More Israeli Connections to the 9-11-2001 Terrorist Attacks

Most people think that the 9-11 terrorists attacks were carried out by muslim extremists lead by Osama Bin Ladin.  That's what the US government and large corporate owned mass media want you to think.

Watch this video and read this article.  2 small pieces in a very large investigation.

Following Zakheim and Pentagon trillions to Israel and 9-11

By Jerry Mazza
Online Journal Associate Editor


Jul 31, 2006, 00:19

Think of this as part two of Recherche du trillions perdu, my Online Journal article on Dov Zakheim, former Bush appointee as Pentagon Comptroller from May 4, 2001 to March 10, 2004. At that time he was unable to explain the disappearance of $1 trillion dollars. Actually, nearly three years earlier, Donald Rumsfeld announced on September 10, 2001 that an audit discovered $2.3 trillion was also missing from the Pentagon books. That story, as I mentioned, was buried under 9-11’s rubble. The two sums disappeared on Zakheim’s watch.

Yet on May 6, 2004, Zakheim took a lucrative position at Booz Allen Hamilton, one of the most prestigious strategy consulting firms in the world. One of its clients then was Blessed Relief, a charity said to be a front for Osama bin Laden. Booz, Allen & Hamilton then also worked closely with DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is the research arm of the Department of Defense. So the dark card was shifted to another part of the deck.

Judicial Inc’s bio of Dov (linked below) tells us Zakheim was/is a dual Israeli/American citizen and an ordained rabbi and had been tracking the halls of US government for 25 years, casting defense policy and influence on Presidents Reagan, Clinton, Bush Sr. and Bush Jr. He is, as I described him earlier, the bionic Zionist. In fact, Judicial Inc points out that most of Israel’s armaments were gotten thanks to him. Squads of US F-16 and F-15 were classified military surplus and sold to Israel at a fraction of their value.

Judicial Inc also points out that Israel, a country of 4.8 million Russian and Polish Jewish émigrés, flies on one of the biggest Air Forces in the world, thanks to Dov. Conflict of interest here? Depends on what you’re interested in. That is, in 2001 Dov was CEO of SPS International, part of System Planning Corporation, a defense contractor majoring in electronic warfare technologies, including remote-controlled aircraft systems, and the notorious Flight Termination System (FTS) technology that could hijack even a hijacked plane and land or crash it wherever.

More from the resume: Wikipedia points out that Zakheim is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and in 2000 a co-author of the Project for the New American Century’s position paper, Rebuilding America’s Defenses, advocating the necessity for a Pearl-Harbor-like incident to mobilize the country into war with its enemies, mostly Middle Eastern Muslim nations.

As to Dov’s hell-raiser lineage, Judicial Inc points out that Grandpa Zakheim was born in 1870, Julius Zakheim (Zhabinka), in the Ukraine, a Russian rabbi who married a relative of Karl Marx. He was a Menshevik/Bolshevik and played a leading role in the 1905 turmoil that paved the way for the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. The Bolshevik master plan called for the state of Israel, which was chosen for its proximity to the world's oil and an area of religious significance.

Dov’s Father, Rabbi Jacob I. Zakheim was born in 1910 and reared in Poland’s swarm of Zionist hard guys, read assassins and bombers. His Polish town, near Bilaystok, also brought us Yitzhak Shir, and family friends included Menachem Begin and Moshe Arens. Dov’s father was an active member of Betar, formed in 1923 in Riga, Latvia. Its goal was to control the Middle East (and its oil). It was known that the Jewish people needed their own country and they chose Palestine and claimed it a Jewish state “on both sides of the Jordan.”

Betar was in essence a terrorist organization formed because Zionists were sick of being chased from and arrested in country after country. They wanted both a place to escape and a base for their power. Betar joined forces with the Haganah, Irgun, and Stern gangs. With no prospect of a Jewish state in sight, they argued that armed struggle against the British was the only way. Since Britain occupied Palestine and was containing them they went on a blood feast of bombings that killed hundreds of British soldiers. The British pulled out, but the Zionists continue to maul the Arabs to this day.

For a concise history on the Formation of Israel in 1947, I suggest this link to theocracywatch.org.

For an interesting look at “The United States and the Recognition of Israel: A Chronology” compiled from Harry S. Truman and the Founding of Israel by Michael T. Benson, link above. For a rounded look at Israel, see Wikipedia.

Returning to Dov: he was born in Brooklyn in 1943 and attended exclusive Jewish schools, spent summers in Israel Zionist camps, which trained the Zionists of the future. As to Dov’s formal education, he graduated from Columbia University in 1970 and the University of Oxford in 1972. From 1973 to 75, he attended the London school of Jewish studies, described as a “Harry Potter” type cauldron; among the subjects Jewish supremacy, Advanced Bible, Talmud, Jewish Mysticism, Holocaust, Anglo-Judaica, and Zionism. After, he was ordained a Rabbi. From 1975 to 80, Zakheim was an adjunct professor at the National War College, Yeshiva University, Columbia University and Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut.

As he stepped into the Reagan administration, he talked them into funding development of the Lavi Fighter at a cost of $3 billion. The Lavi was a total flop and Israel dropped it, though it owed $450 million in contract fees that were cancelled. Israel, according to Judicial Inc, also created a story that China was eager to buy the Lavi. Zakheim convinced Reagan that China had to be sandbagged. Reagan gave Israel $500 million for its lost contracts. Reagan then threw in a wing of F-16’s as a bonus and sign of good will. Do we see a pattern here, personal, familial, career-wise, of over-the-top Israeli advocacy?

Again, during Zakheim’s tenure as Pentagon controller from May 4, 2001, to March 10, 2004, over $3 trillion dollars were unaccounted for. Additionally, military Information was jeopardized and military contractors billed the US for Israeli items: $50 million dollar fighter jets were rated as surplus and the list rolls on. As the scandal of the missing trillion dollars surfaced and Dov resigned, Israel was handed the finest fighter jets in the US inventory while 15 percent of US jets were grounded for lack of parts. In whose best interest was this?

But Dov is not alone. He is one of an elite group of Jewish Americans/Israelis who inter-marry and enter government. They and their Christian counterparts are called neocons and their sole purpose is directing US policy. Most of them are dual citizens and few serve in the US military. Think of Paul Wolfowitz, Elliot Abrams, Richard Perle, Ben Wattenberg, to mention a few. Whether their motivation is anger at the Muslim world, seen as a religious and territorial enemy, or a deep-rooted reaction to the Holocaust, the culmination of European anti-Semitism, their reactionary militarism becomes a world-threatening force unto itself. Hence our concern.

