5-11-09

Obama Orders Air Force One to Mimic 911- What does it mean, other than Obama is "Nuts", a "Loose Cannon", and a Liar?

The first real 911 airplane struck one of the Twin Towers 9:58 AM, Monday September 11, 2001. Obama's mimic of September 11 occurred at 9:58 AM, Monday April 27, 2009 when Air Force One's backup flew close enough to clip the side of the Goldman Sachs tower, the tallest building in New Jersey. ( The Goldman Sachs' tower is owned by the Rothschilds and Rockefellers so Obama does not have to fear a lawsuit) Two fighter planes followed right behind, as if a Johnny on the Spot Obama Administration was right there ready to do whatever is necessary to prevent another 911. “The plane did a 360. There was a vibration. The glass in the skyscrapers was shivering.” “It sounded like the building were cracking, everything started shaking. I thought the plane was coming down.”“People were running out of the office, claiming they saw a commercial flight being pursued by F-16’s.” (These quotations from same article.) Carlina Rivera, 25, who works at an educational services company on the 22nd floor of 1 Liberty Plaza, said her co-workers were spooked in part because their offices are so close to the site of the 9/11 attack. “As soon as someone saw how close it got to the buildings, people literally ran out,” she said. “Probably about 80 percent of my office left within two minutes of seeing how close it got to our building.” “I saw the landing gear and I was out of here,” one said. Apparently there has been quite a bit of "he said, she said" regarding this incident from the Obama Administration, but to my mind it is a clear mimic of Sept.11.

"A White House official told ABC News that President Obama was "furious" to hear about the plane incident." Even the slightest hint Obama heard about this "911 Mimic" after the fact is a lie pure and simple. Obama obviously heard about this incident before it happened and may have even thought it up. It strikes me that the world is upset over this incident because the world does not understand Obama's motive for ordering it. Actually Obama's motive had me baffled until I checked my calendar for April 27, and found an answer to a question the Yahoo Answer Police prevented me from posting, which angered me so I saved it. [ Your Answer: The communi$t$' have manipulated the swine flu pandemic scare to blast the torture memos off the front page. Swine flu has just up and come out of no where and the connect to Mexico seems as suspicious as can be especially since the communi$t$ desperately want our troops invading Mexico like they have invaded Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. The communi$t$' definitely want Obama to declare Martial Law and a pandemic is one of the ways they have set us up to declare a pandemic Martial Law. So what is going on now is to set us up for something biological the bad guys have planned for us down the road. They are priming us for future biological manipulation and lies.] Eureka. Obama laid on the world this "911 Mimic" to get the torture memos off front page news. So Obama expected his "911 Mimic" to anger people to such a degree the incident would kick the "torture memos" off the front page. It angered me that I did not find out about Obama's "911 Mimic" until last Friday, May 8, 2009, almost two weeks after the incident.

A question becomes why didn't Obama's "911 Mimic" hit the front page Monday, April 27, 2009, the day it occurred? The bad guys, Rothschilds and Rockefellers, own the media and decide the propaganda and lies and when they are laid on the world. The bad guys had their answer to knock the torture memos off the front page, the swine flu pandemic, which they manipulated, and the Rothschilds and Rockefellers told their editors to go with their swine flu pandemic. Ownership talks, presidents walk, so Obama's "911 Mimic" was "deep six ed." Saved, in this case. The Rothschilds and Rockefellers had to have smirked with the audacity of their new president to mastermind his "911 Mimic." It thrilled their audience, the play station crowd, and started creating a persona as "Nuts" and a "Loose Cannon" for Obama. What happened after Obama's "911 Mimic" makes one suspect the bad guys are in on Obama's "911 Mimic," or that they may be using mind suggestion on Obama.

We know the Rothschilds and Rockefellers are responsible for the Holocaust. How do we know the Rothschilds and Rockefellers are responsible for the Holocaust? Logic. It has been proven time and time again the Rothschilds and Rockefellers financed Hitler. Hitler Hocausting Jewish people formed the state of Israel. The forming the state of Israel developed and depleted Arab oil. Forming the state of Israel has gotten us to where the world is today politically. Holocausting Jewish people made Hitler and his financiers, Rothschilds and Rockefellers huge amounts of money.

The mayor of New York City Michael Bloomberg was furious over Obama's "911 Mimic." The following quotations and the link to the New York Times article they appear give a clue to Bloomberg's and the anger of many New York Jewish people over the incident.

"However, Mr. Bloomberg said he was not apprised of the flyover until his BlackBerry started buzzing this morning with messages from people asking if he knew what was going on. He characterized it as a breakdown in communication that “will never happen again.”

“First thing is, I’m annoyed – furious is a better word – that I wasn’t told,” he said at a City Hall news conference held to discuss the swine flu cluster in Queens.

In unusually harsh language, the mayor criticized the Defense Department for conducting the exercise and the Federal Aviation Administration for being secretive about it.

The mayor criticized the secrecy around the flyover. The e-mail notification “did have the normal language of saying this is sensitive information, should be distributed on a need-to-know basis, that they did not plan to have any publicity about it, which I think is ridiculous and just poor judgment,” Mr. Bloomberg said.

