The Bush/NASA Killer Connection

KPRC Local 2 confirmed that the gunman was a contract worker employed by Jacobs Engineering Group Inc., which is headquartered in Pasadena. His identity and the nature of his job were not released. He was described only as a white man between 50 and 60 years old.

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Related

Gunman kills hostage, self at Nasa base

Officials: Gunman Barricaded In Johnson Space Center - With Live Coverage

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April 16, 2007 -- WMR was the first to report on the establishment of a major US airbase in northern Lebanon to facilitate logistics for America's planned long-term stay in the Middle East, including the occupation of Iraq. On July 21, 2006, we reported, "With the carrying out of the Clean Break by Israel and the United States, profits for companies like Halliburton are bound to skyrocket. The Israeli attack on Lebanon is already estimated to have resulted in $2 billion in damage to Lebanon's infrastructure. WMR previously reported that Jacobs/Sverdrup has been promised a lucrative Pentagon contract to build a large U.S. airbase in northern Lebanon.

The editor reported on March 11, 2005: "Washington and Jerusalem media experts spun Hariri's assassination as being the work of Syrian intelligence on orders from President Bashar Assad. However, a number of Middle East political observers in Washington claim that Hariri's assassination was not in the interests of Assad, but that the Bush and Sharon administrations had everything to gain from it, including the popular Lebanese uprising against the Syrian occupation. Lebanese intelligence sources report that even without a formal agreement with Lebanon, the contract for the northern Lebanese air base has been let by the Pentagon to Jacobs Engineering Group of Pasadena, California. Other construction support will be provided by Bechtel Corporation. Jacobs Engineering and Jacobs Sverdrup are currently contracted for work in Saudi Arabia for Aramco, Iraq for the U.S. occupation authority, Bosnia, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, Yemen, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates. The Lebanese air base is reportedly to be used as a transit and logistics hub for U.S. forces in Iraq and as a rest and relaxation location for U.S. troops in the region. In addition, the Lebanese base will be used to protect U.S. oil pipelines in the region (Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan and Mosul/Kirkuk-Ceyhan) as well as to destabilize the Assad government in Syria. The size of the planned air base reportedly is on the scale of the massive American Al Udeid air base in Qatar. A number of intelligence sources have reported that assassinations of foreign leaders like Hariri and Hobeika are ultimately authorized by two key White House officials, Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove and Deputy National Security Adviser Elliot Abrams. In addition, Abrams is the key liaison between the White House and Sharon's office for such covert operations, including political assassinations."

Our Lebanese sources as well as the Lebanese daily newspaper Aldiyar now report that a NATO base is to be built soon on the grounds of the largely abandoned airbase at Klieaat in northern Lebanon. The base will serve as the headquarters of a NATO rapid deployment force, helicopter squadrons, and Special Forces units although the cover story prepared by the Lebanese and US governments is that the base will provide training for the Lebanese army and security forces. The base was pushed by elements in the office of the US Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Bush administration had recently warned Lebanon about the presence of "Al Qaeda" teams in northern Lebanon. Before his assassination, former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was known to have been strongly opposed to any U.S. military bases in Lebanon, including the proposed airbase in Kleiaat.

America's new Kleiaat airbase in northern Lebanon prepares to host rapid deployment force. Assassinated former Prime Minister Hariri was adamantly opposed to the American base.

