Tuesday, November 25, 2008

"Behold, Atlantis Rising!" (UPDATED 11/22)

I am absolutely speechless: "Dubai has thrown a spectacular light show to celebrate a new $1.5bn marine-themed resort built off the Gulf coast on an artificial island in the shape of a palm tree. Organisers claimed that the fireworks display for the $20m party could be seen from space," the BBC says.

Seen from space? For whose benefit? Watch the entire show here, and remind yourself as your brain overheats that Dubai is nominally Islamic. I like the part when the high priestess tells the crowd to watch as Atlantis "illuminates."


For some strange reason, an army of Horus Kings accompany the High Priestess during the ceremony (what the hell do Hawkmen have to do with Atlantis?). Given what we've been looking at the past few weeks we should expect all of this, but I still can't believe my eyes.

Let me remind you all what I wrote just a week ago:
Why is so much money being taken from places like Louisiana and sent to places like Dubai and Qatar? Why are these astonishing metropolises being built in these ancient lands, but not in other oil-producing countries? Are these new science fiction metropolises being prepared for someone?

According to Zechariah Sitchin, the Persian Gulf was of particular interest to Ea, aka Enki. Oannes made his home beneath the waves there. One can almost imagine a lineage- an office, perhaps- established by Ea that included figures like Oannes, Dagon, and Osiris, and later John the Baptist.
UPDATE: The Gulf States move to create single currency, see America as Third World country...


UPDATE II: Masonic landmarks projected onto Atlantis. See article on illuminated obelisks worldwide here.

UPDATE III: All of you Goro/Etemenanki fans are probably thinking "Stargate" when you see this octagon shape from the big Atlantis show (heh, Stargate: Atlantis, get it?) Maybe these folks in Dubai spent 20 million dollars for a half-hour opening ceremony and however many billions of dollars on this resort because they're all really big sci-fi geeks.

UPDATE IV: Speaking of pop cult symbolism, the Mermaid/High Priestess at Atlantis reminds me a combination of Uxia from Stuart Gordon's 2001 Lovecraft adaptation Dagon, and Jack Kirby's "Witch Queen of Ancient Sumeria" (particularly in the headdress). Dagon is another name for Oannes, and "Sumeria" (Sumer, properly) was under the rule of the space-born Annunaki. It's worth noting that both Jack Kirby and H.P. Lovecraft both fixated on the mythos of ancient space gods coming to reclaim Earth as their own...

UPDATE V: Eagle-eyed Joe Linsner pointed out that not only could this ritual be seen from space, it would make no visual sense at all to anyone on the ground. You'd have to be a good height in the sky above to see the island being "illuminated." This picture was taken some distance from the hotel and it looks like nothing but a giant mess of flame and smoke.

This is Change - 20 Hawks, Clintonites and Neocons to Watch for in Obama's White House

2008 11 25

By Jeremy Scahill | globalresearch.ca
U.S. policy is not about one individual, and no matter how much faith people place in President-elect Barack Obama, the policies he enacts will be fruit of a tree with many roots. Among them: his personal politics and views, the disastrous realities his administration will inherit, and, of course, unpredictable future crises. But the best immediate indicator of what an Obama administration might look like can be found in the people he surrounds himself with and who he appoints to his Cabinet. And, frankly, when it comes to foreign policy, it is not looking good.

Obama has a momentous opportunity to do what he repeatedly promised over the course of his campaign: bring actual change. But the more we learn about who Obama is considering for top positions in his administration, the more his inner circle resembles a staff reunion of President Bill Clinton's White House. Although Obama brought some progressives on board early in his campaign, his foreign policy team is now dominated by the hawkish, old-guard Democrats of the 1990s. This has been particularly true since Hillary Clinton conceded defeat in the Democratic primary, freeing many of her top advisors to join Obama's team.

"What happened to all this talk about change?" a member of the Clinton foreign policy team recently asked the Washington Post. "This isn't lightly flavored with Clintons. This is all Clintons, all the time."

Amid the euphoria over Obama's election and the end of the Bush era, it is critical to recall what 1990s U.S. foreign policy actually looked like. Bill Clinton's boiled down to a one-two punch from the hidden hand of the free market, backed up by the iron fist of U.S. militarism. Clinton took office and almost immediately bombed Iraq (ostensibly in retaliation for an alleged plot by Saddam Hussein to assassinate former President George H.W. Bush). He presided over a ruthless regime of economic sanctions that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, and under the guise of the so-called No-Fly Zones in northern and southern Iraq, authorized the longest sustained U.S. bombing campaign since Vietnam.

Under Clinton, Yugoslavia was bombed and dismantled as part of what Noam Chomsky described as the "New Military Humanism." Sudan and Afghanistan were attacked, Haiti was destabilized and "free trade" deals like the North America Free Trade Agreement and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade radically escalated the spread of corporate-dominated globalization that hurt U.S. workers and devastated developing countries. Clinton accelerated the militarization of the so-called War on Drugs in Central and Latin America and supported privatization of U.S. military operations, giving lucrative contracts to Halliburton and other war contractors. Meanwhile, U.S. weapons sales to countries like Turkey and Indonesia aided genocidal campaigns against the Kurds and the East Timorese.

The prospect of Obama's foreign policy being, at least in part, an extension of the Clinton Doctrine is real. Even more disturbing, several of the individuals at the center of Obama's transition and emerging foreign policy teams were top players in creating and implementing foreign policies that would pave the way for projects eventually carried out under the Bush/Cheney administration. With their assistance, Obama has already charted out several hawkish stances. Among them:

-- His plan to escalate the war in Afghanistan;

-- An Iraq plan that could turn into a downsized and rebranded occupation that keeps U.S. forces in Iraq for the foreseeable future;

-- His labeling of Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a "terrorist organization;"

-- His pledge to use unilateral force inside of Pakistan to defend U.S. interests;

-- His position, presented before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), that Jerusalem "must remain undivided" -- a remark that infuriated Palestinian officials and which he later attempted to reframe;

-- His plan to continue the War on Drugs, a backdoor U.S. counterinsurgency campaign in Central and Latin America;

-- His refusal to "rule out" using Blackwater and other armed private forces in U.S. war zones, despite previously introducing legislation to regulate these companies and bring them under U.S. law.

Obama did not arrive at these positions in a vacuum. They were carefully crafted in consultation with his foreign policy team. While the verdict is still out on a few people, many members of his inner foreign policy circle -- including some who have received or are bound to receive Cabinet posts -- supported the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Some promoted the myth that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. A few have worked with the neoconservative Project for the New American Century, whose radical agenda was adopted by the Bush/Cheney administration. And most have proven track records of supporting or implementing militaristic, offensive U.S. foreign policy. "After a masterful campaign, Barack Obama seems headed toward some fateful mistakes as he assembles his administration by heeding the advice of Washington's Democratic insider community, a collective group that represents little 'change you can believe in,'" notes veteran journalist Robert Parry, the former Associated Press and Newsweek reporter who broke many of the stories in the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980s.

