Jerome R. Corsi's Blog, page 305

U.N. warns 'historic' refugee crisis building in Syria

UNITED NATIONS – The United Nations has issued a warning that a refugee crisis of historic international proportions is developing in Syria.

The U.N. is reporting this week that an estimated 5,000 desperate Syrians are fleeing their homes every day in a nation that now has 2 million refugees.

With the impending possibility the Obama administration, with or without the approval of Congress, will launch a unilateral military attack on the Bashar al-Assad government, the issue of the Syrian refugee crisis surfaced Wednesday in President Obama’s press conference in Sweden.

Sweden’s prime minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt, reminded Obama that Sweden has taken the position that all refugees fleeing Syria are now welcome in Sweden, the first European Union country to make such a decision.

Sweden has accepted 14,700 Syrian asylum seekers since the civil war began last year, according to an Agence France-Presse report.

Sweden, a Nordic country with a population of about 9.5 million, expects to accept some 16,000 refugees from Syria this year among a total of 50,000 this year. Others are coming from nations such as Somalia and Afghanistan. It’s the largest number of asylum-seekers accepted by Sweden since the war in the Balkans in the 1990s.

Today, Syrian refugees are being given immediate temporary residence in Sweden, except for those who come from another EU country and, according to EU rules, first seek asylum in the EU country they enter.

“You’re in a small country now, and here we are deeply committed to the United Nations,” Reinfeldt reminded Obama, suggesting subtly that even if he obtains congressional authorization, he still lacks international approval for a military attack on Syria.

On his way to the G20 Summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, scheduled for Thursday and Friday, the White House hastily scheduled the stop in Stockholm after canceling a one-on-one meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Disagreements regarding Syria and the Russian decision to grant temporary asylum to Edward Snowden, the former intelligence contractor who has disclosed secrets about National Security Agency surveillance of U.S. citizens, are widely believed to be the reason Obama decided to cancel the plan to meet with Putin.

Syrian refugees flood surrounding countries

The Syrian refugee crisis has placed an overwhelming burden on the host countries’ infrastructures, economies and societies, the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR, noted. The agency noted that with an average of almost 5,000 Syrians fleeing into neighboring countries every day, the need for international support has reached a critical stage.

“The world risks being dangerously complacent about the Syrian humanitarian disaster,” said UNHCR special envoy and renowned actress Angelina Jolie. “The tide of human suffering unleashed by the conflict has catastrophic implications. If the situation continues to deteriorate at this rate, the number of refugees will only grow, and some neighboring countries could be brought to the point of collapse.”

According to the United Nations, 716,000 Syrians have fled to Lebanon and are living in refugee camps. An estimated 515,000 have gone to Jordan, 460,000 to Turkey, 168,000 to Iraq and 110,000 to Egypt.

Jolie added that the world was “tragically disunited” on how to end the Syria conflict.

“But there should be no disagreement over the need to alleviate human suffering, and no doubt of the world’s responsibility to do more. We have to support the millions of innocent people ripped from their homes, and increase the ability of neighboring countries to cope with the influx.”

In addition to the 2 million people who have fled Syria since the civil war began last year, a further 4.2 million people are displaced inside Syria, the U.N. further reported. Consequently, more Syrians are now forcibly displaced than people from any other country.

Assad using ‘human shields’?

Meanwhile, the Associated Press in Beirut has reported that Syria is moving troops and weapons to population centers and hiding them in places where a U.S. military strike would necessitate killing civilians as collateral damage.

“The Syrian regime knows there are 30-40 potential targets for U.S. airstrikes, and they have had ample time to prepare,” Hisham Jaber, a retired Lebanese army general and director of the Middle East Center for Studies and Political Research in Beirut, told the AP.

“Half of them, if not more, have been evacuated, moved or camouflaged. This is the natural thing to do.”

Concerns in the international community are mounting that Assad has moved thousands of Syrian prisoners captured from rebel forces to act as “human shields” to deter U.S. fighter jet or cruise missile attacks on key military targets, the Daily Mail in London reported.

The Syrian Coalition in Istanbul said in a statement that Assad’s regime is amassing detained activists and civilians in prisons inside military locations that may be potential targets for foreign military forces.

“Using civilians as human shields is a blatant breach of International Humanitarian Law, and those responsible must be held accountable for crimes against humanity,” the organization said.

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Famous 1971 anti-war activist transforms into hawk

What a difference 40 years makes: Anti-war protestor John Kerry has moved into the State Department and transformed into a hawk.

On April 22, 1971, Kerry asked the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, “How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?”

This week, beginning with an appearance Tuesday before the same Senate committee, the test was whether Kerry could explain to the American people why an American should be willing to be the first man to die for what many presume will be colossal mistake.

On Wednesday, Kerry, joined once again by Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, appeared before the House Foreign Affairs Committee to explain why the Obama administration wants congressional authorization to launch what it has described as a limited military attack on Syria.

Subtly, Kerry tried to shift the focus from Syria to Iran, insisting the U.S. must use a military attack on Syria to send a message to the Islamic regime. Here Kerry testified:

Iran in particular is watching very carefully to see if the United States is willing to stand up for its vital interests in the region and the interests of our allies. They are essential player in the Syrian civil war, providing weapons, money, advice and manpower to the Assad regime and supporting the intervention of their terrorist proxy Hezbollah. And according to the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), they are moving full speed ahead with efforts to develop a nuclear weapons capability.

Echoing Obama, who said earlier Wednesday in a press conference in Sweden that the “red line” was not one he created, Kerry elaborated on the theme:

Now, some have tried to suggest that the debate that we’re having today is about this president’s red line, that this is about President Obama’s red line.

Let me make it as clear as I can to all of you: That is just not true. This is about the world’s red line. It’s about humanity’s red line, a line that anyone with a conscience should draw and a line that was drawn nearly a hundred years ago in 1925 when the Chemical Weapons Convention was agreed on.

This debate, I might add to you, is also about Congress’ red line. You agreed to the Chemical Weapons Convention. Not all of you were here to vote for it, but the Congress agreed to that.

The Congress passed the Syria Accountability Act, which Congressman Engel has referred to and authored. And that act says clearly, and I quote, ‘Syria’s chemical weapons threaten the security of the Middle East and the national security interests of the United States.’

In 1971, Kerry insisted “there is nothing in South Vietnam which could happen that realistically threatens the United States of America.”

In that testimony more than 40 years ago, he opposed the U.S. entering what he characterized as a civil war in Vietnam.

“We found,” Kerry said in 1971, “that not only was [Vietnam] a civil war, an effort by a people who had for years been seeking their liberation from any colonial influence whatsoever, but also we found that the Vietnamese whom we had enthusiastically molded after our own image were hard put to take up the fight against the threat we were supposedly saving them from.”

How then is it that today the regime of Bashar al-Assad, in the middle of a Syrian civil war, is in the vital national interest of the U.S.?

Kerry explained to the House committee that today, even though the conflict in Syria is a civil war, U.S. credibility was still on the line.

“We are talking about the credibility of America as a global power,” Kerry said. “We’re talking about sending a clear message to the dictators in Tehran and Pyongyang that there will be serious consequences for flouting the will of the international community and that the U.S. backs its words with action.”

Kerry continues to insist there is indisputable proof the Assad regime has authorized and engaged in chemical weapons attacks, though the Obama administration has yet to make the evidence available to the American public or to the international community for examination.

To the House on Wednesday, Kerry explained the available evidence to the House committee, as follows:

Our intelligence agencies have assessed with high confidence that these innocent civilians were killed by Sarin gas, a deadly nerve agent classified as a weapon of mass destruction by the U.N. Security Council and outlawed by the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993. They have also concluded beyond a reasonable doubt that the Assad regime is responsible for the use of these horrific weapons.

