Sheriff Arpaio: Obama’s Documents Are Amateur Phonies (Infowars)

Obama’s Records Are Missing + Mike Zullo, Jerome Corsi Full Interviews.

Infowars.com
March 31, 2012

The Obama records which have not been released include; Passport records, Obama kindergarten records, Punahou School records, Occidental College records, Columbia University records, Columbia thesis, Harvard Law School records, Harvard Law Review articles, University of Chicago scholarly articles, Illinois State Bar Association records, Illinois State Senate records/schedules (said to be lost), Medical records, Obama/Dunham marriage license, Obama/Dunham divorce documents, Soetoro/Dunham marriage license, Adoption records and of course the long-form Certificate of Live Birth.

State Representative Carl Seel, who introduced the bill, was joined by Sheriff Joe Arpaio, State Senator Lori Klein, and others in support of the bill. Important new information was revealed during the news conference including a request by Sheriff Joe Arpaio to the current head of the Selective Service Board to investigate the criminal forgery committed in the case of Barack Obama’s Selective Service registration. In addtion, Carl Seel reveals some of the resistance that other Republicans are creating to stop the bill from even heading to a vote.

The bill will require Barack Obama, or any candidate seeking to be on the Arizona ballot, to certify eligibility for the office they are seeking. This will essentially require Barack Obama to certify his eligibility if he wants to be on the ballot this year in Arizona. This could potentially be a game-changing piece of legislation.

Report: Israel's Mossad scales back covert operations in Iran (Haaretz)

According to a Time Magazine report, operations reduced in areas such as high-profile missions, including assassinations and detonations at Iranian missile bases, and spy recruitment inside Iran nuclear program.

Haaretz
March 31, 2012 05:21

A Time Magazine report revealed on Friday that Israeli intelligence services have scaled back their covert operations inside Iran.

Iranian workers stand in front of the Bushehr nuclear 

power plant, about 1,200 km (746 miles) south of 

Tehran, in this October 26, 2010 file picture.

Photo by: Reuters

According to senior security officials who spoke to the magazine, operations have been reduced in areas such as high-profile missions, including assassinations and detonations at Iranian missile bases, as well as in recruiting spies inside the Iranian nuclear program, and efforts to gather on-the-ground intelligence.

The report further states that according to one official, the reductions have caused “increasing dissatisfaction” inside the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency. Another official credits the reduced activities to the reluctance of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who the official says is worried about the outcome of the operations being discovered.

According to Time Magazine, Iranian intelligence already cracked a cell trained and equipped by the Mossad. Western intelligence confirmed that the detailed confession of Majid Jamali Fashid over the January 2010 assassination by motorcycle bomb of nuclear scientist Massoud Ali Mohmmadi was genuine, and blamed a third country for exposing the cell.

The magazine also states that a new U.S. reluctance to turn a blind eye to said assassinations may be a thing of the past. After the killing of nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan in January, the United States “categorically” denied involvement in the death and issued a condemnation.

Scaling back covert operations against Iran carries costs, Time Magazine said, especially as Iran hurries to disperse its centrifuges into facilities deep underground. In one intelligence finding, an Israeli official says Iran itself estimates that sabotage to date has set back its centrifuge program by two full years. The computer virus known as Stuxnet is only the best known of a series of efforts to slow the Iranian program.

That effort involves a variety of governments besides Israel, involving equipment made to purposely malfunction after being tampered with before it physically entered Iran, says the report. The setbacks have prompted Iran to announce it would manufacture all components of its nuclear program itself – something outside experts are highly skeptical Tehran has the ability to actually do.


Related:
Report: Iran Attack Postponed Until Spring 2013

Syrian rebel 'Executioner' tells his story...real face of Syrian opposition

The Burial Brigade of Homs
An Executioner for Syria's Rebels Tells His Story
Spiegel Online
03/29/2012

Human Rights Watch has condemned abuses committed by Syrian rebels in their stronghold of Homs. But one member of a rebel "burial brigade" who has executed four men by slitting their throats defended his work in an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE. "If we don't do it, nobody will hold these perpetrators to account," he said.

By Ulrike Putz in Beirut

Hussein can barely remember the first time he executed someone. It was probably in a cemetery in the evening, or at night; he can't recall exactly. It was definitely mid-October of last year, and the man was Shiite, for sure. He had confessed to killing women -- decent women, whose husbands and sons had protested against Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime. So the rebels had decided that the man, a soldier in the Syrian army, deserved to die, too.

