A Tale of Two Cities - Washington, DC and Jerusalem - Where Right seems to be Right

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As the Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton peace initiative seems to fade into the land of lost dreams in the Middle East, where it can join the graveyard of dead peace initiatives of former presidents Carter, Reagan, Bush 1, Clinton and Bush 2, a sense of futility is spreading through the peace participants.

I said "Right seems to be Right" and what I meant is the political reality of right leaning politics, both in America and Israel, are driving the failure. Perhaps it is the same wave of conservatism that has swept Communism from most nations and left the liberal socialists in Europe gasping for breath. Whatever it is, there can be no doubt of the impact.

Here in America Obama got clobbered in the Midterm elections because his agenda was too far left, too liberal, and too big government driven for the people he governs. The same was true in nation after nation across Europe the past few years as the socialist agenda was drowning the world in red ink.

Perhaps the most astute observers and practitioners of all special interests in America is the powerful Israeli lobby, the groups solely dedicated to the preservation of Israel. There are three main elements of the Israeli lobby groups, the Christians United for Israel, is the "largest" pro-Israel lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) which directly lobbies the United States Congress, and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, which "is the main contact between the Jewish community and the executive branch" of the US government according to informed insiders.

Since the founding of Israel in 1948 no other lobbyists have dominated our nation's capitol like the Israelis. So complete is their power and control that Israel has unlimited access to arms and weapons systems, has over 200 nuclear warheads though it refuses to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, has many ways to acquire American funds and dominates the American media.

Anyone who believes wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the saber rattling with Iran has no relationship to Israel is living in fantasy land and if I were Jewish I would not want it any other way. So complete is the Israeli dominance in Washington that both political parties fall all over themselves to prove they are the best hope for the Israeli future.

Most years the Democrats have always counted on the Jewish support in the elections, even while they were trying to solve the Middle East problems in a way to benefit both Arabs and Israelis. At the same time the Republicans have generally not got the Jewish support yet they are harder lined in defending the right of Israel to exist. It was a curious outcome but it changed this year.

With the election of Obama and his family ties to Muslims for once it seemed as if the president would diminish the support for Israel and work for a better deal for the Muslims. Notwithstanding the fact Obama had Rohm Emanuel as chief of staff, the only member of the Obama inner circle to have been in the Israeli army, relations with the Obama administration have been rocky for Israel.

The more Obama tried to engage the Muslims the more suspicious the Jewish lobby. When Obama launched his version of a Middle East peace agreement there was little chance of success. It often seemed as if it was a campaign stunt to make it look like his foreign relations were improving during the bitter Midterm elections.

Israel did little to help him and seemed to be stalling for the purpose of hoping for a Republican landslide to reinforce the support for Israel in congress. Once the landslide was obvious to the Israelis if not to our own news media the Israelis shut down the peace talks over the building of Jewish settlements on Arab lands. It was an issue Obama, Clinton and Emanuel had warned Israel against using many times, calling it a threat to peace.

In response Israel has announced plans for massive new settlement construction, a slap in the face of our young president and his efforts to let the vice president handle relations with Israel. There is no way the state of Israel is going to let a subordinate of the president be their conduit to the president.

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, rejected the criticism from Obama, Biden and others and has recently said during his most recent trip to the US, “Israel sees no connection between the peace process and planning and building policy in Jerusalem.,”

The Israeli building plans, which have already been sharply criticized by Palestinian leaders, are at least one year from being implemented. But taken together they could pave the way for the construction of more than 2,000 housing units for Jewish settlers.

The two biggest projects focus on Har Homa, a settlement south of Jerusalem that has been the source of previous diplomatic friction between the US and Israel, and Ariel, a large settlement deep inside the Palestinian West Bank.

The new settlement projects were revealed only days before Mr. Netanyahu is due to meet Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, in Washington.

The Secretary-General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) Prof. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu has strongly condemned the Israeli government's decision to construct 1.300 new settler homes in East Jerusalem, in addition to other 800 settlement units in "Ariel settlement", built on the West Bank lands.

The OIC Chief emphasized that Israeli settlement, not only affects the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, but also represents a flagrant violation of international law and the Fourth Geneva Convention.

He said that the intransigence of Israel in its violation of the international law, through imposing a new reality on the ground, settlement building, Isolating and Judaizing al-Quds city, is a blatant challenge to the international legitimacy.

The Secretary-General called the Quartet and the international community to compel Israel to stop all settlement acts that violate the fundamental rights of the Palestinian people.

A day after Israel announced its settlement plans, U.S. President Barack Obama, vehemently criticized the proposed construction of 1,300 Jewish settler homes in the disputed East Jerusalem region.

The U.S., the U.N., the European Union and Russia have all criticized Israel’s decision to approve building of new homes.

IsraCast News from Israel provides a view of the situation not available from the American media in these excerpts from a story by David Essing.

U.S. President Barack Obama and Israel's Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu are both grappling with a fundamental issue - the leader's role in a democratic society. Obama and his Democratic party have just been clobbered in the U.S. mid-term elections, while Netanyahu is still walking a tight-rope between American pressure for concessions to the Palestinians and securing his power base among Israeli Right-wingers. On entering the White House, Obama threw caution to the wind; he had seen the light and, like the biblical Moses, was the chosen leader destined to lead his people to the Promised Land of greater social equality. Nor was he deterred from his messianic mission by the pressing need to repair the collapsing economic system that had gone haywire under the Republicans' unbridled capitalism.