He added:

Why the Defense Department wanted to do a photo-op right around the site of the World Trade Center catastrophe defies imagination. Poor judgment would be a nice ways to phrase it, but they did. I also think that once they had told us, we should have done a better job. Had I known about it, I would have called them right away and asked them not to. It is the federal government and they can do in the end what they please, but I would have tried to stop it. I don’t know there’s a lot else to say other than they shouldn’t have done it."

http://original.antiwar.com/cobban/2009/05/08/obama-aide-puts-israels-nukes-in-the-diplomatic-mix/

New York City, Michael Bloomberg, the New York Times and many Jewish people did not realize Obama's "911 Mimic" was Obama's way of getting the torture memos off the front page and they were getting more and more angry and their anger was angering comrade Obama more and more. Tuesday May 4, 2009 the Obama Administration announced that universal adherence to the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) included Israel at a conference on the Nuclear Non-Proliferiferation Treaty. It is hard to imagine that Obama's "911 Mimic" and the announcement at a pre scheduled NPT conference that his administration was going to talk about Israel's nukes are not preplanned and deliberately tied together, even if the Obama Administration was not in on plan. The USA gave Israel the money, technology and or the 400 nukes Israel has and both countries have lied about the USA's connection to Israel's nukes for 40 years. An interesting question becomes, why are Israel's nukes front page news now. Since the Rothschilds and Rockefellers control the news, as proven by the Obama's "911 Mimic" news' blackout for nearly two weeks, why do the Rothschilds and Rockefellers want Israel's nukes front page news now? It is my guess the Rothschilds and Rockefellers want to Holocaust Jewish people again and have a plan. If the Rothschilds and Rockefellers order Israel to nuke Iran, because Obama has exposed Israel's nukes and told Israel it is expected to live by the NPT, the USA will have an alibi that the USA was not in on Israel nuking Iran. The Rothschilds Rockefellers and Obama will be in the cat bird seat to demand the world punish and Holocaust Israel for Israel nuking Iran. Obama's "911 Mimic" has got to have been part of someone's (Rothschilds and Rockefellers) plan.

As long as someone is serving "truth syrup," wouldn't it be nice if someone, maybe Obama, admitted bin Laden has been dead since 2001, the Twin Towers' buildings had bombs in them and that is why the 911 clean up workers are sick as dogs, the planes were flown by remote control and the Arabs are not responsible for 911.

One wonders what Hillary and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov really discussed last week. My guess is Hillary is fishing for what the Russians plan to do when Israel nukes Iran. She is wondering if she should nuke Russia at the same time she, or her surrogate, Israel nukes Iran.

Boy Obama is starting to tell really big lies. For a while he gave us the impression Military Tribunals were gone and now we find out they are back because the Administration fears that some cases would fail in federal courts or in standard military legal settings. Good grief. That is exactly why the world fears military tribunals, they are rigged and do not guarantee our Constitutional rights. Obama's flip flop on Military Tribunals combined with his flip flop on allowing the US Supreme Court decide the definition of a terrorist, as it stands now US citizens are terrorists if Obama wants us to be, is proving Obama is one big liar. So we can expect all this propaganda on Obama being in favor of a nuclear free world to be one big bag of lies as well. Obama's "911 Mimic" tells us he is "Nuts" and a "Loose Cannon" combined with his lies means this world is in one mess of a hess. Told you so. That's why I got the heck out of the Democratic Party combined with Dean throwing the Democratic nomination for president to Obama. If the Rothschilds and Rockefellers make a person president, as they did comrades Little George and Obama, their presidents have got to be bad news. It is hard to imagine Obama being a less of an American than comrade Little George, but then again both his parents were not US citizens, so Obama is not even eligible to be president.

Possibly one of my main questions, Is Obama a good person? Maybe I'll ask the I Ching, but his happiness seems too large for the joke. The question is becoming, Is Obama a bitter person, and if so, what does Obama's bitterness bode of America?

The question percolating in Washington as a new week starts is whether comedian Wanda Sykes's shots at conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh at the White House Correspondents Dinner were the former, the latter or somewhere in between.

[...]

"Maybe Rush Limbaugh was the 20th hijacker but he was so strung out on Oxycontin he missed his flight. . . . I hope his kidneys fail."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/08/louis-caldera-white-house_n_200388.html

05/ 8/09 07:00 PM

Louis Caldera, Director of White House Military Affairs, resigned today from his position in the wake of the Air Force One flyover photo-op over lower Manhattan two weeks ago.

Caldera's office approved the photo-op, which cost $35,000 in fuel alone for the plane and two jet fighter escorts, the AP reports. The Air Force estimated the photo shoot cost taxpayers $328,835.

President Obama accepted the letter of resignation, in which Caldera wrote he felt that the controversy surrounding the event made it impossible "to effectively lead the White House Military Office." He added, "moreover, it has become a distraction in the important work you are doing as president."

In addition to Caldera's resignation letter, the White House also released a report on the incident, as ordered by President Obama, as well as the product of the controversial flight -- a photo of Air Force One in the sky over the Statue of Liberty.

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http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/27/air-force-one-backup-rattles-new-york-nerve/

April 27, 2009, 10:36 am
White House Apologizes for Air Force Flyover
By A. G. Sulzberger AND Matthew L. Wald

Jim Brown

A reader, Jim Brown, took this photograph from 10 Exchange Place in Jersey City, looking toward 77 Hudson Street and the Statue of Liberty. In the photo, the plane appears closer than it actually was.
Updated, 5:52 p.m. | An Air Force One lookalike, the backup plane for the one regularly used by the president, flew low over parts of New York and New Jersey on Monday morning, accompanied by two F-16 fighters, so Air Force photographers could take pictures high above the New York harbor.

But the exercise — conducted without any notification to the public — caused momentary panic in some quarters and led to the evacuation of several buildings in Lower Manhattan and Jersey City. By the afternoon, the situation had turned into a political fuse box, with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg saying that he was “furious” that he had not been told in advance about the flyover.

At 4:39 p.m. Monday, the White House issued an apology for the flyover. Louis E. Caldera, director of the White House Military Office, who served in the Clinton administration as secretary of the Army, said in a statement:

Last week, I approved a mission over New York. I take responsibility for that decision. While federal authorities took the proper steps to notify state and local authorities in New York and New Jersey, it’s clear that the mission created confusion and disruption. I apologize and take responsibility for any distress that flight caused.

The mission on Monday, officials said, was set up to create an iconic shot of Air Force One, similar to one that was taken in recent years over the Grand Canyon.

When President Obama learned of the episode on Monday afternoon, aides said, he, too, was furious. Senior administration officials conveyed the president’s anger in a meeting with Mr. Caldera on Monday afternoon.

A senior administration official said that an F.A.A. official notified Mayor Bloomberg’s office last week about the flyover. She said that Marc Mugnos, the director of operations in the office of citywide event coordination and management, was the official notified about the Air Force operation.

