"In 1903, they knew that an oil reservoir emptying into the oceans would become an apocalypse and could destroy the entire earth."
by Gerhard Wisnewski
(Translated by "Idiot Savant," from a German website "Kopp Online")
(for Henrymakow.com)
In 1903, Austrian banker, writer and occultist Gustav Meyrink (left, 1868-1932) wrote a novella, "Petroleum, Petroleum", part of a collection of short stories, which featured this Preface:
"To assure priority of this prophecy, I state that the following novella has been written in 1903. Gustav Meyrink".
The novella tells the story of Dr. Jessegrim who has made a fortune in the mescaline business.
He decides to go into oil.
All of Mexico was standing on caves which were partly at least filled with petroleum, and connected with each other. Jessegrim resolves to blast away the separations between the caves. After the last detonation, the oil was to flow from the underground deposit in Mexico into the ocean and form a glass surface, which continues to grow, taken by the gulf stream, soon covering the entire Atlantic surface. The coasts were barren and the population retreated into the interior of the land.
Instead of being arrested, in Meyrink's story, Jessegrim is hired as a consultant. He says: "If the oil continues to spill as it does, it will have covered the oceans of the world in 27 to 29 weeks and there will be no more rains, ever, as water can not evaporate anymore. At best, it will rain petroleum."
First widely criticized, this prophecy (of Dr. Jessegrim) becomes increasingly plausible as the hidden flow does not stop, and when it increases dramatically, panic grips humanity.
Cable from USA to EU: "Oil leaks increase constantly. Situation extremely dangerous. Advise immediately whether stink there is also unbearable".
In Meyrink's occult circles, they were fantasizing about oil reserves gushing into the ocean, from the Gulf of Mexico, covering the oceans.
They postulated that an oil reservoir released into the oceans would be an apocalypse and possibly destroy the entire earth. It would start with a huge explosion. The culprit (a Dr. No figure, "Dr. Jessegrim") is motivated by blind hate of humanity. He destroys humanity via a "wrath of god" - the oil catastrophe.
Unlike dystopian stories like "1984" by George Orwell or "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley, who made no such claims, Mayrink called his story a "Prophecy". At the beginning of the story, he states quasi in notary fashion:
"To assure priority of this prophecy, I state that the following novella has been written in 1903. Gustav Meyrink".
With the discovery of his prophecy concerning the oil catastrophe in the Mexican Gulf, Meyrink could become posthumously famous in 2010. The best-known story of Meyrink is "The Golem" (1915), one of the Cabalistic treatments of the golem-saga where rabbis breathe life into a clay monster who vanquishes their enemies.
Meyrink ran a banking house between 1889 and 1902 and circulated his entire life in the occult world of Christian and Jewish mysticism, theosophy and alchemy.
He was a member of the very influential Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a British secret society active at the end of the 19th and in the early 20th century. Its members included the Satanist, occultist, Cabalist, magician Aleister Crowley, a Freemason of the Old and Accepted Order of the Scottish Rite. He called himself "The Great Beast 666". It means that Meyrink was frequenting circles which welcomed the Apocalypse, which is exactly what he describes in "Petroleum, Petroleum": An apocalypse. And a planned apocalypse.
Around 1900, the "magician and mystic" Aleister Crowley, in reality a drug-addicted megalomaniac, traveled to Mexico. It has always been known that, due to the lack of real magic, one had always to help things along, which is why the only real background of magic is illusion - the representation of magic.
Until now, every magician was really an illusionist, who interprets a natural event as magical. Or, an illusion as a natural event (see the attacks of 9-11). And while some developed an honest and entertaining art form out of this, others insisted on selling their illusions as real magic or natural phenomena.
Meyrink was frequenting such circles. Not only the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, but also the "Germania" lodge, the first lodge of the Theosophist Society. It was founded by (widely regarded con-woman) Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, who also founded the magazine "Lucifer".
Meyrink eventually realized that the so-called "séances" for contacting ghosts from the other side were "almost entirely relying on tricks or self-deception".
One needs to point out that back then, people apparently fantasized about oil reserves spilling into the oceans, and doing so in the Gulf of Mexico.
Additionally, they believed this would become an apocalypse and could destroy the entire earth.
In Meyrink's story, the perpetrator is motivated by blind hatred of humanity: The destruction of the "crowd" was seen by Meyrink/Jessegrim as possible only through a "god-given scourge" - meaning, the oil apocalypse.
Source
Monday, June 21, 2010
Sunday, June 20, 2010
The Barrels Leaked Per Day Estimate Just Gets Higher And Higher
Document shows BP estimates spill up to 100,000 bpd
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – An internal BP Plc document released on Sunday by a senior U.S. congressional Democrat shows that the company estimates that a worst-case scenario rate for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill could be about 100,000 barrels of oil per day.
The estimate of 100,000 barrels (4.2 million gallons/15.9 million liters) of oil per day is far higher than the current U.S. government estimate of up to 60,000 barrels (2.5 million gallons/9.5 million liters) per day gushing from the ruptured offshore well into the sea.
The document, which is undated, was released by U.S. Representative Ed Markey, chairman of the energy and environment subcommittee of the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee.
The amount of oil actually gushing from the well has been a matter of considerable controversy since the spill began on April 20, with critics saying BP has understated the flow rate.
BP spokesman Toby Odone said the document appeared to be genuine but the estimate applied only to a situation in which a key piece of equipment called a blowout preventer is removed.
"Since there are no plans to remove the blowout preventer, the number is irrelevant," BP spokesman Toby Odone said.
