomb Plot,” an informant began appearing at a mosque in 2007. He quickly aroused the iman’s suspicions with talk of violence and jihad. Claiming links to a Pakistani terror organization, he offered substantial funds to at least one of four arrested “jihadists.” None of the “Muslim men” were active in the mosque. All four were down-and-out ex-convicts. The first media interview featured a Holocaust survivor.

When it became clear that the “JFK Bomb Plot” was baseless, media coverage was minimal. We can only wait to see how this latest plot plays out. The four “Muslim jihadists” face a life sentence if convicted as charged with conspiracy to deploy (inert) weapons of mass destruction.

This latest chilling plot emerged during the same news cycle as Netanyahu’s latest ploy to shift the focus off Israel and shine it instead on Iran and the threat to the Jewish state of “Islamo” fascism. Writing for The Nation, Robert Dreyfuss accused a “government agent-provocateur” working to “reinforce the very fear that Dick Cheney is trying to stir up” by strengthening “the narrative that the ‘homeland’ is under attack. It’s not.”

Nowhere was there even a hint in mainstream media that only Israel and its supporters have the means, motive, opportunity and stable nation state intelligence to mount such false flag operations—with impunity—inside the U.S. As the repetitiveness of such well-timed operations becomes apparent, their common source is becoming transparent. To accuse a “government” agent-provocateur misses the mark.

Whether liberal or conservative, pro-Israeli analysts are consistent in creating doubt about the ability of America’s leaders to protect the nation. So long as U.S. foreign policy is filtered through pro-Israeli interests, lawmakers will continue to encourage well-timed “plots” that associate U.S. national security with the security of Israel.

As the “global war on terrorism” loses its appeal, domestic extremism is being marketed as the threat. A recent report by the Department of Homeland Security sought to link returning Iraq War vets to extremism. Forced to backpedal on veterans as a source of homegrown terrorism, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano found her job in jeopardy. Less than 48 hours later, she announced the swine flu pandemic as the latest threat.

The greater the transparency, the greater the need for a plausible plot that features national security at risk from Muslim jihadists and domestic extremists. As “Islamo” fascism loses its allure and “jihadist” terrorism loses its credibility, a form of homegrown fascism is becoming transparent.
Modern-day fascism succeeds by displacing facts with what the public can be induced to believe. Thus the key role of complicit media—whether the deceit is Iraqi WMD, phony ties to Al Qaeda or a “Muslim jihadist” attack on New York synagogues. Facts are irrelevant. When waging war by way of deception, plausible associations are the goal.

To restore national security requires a reappraisal of the U.S.-Israeli “special relationship.” So long as this entangled alliance remains intact, the real terrorists will have every incentive to continue such opinion-shaping operations. And U.S. foreign policy will continue to be shaped by those skilled at provoking the U.S. to deploy its military in pursuit of Israeli goals.

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A.I.G. Made Easy

March 25th, 2009

 AIG Sports Star, AIG fraud, AIG scam
Copyright Korea Times

Had insurance giant A.I.G. collapsed, losses from its failed insurance coverage would have rippled through banks and investment banks worldwide, destabilizing the world economy.

Yet A.I.G. set aside no reserves to cover the risk of default on those securities it collected premiums to insure. Why should it? Securities rating agencies ranked even the riskiest of those securities akin to U.S.-government bonds with virtually no chance of default.

A.I.G. professed to insure high-risk loans packaged and resold as low-risk securities to unwary pension funds. In a financial markets version of musical chairs, A.I.G. could afford to be the last one standing, confident they were too big to fail. Let’s keep it simple: imagine the casino skim taken to global scale as players extracted fees at each step along the way.

A.I.G.’s lack of financial reserves did not inhibit its financial products unit from charging handsome fees while its insurance unit pocketed vast premiums. A.I.G.’s rare triple-A rating lent the firm an image of strength and stability even as it “insured” the riskiest securities backed by the least secure of subprime mortgages.