The flyover, which began around 10 a.m., resulted in widespread confusion and a flood of calls to emergency hot lines. Perplexed officials at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and other authorities were inundated with calls from anxious ferry passengers, office workers and residents.

The mayor said the Police Department and someone in his administration – he did not say who – received an e-mail from the Federal Aviation Administration late on Thursday, informing them that there would be “a fly-by for a photo-op, as they described it.”

However, Mr. Bloomberg said he was not apprised of the flyover until his BlackBerry started buzzing this morning with messages from people asking if he knew what was going on. He characterized it as a breakdown in communication that “will never happen again.”

“First thing is, I’m annoyed – furious is a better word – that I wasn’t told,” he said at a City Hall news conference held to discuss the swine flu cluster in Queens.

In unusually harsh language, the mayor criticized the Defense Department for conducting the exercise and the Federal Aviation Administration for being secretive about it.

Jim Peters, an F.A.A. spokesman, said “the photo op was approved and coordinated with everyone.” Notification was made in advance to the mayor’s office, “including its 911 and 311 operation centers,” the New York City Police Department, the New Jersey State Police, the United States Park Police and other agencies, he said.

The Police Department confirmed that it had been notified about the event but said it had been barred from alerting the public. “The flight of a VC-25 aircraft and F-16 fighters this morning was authorized by the F.A.A. for the vicinity of the Statue of Liberty with directives to local authorities not to disclose information about it but to direct any inquiries to the F.A.A. Air Traffic Security Coordinator,” the Police Department said in a statement.

The mayor criticized the secrecy around the flyover. The e-mail notification “did have the normal language of saying this is sensitive information, should be distributed on a need-to-know basis, that they did not plan to have any publicity about it, which I think is ridiculous and just poor judgment,” Mr. Bloomberg said.

He added:

Why the Defense Department wanted to do a photo-op right around the site of the World Trade Center catastrophe defies imagination. Poor judgment would be a nice ways to phrase it, but they did. I also think that once they had told us, we should have done a better job. Had I known about it, I would have called them right away and asked them not to. It is the federal government and they can do in the end what they please, but I would have tried to stop it. I don’t know there’s a lot else to say other than they shouldn’t have done it.

Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said Monday afternoon that he was unaware of the flyover. At his daily press briefing, Mr. Gibbs initially referred questions to the F.A.A. and the Air Force. When told that those government offices were referring questions to the White House, Mr. Gibbs said: “I have no information on this other than what I saw.”

Mr. Gibbs, pressed by reporters, said he had seen news reports of the flyover, but declared: “I was working on other things. You might be surprised to know that I don’t know every movement of Air Force One.” Later, he added that he would look into the matter.

The flyover was scheduled for 10 to 10:30 a.m. The plane is designated by the Defense Department as a VC-25 but is recognizable to the public as a Boeing 747.

Dan Kohn

A reader, Dan Kohn, took this picture of planes flying low over the harbor on Monday morning. At the rear is the Goldman Sachs tower in Jersey City. Unaware of the planned exercise, hundreds of office workers flooded out of buildings, worried about the prospect of terrorism.

“People came pouring out of the buildings, the American Express Building, all the buildings in the financial district by the water,” said Edward Acker, a photographer who was at the building, 3 World Financial Center. “And even the construction guys over by 100 North End Avenue area, they all got out of their buildings. Nobody knew about it. Finally some guy showed up with a little megaphone to tell everyone it was a test, but the people were not happy. The people who were here 9/11 were not happy.”

Mr. Acker added: “New York City police were standing right there and they had no knowledge of it. The evacuations were spontaneous. Guys from the floor came out, and one guy I talked to was just shaking.”

Even the markets dipped shortly after 10 a.m., though it was unclear if the alarm over the planes was a factor. Starting at 10:02 a.m., three main market indexes started dropping precipitously. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 40 points in 10 minutes, starting 10:15 a.m., before it rebounded more than 50 points.

In Jersey City, construction workers were evacuated from a condominium tower under construction at 77 Hudson Street.

The workers, who were on the 32nd floor of the construction site, said the plane circled three times past the Goldman Sachs tower, the tallest building in New Jersey. On the second pass, they said, the jet appeared to be only a few dozen feet from the building — close enough to clip the side of the skyscraper. A fighter followed right behind, mirroring its moves.

The construction site as were other buildings in downtown Jersey City, including offices in the Exchange Place financial complex.

Carlina Rivera, 25, who works at an educational services company on the 22nd floor of 1 Liberty Plaza, said her co-workers were spooked in part because their offices are so close to the site of the 9/11 attack. “As soon as someone saw how close it got to the buildings, people literally ran out,” she said. “Probably about 80 percent of my office left within two minutes of seeing how close it got to our building.”

Ms. Rivera, who was a high school student in the East Village when the 9/11 attack occurred, added, “I did feel a little bit foolish for staying in the office while everyone left.”

Ms. Rivera said eventually there was a message made over the public announcement system that the plane was an advertisement for a movie — which she said that did not coincide with what they were reading online about the plane taking pictures of the Statue of Liberty. “It was a little confusing. What was the truth?” she said.

Ms. Rivera continued: “Of course, everyone had to take out their cellphones and say, ‘You can come back, it’s O.K.’ Eventually they returned with some sort of comfort food. We feel like we should have at least been warned.”

At 1 Liberty Plaza, according to another person who works in Lower Manhattan, a loudspeaker announcement said at 10:55 a.m., “Planes were observed flying low over Lower Manhattan, but were part of an approved federal action.”

Johnny Villafane, 42, of the Upper West Side, said, “The plane did a 360. There was a vibration. The glass in the skyscrapers was shivering.” He added, “It sounded like the building were cracking, everything started shaking. I thought the plane was coming down.”

Sidney Bordley, a floor director in an office building at 1 Battery Park Place, said, “People were running out of the office, claiming they saw a commercial flight being pursued by F-16’s.” He added, “There was some confusion and a little excitement.”