Hussein didn't care if the man had been beaten into a confession, or that he was terrified of death and had begun to stammer prayers. It was his tough luck that the rebels had caught him. Hussein took out his army knife and sliced the kneeling man's neck. His comrades from the so-called "burial brigade" quickly interred the blood-stained corpse in the sand of the graveyard west of the Baba Amr area of the rebel stronghold of Homs. At the time, the neighborhood was in the hands of the insurgents.

That first execution was a rite of passage for Hussein. He now became a member of the Homs burial brigade. The men, of which there are only a handful, kill in the name of the Syrian revolution. They leave torture to others; that's what the so-called interrogation brigade is for. "They do the ugly work," says Hussein, who is currently being treated in a hospital in the Lebanese city of Tripoli. He was injured when a piece of shrapnel became lodged in his back during the army's ground invasion of Baba Amr in early March.

He is recovering in relatively safe Lebanon until he can return to Syria and "get back to work." It's a job he considers relatively clean. "Most men can torture, but they're not able to kill from close range," he explains. "I don't know why, but it doesn't bother me. That's why they gave me the job of executioner. It's something for a madman like me."

Before he joined the Farouk Brigade, as the Baba Amr militia is known, last August, the 24-year-old had worked as a salesman. "I can sell everything, from porcelain to yogurt," he says.

How the Rebels Lost Their Innocence

The bloody uprising against the Assad regime has now lasted for a year. And Hussein's story illustrates that, in this time, the rebels have also lost their innocence.

There are probably many reasons for that development. Hussein can rattle off several of them. "There are no longer any laws in Syria," he says. "Soldiers or thugs hired by the regime kill men, maim children and rape our women. If we don't do it, nobody will hold these perpetrators to account."

Another reason, he explains, is the desire for vengeance. "I have been arrested twice. I was tortured for 72 hours. They hung me by the hands, until the joints in my shoulders cracked. They burnt me with hot irons. Of course I want revenge."

His family, too, has suffered. He explains that he lost three uncles, all murdered by the regime. "One of them died with his five children," he says. "Their murderers deserve no mercy."

Most chillingly, Hussein believes that violence is simply in the nature of his society. "Children in France grow up with French, and learn to speak it perfectly," he says. "We Syrians were brought up with the language of violence. We don't speak anything else."

But in spite of all the rebels' justification for their brand of self-administered justice, Hussein's actions fall under what the non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch on Tuesday condemned as "serious human rights abuses" on the part of the Syrian rebels. In the corridors of the hospital in Tripoli, Hussein and his fellow injured comrades speak openly about the fact that they, just like the regime's troops, torture and kill. They find the criticism from the human rights activists unfair: "We rebels are trying to defend the people. We're fighting against slaughterers. When we catch them, we must strike hard," says one fighter, who goes by the nom de guerre Abu Rami.

Alternative Justice System

Over the course of the last year, Homs had developed into the unofficial capital of the revolution. Until a few weeks ago, the rebels controlled whole neighborhoods of the city, especially the district of Baba Amr. But that area was overrun by government troops in early March. The fight between rebels and government forces has now shifted to the neighboring district of Khalidiya.

According to Abu Rami and Hussein, the alternative justice system that the rebels set up in Homs last fall remains intact. "When we catch regime supporters, they are brought before a court martial," they say. The commander of the rebels in Homs, Abu Mohammed, presides over the court. He is assisted by Abu Hussein, the head of the coordinating committee. "Sometimes even more men act as a jury," says Hussein. The interrogation brigade reports on the confessions of the accused. Often the suspects even had videos on their cell phones that showed atrocities being perpetrated against insurgents, the men say. "In that situation, their guilt is established quickly." In the event of a conviction, the prisoners are then handed over to Hussein's burial brigade, which takes them to gardens or to the cemetery. And then Hussein comes along with his knife.

So far, Hussein has cut the throats of four men. Among the group of executioners in Homs, he is the least experienced -- something that he almost seems apologetic about. "I was wounded four times in the last seven months," he says. "I was out of action for a long time." On top of that, he also has other commitments. "I operate our heavy machine gun, a Russian BKC. Naturally I have killed a lot more men with that. But only four with the blade." That will change soon, he says. "I hope I will be released from the hospital next week and can return to Homs. Then those dogs will be in for it."

