Reactions To The Gaza Flotilla Massacre

Reuters quotes in green.
Middle East Online quotes in indigo
Bloomberg quotes in brown

United States of America
White House spokesman Bill Burton:

“The United States deeply regrets the loss of life and injuries sustained, and is currently working to understand the circumstances surrounding this tragedy”


United Nations
Secretary General Ban Ki Moon:

"I am shocked by reports of killings and injuries on boats carrying supplies for Gaza"

"I condemn this violence"

Arab League
Secretary General Amr Moussa

"Israel's attack indicates Israel is not ready for peace. Israel attacked the liberty fleet because it feels it is above the law"

"There is no benefit in dealing with Israel in this manner and we must re-assess our dealing with Israel"

France
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner:

"I am profoundly shocked by the tragic consequences of the Israeli military operation against the Peace Flotilla for Gaza"

"The circumstances of this drama must be fully brought to light and we wish for a thorough inquiry to be put in place without delay"

Holland
Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen:

"I am going to ask today for clarifications from the Israeli ambassador to The Hague"

"I am very shocked over the deaths which are deplorable. The Netherlands wants an inquiry to determine exactly how this could have happened"

"What happened today, while the Israelis and Palestinians were just starting to relaunch talks, will not bring them closer to peace,"

"I hope that it will not lead to another deadlock in the talks."

Foreign ministry spokesman Bart Rijs said he did not know if any Dutch citizens were on board the ships carrying aid to the besieged Palestinian territory.

Iran
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

"All these acts indicate the end of the heinous and fake regime and will bring it closer to the end of its existence"


Italy
Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini

"I absolutely deplore... the killing of civilians"

"An investigation must discover the truth about what happened"

"We demand a serious and detailed investigation, and I think the EU must be involved so that it is directly informed of the findings."

Where are Ban Ki Moon and Barak Obama?

Both should be on news - now.


UPDATED ON:
Monday, May 31, 2010
07:52 Mecca time, 04:52 GMT
Israel attacks Gaza aid fleet


Israeli forces have attacked a flotilla of aid-carrying ships aiming to break the country's siege on Gaza.

Up to 16 people were killed and more than 30 people injured when Israeli troops stormed the Freedom Flotilla early on Monday, the Israeli Army Radio said.

The flotilla was attacked when it was 65km off the Gaza coast.

Footage from the flotilla's lead vessel, the Mavi Marmara, showed armed Israeli soldiers boarding the ship and helicopters flying overhead.

Al Jazeera's Jamal Elshayyal, on board the Mavi Marmara, said Israeli troops had used live ammunition during the operation.

The Israeli Army Radio said soldiers opened fire "after confronting those on board carrying sharp objects".

Free Gaza Movement, the organisers of the flotilla, however, said the troops opened fire as soon as they stormed the ships.

They also said the ships were now being towed to the Israeli town of Haifa, instead of Ashdod to avoid waiting journalists.

Earlier, the Israeli navy had contacted the captain of the Mavi Marmara, asking him to identify himself and say where the ship was headed.

Israeli intervention

Shortly after, two Israeli naval vessels had flanked the flotilla on either side, but at a distance.

Organisers of the flotilla carrying 10,000 tonnes of humanitarian aid then diverted their ships and slowed down to avoid a confrontation during the night.

They also issued all passengers life jackets and asked them to remain below deck.

Al Jazeera’s Ayman Mohyeldin, reporting from Jerusalem, said the Israeli action was surprising.

"All the images being shown from the activists on board those ships show clearly that they were civilians and peaceful in nature, with medical supplies on board. So it will surprise many in the international community to learn what could have possibly led to this type of confrontation," he said.

Protests

Condemnation has been quick to pour in after the Israeli action.

Thousands of Turkish protesters tried to storm the Israeli consulate in Istanbul soon after the news of the operation broke. The protesters shouted "Damn Israel" as police blocked them.

Turkey is also reported to have summoned the Israeli ambassador to lodge a protest.

Meanwhile, Ismail Haniya, the Hamas leader in Gaza, has dubbed the Israeli action as "barbaric".

Hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists, including a Nobel laureate and several European legislators, are with the flotilla, aiming to reach Gaza in defiance of an Israeli embargo.

But Israel has said it will not allow the flotilla to reach the Gaza Strip and vowed to stop the six ships from reaching the coastal Palestinian territory.

The flotilla had set sail from a port in Cyprus on Sunday and aimed to reach Gaza by Monday morning.