A group of financial services workers, who were gathered outside the same building but declined to give their names, described their reactions. “I saw the landing gear and I was out of here,” one said. Another said: “There were people in my elevator, sweating and shaking. There were women
crying. It was not an experience to be taken lightly.”

Andrew Burke, 49, a T-shirt vendor from Crown Heights, Brooklyn, said: “People panicked and ran into the streets thinking the worst.” He added, “It’s a real shame they couldn’t tell the city what they were going to do.”

Notify NYC, a pilot electronic service intended to quickly provide emergency alerts to New Yorkers who sign up for them, did not prove particularly effective.

Text messages and e-mail messages explaining the flyover were sent out at 10:38 a.m., after the exercise was already scheduled to end. “The community was startled, and would have preferred advance warning,” said Catherine McVay Hughes, vice chairwoman of Community Board 1 in Lower Manhattan.

Steve Coleman, a spokesman for the Port Authority, which runs the region’s three major airports, said the low-flying planes prompted confusion. “This has nothing to do with any of our airports,” he added.

The Staten Island Advance reported that the Federal Aviation Administration had authorized the flights and that the flights were “pre-planned.”

President Obama was not aboard the plane, nor was he in the New York area. He gave a speech at 9 a.m. at the National Academy of Sciences in downtown Washington.

It was not the first time that flyovers had left anxiety in Lower Manhattan.

In February 2002, two Air Force F-16 fighters flew low over Manhattan as they made their way back to Atlantic City after a regular patrol. Officials later acknowledged that “the timing and location” of the flyover were “poorly coordinated.”

And in May 2003, a Continental Airlines flight carrying American troops returning from Iraq received permission to fly low around the city, a decision that also rattled nerves.

Jessica Bagdorf, Sewell Chan, Jennifer 8. Lee, Colin Moynihan, Fernanda Santos, Daniel E. Slotnik and Jeff Zeleny contributed reporting

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http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=7439287&page=1

Air Force One Photo Op Triggers Panic in Manhattan
NYC Mayor Bloomberg Blasts Flyover as "Insensitive" and "Ill-Conceived;" White House Aplogizes
By MARK CRUDELE, RICHARD ESPOSITO and LISA STARK
April 27, 2009

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is "furious" over a Department of Defense low-altitude flyover of NYC in the area around Ground Zero this morning, calling it "ill-conceived" and a "waste of taxpayers' money."

New Yorkers in lower Manhattan jolted by promotional Air Force One photo shoot.

More PhotosA photo shoot involving a 747 used as Air Force One and one fighter jet flying at low altitude led to hundreds of frightened calls from residents and workers in Lower Manhattan this morning, triggering memories of 9-11 as many evacuated their offices. The president was not aboard.

At a White House press briefing Monday afternoon, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs dodged questions about the flyover, even referring the media to the White House (that he represents).

Gibbs said he had no other information about the flyover other than news reports he had seen. "I was working on other things," Gibbs said. "You might be surprised to know I don't know every movement of Air Force One or what happens to it."

Click here to watch Bloomberg and Gibbs speak about the flyover.

On Monday afternoon, the Director of the White House Military Office, Louis Caldera, released a statement saying, "Last week, I approved a mission over New York. I take responsibility for that decision. While federal authorities took the proper steps to notify state and local authorities in New York and New Jersey, it's clear that the mission created confusion and disruption. I apologize and take responsibility for any distress that flight caused."

President Obama is 'Furious' Too!
A White House official told ABC News that President Obama was "furious" to hear about the plane incident. Caldera was called into a meeting with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina.

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http://retardnews.com/2009/04/28/air-force-one-attacks-new-york-city/

Posted: April 28, 2009 at 10:22 pm
Air Force One attacks New York City

In a “photo-op” that caused panic and office evacuations Air Force One buzzed low over the New York skyline causing panic throughout the city.

The world’s most expensive corporate jet flew over ground zero at only a thousand feet of the ground trailed by fighter jets.

The 747 trailed by F-16 fighter jets flew two loops from the Verrazano bridge, passed over the statue of liberty and towards Staten Island.

We all ran to the window, and I thought, that’s it, we’re all dead,” said Chris Biancamano, 36, who works at a brokerage in Jersey City. “It brought back all the memories of 9/11. I said, ‘I have to get out of here now!’ ”

The President was not on board Air Force One at the time and although city officials and the FAA had been notified the public at large was not.

Obama apologized for the confusion calling it a “mistake” and saying it would not happen it again.

Even the White House press secretary dismissed complaints saying he had no knowledge of the fly over.

New York Post

http://original.antiwar.com/cobban/2009/05/08/obama-aide-puts-israels-nukes-in-the-diplomatic-mix/

Obama Aide Puts Israel’s Nukes in the Diplomatic Mix

by Helena Cobban, May 09, 2009
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LONDON — Last month in Prague, President Barack Obama vowed that he would seek a world without nuclear weapons. On Tuesday, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller spelled out that this policy would apply to Israel, as well.

Speaking at a conference on the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Gottemoeller said that "Universal adherence to the NPT itself, including by India, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea … remains a fundamental objective of the United States."

Israel is judged to have between 100 and 200 advanced nuclear weapons either ready to deploy, or only a few minutes away from being so.

Gottemoeller’s words sparked speculation that this arsenal might re-emerge as an issue in Israel’s relations with Washington. That would end a 40-year period in which Washington colluded with Israel in maintaining the fiction that Israel’s nuclear weapons capabilities were unknown, and anyway should never be openly discussed.

Throughout those years, Washington was also vigorously combating the acquisition by any other Middle Eastern state of "weapons of mass destruction" (WMD), including chemical or biological weapons, as well as the far more lethal nuclear weapons. Many around the world accused Washington of maintaining a damaging "double standard" on nuclear weapons and all other WMD.

Israel has always fended off calls that it join the NPT. Beyond that, most Israeli leaders have gone actively on the offensive against the NPT, arguing that it has not been effective in preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons worldwide. (The NPTs many supporters strongly contest that assertion. One hundred and eighty-nine states are members of the treaty.)

