New !
woensdag 21 mei 2008
woensdag 13 februari 2008
zaterdag 2 februari 2008
Pain
Pain !
We all come across it in our lives.
I had a friend M. from H. in Belgium.
I had a friend.
He took and is taking what is rightfully mine.
Pain !
He is a leech , he prospers on the misery of other people.
I would shoot him, if it was not illegal.
He is not honest nor a man.
He is a leech.
To be mislead by him is to wonder of in nothing else but despair.
Pain !
God, let that bastard die !
The Pretender.
We all come across it in our lives.
I had a friend M. from H. in Belgium.
I had a friend.
He took and is taking what is rightfully mine.
Pain !
He is a leech , he prospers on the misery of other people.
I would shoot him, if it was not illegal.
He is not honest nor a man.
He is a leech.
To be mislead by him is to wonder of in nothing else but despair.
Pain !
God, let that bastard die !
The Pretender.
What the ....
If you want to read this book, just contact me at : fb758013@skynet.be
The Pretender
LE GRAND
GRIMOIRE,
OU L'ART DE COMMANDERLESESPRITS CELESTES,AÉRIENS, TERRESTRES, INFERNAUX
AVEC LE VRAI SECRETDe faire parler les Morts, de gagnertoutes les fois qu'on met aux Loteries,de dácouvrir les Trésors cachés, etc.
Imprimiré sur un manuscrit de 1522.
PARIS.
B. RENAULT, ÉDITEUR.1845.
The GRAND
GRIMOIRE,
or the art of controlling celestial, aerial, terrestrial, and infernal spirits.
With the TRUE SECRET of speaking with the dead, winning whenever playing the lottery, discovering hidden treasure, etc.
Printed from a manuscript of 1522.
PRÉLUDE.
CHAPITRE PREMIER
Signé Antonio Venitiana, del Rabbina
Chapter 1
CHAPITRE II
PRIÈRE
Première Offande
Chapter 2
PRAYER
Initial Offering
CHAPITRE III
Contenant la véritable composition de la baguette mystérieuse, ou Verge foudroyante, telle qu'elle est représentée ci-dessous.
Chapter 3
True composition of the Mysterious Wand, otherwise the Destroying or Blasting Rod.
CHAPITRE IV
Contenant la véritable représentation du grand cercle cabalistique
PREMIÈRE PARTIE
SECONDE PARTIE
OFFRANDE
PREMIERE APPELLATION. A L'Empereur Lucifer
SECONDE APPELLATION
TROISIÈME APPELLATION
GRANDE APPELLATION. Tirée de la véritable clavicule.
De l'apparition de l'esprit
Ordre de l'Esprit
CONJURATION et renvoi de l'Esprit
Actions de grâces
Chapter 4
Concerning a True Representation of the Grand Kabalistic Circle
FIRST PRAYER
SECOND PRAYER
OFFERTORY
FIRST CONJURATION. Addressed to the Emperor Lucifer
SECOND CONJURATION
THIRD CONJURATION
GRAND CONJURATION. Extracted from the Veritable Clavicle
Of the Manifestation of the Spirit (Lucifuge Rofocale)
Invitation of the Spirit
CONJURATION and discharge of the spirit
Act of Thanksgiving
SECOND LIVRE,
Contenant le véritable SANCTUM REGNUM DE LA CLAVICULE,Ou la véritable manière de faire les pactes,
SECOND BOOK
Containing the true SANCTUM REGNUM of the CLAVICLE,Or, the true manner of making pacts,
Avec les noms, puissances et talens de tous les grands Esprits supérieurs, comme ausi la manière de les faire paraître par la force de la grande appellation du chapitre des pactes de la grand Clavicule, qui les force d'obéir à quelque opération que l'on souhaite.
With the names, powers, and abilities of each of the higher great spirits, likewise the manner of making them appear by the force of the great conjurations of the chapter of pacts from the grand Clavicle, which forces them to obey in whatever operation one wishes.
LE SANCTUM REGNUM,
THE SANCTUM REGNUM,
Ou la véritable manière de faire des PACTES avec quelques esprits que ce soit, sans qu'ils vous puissent faire aucun tort.
Or, the true manner of making pacts with the spirits
Leurs signes et caractères
Grande appellation des esprits avec lesquels l'onveut faire pacte tirée de la grande clavicule
Apparitione de l'Esprit
Le pacte
Conjuration et renvoi de l'Esprit avec lequel on a fait pacte
Prière au Tout-Puissant en forme d'action de grâces
Oraison pour se garantir des mauvais esprits
Their signs and characters
Grand conjuration of spirits with whom it is sought to make a pact. Taken from the Grand Clavicle
Manifestation of the Spirit (Lucifuge Rofocale)
The pact
Conjuration and dismissal of the spirit with which one has made a pact
Prayer of thanksgiving to the Almighty
Speech to protect from evil spirits
Citat præ dictorum Spirituum.
TABLE des jours heureux et malheureux.
Table of lucky and unlucky days
DE L'ART MAGIQUE DU GRAND GRIMOIRE.
OF THE MAGIC ART OF THE GRAND GRIMOIRE
Composition de mort, ou la pierre philosophale.
our faire la baguette devinatoire et la faire tourner
Pour gagner toutes les fois qu'on met aux loteries
Pour charmer les armes à feu
Pour parler aux esprits la veille de la St. Jean-Baptiste
Pour se faire aimer de telle fille ou femme que vous voudrez
Pour faire danser tout nu
Pour se rendre invisible
Pour faire la jarretière de sept lieues par heure
Composition de l'emplatre pour faire dix lieues par heure
Composition de l'encre pour écrire les pactes
Encre pour noter les sommes qu'on prendra dans les Trésors cachés, et pour en demander de plus fortes à Lucifugé, dans les nouveaux besoins.
Il est inutile de faire remarquer que tous les objets décrits ci-des sus doivent être absolument neufs
En quels temps les arts se doivent accomplir et perfectionner.
The Composition of Death, or Philosopher's Stone
To make the divining rod and to make it turn
To win any time one plays the lottery
To enchant firearms
To speak with the spirits on the Eve of St. John the Baptist
To have the love of any girl or woman you want
To make one dance completely naked
To make oneself invisible
To make the garter of seven miles per hour
Composition of the plaster to make ten miles per hour
Composition of the ink for writing pacts Catalogue: 8631 .a. 23.
Author: Antonio Venitiana
Title: Le Grand Grimoire
Place and Date of origin: Paris, 1845
Pages: 108
The Pretender
LE GRAND
GRIMOIRE,
OU L'ART DE COMMANDERLESESPRITS CELESTES,AÉRIENS, TERRESTRES, INFERNAUX
AVEC LE VRAI SECRETDe faire parler les Morts, de gagnertoutes les fois qu'on met aux Loteries,de dácouvrir les Trésors cachés, etc.
Imprimiré sur un manuscrit de 1522.
PARIS.
B. RENAULT, ÉDITEUR.1845.
The GRAND
GRIMOIRE,
or the art of controlling celestial, aerial, terrestrial, and infernal spirits.
With the TRUE SECRET of speaking with the dead, winning whenever playing the lottery, discovering hidden treasure, etc.
Printed from a manuscript of 1522.
PRÉLUDE.
CHAPITRE PREMIER
Signé Antonio Venitiana, del Rabbina
Chapter 1
CHAPITRE II
PRIÈRE
Première Offande
Chapter 2
PRAYER
Initial Offering
CHAPITRE III
Contenant la véritable composition de la baguette mystérieuse, ou Verge foudroyante, telle qu'elle est représentée ci-dessous.
Chapter 3
True composition of the Mysterious Wand, otherwise the Destroying or Blasting Rod.
CHAPITRE IV
Contenant la véritable représentation du grand cercle cabalistique
PREMIÈRE PARTIE
SECONDE PARTIE
OFFRANDE
PREMIERE APPELLATION. A L'Empereur Lucifer
SECONDE APPELLATION
TROISIÈME APPELLATION
GRANDE APPELLATION. Tirée de la véritable clavicule.
