BIN LADEN NEVER MENTIONED IN McCHRYSTAL REPORT OR OBAMA SPEECH
"HUNT FOR BIN LADEN" A NATIONAL SHAME
By Gordon Duff/STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor
Conservative commentator, former Marine Colonel Bob Pappas has been saying for years that bin Laden died at Tora Bora and that Senator Kerry's claim that bin Laden escaped with Bush help was a lie. Now we know that Pappas was correct. The embarassment of having Secretary of State Clinton talk about bin Laden in Pakistan was horrific. He has been dead since December 13, 2001 and now, finally, everyone, Obama, McChrystal, Cheney, everyone who isn't nuts is finally saying what they have known for years.
However, since we lost a couple of hundred of our top special operations forces hunting for bin Laden after we knew he was dead, is someone going to answer for this with some jail time? Since we spent 200 million dollars on "special ops" looking for someone we knew was dead, who is going to jail for that? Since Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney continually talked about a man they knew was dead, now known to be for reasons of POLITICAL nature, who is going to jail for that? Why were tapes brought out, now known to be forged, as legitimate intelligence to sway the disputed 2004 election in the US? This is a criminal act if there ever was one.
In 66 pages, General Stanley McChrystal never mentions Osama bin Laden. Everything is "Mullah Omar"now. In his talk at West Point, President Obama never mentioned Osama bin Laden. Col. Pappas makes it clear, Vice President Cheney let it "out of the bag" long ago. Bin Laden was killed by American troops many many years ago.
America knew Osama bin Laden died December 13, 2001. After that, his use was hardly one to unite America but rather one to divide, scam and play games. With bin Laden gone, we could have started legitimate nation building in Afghanistan instead of the eternal insurgency that we invented ourselves.
Without our ill informed policies, we could have had a brought diplomatic solution in 2002 in Afghanistan, the one we are ignoring now, and spent money rebuilding the country, 5 cents on the dollar compared to what we are spending fighting a war against an enemy we ourselves recruited thru ignorance.
The bin Laden scam is one of the most shameful acts ever perpetrated against the American people. We don't even know if he really was an enemy, certainly he was never the person that Bush and Cheney said. In fact, the Bush and bin Laden families were always close friends and had been for many years.
What kind of man was Osama bin Laden? This one time American ally against Russia, son of a wealthy Saudi family, went to Afghanistan to help them fight for their freedom. America saw him as a great hero then. Transcripts of the real bin Laden show him to be much more moderate than we claim, angry at Israel and the US government but showing no anger toward Americans and never making the kind of theats claimed. All of this is public record for any with the will to learn.
How much of America's tragedy is tied with these two children of the rich, children of families long joined thru money and friendship, the Bush and bin Laden clans.
One son died in remote mountains, another lives in a Dallas suburb hoping nobody is sent after him. One is a combat veteran, one never took a strong stand unless done from safety and comfort. Islam once saw bin Laden as a great leader. Now he is mostly forgotten.
What has America decided about Bush?
We know this: Bin Laden always denied any ties to 9/11 and, in fact, has never been charged in relation to 9/11. He not only denied involvement, but had done so, while alive, 4 times and had vigorously condemned those who were involved in the attack.
This is on the public record, public in every free country except ours. We, instead, showed films made by paid actors, made up to look somewhat similar to bin Laden, actors who contradicted bin Ladens very public statements, actors pretending to be bin Laden long after bin Laden's death.
These were done to help justify spending, repressive laws, torture and simple thievery.
For years, we attacked the government of Pakistan for not hunting down someone everyone knew was dead. Bin Laden's death hit the newspapers in Pakistan on December 15, 2001. How do you think our ally felt when they were continually berated for failing to hunt down and turn over someone who didn't exist?
What do you think this did for American credibility in Pakistan and thru the Islamic world? Were we seen as criminals, liars or simply fools? Which one is best?
This is also treason.
How does the death of bin Laden and the defeat and dismemberment of Al Qaeda impact the intelligence assessments, partially based on, not only bin Laden but Al Qaeda activity in Iraq that,not only never happened but was now known to have been unable to happen?
How many "Pentagon Pundits," the retired officers who sold their honor to send us to war for what is now known to be domestic political dirty tricks and not national security are culpable in these crimes?
I don't always agree with Col. Pappas on things. I believe his politics overrule his judgement at times. However, we totally agree on bin Laden, simply disagree with what it means. To me lying and sending men to their deaths based on lies is treason.