I strongly agree with President Obama that the United States must respond to this flagrant violation of international law with a limited military strike to deter the further use of chemical weapons and degrade the Assad regime’s ability to use them again.

‘Why now?’

In the hearing, Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., posed a loaded question to Kerry, asking whether or not there was a political motivation.

“With the president’s red line, why was there no call for military response in April?”  Wilson asked. “Was it delayed to divert attention today from the Benghazi, IRS, NSA scandals; the failure of “Obamacare” enforcement; the tragedy of the White House-drafted sequestration or the upcoming debt limit vote?”

The administration raised the chemical-weapons  issue as early as March, when Obama visited Israel.

In the exchange with Wilson, Kerry denied the Obama administration was trying to “wag the dog,” a reference to a movie in which a fictional U.S. administration goes to war to divert attention from a domestic scandal.

Wilson: Again, why was there no call for military response four months ago when the president’s red line was crossed?

Kerry: Well, the reason is very simple. The president made a decision to change his policy, but he didn’t believe that the evidence was so overwhelming. It was significant, it was clear it had happened, but on a scale that he felt merited the increase of assistance and the announcements that he made with respect to the type of aid that he would provide the opposition. So he did respond.

This is so egregious and now builds on the conclusions of our intel community as to the numbers of times, but such a clear case so compelling and urgent with respect to the flagrancy of the abuse that the president thinks that as a matter of conscience and as a matter of policy, the best route to proceed is through the military action now.

Rep. Wilson: But in April, it was very clear. Chemical weapons are chemical weapons –

Sec. Kerry: Yeah, but the president –

Rep. Wilson: Syria was identified, Mr. Secretary. Action should have been taken then. Thank you.

In response to a question by Rep. Gerald Connolly, D-Va., Hagel said that in the absence of a U.S. military strike, the likelihood the Assad government would use chemical weapons as a routine weapon to turn the tide of the civil war was “very high.”

Kerry responded, upping the stakes, insisting he might even put the probability at 100 percent.

No one asked Kerry or Hagel the probability that the Obama administration would request an escalation of attacks on the Assad regime if government-sponsored chemical weapons attacks continued or intensified after an initial, limited military attack, as Obama proposes.

‘Arabs will finance’

Under questioning from Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., Kerry said Arab nations had offered to finance a U.S. military attack on Syria, though he declined to name the states.

“With respect to Arab countries offering to bear cost and to assist, the answer is profoundly yes, they have,” Kerry testified. “That offer is on the table.”

Asked by Ros-Lehtinen to specify how much the Arab states were willing to pay, Kerry again declined to answer.

“Well, we don’t know what action we’re engaged in right now, but they’ve been quite significant. I mean, very significant,” Kerry answered.” In fact – (chuckles) – some of them have said that if the United States is prepared to go do the whole thing the way we’ve done it previously in other places, they’ll carry that cost.

That’s how dedicated they are to this.”

Putin: ‘Where’s the proof?’

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin insisted on Wednesday that the U.S. Congress has no right to approve military action against Syria without a decision of the U.N. Security Council, Reuters reported.

In an interview with the Associated Press and Russian government-controlled Channel 1 television, Putin expressed doubt about the evidence produced by Kerry, insisting more “convincing” results from United Nations inspectors were needed before considering the use of force.

Putin said he would not exclude Russian participation, but he quickly warned the U.S. not to take military action without U.N. Security Council authorization.

“I want to draw your attention to one absolutely fundamental fact,” Putin said, according to the New York Times.

“In accordance with applicable international law, the authorization of the use of force against a sovereign state can only be given by the Security Council of the United Nations. Any other reasons, or methods, to justify the use of force against an independent and sovereign state are unacceptable and cannot be qualified as anything other than aggression.”

In response to questioning by Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla., Hagel explained to the House Foreign Affairs Committee that he could not agree to release to the American public transcripts incriminating the Assad regime, because the radio intercepts from Syria are still classified.

New York Times: Rebels are al-Qaida

In an article published Wednesday in the New York Times, Ben Hubbard, the paper’s Middle East correspondent, reported that the so-called “rebel” forces in Syria are aligned with al-Qaida and consider themselves to be fighting an Islamic religious war.

Hubbard’s piece seemed at odds with commentary by Thomas Friedman in the New York Times on Wednesday arguing that instead of launching a limited military attack on Syria, the Obama administration should aid the “moderate forces” among the Syrian opposition.

Hubbard, in his analysis of the Syrian rebels, found no “moderates” among them.

Hubbard pointed out that among the so-called Syrian rebels is the notorious Al Nusra Front, a group declared a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department. The group has pledged allegiance to al-Qaida’s top leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and remains the association of choice for foreign jihadis pouring into Syria.

Another prominent group, Ahrar al-Sham, Hubbard noted, “shares much of Nusra’s extremist ideology, though it is composed mostly of Syrians.”

“Across Syria, rebel-held areas are dotted with Islamic courts staffed by lawyers and clerics, and by fighting brigades led by extremists,” Hubbard wrote. “Even the Supreme Military Council, the umbrella rebel organization whose formation the West had hoped would sideline radical groups, is stocked with commanders who want to infuse Islamic law into a future Syrian government.”

“Yes we can!” Syria says

On Tuesday, Syria’s U.N. ambassador, Bashar Jaafari, quoted back to President Obama his 2008 campaign slogan “Yes we can” in an appearance on CNN, insisting that Syria is a “peaceful” nation.

Jaafari asserted allegations of Syria using chemical weapons are “false and unfounded.” He attempted to turn the tables, charging the media itself is a weapon of mass destruction.

CNN host Christine Amanpour asked Jaafari: “I guess I want to know in a final minute or so, how do you sleep at night, Mr. Jaafari, defending a regime government that has caused so much bloodshed and has really crossed the line from any kind of civil war into weapons of mass destruction, into one of the highest crimes of international law.”

He retorted: “Those who perpetuate such a horrible crime, whether they are Israelis or others, should be held accountable to the internationally established mechanisms, not to the bully of the world, the bully of the world, the policemen of the world represented by the American intelligence reports or false allegations coming from France or Britain or Saudi Arabia or Israel.”

Obama critics still ask for 'smoking gun' in Syria

NEW YORK – Critics of the Obama administration’s policy on Syria are still asking for the “smoking gun” evidence that Bashar al-Assad’s regime is responsible for the chemical-weapons attack last month that reportedly killed more than 1,000 people.

On Sunday, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced samples collected by the U.N. inspection team in Syria were being transferred to chemical laboratories for inspection.

“The whole process will be done strictly adhering to the highest established standards of verification recognized by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, OPCW,” U.N. spokesman Martin Nerisky told reporters in New York on Monday.

Nerisky stressed that the U.N. mission is “uniquely capable of establishing, in an impartial and credible manner, the facts of any use of chemical weapons based directly on evidence collected on the ground.”

He noted that two Syrian government officials observed the U.N. inspection team closely, making sure the inspectors proceeded in strict adherence with the established standards of verification set up by the OPCW.

Quietly, the U.N. let it be known the two-week investigation in Syria was not aimed solely at determining the Syrian government’s involvement in chemical weapons attacks. The team also has been probing more than a dozen allegations of chemical weapons use, including many claiming the Syrian rebels were responsible.

Meanwhile, critics continue to present evidence challenging President Obama’s claim to have proof that the Assad regime was responsible for the chemical attacks last month in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta.

