Monthly Archives: June 2009
Axelrod claims Iran has nuclear weapons
FROM WND
Top Obama adviser’s statement contradicts official U.S., Israeli estimates
 David Axelrod |
In an apparent mistake, President Obama’s senior adviser David Axelrod stated during an interview yesterday there are nuclear weapons in Iran which are a threat to the entire world.
No country has ever claimed Iran currently has a nuclear arsenal. A 2007 U.S. intelligence estimate previously claimed Iran halted its nuclear weapons-related work in 2003, although that report was highly criticized. Other American agencies have stated Iran could obtain nukes by 2013 or later.
Israel maintains Iran could have enough enriched uranium to produce a nuclear weapon in less than a year, although other Israeli estimates put the timeline at 2012.
Axelrod, meanwhile, said yesterday in little noticed comments to ABC News that there are already nuclear weapons in Iran.
“I think the president’s sense of solicitude with those young people has been very, very clear, and we’re very mindful of that,” said Axelrod.
“We are also mindful of the fact that the nuclear weapons in Iran and the nuclearization of that whole region is a threat to that country, all countries in the region, and the world. And we have to address that. We can’t let that lie,” he said.
Axelrod was responding to a question from ABC News’ Chief Washington Correspondent George Stephanopoulos about whether U.S. talks with Iran’s leadership would undermine the opposition movement in Tehran.
The White House did not immediately respond to a WND query about whether the U.S. has new information indicating Iran possesses nuclear weapons.
An Israelis security official said there was no indication Iran currently possesses a nuclear weapon.
Axelrod wasn’t the only Obama administration official yesterday to declare the U.S. is still open to discussions with Iran over its disputed nuclear program despite Tehran’s violent crackdown on post-election protests.
Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said yesterday the legitimacy of the Iranian government is not the “critical issue” in Washington’s dealings with Tehran.
“We are concerned for our own national interests to ensure that Iran doesn’t pursue its nuclear program,” she told CBS News. “It is in the United States’ national interest to make sure that we have employed all elements at our disposal, including diplomacy, to prevent Iran from achieving that nuclear capacity.”
Rice said Iran must decide whether to end its alleged nuclear weapons program and rejoin the international community or “face increased isolation and pressure.”
Moscow ‘red lines’ Georgian regime
FROM WND
Russian military exercise feared prelude to invasion
Editor’s Note: The following report is excerpted from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin,the premium online newsletter published by the founder of WND. Subscriptions are $99 a year or, for monthly trials, just $9.95 per month for credit card users, and provide instant access for the complete reports.
 Training session for Georgian troops (U.S. Air Force photo) |
Moscow has drawn a new “red line” in its confrontation with the regime of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili by calling for its end, just as Russia is preparing for its annual military exercise – which last year was used to invade Georgia, according to a report in Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.
The military exercise to counter terrorism, called Kavkaz-2009 or Caucasus-2009, will run from June 29 to July 6 with more than 8,500 troops, up to 200 battle tanks, 450 armored vehicles and some 250 artillery systems deployed to the North Caucasus. The North Caucasus consists of those regions of southern Russia that include North Ossetia, Dagestan and Ingushetia.
The exercise comes on the heels of a just-completed three-week military exercise in Georgia by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, amid strong protests from Moscow.
Announcement of the Kavkaz-2009 exercise comes just as Russian President Dmitry Medvedev stated in recent days that a “red line” would be drawn in dealing with the “current regime in Tbilisi.” Tbilisi is the capital of Georgia.
Moscow regards Saakashvili’s regime as a “terrorist organization,” a comment which has prompted some observers to speculate that Kavkaz-2009 could be used as a way to eliminate the Georgian “terrorist” threat.
Keep in touch with the most important breaking news stories about critical developments around the globe with Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin, the premium, online intelligence news source edited and published by the founder of WND.
Just as in Kavkaz-2008, Russian troops and equipment operating in the North Caucasus for Kavkaz-2009 could move rapidly and set up staging areas in the Georgian breakaway provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia to facilitate an invasion of Georgia proper.
The Kremlin has labeled Saakashvili’s regime as “terrorist” due to its perception that Tbilisi initiated the attack on one of Georgia’s breakaway provinces, South Ossetia, last year. While analysts suggest it was all a setup by the Russians, Georgia’s actions prompted Russian troops already gathered for Kavkaz-2008 to be diverted operationally to repel what it perceived was Georgian “aggression” on South Ossetia.