Dov and the World Trade Center

Perhaps not coincidentally in May 2001, when Dov served at the Pentagon, it was an SPS (his firm’s) subsidiary, Tridata Corporation, that oversaw the investigation of the first “terrorist” attack on the World Trade Center in 1993. This would have given them intimate knowledge of the security systems and structural blueprints of the World Trade Center. From the '90s through 2001, WTC Security was handled by Securacom, a Kuwait-American firm, on whose board Marvin Bush, the president’s brother, sat. After 9/11, Securacom was let go, changed its name to Stratosec, and was delisted from the Stock Exchange in 2002.

According to Conspiracy News.net writers Shadow and ‘Pax’ in Dov Zakheim and the 9/11 Conspiracy, (and I suggest you look at this link) “According to the SPC website (4), a recent customer at that time was Eglin AFB, located in Florida. Eglin is very near another Air Force base in Florida-MacDill AFB, where Dov Zakheim contracted to send at least 32 Boeing 767 aircraft, as part of the Boeing /Pentagon tanker lease agreement. (5)

”As the events of September 11, 2001 occurred, little was mentioned about these strange connections, and the possible motives and proximity of Dov Zakheim and his group. Since there was little physical evidence remaining after the events, investigators were left only with photographic and anecdotal evidence.

“There is a photograph of the Flight Termination System module, from their site.(5). Note it has a cylindrical shape, and is consistent with the size and shape of the object observed under the fuselage of flight 175.

“The Boeing lease deal involved the replacement of the aging KC-135 tanker fleet with these smaller, more efficient Boeing 767s that were to be leased by Dov Zakheim's group. The planes were to be refitted with refueling equipment, including lines and nozzle assemblies.”

(Remember both Flight 175, that hit the South Tower, and Flight 11, that hit the North Tower, were Boeing 767s. Flights 77 and 93 were 757s.)

“In the enlargement of flight 175’s photo, we can clearly see a cylindrical object under the fuselage, and a structure that appears to be attached to the right underside of the rear fuselage section.

”When seen in comparison, it is obvious that the plane approaching the Trade Center has both of these structures-the FTS module and the midair refueling equipment, as configured on the modified Boeing 767 tankers. Of particular interest is the long tube-like anomalous structure under the rear fuselage area of flight 175-this structure runs along the right rear bottom of the plane, as it also does on the Boeing 767 refueling tanker pictured.

”After considering this information, I [the author/s] am convinced that flight 175, as pictured on the news media and official reports, was in fact a refitted Boeing 767 tanker, with a Flight Termination System attached. Use of this system would also explain the expert handling of aircraft observed in both New York and Washington investigations, which has been officially credited to inexperienced flight school students.

“Since the refitted 767s were able to carry both passengers and a fuel load, as shown in this photo, it is likely that the plane designated Flight 175 was in fact a refitted 767 tanker, disguised as a conventional commercial passenger plane.

“As shown in this photo of a 767 being serviced, the FTS unit, when in position, would be small and unobtrusive enough to be fairly innocuous (at least to casual observers, such as passengers). The smallest circle indicates the size and position of the anomaly depicted in the photos of Flight 175. The larger circle, which is the size of the engine housing, shows the size of the anomaly in relation to the engine. Note the size and position of the open hatches on the engine housing, which would tend to discredit the widely held theory that the anomaly is an open hatch or cargo door.

“As the . . . diagram shows, all flights involved in the events traveled very near many military installations, and appear to have traveled in a manner suggesting guidance and possible transfer of the control of the planes among the bases.

”Since the evidence from the World Trade Center site was quickly removed, there is little concrete evidence of the involvement of Dov Zakheim, who has since left his position at the Pentagon. However, the proximity of Eglin AFB to MacDill AFB in Florida and Dov Zakheim's work via SPC contracts and the Pentagon leasing agreement on both of these installations, combined with SPC's access to World Trade Center structural and security information from their Tridata investigation in 1993, is highly suspicious. Considering his access to Boeing 767 tankers, remote control flight systems, and his published views in the PNAC document, it seems very likely he is in fact a key figure in the alleged terrorist attacks in New York City on September 11, 2001.”

EDITORIAL RESPONSE TO READERS' COMMENTS:

”In response to some of our readers who have questioned our premise that it was Rabbi Dov Zakheim who 'called for' the Pearl Harbor type of incident, we here at Conspiracy News Net acknowledge that the PNAC document was written by the likes of William Kristol and Donald Kagan, and therefore as the real brains behind the agenda they are the ones calling for it in a literal sense. However, we do stand by our assertion that the Rabbi called for it as well, insofar that he signed his name onto this document. If he signed it he agrees with it and therefore he is calling for it.

”Some of you have argued that we are singling out Rabbi Zakheim because he is Jewish, implying that we are pushing some sort of twisted anti-Semitic agenda while noting that he is not the only one who signed the PNAC document and therefore wondering why our article is about him and not the others. We do not mean to imply that the Rabbi acted alone, our article simply points out that Rabbi Zakheim had access to things like structural integrity, blueprints and any number of important facets of information about the WTC through his work with TRIDATA CORPORATION in the investigation of the bombing of the WTC in 1993.

“That he had access to REMOTE CONTROL Technology through his work at System Planning Corporation (SPC). That he had access to BOEING AIRCRAFT through a lease deal HE BROKERED while working at the Pentagon.

“ . . . Finally that he was part of a group of politically radical Straussian Neo-Conservatives, who, through their association with PNAC, called for restructuring of the Middle East, noting that a Pearl Harbor type of event MAY BE NEEDED to foster the frame of mind required for the American public to accept such a radical foreign policy agenda. In light of all this information we here at Conspiracy News Net stand by our statement that Mr. Zakheim not only called for the slamming of the WTC Towers on 9-11, but he activity took part in their demolition by providing the logistics necessary for such an attack to occur.”

Coda, a Bitter Frosting on the Cake

Whether or not you agree in whole or in part with these findings, here is an eye-opening article originally from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette by Milan Simonich. It is titled Army unit piecing together accounts of Pentagon attack, and from it comes this striking information in paragraph six . . ."One Army office in the Pentagon lost 34 of its 65 employees in the attack. Most of those killed in the office, called Resource Services Washington, were civilian accountants, bookkeepers and budget analysts. They were at their desks when American Airlines Flight 77 struck.”

Apart from the question of whether it was F 77 that struck the Pentagon, it is more than ironic that accountants, bookkeepers and budgets analysts, the very people who could pick up the financial frauds were struck. Especially since the hit was directed supposedly at the Office of Naval Intelligence.