Israel said the boats were embarking on "an act of provocation" against the Israeli military, rather than providing aid, and that it had issued warrants to prohibit their entrance to Gaza.

It asserted that the flotilla would be breaking international law by landing in Gaza, a claim the organisers rejected.

Pastor Manning Shows Us How It's Done

Pastor James David Manning of the Atlah World Ministries in Harlem, New York put the Tenth Amendment to work. He arranged for a citizens' trial to examine evidence that Obama did not attended Columbia University, that Columbia concealed knowledge and aided in the obstruction of justice, and that Obama is not an American citizen. The five-day trial ended with indictments against Columbia and Obama.

It is fortunate for America that Manning is a resident of Harlem who attended Columbia during the Obama-claimed years of the early 1980s. As one familiar with the neighborhood during that time, I knew that the address Obama gave was suspicious. The area was going co-op and it would have cost a fortune and a letter-of-introduction to get a place around there. Columbia owns Harlem properties - like the piece of rock that the projects sat on right off the #2's 125th & Broadway stop. Last time I was in the city was the nine-eleven year and I didn't get up there for a close inspection but I'm certain an office building sits there now. The usual game - lease non-renewal in a private-public venture.

Manning knows Harlem and Columbia as well as he knows his responsibilities as a pastor and his duty as an American citizen. With a small investigative team (three plus himself) he uncovered pertinent documents and credible witnesses. Subpoenas issued to Obama, Columbia officials and every other politically-connected individual were refused. There was a cast of reluctant witnesses. A potential witness was assassinated. Pastor remained steadfast.

These highlights were culled courtesy of the subject index at Rense:

Pastor Manning outlines his pre-trial case on YouTube.

Pre-trial interview transcript of Manning by Sharon Rondeau of the Post & Email (short version here).

A head's up: The skirmish video is a waste of viewing time; a loud-mouth engages the foolish (or the naive perhaps).

Michael P. Richard's day one of the trial at wakeup2010.blogspot

Coverage from a group using the blogspot "obamareleaseyourrecords" for days two, three, four, and five of the trial.

Guilty Verdict Press Conference.

Salon.com's big contribution was Alex "War Room" Pareene's two-part peek that ended in a link after a few digs at the pastor.

Anthony J. Martin of the suddenly popular examiner.com reported on the trial. His conclusions:

Obviously the event was a 'public' rather than a 'court' trial. No court sanctioned it. The legality of public trials apart from court sanction has not been established. While the Constitution does, indeed, maintain that the ultimate power of government rests with 'we, the people,' and while a case can be made that under the 10th amendment the people, acting under the auspices of local and state authorities, can engage in certain acts of self-governance apart from the sanction and control of the federal government, it has not been established that any local entity in Harlem granted state or local legal status to the trial.

. . .

But if action is taken and an official investigation ensues, then perhaps the goal of this event will have been met. The problem is that under the present circumstances it is next to impossible for that to happen. Holder is Obama's choice and Congress is held in the grip of Obama's Party. End of story.

. . .

Serious unanswered questions remain however--questions that the trial did an excellent job of bringing to the surface.

. . .

The fact is we may never know for sure unless somebody in authority in the government decides to investigate and discover the answers.

. . .

The odds are that the country is in grave danger.

A regular Edward R. Murrow he is.

The Christ

A group of christian movie-goers leaving the theatre were asked their reaction to "The Passion of the Christ". The number one description in their answers was 'love'.

It was a torture movie.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever shall believeth in him shall have eternal life.

And what is to be believed?

His name is Jesus (the) Christ;
He is the Messiah of the Holy Bible;
His father is God;
His mother is Mary, a divinely impregnated virgin;
He was a traveling rabbi for 3 years;
He was crucified dead under Roman law;
He came back to life 3 days afterward;
He dematerialized 40 days later after promising to return.

Tackling this from a practical standpoint is a method developed when my children were young. Children's biblical questions are very matter of fact. Pat answers and seat-of-the-pants interpretations did not sit right with my firstborn and once the next one started asking questions, I decided to just say "I don't know" whenever I didn't. The children are grown. When it comes to the question of Jesus, I still don't know.

How can one know the truth of the matter? For all the bibles printed these days, not a one of them replicates the original documents. Pertinent documents are in the possession of public and private authorities, along with miles of relevant manuscripts and engravings. Every few years they throw out a new gospel or artifact. We should be convinced by the evidence?