“It is our view that this political regime has committed a crime and we will have nothing common with this (regime),” Medvedev said at a news conference. “At the same time, after elections, which will take place in Georgia sooner or later, we surely will be ready to return to discussions of various issues if the Georgian people elect a new leadership capable of maintaining a friendly dialogue with Russia and with close neighbors of the Georgian state – peoples of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.”
Following the successful Russian invasion of Georgia last August, Moscow immediately gave diplomatic recognition as independent states to the governments of the Georgian provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
For the most part, the international community does not recognize them as independent states but as provinces of Georgia. According to observers, Russia’s quick recognition was in response to that given by the U.S. and other European countries in February 2008 to the breakaway Muslim province of Kosovo in Serbia, an action Moscow vehemently opposed.
The “red line” threat against the Georgian regime of Saakashvili also comes at the same time Moscow has vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution that would have extended the U.N. observer mission in Georgia.
Moscow’s veto of the 16-year-old U.N. observer mission’s mandate in Georgia also removes the mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation, or OSCE, in Europe by June 30. The OSCE is comprised of some 56 nations, including the U.S. and Russia, involved in conflict prevention and crisis management.
“With both the U.N. and OSCE missions given the chop, there will be no independent observers around the conflict zones of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and there will be no mechanism for ensuring that minor incidents don’t deteriorate into wider fighting,” said Lawrence Sheets, Caucasus project director for the International Crisis Group, or ICG, that monitors world trouble spots.
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For sale on eBay: Obama’s ‘Kenyan birth certificate’
FROM WND
Seller claims Mombasa document ‘certified copy’
By Bob Unruh
With dozens of lawsuits filed over access to Barack Obama’s certified long-form birth certificate, many more lawyers working on his behalf to keep it secret and the validity of the U.S. Constitution hanging in the balance, guess where a “certified copy” of the original Mombasa “document” has been found?
On eBay.
Item No. 160344928067, at least as of today, is described as “a certified copy of President Barack Obama’s Kenyan Birth Certificate.”
The seller, identified by the user name ” colmado_naranja,” states, “President Barack Hussein Obama II was born in The Coast Provincial Hospital at Mombasa in Kenya at 7:24 PM on August 4th, 1961.”
The suspicion that Coast Provincial is, in fact, Obama’s birth hospital is not new, with the subject having been discussed on both Internet blogs and forums already.
But the seller, who according to the eBay rankings has completed dozens of transactions on the behemoth auction site without difficulties, said this is the real deal.
The seller, who did not respond to a WND request for an interview, said online he was traveling in Kenya and repeatedly heard stories that Obama actually was born in Kenya.
“Kenyans were amused at how gullible Americans could be when it came to obvious things like the fact that Kenyans overtly admit to Barack Jr’s Kenyan birth, yet the Americans continue to believe that they know better,” the seller writes.
“I delved further and found that a birth certificate was on file at The Coast Provincial General Hospital at Mombasa,” said the seller, who claims the certificate is in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
“I know several American expats that reside in Kenya. I asked the three that I could reach if they were aware of President Barack Obama’s Kenyan birth. All three said that they were most obviously aware of his Kenyan birth. I was shocked. They went to further say that they weren’t much concerned with it, after all they’d left the U.S. to start a new life abroad and didn’t have much interest in what was taking place in the States. Besides, they said, who would believe them anyway?
“Along with my Congolese brother Andylenny (brother in heart, not blood) and a 1993 BMW with only one working door I was off to Mombasa to get myself a copy (certified I hoped) of Barack Jr’s birth certificate,” the seller reported.
Actual details of how the “certificate” was obtained are not reported.
“I am not posting any photos of the birth certificate here on eBay. I have not seen this birth certificate anywhere on the Internet, to post it here on eBay would lead to a flood of facsimiles on the Internet. This would inadvertently decrease the value of the certificate as well,” the seller said.
WND has reported on dozens of legal challenges to Obama’s status as a “natural born citizen.” The Constitution, Article 2, Section 1, states, “No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President.”
Some of the lawsuits question whether he was actually born in Hawaii, as he insists. If he was born out of the country, Obama’s American mother, the suits contend, was too young at the time of his birth to confer American citizenship to her son under the law at the time.