Nevertheless, Dov is busy at his Booz Allen job, involved in Strategic Services and who knows what other dark plans as we speak, even as the Middle East is under heavy fire once again from Israel and its fervid ally, the US government.
Jerry Mazza is a freelance writer living in New York. Reach him at gvmaz@verizon.net.

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¿Intervención del Israeli Mossad en el caso de Florence Cassez en Mexico?

¿Intervención del Mossad en el caso de Florence Cassez? Y que tiene que ver con las ventas de armas?

Por Xavier Méndez Camacho “Ser inocente es peligroso, porque no se tienen coartadas”: Anónimo. ¿Florence Cassez es inocente?

Hago alusión al tema de “la francesa secuestradora”, por la reciente aparición de su libro “A la Sombra de mi Vida. Prisionera del Estado Mexicano” que ya circula en librerías y tiendas departamentales. Es un tema delicado porque detrás de todo el entramado se encuentran los Servicios de Inteligencia Israelíes, el sanguinario, temible y legendario Mossad, famoso por ser el principal Cazador de Nazis en el mundo y autor del rescate de rehenes de un avión en África ( Rescate Entebbe ) en julio de 1976. En febrero de 2006, siendo reportero del diario unomasuno publiqué una investigación del caso donde revelaba por primera vez que detrás de todo el montaje que preparó el ahora secretario de Seguridad Pública y entonces director de la Agencia Federal de Investigaciones (AFI) Genaro García Luna para las televisoras en el rancho “Las Chinitas” sobre la banda de secuestradores como “Los Zodiaco” se encontraba el jefe del Mossad para América Latina y México Eduardo Cuahutémoc Margolis Sobol. Unomásuno fue el único diario que en México se atrevió en ese momento a publicar mi investigación y sus ramificaciones en el caso por una simple razón. El propietario de unomásuno es árabe, Nahim Nibien Nahum y como todos sabemos, árabes y judíos tienen grandes diferencias. En medio de la investigación que realizaba, El Mossad se percató y fui vigilado por varios días mientras me entrevistaba en lugares discretos con los abogados de Florence Cassez y su familia y cruzaba información con diversas fuentes. Mi teléfono celular fue intervenido –como después me enteré- y hubo innumerables presiones al propietario de unomásuno para impedir que publicara. Recuerdo que una de ellas sucedió estando yo presente en sus oficinas. El director del Heraldo de Toluca le llamó para decirle que “unos amigos míos me dicen que vas a publicar el caso de la francesa secuestradora apoyándola. Te anticipo que mis amigos me dicen que detrás de todo este asunto está un señor muy peligroso que se llama Mossad ”. Ni siquiera el director del Heraldo de Toluca tenía idea de lo que es El Mossad ni de sus alcances. Aún así publicamos el reportaje en tres entregas; dimos a conocer la ubicación de sus oficinas; describimos cómo eran por dentro; revelamos que tenía una empresa fachada para cubrir sus actividades, incluso publicamos una fotografía de su pasaporte. Hay evidencia de que Margolis estuvo en la SIEDO el 9 de diciembre de 2005, cuando fue detenida Florence y en el Rancho Las Chinitas el día del montaje. Eduardo Morgolis nunca me desmintió pero hubo un silencio oficial. Ni una sola respuesta. Los demás medios de información, principalmente televisión y radio tampoco dieron seguimiento pese a que revelé dónde tenía su bunker El Mossad ( en la colonia Anzures, pegado a Polanco) y la implicación de Eduardo Margolis, el jefe de estos Servicios de Inteligencia, en el caso. La prensa mexicana se fue y se ha ido por el montaje de García Luna pero no ha querido tocar al temible Mossad. Hay una razón muy simple: la mayoría de los grandes medios de comunicación en el mundo se encuentran en manos de judíos, incluyendo el The New York Times y han cabildeado en la prensa mexicana para dejar a salvo, intocable, al espía Margolis. Su poder es grande. Ni siquiera Deniss Maeker en su “Punto de Partida” se atrevió a tocar el tema de Margolis. El fondo radica en que el hermano de Florence, de nombre Sébatien se involucró con Margolis en una empresa de “fachada” con razón social Radiancy de México S.A. de C.V., que supuestamente era distribuidora de equipo médico y estético. La investigación que realicé llegó hasta Tel Aviv pues ubicó ahí el domicilio y la verdadera actividad de Radiancy: venta de misiles y armamento. Cuando Sébastien se dio cuenta de lo que hacía el agente israelí quiso desafanarse pero fue amenazado por Margolis. El 21 de diciembre del 2004 la esposa de Sébastien, Vanessa Mercado, recibió una llamada de parte del citado socio, en donde los amenazó a ambos de muerte y de secuestro en contra de sus dos hijos de 4 y 5 años, y les dijo “no saben con quien se están metiendo”. En su libro, Florence relata que durante su detención le preguntaron si conocía a Eduardo Margolis. Ella contestó que sí. El jefe policíaco que la interrogó le dijo: “¡Te va a chingar Margolis!”. Y le repitió: “¡ No tienes ninguna oportunidad. ¡Te va a chingar Margolis!”. “En la mesa, frente a mí, uno de los hombres tira tarjetas de presentación de cuando trabajaba para Sébastien. Llevan mi nombre, claro, y el logo de la empresa de material médico que tenía mi hermano con Eduardo Margolis”. En los últimos tiempos el caso de la “francesa secuestradora” ha tomado relevancia porque incluso enfrentó a los presidentes de México y Francia. Sarkozy está empeñado en devolver a su patria a la francesa para que allí cumpla condena, o le otorgue el perdón porque el presidente de Francia “cree en su inocencia”. Y solamente así ha podido salir a la luz pública el nombre del agente israelí y tímidamente algunos medios ahora lo mencionan pero se cuidan de no involucrar directamente al Mossad. Por eso da risa la carta que Eduardo Margolis envió a Proceso en abril, en su derecho de réplica, cuando Homero Campa abordó el tema. Ahí afirma que no conoce a Israel Vallarta; que no ha tenido ninguna relación de amistad o de negocio con dicha persona y “…por último le afirmo, que no soy jefe de seguridad de ninguna comunidad, ya que me dedico a ejercer el comercio de manera lícita”. Homero Campa le contesta que “los señalamientos sobre su persona no fueron realizados por el reportero, sino que están contenidos en la averiguación previa PGR/SIEDO/UEIS/190/2005 –relativa a los casos de Florence Cassez e Israel Vallarta– y que se reprodujeron sin emitir juicios. “La información sobre la supuesta relación entre Margolis y Vallarta la describió este último en la declaración preparatoria que rindió el 9 de marzo de 2006 y que forma parte del referido expediente judicial, del cual Proceso tiene una copia. Puntualizo además que la nota a la que alude el señor Margolis se titula Un “thriller” lleno de trampas y no “Relación Turbulenta Israel Vallarta”; que apareció en Proceso 1692 y no en el número 1693, y que en el texto nunca se afirma que él sea “jefe de seguridad” de alguna comunidad”. Han pasado cuatro años desde la publicación del reportaje en unomásuno y de la golpiza que me propinaron por meterme en este caso de la cual todavía no me recupero completamente. Sucede que a los 15 días de haber revelado la identidad del jefe del Mossad, en la colonia Clavería tomé un mini taxi a las 3 de la tarde, luego de que mi vehículo se descompusiera y lo dejara estacionado sobre la avenida Cuitláhuac. A las dos cuadras el chofer hizo una parada y se subieron dos individuos, se sentaron junto a mi y uno de ellos sacó un minibat, de esos que usan para checar llantas; me amenazó, sacó mis documentos del saco y comprobó mi identidad. Al saber que era el reportero Xavier Méndez comenzaron a golpearme con el bat con inaudita saña. Me quebraron una mano con la que me defendí la cara, me rompieron la nariz, una costilla y me transfiguraron el rostro. Después de pasearme por la ciudad por más de tres horas me tiraron allá por el rumbo de Iztapalapa y de ahí me fui por mis medios al hospital Magdalena de las Salinas. Antes de bajarme del auto me dijeron: “Para que no ande de metiche piche periodista”. Era un mensaje del Mossad. Algunos compañeros de la “fuente” de PGR me aconsejaron que denunciara en la Fiscalía Especial para Delitos Contra Periodistas y que le comentara a García Luna. Sabiendo las complicidades entre ellos no lo hice. Preferí guardar silencio, hice mis maletas y me vine a vivir a Cancún.

