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.

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Freud’s Jewish Subversion Of Christian Culture

THE JEW SIGMUND FREUD is yet another example of the Jewish agenda to destroy Christian culture. Freud’s writings were informed by his strong sense of Jewish identity and his negative bias against Christian culture which he viewed as the source of Anti-Semitism. But Jews have perceived “Anti Semitism” to exist in all of the host nations that have received them since their act of Deicide in 33 A.D. regardless of their religious world-view.

Freud’s “psychoanalysis” is perjoratively known as the “Jewish Science.” It was rightly destroyed in Germany, Italy, and Austria, but lamentably, exiled throughout the rest of the world, including Christian America. The vanguard of the movement has remained to this day predominantly Jewish as it was from its very inception.

Ever since the Enlightenment when Jews began to appear out of the ghetto, (would that they had remained there!), Jewish intellectual activity has been hell-bent on subverting Christian culture. (”They are enemies of the Cross, ” St. Paul asserted.) Indeed, it was Freud’s own view that psychoanalysis should appear both shocking and subversive. On board ship to America, the Jew Freud did not feel he was bringing America a new panacea. With his wretched Jewish wit he told his travelling companion, “We are bringing America the plague.”

FREUD’S BOOKS WERE BURNED (and rightly so) in the May 1933 book burnings in Germany. There was a general perception amongst Germans that Jewish intellectuals were subverting German culture and psychoanalysis was one aspect of this concern. A great deal of hostility to psychoanalysis centered around Freud’s advocacy of masturbation and pre-marital sex. Freud’s Jewish disciple, the German born Alfred Adler, advocated “bisexuality” as a means of integrating and healing childhood conflicts.

Carl Christian Clemen, a professor of ethnology at the University of Bonn, reacted strongly to Freud’s Anti-Christian book, The Future of an Illusion, in which Freud analyzed religious beliefs, (Christianity was Germany’s “religious belief!”), in terms of infantile needs and what Freud designated as the “Oedipus Complex,” a male child’s desire to murder his father in vying for the sexual attention of his mother. Clemen decried the psychoanalytic tendency ot find sex everywhere, even in the innocent mind of a little child, a tendency which he attributed to the Jewish composition of the movement.

Freud defined himself as “a fanatical Jew,” an avowed “Zionist,” who indentified himself with the elitist Jewish social grouping in that unique cause of “doing battle against the enemies of the Jews.” But the true enemy of Christian culture and especially in America is Freud and his continuing apostolic succession of Jewish “social scientists.”

THE JEW FREUD had wrought his Anti Christian wreckage in America by the fourth decade of 20th Century U.S. history. It is a shame that America allowed this miserable Christ-killer Freud to enter our shores. In 1956, a Christian psychiatrist writing in The American Journal of Psychiatry complained, “Is it possible that we are developing the equivalent of a secular church? A secular church supported by government monies, staffed by a genital-obsessed apostolate, dispensing a broth of atheism, hedonism, and perversion?” (See History of the Jews; Johnson)

JEWS LIKE FREUD are our misfortune. Is there a final solution this Jewish menace? Yes there is. Jews must become Christians. There is not to be any tolerance towards the Jews for they will not reciprocate in kind, as history and current events prove. Jews are obsessed with sex, perversion, and the promotion of the same. Can we not see this in the Jewish-owned Hollywood, Television, and Madison Avenue advertising?

We must insist on the end of Judaism as a racist idea and be relentless in converting them to the Jewish Messiah, Jesus Christ. Then we must teach these renegades how to become good and decent Christians.
–
Brother Nathanael…Street Evangelist! @
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http://www.rense.com/general34/over27.htm
The Overthrow Of
The American Republic
Part 27
U.S. Civil/Military Insurrection?
2-16-3

Because of a confluence of events, domestic and overseas, there is a growing possibility that the UNITED States of America will come apart. For one thing, the British have long had an interest in dividing up this continent into weak, quarreling sections. The British, for example, in part fomented the American Civil War, also called the War Between the States, in an attempt to stop the growing industrial and financial power of the U.S., and in pursuit of the London government's vow to restore this continent to being mere puppet colonies of the British Monarchy, and we as subjects of the crown, not citizens of a Republic.

Details that tend to point in this direction are the following:

[1] Through highly concealed, super secret sources within the Bush White House, CBS News has learned that the current occupant and resident, George W. Bush , is being pressured, if not actually ordered, to possibly postpone the planned pre-emptive attack on Iraq. Some background necessary to understand this.

In prior exclusive stories, we have long since pointed out that in 1988-89, the covert media subsidy from the American CIA, was removed from CBS News and switched, instead, to ABC News. Result, CBS had to close some of their overseas bureaus, used principally not for news-gathering, but to compile intelligence and as spy-centers where journalist/intelligence agents could hang their hats. ABC News took up that role thereafter.

More currently, the American CIA media subsidy has been taken back from ABC News and restored to CBS News. Furthermore, seldom is mentioned that CBS has a division creating and testing military games strategies, such as how to control domestic or foreign insurgencies through created terror squads, even death squads. Sharpened into a workable arrangement by CBS's late William Paley, the counter-insurgent teams were active in controlling the Civil Rights and Anti-Viet Nam War Movements, through paid CIA/FBI agent provocateurs whose purpose was to discredit such possible grassroots uprisings. [In 1972, when I butt into a live TV Program in Chicago, to identify CIA-funded provocateur, Rennie Davis, I was falsely arrested. I beat the attempt to keep me in jail by subpoening the Chicago Station Chief of the American CIA, a person and title not supposed to exist domestically under the CIA Charter. I could fill an entire series with our run-ins, over three decades, by way of identifying CIA provocateurs and CIA-controlled media types.]

[2] There is a growing number of Admirals and Generals who secretly and quietly oppose the faction of the Aristocracy that installed George W. Bush in the White House using a military-style, five person, Junta-like majority of five judges on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Knowledgeable sources contend that this opposing faction has, in effect put George W. Bush, and the one actually supervising the White House, namely, Daddy Bush, under what some would call "house arrest", or some restraint similar to the same. No, it may not be either publicized or dramatic, and may not be played out like a scenario from the fiction book and movie, "Seven Days in May".


Called in slang military terms as "flag officers" (who have a flag flying on the fenders of their staff cars), these high command officers previously had vowed to arrest their Commander-in-Chief Bill Clinton for treason, as they are authorized under the Uniform Military Code. If he were to arrest them for mutiny, they were prepared, if they were not summarily assassinated, to defend themselves with highly well-documented details of his treason. Such as, Clinton giving to the head of the Red Chinese Secret Police, Wang Jun, who from time to time met and ate with Clinton in the White House, U.S. industrial, financial, and yes, MILITARY secrets.

The tragic joke on the American populace, was that Kenneth W. Starr, for four years supposedly as "Independent Counsel", was running after Bill and Hillary, supposedly to eventually prosecute them. Starr spent most of his time as a PRIVATE attorney. His private law client? Why, none other than Wang Jun. Further, Starr was the UNREGISTERED foreign lobbyist for the Red Chinese Government in Bejing. Thus, the Clinton Justice Department was in a position to jail Starr quicker than Starr could think of criminally prosecuting that President and his First Lady.

Efforts by the 24 Generals and Admirals, as we have in earlier stories discussed, were, in part, blunted, when ten of them were assassinated, including General David McCloud, head of the Alaska Military District, and Admiral Jeremy Boorda, Chief of Naval Operations, highest ranking naval officer in uniform.

Now, however, such similarly inclined flag officers number far more than the original twenty four and have targeted, and are targetting, George W. Bush, for treason, committed pursuant to blackmail, with and for the Red Chinese Secret Police. [Visit earlier parts of this series.]