As news breaks and speculation abounds about cabinet appointments, here are 20 people to watch as Obama builds the team who will shape U.S. foreign policy for at least four years:

Joe Biden
There was no stronger sign that Obama's foreign policy would follow the hawkish tradition of the Democratic foreign policy establishment than his selection of Sen. Joe Biden as his running mate. Much has been written on Biden's tenure as head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, but his role in the invasion and occupation of Iraq stands out. Biden is not just one more Democratic lawmaker who now calls his vote to authorize the use of force in Iraq "mistaken;" Biden was actually an important facilitator of the war.

In the summer of 2002, when the United States was "debating" a potential attack on Iraq, Biden presided over hearings whose ostensible purpose was to weigh all existing options. But instead of calling on experts whose testimony could challenge the case for war -- Iraq's alleged WMD possession and its supposed ties to al-Qaida -- Biden's hearings treated the invasion as a foregone conclusion. His refusal to call on two individuals in particular ensured that testimony that could have proven invaluable to an actual debate was never heard: Former Chief United Nations Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter and Hans von Sponeck, a 32-year veteran diplomat and the former head of the U.N.'s Iraq program.

Both men say they made it clear to Biden's office that they were ready and willing to testify; Ritter knew more about the dismantling of Iraq's WMD program than perhaps any other U.S. citizen and would have been in prime position to debunk the misinformation and outright lies being peddled by the White House. Meanwhile, von Sponeck had just returned from Iraq, where he had observed Ansar al Islam rebels in the north of Iraq -- the so-called al-Qaida connection -- and could have testified that, rather than colluding with Saddam's regime, they were in a battle against it. Moreover, he would have pointed out that they were operating in the U.S.-enforced safe haven of Iraqi Kurdistan. "Evidence of al-Qaida/lraq collaboration does not exist, neither in the training of operatives nor in support to Ansar-al-Islam," von Sponeck wrote in an Op-Ed published shortly before the July 2002 hearings. "The U.S. Department of Defense and the CIA know perfectly well that today's Iraq poses no threat to anyone in the region, let alone in the United States. To argue otherwise is dishonest."

With both men barred from testifying, rather than eliciting an array of informed opinions, Biden's committee whitewashed Bush's lies and helped lead the country to war. Biden himself promoted the administration's false claims that were used to justify the invasion of Iraq, declaring on the Senate floor, "[Saddam Hussein] possesses chemical and biological weapons and is seeking nuclear weapons."

With the war underway, Biden was then the genius who passionately promoted the ridiculous plan to partition Iraq into three areas based on religion and ethnicity, attempting to Balkanize one of the strongest Arab states in the world.

"He's a part of the old Democratic establishment," says retired Army Col. Ann Wright, the State Department diplomat who reopened the U.S. embassy in Kabul in 2002. Biden, she says, has "had a long history with foreign affairs, [but] it's not the type of foreign affairs that I want."

Rahm Emanuel
Obama's appointment of Illinois Congressman Rahm Emanuel as Chief of Staff is a clear sign that Clinton-era neoliberal hawks will be well-represented at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. A former senior Clinton advisor, Emanuel is a hard-line supporter of Israel's "targeted assassination" policy and actually volunteered to work with the Israeli Army during the 1991 Gulf War. He is close to the right-wing Democratic Leadership Council and was the only member of the Illinois Democratic delegation in the Congress to vote for the invasion of Iraq. Unlike many of his colleagues, Emanuel still defends his vote. As chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2006, Emanuel promoted the campaigns of 22 candidates, only one of who supported a swift withdrawal from Iraq, and denied crucial Party funding to anti-war candidates. "As for Iraq policy, at the right time, we will have a position," he said in December 2005. As Philip Giraldi recently pointed out on Antiwar.com, Emanuel "advocates increasing the size of the U.S. Army by 100,000 soldiers and creating a domestic spying organization like Britain's MI5. More recently, he has supported mandatory paramilitary national service for all Americans between the ages of 18 and 25."

While Obama has at times been critical of Clinton-era free trade agreements, Emanuel was one of the key people in the Clinton White House who brokered the successful passage of NAFTA.

Read more: Rahm Emanuel - Israeli Spy

Hillary Rodham Clinton
For all the buzz and speculation about the possibility that Sen. Clinton may be named Secretary of State, most media coverage has focused on her rivalry with Obama during the primary, along with the prospect of her husband having to face the intense personal, financial and political vetting process required to secure a job in the new administration. But the question of how Clinton would lead the operations at Foggy Bottom calls for scrutiny of her positions vis-a-vis Obama's stated foreign-policy goals.

Clinton was an ardent defender of her husband's economic and military war against Iraq throughout the 1990s, including the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, which ultimately laid the path for President George W. Bush's invasion. Later, as a U.S. senator, she not only voted to authorize the war, but aided the Bush administration's propaganda campaign in the lead-up to the invasion. "Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile-delivery capability and his nuclear program," Clinton said when rising to support the measure in October 2002. "He has also given aid, comfort and sanctuary to terrorists, including al-Qaida members Š I want to insure that Saddam Hussein makes no mistake about our national unity and for our support for the president's efforts to wage America's war against terrorists and weapons of mass destruction."

"The man who vowed to deliver us from 28 years of Bushes and Clintons has been stocking up on Clintonites," New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd recently wrote. "How, one may ask, can he put Hillary -- who voted to authorize the Iraq war without even reading the intelligence assessment -- in charge of patching up a foreign policy and a world riven by that war?"

Beyond Iraq, Clinton shocked many and sparked official protests by Tehran at the United Nations when asked during the presidential campaign what she would do as president if Iran attacked Israel with nuclear weapons. "I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran," she declared. "In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them."

Clinton has not shied away from supporting offensive foreign policy tactics in the past. Recalling her husband's weighing the decision of whether to attack Yugoslavia, she said in 1999, "I urged him to bomb. Š You cannot let this go on at the end of a century that has seen the major holocaust of our time. What do we have NATO for if not to defend our way of life?"

Madeleine Albright
While Obama's house is flush with Clintonian officials like former Secretary of State Warren Christopher, Defense Secretary William Perry, Director of the State Department Office of Policy Planning Greg Craig (who was officially named Obama's White House Counsel) and Navy Secretary Richard Danzig, perhaps most influential is Madeleine Albright, Bill Clinton's former Secretary of State and U.N. ambassador. Albright recently served as a proxy for Obama, representing him at the G-20 summit earlier this month. Whether or not she is awarded an official role in the administration, Albright will be a major force in shaping Obama's foreign policy.