Other challenges have focused on Obama’s citizenship through his father, a Kenyan subject to the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom at the time of his birth, thus making him a dual citizen. The cases contend the framers of the Constitution excluded dual citizens from qualifying as natural born.
Complicating the situation is Obama’s decision to spend sums estimated in the hundreds of thousands of dollars to avoid releasing a state birth certificate that would put to rest all of the questions.
WND has reported that among the documentation not yet available for Obama includes his kindergarten records, his Punahou school records, his Occidental College records, his Columbia University records, his Columbia thesis, his Harvard Law School records, his Harvard Law Review articles, his scholarly articles from the University of Chicago, his passport, his medical records, his files from his years as an Illinois state senator, his Illinois State Bar Association records, any baptism records, and his adoption records.
The campaign followed a petition that has collected almost 400,000 signatures demanding proof of his eligibility, the availability of yard signs raising the question and the production of permanent, detachable magnetic bumper stickers asking the question.
The birth certificate seller is a self-proclaimed “collector of old Dominican and Cuban money” and has worked in the Congo.
“This spring I traveled through Kenya and its capital Nairobi. I was overwhelmed by the ‘iconicized’ face of U.S. President Barack Obama that displays itself throughout the country. I had lunch at a small eatery and noticed that the club sandwich with fried plantains was now known as ‘Obama’s Plate of the Day,’” the seller writes. “As an American I was bombarded with questions in English (English is national language of Kenya) on my feelings and opinions of a Kenyan governing the United States of America. The first several times I responded in saying that not enough time had elapsed since Barack Obama’s appointment as president of the U.S.A., and that I’d have to hold my official opinion until at least January 2010, a year in office might be sufficient for me to judge his ability to govern the U.S.A.
“Naturally I thought that by ‘Kenyan’ they were referring to Barack Obama’s blood, being that his father Barack Obama Sr. was a native of Kenya. After a day and a half of my being in Nairobi I learned that they were literally referring to President Barack Obama Jr. as being born in Kenya, a native of Kenya.”
The seller also cited the fact that Obama has not release his “Hawaiian” birth certificate. His administration, the seller sayd, “in an attempt to put the birth certificate issue to a rest, has presented the American public with a FAKE, FORGED, Fraudulent Hawaiian Birth Certificate.”
The seller indicated a willingness to respond to questions about the item, for which bidding was set to begin at $1,000. But the seller said questions would be evaluated and may not get a direct response.
The “certification of live birth” posted online and widely touted as “Obama’s birth certificate” does not in any way prove he was born in Hawaii, since the same “short-form” document is easily obtainable for children not born in Hawaii. The true “long-form” birth certificate – which includes information such as the name of the birth hospital and attending physician – is the only document that can prove Obama was born in Hawaii, but to date he has not permitted its release for public or press scrutiny.
Oddly, though congressional hearings were held to determine whether Sen. John McCain was constitutionally eligible to be president as a “natural born citizen,” no controlling legal authority ever sought to verify Obama’s claim to a Hawaiian birth.
If you are a member of the media and would like to interview Joseph Farah about this campaign, e-mail WND.
Physician: Michael Jackson had ‘almost no veins left’
FROM WND
Doctor treating king of pop in 2004 cites evidence of possible illicit drug use
By Aaron Klein
 |
With speculation rampant over the possible role drugs played in the sudden death of pop icon Michael Jackson, a doctor involved in medically treating the singer five years ago says Jackson, at that time, exhibited evidence of possible illicit drug use – specifically, signs of taking drugs intravenously and through snorting.
Although the physician, hospital and city are known to WND, they’re being withheld from publication at the source’s request since he was not authorized to talk to the media on the subject.
“There were almost no veins left on his arms when he came into the hospital,” said the doctor, who was involved in treating Jackson for two days in 2004, when the pop icon came in complaining of extreme foot pain and demanding painkillers.
“Eventually we found a place to start an IV,” the source said.
He said Jackson entered the hospital anxious and very distraught, but that doctors there could find no evidence the foot pain was real. They feared he was attempting to score painkillers.
For treatment, doctors administered Tranxene, an anti-anxiety agent.
Jackson asked to be admitted to the hospital and administered sleep medication.
“He said he had trouble sleeping and just wanted to go to sleep,” the physician told WND.
ackson was admitted and stayed at the hospital for two days, where he was treated for anxiety and sleep deprivation, he said.
Jackson evidenced collapsed veins and needle marks in both his arms, signs of possible illicit drug use, the source told WND.
