Adults are taught to be skeptical. But the subconscious is like a toddler
Global Research, December 26, 2008
The Tyee (Vancouver)
Forget focus groups, marketing studies or even psychographics, 2009 is
the year the selling juggernaut will use neuroscience and our own
biology against us.
Or rather that's Buy-ology, the name of book
by marketing mastermind Martin Lindstrom who recounts his findings from
a massive brain-research project exploring why we buy. Appealing
directly to the brain's buy impulse is called "neuromarketing," and he
spent three years and $7 million, using both CT scanning and fMRI
(functional magnetic resonance imaging) technology, to examine how
people's brains respond to advertising and marketing ploys.
Lindstrom's
findings echo those from some of the psychological strategies, but a
surprising amount of the hard science shows that much of the most
effective advertising is actually counterintuitive.
For example,
health warnings on cigarette packs actually make people long to smoke.
In Lindstrom's studies, the sight of these warnings prompted the
"craving" center of the subjects' brains to light up. Apparently,
there's a subliminal appeal. People love cigarettes, and anything
associated with them -- even dire warnings -- will get them salivating
like Pavlov's dog. That includes the colours of cigarette packages.
Excluded
from the usual ad venues, tobacco companies are way ahead on the
subliminal advertising path. They pay attractive businesses such as
smart cocktail lounges or NASCAR competitors to adopt package colors,
which triggers the craving center of the brain. Suddenly a patron in a
gold and burgundy bar has an inexplicable urge to smoke. Cigarettes
that feature a rugged individualist cowboy have also branched out into
clothing and accessories with heartland style.
Lindstrom says
this sort of subliminal advertising is actually more effective than
conventional ads -- again, they can tell from the brain scans --
because it doesn't cause the consumer to put up a guard. The site of
logos, brand names, or anything overtly connected with selling, such as
a TV commercial, engages the conscious mind. Adults are taught to be
skeptical. But the subconscious, it seems, is more like a toddler:
easily seduced by anything that addresses primal emotional needs.
Sex slows sales
So what works for marketers and against you?
Sex,
it turns out, doesn't sell (despite what every editor says). All that
erotically charged imagery actually overwhelms the brain, which can't
recall the product. What does work is sex with emotion, particularly
sex with controversy. (Or as P.T. Barnum is alleged to have said,
"There's no such thing as bad publicity as long as they spell your name
right.")
Suddenly the success of that 1980 ad "Nothing comes
between me and my Calvins," featuring barely pubescent Brooke Shields,
15, doing her Lolita routine, makes sense. As Lindstrom recounts, the
outrage was loud, relentless and memorable. The most important thing in
triggering a buy is to make a product memorable, which is what happens
when a buyer experiences emotion connected with a product.
For
this reason, product integration -- product placement where the gizmo
is integral to the plot of a TV show -- is far more effective than
conventional ads, which cue the audience to be en garde. Ironically,
technology that allows viewers to skip TV ads may actually do sellers a
favour, as it forces them to find more effective techniques.
Successful
ads create fear about personal inadequacy (for which the product is the
solution) but if you stimulate the part of the brain that registers
general anxieties -- such as fear of job loss -- customers are put-off.
Wire up the focus group!
The
best ads offer wish-fulfilment -- if you buy these jeans, you too will
look like the pretty, happy models. But those models can't be out of
the consumer's league. The trick is to create an idealized image of a
consumer.
For example, Abercrombie and Fitch hired
better-than-average looking teenagers to don the clothes and hangout,
in packs, around their stores. They looked popular and attractive to
the target market, but were well within what those teens could achieve
themselves as long as they had the 'rents credit card.
With
their underdeveloped brains, teenagers particularly have the urge to
mirror other teens, an impulse that appears to explain a lot of fads.
It's better known as monkey-see, monkey-do. Primates imitate those
around them due, it turns out, to some observed actions stimulating
certain satisfying parts of their little chimp brains.
Now
marketers can wire up a focus group and see if the fad they're selling
hits those relevant grey cells. No more "throwing spaghetti at the wall
and seeing what sticks," as Lindstrom puts it. Even in cases where we
don't consciously want a product, this research will give marketers a
hammer for hitting the wallet-opening reflex.
Resistance is futile
I
wish I could promise that reading Lindstrom's analysis of his research
will help you defend against neuromarketing, but the findings suggest
the opposite -- soon consumers will have nowhere to hide. Well, short
of actual hiding.
If you have any connection with the external
world -- the shops, the media, the web, entertainment, religion -- you
run the risk of being manipulated by cynical enterprises looking to
separate you from your cash. Yes, that's business as usual, only now
they have better tools.
Not that Lindstrom actually says that.
He's more like a gleeful scientist who just discovered how to split the
atom. Presumably, an editor warned him about his tone as he volunteers,
at regular jarring intervals, that there's nothing frightening about
neuromarketing.
(An ill-considered strategy. I found it merely
fascinating until he employed the classic liar's technique of denying
something before being accused. Now I suspect this is the nuclear bomb
of consumer manipulation.)
His closing sentence advises
reader-consumers to be "mindful." Well, caveat emptor to you too,
buddy. But given that stealth marketing has invaded every nook and
cranny of life, and neuromarketing can be crafted to trigger desire for
even unappealing objects (Ugg boots come to mind), I think we have to
just accept that resistance is futile.
By William Blase
For those who may be confused by the controversies surrounding the "New World Order", a One-World-Government, and American concern over giving the UN more power; those unaware of the issues involved; and those wishing more background, I offer the following.
Originally presented for an Honors Class, "Dilemmas of War and Peace," at New Mexico State University, the paper was ridiculed and characterized by Dr. Yosef Lapid, (an acknowledged and locally quoted "expert" on Terrorism and Middle Eastern affairs) as "paranoid...possibly a symptom of mental illness." You may judge for yourself.
Citing source data is the "scientific method," but does not seem to apply to "Conspiracy Theories." A thousand sources may be quoted, yet will not convince the "skeptics," the "realists." It seems to me the "symptoms of mental illness" are on their side, if they refuse to look at evidence ("There are none so blind as those who WILL not see"); or perhaps something more sinister is at work, such as a knowledge of the truth, that does not want YOU to know.
To be paranoid means to believe in delusions of danger and persecution. If the danger is real, and the evidence credible, then it cannot be delusional. To ignore the evidence, and hope that it CANNOT be true, is more an evidence of mental illness.
The issue involves much more than a difference of philosophy, or political viewpoint. Growing up in the midst of the "Cold War," our generation were taught that those who attempted to abolish our national sovereignty and overthrow our Constitutional government were committing acts of treason. Please judge for yourself if the group discussed is guilty of such.
If one group is effectively in control of national governments and multinational corporations; promotes world government through control of media, foundation grants, and education; and controls and guides the issues of the day; then they control most options available. The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), and the financial powers behind it, have done all these things, and promote the "New World Order", as they have for over seventy years.
The CFR is the promotional arm of the Ruling Elite in the United States of America. Most influential politicians, academics and media personalities are members, and it uses its influence to infiltrate the New World Order into American life. Its' "experts" write scholarly pieces to be used in decision making, the academics expound on the wisdom of a united world, and the media members disseminate the message.
To understand how the most influential people in America came to be members of an organization working purposefully for the overthrow of the Constitution and American sovereignty, we have to go back at least to the early 1900's, though the story begins much earlier (depending on your viewpoint and beliefs).