"It will take time to convince skeptics that the promotion of democracy is not a mask for imperialism or a recipe for the kind of chaos we have seen in the Persian Gulf," Albright recently wrote. "And it will take time to establish the right identity for America in a world that has grown suspicious of all who claim a monopoly on virtue and that has become reluctant to follow the lead of any one country."

Albright should know. She was one of the key architects in the dismantling of Yugoslavia during the 1990s. In the lead-up to the 1999 "Kosovo war," she oversaw the U.S. attempt to coerce the Yugoslav government to deny its own sovereignty in return for not being bombed. Albright demanded that the Yugoslav government sign a document that would have been unacceptable to any sovereign nation. Known as the Rambouillet Accord, it included a provision that would have guaranteed U.S. and NATO forces "free and unrestricted passage and unimpeded access throughout" all of Yugoslavia -- not just Kosovo -- while also seeking to immunize those occupation forces "from any form of arrest, investigation or detention by the authorities in [Yugoslavia]." Moreover, it would have granted the occupiers "the use of airports, roads, rails and ports without payment." Similar to Bush's Iraq plan years later, the Rambouillet Accord mandated that the economy of Kosovo "shall function in accordance with free-market principles."

When Yugoslavia refused to sign the document, Albright and others in the Clinton administration unleashed the 78-day NATO bombing of Serbia, which targeted civilian infrastructure. (Prior to the attack, Albright said the U.S. government felt "the Serbs need a little bombing.") She and the Clinton administration also supported the rise to power in Kosovo of a terrorist mafia that carried out its own ethnic-cleansing campaign against the province's minorities.

Perhaps Albright's most notorious moment came with her enthusiastic support of the economic war against the civilian population of Iraq. When confronted by Lesley Stahl of "60 Minutes" that the sanctions were responsible for the deaths of "a half-million children Š more children than died in Hiroshima," Albright responded, "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price -- we think the price is worth it." (While defending the policy, Albright later called her choice of words "a terrible mistake, hasty, clumsy, and wrong.")

Richard Holbrooke
Like Albright, Holbrooke will have major sway over U.S. policy, whether or not he gets an official job. A career diplomat since the Vietnam War, Holbrooke's most recent government post was as President Clinton's ambassador to the U.N. Among the many violent policies he helped implement and enforce was the U.S.-backed Indonesian genocide in East Timor. Holbrooke was an Assistant Secretary of State in the late 1970s at the height of the slaughter and was the point man on East Timor for the Carter Administration.

According to Brad Simpson, director of the Indonesia and East Timor Documentation Project at the National Security Archive at George Washington University, "It was Holbrooke and Zbigniew Brzezinski [another top Obama advisor], both now leading lights in the Democratic Party, who played point in trying to frustrate the efforts of congressional human-rights activists to try and condition or stop U.S. military assistance to Indonesia, and in fact accelerated the flow of weapons to Indonesia at the height of the genocide."

Holbrooke, too, was a major player in the dismantling of Yugoslavia and praised the bombing of Serb Television, which killed 16 media workers, as a significant victory. (The man who ordered that bombing, now-retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark, is another Obama foreign policy insider who could end up in his cabinet. While Clark is known for being relatively progressive on social issues, as Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, he ordered bombings and attacks that Amnesty International labeled war crimes.)

Like many in Obama's foreign policy circle, Holbrooke also supported the Iraq war. In early 2003, shortly after then-Secretary of State Colin Powell's speech to the UN, where he presented the administration's fraud-laden case for war to the UN (a speech Powell has since called a "blot" on his reputation), Holbrooke said: "It was a masterful job of diplomacy by Colin Powell and his colleagues, and it does not require a second vote to go to war. Š Saddam is the most dangerous government leader in the world today, he poses a threat to the region, he could pose a larger threat if he got weapons of mass destruction deployed, and we have a legitimate right to take action."

Dennis Ross
Middle East envoy for both George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, Ross was one of the primary authors of Obama's aforementioned speech before AIPAC this summer. He cut his teeth working under famed neoconservative Paul Wolfowitz at the Pentagon in the 1970s and worked closely with the Project for the New American Century. Ross has been a staunch supporter of Israel and has fanned the flames for a more hostile stance toward Iran. As the lead U.S. negotiator between Israel and numerous Arab nations under Clinton, Ross' team acted, in the words of one U.S. official who worked under him, as "Israel's lawyer."

"The 'no surprises' policy, under which we had to run everything by Israel first, stripped our policy of the independence and flexibility required for serious peacemaking," wrote U.S. diplomat Aaron David Miller in 2005. "If we couldn't put proposals on the table without checking with the Israelis first, and refused to push back when they said no, how effective could our mediation be? Far too often, particularly when it came to Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy, our departure point was not what was needed to reach an agreement acceptable to both sides but what would pass with only one -- Israel." After the Clinton White House, Ross worked for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a hawkish pro-Israel think tank, and for FOX News, where he repeatedly pressed for war against Iraq.

Martin Indyk
Founder of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Indyk spent years working for AIPAC and served as Clinton's ambassador to Israel and Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs, while also playing a major role in developing U.S. policy toward Iraq and Iran. In addition to his work for the U.S. government, he has worked for the Israeli government and with PNAC.

"Barack Obama has painted himself into a corner by appealing to the most hard-line, pro-Israel elements in this country," Ali Abunimah, founder of ElectronicInifada.net, recently told Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!, describing Indyk and Dennis Ross as "two of the most pro-Israel officials from the Clinton era, who are totally distrusted by Palestinians and others across the Middle East, because they're seen as lifelong advocates for Israeli positions."

Anthony Lake
Clinton's former National Security Advisor was an early supporter of Obama and one of the few top Clintonites to initially back the president-elect. Lake began his foreign policy work in the U.S. Foreign Service during Vietnam, working with Henry Kissinger on the "September Group," a secret team tasked with developing a military strategy to deliver a "savage, decisive blow against North Vietnam."


Decades later, after working for various administrations, Lake "was the main force behind the U.S. invasion of Haiti in the mid-Clinton years," according to veteran journalist Allan Nairn, whose groundbreaking reporting revealed U.S. support for Haitian death squads in the 1990s. "They brought back Aristide essentially in political chains, pledged to support a World Bank/IMF overhaul of the economy, which resulted in an increase in malnutrition deaths among Haitians, and set the stage for the current ongoing political disaster in Haiti." Clinton nominated Lake as CIA Director, but he failed to win Senate confirmation.