Also, he said there was strong evidence Jackson had been regularly snorting drugs – evidence that takes into account possible scarring from reconstructive nasal surgery.
The episode may help shed light on Jackson’s medical history and possible troubles leading to his untimely demise two days ago. Although complete autopsy and blood results may be weeks away, early speculation is focusing on painkillers as causing or contributing to his death.
Celebrity website TMZ.com quoted a Jackson family member as saying the pop superstar was receiving a daily dose of Demerol, a morphine-like pain medication.
According to reports, Jackson’s medical treatment is now the focus of a police investigation, with law enforcement officials seeking to interview one of Jackson’s doctors and reportedly seizing a physician’s car they said may contain drugs or other evidence.
Police spokeswoman Karen Rayner told the Associated Press police towed a BMW from Jackson’s rented California home “because it may contain medications or other evidence that may assist the coroner in determining the cause of death.”
Rayner said the car belongs to one of Jackson’s doctors whom police wanted to interview. She said she did not know the doctor’s identity and stressed the doctor was not under criminal investigation.
One of Jackson’s doctors was reportedly in the house with the pop star when he stopped breathing and suffered an apparent cardiac arrest
Atheists stage festival for anti-religion films
FROM WND
‘Evolution: The Musical,’ rants by George Carlin, Woody Allen
What is being billed as the first-ever Atheist Film Festival and featuring a large number of films that largely address religion will be held in San Francisco Sunday – and it lumps Jesus along with Zeno, Flying Saucers, The Flying Spaghetti Monster and Eden.
The event in San Francisco’s Mission District is being held in two rooms at the Roxie Theater starting at noon and running to midnight.
Among the features will be “Root of all Evil?” in which famed British atheist Richard Dawkins issues a warning about how faith is “gaining ground in the face of rational, scientific truth.”
Events are being sponsored, among others, by the San Francisco Atheists, who report they, “do not believe in gods, devils, angels, ghosts, or other imaginary creatures.’
According to their website, they “want to live natural, religion-free lives … respect science and learning, knowing that only human thought, effort and courage will bring individual freedom and cultural progress.”
Also featured will be “Pledge of Allegiance Blues,” telling the story of Michael Newdow, who challenged the inclusion of the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegience all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, where he was rebuffed.
The film festival describes his efforts as a battle “to protect the separation between church and state.”
Also on the fare will be a musical called, “Evolution: The Musical, “Heathen Wind,” “Audience of One,” and others, including “rants” by George Carlin, Monty Python and Woody Allen.
Dawkins’ work “takes you to some of the world’s religious hot-spots, both in America and the Middle East. Dawkins meets with religious leaders and their followers, as well as scientists and skeptics to examine the power of religion.”
The Evolution musical is described as “a cross between Hair and the Rocky Horror Picture Show with some Gospel thrown in.”
 |
Ray Comfort is the Christian author whose book “You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence but You Can’t Make Him Think” book bumped Dawkins’ “The God Delusion” on Amazon.com’s best-seller list when it was released.
Comfort, who works with Living Waters ministry and has argued against atheism at Yale University, debated the issue on ABC’s Nightline and has authored some 60 other books, including “God Doesn’t Believe in Atheists,” “How to Know God Exists” and “Evolution: the Fairy Tale for Grownups,” has told WND it’s atheism, not faith, that lacks a foundation in reality.
“I simply expose atheistic evolution for the unscientific fairy tale that it is, and I do it with common logic. I ask questions about where the female came from for each species. Every male dog, cat, horse, elephant, giraffe, fish and bird had to have coincidentally evolved with a female alongside it (over billions of years) with fully evolved compatible reproductive parts and a desire to mate, otherwise the species couldn’t keep going. Evolution has no explanation for the female for every species in creation,” he previously told WND.
“I also show that the ‘God’ issue is moral rather than intellectual. No one needs to prove that God exists. Creation is clear evidence for any sane person that there’s a Creator. But if I can convince myself that there is no God, it means I am not morally accountable, and evolution opens the door to a whole lot of sinful delicacies such as pornography, fornication, lying, theft, and of course writing bad reviews for a book I haven’t read,” he continued.
He said the logical problem that follows atheists, though, is that once they convince themselves God doesn’t exist, they are left with the “insane” philosophy that nothing created everything.
