Dollar danger directly ahead

Saturday, 16 December 2006 Last Wednesday the NYT reported an event that few noticed, but has immense historical significance. The United States Mint, concerned that rising metal prices could lead to widespread recycling of pennies and nickels, has banned melting or exporting them. For those of you not familiar with economic history this probably doesn't mean much to you (hence the lack of public attention). But those of you that are familiar with historical currency exchange controls, this story is as old as empire. The only difference in this case is that historically this involved precious metals. Today the dollar is worth so little that it involves base metals. Until 1982, pennies were made of 95 percent copper. The commodity metal value of one of those coins, which still make up a large percentage of the pennies in circulation, is 2.13 cents, according to the Mint. "Government is the only agency that can take a valuable commodity like paper, slap some ink on it, and make it totally worthless." Ludwig von Mises This past week Treasury Secretary Paulson, Federal Reserve Chief Bernanke, and an entourage of leading American banking figures are all meeting in China. Why? Most likely it has to do with two facts: 1) China holds nearly $1 Trillion in American bonds, and 2) China's central bankers have recently made noises about diversifying away from the dollar. "Like gold, U.S. dollars have value only to the extent that they are strictly limited in supply. But the U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press (or, today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost. By increasing the number of U.S. dollars in circulation, or even by credibly threatening to do so, the U.S. government can also reduce the value of a dollar in terms of goods and services, which is equivalent to raising the prices in dollars of those goods and services. We conclude that, under a paper-money system, a determined government can always generate higher spending and hence positive inflation." - Federal Reserve Chief Ben Bernanke, 2002 The most important thing to understand is what inflation actually is: "In economics, inflation is a fall in the market value or purchasing power of money." Dollar Purchasing Power To put it another way, inflation isn't caused by greedy oil companies, greedy labor unions, or in fact, any supply side developments. What causes inflation in the world today is the fall in the value of the dollars in your pocket, not the rise in value of what you buy. So what causes that? Supply and demand causes that. In other words, too many dollars chasing the same number of goods. The only way in today's world that can happen is if too many dollars get printed and put into circulation. Only one entity can cause that - the Federal Reserve. This isn't a conspiracy theory here. What I just said is Economics 101. "A capitalist will sell you the rope you will hang him with if he can make profit on it." - Lenin Up to this point all the focus on currency levels have been on China. However, it shouldn't be. Attention instead should be focused on the Persian Gulf and what they plan to do. The oil-producers of the middle east have been diversifying their reserves away from the dollar for a couple years now, but as long as their currencies are linked to the dollar and the oil they sell is priced in dollars then no major changes will happen. Counting only the Middle East oil exporters, the surplus has surged from $30 billion in 2002 to an estimated $280 billion this year. One reason why this gets much less attention than the smaller $160 billion increase in China is that only a fraction of it has gone into official reserves, which are publicly reported. Most of it is stashed in government oil-stabilisation or investment funds, such as the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, which are much more secretive than the People's Bank of China—but which probably hold just as many dollar assets. Since September 2005 the Chinese have been gradually loosening their currency peg to the dollar. It hasn't happened quickly enough for many American politicians, which is why our banking leaders are in China. What doesn't get reported is that all six members of the Gulf Co-operation Council, or GCC (Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman and Qatar) still peg their currencies firmly to the dollar. Yet there is absolutely no outcry from American politicians and industry leaders for them to remove those pegs. Why is that? The fact is that those oil producing nations simply don't have the domestic infrastructure to handle such massive current account surpluses. That means they have to recycle that money back into American debt. "You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it. Is that clear? You think you've merely stopped a business deal? That is not the case. The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back. It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity. It is ecological balance. You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations; there are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems; one vast, interwoven, interacting, multivaried, multinational dominion of dollars." - Arthur Jensen, from the movie Network To manage these currency pegs the middle east (like China) has had to maintain artificially low interest rates and massive printing of local currency. This has led to an outrageous real estate bubble (like China) in places like Dubai. All this cheap and easy money has also led to price inflation (like China). And with all those dollars flooding back into America, this has led to lots of cheap and easy credit which has also flooded into real estate. In order to "manage inflation", these gulf nations have done what every government has tried to do - managing inflation expectations. Official price indices almost certainly understate inflation. According to government figures, prices are rising in the UAE at an annual rate of 7%, but independent estimates put it at 15%. But now that is approaching an end. These gulf nations have another plan - a common currency. The six-member Gulf Cooperation Council countries are committed to issue the GCC common currency in the year 2010, Finance Minister Dr. Ibrahim Al-Assaf stated yesterday. According to a study, the new currency will be the world’s most important currency union after the euro. Once established, the GCC leadership may decide to invoice their hydrocarbon sales in the new common currency, moving away from the current dollar pricing system. It could also become the reserve currency of choice for Islamic and Arab central banks for a combination of religious and political reasons. To put it simply, once the GCC has a currency union they will no longer need to peg their currencies to the dollar, nor keep their currency reserves in dollars, nor recycle their trade surpluses into American debt. This will drastically reduce the demand for dollars around the world. Until recently, every nation had to buy dollars in order to buy oil on the world markets, thus making a worldwide demand for dollars. Russia, another major oil producer, has already diversified their currency reserves out of dollars, and created an oil Bourse that is priced in Rubles. Venezuela is making moves to price their oil in Euros. However, one thing won't change - we will still have to buy mid-east oil. But if they no longer need our dollars what will we be able to buy their oil with, especially if they are selling it in a currency other than dollars? We would need create a currency reserve of other nation's currencies (like every other country does) in order to buy the oil. But how can we build up this reserve if we don't sell things to the rest of the world that they want? Gold used to function this way, which brings us back to the ban on exporting pennies. A brief history of paper money "It is well that the people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning." -Henry Ford If you want to read a more complete history of money, please see this diary. When China went to paper money in 1131 A.D. they outlawed all redemption rights into metal coins. Three decades later that paper money was worthless. The Mongols who conquered China then issued their own fiat money. Gold, silver, and gems were forbidden from being sold except to the emperor. The Mongol's money vanished in a wave of hyperinflation a few decades later. John Law was the first westerner to try shifting his country to unbacked fiat currency. That experiment ended in less than a decade after hyperinflation left the paper money worthless. But before that happened laws were passed in France that anyone holding gold and silver would be thrown in jail. It has been a common tactic in history for the government to outlaw real money so that it doesn't compete with their fiat money. It has never once worked, but they keep trying. Is that what our government is doing today? No. But then we aren't even talking about precious metals. We are talking about restrictions on base metals. I don't recall any time in all of history that a government has moved to protect their base metal currency. That should make you pause and think about the paper in your pocket. "It’s dishonor, sir. This great government, strong in gold, is breaking its promises to pay gold to widows and orphans to whom it has sold government bonds with a pledge to pay gold coin of the present standard of value. It is breaking its promise to redeem its paper money in gold coin of the present standard of value. It’s dishonor, sir." - Senator Carter Glass, 1933 In 1933, FDR outlawed private ownership of gold bullion with Presidential Executive Order 6102. A $100,000 fine could be imposed on anyone violating this law. the internal gold standard that existed in America since the Revolution was ended. Up to this point you could exchange your paper currency for gold at any federal bank. After seizing an unknown amount of gold from private citizens, FDR then devalued the dollar from being worth $20.67 to one troy ounce of Gold to $35.00 to one troy ounce of Gold - or 40.94%. In other words, your dollars immediately became worth 40% less than they were before FDR seized your gold. If you were allowed to hold onto your gold then you wouldn't have cared how much the dollar was devalued because the government couldn't devalue gold. Americans were only allowed to hold gold again when Nixon took the country off of the external gold standard in 1971. "The money power preys upon the nation in times of peace and conspires against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, more selfish than bureaucracy. I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its REIGN by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed." President Abraham Lincoln, 1863 My point is that whenever the government starts putting restrictions on currencies, or on metals, there is reason to be concerned. You should be concerned. Written by Garrett Johnson

Destructive Dreams of World Domination

December 11, 2006

By Rodrigue Tremblay

"I'm the decider, and I decide what's best."