[3] Troika is a Russian term for a wagon pulled by three horses. Some time ago I posted a story about a possible troika that may run the government. Certainly it is no great secret that we common Americans are going to be faced with tremendous possible upheavals resulting from an oncoming financial meltdown as well as the plans for Iraq.

Many ordinary Americans may be forced into a point of view that we must, by way of dealing with the growing emergency, temporarily set aside the organic law, the bedrock of our Republic, namely the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights (restraining the Central Government, as forced upon the founding fathers of this Republic).

We may suddenly find out that the faction of the Aristocracy that opposes George W. Bush and Daddy Bush, has decided to run this country through a troika, a panel of Emergency Administrators, not provided for by statute or organic law.

Some savvy sorts understand that the one that actually won the popular Presidential vote in 2000, and had the election as to the Electoral College, stolen through high bribery and coercion involving fellow Democrats in Florida, and Jeb Bush, and the five-person majority of the high court in Washington, namely Albert Gore, Jr.; that he may NOT have actually completely departed the stage of politics. Gore may re-emerge as one of the Emergency Administrators, to deal with the possibility that the UNITED States of America, is becoming, has become, DISUNITED, through financial and international policy blundering.

[4] As hard as it may be to understand for poorly informed and naive sorts, there are parts of the United States, like in the 1860s, that reserve the right to secede from the Union. California is such an example, beset with a huge un-manageable deficit, having sent to Washington their federal tax money and getting, in return, insufficient aid in dealing with the open-borders flood of non-citizens burdening the hospitals, schools,and facilities of California.

Who openly discusses that Texas entered the Union with a provision, reserving to itself the right of its State Legislature, to divide up the huge state into five separate states entitled to TEN U.S. Senators. The Texas State Assembly, from time to time, has to roll-over that provision.

[4] If the Bush White House plan to topple Daddy Bush's former PRIVATE business partner, Saddam Hussein, and seize the Iraq oil fields, does not work well---will George W. Bush be able to withstand the reversal? Will he go to pieces, psychologically? Answers to that may be found in earlier parts of this series. [As to Daddy Bush and Saddam Hussein as private business partners, visit our website item, "The Secrets of Timothy McVeigh".]

[5] Some problems facing George W. Bush. There is the superior quality counterfeit U.S. paper currency (actually hot-air Federal Reserve notes). This bogeyman, capable of toppling the U.S. central government, is returning to the U.S. As mentioned by us, there is a secret lawsuit criminally and civilly implicating Daddy Bush, George W. Bush, the U.S. Treasury, and others, for having failed to pay the team of master counterfeiters, called "master cutters", who are sueing Bush, etc. A Federal Judge in Virginia is seeking to consider the blockbuster case in secret.

Somehow, a group consisting of Albert Gore, Jr., and others, have come up with a rather complete list of where the superior quality counterfeit U.S. paper money is and who all is seeking to dump it back on the U.S. via transit point Canada. The dumpers include Moscow strongman Putin as well as Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein. [Visit earlier parts of this series for details.]

Furthermore, George W. Bush, Daddy Bush, and their apologists and cohorts in the oil-soaked, spy-riddled monopoly press, are seeking to dirty up, for example, France, calling the French traitors and cowards. Have we common Americans forgotten the role of the French in the formation of this nation? The French can scandalize, if they wish, Daddy Bush and Bush Jr. into oblivion. Such as, the cover up, started with Bush crony Bill Clinton, as to the missiles that blew up TWA Flight 800 in 1996. [Counter-terrorist experts, who appeared on our tv show, off-camera, told us how the central government is well aware that a submarine, bought by Iran from the former Soviets, and operated by a Russian mercenary crew, most likely fired the missiles taking down Flight 800. Among the dead were 60 French nationals, including 8 members of the French CIA; their team leader refused to get on board and took a later flight.]

The French, further, are in a position to destroy Daddy Bush in that they have proof, beyond question, of his role in the political assassination of President Kennedy. Furthermore, they have a secret video showing Daddy Bush, in a Paris suburb, in October, 1980, bribing top Iranian officials to keep the 52 U.S. Teheran Embassy hostages captive until the Reagan/Bush ticket licked Jimmy Carter, shown as a wimp, and Reagan/Bush were inaugurated in January, 1981. Plainly, the French have the "smoking gun" of multiple instances of treason and high crimes by the Bush Crime Family.

So, will the U.S. end up into a mess wherein a panel of Emergency Administrators run the country because George W. Bush is either unable to govern, is actually but secretly under "house arrest", or similar extra-ordinary situations?

[6] To deal with a possible U.S. civil/military revolt or insurrection, there is housed and resident within the United States, some 75,000 foreign troops trained in urban counter-insurgency. Included are German troops, in New Mexico, Russian troops in Louisiana, and, reportedly, a large contingent of Red Chinese troops such as below the Rio Grande border line. They are skilled, having been trained, for example, how to kick in doors and seize Americans in their homes---ordinary folks who believe in the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms. The monopoly press heavily promotes gun control but tells us nothing about these foreign troops who have no great love or understanding of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. Most of them do NOT speak English and would not understand the protests of their domestic American victims. Cynics have suggested this series be re-titled, "America's Hitler".



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http://www.rense.com/general81/extr.htm
Extraordinary Times, Intentional
Collapse, & Takedown
Of The U.S.A.
By Richard C. Cook
5-1-8

Much has been written about whether a worldwide plan exists to control events and steer them in the direction profitable to an elite of the rich and powerful. Is this a "conspiracy theory"? While it is difficult to be specific about who exactly may be behind such a conspiracy, if it exists, it is at least clear that the privately- managed system of global financial capitalism gives ample opportunity for the world's richest people to combine for their mutual benefit. Further, global financial capitalism itself is based on the monopolization of money-creation by a world banking system that is largely privately owned, even while working through the central banks of the largest and most prosperous nations. This article postulates the existence of a coordinated and longstanding matrix set up by the controllers of money to dominate the movements of history. The article focuses particularly on what seems to have been an attack that has been going on for over a century against the independence of the nations of Russia and the U.S. The article also suggests a series of monetary reforms whereby the U.S. , or any other nation, can regain its economic identity and preserve its political freedom. The article was written a short distance from the reconstructed colonial capitol building in Williamsburg , VA. On this site on May 15, 1776, the Fifth Virginia Convention voted unanimously to instruct its delegation at the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia to enter a motion for independence. It may be time to do that again.

Russian philosopher P.D. Ouspensky (1878-1947) wrote, "It is a mistake to think the times we are living in are like any other. These are extraordinary times."

Ouspensky, with his mentor, G.I. Gurdjieff, escaped from Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution, during the Russian Civil War. Though academia has failed to acknowledge it, this epochal convulsion was financed in part through the monetary resources of the international financial elite operating out of London, Amsterdam, New York, Paris, Hamburg, and Frankfurt.

It was this elite, acting through Western banks, which appears to have surreptitiously provided the wherewithal for Lenin and Trotsky to destroy the Russian nation after the fall of the Tsarist regime at the end of World War I. Support by the Western financiers is discussed by Dr. Matthew Raphael Johnson in his revisionist history, The Third Rome: Holy Russia, Tsarism & Orthodoxy. (The Foundation for Economic Liberty , Washington , D.C., 2003)

The present analysis postulates that the takeover of Russia, whose backbone was the alliance among the House of Romanoff, the Orthodox Church, the land-owing nobility, and thousands of self-governing peasant communes, was one of two major projects which the financiers set out to accomplish early in the 20th century in a longer-range plan to dominate the globe. The other was the control and eventual destruction of the United States of America. That project may be reaching fruition through the ongoing and seemingly purposeful financial meltdown of 2008.