THAT outmodedis Constitution our believes which elite bureaucratic a government, of form another representing body system, political and ourgovernment within operating have We government. Constitutional we ?Outwardly speech: in warned Jenner William Senator 1954, 23, February Jackson.? Andrew days the since ever government owned has centers large element financial that Iknow, you as is, matter truth real ?The wrote, Roosevelt Franklin President 1933, 21, November dated associate an to letter In scenes.? behind from power exercise invisible are Washington rulers said: (1939-1962), Court Supreme Justice Frankfurter, Felix know. position americans many by attested been scenes U.S. control indeed does ruling>Baron M.A. Rothschild wrote, "Give me control over a nation's currency and I care not who makes its laws." All that is needed to effectively control a government is to have control over the nation's money: a central bank with a monopoly over the supply of money and credit. This had been done in Western Europe, with the creation of privately owned central banks such as the Bank of England. Georgetown professor Dr. Carroll Quigley (Bill Clinton's mentor while at Georgetown) wrote about the goals of the investment bankers who control central banks: "... nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole... controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences."
The Bank of the United States (1816-36), an early attempt at an American central bank, was abolished by President Andrew Jackson, who believed that it threatened the nation. He wrote: "The bold effort the present bank had made to control the government,the distress it had wantonly produced...are but premonitions of the fate that awaits the American people should they be deluded into a perpetuation of this institution or the establishment of another like it."
Thomas Jefferson wrote: "The Central Bank is an institution of the most deadly hostility existing against the principles and form of our Constitution...if the American people allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."
Does that not describe the situation in America today?
The U.S. managed to do without a central bank until early in this century, when, according to Congressman Charles Lindbergh, Sr., "The Money Trust caused the 1907 panic, and thereby forced Congress to create a National Monetary Commission." Headed by Senator Nelson Aldrich, father-in-law of John D. Rockefeller, Jr.,the Commission recommended creation of a central bank.
Though unconstitutional, as only "The Congress shall have Power...To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof..." (Article I, Section 8, U.S. Constitution) the Federal Reserve Act was passed in December 1913; ostensibly to stabilize the economy and prevent further panics, but as Lindbergh warned Congress: "This act establishes the most gigantic trust on earth...the invisible government by the money power, proven to exist by the Money Trust investigation, will be legalized." The Great Depression and numerous recessions later, it is obvious the Federal Reserve produces inflation and federal debt whenever it desires, but not stability.
Congressman Louis McFadden, House Committee on Banking and Currency Chairman (1920-31), stated: "When the Federal Reserve Act was passed, the people of these United States did not perceive that a world banking system was being set up here. A super-state controlled by international bankers and industrialists...acting together to enslave the world...Every effort has been made by the Fed to conceal its powers but the truth is--the Fed has usurped the government."
Although called "Federal," the Federal Reserve system is privately owned by member banks, makes its own policies, and is not subject to oversight by Congress or the President. As the overseer and supplier of reserves, the Fed gave banks access to public funds, which enhanced their lending capacity.
Peter Kershaw, in Economic Solutions lists the ten major shareholders of the Federal Reserve Bank System as: Rothschild: London and Berlin; Lazard Bros: Paris; Israel Seiff: Italy; Kuhn-Loeb Company: Germany; Warburg: Hamburg and Amsterdam; Lehman Bros: New York; Goldman and Sachs: New York; Rockefeller: New York. (That most, if not all of these families just happen to be Jewish, you may judge the significance of yourself). The balance of stock is owned by major commercial member banks.
According to Davvy Kidd, Why A Bankrupt America? The Federal Reserve pays the Bureau of Engraving & Printing approximately $23 for each 1,000 notes printed. 10,000 $100 notes (one million dollars) would thus cost the Federal Reserve $230. They then secure a pledge of collateral equal to the face value from the U.S government. The collateral is our land, labor, and assets...collected by their agents, the IRS.
By authorizing the Fed to regulate and create money (and thus inflation), Congress gave private banks power to create profits at will. As Lindberg put it: "The new law will create inflation whenever the trusts want inflation...they can unload the stocks on the people at high prices during the excitement and then bring on a panic and buy them back at low prices...the day of reckoning is only a few years removed." That day came in 1929, with the Stock Market crash and Great Depression.
One of the most important powers given to the Fed was the right to buy and sell government securities, and provide loans to member banks so they might also purchase them. This provided another built-in mechanism for profit to the banks, if government debt was increased. All that was needed was a method to pay off the debt. This was accomplished through the passage of the income tax in 1913.
A national income tax was declared unconstitutional in 1895 by the Supreme Court, so a constitutional amendment was proposed in Congress by none other than ...Senator Nelson Aldrich. As presented to the American people it seemed reasonable enough: income tax on only one percent of income under $20,000, with the assurance that it would never increase. Since it was graduated, the tax would "soak the rich", ...but the rich had other plans, already devising a method of protecting wealth.
As described by Gary Allen in his 1976 book The Rockefeller File, "By the time the (16th) Amendment had been approved by the states, the Rockefeller Foundation was in full operation...about the same time that Judge Kenesaw Landis was ordering the breakup of the Standard Oil monopoly...John D...not only avoided taxes by creating four great tax-exempt foundations; he used them as repositories for his 'divested' interests...made his assets non-taxable so that they might be passed down through generations without...estate and gift taxes...Each year the Rockefellers can dump up to half their incomes into their pet foundations and deduct the "donations" from their income tax."
Exchanging ownership for control of wealth, foundations are also a handy means for promoting interests that benefit the wealthy. Millions of foundation dollars have been "donated" to causes such as promoting the use of drugs, while degrading preventive medicine. Since many drugs are made from coal tar derivatives, both oil companies and drug manufacturing concerns (many Rockefeller owned or controlled) are the main beneficiaries.
With the means to loan enormous sums to the government (the Federal Reserve), a method to repay the debt (income tax), and an escape from taxation for the wealthy, (foundations), all that remained was an excuse to borrow money. By some happy"coincidence," in 1914 World War I began, and after American participation national debt rose from $1 billion to $25 billion.
Woodrow Wilson was elected President in 1913, beating incumbent William Howard Taft, who had vowed to veto legislation establishing a central bank. To divide the Republican vote and elect the relatively unknown Wilson, J.P. Morgan and Co. poured money into the candidacy of Teddy Roosevelt and his Progressive Party.
According to an eyewitness, Wilson was brought to Democratic Party headquarters in 1912 by Bernard Baruch, a wealthy banker. He received an "indoctrination course" from those he met, and in return agreed, if elected: to support the projected Federal Reserveand the income tax, and "listen" to advice in case of war in Europe and on the composition of his cabinet.
Wilson's top advisor during his two terms was a man named Colonel Edward M. House. House's biographer, Charles Seymour, called him the "unseen guardian angel" of the Federal Reserve Act, helping to guide it through Congress. Another biographer wrote that House believed: "...the Constitution, product of eighteenth-century minds...was thoroughly outdated; that the country would be better off if the Constitution could be scrapped and rewritten..." House wrote a book entitled Philip Dru: Administrator, published anonymously in 1912. The hero, Philip Dru, rules America and introduces radical changes, such as a graduated income tax, a central bank, and a "league of nations."
World War I produced both a large national debt, and huge profits for those who had backed Wilson. Baruch was appointed head of the War Industries Board, where he exercised dictatorial power over the national economy. He and the Rockefellers were reported to have earned over $200 million during the war. Wilson backer Cleveland Dodge sold munitions to the allies, while J.P. Morgan loaned them hundreds of millions, with the protection of U.S. entry into the war.
While profit was certainly a motive, the war was also useful to justify the notion of world government. William Hoar reveals in Architechs of Conspiracy that during the 1950s, government investigators examining the records of the Carnegie Endowment forInternational Peace, a long- time promoter of globalism, found that several years before the outbreak of World War I, the Carnegie trustees were planning to involve the U.S. in a general war, to set the stage for world government.
The main obstacle was that Americans did not want any involvement in European wars. Some kind of incident, such as the explosion of the battleship Main, which provoked the Spanish - American war, would have to be provided as provocation. This occurred when the Lusitania, carrying 128 Americans on board, was sunk by a German submarine, and anti-German sentiment was aroused. When war was declared, U.S. propaganda portrayed all Germans as Huns and fanged serpents, and all Americans opposing the war as traitors.