Alternative Media Host Alex Jones Meets Corporate Media Puppets

First watch this video to get an introduction to Alex via the corporate media lens:

Yes, I understand Alex looks intense and out of control.  I know how he feels.  He is mad as hell that we have been lied to for so long on so many levels.  You may think it is a matter of left versus right, but you are so very wrong.  From the Federal Reserve Act to MLK to JFK, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, 9/11, and now Mali.

Unfortunately when you don't have big corporate media budgets it is very hard to get your message across to the masses so that they will take appropriate action.

Ask yourself some questions:

Do you believe that all individuals in the City, State, and Federal government are acting in the best interest of the people of the United States of America?

Do you believe that corporate media, largely controlled by 5 major corporations report the news of the world in an accurate fashion that best represents what's really happening? Do they question government and other corporate actions sufficiently enough to keep them in check?

Are you satisfied with the job of the US President? The US Congress?

What is wrong with our current social and economic environment? What are the root causes of our problems?

Do you really think the source of all our problems is as simple as "the damn liberals" or the warmongering Republicans?

How is it possible that US foreign and domestic policy have been virtually the same for nearly 40 years?

You need only to look at the shared think tanks and associations of White House administrations over the past 40 years to realize they all have ONE THING in COMMON.

The Council on Foreign Relations.

That is where you should be looking.  Research the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) and their reference to a need for a "new Pearl Harbor".

Watch 9/11 in 5 Minutes.  Does it make you think there's something fishy about the official story? Then watch a film that just came out and has won several awards, Operation Terror and consider the .

Then decide if Alex Jones or other alternative media deserve tin foil hats.

Most Influential People in the Alternative Media 2012

I found this list while researching Paul Craig Roberts and added my own.  If you are trying to figure out what the New World Order is and how the Council on Foreign Relations calls the shots in America, then start reading and listening to what these people have to say.

Most Influential People in the Alternative Media (2012)

Activist Post

The criteria we've chosen to base these rankings of the most influential alternative media figures are the following;

• people that have the courage to seek the truth no matter where the information leads them; 
• those with the courage to question 9/11; 
• those who are gurus or experts in their field, whether it be military, finance, psychological warfare, etc.
• those who don't buy into the false left-right political paradigm;
• those who are grounded in peace and liberty;
• those with the communication skills and platform to affect real change.

Significantly, each of the people who made our list is clearly driven by unyielding passion.  Despite some natural disagreements, they each provide a unique bridge to forbidden knowledge and they all deserve high praise for their efforts and commitment to inform the public. Sincerely, it is very encouraging to have so many talented voices leading the stampede for truth, liberty, justice, and peace.

With so many people doing great work in the real alternative media, we are sure that some deserving reporters will be left off the list. Although Activist Post has forged relationships with some of the people on this list, we've tried to remain as non-biased as possible in our observations.  At the end, we've also included a list of those who deserve honorable mention for their tireless work and talent providing the truth.

10. Dr. Paul Craig Roberts:  Paul Craig Roberts is one of the most respected columnists in the alternative media.  His syndicated articles can be seen on many leading alternative news websites including Lew Rockwell, Infowars, Counterpunch, InformationClearingHouse and countless others. Roberts scores huge points in the credibility department having been the former head of policy at the Department of Treasury under Reagan, and the editor of the Wall Street Journal -- among a long list of other accolades.  His research is impeccable and his vision of how the world really operates is second to none.  He knows why and when the global chess pieces are moving, and has the incredible talent to communicate difficult concepts to the general public.  He has written several books including The Tyranny of Good Intentions, and How the Economy was Lost. His many interviews can be seen on Russia Today and Prison Planet TV.  Roberts is also a recent contributor to Gerald Celente's esteemed Trends Journal.  There is no one better at reporting the reality of geo-political events and the workings of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve.

9. Gary Franchi: Franchi is a longtime researcher and liberty activist.  His essays and reports have been published all over the Internet and in the book Songs of Freedom: Tales From the Revolution.  He's also the producer of several documentaries likeCamp FEMA and Don't Tread on Me.  Because of his tenacious work, he now has one of the best alternative media platforms on the Internet.  His liberty social network, RTR.org (Restore the Republic) has over 32,000 members and is growing quickly.  The quality of his Reality Report newscasts rival the multi-million dollar productions at any cable news outfit -- except he reports TRUTH news.  Franchi does an excellent job aggregating the most important stories in the alternative news and presenting them in a concise and visually appealing newscast.  We've found each of Franchi's recent Reality Reports to be must-see TV, and only expect this up-and-comer's influence to continue to grow.