De l'apparition de l'esprit
Ordre de l'Esprit
CONJURATION et renvoi de l'Esprit
Actions de grâces
Chapter 4
Concerning a True Representation of the Grand Kabalistic Circle
FIRST PRAYER
SECOND PRAYER
OFFERTORY
FIRST CONJURATION. Addressed to the Emperor Lucifer
SECOND CONJURATION
THIRD CONJURATION
GRAND CONJURATION. Extracted from the Veritable Clavicle
Of the Manifestation of the Spirit (Lucifuge Rofocale)
Invitation of the Spirit
CONJURATION and discharge of the spirit
Act of Thanksgiving
SECOND LIVRE,
Contenant le véritable SANCTUM REGNUM DE LA CLAVICULE,Ou la véritable manière de faire les pactes,
SECOND BOOK
Containing the true SANCTUM REGNUM of the CLAVICLE,Or, the true manner of making pacts,
Avec les noms, puissances et talens de tous les grands Esprits supérieurs, comme ausi la manière de les faire paraître par la force de la grande appellation du chapitre des pactes de la grand Clavicule, qui les force d'obéir à quelque opération que l'on souhaite.
With the names, powers, and abilities of each of the higher great spirits, likewise the manner of making them appear by the force of the great conjurations of the chapter of pacts from the grand Clavicle, which forces them to obey in whatever operation one wishes.
LE SANCTUM REGNUM,
THE SANCTUM REGNUM,
Ou la véritable manière de faire des PACTES avec quelques esprits que ce soit, sans qu'ils vous puissent faire aucun tort.
Or, the true manner of making pacts with the spirits
Leurs signes et caractères
Grande appellation des esprits avec lesquels l'onveut faire pacte tirée de la grande clavicule
Apparitione de l'Esprit
Le pacte
Conjuration et renvoi de l'Esprit avec lequel on a fait pacte
Prière au Tout-Puissant en forme d'action de grâces
Oraison pour se garantir des mauvais esprits
Their signs and characters
Grand conjuration of spirits with whom it is sought to make a pact. Taken from the Grand Clavicle
Manifestation of the Spirit (Lucifuge Rofocale)
The pact
Conjuration and dismissal of the spirit with which one has made a pact
Prayer of thanksgiving to the Almighty
Speech to protect from evil spirits
Citat præ dictorum Spirituum.
TABLE des jours heureux et malheureux.
Table of lucky and unlucky days
DE L'ART MAGIQUE DU GRAND GRIMOIRE.
OF THE MAGIC ART OF THE GRAND GRIMOIRE
Composition de mort, ou la pierre philosophale.
our faire la baguette devinatoire et la faire tourner
Pour gagner toutes les fois qu'on met aux loteries
Pour charmer les armes à feu
Pour parler aux esprits la veille de la St. Jean-Baptiste
Pour se faire aimer de telle fille ou femme que vous voudrez
Pour faire danser tout nu
Pour se rendre invisible
Pour faire la jarretière de sept lieues par heure
Composition de l'emplatre pour faire dix lieues par heure
Composition de l'encre pour écrire les pactes
Encre pour noter les sommes qu'on prendra dans les Trésors cachés, et pour en demander de plus fortes à Lucifugé, dans les nouveaux besoins.
Il est inutile de faire remarquer que tous les objets décrits ci-des sus doivent être absolument neufs
En quels temps les arts se doivent accomplir et perfectionner.
The Composition of Death, or Philosopher's Stone
To make the divining rod and to make it turn
To win any time one plays the lottery
To enchant firearms
To speak with the spirits on the Eve of St. John the Baptist
To have the love of any girl or woman you want
To make one dance completely naked
To make oneself invisible
To make the garter of seven miles per hour
Composition of the plaster to make ten miles per hour
Composition of the ink for writing pacts Catalogue: 8631 .a. 23.
Author: Antonio Venitiana
Title: Le Grand Grimoire
Place and Date of origin: Paris, 1845
Pages: 108
God bless America
The US policy of “extraordinary renditions”—the illegal kidnap and transportation of supposed terror suspects to secret detention sites where they are then tortured—was the subject of both an Italian legal investigation and a critical report by the European Parliament last week.
An Italian judge has indicted 26 Americans and 5 Italians for involvement in the kidnapping of Egyptian cleric Abu Omar on the streets of Milan in 2003. Abu Omar (real name, Hassan Mustafa Mosama Nasr) was abducted in Milan, taken to Aviano Air Base and then flown via Ramstein in Germany to Egypt, where he says he was tortured. The indictment is the first time the practice of extraordinary rendition could face scrutiny in open court, with the trial set to begin in June.
Abu Omar was released last week, when an Egyptian court ruled his detention was “unfounded.”
All but one of the Americans involved in the kidnapping have been identified as CIA agents, including former CIA Milan station chief Robert Seldon Lady, former Rome station chief Jeffrey Castelli and US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Romano, stationed at Aviano at the time. None of the accused are said to be in the country.
The five Italians indicted included former chief of military intelligence General Nicolo Pollari and his deputy, Marco Mancini.
Pollari, who claims he is unable to defend himself in court since his defence would involve disclosing evidence that is classified top secret, has threatened to call former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and his successor Romano Prodi as witnesses.
The Prodi government—a coalition that includes the supposedly left-wing Rifondazione Comunista (Communist Refoundation)—is continuing the attempts of its conservative predecessors to delay or derail the case, having requested a ruling from the Constitutional Court on whether prosecutors exceeded their powers in gathering evidence by tapping the phones of Italian secret service agents. This could delay the launching of any formal extradition proceedings against the Americans accused.
The Milan prosecutor in charge of the case, Armando Spatero, defended his investigation, saying his original extradition request had been made to the previous Berlusconi government, before knowledge of the involvement of Italian secret service operatives in the kidnapping.
He also denies breaching any laws in gathering evidence: “The law allows the government to give a negative response, but not to fail to respond to the extradition request.”
In a barbed attack on the Prodi administration, Spatero added, “The silence of this government by now exceeds the length of silence of the previous government.”
Prodi has also faced censure from within his government. Infrastructure Minister Antonio Di Pietro—who gained his reputation as a prosecutor during the “Mani Pulite” (clean hands) investigations into widespread political corruption in the 1990s—criticised the absence of any official request for the extradition of the American agents.
Just before the Italian judiciary launched its case against the CIA agents for their illegal kidnapping of Abu Omar, the European Union parliament voted to accept a highly critical report into secret CIA flights in Europe used to carry alleged terror suspects to third countries where they could be tortured.
The report, drafted by the Temporary Committee on the alleged use of European countries by the CIA for illegal activities (TDIP), says there were “at least” 1,245 secret CIA flights in Europe between 2001 and 2005.
In preparing its report to the European Parliament, TDIP heard hours of testimony from victims of the renditions policy, their lawyers or representatives, and found that the majority of cases “involved incommunicado detention and torture” during interrogation. Hearings also quizzed senior EU officials and studied flight data from the EU air traffic agency.
The report meticulously documents the many stopovers inside the EU by CIA-operated planes as they transported so-called “terrorist suspects” into the hands of their torturers. These include:
* Germany—336 stopovers* United Kingdom—170* Ireland—147* Portugal—91* Spain—68* Greece—64* Cyprus—57* Italy—46
In voting to accept the report—382 for, with 256 against and 74 abstentions—the European Parliament explicitly rejected extraordinary renditions as “an illegal instrument used by the USA in the fight against terrorism.” Furthermore, the majority of MEPs condemned “the acceptance and concealing of the practice, on several occasions, by the secret services and governmental authorities of certain European countries.”
The report deplores the “passivity” of several member states, and notes that some of the secret detention facilities may have been located at US bases in Europe. Several governments refused to cooperate with its investigations or were evasive. These included Austria, Italy, Poland, Portugal and the UK.
Conservative MEPs derided the criticism of the US contained in the report as “anti-Americanism.” They said that the CIA should be free to operate secretly in Europe—“as long as they comply with the law”!
The report endorsed by the European Parliament demands the closure of Guantanamo and calls on European countries to “immediately seek the return of their citizens and residents who are being held illegally by US authorities.”
The European Parliament has no powers to hold member governments to account for their complicity in the CIA rendition flights. Regardless of any critical noises emanating from Brussels, European governments are uniformly stepping up their attacks on democratic rights across the continent.
An Italian judge has indicted 26 Americans and 5 Italians for involvement in the kidnapping of Egyptian cleric Abu Omar on the streets of Milan in 2003. Abu Omar (real name, Hassan Mustafa Mosama Nasr) was abducted in Milan, taken to Aviano Air Base and then flown via Ramstein in Germany to Egypt, where he says he was tortured. The indictment is the first time the practice of extraordinary rendition could face scrutiny in open court, with the trial set to begin in June.
Abu Omar was released last week, when an Egyptian court ruled his detention was “unfounded.”
All but one of the Americans involved in the kidnapping have been identified as CIA agents, including former CIA Milan station chief Robert Seldon Lady, former Rome station chief Jeffrey Castelli and US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Romano, stationed at Aviano at the time. None of the accused are said to be in the country.
