The politics of greed is what keeps this world wrapped in corruption. If you want to stick around for a while longer, I suggest you educate yourself and try to do something constructive to help save what little good, honesty, and trust we have left.

A motto for us old vets: Take one with you!

Use your Go Back and Go Forward commands to get to where you were in a previous file.

Go to Home

Highest Go To numbers are the latest Links.

Go to 7992
http://www.etherzone.com/2005/lang051205.shtml
AN ACT OF WAR
9-11
By: Ted Lang

It has been termed a "terrorist act," and unquestionably, it was. What is questionable, however, is its having been a possible act of treason, even if prescience and the resultant failure to act upon such foreknowledge may be better described as a product of general incompetence, readily and consistently attributable to government. But what the "terrorist acts" of September 11, 2001 are beginning to emerge as, are a series of prearranged events, planned and executed at the highest levels of government within the Bush administration.

Before the articles and events providing the most recent evidence can be assembled to logically provide the circumstantial tie-ins that are so vital in making such an "astonishingly absurd accusation," a trip back through history might prove valuable in analyzing similar events.

President Abraham Lincoln tricked the Confederacy into firing the first shot at Fort Sumter launching the deadly, so-called American "Civil War." We now know that the War of Northern Aggression against the Southern States was in violation of the very compact and agreement signed by the states that created the federal union. Their expressed right to withdraw from this union was guaranteed by Amendments 9 and 10 of the Bill of Rights, which was objected to by Lincoln and his Whig-Republicans. The Republicans had saddled the South with a ruthless and economically strangling tariff.

But to win support from the public and the Northern newspapers, Lincoln sent fortifications and supplies to Fort Sumter knowing that the South had no choice but to fire on the Northern military expedition because of the armed invasion in violation of the borders of the formerly sovereign State of South Carolina. Lincoln, in effect, purposely sacrificed the lives of over 600,000 of his own fellow Americans in that totally unnecessary war.

Consider the Lusitania. Winston Churchill, "‘ …was ready to break the rules whenever the very existence of his country was at stake…’" wrote Professor Ralph Raico quoting a German historian in his five-part essay on Churchill included in the book, The Costs of War by John V. Denson. The German historian related also that Churchill was always able to manufacture the necessary crisis.

Raico points out that Churchill masterminded a blockade of Germany after the outbreak of World War I. "The hunger blockade had certain rather unpleasant consequences. About 750,000 German civilians succumbed to hunger and diseases caused by malnutrition. The effect on those who survived was perhaps just as frightful in its own way. A historian of the blockade concluded: ‘the victimized youth [of World War I] were to become the most radical adherents of National Socialism.’ It was also complications arising from the British blockade that eventually provided the pretext for Wilson's decision to go to war in 1917."

Raico considers, "Whether Churchill actually arranged for the sinking of the Lusitania on May 7, 1915, is still unclear. A week before the disaster, he wrote to Walter Runciman, President of the Board of Trade that it was ‘most important to attract neutral shipping to our shores, in the hopes especially of embroiling the United States with Germany.’ Many highly-placed persons in Britain and America believed that the German sinking of the Lusitania would bring the United States into the war."

Raico goes on: "The most recent student of the subject is Patrick Beesly, whose Room 40 is a history of British Naval Intelligence in World War I. Beesly’s careful account is all the more persuasive for going against the grain of his own sentiments. He points out that the British Admiralty was aware that German U-boat Command had informed U-boat captains at sea of the sailings of the Lusitania, and that the U-boat responsible for the sinking of two ships in recent days was present in the vicinity of Queenstown, off the southern coast of Ireland, in the path the Lusitania was scheduled to take.

There is no surviving record of any specific warning to the Lusitania. No destroyer escort was sent to accompany the ship to port, nor were any of the readily available destroyers instructed to hunt for the submarine. In fact, ‘no effective steps were taken to protect the Lusitania.’ Beesly concludes: ‘Unless and until fresh information comes to light, I am reluctantly driven to the conclusion that there was a conspiracy deliberately to put the Lusitania at risk in the hope that even an abortive attack on her would bring the United States into the war. Such a conspiracy could not have been put into effect without Winston Churchill’s express permission and approval. In any case, what is certain is that Churchill’s policies made the sinking very likely.’"

The Germans had guessed right: the Lusitania sank after only one torpedo, and the ammunition and explosives that were aboard exploded with such force that the ship rolled over and sank. It was gone in eighteen minutes! Churchill slaughtered 1,170 of his own people and 128 Americans to force America into World War I.

Then there is Pearl Harbor. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a staunch communist sympathizer, as was Churchill, tried to provoke naval hostilities with Nazi Germany in the North Atlantic. Frequent encounters took place, with the American Navy always firing upon the Germans without any provocation. The Germans did not return fire because of Hitler’s implicit instructions to Admiral Erich Raeder not to engage the provocateurs. Obviously, this drove the "war lover," Churchill, as well as FDR, nuts. So FDR focused on the Pacific and Japan.

As was the case with Germany in World War I, and probably a Churchill idea as well, FDR decided to turn on the Japanese by initiating an embargo of war materials and supplies against Japan, and also by threatening a blockade of Japanese shipping that trafficked in Dutch petroleum siphoned off by the Japanese Imperial Army after their conquest of China, Korea and Burma. Japan needed the oil [similar to the primary reason for the Bush invasion of Iraq] to feed its imperial war machine. To enforce his threat, FDR ordered the fleet to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Repeatedly, the high-ranking Army and Navy brass at Pearl warned Roosevelt that the base was totally unprotected from air attack and very vulnerable. Roosevelt replaced the officer in charge of the fleet.

Immediately preceding the "sneak attack" and after US military intelligence had just broken the Japanese code, a desperate message from Tokyo to Berlin was intercepted. The Japanese government was pleading with its embassy in Berlin to get Hitler [Ribbentrop] to sign a mutual protection treaty immediately. There was more than ample indication to US military intelligence that the Japanese fleet was already underway to attack our fleet; and there is no question whatsoever that FDR knew it!

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt deliberately, and with malice of forethought, allowed over 2,400 Americans, mostly American Service men and women, to perish in that easily preventable American Holocaust. He did it to enrage the American people and the Congress to justify his and Churchill’s war to protect communism by helping to destroy Nazism.

Look at the death tolls. Look at the wars and the outrageous destruction. Look at the cost in lives and wealth; and all because politicians use war and death to their advantage. Never is there the slightest concern echoing the West Point creed: "Duty, Honor and Country." This moral badge of courage is reserved for the youth who are duped by the immoral code of corrupt, evil, and completely immoral politicians.