When George W. Bush was U.S. president, he seemed largely persuaded by the Israelis’ view of NPT ineffectiveness. His administration downgraded the support Washington previously gave the NPT. The NPT’s approach stresses the ultimate goal of a nuclear weapons-free world, the need for negotiations among nations as a way to get there, and the universality of this effort.

In place of an active commitment to the NPT approach, Bush pursued the very different policy of "counter-proliferation." That policy stressed U.S. domination of efforts to directly counter the nuclear programs of countries Washington disapproved of, using a variety of means, including direct military destruction of suspected installations.

Obama’s Prague speech marked a sharp shift back to the NPT approach. And Gottemoeller’s speech then showed that the Obama administration intends to apply it in the Middle East, as well as elsewhere. This will have a strong effect on the administration’s diplomacy regarding both Iran and Israeli-Arab peacemaking.

Regarding Iran, Bruce Riedel, a senior White House official for Middle East and South Asia affairs under both Pres. Bill Clinton and (for one year) Pres. Bush, told the Washington Times this week that, "If you’re really serious about a deal with Iran, Israel has to come out of the closet. A policy based on fiction and double standards is bound to fail sooner or later."

Regarding Israeli-Arab peacemaking, the Arab states have long argued that if there is to be a durable peace between Israel and all its Arab neighbors, then Israel’s nuclear arsenal will have to be subject to negotiation along with the military capabilities of everyone else in the region.

Egypt and Saudi Arabia have argued strongly, for many years now, for the establishment in the Middle East of a "Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone", such as already exists in South America. Other states and international bodies like the International Atomic Energy Agency support the wider concept of a Middle East free of all WMD.

Serious advocates of both proposals insist, however, that Israel’s nuclear weapons have to be included in the negotiation.

Now, it looks as if Washington may be preparing to join this movement toward stressing Israeli transparency and accountability. This would take the Obama administration back to the stance adopted by Pres. John F. Kennedy in the early 1960s. Just a few years later, however, in 1969, Pres. Richard Nixon signed off on a policy that Israeli nuclear policy expert Avner Cohen has described as one of "don’t ask, don’t tell."

Back in the Cold War, there were many — including key Nixon adviser Henry Kissinger — who argued that colluding with Israel’s nuclear opacity was in the U.S. interest since, if Israel came out openly as a nuclear power, that could spark Soviet arms sales to pro-Moscow allies in the region and raise tensions in the region.

After the Cold War ended, many in the U.S. strategic-affairs community favored continuing the policy of "don’t ask, don’t tell." They argued that Israel acted as an extension of U.S. power in the Middle East, so its capabilities should be supported, or that the U.S. was so powerful globally that it had no need to put pressure on or embarrass its Israeli ally.

Both those arguments were based on the judgment that U.S. interests always coincide with those of Israel. Now, as Obama and his top aides have started to hint, that judgment may be starting to change.

We can expect to see the extent of the divergence between the two governments during or shortly after the visit that Israel’s newly installed premier Benjamin Netanyahu makes to Washington, May 18.

Already, serious differences have become evident between him and Obama on the crucial issues of Iran and the Palestine question.

Netanyahu and his aides have said that full U.S. cooperation with Israel on actions to prevent Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons is a prerequisite for Israel’s cooperation with Washington on Palestinian peacemaking. Obama’s people have argued, by contrast, that Israel’s cooperation with them in the peacemaking is necessary if joint action on Iran is to be possible.

Regarding Palestine, Obama has argued for the speedy conclusion of a final peace between Israel and Palestine that involves establishing a viable, fully independent Palestinian state. Netanyahu has refused to express support for that goal, arguing that the Palestinians have to meet numerous further preconditions before final peace talks can resume.

How might Gottemoeller’s statement on Israel and the NPT play into this mix? Certainly, it sends another powerful message to Netanyahu that he cannot expect his relationship with Obama to be anywhere near as close as the one his three predecessors — Ehud Barak, Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert — all enjoyed with the man in the White House.

Many advocates of a more evenhanded U.S. policy to the Middle East welcomed Gottemoeller’s statement, seeing it as chipping away the damaging double standard that Washington has long employed in Israel’s favor.

Other commentators, more focused on the need to achieve real progress in the peacemaking between Israel and its Arab neighbors, welcome the signs of a new evenhandedness toward Israel. But they warn that the focus on nuclear questions should not eclipse the need for speedy U.S. actions to curb Israeli settlement construction and get the final Israeli-Palestinians peace talks back onto a hopeful track.

One Palestinian security-affairs analyst here said, "It doesn’t have to be an ‘either-or’. Obama should continue to pursue his nonproliferation agenda. But our priority is to win a decent future for our people, in our homeland. I don’t see Israel’s nuclear weapons, however many there are, as having a direct impact on that. So let’s keep our focus on the peacemaking."

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http://wire.antiwar.com/2009/05/07/clinton-and-lavrov-discuss-improving-nuke-security/

Clinton and Lavrov discuss improving nuke security

REUTERS
Reuters North American News Service

May 07, 2009 12:52 EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Thursday she and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov discussed ways to improve the security of nuclear facilities and prevent nuclear proliferation.

"The foreign minister and I discussed how we can ... set a standard and example to improve the security of nuclear facilities and prevent the proliferation of nuclear material around the world," Clinton said after meeting Lavrov at the State Department.

(Writing by John Whitesides; Editing by Doina Chiacu)

http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/may/06/us-weighs-forcing-israel-to-disclose-nukes/

EXCLUSIVE: Secret U.S.-Israel nuclear accord in jeopardy
By Eli Lake (Contact) | Wednesday, May 6, 2009

ArticleComments ( 61 )Print[-][+] Font Size E-Mail AlertsTell a FriendGot a Question?You ReportClick-2-ListenYahoo! BuzzEXCLUSIVE:

President Obama's efforts to curb the spread of nuclear weapons threaten to expose and derail a 40-year-old secret U.S. agreement to shield Israel's nuclear weapons from international scrutiny, former and current U.S. and Israeli officials and nuclear specialists say.