The document appears to estimate the highest potential flow of oil if key components of the well fail. The document does not indicate that the 100,000 barrels per day is BP's estimate of the actual amount flowing from the ruptured Gulf of Mexico well.
The document states, "If BOP (blowout preventer) and wellhead are removed and if we have incorrectly modeled the restrictions -- the rate could be as high as ~ 100,000 barrels per day up the casing or 55,000 barrels per day up the annulus (low probability worst cases)"
"This document raises very troubling questions about what BP knew and when they knew it," Markey said in a statement.
"It is clear that, from the beginning, BP has not been straightforward with the government or the American people about the true size of this spill. Now the families living and working in the Gulf are suffering from their incompetence," he added.
BP initially estimated that the spill was pouring 1,000 barrels per day into the ocean and then upped that figure to 5,000 barrels per day.
"Right from the beginning, BP was either lying or grossly incompetent," Markey told NBC's "Meet the Press" program. "First they said it was only 1,000 barrels, then they said it was 5,000 barrels."
Odone said, "I don't think there's been any underestimating. We've always said we would deal with whatever volume of oil was being spilled and that's exactly what we're doing."
The document was posted on the Internet at http://globalwarming.house.gov/files/WEB/flowrateBP.pdf
Source
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – An internal BP Plc document released on Sunday by a senior U.S. congressional Democrat shows that the company estimates that a worst-case scenario rate for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill could be about 100,000 barrels of oil per day.
The estimate of 100,000 barrels (4.2 million gallons/15.9 million liters) of oil per day is far higher than the current U.S. government estimate of up to 60,000 barrels (2.5 million gallons/9.5 million liters) per day gushing from the ruptured offshore well into the sea.
The document, which is undated, was released by U.S. Representative Ed Markey, chairman of the energy and environment subcommittee of the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee.
The amount of oil actually gushing from the well has been a matter of considerable controversy since the spill began on April 20, with critics saying BP has understated the flow rate.
BP spokesman Toby Odone said the document appeared to be genuine but the estimate applied only to a situation in which a key piece of equipment called a blowout preventer is removed.
"Since there are no plans to remove the blowout preventer, the number is irrelevant," BP spokesman Toby Odone said.
The document appears to estimate the highest potential flow of oil if key components of the well fail. The document does not indicate that the 100,000 barrels per day is BP's estimate of the actual amount flowing from the ruptured Gulf of Mexico well.
The document states, "If BOP (blowout preventer) and wellhead are removed and if we have incorrectly modeled the restrictions -- the rate could be as high as ~ 100,000 barrels per day up the casing or 55,000 barrels per day up the annulus (low probability worst cases)"
"This document raises very troubling questions about what BP knew and when they knew it," Markey said in a statement.
"It is clear that, from the beginning, BP has not been straightforward with the government or the American people about the true size of this spill. Now the families living and working in the Gulf are suffering from their incompetence," he added.
BP initially estimated that the spill was pouring 1,000 barrels per day into the ocean and then upped that figure to 5,000 barrels per day.
"Right from the beginning, BP was either lying or grossly incompetent," Markey told NBC's "Meet the Press" program. "First they said it was only 1,000 barrels, then they said it was 5,000 barrels."
Odone said, "I don't think there's been any underestimating. We've always said we would deal with whatever volume of oil was being spilled and that's exactly what we're doing."
The document was posted on the Internet at http://globalwarming.house.gov/files/WEB/flowrateBP.pdf
Source
Napolitano: Internet Monitoring Needed to Fight Homegrown Terrorism
WASHINGTON -- Fighting homegrown terrorism by monitoring Internet communications is a civil liberties trade-off the U.S. government must make to beef up national security, the nation's homeland security chief said Friday.
As terrorists increasingly recruit U.S. citizens, the government needs to constantly balance Americans' civil rights and privacy with the need to keep people safe, said Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.
But finding that balance has become more complex as homegrown terrorists have used the Internet to reach out to extremists abroad for inspiration and training. Those contacts have spurred a recent rash of U.S.-based terror plots and incidents.
"The First Amendment protects radical opinions, but we need the legal tools to do things like monitor the recruitment of terrorists via the Internet," Napolitano told a gathering of the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy.
Napolitano's comments suggest an effort by the Obama administration to reach out to its more liberal, Democratic constituencies to assuage fears that terrorist worries will lead to the erosion of civil rights.
The administration has faced a number of civil liberties and privacy challenges in recent months as it has tried to increase airport security by adding full-body scanners, or track suspected terrorists traveling into the United States from other countries.
"Her speech is sign of the maturing of the administration on this issue," said Stewart Baker, former undersecretary for policy with the Department of Homeland Security. "They now appreciate the risks and the trade-offs much more clearly than when they first arrived, and to their credit, they've adjusted their preconceptions."
Underscoring her comments are a number of recent terror attacks over the past year where legal U.S. residents such as Times Square bombing suspect Faisal Shahzad and accused Fort Hood, Texas, shooter Maj. Nidal Hasan, are believed to have been inspired by the Internet postings of violent Islamic extremists.
And the fact that these are U.S. citizens or legal residents raises many legal and constitutional questions.
Napolitano said it is wrong to believe that if security is embraced, liberty is sacrificed.
She added, "We can significantly advance security without having a deleterious impact on individual rights in most instances. At the same time, there are situations where trade-offs are inevitable."
As an example, she noted the struggle to use full-body scanners at airports caused worries that they would invade people's privacy.
The scanners are useful in identifying explosives or other nonmetal weapons that ordinary metal-detectors might miss -- such as the explosives that authorities said were successfully brought on board the Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day by Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. He is accused of trying to detonate a bomb hidden in his underwear, but the explosives failed, and only burned Abdulmutallab.