Why Russia and the U.S. ?

Events affecting nations have their roots in history, and people underestimate how what happens today is conditioned by the past. The respective fates of Russia and the U.S. have been linked for a long time.

The two countries had a close relationship during the American Civil War, when the Russian fleet anchored in New York and San Francisco harbors. In 1867, Russia sold the huge expanse of Alaska to the U.S. Later, the U.S. provided engineering support for Russian industrial development.

The two continental giants were, during the latter part of the 19th century, becoming the greatest land powers in the world. With Germany , Great Britain 's chief rival for economic might, added to the mix, the hegemony of the financiers' power base in Britain and northern Europe was threatened in a way not seen since Napoleon.

Both Russia and the U.S. were largely Christian nations, with a sizeable portion of the American population, especially recent immigrants, being members of the Roman Catholic faith. For centuries nothing had been a greater obstacle to the financial control of nations through war and finance than the Christian religion and its teachings against usury.

Plus neither the U.S. nor Russia had a central privately-owned bank. The U.S. had long since gotten rid of its own central banks, the First (1791-1811) and Second (1816-1836) Banks of the United States . The whole concept of commercial banking having control of a nation's economy was alien to the Russian and U.S. mindset.

Instead, wealth came from work. This was expressed by President Abraham Lincoln in a December 3, 1861, address to Congress when he said, "Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration."

Lincoln could make such a statement because the U.S. economy, as was the Russian, was deeply rooted in the soil. The backbone of the two cultures was the Russian peasant and the American yeoman farmer, as Thomas Jefferson called him. The merchant and artisan economies of the towns and cities in both nations were founded upon the wealth of the countryside which was derived from human and animal labor and from working the land. Even when industrialization began to flourish in the latter part of the 19th century, it was fueled in both countries largely through savings and retained earnings, not bank credit created "out of thin air" through fractional reserve lending.

Banker Domination

By the early 20th century, the bankers of Europe had a mission before them. If Russia and the U.S. could be controlled, nothing would stand in the way of the rule of humanity by the materialistic pseudo- religion of power and wealth by which the financiers were obsessed. As Max Weber (1864-1920) wrote in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, the acquisition of wealth was viewed as a sign that a person was one of the "elect." The financiers' sphere of influence was centered in northern Europe , where the anti-usury doctrines both of the Roman Catholic Church and Martin Luther (1483-1546) had been undermined through the teachings of John Calvin (1509-1564).

As is well known, banking in Europe began in the medieval period with store-front gold merchants who invented fractional reserve banking by lending certificates against a gold reserve held for their customers on deposit. By the time of the Renaissance, banking was centered in Italy and Germany , then spread north and west to the Netherlands , France , and England .

By this time the Catholic prohibition against usury was well- developed. Pope Sixtus V (1585-90) said charging of interest was "detestable to God and man, damned by the sacred canons and contrary to Christian charity." Theological historian John Noonan wrote that "the doctrine [of usury] was enunciated by popes, expressed by three ecumenical councils, proclaimed by bishops, and taught unanimously by theologians." ("Development of Moral Doctrine," 54 Theological Studies, 662, 1993)

Lending of money at interest was often left to the European Jews, where statements in various scriptures, such as the Talmud, appeared to allow the practice when dealing with non-Jews. Some argue that the Vatican worked behind the scenes by using Jews as fronts for their own lending operations.

In England , the Tudor and Stuart monarchs made a stand against the rise of bankers as issuers of currency. As Susan Boskey writes in her book The Quality Life Plan: 7 Steps to Uncommon Financial Security, "the Mixt Moneys Case of 1604 in England determined money as a public measure to be regulated by the state." According to Alexander Del Mar, head of the U.S. Department of Weights and Measures in the late 19th century and author of the book, History of Money in America From the Earliest Times to the Establishment of the Constitution, the Mixt Moneys Case determined that "the state alone had the right to issue money."

Boskey continues: "For over half a century, this ruling alarmed the merchants of London who attempted to defeat the Mixt Moneys decision. The East India Company was the main instigator in the effort, because they were eager to turn a profit by shipping silver to India in exchange for gold. Success was achieved with the British Free Coinage Act of 1666, which, according to Del Mar, 'altered the monetary systems of the world.' He wrote: 'The specific effects of this law were to destroy the royal prerogative of coinage, nullify the decision in the Mixt Moneys case, and inaugurate a future series of commercial panics and disasters which to that time were totally unknown.' Moneylenders known as 'strong room keepers' began the practice of making interest-bearing loans that were not backed one- hundred percent by the gold reserves remaining in their strong room."

"The British Free Coinage Act of 1666," continues Boskey, "marked a turning point in the role of currency creation as a public measure to one dominated by moneylenders. No longer was the act of putting money into circulation directly connected to the actual, existing material riches of a nation."

About this time, Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) was writing his now-famous Diary. According to Canadian monetary expert Martin Hattersley, Pepys "was describing in surprised delight the new institution of banking, by which the smart investor, instead of paying the goldsmith for warehousing his valuables, opened an account, and was actually paid interest for having his money looked after!"

Pepys was captivated by the familiar but pernicious notion that, instead of working for a living, a person could have his money "work for him." Aristotle had spoken against this concept 2,000 years earlier: "The most hated sort of wealth getting and with the greatest reason, is usury, which makes a gain out of money itself and not from the natural object of it. For money was intended to be used in exchange but not to increase at interest. And this term interest, which means the birth of money from money is applied to the breeding of money because the offspring resembles the parent. Wherefore of all modes of getting wealth, this is the most unnatural." (1258b Politics)

Hattersley continues: "Who paid for Samuel Pepys' remarkable new service? Basically, the public did. Pepys, leaving his gold with the banker, enabled the latter to lend it out to a third party. Pepys had his 'money in the bank,' and the borrower took the gold. The borrower naturally paid interest on the loan. Pepys received interest on his deposit. The same money being (notionally) in the possession both of Pepys and of the borrower meant an increase in the monetary mass of the nation. All the holders of money in the nation, therefore, had the value of their holdings very slightly diluted. There was a profit to the banker on the 'spread' between borrowing and lending rates. There was a profit to Mr. Pepys, who at one and the same moment had both money in the bank and an interest bearing investment. Yet the borrower also profited. His loan would be at a lower interest rate than that on capital that had had to be saved up. 'Smart' bank financing put him ahead of conventionally financed competitors. All three parties gained, at the expense of the general public, the value of whose money was diluted through inflation of the monetary mass."

Finally, concludes Hattersley, "Skipping forward three centuries (past events such as the South Sea Bubble, tulip mania, the railway boom and the 1929 market crash) we find that the little spot of inflation that Mr. Pepys indulged in has become a universal way of life. The extensive capital development of Canada [and the U.S. ] in the post-World War II boom has been largely financed, not by personal savings and investment, but by the inflation of the money supply. This has left the thrifty who invested their little savings from the hard times of the Great Depression in mortgages, bonds, and life insurance deprived of most of the rewards of their thrift, and has caused the profits of inflation to benefit all who could borrow, build, and then repay their capital in deflated dollars later on."

Hattersley captures the essence of the modern usury-based economy. No longer is life based on honest human labor and the resources of nature, but on financial manipulation. This is why religious people have always viewed usury as a crime. Aristotle placed the usurer in the same category as others who "ply sordid trades," such as pimps.

Returning to the march of history, in 1688, James II, who had become a Catholic, fled the British throne. Through the "Glorious Revolution," he was replaced by the Protestants William and Mary of the Dutch House of Orange. The main instrument of power of the financiers who supported them was the Bank of England, founded in 1694.

