from paul joseph watson: A videotape that was heralded as "new" footage of Osama bin Laden by many quarters of the press has been conclusively proven to be more than 5 year old re-released footage, leading to questions about why the government and the media continue to act as willing propagandists for the terrorists while striking fear into Americans by claiming an attack is inevitable.
Though some reports included the proviso that the tape could contain old footage, the importance and ceremony attached to the re-release of the Bin Laden tape over the weekend left the distinct impression that the footage was new and that it correlated with the alleged increase of "chatter" amongst terrorist organizations indicating that a new attack is imminent, a message that was again pushed by the U.S. government following the release of the National Intelligence Estimate yesterday.
In reality, the tape was being released for the third consecutive time, having first popped up in 2002 before re-airing again in 2003. The footage of Bin Laden was filmed six years ago in October 2001.
Euro News, the propaganda arm of the European Union broadcast in dozens of countries around Europe, described the footage as "apparently new". "Possible New Message From Osama Bin Laden," reported ABC News, noting that "a brief clip of an older-looking Osama bin Laden is contained in a new al Qaeda videotape," when in reality the graying in Bin Laden's beard was exactly the same as when he appeared in a 2001 videotape, while also wearing the exact same jacket.
The footage was not new and any small amount of cursory research would have verified that fact, and yet the media went full board with the story, creating the illusion that it was new, while rabid Neo-Cons lauded the tape as another reason for keeping U.S. troops in Iraq while fearmongering about upcoming terror attacks at home.
The footage first appeared in May 2002, having been released by a Pakistani security official to the Al-Ansaar Islamic news agency, based in Birmingham, England. This CBS video clip clearly shows the same footage as the apparent "new" tape.
Here is a screenshot from the 2002 tape (right) compared to the new tape (left). Notice the sloping mountain in the left background.
Sources indicate that the footage was shot in either October 2001 or March 2002, with the earlier date being the favorite as Bin Laden's appearance matches with the footage from a different tape that was released in October 2001.
Al-Jazeera said they had the footage as far back as October 2001, but chose not to air it as they saw it as "not newsworthy" and "nothing more than a PR stunt." Six years later, and with the footage having been released on two separate occasions already, the western media insinuated that the tape was new and splashed it everywhere as a top headline.
In our previous groundbreaking investigation, we exposed IntelCenter, the middleman between "Al-Qaeda's media arm" and the press, and the organization that routinely obtains the tapes, as little more than a Pentagon front group staffed by individuals with close connections to the military-industrial complex.
IntelCenter were also behind the release of the "new" Osama tape - having previously released the same footage (the second time it had appeared) in October 2003!
IntelCenter issued a tacit warning that the footage may be re-hashed when they released the "new" tape to the media, but they failed to mention the fact that they released portions of the exact same clips in October 2003. The screenshots of Bin Laden which clearly correlate with the "new" tape wereon their website all along, and yet they still labeled the footage as "significant". IntelCenter knew the tape was definitely old, yet their meandering uncertainty left doubts that the media exploited to the full in claiming the footage may be new.
Even a senior Bush administration official admitted to Newsbusters, "Intelligence agencies have determined the video was previously aired as a portion of a longer show first on MBC TV (Middle East broadcast station) on April 17, 2002," and yet retractions to the supposition that the footage was new are nowhere to be seen in the media.
"What's the result of the MSM's sloppy 'air-first-verify-later' approach? The world’s most evil and despicable terrorists are given tons of free air time and print exposure," adds Newsbusters.
Even if you believe that Al-Qaeda itself is deciding to re-package old footage and constantly re-release it, and that this isn't a crude propaganda ploy on behalf of IntelCenter in collusion with the Neo-Cons, why are the government and the media consistently affording lavish attention and giving prominence to such activity, aiding the terrorists to spread their propaganda ad infinitum?