U.S. officials, said Napolitano, have worked to institute a number of restrictions on the scanners' use in order to minimize that. The scans cannot be saved or stored on the machines by the operator, and Transportation Security Agency workers can't have phones or cameras that could capture the scan when near the machine.
Source
As terrorists increasingly recruit U.S. citizens, the government needs to constantly balance Americans' civil rights and privacy with the need to keep people safe, said Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.
But finding that balance has become more complex as homegrown terrorists have used the Internet to reach out to extremists abroad for inspiration and training. Those contacts have spurred a recent rash of U.S.-based terror plots and incidents.
"The First Amendment protects radical opinions, but we need the legal tools to do things like monitor the recruitment of terrorists via the Internet," Napolitano told a gathering of the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy.
Napolitano's comments suggest an effort by the Obama administration to reach out to its more liberal, Democratic constituencies to assuage fears that terrorist worries will lead to the erosion of civil rights.
The administration has faced a number of civil liberties and privacy challenges in recent months as it has tried to increase airport security by adding full-body scanners, or track suspected terrorists traveling into the United States from other countries.
"Her speech is sign of the maturing of the administration on this issue," said Stewart Baker, former undersecretary for policy with the Department of Homeland Security. "They now appreciate the risks and the trade-offs much more clearly than when they first arrived, and to their credit, they've adjusted their preconceptions."
Underscoring her comments are a number of recent terror attacks over the past year where legal U.S. residents such as Times Square bombing suspect Faisal Shahzad and accused Fort Hood, Texas, shooter Maj. Nidal Hasan, are believed to have been inspired by the Internet postings of violent Islamic extremists.
And the fact that these are U.S. citizens or legal residents raises many legal and constitutional questions.
Napolitano said it is wrong to believe that if security is embraced, liberty is sacrificed.
She added, "We can significantly advance security without having a deleterious impact on individual rights in most instances. At the same time, there are situations where trade-offs are inevitable."
As an example, she noted the struggle to use full-body scanners at airports caused worries that they would invade people's privacy.
The scanners are useful in identifying explosives or other nonmetal weapons that ordinary metal-detectors might miss -- such as the explosives that authorities said were successfully brought on board the Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day by Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. He is accused of trying to detonate a bomb hidden in his underwear, but the explosives failed, and only burned Abdulmutallab.
U.S. officials, said Napolitano, have worked to institute a number of restrictions on the scanners' use in order to minimize that. The scans cannot be saved or stored on the machines by the operator, and Transportation Security Agency workers can't have phones or cameras that could capture the scan when near the machine.
Source
Disaster capitalists: Halliburton to make money off oil spill
Raw Story , June 19, 2010
Does a company that both builds oil rigs and cleans up oil spills have any motivation to prevent oil rig disasters?
That's the question some people in business and politics are asking themselves after Halliburton's purchase of an oil clean-up company 10 days before the Deepwater Horizon explosion that killed 11 workers and launched the worst oil spill in US history.
Some observers see a conspiracy in the actions of the company once headed by Dick Cheney. Halliburton, which built the cement casing for the Deepwater Horizon's drill, announced its purchase of Houston-based oilfield services company Boots and Coots for $240 million on April 9, just 11 days before the Deepwater Horizon explosion.
According to a report at the Christian Science Monitor Friday, Boots and Coots is now under contract with BP to help with the oil spill. The company "focuses on oil spill prevention and blowout response," CSM reports. Halliburton's purchase is not yet a done deal -- it's still awaiting regulatory approval, though few observers think the purchase won't pass muster.
"[Mergers and acquisitions] in the industrial and oil services sectors is totally normal," writes David Anderson at The Inspired Economist, "but the timing in this case, is not. Boots & Coots sure seems like the perfect company to own if it would soon become necessary to get more involved with some oil disaster.
"Does this strike readers as a coincidence? If so, it’s a pretty lucky one for Halliburton."
But could Halliburton have known that an oil disaster was on the horizon, and planned in advance to profit from it? News reports indicate they could have.
The New York Times reported in May that BP was concerned about the rig's well casing -- which Halliburton worked on -- as early as June of 2009. The Times also reported that a Halliburton employee warned BP three weeks before the explosion that BP's use of cement for the well casing was "against [Halliburton's] best practices."
But even if the company's purchase of Boots and Coots was just a "lucky coincidence," there is still plenty about it to alarm observers. According to CSM, analysts are worried that a company like Halliburton will grow "complacent" in preventing disasters, because there is money to be made from cleaning up the mess -- and then rebuilding the oil rig.
"Working on both sides of the fence" is common in the oil industry, University of Louisiana professor Robert Gramling told CSM, but "it makes for a very complex decision-making environment that can become problematic."
At the very least, Halliburton's purchase should give the company a revenue boost. While Halliburton has been reporting plummeting revenue in recent quarters, Boots and Coots has been a business success story, with its revenue jumping from $11 million in 2000 to $209 million in 2008, before dropping slightly in 2009.
Why, really, was the USS Liberty attacked by Israel?
I want to begin by saying that though I covered wars wherever they were taking place on Planet Earth in my television reporting days – it was in Vietnam as a very young correspondent that I first started to ask myself questions about why things are as they are in the world – I am an Englishman and one who didn’t serve in his country’s armed forces. (Not because I was a draft dodger. Conscription had ended). So it is both an honour and a privilege for me to be with you this evening. And please believe me, I really mean it. I’m not a politician just saying it.