The issue will likely come to a head when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with Mr. Obama on May 18 in Washington. Mr. Netanyahu is expected to seek assurances from Mr. Obama that he will uphold the U.S. commitment and will not trade Israeli nuclear concessions for Iranian ones.

Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller, speaking Tuesday at a U.N. meeting on the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), said Israel should join the treaty, which would require Israel to declare and relinquish its nuclear arsenal.

"Universal adherence to the NPT itself, including by India, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea, ... remains a fundamental objective of the United States," Ms. Gottemoeller told the meeting, according to Reuters.

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http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/may/06/america-has-protected-israeli-nuke-program-for-40-//

America has protected Israeli nuke program for 40 years
By Eli Lake (Contact) | Wednesday, May 6, 2009

The origins of the U.S. shield of Israel's nuclear program date to a 1969 summit between President Nixon and Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, documents released in the past few years show.

There is no one piece of paper that actually describes the accord. However, the closest acknowledgment of the deal came in 2007, when the Nixon Library declassified many of the papers of former National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger. A July 7, 1969, memorandum to Mr. Nixon titled, "Israeli Nuclear Program," said that by the end of 1970, Israel would likely have 24 to 30 French surface-to-surface missiles, 10 of which would have nuclear warheads.

Mr. Kissinger, who later became secretary of state, wrote that ideally, the U.S. would prefer Israel to have no nuclear weapons, but that was not attainable.

He added that "public knowleadge is almost as dangerous as possession itself," arguing that an Israeli announcement of its arsenal or a nuclear test could prompt the Soviet Union to offer Arab states a nuclear guarantee.

"What this means is that: While we might ideally like to halt actual Israeli possession, what we really want at a minimum may be just to keep Israeli possession from becoming an established international fact," Mr. Kissinger wrote.

In December 2006, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert hinted publicly at this reality.

Responding to a question about the Iranian program in light of Israels nuclear arsenal, he said: "Israel is a democracy, Israel doesn't threaten any country with anything, never did. The most that we tried to get for ourselves is to try to live without terror, but we never threaten another nation with annihilation. Iran openly, explicitly and publicly threatens to wipe Israel off the map. Can you say that this is the same level, when they [Iran] are aspiring to have nuclear weapons, as America, France, Israel, Russia?"

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http://news.antiwar.com/2009/05/06/israel-reacts-with-shock-dismissal-at-us-calls-to-join-npt/

Israel Reacts With Shock, Dismissal at US Calls to Join NPT
US Has Kept Israeli Arsenal a Poorly-Kept Secret for 40 Years
by Jason Ditz, May 06, 2009

Yesterday’s comments by Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller, suggesting that the Obama Administration would like every nation, including Israel to join the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) came as a considerable shock to the Middle Eastern nation, which has for the past 40 years kept its nuclear arsenal one of the most poorly-kept secrets in the world.

Israeli officials dismissed the call, citing Iran’s membership in the NPT as proof that the pact is not “a miracle cure for the world’s ills.” The Israeli Foreign Minister has reportedly contacted the US for confirmation, unwilling to believe that a US officials could possibly suggest they should be a party to the non-proliferation agreement.

Yet it seems to be an accurate statement from the administration, and should provide interesting fodder for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s US visit later this month, and could imperil the long-standing secret deal between the two nations to keep Israel’s arsenal a secret.

The deal dates to 1969, when President Richard Nixon and Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir met. At the behest of National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger, Nixon agreed to keep the Israeli arsenal “from becoming an established international fact.” It has remained US policy ever since, sort of a running joke as US and Israeli officials are forever accidentally confirming the weapons.

Entering the NPT would place Israel’s nuclear arsenal under direct international scrutiny for the first time since its creation. Coming clean with its own decades of nuclear activities may also undermine its demands to crack down on the Iranian government, which by all accounts seems to be respecting the deal.

Q+A-Why the Obama attention on Afghanistan and Pakistan?

http://wire.antiwar.com/2009/05/05/qa-why-the-obama-attention-on-afghanistan-and-pakistan/

Jerry Norton
Reuters North American News Service

May 05, 2009 03:05 EST

ISLAMABAD, May 5 (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama presents his strategy for defeating al Qaeda to the leaders of Afghanistan and Pakistan on Wednesday as U.S. concern grows it is losing the Afghan war and neither country is a reliable ally.

The White House meetings with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Afghan President Hamid Karzai will be Obama's first face-to-face sessions with the two men.

Central to U.S. concerns are the activity of al Qaeda and its leader, Osama bin Laden, held responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, and of the hard-line Islamist Taliban who give al Qaeda shelter and support.

Just a week ago Obama said "it is my job to make sure that bin Laden and his cronies are not able to create a safe haven with which they can kill another 3,000 Americans or more".

But preventing another attack on U.S. soil is not simply a matter of pouring more troops into Afghanistan, nor is that the only concern of the United States in the region. Here are some other considerations.

WHAT ABOUT THE NEIGHBOURS?

India and China have their own problems with Islamic militants they do not want supported from Afghanistan and Pakistan, with whom they share common borders. India or China might be tempted to act if U.S. leadership is ineffective in controlling the situation. So might Shi'ite Muslim Iran, which has its own differences with the militantly Sunni al Qaeda, and is unhappy over a domestic drug problem linked to supplies from Afghanistan. Russia is also worried about the flow of drugs and militancy from the region. Washington does not want Afghanistan and Pakistan as bases for trouble in the wider region, or give others an excuse for intervention.

HOW DOES PAKISTAN FIGURE IN THE AFGHANISTAN WAR?

The U.S.-led invasion in 2001 threw the Taliban out of Kabul and forced their and al Qaeda's remnants into the most remote and rugged parts of Afghanistan and the Pakistan border region. But the United States then turned its attention to Iraq. The forces devoted to Afghanistan not only failed to finish off the militants but could not stop their resurgence. Violence in Afghanistan is at its highest levels since the Taliban were driven from power. The insurgents' ability to rest and regroup in Pakistan has been an important factor in their rebound.