George W. Bush, 43rd President of the United States

"The president has adopted a policy of 'anticipatory self-defense' that is alarmingly similar to the policy that imperial Japan employed at Pearl Harbor, on a date which, as an earlier American president said it would, live in infamy. Franklin D. Roosevelt was right, but today it is we Americans who live in infamy."

Arthur Schlesinger, American historian

"There were not sufficient reasons to unleash a war against Iraq. To say nothing of the fact that, given the new weapons that make possible destructions that go beyond the combatant groups, today we should be asking ourselves if it is still licit to admit the very existence of a 'just war'."

Pope Benedict XVI

On September 20, 2002, American President George W. Bush enthusiastically and officially embraced a policy of world domination that his neoconservative advisors had drafted for him. In fact, it was a retake on a discarded foreign policy draft paper that Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz had written in 1992, for then Defense Secretary Dick Cheney in the George H. Bush administration.

The new foreign policy paper introduced by the White House in 2002 was entitled “The National Security Strategy of the United States” and was dubbed by its authors the "Bush Doctrine" of preventive wars and of international unilateralism and militarism. Indeed, under the guise of spreading 'democracy', the new 'doctrine' called for the United States to place itself above international law, ratified treaties and international institutions, and initiate "preventive wars" each time American interests or those of close allies such as Israel, are threatened. The policy paper went even further and proclaimed that the "United States has, and intends to keep, military strengths beyond challenge", with the intent of preserving the United States' position as the world's sole military superpower, not only on Earth, but also in Space. The Bush-Cheney administration even declared its intention to keep the option of using nuclear weapons—not only preemptively but even preventively, whenever and wherever it saw fit to do so. The 'Bush Doctrine' could as well have been called 'How to herald in an era of world anarchy' since it was consciously throwing away more than half a century of efforts to build an international system based on law and due process.

In the 20th Century, two other nations openly embarked upon a policy of world domination, attempting to impose their will upon other countries through the use of military power. First, Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler; (1889-1945) and then the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin (1878-1953). —Hitler wanted to make Berlin the 'capital of the world', while Stalin, under the guise of spreading 'communism', hoped to create a world empire under his command. Both attempts collapsed into abject failures. During the process, however, the German and Russian peoples ended up paying dearly for their leaders' pompous and grandiose schemes, while millions of innocent victims in other countries suffered the dire consequences of insane government leaders gone awry.

The problem with megalomaniac dreams of world domination is that they inevitably lead to disasters. The reason is that such mad dreams of conquest, to be successful even in the short run, require the implementation of two dangerous and interrelated policies: first, the repression of civil liberties at the center of the would-be empire in order to crush dissent; and second, a policy of wars of aggression abroad against countries that resist the new imperial vision. The end results are the loss of liberty at home for most people, all but the top nomenklatura, and a string of costly wars abroad that bankrupt both the state and its citizens. As former senator Barry Goldwater put it: "Now those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth, and let me remind you they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyranny."

The current Bush-led imperial push around the world is contrary to the very principles upon which the United States was established. Indeed, when the United States broke away from the British empire, in 1776, its founders swore to establish a democratic republic that would be the very opposite of an empire. They had a vision for "life, liberty and happiness" for all people of the United States and of the world and abhorred aggressive, despotic and oppressive empires which trampled on peoples' rights and pursue narrow special interests at the expense of the public good. In the words of Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), 3rd U.S. President, "The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite." In other words, men have always had to choose between despotism and democracy, and both cannot exist at the same time. That is why a country cannot be a democracy and an empire at the same time. It is because, first, running an empire needs a strong central authority with centrally concentrated powers. This is totally at variance with the democratic constitutional order of decentralized and responsible public decision making. And, second, maintaining an empire requires a situation of constant mobilization and of unending wars.

Jefferson's nemesis was Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton (1755–1804) who, just as Vice President Dick Cheney today, did not want a true democracy but a king-run presidency and a life-long nominated senate. Only the House of representatives, in his autocratic scheme of thought, would have had recurringly elected members and some input in the working of the government. True power would have remained in the hand of a property oligarchy. Even though Hamilton himself was opposed to arbitrary government and strongly defended the fundamental right of Habeas Corpus, his followers have been more openly inclined to favor the maximum concentration of power in the Executive branch, at the expense of the checks and balances that are required to preserve freedom and civil liberties.

Internationally, Hamilton's followers are now also supreme in formulating American foreign policy. They are back in force in Washington D.C., but this time they are called "Neocons". They not only harbor the view of a near dictatorial executive branch, as Hamilton did, but they have added the absurd and Jocobian pretentious twist that they have received some divinely given right to govern the world. In their insane and delusional brave new world, words do not mean anything and even reality is a mirage to be adjusted according to their own interests or wishes. Indeed, they have discovered within themselves a missionary zeal to spread ("export") American-style democracy and American-style capitalism to the four corners of the globe, irrespective of international law or international obligations under the United Nations Charter, and despite whatever the lucky targeted people think or wish.

For all these reasons, it can be said that the Bush-Cheney administration is more Hamiltonian in scope than Jeffersonian. President George W. Bush has begun to arrogate to himself some of the powers of an absolute monarch, that is, the power to be above the law and to modify unilaterally the democratically adopted laws by Congress. Some of his handy men have by necessity thus developed the theory that an American president can do just about anything, if his intentions are to further national security. For instance, George W. Bush has paved the way for exercising martial law powers, first by de-facto repealing the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act that forbids the deployment of soldiers on American soil for domestic law enforcement, and, second, by signing last October the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA: HR 6166). Through this act, the President granted himself almost-dictatorial powers to arrest and detain indefinitely any American citizen without constitutional protections. He can, indeed, suspend the right of Habeas Corpus of any person he designates as an "enemy combatant", not only in the United States but also all around the world.

In this neocon brave new world, the future is framed as some sort of a “Perpetual American-led War for a Lasting Peace.” It is a world in which the United States can whimsically and preemptively, or even preventively, attack other countries with its sophisticated military gear, anytime one of them refuses to toe the line of American imperial interests. What is hallucinatory in all this is the idea that the Neocons have discovered a new Americentric "theory of the world", when in fact they have only stumbled upon a near exact replica of the 19th Century Eurocentric world of empires and of gunboat diplomacy. In fact, they are dreaming about a pre-1648-Westphalia world, where national self-determination and national sovereignty become a privilege reserved in exclusivity to those nations with the strongest armies. The Neocons' brave new world is really a blueprint for a non-democratic American empire, surrounded by puppet regimes all over the map. This could not be further from the democratic ideal of governments of law, not of men. Since the principles of the Peace of Westphalia date from 1648, it can be said that the Neocons' sick obsession with world domination is only three centuries and a half behind the times.

After Sept. 11 '01, when the rest of the world was in deep sympathy with the United States, the Bush-Cheney administration sould have done several things. –1. It should have worked to reinforce international law, instead of attempting to undermine it. –2. It should have been active in reforming the United Nations to make this essential international body more democratic, more representative and more efficient as a conflict solving mechanism, rather than shunning it aside. –3. It should have adopted a policy of isolating the small violent Islamist terrorists by assisting moderate and reformist elements in Muslim countries, rather than throwing gas on the fire of religious extremism. –4. It should have promoted a Helsinki Accords-like agreement in order to remove fears of illegitimate foreign military interventions, rather than whimsically invading sovereign nations. –5. It should have put forward an international Marshall-like plan to raise education and health standards in these countries, while facilitating productive investments and spuring economic development. –6. And, above all, it should have given the example, in behaving according to the fundamental humanist principles of non-aggression, lawful conduct and international generosity.