Lee Hamilton
Hamilton is a former chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and was co-chairman of both the Iraq Study Group and 9/11 Commission. Robert Parry, who has covered Hamilton's career extensively, recently ran a piece on Consortium News that characterized him this way: "Whenever the Republicans have a touchy national-security scandal to put to rest, their favorite Democratic investigator is Lee Hamilton. Š Hamilton's carefully honed skill for balancing truth against political comity has elevated him to the status of a Washington Wise Man."

Susan Rice
Former Assistant Secretary of Sate Susan Rice, who served on Bill Clinton's National Security Council, is a potential candidate for the post of ambassador to the U.N. or as a deputy national security advisor. She, too, promoted the myth that Saddam had WMDs. "It's clear that Iraq poses a major threat," she said in 2002. "It's clear that its weapons of mass destruction need to be dealt with forcefully, and that's the path we're on." (After the invasion, discussing Saddam's alleged possession of WMDs, she said, "I don't think many informed people doubted that.")

Rice has also been a passionate advocate for a U.S. military attack against Sudan over the Darfur crisis. In an op-ed co-authored with Anthony Lake, she wrote, "The United States, preferably with NATO involvement and African political support, would strike Sudanese airfields, aircraft and other military assets. It could blockade Port Sudan, through which Sudan's oil exports flow. Then U.N. troops would deploy -- by force, if necessary, with U.S. and NATO backing."

John Brennan
A longtime CIA official and former head of the National Counterterrorism Center, Brennan is one of the coordinators of Obama's intelligence transition team and a top contender for either CIA Director or Director of National Intelligence. He was also recently described by Glenn Greenwald as "an ardent supporter of torture and one of the most emphatic advocates of FISA expansions and telecom immunity." While claiming to oppose waterboarding, labeling it "inconsistent with American values" and "something that should be prohibited," Brennan has simultaneously praised the results achieved by "enhanced interrogation" techniques. "There has been a lot of information that has come out from these interrogation procedures that the agency has, in fact, used against the real hard-core terrorists," Brennan said in a 2007 interview. "It has saved lives. And let's not forget, these are hardened terrorists who have been responsible for 9/11, who have shown no remorse at all for the death of 3,000 innocents."

Brennan has described the CIA's extraordinary rendition program -- the government-run kidnap-and-torture program enacted under Clinton -- as an absolutely vital tool. "I have been intimately familiar now over the past decade with the cases of rendition that the U.S. Government has been involved in," he said in a December 2005 interview. "And I can say without a doubt that it has been very successful as far as producing intelligence that has saved lives."

Brennan is currently the head of Analysis Corporation, a private intelligence company that was recently implicated in the breach of Obama and Sen. John McCain's passport records. He is also the current chairman of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance (INSA), a trade association of private intelligence contractors who have dramatically increased their role in sensitive U.S. national security operations. (Current Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell is former chairman of the INSA.)

Jami Miscik
Miscik, who works alongside Brennan on Obama's transitional team, was the CIA's Deputy Director for Intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war. She was one of the key officials responsible for sidelining intel that contradicted the official line on WMD, while promoting intel that backed it up.

"When the administration insisted on an intelligence assessment of Saddam Hussein's relationship to al-Qaida, Miscik blocked the skeptics (who were later vindicated) within the CIA's Mideast analytical directorate and instructed the less-skeptical counterterrorism analysts to 'stretch to the maximum the evidence you had,' " journalist Spencer Ackerman recently wrote in the Washington Independent. "It's hard to think of a more egregious case of sacrificing sound intelligence analysis in order to accommodate the strategic fantasies of an administration. Š The idea that Miscik is helping staff Obama's top intelligence picks is most certainly not change we can believe in." What's more, she went on to a lucrative post as the Global Head of Sovereign Risk for the now-bankrupt Lehman Brothers.

John Kerry and Bill Richardson

Both Sen. Kerry and Gov. Richardson have been identified as possible contenders for Secretary of State. While neither is likely to be as hawkish as Hillary Clinton, both have taken pro-war positions. Kerry promoted the WMD lie and voted to invade Iraq. "Why is Saddam Hussein attempting to develop nuclear weapons when most nations don't even try?" Kerry asked on the Senate floor in October 2002. "According to intelligence, Iraq has chemical and biological weapons Š Iraq is developing unmanned aerial vehicles capable of delivering chemical and biological warfare agents."

Richardson, whose Iraq plan during his 2008 presidential campaign was more progressive and far-reaching than Obama's, served as Bill Clinton's ambassador to the UN. In this capacity, he supported Clinton's December 1998 bombing of Baghdad and the U.S.-led sanctions against Iraq. "We think this man is a threat to the international community, and he threatens a lot of the neighbors in his region and future generations there with anthrax and VX," Richardson told an interviewer in February 1998.

While Clinton's Secretary of Energy, Richardson publicly named Wen Ho Lee, a scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, as a target in an espionage investigation. Lee was accused of passing nuclear secrets to the Chinese government. Lee was later cleared of those charges and won a settlement against the U.S. government.

Robert Gates
Washington consensus is that Obama will likely keep Robert Gates, George W. Bush's Defense Secretary, as his own Secretary of Defense. While Gates has occasionally proved to be a stark contrast to former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, he would hardly represent a break from the policies of the Bush administration. Quite the opposite; according to the Washington Post, in the interest of a "smooth transition," Gates "has ordered hundreds of political appointees at the Pentagon canvassed to see whether they wish to stay on in the new administration, has streamlined policy briefings and has set up suites for President-elect Barack Obama's transition team just down the hall from his own E-ring office." The Post reports that Gates could stay on for a brief period and then be replaced by Richard Danzig, who was Clinton's Secretary of the Navy. Other names currently being tossed around are Democratic Sen. Jack Reed, Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel (a critic of the Iraq occupation) and Republican Sen. Richard Lugar, who served alongside Biden on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Ivo H. Daalder
Daalder was National Security Council Director for European Affairs under President Clinton. Like other Obama advisors, he has worked with the Project for the New American Century and signed a 2005 letter from PNAC to Congressional leaders, calling for an increase in U.S. ground troops in Iraq and beyond.

Sarah Sewall
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Peacekeeping and Humanitarian Assistance during the Clinton administration, Sewall served as a top advisor to Obama during the campaign and is almost certain to be selected for a post in his administration. In 2007, Sewall worked with the U.S. military and Army Gen. David Petraeus, writing the introduction to the University of Chicago edition of the Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual. She was criticized for this collaboration by Tom Hayden, who wrote, "the Petraeus plan draws intellectual legitimacy from Harvard's Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, whose director, Sarah Sewall, proudly embraces an 'unprecedented collaboration [as] a human rights center partnered with the armed forces.'"