Considering the foregoing, is it really all that difficult to conjure up a scenario of conspiracy against US by our own government? Even if conspiratorial pretexts where identified as such at the time of their original commission, would the people really have believed such "astonishingly absurd accusations?" It’s doubtful! And what of the common denominator influence of the non-investigative and complicit Zionist press – would such truths ever really come out? Isn’t the so-called "American" media covering up even now for "Uncle Joe" [Stalin] and FDR? Aren’t Walter Duranty’s photo and 1932 Pulitzer Prize for his creative writing, in deliberately covering up the mass starvation murders by Stalin, still hanging in the lobby of The New York Times building even now as you are reading this?

Politicians kill people, even their fellow citizens, to score political points with moneyed interests that can and do enrich them! Why should any number of deaths and extensive property damage and misery stand in their way? Don’t be so dammed sentimental – shut up and wave your little flags! And don’t forget to support our troops!

Let US now consider the farcical so-called "9-11 Commission." As Internet investigative journalist Tom Flocco pointed out, a connection between 9-11 Commission Chairman Thomas Kean and Osama bin Laden’s brother-in-law had been established involving their mutual oil interests. This was an obvious conflict of interest, but the media spiked it.

The Commission never identified the perpetrators conclusively, never addressed Building 7 that "collapsed" because of small fires on two widely separated floors of that building, and never fully looked into or explained why our skies were so totally unprotected for over one hour, offering only that it was human error. They never really addressed the "stand down" circumstances wherein both civilian and military radar surveillance was suspended.

And now, irrefutable concrete evidence and photographs prove beyond any shadow of doubt that the Bush administration planned, plotted and carried out successfully the slaughter of over 3,000 of our fellow citizens on September 11, 2001! And as usual, the research, pioneering journalism, as well as the courage to stand up to our cruel, dangerous, and astonishingly EVIL EMPIRE, originated with Jeff Rense and other Internet journalism pioneers!

Rense.com has not only provided actual photographs of one of the engines from a Boeing 737, NOT a 767 as offered by "our" government, but has reinforced that photographic evidence with a realistic explanation from a government-trained aviation expert. COL. George Nelson (ret) graphically and in detail explains that aircraft parts, all of them, are identified by serial numbers that are then tied into the main serial number of the aircraft itself. And the photo of the engine shows, when compared to the downed "Murray Street" sign, and with a carpenter’s square inserted in the compressor fan area, that it is a small jet engine, which could never have come from a large Boeing 767 airliner.

The aircraft identification system and its logic are carefully explained by Nelson. Obviously, the FBI confiscated this indestructible and damaging important piece of evidence – but they cannot "disappear" the ID system, its logic or that horrifically incriminating and damaging photograph! And corroborating the photographic evidence and Nelson’s expert input are eyewitness accounts and recorded testimony and videotapes from CNN. And of course, even these corroborating observations and testimony are carried on Rense.com!

Perhaps there are those who believe Mr. Rense has an agenda other than merely honest journalism along with the noble intent of simply informing the general public. Karl Schwarz, a former highly-postured Republican Party operative and insider, offers his support as well to this "astonishingly absurd accusation." In an article posted by AmericanFreePress.net by Greg Szymanski entitled, "One-Time GOP Insider Claims He Has Sept. 11 ‘Smoking Gun,’" Szymanski begins: "A former Republican Party insider turned Bush basher thinks he has stumbled across what might be the ‘smoking gun,’ proving the U.S. government’s official story about the WTC attacks as an ‘unequivocal lie.’"

Szymanski writes, "Karl Schwarz of Little Rock, Ark., who several years ago began exposing corruption amongst the neo-conservative movement in a book entitled A One-Way Ticket to Crawford, Texas, now has set his sights on proving government complicity in 9-11."

Szymanski continues, "For years, the successful business entrepreneur and conservative Republican, once asked by the RNC to run against Bill Clinton for Arkansas governor, has been using his inside political and business clout to expose corruption among the neo-cons in the Bush administration. He strayed away from the Bush agenda two years after being one of the lead orchestrators in the Republican Party takeover of Congress during the Clinton administration."

Szymanski reveals further, "After his political reawakening, Schwarz began blasting the neo-cons where it hurt most—in their pocketbooks—coming forward with evidence regarding oil deals and government involvement with the Taliban and Pakistan. In his book and his ongoing seven-part series of articles entitled ‘Pop Goes the Bush Mythology Bubble,’ he provides inside information about countless financial scams, essentially revealing that the Bush motive behind the Middle East invasion was more about oil profits than the war on terrorism."

The article goes on to point out that Schwarz is so disenchanted with Bush and Republicans, that Schwarz believes that Bush and his "neoconservatives" are destroying America for their own corporate-global benefits. Szymanski writes, "Schwarz doesn’t mince words and is calling for the impeachment of Bush, as well as the removal of any member of Congress who aids and abets the corrupt powers."

The "smoking gun" referred to in the article is a segment of video tape with a running length of one minute and 52 seconds that was originated by an amateur photographer. The video unmistakably shows the WTC being hit by a Boeing 737. This information corroborates the CNN evidence pointing to a Boeing 737 striking the building, and not a Boeing 767 as is the government’s version. Combined with the photo evidence on Rense, the only reason for the deliberate falsification by our government of the facts is to prevent any chain of inquiry ever arising from the total impossibility of a 737 bringing down either former World Trade tower.

Szymanski quotes Schwarz: "‘This segment, however, conclusively shows a 737 hit the south tower, not a 767 as previously reported. This in itself should be the smoking gun, which proves the whole story given to us by the government about 9-11 is untrue.’ Originally, the government claimed the second jetliner en route to Los Angeles was a Boeing 767. However, Schwarz said the video will not only show the airline dimensions to be those of a 737, but that he also has evidence that the engine recovered in the WTC wreckage was a model type CFM56, which propels a 737, not a 767. ‘Not even two CFM56’s could get a 767 off the ground,’ added Schwartz."

Basing his arguments on common sense versus the lies, falsehoods and misinformation provided by the Bush administration, as well as their totally senseless and sophomoric explanations, Professor David Ray Griffin, speaking at a gathering at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and recorded and broadcast on C-Span 2 on April 28th, begins by explaining the three proponents of his speech: 9-11, American Empire and religious people. He exposes the fantastic contradictions and omissions of the 9-11 Commission, leading to the obvious conclusion that the Commission was called into existence only for the purpose of covering up the Bush administration’s heinous crimes against its own people.