That it did none of the above is a tribute to its lack of vision and its lack of intellectual fortitude, not counting its lack of basic public morality.

Rodrigue Tremblay lives in Montreal and can be reached at rodrigue.tremblay@yahoo.com

Also visit his blog site at www.thenewamericanempire.com/blog.

Author's Website: www.thenewamericanempire.com

Academic to be Tried for Attending Holocaust Conference

Academic to be Tried for Attending Holocaust Conference
By Ali Ihsan Aydin, Paris
Friday, December 15, 2006
zaman.com

Robert Faurisson, a French academic who attended an Iranian conference questioning the Jewish Holocaust, could face legal punishment.

Robert Faurisson might be brought to court as a result of the comments he made at the "unacceptable" Tehran gathering, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said.

The foreign minister said the French academic was previously taken to court and banned from teaching at universities for his attitude toward the holocaust.

The French academic, who attended the conference titled “Review of the Holocaust: Global Vision” held by Iranian Foreign Ministry Foreign Policy Center, was previously convicted for denying the holocaust five times in his country.

The conference was attended by 67 scholars from 30 countries and found “unacceptable” by the European Union and the United States. Tehran was condemned for allowing it to take place.

Professor Faurisson had sparked reactions for his open letter “The Rumor of Auschwitz,” published in Le Monde.

The French academic was given a three month prison term and fined €7,500 for an interview with Iranian TV channel Sahar 1 in October.

Farewell, Dense Prince: MAUREEN DOWD

THE COMPLETE ARTICLE
The New York Times

OP-ED COLUMNIST
Farewell, Dense Prince
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: December 16, 2006

The defense czar who rivals Robert McNamara for deadly incompetence has been on a victory lap in Baghdad, Mosul and Washington.

--MORE--

Money quote:

"James Baker ran after W. with a butterfly net for a while, but it is now clear that the inmates are still running the asylum."

REPOSTED FROM MY OTHER BLOG

Litvinenko Pal Scaramella, "Man of Mystery," Worked for Neocon CIA Officer

A CIA OFFICER INDICTED BY THE ITALIANS FOR RENDITIONS.
---

From: DasGOAT@...

Date: December 14, 2006 11:25:58 PM PST

Recent revelations, mostly from the European press:

"Scaramella worked with Bob Lady***, the Milan CIA agent wanted [in Italy] for the Abu Omar kidnapping . A second CIA agent who collaborated with Scaramella was not named ...

"Not only is he wanted for kidnapping and other crimes in Italy, Lady is linked to the Niger uranium forgery (justifying the Iraq war), as well as Iran-Contra operations -- to both through the same man: Iranian double agent (for Israel) Manuchar Ghorbanifar."

"Ghorbanifahr has strong ties to Michael Ledeen, and both of them were involved in a controversial meeting in Rome of 2001. That meeting, whose purpose is unknown, included high level officials in Italian intelligence ... and Larry Franklin, a former Defense Department analyst who current pled guilty to charges of passing classified information to Israel ... Also in attendance was Middle East expert Harold Rhode, also under investigation for charges of passing classified information to Israel ... Both Rhode and Franklin worked for Feith in the Office of Special Plans.

"Ledeen was 'consulting' for OSP when all three were dispatched to Rome in 2001. He says the meetings had nothing to do with Iraq.

"According to James Risen's New York Times article dated December 2003, National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley was informed of the plans for the meeting and that Hadley expressed reservations given Ledeen and Ghorbanifahr's background.

"The Office of Special Plans, however, authorized the meeting without notifying any other agency, violating protocol. They did not notify the Rome CIA station chief nor the U.S. Ambassador to Italy, Mel Sembler.

"Ledeen, however, says that Hadley had authorized the trip. This would also implicate Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, then-National Security Advisor. "Hadley authorized it and he could not have done so without reporting it to his direct superior," said Ledeen.

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Backchannels_used_to_bypass_U.S._government_0111.html

"In San Marino, Scaramella seems to have deliberately sabotaged an official investigation into an arms trafficking network pointing toward Zurich. By publicly attacking the investigators as 'KGB' agents with ulterior motives, Scaramella himself> succeeded in derailing public support."

. . . . . . .

Fox lies (no shit) - the Litvinenko-Sacramella saga

by Jerome a Paris

Tue Dec 05, 2006 at 02:18:55 PM PST

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/11/30/154530/57

Meanwhile, the man Alexander Litvinenko accused of his murder on his deathbed, Mario Scaramella, is now the subject of various revelations in the Italian press.

Several serious papers like La Stampa, Corriere della Sera and La Reppublica are now writing (as linked to and explained in English by de Gondi over at the European Tribune) that Scaramella was under investigation by Italian magistrates for arms trafficking, and used Litvinenko in destabilisation attempts against Romano Prodi, the center left current Prime Minister, who beat Bush-stooge Berlusconi in a very close election last spring. Count on Fox News to use this story as an opportunity to spew the worst slanders against Prodi (and Russia).

As Putin's spokesman has noted, the murder of Anna Politovskaya was just before the G8 summit, and the murder of Litvinenko was just before the EU-Russia summit. With 4 British Airways now grounded after traces of Polonium were found in them and elsewhere, and former Russian Prime Minister Gaydar mysteriously poisoned yesterday, there are a number of strange things happening to people that are or have been critical of Putin, but it's hard to know who to blame - and yet that has not prevented pundits all around from blaming Putin for all of it, with little justification.

And it is now revealed that Scaramella is linked to Berlusconi (via Senator Guzzanti) and to Bob Lady, the Milan CIA agent wanted for the Abu Omar kidnapping. So the people involved in the rendition flights and the shady destabilization attempts to maintain Bush ally Berlusconi in power are also deeply involved in what increasingly appears to be a campaign to paint Putin as an evil dictator.

The connections are troubling, to say the least.

------------------

http://www.eurotrib.com/comments/2006/11/30/03228/882/84?mode=alone;showrate=1#84

La Stampa and Corriere della Sera have finally gotten around to seriously covering Scaramella- a job done only by la Repubblica the past ten days.

Both papers reveal that Scaramella has been under investigation since January at the least. Transcripts of legally obtained taps have been leaked to both papers.

The excerpts indicate a conscious scheme on Scaramella's part to beef up false evidence against Romano Prodi, Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio (head of the Greens and now Minister of the Environment) and Antonio Bassolini, president of the Campania Region. In a conversation with Senator Paolo Guzzanti, Scaramella volunteers unsubstantiated charges against Pecoraro Scanio immediately after a violent diatribe in TV between Guzzanti and Pecoraro Scanio. Scaramella accused Bassolino and Pecoraro Scanio of being linked to the Camorra and the KGB.

Scaramella used Litvinenko as a source [to prove] that Prodi was a KGB informant. Litvinenko had always denied being Scaramella's source and further accused Scaramella of having tricked him into signing false revelations.

It has also been revealed that one of Scaramella's consultants was Bob Lady, the Milan CIA agent wanted for the Abu Omar kidnapping. A second CIA agent who collaborated with Scaramella is not named.

Other revelations have Scaramella allegedly sabotaging the San Marino investigation into a possible international arms trade involving Switzerland. By publicizing that investigation as a Russian "KGB" operation, Scaramella blew the investigation apart.

There are wire taps on Ukranian and Russian spies or criminals, such as Alexander Talik, that indicate bewilderment on their part over Scaramella's actions.

In a conversation with his wife, Scaramella tells her that the Teramo scam reported yesterday (in which hapless Ukranians were arrested for transporting Russian grenades to a Neapolitan address) had nothing to do with Guzzanti. The Berlusconi press campaign had trumpeted the story as an attempt to kill Guzzanti and Scaramella. Both received police escorts after that campaign.