Obama would have done better if he had taken a page out of one of his illustrious Democratic predecessors, Franklin D. Roosevelt at the outset of World War II. British historian Ian Kershaw in his book 'Fateful Choices' described how Roosevelt was convinced the U.S. would have to confront Nazi Germany but also realized that he could not overturn the 80% of U.S. public opinion that supported isolationism and opposed getting embroiled again in another European bloodbath. So Roosevelt bowed to public opinion and chose to support British Prime Minister Winston Churchill with lend-lease etc., but even his role as a non-interventionist aroused the ire of the isolationists. Roosevelt had to bide his time until conditions changed which they did after Japan's devastating surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. Roosevelt realized something that Obama did not - if a democratic leader gets too far out in front of the pack, no matter how convinced he is in the justice of his cause, he may lose the pack. In Obama's case, he failed to understand there was a limit on the desire for change that had swept him into the White House. Obama now says the problem was that he was so busy with getting things done that he did not spend enough effort explaining his policies to the public.

In the Israeli context, Obama's 'go for broke' approach recalls Prime Minister Ehud Barak's 'all or nothing gambit' at Camp David 2000 with Yasser Arafat and Bill Clinton. Barak, with Clinton's blessing, staked all his chips on a comprehensive agreement with the Palestinian leader. In that case, Arafat was not ready for peace; he simply walked away from the table and flew home to launch the Second Intifada. Subsequently, Barak had to face an angry Israeli public that included part of his Left-wing power base. He was blamed him for going too far, too fast, 'giving away the kitchen-sink' while all he had to show for it was a bloody wave of Palestinian terrorism. Both Barak and Obama were blinded by their own visions and ignored the underlying reality. Obama will get a second time at the plate before the Presidential election in another two years - the way things are going it is doubtful if the Labor Party leader will get a second chance in the Prime Minister's office.

What can be said about Prime Minster Binyamin Netanyahu? Where has the Likud leader positioned himself in the choice between setting bold national goals in the face of changing circumstances or sticking to the platform that got him elected to office. Netanyahu appears to be wrestling with this fateful choice. Three Left-wing heavyweights Shimon Peres, Ehud Barak and now Yitzak Herzog, the young Laborite who is challenging Barak for party leadership, have all declared they believe Netanyahu when he says he is ready for the 'painful concessions' necessary to make peace with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. However, key Likud cabinet ministers such as Moshe Ya'alon, Benny Begin and Silvan Shalom contend that Netanyahu will honor his pledge to start rebuilding seriously in Judea & Samaria and doubt the PM's commitment to the two-state solution.

The settlers are a little worried - they are running paid ads in newspapers quoting the Prime Minister's promises to build again, as if Netanyahu needs reminding. Right-wingers are declaring: 'We elected Netanyahu and he must do our bidding!' There is a third course of action for an elected leader, the one coined by former PM Arik Sharon - 'What a prime minister sees after taking office is not the same as what he sees before being elected'. Sharon raised this justification after being hauled over the coals by the Right-wing for bowing to President George Bush's Roadmap for a two-state solution. However Sharon as did Yitzak Rabin stipulated that the reality of Israel's security will always be paramount in Palestinian peace-making. The majority of Israelis believed them as evidenced by their election victories. For his part, Netanyahu defied the Right-wing and his own Likud party by enforcing the ten month moratorium on settlement building that expired on Sept.26th. He opted for the move in order to placate the Obama administration after the Israeli government's building gaffe in eastern Jerusalem during the visit by Vice- President Joe Biden. The only reason Netanyahu was able to push through such an abhorrent step was his promise to send the bulldozers back in after the freeze expired. The PM had to reject American and Palestinian demands that he extend the moratorium if he was to save face with his domestic power base. The Arab League has given one month to find a solution and meanwhile Israel has refrained from wide scale building on the West Bank. So what happens now? If Peres, Barak and Herzog are right Netanyahu may possibly come up with a 'constructive ambiguity' when he sees Vice-President Joe Biden again, this time in the U.S. If so, Netanyahu will be declaring as did the late Yitzak Rabin: 'I'm leader and I'll do the navigating!' Otherwise, Netanyahu will be opting for: 'I'm their leader, so I have to do what my supporters want'.

The fact that Obama has stuck to his position, articulated in his Cairo address, that the 'settlements must stop' appears to leaves little room for Netanyahu to maneuver. But the question now being asked in Jerusalem is whether the battered Obama, about to be embroiled in a battle royal with a Republican majority in the House over economic policy will have the inclination to risk more of his political capital in the Middle East. Channel one TV has reported that Obama might replace envoy George Mitchell with old hands Martin Indyk or Dennis Ross. However, many Israeli pundits have said Obama will be preoccupied with economic issues at home, Two years ago during the presidential race they said the same thing and were proven wrong.

On the other hand, the grim IDF intelligence briefing by Gen. Amos Yadlin accentuated the reality of security threats to the Jewish state posed by a potential war on several fronts by multiple enemies. This reality was obviously made clear to the Prime Minister some time ago and undoubtedly stresses, as recently stated by President Peres, Israel's need to assist the U.S. in building the coalition against Iran by advancing on the Palestinian peace track.

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Obama's Sorry State of the State

Now that the new president is almost the president we should take a look at the state of the state he will be inheriting before we get too caught up in the euphoria of the historic moment. Make no mistake, the challenges facing Obama are among the most difficult ever faced by an incoming president. If he succeeds he will have earned his place among the greatest presidents in our history.

While Obama gets a lot of mileage out of his humble beginnings and life, the fact he went to Columbia and Harvard and his wife went to Princeton belies some of the impact. These Ivy League schools are among the best and most expensive schools in the USA and world. Let us hope he didn't lose his ability to stay humble while rubbing shoulders with the aristocrats. He certainly did acquire the ivy league taste for the good life starting with his home of well over a million dollars.