Falsifying military intelligence and spending billions on unnecessary military operations for political reasons is an abomination. Consider this, giving billions in contracts to GOP friends who fill campaign coffers, and doing so based on falsified intelligence is insane. This was done for years.
We spent 8 years chasing a dead man, spending billions, sending FBI agents, the CIA, Navy Seals, Marine Force Recon, Special Forces, many to their deaths, as part of a political campaign to justify running American into debt, enriching a pack of political cronies and war profiteers and to puff up a pack of Pentagon peacocks and their Whitehouse draft dodging bosses.
How many laws were pushed thru because of a dead man?
How many hundreds were tortured to find a dead man?
How many hundreds died looking for a dead man?
How many billions were spent looking for a dead man?
Every time Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld stood before troops and talked about hunting down the dead bin Laden, it was a dishonor. Lying to men and women who put their lives on the line is not a joke.
Who is going to answer to the families of those who died for the politics and profit tied to the Hunt for Bin Laden?
duffsterVeterans Today Senior Editor Gordon Duff is a Marine combat veteran and regular contributor on political and social issues.Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from Veterans Today ! Sign up now !
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Pearl Harbor mini-submarine mystery solved?
Researchers think they have found the remains of a Japanese mini-submarine that probably fired on U.S. battleships on Dec. 7, 1941.
Japanese warplanes hit, from left, the USS West Virginia, USS Tennessee and USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor. (Associated Press / December 7, 2009)
The remains of a Japanese mini-submarine that participated in the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor have been discovered, researchers are to report today, offering strong evidence that the sub fired its torpedoes at Battleship Row.
That could settle a long-standing argument among historians.
Five mini-subs were to participate in the strike, but four were scuttled, destroyed or run aground without being a factor in the attack. The fate of the fifth has remained a mystery. But a variety of new evidence suggests that the fifth fired its two 800-pound torpedoes, most likely at the battleships West Virginia and Oklahoma, capsizing the latter. A day later, researchers think, the mini-sub's crew scuttled it in nearby West Loch.
The loch was also the site of a 1944 disaster in which six tank landing ships preparing for the secret invasion of Saipan were destroyed in an ammunition explosion that killed 200 sailors and wounded hundreds more.
When the Navy scooped up the remains of the so-called LSTs and dumped them outside the harbor to protect the secrecy of the invasion, it apparently also dumped the mini-sub's remains, which were mingled with the damaged U.S. ships.
"It's not often that a historian gets a chance to rewrite history," said marine historian and former Navy submariner Parks Stephenson, who pieced together the evidence for the television program "Nova." "The capsizing of the Oklahoma is the second most iconic event of the attack. If one submarine could get in in 1941 and hit a battleship, who knows what a midget sub could do today. Iran and North Korea are both building them. It's very worrying."
Stephenson and his colleagues have put together a convincing chain of circumstantial evidence, but it is just circumstantial, said Burl Burlingame, a journalist at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin and author of "Advance Force: Pearl Harbor."
"There is a good chance that this is the Pearl Harbor midget, but I don't think the case is closed on it," Burlingame said. "At this point, it is not hard evidence."
The two-man, 80-foot-long sub in question does not have a name of its own. Each of the five subs in the attack was carried by a conventional submarine and took its name from the mother boat. It is thus called the I-16-tou -- tou being Japanese for boat. Powered by a 600-horsepower electric motor, the sub could reach underwater speeds of 19 knots, twice as fast as many of the U.S. subs of the day.
The three pieces of the sub were found during routine test dives between 1994 and 2001 by Terry Kerby, chief pilot of the Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratory's submersibles Pisces IV and Pisces V. But Kerby and others assumed they were a part of a war trophy that had been captured by allied forces at Guadalcanal or elsewhere, towed back to Hawaii and scuttled.
Stephenson got involved in 2007 because he was looking for the fifth Japanese mini-sub.
In 1941, a crewman on the I-16 had received a radio call from the I-16-tou at 10:41 p.m. on Dec. 8 reporting the success of its mission. That indicated to Stephenson that the mini-sub had found a calm place in the harbor and hidden until the next night before surfacing and sending the call.
The crew members would have then scuttled the craft because they could not get it out of the harbor. The West Loch would have been a good location to hide, but researchers could find no trace of the boat there.
A diver who had been looking for the mini-sub suggested that Stephenson talk to Kerby, who sent him pictures of his find.