'Sometimes We Acquit People'

The rebels in Homs began carrying out regular executions in August of last year, shortly after the conflict in the country began to escalate, says Hussein's comrade Abu Rami. In his Adidas tracksuit, he looks like any other convalescent in the hospital. But Abu Rami is a senior member of the Homs militia. The other Syrians in the ward greet him respectfully and pay close attention to his words.

"Since last summer, we have executed slightly fewer than 150 men, which represents about 20 percent of our prisoners," says Abu Rami. Those prisoners who are not convicted and sentenced to death are exchanged for rebel prisoners or detained protesters, he says. But the executioners of Homs have been busier with traitors within their own ranks than with prisoners of war. "If we catch a Sunni spying, or if a citizen betrays the revolution, we make it quick," says the fighter. According to Abu Rami, Hussein's burial brigade has put between 200 and 250 traitors to death since the beginning of the uprising.

He dismisses any doubts about whether these people were really all guilty and whether they received a fair trial. "We make great efforts to investigate thoroughly," Abu Rami says. "Sometimes we acquit people, too."

Apart from anything else, it is simply the nature of every revolution to be bloody, Abu Rami explains. "Syria is not a country for the sensitive."

The Kandahar Massacre: Anatomy of a Massacre (Dateline SBS Austrailia) EXCLUSIVE insight, hear the truth from the survivors

Anatomy of a Massacre
Dateline SBS Australia
Information Clearing House

What really happened on the night of March 11 when 17 Afghan civilians were massacred in Kandahar province?

Many Afghans, including some of the survivors that night, believe more than one U.S. soldier was present in the two villages where the killings took place.

With unprecedented access to Afghan military investigators, Yalda Hakim travels to the villages where the massacre took place and interviews survivors of the attack, as well as Afghan guards at the US military base that housed the alleged gunman.

US soldier Robert Bales is in custody, facing charges of mass murder, but Afghan investigators suspect there may have been at least one other killer involved.

INTERVIEW WITH YALDA - Yalda Hakim explains to SBS Radio's World News Australia how she was able to get such unprecedented access to the massacre investigation.

Posted March 30, 2012


http://youtu.be/gnueG4I7Q9g

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With $15 trillion in debt, I guess we can afford to give Tunisia $100 million in cash...

U.S. to provide $100 million debt aid to Tunisia
Al Arabiya News/ AFP
Thursday, 29 March 2012

The United States said Thursday it would grant $100 million to Tunisia to pay its debts, hoping to let the government focus on the economy and show a success in the birthplace of the Arab Spring.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Tunisia will be given 

$100 million by the United States to help pay off its debts. (Reuters) 

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the United States was also negotiating a separate package in which Washington would offer loan guarantees to raise hundreds of millions of dollars in capital for Tunisia.

Clinton, who spoke by telephone Wednesday with Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali, said the aid would let Tunisia pare down debts to the World Bank and African Development Bank left over from dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s 23-year regime.

The $100 million U.S. cash transfer will allow Tunisia “to instead use this money for its priority programs, accelerating economic growth and job creation,” Clinton said in a statement...

(click here to read the full article)

Britain upping the cash to Syrian rebels...so isn`t this 'foreign intervention' and violation of international law? But who follows the the law these days huh?

Flashpoint Funding: UK doubles Syria rebel cashflow

Russia Today
Friday, March 30, 2012

The UK has announced it will allocate some £500,000 ($795,000) to supply non-military aid to the Syrian opposition. The Foreign Secretary says it will help the 'hard-pressed' opposition groups to register violations by the Assad government. RT's Laura Smith says exactly what type of support and equipment the opposition will receive is yet to be determined. What is already known is that the aid package is likely to include secure telephones that the British Foreign Secretary hopes will be used to document the regime's violence.

Uploaded by RussiaToday on Mar 30, 2012
http://youtu.be/3GFIFe2Xtps

RT on Twitter http://twitter.com/RT_com
RT on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/RTnews

Apollo 11 engines discovered in the Atlantic

credit: NASA

Engines from Apollo 11 moon flight found in the Atlantic
Salvage operation led by Amazon boss aims to recover engines that powered the first moon landing

Sam Jones
guardian.co.uk
Thursday 29 March 2012 13.14 EDT

Nearly 43 years after they thrust the Apollo 11 astronauts moonwards through a blue Florida sky, the mighty engines that helped deliver man to the Sea of Tranquillity have been found in the depths of the Atlantic Ocean.