WHAT DOES THE U.S. WANT FROM PAKISTAN?

The United States wants Pakistan to crack down hard on al Qaeda and Afghan Taliban sheltering in the border areas. It is also concerned about growing violence within Pakistan against the government. Indigenous Pakistani Taliban effectively control the Swat valley, and last month moved into the neighbouring Buner area, just 100 km (60 miles) northwest of Islamabad. While the military has since been pushing them back, its past offensives have been followed by peace deals allowing the militants to rearm and increase their strength. They have been able to pull off suicide and other attacks across Pakistan, raising fear about government stability. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has accused Islamabad of abdicating to the Taliban by agreeing to Islamic law in Swat and Obama has expressed concern the government is "very fragile".

IS THE U.S. WORRIED ABOUT PAKISTAN'S NUCLEAR WEAPONS?

If one believes the public words of Obama and top U.S. military officer Admiral Mike Mullen, no. Within the last week, for example, Obama said: "I'm confident that we can make sure Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is secure". But other U.S. officials have been quoted anonymously as being less optimistic. The New York Times has reported growing U.S. concern militants might try to snatch a weapon in transit or insert sympathisers into laboratories or fuel-production facilities, especially given what some call Pakistan's "creeping Talibanisation". For its part, Islamabad insists the weapons are safe.

WHY ELSE ARE AFGHANISTAN AND PAKISTAN IMPORTANT?

Afghanistan produces 90 percent of the world's opium, and Clinton said it had become a "narco state" in her confirmation hearings. Much of the output comes from Taliban-controlled areas.

Much of the material for U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan is unloaded in Pakistan's main port of Karachi and transported by land into Afghanistan. Increase militancy and political turbulence in Pakistan threaten those supplies.

Given peace and security, Pakistan and Afghanistan have the potential to be an "energy corridor" with pipelines carrying natural gas from the Middle East and Central Asia to the growing economies of India, China and other Asian countries. (Editing by Robert Birsel)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/07/cheney-mistake-for-gop-to_n_199330.html

Cheney: "Mistake" For GOP To "Moderate," Glad That Detainees Were Waterboarded
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Share Print CommentsFormer Vice President Dick Cheney defended the Bush administration's use of waterboarding on Thursday, saying that, contrary to arguments made by Barack Obama, the techniques were a necessary last-resort measure to get information from detainees.

"I don't believe that's true," Cheney said, when asked to respond to Obama's statement that interrogators may not have needed to resort to torture. "That assumes that we didn't try other ways, and in fact we did. We resorted, for example, to waterboarding, which is the source of much of the controversy, with only three individuals. In those cases, it was only after we'd gone through all the other steps of the process. The way the whole program was set up was very careful, to use other methods and only to resort to the enhanced techniques in those special circumstances."

The remarks, delivered during an interview with Scott Hennen, a conservative North Dakota radio host, glossed over the 266 instances in which the United States reportedly used waterboarding on two terrorist suspects -- a figure that would suggest the technique was either not effective or not really used as a last-resort option.

Earlier, Cheney argued that the policies which he and other Bush administration officials pursued were, in fact, successful, and that his request to declassify information from the National Archives would prove as much.

"If anybody (who obviously has to have clearances) takes a look at the record, they'll find that we had significant success as a result of these policies," he said. "One way to nail that down is that there are two documents in particular that I personally have read and know about that are still classified in that National Archives. I'd ask that they be declassified. I made that request over a month ago on March 31st. What those documents show is the success, especially of the interrogation program in terms of what it produced by way of intelligence that let us track down members of al-Qaida and disrupt their plans and plots to strike the United States. It's all there in black and white. It is work that was done by the Central Intelligence Agency after several years of experience with these programs. It demonstrates conclusively the worth of those programs. As I say, I've asked the administration to declassify them and so far they have not."

Attributing Obama's decision to end such policies to an attempt "to appeal to the far-left in their party," Cheney was not-surprisingly adamant that investigating these interrogation techniques was a bad idea. He also called on the White House to "do everything they can" to stop foreign governments from prosecuting the Bush hands who carried out these practices.

On the domestic front, the former vice president said he was not surprised by the defection of Senator Arlen Specter. Nor was he worried about the future of the GOP. Calling politics cyclical, he concluded that the party did not need to go through a process of moderation.

"I think it would be a mistake for us to moderate. This is about fundamental beliefs and values and ideas...what the role of government should be in our society, and our commitment to the Constitution and constitutional principles," he said. "You know, when you add all those things up the idea that we ought to moderate basically means we ought to fundamentally change our philosophy. I for one am not prepared to do that, and I think most us aren't."

In the process of making another newsworthy interview, Cheney did -- without apparent irony -- allude to the fact that the GOP would benefit from him exiting the stage.

"I think periodically we have to go through one these sessions," he said. "It helps clear away some of the underbrush...some of the older folks who've been around a long time (like yours truly) need to move on, and make room for that young talent that's coming along. But I think it's basically healthy."

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE5468AF20090507

NY Fed chair Friedman resigns
Thu May 7, 2009 7:09pm EDT Email | Print | Share| Reprints | Single Page[-] Text [+]


NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stephen Friedman, chairman of the New York Federal Reserve's board of directors, resigned on Thursday amid questions about stock purchases in his former firm Goldman Sachs.

The purchases of Goldman Sachs occurred after the firm became a bank holding company.

Denis Hughes, the deputy chair of the board, will take over Friedman's role, the New York Fed said.

(Reporting by Kristina Cooke)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/08/AR2009050804228.html?wprss=rss_politics

Obama Set to Revive Military Commissions

By Peter Finn
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 9, 2009

The Obama administration is preparing to revive the system of military commissions established at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, under new rules that would offer terrorism suspects greater legal protections, government officials said.