What was not revealed at the time, however, was that the Lusitania was transporting war munitions to England, making it a legitimate target for the Germans. Even so, they had taken out large ads in the New York papers, asking that Americans not take passage on the ship.
The evidence seems to point to a deliberate plan to have the ship sunk by the Germans. Colin Simpson, author of The Lusitania, wrote that Winston Churchill, head of the British Admiralty during the war, had ordered a report to predict the political impact if a passenger ship carrying Americans was sunk. German naval codes hadbeen broken by the British, who knew approximately where all U-boats near the British Isles were located.
According to Simpson, Commander Joseph Kenworthy, of British Naval Intelligence, stated: "The Lusitania was deliberately sent at considerably reduced speed into an area where a U-boat was known to be waiting...escorts withdrawn." Thus, even though Wilson had been reelected in 1916 with the slogan "He kept us out of war," America soon found itself fighting a European war. Actually, Colonel House had already negotiated a secret agreement with England, committing the U.S. to the conflict. It seems the American public had little say in the matter.
With the end of the war and the Versailles Treaty, which required severe war reparations from Germany, the way was paved for a leader in Germany such as Hitler. Wilson brought to the Paris Peace Conference his famous "fourteen points," with point fourteen being a proposal for a "general association of nations," which was to be the first step towards the goal of One World Government-the League of Nations.
Wilson's official biographer, Ray Stannard Baker, revealed that the League was not Wilson's idea. "...not a single idea--in the Covenant of the League was original with the President." Colonel House was the author of the Covenant, and Wilson had merelyrewritten it to conform to his own phraseology.
The League of Nations was established, but it, and the plan for world government eventually failed because the U.S. Senate would not ratify the Versailles Treaty.
Pat Robertson, in The New World Order, states that Colonel House, along with other internationalists, realized that America would not join any scheme for world government without a change in public opinion. After a series of meetings, it was decided that an "Institute of International Affairs", with two branches, in the United States and England, would be formed.
The British branch became known as the Royal Institute of International Affairs, with leadership provided by members of the Round Table. Begun in the late 1800's by Cecil Rhodes, the Round Table aimed to federate the English speaking peoples of the world,and bring it under their rule.
The Council on Foreign Relations was incorporated as the American branch in New York on July 29, 1921. Founding members included Colonel House, and "...such potentates of international banking as J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, Paul Warberg, Otto Kahn, and Jacob Schiff...the same clique which had engineered the establishment of the Federal Reserve System," according to Gary Allen in the October 1972 issue of AMERICAN OPINION.
The founding president of the CFR was John W. Davis, J.P. Morgan's personal attorney, while the vice-president was Paul Cravath, also representing the Morgan interests. Professor Carroll Quigley characterized the CFR as "...a front group for J.P. Morgan and Company in association with the very small American RoundTable Group." Over time Morgan influence was lost to the Rockefellers, who found that one world government fit their philosophy of business well. As John D. Rockefeller, Sr. had said: "Competition is a sin," and global monopoly fit their needs as they grew internationally.
Antony Sutton, a research fellow for the Hoover Institution for War, Revolution, and Peace at Stanford University, wrote of this philosophy: "While monopoly control of industries was once the objective of J.P. Morgan and J.D. Rockefeller, by the late nineteenth century the inner sanctums of Wall Street understood the most efficient way to gain an unchallenged monopoly was to 'go political' and make society go to work for the monopolists-- under the name of the public good and the public interest."
Frederick C. Howe revealed the strategy of using government in a 1906 book, Confessions of a Monopolist: "These are the rules of big business...Get a monopoly; let society work for you; and remember that the best of all business is politics..."
As corporations went international, national monopolies could no longer protect their interests. What was needed was a one world system of government controlled from behind the scenes. This had been the plan since the time of Colonel House, and to implement it, it was necessary to weaken the U.S. politically and economically.
During the 1920's, America enjoyed a decade of prosperity, fueled by the easy availability of credit. Between 1923 and 1929 the Federal Reserve expanded the money supply by sixty-two percent. When the stock market crashed, many small investors were ruined, but not "insiders." In March of 1929 Paul Warburg issued a tip the Crash was coming, and the largest investors got out of the market, according to Allen and Abraham in None Dare Call it Conspiracy.
With their fortunes intact, they were able to buy companies for a fraction of their worth. Shares that had sold for a dollar might now cost a nickel, and the buying power, and wealth, of the rich increased enormously.
Louis McFadden, Chairman of the House Banking Committee declared: "It was not accidental. It was a carefully contrived occurrence...The international bankers sought to bring about a condition of despair here so that they might emerge as rulers of usall."
Curtis Dall, son-in-law of FDR and a syndicate manager for Lehman Brothers, an investment firm, was on the N.Y. Stock Exchange floor the day of the crash. In his book, FDR: My Exploited Father-In-Law, he states: "...it was the calculated 'shearing' of the public by the World-Money powers triggered by the planned sudden shortage ofcall money in the New York Market."
The Crash paved the way for the man Wall Street had groomed for the presidency, FDR. Portrayed as a "man of the little people", the reality was that Roosevelt's family had been involved in New York banking since the eighteenth century.
Frederic Delano, FDR's uncle, served on the original Federal Reserve Board. FDR attended Groton and Harvard, and in the 1920's worked on Wall Street, sitting on the board of directors of eleven different corporations.
Dall wrote of his father-in-law: "...Most of his thoughts, his political 'ammunition,'...were carefully manufactured for him in advance by the CFR-One World Money group. Brilliantly... he exploded that prepared 'ammunition' in the middle of an unsuspecting target, the American people--and thus paid off and retained his internationalist political support."
Taking America off the gold standard in 1934, FDR opened the way to unrestrained money supply expansion, decades of inflation--and credit revenues for banks. Raising gold prices from $20 an ounce to $35, FDR and Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau,Jr. (son of a founding CFR member), gave international bankers huge profits.
FDR's most remembered program, the New Deal, could only be financed through heavy borrowing. In effect, those who had caused the Depression loaned America the money to recover from it. Then, through the National Recovery Administration, proposed by Bernard Baruch in 1930, they were put in charge of regulating the economy. FDR appointed Baruch disciple Hugh Johnson to run the NRA, assisted by CFR member Gerard Swope. With broad powers to regulate wages, prices, and working conditions, it was, as Herbert Hoover wrote in his memoirs: "...pure fascism;...merely a remaking of Mussolini's 'corporate state'..." The Supreme Court eventually ruled the NRAunconstitutional.
During the FDR years, the Council on Foreign Relations captured the political life of the U.S. Besides Treasury Secretary Morgenthau, other CFR members included Secretary of State Edward Stettinus, War Secretary Henry Stimson, and Assistant Secretary of State Sumner Welles.
Since 1934 nearly every United States Secretary of State has been a CFR member; and ALL Secretaries of War or Defense, from Henry L. Stimson through Richard Cheney.
The CIA has been under CFR control almost continuously since its creation, starting with Allen Dulles, founding member of the CFR and brother of Secretary of State under President Eisenhower, John Foster Dulles. Allen Dulles had been at the Paris PeaceConference, joined the CFR in 1926, and later became its president.
John Foster Dulles had been one of Woodrow Wilson's young proteges at the Paris Peace Conference. A founding member of the CFR...he was an in-law of the Rockefellers, Chairman of the Board of the Rockefeller Foundation, and Board Chairman of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
In 1940 FDR defeated internationalist Wendell Willkie, who wrote a book entitled
One World, and later became a CFR member. Congressman Usher Burdick
protested at the time on the floor of the House that Willkie was being financed
by J.P. Morgan and the New York utility bankers. Polls showed few Republicans
favored him, yet the media portrayed him as THE Republican candidate.