The five Italians indicted included former chief of military intelligence General Nicolo Pollari and his deputy, Marco Mancini.
Pollari, who claims he is unable to defend himself in court since his defence would involve disclosing evidence that is classified top secret, has threatened to call former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and his successor Romano Prodi as witnesses.
The Prodi government—a coalition that includes the supposedly left-wing Rifondazione Comunista (Communist Refoundation)—is continuing the attempts of its conservative predecessors to delay or derail the case, having requested a ruling from the Constitutional Court on whether prosecutors exceeded their powers in gathering evidence by tapping the phones of Italian secret service agents. This could delay the launching of any formal extradition proceedings against the Americans accused.
The Milan prosecutor in charge of the case, Armando Spatero, defended his investigation, saying his original extradition request had been made to the previous Berlusconi government, before knowledge of the involvement of Italian secret service operatives in the kidnapping.
He also denies breaching any laws in gathering evidence: “The law allows the government to give a negative response, but not to fail to respond to the extradition request.”
In a barbed attack on the Prodi administration, Spatero added, “The silence of this government by now exceeds the length of silence of the previous government.”
Prodi has also faced censure from within his government. Infrastructure Minister Antonio Di Pietro—who gained his reputation as a prosecutor during the “Mani Pulite” (clean hands) investigations into widespread political corruption in the 1990s—criticised the absence of any official request for the extradition of the American agents.
Just before the Italian judiciary launched its case against the CIA agents for their illegal kidnapping of Abu Omar, the European Union parliament voted to accept a highly critical report into secret CIA flights in Europe used to carry alleged terror suspects to third countries where they could be tortured.
The report, drafted by the Temporary Committee on the alleged use of European countries by the CIA for illegal activities (TDIP), says there were “at least” 1,245 secret CIA flights in Europe between 2001 and 2005.
In preparing its report to the European Parliament, TDIP heard hours of testimony from victims of the renditions policy, their lawyers or representatives, and found that the majority of cases “involved incommunicado detention and torture” during interrogation. Hearings also quizzed senior EU officials and studied flight data from the EU air traffic agency.
The report meticulously documents the many stopovers inside the EU by CIA-operated planes as they transported so-called “terrorist suspects” into the hands of their torturers. These include:
* Germany—336 stopovers* United Kingdom—170* Ireland—147* Portugal—91* Spain—68* Greece—64* Cyprus—57* Italy—46
In voting to accept the report—382 for, with 256 against and 74 abstentions—the European Parliament explicitly rejected extraordinary renditions as “an illegal instrument used by the USA in the fight against terrorism.” Furthermore, the majority of MEPs condemned “the acceptance and concealing of the practice, on several occasions, by the secret services and governmental authorities of certain European countries.”
The report deplores the “passivity” of several member states, and notes that some of the secret detention facilities may have been located at US bases in Europe. Several governments refused to cooperate with its investigations or were evasive. These included Austria, Italy, Poland, Portugal and the UK.
Conservative MEPs derided the criticism of the US contained in the report as “anti-Americanism.” They said that the CIA should be free to operate secretly in Europe—“as long as they comply with the law”!
The report endorsed by the European Parliament demands the closure of Guantanamo and calls on European countries to “immediately seek the return of their citizens and residents who are being held illegally by US authorities.”
The European Parliament has no powers to hold member governments to account for their complicity in the CIA rendition flights. Regardless of any critical noises emanating from Brussels, European governments are uniformly stepping up their attacks on democratic rights across the continent.
The CIA
CIA DRUG TRAFFICKING
By David Guyatt
In April 1998, Celerino Castillo, a former top-level Drug Enforcement Agency operative, provided sensitive, first-hand testimony to the US Senate House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. He told the Senators of his direct personal knowledge of massive CIA complicity in the drug trade.
Castillo, one of the top DEA agents operating in Southern and Central America from 1984 to 1990, would later become the DEA's "Lead Agent" in war-torn El Salvador. Here, he came into daily contact with dozens of CIA "contract" employees and "assets" engaged in smuggling drugs from Columbia to the United States. Compiling a large dossier of evidence of these illegal activities, Castillo was frustrated by his bosses in Washington who refused to act. Castillo eventually decided he could not keep his silence on such a serious matter. His explosive book, Powerburns, is exclusively available from Mike Ruppert's website, www.copvcia.com
The CIA's involvement in the drug trade was to generate funds to pay for the Nicaraguan based Contras charged with toppling the leftist government of El Salvador. This followed Congress' refusal in 1982 to support the CIA backed Contra forces. Known as the "Boland amendment," after Senator Edward Boland - Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee - this piece of legislation pulled the plug on US financing for the war. The move forced CIA Director, Bill Casey, to find other shady means of finance. Responsibility for this was turned over to Colonel Oliver North of the National Security Council. The international network of free-wheeling money-hungry CIA operatives employed by Col. North would later be dubbed the "Enterprise."
North's drug trafficking activities remained mostly unreported for years, until a series of explosive articles were published in the San Jose Mercury News during August 1996. The newspaper, well regarded for its high standard of journalism, ran a three-day explosive series called The Dark Alliance. This alleged the explosion of crack cocaine use in Los Angeles during the 1980's, was caused by Nicaraguan drug barons closely connected to the Contra forces. More important was the implication that the CIA knowingly protected these individuals. The series, written by ace-reporter, Gary Webb, following a yearlong intensive investigation, caused shock-waves throughout the nation.
Denying the charges, the CIA set its own bevy of tame reporters against Webb and his newspaper. Inside a year, Webb's shaken editor retracted the story and threw the reporter to the wolves, saying he had all along been worried by Webb's lack of "corroboration." Conjuring up the bad days of Soviet media manipulation, Webb was sent to a small, back-woods office of the newspaper to be forgotten. Contemptuous of his treatment he resigned and went to work for the US Congress.
Over two years later, the CIA admitted the reporter had been accurate when it was forced to disclose it had a "secret" arrangement with the US Justice Department. This agreement ensured that drug traffickers deemed to be "assets" or "contract employees" of the CIA would not be charged. The agreement had it roots in 1954, when the Justice Department agreed that the CIA, were free to decide if any illegal activities of its agents were subject to prosecution.
If the Contra drug scandal had been the only time the CIA had been deeply entangled in narcotics trafficking, the Agency might have escaped with censure, but it wasn't. Even before the CIA was founded in 1947, its predecessor, the Office of Strategic Service (OSS) already had grimy hands. This arose from a private agreement between Allen Dulles, later to become Director of the CIA, and a group of Nazi SS thugs seeking to escape war crimes trials at the end of WW11. SS General Karl Wolff held a series of secret meetings with Dulles, who was then Swiss "Station Chief" for the OSS. The two men thrashed out an agreement - against the direct, written orders of President Roosevelt. This gave the SS group freedom from prosecution in return for agreeing to secretly work for American intelligence against the Russians in the cold war.
Since it was impossible for the OSS to fund this secret network, Dulles agreed the Nazi's would finance themselves from their vast stocks of Morphine, plundered gold and a mass of counterfeit British bank-notes. These were smuggled to Austria in the last days of the war and hidden. They were later sold on the black market and the proceeds used to finance the black SS-OSS network. The subterfuge was so successful that it would later become an irresistible method of underwriting "off-the-books" CIA black operations.
By the time the Vietnam War was in full swing, the CIA and its Vietnamese underlings were busily peddling huge amounts of Heroin from the Golden Triangle region of Southeast Asia. Historically, the French controlled the Opium trade in this part of the world. After WW11 it was agreed that members of the underworld would manage Opium smuggling on behalf of 2eme Bureau of French Military Intelligence. This was the top secret project known as Operation X, sanctioned at the highest levels. Raw opium was cultivated by the Hmong hill tribes and then trucked to Saigon. Here it was turned over to the Binh Xuyen bandits for distribution throughout the City. At this point, members of the Corsican underworld took their share of the drugs, shipping them to Marseilles and then to America. This smuggling route later became known as the "French Connection." Captain Savani of 2eme supervised the entire arrangement.
With the embarrassing defeat of the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, the French began to withdraw her forces from Indochina. This resulted in top CIA operative, Major General Edward Lansdale being sent to Saigon. A year earlier, during a fact finding mission to the region, Lansdale had learned of the existence of Operation X. There now ensued a power struggle between the remnants of 2eme, along with their Corsican gangsters and Lansdale's American team under the watchful eye of CIA director, Allen Dulles. Open battles were fought in the streets and Lansdale, more than once came close to death. However, the die had been cast. The French were "out" and the Americans were "in," and the Opium trade began to rapidly grow.