The five engines, last seen driving the Saturn V rocket free of the Earth on 16 July 1969, were found in a search led by the Amazon chief executive and space enthusiast Jeff Bezos, who hopes to recover at least one.

The engines took 2½ minutes to hurl the rocket 40 miles into the heavens before falling into the ocean. Four days later, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first men to walk on the moon.

Amazon Boss-Jeff Bezos Photograph: Ted S. Warren/AP 

Bezos – who credits the Apollo 11 mission with fuelling his passion for science, engineering and exploration – embarked on the salvage mission a year ago after deciding it might be possible "with the right team of undersea pros".

"I'm excited to report that, using state-of-the-art deep sea sonar, the team has found the Apollo 11 engines lying 14,000 feet below the surface, and we're making plans to attempt to raise one or more of them from the ocean floor," Bezos wrote in a breathless blog post on Wednesday.

"We don't know yet what condition these engines might be in — they hit the ocean at high velocity and have been in salt water for more than 40 years...

(click here to read the full article)

Insight into China`s brutal one child policy (WARNING: Graphic image)

The Shocking Face Of China’s Brutal One Child Policy

Can’t happen here? Top academics and eugenicists are calling for what Obama’s science czar once advocated

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Thursday, March 29, 2012

This is the shocking face of China’s brutal one child policy which many academics and pressure groups are now calling to be imposed in the west – the image shows a 9 month old baby lying dead in a bucket, forcibly aborted by Chinese family planning authorities in the town of Moshan, Shandong province. 

Because the parents of the baby already had a child, they were hunted down and forced to comply with China’s draconian one child policy. The mother was injected with a poison that induced an abortion, but after the baby was “pulled out inhumanly like a piece of meat,” it was still alive and began to cry before doctors slung the defenseless child into a bucket and left it to die.

credit: Infowars

The time stamp on the image tells us the baby was killed on Monday. The image began circulating today on Weibo, China’s version of Twitter, which has around 260 million members. The story has attracted widespread revulsion directed against the family planning authorities responsible for the murder of the baby.

China’s one child policy is enforced by way of forced abortions, infanticide and compulsory sterilization. In many cases, women are literally kidnapped off the street by state goons from the “Birth Control Office,” driven to government hospitals, drugged, and their child is forcibly aborted.

In one case in 2009, both a young woman and her baby were killed after such an abduction in Liaocheng City.

“According to a Doctor at the hospital where the two died, the young woman was kidnapped by the “Birth Control Office” and taken to the hospital where she was forced to undergo an abortion procedure,” reported the Epoch Times.

“The young woman fought with staff to protect her unborn child however a half a dozen men, pushed her down on a bed and injected her with a drug to induce labor. After the young woman had a still birth, she developed a massive hemorrhage and soon thereafter died.”

The practice of infanticide has its origins in barbaric eras of ancient history, but it is still common is many areas of the world today, including China where the one child policy allied with the social pressure to have boys has resulted in a massive imbalance in the population. Studies have found that 40 million girls are ‘missing’ in China as a result of gender-selective abortion and infanticide. In India, there are 50 million less females for the same reasons.

Advocates of population control, which is nothing more than a disguise for modern day eugenics, have long pressured for the one child policy to be enforced in the west. In 2009, an article written in Canada’s National Post argued for “A planetary law, such as China’s one-child policy, is the only way to reverse the disastrous global birthrate.”

In his 1977 book Ecoscience, current White House science czar John P. Holdren floated the idea of forced abortions and compulsory sterilization, amongst a raft of other draconian population control measures, all of which would be carried out by a “Planetary Regime”.

During a speech at Sichuan University last year, Vice President Joe Biden told an audience that he “fully understands” China’s one child policy.

News network CNN, in addition to billionaire Ted Turner and other elitists, along with a whole host of pressure groups committed to pushing for population control, have all advocated the one child policy.

As we reported last month, a paper published in the Journal of Medical Ethics authored by top academics at the University of Melbourne argued that abortion should be extended to make the killing of newborn babies permissible, even if the baby is perfectly healthy.

The authors argued that “both fetuses and newborns do not have the same moral status as actual persons,” and that because abortion is allowed even when there is no problem with the fetus’ health, “killing a newborn should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.”

The scintilla of hope that we can take from this distressing story is the fact that this baby’s precious few minutes of life before it was murdered were not in vain and in fact could end up meaning more than most people who live to old age. Why? Because as a result of seeing this one image, scores of couples around the world could decide against having an abortion, saving many more babies’ lives in the long run.