Professor Griffin calmly and purposely delivers a low key, factually correct and irrefutable logic that clearly proves the Bush administration’s total involvement in every aspect of the 9-11 attacks. He delivers a step-by-step development, purpose and execution of each event that cannot be disputed, even without the evidence produced by Rense.com and AmericanFreePress.com. The mounting evidence has now far surpassed blockbuster, bombshell, glaring red headlines; yet, the corporate mainstream establishment media will do everything in its power to shield and protect the Bush administration.

Unlike others that have identified the problem of the criminal activities of this administration, as well as the Bush family history of war mongering, war profiteering, oil theft, CIA drug distribution and Nazi Holocaust-funding, Griffin offers a four part solution:

Find an alternative to the current media news sources;

Join a citizens group, and if necessary, generate your own news media;

Combine with other citizen groups;

Get actively involved in religion ecumenically, joining together with all religions to bring about the renunciation of our criminal state.
As regards a commonality in dealing with the real EVIL EMPIRE, consider Griffin’s last recommendation compared to Schwarz’s closing remarks: "I am conservative, fiscally responsible, an ecumenical Christian and an American patriot who clearly understands fascism and clearly sees this is exactly what is going on within the Bush administration. [Emphasis mine.]

And always remember Pogo: "We have met the enemy, and they is US!"


Go to 7991
http://abc.net.au/news/justin/default.htm
Wednesday, November 30, 2005. 1:15pm (AEDT)
GM crop failure a warning, says US adviser
A former agricultural adviser to US presidents says the failure of a genetically modified field pea trial should act as a warning for future GM crop testing.

The 10-year CSIRO trial was abandoned when tests found the peas were making mice seriously ill.

Dr Charles Benbrook, who advised presidents Carter, Bush senior, Reagan and Clinton says the field pea trial failure shows current GM crop testing is grossly inadequate.

"I don't believe that this new study proves that all genetically engineered food is posing a great threat to people but it certainly confirms the need to go back and look at the major food crops," he said.

He has called for changes to the Gene Technology Act, which is currently under review, to tighten GM crop regulation and increase scientific scrutiny of potential commercial varieties.

But the Grains Council's David Ginns says the failed field pea trial was an isolated case, and the fact health concerns were discovered shows current monitoring is adequate.

"It picked up a problem early and the project was terminated on the basis that there were concerns raised in the trial."


Go to 7990
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/november2005/301105warparty.htm
50 Cent, the War Profiteer and the $10 million Bat Mitzvah
Why the world's best 13th birthday party has Iraq vets' blood boiling

Guerilla News Network/Anthony Lappé | November 30 2005

On the day the President told the American people to prepare for the long haul in Iraq, here’s a story that seems to perfectly sum up our priorities as a nation. They’re calling it Mitzvahpalooza. It may go down in history as the world’s most obscene birthday party (eat your heart out Dennis Kozlowski). David H. Brooks, CEO of bulletproof vest maker DHB Industries, spared no expense for his 13-year old daughter’s entry into adulthood. The girl and 300 of her closest BFFs were entertained recently in New York’s Rainbow Room by Don Henley, Stevie Nicks, Kenny G, Aerosmith and, believe it or not, 50 Cent (I guess 500 large can make you forget all about street cred). It was hosted by Tom Petty. The reported cost: $10 million. See the absurd pics here.

First off, what 13-year old is a fan of Don Henley, Fleetwood Mac and, for God’s sake, Kenny G? Who was this party really for? Second, and more importantly, where does a guy get $10 million to blow on a Bat Mitzvah? Well, it appears, from you, the American taxpayer. According to United for a Fair Economy, Brooks and Co. have made a tidy profit outfitting our nation’s fighting men and women in body armor that allegedly can’t take a hit from a 9mm round:

David H. Brooks, CEO of bulletproof vest maker DHB Industries, earned $70 million in 2004, 13,349% more than his 2001 compensation of $525,000. Brooks also sold company stock worth about $186 million last year, spooking investors who drove DHB’s share price from more than $22 to as low as $6.50 [DHB was trading at $4.20 today]. In May 2005, the U.S. Marines recalled more than 5,000 DHB armored vests after questions were raised about their effectiveness. By that time, Brooks had pocketed over $250 million in war windfalls.

Read UFE’s full report Executive Excess 2005 (PDF, 3.81 MB).

“It’s shocking to see a guy who has no shame like this. He may be the world champion war profiteer,” said the Institute for Policy Studies’ Sarah Anderson, who co-authored the report. “The shareholders are up in arms over the defective equipment, the military is up and arms, and he’s out partying.”

Indeed, Iraq war veterans are not pleased. Paul Rieckhoff, an Iraq war veteran and founder of Operation Truth (and my frequent radio partner), told me, “It is already disturbing that anyone can live the high-life as a result of the booming war business, but it is particularly disheartening to hear about someone having their own private Lollapalooza, in part from the sale of defective equipment that put our troops in harm’s way. America must take a long, hard look at the idea of profit on the battlefield.”

Another OpTruth Iraq vet, Bobby Yen, had a darker take, “I guess it just goes to show the state of affairs and the state of mind of this tired, old (of mind) veteran that when this story came up it didn’t even make me blink. So some rich guy somewhere who made tons of money selling defective bulletproof vests to the military has a filthy rich party for his daughter’s Bat Mitzvah. ‘Oh, wow, someone wants to endanger my life for a few bucks?’ Sounds like the entire war. So the soldiers get paid poorly, on occasion shell out there own few bucks to buy gear, lose a year of their life, lose their sanity, lose their limbs, lose their lives, and a very few, very select group closely connected to our government get very, very rich. OK, if that’s what the American people want. If that’s what they voted for.”

GNN contacted the public relations firm representing DHB Industries and will publish their response when, and if, we get one.


Go to 7989
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/december2005/011205avoidwiretaps.htm
Security flaw helps criminals avoid wiretaps

UK Inquirer/Nick Farrell | December 1 2005

TECHNOLOGY used for decades by law enforcement agents to wiretap telephones has a security flaw which makes it a doddle to overcome.

According to the New York Times, the glitch means that a tech savy criminal, with off the shelve kit can falsify the numbers dialled and switch off the spooks tape recorders.