A conversation in mid- February 2006, between Guzzanti and Scaramella shows that Scaramella knew he was being tapped. Investigators are presently seeking to discover who was Scaramella's informant within the Interior Ministry. Neither article points to the unprecedented Telecom wiretapping scandal that involves Tavaroli, Mancini and Cipriani.

Although Berlusconi is never named it is apparent from the conversations that Guzzanti met and discussed Scaramella's hokum with him and received encouragement to immediately publicize the false accusations against Prodi.

Public Ministers have asked parliament for authorization to use the taped conversations. By law any conversation with a member of parliament or in which the name of an MP is mentioned (a Berlusconi law) must have authorization by the parliament to be used in an eventual trial. Criminal elements need only drop the name of an MP to complicate any investigation.

By publishing these leaks, both the Corriere and the Stampa have once again joined in the battle against parliamentary attempts to limit press freedom.

by de Gondi (publiobestia@...) on Thu Nov 30th, 2006 at 06:37:24 AM EDT

http://www.eurotrib.com/comments/2006/11/29/04732/875/26?mode=alone;showrate=1#26

Well, well, well. Our ineffable Mario Scaramella, super professor throughout the world allegedly arranged those grave Ruskie mafia menaces against Senator Guzzanti and himself. Seems he had some Ukranians accomplices plant Russian grenades in a truck and had them discovered in Teramo.

It's nice to see the Ukranians turn up again. There used to be a curious site of Italian-Ukranian friendship that was in the habit of putting up strange articles that went straight to Berlusconi's charlatan Telekom Serbia Commission. Coincidently Francesco Pazienza had blackmailed a petty Contra thug, Pio Maria Deiana, into putting that false dossier together.

Seems the Mitrokhin Commission and the Telekom Serbia Commission have a lot more in common than just San Marino and Italo Bocchino's Finbroker.

As for the shoot-out on Vesuvius some years ago that involved Scaramella, the judges concluded that Scaramella's penitentiary cops literally attacked the camorrista without provocation.

All we need to find out now, is who is behind Scaramella's damned American front, The Enviromental Crime Protection Program. Who knows if the Anglo-American press will get off their asses and stop referring to Scaramella as an academic?

by de Gondi (publiobestia@...) on Wed Nov 29th, 2006 at 02:23:50 AM EDT

----------------

Litvinenko meets Gladio

Sushi bar man is nuclear waste expert
Mysterious past of last man to meet dead Russian

GLEN OWEN and NICK PISA
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=418642&in_page_id=1770&ico=Homepage&icl=TabModule&icc=NEWS&ct=5
Sunday, November 26, 2006

The last person to meet Alexander Litvinenko before he succumbed to the agonising effects of radioactive poisoning is a self-professed expert in nuclear materials.

International 'security consultant' Mario Scaramella, who joined Litvinenko for the now infamous clandestine meeting in a London sushi bar, headed an organisation which tracked dumped nuclear waste, including Soviet nuclear missiles left over from the Cold War.

Litvinenko, an ex-KGB agent who became a trenchant critic of President Putin's Russia, fell ill after the sushi lunch - as exclusively revealed by The Mail on Sunday last week - and died 22 days later from poisoning by Polonium, a radioactive substance derived from uranium.

Yesterday other customers of the sushi restaurant answered an appeal by health agencies for them to undergo medical checks. Some 200 worried members of the public came forward, also including customers of a Mayfair bar where Litvinenko held another meeting on the day he was poisoned.

Sources revealed last night that renegade Russian billionaire Boris Berezovsky had also been checked for radiation. His car, in which he ferried the stricken Litvinenko to hospital, was also tested. It was further disclosed that the tycoon has been interviewed twice by police investigating Litvinenko's death, but not as a suspect.

Prof Scaramella has strongly denied any involvement in the murder and Litvinenko's family, who blame President Putin, say they do not question his loyalty. Having given an interview to The Mail on Sunday earlier in the week, Prof Scaramella yesterday said he was unwilling to say any more because he was 'co-operating with the authorities'. Earlier, he had acknowledged that 'something very strange is going on'.

Our investigations have established that:

• He has a deep knowledge of nuclear materials and their whereabouts around the globe.

• Although he describes himself as an environmentalist, he has detailed knowledge of the activities of Russian agents.

• Some of the institutions listed on his impressive CV appear to have no record of him, prompting questions about a career involving a large number of posts around the globe.

Prof Scaramella agreed to meet us in his home city of Naples to respond to allegations circulating on the internet that he was an intelligence agent in the pay of several secret services. Arriving in the lobby of a hotel flanked by two bodyguards, he produced a professional-looking dossier detailing his career.

As the meeting progressed, Prof Scaramella denied he had links to any secret services and became irritated. "You are sounding like the police,' he said. "Do not use this information against me."

Prof Scaramella's knowledge of atomic materials is clear, however. The Mail on Sunday has discovered that in June last year Italian police launched an investigation into an alleged plot to smuggle uranium into the country after being tipped off by Prof Scaramella.

He told officers that the uranium was hidden in a suitcase and had originated from an undisclosed country in the former Soviet Union. Within just 24 hours, police in Rimini made four arrests.

At the time all Prof Scaramella would say was: "I was investigating the activities of former KGB activities in San Marino <\[>a tiny independent republic near Rimini]

"I was also looking into the trafficking of arms from the former Soviet Union and possible links with Italian terrorist groups. During this I was passed a document that said there were former KGB men in San Marino looking at selling nuclear military material.

"I told the police that 10kg of uranium was hidden in a suitcase and on its way to Italy on June 2; and on June 2 the arrests were made and the uranium found. It was enriched uranium 90 per cent capable of making a small atomic bomb. Also an electronic target device was seized."

The uranium plot came a year after Prof Scaramella announced that he had information that 20 nuclear warheads had been lost by a Soviet submarine in the Bay of Naples.

Prof Scaramella told the Mitrokhin Commission, which investigated KGB activities in Italy, that he had been passed the information from Russian intelligence sources.

Scaramella told The Mail on Sunday that his career began in his hometown of Naples, where he qualified as a solicitor in 1995. He set up his own company, and started specialising in environmental law.

In 1996, Prof Scaramella, who is unmarried with two children, says he started work as a professor of environmental law at Externado University in Bogota, Colombia, before moving the following year to the University of Nuestra Senora del Rosario, also in Bogota. At the same time, between 1996 and 2000, he also held a post specialising in environmental crime at the University of Naples.

Between 2000 and 2002, Prof Scaramella was secretary general of a little-known organisation named the Environmental Crime Prevention Programme. The ECPP describes itself as an organisation which 'provides environmental protection and security through technology on a global basis'.

It has offices at the Fucino Space Centre in Italy to deploy 'aerial surveillance to detect environmental crimes in Eastern and Southern Europe'.

On its website, the ECPP described itself as a 'permanent intergovernmental conference' with a secretariat in Naples and rotating presidencies held by countries such as Angola and Samoa.

None of the contact details listed for the organisation on its website work. When Prof Scaramella was asked where the group's head office was he said there wasn't one - you had to contact the general secretary, who currently was a Professor Papadopoulos from California's San Jose university.

A Dr Perikles Papadopoulos - listed as an assistant secretary general of the organisation - could not be reached. And last night, neither the campaign group Greenpeace, nor the Environment Investigation Agency, which campaigns against environmental destruction, could recall working with the organisation.

In 2003 he made the jump from environmental expert to KGB specialist when he was appointed as a consultant to the Mitrokhin commission. It was that work which put him into contact with Litvinenko and led to the sushi lunch, which he says he arranged to discuss a 'death list' which named both him and Litvinenko

Prof Scaramella explained that Professor Papadopoulos was key to his appointment on to the Italian parliamentary commission, facilitating a meeting in London with Italian legal officials setting up the inquiry.