The image also serves as a damning condemnation of China’s arcane one child policy, as well as a warning that calls to impose similar population control measures in the west should be forcefully discredited, resisted and rejected at every turn.

This story is an Infowars English-language exclusive.

*********************

Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show and Infowars Nightly News.

Why Does The Department Of Homeland Security Need 450 MILLION Hollow Point Bullets?

The American Dream
Thursday March 29, 2012
Somebody out there has decided that the Department of Homeland Security needs a whole lot of ammunition. Recently it was announced that ATK was awarded a contract to provide up to 450 MILLION hollow point bullets to the Department of Homeland Security over the next five years.

Is it just me, or does that sound incredibly excessive? What in the world is the DHS going to do with 450 million rounds? What possible event would ever require that much ammunition? If the United States was ever invaded, it would be the job of the U.S. military to defend the country, so that can’t be it. So what are all of those bullets for? Who does the Department of Homeland Security plan to be shooting at? According to the U.S. Census, there are only about 311 million people living in the entire country. So why does the Department of Homeland Security need 450 million rounds of ammunition? Either this is an incredible waste or there is something that the Department of Homeland Security is not telling us.

I could understand if the U.S. military was ordering ammunition in this quantity. When you fight wars you can go through ammunition very rapidly.

But the Department of Homeland Security is only supposed to be shooting at people very rarely.

It simply does not make sense that they would need so much ammunition. 

The following is an excerpt from the official press release about this deal between ATK and the Department of Homeland Security….

     ATK announced that it is being awarded an Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) 
     agreement from the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs 
     Enforcement (DHS, ICE) for .40 caliber ammunition. This contract features a base of 12 
     months, includes four option years, and will have a maximum volume of 450 million   
     rounds.

     ATK was the incumbent and won the contract with its HST bullet, which has proven itself in   
     the field. The special hollow point effectively passes through a variety of barriers and 
     holds its jacket in the toughest conditions. HST is engineered for 100-percent weight 
     retention, limits collateral damage, and avoids over-penetration.

     “We are proud to extend our track record as the prime supplier of .40 caliber duty 
     ammunition for DHS, ICE,” said Ron Johnson, President of ATK’s Security and Sporting 
     group.

But this is not the only kind of ammo that the DHS is placing an order for.
Business Insider is also reporting that the Department of Homeland Security is seeking to buy 175 million rifle ammunition rounds….

     We’ve also learned that the Department has an open bid for a stockpile of rifle ammo. 
     Listed on the federal business opportunities network, they’re looking for up to 175 million 
     rounds of .233 caliber ammo to be exact. The 223 is almost exactly the same round used 
     by NATO forces, the 5.56 x 45mm.

This all comes at a time when gun sales are absolutely going through the roof in the United States.

Gun manufacturer Sturm, Ruger & Co. recently announced that it would be suspending new orders until May because it received orders for more than one million guns during the months of January and February.

The following announcement about this suspension of sales comes from their official website….

• The Company’s Retailer Programs that were offered from January 1, 2012 through   February 29, 2012 were very successful and generated significant orders from retailers to independent wholesale distributors for Ruger firearms.

• Year-to-date, the independent wholesale distributors placed orders with the     Company for more than one million Ruger firearms.

• Despite the Company’s continuing successful efforts to increase production rates, the incoming order rate exceeds our capacity to rapidly fulfill these orders. Consequently, the Company has temporarily suspended the acceptance of new orders.  

• The Company expects to resume the normal acceptance of orders by the end of May 2012.

Since Barack Obama first took office, gun sales in America have risen to extraordinary levels.
Overall, more than 10 million guns were sold in the United States during 2011.

And gun sales have continued to rise at a brisk pace in 2012. The following was recently posted on Yahoo News….

     The NSSF said that 920,840 instant criminal background checks were made in January 
     alone, a gain of 17.3% over the same month in 2011. This now makes it the 20th 
     consecutive month of increases. While using the number of background checks is a good 
     measurement of sales, it doesn’t paint the whole picture as some checks are used for the 
     purchases of multiple firearms. Also, some private transfers and sales from gun shows 
     are exempt, making the actual number of guns sold higher.

According to Gallup, 41 percent of all Americans said that they owned a gun in 2010. But when that question was asked again in 2011, that number had risen to 47 percent.
Clearly, a lot of Americans are feeling the need to arm themselves.

Unfortunately, they may find themselves short on ammunition for those guns considering how much ammo the government is buying up.