As a candidate for president Obama spent three times more than any previous candidate in history, about three quarters of a billion dollars to win 53.5% of the vote. His speech the night of the Democratic convention cost $8 million, just one speech mind you. This inauguration will cost more than $150 million, three times more expensive than any in history. Add to that the economic bailouts he already has supported to the tune of over a trillion dollars, and he isn't even president yet, and we have ourselves one very high maintenance newcomer on the political scene.

Then we get to the problems he faces. There is the economy. Big money, big banks and big fat investors are lined up waiting for the new president to bail them out of the trillions and trillions of our dollars they lost, squandered or stole the past couple of years. Seems funny that if you rob a bank you go to jail but if you steal all the money from inside the bank the government bails you out.

Why is it the financial experts guiding us out of this mess are the same financial experts who got us into the mess in the first place? If we put into jail all the people who masterminded the bankruptcy of America and the takeover of the US Treasury New York City and Washington, DC would be ghost towns, Wall Street and Capitol Hill would be surplus property, the Money God would not have a blank check on our tax dollars and unemployment would be greatly reduced because the bad guys would be locked up.

Today 1 out of every 54 mortgages in America is facing imminent foreclosure and everyone in Congress is scrambling to find ways to save the poor citizens. Now if you listen to the politicians, media and Wall Street you would think that means every other house in America is in foreclosure. The truth is less than 2% of the homes with mortgages are in foreclosure, about 2 million out of over 100 million mortgages.

If you look a little deeper at the sub-prime mortgage mess that brought down our economy, a program of waiving the normal mortgage requirements so anyone could buy a home in the mid-2000s that was the brainchild of Barney Franks and other Democratic leaders, things get more interesting. There are over 7.5 million sub-prime mortgages, mortgages in which minimum down payments were accepted, excessive fees were paid, credit fraud was tolerated, balloon interest payments were built in and inflated home values were inherent.

About 25% of the sub-prime loans are in foreclosure meaning nearly 100% of the foreclosures were not the typical citizen buying a home but the people taking advantage of the sub-prime scam and now that they are defaulting on the loans the government is now trying to figure out how to use taxpayers dollars to save them. In short, we are all going to pay for the fraud. It was these loans that were packaged by Wall Street greed mongers and sold through stock offerings that brought the banks, mortgage and financial institutions down and triggered our current recession. Trillions of dollars have been lost by investors to the very institutions claiming responsibly for managing our wealth, pensions funds, savings and so on.

Many other aspects of the economy from AIG and bank bailouts to oil price increases, the futures markets, swaps, derivatives and others were created for the purpose of getting away with what should have been illegal. Is it so important we spend trillions of government dollars to save the very people who created the scams in the first place?

In other areas there is the latest threat from Osama Bin Laden to continue his terrorist actions against the USA while wars continue in Afghanistan and Iraq. Pakistan is ready to fall to insurgents waiting to deliver it to the Taliban. India is being attacked by Pakistan. Did I mention that Pakistan, home to Bin Laden and headquarters for many terrorist groups, really has nuclear weapons unlike Iraq. Russia is testing it's strength against the Ukraine and Europe. Israel is battling the Palestinians, killing them at a rate of 71 dead for every Israeli killed. You get the international picture, just add to the violence the reality of worldwide recession and many more nations could get desperate.

Now beyond the economy, wars and international affairs there remains a health care system that is the most expensive in the world and 56 million people with no health coverage. Schools that don't teach. States that are going broke. Auto and other industries that can't efficiently produce or sell. Energy policy that leaves us subject to the pricing and manipulation of others. Immigration issues with Mexico and the threat of drug cartel warfare in Mexico crossing the border into the USA not to mention the corruption of our southern neighbor.

Wow, come to think of it do you think Obama would have become the greatest spender in campaign politics history if he knew what he was getting into once he won the election? At least we will find out real soon if that Harvard education was all it is supposed to be. If he can solve the mountain of problems and issues he inherits he should be entitled to every award like the Nobel Prize offered.

Lastly, let us not forget the other thorny issue Barack has already raised that may prove more difficult than many I listed. Our new president has already signaled the NCAA that he wants to push for a National College Football playoff and championship, something long overdue. Good luck Mr. President.

Letter to the Editor

Seems Anonymous has decided to write again this time in defense of the internet. Now since I normally let all responses stand without comment I shall change from past practice since there is a clear misunderstanding on the part of Anonymous as to what I know.

Anonymous said:

You shouldn't be so tough on Internet advertising: this blog you spread your message on is given to you for free as a result of it. Just several years ago you would have had to pay to host an expensive server and rent a domain name to get your message out. Not to mention that Google has taken on the likes of Microsoft with their free suite of Google Doc publishing tools. Yeah, they even let you store your created documents on their servers also for free. And if you choose you can do all this in complete anonymity. Google and Internet advertising, albeit annoying, has changed the world for the better.

Nothing is free on the internet. I refuse constant attempts by Google and others to insert their advertising and that of their millions of advertisers. Any day they will require it and I will lose the ability to give you an ad free source of information. I have my own domain names and servers in place for the day the intenet is no longer free which will be very soon. Besides, we all pay to access the "free" information. There is no free distribution of my stories on the internet either by Google or anyone else. In spite of the fact I am a long time registered journalist any distribution of the stories short of extremely hard work and constant networking is at a very high cost as the Googles of the world along with the internet media refuse to run stories without payment. Just posting on the internet gets one nothing, including exposure.