"Humanitarians often avoid wading into the conduct of war for fear of becoming complicit in its purpose," she wrote in the introduction. "'The field manual requires engagement precisely from those who fear that its words lack meaning."

Michele Flournoy

Flournoy and former Clinton Deputy Defense Secretary John White are co-heading Obama's defense transition team. Flournoy was a senior Clinton appointee at the Pentagon. She currently runs the Center for a New American Security, a center-right think-tank. There is speculation that Obama could eventually name her as the first woman to serve as defense secretary. As the Wall Street Journal recently reported: "While at CNAS, Flournoy helped to write a report that called for reducing the open-ended American military commitment in Iraq and replacing it with a policy of 'conditional engagement' there. Significantly, the paper rejected the idea of withdrawing troops according to the sort of a fixed timeline that Obama espoused during the presidential campaign. Obama has in recent weeks signaled that he was willing to shelve the idea, bringing him more in line with Flournoy's thinking." Flournoy has also worked with the neoconservative Project for the New American Century.

Wendy Sherman and Tom Donilon

Currently employed at Madeleine Albright's consulting firm, the Albright Group, Sherman worked under Albright at the State Department, coordinating U.S. policy on North Korea. She is now coordinating the State Department transition team for Obama. Tom Donilon, her co-coordinator, was Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs and Chief of Staff at the State Department under Clinton. Interestingly, Sherman and Donilon both have ties to Fannie Mae that didn't make it onto their official bios on Obama's change.gov website. "Donilon was Fannie's general counsel and executive vice president for law and policy from 1999 until the spring of 2005, a period during which the company was rocked by accounting problems," reports the Wall Street Journal.

Denis McDonough and Mark Lippert

While many of the figures at the center of Obama's foreign policy team are well-known, two of its most important members have never held national elected office or a high-profile government position. While they cannot be characterized as Clinton-era hawks, it will be important to watch Denis McDonough and Mark Lippert, co-coordinators of the Obama foreign policy team. From 2000 to 2005, McDonough served as foreign policy advisor to Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle and worked extensively on the use-of-force authorizations for the attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq, both of which Daschle supported. From 1996 to 1999, McDonough was a professional staff member of the House International Relations Committee during the debate over the bombing of Yugoslavia. More recently, he was at the Center for American Progress working under John Podesta, Clinton's former chief of staff and the current head of the Obama transition.

Mark Lippert is a close personal friend of Obama's. He has worked for Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, as well as the Senate Appropriations Committee and the Democratic Policy Committee. He is a lieutenant in the Navy Reserve and spent a year in Iraq working intelligence for the Navy SEALs. "According to those who've worked closely with Lippert," Robert Dreyfuss recently wrote in The Nation, "he is a conservative, cautious centrist who often pulled Obama to the right on Iraq, Iran and the Middle East and who has been a consistent advocate for increased military spending. 'Even before Obama announced for the presidency, Lippert wanted Obama to be seen as tough on Iran,' says a lobbyist who's worked the Iran issue on Capitol Hill, 'He's clearly more hawkish than the senator.' "

Barack Obama campaigned on a pledge to bring change to Washington

"I don't want to just end the war," he said early this year. "I want to end the mindset that got us into war." That is going to be very difficult if Obama employs a foreign policy team that was central to creating that mindset, before and during the presidency of George W. Bush.

"Twenty-three senators and 133 House members who voted against the war -- and countless other notable individuals who spoke out against it and the dubious claims leading to war -- are apparently not even being considered for these crucial positions," observes Sam Husseini of the Institute for Public Accuracy. This includes dozens of former military and intelligence officials who spoke out forcefully against the war and continue to oppose militaristic policy, as well as credible national security experts who have articulated their visions for a foreign policy based on justice.

Obama does have a chance to change the mindset that got us into war. More significantly, he has a popular mandate to forcefully challenge the militaristic, hawkish tradition of modern U.S. foreign policy. But that work would begin by bringing on board people who would challenge this tradition, not those who have been complicit in creating it and are bound to continue advancing it.

Jeremy Scahill pledges to be the same journalist under an Obama administration that he was during Bill Clinton and George Bush's presidencies. He is the author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army and is a frequent contributor to The Nation and Democracy Now! He is a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at the Nation Institute.

Article from: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?
context=viewArticle&code=20081122&articleId=11091

Related: The men behind Barack Obama (Video)
Obama's Elite Lineage
Rockefeller, TLC-Bilderberg Boss Nye Stump For Obama
Rahm Emanuel - Israeli Spy
Obama and EU to reinvent global politics, pundit says (Steps Towards a New World Order)
American Royalty: Palin related to Princess Diana and Roosevelt

Something Is Happening Of Historic Proportions

by ID Obama
From 7-14-8
11-24-8
 

I am a student of history. Professionally. I have written 15 books in six languages, and have studied it all my life. I think there is something monumentally large afoot, and I do not believe it is just a banking crisis, or a mortgage crisis, or a credit crisis. Yes these exist, but they are merely single facets on a very large gemstone that is only now coming into a sharper focus.
 
Something of historic proportions is happening. I can sense it because I know how it feels, smells, what it looks like, and how people react to it. Yes, a perfect storm may be brewing, but there is something happening within our country that has been evolving for about ten - fifteen years. The pace has dramatically quickened in the past two.
 
We demand and then codify into law the requirement that our banks make massive loans to people we know they can never pay back? Why?
 
We learn just days ago that the Federal Reserve, which has little or no real oversight by anyone, has "loaned" two trillion dollars (that is $2,000,000,000,000) over the past few months, but will not tell us to whom or why or disclose the terms. That is our money. Yours and mine. And that is three times the 700B we all argued about so strenuously just this past September. Who has this money? Why do they have it? Why are the terms unavailable to us? Who asked for it? Who authorized it? I thought this was a government of "we the people," who loaned our powers to our elected leaders. Apparently not.
 
We have spent two or more decades intentionally de-industrializing our economy. Why?
 
We have intentionally dumbed down our schools, ignored our history, and no longer teach our founding documents, why we are exceptional, and why we are worth preserving. Students by and large cannot write, think critically, read, or articulate. Parents are not revolting, teachers are not picketing, school boards continue to back mediocrity. Why?
 
We have now established the precedent of protesting every close election (now violently in California over a proposition that is so controversial that it wants marriage to remain between one man and one woman. Did you ever think such a thing possible just a decade ago?). We have corrupted our sacred political process by allowing unelected judges to write laws that radically change our way of life, and then mainstream Marxist groups like ACORN and others to turn our voting system into a banana republic. To what purpose?
 