We do, of course, have something in common, OUTRAGE that can’t be expressed adequately in polite words at the continued suppression here in America of the truth about a war crime – Israel’s attack on the U.S.S Liberty; an attack which, if it had gone completely according to plan, would have seen the sinking of the ship with the loss, the murder, of all hands on board. (Which means that some of you here tonight would not be here).
In my latest book, Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews, an epic journey in three volumes through the lies and truth of history as it relates to the making and sustaining of the conflict in and over Palestine that became Israel, I have a chapter titled The Liberty Affair, “Pure Murder” on a “Great Day”. (I’ll source those quoted comments later).
In that chapter I say the attack ought to have been a sensational, headline-grabbing news story, but beyond the fact that an “accident” had happened and that Israel had apologized, it did not get reported by America’s news organisations. It was too hot an issue for them to handle and pursue. If it had been an Arab or other Muslim attack on an American vessel it would have been an entirely different matter, of course. In that event there would have been saturation coverage with demands for retaliation including war, with columnists and commentators who are pro-Israel right or wrong setting the pace and tone.
I know that one of the prices Liberty survivors pay for telling the truth is vilification by supporters of Israel right or wrong. The message sent to James Ennes was no doubt typical of many. “You are an anti-Semitic, Nazi bastard. Drop dead.”
Those and similar other false and filthy charges come out of the mouths of people who have been brainwashed by Zionist propaganda and are beyond reason. I mean that they are not open to informed, honest and rational debate. And that, simply stated, is the reason why peace has not yet been possible in the Middle East and probably never will be.
In passing I’ll tell you what I have used as a shield against false and malicious charges of anti-Semitism.
I think I am probably the only person in the world who enjoyed intimate access to, and on the human level friendship with, arguably the two greatest opposites in all of history – Golda Meir, Mother Israel, and Yasser Arafat, Father Palestine. (She was called Mother Israel because without the $50 million dollars she raised in America in 1947, Ben-Gurion would not have been able to purchase the arms that enabled Israel to unilaterally declare its independence and impose its will on the Arabs).
One of my most treasured souvenirs from my television reporting days is a signed picture of Golda when she was prime minister. The inscription in her own hand is – “To a good friend, Alan Hart.” Because I am a goy (a non-Jew) that meant a lot to me. The picture is on my web site and it’s the first one in my latest book. In the late 1980’s when I lectured and debated coast-to-coast across America and Canada, I had the picture with me and sometimes used it as a shield. When I was accused of anti-Semitism, I would hold up the picture, read out Golda’s inscription, and say to my accuser – “Do you think that old lady was so stupid that she couldn’t have seen through me if I was anti-Jew!” That always won me the applause of the audience and its contempt for my accuser.
Now to my explanation of why, really, the Liberty was attacked. I’m going to follow this with some thoughts about why the truth has to be given its necessary context and handled with great care.
I’ll start by telling you where I was on Thursday 8 June 1967. I was in the Sinai desert. I was the first Western correspondent to the banks of the Suez Canal with the advancing Israelis. On reflection some years later, I realised that what I witnessed in the desert, well out of sight and sound of the attack on the Liberty, was a key to understanding why America’s most advanced and sophisticated spy-ship (perhaps I should say intelligence-gathering platform) was attacked. I’ll come to what I witnessed in a moment.
Read More...
We do, of course, have something in common, OUTRAGE that can’t be expressed adequately in polite words at the continued suppression here in America of the truth about a war crime – Israel’s attack on the U.S.S Liberty; an attack which, if it had gone completely according to plan, would have seen the sinking of the ship with the loss, the murder, of all hands on board. (Which means that some of you here tonight would not be here).
In my latest book, Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews, an epic journey in three volumes through the lies and truth of history as it relates to the making and sustaining of the conflict in and over Palestine that became Israel, I have a chapter titled The Liberty Affair, “Pure Murder” on a “Great Day”. (I’ll source those quoted comments later).
In that chapter I say the attack ought to have been a sensational, headline-grabbing news story, but beyond the fact that an “accident” had happened and that Israel had apologized, it did not get reported by America’s news organisations. It was too hot an issue for them to handle and pursue. If it had been an Arab or other Muslim attack on an American vessel it would have been an entirely different matter, of course. In that event there would have been saturation coverage with demands for retaliation including war, with columnists and commentators who are pro-Israel right or wrong setting the pace and tone.
I know that one of the prices Liberty survivors pay for telling the truth is vilification by supporters of Israel right or wrong. The message sent to James Ennes was no doubt typical of many. “You are an anti-Semitic, Nazi bastard. Drop dead.”
Those and similar other false and filthy charges come out of the mouths of people who have been brainwashed by Zionist propaganda and are beyond reason. I mean that they are not open to informed, honest and rational debate. And that, simply stated, is the reason why peace has not yet been possible in the Middle East and probably never will be.
In passing I’ll tell you what I have used as a shield against false and malicious charges of anti-Semitism.
I think I am probably the only person in the world who enjoyed intimate access to, and on the human level friendship with, arguably the two greatest opposites in all of history – Golda Meir, Mother Israel, and Yasser Arafat, Father Palestine. (She was called Mother Israel because without the $50 million dollars she raised in America in 1947, Ben-Gurion would not have been able to purchase the arms that enabled Israel to unilaterally declare its independence and impose its will on the Arabs).