Years after the Vietnam War was over, the CIA remained the principal beneficiary of Heroin shipments from the Golden Triangle. This fact emerged during the latter part the 1980's by Colonel Bo Gritz. Possessing a truly remarkable daredevil record, Gritz is a legend in the Special Forces community. Sylvester Stallone modelled himself on Gritz in the gutsy Hollywood smash hit "First Blood."
During 1989, Gritz along with two others travelled to the wild and remote region of Shanland, located in Northern Burma. The Shan people live under the jurisdiction of warlord Khun Sa, whose 10,000 strong army run the Golden Triangle Opium business. The warlord told Gritz during a meeting that the government of America bought his entire annual Opium production totalling 900 tonnes in 1989 alone. Three years later, in 1992, production had leapt to 3,000 tonnes.
Astonished at these revelations, Gritz arranged to return for a second meeting with Khun Sa five months later. On this occasion, he videotaped the meeting with the wily warlord, who had agreed to name names. Khun Sa revealed that the US government official he dealt with was Richard Armitage, the US Assistant Secretary of Defence. Khun Sa said that Armitage, in turn, used the services of a "traffic manager," who he named on camera as Santos Trafficante - the notorious "Boss" of Florida's Mafia.
A decade earlier and thousands of miles away another strongman was laying the groundwork that would, one day, elevate him to the presidential palace. Amongst many other suspect attributes, Panama's Colonel Manuel Noriega, was on payroll and acknowledged as an "asset," of the CIA. In 1975, he was closely involved in Operation Watch-Tower, a CIA run series of missions. Watch-Tower was pure "black ops," dedicated to shipping massive quantities of Cocaine from Bogata, Columbia, to Panama and onward to the United States for distribution. Directed by the CIA's ace field agents, Edwin Wilson and Frank Terpil, the operation was also supported by Israel's secretive foreign intelligence service, Mossad.
Two Watch-Tower missions were commanded by Colonel Edward P. Cutolo, the commanding officer of 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne) stationed at Fort Devens, Massachusetts. In February and March 1976, Cutolo and his men secretly entered Columbia where they placed a series of three electronic aircraft beacons. These were designed to enable CIA piloted aircraft to safely navigate from Bogata, to Panama. Over a total of 51 days, 70 "high performance aircraft" flew along this route. All were crammed full of cocaine. Safely landing at Panama's Albrook Air Station, the aircraft discharged their loads into the care of then Colonel Manuel Noriega, the CIA's Edwin Wilson and Israeli Mossad operative, Michael Harari.
Wilson later told Colonel Cutolo that Watch-Tower had to remain secret as otherwise it would "undermine present government interests." He added, "there are similar operations being implemented elsewhere in the world" including the "Golden Triangle of Southeast Asia and Pakistan." The profits from the sale of narcotics, Wilson continued to explain "was laundered through a series of banks" in Panama, Switzerland and the United States. From there the funds usually found their way to those military forces fighting communism.
Cutolo later grew suspicious and began to investigate the background of these missions. Fearing for his life, he prepared and signed an affidavit intimately detailing the various missions he commanded. Cutolo was later murdered. Four other Special Forces senior officers, close friends of Cutolo, believed he had been killed because he was getting too close to those high-level government officials who authorised the Watch-Tower missions. Cutolo had been told that the CIA's Bill Casey and Robert Gates, as well as Vice President George Bush were implicated in these matters. All four officers commenced their own investigation. One by one they all died under mysterious circumstances.
Despite the end of the cold war and the global collapse of communism, the drug trade continues to grow and develop. This casts considerable doubt on the rationale that the CIA got its hands dirty in order to fight the peril of communist. In his book The Third Option, former CIA black operative Ted Shackley - one of those also "fingered" by the Golden Triangle warlord, Khun Sa, for his role in the narcotics business - argues that "low intensity" conflict will continue throughout the world for the foreseeable future. This, Shackley maintains, is because the military-industrial complex has a blueprint for survival that depends on warfare. Narcotics, it seems, is part of this equation.
Prof. Alfred W. McCoy
The standard textbook on the global narcotics traffic is Prof. Alfred McCoy's The Politics of Heroin - CIA Complicity in the Global Drugs Trade. As an undergraduate at Yale University, McCoy set off in 1971, to Southeast Asia to investigate the global heroin trade. He interviewed Hmong hill tribesmen in Laos, through to General Maurice Belleux, former Head of French Military Intelligence in Indochina, and numerous other intelligence operatives, too. McCoy gathered irrefutable evidence that implicated the CIA in the narcotics trade. He now speculates that the CIA and the American ruling class that control them, had no qualms about hooking untold numbers of American citizens on Heroin. The addict population, mostly black, Hispanic and the poorer classes, daily "strung-out" on drugs meant they weren't involved in domestic US politics, or worse, rioting against the status quo.
Laundering drug money
The huge volume of cash generated by the drugs trade amounts to well over one trillion dollars a year. Inevitably, this finds its way into the global banking system. As often as not, both major and minor banks are keen to accommodate this business because of the generous commissions they can earn. The most notorious of all was the London based Bank for Credit & Commerce International, which had exceptionally close links to the CIA. During the 1980's, together with numerous respectable banks, the BCCI targeted Panama - a centre for laundering cocaine profits. BCCI's Vice President, Alaudin Shaik told the Panama branch manager, Daniel Gonzalez "The Panama operation should do all it can to increase deposits." This, Shaik, added, "would mean bringing in cash deposits from drugs."
Col North and Iran-Contra drugs
The lead man in the covert Contra affair was former Marine Colonel, Oliver North. Testimony provided to the US Senate showed North knew drug money was a major factor in the supply of weapons to the Contra forces. Although most of his papers and diaries were shredded, North's notebook remained intact. Investigators found a number of entries of interest. One states "14M to finance came from drugs." This refers to $14 million earmarked for financing weapons for the Contra's. In another entry, North refers to a DC9 aircraft being used for weapons "runs" that is also "probably being used for drug runs into the US."
Pan Am 103 a drugs pipeline?
The downing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, had numerous drug connections, according to many investigators. The Pan Am flights out of Frankfurt were a regular pipeline for carrying drugs into America, using Samsonite suitcases. The DEA has typified these as "sting" operations. Others are not so sure. This writer has learned from a confidential but informed source that a number of Samsonite suitcases were purchased from a shop in Wilmslow. These were marked with discrete symbols assisting identification at a distance by baggage handlers at British, American and European airports. The suitcases, bought by a senior member of a major London based criminal gang, were to carry drugs. The gang had high level protection from British and American intelligence as well as certain senior police officers, it is alleged. Although a prolonged investigation into these matters was undertaken by British authorities, it was later covered-up.
By David Guyatt
In April 1998, Celerino Castillo, a former top-level Drug Enforcement Agency operative, provided sensitive, first-hand testimony to the US Senate House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. He told the Senators of his direct personal knowledge of massive CIA complicity in the drug trade.
Castillo, one of the top DEA agents operating in Southern and Central America from 1984 to 1990, would later become the DEA's "Lead Agent" in war-torn El Salvador. Here, he came into daily contact with dozens of CIA "contract" employees and "assets" engaged in smuggling drugs from Columbia to the United States. Compiling a large dossier of evidence of these illegal activities, Castillo was frustrated by his bosses in Washington who refused to act. Castillo eventually decided he could not keep his silence on such a serious matter. His explosive book, Powerburns, is exclusively available from Mike Ruppert's website, www.copvcia.com
The CIA's involvement in the drug trade was to generate funds to pay for the Nicaraguan based Contras charged with toppling the leftist government of El Salvador. This followed Congress' refusal in 1982 to support the CIA backed Contra forces. Known as the "Boland amendment," after Senator Edward Boland - Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee - this piece of legislation pulled the plug on US financing for the war. The move forced CIA Director, Bill Casey, to find other shady means of finance. Responsibility for this was turned over to Colonel Oliver North of the National Security Council. The international network of free-wheeling money-hungry CIA operatives employed by Col. North would later be dubbed the "Enterprise."
North's drug trafficking activities remained mostly unreported for years, until a series of explosive articles were published in the San Jose Mercury News during August 1996. The newspaper, well regarded for its high standard of journalism, ran a three-day explosive series called The Dark Alliance. This alleged the explosion of crack cocaine use in Los Angeles during the 1980's, was caused by Nicaraguan drug barons closely connected to the Contra forces. More important was the implication that the CIA knowingly protected these individuals. The series, written by ace-reporter, Gary Webb, following a yearlong intensive investigation, caused shock-waves throughout the nation.