Now our mortgage industry is collapsing, housing prices are in free fall, major industries are failing, our banking system is on the verge of collapse, social security is nearly bankrupt, as is medicare and our entire government, our education system is worse than a joke (I teach college and know precisely what I am talking about)­the list is staggering in its length, breadth, and depth. It is potentially 1929 x ten. And we are at war with an enemy we cannot name for fear of offending people of the same religion, who cannot wait to slit the throats of your children if they have the opportunity to do so.
 
And now we have elected a man no one knows anything about, who has never run so much as a Dairy Queen, let alone a town as big as Wasilla, Alaska. All of his associations and alliances are with real radicals in their chosen fields of employment, and everything we learn about him, drip by drip, is unsettling if not downright scary (Surely you have heard him speak about his idea to create and fund a mandatory civilian defense force stronger than our military for use inside our borders? No? Oh of course. The media would never play that for you over and over and then demand he answer it. Sarah Palin's pregnant daughter and $150,000 wardrobe is more imporant.)
 
Mr. Obama's winning platform can be boiled down to one word: change.
 
Why?
 
I have never been so afraid for my country and for my children as I am now.
 
This man campaigned on bringing people together, something he has never, ever done in his professional life. In my assessment, Obama will divide us along philosophical lines, push us apart, and then try to realign the pieces into a new and different power structure. Change is indeed coming. And when it comes, you will never see the same nation again.
 
And that is only the beginning.
 
And I thought I would never be able to experience what the ordinary, moral German felt in the mid-1930s. In those times, the savior was a former smooth-talking rabble-rouser from the streets, about whom the average German knew next to nothing. What they did know was that he was associated with groups that shouted, shoved, and pushed around people with whom they disagreed; he edged his way onto the political stage through great oratory and promises. Economic times were tough, people were losing jobs, and he was a great speaker. And he smiled and waved a lot. And people, even newspapers, were afraid to speak out for fear that his "brown shirts" would bully them into submission. And then, he was duly elected to office, a full-throttled economic crisis at hand [the Great Depression]. Slowly but surely he seized the controls of government power, department by department, person by person, bureaucracy by bureaucracy. The kids joined a Youth Movement in his name, where they were taught what to think. How did he get the people on his side? He did it promising jobs to the jobless, money to the moneyless, and goodies for the military- industrial complex. He did it by indoctrinating the children, advocating gun control, health care for all, better wages, better jobs, and promising to re-instill pride once again in the country, across Europe, and across the world.
 
He did it with a compliant media­did you know that? And he did this all in the name of justice and . . . change. And the people surely got what they voted for.
 
(Look it up if you think I am exaggerating.)
 
Read your history books. Many people objected in 1933 and were shouted down, called names, laughed at, and made fun of. When Winston Churchill pointed out the obvious in the late 1930s while seated in the House of Lords in England (he was not yet Prime Minister), he was booed into his seat and called a crazy troublemaker. He was right, though.
 
Don't forget that Germany was the most educated, cultured country in Europe. It was full of music, art, museums, hospitals, laboratories, and universities. And in less than six years­a shorter time span than just two terms of the U. S. presidency­it was rounding up its own citizens, killing others, abrogating its laws, turning children against parents, and neighbors against neighbors. All with the best of intentions, of course. The road to Hell is paved with them.
 
As a practical thinker, one not overly prone to emotional decisions, I have a choice: I can either believe what the objective pieces of evidence tell me (even if they make me cringe with disgust); I can believe what history is shouting to me from across the chasm of seven decades; or I can hope I am wrong by closing my eyes, having another latte, and ignoring what is transpiring around me.
 
Some people scoff at me, others laugh, or think I am foolish, naive, or both. Perhaps I am. But I have never been afraid to look people in the eye and tell them exactly what I believe­and why I believe it.
 
I pray I am wrong. I do not think I am.
 
 
http://idobama.ning.com/forum/topics/something-is-happening-of

Russian analyst predicts decline and breakup of U.S.

MOSCOW, November 24 (RIA Novosti) - A leading Russian political analyst has said the economic turmoil in the United States has confirmed his long-held view that the country is heading for collapse, and will divide into separate parts.
Professor Igor Panarin said in an interview with the respected daily Izvestia published on Monday: "The dollar is not secured by anything. The country's foreign debt has grown like an avalanche, even though in the early 1980s there was no debt. By 1998, when I first made my prediction, it had exceeded $2 trillion. Now it is more than 11 trillion. This is a pyramid that can only collapse."
The paper said Panarin's dire predictions for the U.S. economy, initially made at an international conference in Australia 10 years ago at a time when the economy appeared strong, have been given more credence by this year's events.
When asked when the U.S. economy would collapse, Panarin said: "It is already collapsing. Due to the financial crisis, three of the largest and oldest five banks on Wall Street have already ceased to exist, and two are barely surviving. Their losses are the biggest in history. Now what we will see is a change in the regulatory system on a global financial scale: America will no longer be the world's financial regulator."
When asked who would replace the U.S. in regulating world markets, he said: "Two countries could assume this role: China, with its vast reserves, and Russia, which could play the role of a regulator in Eurasia."
Asked why he expected the U.S. to break up into separate parts, he said: "A whole range of reasons. Firstly, the financial problems in the U.S. will get worse. Millions of citizens there have lost their savings. Prices and unemployment are on the rise. General Motors and Ford are on the verge of collapse, and this means that whole cities will be left without work. Governors are already insistently demanding money from the federal center. Dissatisfaction is growing, and at the moment it is only being held back by the elections and the hope that Obama can work miracles. But by spring, it will be clear that there are no miracles."
He also cited the "vulnerable political setup", "lack of unified national laws", and "divisions among the elite, which have become clear in these crisis conditions."
He predicted that the U.S. will break up into six parts - the Pacific coast, with its growing Chinese population; the South, with its Hispanics; Texas, where independence movements are on the rise; the Atlantic coast, with its distinct and separate mentality; five of the poorer central states with their large Native American populations; and the northern states, where the influence from Canada is strong.
He even suggested that "we could claim Alaska - it was only granted on lease, after all."
On the fate of the U.S. dollar, he said: "In 2006 a secret agreement was reached between Canada, Mexico and the U.S. on a common Amero currency as a new monetary unit. This could signal preparations to replace the dollar. The one-hundred dollar bills that have flooded the world could be simply frozen. Under the pretext, let's say, that terrorists are forging them and they need to be checked."
When asked how Russia should react to his vision of the future, Panarin said: "Develop the ruble as a regional currency. Create a fully functioning oil exchange, trading in rubles... We must break the strings tying us to the financial Titanic, which in my view will soon sink."
Panarin, 60, is a professor at the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and has authored several books on information warfare.

Proofin' the prez: Who's in charge?