Christians believe that Jesus is the New Testament and the fulfillment of the Old Testament. Christian clergy teach of extra-biblical proof of Jesus' existence but there are few among them that provide replicated original evidence. Church fliers do not reprint copies of original Josephus writings. Most (if not all) of the professional print-outs are an invitation to worship or a call to hear holy words. The worship aspect can run the gamut from dignified ritual to mass hysteria and requires little mental engagement. Unfortunately mental engagement also is not required to hear holy words - except if one is memorizing the material. Faith engagement is the what the clergy seek. Faith requires one to trust the findings of religious authorities.

A quick look at the historical record or a newspaper proves that religious authorities can not be relied upon. They are much more in tune with non-religious authorities than they are with the masses. The clergy are positioned between the authorities and the masses and can not be clergy unless they have pledged to "submit to authority". In turn, they are granted measured authority over their congregants. Congregants are permitted limited authority over their families. One can split authority until blue in the face but the bottom line is the official story.

God so loved the world that he stood by and watched his half-human son be humiliated, tortured and killed. This makes no sense. No loving parent can conceive of such thinking and behavior. That the plan was conceived by God "in the beginning" is frightening enough. Add to this the ensuing centuries of rape, torture, destruction and annihilation of billions of human beings. God still did not modify the plan. The horror of the Abraham and Isaac episode did not persuade God to reconsider. The wiping out of the family and treasurers of the good man Job did not move Him. Jesus' begging to be released from the plan was ignored.

It had to be done, they insist. It was the only way mankind would be permitted to live after dying. Yet the authorities offer no proof of life after death. For 2000 years, the majority of the earth's population has lived and died poor, hungry, overworked, and abused. No one has returned to say it was worth it.

Jesus wasn't poor, hungry or overworked and the abuse-to-death he suffered was apparently a choice. His grave report to the twelve (plus a few others) contained little information about his three-day trip. No post-ascension report was filed. Obviously he's been in no hurry to return, despite what he led his followers to think. What if Sir Laurence's scholarly studies are correct? If Jesus did survive the crucifixion, then his three-day report is moot. There is nothing left to 'prove' the theory of resurrection from the dead.

The folks who suffer the most from the withholding of evidence are the clergy of good intentions. If at any point they stumble upon facts which do not correlate with the official story, the weight of many human lives comes crashing down upon them.

As generations pass, the official story is adapted to meet current political agendas. Where blame must be assigned to accommodate change, dead men receive the glory. Men who were ill-advised or possessed of the devil or plagued by sin or fell victim to human weakness. The very men who gathered the evidence and hoarded the wealth that rightfully belongs to all of mankind. Two centuries after Jesus, all the monuments, manuscripts, artifacts, jewels, and objects d'art are under the control of authorities. Authorities with numerous palaces and lands built, tended to, and under guard by, humans who rarely ever own a home free and clear.

As the new world order takes shape, the Jesus story is taking a cosmic turn. Where it will stop nobody knows, not even the authorities who order the spinning. Maybe we should petition the pope to unseal John Paul, hook 'em up to an automated self-whipping post and see if we get any answers. Sounds cruel, but cruelty is essential. Just ask the authorities - the very ones who let the John-Paul's self-flagellation story "leak" out - without proof - and be quickly withdrawn.

Way back when the authorities were compiling the official story, they put these words in Jesus' mouth:

You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt lose its savour, wherewith shall it be salted? It is good for nothing any more but to be cast out, and to be trodden on by men.

According to the research of layman author Steve Allen, who contacted the Morton Salt company, salt never looses its saltiness. As a homemaker, I concur.

If Jesus said those words, then he is the man I believe him to be. Human.

Rand Paul's Mandate Call

NPR scored a Rand Paul victory interview, the transcript of which was frosted with the following:

Rand Paul, the winner in Tuesday night's Senate primary race in Kentucky, tells Robert Siegel that he has a Tea Party mandate -- a mandate that calls for good government, term limits, and a balanced budget amendment, among other things. He talks about his belief that more issues should be dealt with on a local level rather than on a federal level.

A quick snapshot of the frosted delight before the slicing:

Mandate:
1) Good government;
2) Term limits;
3) One balanced budget amendment; and
4) Other things

Belief:
More issues should be dealt with on a local level rather than on a federal level.

Right off the bat but later in the interview we discover that #1 above is not an item of the mandate but rather a descriptive title for the other mandates:

Well, I think we have a Tea Party mandate, and that Tea Party mandate is for good-government type of things, things like term limits, things like a balanced budget amendment, things like read the bills for goodness sakes, things like that maybe Congress should only pass legislation that they apply to themselves as well. Also, that each piece of legislation they pass should point to where in the Constitution they get the authority for it.