Since that time nearly ALL presidential candidates have been CFR members. President Truman, who was not a member, was advised by a group of "wise men," all six of whom were CFR members, according to Gary Allen. In 1952 and 1956, CFR Adlai Stevenson challenged CFR Eisenhower. In 1960, CFR Kennedy (perhaps killed for attempting to introduce debt-free money, by executive order - cancelled immediately by LBJ) defeated CFR Nixon. In 1964 the GOP stunned the Establishment by nominating its candidate over Nelson Rockefeller. Rockefeller and the CFR wing proceeded to picture Barry Goldwater as a dangerous radical. In 1968 CFR Nixon ran against CFR Humphrey. The 1972 "contest" featured CFR Nixon vs. CFR McGovern.
CFR candidates for president include George McGovern, Walter Mondale, Edmund Muskie, John Anderson, and Lloyd Bentsen. In 1976 we had Jimmy Carter, who is a member of the Trilateral Commission, created by David Rockefeller and CFR member Zbigniew Brezinski with the goal of economic linkage between Japan, Europe, and the United States, and: "...managing the world economy...a smooth and peaceful evolution of the global system." We have also had (though his name strangely disappears from the membership list in 1979) CFR Director (1977-79) George Bush, and last but not least, CFR member Bill Clinton.
They have all promoted the "New World Order," controlled by the United Nations. The problem is that "...the present United Nations organization is actually the creation of the CFR and is housed on land in Manhattan donated to it by the family of current CFR chairman David Rockefeller," as Pat Robertson describes it.
The original concept for the UN was the outcome of the Informal Agenda Group, formed in 1943 by Secretary of State Cordell Hull. All except Hull were CFR members, and Isaiah Bowman, a founding member of the CFR, originated the idea.
The American delegation to the San Francisco meeting that drafted the charter of the United Nations in 1949 included CFR members Nelson Rockefeller, John Foster Dulles, John McCloy, and CFR members who were communist agents--Harry Dexter White, Owen Lattimore, and the Secretary-General of the conference, Alger Hiss. In all, the Council sent forty-seven of its members in the United States delegation, effectively controlling the outcome.
Since that time the CFR and its friends in the mass media (largely controlled by CFR members such as Katherine Graham of the Washington Post and Henry Luce of Time, Life), foundations, and political groups have lobbied consistently to grant the United Nations more authority and power. Bush and the Gulf War were but one of the latest calls for a "New World Order." Through executive order, Clinton has attempted to give the U.N. authority to command U.S. troops. Many American historical sites are now U.N. "World Heritage Sites," such as Independence Hall, Carlsbad Caverns, and the Grand Canyon. The administration is moving forward with the Biodiversity Treaty (though not ratified by Congress) and the Wildlands Project, developed by convicted eco-terrorist Dave Foreman, founder of Earth First! and present director of the Sierra Club. It would convert much of the area of the U.S. to wilderness areas, connected by corridors for the free movement of species.
Admiral Chester Ward, a member of the CFR for over a decade, became one of its harshest critics, revealing its inner workings in a 1975 book, Kissinger ON THE COUCH. In it he states "The most powerful cliques in these elitist groups have one objective in common: they want to bring about the surrender of the sovereignty and national independence of the United States."
Most members are one-world-government ideologists whose long-term goals were officially summed up in the September 1961 State Department Document 7277, adopted by the Nixon Administration: "...elimination of all armed forces and armaments except those needed to maintain internal order within states and to furnish the United Nations with peace forces...by the time it (UN global government) would be so strong no nation could challenge it."
Within the CFR there exists a "much smaller group but more powerful...made up of Wall Street international bankers and their key agents. Primarily, they want the world banking monopoly from whatever power ends up in control of the global government ...This CFR faction is headed by the Rockefeller brothers," according to Ward.
What must be remembered is that this is not some lunatic-fringe group...these are members of one of the most powerful private organizations in the world: the people who determine and control American economic, social, political, and military policy. Members' influence and control extends to "leaders in academia, public service, business, and the media," according to the CFR 1993 Annual Report.
Their founding they describe as: "American Participants in the Paris Peace Conference decided that it was time for more private Americans to become familiar with the increasing responsibilities and obligations of the United States...there was a need for an organization able to provide for the continuous study of U.S. foreign police for the BENEFIT OF ITS MEMBERS (emphasis mine) and a wider audience of interested Americans."
They sponsor hundreds of programs, where members "exchange views with American and foreign officials and policy experts... discuss foreign policy issues...consider international issues of concern to the business community" (Corporate business), and "...affiliated groups of community leaders throughout the United states...meet with decision makers."
The CFR states that it is "host to many views, advocate of none," and it "has no affiliation with the U.S. government." No, no affiliation at all, if you don't count: "A Council member was elected president of the United States...Dozens of other Council colleagues were called to serve in cabinet and sub-cabinet positions," as they describe it in Foreign Afairs, the official publication of the CFR, along with many members of Congress, the Supreme Court, the Joint Chiefs, the Federal Reserve, and many other Federal bureaucrats. They are not AFFILIATED with government, they ARE the government.
One re-occurring view was stated in the 50th anniversary issue of Foreign Affairs. In an article by Kingman Brewster, Jr. entitled "Reflections on Our National Purpose." Our purpose should be, according to him, to do away with our nationality, to "...take some risks in order to invite others to pool their sovereignty with ours..."
These "risks" include disarming to the point where we would be helpless against the "peace-keeping" forces of a global UN government. We should happily surrender our sovereignty to the world government in the interests of the "world community."
Today we have the spectacle of Spc. 4 Michael New, a U.S. soldier in Germany who refuses to wear the uniform of the UN, facing an "administrative discharge." He states rightly that he swore an oath to defend the U.S. Constitution, not the United Nations. Many other Americans have taken that same oath, such as myself, and believe it is our sworn duty still to defend The Constitution, since an oath sworn before God must be fulfilled. (Why else do we swear to tell the truth in our courts, or when taking public office?) Those who actually BELIEVE in God and the oath that was taken to defend our Constitution are characterized as extremists. Is it a crime to be honest these days?
Meanwhile, those who attempt to destroy The Constitution and our sovereignty are given honors and position...
"In short, the 'house of world order' will have to be built from the bottom up rather than from the top down...An end run around national sovereignty, eroding it piece by piece, will accomplish much more than the old fashioned assault..." in the opinion of Richard N. Gardner, former deputy assistant Secretary of State in Foreign Affairs, April 1974.
James Warburg, son of CFR founder Paul Warburg, and a member of FDR's "brain trust," testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on February 17, 1950, "We shall have world government whether or not you like it--by conquest or consent."
Is this an AMERICAN speaking, or a dangerous lunatic? Who is this "We" who threatens to CONQUER us?
They are a group that actually has the power to do it, and is doing it every day, bit by bit.
CFR Members in the mass media, education, and entertainment push their propaganda of "humanism" and world brotherhood. We should all live in peace under a world government, and forget about such selfish things as nationalities and patriotism. We can solve our own problems. We don't need God, or morals, or values: it's all relative, anyway, right?...Because if we actually had some moral character and values, we might be able to discern that these people are actually EVIL.
The Bible says that the LOVE of money is the root of all evil (1 Tim. 6:10). These people are evil because they love money and power, and greed drives them to do anything to achieve their goals. They have lost all morality and conscience, and believe such concepts, as well as our Constitution, "outdated".
THAT is insanity--to have more wealth than can be spent, and still it is never enough. They have to control governments, start wars, conspire to rule the world; least the "common people" wake up to how they have gained their wealth, take it away from them, and demand that they pay the price for their crimes.