Click2Houston.com

Gunman, Hostage Dead In Shooting At JSC

POSTED: 2:27 pm CDT April 20, 2007

UPDATED: 6:13 pm CDT April 20, 2007

HOUSTON -- A gunman shot a hostage and then himself while barricaded inside a building at Johnson Space Center on Friday, KPRC Local 2 reported. A second hostage was found duct-taped to a chair but was unharmed, according to authorities. Officials said the situation started at about 1:40 p.m. when reports of shots fired came in and a man with a gun was spotted inside building 44, which is the communications and tracking development laboratory, an engineering building. Authorities said the man with a revolver barricaded himself in a second-floor office. Capt. Dwayne Ready of the Houston Police Department said a male hostage appeared to be shot when the gunman initially fired two shots in the building. "The report to us was that there were two shots and that's what caused us to respond to this scene, and we're believing that one of the hostages -- the male who's deceased -- was shot during that particular moment," Ready said. Ready said communication was not established with the gunman, despite repeated efforts. SWAT officers moved in when they heard a third shot hours after the standoff began. They found the gunman dead from a shot to the head and a male hostage dead from a gunshot wound to the chest. Investigators did not release a motive. Officials said the gunman did not leave a note. The victims' names were not released. KPRC Local 2 confirmed that the gunman was a contract worker employed by Jacobs Engineering Group Inc., which is headquartered in Pasadena. His identity and the nature of his job were not released. He was described only as a white man between 50 and 60 years old. NASA is a secured facility that requires approved access. "If you are an employee and have the correct badge and the correct sticker on your car, you can generally drive right in," former astronaut Dr. Bill Fisher said. "If this were a contractor or a NASA employee, that person would have almost unlimited access to the Space Center once you're through the gate. For someone who is not a NASA employee, they have to go through a number of security checks and they would have to get a special badge." JSC employees were initially informed about the gunman via e-mail and asked to shelter-in-place. A second e-mail told employees that the situation was confined to one building and they were allowed to go home, according to Eileen Hawley, with NASA. Johnson Space Center is located on NASA Parkway in Clear Lake. Building 44 was described as "one of the smaller" office buildings on the JSC campus, where Mission Control is based. Space Center Intermediate School, located at 17400 Saturn Lane, was placed in lockdown as a precaution. The lockdown was lifted by 3:45 p.m. Background Of Johnson Space Center Johnson Space Center was established in 1961 as the Manned Spacecraft Center and, in 1973, renamed in honor of the late President and Texas native Lyndon B. Johnson. JSC has served as the nerve center for the Gemini, Apollo, Skylab, space shuttle, International Space Station and other programs. About 3,000 employees people work at the center; most are engineers and scientists. More than 12,000 contractors from about 50 companies work onsite or in nearby office buildings and other facilities. There are about 110 astronauts based at JSC for training.

Gunman kills hostage, self at Nasa base

Johnson Space Center
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Last Updated: Friday, 20 April 2007, 22:42 GMT 23:42 UK

Gunman kills hostage at Nasa base

The alert comes after this week's massacre in Virginia

Police in the US city of Houston, Texas, say a gunman at the Nasa space centre has killed one hostage before killing himself.

Capt Dwayne Ready said a second hostage was found at a building at the Johnson Space Center tied up with tape.

Police were called to the scene at about 1340 (1840 GMT) after a gunman was reported and two shots heard.

Capt Ready said an additional gunshot was heard as police were making contact with the suspect, a white male.

A Nasa contractor, Jacobs Engineering, earlier told the BBC that one of its employees was involved in the incident.

School secured

The Houston police department told the BBC they had sent a helicopter, a canine unit and a special weapons team to the space centre.

Negotiators were also on the scene and a bomb squad was sent as a standard precaution.

The building, called Building 44, houses communications equipment and engineering laboratories.


The Johnson Space Center contains Nasa's mission control which oversees the agency's space flights.

The centre's staff, numbering several thousand across the sprawling complex, were initially told to remain in their buildings but after several hours were allowed to leave the complex.

An intermediate school near the building was also secured for several hours.

The alert comes less than a week after a gunman killed 32 students and teaching staff at Virginia Tech university before killing himself.

The BBC's Adam Brookes in Washington says there has been a rash of security alerts across the US, which is also marking the eighth anniversary of the Columbine school massacre in which 15 people died.

Were you in the area at the time of the incident? Send us your comments and experiences using the form below. If you have any pictures or video you can send them to yourpics@bbc.co.uk.

Gunman kills a hostage and himself at Nasa's Johnson Space Center

A gunman kills a hostage and himself at Nasa's Johnson Space Center in
Texas, police say. A second hostage is released unharmed.

The Israel Lobby

English version

61% say NOT accurate to compare withdrawal with surrender

One Senator[McCain] recently claimed that setting a date for a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq is more accurately described as a date for surrender — do you think it is accurate to compare withdrawal with surrender?

Yes: 33 percent
No: 61 percent

FOX POLL, APRIL 19, 2007 - PDF

Another Bush Releases Another Mass Murderer

Fri Apr 20th, 2007 at 04:02:12 AM EST

Terrorist Posada Arrives Home in Miami

by Meteor Blades
tleelange@hotmail.com

Looking fragile and tired in his off-white tropical suit, a grandfatherly Luis Posada Carriles was gently helped out of the car that delivered him to his wife's house in Miami Thursday as the sun went down. It will be the first time in 23 months that he has not spent the night in federal detention. So it was no surprise that, when asked how he felt, he replied, "Estoy muy contento," ("I'm very happy.") To the Cuban-American community he said, "I'm very grateful."

Happy and grateful and comfortably surrounded by his family, friends and fans while his victims spin in their graves. Except that many of his victims have no graves since they were killed by the bombing of Air Cubana Flight 455 in 1976 when it took off from Barbados. Not all the bodies could be recovered. Among those on board were many teenagers, members of the Cuban fencing team. Says Posada: "No one saw me make a bomb."