The rules would block the use of evidence obtained from coercive interrogations, tighten the admissibility of hearsay testimony and allow detainees greater freedom to choose their attorneys, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

The military commissions have allowed the trial of terrorism suspects in a setting that favors the government and protects classified information, but they were sharply criticized during the administration of President George W. Bush. "By any measure, our system of trying detainees has been an enormous failure," then-candidate Barack Obama said in June 2008.

In one of its first acts, the Obama administration obtained a 120-day suspension of the military commissions; that will expire May 20. Human rights groups had interpreted the suspension as the death knell for military commissions and expected the transfer of cases to military courts martial or federal courts.

Officials said yesterday that the Obama administration will seek a 90-day extension of the suspension as early as next week. It would subsequently restart the commissions on American soil, probably at military bases, according to a lawyer briefed on the plan.

"This is an extraordinary development, and it's going to tarnish the image of American justice again," said Tom Parker, a counterterrorism specialist at Amnesty International.

A White House official said no final decision has been made, and one source involved in the discussions said the plan awaits Obama's approval.

The administration's extension would allow it to meet a requirement to provide Congress with 60 days' notice of any rule changes in the way the commissions function, officials said. Congress established the commissions in 2006 after the Supreme Court struck down a system of military tribunals created by the Bush administration.

The Obama administration's plan to reinstate the commissions with modifications reflects the fear that some cases would fail in federal courts or in standard military legal settings.

"It looks a lot more difficult now than it did on Jan. 20," said one government official.

Civil liberties advocates, who insist that federal courts can handle terrorism cases, vowed to challenge any new process.

"We'll litigate this before they can proceed, absolutely," said Anthony D. Romero, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union. "Any effort to tinker with military commissions would be an enormous mistake. There is no way to fix a flawed process that has not rendered justice."

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090508/pl_afp/mideastislamuspoliticsobama

Obama to make major address to Muslims in Egypt
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WASHINGTON (AFP) – President Barack Obama will make his long-awaited direct address to Muslims in a major speech in Egypt on June 4, accelerating his effort to rebuild the tattered US image in the Islamic world.

Obama chose Egypt for what will be a closely watched appeal because it is the heart of the Arab world, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Friday, laying out details of a trip that will also take in Germany and France.

"On June 4, the president will give a speech in Egypt. The speech will be about America's relations with the Muslim world," Gibbs said.

The speech will demonstrate "how we can work together to ensure the safety and security and the future wellbeing through hope and opportunity of the children of this country and of the Muslim world," Gibbs said.

Gibbs said there were no plans for Obama to make any further stops in the Middle East during the visit, following press reports the president could also visit Israel on the trip.

The president promised during his 2008 election campaign to make a speech at a major Islamic forum within the first 100 days of his administration which ended last week, as the timetable slipped for logistical reasons.

He did however make a speech in the Turkish parliament last month, during his first presidential visit to a Muslim-majority nation, declaring the United States was not at war with Islam, and noting his own partly Muslim heritage.

The visit to Egypt will come as Obama tries to ignite new momentum under Middle East peacemaking, with talks here in coming weeks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas.

Gibbs defended Obama from claims that by choosing Egypt, where the State Department says there are "significant restrictions on the political process and freedom of expression" the US president was watering down US support for democracy promotion abroad.

"It is a country that in many ways represents the heart of the Arab world," Gibbs said. "I think it will be a terrific opportunity for the president to address and discuss our relationship with the Muslim world."

The visit will also come as Obama tries to coax US foe Iran into dialogue and launches a major push for a two-state solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Obama last month reached out to Muslims from the well of the Turkish parliament.

"You cannot put out fire with flames," Obama said, arguing that brute force alone could not thwart extremism as he sent a flurry of coded messages throughout the Middle East.

Obama, who spent part of his childhood in Indonesia, and is the son of a Kenyan father of Muslim heritage, drew on his own biography as he sought to forge new trust with the Islamic world.

The president said US ties with Islam could not be simply defined by opposition to terrorism, decades into a US struggle with extremism that was sharpened by the September 11 attacks in 2001.

"The United States has been enriched by Muslim Americans. Many other Americans have Muslims in their family, or have lived in a Muslim-majority country -- I know, because I am one of them."

Within days of taking office in January, Obama launched his effort to engage the Muslim world by granting an interview with the Al-Arabiya television network.

The White House also said Friday that Obama will visit the German city of Dresden and the former Nazi death camp at Buchenwald in June 5, before traveling onto D-Day commemorations in France.

Obama's great-uncle, Charlie Payne, took part in the liberation of part of the Buchenwald camp in 1945 with the US Army, but Gibbs said it was unclear whether he would travel with the president.

Payne was a private in the 89th Infantry Division during World War II when he took part in the liberation of Ohrdruf, a forced-labor camp that was part of Buchenwald.

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http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/05/10/pakistani-president-believes-osama-bin-laden-is-dead/

Pakistani president: Osama bin Laden is dead

Share on Facebook By David Edwards and Jeremy Gantz

Published: May 10, 2009
Updated 1 day ago

Two weeks ago, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zadari suggested that Osama bin Laden might be dead, saying that U.S. and Pakistani intelligence agencies had been unable to detect any sign of the world’s most wanted man since an audio recording of his voice was released in March.

Sunday morning, Zadari went further: “I don’t think he’s alive,” the president told NBC’s David Gregory. “I have a strong feeling and reason to believe that.” Zadari continued: “I have asked my counterparts in the American intelligence services and they haven’t heard [from] him in seven years.”

The CIA has not confirmed that the voice purporting to be bin Laden in the March recording was in fact bin Laden. U.S. officials have claimed that bin Laden could be hiding in the mountainous region along the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Just before saying that he believes bin Laden is dead, Zadari told Gregory that America has “been looking [in Afghanistan] for eight years… You lost him in Torah Borah, I didn’t.”

But Pakistan is still part of the worldwide “lookout brigade” for the alleged terrorism mastermind, Zadari said.

This video is from NBC’s Meet the Press, broadcast May 10, 2009.