So what is causing everyone to buy so many guns?

Well, without a doubt we are likely to see a rise in crime as the U.S. economy continues to crumble.  People want to be able to protect themselves and their families when everything falls apart.  In fact, we are already starting to see some really violent home invasions in many parts of the nation.  Many in the prepper movement are deeply concerned about the direction this country is headed and they want to be prepared for whatever happens.

Of course the rising gang problem in America is a major concern too.  According to the FBI there are now 1.4 million gang members living in the United States, and that number has increased by 40 percent since 2009.  Many urban communities have essentially been taken over by these gangs, and many of these gangs are definitely not shy about using violence.  Average Americans that live in these communities want to be able to have a fighting chance against these gangs.

But that doesn't explain why the DHS needs so much ammunition.  Yes, our world is becoming increasingly unstable, but under what conditions does the DHS ever anticipate firing off 450 million rounds?

Something does not add up.  If anyone has a possible explanation for why the DHS would need 450 million rounds of ammunition, please post a comment and share your thoughts with us below....


http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/why-does-the-department-of-homeland-security-need-450-million-hollow-point-bullets

Iran War pushed till Spring 2013

Report: Iran Attack Postponed Until Spring 2013

Unsuccessful war simulation has given Israelis cold feet

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Thursday, March 29, 2012

credit: Infowars

Israel’s plan to attack Iran has been postponed until spring 2013 following a war simulation that showed Iran could kill 200 Americans with a single missile strike, according to a report by senior Haaretz correspondent Amir Oren.   

“At 8:58 P.M. on Tuesday, Israel’s 2012 war against Iran came to a quiet end. The capricious plans for a huge aerial attack were returned to the deep recesses of safes and hearts. The war may not have been canceled but it has certainly been postponed. For a while, at least, we can sound the all clear: It won’t happen this year. Until further notice, Israel Air Force Flight 007 will not be taking off,” writes Oren.

According to the report, a war simulation conducted by the U.S. Central Command found that an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities would immediately be followed by an Iranian missile launch that would kill 200 Americans, a price deemed not worth paying by U.S. generals.
During the same meeting, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak also acknowledged that Israel would not act alone in striking Iran before the U.S. presidential elections in November, according to Oren, meaning that, “For all intents and purposes, it was an announcement that this war was being postponed until at least the spring of 2013.”

A delay in launching the attack until next spring would scupper expectations that the military assault was set to take place before the end of this year, a time frame that Russia understood the Israelis were working to. Last month, Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Nikolai Makarov stated that an Israeli decision on whether or not to attack would be made before the summer.

In January, the U.S. cancelled a joint military exercise with Israel which was perceived by many as a sign that the Americans were getting cold feet.

Earlier this month it was also reported that Israel had “agreed to hold off a strike on Iran’s nuclear sites this year in exchange for receiving U.S. military equipment,” including bunker-busting bombs and refueling planes. The deal was seen as a tacit admission that the Obama administration would support Israel in launching the attack but only after the election in November.

If a decision has been made to postpone the attack, expect the United States to withdraw at least some of its naval might from the Persian Gulf. The U.S. currently has the USS Carl Vinson and the USS Abraham aircraft carriers patrolling the Strait of Hormuz, along with the USS Makin Island, a Wasp-class amphibious assault ship. Earlier this month it was announced that four additional mine countermeasure ships were also heading for the region.

As the Stratfor Naval Update map below illustrates, the USS Enterprise, which many speculated was also heading to the Strait of Hormuz in preparation for a strike on Iran, is now scheduled to visit Piraeus, Greece instead, suggesting a cooling of tensions could be taking place – at least for the time being.



*********************
Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show and Infowars Nightly News.

The FBI taught its agents that they could sometimes “bend or suspend the law”

FBI Taught Agents They Could ‘Bend or Suspend the Law’

By Spencer Ackerman
WIRED
March 28, 2012

The FBI taught its agents that they could sometimes “bend or suspend the law” in their hunt for terrorists and criminals. Other FBI instructional material, discovered during a months-long review of FBI counterterrorism training, warned agents against shaking hands with “Asians” and said Arabs were prone to “Jekyll & Hyde temper tantrums.”

These are just some of the disturbing results of the FBI’s six-month review into how the Bureau trained its counterterrorism agents. That review, now complete, did not result in a single disciplinary action for any instructor. Nor did it mandate the retraining of any FBI agent exposed to what the Bureau concedes was inappropriate material. Nor did it look at any intelligence reports that might have been influenced by the training. All that has a powerful senator saying that the review represents a “failure to adequately address” the problem.