Italy was a nest of CIA and KGB agents during the Cold War: Washington regarded the socialist-leaning country as the West European country most susceptible to influence from Moscow.

Vasili Mitrokhin was a senior archivist for Russia's foreign intelligence service. His records of the period have led to inquiries across the globe, including the UK. One of the conclusions of the Italian inquiry was that the former Soviet Union was behind the assassination attempt on the late Pope John Paul II in 1981.

Prof Scaramella explained that he had been approached by the commission because his career had given him a passing connection to Russia. "My work involved a lot of Soviet issues - the dumping of radioactive waste, which can be detected from space, and the loss of nuclear devices,' he said.

"I said to them, "I am not an expert on security services, only nuclear waste." But the commission said they wanted people from outside to investigate. So in 2003 I looked at the operations of the KGB and Eastern bloc countries on Italian soil, including the funding of Italian journalists by the KGB."

In 2004, Prof Scaramella also led an investigation on the illegal dumping of waste by the mafia in an Italian lake. Despite being only a civilian environmental consultant, he led two armed police agents to a villa where the suspects lived. They were greeted by a hail of bullets. One mafioso was arrested, and an arms cache seized.

Scaramella also told us that he also found time in 1999 to become a visiting scientist at Stanford University in California, and was made director of a university Nato programme which involved visiting Lithuania.

In 2002, at the same time as he says he was completing his duties for the ECPP, he also started a school of national security in Colombia to train local police. The same year, he says he was also based for four months at Greenwich University in London, again working on environmental law.

It is hard to corroborate details of Scaramella's career.

A spokesman at the University of Naples said last night: "There is no record of a Professor Mario Scaramella working here. He may well have been hired internally as an independent working within one of the faculties but our system has no record of him."

And Dr Maria Scaramella, a namesake at the university, said: "I used to get all this post for him but I could never actually find him. He was supposed to have an office on the third floor but I was never able to find it. He was supposed to have some sort of European funding for research but I never knew exactly what."

A spokesman for Greenwich University also said they had no record of him on its books.

None of the American or Colombian universities responded to messages asking whether Prof Scaramella had worked for them.

Internet discussion forums have buzzed with theories about Prof Scaramella this week - the most damaging claiming that he is a secret service operative with split loyalties who uses a range of political and business interests as a front for his activities. But he insisted: "I have never been to any security service headquarters or met any acting officers."

Prof Scaramella says he struck up an association with Litvinenko during his work for the Mitrokhin Commission, and they had met several times before in the Itsu restaurant to discuss intelligence matters.

He claimed that tip-off from Litvinenko had helped to foil a bizarre assassination attempt last year on Paolo Guzzanti, an Italian senator who headed the Mitrokhin inquiry. It led to the arrest of six Ukrainians who were said to have been trying to smuggle grenades into the country hidden inside hollowed-out Bibles.

"He was my friend - that is why he gave me this,' he said, brandishing a picture of Litvinenko training as a young KGB officer.

Even Prof Scaramella's father, Amedeo, was perplexed about his son's career. "I think it's best you talk to Mario,' he said. "I don't really want to say anything. He divides his time between Naples and Rome and he also spends a lot of time overseas. I don't ask too many questions."

Prof Scaramella said: "I am not willing to say anything else. I am co-operating with the authorities. If you want any information ask Scotland Yard."

----------------

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/incoming/article2045226.ece

Litvinenko 'smuggled nuclear material'

Belfast Telegraph (UK), December 06, 2006

By Cahal Milmo, Peter Popham and Jason Bennetto

Alexander Litvinenko, the poisoned former Russian agent, told the Italian academic he met on the day he fell ill that he had organised the smuggling of nuclear material out of Russia for his security service employers.

Alexander Litvinenko, the poisoned former Russian agent, told the Italian academic he met on the day he fell ill that he had organised the smuggling of nuclear material out of Russia for his security service employers.

Mario Scaramella, who flew into London yesterday to be interviewed by Scotland Yard officers investigating Mr Litvinenko's death, said Mr Litvinenko told him about the operation for the FSB security service, the successor to the KGB.

Police said that Mr Scaramella, who met Mr Litvinenko at a sushi bar in London on 1 November to discuss a death threat aimed at both of them, was a potential witness. He was being interviewed at a "secure location" in London but was not in custody.

The Health Protection Agency said that eight people had been referred to a clinic in London for tests for exposure to polonium-210, the radioactive substance that killed Mr Litvinenko. It declined to say whether Mr Scaramella was among them.

A post-mortem examination will be carried out on Mr Litvinenko on Friday.

In an interview with The Independent shortly after the poisoning became public, Mr Scaramella said that Mr Litvinenko, a friend and professional contact since 2001, told him he had masterminded the smuggling of radioactive material to Zurich in 2000. There have long been concerns that turmoil in Russia and other former Soviet states after the fall of Communism created an international black market in radioactive substances.

The operation would have been one of the last carried out by Mr Litvinenko while still an FSB officer, in a unit tackling organised crime and smuggling. He fled Russia for London that year after the FSB began investigating him for corruption - charges which he claimed were invented as revenge for his decision to expose an FSB plot to assassinate the Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky.

Friends of Mr Litvinenko, a critic of the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, said last night that they were unaware of his involvement with any smuggling for the FSB. Alex Goldfarb, an ally of Mr Berezovsky, said: "He did not mention anything about nuclear material while serving with the FSB."

Mr Litvinenko died on Thursday last week after publicly accused Mr Putin of ordering his poisoning.

Mr Scaramella, an academic and examining magistrate based in Rome and Naples, had been due to meet Mr Litvinenko on 10 November in London, but brought the meeting forward at short notice on 1 November. The Itsu restaurant in Piccadilly, where traces of polonium-210 have been found, is thought to be the first location visited by Mr Litvinenko on 1 November.

Later he met two Russian business associates at a Mayfair hotel and visited the nearby offices of Mr Berezovsky and a security firm, where polonium traces have also been found. Last night police confirmed that they were searching the five-star Sheraton Park Lane Hotel in Mayfair as well as an office building in the West End.

Mr Scaramella has denied any involvement in his friend's death and derided suggestions that he was himself a Russian agent.He claims that he has long been involved in investigating the smuggling of radioactive material by the KGB and its successors. He claimed last year that Soviet destroyers had laid 20 nuclear torpedoes in the Bay of Naples in 1970, where they remain.

Mr Berezovsky, the exiled Russian billionaire visited almost daily by Mr Litvinenko, said: "I am deeply saddened at the loss of my friend. I credit him with saving my life and he remained a close friend and ally."

Russian authorities again denied involvement in the case, while Tony Blair vowed that there would be no "diplomatic or political barrier" to the inquiry.

http://radio.weblogs.com/0116902/2006/11/30.html

Some observations here:
Now that the possibility of nuclear smuggling is gaining credibility, some people seem very intent on still blaming the Russian secret service.
If Litvinenko smuggled nuclear material for the FSB and was contaminated at that time, he would have died long ago.
Scaramella's assertion that he met Litvinenko to discuss a death threat to them both is nonsense. You don't go to a public place to discuss this kind of thing.
If Mr Litvinenko was investigated in Russia for corruption it is highly probably that was because Litvinenko was involved in illegal nuclear trafficking. It is impossible that a true anti-Putinist like Litvinenko (and Berezovky) would continue to work for the FSB.
Litvinenko's contamination must have been very recent. And his dubious contacts (Berezovsky) and other contacts (Scaramella) all seem to be involved in 'nuclear material'.
Let's be honest, people like Litvinenko and Berezovky are not journalists or businessmen, they are crooks and very dangerous ones at that.
Now that it becomes clear Litvinenko was a nuclear smuggler they try to put the blame on the FSB again. But these people had to flee Russia because they were involved in shady business deals. Apparently, once in the West they were allowed to continue their illegal trafficking, which was most successful under the cloak of their anti-Russian activities, and Britain let it happen.