Denying the charges, the CIA set its own bevy of tame reporters against Webb and his newspaper. Inside a year, Webb's shaken editor retracted the story and threw the reporter to the wolves, saying he had all along been worried by Webb's lack of "corroboration." Conjuring up the bad days of Soviet media manipulation, Webb was sent to a small, back-woods office of the newspaper to be forgotten. Contemptuous of his treatment he resigned and went to work for the US Congress.
Over two years later, the CIA admitted the reporter had been accurate when it was forced to disclose it had a "secret" arrangement with the US Justice Department. This agreement ensured that drug traffickers deemed to be "assets" or "contract employees" of the CIA would not be charged. The agreement had it roots in 1954, when the Justice Department agreed that the CIA, were free to decide if any illegal activities of its agents were subject to prosecution.
If the Contra drug scandal had been the only time the CIA had been deeply entangled in narcotics trafficking, the Agency might have escaped with censure, but it wasn't. Even before the CIA was founded in 1947, its predecessor, the Office of Strategic Service (OSS) already had grimy hands. This arose from a private agreement between Allen Dulles, later to become Director of the CIA, and a group of Nazi SS thugs seeking to escape war crimes trials at the end of WW11. SS General Karl Wolff held a series of secret meetings with Dulles, who was then Swiss "Station Chief" for the OSS. The two men thrashed out an agreement - against the direct, written orders of President Roosevelt. This gave the SS group freedom from prosecution in return for agreeing to secretly work for American intelligence against the Russians in the cold war.
Since it was impossible for the OSS to fund this secret network, Dulles agreed the Nazi's would finance themselves from their vast stocks of Morphine, plundered gold and a mass of counterfeit British bank-notes. These were smuggled to Austria in the last days of the war and hidden. They were later sold on the black market and the proceeds used to finance the black SS-OSS network. The subterfuge was so successful that it would later become an irresistible method of underwriting "off-the-books" CIA black operations.
By the time the Vietnam War was in full swing, the CIA and its Vietnamese underlings were busily peddling huge amounts of Heroin from the Golden Triangle region of Southeast Asia. Historically, the French controlled the Opium trade in this part of the world. After WW11 it was agreed that members of the underworld would manage Opium smuggling on behalf of 2eme Bureau of French Military Intelligence. This was the top secret project known as Operation X, sanctioned at the highest levels. Raw opium was cultivated by the Hmong hill tribes and then trucked to Saigon. Here it was turned over to the Binh Xuyen bandits for distribution throughout the City. At this point, members of the Corsican underworld took their share of the drugs, shipping them to Marseilles and then to America. This smuggling route later became known as the "French Connection." Captain Savani of 2eme supervised the entire arrangement.
With the embarrassing defeat of the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, the French began to withdraw her forces from Indochina. This resulted in top CIA operative, Major General Edward Lansdale being sent to Saigon. A year earlier, during a fact finding mission to the region, Lansdale had learned of the existence of Operation X. There now ensued a power struggle between the remnants of 2eme, along with their Corsican gangsters and Lansdale's American team under the watchful eye of CIA director, Allen Dulles. Open battles were fought in the streets and Lansdale, more than once came close to death. However, the die had been cast. The French were "out" and the Americans were "in," and the Opium trade began to rapidly grow.
Years after the Vietnam War was over, the CIA remained the principal beneficiary of Heroin shipments from the Golden Triangle. This fact emerged during the latter part the 1980's by Colonel Bo Gritz. Possessing a truly remarkable daredevil record, Gritz is a legend in the Special Forces community. Sylvester Stallone modelled himself on Gritz in the gutsy Hollywood smash hit "First Blood."
During 1989, Gritz along with two others travelled to the wild and remote region of Shanland, located in Northern Burma. The Shan people live under the jurisdiction of warlord Khun Sa, whose 10,000 strong army run the Golden Triangle Opium business. The warlord told Gritz during a meeting that the government of America bought his entire annual Opium production totalling 900 tonnes in 1989 alone. Three years later, in 1992, production had leapt to 3,000 tonnes.
Astonished at these revelations, Gritz arranged to return for a second meeting with Khun Sa five months later. On this occasion, he videotaped the meeting with the wily warlord, who had agreed to name names. Khun Sa revealed that the US government official he dealt with was Richard Armitage, the US Assistant Secretary of Defence. Khun Sa said that Armitage, in turn, used the services of a "traffic manager," who he named on camera as Santos Trafficante - the notorious "Boss" of Florida's Mafia.
A decade earlier and thousands of miles away another strongman was laying the groundwork that would, one day, elevate him to the presidential palace. Amongst many other suspect attributes, Panama's Colonel Manuel Noriega, was on payroll and acknowledged as an "asset," of the CIA. In 1975, he was closely involved in Operation Watch-Tower, a CIA run series of missions. Watch-Tower was pure "black ops," dedicated to shipping massive quantities of Cocaine from Bogata, Columbia, to Panama and onward to the United States for distribution. Directed by the CIA's ace field agents, Edwin Wilson and Frank Terpil, the operation was also supported by Israel's secretive foreign intelligence service, Mossad.
Two Watch-Tower missions were commanded by Colonel Edward P. Cutolo, the commanding officer of 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne) stationed at Fort Devens, Massachusetts. In February and March 1976, Cutolo and his men secretly entered Columbia where they placed a series of three electronic aircraft beacons. These were designed to enable CIA piloted aircraft to safely navigate from Bogata, to Panama. Over a total of 51 days, 70 "high performance aircraft" flew along this route. All were crammed full of cocaine. Safely landing at Panama's Albrook Air Station, the aircraft discharged their loads into the care of then Colonel Manuel Noriega, the CIA's Edwin Wilson and Israeli Mossad operative, Michael Harari.
Wilson later told Colonel Cutolo that Watch-Tower had to remain secret as otherwise it would "undermine present government interests." He added, "there are similar operations being implemented elsewhere in the world" including the "Golden Triangle of Southeast Asia and Pakistan." The profits from the sale of narcotics, Wilson continued to explain "was laundered through a series of banks" in Panama, Switzerland and the United States. From there the funds usually found their way to those military forces fighting communism.
Cutolo later grew suspicious and began to investigate the background of these missions. Fearing for his life, he prepared and signed an affidavit intimately detailing the various missions he commanded. Cutolo was later murdered. Four other Special Forces senior officers, close friends of Cutolo, believed he had been killed because he was getting too close to those high-level government officials who authorised the Watch-Tower missions. Cutolo had been told that the CIA's Bill Casey and Robert Gates, as well as Vice President George Bush were implicated in these matters. All four officers commenced their own investigation. One by one they all died under mysterious circumstances.
Despite the end of the cold war and the global collapse of communism, the drug trade continues to grow and develop. This casts considerable doubt on the rationale that the CIA got its hands dirty in order to fight the peril of communist. In his book The Third Option, former CIA black operative Ted Shackley - one of those also "fingered" by the Golden Triangle warlord, Khun Sa, for his role in the narcotics business - argues that "low intensity" conflict will continue throughout the world for the foreseeable future. This, Shackley maintains, is because the military-industrial complex has a blueprint for survival that depends on warfare. Narcotics, it seems, is part of this equation.
Prof. Alfred W. McCoy
The standard textbook on the global narcotics traffic is Prof. Alfred McCoy's The Politics of Heroin - CIA Complicity in the Global Drugs Trade. As an undergraduate at Yale University, McCoy set off in 1971, to Southeast Asia to investigate the global heroin trade. He interviewed Hmong hill tribesmen in Laos, through to General Maurice Belleux, former Head of French Military Intelligence in Indochina, and numerous other intelligence operatives, too. McCoy gathered irrefutable evidence that implicated the CIA in the narcotics trade. He now speculates that the CIA and the American ruling class that control them, had no qualms about hooking untold numbers of American citizens on Heroin. The addict population, mostly black, Hispanic and the poorer classes, daily "strung-out" on drugs meant they weren't involved in domestic US politics, or worse, rioting against the status quo.
Laundering drug money
The huge volume of cash generated by the drugs trade amounts to well over one trillion dollars a year. Inevitably, this finds its way into the global banking system. As often as not, both major and minor banks are keen to accommodate this business because of the generous commissions they can earn. The most notorious of all was the London based Bank for Credit & Commerce International, which had exceptionally close links to the CIA. During the 1980's, together with numerous respectable banks, the BCCI targeted Panama - a centre for laundering cocaine profits. BCCI's Vice President, Alaudin Shaik told the Panama branch manager, Daniel Gonzalez "The Panama operation should do all it can to increase deposits." This, Shaik, added, "would mean bringing in cash deposits from drugs."