Sounds like R2P2 is well-trained in things like maybe for goodness sakes, but no signs of skills for drafting a mandate to-do list. As for the Constitution-pointing, look at this little gem of an admission (extracted from the dialog below):

And to tell you the truth, I haven't really read all through it because it was passed 40 years ago and hadn't been a real pressing issue in the campaign . . .

Mandate coverage concluded. On with R2P2's belief which comes into focus clearly if one ignores the hopes, the sayings and the wishful thinking:

SIEGEL: You've said that business should have the right to refuse service to anyone, and that the Americans with Disabilities Act, the ADA, was an overreach by the federal government. Would you say the same by extension of the 1964 Civil Rights Act?

Dr. PAUL: What I've always said is that I'm opposed to institutional racism, and I would've, had I've been alive at the time, I think, had the courage to march with Martin Luther King to overturn institutional racism, and I see no place in our society for institutional racism.

SIEGEL: But are you saying that had you been around at the time, you would have - hoped that you would have marched with Martin Luther King but voted with Barry Goldwater against the 1964 Civil Rights Act?

Dr. PAUL: Well, actually, I think it's confusing on a lot of cases with what actually was in the civil rights case because, see, a lot of the things that actually were in the bill, I'm in favor of. I'm in favor of everything with regards to ending institutional racism. So I think there's a lot to be desired in the civil rights. And to tell you the truth, I haven't really read all through it because it was passed 40 years ago and hadn't been a real pressing issue in the campaign, on whether we're going for the Civil Rights Act.

SIEGEL: But it's been one of the major developments in American history in the course of your life. I mean, do you think the '64 Civil Rights Act or the ADA for that matter were just overreaches and that business shouldn't be bothered by people with the basis in law to sue them for redress?

Dr. PAUL: Right. I think a lot of things could be handled locally. For example, I think that we should try to do everything we can to allow for people with disabilities and handicaps. You know, we do it in our office with wheelchair ramps and things like that. I think if you have a two-story office and you hire someone who's handicapped, it might be reasonable to let him have an office on the first floor rather than the government saying you have to have a $100,000 elevator. And I think when you get to the solutions like that, the more local the better, and the more common sense the decisions are, rather than having a federal government make those decisions.

SIEGEL: How do you feel about the degree of federal involvement in oversight of the mining and oil drilling industries?

Dr. PAUL: I think that most manufacturing and mining should be under the purview of state authorities. It's kind of interesting that, you know, when the EPA was originally instituted, it wasn't even passed by Congress. It was passed as an executive order by Nixon. And I think there is some overreach in the sense that the EPA now says: You know what, if Congress doesn't pass greenhouse emissions regulations or testing, we'll simply do it on our own. I think that's an arrogance of a regulatory body ran amok.

Putting the horse back in front of the cart, the interview began with a clip of R2P2's victory announcement:

I have a message, a message from the Tea Party, a message that is loud and clear and does not mince words. We've come to take our government back.

The first interview question:

You've run largely on an anti-Washington platform. You spoke of the Tea Party. How faithful a member of the Republican Party do you expect to be if you're elected to the Senate in November?

The response (after a poignant republican moment with Dad story):

You know, when Republicans were in charge, we doubled the debt. But, now, our concern is the Democrats are in charge and they're tripling the debt. So, really, our concern is that we want smaller government. We want to avoid some kind of debt crisis, like what's happening in Greece currently.

I think you'll find that these are measures that have great bipartisan support, and so I expect, not only did we do well in the primary, I think we'll win by a wide margin in the fall because we're going to get a lot of independents and conservative Democrats coming to us.

R2P2: Believe in change.

Learning With Texe Marrs

Texe Marrs is an outstanding American conspiracy researcher and also - so far as can be judged from cyberspace - an honorable Christian man.

Had it not been for Freeman's Codex Magica show, listening to Texe Marrs would have been out of the question. Credit is also given to a commenter over at the petri dish who offered a Walter Veith link that inspired reopen-mindedness. Adding to the inspiration is the Roman tribe's follies. When the Vicar of Christ abandons the shepherds to the wolves, a sheep sometimes finds herself in other pastures.

And so we visited The Power of Prophecy with Texe Marrs. With a prepared stack or two of documents before him at his desk, Marrs greets the camera with natural friendliness and confidence. Behind him is a working bookcase. He begins and ends his videos with a practical public Christian prayer. In between, he's mostly business peppered with scripture-referenced assurances and reminders.