It would be foolishly naive to think that the re-release of this tape - for the third time running - has little to do with the fact that the Bush administration has been ramping up the fearmongering and hinting at the inevitability of another attack over the past two weeks - ostensibly for political purposes to mute dissent.
Six months after the failed "surge" in Iraq and with Bush's approval ratings sliding to all time lows while calls for impeachment reach a crescendo, a slew of information threatening a new Al-Qaeda attack gets released and up pops Osama - in a tape that is re-hashed for a third time - to validate the Neo-Con's insistence that to leave Iraq is to hand the terrorists a victory. That tape is released by an organization with clear links to the military-industrial complex who had knowingly released the same footage years earlier.
Is all this a coincidence, or does such chicanery and crass manipulation of the electorate and the political process demand an immediate Congressional investigation as to why the U.S. government and its lapdog media fronts are working with the terrorists to artificially boost their profile while scaring the holy crap out of the American people at the most politically opportune moments?
from raw story: Supporters of the war in Iraq - including President George W. Bush - claim that a withdrawal of US forces would lead to an al Qaeda takeover of Iraq. Yet according to Pentagon war games, this scenario is highly unlikely.
On Wednesday's Countdown Keith Olbermann interviewed Washington Post correspondent Thomas Ricks who discussed his article on Pentagon war gaming for a post-US Iraq.
Pentagon simulations on US withdrawal find the most likely scenario would be a three-way split of the country between Kurds, Shias, and Sunnis. Ricks warns while the breakup would be "very ugly," with possibly "tens of thousands of people dying," an al Qaeda takeover of Iraq would not be possible by "any stretch of the imagination."
In addition, the war games also found Iran would not benefit from US withdrawal, and in fact would be sucked in to the same kind of destabilizing sectarian conflict the US finds itself embroiled in.
Olbermann asked Ricks whether it is fair to draw the conclusion that the best way to stop Iran from interfering in Iraq is to leave, to which Ricks responded, that while there are no "good answers" left in Iraq, leaving would make it significantly easier to deal with Iran.
Ricks noted that while these lessons appear to be taken to heart by members of the military, it is ultimately up to them to convince the White House come September, when this war will become "General Petraeus' war" just as much as it is Bush's.
The following video is from MSNBC's Countdown, broadcast on July 18.
townhall: ron paul will place 2nd in iowa from usa today: Patrick Ruffini makes the case this morning at the conservative Townhall blog that Republican Rep. Ron Paul will place second at the Iowa GOP's "straw poll" Aug. 11 in Ames... Hugh Hewitt, also writing this morning at the blog, thinks Ruffini may be over-thinking things.
left could push pro-israel voters to gop from politico: Support for Israel has long been a tenet of both political parties... Yet pockets of anti-Israel sentiment are active in American politics and have found a home among a small group of Democratic lawmakers and leftist activists. While it's tempting to dismiss them as irrelevant, the left's views on Israel have in recent years seeped into mainstream politics.
study finds 'stealth ads' in newscasts from oregon daily emerald: According to a study recently published in the journal Electronic News, authored by two University professors and a former journalism doctoral student, there is increasing pressure from advertisers to integrate ads in newscasts, and small markets are most likely to promote advertisers during news stories... Viewers may not be aware of the commercial aspects of news content.
from blacklisted news: Janeane Garofalo used an opportunity on Late Night with Conan O'Brien (july13) to discuss her wish to hold up a puppy to offset discussion of 'controversial' political issues, saying '9/11 Was an Inside Job' and naming Bush as the 'worst president of all time.'
from huffington post: Reuters on Monday asked the U.S. military to conduct a full and objective investigation into the killing last week of two of its staff in Iraq after evidence emerged casting doubt on explanations given for their deaths.
Photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and driver Saeed Chmagh, 40, were killed in Baghdad on Thursday in what witnesses said was a U.S. helicopter attack and which police in a preliminary report called "random American bombardment."
from reuters: Like the maker of an out-of-favor car or sneaker, the U.S. military needs a new "branding" campaign to earn civilian support in Iraq, Afghanistan and other hot spots, a report for the Pentagon said on Tuesday.