Automated banking? Are you talking Internet banking? Just think about all those dummies recently standing in line to get their money out of failed banks. The fools should have been sitting at home moving their dough to safer institutions with their mouse and a few clicks.The biggest injustice we face hasn't changed, it's the use of media companies to further political agendas. At least the Internet is helping anyone who chooses to do so to harpoon those institutions.

You know those dummies standing in line at banks, well they got every cent they had deposited. The bigger dummies on the internet lost about $500 billion to fraud directly or indirectly related to the internet and credit cards last year. The cell phone users were losers as well with over $20 billion in losses. And even ATM machines were looted by hacking bank records to the tune of billions of dollars. If you add the other ramifications of identity theft from the internet the losses could be approaching a trillion dollars and guess whose internet, credit card and cell phone fees are adjusted to cover the losses, you!

Don't like what others say? Start a newspaper and put it in everyone's mailbox. The County Times should come to mind. Finally, some food for thought. No better tool has ever existed to expose corruption and find the truth than the Internet. Everything is archived and searchable. You've got the library of the world right at your desk 24/7. Just imagine how it would have changed your life had it been there in your youth.

The problem with the internet is there is no test of truth to what is posted. When it was originally started it was as a research tool with real institutions verifying the information. Now anyone can say anything with no relationship to truth and the gullible public believes much of what is posted. Just look at the vicious campaign rumors about both Obama and Palin that never went away, even after the truth had been established. As an entertainment tool the internet is great. As a source of truth it has led to the destruction of journalism as a source of true information and that is a sad commentary on life in general.

I was a newspaper reporter for a real newspaper and we had to have multiple sources, survive editing and fact checking and be able to capture the public attention before our stories were even published. Too bad such standards are not possible on the internet.

Finally, if the internet was such a valuable tool to protect us from corruption why is fraud and corruption using the internet and electronic trading, swaps and derivatives thriving, why did it just cost trillions of dollars in losses to unsuspecting people throughout the world, why has it destroyed our economy, and why can't anyone stop it?

Jordan Christopher

The Economic Meltdown - Where do we go from here?

If you were a regular reader of the Coltons Point Times or previous work by the editor you would be a lot richer than you are today. Since the '70's we have predicted the economic, stock market and housing fluctuations, trends and crashes with unusual accuracy from the oil manipulations of the '70's and 2007 and 2008 to the real estate mess in the early '80's and 2007, from the dot com meltdown of 2000 - 2002 to the interest spiral of the late '70's.

For years we have warned you of the conflict of interest of the "industry analysts" employed by Wall Street to influence stock prices. We listed the billions of dollars in fines paid for fraud and corruption in the financial and pharmaceutical industries and watched with awe as Congress passed the $700 billion bailout to save the same firms. Over and over we warned that there was nothing "free" about our free market system that is being manipulated by sources far more powerful than our government.

Wall Street and Madison Avenue, the financial and advertising centers of the universe, have joined forces to brainwash and spoon feed the American public with seeds of greed, obsession with materialism and disregard for laws and authority. Here we are today, a new president, a Democratic congress, and an inspired electorate yet the same architects of our current economic chaos are firmly in control of both the present and new administration.

Nearly a trillion dollars in bailouts have already been approved by Congress and our new president, a second multi-billion dollar bailout will be approved before Obama is even sworn in as president. House Speaker Pelosi is meeting today with the auto manufacturers and union leaders to decide on a second 25 billion dollar bridge loan. Barney Frank has promised just about everything to everyone while Pelosi is treating the Treasury as an endless pit of money and our new president may not even have a voice in what takes place.

Make no mistake, Madison Avenue convinced us we must have everything and Wall Street served it up through the maze of financial tricks of the trade and no one bothered to ask do we really need all this stuff. No one bothered to wonder why car companies were making more money off repairing your new car than selling it as "planned obsolescence", in other words making cars that would break down, became a bigger profit center.

Our FDA has turned its head to the proliferation of new drugs from an industry used to charging about 10 to 20 times the fair market value for prescriptions. Tens of billions in fines have been paid by the same pharmaceutical firms for fraud, price fixing, and bribes to doctors and hospitals. Yet Congress wants to expand our already broken and highly corrupt health industry to provide unnecessary medical care and drugs to everyone.

Many consumer product companies are in serious trouble because people did the only thing they could to survive the financial disaster, they stopped wasting money and started saving what little they had left. That is a very good thing but will extend a recession for those interested in bailing out Wall Street. Our media became dependent on advertising dollars that no longer exist so watch for television, radio and cable stations and networks dependent on advertising to start going under.

Our internet firms like Yahoo, Google, E Bay and millions of small businesses on the net will see their value collapse even more as the ad money dries up and as people realize that internet advertising really is the most over-valued method of reaching people with an undiluted message. Credit card fraud, cell phone fraud and identity theft flourish as a result of the internet and the failure of anyone to protect the consumer from such predators. Automated banking will be the next victim of the internet.

Entertainment companies including the record industry are operating with a broken business model and have had to resort to corruption to make money. The five largest record companies in America have paid tens of millions of dollars in fines recently for bribing radio stations to play records and now over 600 radio stations are under investigation for corruption. The record industry is beyond fixing and must collapse.

Many of the very industries our Congress is saving have no business in a free market economy where innovation, quality, service and competition are supposed to be the dominant attributes. Right now we reward fraud, corruption, greed and unfair business practices. How long is the American public going to continue to support the industries with their money and support their protectors (Congress) with their votes? The day of reckoning is at hand.

What the Hell is Happening on Wall Street?