Constitutional lawyer says electors have duty to investigate citizenship


Posted: November 24, 2008
9:48 pm Eastern

By Bob Unruh
© 2008 WorldNetDaily



Barack Obama
A one-time vice presidential candidate who is considered an expert on the U.S. Constitution says it is up the electors from the 50 states to make certain President-elect Barack Obama is a natural-born U.S. citizen before they cast votes for him in the Electoral College Dec. 15.
"If they do their duty, they would make sure that if they cast a vote for Mr. Obama, that Mr. Obama is a natural-born citizen," Herb Titus, the Constitution Party's running mate to Howard Phillips in 1996, told WND today.
"I think it should be resolved. The duty is in the Electoral College. Every Obama elector that is committed to casting a vote on the 15th of December, they have a constitutional duty to make certain whether Mr. Obama is a natural-born citizen," he said.
If the electors fail their duty and Obama proves ultimately to fail the eligibility requirement of the U.S. Constitution, there would be only the laborious, contentious and cumbersome process of impeachment available to those who would wish to follow the Constitution, he suggested.
The issue of Obama's citizenship has been in the news for weeks as multiple legal claims have asserted the Democrat is not a natural-born U.S. citizen. There have been claims he was born in Kenya, that he's a British subject because of his father and that he lost his citizenship in Indonesia.

Two of the cases are pending before the U.S. Supreme Court and several others that have fallen by the wayside.
Also, thousands of people are jumping aboard a petition that demands documentation of Obama's eligibility to hold the highest office in the U.S., not just assurances from party officials.
Already, more than 75,000 petitioners have joined the effort coordinated by WND founder and editor Joseph Farah.
To participate, sign the petition here.
A report accompanying Farah's petition explains the many questions raised about Obama's eligibility, from an apparently fabricated "Certification of Live Birth" posted online to questions about what nation's passport he used to travel to Pakistan.
One case is scheduled for a conference among U.S. Supreme Court justices Dec. 5. Conferences are private meetings of the justices at which they review cases and decide which ones to accept for formal review. The Supreme Court's website listed the date for the case brought by Leo C. Donofrio against Nina Wells, the secretary of state in New Jersey, over not only Obama's name on the 2008 election ballot but those of two others, Sen. John McCain and Roger Calero.
Do you agree with contentions made in "The Audacity of Deceit" about the impact of an Obama White House on the United States?
The case, unsuccessful at the state level, was submitted to Justice David Souter, who rejected it. The case then was resubmitted to Justice Clarence Thomas for conference Dec. 5.
Titus holds a law degree cum laude from Harvard, is admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court and a long list of federal court districts, and helped found a law school. He told WND the framers of the Constitution specifically wanted the electors, citizen voters from all the states, to determine the presidency to avoid chief executives who are indebted to political parties or court decisions.
In 1788, Titus noted, Alexander Hamilton wrote in the Federalist Papers on the issue of the presidential election that "nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption."
"They have not made the appointment of the president to depend on any pre-existing bodies of men, who might be tampered with beforehand to prostitute their votes; but they have referred it in the first instance to an immediate act of the people of America, to be exerted in the choice of persons for the temporary and sole purpose of making the appointment," Hamilton wrote. "And they have excluded from eligibility to this trust, all those who from situation might be suspected of too great devotion to the president in office. No senator, representative, or other person holding a place of trust or profit under the United States, can be of the numbers of the electors.
"Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single state; but it will require other talents, and a different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union, or of so considerable a portion of it as would be necessary to make him a successful candidate for the distinguished office of President of the United States," Hamilton wrote in support of the concept of the Electoral College.
If the electors fail, Titus said, "I think it moots the point."
"I don't think there is anything in the Constitution [that would allow a challenge based on a candidate's constitutional qualifications.]
"It would politically undermine Obama's re-election … and there may be an impeachment if someone concluded he deliberately misled the people, and knew he was not a natural-born citizen," he said.
Titus said the evidence clearly shows there are questions about Obama's birth that should be resolved. But he said he doesn't believe the courts will do anything, nor should they.
"If it's revealed it's only going to be [revealed because of] investigative journalism or by Obama himself," he said.
"It's only the Electoral College that has the duty and authority to determine is a person is qualified to be president," Titus said.
"We should act accordingly, get the names of all the electors, including McCain's electors, and urge them to do their duty," he said.
He said, however, the bottom line is that there are some people who would rather ignore the Constitution than dispense with a candidate who may be unqualified.
"Politically, [being ineligible] would be a very serious problem for [Obama,]" he said. "But there also would be people who would only shrug."
"It's up to the people. Essentially the Constitution is a covenant of the people with their government. If the people don't insist on their government officials abiding by the covenant, I don't know what you can do," he said.
Titus said the basis of a natural-born requirement traces back to the Old Testament, where Moses prophesied about the people of Israel getting a king.
"The whole notion of a natural-born citizen is designed for the purpose of making sure that the chief executive would not have politically divided loyalties," he said.
Supreme Court would decide?
Meanwhile, a veteran law enforcement officer and director of criminal justice courses says he believes the 2008 election results ultimately could come down to a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which issued a ruling eight years ago that helped put George W. Bush in the White House.
The assessment comes from James H. Hafeman, a veteran of decades in law enforcement who supervised an armed security force, taught criminal justice and directed criminal justice programs in Michigan. He submitted a commentary to WND, outlining his evidence.
Hafeman said his argument is based mostly on the U.S. Constitution, which outlines the requirements for eligibility for president, including that the candidate be a "natural-born" citizen.
While replacing a president is outlined in the Constitution, he warned the replacement of a president-elect who is found to be ineligible isn't simple.
"While many have speculated that an official declaration of Obama’s ineligibility may lead to the appointment of Joe Biden as president, the speculation is inaccurate. Since it was up to the respective political party to properly vet their candidate before a primary election, they may not qualify to be rewarded for their lack of integrity. Additionally there is no separate balloting for president and vice-president; they share the same slot. Obama's ineligibility would effectively void the entire Obama-Biden ticket," he said.
Therefore, he said, other provisions likely would come into play.
"We already know that if two candidates have an equal number of Electoral College votes, the members of the House of Representatives will collectively choose the president. Many citizens have been led to believe that it is the responsibility of the House is to decide the winner by majority vote, but that is incorrect. Members of the House of Representatives from each state would meet in a state-caucus type of meeting and vote with all congressional members from their respective state. The majority of the state's delegation would only have only one vote. Out of the 50 votes allotted among the House of Representative members, 25 plus a minimum of one vote would be required to elect the president," he wrote.
William Ball, a political science professor at Northern Michigan University, has said, "The results of the Electoral College are sent to the president of the Senate, but if there is no winner, then the House of Representatives, not the whole Congress, decides who will be president. But, in this process the State of Vermont or Wyoming with their one vote each would have as much power as California or New York."
Hafeman said the Constitution demands the same process for a situation in which a seated president becomes ineligible, but Obama won't be inaugurated until Jan. 20.
"This may be the first known case where a presidential candidate intentionally attempted to side step the specific requirements of the Constitution in order to run for the office of president," Hafeman said. "The 12th Amendment is quite clear. If the president is found ineligible, the vice-president shall become the president. However, the key is the 'president,' not the president-elect. In other words, if Mr. Obama is found ineligible to hold the office prior to his January 20, 2009, inauguration, the 12th Amendment would not necessarily be the guiding instrument for the Supreme Court.
"The Justices would be free to make their own determination regarding the specifics of the general election," Hafeman wrote.
So, Hafeman concluded, the high court may have to make some decisions.
If the worse fears about Obama's birthplace prove true, Hafeman said, the court will have to decide the consequences for providing inaccurate assurances of eligibility.
"Second, what process will be used to designate someone who will assume the office?" he wrote.
"Since all the secretaries of state will be forced to nullify the Obama-Biden ticket, the Electoral College votes would go to the next highest contender. The principle would award McCain-Palin with the total possible Electoral College votes – all 538 electors," he suggested.
"In the national-interest scenario, the question that might be asked by the Democrats may focus on the question as to whether or not they could hold an emergency national convention in order for the party to re-nominate a president and/or another vice-president candidate. If the Supreme Court declares the entire election invalid, then that may be a possibility, but it is highly unlikely since every other presidential team on the ticket were legitimate," he wrote.
"The Supreme Court may decide a new election is in order and would have to waive the two-term limitations of George W. Bush so that he can remain in office until the conclusion of the election. The continuation of his term is a viable course of action, but it may not be an action favored by the Supreme Court. Instead, the justices may simply view the anomaly as a political race with an illegitimate and disqualified opponent, which would result in a win for the McCain-Palin ticket."
On WND's new forum page, the level of frustration was rising. Dozens contributed their thoughts immediately after the forum was posted:
"What makes Obama non-respon[sive] to the simplest of requests?" asked one reader. "Does he think that it is politically incorrect to ask for authentication of the myriad of facts about himself … Is he testing the grounds to see how far he can play with this charade?"
Other comments included:
  • "Obama won his first election ever by getting three Democratic opponents thrown off the ballot? He's all for using the law to help himself win. Wouldn't it be ironic if he is not allowed to serve as president due to the law? … Turn around is fair play!
  • "Even the left-wing liberal news media is beginning to ask the question: 'Who is this man we have elected? We really do not know much about him.'"