"We will help you" could be the pitch, said the 211-page survey by RAND, a nonprofit research group that carries out many studies for the DoD.
It said the U.S. military "brand" had been tarnished by, among other things, images of Abu Ghraib prison; the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; and post-invasion gaps in getting Iraqi civilians electricity and clean water.
U.S. forces should heed product "positioning" and branding lessons from such consumer-savvy powerhouses as Lexus, Ritz-Carlton hotels and Nike, said the report.
The study was ordered by the U.S. Joint Forces Command, which helps steer military modernization.
"It's not just a matter of putting the right 'spin' on U.S. military actions," said Todd Helmus, a behavioral scientist and the report's lead author. "It's synchronizing what we say with what we do."
"Like commercial firms that must update unattractive brand identities, so too should the United States consider updating its military's brand identity to suit current and future operational environments," the report said.
The use of "brute force has hindered operational success in both Iraq and Afghanistan," it said.
In Afghanistan, NATO and U.S.-led coalition forces have been criticized for a surge in civilian casualties and Afghan President Hamid Karzai has warned that patience with foreign troops is wearing thin.
The report's research is based on interviews with current and former practitioners from military public affairs, civil affairs, information operations and psychological operations, as well as with 25 marketing professionals in business and academia.
Its recommendations could apply to peacekeeping-style operations as well as wars.
The "we will help you" line is the brainchild of Keith Reinhard, chairman emeritus of DDB Worldwide, a leading global advertising agency, the report said.
"It is a promise that can be kept," the authors said. "And because it positions the United States as a partner of indigenous populations, it does not usurp their authority, dignity or responsibility."
Helmus said in a telephone interview that "We will help you" was just an example of a potential branding concept rather than a RAND Corp. recommendation.
from iraq slogger: Congressman Ron Paul has defined his Republican presidential candidacy with a staunchly critical stance on the Iraq war, saying during the June 5 debate in New Hampshire, for example, that it was a "mistake to go and a mistake to stay." ...
One might think such criticism of the war and the Commander-in-Chief's leadership would make Paul a pariah to the military community, however, the latest figures indicate the antiwar Republican is receiving more donations from employees of the US military than any other Republican candidate.
The Presidential campaigns just released their quarterly campaign finance reports, leaving much of the mainstream media remarking on Paul's surge in online donations from his healthy Internet following, though the $2.3 million he raised still has him trailing far behind the front runners.
But a closer look at the reports reveals a less obvious but more remarkable development--the antiwar Republican received nearly 50% of the money donated by employees of the US military...
the overall percentages indicate that the underdog candidate, whose overall fund raising cache is dwarfed by the leading pack of candidates, has appealed to segments of the military community.
Speaking to a group of atheists in his home district in Minnesota, Ellison equated the 9/11 attacks and aftermath to the 1933Reichstag fire in Germany, which helped cement Hitler's power.
He carefully parsed his words stating that he would not 'accuse' the Bush Administration of planning 9/11 because "you know, that's how they put you in the nut-ball box - dismiss you".
Ellison, a co-sponsor of a bill to impeach Cheney for "high crimes and misdemeanors," described the Vice President as "the very definition of totalitarianism, authoritarianism and dictatorship" and further condemned his refusal to answer Congress' questions.
Ellison's promise: "You'll always find this Muslim standing up for your right to be atheists all you want," reportedly "raised eyebrows" among the 300 present.
Ellison later clarified that he believes that Osama bin Laden was in fact responsible for the attacks of 9/11.
Condemnation came quickly with Republican Mark Drake of Ellison's home state saying: "To compare the democratically elected leader of the United States of America to Hitler is an absolute moral outrage which trivializes the horrors of Nazi Germany."
from alex ansary: Tonight I talked about the Russian military, and the Chinese influence of trade and the NAU. Later we showed a brief clip from our week of rampant bullhorning on the issue of 9/11 in downtown Portland, Oregon. Later we take phone calls.