8. Adam Kokesh: Kokesh is a former Iraq war veteran turned peace activist, a former Libertarian congressional candidate, and the current host of Russia Today's Adam Vs. The Man nightly cable TV show.  He recently gained recognition when he was brutally arrested for silently dancing at the Thomas Jefferson Memorial with other activists.  The video of the alarming arrest went absolutely viral and surely brought many new viewers to his TV show and to the truth movement.  Kokesh is well-informed, well-spoken, committed to individual liberty and peace, and has the legitimacy of having served his country in combat. Kokesh recently received high praise from a fellow journalist who details his appeal here.  Watch for Kokesh's influence to grow as more people become aware that a genuine truther has an entertaining and informative TV show.  The establishment is in big trouble with the likes of Kokesh on the airwaves.

7. Stefan Molyneux: Stefan Molyneux may be perhaps the most eloquent "red pill" in the alternative media. A self-described philosopher, Molyneux has a strong knowledge of history and a core compass reading of freedom and non-violence.  He hosts a popular radio broadcast on his FreedomainRadio; his Youtube uploadshave been viewed over 6 million times on his channel alone, and his site claims over 25 million downloads making his ideas the "largest and most popular philosophical conversation in the world."  His articles can be seen on mega-sites like Lew Rockwell and others; he has published several books on the philosophy of liberty and non-violence (many of which are offered FREE from his site) and how they apply in today's world, and he is a frequent guest on RT's Adam Vs. The Man  and the Keiser Report.  Despite his overwhelming knowledge of the corrupt system, Molyneux always remains optimistic in his presentation, which is quite refreshing among all the doom-and-gloom.  Molyneux remains authentic in that he survives solely from donations and book sales --so please support his efforts.  We expect Molyneux to end up as one of the most important voices of our time.

6. Max Keiser: Max Keiser is perhaps the fastest rising star in the alternative media.  He is a literal boy genius having invented the virtual specialist technology / prediction markets, Hollywood Stock Exchange,  Karmabanque, and PirateMyFilm.  His economic and geo-political analysis has appeared on the BBC, in documentary movies, and on sites like Huffington Post and Zero Hedge.  Traffic on his personal website, MaxKeiser.com, has nearly doubled since April according to Alexa.  He is currently the host of the must-see Keiser Report on Russia Today in addition to several other projects.  He is arguably the most powerful anti-bankster voice in the world, openly and relentlessly referring to them appropriately as "terrorists and rapists" and having helped drive silver purchases to new heights with his viral "Crash the Bankers" campaign.  He is also emerging as a leading anti-austerity voice for global citizens, having visited and spoken to growing protest groups in Ireland, Egypt, and soon Greece. He has an uncanny ability to boil down complicated economic "problems" for easy consumption by the general public.  In short, Max Keiser has deservedly become the most influential voice of the "Resistance" to bankster tyranny.

5. David Icke: David Icke is most appropriately called a researcher and presenter of knowledge.  In addition to his voluminous writing of in-depth books, his main platform is his all-day stage performance that still leave audiences wanting more. These performances are regularly sold out in large venues across the planet. Significantly, he is the only presenter in the alternative media arena to consistently draw crowds in the thousands to hear him speak.  His research goes "beyond the cutting edge" of the alternative news and his popular website has become a valuable news aggregator.  Besides brilliantly dissecting the "5 sense reality", as he calls it, Icke also dives head first down the rabbit hole and provides historical evidence of some very bizarre and thought-provoking phenomena. In turn, this makes him one of the most courageous and interesting figures of our time.  David Icke may be one of the most dangerous people to the establishment, because he has the ability to convince regular people of their immense power to affect positive change.

4. Jeff Rense: Jeff Rense has built a massive audience of those seeking the truth inside and outside of the Matrix. His website, Rense.com, has been by far the best news aggregator covering the Gulf oil disaster and the current Fukushima nuclear meltdown.  His website is the 2101st most-viewed in the United States on Alexa -- a powerful ranking indeed.  Agree with him or not, Rense deserves credit for venturing down the rabbit hole of reality which brings a unique perspective to alternative news.  He is one of the only sources attempting to responsibly cover the metaphysical and extra-planetary nature of the Matrix.  He is quietly building a strong radio presence with talented voices like Mike Rivero and Charlie McGrath being added to his network.  Look for Rense's influence to continue to escalate as we have not heard the end of the Fukushima nuclear holocaust of the Northern Hemisphere which he's so brilliantly covering.

3. Lew Rockwell:  Lew Rockwell is a liberty icon.  Rockwell has immense credibility having served as Ron Paul's chief of staff and his presidential campaign manager, as a scholar of Austrian School of economics, and as the chairman of the Ludwig von Mises Institute. It's telling how powerful Rockwell's platform is when others on this list include being published atLewRockwell.com as a benchmark of their success. His website is visited by millions each month, his radio showcontains high-brow intellectual discussions with other great minds, and his books The Left, The Right and The State andSpeaking of Liberty are worth their weight in gold.  As the 2012 presidential race approaches, look for Rockwell's loud megaphone to propel Ron Paul's message of peace, liberty and economic sanity to the masses.  Rockwell brings much-needed legitimacy to controversial issues like ending the Fed, ending the wars, and bringing about a system of non-coercive Anarchy.  He has indeed paved the way for many others, while also remaining a growing influence.

2. Mike Adams: Mike Adams, known as the "Health Ranger", is a consumer health advocate and independent journalist.  Mike Adams is young, authentic, well-spoken, and a savvy businessman.  He is the founder and editor of the very popular website NaturalNews.com (ranked 1,184 overall in the U.S.) and NaturalNews.TV.  His articles have been republished all over the Internet, and his radio show and short films are viewed by millions. Through his unyielding passion, he has built a team of respected contributors to his flagship news site which offer some of the best natural health and freedom news on the Web.  He never ceases to improve his platform for his expanding audience and knows how to monetize his business with products he genuinely believes in.  The sky is the limit for the Health Ranger's influence in the alternative media.

1. Alex Jones: Love or hate his style, Alex Jones is the King of alternative news.  His radio show reaches millions per day; his movies like Fall of the Republic and The Obama Deception have been seen by tens of millions the world over on Youtube and elsewhere; his website rankings for Infowars and PrisonPlanet are off the charts with many investigative articles frequently supported by Drudge, and many on his staff are nearly deserving of being in the top-10 in their own right.  The quality of his production has improved every year and is easily the best in the alternative media.  Jones gets the most informative expert guests who expose a wide variety of inconvenient truths.  He is a pioneer in encouraging fans to make copies of his material and give them away for free to help awaken more minds.  Anyone who follows Alex Jones knows that he is driven by intense passion for humanity and never stops working.  It's hard to believe that Jones is still only in his thirties, given his 15 years of dedicated reporting.