Among the questions are:

Is Russia correct in asserting Israeli and U.S. intercepts of the telephone conversations of Syrian military officials leave doubt whether a Sarin gas attack had been ordered and authorized by the Assad government?
Were the rebels responsible for the chemical weapons attack, not the Assad government, as claimed by a U.N. investigative team that went to Syria earlier this year to examine the evidence?
Did Saudi Arabia manufactured the chemical agents and supply them to the rebel forces in Syria?
Why did Britain sell the rebels the chemicals needed to make weapons?

Russians support Assad

On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced his intension to send a delegation of Russian lawmakers to the U.S. to discourage members of Congress from providing authorizing an Obama military attack on the Assad regime.

Russia continues to press the U.S. to prove the Assad government authorized the Ghouta attacks by releasing Israeli and U.S. telephone intercepts that purportedly establish the culpability of the Syrian Ministry of Defense.

Foreign Policy magazine said the telephone exchange took place between Syrian Ministry of Defense officials in “panicked phone calls” with a field commander of a chemical weapons unit, demanding answers for a nerve agent strike that killed more than 1,000 people.

The Foreign Policy article raises the possibility the attack could have been a miscalculation by the Assad government or even the action of a rogue field commander.

In June, Russia called on Turkey to share its findings in the case of Syrian rebels who were seized on the Turkish-Syrian border with a two-kilogram, or more than four pound, cylinder of Sarin nerve gas.

WND has reported continuing suspicions that Ambassador Christopher Stevens, when he was killed in Benghazi, Libya, was working with the CIA to ship weapons from Libya, through Turkey, to the rebels in Syria.

Rebels launch chemical attacks

A new photograph from Syria provided by Libyan expatriates in Cairo appears to back Middle East media reports cited by WND that say the rebels, which are composed of rogue al-Qaida elements mixed with Muslim Brotherhood radicals and Islamic mercenaries, launched the recent chemical weapons attacks.

The rocket-launcher shown in the image above resembles the weapon in a Syrian TV report that purports to show rebel forces in Syria preparing a chemical attack.

Video from the Syrian TV report posted on YouTube of Free Syrian Army forces can be seen here:

As seen below, a screen capture from the video shows rebel civilian forces placing a suspicious blue canister on top of a rocket-launching device.

A separate YouTube video from Syrian television shows a government-captured arsenal of what appears to be nerve gas weapons seized from a rebel stronghold in Jobar, Syria.

The image below shows canisters in the seized rebel arsenal from Jobar that appear to resemble the canister launched by rebel forces in the first image above.

Syrian TV news report of rebel weapons seized in Jobar, Syria

WND has previously reported a United Nations investigating inquiry visiting Syria earlier this year placed the blame for chemical attacks on the rebel forces in Syria, not the Assad government.

On May 6, the BBC reported that Carla Del Ponte, a leading member of the U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Syria, established by the U.N. in August 2011, told Swiss TV the available evidence pointed to the Syrian rebels launching gas attacks, although the possibility government forces also using chemical weapons could not be ruled out.

“Our investigators have been in neighboring countries interviewing victims, doctors and field hospitals, and there are strong, concrete suspicions, but not yet incontrovertible proof, of the use of Sarin gas,” Del Ponte said in the interview, as reported May 6 by the London Daily Mail. “This was use on the part of the opposition, the rebels, not by the government authorities.”

The BBC also reported Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said he was deeply concerned by “signs that world public opinion is being prepared for possible military intervention” in Syria.

On the question of whether chemical weapons had been used, Lukashevich called for an “end to the politicization of this issue” and to the “whipping up of an anti-Syrian atmosphere.”

The report of the U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Syria delivered to the U.N .Human Rights Council in Geneva on June 4 found evidence of murder, torture, rape, forcible displacement or other inhumane acts having been committed both by government forces and by the rebels.

“There are reasonable grounds to believe that chemical agents have been used as weapons. The precise agents, delivery systems or perpetrators could not be identified,” the report said.

Saudi Arabia connection?

Interviews conducted in Ghouta, where the most recent attack occurred, have raised suspicions that Saudi Arabian intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan supplied rebel forces with the chemical weapons.

WND previously published photographic evidence that the chemical agents held in weapons inventory by rebel forces were manufactured in Saudi Arabia.

Syrian TV news report showing chemical agents identified as manufactured in Saudi Arabia

A report from the Russian Arabic-language channel RT Arabic shows captured rebel arsenals apparently with chemical agents manufactured in Saudi Arabia and gas masks, supporting Russian claims that the rebels are responsible.

On Aug. 23, LiveLeak.com hosted an audio recording of a phone call broadcast on Syrian TV between a terrorist affiliated with the rebel civilian militia “Shuhada al-Bayada Battalion” in Homs, Syria, and his Saudi Arabian boss, identified as “Abulbasit.” The phone call indicates rebel-affiliated terrorists in Syria, not the Assad government, launched the chemical weapons attack in Deir Ballba in the Homs, Syria, countryside.

The terrorist said his group, which comprises 200 terrorists escaped from al-Bayadah to al-Daar al-Kabera through a tunnel, needed to buy weapons to attack Homs.

The Saudi financier, who was in Cairo, asked the Syrian terrorists to give details about his group and how it will receive the money. The Saudi admitted his support to terrorists in Daraa and the Damascus countryside. The Syrian terrorist told him that one of the achievements of his “battalion” was the use of chemical weapons in Deir Ballba.

The recorded phone call disclosed the cooperation between two terrorist groups in Syria to bring two bottles of Sarin Gas from the Barzeh neighborhood in Damascus.

Russian media sources have consistently reported Syrian military have discovered various rebel warehouses containing chemical weapons agents and have documented rebel chemical weapons attacks on Syrian civilians

British gas?

The Daily Record in Britain created controversy over the past weekend by reporting that in January 2013, the British government granted export licenses for potassium fluoride and sodium fluoride, allowing firms to sell in Syria key ingredients involved in manufacturing chemical weapons such as Sarin.

The newspaper reported the U.K.’s Department for Business, Innovation and Skills began granting chemical export licenses 10 months after the Syrian uprising began.

The chemical export licenses were only revoked last June, after the European Union decided to extend economic sanctions against the Assad regime until June 1, 2014.

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Pope Francis' 'risky business' sparks internal fire

NEW YORK – Under the heading “The War Against the Pope Begins,” a list of criticisms launched at Pope Francis from within the Vatican has been published widely in Spanish-speaking outlets throughout Latin America.

Seasoned Vatican observers already have begun expressing concern about the pontiff’s safety, with the concern not so much over external enemies of the Roman Catholic Church but over forces within the church that are resistant to change.

Members of the Curia, the administrative clerics in Rome, along with various appointed officials that have helped govern the Vatican for decades, are increasingly unhappy with Pope Francis, whose life experience traces back to Buenos Aires, not Rome.

Increasingly, harsh criticism of Francis is being whispered in Rome and suggested in various posts on social networking websites as radical conservative sectors within the church voice dissatisfaction.

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A list of 11 harsh criticisms being leveled at Francis from within the Vatican first appeared after being widely posted in Spanish on websites read in Latin America.

Now, the list is reaching a worldwide audience as Spanish-speaking Catholics begin circulating it through emails with their Spanish-speaking friends in other countries, including the United States.