But the White House has apparently again invoked its executive privilege to hold up the documents sought by Waxman and Ranking Minority member Tom Davis (R-VA).
"The White House Counsel's office responded that it would not provide the Committee with documents that 'implicate Executive Branch confidentiality interests' and produced only two communications with the officials in the Defense Department, one of which was a package of news clippings," the Committe noted. "The response of the Defense Department to the Committee's inquiry was also deficient."
In their letter to Fielding, Waxman and Davis doubted that the two documents were the limits of White House-Pentagon communication over Tillman's death.
"It is difficult to believe that these are the only communications that White House officials had with the Department of Defense between April 22,2004, the day Corporal Tillman died, and May 29, 2004, the day the Bush Administration publicly announced that Corporal Tillman's death was a result of fratricide," they wrote.
They also explained what they believed was at stake in this probe.
"These questions have implications for the credibility of the information coming from the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan and raise significant policy issues about how to prevent the future dissemination of untrue information," Waxman and Davis wrote to Fielding. "They also have a profound personal impact on the Tillman family. It is for these reasons that the Committee requested documents from the White House."
The Committee said that it expected a response to the Friday letter by July 25. Waxman also scheduled an additional hearing on the announcement of Tillman's death for Aug. 1.
from abc: A brief clip of an older-looking Osama bin Laden is contained in a new al Qaeda videotape praising al Qaeda martyrs posted on jihadi Web sites early this morning.
Experts who study al Qaeda videos told ABC News they had not previously seen the clip of bin Laden, which was released with little fanfare and contains no date references, but say it is most likely an unreleased portion of an earlier message.
The al Qaeda leader speaks of martyrdom for roughly one minute as he addresses an unseen group in a mountainous location, wearing fatigues, a watch and ring, and with extensive gray in his beard.
The clip is part of a 40-minute film "Scent of Heaven" from al Qaeda's as Sahab video propaganda arm discovered on the Internet by Laura Mansfield of Strategic Translations. The tape commemorates seven men who were killed and which are termed "martyrs" in the video. As clear from their aliases, they come from Pakistan, Morocco, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Saudi Arabia.
In the clip, bin Laden talks about martyrdom as he refers to the prophet Mohammad.
"He wished to become a martyr," bin Laden says of Mohammad, before quoting a hadith (prophet saying).
"By Him, in Whose hand Mohammad's soul is, I would've liked to raid and be killed, then raid and be killed, then raid and be killed," he says.
media monarchy is originally broadcast on the portland radio authorityevery friday at 10am pacific/1pm eastern and can also be heard on the revere radio networkevery monday at 4pm pacific/7pm eastern...
plus, you can always get podcasts of previous episodes thanks to radio4all.net
from freeman: Friday the 13th is a day of infamy. Why is it considered so unlucky? Luckily, Brave New Books sponsors speakers, like Freeman, to discuss such issues. This is Freeman with an audience, uncut and uncensored at Brave New Books on the 699th anniversary of the demise of the Knights Templar.
from new kerala: Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's new English daughter-in-law has disputed his involvement in the infamous 9/11 attacks in New York.
Parish councillor Jane Felix-Browne, who married bin Laden's son Omar in April this year, yesterday went to extraordinary lengths to defend her new father-in-law, even calling into question whether he was behind the terrorist attacks in America.
"It would be nice to meet Osama bin Laden, the head of al-Qaeda, to ask him about the 2001 terrorist attacks. I think it would be very interesting to find out if he really did it or not. That would be the question because I think it is a doubt on everybody's mind," she said.
The five-time married Felix-Browne (51), who has three sons and five grandchildren, met the 26-year-old Omar while on a holiday in Egypt last September and immediately fell for him. They married in April in Cairo but have spent only three weeks together since.
She said she had applied for a visa for him to visit but admitted she had no firm plans as to when she would see him again.