What a week we just saw as the ship of state shipwrecked and in the process drug us all through the media frenzy and speculation only Wall Street and the media could generate. For a long time it seemed there was as much lying, distortion, misrepresentation and outright stupidity in the media reporting of the financial crisis as their coverage of the Obama versus Palin presidential campaign. No Freudian slip on that one.

Is it possible to summarize the complexity of what just happened to the American economy? Either we just saved the US and world economies with a pretty breathtaking rescue plan or, we just gave away more control of the US economy to the financial warlords of the world who have been controlling things for the past few centuries.

If the answer was the first then the villains of Wall Street have now been stopped, only a few hundred more insignificant banks should collapse, our government should make a profit of a few billion saving the banking system, and long term stability should return to our real estate and financial institutions. If we could figure out a way to throw out all the financial experts in the media who failed to be the watchdogs of the public interest for the past decades we would further strengthen our system. If we could throw out the Congress and the lobbyist corps sucking up to them it might even all work.

On the other hand, if the latter explanation is true, then we continued to have a government that is a puppet to much more powerful forces who can buy and sell all the nations of the world. The invisible power of this mysterious force that has operated in the shadows of the world the past few centuries is every bit as real as our media, our government and institutions.

However, even this force needs a source of life blood and that is the US so whether we are saving the financial systems of the world or saving the Masters of the Universe the result is probably about the same. Neither the forces of good or bad can afford to destroy our economic system. As we have witnessed first hand the past few days, as the US goes so goes the world.

The greed that forced us into this mess was prevalent throughout the world as the world was deeply involved in the US economy. They got too greedy, they forgot that if Americans aren't kept happy they will put an end to the gravy train. They compounded their problems further by using even more sinister techniques to try and save them from the mistakes they already made.

Thanks to a bewildered administration and comatose Congress, both seduced by lobbyists with endless piles of cash, the wizards of Wall Street spun a deeper and deeper web of deceit as the savings and loan groups, dot coms, home mortgages, oil and wheat futures and eventually the investment banks themselves fell prey and were milked of every last penny of profit from our financial system.

When it finally became clear that the Masters of the Universe on Wall Street were grounded on a foundation of quicksand the game ended and when the dust settles, and it will settle, and the economy has recovered and is back to serving as the cash cow again, no doubt the Masters will probably rise again and when they do we better be ready.

In the meantime the American public will be given stable banks and lower home prices. Lower gas and oil prices will return. Savings and pensions will be protected and jobs will be created. Inflation will remain stable and the stock market will again flourish. All of these things are the bones we are thrown for serving as the cash cow for the world. All of these things are the necessary progression of our historical cycles within our cultural evolution.

So how will this impact on the election? It doesn't matter. Whoever wins the presidency will be blocked from needed reform by an antiquated Congress who have been in office too many years to turn on the forces who keep getting them elected. No viable change will come until after the 2010 elections when the American public finally realizes that no president can be effective without a Congress willing to accept responsibility for past failures and embrace change. When the scoundrels are thrown out of office the change can finally be realized.

ABC News Continues Media Efforts to Distort Palin Message

ABC News Charles Gibson introduced the first comprehensive news interview of Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin to the world with clips of how he was able to cause her to stumble in questioning over the "Bush Doctrine."

Perhaps this was his effort to appease the criticism he received from the liberal left of being too soft in interviews with the McCain ticket and reacquire "macho" liberal approval but the result was a blatant attempt to trick Palin.

Gibson, out of the blue, asked Palin about the Bush Doctrine. She immediately asked him to be more specific. As she attempted to explain he asked the same question several more times, never bothering to explain what part of the Bush doctrine he intended to address. Finally after she gave increasingly more detail about the Bush doctrine he finally asked specifically for her position on preemptive strikes against terrorist targets.

ABC promptly sent out the edited questions and the liberal media jumped on the exchange as more evidence of her lack of knowledge of foreign affairs. Well shame on you Charles Gibson, until now ABC had not joined the stampede of news outlets leaning to the left but you have reestablished your news credentials as a master of media manipulation and should get a standing ovation at the next socialist convention in America.

The truth, in case anyone cares, is the Bush Doctrine is a four pillar approach to terrorism in the world, exactly as Palin described. Preemptive strikes are one of the four pillars thus her request to him to clarify his ambiguous question demonstrated far more understanding of the Doctrine than ABC News. His repeated response of refusing to clarify it was clearly intended to make her look bad.

According to the book, yes books have been published about the Bush Doctrine, World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism, Norman Podhoretz identifies the four pillars of the Bush Doctrine: (1) rejection of moral relativism and commitment to fostering the spread of democracy in the Middle East, (2) treating terrorism proactively, on a global basis, and not as law enforcement issue, (3) willingness to engage in preemptive attacks against terrorists and terrorist supporting states, and (4) unwillingness to support a Palestinian state until Palestinian leaders "engage in a sustained fight against terrorists and dismantle their infrastructure."

Palin was right in asking for him to be specific. Her answer was right about the Bush Doctrine being the worldview on terrorism. And once again Gibson demonstrated how the mainstream media in America is hell bent on distorting the record, words and experience of Sarah Palin. Oh yeah, when he finally asked the real question she nailed it like she did on all the rest.

ABC has already issued misinformation on the exchange trying to limit the Bush Doctrine to the issue of preemptive strikes but the Bush Doctrine was detailed in the National Security Strategy of 2002 for all the world to see and its odd ABC missed such an important document.

