In the U-Tube video (below), Congressman Ron Paul gives a lengthy pre-amble to a question about Afghanistan he poses to US ‘Special Envoy’ Richard Holbrooke. Then we hear Holbrooke’s reply.

Ron Paul: asking most of the right questions

Central to Mr Holbrooke’s argument when he tries to explain WHY the USA is fighting in Afghanistan – and now Pakistan – is 9-11.

America, according to Mr Holbrooke, is at war because America was attacked from Afghanistan.

“…Afghanistan/Pakistan is not Iraq. The reason we are in this area – not withstanding its immense difficulties – is because the people of this area attacked our country on September 11th 2001 and have stated flatly they intend to do it again. They’ve done all the other things we mentioned earlier. Therefore it’s not Iraq and it’s not Vietnam…it’s about defending our country.”

While not discounting the possibility that the false-flag operation foisted on the world on September 11th 2001 had some tentacles inside Pakistan and even Afghanistan, it should now be clear to all intelligent people who are paying attention that the observed events of 9-11 can only be explained by some variant of the ‘inside job’/ ‘Israeli attack’ thesis.

The notion that an organization called ‘Al Qaida’, based in Afghanistan, was wholly – or even largely – responsible for 9-11 is outright fantasy.

WTC 7: only fools believe 'Al Qaida' demolished this building

How did ‘Al Qaida’ demolish World Trade Center Building 7?

This is the potentially fatal weakness in President Obama’s refusal – to date – to re-open the investigation into 9-11.

Making manifest the truth about 9-11 is arguably the most important task of the intelligensia of our times.

It’s the absurdity on which the most egregious current atrocities are based. Cut this rotten branch and a lot of termites drop with it.

We might even be able to give peace a chance, with all its many challenges.

Many years ago, Mark Hosenball was banged up for a while by British spooks and I supported the campaign for his release.

Mark Hosenball, 'journalist'

It’s disappointing to see what he’s done with his ‘freedom’. Hosenball writes for Newsweek these days, where he does a fabulous imitation of being part of a latter-day COINTELPRO team himself.

His latest effort is more like notes for a film script than journalism. Even the sub-editor seems unconvinced. It’s title is Dead Man Scheming?

It’s about a very, very scary man called Rashid Rauf. You guessed! He’s a Muslim! He’s also an extremist, a terrorist, he hates our freedoms  and although he’s been zapped by remote-control, he keeps popping up again for new episodes.

Hosenball doesn’t know if Mr Rauf is dead or alive at present. There’s some debate about that. Either way, we’re told, he’s probably dangerous.

Read, be alarmed – and appreciate your good fortune there’s a trillion dollar military industrial complex to save you from immortal terror such as this:

The terrifying Rashid Rauf: did Bin Laden teach him the secret of immortality?

…Rashid Rauf, a “high value” Qaeda target during the Bush administration and one of the Easter plot’s alleged masterminds, is alive or dead. U.S. officials believe that Rauf was killed just before last Thanksgiving by a CIA-operated Predator drone strike in Pakistan’s lawless North Waziristan. But according to one U.K. expert who’s been briefed on the case, some British investigators— and Rauf’s own family—think he may have survived. (A U.K. spokesperson had no comment on the matter.)

Rauf, a former British resident, was allegedly a central figure in an August 2006 plot by U.K.-based terrorists to blow up transatlantic airliners. The plot was broken up after authorities in Pakistan arrested Rauf. But in December 2007, he escaped from custody as he was being transferred back to prison from a court hearing in Islamabad. (He allegedly fled via a bathroom window after his guards allowed him to stop for a prayer break; U.S. officials suspected an “inside job.”) The White House was delighted when the Predator operation supposedly took him out. But soon after the missile strike, which U.S. officials said killed five men, including Rauf, his Pakistani lawyer claimed he was still alive and dared authorities to produce the body—which they were apparently unable to do.

Has Bond met his match at last?

Three current and former U.S. officials, who asked for anonymity when discussing a sensitive matter, told NEWSWEEK that U.S. agencies still believe Rauf was killed in the strike. “While it is not 100 percent confirmed,” said one of the officials, “there are good reasons to believe Rashid Rauf is dead.” In most Predator operations, officials in Washington have overhead video feeds that enable them to follow targets prior to a missile firing and to see bodies following the attack. But sometimes, another of the officials said, the evidence is more ambiguous. “If he is alive,” the official added, “we should regard this guy as a serious threat to U.S. interests.” And even if he’s dead, U.S. and U.K. officials said it’s possible the Easter plot was hatched prior to November 2008—meaning that Rauf’s reach may extend beyond the grave.

In Smoke, Mirrors and the Fog of Endless War, I wrote about some of the pitfalls of quotations sourced from the Internet.

Contrary to rumour, no evidence Martin Luther King was a Zionist

The problem of phoney citations didn’t begin with the Internet, of course. It’s probably as old as language. In King Hoax, I traced some of the history of a bogus Martin Luther King quotation, a hoax which pre-dates the World Wide Web.

Last December, in Israel Murder Asian Leaders? That’s Insane!, I discussed the almost unbelievable – yet very well-documented – story of a courageous Jewish American called John Gunther Dean.

Dean had a long and distinguished career as an American diplomat before his final posting as Ambassador to India in the 1980s. When he reported, to State Department superiors in Washington, his suspicions of Mossad involvement in the assassination of General Zia – an assassination in which the American Ambassador to Pakistan was also killed – he lost his medical clearance and was hospitalized for possible mental illness.

I began that article with a quotation by David Ben Gurion, the first Prime Minister of Israel. It allegedly appeared in the ‘Jewish Chronicle’ in 1967. Even though I explicitly queried the accuracy of the quote at the time, I reported it in good faith. In other words, I believed it likely, on balance, that the quotation was genuine. But I’ve changed my mind.