‘The war against the pope’

Presented below are the 11 criticisms translated from Spanish:

On Holy Thursday, March 28, as reported by international news sources including Reuters, Pope Francis broke with Vatican tradition to travel outside the Vatican walls to visit the Casal del Marmo youth prison in the outskirts of Rome, where the former Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio included in the ritual for the first time washing the feet of women, including two who were Muslims. This was unprecedented in a ritual that stretches back centuries in Roman Catholic tradition. Conservatives watched in horror the “sacrilege” performed by “the smiling Pope Francisco,” who critics call “Papa piacione,” roughly translated “the pleasing Pope,” a derogatory term that refers to a person who always smiles and tries to get along with everyone.
Pope Francis refuses to live in the papal apartment in the Vatican, deciding instead to live in the Vatican’s Santa Marta residence, a four-star hotel where many different people live. Evidently, the pope wants to avoid the isolation that typically surrounds a pope who lives within the papal apartment in the Vatican’s papal residence. Instead, Pope Francis wants to be aware of what is going on outside the Vatican walls. In the papal apartment, Pope Francis knows he would be watched constantly and, in a way, controlled, with his every action mediated by others. Pope Francis fears that within the papal apartment he would remain uninformed about events in the world outside the Vatican, at the mercy of the “Vatican hyenas” who plan to remove him from the attention of the media.
On March 23, at his lunch meeting with his predecessor, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI at Castel Gandolfo outside Rome, the first time in 600 years that such a meeting has been possible, Pope Benedict confided to Pope Francis that one of the causes of his resignation was the threats he received against his life and the fear he would be poisoned. Worried that the decision had already been taken to kill him, Pope Benedict explained that by making his resignation public, he had neutralized attacks on his life and disarmed the attempt to murder him.
The high power entrenched under the dome of the Vatican is totally opposed to Pope Francis’ plans to reform, eliminate and modify the pomp, ritualism and ostentation of the Roman Catholic Church. Many believe Pope Francis has a secret desire and thought to permit women to enter the Catholic priesthood, a decision that would have the effect of an earthquake of the church establishment.
The Roman Curia and the power establishment within the Catholic Church reject the public appeal Pope Francis has made to strength dialogue and relationships with Islam. Pope Francis is being accused of engaging in a relativistic theology that is hostile to traditional Catholic Church dogma.
Pope Francis has marginalized the most senior Vatican officials by actions he took during the foot washing ceremony of Holy Thursday.
The Catholic Church insiders accuse Pope Francis of ignoring the rules and practices of the Catholic Church in that the pope has taken action without consulting or asking the permission of anyone to make exceptions on how ecclesiastical rules and practices apply to him.
The ultra-conservative Catholic organization Opus Dei has banned from all its “Troa” bookstores for censorship reasons the sale of the first book to be published on the new pope, “Francis, the New Pope John XXIII,” written by Jose Manuel Vidal and Jesus Pretty, despite having ordered 3,000 copies from the publisher.
The authority appointed by Pope Francis to investigate financial corruption associated with the Vatican Bank has made an important seizure of hundreds of boxes of documents that document Vatican finances and the important figures in the Italian “Mafia” engaged in an enormous scheme of money-laundering and embezzlement designed to make money in the Vatican disappear into their pockets. The financial scandal involving the Vatican Bank is the “Sampson” that will bring down the columns supporting the Sistine Chapel and the ostentatious and luxurious buildings in the Vatican structure.
As much as Opus Dei, the “Illuminati Freemasonry,” the important and influential sectors of banking and economics and the Italian Mafia, so, too, the cardinals in the Catholic Church hierarchy form their own “Mafia and Vatican Power Structure” that feels an immediate danger from the incriminating documents seized in the anti-corruption Pope Francis initiated involving the Vatican Bank. These powers-that-be fear Pope Francis has every intention of cleaning up and putting controls upon Vatican finances, as well as upon all the various businesses and investments made by the multi-billionaire religious state.
Another situation that has angered and made furious these various groups that always were the power behind the throne in the Vatican: Pope Francis does not agree that the cassock offenders (the homosexuals and pedophiles in the Vatican’s “gay lobby) that live within the Vatican environs will be allowed to live as refugees, hidden away from view, and free of any consequences that have to be faced under civil law. For now, Pope Francis has left instructions that whoever faces civil or criminal accusations or penalties will not be able to hide from their legal infractions by remaining ensconced away in the legal sanctuary of the Vatican.

“Can you imagine what is coming?” the article concludes, asking for the prayer from the Catholic faithful from around the world for the health and well-being of Pope Francis.

Risky business

What is clear from the Spanish-language publication is an awareness that the simplicity and humility of Pope Francis has challenged the wealth, power and privilege of the Roman Curia, as well as the appointed officials running the Vatican Bank, the Vatican finances and the Vatican investments.

Pope Francis

Pope Francis’ determination to take the Catholic Church back to what he perceives as Christ’s mission to help the poor, the infirm and those less fortunate in life is clearly not popular with those in the Vatican who expected him to move into the papal apartments, put on the pope’s crimson robes and accept a life of luxury and privilege afforded to the modern popes who have preceded him as head of the Catholic Church.

Vatican observers note popes intent on reform can be engaging in a risky enterprise.

Pope John Paul I, who died in his sleep on Sept. 28, 1978, after a reign as pope of only 33 days, was believed at the time of his death to be getting ready to launch a major investigation into Vatican Bank corruption.

The Institute for the Works of Religion was a major shareholder in Banco Ambrosiano, a major Italian bank that collapsed in 1982 with losses of more than $3 billion.

On June 18, 1982, the chairman of Banco Ambrosiano Bank, Roberto Calvi, a banker with close ties to the Vatican Bank, was found hanging from the Blackfriars Bridge in London in what was widely suspected as a murder disguised as a suicide.

At the time of Calvi’s death, the Mafia was believed to have been using Banco Ambrosiano for money-laundering purposes.

Calvi was known as “God’s Banker” because of his close ties to the Vatican.

Founded in 1942 as the Institute for the Works of Religion, the Vatican Bank is one of the most secretive banks in the world, operating with 114 employees and over $7 billion in assets.

Traditionally, the Vatican Bank has refused to cooperate with Italian banking authorities and international monetary authorities because the Vatican is a sovereign state that is not subject to the control of outside governmental authorities.

As if taking on the Vatican Bank were not enough, Pope Francis on June 6 in a private audience in Rome announced his intention to take on the “gay lobby,” a typically unacknowledged group of insiders operating within the Vatican, contending for power and influence.

Controversy rocks pope's effort to clean up Vatican Bank

NEW YORK – Pope Francis’ decision to replace the Vatican secretary-of-state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, a close friend of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, has prompted speculation among seasoned Vatican observers that the dismissal announced Friday was a fallout of efforts to reform the Vatican Bank.

Secretary of state is arguably the most powerful Vatican office, second only to that of the pope.

The current controversy began with a series of tweets posted by 30-year-old journalist Francesca Immacolata Chaouqui, the only female and the only Italian appointed by Pope Francis to the eight-person Vatican financial reform panel now looking into claims of Vatican Bank impropriety.

After being appointed to the reform panel, Chaouqui attacked former Italian minister of the economy Giulo Tremonti in a tweet that read: “Tremonti held an account with the Vatican Bank. They shut it down when they found out he was gay.”

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Chaouqui has a history of controversial Twitter posts, having tweeted in February that former pope Benedict XVI had cancer, a claim that has not been substantiated.

Before her appointment, Chaouqui also posted a tweet calling Cardinal Bertone “corrupt,” alleging he had questionable business links to an unspecified Italian company.

In response, Tremonti has threatened to sue Chaouqui as well as Alessandro Sallustri, the editor-in-chief of Il Giornale, the Italian daily newspaper that first published Chaouqui’s offensive tweets.

On Aug. 26, Sandro Magister, an influential Vatican journalist who writes for the Italian news magazine L’Espresso, accused Chaouqui of being the source of what in Italy is known as the “Vatileaks” scandal involving Vatican documents embarrassing to Pope Benedict XVI. The documents were stolen by a valet to the pope and first published in March by Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica.

The Vatileaks documents allegedly exposed financial corruption involving the Vatican Bank as well as schemes to blackmail various homosexual clergy.