Finally, when the same ABC (ABC News Rick Klein Reports) asked Obama about the Bush Doctrine back on July 26, 2007 during a conference call to reporters, according to ABC Obama "said Clinton would continue the "Bush doctrine" of only speaking to leaders of rogue nations if they first meet conditions laid out by the United States." Clearly Obama didn't know what the Bush Doctrine was so in terms of truth, Palin 1, ABC News 0.

Perhaps when Sarah Palin gets to Washington her first mess to clean up should be the media as they are more tied to the lobbyists and special interests than the politicians.

History Repeats - Russian Tanks on the Move

It seems we've seen the images before, many times before, and they all seem to lead one to the same conclusion. No matter how things change they remain the same. When will the Russians learn we are watching?

Poland 1939

Berlin 1945

Hungary 1956

Czechoslovakia 1968

Georgia 2008

China's Cyber-Militia

National Journal
(Excerpts from COVER STORY - China’s Cyber-Militia)

Full story:
http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/cs_20080531_6948.php

Chinese hackers pose a clear and present danger to U.S. government and private-sector computer networks and may be responsible for two major U.S. power blackouts.

by Shane Harris

Sat. May 31, 2008

Computer hackers in China, including those working on behalf of the Chinese government and military, have penetrated deeply into the information systems of U.S. companies and government agencies, stolen proprietary information from American executives in advance of their business meetings in China, and, in a few cases, gained access to electric power plants in the United States, possibly triggering two recent and widespread blackouts in Florida and the Northeast, according to U.S. government officials and computer-security experts.

One prominent expert told National Journal he believes that China’s People’s Liberation Army played a role in the power outages. Tim Bennett, the former president of the Cyber Security Industry Alliance, a leading trade group, said that U.S. intelligence officials have told him that the PLA in 2003 gained access to a network that controlled electric power systems serving the northeastern United States. The intelligence officials said that forensic analysis had confirmed the source, Bennett said. “They said that, with confidence, it had been traced back to the PLA.” These officials believe that the intrusion may have precipitated the largest blackout in North American history, which occurred in August of that year. A 9,300-square-mile area, touching Michigan, Ohio, New York, and parts of Canada, lost power; an estimated 50 million people were affected.

Officially, the blackout was attributed to a variety of factors, none of which involved foreign intervention. Investigators blamed “overgrown trees” that came into contact with strained high-voltage lines near facilities in Ohio owned by FirstEnergy Corp. More than 100 power plants were shut down during the cascading failure. A computer virus, then in wide circulation, disrupted the communications lines that utility companies use to manage the power grid, and this exacerbated the problem. The blackout prompted President Bush to address the nation the day it happened. Power was mostly restored within 24 hours.

There has never been an official U.S. government assertion of Chinese involvement in the outage, but intelligence and other government officials contacted for this story did not explicitly rule out a Chinese role. One security analyst in the private sector with close ties to the intelligence community said that some senior intelligence officials believe that China played a role in the 2003 blackout that is still not fully understood.

Bennett, whose former trade association includes some of the nation’s largest computer-security companies and who has testified before Congress on the vulnerability of information networks, also said that a blackout in February, which affected 3 million customers in South Florida, was precipitated by a cyber-hacker. That outage cut off electricity along Florida’s east coast, from Daytona Beach to Monroe County, and affected eight power-generating stations.

Bennett said that the chief executive officer of a security firm that belonged to Bennett’s trade group told him that federal officials had hired the CEO’s company to investigate the blackout for evidence of a network intrusion, and to “reverse engineer” the incident to see if China had played a role.

Bennett, who now works as a private consultant, said he decided to speak publicly about these incidents to point out that security for the nation’s critical electronic infrastructures remains intolerably weak and to emphasize that government and company officials haven’t sufficiently acknowledged these vulnerabilities.

The Florida Blackout
A second information-security expert independently corroborated Bennett’s account of the Florida blackout. According to this individual, who cited sources with direct knowledge of the investigation, a Chinese PLA hacker attempting to map Florida Power & Light’s computer infrastructure apparently made a mistake. “The hacker was probably supposed to be mapping the system for his bosses and just got carried away and had a ‘what happens if I pull on this’ moment.” The hacker triggered a cascade effect, shutting down large portions of the Florida power grid, the security expert said. “I suspect, as the system went down, the PLA hacker said something like, ‘Oops, my bad,’ in Chinese.”

The power company has blamed “human error” for the incident, specifically an engineer who improperly disabled safety backups while working on a faulty switch. But federal officials are still investigating the matter and have not issued a final report, a spokeswoman for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said. The industry source, who conducts security research for government and corporate clients, said that hackers in China have devoted considerable time and resources to mapping the technology infrastructure of other U.S. companies. That assertion has been backed up by the current vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who said last year that Chinese sources are probing U.S. government and commercial networks.

Asked whether Washington knew of hacker involvement in the two blackouts, Joel Brenner, the government’s senior counterintelligence official, told National Journal, “I can’t comment on that.” But he added, “It’s certainly possible that sort of thing could happen. The kinds of network exploitation one does to explore a network and map it and learn one’s way around it has to be done whether you are going to … steal information, bring [the network] down, or corrupt it.… The possible consequences of this behavior are profound.”

Brenner, who works for Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, looks for vulnerabilities in the government’s information networks. He pointed to China as a source of attacks against U.S. interests. “Some [attacks], we have high confidence, are coming from government-sponsored sites,” Brenner said. “The Chinese operate both through government agencies, as we do, but they also operate through sponsoring other organizations that are engaging in this kind of international hacking, whether or not under specific direction. It’s a kind of cyber-militia.… It’s coming in volumes that are just staggering.”