That is why they constantly pit us one against the other, with "Diversity," Affirmative Action, and other programs,...black against white, men against women, rural against urban, ranchers against environmentalists, and on and on...least we look in their direction, and see that they are the hate-mongers, the polluters, the criminals.
We The People are held to a much higher standard. If we threaten the President or a public official, we are charged with a crime...yet the One-World-Gang can threaten The Constitution and the liberties of We The People, the sovereign rulers of this nation, and nothing is said or done. We are taught that we have a government OF the People, BY the People, and FOR the People; yet if The People attempt to take their sovereign power unto themselves and form common law courts, grand juries, or self-defense militias, they are branded as right-wing extremists. Perhaps the Constitution and Common Law have been suspended by the State of Emergency in 1933 (continued to this day through Executive Order), emergency powers granted to the President, and admiralty law instituted, and they just neglected to tell us.
Perhaps they do not fear what Man can do to them... they believe they have
arranged everything, and their power and wealth will prevail in this world.
However, those among them who have sworn an oath before God to uphold
and defend The Constitution: the President, members of Congress,
and the military; will find one day that they do indeed have something to
fear, when they stand before the Judge of All.
Partial List of CFR members, from the 1993 "Annual Report."
Approximately 3,000 members total.
Elliott Abrams, ROGER ALTMAN, John Anderson, Roone Arledge, LES ASPIN, BRUCE
BABBITT, Howard Baker, William Bennett, LLOYD BENTSEN, Shirley Black, Tom
Bradley, TOM BROKAW, Harold Brown, RONALD BROWN, Z. Brezindski, WILLIAM BUCKLEY,
Frank Carlucci, JIMMY CARTER, John Chancellor, Richard Cheney, Henry Cisneros,
BILL CLINTON, William Colby, WARREN CHRISTOPHER, Mario Cuomo, James Dalton,
Richard Darman, JOHN DEUTCH, Charles Dodd, Michael Dukakis, L. Eagleburger,
Daniel Ellsberg, Geraldine Ferraro, Thomas Foley, GERALD FORD, Robert Gates,
DAVID GERGEN, NEWT GINGRICH, RUTH GINSBERG, Katherine Graham, ALAN GREENSPAN,
Alexander Haig, Richard Helms, Benjamin Hooks, C. Hunter-Gault, JESSE JACKSON,
Bernard Kalb, N. Katzenbach, George Kennan, John Kerry, Jean Kirkpatrick,
Henry Kissinger, ANTHONY LAKE, JIM LEHRER, I. R. Levine, John Lindsay, Richard
McFarlane, George McGovern, Robert McNamera, Robert McNeill, George Mitchell,
Walter Mondale, Daniel Moynihan, Edmund Muskie, Jack Nelson, Paul Nitze,
SANDRA O'CONNOR, Claiborne Pell, Richard Perle, COLIN POWELL, DAN RATHER,
ALICE RIVLIN, Charles Robb, David Rockefeller, John Rockefeller, William
Rogers, Walt Rostow, W. Ruckelshaus, Warren Rudman, Dean Rusk, Carl Sagan,
Harrison Salisbury, Jonas Salk, DIANE SAWYER, John Scali, James Schlesinger,
Daniel Schorr, PAT SCHROEDER, Brent Scowcroft, William Scranton, DONNA SHALALA,
William Shirer, S. Shriver, George Shultz, GARY SICK, L. Silberman, William
Simon, Steven Solarz, G. Stephanopoulas, David Stockman, Robert Strauss,
Peter Tarnoff, D. THORNBURGH, Stansfield Turner, LAURA D'ANDREA TYSON, Cyrus
Vance, John Vessey, Paul Volcker, BARBARA WALTERS, Paul Warnke, Ben Wattenberg,
William Webster, Caspar Weinberger, Timothy Wirth, Frank Wisner, JAMES WOOSLEY,
Elmo Zumwalt
Past and present Directors of the CFR include George Bush, Thomas Foley,
Averell Harriman, David Rockefeller, Donna Shalala, Zbigniew Brzezinski,
John McCloy, Douglas Dillon, Adlai Stevenson, Bill Moyers, Cyrus Vance, Henry
Kissinger, George Shultz, Alan Greenspan, William Rogers, Lane Kirkland,
and many other well-known names.
Corporate Members include:
American Airlines, American Express, Archer Daniels Midland, ASARCO, AT&T,
Atlantic Richfield, Avon Products, BMW of North America, Bank of America,
Bankers Trust, Barclays Bank, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Capital Cities/ABC, Chase
Manhattan Bank, Chevron, Citibank/Ciiticorp, Coca-Cola, Deere & Company,
Dow Chemical, Dow Jones & Company, Dun & Bradstreet, E. I. du Pont,
Estee Lauder, Exxon, Forbes Magazine, Ford Motor Company, General Electric,
General Motors, Georgia-Pacific, H. J. Heinz, Hilton Hotels, IBM Corporation,
ITT Corporation, John Wiley & Sons, Johnson & Johnson, J. P. Morgan
& Co., Peat Marwick, Merill Lynch, Mitsubishi, Mobil Corporation, New
York Times, Nippon Steel USA, Occidental Petroleum, Olin Corportation, Paramount
Publishing, PepsiCo, Pfizer, Phillips Petroleum, Price Waterhouse, Proctor
& Gamble, Prudential Insurance, RJR Nabisco, Rockefeller Group, Schlumberger
Limited, S. G. Warburg & Co., Siemens Corporation, Smith Barney Shearson,
Sony Corporation, Texaco, Times Mirror, Toyota Motor Corp., TRW, Xerox
Corp.
Colonel House, the fallen angel, still has relatives controlling the CFR. Karen Elliot House is Chairman of the Membership Committee, and a member of the Nominating Committee, along with Jeane Kirkpatrick. David Rockefeller is now "Honorary Chairman of the Board", after serving as Chairman 1970-1985; and "Director Emeritus," after serving as a Director 1949-1985. Peter G. Peterson is Chairman, Admiral B. R. Inman is Vice Chairman, while Thomas Foley and Jeane Kirkpatrick are Directors serving on the Executive Committee.
These "private citizens" have access to government officials and policy makers as often as they wish, yet the results of their meetings can only be given to other government officials, corporate officers, or law partners. Participants are forbidden to transmit an attributed statement to any public medium, such as newspapers or TV, where there is "risk that it will promptly be widely circulated or published," as the Annual Report puts it.
Should not OUR public officials be forbidden to meet in secret with private groups? Public officials should only be allowed to discuss public business and policy in a public forum. The Public...remember US?
There is much more to say about this group and their plans for America. Gary Allen, in The Rockefeller File, states that they are behind the many regional government plans, which would abolish city, county, and state lines, leaving us at the mercy of federal bureaucrats; and behind the push for "land use" controls. They want "federal control of everything. Since they intend to control the federal government..."
There are also the many allegations of involvement in gun running, drug smuggling, prostitution and sex slaves; and the many mysterious assassinations and "suicides" of witnesses and others who get too close to the truth...but that is another story.
During the past several decades, they have begun implementation of their
"Population Control" schemes. AIDS appeared during the 1980s, after military
funding for exactly this type of biological weapon. In the mid-1990s a new
phenomena began, that the media has managed to totally ignore...whole populations
being debilitated through airborn Chemical Spraying ("Chem-Trails"). This
is the new, "non-lethal" warfare... if the sickness does not kill your adversary
outright, then they must buy medicines, from the very people who developed
the illness to begin with. And once again, the Rockefellers and their associates
seem to be at the center of it all.
REFERENCES
Bo Adelmann, 1986. "The Federal Reserve System". The New American, October 17.
Gary Allen, 1976. The Rockefeller File. Seal Beach, CA: '76 Press.
Gary Allen with Larry Abraham, 1972. None Dare Call it Conspiracy. Rossmoor, CA: Concord Press.