“This is not an effective way to protect the United States,” Sen. Richard Durbin, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee overseeing the FBI, tells Danger Room about the inappropriate FBI counterterrorism training. “It’s stunning that these things could be said to members of our FBI in training. It will not make them more effective in their work and won’t make America safer.”

At the least, Durbin adds, “those responsible for some of the worst parts of this should be reassigned. I want FBI agents who were exposed to some of these comments to at least have a chance to be spoken to and given valid, positive information that can help them.”

One FBI PowerPoint — disclosed in a letter Durbin sent to FBI Director Robert Mueller on Tuesday (.PDF) and shared with Danger Room — stated: “Under certain circumstances, the FBI has the ability to bend or suspend the law to impinge on the freedom of others.” An incredulous Durbin told Danger Room, “Time and time again when that is done, it has not made us safer.” Like other excerpts from FBI documents Danger Room reviewed for this story, it was not dated and did not include additional context explaining what those “circumstances” might be...

(click here to read the full article)

Off to Iran: An amphibious assault group and 2,000 Marines...already along with 2 carrier strike groups, is invasion imminent?

US gears up for land operation in Persian Gulf?
RT News
Published: 28 March, 2012, 18:40

A helicopter flies near US ship Iwo Jima 
(AFP Photo / Johan Ordones) 

The US is sending an amphibious assault group and a couple of thousand US Marines to the Persian Gulf. With another US carrier making its way to Iran’s doorstep, US military still insist that this is a “regularly scheduled deployment”.

The Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group is comprised of amphibious assault ship USS Iwo Jima, amphibious transport dock USS New York, and amphibious dock landing ship USS Gunston Hall. It is also reinforced with an atomic submarine and a marine helicopter squadron.
The group, which is “a versatile sea-based force that can be tailored to a variety of missions,” left port on Tuesday and is heading to the Gulf, the US Navy says.

Over 2,000 US Marines are to come on board Iwo Jima when the group makes a stop in North Carolina.

Many of those marines are veterans of ground combat in Iraq and Afghanistan making their first shipboard deployment, dailypress.com points out.

The US already has an amphibious group with an expeditionary marine unit in the Gulf region. The Makin Island Amphibious Ready Group was deployed there in January, after Iran’s threat to close the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial route that allows the delivery of around 20 per cent of the world's oil.

Iran has repeatedly reiterated this threat over the last six month, while the US and its NATO partners kept increasing their naval presence in the region.

The US is aware that Iran has enough resources to mine the strait within a relatively short period of time. General Michael Dempsey, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said earlier that the US must be prepared to reopen the Strait of Hormuz by force.

In March, the US sent another four minesweepers to join those already deployed there, bringing the overall number in the region to eight.

Two US aircraft carrier battle groups, headed by the USS Carl Vinson and USS Abraham Lincoln, are patrolling the waters around the strait. Another carrier, USS Enterprise, is expected to join them next month.

Although many US officials, including President Obama, still insist on using diplomacy and sanctions, they admit that “all options are on the table” to force Iran to drop its nuclear program.
Meanwhile, Israel – the closest US ally in the region – considers nuclear Iran to be “an existential threat,” which needs to be dealt with as soon as possible. Last week, Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak, spoke of a three-month deadline for Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions or face imminent attack.

Syrian rebel death squads...yea they`re the 'legitimate representatives of the Syrian people' claimed by the U.S., we`ve heard that before

Syria rebels form death squad, behead army soldiers: Report
Press TV
Tue Mar 27, 2012 10:31PM GMT

Syrian rebels have formed their own laws, courts and death squads in Baba Amr neighborhood in the restive city of Homs and beheaded the captured army soldiers, a report has revealed.

The Free Syrian Army rebels (file photo)

The report, published by Spiegel Online on Monday, discloses violent measures by the anti-government armed groups, laying bare the other side of the unrest in the Middle Eastern country.

Hussein, one of the rebels fighting the government of President Bashar al-Assad, is quoted in the report as saying that he himself decapitated four army soldiers who had been detained by gunmen. Hussein said that he beheaded the first victim, a Shia soldier who had confessed to using violent tactics, in mid-October, 2011, in a cemetery.