The Central Intelligence Agency’s chief cyber-security officer, Tom Donahue, said that hackers had breached the computer systems of utility companies outside the United States and that they had even demanded ransom. Donahue spoke at a January gathering in New Orleans of security executives from government agencies and some of the nation’s largest utility and energy companies. He said he suspected that some of the hackers had inside knowledge of the utility systems and that in at least one case, an intrusion caused a power outage that affected multiple cities. The CIA didn’t know who launched the attacks or why, Donahue said, “but all involved intrusions through the Internet.”

Donahue’s public remarks, which were unprecedented at the time, prompted questions about whether power plants in the United States had been hacked. Many computer-security experts, including Bennett, believe that his admission about foreign incidents was intended to warn American companies that if intrusions hadn’t already happened stateside, they certainly could. A CIA spokesman at the time said that Donahue’s comments were “designed to highlight to the audience the challenges posed by potential cyber intrusions.” The CIA declined National Journal’s request to interview Donahue.

Cyber Terrorism - America's Achilles Heel

Cyber Terrorism - Part 1
What Price for Freedom?

Series by Jim Putnam


We live in a society that dictates the need to protect our selves, families, homes, property and business. America without insurance would be like air without oxygen. It is difficult to find a single aspect of life in America in which protection is not integrated and essential.


Yet our leadership tell us that the most basic services in which our life and lifestyle depends, the infrastructure of the American standard of living, cannot be protected. The necessities of life, food, air, water, housing and transportation, are all vulnerable to terrorist attack.


We can protect the president. We can protect our money, our gold and our treasures. We can even protect our nuclear arsenal and weapons of destruction. But we cannot protect our quality of life and our people from the threat of cyber terrorism.


Former Bush Administration cyber expert Richard Clarke predicts an “Electronic Pearl Harbor” and has blasted the private sector for failing to protect our infrastructure. Yet all experts agree it is a complex issue. Cyber security seems to demand a trade off. More security can be given if we are willing to sacrifice our freedom and privacy.


America’s corporate world, especially the financial and international commerce communities, refuse to accept the government intrusion into their world of corporate secrets for fear the information will be used to tax or prosecute them. Recent examples of corporate greed and abuse suggest there is a lot to hide from the government. Yet the privacy issue is valid.


At the same time, the corporate world has been reluctant to tell us if they have been successfully hacked. To do so would acknowledge they are vulnerable. It would raise doubt as to their ability to protect their records, clients and intellectual property. It would threaten their credit rating and worst of all, it could cause their stock value to fall. Better to cover up the attack than to undermine investor confidence.


Politically, with the federal elections on the horizon and control of the White House in the balance, it is always safer to blame someone else or deflect blame than to assume responsibility. The politicians use the convenient mantra we can’t protect our infrastructure from cyber attack. They blame the private sector for failing to develop adequate security. And they accuse the private sector of refusing to cooperate and of withholding information about cyber vulnerability.


Wouldn’t you refuse to tell the government all your secrets? The government can’t keep it’s own secrets, let alone be trusted with proprietary corporate secrets. Still it is a “Catch 22” that must be overcome for the average citizen to go to sleep at night feeling secure that their essential services are protected from the hands of blood thirsty, hate filled terrorists committed to killing Americans and destroying our way of life.


Because tonight the water supply could be poisoned. Tonight the electrical grid could be shut down and air conditioners would stop working in the heat wave. Nuclear reactors could have a melt down sending clouds of deadly radiation into the air and contaminating the countryside. Air traffic controllers could be stopped from contacting the thousands of planes in the air.


Floodgates on dams could be opened sending billions of gallons of water crashing down on communities. You could wake up tomorrow and your bank records could be gone, your insurance coverage cutoff, and health care disrupted. Raw sewage could be diverted into your drinking water. Emergency calls to 911 could go unanswered.


Because our standard of living is excessive, it takes an excessive infrastructure to support it. Our lifestyle is computer and energy dependent. From the cockpit of an airplane to the control room of a nuclear reactor, the 500 digital TV channels to the cell phone attached to your ear, we need the infrastructure to feed our addiction for more.


The techniques that could be used by a single terrorist cell working through cyber space could threaten the very existence of our national infrastructure. Every single catastrophe I mentioned is possible from a few keystrokes on a keyboard. So if the politicians are not responsible, the government can’t help, and the private sector is in denial, where do you turn for help?


We need a wake up call to America, to the government leadership and the business community on the threat to our national infrastructure and what can be done to protect our resources and people. It is too late for theories and hypothetical solutions to very real problems of today threatening our standard of living and quality of life.

Cyber Terrorism - Part 2
Media Awareness?


In America there are time-honored traditions for using the media to sell you everything from the news to the latest unnecessary drug. Once upon a time you could distinguish between media’s supposedly unbiased news stories, and those selling goods, services and points of view.


That day is gone. The editorial policy of the media outlet dictates the slant of the news coverage. Revenues rule philosophy and news is no longer a service but a profit center. News content and presentation is designed for ratings, sales and advertising revenue, not objectivity and public good.


In light of this, why is news coverage of cyber terrorism generally limited to technology stories for special interest groups and safely tucked away in the egghead section? Three obvious reasons come to mind. 1.) It is a complex issue. 2.) It might scare the public. And 3.) It might upset the advertisers on the media.


Cyber terrorism is the largest single threat to the quality of life for our citizens. It represents a far greater threat than corporate corruption, government inertia, media bias or bank and phone company service charges. So why are we not being warned about it?


Sure, the cyber world is complex, isn’t all technology? How many consumers know how their air conditioner, television, automobile or computer work? How many know how their money got from a bank into the ATM to them? They don’t. You throw a switch, push a button, or turn a key and it works.