The next two centuries saw the financiers' control of world commerce spread through the instrumentality of the British Empire . The bedrock of British policy was "free trade," which allowed British manufacturers who paid their workers a pittance to undersell their competitors elsewhere. This was aided by having the British pound become the world's trading currency.

With the First Zionist Congress of 1897, one of the financiers' geopolitical goals became to support the creation of the nation of Israel , at least partly to dominate the world's crossroads in the oil-rich Middle East . The oil was needed to fuel the British navy.

The nature and origins of Zionism have been hotly debated in recent years, as the role of Israel on the world stage has grown. One thing seems certain: The Jewish religion is by no means monolithic. But its followers, many of whom opposed the philosophy of Zionism, would now be drawn into the financiers' power game. From this point on, anyone who even questioned Zionism would be labeled "anti-Semitic."

As the 20th century advanced, the financier elite became heavily involved in getting rich off world war and the manufacture of the new weapons of mass destruction that modern technology made possible. Warfare and weaponry, combined with control of credit manufactured through the leveraging of industrial production, were to be the primary means of putting nations and their populations into debt. A materialistic slave society was being created, which books like 1984 warned against. Humanity was lured into compliance through the fantasy world brought about by the mass media by means of advertising, cinema, and television. Another enticement was the growing availability of mass-produced consumer goods.

How It Was Done

While World War I and the Russian Revolution still lay a few years in the future, the international financiers quietly took control of the U.S. economic system in 1913 through the Federal Reserve Act and the 16th Amendment to the Constitution which provided for the federal income tax. The purpose of this tax was to use citizens' earnings to pay the interest on the "funded" national debt. As with the debt owed by the British people to the Bank of England, this would be one so large the principle could never be paid off.

Russia was allied with Britain and France during World War I (1914-18). But the war against Germany and Austria-Hungary had reached a stalemate until the tide was turned by entry of the U.S. on the side of the Allies. Fighting on the eastern front between Germany and Russia was savage. By the end of the war the Russian Revolution broke out, and, after a terrible Civil War, the Soviet Union came into being.

It was the financier-controlled press which goaded President Woodrow Wilson into taking the nation into World War I on the side of England and France. But it was also part of the financiers' plan to shift the apparent focal point of their financial power from London to New York . This was done through the financing of the war by loans made to the European combatants by the New York banks.

It seemed to be in accord with a plan spelled out decades earlier by Cecil Rhodes, whereby the U.S. would not only be "recovered" for the British Empire, but would appear to become the senior partner in the enterprise. By the start of the 1920s, this objective had been accomplished. German, English, French, and other European taxpayers were all deeply in debt to the U.S. banks for the costs of the war.

Also during the war years the financiers had secured the issuance of the Balfour Declaration signaling British support for the establishment of a Zionist state in Palestine. The 1917 Declaration was made in a letter from Arthur James Balfour, British Foreign Secretary, to Walter Rothschild, Second Baron Rothschild, for transmission to the Zionist Federation.

During and after World War I, world financial power shifted to the New York banks through which, however, it would be the London-based elite exerting de facto control. It might also be said that starting with U.S. entry into World War I, once you look past the patriotic slogans, the U.S., its vast productivity, and the blood of its population have been used in making this country the worldwide military enforcer of international financier domination.

World War II became the means of consolidating financier control. Prior to that, during the years of the Great Depression, both Russia -aka the Soviet Union-and the U.S. were slipping away from the fold. Stalin had shown his "Bonapartist" tendencies by favoring "Socialism in one country," as well as by his deadly purges of the financier-controlled Trotskyite faction and his shocking rapprochement with Hitler in 1939 that seemed to foil the financiers' intent to play off Nazi Germany and the Soviets against each other.

In the U.S., President Franklin Roosevelt had taken steps during the Great Depression to rebuild the U.S. economy by exerting an unaccustomed degree of control over the Federal Reserve System and providing credit at low rates of interest to homeowners, farmers, and businessmen. This made Roosevelt seem to many wealthy Americans "a traitor to his class."

Roosevelt saw that a healthy and self-sustaining domestic economy is essential for the well-being of a sovereign nation. But instead of looking for ways to create a monetary system based on the productivity of the economy, as Lincoln had done with the Greenbacks during the Civil War, Roosevelt left intact the debt-based system overseen by the Federal Reserve. He added to this system the Keynesian idea of government deficit spending for public works to create employment. This was essentially a system whereby government would try to pay its debts by engendering inflation, a policy that has continued until today.

But World War II thwarted even these stirrings of nationalism in both countries. In both the Soviet Union and the U.S. , the financiers worked the levers of debt to build massive war machines. They were also working through the Western banks, including Brown Brothers Harriman in New York, to achieve the same ends in Nazi Germany. Eventually Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, and the U.S. entered the war. Both during and after the war, operatives from the international financial elite centered in London were the linchpins of a worldwide matrix of spying, assassination, terrorism, industrial espionage, psy ops, media manipulation, and monetary control. This included financing the founding of Israel as the Western bridgehead in the Middle East in 1948.

Despite the creation of an appearance of conflict between the West and the Soviet Union through the Cold War, the financiers continued to work both sides of the fence through their London-based operatives. In the U.S. they created the modern national security state with both the National Security Agency and the CIA firmly under their control. Then, after President John F. Kennedy moved to forestall the neocolonialist Vietnam conflict and replace the Federal Reserve with a U.S. system of silver-backed Treasury currency, he was shot dead in Dallas 's Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963.

In charge of convincing the public that the Warren Commission was correct in concluding that Kennedy was killed by Lee Harvey Oswald, supposedly a lone deranged gunman, were figures associated with the financier elite from the New York Times, Washington Post, and Yale Law School . (See The Kennedy Assassination Cover-Up Revisited by Donald Gibson, 2005.) But in 1979, a report of the House Select Committee on Assassinations stated that Kennedy was killed by a "probable conspiracy."

It has been thoroughly documented that since World War II the Western intelligence agencies, all with close ties to the financial world, particularly the New York and London investment banks, have been responsible for engendering wars, revolutions, and mayhem in countries around the world, causing the deaths of millions of people in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and southeastern Europe.

Meanwhile, the worldwide arms industry, also under financier control, have produced the greatest arsenal of weapons of mass destruction ever seen. After Kennedy was killed, the U.S. moved to arm Israel as the leading military power of the region. Today nuclear weapons have proliferated, with Israel , Pakistan , and India becoming nuclear powers in addition to the U.S. , Russia , Britain , China , and France .

But warfare and weapons cost money, and by the late 1960s the Vietnam War was sinking the U.S. deeper into debt. The U.S. war machine was to be the main tool for financier enforcement of their worldwide plan of domination, but the nation was going broke. The problem was made worse by heavy federal expenditures for the poor and elderly through such programs as Medicare and Medicaid.

But President Richard Nixon's Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had a plan. The government worked out an arrangement whereby Saudi Arabia and the other OPEC nations would gradually increase the price of oil, with the profits to be used by the oil-producing nations to buy U.S. Treasury debt securities. By 1980 the cost of oil would be ratcheted up from about $3.50 a barrel to $39.50.

The drastic increase of the price of gasoline at the pump acted as a de facto tax on the U.S. economy. But the plan worked. The "petrodollar" and "dollar hegemony" were born, with the dollar becoming the world's reserve currency. Dollars could flood the world only because in 1971 the Nixon administration had abandoned the dollar's gold peg as a basis for international currency exchange. Now currencies floated freely in world markets with speculation and inflation rampant. The economies of the world were no longer based on production, but on financial manipulation. It was also the start of the era of monetarism, where the Federal Reserve thought it could regulate the economy by the raising and lowering of interest rates.