The problem has been revealed by an associate professor of computer and information science at the University of Pennsylvania, Matt Blaze, in a paper in Security & Privacy, a journal of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

Sheepish spooks for the FBI have admitted that it has been aware of the possibility that older wiretap systems may be foiled through the techniques described in the paper, however they say it only effects 10 percent of cases.

Since the Justice Department's most recent wiretap report, says that state and federal courts authorized 1,710 "interceptions" of communications in 2004, this means that about 171 cases could have gone belly up because of the flaw.

The technique involves sending an "idle signal" to the taping gear. While the signal, known as a C-tone, is playing, the alleged criminal could continue to have a conversation unrecorded.


Go to 7988
http://thinkprogress.org/2005/12/01/embedded-time-reporter/
Embedded TIME Reporter:
Bush Lied In Speech Yesterday About Iraqi Security Forces
Yesterday, President Bush claimed that Iraqi security forces “primarily led” the assault on the city of Tal Afar. Bush highlighted it as an “especially clear” sign of the progress Iraq security forces were making in Iraq.

The progress of the Iraqi forces is especially clear when the recent anti-terrorist operations in Tal Afar are compared with last year’s assault in Fallujah. In Fallujah, the assault was led by nine coalition battalions made up primarily of United States Marines and Army — with six Iraqi battalions supporting them…This year in Tal Afar, it was a very different story. The assault was primarily led by Iraqi security forces — 11 Iraqi battalions, backed by five coalition battalions providing support.

TIME Magazine reporter Michael Ware, who is embedded with the U.S. troops in Iraq who participated in the Tal Afar battle, appeared on Anderson Cooper yesterday. He said Bush’s description was completely untrue:

I was in that battle from the very beginning to the very end. I was with Iraqi units right there on the front line as they were battling with al Qaeda. They were not leading. They were being led by the U.S. green beret special forces with them.


Go to 7987
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20051201/D8E7MI1G5.html
Dec 1, 4:20 PM (ET)
By WILLIAM J. KOLE
VIENNA, Austria (AP) - Two of America's allies in Iraq are withdrawing forces this month and a half-dozen others are debating possible pullouts or reductions, increasing pressure on Washington as calls mount to bring home U.S. troops.

Bulgaria and Ukraine will begin withdrawing their combined 1,250 troops by mid-December. If Australia, Britain, Italy, Japan, Poland and South Korea reduce or recall their personnel, more than half of the non-American forces in Iraq could be gone by next summer.

Japan and South Korea help with reconstruction, but Britain and Australia provide substantial support forces and Italy and Poland train Iraqi troops and police. Their exodus would deal a blow to American efforts to prepare Iraqis to take over the most dangerous peacekeeping tasks and craft an eventual U.S. exit strategy.

"The vibrations of unease from within the United States clearly have an impact on public opinion elsewhere," said Terence Taylor of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Washington. "Public opinion in many of these countries is heavily divided."

Although the nearly 160,000-member U.S. force in Iraq dwarfs the second-largest contingent - Britain's 8,000 in Iraq and 2,000 elsewhere in the Gulf region - its support has shrunk substantially.

In the months after the March 2003 invasion, the multinational force numbered about 300,000 soldiers from 38 countries. That figure is now just under 24,000 mostly non-combat personnel from 27 countries. The coalition has steadily unraveled as the death toll rises and angry publics clamor for troops to leave.

In the spring, the Netherlands had 1,400 troops in Iraq. Today, there are 19, including a lone Dutch soldier in Baghdad.

Ukraine's remaining 876 troops in Iraq are due home by Dec. 31, fulfilling a campaign pledge by President Viktor Yushchenko. Bulgaria is pulling out its 380 troops after Dec. 15 parliamentary elections, Defense Minister Veselin Bliznakov said.

In his strategy for Iraq, announced Wednesday, President Bush said expanding international support was one of his goals. He also seemed to address the issue of more allies withdrawing.

"As our posture changes over time, so too will the posture of our coalition partners," the document says. "We and the Iraqis must work with them to coordinate our efforts, helping Iraq to consolidate and secure its gains on many different fronts."

Struggling to shore up the coalition, Bush stopped in Mongolia on his recent Asia trip and praised its force of about 120 soldiers in Iraq as "fearless warriors."

At least 2,109 U.S. service personnel have died since the beginning of the Iraq war, according to an Associated Press count. At least 200 troops from other countries also have died, including 98 from Britain. Other tolls: Italy, 27; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 17; Bulgaria, 13; Spain, 11; Slovakia, three; Denmark, El Salvador, Estonia, Netherlands, Thailand, two each; Hungary, Kazakhstan, Latvia, one each.

Underscoring mounting opposition in nearly all coalition countries, a poll published in Japan's Asahi newspaper this week showed 69 percent of respondents opposed extending the mission, up from 55 percent in January. No margin of error was given.

Japan's Kyodo News service reported Wednesday that Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's Cabinet would decide Dec. 8 to allow its 600 troops to stay for another year, but it could decide later to withdraw troops around May.

A British drawdown would be the most dramatic.

Although Prime Minister Tony Blair's government insists there is no timetable and British forces will leave only when Iraqi troops can take over, Defense Secretary John Reid suggested last month that a pullout could begin "in the course of the next year."

South Korea, the second-largest coalition partner after Britain, is expected to withdraw about 1,000 of its 3,200 troops in the first half of 2006. The National Assembly is likely to vote on the matter this month.

Italy's military reportedly is preparing to give parliament a timetable for a proposed withdrawal of its 2,800 troops. Premier Silvio Berlusconi's government has said it plans to withdraw forces in groups of 300, but in accordance with the Iraqi government and coalition allies.

Poland's former leftist government, which lost Sept. 25 elections, had planned to withdraw its 1,400 troops in January. The new defense minister, Radek Sikorski, visits Washington this weekend for talks on Poland's coalition plans, and the new government is expected to decide by mid-December whether to extend its mission beyond Dec. 31.

"Some formula of advisory-stabilizing mission could remain on a smaller scale, of course, and our commanders are prepared for several variants," Col. Zdzislaw Gnatowski of the Polish army's general staff told The Associated Press.

Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, head of the Australian Defense Force, has said about 450 troops in the southern province of Muthanna could leave by May. Australia has about 900 troops and support staff across Iraq.

Many coalition members have pledged to stay in Iraq for all of 2006; at least one, Lithuania, has committed to the end of 2007. And the coalition is still drawing new members, most recently Bosnia, which sent 36 bomb-disposal experts in June.