Congressional Record, December 22, 1913, Vol. 51.
Phoebe and Kent Courtney, 1962. America's Unelected Rulers, The Council on Foreign Relations. New Orleans: Conservative Society of America.
Curtis B. Dall, 1970. FDR My Exploited Father-In-Law. Washington D.C.: Action Associates.
A. Ralph Epperson, 1985. The Unseen Hand. Tucson, AZ: Publius Press.
F.D.R.: His Personal Letters, 1950. New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce.
William P. Hoar, 1984. Architects of Conspiracy. Belmont MA: Western Islands.
Herbert Hoover, 1952. The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover, The Great Depression 1929-1941. New York: Macmillan.
Frederick C. Howe, 1906. Confessions of a Monopolist. Chicago: Public Publishing Co.
Robert C. Johansen, 1980. "Models of World Order," in Dilemmas of War and Peace.
Peter Kershaw, 1994. Economic Solutions.
Devvy Kidd, 1995. Why A Bankrupt America? Colorado: Project Liberty.
Ferdinand Lundberg, 1938. America's 60 Families. New York: Vanguard.
Louis T. McFadden, 1934.The Federal Reserve Corporation, remarks in Congress. Boston: Forum Publication Co.
James Perloff, 1988. The Shadows of Power. Appleton, WI: Western Islands.
Carroll Quigley, 1966. Tragedy and Hope. New York: Macmillan.
Pat Robertson, 1991. The New World Order. Dallas: Word Publishing.
Charles Seymour, ed., 1926. The Intimate Paper of Colonel House. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Colin Simpson, 1972. The Lusitania. Boston: Little, Brown.
Arthur D. Howde Smith, 1940. Mr House of Texas. New York: Funk and Wagnalls.
Antony C. Sutton, 1975. Wall Street and FDR. New Rochelle, New York: Arlington House.
George Sylvester Viereck, 1932. The Strangest Friendship in History.
New York: Liveright.
This document may be freely distributed or quoted in any medium,provided
credit is given to the author and The Courier.
Copyright 1995 William Blase
The Courier
115 W. Hall
Hatch, New Mexico 87937
TEL 505 267 3546
FAX 505 267 3019
The All-Seeing
Eye, the President, the Secretary & the Guru
"Roosevelt as he looked at the colored reproduction of the Seal was
first struck with the representation of the 'All-Seeing Eye,' a Masonic
representation of Great Architect the Universe. Next he was impressed with
the idea that the foundation for the new order of the ages had been laid
in 1776 (May 1st, 1776, founding of the Illuminati) but would be completed
only under the eye of the Great Architect. Roosevelt like myself was a 32nd
degree Mason. He suggested that the Seal be put on the dollar bill rather
that a coin."
Freemasonry,
Conspiracy Within, Initiation and the Brotherhood
"Masonry, successor to the Mysteries (Babel, Mythras, Tummuz, Whicka,etc.)
still follows the ancient manor of teaching." [ Albert Pike "Morals and Dogma
Fellowcraft Degree p.22 ]
Illuminati
Conspiracy, Order of the Illumined Wise Men
The term Illuminati, is the plural of the Latin, Illuminatus, meaning
"one who is illuminated." Thus, it means a person who has received the full
extent of the initiation that is available through Freemasonry.
New World
Order and The New Age Occult Secret Destiny
The New World Order as envisioned by the Elite is hardly a recent
undertaking. Their's is a philosophy rooted in ancient occult traditions.
New World
Order: World Government Training Centers
World Government Fronts - Training Centers For A Global Army of
Psycho-Social Change Agents - Groups that House the Master-Minds of Global
Transformation Strategies
The
Earth Charter & the Ark of the Gaia Covenant
For those who may have dismissed the notion of a UN Agenda for a New
World Religion based on pagan morals and values, I offer the following.
Order of
the Skull and Bones
The story begins at Yale, where three threads of American social history
-- espionage, drug smuggling and secret societies -- intertwine into one.
The Vril
Society of The Luminous Lodge
The Vril Society or The Luminous Lodge combined the political ideals
of the Order of the Illuminati with Hindu mysticism, Theosophy and the Cabbala.
33rd Degree
Freemason Initiation-Deadly Deception, Jim Shaw
"Some of the most prominent and influental men in the world would
undoubtedly be there to participate when I was given this ultimate degree
- for me - little Jimmy Shaw, who had gone to work at age five and made it
alone since age 13. They would be there to give the 33rd Degree to me. It
was really a bit difficult to take it all in."
Maniacal
World Control Thru The Jesuit Order: Well-Hidden Soldiers Of Satan
"The Jesuits laugh at us; and during their hilarity, the rattlesnake
is coiled at our feet, climbing to strike us in the heart." - Edwin A. Sherman,
American Shriner Freemason, Friend of Charles Chiniquy, 1883, The Engineer
Corps Of Hell.
Bohemian
Grove intruder says he feared human sacrifices
Richard McCaslin planned a heavily armed assault on the exclusive
Bohemian Grove men's club for more than a year, believing "it would take
something dramatic" to draw attention to human sacrifices he feared were
being held there.
Occult-Conspiracy-Chronology:
40,000 BC-1987 AD
"The following is not intended to be an exhaustive chronology of the
influence of the occult tradition and the secret societies on world history.
It does highlight key events which can be traced to these sources since ancient
times."
Historical
Roster of Directors and Officers in the CFR
HAARP: HIGH-FREQUENCY
VANDALISM IN THE SKY
HAARP will zap the upper atmosphere with a focused and steerable
electromagnetic beam. It is an advanced model of an "ionospheric heater."
From
Hell: Masonic Ritual Murders AKA Jack the Ripper
Based on the graphic novel of the same name by Alan Moore and Eddie
Campbell, "From Hell" is a richly sculpted, fictionalized version of the
suppressed history of England - how a cabal of Freemasons orchestrated the
so-called "Jack the Ripper" murders.
BROTHERHOOD
OF THE BELL by William Dean Ross
The "Invisible Government" needs a name at this point, so let us call
it "The Brotherhood of the Bell." This was a 1960's movie about such a
conspiracy. By the way, Bell Corporation made the first flying saucer called
"The Bell" – for the "Invisible Government" because it was shaped like
a bell. Therefore, I shall call the "Brotherhood of the Bell", or simply,
"B.O.B."
Source: Greatdreams.com
Andrew Hughes
Global Research
December 6, 2008
The announcement in the last few days of a deal reached between the U.S. Treasury and the moribund insurance giant, A.I.G. provides a very lucid insight in to the nefarious and destructive world of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, otherwise known as T.A.R.P..Not only have A.I.G. received $152 billion to date and subsequently reported a third quarter loss of $25 billion, now they are to be cleared of their obligation on $53 billion worth of toxic credit default swaps. U.S. taxpayers are now on the hook for $205 billion courtesy of an institution which played in the Wall St. casino that passes for a “Financial Sector” and lost. Under the “Free market” system, so expounded upon by Government and Wall St. alike, A.I.G should be in chapter 11. Bailing out A.I.G and other failing institutions does absolutely nothing to address the fundamental issues at hand.