Barbados Monument to those killed in the 1976 bombing.

You may never have heard of Luis Posada Carriles. His is not exactly a household name even though he's a fugitive wanted in two countries for airline bombing and hotel bombing. Even though, before September 11, 2001, the downing of Flight 455 was the worst terrorist act in the Western Hemisphere. That's not all he did. Posada got around. He worked for the CIA, he worked for the Venezuelan secret police, he had ties to the Chilean secret police, he was connected to Operation Condor, he helped Oliver North distribute weapons to the terrorist contras of Nicaragua, weapons paid for by illegal sales of other weapons to America's very good friends, the Iranian ayatollahs. In the genocidal Guatemala of the 1980s, he worked as an "advisor" to counter-guerrilla operatives there.

Don't take my word for any of this (as if you would anyway). Read the declassified files on Posada held at the National Security Archives. Many files remain classified. A few critics claim other files have been destroyed, a charge impossible, of course, to prove.

No direct evidence exists, but there are suspicions Posada was assisted by high-level American officials in his escape from a Venezuelan jail in 1985. In 2001, he and others were convicted in connection with a bomb plot to kill Castro on the occasion of the old caudillo's visit to Panama. Posada and his fellow convicts served until 2004 when they were suddenly pardoned by Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso, who had close ties to the Bush Administration. She denied any political motivation. The Administration never condemned the plotters, even though innocents attending Castro's speech would certainly have been killed if Posada's terrorists had carried out their mission.

If the Administration had had its way, Posada would never have spent a day in the slammer. Indeed, he wasn't arrested until the afternoon of the day the Miami Herald published an interview with him that its reporters had undertaken through cloak-and-dagger means at a secret location. Moreover, if the Administration has its way, Posada will never pay for his crimes, never be brought to account, even though there is at least circumstantial evidence that one of his victims was an American citizen, Ronni Moffitt, murdered by a bomb along with the Allende-era Chilean diplomat, Orlando Letelier, in September 1976, on the streets of Washington, D.C.

Peter Kornbluth, director of the Cuba Documentation Project at the National Security Archive, said it best on All Things Considered:

His release sends a message to the world that the United States really is not serious in its war on terrorism. Here's a guy who has a lifelong résumé of violent acts, blowing up planes, bombing hotels, attempting to blow up ships, assassination efforts against Fidel Castro. ...

Here was a case where the Bush Administration could have employed the Patriot Act to hold Posada as a terrorist. All they had to do was certify that he was a terrorist or that his release would be detrimental to U.S. national security interests. And despite the fact that immigration and customs have said to him directly in letters your history of violence means you are a danger to the security of U.S. citizens, they have now let him go. ...

Luis Posada Carriles was a litmus test for the Bush Administration. ... Instead, they have let him return to his home in Miami where many of his supporters will gather and cheer.

Just about anyone who has lost kin or friends to acts of terror - whether by state-sponsored terror or the acts of free-lancers like Osama bin Laden - is well-acquainted with vengeful desires. For victims of such violence, nothing is too terrible a punishment for the perpetrators. But in a civilized society, that's what courts are for.

Or at least what courts were for before Mister Bush and his crew took over, came up with torture excuses, "enemy combatants," secret prisons and jurisdictional no-man's-lands like Guantánamo, the latter ironically based on the forcibly leased land of the longest surviving one-man dictatorship in the world.

A vengeful person would suggest that perhaps Señor Posada should spend an indefinite period of time there in a permanently lit cell, shackled to the floor, listening to high-decibel rap music instead of the boleros of his youth. Vengeance, however, isn't justice. And justice is what the old terrorist's victims cry out for. We are, in a sense, all of us his victims. Victims of a government that is itself above the law, that uses the "war on terror" as just more fuel for its spin machine, all but abandoning the hunt for some terrorists, while all but publicly embracing some others.

Given the number of people who cross the Mexican border illegally every year, it is ridiculous to be trying Luis Posada Carriles for illegally entering the United States. Especially since it's already been decided by the same federal judiciary that has released him on bail that he can't be deported either to Cuba or Venezuela - the two countries whose citizens suffered the most from his actions - because he might be tortured there. The ironies pile sky-high.

Another course of action remains. Release all the files on Posada and ship them and him to The Hague for trial under the crimes against humanity section of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. That would be justice. And it will happen when pigs fly.

Most likely, Posada will settle down in Miami, with or without his electronic tracking bracelet, drinking piña coladas or peach daiquiris for the rest of his life. Perhaps he can drive over and play dominoes with his pal in Operation Condor, Orlando Bosch, the murderer and terrorist pardoned by George H.W. Bush in 1990.