"We are getting letters of gratitude from the U.S. commanders for our peacekeepers' excellent service," said Ilgar Verdiyev, a Defense Ministry spokesman in Azerbaijan, which has 150 troops in Iraq and is one of the few mostly Muslim countries to contribute.

Associated Press writers Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow and Ryan Lucas in Warsaw, Poland, contributed to this report.


Go to 7986
http://www.bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=9332
November Sunday 27th 2005 (10h25) :
BBC broadcast ’fake’ news reports
A Spinwatch investigation has revealed that journalists working for the Services Sound and Vision Corporation (SSVC) have been commissioned to provide news reports to the BBC. The BBC has been using these reports as if they were genuine news. In fact, the SSVC is entirely funded by the Ministry of Defence as a propaganda operation, which according to its own website makes a ’considerable contribution’ to the ’morale’ of the armed forces.

In the US, Washington has been rocked by the scandal of fake journalists. The Bush administration has been paying actors to produce news, paying journalists to write propaganda, and paying Republican party members to pose as journalists. In the UK this has been reported with our customary shake of the head at the bizarre nature of US politics and media. Implicitly we are relieved that, however bad things are here, at least we are not as bad as they are.

But Spinwatch can reveal that we have our very own fake journalists operating in the UK. The government pays for their wages and they provide news as if they were normal journalists rather than paid propagandists. Normally they work in a little known outfit with the acronym BFBS, which stands for British Forces Broadcasting Service. BFBS exists to ‘entertain and inform’ British armed forces around the world and is entirely funded by the British Ministry of Defence. BFBS is run by the SSVC. But on this occasion no mention of Ministry of defence funding was made. She was introduced simply as a reporter ’from the British Forces Broadcasting Service’ who ’has been embedded with the Scots Guards’. As one wag inside the BBC puts it, this suggests a process of ’double embedding’, first working for the MoD and second embedding with a regiment. The report began:

’Route 6 is the main road North out of Basra. It runs through the badlands of Iraq’s marsh Arabs They make a living from crime - carjackings, smuggling and murder are common place. It’s also the scene of an age old feud between two warring tribes.’ (25 November 2004)

Naturally enough, we are told that the regiment in which the reporter is ’embedded’ has resolved these tribal problems by negotiating ’a ceasefire’ following which ’ the two tribes had had their first nights sleep in several months’.

The British Army view of the Iraqi people can be less than sympathetic. The army crackdown on looting early in the occupation was codenamed ‘Operation Ali Baba’ after the folk tale ’Ali Baba and the forty thieves’. Issuing orders for Operation Ali Baba the commanding officer gave what the Army now acknowledges was an illegal order to ’work them hard’. This led predictably to torture, only discovered when some brave soul in a photo developing shop reported the resulting record of abuse to the police. The view of the Iraq population as thieves is evidently shared by both torturers and propagandists.

The report included interviews with five separate British soldiers including one with a ’master sniper’ brought in to counter resistance attacks on the Iraqi police. But there were no interviews with any Iraqis. The report concludes with a straight forward piece of propaganda for the occupation: ’While the Scots Guards remain the ceasefire is likely to hold strong. There’s been little trouble in the area since the peace was brokered and the ceasefire has been extended to December the first. But the Iraqi police and national guard still lack confidence and credibility to keep the peace on their own and should the fighting resume, the governor of Basra has given the go ahead for the Scots Guards to use more force to make route 6 safe again.’ Even though the report has itself hinted that the fighting is targetting the occupation, we are left with the extraordinary statement that the army in illegal ocupation of Iraq is actually a ’peacekeeping’ force.


Go to 7985
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/New_questions_surround_multibilliondollar_Homeland_Security_1130.html
Abramoff, lobbyists linked to troubled multibillion-dollar Homeland Security contract
John Byrne

It was supposed to be “the deal of the century.”

The Transportation Security Administration awarded a $1 billion contract to Unisys to devise a cutting-edge computer network linking hundreds of airports to the TSA’s state-of-the-art security centers. The contract was ideal, they argued, because if the company failed to meet its goals, Unisys would pay money back to the agency.

It didn’t turn out that way. In October, the Washington Post revealed the Pennsylvania-based information services company had overcharged the government for a whopping 117,000 hours -- billing $131 an hour for employees who were paid less than half that amount. Officials now see the project costing taxpayers as much as $3 billion.

Unisys’ prime lobbyists? A team from the Greenberg Traurig lawfirm led by Neil Volz, former chief of staff to Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) -- which included indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

RAW STORY has found that Unisys acquired the contract, said riddled with fraud, in a process that included backroom dealings and almost no competitive bidding, and former Abramoff associates say his lobbyists had a hand in the deal. The investigation also found that the man who brokered the TSA deal, a company president, was later a buyer of Abramoff’s posh Washington restaurant.

According to campaign finance filings, Volz’s team included seven staffers – among them individuals now under scrutiny in various probes, including Abramoff. Two Senate committees are currently investigating Abramoff, an erstwhile conservative superlobbyist who was indicted in Florida for conspiracy and wire fraud.

Details of Volz’s role are vague. Washington Business Forward reported that the firm listed Unisys as a client in October 2002. The TSA contract was awarded in August of that year.

Unisys, however, did not register Greenberg Traurig as a lobbyist until January of 2003, six months after the TSA contract. Corporations are not required to register if they are lobbying executive branch agencies below the level of political appointees.

Associates say Abramoff firm lobbied for contract

According to former associates, Volz and his team were charged with acquisition of government contracts and not with legislative work. One associate confirmed that Greenberg lobbyists had helped Unisys acquire the TSA contract but asserted that there had not seemed to be anything 'suspicious' about Abramoff's work. Another denied Abramoff had a role but was less confident about the role of Greenberg's other lobbyists.

Greenberg Traurig declined to comment.

Unisys paid Greenberg Traurig $596,000 in 2003 and 2004; Greenberg is the highest-paid lobbying firm the company has retained since 1998. A spokesman for Abramoff declined to comment.

Unisys spokesman Guy Esnouf told RAW STORY the firm had decided not to disclose the dates they retained Abramoff’s firm or any information regarding their interaction.

“I wouldn’t be able to comment at all,” Esnouf said.

This September, Unisys publicly lauded Greenberg for their lobbying work – an anomaly in the post- Abramoff climate. According to Influence Magazine, the firm remains a “satisfied customer.”

The lead broker of Unisys' TSA bid, now-president of Unisys' public sector division Greg Baroni, bought a share of bought Abramoff’s Pennsylvania Avenue restaurant, Signatures, when the lobbyist sold it in July of this year. He was promoted to corporate vice president by the company’s board in 2004.