People are not stupid. They don’t need to know how technology works, just what it can do for them. They know all aspects of American life are dependent on the computer, or the electricity that powers the computer. They know we are being bombarded by microwave beams and every other form of electronic signal and frequency to support that technology.


I have a simple way to perceive the cyber world. Our physical world is three dimensional and interpreted by the physical senses. The cyber world is what is beyond the physical realm, is limited only by one’s imagination, and is interpreted by the expanded mind.


As to our concerns cyber terrorism stories would scare the public, so what! One of our constitutional freedoms has always been the right to be scared to death. Stephen King and Dean Koontz wouldn’t sell many books if the public did not want to be scared. Many movies and TV shows were successful because they were very scary.


People pay billions of dollars to be frightened. Supposedly “free” news stories on cyber terrorism would be a great bargain. Sometimes the power of the media to scare people can change our way of life, and sometimes for the better.


Finally, there is the concern that cyber terrorism stories might upset advertisers. Does anyone doubt it? Computer manufacturers, software companies, technology driven companies and companies dependent on communications and advertising for sales are all directly affected. So are services that are electronically dependent like ATM banking, credit cards, phones, etc.


Of course they don’t want stories about how their product can be hacked by terrorists, or how easily services can be disrupted. Billions of dollars in advertising revenue from these companies are poured into the media, the same media that brings you the news. Do you really think “truth” is more powerful than investor confidence or corporate stock valuation?


Those advertising dollars can buy a lot of influence, especially when the advertising and media companies are losing ratings, readers and revenues. As long as the news sources are owned by the same media companies dependent on ad dollars for valuation and survival, there could be a potential conflict of interest. The recent collapse of stock prices, lost advertising revenues, increased cable and digital competition, and fewer viewers or readers have already caused media companies major problems.


They can ill afford to lose more. In spite of all these reasons why the threat of cyber terrorism is not adequately covered by the news media, occasionally there are stories that contribute to understanding the truth. Barton Gellman, Washington Post Staff Writer, wrote a story titled, “Cyber-Attack by Al Qaeda Feared”, published June 27, 2002. It clearly identified the problem. Unfortunately, to find it you had to get to the Internet online technology section of the Washington Post, but at least it was a start.

More recently The National Journal, not the traditional news media, ran a cover story (May 31, 2008) titled China's Cyber-Militia by Shane Harris which discusses how Chinese hackers pose a clear and present danger to the U.S. government and private sector computer networks and may be responsible for two major U.S. power blackouts. The story is reprinted in the CPT.

Cyber Terrorism - Part 3
Who are the hackers?


Most experts seem to agree we face an unprecedented threat from cyber terrorism, and we are all but helpless to stop it. Who are these “hackers” poised to bring the mighty America to its knees through a cyber space assault? Webster’s New World Dictionary defines a hacker as “a talented amateur user of computers, specifically, one who attempts to gain unauthorized access to files in various systems.” I think the definition falls far short.


Hackers are the new Messiahs of the cyber universe immersed in a quest to create like God. The fact they are creating illegal ways to access other people’s files is not a concern to them, as long as they are creating. Still, there is no convenient way to stereotype hackers.


I sense there are at least three distinct types of hacker, the Idealist, the Invisible and the Insidious. Popular books and movies glorify the first type, the Idealist. Hacking secured systems is a challenge to them and when they are successful it is essential they receive proper recognition for their prowess.


The need for peer recognition and ego insure they take credit for their handiwork. But in a distorted way they are not malicious in their intent. Their goal is not the destruction of property or disrupting lives, although that may very well be the consequence of their efforts.

Far more dangerous are the Invisible types. To them successful hacking is not merely to penetrate a secured file or system, but to go undetected in the process. Thus they are able to come and go at will. Government, quasi-government and shadow government agencies fall into this category. They all want to know everything you are doing. There is no system or network in the world safe from their prying eyes.


Thanks to the digital revolution our Constitutional guaranteed Bill of Rights is now obsolete. There is not a phone call, bank transaction or Internet communication safe from big brother. Private corporations have their own Invisible hackers as well so it is not just the government monitoring your life.


Curiously, all those politicians claiming to be defenders of freedom, and that includes Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, are mostly silent about the wholesale invasion of privacy now underway.


Fortunately, the eavesdroppers are so successful at capturing all calls, emails and transactions that the sheer volume is beyond their processing capability. For now our dwindling freedom is protected more as a result of bureaucratic constipation than political action. Super computers will soon eliminate that processing limitation, and everything about your life will be an open book.


The last category of hacker, the Insidious, is the most dangerous. Insidious hackers possess the skills and resources of the Idealist and Invisible hackers, but their motivation is without conscious. To them the art of hacking is a tool to get what they don’t have but want, or for bringing about war and destruction.


Criminals and fanatics, and often they are one in the same, go beyond the game of hacking through computer security barriers. Penetrating the systems is not enough. They steal the information, divert money or damage their targets in a way they cannot be caught. Or, they become cyber mercenaries for a terrorist cause and will use hacking to wreak havoc, devastation and destruction on unsuspecting victims.


Lives destroyed and human deaths resulting are nothing more than digital statistics in a higher cause being served. Unfortunately the combined power, resources and might of the vast American intelligence, law enforcement and defense communities is of no advantage when confronting cyber criminals or cyber terrorists.


The Insidious hacker is incorporeal, without material body or substance in the cyber universe. They have no base of operations, no geographic limitations and no political boundaries to restrict them. You cannot identify them with metal detectors or profiling and you most certainly cannot stop them with current computer security techniques and technology.