Ben Gurion: a militarist and war criminal, but not a fool

Today I came across “Debunking Ben-Gurion on Pakistan, which was published two days later (December 15th 2008) on Solomon’s House, a pro-Zionist blog. Without referring to my article, the author makes a strong case that the quotation is bogus. In the absence of further information, I wish to draw readers’ attention to doubts about its authenticity. Perhaps someone with better library access can prove or disprove it, once and for all?

On re-reading the notorious quotation, there is certainly something suspicious about Ben Gurion’s alleged remarks. Politicians are rarely so openly malevolent (although God knows what they say in private). This is how it concluded:

“It is essential that we exploit this base and strike and crush Pakistanis, enemies of Jews and Zionism, by all disguised and secret plans.”

That’s not much different from what a succession of senior Israeli politicians, generals and ‘intelligence’ officers have been saying publicly about Iran since 2003. But Ben Gurion was a wily old fox who lived in an era when Israeli leaders were rather more subtle in their approach.

It does seem unlikely he’d have committed such blatantly wicked thoughts to print in 1967.

After Six Days of Demolishing Gaza from the Sky, there’s been a Sabbath break. The Gods of In-Your-Face-Death are in temporary repose.

Gaza's University wrecked by Israeli bombs

Not that the Israelis stopped bombing Gaza, of course. They dropped more bombs and shot more missiles every day.

But the mass media, at least the BBC, CNN and Fox News, declared a lull anyway.

They seemed to throttle back on Gaza  coverage a day or so after the New Year. Instead, they kept serving up repeat retrospectives on the past year. Mostly deceptive spin, of course. Lest we forget…

Fox News' O'Reilly recycles his own highlights, again and again

A break in the mass media’s war was probably a good idea from the Zionist perspective. The attack on Gaza was just getting too hard to spin. The media talking heads needed time out to get their lines straight – and the professional Israeli Government liars probably appreciate a pause too.

A friend visited yesterday. He dislikes and rarely discusses politics. His main source of world news is the same feed of TV channels I get, via satellite. No cable here. This is rural Australia.

He also likes to swear, as a lot of Australians do. Yesterday he was cursing Israelis. I’ve never heard him do that before. It’s one small seismic shift in public opinion. I’d like to know how many others around the world went through the same shift last week?

A 'Missile's Eye' View of the Killing on U-Tube: Israeli Propaganda loses the plot

Like any decent human being, he could only take so much. He only had to see Israeli pyrotechnics on a defenseless population 10, 15, maybe 20 times before he figured out what was going on. Actually, you can tell better with the sound off. You’re a watching a one-sided video wargame.

Slaughter, by any other name, is still slaughter.

There’s been some media reporting on Israeli opinion polls. Netanyahu appears to be gaining. So much for theory that it’s ‘an Election War‘, with bloodsports automatically favouring the incumbent. Or perhaps we haven’t got to the finale yet? What Israel’s real goal is in starting this war, God only knows.

I can find little on the web about how public opinion in the western world as a whole is reacting. My sample of one is hardly statistically significant, but I’d be surprised if there weren’t millions more like him.

A Rasmussden Poll reports that Americans are split, with fewer Democrats supporting Israel than Republicans. It doesn’t say much about how opinion is shifting. It does say that roughly two thirds of Americns still consider that Israel an ally of the USA, although the percentage is slightly down from before. Those who consider Israel an enemy are still very small, or so it says.

I bet Rasmussden knows plenty more about shifts in public opinion on Israel/Palestine over the last week – and I bet the Israelis know too.

I hope they’re worried, very worried.

Terror Unleashed in Mumbai Attacks, November 2008

A possible scenario is that Israel is using the Gaza flare-up as a feint while it orchestrates a much larger war. Is it still trying to get in a massive strike against Iran before Obama takes office? Is it planning another false-flag atrocity in India, in an attempt to start a war against Pakistan?

You really can’t tell with maniacs. I’d like to think that at least the US NSA taps their communications, but I fear it’s more likely the other way round.

It’s also possible the Israelis are mainly keen to ensure that from the day of his inauguration, Obama is embroiled in a confusing, live conflict – in which he’ll find it very hard to disentangle the USA from its ‘passionate partner’, the State of Israel. There’s a lot of media chatter along those lines, creating expectations of a new ‘terrorist attack’.

The Rasmussden poll reports that large numbers of Americans believe there will be another 9-11 style atrocity in the USA within the next year.

“59% say a terrorist attack in the United States like the one Thanksgiving week in India is at least somewhat likely in the next year.”

Another false flag op - coming soon to the USA?

That’s a well-conditioned public, more than half expecting another false flag atrocity that, on past experience, will cause a resurgence of war fever and anti-Arab /anti-Muslim hatred.

The Mossad and its allies can doubtless deliver the ‘terrorist attack’, if and when they choose, bang on cue.

All in all, 2009 looks like it will be another year of living dangerously on planet earth. Of course, for the heroic population of Gaza, it starts dangerous, to say the very least.

Increasing public’s awareness of Israeli crimes – and of the crimes of the mainstream media who have supported and covered-up Zionist crimes for so long – is the best antidote to terror I know.

When support for Israel and War collapse in the west, that’s when there’s an opening for change we really can believe in…

Those who understand that the western mass media purveys a grotesque, deceptive, inverted view of reality need to help more friends to see it too. Those who don’t understand it yet… keep reading and thinking.

Time to get over it

Those who work in the mass media: please accept responsibility and push the limits, now. It’s time!

The environmental crisis is a collective responsibility and we all share some responsibility for solving it.

As John Lennon advised us before his untimely death from an assassin’s bullet, the crisis of war is much the same.