The Kissinger plan also made the U.S. dependent on Middle Eastern oil and turned it into the muscle behind the financiers' ambition for Israel to dominate the region. So now Americans, who had liberated Europe from the Nazis, had to fight and die for the financiers in the Middle East . The final conquest of Iraq , starting in 2003, and the planned war against Iran are the latest phases.

Meanwhile, through the financiers' control of the U.S. Federal Reserve System, the producing economy was shattered through the Fed- induced recession of 1979-83, where interest rates were raised to the highest in history to combat the inflation the financiers had themselves caused by the oil price shocks. By this time, as some allege, the controversial concept of "peak oil"-whether it really existed or not-was being used as a cover for financier manipulation of oil markets by limiting production in order to maintain prices.

By 1992, when Bill Clinton was elected president, the U.S. producing economy had been devastated by the shutdown of factories and the export of jobs. The work of wrecking the economy was completed by Clinton 's embrace of NAFTA, which has largely eliminated family farming in favor of financier-controlled agribusiness in the U.S. , Canada , and Mexico . Deregulation of the financial industry began in earnest during the Reagan years from 1981-89 and accelerated under Clinton .

By this time, the U.S. economy was being kept afloat only through financial bubbles that allowed the purchase of consumer goods to take place through more family and household debt. We had the merger- acquisition bubble of the 1980s, followed by the George H.W. Bush recession which led to Clinton 's election in 1992. During the 1990s we had the dot.com bubble fueled by foreign investment. Capital gains taxes on stock price inflation and counting trust funds like Social Security as budgetary assets allowed Clinton to balance the federal budget the last three years of his presidency.

But the dot.com bubble also burst with the loss of $7 trillion of wealth through the crash of 2000-2001. Next came the Bush bubbles-in housing, equity funds, commercial real estate, and hedge funds that have been deflating while threatening to destroy altogether the economic viability of what was once the world's greatest industrial democracy.

After this, the only bubble left for an economy that appears to be entering terminal depression may be the current fuel/food bubble that could result in the starvation of millions worldwide. Now the longstanding ambition of the financier elite for the destruction of the American republic may finally be realized-with a lot of help, of course, from their American friends.

"End Times"

Can it be that the last stage of the U.S. takedown is "The Project for the New American Century"? Is this ambitious plan for "global leadership" through military might that was seemingly invented by the "neocons"-many with dual U.S.-Israeli citizenship-a Trojan Horse?

It certainly appears that with 9/11 as a pretext, the neocons suckered the U.S. into the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq as a means of military occupation of the Middle East . Certainly 9/11 and the Iraq invasion benefited Israel, as some Israeli politicians have frankly stated.

Were the neocons also acting on behalf of the financial controllers in London and elsewhere? And was one reason the neocons were so eager to engage in a "clash of civilizations" against the Islamic world the Koranic prohibition of usury which states, "Those who charge Usury are in the same position as those controlled by the devil's influence. This is because they claim that Usury is the same as commerce. However, God permits commerce, and prohibits Usury." (Koran, Al-Baqarah 2:275)

Prior to 9/11, the Bush administration got Congress to cut taxes for the highest income brackets, reversing Bill Clinton's budget surpluses. The tax cut remained in effect, even as the massive expenditures on the Middle Eastern wars mounted. The consequence has been to bring the federal government to the brink of bankruptcy.

The last official act of this phase could well be the ultimate insanity of a U.S. attack on Iran . If successful, this would complete the Western conquest of the Middle East but may start a larger conflict that could eventually force the U.S. to withdraw its forces once the money runs out. Israel would then be at liberty to sweep in to dominate a region that U.S. military power had devastated.

Whatever may happen overseas, the U.S. economy at home is on the verge of collapse. It if does, we will have to retreat to our own shores and face here the edifice of a ruined nation with no manufacturing base, a crumbling infrastructure, an aging population, insufficient food, poorly developed resources, and the collapse of the dollar. Of course the prophets of doom who claim that overpopulation must inevitably lead to Malthusian scarcity will take all this as justification of their prejudices. The rumored North American Union, with its currency the amero, could then follow, both under the control of the financiers.

Meanwhile in Russia, things took a surprising turn when the Russian people threw out their communist controllers in 1991 and established a Russian republic. The financiers immediately took over through the government of Boris Yeltsin and began to divide up the nation's resources through their local allies, the "oligarchs." But the Russian people refused to comply. Despite desperate poverty, they elected Vladimir Putin, a nationalist leader who moved quickly to establish a self-governing Russian state that the financiers and the Western press clearly intend to take down. Russia is now back on the world scene, and a revival of the Orthodox Church is taking place. The drama in that country has not been entirely played out it seems.

As far as the U.S. is concerned, the financiers will have used us for a century, then thrown us in the trash. The U.S. may well be replaced by China, which the financiers seem to be grooming as the world's next military enforcer. China has the advantage of an absolutist one- party system which has achieved remarkable success in terrorizing its huge population into obedience and passivity. The financiers would not hesitate to sacrifice hordes of Chinese to fight both Russia and what may remain of the U.S. By this time, the European Union will likely have its own unified nuclear deterrent to protect the financial centers. The time may come when there will be Chinese bases in the U.S. as occupiers/military police.

The wisest and safest course for U.S. foreign policy could be a new alliance with Russia that would rekindle our affinity with that nation from over a century ago. But how likely is this in a world ruled by the financiers where the destruction of the two nations is a long-term goal?

One of the tools of financier domination in the meantime will likely be worldwide famine engineered by artificial shortages. This has already started and may cause hundreds of millions of people to die and their resources to be seized. The smokescreens for this will not only be peak oil but also global warming as a means of dealing with the world's "surplus eaters." Numerous non-profits and NGOs are greasing the skids with their insistent lobbying against even responsible economic development.

Now in the U.S. we will likely see riots, panic, martial law, plagues, epidemics, and prison camps, much of which has already begun with police crackdowns, anti-terrorist exercises, declining public health, erosion of civil liberties, and the world's largest prison population.

It is likely that the "American Century" is over and that the "New American Century" will really be the "No American Century." Outside of select pockets of prosperity around financial centers, resorts, and military installations, the U.S. is being destroyed. As an example, the residents of once-prosperous towns in Michigan have turned to the illegal manufacture of meth-amphetamine now that the jobs are gone.

We have been used and abused, though often suckered into it by our own stupidity and greed. We have allowed ourselves to serve the will of an alien force-the world's financial elite. Our payback now appears to be a looming national catastrophe.

Economic Restructuring

Economically, what is left of America must be rebuilt from the ground up. The flaw is not in the productivity of nature, the availability of resources, our ingenuity, nor our ability to work. The flaw has been in the capitalist financial system.

We must now rebuild three things: American family farming, since a nation that cannot feed itself cannot long exist; then infrastructure and manufacturing, which will require energy conservation and redevelopment of our energy resources; then income security tied to productivity but not always to employment-a basic guaranteed income for all. The best available treatment of the history and benefits of a guaranteed income may be found in Steven Shafarman's new book, Peaceful, Positive Revolution, Tendril Press, 2008.

The concept of a guaranteed income as a benefit of a modern industrial economy has been around for a long time. But it is often confused with job-creation. As indicated earlier, during the 1930s, British economist John Maynard Keynes came up with the idea of using government deficits to try to out-run unemployment through government- controlled pump priming. But in the long run his methods were doomed to fail as debt-based economic growth eventually reached its limits due to inflation. This is where we are today, with President George W. Bush now the largest deficit spender in history.