One of my most treasured souvenirs from my television reporting days is a signed picture of Golda when she was prime minister. The inscription in her own hand is – “To a good friend, Alan Hart.” Because I am a goy (a non-Jew) that meant a lot to me. The picture is on my web site and it’s the first one in my latest book. In the late 1980’s when I lectured and debated coast-to-coast across America and Canada, I had the picture with me and sometimes used it as a shield. When I was accused of anti-Semitism, I would hold up the picture, read out Golda’s inscription, and say to my accuser – “Do you think that old lady was so stupid that she couldn’t have seen through me if I was anti-Jew!” That always won me the applause of the audience and its contempt for my accuser.
Now to my explanation of why, really, the Liberty was attacked. I’m going to follow this with some thoughts about why the truth has to be given its necessary context and handled with great care.
I’ll start by telling you where I was on Thursday 8 June 1967. I was in the Sinai desert. I was the first Western correspondent to the banks of the Suez Canal with the advancing Israelis. On reflection some years later, I realised that what I witnessed in the desert, well out of sight and sound of the attack on the Liberty, was a key to understanding why America’s most advanced and sophisticated spy-ship (perhaps I should say intelligence-gathering platform) was attacked. I’ll come to what I witnessed in a moment.
Read More...
The strange and consequential case of Bradley Manning, Adrian Lamo and WikiLeaks
By Glenn Greenwald
(updated below)
On June 6, Kevin Poulsen and Kim Zetter of Wired reported that a 22-year-old U.S. Army Private in Iraq, Bradley Manning, had been detained after he "boasted" in an Internet chat -- with convicted computer hacker Adrian Lamo -- of leaking to WikiLeaks the now famous Apache Helicopter attack video, a yet-to-be-published video of a civilian-killing air attack in Afghanistan, and "hundreds of thousands of classified State Department records." Lamo, who holds himself out as a "journalist" and told Manning he was one, acted instead as government informant, notifying federal authorities of what Manning allegedly told him, and then proceeded to question Manning for days as he met with federal agents, leading to Manning's detention.
On June 10, former New York Times reporter Philip Shenon, writing in The Daily Beast, gave voice to anonymous "American officials" to announce that "Pentagon investigators" were trying "to determine the whereabouts of the Australian-born founder of the secretive website Wikileaks [Julian Assange] for fear that he may be about to publish a huge cache of classified State Department cables that, if made public, could do serious damage to national security." Some news outlets used that report to declare that there was a "Pentagon manhunt" underway for Assange -- as though he's some sort of dangerous fugitive.
From the start, this whole story was quite strange for numerous reasons. In an attempt to obtain greater clarity about what really happened here, I've spent the last week reviewing everything I could related to this case and speaking with several of the key participants (including Lamo, with whom I had a one-hour interview last night that can be heard on the recorder below, and Poulsen, with whom I had a lengthy email exchange, which is published in full here). A definitive understanding of what really happened is virtually impossible to acquire, largely because almost everything that is known comes from a single, extremely untrustworthy source: Lamo himself. Compounding that is the fact that most of what came from Lamo has been filtered through a single journalist -- Poulsen -- who has a long and strange history with Lamo, who continues to possess but not disclose key evidence, and who has been only marginally transparent about what actually happened here (I say that as someone who admires Poulsen's work as Editor of Wired's Threat Level blog).
Read More...
(updated below)
On June 6, Kevin Poulsen and Kim Zetter of Wired reported that a 22-year-old U.S. Army Private in Iraq, Bradley Manning, had been detained after he "boasted" in an Internet chat -- with convicted computer hacker Adrian Lamo -- of leaking to WikiLeaks the now famous Apache Helicopter attack video, a yet-to-be-published video of a civilian-killing air attack in Afghanistan, and "hundreds of thousands of classified State Department records." Lamo, who holds himself out as a "journalist" and told Manning he was one, acted instead as government informant, notifying federal authorities of what Manning allegedly told him, and then proceeded to question Manning for days as he met with federal agents, leading to Manning's detention.
On June 10, former New York Times reporter Philip Shenon, writing in The Daily Beast, gave voice to anonymous "American officials" to announce that "Pentagon investigators" were trying "to determine the whereabouts of the Australian-born founder of the secretive website Wikileaks [Julian Assange] for fear that he may be about to publish a huge cache of classified State Department cables that, if made public, could do serious damage to national security." Some news outlets used that report to declare that there was a "Pentagon manhunt" underway for Assange -- as though he's some sort of dangerous fugitive.
From the start, this whole story was quite strange for numerous reasons. In an attempt to obtain greater clarity about what really happened here, I've spent the last week reviewing everything I could related to this case and speaking with several of the key participants (including Lamo, with whom I had a one-hour interview last night that can be heard on the recorder below, and Poulsen, with whom I had a lengthy email exchange, which is published in full here). A definitive understanding of what really happened is virtually impossible to acquire, largely because almost everything that is known comes from a single, extremely untrustworthy source: Lamo himself. Compounding that is the fact that most of what came from Lamo has been filtered through a single journalist -- Poulsen -- who has a long and strange history with Lamo, who continues to possess but not disclose key evidence, and who has been only marginally transparent about what actually happened here (I say that as someone who admires Poulsen's work as Editor of Wired's Threat Level blog).
Read More...
Turkish Doctor Describes Treating Israeli Commandos During Raid on Mavi Marmara
by Robert Mackey and Sebnem Arsu
In an interview with The New York Times, Dr. Hasan Huseyin Uysal, a Turkish doctor, said that he treated Israeli commandos who were captured and briefly detained during the initial stages of a raid on a ship challenging Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza last week.