A sweetheart deal

A report at the time stated some of the TSA’s decision making in awarding the contract involved “backroom negotiations.” The deal was not awarded using traditional competitive bidding.

Instead, the project was awarded from a pool of pre-qualified corporate “partners” selected under Information Technology Omnibus Procurement II, a government-wide General Services Administration acquisition contract. Only fourteen companies were qualified for the work under the terms of the task order.

As Information Technology partners, Unisys and Electronic Data Systems Corp. were the only firms to compete. According to an article in GovExec.com, a government watchdog, “insiders said Unisys had the inside track.”

Unisys was awarded the contract in August 2002. Celebrations were muted, however, since TSA was mired in a budget dispute. Two weeks earlier, the Office of Management and Budget had frozen funding for various technology projects. So a week later, according to GovExec, officials from “TSA and the White House met on a Sunday night in Baroni's office.” Within 48 hours, administration officials had given the green light to unfreeze TSA's budget.

At the time, the chief of staff to the General Services Administration was David Safavian, a former Abramoff colleague and later chief of federal procurement who was arrested in September for obstructing an investigation into the Abramoff's attempts to buy government property.

Safavian’s attorney, Barbara Van Gelder, said her client had no interaction with Unisys and was not in a position to unfreeze TSA's budget.

Lobbying reports compiled by the Center for Public Integrity show Unisys paid Greenberg $480,000 in 2003 and $116,000 in 2004.

A troubled history

Unisys has a history of legal trouble with regard to federal contracts. In 1991, Unisys pled guilty in U.S. District Court to using fraud, bribery and illegal campaign contributions to obtain billions of dollars in defense contracts. An investigation the Justice Department started in 1986 known as Operation Ill Wind resulted in the prosecution of seven companies, nine government officials and 42 individuals; Unisys' fines and penalties totaled up to $190 million.

Nine Unisys employees were indicted and pled guilty to using fraudulent practices to obtain government contracts. The company and its predecessor, mainframe computer manufacturer Sperry Corp., billed the government $17 million in consulting fees, diverted money to offshore accounts, and used the money to bribe Pentagon officials.

The product of a 1986 merger between Sperry Corporation and Burroughs, Unisys maintains offices in nearly every U.S. state and more than 60 countries. They say they're happy with Greenberg's work, now that the lobby shop has dismissed Abramoff from their stables.

"As long as they terminated the relationship [with Abramoff], that was my principal concern," Unisys vice president of government relations David Pingree told Influence Magazine.

According to the Center for Public Integrity, the Fortune 500 company has accrued some $10.7 billion in federal contracts since 1990, and has worked with the CIA, the EPA and the Navy among myriad other government agencies.


Go to 7984
http://www.libertyforum.org/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=rr_main&Number=294130900#Post294130900
November 9, 2005 Author: Jeffrey Tucker
Bush's Fowl Play
by Jeffrey Tucker

In a classic case of News of the Weird, President Bush gave a press conference the other day to announce yet another central plan to deal with yet another disaster — this time an impending disaster, or so he claimed. It seems that some birds are catching a flu called Avian Influenza or, more commonly, the bird flu. It causes ruffled feathers and a drop in egg production. It can kill a chicken in two days flat. Scary.

The Chicken Littles at the White House got wind of this and decided to hatch a plan for dealing with the eventuality that it will wipe out whole cities inhabited by people. That's people, not birds. He wants $7.1 billion from you and me, in emergency funding no less, to protect us from the wrath of this disease, which, he says, could sweep the country and kill 1.9 million people and hospitalize another 9.9 million. Part of the money will go for "pandemic preparedness," and part will go to individual states so they can cobble together their own plans for our health and well being.

As part of this plan, there is a website, pandemicflu.gov, which is also a helpful link if you haven't so far believed a word you have read. Here you can click around and find the Mother of All Flu Reports: The National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza. Be assured that "the federal government will use all instruments of national power to address the pandemic threat." That includes FEMA, the Department of Homeland Security, and a hundred other concrete palaces in DC.

In this report you will find what you must do: be "prepared to follow public health guidance that may include limitation of attendance at public gatherings and non-essential travel for several days or weeks." The government, meanwhile, will establish "contingency systems to maintain delivery of essential goods and services during times of significant and sustained worker absenteeism."

Yes, we are really supposed to believe that the government will "maintain delivery" of "essential goods and services." Your job is to sit in your house and wait. Let's just say that government has a credibility problem here.

Also, the Bush administration has a role for the military to do for the flu what it did for terrorism in Iraq: "Determine the spectrum of public health, medical and veterinary surge capacity activities that the U.S. military and other government entities may be able to support during a pandemic." Remarkable what the military can do, from spreading democracy to liberating the oppressed to curing the sick — that is, when it is not making people sick or killing them for their own good.

Just to show that this isn't merely a perfunctory line, Bush went out of his way to defend the role of the military in his press conference. "One option is the use of a military that's able to plan and move," he said. "So that's why I put it on the table. I think it's an important debate for Congress to have."

Now, should this mass-death come about, our future would be rife with many uncertainties. But one thing we can know for sure: any attempt by government to manage the crisis will add calamity to disaster. It will be 9-11 plus New Orleans plus a few other amazing failures all rolled into one.

And the worst part of government failure will present itself: rather than make a mess of its own responsibilities, the government acts to prevent people from doing what they should be doing to deal with the crisis. "Stop in the name of the law" isn't just a slogan from cop shows; it is the sum total of everything the government does.

The Bush administration, however — which is supposedly staffed by people learned in the wisdom of classical- conservative thought and informed by revelation from America's traditional religious heritage — is just darn sure that the government is the best and only means to handle a crisis such as this.

A dazzling display of absurdity and chutzpah — that's what the Bush press conference on the flu was. Even if the flu does come, and taxpayers have coughed up, the government will surely have a ball imposing travel restrictions, shutting down schools and businesses, quarantining cities, and banning public gatherings.

It's a bureaucrat's dream! Whether it will make us well again is another matter. And why should individuals on their own have no incentive to deal with disease? Why should the private sector have no reason to make cures available if they exist? Why are we to believe that the government would somehow do a better job at this level of crisis management than the private sector?

None of these questions have been asked much less answered.

So I'm reading along in The New York Times, and it casually says this: "This bird flu has infected about 120 people and killed 60. But the virus has yet to pass easily among humans, as is necessary to create a pandemic. Experts debate whether it ever will, but most believe that a pandemic flu is inevitable someday."