The economy is in crisis because unemployment and overarching debt levels pushed thousands of families in to the untenable situation where they did not earn enough to cover their debts. This burst the real estate bubble inflated by Alan Greenspan, crashed real estate prices, consumer spending and manufacturing. What we are seeing now is the inevitable result of lack of Financial regulation, lax monetary policy and a symbiosis between Government and the Financial industry. The mortgages taken out by buyers had been bundled into complex financial instruments; Mortgage backed securities. The latter along with Credit default swaps and derivatives set the stage for a global financial meltdown. The Glass-Steagal act of 1933 had been conceived to prevent the Banking sector from indulging in high risk investments to protect the depositors of these institutions. This was repealed at the end of the Clinton Administration through the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 which opened the gates to financial destruction. With the stroke of a pen, the financial services sector was given the power to literally bring down an economy
The most urgent matter for Treasury to address is the toxic derivatives market. The notional amount of outstanding derivatives, as noted by the Bank of International settlements, comes close to $512 trillion. This represents a figure that is impossible to settle and is the real Armageddon which Banks are preparing for by hoarding the cash that they have received through the T.A.R.P..Unless this time bomb is defused by bringing the undeclared positions on the table, the duration and gravity of this crisis can only increase. As the underlying assets of these instruments crumble the Banks’ exposure to counterparty risk increases and will lead to the inevitable collapse of even more banks and reduce the availability of investment credit even more. The underlying assets include interest rates, mortgages, foreign exchange rates, credit ratings on companies and even creditworthiness of entire countries. This is the level of insanity that has passed for “Leveraged Investment”
With over $3 trillion of taxpayer money injected in to Banks, insurance companies, commercial paper, Fannie and Freddie what has come back to benefit the dying economy ? A reduction in lending, increased interest rates on credit card payments and further losses for these same institutions. No big surprise as the real economy has never stopped it’s nosedive. Does the Treasury really not realise that there is no point in investing in companies that have no chance of redemption ? By handing over Americans’ hard earned tax dollars and indebting future generations, the Treasury has been engaging in the biggest transfer of wealth in Human history. The U.S. is now the biggest debtor on the planet and the rest of the world has noticed. China, Japan and the Oil kingdoms that buy U.S. debt are losing faith and it’s only a matter of time until they turn off the tap.
Jeremy R. Hammond
Foreign Policy Journal
India
The Mumbai Attacks: More Than Meets the Eye
As details emerge about who was responsible for the terrorist attacks in Mumbai last week, the evidence points to a militant group and network of associates that can be linked to a number of intelligence agencies, including the ISI, the CIA, and MI6.
November 4, 2008
Details
have emerged regarding who was responsible for the recent terrorist
attacks in Mumbai, India, with the evidence pointing to the
Pakistani-based terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).
Indications of a coming attack were reportedly received by intelligence
agencies well in advance. US signals intelligence (SIGINT) picked up a
spike in “chatter” indicating something was brewing, which was supported
by information from assets in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Some of the
information that was received by US intelligence was passed on to India
as early as September.
The details were specific. The CIA station chief in Delhi reportedly met
with his counterpart at India’s intelligence agency, the Research and
Analysis Wing (RAW), to pass on intelligence that LeT was planning a
major attack that would come from the sea.
Less than a week before the attacks, a U.S. airstrike in Afghanistan
purportedly killed a British citizen of Pakistani descent named Rashid
Rauf, who was suspected of planning to blow up commercial airliners
flying from Britain to the U.S. He fled Britain in 2002 after being
suspected of stabbing to death his uncle, Mohammed Saeed. He settled in
Bahawalpur, Pakistan, and married a relative of Maulana Masood Azhar,
the leader of another militant group, Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM).
Besides being linked to JeM, he was also suspected by some intelligence
sources of having connections to the ISI. Pakistani authorities arrested
him in Bahawalpur in August 2006 at the behest of British authorities,
but he escaped police custody when they allowed him to enter a mosque
ostensibly to say afternoon prayers. While police waited outside, Rauf
walked out the back door. He may have just escaped, but there were also
rumors that he was secretly taken into custody by the ISI in a plan that
kept him under wraps while preventing him from being extradited to
Britain.
The location of Rauf was reportedly given to U.S. officials by the
Pakistani government, and may have been a move calculated to appease the
U.S. over charges that elements of the ISI are still assisting militants
engaged in cross-border attacks into Afghanistan. Earlier this year,
terrorists bombed the Indian embassy in Kabul, and both India and the
U.S. claimed that the ISI had been involved in the attack.
The airstrike that killed Rauf may also have been the result of early
information obtained on the attack on Mumbai, as intelligence agencies
reportedly had learned that he was involved in the planning of a major
upcoming terrorist event.
Indian intelligence had obtained its own warnings of an attack. One
indication was a request from a LeT operative to obtain international
SIM cards for an upcoming operation. There was also information that a
LeT team was training at a camp near Karachi, and that part of their
training was to prepare for launching attacks from the sea. The team was
trained under Zakir-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, also known as “Chacha”. Also among
the information received was that the Taj Mahal hotel was pinpointed as
a major target.
As a result, security at the hotel was increased, but was lessened again
just a week prior to the attacks because of complaints from the hotel’s
clients. Ratan Tata, chairman of the Tata Group, which owns the hotel,
acknowledged that warnings of a possible attack had been received.
The Tata Group is also invested in the energy sector, and stands to gain
from the recent deal between the U.S. and India, which would provide
India with nuclear resources outside of the framework of the nuclear
non-proliferation treaty (NPT) and International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) safeguards system. Pakistan has voiced its opposition to the U.S.
deal with its nuclear-armed neighbor.
On November 18, RAW intercepted a satellite phone conversation made to a
number in Lahore, Pakistan, known to be used by the military commander
of LeT known alternatively by the names Yusuf Muzammil or Abu Hurrera,
also known as “Yahah”. The caller notified his handlers that he was
heading for Mumbai with unspecified cargo.
As a result of the intelligence it had received, India’s Navy and Coast
Guard were on the lookout for suspicious ships entering Indian
territorial waters, and were specifically told to watch for an
unidentified ship coming from Karachi.
Only
one of the terrorists in the Mumbai attacks was captured alive, Azam
Amir Kasab, a resident of the territory of Punjab in Pakistan. According
to reports, he has told his interrogators a great deal about how the
attacks went down.
Kasab confessed to being a member of LeT. He and his fellow terrorists
were instructed to target foreigners, particularly Americans, British,
and Israelis. They had set out from Karachi in a ship called the “MV
Alpha”, which is allegedly owned by Dawood Ibrahim, a terrorist wanted
by India in connection with bombings in Bombay in 1993 that resulted in
250 deaths. Ibrahim is also wanted by Interpol, and has been designated
a global terrorist by the U.S.
Confronted with increased naval patrols that were boarding and searching
suspect vessels, the team hijacked a fishing trawler called the “Kuber”,
registration number 2303, and killed most of its crew except for
Amarsinh Solanki, whom they kept alive to help navigate.
On November 26, as the terrorists neared their target destination, they
killed Solanki by slitting his throat. An associate of Ibrahim’s in
Mumbai had arranged to pick the team up in inflatable rubber dinghies.
They went ashore at about 9pm. Witnesses reported seeing them land in
the dinghies, which were unusual among the common wooden fishing boats,
and unloading a number of large bags.
Once on shore near the Gateway to India, Mumbai’s main landing point
near the Naval dockyard, the team split up. Four men went to the Taj
Mahal hotel, where an advance team had already checked in on November 22
and set up a control room. Two went to the Nariman House, the Mumbai
headquarters of Chabad Lubavitch, an ultra-orthodox Jewish group.
Another acquisitioned a taxi and drove to the railway station. Two
others headed to the Leopold restaurant, a hot spot for foreign visitors
to Mumbai.
At about 9:20pm, one team arrived at the Nariman House, where they took
hostages, while another opened fire at the Leopold café. At 9:45,
terrorists entered both the Taj Mahal and Trident Oberoi hotels, where
hostages were again taken. At 10:15, two of the men began firing
indiscriminately outside the Cama hospital. At 10:30, terrorists entered
the Chhatrapati Shivaji railway station and again opened fire.
According to Pakistan’s Daily
Times, the terrorists identified and killed two U.S. intelligence
officers at the Taj Mahal hotel.