  • "Obama's refusal to produce the ORIGINAL given birth certificate gives us all pause. His silence on these allegations is deafening. The anointed one believes that if he can hold us all back until he's in the Oval Office he's hit a home run and he's 'safe.' Ah, not so! Check your law, Obama, and you will see that even if were to make it to the White House you will no longer be able to hide behind those red velvet ropes."

  • "There must be something that would have caused him great harm prior to the election, and would have stopped him from becoming elected. What could that little piece of information be?"



Related offers:
Get "The Audacity of Deceit," and learn about the looming hostile attack on Judeo-Christian values and freedoms Americans hold dear
Get Jerome Corsi's "The Obama Nation," autographed by the author, exclusively from WND's online store.
"NObama" magnetic bumper sticker
Whistleblower magazine's "THE SECRET LIFE OF BARACK OBAMA"
Get the book that launched the "None of the Above" political movement – personally signed by the author. It comes with a free "None of the Above" magnetized bumper sticker.
Help spread the word about the "None of the Above" campaign with extra copies of the magnetized bumper sticker.
Proudly display the hottest campaign button in the nation – "None of the Above." Buy them in bulk at phenomenal prices.

Previous stories:
Petitioners: If you're eligible, show us the proof!
Supremes to review citizenship arguments
Petition to see the birth certificate
'Constitutional crisis' looming over Obama's birth location
Obama camp: Lawsuits by citizens are 'garbage'
Will Supreme Court have say in presidency?
Doubts persist about Obama birth certificate
Supremes asked to halt Tuesday's vote
Democrat: Obama's grandma confirms Kenyan birth
Judge dismisses Obama birth certificate lawsuit
Obama 'admits' Kenyan birth?
DNC steps in to silence lawsuit over Obama birth certificate
Democrat sues Sen. Obama over 'fraudulent candidacy'
Blogger reveals Obama birth certificate
Is Obama's candidacy constitutional?
Limbaugh shows Obama stumbles without his notes
Obama denies Michelle made derogatory remark
Obama's VP team has link to Marc Rich
Did Hamas 'un-endorse' Obama?
Nation of Islam activists on Obama camp payroll
Obama's military claims inconsistent with records
Can Obama see dead people?
Obama commits Holocaust gaffe?
Obama misrepresented tie with Palestinian activist?
Report: Obama mentored by Communist Party figure
Obama raised funds for Islamic causes
Obama worked with terrorist
Obama campaign: Mum's the word!
Obama-Farrakhan link off-limits
NBC admits bias toward Obama




Bob Unruh is a news editor for WorldNetDaily.com.

Rahm’s Plan for Mandatory Service

There has been a small uproar around Obama’s call for a “civilian national security force” especially one “that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded” as the military. But many have said that these words were taken out of context. If you read the whole speech, they argue, it is clear that he just wants to expand the Peace Corp a little bit.
Similarly, there was a mild uproar about his call for mandatory service from students, but many said that the programs were never intended to be mandatory. The college program was optional community service in exchange for a larger education credit, and the high-school one was no different from adding an art class or something to the public high-school curriculum. Obama initially called both mandatory on his change.gov website, but after the buzz began he changed the wording and removed several sections of the site.
But now there is new evidence that the critics are right. He does favor mandatory service and it might be worse than we thought. He has chosen Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff. Rahm Emanuel wrote a book called The Plan in 2006. On page 60-65 of the book Rahm calls for universal conscription of 18-24 year olds for civilian service in order to prepare for a potential terrorist attack.
All Americans between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five will be asked to serve their country by going through three months of basic training, civil defense preparation and community service.
In a 2006 radio interview Rahm explains more about the program. He speaks about the dangers of a chemical attack and about the wonderful common experience that all Americans could have by being drafted for 3 months into a civilian national security force training program. He seems to be using the fear of attack to justify drafting all youth into a militaristic civilian security force – something more reminiscent of a dictatorship than a democracy. And all of his calls to unity and common experience only confirm his preference for nationalism or collectivism over individualism and freedom.
That Obama has chosen this man as his chief of staff should give anyone pause. This man has a “Plan” for the country that involves training our youth like soldiers, and calls upon “a new patriotism that brings us together again in a common mission” for his plan which will “unite us in a higher national purpose.”