"As soon as I saw the bow section with the distinctive net cutter, I knew that we had found the fifth midget sub," Stephenson said. The Japanese navy modified net cutters on the subs for specific missions, and the one on the wreck was identical to those on the other mini-subs.
No torpedoes were found on the wreck, and evidence suggests that they were not present when the boat was sunk. A newly declassified photograph taken by a Japanese plane during the attack appeared to show a mini-sub firing a torpedo into Battleship Row. A report to Congress in 1942 by Adm. Chester W. Nimitz describes an unexploded 800-pound torpedo recovered after the battle. That's twice the size carried by the torpedo bombers.
That torpedo was apparently a dud that missed the West Virginia.
But an examination of the remains of the Oklahoma shows that it apparently had underwater damage much larger than that associated with aerial torpedoes. An underwater blast would have caused it to capsize, Stephenson said. "Otherwise it would have settled to the bottom upright," like the other sunken ships.
The 1944 disaster at West Loch occurred on May 21 as the Navy was preparing to invade the Mariana Islands in Operation Forager. The Navy clamped a top-secret classification on the incident to keep it from the Japanese, and few records are now available. What is known is that it was crucial to clear out the debris because the loch was by then the site of an ammunition dump.
Records from the salvage ship Valve showed that it was brought into the loch during the cleanup and its 250-ton crane was used for an undisclosed reason. Stephenson thinks it lifted the I-16-tou, but there are no records to confirm that.
The remains of the mini-sub were then dumped three miles south of Pearl Harbor along with those of the LSTs, to be found by Kerby 50 years later.
Bulkheads on the wreck are sealed, so researchers don't know whether the mini-sub crew was trapped. But a map taken from one of the other mini-subs showed the location of a safe house in Pearl City, Hawaii, suggesting the crew might have scuttled the boat and escaped.
The "Nova" episode describing the search for the I-16-tou will air Jan. 5.
Carbon Dioxide: The Breath of Life
Click this link ....... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPNiBVU2QIA
US to regulate greenhouse gas emissions
The EPA's Lisa Jackson: "This administration will not ignore science or the law"
The US government has declared that greenhouse gases threaten human health.
The move could allow the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to order cuts in emissions without the approval of Congress.
EPA administrator Lisa Jackson said the agency was now "authorised and obligated to make reasonable efforts" to cut greenhouse gases.
The news came as global climate talks got under way in Copenhagen aimed at forging a deal on major emissions cuts.
Ms Jackson said that the scientific evidence surrounding climate change clearly showed that greenhouse gases "threaten the public health and welfare of the American people".
She said the EPA's so-called endangerment finding would "cement 2009's place in history as the year when the United States government began addressing the challenge of greenhouse-gas pollution".
Reports suggest the announcement, which had been in the pipeline for months, was timed to add weight to US President Barack Obama's position at the climate change talks in Copenhagen, allowing him to argue that the US is taking action to combat global warming.
However, the president's preferred way of addressing greenhouse gas emissions is still through the legislative process, says the BBC's environment correspondent Richard Black.
The president is said to favour a cap-and-trade bill backed by Senators Barbara Boxer and John Kerry which is currently making its way through the US Senate.
Our correspondent says a bill would give political backing to curbs on emissions.
A secondary motive, he says, is that prevailing economic theory predicts cap-and-trade to be a more efficient way of reducing emissions. That is because it uses a market mechanism, whereas acting through the EPA could mean mandating cuts.
Using cap-and-trade legislation as well as EPA mechanisms could in principle reduce US emissions more than the target it has put before the UN climate summit, our correspondent says.
And campaigners will be urging Mr Obama to pledge bigger cuts and use every power at his disposal.
However, while the House of Representatives already passed a cap-and-trade bill, progress through the Senate is not likely before March at the earliest.
'Health hazard'
In April this year, the EPA decided that carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases could endanger human health and well-being.
The decision was then sent out to public consultation, with people given 60 days - until 23 June - to respond.
An EPA spokeswoman told the BBC that the agency had received more than 300,000 comments and had been working on its response since.
Under a Supreme Court ruling, the EPA's "endangerment finding" was needed to allow the agency to regulate carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases released by vehicles, power plants and factories under the federal Clean Air Act.
Bail-out of US banks will cost $200bn less than predicted
The final cost of the US government's bail-out of the banking sector is expected to be $200bn lower than first thought.