“They will deny that through gritted teeth because it is intellectually embarrassing, but if I say that I have no belief that my Ford Truck had a maker, it means I think that nothing made it, and that’s a scientific impossibility,” Comfort said.
WND reported when Comfort challenged Dawkins to a debate over God’s existence, but Dawkins snubbed offers of both $10,000 and $20,000.
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Should Israel attack distracted Iran now?
FROM WND
Aaron Klein weighs pros and cons of strike during opposition protests
By Aaron Klein
 Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei |
JERUSALEM – With the Tehran regime distracted by growing opposition protests, is now a good time for Israel to strike Iran’s nuclear sites?
Iran is defying the international community and thumbing its nose at President Obama’s proposed dialogue over the nuclear issue. Israeli intelligence is warning it could be a matter of months – not years – before Iran has enough uranium that, if enriched more, could produce one or two nuclear devices. With time swiftly running out, should Israel use the opportunity of the current drama in Iran to attack the country with the goal of setting back its nuclear program?
Here are a few pros and cons of an Israeli strike on Iran during opposition protests there:
- Pro: The possibility of an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities has so thoroughly penetrated the news cycle and international political discourse the past few years, it’s probably the most talked about “secret” military strike in recent history. That coupled with the massive operation required to hit Iran’s dozen or so nuke sites, some underground, makes a surprise Israeli raid on Iran a near impossibility, much unlike the Jewish state’s strikes in 2007 against Syria’s lone nascent reactor or its surprise raid of Iraq’s singular plant in 1981. With Iran focused on quelling the opposition protests, now may be a good time to take that regime by surprise.
- Pro: Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as well as the country’s police and other security forces, like the Basij plainclothes militia, are so involved in quelling street protests they may not be ready militarily to immediately respond to an Israeli military raid.
Surely, Iran’s nuclear sites are still well protected. Iran has built a dense aerial-defense system that will make it difficult at just about any time for Israeli planes to reach their targets without encountering some resistance. Some layers of resistance Israel can expect will come from the batteries of Hawk, SA-5 and SA-2 surface-to-air missiles, plus SA-7, SA-15, Rapier, Crotale and Stinger anti-aircraft missiles protecting the sites.
But those stations are manned by the same units whose leadership now is involved in fighting the opposition protests. Iran also has about 1,700 anti-aircraft guns protecting the nuclear facilities in addition to 158 combat aircraft that would need to be deployed by the currently bogged-down Revolutionary Guard commanders.
- Pro: For Israel, the sooner an attack occurs, the better. Every day Iran is not confronted provides Tehran another 24 hours with which its nuclear scientists can work to furiously assemble the ingredients necessary for a nuclear weapon.
- Con: An Israeli airstrike would surely bring the opposition protests to a screeching halt and likely would be used by the ruling mullahs to unite the country against Israel. As it stands, the riots in Iran overtly oppose the recent election results but are not openly protesting the country’s Islamic theocratic dictators, specifically the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Still, there are anti-ayatollah undertones. All this would end as soon as the first Israeli missile reaches its target, allowing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to solidify his rule under a national emergency scenario and granting a blank check to Khamenei.
Israel, however, does need to weigh this con against its belief that opposition leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi is not much different ideologically from Ahmadinejad. Mousavi was prime minister from 1981 to 1989 – after the Islamic revolution. During Mousavi’s term, his country exported terrorism worldwide and started the initial foundations of what became the Iranian nuclear program.
- Con: President Obama’s administration would likely be furious at Israel and could retaliate diplomatically. Obama has been touting his policy of direct negotiations as the solution to Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Obama wants the opportunity to test his engagement strategy. If Israel strikes before Obama’s opening talks, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could expect a very upset White House.
Still, it seems Obama is unlikely to support an Israeli strike at any time in the near future. Israel may want to cut its losses and at least attack during a time it would have some element of surprise. Also, Israeli officials are quietly nervous Obama’s diplomacy could be dragged on for a long period, granting the Iranians a much-needed smokescreen to put together nuclear weapons.
- Con: International condemnation. The world community, particularly Britain, which seems heavily invested in the opposition protests, will blame Israel for putting an end to any hopes of “reform” in Iran, even if opposition leaders are not exactly real reformists. International condemnation could take the form of boycotts of the Jewish state; anti-Israel U.N. resolutions, etc. Israel, however, needs to weigh all this against the likelihood of condemnation sure to come its way whenever Israel carried out an attack against Iran, whether now or in years to come.