Col North and Iran-Contra drugs
The lead man in the covert Contra affair was former Marine Colonel, Oliver North. Testimony provided to the US Senate showed North knew drug money was a major factor in the supply of weapons to the Contra forces. Although most of his papers and diaries were shredded, North's notebook remained intact. Investigators found a number of entries of interest. One states "14M to finance came from drugs." This refers to $14 million earmarked for financing weapons for the Contra's. In another entry, North refers to a DC9 aircraft being used for weapons "runs" that is also "probably being used for drug runs into the US."
Pan Am 103 a drugs pipeline?
The downing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, had numerous drug connections, according to many investigators. The Pan Am flights out of Frankfurt were a regular pipeline for carrying drugs into America, using Samsonite suitcases. The DEA has typified these as "sting" operations. Others are not so sure. This writer has learned from a confidential but informed source that a number of Samsonite suitcases were purchased from a shop in Wilmslow. These were marked with discrete symbols assisting identification at a distance by baggage handlers at British, American and European airports. The suitcases, bought by a senior member of a major London based criminal gang, were to carry drugs. The gang had high level protection from British and American intelligence as well as certain senior police officers, it is alleged. Although a prolonged investigation into these matters was undertaken by British authorities, it was later covered-up.
Oh My God
Sydney Morning HeraldThe United States presidential bodyguard is examining lyrics by rap star Eminem to see whether he had threatened George Bush.The Secret Service confirmed it was probing lyrics by the controversial artist, who says in a song: "I'd rather see the president dead."The words to the song, We As Americans have not been released by the award-winning rap artist and have been circulated on the internet.The lyrics are: "F**k money. I don't rap for dead presidents. I'd rather see the president dead. It's never been said, but I set precedents and the standards and they can't stand it... We as Americans. Us as a citizen. We've got to protect ourselves..." The Secret Service, charged with protecting the president, said it was looking into the song's lyrics.A spokesman said: "We are aware of the lyric and are in the process of determining what action, if any, will be taken."A spokesman for Oscar and Grammy award winner Eminem told CNN the song was not ready for release."This was an unfinished song, either lost or stolen," he said."There was no determination where, when, how or if it was going to be used."Eminem, from Detroit, came under fire recently after a tape was uncovered in which he condemned black women.The star said the words were "foolishness", and the result of a split with a black girlfriend.Meanwhile, his track, Lose Yourself, has been nominated for song and record of the year at the 46th annual Grammy Awards, which will be presented in Los Angeles in February.
Eminem and the president
Eminem could find himself the subject of a Secret Service investigation if a lyric from one of his songs is construed to be a threat against President George W. Bush.
In his song "We As Americans," Eminem rhymes, "F--- money/ I don't rap for dead presidents/ I'd rather see the president dead/ It's never been said, but I set precedents."
"We As Americans" is one of the songs leaked online last week that Eminem's spokespeople said were unfinished tracks not intended for public release (see "Eminem's Benzino Dis Turns Up In The Lab" ). His reps could not confirm when the track in question was recorded. However, elsewhere in the song, Eminem references the release of 50 Cent's Get Rich or Die Tryin', which occurred in the last year.
A person in the Secret Service Office of Public Affairs confirmed that they were aware of the song and were looking into the matter. John Gill, the official spokesperson for the Secret Service, was not immediately available for further comment.
Even though Eminem doesn't mention Bush or the president of the United States specifically, it is standard procedure for the Secret Service to investigate anything that might be considered a threat against the president.
In his song "We As Americans," Eminem rhymes, "F--- money/ I don't rap for dead presidents/ I'd rather see the president dead/ It's never been said, but I set precedents."
"We As Americans" is one of the songs leaked online last week that Eminem's spokespeople said were unfinished tracks not intended for public release (see "Eminem's Benzino Dis Turns Up In The Lab" ). His reps could not confirm when the track in question was recorded. However, elsewhere in the song, Eminem references the release of 50 Cent's Get Rich or Die Tryin', which occurred in the last year.
A person in the Secret Service Office of Public Affairs confirmed that they were aware of the song and were looking into the matter. John Gill, the official spokesperson for the Secret Service, was not immediately available for further comment.
Even though Eminem doesn't mention Bush or the president of the United States specifically, it is standard procedure for the Secret Service to investigate anything that might be considered a threat against the president.
Crackin' Visa
Credit Firms Push to Thwart Fraud
Summary: Responding to recent high-profile security breaches, MasterCard (MA) and Visa International are now cracking down on merchants who do not follow rules set in place to keep credit card transactions secure. MasterCard is already fining policy violators, and Visa is scheduled to start imposing fines this coming Saturday. Larger merchants are being targeted first, with smaller merchants targeted early next year. Concern has been growing about credit card security, especially regarding identity theft. Recently Citigroup (C) had to reissue thousands of credit and debit cards after it detected hundreds of offshore unauthorized cash withdrawals, and last year transaction processor CardSystems Solutions admitted that 40 million cards (whose transactions it processed) were at risk due to non compliant data storage procedures. Full WSJ article > Related links: For Credit Card Issuers, The Sky's the Limit When It Comes to Rewarding Customers • An In-Depth Look At MasterCard's IPO • BusinessWeek: Analyst says MasterCard premium too high • Wikipedia: Credit card fraud
Summary: Responding to recent high-profile security breaches, MasterCard (MA) and Visa International are now cracking down on merchants who do not follow rules set in place to keep credit card transactions secure. MasterCard is already fining policy violators, and Visa is scheduled to start imposing fines this coming Saturday. Larger merchants are being targeted first, with smaller merchants targeted early next year. Concern has been growing about credit card security, especially regarding identity theft. Recently Citigroup (C) had to reissue thousands of credit and debit cards after it detected hundreds of offshore unauthorized cash withdrawals, and last year transaction processor CardSystems Solutions admitted that 40 million cards (whose transactions it processed) were at risk due to non compliant data storage procedures. Full WSJ article > Related links: For Credit Card Issuers, The Sky's the Limit When It Comes to Rewarding Customers • An In-Depth Look At MasterCard's IPO • BusinessWeek: Analyst says MasterCard premium too high • Wikipedia: Credit card fraud
Another senate candidate
Senate candidate's remark criticized
Tom Musbach, Gay.com / PlanetOut.com Network
TODO More by Tom Musbach
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published Thursday, October 31, 2002
A Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate made a disparaging reference to gay men during a televised debate last Friday that drew criticism this week from otherwise supportive gay Democrats.
The comment came during a discussion of which South Carolina candidate -- Republican U.S. Rep. Lindsey Graham or Democrat Alex Sanders -- had more liberal friends and associates. Sanders noted that one of Graham's endorsements came from former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who is "ultra-liberal."
"His wife kicked him out and he moved in with two gay men and a Shih Tzu," Sanders continued. "Is that South Carolina values? I don't think so." (Guiliani did live with a gay couple for a while after separating from his wife.)
After hearing about the debate, Chad Johnson, the executive director of the National Stonewall Democrats, contacted Sanders' campaign manager and called the comment "unacceptable." He also asked for an apology and an affirmative letter from Sanders detailing his support of GLBT issues.
Johnson said he's received a promise that such a letter is forthcoming.
U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, an openly gay Democrat from Massachusetts, criticized Sanders in a statement on Thursday.
"Mr. Sanders' pronouncement that it violates South Carolina values to accept an offer of hospitality from a gay couple is a bigoted comment that reflects poorly on Mr. Sanders, not Rudy Giuliani," Frank said.
"I understand Barney Frank's position and respect it," Johnson said, adding that Sanders is still the better candidate to replace outgoing conservative Sen. Strom Thurmond.
"We got a variety of assurances that if elected to the Senate, Sanders will be a strong advocate of gay and lesbian civil rights issues," Johnson told the Gay.com / PlanetOut.com Network.
Sanders' opponent, Rep. Graham, recently received a 0 out of a possible 100 rating in a Human Rights Campaign evaluation of congressional support for GLBT civil rights.
"Graham is never with us on our issues," Johnson said. "We certainly do not want him to be elected to higher office."
This is the second time in recent weeks where a Democratic Senate candidate's campaign ran afoul of GLBT political supporters. In Montana, GOP candidate Mike Taylor resigned because he said a Democratic Party ad for incumbent Sen. Max Baucus suggested he was gay. The ad, which played on a male hairdresser stereotype, was denounced by most major gay (and non-gay) political organizations. Taylor re-entered the race nearly two weeks later.