Dr. Uysal’s account seems to be supported by two photographs that show him treating one of the three bloodied commandos whom passengers said they subdued and disarmed at the start of the predawn raid on the main ship in the flotilla on May 31. Both of the images were published by the Turkish newspaper HaberTurk, in a gallery on its Web site showing photographs smuggled off the ship and out of Israel by one of its reporters, Sefik Dinc. One photograph was also posted on Flickr by the Turkish aid organization that helped to organize the flotilla.
The capture of the commandos moments after they rappelled down onto the Mavi Marmara from helicopters to meet fierce resistance from the passengers on the top deck led several Israeli military and civilian officials — including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — to suggest that the subsequent use of deadly force was justified because otherwise the soldiers would have been “lynched” by the passengers who seized them.
Several of the passengers involved in the confrontation have disputed that interpretation of the chaotic start of the raid. As The Lede noted on Tuesday, Ken O’Keefe, a former United States Marine who told Turkish and Israeli newspapers that he had helped disarm the commandos said, “The lives of the three commandos were at our mercy — we could have done with them whatever we wanted.”
Ali Abunimah, a founder of the Electronic Intifada, argued in a post on his blog that images of the commando being treated by Dr. Uysal, along with other photographs apparently taken during the raid that show bloodied and disarmed commandos in the custody of passengers inside the ship, contradict Israeli suggestions that the aim of the passengers was to kill the soldiers.
In a telephone interview conducted in Turkish, Dr. Uysal said that he had treated three Israeli commandos and argued that this proved that the passengers had no intention of killing them:
First of all it’s against logic that these soldiers would not be killed but instead be taken to the medical center if the intention of the activists was to kill them. If people on board were so eager to hurt them, why would they not just shoot them to death once they had taken their guns? Why bother carting them inside for treatment? It just doesn’t add up.
I am a doctor, and the Israeli soldiers were brought to me to check their medical situation and treat them properly. I had our dead bodies and injured people lying in front of me and I was treating the soldiers that actually killed and wounded them. None of our friends in the center approached to harm or hurt them. Our injured people were lying on the ground, but I rested the soldiers on our chairs.
Asked about the wounds the commandos suffered, the doctor said:
None of the soldiers had any fatal wounds that would cause organ loss or defects. There were scratches on their faces, but since facial skin is sensitive and very likely to bleed in any trauma, there was blood on their faces — which I cleaned carefully to see what kind of injuries they had. In the end, they happened to be only scratches.
The third soldier, however, suffered a cut in his stomach that reached his stomach membrane but not the organ itself. It was nothing fatal. As a doctor, I wouldn’t want to guess the nature of this injury but it could have been caused by either landing on a sharp pole from the helicopter or a blow from a pipe with a sharp edge. I couldn’t tell.
In either case, it was not fatal but it had to be stitched. However, since we did not ever expect such a confrontation, we had not brought any stitching equipment on board. All we had was simple medical material to dress simple wounds, or drops to ease burning in case tear gas was used. If I had stitching material with me, although I am an eye doctor, I would have treated the boy properly in accordance with my general medical knowledge. I couldn’t.
Dr. Uysal said the commandos “were very startled and very scared.” He added:
With my broken English I tried to tell them that I was a doctor and there was no need to be afraid and that nobody was going to hurt them. They relaxed after a while and watched us running around, jumping from one patient to another in tears, faced with our friends bathed in blood. I also asked our assistants to keep an eye on them so that they would not be threatened.
We could have as well left them to their fate, but this is not the humanity that we act with. We asked photographers not to film in the medical center and I have no idea how and when that picture was taken but God never leaves good deeds unheard. That picture shows the difference between the Israelis and us.
Asked if he could tell how long after sound grenades were thrown at the ship, at the start of the raid, that the gunshots were fired, Dr. Uysal said: “I was in the lower deck, but could hear all the explosions and gunfire. There was no way I can differentiate the gunshots or other sounds — I am only a doctor, after all.”
After the Israeli military took control of the ship, the doctor said that he was treated no differently from the other passengers:
They handcuffed all of us with plastic bands so tightly that they could easily cause irreversible damage to our shoulder tissues. They made us kneel on our knees with hands handcuffed as the helicopters caused sea water to splash on us for three hours. I was shouting that I was a doctor and that my shoulder hurt in a very serious way. They pretended not to hear me. I wanted to go to the toilet; they didn’t let me. After I kept yelling about my shoulder they let my hands loose but not those of my friends.
On Tuesday, the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet published an interview with Murat Akinan, the man seen standing next to Dr. Uysal in the photographs of him treating a commando, and bringing the Israeli inside the ship in another photograph.
Mr. Akinan said that the captured soldier had been entrusted to him by Bulent Yildirim, the director of the Turkish aid organization I.H.H., who said: “Murat, take him and make sure that he’ll be safe. Be careful, don’t allow anyone to touch him.”
So, Mr. Akinan said, “I took him downstairs yelling, ‘Stop! No one will touch this man entrusted to me.’ ”
He added: “I called the doctor on board and asked him for treatment. Two more soldiers came. People were reacting. I had all three treated. I said to two to three wise people around me that we would not allow anyone to touch them.”
According to Mr. Akinan, during his subsequent interrogation in Israeli custody, he was shown a photograph in which the soldier he was leading inside the ship was hit despite his efforts.
“I told them that I couldn’t stop everyone,” he said. He also claimed that the interrogator admitted that photographs showed that he had acted “with goodwill” toward the Israeli captive in his care.