The most successful attempt to define a rationale for an honest and democratic monetary system, one based on human labor and not financial chicanery, was the Social Credit movement founded by British engineer C.H. Douglas (1879-1952). He first set forth his ideas in his book Economic Democracy in 1918 and continued to teach his system for the next thirty years, attracting a considerable following in Great Britain , Canada , New Zealand , and Australia .

Douglas explained the dynamic whereby the incredible productivity of modern technology can readily be harnessed to provide the material sustenance for all members of society, but fails to do so because there is a chronic shortage of purchasing power from the cumulative societal income realized through wages, salaries, and dividends. The main reasons income cannot keep pace with prices is that the latter include retained earnings for savings and reinvestment, along with depreciation of capital-i.e., the tools and facilities of production.

But the "gap" between prices and earnings (what Keynes was to call "aggregate demand") was viewed by Douglas as a benefit of a modern industrial economy rather than the curse which in the Depression was causing farmers to dump their milk in the fields because consumers lacked the money to purchase it.

Douglas saw this gap as the natural appreciation of the potential producing economy to which everyone in society was entitled as monetized shares. He said this appreciation should manifest in regular payments of a National Dividend by government from a calculated credit account not dependent on taxation or government borrowing. The National Dividend could be paid by a combination of regular stipends to citizens and/or through a system of price subsidies. And it would be non-inflationary.

Douglas went further by explaining that in real life the price-income gap was in fact filled-nature abhors a vacuum-but by bank lending at usury. This was why the banks got richer, while everyone else struggled just to survive. Banks also use their credit creating ability to acquire securities, such as Treasury bonds, with the government paying interest that is compounded because the debt is constantly being re-financed. Interest on the U.S. national debt is expected to exceed $500 billion in fiscal year 2009. To pay it, many social programs will be cut.

The technical explanation is provided by Canadian Social Credit expert Wallace Klinck, "Expanding interest charges being paid on exponentially compounding debt accumulates due to an industrial cost accountancy error related to allocating capital charges in retail prices which do not distribute equal incomes within the same production cycle. The growing disparity between prices and incomes is progressively worsened by the replacement of human labor by capital (technology)."

Under the current system, the banks steal the fruits of economic wealth which properly belong to the public as a whole, both workers and non-workers, and while the financiers were well aware of Douglas 's system, they hated it. Word went out in the 1920s that his name was never to be mentioned in the British press. John Maynard Keyes was said to have developed his own deficit-spending theories as a means to counter Douglas 's influence. And when Douglas visited the U.S. in the late 1930s, he was told to his face that he would never be allowed to introduce his ideas in this country.

Next Steps

To accomplish a program of real reform will require a strong president but possibly a political revolution to get one. Congressman Ron Paul has made history as the first major presidential candidate to call for the abolishment of the Federal Reserve. He is right. The first thing a president worthy of the name should do is eliminate the Federal Reserve as a bank-of-issue, get rid of our debt-based monetary system, and depose the bankers and Wall Street financiers from the seats of power. Ron Paul is also right that the U.S. should withdraw its military from overseas and stop trying to control the world.

What Ron Paul's candidacy proves is that in the internet age, with financial crises jumping from the headlines every day, and authorities such as Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, and Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson manifestly having no intention of making real changes, the public is ready to listen to new ideas. But even progressive analysts are so locked into outmoded concepts that they fail to realize an entirely new type of monetary system is needed.

The basic concept that must be understood, as expressed repeatedly by this author in past articles, is that credit is a power of nature that is part of the human "commons." Credit allows society to materialize value by drawing from future potential productivity into present actualized reality. Credit therefore should be treated legally as a public utility, like water or electricity.

Credit is not a mathematical abstraction that should be manipulated into building pyramids of debt. Such practices are suicidal for an economy. Rather credit is organic, deriving ultimately from human labor (including mental labor, as in the application of technology), along with the sun, the soil, natural resources, and the rain. Thus we have gone full circle to the beginning of this article, where Russia and the U.S. were cited as the two nations that best understood where real wealth comes from.

The management of credit may be licensed to responsible private parties who are accountable to public authority, but it should never be given away or "privatized" to individuals or corporations who manipulate it mainly for their own profit, as banks do today. It is the privatization of credit through the banking systems of the world which has loaded humanity with debt, rendered short-term profits the highest priority of all business endeavor, and made modern industrialization as much a curse as a blessing.

Note that credit differs in this discussion from the legitimate investment of capital derived from profits or savings whereby an individual risks a portion of his wealth through a contract with a producing entity. Capital markets that facilitate this type of investment fall under the category of commerce, not usury.

A national monetary system should reflect the treatment of credit as a public utility and thereby make possible responsible economic activity and the fair distribution of wealth. Some of the measures which should be implemented are contained in the American Monetary Institute's draft American Monetary Act. (www.monetary.org/) The resulting currency could be issued, not in the form of debt instruments like Federal Reserve Notes, but silver-backed Treasury certificates as in President Kennedy's program of 1963.

Features of a new monetary system could be as follows:

A guaranteed income, followed by a National Dividend, should be paid directly to citizens from a Treasury credit account without recourse to either taxation or government borrowing. (C.H. Douglas's theory of the National Dividend as the monetization of the net appreciation of the productivity of a modern industrial economy is set forth in this author's Global Research article entitled, "An Emergency Program of Monetary Reform for the United States ," April 26, 2007.) The National Dividend, currently estimated at over $12,000 per capita annually, could be distributed in a variety of ways, in addition to a subsistence stipend. This could include price subsidies for consumer purchases, taking over existing Social Security payments, universal health insurance, or payments to women with young children. Another way to issue a National Dividend would be to monetize food production, whereby anyone who delivers food products to wholesalers receives a government payment as a producer's subsidy, thereby discounting food at the consumer point-of-sale. This would work in a similar fashion to farm parity pricing programs of bygone days. As explained by Wallace Klinck, "Social Credit policy is to compensate retail prices at the point-of-sale. It is not, however, to subsidize production which would be subject to consumer choice and fully supported by consumers having at all times financial income adequate to fully liquidate the costs of production. That is, production policy is to be determined essentially by consumers-this being the Social Credit concept of genuine economic democracy with maximum decentralization, or dispersion, of power over production policy. Price controls under the present financial cost-accountancy system, where continued economic activity is dependent upon an inflationary expansion of credit to meet rising costs arising consequent to flawed accountancy, is demonstrably impossible. Price regulation, however, would appear to be both necessary and realistic under a self- liquidating Social Credit system of finance. Although not generally recognized, prices are 'controlled,' (or manipulated) under the present system of finance in a most deleterious manner."

The government should also spend money directly into circulation, as it did with Greenbacks in the 19th century, both for operating expenses and for infrastructure projects at the federal, state, and local levels. A national infrastructure bank could be capitalized by state and local infrastructure bonds without any impact on the federal budget. Such spending would again be without recourse to borrowing or taxation. Infrastructure spending could be either through grants or low-interest loans. As with Congressman Dennis Kucinich's current proposed infrastructure bank legislation, the program could specify that a requisite proportion of funding be spent on American-made products such as steel.
We should reform banking by eliminating the catastrophic privately- controlled fractional reserve system. Instead, the government should lend money at a low rate of interest to banks, then use the proceeds to help pay for legitimate government expenditures in the areas of regulation or services. Use of the proceeds, combined with the new Greenbacks and savings from no longer having to pay interest on an unnecessary national debt, would eliminate the need for the federal income tax, allowing the 16th Amendment to be repealed. In fact, under a monetary system such as the one described herein, probably three-fourths or more of the current societal tax burden could be eliminated.