Tom Musbach, Gay.com / PlanetOut.com Network
TODO More by Tom Musbach
-->
published Thursday, October 31, 2002
A Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate made a disparaging reference to gay men during a televised debate last Friday that drew criticism this week from otherwise supportive gay Democrats.
The comment came during a discussion of which South Carolina candidate -- Republican U.S. Rep. Lindsey Graham or Democrat Alex Sanders -- had more liberal friends and associates. Sanders noted that one of Graham's endorsements came from former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who is "ultra-liberal."
"His wife kicked him out and he moved in with two gay men and a Shih Tzu," Sanders continued. "Is that South Carolina values? I don't think so." (Guiliani did live with a gay couple for a while after separating from his wife.)
After hearing about the debate, Chad Johnson, the executive director of the National Stonewall Democrats, contacted Sanders' campaign manager and called the comment "unacceptable." He also asked for an apology and an affirmative letter from Sanders detailing his support of GLBT issues.
Johnson said he's received a promise that such a letter is forthcoming.
U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, an openly gay Democrat from Massachusetts, criticized Sanders in a statement on Thursday.
"Mr. Sanders' pronouncement that it violates South Carolina values to accept an offer of hospitality from a gay couple is a bigoted comment that reflects poorly on Mr. Sanders, not Rudy Giuliani," Frank said.
"I understand Barney Frank's position and respect it," Johnson said, adding that Sanders is still the better candidate to replace outgoing conservative Sen. Strom Thurmond.
"We got a variety of assurances that if elected to the Senate, Sanders will be a strong advocate of gay and lesbian civil rights issues," Johnson told the Gay.com / PlanetOut.com Network.
Sanders' opponent, Rep. Graham, recently received a 0 out of a possible 100 rating in a Human Rights Campaign evaluation of congressional support for GLBT civil rights.
"Graham is never with us on our issues," Johnson said. "We certainly do not want him to be elected to higher office."
This is the second time in recent weeks where a Democratic Senate candidate's campaign ran afoul of GLBT political supporters. In Montana, GOP candidate Mike Taylor resigned because he said a Democratic Party ad for incumbent Sen. Max Baucus suggested he was gay. The ad, which played on a male hairdresser stereotype, was denounced by most major gay (and non-gay) political organizations. Taylor re-entered the race nearly two weeks later.
Gay Men about syphyllis
Syphilis rises in U.S.; gay men cited
Randy Dotinga, Gay.com / PlanetOut.com Network
TODO More by Randy Dotinga
-->
published Thursday, October 31, 2002
American health officials hoped to finally conquer syphilis during this decade. But federal statistics released today show that cases of the sexually transmitted disease are rising for the first time since 1990, apparently because of a growing outbreak among gay men.
The number of reported syphilis cases in the United States grew to 6,103 cases in 2001, an increase of 2.1 percent over the previous year, the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention reported. The numbers may actually be higher because some doctors don't notify the government about their patients with the disease.
The syphilis rate among the general population remains extremely low, but gay men appear to be at special risk, even though nobody tracks the sexual orientation of patients on a national level.
Cases among women are dropping while they are rising among men, and there have been outbreaks of syphilis among gay men in Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, New York City, San Francisco and Seattle.
In San Francisco alone, the number of syphilis cases is expected to grow to 500 this year from just 10 in 1998, said Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, director of STD Prevention & Control Services for the city's Department of Public Health.
While doctors can usually knock out syphilis with an antibiotic like penicillin, the disease can cause a variety of problems even in otherwise healthy people, Klausner said. Ten people in the city have suffered from serious visual and hearing loss because of the disease.
"It can be a serious infection with complications for some people," Klausner said. "We can't predict who those people are going to be, so it's important to prevent it and treat early."
The most common initial symptom is a painless sore or ulcer in the mouth, on the penis or around the anus, Klausner said. "It's painless and goes away after a week, so most people don't think it's syphilis."
Four to six weeks later, infected people will develop a rash along with other symptoms like fatigue, weakness and swollen glands. "Many people think that's the flu," he said.
Symptoms can disappear for years or even decades, but the disease often lies in wait and creates problems in the bones, the blood vessels or the brain, he said.
Among gay men, syphilis can be transmitted through both anal and oral sex. "We've seen people with ulcers on their tongue, on their lip, inside of their mouth," Klausner said. "Oral sex can definitely transmit it."
Randy Dotinga, Gay.com / PlanetOut.com Network
TODO More by Randy Dotinga
-->
published Thursday, October 31, 2002
American health officials hoped to finally conquer syphilis during this decade. But federal statistics released today show that cases of the sexually transmitted disease are rising for the first time since 1990, apparently because of a growing outbreak among gay men.
The number of reported syphilis cases in the United States grew to 6,103 cases in 2001, an increase of 2.1 percent over the previous year, the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention reported. The numbers may actually be higher because some doctors don't notify the government about their patients with the disease.
The syphilis rate among the general population remains extremely low, but gay men appear to be at special risk, even though nobody tracks the sexual orientation of patients on a national level.
Cases among women are dropping while they are rising among men, and there have been outbreaks of syphilis among gay men in Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, New York City, San Francisco and Seattle.
In San Francisco alone, the number of syphilis cases is expected to grow to 500 this year from just 10 in 1998, said Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, director of STD Prevention & Control Services for the city's Department of Public Health.
While doctors can usually knock out syphilis with an antibiotic like penicillin, the disease can cause a variety of problems even in otherwise healthy people, Klausner said. Ten people in the city have suffered from serious visual and hearing loss because of the disease.
"It can be a serious infection with complications for some people," Klausner said. "We can't predict who those people are going to be, so it's important to prevent it and treat early."
The most common initial symptom is a painless sore or ulcer in the mouth, on the penis or around the anus, Klausner said. "It's painless and goes away after a week, so most people don't think it's syphilis."
Four to six weeks later, infected people will develop a rash along with other symptoms like fatigue, weakness and swollen glands. "Many people think that's the flu," he said.
Symptoms can disappear for years or even decades, but the disease often lies in wait and creates problems in the bones, the blood vessels or the brain, he said.
Among gay men, syphilis can be transmitted through both anal and oral sex. "We've seen people with ulcers on their tongue, on their lip, inside of their mouth," Klausner said. "Oral sex can definitely transmit it."
Aids Scandal in Japan
[edit] "AIDS Year One"
On January 17, 1987, Japan's AIDS Surveillance Committee reported that "for the first time" a Japanese woman had contracted AIDS. Described as a "habitual prostitute," the woman had reportedly had sexual intercourse with "a hundred men," including "non-Japanese," and had lived in Kobe with a "non-Japanese" sailor from whom the Committee concluded she had contracted HIV. On January 18, Shiokawa Yuichi, chair of the government commission in charge of AIDS policy, announced that the disease was now a threat to "ordinary people living ordinary lives." He proclaimed 1987 Japan's "AIDS Year One" [Treat].
Kobe exploded in panic. Thousands of people went in for testing and visited health centres, and "armies of reporters" tracked the woman down like a "criminal," publishing her photograph, real name, and address in newspapers. Much later it was admitted, after the woman's family filed a lawsuit, that she had never been a prostitute [Ikeda].
AIDS was seen as a foreign disease; some began to refer to it as a kurobune, literally a "black ship," a reference to the American invasion by Commodore Matthew Perry in 1853. "No Foreigners Allowed" signs began to appear at businesses throughout Japan; Japanese people were warned not to have sex with foreigners and to be wary of those who had. A government-produced pamphlet showed an image of the Statue of Liberty holding a book on AIDS and towering over a trembling Mount Fuji. Hospitals began advertising that they had no HIV-positive patients, and the Diet introduced a bill to ban HIV-positive foreigners from entering Japan. [Treat].
[edit] The tainted blood scandal exposed
In May and October of 1989, HIV-infected haemophiliacs in Osaka and Tokyo filed lawsuits against the Ministry of Health and Welfare and five Japanese drug companies. In 1994 two charges of attempted murder were filed against Dr. Abe Takeshi, who had headed the Health Ministry's AIDS research team in 1983; he was found not guilty in 2005. Abe resigned as vice-president of Teikyo University.
In January of 1996, Kan Naoto was appointed Health Minister. He assembled a team to investigate the scandal, and within a month nine files of documents related to the scandal were uncovered, despite the Ministry of Health's claims that no such documents existed. As Minster, Kan promptly admitted the Ministry's legal responsibility and formally apologised to the plaintiffs.