G. Edward Griffin.  Griffin is widely considered one of the most brilliant researchers and writers of actual history.  He exemplifies the notion of following the evidence no matter where it leads him. But he is so much more than that to the group above in terms of his philosophy of individual liberty and non-aggression. His book,The Creature From Jekyll Island is one of the most powerful indictments of the Federal Reserve and is still a bestseller. Hismany other books, websites at RealityZone.com and his foundation Freedom-Force.org, with movies like his recent documentary What in the World Are They Spraying are all ground-breaking in their own right.  This is not meant to be a runner-up award, but more of a lifetime influence shout out to a true pioneer.  We're all indebted to Griffin's hard work.

Honorable Mention
Many in this group are deserving of far more praise than this format allows, but we'd be remiss not to mention the following names.  Here are some of the rising stars and the unsung heroes of the alternative media in no particular order:

• Richard Grove, 9/11 whistleblower has been a constant source of knowledge and wisdom since his near encounter with the powers that be.  His Peace Revolution Podcast is at least 6 months of research if you were to take it all in non-stop 4 hours a day.  
• James Corbett: Terrific analyst, researcher, writer, web TV presenter and founder ofCorbettReport.com
• Global Research: Michel Chossudovsky, Andrew Gavin Marshall and staff brilliantly report on global events and have a fast-growing Internet presence.
• Jim Marrs: Author of many books on conspiracy truth, and one of the foremost experts on the JFK assassination.  His work can be found at JimMarrs.com and has influenced many of the above.
• Lauren Lyster: Financial news reporter that does a phenomenal job of covering the inside stories and real causes behind the ups and downs of the markets.  You can find her old broadcasts on YouTube under a search for #CapitalAccount, also on Hulu and RT.com
  
• James G Rickards is a currency wars expert, so much so that he wrote THE book on Currency Wars and has consulted the Pentagon.  You must pay attention to what he says if you are interested in understanding global economic warfare.
  
• Mike Shedlock is also an excellent source of contrarian economic analysis with his own blog and several appearances on Capital Account with Lauren Lyster.
  
• Dean Henderson: Dean writes a blog called the Left Hook with excerpts from his book "BigOil and their Bankers".  Dean is well versed in the Illuminati New World Order conspiracy and how they operate.  Much of his work focus' on 1950 onward.
  
• Grace Powers and her Ring of Power series are mind blowing exposures of the historical occult elite bloodlines that run the world.
  
• Michael C Ruppert.  While Mike has gone underground recently to work on a book, his documentary Collapse on peak oil set me off in the light direction to understand oil, war, and global economic interdependencies.  Whether or not petroleum is abiotic or a fossil fuel is still to be determined but Mike's efforts cannot be left out of any researchers treasure chest.

I am not familiar with these but expect to do so in the near future as they are listed by others as insightful.

• Bob Tuskin: Terrific interviewer and fearless investigator who has worked extensively with The Intel Hub, and has his own radio show and website at BobTuskin.com
• Bill Ryan: His website and forum at Project Avalon are terrific resources, as well as his interviews with alternative media personalities and government insiders.
• George Noory: Huge Internet presence and the most-listened-to overnight radio show in America at Coast to Coast AM.
• Alan Watt: Consummate researcher into the history of elite control, and frequent guest on the Alex Jones Show.  His website and his own radio show can be found at Cutting Through The Matrix.
• Shepard Ambellas, Alex Thomas:  True investigative reporters who share their knowledge at TheIntelHub.com They are fearless journalists who utilize the full range of the Internet to release their intel.  
• Cassandra Anderson: Writer and editor for MorphCity.com, as well as G. Edward Griffin's news editor and research assistant.  She is one of the leading experts on Agenda 21 and the globalist plan of collectivization.
• Rady Ananda: Brilliant investigative journalist and editor for blogs Food Freedom andCOTO Report whose work has been published across the Internet on all major alternative media news sites.

Paul Craig Roberts on the New World Order and the Invisible Empire

In case some of you think I am often spewing conspiracy nonsense, catch up on what Paul Craig Roberts has to say.  He was the Deputy Secretary of the Treasury under Ronald Reagan.  You can not get any more current and inside than that.

Link: http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2013/01/15/attack-on-sovereignty-paul-craig-roberts/

Understand that the power elite that control both parties and greatly controlled by the Council on Foreign Relations, from which nearly every White House cabinet member has come for over 40 years.  

Once you've read this, watch this documentary called "Invisible Empire" on YouTube with quotes from many presidents, and high government officials referring to the New World Order.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Dv7fOhPJMY

 

Eight Things I Miss About the Cold War By Jon Wiener

Originally found here.

 
Fifty Years Ago, College Was Cheap, Unions Were Strong, and There Was No Terrorism-Industrial Complex 
By Jon Wiener

At a book festival in Los Angeles recently, some writers (myself included) were making the usual arguments about the problems with American politics in the 1950s -- until one panelist shocked the audience by declaring, “God, I miss the Cold War.”  His grandmother, he said, had come to California from Oklahoma with a grade-school education, but found a job in an aerospace factory in L.A. during World War II, joined the union, got healthcare and retirement benefits, and prospered in the Cold War years.  She ended up owning a house in the suburbs and sending her kids to UCLA.

Several older people in the audience leaped to their feet shouting, “What about McCarthyism?”  “The bomb?”  “Vietnam?”  “Nixon?”

All good points, of course.  After all, during the Cold War the U.S. did threaten to destroy the world with nuclear weapons, supported brutal dictators globally because they were anti-communist, and was responsible for the deaths of several million people in Korea and Vietnam, all in the name of defending freedom. And yet it’s not hard to join that writer in feeling a certain nostalgia for the Cold War era.  It couldn’t be a sadder thing to admit, given what happened in those years, but -- given what’s happened in these years -- who can doubt that the America of the 1950s and 1960s was, in some ways, simply a better place than the one we live in now? Here are eight things (from a prospectively longer list) we had then and don’t have now.