Update: A Turkish-speaking friend of The Lede has kindly translated the extensive eyewitness account of the raid from Sefik Dinc, the Turkish journalist who shot the images used in the Turkish newspaper’s slide show we referred to above. In the interest of completeness, here is an English translation of that text which was published by HaberTurk alongside Mr. Dinc’s photographs:
In the context of the “Our Road is Palestine, Our Route is Gaza” campaign, the Mavi Marmara ship, bringing aid to Palestine, had 16 Turkish journalists on board. Haberturk newspaper reporter Şefik Dinc took his place among them. Dinc’s photographs succeeded in being smuggled out.
**
Şefik Dinc lived every second the pressure of the Israeli commandos. He explained what he saw this way:
**
“Departing for Gaza on May 22, the Mavi Marmara, the flagship of the fleet, set out from Sarayburnu with 16 journalists aboard. I was among them, representing HaberTurk.
**
I was on the second floor deck of the ship talking to my journalist friends when we suddenly saw Zodiac boats coming. I called to friends on the other side of the ship that the Israeli soldiers had arrived. Their response was ‘The Zodiacs are on the other side.’ Approximately 10 to 15 soldiers were on each of the Zodiacs, blockading both the sides and rear of the ship, with two frigates about two miles off.
**
From the Zodiac boats, gas, noise and smoke bombs were being thrown on board. Some of the bombs dropped and fell into the sea when they struck the ship and some came on deck on the starboard side. Among those who sat on the deck with gas bombs, there was panic.
One group was spraying water from fire hoses onto the Zodiacs, while others were lighting them with lamps.
Shortly after the attacks of the Zodiacs, the Sikorsky helicopter began to approach the ship. Coming over the ship, the helicopter began to descend slowly, and I moved to a place where I’d be better able to take better pictures.
I had no bulletproof vest, gas mask, or life jacket. And the helicopter was descending toward the pilothouse. When it was about three meters away, commandos began to descend on ropes.
**
The three Israeli commandos who descended via rope to the pilothouse began to brawl with the volunteers waiting here on the ship. In the melee, one soldier was almost cast into the sea, but some members of the group were opposed to it. The neutralized soldiers were later taken down to the hall on the second floor.
**
Volunteers helped a volunteer injured as a result of the shots fired, bringing him downstairs on a stretcher.
With the Israeli troops disarmed, the sound of the gunfire from the helicopters began to change. The rubber bullets fired by Israeli commandos were now real bullets.
**
Most of the volunteers who died was as a result of this firefight. I was trying to both capture what was happening in photographs but at the same time trying to protect myself by hiding somewhere. When I saw two wounded passengers on the ship lying on the ground, I understood that the bullets could reach the deck I was on. Most of those shot were on the top deck of the ship. However, on the lower deck there were also those who were injured and killed. The doctors and some activists who had seen the dead said that two people were killed by bullets that hit their heads.
Source
In an interview with The New York Times, Dr. Hasan Huseyin Uysal, a Turkish doctor, said that he treated Israeli commandos who were captured and briefly detained during the initial stages of a raid on a ship challenging Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza last week.
Dr. Uysal’s account seems to be supported by two photographs that show him treating one of the three bloodied commandos whom passengers said they subdued and disarmed at the start of the predawn raid on the main ship in the flotilla on May 31. Both of the images were published by the Turkish newspaper HaberTurk, in a gallery on its Web site showing photographs smuggled off the ship and out of Israel by one of its reporters, Sefik Dinc. One photograph was also posted on Flickr by the Turkish aid organization that helped to organize the flotilla.
The capture of the commandos moments after they rappelled down onto the Mavi Marmara from helicopters to meet fierce resistance from the passengers on the top deck led several Israeli military and civilian officials — including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — to suggest that the subsequent use of deadly force was justified because otherwise the soldiers would have been “lynched” by the passengers who seized them.
Several of the passengers involved in the confrontation have disputed that interpretation of the chaotic start of the raid. As The Lede noted on Tuesday, Ken O’Keefe, a former United States Marine who told Turkish and Israeli newspapers that he had helped disarm the commandos said, “The lives of the three commandos were at our mercy — we could have done with them whatever we wanted.”
Ali Abunimah, a founder of the Electronic Intifada, argued in a post on his blog that images of the commando being treated by Dr. Uysal, along with other photographs apparently taken during the raid that show bloodied and disarmed commandos in the custody of passengers inside the ship, contradict Israeli suggestions that the aim of the passengers was to kill the soldiers.
In a telephone interview conducted in Turkish, Dr. Uysal said that he had treated three Israeli commandos and argued that this proved that the passengers had no intention of killing them:
First of all it’s against logic that these soldiers would not be killed but instead be taken to the medical center if the intention of the activists was to kill them. If people on board were so eager to hurt them, why would they not just shoot them to death once they had taken their guns? Why bother carting them inside for treatment? It just doesn’t add up.
I am a doctor, and the Israeli soldiers were brought to me to check their medical situation and treat them properly. I had our dead bodies and injured people lying in front of me and I was treating the soldiers that actually killed and wounded them. None of our friends in the center approached to harm or hurt them. Our injured people were lying on the ground, but I rested the soldiers on our chairs.
Asked about the wounds the commandos suffered, the doctor said:
None of the soldiers had any fatal wounds that would cause organ loss or defects. There were scratches on their faces, but since facial skin is sensitive and very likely to bleed in any trauma, there was blood on their faces — which I cleaned carefully to see what kind of injuries they had. In the end, they happened to be only scratches.
The third soldier, however, suffered a cut in his stomach that reached his stomach membrane but not the organ itself. It was nothing fatal. As a doctor, I wouldn’t want to guess the nature of this injury but it could have been caused by either landing on a sharp pole from the helicopter or a blow from a pipe with a sharp edge. I couldn’t tell.