Sandro Magister also has charged that Msgr. Battista Ricca, the cleric tapped by Pope Francis to become prelate of the Vatican Bank, was involved in a homosexual scandal of his own. Magister has insisted in print that Msgr. Ricca’s continued presence at the Vatican Bank is a “glaring contradiction” to Pope Francis’ claims for reform.

All this sounded a bit like a B-rated soap opera until Friday, when Francis made the stunning announcement that he is preparing to replace Bertone, a powerful figure within the Vatican and a close friend of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger before Ratzinger became pope.

The Corriere della Sera newspaper reported Friday that to replace Bertone, Francis has chosen Venezuelan Archbishop Pietro Parolin, a 58-year-old prelate who has worked in Nigeria and Mexico for the Vatican office of secretary of state under Bertone.

The newspaper also reported speculation that Bertone will be allowed to retain his position of president of the Commission of Cardinals only until December, when the European Union’s MONEVAL Committee is expected to release a report on anti-money laundering practices in the Vatican that is anticipated to be highly critical of the Holy See.

Bertone’s position on the commission was bestowed on him after Ratzinger decided to resign as pope,

In a television interview in Venezuela after the announcement, Archbishop Parolin said he was “very emotional” on being informed of Pope Francis’ decision.

Controversy continues over charges that during the papacy of John Paul II, Cardinals Ratzinger and Bertone, in their functions as top officials in the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, conspired not to release the complete and final text and commentary associated with what is known as the “Third Secret” of Fatima.

The Third Secret is an apocalyptic prophecy possibly forecasting the assassination of the pope through corruption within the church that threatens its very survival. It was said to be communicated by the Virgin Mary to three young Portuguese shepherds in a series of visions starting on May 13, 1917.

In an attempt to end the controversy over the Virgin’s message to the peasant children at Fatima, Bertone published a book, “The Last Secret of Fatima: My Conversations with Sister Lucia,” with a foreword written by Ratzinger, who by the time the book was published was already positioned as Pope Benedict XVI.

In the book, both Ratzinger and Bertone insist the Catholic Church has withheld nothing of the Third Secret.

In 2000, Ratzinger and Bertone collaborated to have Pope John II release the Third Secret to the world in a proclamation issued that year, reversing a previous decision made in 1960 by Pope John XXIII.

Then, Pope John XXII decided to withhold the secret because its contents at the time were considered too explosive, despite the insistence by Sister Lucia, one of the three Portuguese seers at Fatima, that the Virgin had specifically asked for the Third Secret to be made public in 1960.

More bad news for Labor Day

NEW YORK – On the eve of Labor Day, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has reported alarming unemployment figures that are reaching the most desperate levels since the Department of Labor began collecting the data during the Truman administration three years after the end of World War II.

On Aug. 2, the BLS reported nearly 90 million Americans were not currently in the labor force in July, with the percentage of the civilian non-institutional population not in the labor force now registered at 36 percent.

For men, the BLS reported labor force participation rate of 63.5 percent for August is the lowest figure recorded since the Labor Department began collecting the data in 1948.

Earlier this month, WND reported that according to John Williams, an economist known for arguing the government reports manipulated “shadow statistics” of economic data for political purposes, the real unemployment rate for July was 23.3 percent, not the 7.4 percent reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

By including in the calculation of the unemployment rate those who the BLS classifies as “not currently in the labor force” because of their long-term unemployment, the true unemployment rate could be more than three-times the unemployment rate the BLS publicly declares.

An economy of part-time jobs

WND also reported this month that under the Obama administration, the U.S. is rapidly transforming into a nation of part-time employment. Seven out of eight jobs created during Obama’s more than four years as president have been part-time jobs.

The House Ways and Means Committee reported Aug. 5 that approximately 88 percent of the jobs created under President Obama have been part-time jobs.

“The reality, as you dig into the latest jobs data, reveals that few are finding the full-time work they want and need, and many are forced to accept part-time employment,” the committee said. The BLS statistics show that under Obama, 1,882,000 part-time jobs have been created, compared to only 270,000 full-time jobs created between January 2009 and July 2013.

On Aug. 21, Reuters reported that three out of four of the nearly 1 million jobs created in 2013 are part-time, with many of the jobs low-paid, a phenomenon Reuters attributed to an unanticipated adverse economic impact of Obamacare.

“Faltering economic growth at home and abroad and concern that President Barack Obama’s signature health care law will drive up business costs are behind the wariness about taking on full-time staff, executives at staffing and payroll firms say,” .

“Employers say part-timers offer them flexibility. If the economy picks up, they can quickly offer full-time work. If orders dry up, they know costs are under control. It also helps them curb costs they might face under the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.”

Reuters noted the growing tendency to create part-time jobs instead of full-time jobs causes a vicious cycle in which the new employees who tend to be hired in retail businesses and food services do not have the disposable income to drive demand for goods and services in the economy as a whole.

The crisis in youth and minority employment

The BLS has also reported that unemployment among youth 16 to 24 years old has reached an alarming number, with the share of young people unemployed in July totaling nearly 50 percent.

Still, the BLS reported the youth unemployment rate as only 16.3 percent, a result the BLS was able to calculate after determining the labor force participation for youth males was only 62.7 percent, with the rate for women at 58.2 percent, a 20-point decline from the 1980s, when youth labor force participation was regularly measured at 80 percent or more.

Among minorities, the employment situation is even more desperate.

While the BLS reported a 7.4 percent unemployment rate in July, the reported unemployment rate in July for African-Americans was 12.6 percent, while youth unemployment was 28.2 percent.

Senator Obama would impeach President Obama

NEW YORK – Based on their firm declarations as members of the U.S Senate, Barack Obama would be among the first to call for the impeachment of President Barack H. Obama, with the concurrence and enthusiastic support of Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton, should Obama attack Syria without congressional authorization.

With the Parliament’s decision to give a red light to Britain’s participation in military action against the Assad regime in Syria, the Obama administration must either go ahead unilaterally or back down, exposing Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry to international ridicule for a rush-to-judgment accusing Assad of “a cowardly crime” and “a moral obscenity” on murky evidence.

As WND reported, President Obama Saturday pledged to await congressional approval before launching a military strike on Syria, but also insisted he had the authority to attack with or without such approval. As he walked away after the speech, a shouting reporter asked if he would still launch the attack should Congress deny authorization, but Obama refused to answer.

On Dec. 20, 2007, then-Sen. Obama was asked by the Boston Globe whether President George W. Bush had the constitutional authority to bomb Iran without specific authorization from Congress. Obama answered:

The president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.

As commander in chief, the president does have a duty to protect and defend the United States. In instances of self-defense, the President would be within his constitutional authority to act before advising Congress or seeking its consent. History has shown us time and again, however, that military action is most successful when it is authorized and supported by the Legislative branch. It is always preferable to have the informed consent of Congress prior to any military action.

Obama specified he had then introduced Senate Joint Resolution 23, stating in part that “any offensive military action taken by the United States against Iran must be explicitly authorized by Congress.”

In other words, unless President Obama can show that the Assad regime authorized a chemical attack and that the use of chemical weapons represented a direct threat to the defense of the United States, then former Sen. Obama apparently would have been willing to support an impeachment resolution in the House against the current president.

In 2007, on the Chris Matthews MSNBC show “Hardball,” then-Sen. Joe Biden said in unequivocal terms that President George W. Bush should be impeached if he dared authorize a unilateral military attack on Iran.

Matthews: You said that if the President of the United States had launched an attack on Iran without congressional approval that would have been an impeachable offense. Do you want to review that comment you made? Well how do you stand on that now?