1. The president didn’t claim the right to kill American citizens without “the due process of law.”

Last year we learned that President Obama personally approved the killing-by-drone of an American citizen living abroad without any prior judicial proceedings. That was in Yemen, but as Amy Davidson wrote at the New Yorker website, “Why couldn’t it have been in Paris?”  Obama assures us that the people he orders assassinated are “terrorists.”  It would, however, be more accurate to call them “alleged terrorists,” or “alleged terrorist associates,” or “people said by some other government to be terrorists, or at least terroristic.”

Obama’s target in Yemen was Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen who was said to be a senior figure in al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.  According to the book Kill or Capture by Daniel Klaidman, the president told his advisors, “I want Awlaki. Don’t let up on him.”  Steve Coll of the New Yorker commented that this appears to be “the first instance in American history of a sitting president speaking of his intent to kill a particular U.S. citizen without that citizen having been charged formally with a crime or convicted at trial.”  (Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, whom no one claims was connected to terrorist activities or terror plots, was also killed in a separate drone attack.)

The problem, of course, is the due-process clause of the Fifth Amendment, which prohibits “any person” from being deprived of “life, liberty, or property without due process of law.”   It doesn’t say: "any person except for those the president believes to be terrorists."

It gets worse: the Justice Department can keep secret a memorandum providing the supposed “legal” justification for the targeted killing of a U.S. citizen, according to a January 2013 decision by a federal judge.  Ruling on a Freedom of Information lawsuit brought by the ACLU and the New York Times, Judge Colleen McMahon, wrote in her decision, “I can find no way around the thicket of laws and precedents that effectively allow the executive branch of our government to proclaim as perfectly lawful certain actions that seem on their face incompatible with our Constitution and laws while keeping the reasons for their conclusion a secret.”

It's true that the CIA has admitted it had an assassination program during the Cold War -- described in the so-called “family jewels” or “horrors book,” compiled in 1973 under CIA Director James Schlesinger in response to Watergate-era inquiries and declassifiedin 2007.  But the targets were foreign leaders, especially Fidel Castro as well as the Congo’s Patrice Lumumba and the Dominican Republic’s Rafael Trujillo.  Still, presidents preferred “plausible deniability” in such situations, and certainly no president before Obama publicly claimed the legal right to order the killing of American citizens.  Indeed, before Sept. 11, 2001, the U.S. regularly condemned “targeted killings” of suspected terrorists by Israel that were quite similar to those the president is now regularly ordering in the Pakistani tribal borderlands, Yemen, and possibly elsewhere.

2. We didn’t have a secret “terrorism-industrial complex.”

That’s the term coined by Dana Priest and William Arkin in their book Top Secret America to describe the ever-growing post-9/11 world of government agencies linked to private contractors charged with fighting terrorism.  During the Cold War, we had a handful of government agencies doing “top secret” work; today, they found, we have more than 1,200.

For example, Priest and Arkin found 51 federal organizations and military commands that attempt to track the flow of money to and from terrorist networks.  And don’t forget the nearly 2,000 for-profit corporate contractors that engage in top-secret work, supposedly hunting terrorists.  The official budget for “intelligence” has increased from around $27 billion in the last years of the Cold War to $75 billion in 2012. Along with this massive expansion of government and private security activities has come a similarly humongous expansion of official secrecy: the number of classified documents has increased from perhaps 5 million a year before 1980 to 92 million in 2011, while Obama administration prosecutions of government whistleblowers have soared.

It’s true that the CIA and the FBI engaged in significant secret and illegal surveillance that included American citizens during the Cold War, but the scale was small compared to the post-9/11 world.

3. Organized labor was accepted as part of the social landscape. 

“Only a fool would try to deprive working men and women of their right to join the union of their choice.” That’s what President Dwight D. Eisenhower said in 1952.  “Workers,” he added, “have a right to organize into unions and to bargain collectively with their employers,” and he affirmed that “a strong, free labor movement is an invigorating and necessary part of our industrial society.”  He caught the mood of the moment this way: “Should any political party attempt to… eliminate labor laws, you would not hear of that party again in our political history.”  “There is,” he acknowledged, “a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things, but their number is negligible... And they are stupid.” 

You certainly wouldn’t catch Barack Obama saying anything like that today.  

Back then, American unions were, in part, defended even by Republicans because they were considered a crucial aspect of the struggle against Communism.  Unlike Soviet workers, American ones, so the argument went, were free to join independent unions.  And amid a wave of productive wealth, union membership in Eisenhower’s America reached an all-time high: 34% of wage and salary workers in 1955.  In 2011, union membership in the private sector had fallen under 7%, a level not seen since 1932.

Of course, back in the Cold War era the government required unions to kick communists out of any leadership positions they held and unions that refused were driven out of existence.  Unions also repressed wildcat strikes and enforced labor peace in exchange for multi-year contracts with wage and benefit increases. But as we’ve learned in the last decades, if you’re a wageworker, almost any union is better than no union at all.

4. The government had to get a warrant before it could tap your phone. 

Today, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments Act (yes, thatrepetitive tongue twister is its real name) gives the government vast powers to spy on American citizens -- and it’s just been extended to 2017 in a bill that Obama enthusiastically signed on December 29th.  The current law allows the monitoring of electronic communications without an individualized court order, as long as the government claims its intent is to gather “foreign intelligence.”  In recent years, much that was once illegal has been made the law of the land.  Vast quantities of the emails and phone calls of Americans are being “data-mined.”  Amendments approved by Congress in 2008, for instance, provided "retroactive immunity to the telecom companies that assisted the Bush administration in its warrantless wiretapping program," which was then (or should have been) illegal, as the website Open Congress notes. 

There were several modest congressional attempts to amend the 2012 FISA extension act, including one that would have required the director of national intelligence to reveal how many Americans are being secretly monitored.  That amendment would in no way have limited the government’s actual spying program.  The Senate nevertheless rejected it, 52-43, in a nation that has locked itself down in a way that would have been inconceivable in the Cold War years.

It’s true that in the 1950s and 1960s judges typically gave the police and FBI the wiretap warrants they sought.  But it’s probably also true that having to submit requests to judges had a chilling effect on the urge of government authorities to engage in unlimited wiretapping.

5. The infrastructure was being expanded and strengthened.

Today, our infrastructure is crumbling: bridges are collapsing, sewer systems are falling apart, power grids are failing.  Many of those systems date from the immediate post-World War II years.  And the supposedly titanic struggle against communism at home and abroad helped build them.  The best-known example of those Cold War infrastructure construction programs was the congressionally mandated National Defense Highways Act of 1956, which led to the construction of 41,000 miles of the Interstate Highway System. It was the largest public works project in American history and it was necessary, according to the legislation, to “meet the requirements of the national defense in time of war.”  People called the new highways “freeways” or “interstates,” but the official name was "the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways."