"There's no problem with him coming to England. Most of his aunts and brothers and sisters in the family live here anyway. We're just waiting for him to get his visa sorted out."
Mrs Felix-Browne, who also goes by the Islamic name Zaina Mohammad Al-Sabah, said she wasn't about to adopt his family name, "because its not the tradition... If it wasn't against tradition I would take his name... I'm not ashamed of it but I don't think it would go down well at the airport."
Defending her sixth marriage with someone who is just half her age, she said: "It's a really happy thing and it wasn't a holiday romance. I know there's an age difference. I'm a 51-year-old woman but I do not look like his mother... After I met him I spoke to him between seven and 16 hours a day every day for the past 10 months," she added, insisting that, unlike her other marriages, this one would last.
"It is forever, I have no intention of leaving him. He's not going to go off and have an affair. He's got another wife and I know about her but how many husbands have girlfriends their wives don't know about?"
Calling herself Lady Felix-Browne, even though there is no apparent link to the title, she has a penchant for tattoos and flash cars and spends several weeks of the year abroad indulging in her passion for horses and scuba diving. She speaks fluent Arabic and drives a white Jaguar with Egyptian number plates.
“If we start military operations against Iran alone, then Europe and the US will support us,” Lieberman told Army Radio following a meeting earlier in the week with NATO and European Union officials.
Lieberman said the Western powers acknowledged the severity of the Iranian nuclear threat to the Jewish state, but said that ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq are “going to prevent the leaders of countries in Europe and America from deciding on the use of force to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities,” even if diplomacy ultimately fails.
The message Lieberman said the NATO and EU officials conveyed to him is that Israel should “prevent the threat herself.”
from paul joseph watson: The West needs more terror attacks on the scale of 9/11 and 7/7 in order to save a failing foreign policy, according to Lt.-Col. Doug Delaney, chair of the war studies program at the Royal Military College in Kingston, Ontario.
This alarming admission can be found right at the end of a long and academic Toronto Star article about the history of conflict and why the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq are doomed.
"The Royal Military College of Canada (RMC), is the military academy of the Canadian Forces and is a full degree-granting university," according to Wikipedia.
The Star article discusses a new study which surmises that military invasions since World War 2 that require cooperation of the population of a country to succeed hold only a 17% chance of success.
In a paraphrased quote attributed to Delaney, he concludes that "The key to bolstering Western resolve is another terrorist attack like 9/11 or the London transit bombings of two years ago."
"If nothing happens, it will be harder still to say this is necessary," adds Delaney.
The video, released early Wednesday evening, is titled "Rudy Giuliani: Urban Legend," and offers testimonials from various members of the organization and family members of firefighters lost in the terror attacks.
“We have the remains of dead heroes at the garbage dump because of Giuliani and his administration and they’re still there today and they won’t remove them,” claims FDNY Deputy Chief Jim Riches on the DVD, which was released to CBS 2 HD before its public debut.
Giuliani's campaign denounced the video, saying that the former mayor had a long history of supporting firefighters' health and safety and that the international union releasing the video only supports Democratic presidential candidates.
“Whenever I hear him talk, I want to scream out to the world and say God he’s so full of it,” adds Rosaleen Tallon, who lost her brother in the attacks.
Tallon is one of several people who lost loved ones and speaks out against Giuliani.
“I’m a conservative. I’m a member of the NRA, I voted for Giuliani, but in this instance he messed up,” says Al Regenhard, whose son was killed.
Those quotes are just the beginning of the video in which firefighters attempt to set the record straight about how they view Giuliani and his leadership on that tragic day.
update: msnbc's countdown reports on 'scathing video' from raw story: "The image Rudy Giuliani would like voters to have is of Giuliani vs. the terrorists, but ... for tonight anyway the story is Giuliani vs. the firefighters."
So opened Wednesday night's broadcast of MSNBC's Countdown, reporting on a scathing video released by New York City firefighters attacking what they call the "urban legend" Giuliani has built around himself in the wake of the 2001 World Trade Center attacks.