Biden: Yes I do. I want to stand by the comment I made. The reason I made the comment was as a warning. I don’t say those things lightly, Chris, you’ve known me for a long time. I was chairman of the judiciary committee for 17 years or its ranking member. I teach separation of powers and constitutional law. This is something I know. So I got together and brought a group of constitutional scholars together to write a piece that I’m going to deliver to the whole United States Senate pointing out the president has no constitutional authority to take this nation to war against a county of 70 million people unless we’re attacked or unless there is proof we are about to be attacked.

And if he does, if he does, I would move to impeach him. The House obviously has to do that, but I would lead an effort to impeach him. The reason for my doing that, I don’t say it lightly, I don’t say it lightly. I say it because they should understand that what they were threatening, what they were saying, what it was adding up to be, what it looked like to the rest of the world we were about to do would be the most disastrous thing that could be done at this moment in our history that I could think of.

Then-Sen. Hillary Clinton joined Obama and Biden in arguing George W. Bush had no constitutional authority to attack Iran without congressional approval.

In 2007, Clinton sponsoring a resolution with Democratic Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia that prohibited President George W. Bush from using funds for military operations against Iran without explicit congressional authorization.

In a speech on the Senate floor Feb. 14, 2007, Clinton said President George W. Bush must not be allowed to attack Iran without the specific approval of Congress.

“It would be a mistake of historical proportion if the administration (of President George W. Bush) thought that the 2002 resolution authorizing force against Iraq was a blank check authorizing force against Iran without further congressional authorization,” Clinton said.

“Nor should the president think that the 2001 resolution authorizing force after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 in any way authorizes force against Iran. If the administration believes that any use of force against Iran is necessary, the president must come to Congress to seek that authority.”

On Dec. 20, 2007, in response to questions posed by the Boston Globe, Clinton repeated her insistence President Bush did not have the authority to attack Iran without specific congressional approval:

Boston Globe: In what circumstances, if any, would the president have constitutional authority to bomb Iran without seeking a use-of-force authorization from Congress? (Specifically, what about the strategic bombing of suspected nuclear sites – a situation that does not involve stopping an IMMINENT threat?)

Sen. Hillary Clinton: The President has the solemn duty to defend our Nation. If the country is under truly imminent threat of attack, of course the President must take appropriate action to defend us. At the same time, the Constitution requires Congress to authorize war. I do not believe that the President can take military action – including any kind of strategic bombing – against Iran without congressional authorization. That is why I have supported legislation to bar President Bush from doing so and that is also why I think it is irresponsible to suggest, as some have recently, that anything Congress already has enacted provides that authority.

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Mystery grows: Journalist died prepping Obama exposé

NEW YORK – Before his death in a fiery car crash, Michael Hastings was preparing to publish a major investigative piece tied to the undercover agent who is suspected of sanitizing President Obama’s passport records prior to the 2008 presidential election.

The mystery has only deepened since the Los Angeles Coroner’s Office ruled that drugs in his system at the time of the June 18 crash, including amphetamines and marijuana, likely did not contribute to the crash.

Hastings, 33 years old at the time of his death, wrote for Gentleman’s Quarterly, Rolling Stone and Buzzfeed, reporting on national security issues.

His June 2010 article in Rolling Stone featuring remarks highly critical of the Obama administration made by Gen. Stanley McChrystal — then the commander of allied forces in Afghanistan — led to President Obama relieving McChrystal of command.

Reported drug use

The autopsy two months after Hastings’ death found small amounts of amphetamine in his blood, suggesting he may have taken methamphetamine several hours before his death. Traces of marijuana also suggested Hastings had smoked the drug hours before he had taken the methamphetamine.

Hastings died when his Mercedes, traveling at a high rate of speed, crossed into the median on a deserted Highland Avenue at 4:20 a.m. and struck a tree. The automobile burst into flames, charring Hastings’ body so badly that it took several days to make a positive identification.

Los Angeles newspapers have suggested Hastings had become obsessed with Edward Snowden’s revelations about the National Security Agency’s massive domestic surveillance capabilities and with disclosures the Department of Justice had obtained of the phone records of Associated Press reporters.

His fiancée, Jordanna Thigpen, told the LA Weekly that just before his death, Hastings’ behavior had become erratic because of his increasing concerned that helicopters commonly seen in the Hollywood Hills were spying on him and that his Mercedes had been tampered with.

“He was scared, and he wanted to leave town,” Thigpen told the newspaper.

She recalled that the night before his death, Hastings asked Thigpen if he could borrow her Volvo because he was afraid to drive his own car.

Fox News reported family members told investigators that Hastings, who supposedly had been “sober” for 14 years, had begun using drugs the month before his death. The drugs included the hallucinogenic DMT, although it was not detected in a blood report conducted after the crash.

Fox News further reported a family member told investigators Hastings was seen passed out at home about three hours before the crash and that he had been smoking marijuana the night of the crash.

Investigators told Fox News that Hastings was found after the crash with a medicinal marijuana identity card in his wallet and that he apparently was using the drug to ease post-traumatic stress disorder experienced after his assignments in Afghanistan and Iraq.

A security video that captured Hastings’ car crash showed a flash of light before the car hit the tree, raising suspicions Hastings’ death may have been caused by an explosion.

San Diego 6 News has reported that a witness in a nearby business is claiming the explosion occurred before Hastings’ car hit the tree. An explosion before impact, which would slow down the vehicle, would explain the minimal damage observed on the palm tree. Other physical evidence at the crash site also is not consistent with a high-speed, out-of-control impact.

See the security video:

Brennan and the CIA

On Aug. 12, Kimberly Dvorak reported for San Diego 6 News that Hastings at the time of his death was working on an exposé on CIA director John Brennan.

In July, a source provided the station with an email hacked from “super secret CIA contractor” Stratfor’s President Fred Burton and subsequently posted on WikiLeaks that suggested Brennan was in charge of the Obama administration’s surveillance of investigative journalists.

Michael Hastings and Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett at President Obama's election-night victory party in 2012 (Photo: John V. Santore)

Though rumors persist that Hastings was near completion of a new exposè on Brennan to be published shortly in Rolling Stone, the magazine so far has not published any such piece.

Obama’s passport records sanitized

WND has previously reported that Brennan played a controversial role in what many suspect was an effort to sanitize Obama’s passport records prior to the 2008 presidential election.

On March 21, 2008, during the 2008 presidential campaign, two unnamed contract employees for the State Department were fired and a third unnamed State Department contract employee was disciplined for breaching the passport file of Democratic presidential candidate and then-senator Barack Obama.

The Washington Times on March 20, 2008, noted that all three had used their authorized computer network access to look up and read Obama’s records within the State Department’s consular affairs section that “possesses and stores passport information.”

Contacted by the newspaper, State Department spokesman Sean McCormick attributed the violations to non-political motivations, stressing that the three individuals involved “did not appear to be seeking information on behalf of any political candidate or party.”

“As far as we can tell, in each of the three cases, it was imprudent curiosity,” McCormick told the Washington Times.

Exactly how the State Department came to that conclusion, McCormick did not disclose.

By the next day, the story had changed.

The New York Times reported March 21, 2008, that the security breach had involved unauthorized searches of the passport records not just of Obama, but also of then-presidential contenders Sens. John McCain and Hillary Clinton.

Again, the New York Times attributed the breaches to “garden-variety snooping by idle employees” that was “not politically motivated.”

Like the Washington Times, the New York Times gave no explanation to back up its assertion that the breaches were attributable to non-political malfeasance.

Still, the New York Times report said then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had spent Friday morning calling all three presidential candidates. Rice had told Obama that she was sorry for the violation. She said she “told him that I myself would be very disturbed if I learned that somebody had looked into my passport file.”