Instead of blaming the FSB, Europe would do better to cooperate with the Russians to eradicate the illegal nuclear trafficking that is still taking place. It is certain Litvinenko and Berezovsky, involved in illegal nuclear trafficking, are not Russian FSB agents. As an ex-Russian, how else does one make a fortune ?

==========

***ROBERT SELDON LADY

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/08/321321.html

Robert S. Lady retired from the CIA about September 2004 and left Italy in January 2005, after being tipped off that the Italians wanted to collar him. The mainstream media say that his whereabouts is unknown (though they say the Italian police intercepted two phone calls he made on the lam in Honduras). If I have learned where he is spending most of his time in Honduras, near the capital city of Tegucigalpa, then I assume that the Italians have precisely located him. One problem is getting the proper authorities in Italy to begin extradition proceedings. If this happens, the problem will be to get Honduras or the US to arrest him and turn him over. Then there will be big problems for Italian-American relations -- and for the Bush administration as it covers up the detritus of how we came to waste American lives in Iraq, detritus that includes Plamegate, Nigergate, Rovegate, and Larry Franklin-Israeli spying.

Bob Lady is not only wanted for kidnapping and other crimes in Italy, he has connections to the Niger uranium con (made in Italy for war against Irag), and the old (1980s) Iran-Contra-Nicaragua affair. Lady's link to both the Niger-Italy con and Iran-Contra are through the same person: the Iranian spy who really works for Israel, Manuchar Ghorbanifar.

EXTRADITING ROBERT SELDON LADY

Gettng Honduras to extradite Lady might not be easy. He and his father have a long history in Honduras and Central America as explained later.

The US wants the matter dropped for many reasons. For one, the US has used Honduras, its closest Central American ally, as a base for puppet-nation-building in Latin America for over 25 years and doesn't want its Central American machinations exposed. (The Reagan administration aided Contras, or "Againsts," in Nicaraqua and "Fors" in states with repressive right-wing regimes like Guatemala and El Salvador.) Also, if pressured, Lady might squeal what he knows about Nigergate, the use of forged documents, obtained through Italy and France, to drive the US to war. For foreign governments to meddle in US foreign policy is considered "a horse of a different color."

ROBERT LADY OF HONDURAS -- NOT AN HISPANIC

In Honduras, beginning in the 1950s and 1960s, Lady's father, and American from Florida, became a well known mining engineer and gold miner, an environmentalist, a farmer, a self-taught arborist, a sailor, and an expert ham radio operator. Bill Lady was a brilliant multitalented man. By all accounts and appearances, he was kind, generous, and gentlemanly. His son Robert is reported to have inherited his amiable disposition if not his good works. Mr. Lady apparently raised three sons and a daughter in Honduras and also maintained a home in Florida. Robert is the second oldest of his children.

Lady was raised like an American in Central America, although his mother Maria apparently was Hispanic. He looks somewhat Hispanic. (SEE LADY'S PHOTO.)

Robert Seldon Lady was born in 1954 in Honduras' capital city, Tegucigalpa (he is 51). Photos of him show his Hispanic ancestry. He apparently lived in Honduras until the 1970s, when he joined the NYPD and engaged in entrapment of "leftist" groups for them. He became a CIA agent in the 1980s. In the period 1981 to 1985 the US ramped up military and intelligence activities in Honduras, when Lady would have been in his late twenties.

Beginning in 1980, Iran-Contra (see any history book) was a scandal in which Republican Party operatives used the CIA to secretly sell missiles, etc., to Iran in exchange for a "timed release" of US hostages, timed to show up then-President Carter. Proceeds from the arms sales went to the rebels, or Contras, in Nicaragua. This trade supposedly ended in 1986 when a Lebanese magazine -- not the mainstream media -- exposed it. According to some reports (also outside the mainstream), the CIA also imported cocaine to North America, through Central America, and used the cash to buy arms for Iran and the Contras. US clandestine operations -- designed to evade express orders from the people's representatives, the Congress -- have continued to link Central America and the Middle East through the agency of the CIA, foreign spies like Ghorbanifar, and Bob Lady.

Regarding Honduras, around 1990 both the US Army and Nicaraguan Contras worked out of the same base at Ojo de Agua, about 33 miles north-northwest of Tegus, the capital. Robert Lady's father said he owned a farm 60 miles east of Tegucigalpa, which would have located it very near the border of Nicaragua with its Contras. He also owned a house about 15 miles east of Tegucigalpa.

Robert Lady's father -- with his wide contacts in Honduras, farm land on which "you could grow anything," knowledge of the Honduras terrain, unusual familiarity with the Tegucigalpa airport hangars, and globe-spanning shortwave radios -- would have made the ideal CIA operative. He could have been the Mr. Big of Central America. There is no evidence that he was, and when he died in 2004, he apparently was not rich. (SEE PHOTO OF LADY'S FATHER.)

His son, Robert Seldon Lady, is another matter and may well have taken advantage of his father's Honduran assets and aptitudes to conduct CIA capers. Bob Lady conducted operations in Central America, off and on, during and after Iran-Contra, until he was tranfered to Milan, Italy, about the start of 2001. Some claim that CIA snitch Aldrich Ames -- arrested for spying for Russia -- "burned" (outed and ruined) agents in Latin America. However, Robert Lady was attached to the US embassy in Panama until the CIA transferred him to Milan around the beginning of 2001. His son graduated from high school in Panama in 2000. For a few years up to his departure for Milan, Robert Lady apparently had dual residencies, as he also owned a house in Abita Springs, LA (near New Orleans).

BOB LADY TO MILAN, ITALY, EMBASSY -- UNDER COVER

So, a couple of years before the now infamous grab of the Egyptian cleric Abu Omar (Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr) in Milan, the CIA transferred Lady to Milan as Chief of Station and got him a second job, a cover job in the State Department consulate: Political/Military Officer. Lady was the only one to hold this job title in the entire worldwide foreign service. He started near the beginning of 2001.

US CIA HAS NO ARREST POWERS IN US, BUT GRABS MAN IN ITALY --
VIOLATION OF ITALY'S SOVEREIGNTY AND INTERNATIONAL "INCIDENT"

BTK: Bind, Torture, and Kill (a la Dennis Rader)

The Italian press calls the Lady matter "Imam Rapito," for "kidnapped cleric." I call it the BTK Grab, after the Kansas serial killer Dennis Rader, who bound, tortured, and killed his victims and dubbed himself BTK. Abu Omar was a Muslim cleric in Milan, Italy. His age has been reported as 42 at the time of the kidnapping. He had fled his native Egypt in the 1980s after a 1-year imprisonment for membership in the antigovenment organization Jamaat. He has two wives and two young children by his first wife. He was separated from his first wife and his children, who are in Albania, by political matters. At the time of the CIA snatch, he was the deputy imam at the Milan's Islamic center, reputedly the most militant Muslim outpost in Italy.

BTK: BIND-TORTURE-KILL

BIND

In late 2002, Robert Seldon Lady's CIA gang used their credit cards and US government discounts to begin a long stay at luxury hotels in Milan. After about 3 months of planning the grab of Abu Omar to deliver him to his native Egypt for questioning, and with little effort to hide their identities, the gang of 19 swung into action. Six of the gang tailed the militant cleric for about a week. Then they pulled back and another band of 13 swung into action to make the grab. (Separate surveillance and contact crews are typical of investigations targeting persons.) The six scouts waited nearby as a backup.