The US Treasury will update its projections for the eventual cost of the $700bn (£425bn) Troubled Assets Relief Programme (TARP), a senior Treasury official disclosed.
As recently as August, President Barack Obama's administration had calculated the long-term costs of running the TARP would be $341bn, but the Treasury is now expected to cut that figure by almost $200bn.
The TARP was established by Hank Paulson, former US Treasury Secretary, at the height of the financial crisis in September 2008 to inject capital into banks to prop-up balance sheets, in return for preferred shares.
The positive news is a reflection of the recent increase in the number of banks and institutions rushing to repay their TARP facilities as a result of renewed confidence in the equity markets. Just last week, Bank of America (BoA) moved to repay the $45bn of TARP funds it had borrowed in two separate tranches, and Citigroup is now internally discussing the possibility of repayment.
To date, banks – not including BoA – have repaid $71bn, while the Treasury has earned an additional $10bn in interest payments.
American politicians are now turning their attentions to how else the money might be spent. Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House of Representatives, wants to use approximately $70bn of TARP funds to pay for a job creation plan. Timothy Geithner, the current Treasury Secretary, is said to be agreeable to such a move, though details are not yet known.
Copenhagen climate summit: Barack Obama given power to cut greenhouse gases
President Barack Obama has taken powers to cut emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from cars, factories and power plants across the United States.
Barack Obama plans to attend the conference late next week
The news dramatically improves the prospects of reaching a new agreement to combat global warming at the climate summit which opened in Copenhagen on Monday.
His administration formally declared that the gases "endanger the public health and welfare of the America people" empowering its Environment Protection Agency to regulate them across the country under the country's Clean Air Act, without having to get a hotly-contested climate bill through the US Congress.
Lisa Jackson, the agency's administrator, said the move "relied on decades of sound, peer-reviewed, extensively evaluated scientific data" which both "authorised and obligated" it to take reasonable efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
She called it "a reasonable and common-sense measure" that would "drive technology innovation for a better economy and protect the environment for a better future without placing an undue burden" on business.
She added: "It also means that we arrive at the climate talks in Copenhagen with a clear demonstration of our commitment to facing this global challenge. We hope that today's announcement serves as another incentive for far-reaching accords"
But Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute, said that regulations under the Act would pose "a threat to every American family and business".
Late last month President Obama announced that the US was ready to cut emissions by 17 per cent on 2005 levels, boosting the prospects for agreement in Copenhagen. But until now that has been dependent on getting a bill through Congress.
A version of the bill was approved by the House of Representatives last summer, but the administration is struggling to get similar legislation through the Senate in the face of opposition from Republicans and some dissident Democrats from states with big oil, coal and car industries.
The new ruling gives Mr Obama the firepower to meet the target anyway. It also makes it much more likely that he will get the bill through Congress as the House bill would take away the agency's powers to regulate the gases and substitute a more flexible system which industry would greatly prefer.
It will also greatly improve the chances of getting a deal in Copenhagen, since other countries will now know that the US can deliver on any undertakings it makes there.
But Yvo de Boer, the Executive Secretary of the UN climate change negotiations, said that any agreement made in the Danish capital could still be a “suicide pact” for small low-lying island states that will disappear if sea levels rise. He added that the current target of the negotiations – to limit global warming to 2C (3.6F) – would also still result in floods, droughts and sea level rise.
“What the small island nations are telling us here is anything over 1.5 C increase will be a suicide pact for them because it means their nations disappearing,” he said.
On the opening day of negotiations in Copenhagen, Mr Boer said the threat to such vulnerable countries made it even more important to reach a deal.
“The clock has ticked down to zero. After two years of negotiations, the time has come to deliver,” he said. “Developing countries desperately need tangible immediate action on these crucial issues.”
Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Committee on Climate Change, also said vulnerable people will suffer if temperatures rise by even a small amount.
“Some even question the goal of 2C as a ceiling because that would lead to sea level rise on account of thermal expansion alone of 0.4 to 1.4 metres,” he said. “This increase added to the effect melting of snow and ice across the globe, could submerge several small island states and Bangladesh.”
Speaking on behalf of the small island states Dessima Williams, the chief negotiator for Grenada, said the group would not accept a “made for TV” solution.
She called for a legal treaty that would commit rich countries to cutting their carbon emissions by between 25 to 40 per cent.
“We are here to save ourselves from burning and drowning,” she said. “We are here to work towards an ambitious outcome.”