• HRW: Syrian ‘Protesters’ Carrying Out Torture, Executions - Infowars (3/20/2012)

Hussein did not care whether the soldier’s confessions were real or he had made them under duress. He had simply grabbed a knife and beheaded the soldier who had knelt down in front of him.

The soldier had been captured out of sheer “bad luck”, said Hussein.

While he is a member of a rebel death squad killing government forces in the name of the “Syrian revolution,” there are others who are responsible for torturing captured soldiers. Many rebels can torture, but not everyone can kill, admits Hussein, who is now receiving treatment in a hospital in the Lebanese city of Tripoli where he and his fellow companions are openly talking about torturing and killing Syrian army soldiers.

“But I do not know why killing is not difficult for me,” he added.

Hussein’s life story demonstrates the course of actions rebels have taken during more than a year in the Arab state.

The report further divulges that Syrian rebels in Homs have since August, 2011 begun regular execution of Syrian soldiers. “As of last summer, we have executed 150 men, which constitutes only 20 percent of our prisoners,” claimed another hospitalized rebel identified as Abu Rami.
“Moreover, when we realize that a Sunni is spying against us we then hold a brief trial for him,” Abu Rami said, adding that they have executed between 200 and 250 people in such cases.

Revealing the shocking incidents in which rebels even kill Sunnis, he went on to say that “Syria is not a place for the squeamish. “

The West and the Syrian opposition accuse the government of killing the protesters.

Damascus, however, blames ''outlaws, saboteurs and armed terrorist groups'' for the unrest, insisting that it is being orchestrated from abroad.

MAB/MF/MA

First-ever crude oil discovered in Kenya...is it a blessing or a curse of the black gold?

Kenya strikes it lucky with first-ever crude oil discovery
Daily Mail
March 27, 2012


Tullow is partnered with Africa Oil at the site of last weekend's discovery. Credit: AFP/Getty

Oil has been discovered in northern Kenya, the country's delighted president has announced.
It is the first time black gold has been found within the east African nation's borders - and the commercial viability is still uncertain.

However, the Anglo-Irish firm behind the exploratory drilling believe they may have tapped into reserves of light crude similar to that uncovered in neighbouring Uganda. President Mwai Kibaki announced last night that the discovery had been made in the north-west Turkana region over the weekend.

'This is the first time Kenya has made such a discovery and it is very good news for our country,' Mr Kibaki said. 'It is however the beginning of a long journey to make our country an oil producer, which typically takes in excess of three years.'

Tullow Oil - which is carrying out oil exploration in the region - said that 20 meters of net oil pay was discovered at a site called Ngamia-1. It is a high-quality oil that will yield more gasoline and diesel per barrel than some other crude discoveries in Africa. Tullow's exploration director, Angus McCoss, called the discovery an 'excellent start' to Tullow's exploration campaign in the rift basins of Kenya and Ethiopia.

'To make a good oil discovery in our first well is beyond our expectations and bodes well for the material program ahead of us,' Mr McCoss said in a statement, adding that the firm is working with Kenya's government and plans on further seismic and drilling activities.

The oil find was near the border with Uganda and South Sudan. Both of those countries have oil industries.


Tullow is using aerial mapping and seismic geo-technology to determine where to drill. 
Credit: AFP/Getty

Tullow said many other prospective sites similar to Ngamia have been identified 'and following this discovery the outlook for further success has been significantly improved.'

Echoing Kibaki, Tullow spokesman George Cazenove countered against over-excitement, saying found that oil was in nitially Uganda in 2006 and had not yet reached the production stage. Though Uganda will get some oil to market next year, production won't reach full speed until 2016, he said.

'I think Uganda provides a helpful parallel,' Mr Cazenove said. 'There's a lot more work to do before we talk about how we get this to production and how it would affect Kenya as a nation.'
'It's a great result but must be seen in context. It's a long-term game for sure,' he said.

Kenya Energy Minister Kiraitu Murungi was quoted by Kenya's leading newspaper, the Daily Nation, as saying that Tullow had informed him that Kenya's oil deposits could be bigger than Uganda's. Mr Cazenove declined to directly comment on Murungi's claim but said that Uganda's and Kenya's oil potential are similar. Tullow said the Ngamia well was drilled to 1,041 meters (3,415 feet) and would now be drilled to about 2,700 meters (8,858 feet) - a process that will be completed in May.

Tullow, which began its exploration work in Kenya last year, has a 50 per cent interest in multiple sites in Kenya and Ethiopia's Rift Valley basins covering more than 100,000 square kilometers (38,610 square miles).