The newspaper quoted Obama saying he appreciated the apology but that he expected the passport situation “to be investigated diligently and openly.”

According to the New York Times report, Obama’s tone of concern was obvious.

“One of the things that the American people count on in their interactions with any level of government is that if they have to disclose personal information, that is going to stay personal and stay private,” Obama told reporters. “And when you have not just one, but a series of attempts to tap into people’s personal records, that’s a problem, not just for me, but for how our government is functioning.”

The New York Times noted that the files examined were likely to contain sensitive personal information, including Social Security numbers, addresses and dates of birth as well as passport applications and other biographical information that would pertain to U.S. citizenship. Only at the end of the article did the paper note that State Department spokesman McCormick had emphasized the most egregious violation appeared to have been made against Obama.

Obama was the only one of the three presidential candidates involved who had his passport file breached on three separate occasions. The first occurred Jan. 9, 2008, followed by separate violations Feb. 21 and March 14. Moreover, all three of the offending employees had breached Obama’s files, while the passport files of McCain and Clinton had been breached each only once.

The Brennan connection

The New York Times noted the two offending State Department contract employees who were fired had worked for Stanley Inc., a company based in Arlington, Va., while the reprimanded worker continued to be employed by the Analysis Corporation of McLean, Va.

The newspaper gave no background on either corporation other than to note that Stanley Inc. did “computer work for the government.”

John Brennan was sworn in as CIA director in March

At that time, Stanley Inc. was a 3,500-person technology firm that had just won a $570 million contract to provide computer-related passport services to the State Department, headed by Brennan, who then serving as an adviser on intelligence and foreign policy to Obama’s presidential campaign.

By Saturday, March 22, 2008, the Washington Times reported that the State Department investigation had focused on the contract worker for the Analysis Corporation, because he was the only one of the three involved in breaching the passport records of both Sens. Obama and McCain, the two presidential candidates whose eligibility as “natural born” citizens under Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution were in question.

Consistent with the claim that the motive for the passport breach merely was mischief, the three State Department contract employees received relatively light penalties. Two were fired and one was reprimanded.

Although at the time the State Department promised a full-scale investigation, the public was kept in the dark.

In July 2008, the State Department’s Office of Inspector General issued a 104-page investigative report on the passport breach incidents, stamped “Sensitive But Unclassified.” The document was so heavily redacted, it was nearly worthless to the public. Scores of passages were blacked out entirely, including one sequence of 29 consecutive pages that were each obliterated by a solid black box that made impossible the determination even of paragraph structures.

One investigative reporter, Kenneth Timmerman, said a well-placed but unnamed source told him that the real point of the passport breaches was to cauterize the Obama file, removing from it any information that could prove damaging to his presidential eligibility.

According to this theory, the breaches of McCain’s and Clinton’s files were done for misdirection purposes, to create confusion and to suggest the motives of the perpetrators were attributable entirely to innocent curiosity.

Brennan tilts toward Islam

WND has reported that in a speech delivered Aug. 9, 2009, to the Center for Strategic and International Studies that is archived on the White House website, Brennan commented that using “a legitimate term, ‘jihad,’ meaning to purify oneself or to wage a holy struggle for a moral goal” to describe terrorists “risks reinforcing the idea that the United States is somehow at war with Islam itself.”

Brennan advised that U.S. foreign policy should encourage greater assimilation of the Hezbollah terrorist organization into the Lebanese government.

WND further reported that in a July 2008 article in The Annals, a publication of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, Brennan argued it “would not be foolhardy, however, for the United States to tolerate, and even to encourage, greater assimilation of Hezbollah into Lebanon’s political system, a process that is subject to Iranian influence.”

Continued Brennan: “Hezbollah is already represented in the Lebanese parliament and its members have previously served in the Lebanese cabinet, reflections of Hezbollah’s interest in shaping Lebanon’s political future from within government institutions. This involvement is a far cry from Hezbollah’s genesis as solely a terrorist organization dedicated to murder, kidnapping and violence.”

At the August 2009 press conference for the CSIS, Brennan declared: “Hezbollah started out as purely a terrorist organization back in the early ‘80s and has evolved significantly over time. And now it has members of parliament, in the cabinet; there are lawyers, doctors, others who are part of the Hezbollah organization.”

Middle Eastern terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah frequently maintain civilian units of doctors and lawyers to emphasize their outreach with local politicians and to increase their political acceptance in the international arena.

Conceivably, the Istanbul-based Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief, better known by the Turkish acronym IHH, would fit into Brennan’s definition of the charitable side of organizations such as Hezbollah, despite IHH’s ties to al-Qaida. The links to the terror organization have been amply documented by experts such as former investigating judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere, who led the French judiciary’s counter-terrorism unit for nearly two decades before retiring in 1977.

Despite this history, IHH is not included on the State Department’s current list of 45 groups designated as foreign terrorist organizations, which names both Hezbollah and Hamas.

In his speech to the New York University law school students posted on YouTube by the White House, Brennan included a lengthy statement in Arabic that he did not translate for his English-speaking audience.

Noting that he was as an undergraduate with the American University in Cairo in the 1970s, Brennan proceeded to use only the Arabic name, “Al Quds,” when referring to Jerusalem. He said that during his 25 years in government, he spent considerable time in the Middle East, as a political officer with the State Department and as a CIA station chief in Saudi Arabia.

“In Saudi Arabia, I saw how our Saudi partners fulfilled their duty as custodians of the two holy mosques in Mecca and Medina,” he said. “I marveled at the majesty of the Hajj and the devotion of those who fulfilled their duty as Muslims of making that pilgrimage.”

WND previously reported Brennan participated in a meeting with Muslim law students facilitated by the Islamic Society of North America, a group that was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the prosecution of the founders of the Holy Land Foundation of Texas. The founders were given life sentences “for funneling $12 million” to Hamas, the group currently in political control of the Gaza.

WND further reported that at the meeting with Muslim law students, Brennan declared himself a “citizen of the world” who believed the U.S. government should never engage in “profiling” in pursuit of national security.

Imminent attack on Assad feels like déjà vu

NEW YORK – The Obama administration current claim that the Assad regime in Syria is the culprit in chemical gas attacks that may demand a U.S. military response has the feeling of déjà vu.

Last spring, President Obama made similar threats, only to back down from U.S. military action against the Assad regime after credible evidence produced by international authorities indicated the rebel forces attacking the Assad regime were responsible.

In a March 21 televised address to the people of Israel during his visit to the country, Obama pressed his claim that Assad was using poisonous chemical weapons against Syrian civilians in the war against rebel forces.

Obama said:

That’s why every country that values justice should call Hezbollah what it truly is – a terrorist organization. (Applause.) Because the world cannot tolerate an organization that murders innocent civilians, stockpiles rockets to shoot at cities, and supports the massacre of men and women and children in Syria right now. (Applause.)

The fact that Hezbollah’s ally – the Assad regime – has stockpiles of chemical weapons only heightens the urgency. We will continue to cooperate closely to guard against that danger. I’ve made it clear to Bashar al-Assad and all who follow his orders: We will not tolerate the use of chemical weapons against the Syrian people, or the transfer of those weapons to terrorists. The world is watching; we will hold you accountable. (Applause.)

The Syrian people have the right to be freed from the grip of a dictator who would rather kill his own people than relinquish power. (Applause.) Assad must go so that Syria’s future can begin. Because true stability in Syria depends upon establishing a government that is responsible to its people – one that protects all communities within its borders, while making peace with countries beyond them.

Clearly, Obama had taken a position against the Assad regime. The question remained whether his administration’s charge that Assad carried out poison gas attacks could stand the test of international scrutiny.