In order to clear the way for these reforms, bankruptcy reorganization of the entire $50 trillion of existing debt in the U.S. should be undertaken, with debt being restructured and paid down over time or simply written off. Bank lending for speculation, such as for mergers and acquisitions, equity and hedge fund speculation, and purchase of securities on margin has been explosively enabled through bankers' ability to move massive amounts of funds electronically. These leveraging practices should be outlawed, as they are abuses of the public interest. (According to the London Times, one John Paulson made $3.7 billion in hedge fund trading last year. "Mr. Paulson's firm, Paulson & Co, made a fortune from shorting America 's sub-prime mortgage markets.") A national fuel conservation program with real teeth should also be instituted. And at least half of the U.S. military budget should be eliminated, with half of the remainder devoted to energy R&D and domestic public works. Employees of the military-industrial complex will find many new career opportunities as the domestic economy revives.

As these measures are taken, the United States will no longer be dancing to the financiers' tune. We would be helping prepare a future where man's inhumanity to man as expressed through war and financial exploitation is no longer glorified. Such a future would be a milestone in the eventual enlightenment of the human race. But these are measures that must be implemented now, before it is too late.

While we await these epochal changes, more modest steps may be in order. The author is often asked for personal financial advice. His advice is to invest in yourself and in other people. Plant a robust home garden. Learn new skills. Start community food co-ops that buy local products. Establish local currencies and barter networks. Join or form a union. Raise bees. Put kids through school. Get out of debt. Pray and meditate. Become politically active. Demand change.

Richard C. Cook is a former U.S. federal government analyst, whose career included service with the U.S. Civil Service Commission, the Food and Drug Administration, the Carter White House, NASA, and the U.S. Treasury Department. His articles on economics, politics, and space policy have appeared on numerous websites. His book on monetary reform is entitled We Hold These Truths: The Promise of Monetary Reform and will be published this autumn by Tendril Press. He is also the author of Challenger Revealed: An Insider's Account of How the Reagan Administration Caused the Greatest Tragedy of the Space Age, called by one reviewer, "the most important spaceflight book of the last twenty years." His website is at www.richardccook.com. Questions, comments, or contributions may be directed to economicsanity@gmail.com .



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http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=8535
The Iraqi Dogs of War
Bob Shepard – Daily Mail May 2, 2008

As soon as I saw her, I knew there'd be hell to pay.

The scene before me was utter bedlam: hundreds of people in the street looting, while the sound of AK47 gunfire cracked from burning government buildings.

Everywhere, there were defaced portraits of Saddam - some with the eyes scratched out, others painted over or burnt.

The British "liberation" of Basra was entering its third day, and I was working as a private security consultant for ITN, protecting their crews as they reported on a war which was less than a month old.

They had been tipped off that the Sheraton Hotel – a symbol of the West – had been set alight, and they wanted to get some footage.

While the crew got down to business, I scanned the vicinity for potential threats.

Two things struck me immediately: first, the gunfire coming from the top floors of the hotel. It was probably celebratory, but there could be a sniper lurking, waiting to pick off a promising target.

Second, and of greater concern, was the group of around 150 men outside the Sheraton. A stocky, clean-shaven youth - his shirt unbuttoned to expose a hairy paunch - was clearly their ringleader.

Suddenly, he started shouting. He pointed, and all heads turned in one direction - and that's when I saw her.

Never, in all my years, had I witnessed anything like it in a war zone. A woman, obviously a Western journalist, dressed in tight trousers and a snug top that had ridden up to reveal her navel.

A woman dressed that way in London would hardly warrant a second glance. But in Basra, even under normal circumstances, it was highly provocative.

Most astounding of all, she appeared to be completely unaware of her appearance, and the effect she was having.

When she saw the group of men, she waded right in, notebook in hand, to conduct interviews.

The men parted like a shoal of fish, then closed around her. She was trapped, and she didn't even know it.

By this point, some of the men who'd been firing rifles inside the hotel had joined the unruly gang.

I wondered how I could possibly intervene to help the woman should anything happen.

The ringleader was getting louder and louder, whipping the gang into a simmering frenzy. Then, suddenly, he grabbed the journalist roughly around the waist.

At long last, the penny dropped. Her expression changed from professional indifference to total shock.

"Ureedik! Ureedik!" (I want you! I want you!) shouted the ringleader.

There was nothing left to think about. I shouldered my way in, all the time conscious of the pistol I had hidden in my body armour.

When I finally reached her, she looked like a fox cornered by a pack of hunting dogs. She was frightened, and desperate to get out of there.

"Where's your crew?" I shouted to her. She pointed to a saloon car parked outside the hotel. A cameraman I'd seen earlier was throwing his gear into the back seat.

With one hand on her back and the other poised to grab my pistol, I started to push her towards the edge of the crowd.

When the ringleader lurched forward to grab her, I threw myself between them. It was now a standoff between him and me.

I didn't see any knives or pistols, but I knew that somewhere in the crowd were the gunmen who'd been firing from the hotel.

As I inched the woman towards her car, the gang were swarming all over it. I opened the door and told the terrified cameraman to drive the hell out of there as quickly as possible.

The weight of the crowd nearly overwhelmed me as the journalist climbed into the passenger seat. But before she could close the door, the ringleader dived into her lap and she screamed as he ground his face into her crotch.

I grabbed the waistband of his trousers and pulled him off. He managed to grab a pack of cigarettes from the dashboard before he fell backwards. He was obviously determined not to come away empty-handed.

As the car sped off, my hand hovered over my pistol again as I contemplated how the baying mob would react.

To my tremendous surprise, the ringleader smiled and extended his hand.

I released my weapon and shook it. He slapped my right shoulder. Then he turned his back on me and shared out the cigarettes he'd taken, as if he were the grand conqueror.

I rounded the ITN crew up, relieved that there had been a peaceful outcome. Later, however, I reflected on how easily a stand-off like that can turn nasty.

When I'm working in dangerous countries like Iraq, I always apply the same ground rules: plan ahead, blend in, and respect the local population.

It is so simple, yet so many people - not just civilians like that unsuspecting female journalist, but soldiers and security contractors, too - ignore these rules at their peril.

When I retired from 22 SAS Regiment in 1994, I was certain that dangerous adventures in far-flung places were behind me.

I had spent 20 years in the SAS, achieving the rank of Warrant Officer. I'd been involved in the Iranian embassy siege in London, and fought in Northern Ireland, the Falklands, Bosnia and the first Gulf War.

My own SAS career ended four months shy of my 40th birthday - a good age to leave, in my view.

I gathered my belongings from camp in Hereford and walked out of the gates for the last time. I cried like a baby.

The world of international commercial security - the Circuit, as it's known - was a natural place for someone with my background to land.

I spent my first five years working for an American billionaire and his family. In half a decade, the gravest threat my client encountered was a playful seal in the Galapagos Islands that swam a bit too close.

My days of looking after rich people in glamorous locations ended when Al Qaeda hijackers crashed two planes into the World Trade Centre, transforming the Circuit from a cottage industry into a multi billion-pound business.

The media often refer to people on the Circuit as "mercenaries" - a label as offensive as it is inaccurate.

Mercenaries are hired guns who sell their services to the highest bidder.

By contrast, security advisers work for the British government (or governments of allied countries), for commercial clients (media outlets or companies who've won government contracts to re-build wartorn countries), or the military itself.

In 14 years on the Circuit, I have never accepted an assignment that I felt ran counter to Britain's national interests. So don't ever call me a mercenary!

When you're working on the Circuit, you can be asked to do a wide variety of jobs - from close protection (basically minding clients) to kidnap and ranson negotiations, surveillance, risk analysis and fraud investigation.