Washington Post writerChris Cillizza, appearing on the program, noted that Giuliani responded very quickly to the attack from the International Association of Firefighters because he cannot politically afford to have his 9/11 mystique tainted.
"The question is twofold," Cillizza said. "One, how much does this video catch on? And two, do people believe the messenger? Do they believe Rudy Giuliani, or do they believe the IAFF? And does this tarnish what is the central tenant of Rudy Giuliani's campaign for president?"
The following video is from MSNBC's Countdown, broadcast on July 11.
from houston chronicle: Lady Bird Johnson, a former first lady, a Texas legend, a woman who used the humble wildflower to teach an entire nation to treasure and preserve the environment, died Wednesday. She was 94.
In recent years, the widow of Lyndon Baines Johnson was virtually silenced by a stroke. She was nearly blinded by macular degeneration. Still, she lived her life with enthusiasm, dividing her time between the family ranch in Stonewall and an Austin home near the presidential library dedicated to her husband. She thrived on visits with friends and family and inhaled mystery books on tape.
Family spokesman Neal Spelce said Johnson's final days were good ones, surrounded by loved ones who had been holding a vigil for the past few days.
Johnson's daughters, Luci Baines Johnson and Lynda Johnson Robb, were by her side when she died, as they had been almost continually during her final months.
The official cause of death was respiratory failure, Spelce said, adding, "Actually, natural causes, when you get right down to it. ... She was simply 94 years old."
flashback: lady bird marked jfk's death with audio diary entry from npr: John F. Kennedy's assassination... It's an event typically remembered by the iconic video recording. But there's another perspective of the killing that's equally powerful: an entry from an audio diary of Lady Bird Johnson. The recording is included in the exhibit Eyewitness, at the National Archives.
from ap: The FBI is gathering and sorting information about Americans to help search for potential terrorists, insurance cheats and crooked pharmacists, according to a government report obtained Tuesday.
Records about identity thefts, real estate transactions, motor vehicle accidents and complaints about Internet drug companies are being searched for common threads to aid law enforcement officials, the Justice Department said in a report to Congress on the agency's data-mining practices.
In addition, the report disclosed government plans to build a new database to assess the risk posed by people identified as potential or suspected terrorists.
The chairman of the Senate committee that oversees the Justice Department said the database was "ripe for abuse." The American Civil Liberties Unionimmediately derided the quality of the information that could be used to score someone as a terror threat.
The report, sent to Congress this week, marked the department's first public detailing of six of its data-mining tools, which look for patterns to catch criminals. The disclosure was required by lawmakers when they renewed theUSA Patriot Actin 2005. It comes as the Justice Department faces sharp criticism from Congress and civil liberties advocates for violating peoples' privacy rights in terror and spy investigations.
Justice spokesman Dean Boyd said the databases are strictly regulated to protect privacy rights and civil liberties.
"Each of these initiatives is extremely valuable for investigators, allowing them to analyze and process lawfully acquired information more effectively in order to detect potential criminal activity and focus resources appropriately," Boyd said in a statement.
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from paul joseph watson: A videotape that was heralded as "new" footage of Osama bin Laden by many quarters of the press has been conclusively proven to be more than 5 year old re-released footage, leading to questions about why the government and the media continue to act as willing propagandists for the terrorists while striking fear into Americans by claiming an attack is inevitable.
Here is a screenshot from the 2002 tape (right) compared to the new tape (left). Notice the sloping mountain in the left background.
IntelCenter issued a tacit warning that the footage may be re-hashed when they released the "new" tape to the media, but they failed to mention the fact that they released portions of the exact same clips in October 2003. The screenshots of Bin Laden which clearly correlate with the "new" tape were on their website 
all along, and yet they still labeled the footage as "significant". IntelCenter knew the tape was definitely old, yet their meandering uncertainty left doubts that the media exploited to the full in claiming the footage may be new.