'Devastating' Bill Moyers Probe of Press and Iraq Coming

'Devastating' Moyers Probe of Press and Iraq Coming

By Greg Mitchell

Published: April 19, 2007 9:00 PM ET

NEW YORK (Commentary) The most powerful indictment of the news media for falling down in its duties in the run-up to the war in Iraq will appear next Wednesday, a 90-minute PBS broadcast called "Buying the War," which marks the return of "Bill Moyers Journal." E&P was sent a preview DVD and a draft transcript for the program this week.

While much of the evidence of the media's role as cheerleaders for the war presented here is not new, it is skillfully assembled, with many fresh quotes from interviews (with the likes of Tim Russert and Walter Pincus) along with numerous embarrassing examples of past statements by journalists and pundits that proved grossly misleading or wrong. Several prominent media figures, prodded by Moyers, admit the media failed miserably, though few take personal responsibility.

The war continues today, now in its fifth year, with the death toll for Americans and Iraqis rising again -- yet Moyers points out, "the press has yet to come to terms with its role in enabling the Bush Administration to go to war on false pretenses."

Among the few heroes of this devastating film are reporters with the Knight Ridder/McClatchy bureau in D.C. Tragically late, Walter Isaacson, who headed CNN, observes, "The people at Knight Ridder were calling the colonels and the lieutenants and the people in the CIA and finding out, you know, that the intelligence is not very good. We should've all been doing that."

At the close, Moyers mentions some of the chief proponents of the war who refused to speak to him for this program, including Thomas Friedman, Bill Kristol, Roger Ailes, Charles Krauthammer, Judith Miller, and William Safire.

But Dan Rather, the former CBS anchor, admits, "I don't think there is any excuse for, you know, my performance and the performance of the press in general in the roll up to the war&hellipWe didn't dig enough. And we shouldn't have been fooled in this way." Bob Simon, who had strong doubts about evidence for war, was asked by Moyers if he pushed any of the top brass at CBS to "dig deeper," and he replies, "No, in all honesty, with a thousand mea culpas&hellip.nope, I don't think we followed up on this."

Instead he covered the marketing of the war in a "softer" way, explaining to Moyers: "I think we all felt from the beginning that to deal with a subject as explosive as this, we should keep it, in a way, almost light – if that doesn't seem ridiculous."

Moyers replies: "Going to war, almost light."

Walter Isaacson is pushed hard by Moyers and finally admits, "We didn't question our sources enough." But why? Isaacson notes there was "almost a patriotism police" after 9/11 and when the network showed civilian casualties it would get phone calls from advertisers and the administration and "big people in corporations were calling up and saying, 'You're being anti-American here.'"

Moyers then mentions that Isaacson had sent a memo to staff, leaked to the Washington Post, in which he declared, "It seems perverse to focus too much on the casualties or hardship in Afghanistan" and ordered them to balance any such images with reminders of 9/11. Moyers also asserts that editors at the Panama City (Fla.) News-Herald received an order from above, "Do not use photos on Page 1A showing civilian casualties. Our sister paper has done so and received hundreds and hundreds of threatening emails."

Walter Pincus of the Washington Post explains that even at his paper reporters "do worry about sort of getting out ahead of something." But Moyers gives credit to Charles J. Hanley of The Associated Press for trying, in vain, to draw more attention to United Nations inspectors failing to find WMD in early 2003.

The disgraceful press reaction to Colin Powell's presentation at the United Nations seems like something out of Monty Python, with one key British report cited by Powell being nothing more than a student's thesis, downloaded from the Web -- with the student later threatening to charge U.S. officials with "plagiarism."

Phil Donahue recalls that he was told he could not feature war dissenters alone on his MSNBC talk show and always had to have "two conservatives for every liberal." Moyers resurrects a leaked NBC memo about Donahue's firing that claimed he "presents a difficult public face for NBC in a time of war. At the same time our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity."

Moyers also throws some stats around: In the year before the invasion William Safire (who predicted a "quick war" with Iraqis cheering their liberators) wrote "a total of 27 opinion pieces fanning the sparks of war." The Washington Post carried at least 140 front-page stories in that same period making the administration's case for attack. In the six months leading to the invasion the Post would "editorialize in favor of the war at least 27 times."

Of the 414 Iraq stories broadcast on NBC, ABC and CBS nightly news in the six months before the war, almost all could be traced back to sources solely in the White House, Pentagon or State Dept., Moyers tells Russert, who offers no coherent reply.