The biggest growth area by far in recent years has been in Iraq and Afghanistan.
As will become clear, nowadays not everyone on the scene has the expertise and ability to handle these hostile environments. The results can be disastrous.

One of my early experiences of the Circuit, post 9/11, was guarding those ITN crews amid the chaos of Iraq.

In my years looking after the rich and famous, I'd never let myself go or allowed my military training to deteriorate.

I never drank on the job. I kept myself in good physical condition and seized every opportunity to sharpen my "pro-active security skills" - anticipating trouble before it starts.

I didn't know it at the time, but my discipline would pay off handsomely in Iraq. The core skills I had learned in the SAS were still with me, and the most important one never left my mind: when operating in a war zone, you need to be as inconspicuous as possible.

Driving a beaten-up pick-up truck rather than a flash 4x4 with blacked out windows, hiding weapons and body armour underneath clothes, wearing local dress if appropriate. All these things help.

But external trappings are only part of it. Maintaining a low profile also extends to conduct. As I witnessed with the female journalist in Basra, it's imperative to behave respectfully towards the local population, always remembering to act like a guest and not a conqueror.

Sadly, a lack of awareness reigned among many of my fellow security advisers. Walking into the lobby of the Sheraton/Palestine hotel in Baghdad was like lifting the curtain on a freak show.

I stared, slack-jawed, one day as a British security team strutted past.

Every member was wearing body armour over their clothing, and carrying weapons in full view, from AK47s and submachine guns to pistols in waist holsters.

They probably thought the weaponry intimidated would-be attackers.

Maybe, yes, in a Hollywood movie, but in the real world of hostile environments, the worst thing you can do is draw attention to yourself. It's not a matter of if you'll get hit, but when.

As bad as those Brits were, the American security details I saw were even worse. Not only did they wear their body armour and weapons overtly, many of them were obviously on steroids, wore sunglasses indoors, and had pistols and knives strapped to their legs. Cowboys!

The more time went on, the more idiots started appearing on the scene.

The fledgling security industry born out of 9/11 kicked into high gear in April 2003, with the announcement of a $18.4 billion fund by the U.S. government to rebuild Iraq.

The main recipients of these multi billion-dollar contracts were private firms, staffed by experts such as engineers and surveyors - and they all needed looking after.

While it was good news for security firms, in a situation like Iraq what you really need are more soldiers - and that's where the money should have gone.

I estimate that the U.S. should have sent an extra 50,000 soldiers to sort out its portion of Iraq.

But President Bush had sold the public on a war with few casualties and a quick resolution. The U.S. - and Britain - saw the Circuit as a short-cut to achieve that.

As Iraq descended into chaos, soldiers were stretched to the limit fighting insurgents, so rather than deploy more troops, the U.S. and UK governments outsourced military jobs to the private security firms.

Tasks such as guarding compounds and training Iraqi police all shifted to the Circuit.

But as Iraq became more dangerous, the security needs of companies trying to rebuild the country became ever greater, too.

The more the insurgency gained traction, the more reconstruction funds were diverted into the pockets of security firms.

The biggest loser in this was the Iraqi people, whose daily lives, far from improving, degenerated into a struggle for survival.

Coalition troops on the ground also suffered enormously due to the lack of proper military reinforcements.

Meanwhile, the Circuit had never had it so good. Private security firms were eating up a bigger slice of the reconstrucion fund, as well as getting outsourced military jobs.

In 2003, the collective annual revenue of British security firms totalled approximately £320 million.

The following year, annual revenues had exceeded £1.8 billion. In short, the debacle in Iraq had turned into a 21st century gold rush.

Standards on the Circuit went into freefall. Demand outstripped supply; even a military background was no longer a hard and fast requirement.

I was meeting lads who'd worked as bouncers before joining the Circuit in Iraq.

By 2005, the security market was flooded. Supply caught up with demand and the bubble burst. Faced with declining revenues, many security firms slashed wages - guys who three years ago could have earned £500 a day, now risked their lives for just £170 - and cut back on equipment and training.

The consequences were often brutal. I attended the funeral of an associate who worked for one of the most disreputable British security firms (I shall not name it) - a firm with an eye for the bottom line rather than people's lives.

An ex-Marine, he was killed in an ambush while checking out a building site in Mosel. He had been in Iraq for just two weeks.

He'd been urged to take what I call ridiculous risks, such as arranging a trip to a coalition-funded building site in broad daylight.

Of all the dirty secrets private security firms have, the death toll is by far the worst. I got an idea of how deep the problem runs in 2006, working for another British firm.

One day, a colleague's disgust boiled over and he showed me confidential lists of casualties. In less than two years, nearly 60 employees had been killed and countless more injured in Iraq.

Many of the deaths involved security advisers delivering supplies for coalition forces. Their families and employees working similar tasks were only given sanitised accounts of how they had died.

Thus, the same fatal errors were destined to be repeated again and again.
It's not as if all the work was vital for the survival of democracy and the future of Iraq.

"Is moving 50,000 plastic chairs really worth dying for?" my colleague asked me. I don't think so.

What was really shocking were reports of a growing number of Muslims from Britain were fighting alongside the insurgents.

Take one figure I met while CNN was filming in Sadr City, a poor Shiite neighbourhood of Baghdad and a base for the insurgent Mehdi Army.

"Who are you?" he asked me in an instantly recognisable northern accent.

"A journalist," I lied. "You're Scottish, aren't you?" he said.

"Yeah," I said. "And you're Geordie!" "Yes, he said, smiling. "What are you doing here?" I asked. "I'm in the Mehdi Army." "What's wrong with the Toon Army?" I said, referring to Newcastle United's supporters.

He laughed, but the light-hearted moment was brief.

"You've got 20 minutes to do your filming.

"Why 20 minutes?" I asked.

"Because in 20 minutes, an American-patrol is coming past and today they're getting it."

Powerless to warn the troops of the impending danger, 20 minutes later we heard the double thump of an explosive being detonated. Thankfully, there were no casualties - but I've no doubt that Geordie Muslim was out for blood
.
The commercial security companies that have stayed in Iraq may label me over-cautious, but I believe that all civilians should steer clear of Iraq and Afghanistan until the security situations improve. Drastically.

By 2006 there were an estimated 126,000 security professionals working in Iraq on U.S. government contracts alone - the numbers in Afghanistan are unknown - and, quite simply, many of them lack the skills, equipment and training to perform their tasks effectively.

I've read the political spin that the Circuit aids stability. Trust me; it doesn't. The truth is, the Circuit is undermining the War on Terror by enabling Western governments to hide the true costs of their failed policies.

I have no doubt that had it not been for the Circuit propping things up, public calls for a radical rethink on Iraq would have come much sooner.

It hurts me to know that there are executives of these security companies receiving fat bonuses funded by the deaths and maiming of brave men and women on the ground. It has to stop.

But it won't until the industry is properly regulated by an external body, with sweeping powers to enforce codes of conduct.

The real benefits would be felt in future. If governments can't turn to the Circuit for help, odds are they'd think twice before committing to policies not justified by our military strength.

I haven't worked in Iraq since late 2004 because it has degenerated into total anarchy and chaos. It's impossible to protect my clients with anything other than return fire - and that is not the way I like to work.

I can't do it any more. I am a family man, and when I leave on an assignment, I like to know that I am coming back home in one piece, and not in a body bag.


•Adapted extract from The Circuit by Bob Shepherd, published by Macmillan at £16.99. Copyright Bob Shepherd 2008. To order a copy at £15.30 (p&p free), call 0845 606 4206
Source: www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=563659&in_page_id=1811



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