REVELATION: "REVELATION, THE LAST TIME"; PURPORT TO BE AN AREA OF ANALYSIS OF CURRENT EVENTS RELATED TO BIBLE PROPHECY REGARDING THE FINAL TIME. REVELATION, REVELATION OF GOD AS MAN IS A SIGNAL, A WARNING, AND A WAY OF HOPE TO THE INFINITE HARD times. "Watch therefore for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come." MATTHEW 24:42 Testified of Jesus! GOD BLESS YOU! Revelation 3:20 John 3: 16
IN THIS SPACE IS TRYING TO RECOGNIZE BY THE GRACE OF GOD THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES.
There are many events that are occurring at this time and need our attention as this will result in the Second Coming of Christ and the final trial. Jesus calls us to be prepared and not let that undermine our lives and we do not know what day and what time can be your return. Mat 24:44 "Therefore be ye also ready, for the Son of Man will come at unexpected hour." But we do know the signs of these end times. Most of them cause us pain and sadness, this is so. Nevertheless, we must also say that the pain and sadness is not caused by the actions of God but by the decision of men to whom God gave us dominion over this land and decided wrong. Jesus Christ is the way to this disaster. John 14:6 "Jesus said I am the way and the truth and the life: no man cometh unto the Father except through me." It is important to note that the time of Revelation is not a time for skeptics or doomsayers just the opposite: The final time is a time of hope that Jesus of Nazareth will return and reign forever. Luke 21:28 "When these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is near." Ultimately this space aims to be a voice of warning to both believers (fidelity) and to nonbelievers drawing his attention to believe in Jesus Christ. Jesus come back soon! Are you ready?
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U.S. President Barack Obama declared an emergency in Texas Tuesday as tropical storm Alex gathered strength.
Federal aid would be made available to supplement state and local response efforts, a White House press release said.
Obama's action also authorizes the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to coordinate disaster relief efforts -- in such areas as identifying, mobilizing and providing equipment and resources.
The president's announcement comes after Texas Governor Rick Perry sent a letter to Obama requesting a pre-landfall emergency declaration.
Authorities issued hurricane warnings in Texas and northeastern Mexico Tuesday as forecasters predicted that Alex would reach hurricane strength within hours, AFP reported.
On its current path the center of Alex will make landfall just south of the U.S.-Mexico border late Wednesday, the National Hurricane Center said.
Alex appeared to be well southwest of the area worst hit by the massive BP oil spill -- the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida -- though its strong winds will cause problems for the clean-up effort.
FEMA has already urged Americans to closely monitor the storm and be as prepared as possible.
"The most important thing for people living in the area to do right now is to ensure their family is prepared and to follow the instructions of state and local officials," said FEMA chief Craig Fugate.
Following is a summary of key federal disaster aid programs that can be made available as needed and warranted under President Obama’s emergency disaster declaration issued for Texas.
Assistance for the State and Affected Local Governments Can Include as Required:
FEMA is authorized to provide appropriate assistance for required emergency measures, authorized under Title V of the Stafford Act, to save lives and to protect property and public health and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe in the designated areas.
Specifically, FEMA is authorized to provide emergency protective measures (Category B), limited to direct Federal assistance, under the Public Assistance program at 75 percent Federal funding.
FEMA’s mission is to support our first responders and ensure that as a nation we work together to build, sustain, and improve our capability to prepare for, protect against, respond to, recover from, and mitigate all hazards.
.......................................................................................................................... Isaiah 55:6Make search for the Lord while he is there, make prayer to him while he is near:Isaiah 55:7Let the sinner give up his way, and the evil-doer his purpose: and let him come back to the Lord, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for there is full forgiveness with him. John 3:16For God had such love for the world that he gave his only Son so that whoever has faith in him may not come to destruction but have eternal life
God bless you! ......................................... You can share this note by clicking on the button below.
Military sources report that Washington has posted a third carrier opposite Iran's shores. It is supported by amphibious assault ships and up to 4,000 Navy and Marine Corps personnel, bringing the total US strength in these waters to three carriers and 10,000 combat personnel.
The USS Nassau (LHA-4) Amphibious Ready Group 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, tasked with supporting the Bahrain-based 5th Fleet area of operations, is cruising around the Bab al-Mandeb Straits where the Gulf of Aden flows into the Red Sea. Its presence there accounts for Tehran announcing Sunday, June 27 that its "aid ship for Gaza" had been called off, for fear an American military boarding party would intercept the vessel and search it. This would be permissible under the latest UN sanctions punishing the Islamic Republic for its nuclear program.