A.I.G.’s financial “creativity” induced A.I.G. clients to believe their premiums would cover the risk of default. Heads A.I.G. wins. Tails and we’re told that taxpayers must pay. A precedent was set with the massive savings and loan fraud of the late-1980s when policy changes enabled a similar financial “pump-and-dump.” As real estate prices soared, cash was skimmed at the top of the market to acquire assets cheaply at the fire-sale bottom.

The origins of this fraud can be traced to a “Chicago” mindset that likens unfettered financial freedom to personal freedom. The public interest, we’re assured, is best served by allowing money to freely work its will worldwide. Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan reassured us that “financial creativity” would protect us from the very “irrational exuberance” that he enabled with a combination of easy money and free market ideology.

In a classic exercise in political distraction, the public is now incensed at a reported $165 million in incentive payments to the A.I.G. geniuses behind this financial creativity. In truth, their real bonus figure is closer to $450 million. Albeit outrageous, it totals less than one quarter of one percent of a taxpayer bailout for A.I.G. poised to top $200 billion.

Forced to disclose to which firms the first $85 billion in bailout funds were paid, A.I.G. conceded that 16 of the top 22 institutions were foreign-owned firms. Goldman Sachs, a key node in this transnational network of financial creativity, was paid $13 billon by A.I.G. That’s in addition to the $10 billion that Washington paid directly to Goldman last fall.

Obama adviser Larry Summers succeeded Goldman Sachs chair Robert Rubin as Treasury Secretary when key policies were changed that enabled this fraud. He also handpicked a Harvard advisory team who oversaw a similar fraud that financially pillaged the Russian economy. When Moscow hit the “reset” button in its shift from state to private ownership, a national scale fraud created an oligarchy that dominates the Russian economy.

As soon as Russia’s restructuring was complete, its beneficiaries cited sanctity of contract to protect the spoils of their massive fraud while a deceived Russian public was driven into poverty. There, a massive “loan for shares” fraud enabled financial sophisticates to emerge dominant. Here, a massive “funds for shares” program turned to hedge funds and private equity firms to rescue us from our Greenspan-enabled profligacy.

To facilitate an American-style “reset,” government debts will be secured by our full faith and credit to help financial sophisticates buy trashy debt securities from A.I.G.’s defrauded clients. That cost will reduce fiscal resources required to address the retirement needs of 78 million Baby Boomers whose pension funds were ravaged by this “Chicago” fraud.

As this cash-for-trash program proceeds, who will emerge as dominant owners of the nation’s distressed financial sector? Answer: the senior partners of hedge funds and private equity funds—who already dominate the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans.

As in Russia, debate is being framed around sanctity of contract to insulate from a deceived public a vast transfer of wealth into a few hands. Summers cited that sanctity to insist that A.I.G.’s financial products unit be allowed to keep their half-billion dollars in taxpayer-paid bonuses. Obama initially opposed the bonuses while an incensed House approved legislation imposing a 90% tax. Chicagoan Obama has since backed down. That tax could have set a precedent for a bilked public to recover other stolen wealth.

The real issues remain obscured in the outrage over executive pay while the entire economy is being “reset” in plain sight. The policy changes proposed by Summers & Co. will create a uniquely American-style oligarchy. As taxpayers are stuck with the mortgage, our creative financial sophisticates will get the house. Is this the future that Americans want?

Another intelligence “dot disconnect” may be in the works. While Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano cites our porous borders as the primary danger, intelligence agencies confirm that our weakened economy poses the top threat to national security.

How was U.S. security improved by enabling A.I.G. to make massive payments to foreign banks? How is our national interest served by taking us deeper into debt in order to bail out complicit bankers while creating a Russian-style oligarchy? If those simple questions were asked, the answers would lead us to those who orchestrated this greatest heist in history. And to those now enacting policies destined to make a bad situation worse.

March 24, 2009

For more background and a better understanding of the situation AT LARGE, please visit my website at http://www.criminalstate.com and have a quick peek at my book “Criminal State“.

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