Well, as Roderick Long often says about such contingencies, anything can happen. Men from Mars could land in capsules and plant red weed all over the world. The question we need to ask is how likely is it and who or what should address the problem should it arise.

The World Health Organization provides a link to data about human infection. It says the following: "Although avian influenza A viruses usually do not infect humans, several instances of human infections have been reported since 1997."

So we've gone from hundreds of infections to "several." And when you look at the specifics, most were not human-to-human infections but people in closer contact with sick birds than most anyone ever is. And even among them, most patients recovered. For example: "A (H9N2) infection was confirmed in a child in Hong Kong. The child was hospitalized and recovered." In another case in Canada, infections resulted in "eye infections." Among those who did die, it was not a clear case of Avian, though the site offers the following odd phrasing: "the possibility of person-to-person transmission could not be ruled out."

For this, we get a presidential news conference? As far as I can tell, the prospect of millions dying from bird flu is pretty remote. If it does happen—and anything canhappen—why must government be involved at all? Economists might invoke a public-goods rationale: pandemic disease protection is a service that can be consumed by additional consumers at no additional cost and the beneficiaries cannot be excluded from the good once produced, and thus this service will not be produced in sufficient quantity in the private sector.


Go to 7983
http://www.libertyforum.org/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=consp_911&Number=294196826#Post294196826
December 1, 2005 Author: What Really Happened
Many links, please go to: www.whatreallyhappened.com/wtc2_cutter.html

"Floor by floor it started popping out."

"It was if they had detonators and they planned to take down a building."

WMV video download (411kB)

"It [WTC 2] started exploding," said Ross Milanytch, 57, who works at nearby Chase Manhattan Bank. "It was about the 70th floor. And each second another floor exploded out for about eight floors, before the cloud obscured it all." [ASNE] "I saw small explosions on each floor." [Wing TV]

One eyewitness whose office is near the World Trade Center told AFP that he was standing among a crowd of people on Church Street, about two-and-a-half blocks from the South tower, when he saw "a number of brief light sources being emitted from inside the building between floors 10 and 15." He saw about six of these brief flashes, accompanied by "a crackling sound" before the tower collapsed. Each tower had six central support columns. [American Free Press]

"When I looked in the direction of the Trade Center before it came down, before No. 2 came down, ..I saw low-level flashes. In my conversation with Lieutenant Evangelista, never mentioning this to him, he questioned me and asked me if I saw low-level flashes in front of the building, and I agreed with him because I thought -- at that time I didn't know what it was. I mean, it could have been as a result of the building collapsing, things exploding, but I saw a flash flash flash and then it looked like the building came down."

Q. "Was that on the lower level of the building or up where the fire was?"

A. "No, the lower level of the building. You know like when they demolish a building, how when they blow up a building, when it falls down? That's what I thought I saw. And I didn't broach the topic to him, but he asked me. He said I don't know if I'm crazy, but I just wanted to ask you because you were standing right next to me… He said did you see any flashes? I said, yes, well, I thought it was just me. He said no, I saw them, too." [Stephen Gregory -- Assistant Commissioner (F.D.N.Y.)]

"Somewhere around the middle of the World Trade Center, there was this orange and red flash coming out. Initially it was just one flash. Then this flash just kept popping all the way around the building and that building had started to explode. The popping sound, and with each popping sound it was initially an orange and then a red flash came out of the building and then it would just go all around the building on both sides as far as I could see. These popping sounds and the explosions were getting bigger, going both up and down and then all around the building." [Karin Deshore - Captain (E.M.S.)]

"When we got to about 50 ft from the South Tower, we heard the most eerie sound that you would ever hear. A high-pitched noise and a popping noise made everyone stop. We all looked up. At the point, it all let go. The way I see it, it had to be the rivets. The building let go, there was an explosion and the whole top leaned toward us and started coming down." [september11.ceenews]

"It was a frigging noise. At first I thought it was -- do you ever see professional demolition where they set the charges on certain floors and then you hear "Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop" That's exactly what -- because I thought it was that. When I heard that frigging noise, that's when I saw the building coming down." [Daniel Rivera - Paramedic (E.M.S.)]
"...and then all of a sudden it started like... it sounded like gunfire... you know, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang and then all of a sudden three big explosions."

WMV video download (231kB)
See also: The 9/11 WTC Collapses: An Audio-Video Analysis
What Really Happened


Go to 7982
http://thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=1715
A Golden Era Ends For A Secretive Dynasty

By Paul Vallely – The Independent 16 April, 2004

Pre-eminent among the world’s banking dynasties, foremost among the global power elite, the Rothschild family made their fortune through a combination of secrecy, cunning and financial skill that borders on sheer wizardry. The following appeared yesterday and you can be sure that it would not have appeared without their tacit approval. Moreover, this writer believes that it signals their wish to assume a lower profile. For they may have realised that more and more people no longer see them as "art collectors and philanthropists", but pillars of the New World Order. Ed.

The news that the bankers Rothschild are to withdraw from the gold market, in which they have been a major player for two centuries, has been hailed as the end of an era.

In one sense, of course, it is. This was the company that smuggled gold coins across the English Channel to finance the Duke of Wellington's advance through France to his final triumph at Waterloo over Napoleon (who, it turned out, had also borrowed money from the Rothschilds).

But in another way it marks out the continuation of an even older tradition - the ability of the family which has founded one of the world's largest private banking dynasties to sustain their secretive fortune, which industry insiders count not in billions but in trillions, and keep it within the family.

Secrecy has been a hallmark of the Rothschilds from the outset. Mayer Amschel Rothschild, the son of an itinerant money lender and goldsmith who settled in the Jewish ghetto in Frankfurt-am-Main in 1744, specialised not just in clever accounting practices but also kept secret books and subterranean vaults which he ensured were never the privy of auditor, lawyer or taxman.

As the paterfamilias became more successful he despatched four of his five sons to different European capitals to take advantage of the rise of capitalism and the growth of international trade. Nathan he sent to London, James to Paris, Saloman to Vienna, and Carl to Naples, keeping the eldest, Amschel, at home with him in Prussia. Of these the two most important proved to be London and Paris, where the two main branches of the family developed a friendly rivalry, with the English branch developing the edge in business and the French in philanthropy, the arts and winemaking. But then in 1996 Amschel Rothschild, a 41-year-old man who had lived in the flamboyant style of many of his ancestors, hanged himself in a Paris hotel room. He was the Rothschild who had been groomed to take over as head of the English arm of the dynasty.