Indian officials are now saying that just 10 men were responsible,
indicating that two-man teams were able to strike one target and move on
to the next. Teams held out under siege the the Nariman House and the
hotels, with the Taj Mahal the last to be cleared. By the end, it had
taken Indian forces 60 hours to kill or capture the attackers, with
their reign of terror finally ending on the 29th with nearly
200 people reported dead.
According to police, the men were aged 18 to 28. They were found to have
drugs in their system, and traces of cocaine and LSD were found at one
or more scenes of their attack, which they apparently had taken for an
additional adrenaline boost to keep them going for the long siege and
battle with Indian special forces.
A Mauritian government identity card was discovered with the terrorists
who attacked the Taj Mahal hotel, along with credit and debit cards of a
number of different banks, including HSBC (headquartered in London and
named after its founding member, the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking
Corporation, with global branches), HDFC, and ICICI (both banks in
India).
They
were reported to be using AK-47 assault rifles. Photos shown in the
press reveal what appear to be variants with a folding stock. They were
also reported to have handguns and grenades. Additionally, police
recovered sub-machine guns used by the terrorists. An Associated Press
photo of the confiscated guns reveals what appear to be Heckler & Koch
MP5-N sub-machine guns. The “N” model is a version of the MP5 designed
specifically for the U.S. Navy and used by Navy Seals teams.
BlackBerry cell phones were also recovered from the terrorists,
containing international SIM cards investigators believe correlate with
the early intelligence further connecting the team to LeT. During the
attacks, they received calls from outside the country, which is
apparently among the evidence leading government officials to early on
state publicly that the terrorists had ties to a foreign nation.
A global-positioning system (GPS) and satellite phone were found in the
abandoned Kuber fishing trawler. Navigation routes plotted in the GPS
revealed the planned route from Karachi to Mumbai and back again,
indicating that the terrorists hoped they might possibly be able to
escape and return to Pakistan. Investigators determined that this was
the phone used to contact Muzammil, the LeT military commander. Calls
from the phone were also traced to Lakhvi, the LeT training specialist.
The MV Alpha was also intercepted after the attacks by the Indian Navy.
Responsibility for the attacks was claimed via e-mail by a previously
unknown group calling itself Deccan Mujahideen. This appears to be a
front, apparently designed to direct blame upon groups within India and
give the appearance of a home-grown terrorist attack. Deccan may refer
to a neighborhood in the city of Hyderabad or to the Decaan Plateau that
dominates the middle and south of India.
The RAW traced IP addresses used to send the e-mail to an account in
Russia that was opened on the Wednesday just prior to the attack and
used to relay the message to media in India. The e-mail was further
traced to a computer in Pakistan, and investigators have also said that
it was generated by dictation using voice recognition software.
India has called for Pakistan to hand over 20 individuals it has alleged
were involved in the attacks. Among the wanted men are Dawood Ibrahim,
Hafiz Saeed, and Maulana Masood Azhar.
Ibrahim is the son of a police constable and worked as a police
informant, only to become involved in crime. He rose through the ranks
of the underworld in Bombay (now Mumbai) to become one of the city’s
leading organized crime bosses. He later fled to Pakistan, where he is
believed to have stayed in Karachi under the protection of Pakistan’s
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency. Some Indian analysts have
suggested that it was at the behest of the ISI that Ibrahim planned the
Mumbai attacks. Pakistan has denied that he is in the country.
Wanted along with Ibrahim for the 1993 Bombay attacks is Aftab Ansari,
also an Indian national. Ansari is linked to Omar Saeed Sheikh, a
British national of Pakistani origin. Omar Sheikh is an associate of
Osama bin Laden and has been accused of masterminding the kidnapping and
murder of Daniel Pearl, a journalist for the
Wall Street Journal.
Omar Skeikh was also the paymaster of the 9/11 hijackers and wired
$100,000 to Mohammed Atta in Florida. According to Indian intelligence,
working with the FBI a link was established between Omar Sheikh and the
head of Pakistan’s ISI, Lt. Gen. Mahmud Ahmed. Sources revealed to the
media that the evidence obtained from Omar Sheikh’s cell phone indicated
that it was at the behest of Mahmud Ahmed that the money was sent to
finance the 9/11 hijackers. While this has widely been reported
internationally, including by the
Press Trust of India, Pakistan’s
Dawn newspaper,
Agence France-Presse, and
UK’s The Guardian and
The Times, it has not
received any mention in the U.S. mainstream media.
Hafiz Saeed is the founder of LeT. He travelled to Peshawar to join the
CIA-backed effort to overthrow the Soviet-backed government of
Afghanistan. Peshawar served as the command base for both the CIA and
Maktab al-Khidamat (MAK). Haiz Saeed became the protégé of Abdullah
Azzam, who, along with Osama bin Laden, founded MAK to recruit and train
foreign fighters to join the mujahedeen. The CIA worked closely with the
ISI to finance, arm, and train the mujahedeen.
By about 1988, MAK had been evolved into the group known as al-Qaeda by
bin Laden. The name “al-Qaeda” literally means “the base”, and may
either refer bin Laden’s base of operations for the mujahedeen war
effort or the actual database of names of jihadist recruits. While
numerous terrorist attacks have been attributed to al-Qaeda over the
years, it isn’t so much a centralized organization as a loose network of
individuals and affiliate groups having roots or otherwise associated
with the CIA-backed effort against the Soviet Union.
Maulana Masood Azhar is the head of Jaish-e-Mohammed, and is also wanted
by Interpol. Like LeT, JeM is said to have close links with the ISI,
which has used the groups to wage a proxy war against Indian forces in
Kashmir.
Like Hafiz Saeed, Azhar was numbered among the veterans of the
Soviet-Afghan war. He was educated at Jamia Binoria, a madrassa
(religious school) in Karachi that also served as a recruitment center
for the mujahedeen.
He later became a leader of Karkat-ul-Mujahideen, a Pakistani militant
group, and was captured by India in Kashmir in 1994. He was tried and
acquitted, but spent six years in jail before being freed in exchange
for the release of the crew and passengers of a hijacked Indian Airlines
plane in 1999. He formed JeM after returning to Pakistan.
Omar Saeed Sheikh was also caught and imprisoned by India for
involvement in that hijacking, and was likewise released in exchange for
the hostages. Like Azhar, Omar Seikh is reported to have close links to
the ISI and, according to former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf,
was also an agent of MI6, Britain’s spy agency, which sent him to engage
in operations in the Balkans.
Relations between India and Pakistan also reached a crisis point in
December 2001, when gunmen attacked the Indian parliament. JeM and Let
were held responsible for that attack as well, and both countries
amassed troops on the border, a situation that led to fears of war
between two nuclear-armed countries. The U.S. helped mediate an end to
the crisis, pressuring Pakistan to crack down on militant groups and
setting in motion the plan to assist India with its nuclear program that
was finally realized this year.
LeT was banned in Pakistan in 2002 following the attack on the Indian
parliament, but remained active in the country nevertheless. The group
has denied responsibility for the attacks in Mumbai last week.
Pakistan has on one hand said it would formulate a response to India’s
request to turn over the 20 wanted men, and on the other hand indicated
it would not do so, insisting that the men are either not in Pakistan or
that they have been under Pakistani surveillance and no indication seen
that they were in any way involved.
While the evidence strongly points to LeT and a network of associates affiliated with the group or with each other, that web also includes the CIA and MI6. One early report said that some of the Mumbai terrorists were, like Rashid Rauf, British nationals. This was picked up by numerous press accounts around the globe, but the Indian government official this information was attributed to denied ever having said such a thing.
Theories that this was a false flag operation have already begun to spread around the internet, with varying culprits and motives. Whatever the truth is, what is clear from the facts one is able to piece together from media accounts is that there is more to the Mumbai attacks than meets the eye.