Then, as now, Obama had the support of Britain and France in attacking the Assad regime over the use of poison gas.

Le Monde in Paris reported May 27 that two reporters who spent two months clandestinely in the Damascus area alongside Syrian rebels witnessed chemical gas attacks launched by the Assad regime.

“In the tangled web of the Jobar front, where enemy lines are so close that the fighters exchange insults as often as they kill each other, gas attacks occurred on a regular basis in April,” Le Monde reported.

“The gas was not diffused over a broad swath of territory but used occasionally in specific locations by government forces to attack the areas of toughest fighting with the encroaching opposition rebels. This sector is the place where Free Syrian Army groups have penetrated most deeply into Damascus. A merciless war is being waged here.”

Then, as now, Assad regime officials pushed back, denying Syrian government forces had used chemical weapons against the rebels, while demanding the White House and Britain produce evidence.

In May, Israel, agreeing with the U.S., Britain and France that the Assad regime had used chemical weapons, launched a series of limited missile and warplane strikes on Syria, supposedly aimed at preventing the transfer of Iranian-made missiles to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

U.N. investigator contradicts Obama

On May 6, the BBC reported that Carla Del Ponte, a leading member of the U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Syria, established by the U.N. in August 2011, told Swiss TV the available evidence pointed to the Syrian rebels launching gas attacks, although the possibility government forces may also have used chemical weapons could not be ruled out.

The BBC also reported Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said he was deeply concerned by “signs that world public opinion is being prepared for possible military intervention” in Syria.

On the question of whether chemical weapons had been used, Lukashevich called for an “end to the politicization of this issue” and to the “whipping up of an anti-Syrian atmosphere.”

The report of the U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Syria delivered to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva on June 4 found evidence of murder, torture, rape, forcible displacement or other inhumane acts having been committed both by government forces and by the rebels.

The commission concluded: “There are reasonable grounds to believe that chemical agents have been used as weapons. The precise agents, delivery systems or perpetrators could not be identified.”

In a White House press conference Aug. 20, 2012, President Obama said, “I have indicated repeatedly that President al-Assad has lost legitimacy, that he needs to step down.”

Obama’s “red line”

Obama went on to articulate what has become his controversial “red-line” standard: “We have been very clear to the Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my calculus. That would change my equation.”

In a CNN interview last week, Obama cautioned against unilateral U.S. military action when asked if the U.S. needed to do more to stop the violence in Syria.

Obama’s response was to defer to a renewed U.N. investigation.

“Well, we are right now gathering information about this particular event, but I can say that unlike some of the evidence that we were trying to get earlier that led to a U.N. investigator going into Syria, what we’ve seen indicates that this is clearly a big event of grave concern,” Obama explained to CNN.

“And, you know, we are already in communications with the entire international community. We’re moving through the U.N. to try to prompt better action from them. And we’ve called on the Syrian government to allow an investigation of the site, because U.N. inspectors are on the ground right now.”

With China and Russia having permanent seats and vetoes on the U.N. Security Council, it is doubtful the Obama administration could get a U.N. resolution calling for military action against the Assad regime, especially because the evidence blaming the Assad regime for the recent chemical gas attacks has been questioned internationally.

WND has reported Arabic-language sources indicating the rebels, not the Assad government, are responsible for the most recent chemical gas attack in Syria.

Meanwhile, Foreign Policy magazine reported Wednesday that U.S. eavesdropping provided evidence of a chemical attack.

The magazine said an official at the Syrian Ministry of Defense exchanged panicked phone calls with the leader of a chemical weapons unit, demanding answers for a nerve agent strike that killed more than 1,000 people.

The magazine said in a statement that the conversations were overheard by U.S. intelligence services, which is the major reason why American officials now say they’re certain that the attacks were the work of the Assad regime.

Benghazi suspect trained in U.S.

Tarek Taha Abu Al-Azm

NEW YORK – An Egyptian terrorist who was suspected of participating in the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya, was trained in the United States, according to an Egyptian investigation.

The probe being conducted by the Supreme State Security Prosecution in Egypt has named Tarek Taha Abu Al-Azm as the terrorist operative in the Jamal network responsible for directing from Egypt the Benghazi attack.

Al-Azm, a former major in the Egyptian armed forces who reached the rank of captain and was put in charge of an air base for the Egyptian Air Force, traveled to the U.S. for military training after graduating from the Egyptian military academy as a member of the Egyptian Armed Forces Officers, according to reports published in the Egyptian newspaper Al-Watan and on the pro-Jihadi website Arabian Sword.

The reports were discovered and translated by researcher Walid Shoebat, a former PLO member.

Explaining Al-Azm’s role in the Benghazi attack, Shoebat said he would be akin to Mohamed Atta, the cell ringleader in the 9/11 attack, and Al-Kashif would be like one of the terrorist pilots.

Multiple Arabic-language sources in the Middle East document that Al-Azm learned how to fly fighter jets through training in the U.S. from the U.S. Air Force.

According to the Jihadi website Muslim.org, an article by the Al Bayan Media Foundation included excerpts from a police interview with Al-Azm after his cell in Nasr City, a district of Cairo, was broken up earlier this year: “Al-Azm stated that he was an air force pilot and was sent to America by the Egyptian Air Force to get military training.”

According to the notes of his police interrogation, as reported by Al-Watan, Al-Azm said the following regarding Americans: “America tried to impress us but I was not impressed. They have administrative capacity only and do not understand things. They are easy to know.”

Benghazi ties to terrorists

A break in the Benghazi case came when a terrorist named Karim Ahmed Essam al-Azizy, a Libyan national, was killed in a raid on an apartment complex in Nasr City on Oct. 25, 2011, as Reuters reported at the time.

At the time of his death, al-Azizy was working under Egyptian terrorist Muhammad Jamal Abdo Al-Kashif, the recognized head of the Jamal network and widely regarded in the West as the leader of the Egyptian group behind the Benghazi attack.

But according to lead Egyptian investigators, the leader of the terror cell was not Muhammad Jamal Abdo Al-Kashif but an Egyptian terrorist named Tarek Taha Abu Al-Azm.

Al-Kashif, according to the Supreme State Security prosecutor in Egypt, was simply the “second defendant” and the one who sent the message that the U.S. compound at Benghazi had been attacked to Ayman Zawahiri, the current leader of al-Qaida who advanced to the No. 1 spot after Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. military forces in May 2011.

But according to the lead Egyptian investigators, Ziad Al-Sadeq and Shady Albrkoqy, the leader of the terror cell was someone else, which explains much about the silence surrounding the Nasr City fiasco.

Morsi government culpable?

WND has previously reported allegations that the Morsi government in Egypt was responsible for directing the Benghazi attack. The claim was backed by a letter written by the chief of the Department of Security in the Libyan government four days after the Benghazi attack.

WND has also reported that videos of the Benghazi attack in progress show several jihadists pleading in an Egyptian dialect of Arabic: “Don’t shoot, don’t shoot. Dr. Morsi sent us.”

Al-Kashif and Al-Azm, both of whom were imprisoned in Egypt, were released by the Morsi government soon after Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak was deposed Feb. 11, 2011, following 18 days of Muslim Brotherhood demonstrations in Cairo.

A video posted on YouTube shows Al-Azm’s jubilation upon his release from prison.

After his release, Al-Azm became active in the Jamal network terrorist organization, leading Al-Azm’s involvement in the Benghazi attack.

WND has also reported a document obtained from inside the Morsi government lends credibility to the charge the Obama administration was paying bribes as large as $850,000 a year to Muslim Brotherhood leaders in Cairo, with the direct involvement of the U.S. Embassy.