So when the bank's chairman Sir Evelyn de Rothschild retired earlier this year the succession passed to the French side of the family. Baron David de Rothschild, who had been running the family's Paris-based bank, inherited.

None of the Rothschild enterprises have been banks in the sense as understood by the man or woman in the street. What Mayer Rothschild founded in the 1760s was a business which grew from the humble beginning of selling rare coins to becoming the prime moneylender to greedy and spendthrift governments across Europe. One German contemporary quipped that Mayer was "the pride of Israel ... before whose money box kings and emperors humbly bow". And the novelist Thackeray said of Nathan that he was "not king of the Jews, but the Jew of the kings". The brothers financed both sides in the Napoleonic wars and in the Austro-Prussian war too.

It has long been supposed that Nathan increased the family fortune 20-fold by speculating on the outcome of the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. The Rothschilds had a network of agents throughout Europe who, using fast boats, coded letters and carrier pigeons, got information to the family ahead of official sources. Victor Rothschild, third baron and former chairman of the London bank, N M Rothschild, always maintained that Nathan had made a killing by encouraging rumours that Wellington had lost when he knew he had won, though the historian Niall Ferguson in his magisterial history of the family recently disputed that.

Certainly, for all the family motto of <>Concordia, Integritas, Industria<> (Unity, Integrity, Industry), Nathan's ability to depress stock prices by using the network of agents to spread rumours, true or false, and then buy the stock up after people panicked, was legendary.

More significant, however, was that in the process the Rothschilds created the world of banking as we know it today. Nathan operated principally as an underwriter and speculator in the early 19th-century bond market. He and his brothers invented, or at any rate popularised, the government bond, which allowed investors, big and small, to buy bits of the debts of sovereign states by purchasing fixed-interest bearer bonds.

Governments liked this because they could use them to raise colossal sums of money. Investors liked them because they could be traded - at prices that fluctuated in relation to the performance of the issuing government - and shrewd investors could make big sums. It brought investment in railways, the industrial revolution and ventures like the Suez Canal. The Rothschilds got a cut of everything.

It was a new kind of power. "I care not what puppet is placed upon the throne of England to rule the Empire on which the sun never sets. The man who controls Britain's money supply controls the British Empire, and I control the British money supply," Nathan said. The family developed a lack of awe for the powerful and important. A pompous aristocrat one day called on Nathan who was head down at his desk. Without looking up, the banker said: "Take a chair." His caller, affronted, said: "You are speaking to the Prince of Thurn and Taxis." To which Rothschild replied: "Take two chairs." At one point he even rescued the Bank of England after a run on gold caused the collapse of 145 banks. In 1885 he was given the hereditary title of Baron Rothschild.

Many of the distinct characteristics of the family can be traced back to the will of the founder Mayer Rothschild. It stipulated that no public inventory should be made of his estate; that key positions in the House of Rothschild were to be held by family members; that the eldest son should inherit unless the rest agreed otherwise; that the family was to intermarry with first and second cousins to keep the fortune together; that anyone disputing these terms would be struck from the will. And that all this should apply in perpetuity.

In part this was about preserving not just their Jewish identity but a self-conscious position as role models for their poorer co-religionists. The Rothschilds expended much effort and money pressing for Jewish emancipation and equality across the continent.

Their Jewish solidarity was not heterogeneous. In 1938 Nathan's great-great-grandson, Victor, shocked an audience by saying that in spite of "the slow murder of 600,000 people" on the continent "we probably all agree that there is something unsatisfactory in refugees encroaching on the privacy of our country, even for relatively short periods of time." And the family split over the question of the dream of a Jewish homeland, with some members supporting the first Zionist settlement in Palestine and the Balfour declaration and others opposing it on the grounds that it would encourage anti-Semites to question the existing national identities of assimilated Jews around the rest of the world. None of which has allayed the wild fears of anti-Semites who throughout the 20th century branded the Rothschilds as part of a Jewish plot to take over the world.

The world has changed around the Rothschilds. At one point Nathan Rothschild was the richest man in Britain and probably in the world. In today's terms he was wealthier than Bill Gates. But they never gained the foothold in America they needed. The world became corporate. Private banking got left behind.

Still, the family has moved down only from fabulously rich to enormously wealthy. And they adjusted to the times. They made billions in the 1980s from Margaret Thatcher's privatisations of state-owned industries on which they advised. In France after their bank was nationalised by the Socialist president Francois Mitterrand they slowly built a new business which, under Baron David de Rothschild, has risen to the top ranks of the merger and acquisition league tables. They have pulled out of retail fund management - into which they went with much fanfare only three years back - and now they are pulling out of oil and gold in favour of the higher-margin areas of private banking and wealth management.

Do not spend too many tears. In 1997 the family's Swiss holding company increased its profits by 66 per cent. The firm is not called Rothschild Continuation for nothing.


Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1743-1812), Founder of the family business

Mayer, orphaned at the age of 12, was forced to make his own living with the help of the good name of his father in Frankfurt. He carved out a self-taught career as a dealer in coins and medals, branching out into state loans and trade in general commodities. He established the family name by placing a Roman eagle on a red shield (Rothschild in German) over the door of his counting house.

Mayer established one of the Rothschild firm's principles: to settle for less profit to ensure long-term business ties. A brisk market in English textiles prompted him to send one of five sons, Nathan, to England.


Left to right: billionaire Warren Buffet, Arnold Schwarzeneggar and Jacob Rothschild on Rothschild's estate, shortly before Arnold became Governor of California.


Jacob, 4th Baron Rothschild (b. 1936), Head of the English side of the family

Chairman of NM Rothschild before resigning in 1980 to run Rothschild Investment Trust. He chaired the National Heritage Memorial Fund, handing out £1.2bn of lottery grants. He restored Waddesdon Manor, right, the family pile, and chairs Yad Hanadiv, the family foundation in Israel, which donated the Knesset and Supreme Court to the state


David de Rothschild (b. 1942), Head of the French family

The head of the French family, David de Rothschild has escaped two catastrophes in France: he was born in New York after the Luftwaffe seized the family home in Paris and his mother fled from Nazi Europe; and, in 1981, President Mitterrand nationalised the French financial empire, Banque Rothschild. David and his cousins started afresh with PO Gestion, renamed PO Banque and thenRothschild & Cie Banque.


Use your Go Back and Go Forward commands to get to where you were in a previous file.