Other vulnerable countries like Nepal and Bangladesh also claimed that 2C will leave millions of people homeless and called on the rich world to provide money to help them adapt as part of any deal.
Achim Steiner, the head of the UN Environment Programme, agreed 2C will put many parts of the world in danger.
He said the world may need to meet again to push for an even tougher target in the future.
“Maybe in three or four year’s time, as the science firms up we may have to accelerate forward and increase the target to keep the world safe,” he said.
But Connie Hedegaard, the president of the negotiations, was optimistic the world will reach a deal that prevents the worst effects of global warming.
She said rich countries are willing to sign up to ambitious targets to cut carbon at the same time as giving poor countries billions of pounds to adapt.
“Let’s mark this meeting in history. Let’s open the door to the low carbon age. Let’s get it done now,” she said.
3 dead as wintry weather wallops U.S.
(CNN) -- Much of the United States was braced for severe winter weather on Monday, as a major storm hit California while an unrelated first round of wintry conditions snarled commutes in the Midwest.
The storm hitting California Monday afternoon was expected to affect weather across the country through Wednesday.
The wintry weather, caused by a weak disturbance over the Midwest, caused the deaths of three people in weather-related traffic accidents Sunday and Monday. The first two occurred Sunday in northern California, the area first hit by the weather.
A 14-year-old boy died on Interstate 80 about 11 a.m. Sunday when the truck he was traveling in skidded off the road on a steep snow-covered grade, said California Highway Patrol spokeswoman Jeanie Hoatson. A second person was killed on State Route 89 about 45 minutes later when the vehicle they were driving went out of control and collided with a second vehicle, she said.
In Indiana on Monday, a 21-year-old man died on Interstate 65, northwest of Indianapolis, state police said. The man was involved in one of two weather-related crashes on the road as snow fell, and was struck by a semitrailer truck when he stepped out of his car, Indiana State Police said.
Video: A snowy mess across America 
Video: Wintry weather jams roadways 
Video: Winter storms hit U.S. 
Video: Wintry weather in Midwest RELATED TOPICS
Numerous traffic accidents were reported in states experiencing winter weather conditions as the disturbance moved across and into the Midwest, affecting Ohio and Wisconsin.
Forecasters warned that the approaching storm could cause widespread power outages through Wednesday and make travel nearly impossible in some areas. It may spread arctic air southward by midweek.
Some parts of Iowa could receive up to 10 inches of snow, according to CNN affiliate KCCI. The state already received up to 5 inches of snow from the disturbance Sunday.
Chicago, Illinois, received about an inch of snow through Monday morning, said CNN iReporter Alan Hawkins. The sun came out and began to melt the snow, but by late morning the sky was overcast again.
More cold temperatures and snow are forecast for Tuesday and Wednesday, he said. "Today's just kind of a taste of what we're going to get."
CNN iReporters in Kentucky and Indiana reported snow, but said it was melting as of late morning.
Is it snowing where you live? Send photos, video
Some snow also fell in mountainous areas of Arizona early Monday as the major storm moved in. Winter storm warnings stretched as far south as Tucson.
Blizzard warnings are in effect for parts of the central Rockies and the Mogollon Rim in Arizona, where up to 2 feet of snow and wind gusts of 50 mph could cause whiteouts, forecasters said.
Wind chills of 30 to 40 degrees below zero are forecast for the Midwest and the northern Plains, and afternoon temperatures may be in the single digits through Wednesday. The storm is forecast to intensify Monday as it strikes California and heads northeast toward the Rockies, forecasters said Sunday.
Winter storm warnings are in effect for the Sierra Range southward to the San Bernardino mountains in Southern California. The area was set to experience heavy snow on Monday, with up to 3 feet possible in the higher elevations.
Southern California may get wind gusts of 60 mph on Monday, which could damage trees, power lines and communication towers. Heavy rains were also forecast, triggering possibilities of mudslides and debris flows especially in burn areas.
The storm is expected to intensify Tuesday as it moves northeast into the Midwest and upper Great Lakes.
Winter storm watches are in effect for the regions, with blizzard conditions possible in northern Iowa and southern Minnesota on Tuesday.
On Wednesday, the storm will move into southern Canada as the coldest air of the season spills across the central United States, forecasters said.
Many temperatures will be below zero Thursday morning and daytime highs will struggle to make it out of the single digits across the upper Great Lakes, according to forecasters.
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