On February 17, 2003, as Abu Omar was walking to his mosque, two bushwhackers posing as Italian police officers stopped him and pepper-sprayed him to disable him. They and others forced the 42-year-old cleric and father of two into a white van. Abu Omar has since been charged by the same prosecutors who charged the CIA agents, but he was not under any charges anywhere at the time of the grab. (Italy recently has charged him with terrorist activities, mainly to extradite him and hopefully save his life.) As Abu Omar called loudly for help, a woman passerby heard his cries. This was something the gang had not anticipated.

It should be noted that the CIA has no police powers in the United States, let alone Italy. This affair is an affront not only to Italian sovereignty but to US justice. There is no reason for the US to protect persons who would do such things, who, after all, are common criminals. Kidnapping and torture are of course illegal under US laws. Abu Omar was under no charges andywhere at the time, was not arrested by the Italian police, but was kidnapped by the CIA.

The eyewitness told relatives and friends of Abu Omar about the grab, and one of them called the police. The police began a missing-persons investigation, but it apparently stalled out with no further evidence. The police maintained a wiretap on the immam's residence.

LT. COL. JOE ROMANO AND "MATS" -- THE AIR FORCE'S MILITARY AIR TORTURE SERVICE

The getaway van transported Abu Omar to a US Air Force base, Aviano, 125 miles east of Milan. Italian court documents show that a USAF security officer, Lt. Colonel Joseph L. Romano III, allegedly provided security clearance at the Aviano Air Base. He is presently under investigation for his possible role in the kidnapping. The Italian prosecutors -- led by Milan's main prosecutor, Armando Spataro, famed for prosecuting the Mafia -- say they want to question him and might consider seeking his arrest. Romano was in charge of security at the air base as commander of the 31st Security Police Squadron. Romano may have helped to get agents and Abu Omar off on his "rendition" (torture) trip. The kidnappers called Romano three times during the trip to Aviano, apparently to report their progress. Romano worked at the time under Brigadier General R. Michael Worden, the commander of the 31st Fighter Wing, who should have known about the rendition plans and who needs to be questioned.

TORTURE

From Aviano, a chartered Learjet took Abu Omar to Ramstein Air Base in Germany, also the destination of tens of thousands of US military casualties from Iraq. (The plane is owned by former catheter manufacturer and Boston Red Sox part-owner Phillip H. Morse of Jupiter, FL.) From there, a Gulfstream with the US FAA registration N85VM (now N227SV, for you plane spotters) then took Abu Omar to Egypt, where he hadn't been since the 1990s, for "intensive" interrogation. The use of torture is against the US Constitution, which all US officials are sworn to uphold. The US has condemned the torture of Egyptian dissidents by their government. Meanwhile, the CIA has made repeated use of Egypt as a place of interrogation for persons who have broken no laws in Egypt. Perhaps it's the cost of living there?

Kidnapper Lady apparently was Abu Omar's tour guide in Egypt, as he accompanied the immam there. Guido Olimpio of the paper Corriere della Sera has reported extensively on the Imam Rapito caper. He reported another Milan-based imam as telling Italian authorities that Omar had been tortured in Egypt after refusing to work in Italy as an informer. According to the testimony, Omar was hung upside down, kept naked, and subjected to freezing temperatures, electric shock, and loud noise that damaged his hearing. Italian officials, however, deny any foreknowledge or involvement in the whole caper.

Robert Lady reportedly stayed on in Egypt for 2 weeks, apparently watching as his Egyptian muscle hung, froze, zapped, and blasted Abu Omar. In his report, Judge Chiara Nobili says cell phone records show Lady was in Egypt from Feb. 22-March 15. The report says that those were likely the first days Nasr was being tortured during interrogations.

KILL?

The kidnap victim was released from prison in Egypt on April 20, 2004. This is known from his telephone calls to his second wife, in Italy, and to other associates, including fellow imam Mohammed Reda. In these calls he gave some details of the snatch and torture.

Abu Omar was soon re-arrested by Egyptian authorities, on May 9, 2004 -- possibly because his phone calls during his release started an investigation by the Italian police and the growing stink over the grab.

The last time he reportedly was heard from was in May 2005. His first wife, in Albania, received a letter from him (she has verified its authenticity) saying, "Now I live in Alexandria." It is hard to tell if he still is in Alexandria, in prison, or even dead -- completing the BTK pattern. He reportedly once was an intelligence source for the Italians. One of their beefs of Italian intelligence over the caper is that the Americans have not shared the intelligence obtained from Abu Omar's torture. The case is an embarassment for the Berlusconi administration, which faces reelection next year, and the Bush administration, which is imploding. This does not augur well for the imam's survival. However, the Italian prosecutor, Spatari, is attempting to extradite Abu Omar to Italy, which could save his life.

THE JIG IS UP FOR THE CIA

This story appeared on front pages and TV screens in a flash recently, on June 23, 2005, when the prosecutor in Milan, Armando Spatari, announced that a judge had issued arrest warrants for the 13 members of the actual snatch team. The judge temporarily denied warrants for the other 6 who had served as scouts and backups.

ROBERT S. LADY AND THE "DIRTY DOZEN" (DUMB CROOKS)

For some reason, the Italian authorities have released only names, some of which might be aliases, for the perps. They have not released photos, not to the media at least. One would think they would do so if they were sincere about wanting to arrest the fugitives, especially since releasing the cover names already has "burned" the agents.

The prosecutors have claimed that the abductors used passports and documents with their photos in checking into the luxury hotels to set up the caper. In something that belongs in the "Dumb Crooks" TV segment, the criminals also used US embassy cell phones without bothering to change the identifying chips. Later, an American in the embassy in Rome began using one of the phones again! Anyway, prosecutors obtained from the hotels photocopies of the crooks' photos that were dark and smudged. They claimed they were waiting for digtital graphics experts to enhance the photos before publishing them. We are still waiting.

Before going on to the leader of the Lady Gang, here are the other 12 listed in the first batch of warrants:

Some of these names are aliases. One person, possibly Harty or Harbaugh, reportedly is about 63 and is using his own name at the US embassy in Tanzania.

Monica (Courtney) Adler, 32 years old, born in Seattle, resident in Virginia. [Monica Courtney, according to Corriere, Guido Olimpio]

Gregory Asherleigh, 50 years old, born in Maryland, resident in Washington, DC.

Lorenzo Carrera, 34 years old, born in Texas, speaks fluent Italian and Spanish. [Carrera Gabriel Lorenzo, according to Corriere]

(Carlyle) Drew Channing, 40 years old, born in NY. [Chamming Drew Carlyle, according to Corriere]

John (Kevin) Duffin, 53 years old, born in Illinois, resident in Pennsylvania.

Raymond Harbaugh, 66 years old, born in Alaska, Virginia PO Box [Reston, VA, is CIA headquarters.]

Ben Amar Harty, 61 years old, Arab descent, speaks Arab, born in Iowa. [Harty Benamar, according to Corriere]

Cynthia (Dame) Logan, 45 years old, born in Maryland, address unknown.

George L. Purvis, 46 years old, born in China, resident in Virginia.

Pilar Rueda, 44 years old, born in California, address unknown.

Joseph Sofin, 52 years old, born in Moldavia, resident in Virginia.

Michalis Vasiliou, 43 years old, born in Greece, residence unknown.

ROBERT S. LADY -- "FLIGHT TO AVOID PROSECUTION"

Bob Lady retired with his wife Martha to the Piedmont wine country of northern Italy, near Asti, in September 2003. The Italian police began investigating the Abu Omar caper again in April 2004 when a wiretap on his home picked up Abu Omar's call to his wife. With the cops closing in about the first of 2005, Lady and the rest of the gang took it on lam, probably being relocated by the CIA.