Marrs' stack of documents contains copies and originals of public records, mainstream and offbeat news publications, and magazine and book excerpts pertaining to the subject at hand. Before raising the first document for a close-up camera shot, he briefly outlines his presentation. His material is sourced and his statements and evidence coincide. His arguments are coherent. His conclusions dovetail with biblical prophetic interpretations in an intriguing way. At first Marrs appeared to be riding shotgun in an end times vehicle but a closer inspection revealed him to be a seasoned, scholarly navigator of his own craft.

It was a pleasant surprise to find discussion of Zechariah Sitchen with close-ups of Sumerian pictograms in the nine-part series on Planet X. Marrs toured through astronomical theology, mythology and science to inspect curiosities such as Saturn, Lucifer and the Dogon Tribe of Africa.

Illuminati Mystery Babylon is a pre-nine-eleven production which focuses on the political players of America, Israel and Russia with heavy emphasis on the Clinton administration cast and crew. It was news indeed that James 'Mary Matalin' Carville was dispatched to Israel to oversee Benjamin Netanyahu's selection campaign which birthed the cueball an Israeli consulting business. Marrs identifies the power people as Jewish Illuminati but the label was not over-used and did not interfere with the facts he presented.

The Eagle has Landed is a dandy field trip through the ranks and pranks of the Masons involved in the moon-landings.

Texe Marrs makes a lot of sense and if one is willing to set aside the religious overtones, there is valuable information to be learned from his presentations.

Wanted: Dead or Tortured

Reuters announced that the federal government deployed an already ready new and improved detainee upload division. We hereby rearrange the sentences in the Reuters article (the last shall be first), provide links not provided, and add a remark or two at the end.

"The purpose ... is to ensure that we optimize intelligence collection," an Obama administration official said.

The Obama administration has started using special law enforcement and intelligence teams to interrogate suspected militants in the United States and abroad, including the Pakistani-American arrested in the Times Square bombing plot, a top official said on Tuesday.

"There have been a number of deployments of these Mobile Interrogation Teams to include for the Faisal Shahzad case," said John Brennan, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism.

Shahzad, a U.S. citizen born in Pakistan, is charged with trying to set off a crude car bomb in New York's crowded Times Square on May 1. Prosecutors say he has provided valuable intelligence to investigators, who believe he was helped by the Pakistani Taliban movement.

Brennan declined to say whether the mobile teams have also been used in interrogations of the Afghan Taliban's No. 2 leader, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who was captured in the Pakistani city of Karachi in January in a joint operation by the CIA and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency.

Baradar is in Pakistan's custody.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced the formation of the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group (HIG) in August and gave the reins to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, replacing the Central Intelligence Agency that did have the lead role in intelligence interrogations.

Officials said the CIA plays a major part in the HIG's activities.

Overseas, the CIA's main role is to gain access to the detainee for questioning.

In the United States, the CIA generally provides "subject matter experts with deep knowledge of the individual detainee" or of "the terrorist network in which he operates -- its leaders, its methods, the countries from which he comes or in which he operates."

While there is no legal prohibition against CIA personnel participating in questioning a detainee in the United States, an administration official said "our practice so far and historically has been to leave the questioning to the FBI interrogators and for the CIA to provide subject matter experts outside the room, if you will."

The HIG is the product of executive orders* issued by President Barack Obama shortly after he took office in January 2009. The orders banned harsh interrogation methods put in place by his predecessor, President George W. Bush, and moved to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba along with secret CIA detention facilities.

The program calls for the deployment of Mobile Interrogation Teams, made up of specialists from across the law enforcement and intelligence community, to question important detainees, whether they are in U.S. custody or in the custody of a foreign government.

Republicans in Congress have sharply criticized the Obama administration's decision to send suspected militants to criminal courts rather than military tribunals, arguing that important intelligence is lost by cutting short interrogations.


One sign that intelligence was lost is indicated by the choice of the acronym HIG, when HV DIG would be more suitable. Another is the lack of safeguards against unnecessary droning that murders women, children and the elderly in addition to destroying others' property and damaging the planet. This new military strategy may assist Mrs. Clinton in carrying out orders to eliminate terrorism in Pakistan (and elsewhere) but it is a failure as a sign of human achievement.


* The transparency president published executive orders for a short time but did not include the ones discussed. The Federal Register was uncooperative. Analysis by this 501(c)3 is as good as it got for today.