The program closes on a sad note, with Moyers pointing out that "so many of the advocates and apologists for the war are still flourishing in the media." He then runs a pre-war clip of President Bush declaring, "We cannot wait for the final proof: the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud." Then he explains: "The man who came up with it was Michael Gerson, President Bush's top speechwriter.

"He has left the White House and has been hired by the Washington Post as a columnist."

***
Greg Mitchell's most recent column on Iraq: "Sorry We Shot Your Kid, But Here's $500"

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Greg Mitchell (gmitchell@editorandpublisher.com) is editor and author of seven books on politics and history, including two for Random House, "The Campaign of the Century" and "Tricky Dick and the Pink Lady."

Officials: Gunman Barricaded In Johnson Space Center - With Live Coverage

Click2Houston.com

Officials: Gunman Barricaded In JSC Building

POSTED: 2:27 pm CDT April 20, 2007

UPDATED: 3:20 pm CDT April 20, 2007

HOUSTON -- A building at the Johnson Space Center was evacuated Friday afternoon after a man with a gun barricaded himself inside and shots were reportedly fired, KPRC Local 2 reported.

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LIVE: Watch KPRC Local 2's Continuing Coverage

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Officials said a report of a man with a weapon was spotted at about 1:40 p.m. inside building 44, which is the communications and tracking development laboratory, an engineering building. Johnson Space Center security officers, SWAT and Houston police officers were on the scene. Authorities said the man was barricaded in a second-floor office. His identity is not yet known. There are no reports of injuries. Officials said there were reports that between five to nine shots were fired. NASA is a secured facility that requires approved access. "If you are an employee and have the correct badge and the correct sticker on your car, you can generally drive right in," former astronaut Dr. Bill Fisher said. "If this were a contractor or a NASA employee, that person would have almost unlimited access to the Space Center once you're through the gate. For someone who is not a NASA employee, they have to go through a number of security checks and they would have to get a special badge." Johnson Space Center is located on NASA Parkway in Clear Lake. Building 44 was described as "one of the smaller" office buildings on the JSC campus, where Mission Control is based. Space Center Intermediate School, located at 17400 Saturn Lane, was placed in lockdown mode as a precaution, according to district officials. Parents were asked to not come to the campus until the all-clear is given.

For more information on this breaking story, stay tuned to KPRC Local 2 and Click2Houston.com. Refresh this page later for updated details.

--MORE--

Save Net Radio

The SaveNetRadio Coalition

The future of Internet radio is in immediate danger. The Copyright Royalty Board in Washington, DC has more than tripled the royalty rates for webcasters and left unchanged they will kill Internet radio. These exorbitant rates go into effect on May 15 (retroactive to Jan 1, 2006!). Without Congressional action the majority of webcasters will go bankrupt and silent on this date. We need your help. Please take a moment to send a letter to your member of Congress to keep Net radio from being silenced.

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Depleted Uranium: Poisoning Our Planet

Depleted Uranium:
Poisoning Our Planet

Sources: Feds Ordered VA Police To Stand Down at Virginia Tech

Related
No Games Found in Shooter's Dorm at Virginia Tech
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Ismail X or AX?)
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Sources: Feds Ordered VA Police To Stand Down
Local authorities were told to take no action to pursue killer

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Friday, April 20, 2007

Police and EMT workers at Virginia Tech tell us that campus police were given a federal order to stand down and not pursue killer Cho Seung-Hui as Monday's bloodshed unfolded.

Though wishing to remain anonymous for obvious reasons, we have received calls from police and EMT's who tell us that a stand down order was in place, and this is also confirmed by eyewitness Matt Kazee, who is a student at VA Tech.

Kazee talked to local EMT's and police who told him the same thing, that the order was to wait until federal back up arrived before any action was taken. This explains the complete non-response of the police in the two hour gap between Cho's first two murders and the wider rampage that would follow later that morning.

The policy of federal control over the University was put in place following a previous shooting in August 2006 in which a police officer and a hospital security guard were killed.

In addition, a former long-term University police officer, George French, told the Alex Jones Show that it is routine to seal off a campus on which a suspected gunman is loose.

“Setting up a series of roadblocks, controlling access to very large pieces of property, is very much routine on any university campus in Canada and in the United States,” said French.

“After a double homicide, when you’re looking for a dangerous fellow with a firearm, I find it unfathomable that a series of roadblocks weren’t set up…to prevent the felon from escaping.”

French could find no logical conclusion other than deliberate inaction on the part of officials. “We have another coordinated, allowed event…the parallels are so common in each case; you can write the script in advance.”

Editor's note: also see new articles at the secondary blog

And more coming up here.

The secondary blog.

See last Friday's stories at the overflow blog.