In either case, it was not fatal but it had to be stitched. However, since we did not ever expect such a confrontation, we had not brought any stitching equipment on board. All we had was simple medical material to dress simple wounds, or drops to ease burning in case tear gas was used. If I had stitching material with me, although I am an eye doctor, I would have treated the boy properly in accordance with my general medical knowledge. I couldn’t.
Dr. Uysal said the commandos “were very startled and very scared.” He added:
With my broken English I tried to tell them that I was a doctor and there was no need to be afraid and that nobody was going to hurt them. They relaxed after a while and watched us running around, jumping from one patient to another in tears, faced with our friends bathed in blood. I also asked our assistants to keep an eye on them so that they would not be threatened.
We could have as well left them to their fate, but this is not the humanity that we act with. We asked photographers not to film in the medical center and I have no idea how and when that picture was taken but God never leaves good deeds unheard. That picture shows the difference between the Israelis and us.
Asked if he could tell how long after sound grenades were thrown at the ship, at the start of the raid, that the gunshots were fired, Dr. Uysal said: “I was in the lower deck, but could hear all the explosions and gunfire. There was no way I can differentiate the gunshots or other sounds — I am only a doctor, after all.”
After the Israeli military took control of the ship, the doctor said that he was treated no differently from the other passengers:
They handcuffed all of us with plastic bands so tightly that they could easily cause irreversible damage to our shoulder tissues. They made us kneel on our knees with hands handcuffed as the helicopters caused sea water to splash on us for three hours. I was shouting that I was a doctor and that my shoulder hurt in a very serious way. They pretended not to hear me. I wanted to go to the toilet; they didn’t let me. After I kept yelling about my shoulder they let my hands loose but not those of my friends.
On Tuesday, the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet published an interview with Murat Akinan, the man seen standing next to Dr. Uysal in the photographs of him treating a commando, and bringing the Israeli inside the ship in another photograph.
Mr. Akinan said that the captured soldier had been entrusted to him by Bulent Yildirim, the director of the Turkish aid organization I.H.H., who said: “Murat, take him and make sure that he’ll be safe. Be careful, don’t allow anyone to touch him.”
So, Mr. Akinan said, “I took him downstairs yelling, ‘Stop! No one will touch this man entrusted to me.’ ”
He added: “I called the doctor on board and asked him for treatment. Two more soldiers came. People were reacting. I had all three treated. I said to two to three wise people around me that we would not allow anyone to touch them.”
According to Mr. Akinan, during his subsequent interrogation in Israeli custody, he was shown a photograph in which the soldier he was leading inside the ship was hit despite his efforts.
“I told them that I couldn’t stop everyone,” he said. He also claimed that the interrogator admitted that photographs showed that he had acted “with goodwill” toward the Israeli captive in his care.
Update: A Turkish-speaking friend of The Lede has kindly translated the extensive eyewitness account of the raid from Sefik Dinc, the Turkish journalist who shot the images used in the Turkish newspaper’s slide show we referred to above. In the interest of completeness, here is an English translation of that text which was published by HaberTurk alongside Mr. Dinc’s photographs:
In the context of the “Our Road is Palestine, Our Route is Gaza” campaign, the Mavi Marmara ship, bringing aid to Palestine, had 16 Turkish journalists on board. Haberturk newspaper reporter Şefik Dinc took his place among them. Dinc’s photographs succeeded in being smuggled out.
**
Şefik Dinc lived every second the pressure of the Israeli commandos. He explained what he saw this way:
**
“Departing for Gaza on May 22, the Mavi Marmara, the flagship of the fleet, set out from Sarayburnu with 16 journalists aboard. I was among them, representing HaberTurk.
**
I was on the second floor deck of the ship talking to my journalist friends when we suddenly saw Zodiac boats coming. I called to friends on the other side of the ship that the Israeli soldiers had arrived. Their response was ‘The Zodiacs are on the other side.’ Approximately 10 to 15 soldiers were on each of the Zodiacs, blockading both the sides and rear of the ship, with two frigates about two miles off.
**
From the Zodiac boats, gas, noise and smoke bombs were being thrown on board. Some of the bombs dropped and fell into the sea when they struck the ship and some came on deck on the starboard side. Among those who sat on the deck with gas bombs, there was panic.
One group was spraying water from fire hoses onto the Zodiacs, while others were lighting them with lamps.
Shortly after the attacks of the Zodiacs, the Sikorsky helicopter began to approach the ship. Coming over the ship, the helicopter began to descend slowly, and I moved to a place where I’d be better able to take better pictures.
I had no bulletproof vest, gas mask, or life jacket. And the helicopter was descending toward the pilothouse. When it was about three meters away, commandos began to descend on ropes.
**
The three Israeli commandos who descended via rope to the pilothouse began to brawl with the volunteers waiting here on the ship. In the melee, one soldier was almost cast into the sea, but some members of the group were opposed to it. The neutralized soldiers were later taken down to the hall on the second floor.
**
Volunteers helped a volunteer injured as a result of the shots fired, bringing him downstairs on a stretcher.
With the Israeli troops disarmed, the sound of the gunfire from the helicopters began to change. The rubber bullets fired by Israeli commandos were now real bullets.
**
Most of the volunteers who died was as a result of this firefight. I was trying to both capture what was happening in photographs but at the same time trying to protect myself by hiding somewhere. When I saw two wounded passengers on the ship lying on the ground, I understood that the bullets could reach the deck I was on. Most of those shot were on the top deck of the ship. However, on the lower deck there were also those who were injured and killed. The doctors and some activists who had seen the dead said that two people were killed by bullets that hit their heads.
Source
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