The reports uncovered by Kan's team revealed that, after the report about the possibility of contamination, untreated blood products were recalled by the Japanese importer. However, when the importer tried to present a report to the Ministry of Health, it was told that such a report was unnecessary. The Ministry claimed that there was a "lack of evidence pointing to links between infection with HIV and the use of unheated blood products." According to one official, "we could not make public a fact that could fan anxieties among patients" [J.E.N].
According to the files, the Ministry of Health had recommended, in 1983, that the import of untreated blood and blood products be banned, and that emergency imports of heat-treated products be allowed. A week later, however, this recommendation was withdrawn because it would "deal a blow" to Japan's marketers of untreated blood products [Updike].
In 1983 Japan imported 3.14 million litres of blood plasma from the US to produce its own blood products, as well as 46 million units of prepared blood products. These imported blood products were said to pose no risk of HIV infection, and were used in Japan until 1986. Heat-treated products had been on sale since 1985, but there was neither a recall of remaining products nor a warning about the risks of using untreated products. As a result, untreated blood preparations stored at hospitals and in patients' home refrigerators were used up; there have been cases reported in which individuals were diagnosed with haemophilia for the first time between 1985 and 1986, began treatment, and were subsequently infected with HIV, even though it was known that HIV could be transmitted in untreated blood preparations, and treated products had become available and were in use at that time.
As early as 1984, several Japanese haemophiliacs were discovered to have been infected with HIV through the use of untreated blood preparations; this fact was concealed from the public. The patients themselves continued to receive "intentional propaganda" which downplayed the risks of contracting HIV from blood products, assured their safety, and promoted their use. Of some 4500 haemophiliacs in Japan, an estimated 2000 contracted HIV in the 1980s from untreated blood preparations [J.E.N].
[edit] Charges
Matsushita Renzo, former head of the Ministry of Health and Welfare's Pharmaceutical Affairs Bureau, and two of his colleagues, were found guilty of professional negligence resulting in death. Matsushita was sentenced to two years in jail. A murder charge was also brought against him. Matsushita, who after retirement became president of Green Cross, is one of at least nine former Ministry of Health bureaucrats who have retired to executive positions in Japan's blood industry since the 1980s (see ama kudari).
[edit] Sources
"AIDS," in Encyclopaedia Britannica Online
Feldman, Eric A., and Ronald Bayer, eds, Blood Feuds: AIDS, Blood, and the Politics of Medical Disaster," New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Leflar, Robert B. "Cancer, AIDS and the Medical Information Fulcrum," in Japan Quarterly vol. 44. April-June 1997.
Miyamoto, Masao. "Castration, the HIV Scandal." Speech. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Cambridge, Mass: April 10, 1996.
Treat, John Whittier. Great Mirrors Shattered: Homosexuality, Orientalism, and Japan. New York, New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Ikeda, Eriko. Society and AIDS, in Japan Quarterly vol. 42. January-March 1995.
"Japan Sent Back HIV-Tainted Blood Products to US in '83," in Japan Economic Newswire February 8, 1996.
Updike, Edith Hill. "Anatomy of a Tragedy: An AIDS Scandal Shakes Up Japan, Inc.," in Business Week, March 11, 1996.
On January 17, 1987, Japan's AIDS Surveillance Committee reported that "for the first time" a Japanese woman had contracted AIDS. Described as a "habitual prostitute," the woman had reportedly had sexual intercourse with "a hundred men," including "non-Japanese," and had lived in Kobe with a "non-Japanese" sailor from whom the Committee concluded she had contracted HIV. On January 18, Shiokawa Yuichi, chair of the government commission in charge of AIDS policy, announced that the disease was now a threat to "ordinary people living ordinary lives." He proclaimed 1987 Japan's "AIDS Year One" [Treat].
Kobe exploded in panic. Thousands of people went in for testing and visited health centres, and "armies of reporters" tracked the woman down like a "criminal," publishing her photograph, real name, and address in newspapers. Much later it was admitted, after the woman's family filed a lawsuit, that she had never been a prostitute [Ikeda].
AIDS was seen as a foreign disease; some began to refer to it as a kurobune, literally a "black ship," a reference to the American invasion by Commodore Matthew Perry in 1853. "No Foreigners Allowed" signs began to appear at businesses throughout Japan; Japanese people were warned not to have sex with foreigners and to be wary of those who had. A government-produced pamphlet showed an image of the Statue of Liberty holding a book on AIDS and towering over a trembling Mount Fuji. Hospitals began advertising that they had no HIV-positive patients, and the Diet introduced a bill to ban HIV-positive foreigners from entering Japan. [Treat].
[edit] The tainted blood scandal exposed
In May and October of 1989, HIV-infected haemophiliacs in Osaka and Tokyo filed lawsuits against the Ministry of Health and Welfare and five Japanese drug companies. In 1994 two charges of attempted murder were filed against Dr. Abe Takeshi, who had headed the Health Ministry's AIDS research team in 1983; he was found not guilty in 2005. Abe resigned as vice-president of Teikyo University.
In January of 1996, Kan Naoto was appointed Health Minister. He assembled a team to investigate the scandal, and within a month nine files of documents related to the scandal were uncovered, despite the Ministry of Health's claims that no such documents existed. As Minster, Kan promptly admitted the Ministry's legal responsibility and formally apologised to the plaintiffs.
The reports uncovered by Kan's team revealed that, after the report about the possibility of contamination, untreated blood products were recalled by the Japanese importer. However, when the importer tried to present a report to the Ministry of Health, it was told that such a report was unnecessary. The Ministry claimed that there was a "lack of evidence pointing to links between infection with HIV and the use of unheated blood products." According to one official, "we could not make public a fact that could fan anxieties among patients" [J.E.N].
According to the files, the Ministry of Health had recommended, in 1983, that the import of untreated blood and blood products be banned, and that emergency imports of heat-treated products be allowed. A week later, however, this recommendation was withdrawn because it would "deal a blow" to Japan's marketers of untreated blood products [Updike].
In 1983 Japan imported 3.14 million litres of blood plasma from the US to produce its own blood products, as well as 46 million units of prepared blood products. These imported blood products were said to pose no risk of HIV infection, and were used in Japan until 1986. Heat-treated products had been on sale since 1985, but there was neither a recall of remaining products nor a warning about the risks of using untreated products. As a result, untreated blood preparations stored at hospitals and in patients' home refrigerators were used up; there have been cases reported in which individuals were diagnosed with haemophilia for the first time between 1985 and 1986, began treatment, and were subsequently infected with HIV, even though it was known that HIV could be transmitted in untreated blood preparations, and treated products had become available and were in use at that time.
As early as 1984, several Japanese haemophiliacs were discovered to have been infected with HIV through the use of untreated blood preparations; this fact was concealed from the public. The patients themselves continued to receive "intentional propaganda" which downplayed the risks of contracting HIV from blood products, assured their safety, and promoted their use. Of some 4500 haemophiliacs in Japan, an estimated 2000 contracted HIV in the 1980s from untreated blood preparations [J.E.N].
[edit] Charges
Matsushita Renzo, former head of the Ministry of Health and Welfare's Pharmaceutical Affairs Bureau, and two of his colleagues, were found guilty of professional negligence resulting in death. Matsushita was sentenced to two years in jail. A murder charge was also brought against him. Matsushita, who after retirement became president of Green Cross, is one of at least nine former Ministry of Health bureaucrats who have retired to executive positions in Japan's blood industry since the 1980s (see ama kudari).
[edit] Sources
"AIDS," in Encyclopaedia Britannica Online
Feldman, Eric A., and Ronald Bayer, eds, Blood Feuds: AIDS, Blood, and the Politics of Medical Disaster," New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Leflar, Robert B. "Cancer, AIDS and the Medical Information Fulcrum," in Japan Quarterly vol. 44. April-June 1997.
Miyamoto, Masao. "Castration, the HIV Scandal." Speech. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Cambridge, Mass: April 10, 1996.
Treat, John Whittier. Great Mirrors Shattered: Homosexuality, Orientalism, and Japan. New York, New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Ikeda, Eriko. Society and AIDS, in Japan Quarterly vol. 42. January-March 1995.
"Japan Sent Back HIV-Tainted Blood Products to US in '83," in Japan Economic Newswire February 8, 1996.
Updike, Edith Hill. "Anatomy of a Tragedy: An AIDS Scandal Shakes Up Japan, Inc.," in Business Week, March 11, 1996.
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