Along with the construction of roads and bridges came a similar commitment to expanding water delivery systems and the electrical and telephone grids.  Spending on infrastructure as a share of gross domestic product peaked in the 1960s at 3.1%.  In 2007, it was down to 2.4% and is assumedly still falling.

Today the U.S. has dropped far behind potential global rivals in infrastructure development.  An official panel of 80 experts noted that China is spending $1 trillion on high-speed rail, highways, and other infrastructure over the next five years.  The U.S., according to the report, needs to invest $2 trillion simply to rebuild the roads, bridges, water lines, sewage systems, and dams constructed 40 to 50 years ago, systems that are now reaching the end of their planned life cycles.  But federal spending cuts mean that the burden of infrastructure repair and replacement will fall on state and local governments, whose resources, as everyone knows, are completely inadequate for the task.

Of course, it’s true that the freeways built in the 1950s made the automobile the essential form of transportation in America and led to the withering away of public mass transit, and that the environment suffered as a result.  Still, today’s collapsing bridges and sewers dramatize the loss of any serious national commitment to the public good.

6. College was cheap.

Tuition and fees at the University of California system in 1965 totaled $220.  That’s the equivalent of about $1,600 today, and in 1965 you were talking about the best public university in the world.  In 2012, the Regents of the University of California, presiding over an education system in crisis, raised tuition and fees for state residents to $13,200.  And American students are now at least $1 trillion in debt, thanks to college loans that could consign many to lifetimes as debtors in return for subprime educations.

In 1958, in the panic that followed the Soviet Union’s successful launch of Sputnik, the first satellite, public universities got a massive infusion of federal money when the National Defense Education Act (NDEA) was passed.  The Department of Education website today explains that the purpose of the NDEA was “to help ensure that highly trained individuals would be available to help America compete with the Soviet Union in scientific and technical fields.”  For the first time, government grants became the major source of university funding for scientific research.  The Act included a generous student-loan program.

With the end of the Cold War, federal funding was cut and public universities had little choice but to begin to make up the difference by increasing tuitions and fees, making students pay more -- a lot more.

True, the NDEA grants in the 1960s required recipients to sign a demeaning oath swearing that they did not seek the violent overthrow of the U.S. government, and that lots of government funding then supported Cold War military and strategic objectives.  After all, the University of California operated the nuclear weapons labs at Livermore and Los Alamos. Still, compare that to today’s crumbling public education system nationwide and who wouldn’t feel nostalgia for the Cold War era?

7. We had a president who called for a “war on poverty.”

In his 1966 State of the Union address, President Lyndon Baines Johnson argued that “the richest Nation on earth… people who live in abundance unmatched on this globe” ought to “bring the most urgent decencies of life to all of your fellow Americans.”  LBJ insisted that it was possible both to fight communism globally (especially in Vietnam) and to fight poverty at home.  As the phrase then went, he called for guns and butter.  In addition, he was determined not simply to give money to poor people, but to help build “community action” groups that would organize them to define and fight for programs they wanted because, the president said, poor people know what’s best for themselves.

Of course, it’s true that Johnson’s “War on Poverty,” unlike the Vietnam War, was woefully underfunded, and that those community action groups were soon overpowered by local mayors and Democratic political machines.  But it’s also true that President Obama did not even consider poverty worth mentioning as an issue in his 2012 reelection campaign, despite the fact that it has spread in ways that would have shocked LBJ, and that income and wealth inequalities between rich and poor have reached levels not seen since the late 1920s.  Today, it’s still plenty of guns -- but butter, not so much.

8. We had a president who warned against “the excessive power of the military-industrial complex.”

In Eisenhower’s “farewell address,” delivered three days before John F. Kennedy’s inauguration, the departing president warned against the “unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.” He declared that “the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”  The speech introduced the phrase “military-industrial complex” into the vernacular.  It was a crucial moment in the Cold War: a president who had also been the nation’s top military commander in World War II was warning Americans about the dangers posed by the military he had commanded and its corporate and political supporters.

Ike was prompted to give the speech because of his disputes with Congress over the military budget.  He feared nuclear war and firmly opposed all talk about such a war being fought in a “limited” way.  He also knew that, when it came to the Soviet Union, American power was staggeringly preponderant.  And yet his opponents in the Democratic Party, the arms industry, and even the military were claiming that he hadn’t done enough for “defense” -- not enough weapons bought, not enough money spent.  President-elect Kennedy had just won the 1960 election by frightening Americans about a purely fictitious “missile gap” between the U.S. and the Soviets.

It’s true that Ike’s warning would have been far more meaningful had it been in his first or even second inaugural address, or any of his State of the Union speeches.  It’s also true that he had approved CIA coups in Iran and Guatemala, and had green-lighted planning for an invasion of Cuba (that would become Kennedy’s Bay of Pigs disaster).  He had also established Mutual Assured Destruction as the basis for Cold War military strategy, backed up with B-52s carrying atomic bombs in the air 24/7.

By the end of his second term, however, Ike had changed his mind.  His warning was not just against unnecessary spending, but also against institutions that were threatening a crisis he feared would bring the end of individual liberty.  “As one who knows that another war could utterly destroy this civilization,” the president urged his fellow citizens to resist the military-industrial complex.  None of his successors has even tried, and in 2013 we’re living with the results.

...But there is one thing I do NOT miss about the Cold War: nuclear arsenals on hair-trigger alert.

Our Cold War enemy had nuclear weapons capable of destroying us, and the rest of the planet, many times over.  In 1991, when the Cold War ended, the Soviet Union had more than 27,000 nuclear weapons.  According to the Federation of American Scientists, these included more than 11,000 strategic nuclear weapons -- warheads on land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched missiles, and weapons on bombers capable of attacking the US -- along with more than 15,000 warheads for “tactical” use as artillery shells and short-range “battlefield” missiles, as well as missile defense interceptors, nuclear torpedoes, and nuclear weapons for shorter-range aircraft.  We learned in 1993 that the USSR at one time possessed almost 45,000 nuclear warheads, and still had nearly 1,200 tons of bomb-grade uranium.  (Of course, sizeable Russian -- and American -- nuclear arsenals still exist.)  In comparison to all that, the arsenalsof al-Qaeda and our other terrorist enemies are remarkably insignificant.

Jon Wiener teaches American history at the University of California-Irvine and is a contributing editor at the Nation. His latest book, How We Forgot the Cold War: A Historical Journey Across America (University of California Press), has just been published.

Copyright 2013 Jon Wiener