The cops were bugging Lady's villa when, at the end of May 2005, he called Martha from Honduras. Soon afterward, neighbors say, Martha went on a lengthy trip to Honduras. ONE ONLY HOPES SHE DIDN'T TAKE THE HARD DRIVES WITH HER, as Robert Lady had done when his father died last year. Martha Lady returned home just in time to find her husband under an arrest warrant.

When the Italian police went to bust Lady at his home in Asti, on June 23, 2005, the day the first 13 arrest warrants were announced, he had flown the coop.

In the garage was what the prosecutor has called "a box used as a rubbish bin." In it was a list of Milan hotels the gang had used in planning the caper, "confirming the role of Lady Seldon [sic] as the organizer of the operation," the prosecutor said. The police removed documents and hard drives (less whatever Lady and his wife had spirited away).

Some time afterward, Lady called his wife from a Honduran cell phone, and she told him that she had been attempting to destroy the goods just as the cops arrived.

6 MORE WARRANTS FOR THE LOOKOUTS

The Italian court of jurisdiction refused to issue warrants for the persons who had served as scouts or lookouts. Prosecutor Spataro insisted that there was "serious evidence of responsibility" for the six, and an appeals court agreed. On July 25, 2005, the appeals court ordered the arrest of the following (ages and addresses unknown):

Eliana Castaldo

Victor Castellano

John Thomas Gurley

Brenda Liliana Ibanez or Liliana Brenda Ibanez

Anne Lidia Jenkins

WANTED FOR QUESTIONING -- LT. COL JOSEPH L. ROMANO, USAF

Col. Joseph L. Romano has since left Italy; but on June 25, 2005, prosecutors said they want to question him and are considering ordering his arrest as well. He is presently working in section 31P at the Pentagon.

ROBERT LADY AND NIGERGATE AND GHORBANIFAR

Robert Lady apparently was involved in Nigergate -- procuring forged documents that President Bush and Prime Minister Blair used an a pretense for making war on Iraq. The forged letters and Telexes purported to arrange sales of uranium oxide (yellowcake) by Niger to Iraq. They were the basis of Bush's claim in his 2003 State of the Union speech, just before the Iraq war, that the British government had evidence "that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." Bush backed down on this claim -- after he got his war.

DECEMBER 2001 MEETING REPORTED BY NEWSWEEK --
FISHING FOR WAR GROUNDS

Bush had secret war plans when he ran for president in 2000. All he needed was an excuse. Newsweek Magazine reported that, at the end of his first year in office, in December 2001, there was meeting in Rome arranged by Michael Ledeen, foreign policy advisor to Karl Rove and Bush. Also present were Nicolo Pollari, head of Italy's CIA; the Minister of Defense (Pollari's boss), Antonio Martino; Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin, now under indictment for spying for an Israeli group; Harold Rhode, from Dick Cheney's Office of Special Plans; and Manuchar Ghorbanifar, an Iranian by nationality but basically a free-agent intelligence operative.

The Americans were on a fishing expedition for war grounds.

Pollari, Italy's spy chief, very likely know Lady, the head US spy in Milan. There was close cooperation between Italian and US intelligence after 9/11.

Gharbanifar, the Iranian equal-opportunity spy, had been a go-between in the Iran-Contra affair in the 1980s, arranging arms sales by Col. Oliver North in the Reagan White House to Iran. Lady, in the CIA, had been involved in Iran-Contra on the Contra end in Latin America. Cash derived from the arms sales to Iran that Ghorbanifar arranged was used to buy weapons that Lady helped deliver to the Nicaraguan Contras. Lady and Ghorbanifar, then, had already worked on a black operation years before the Iraq war.

ALSO LATE 2001: DOCUMENTS FROM A "LADY" AT THE NIGER EMBASSY
IN ROME

Meanwhile, Rocco Martino (no apparent relation to Antonio), another soldier-of-fortune of the spy world, had been working for the French secret service (and who knows for whom else), by his account. He was providing them intelligence about Africa and the Middle East at the time. One of Pollari's spies (Italian CIA) told him a "lady" at the Niger embassy in Rome had some documents Martino should have.

In my opinion, the "lady" was no lady and no gentleman either, but Robert Seldon Lady. Lady had become very close to Italian intelligence since arriving in Italy about the time Bush was inaugurated, early in 2001. He had become even closer to his Italian colleagues after 9/11, just three months before the American fishing expedition and Martino's windfall. I think he took the late industrialist Henry J. Kaiser's watchword to heart: "Find a need, and fill it." The people at the meeting had a need of something to pin on Saddam Hussein, and Lady and his Italian and French cohorts filled it.

I think Lady accomplished this with the help of his fellow-laborer in Iran-Contra, Manuchar Ghorbanifar.

It appears that Italy, France, Iran, and possibly Israel (for whom Ghorbanifar sometimes worked) -- or at least persons who worked for these foreign governments -- influenced American policy to start a war. This is highly illegal and a violation of American sovereignty. Also highly illegal and a violation of *Italian* sovereignty is the abduction of Abu Omar.

Clayton Hallmark

An unclassifiable identity

Dana Shalash writing from Ramallah, occupied Palestine, Live from Palestine, 15 December 2006

Palestinian students participate in a graduation ceremony at Birzeit University near the West Bank town of Ramallah, 23 June 2006. (MaanImages/Mushir Abdelrahman)

I have just found out that I studied in Jordan. I swear I did not know that. Well, that is not the only recent discovery I've made about myself. I have been learning many new things about myself as a Palestinian individual, all by coincidence. For instance, a few minutes ago I learnt that I took my BA degree from Jordan. No, I am not losing my mind. Or maybe I am.

It is funny how when we Palestinians are striving to prove and maintain our Palestinian identity others still perceive us as aliens. It is as if the concept of "Palestine" only exists in our heads. Well, that was actually a comment I heard by a Jewish American comedian several ago. I can never forget that show. It made me feel as an invisible entity although I was still in elementary school. But since then, lots of struggles to try to make our voices heard have materialized. Nevertheless, our attempts to make the world recognize us as Palestinians seem to be all in vain.

Two weeks ago, a colleague from work asked me for some help with a visa application. The place of origin was filled with the word "Jordan," though he is purely Palestinian, and has never left Palestine. Apparently he noticed my astonished facial expressions, and before I uttered anything, he said, "all the travel agencies consider us Jordanians." I did not spend much time thinking it through nor arguing it.

However, for the past month or so, I have been filling out some schools' applications. Most of them are American. It gets easier by time to repeat what you first have trouble in articulating and then jotting down. All follow the same pattern, yet not when it comes to the nationality part. Of course, "Palestine" is never provided as an option. It crushes one's feelings to find out that you are not considered what you believe you are. It is like hallucinating while the whole world mocks you.

For some schools, I have to select "Israel," for others "the Palestinian Authority," or "the Palestinian Territory." Note that it is singular -- territory rather than territories.

Anyhow, we have got used to those variations. And finding that the notion of "Palestinian," whether authority, territory, or any other affix is provided, lightens us up. It still somehow reveals part of our identity, as long as it is declared. It entails that we are visible, and we Palestinians are accepted and respected as well. It brings back the feeling of being an internationally acknowledged national.

But what really struck me the most is this last joke: we are Jordanians. According to this last application in my hand, Birzeit University (my school) is in Jordan, and my BA degree is awarded, for that matter, from Jordan. For someone who has never been outside the West Bank, it makes me really wonder just how I got my degree from abroad.

The concept of being nameless and without an identity once sounded surreal to me when I was submerged in the world of literature and novels. It is like the classic English literature during Queen Elizabeth's reign when women were nameless, or the African-American literature where human beings are alienated. I heard that history repeats itself, but didn't realize that literature could be made literal.

Dana Shalash is a student of English at Birzeit University. Her blog is Stranger than Fiction.