The third US carrier group to reach waters around Iran consists of three vessels: 1. The USS Nassau Amphibious Assault ship is not just an enormous landing craft for the 3,000 Marines aboard; its decks carry 6 vertical take-off AV-HB Harrier attack plans; four AH-1W Super Cobra, twelve CH-46 Sea Knight and CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopters, as well choppers convertible to fast V-22 Osprey airplanes capable of landing in any conditions. This vast warship has 1,400 cabinets for sleeping the entire Marine-24th Marine Expeditionary Unit aboard. 2. The amphibious transport dock ship USS Mesa Verde which carries 800 Marines equipped for instantaneous landing. 3. The amphibious dock landing ship USS Ashland which carries 400 Marines and 102 commandos trained for special operations behind enemy lines.
debkafile adds: The USS Ashland was the target of an al Qaeda Katyusha rocket attack in 2005 when it was docked in Jordan's Aqaba port next door to the Israeli port of Eilat. One of the rockets exploded in Eilat airport. The ship exited harbor in time to escape harm. These new arrivals are a massive injection of naval, air and marine muscle to the strength Washington has deployed in the Persian Gulf-Red Sea-Indian Ocean arena in recent months. The USS Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group consisting of twelve warships is cruising in the Arabian Sea opposite Chah Bahar, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards biggest naval base not far from the Iranian-Pakistan border. It is there that most of Iran's special commando units are housed. Also posted in the Arabian Sea, further to the west, is the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower Strike Group.
..................................................................................................................... Isaiah 55:6Make search for the Lord while he is there, make prayer to him while he is near:Isaiah 55:7Let the sinner give up his way, and the evil-doer his purpose: and let him come back to the Lord, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for there is full forgiveness with him. John 3:16For God had such love for the world that he gave his only Son so that whoever has faith in him may not come to destruction but have eternal life
God bless you! ......................................... You can share this note by clicking on the button below.
If you are exposed to human health risks..... the solution?: FEMA CAMPS
Exist only two options?
Message for the Christians: Believe in Jesus Christ and pray too much! Paul Washer:
............................................................................................................................................................... The BP "Gulf Syndrome": Benzene and Corexit Poisoning
The Government is Silent on the Human Health Risks
BP is gassing GulfCoast residents with poisonous Benzene and Corexit dispersants at dangerously high levels in the largest U.S. domestic military operation to date. The military and FEMA are engaged in Emergency Plans for 36 urban areas from Texas to Florida due to the unstoppable Gulf oil volcano the size of Mt. Everest, as WMR reports, indicating evacuations. Some people are advised to relocate now.
Satellite imagery that Obama's administration withheld shows "under the gaping chasm spewing oil at an ever-alarming rate is a cavern estimated to be around the size of Mount Everest. This information has been given an almost national security-level classification to keep it from the public," writes Wayne Madsen.
Human suffering in the Gulf is increasing from the world's latest and largest toxic oil kill as BP lies and government remains silent about the human health risks. Most immediately damaging of the operation's withheld information pertains to toxins breathed since the explosion.
Southerners reporting illnesses with symptoms reflecting Benzene and Corexit poisoning have had to face some leaders suggesting the cause to be mental illness, "stress", while others, such as BP chief Tony Hayward, blamed the illness on rotten food.
Hayward is the guy who sold his £1.4 million shares in BP one month before the Gulf "spill." This in turn caused a collapse of value and a saving to him of over £423,000 when BP’s share price plunged after its predicted destruction in the gulf according to the Telegraph. (Since Hayward's pay package of £4 million a year had been insufficient, cashing out enabled him to pay off the mortgage on his family’s mansion in Kent.)
No monitors, no dispersant toxicity studies
Other life-risking withheld information is that chemicals released have not been monitored. WMR colleague John Caylor, a Gulf Coast resident, reported, "BP and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which have stated that several hundred air quality monitors have been deployed around the Florida and Alabama coasts and have not detected any benzene levels that would be harmful to human health, are lying." (WMR, EPA and media lying about air monitors on Gulf coast, June 7-8, 2010)
A senior news source at WEAR-TV, ABC's affiliate in Pensacola told Caylor that "there are no air quality monitors that have been deployed along the coastal bays and inlets by either BP or the EPA. The station sent reporters out to check on the monitors and discovered they were non-existent." (Emphasis added)
"ABC News network out of New York and CNN are echoing the BP and Obama administration's lines that the air quality is being monitored and is perfectly safe," wrote Caylor. WWL TV reports monitors are being now used in south Louisiana. (See video #2 below)
The spewing oil and dispersant chemicals are toxic enough for so many people to become ill, evacuation would be required, especially before a hurricane blows the lethal cocktail over more Southerners. Hurricane season 2010, anticipated to be highly active and strong, will bring the oil and ipersant chemicals further inland, impacting health of too many people to be ignored. Already, even mainstream news reports 70 people in Louisiana have been admitted to hospital with symptoms of toxic poisoning.New Orleans area officials have urged people without means to evacuate before a hurricane to register now.
On May 1, two U.S. Department of Defense C-130 Hercules aircraft were employed to spray oil dispersant, Corexit EC9500A and Corexit EC9527A. Dispersant information, however, was "kept secret under competitive trade laws."
The stated purpose of using more chemicals on the chemical spill was "to break up the oil into tiny droplets that sink and can be more readily dispersed by ocean currents, to diminish the oil’s effect on sea life and shore habitats." (New York Times, BP and EPA Skirmish Over Oil Dispersant, May 24, 2010) Mother Nature's non-chemical, safe, effective bio-remediation method (see Youtube below) of disposing of the oil was dismissed. Safe and effective solutions for human and environmental survival are not part of the agenda.
Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) "Fact sheets" page for Nalco's Corexit has pdfs available for "Dispersant Type 1," Corexit 9500 (PDF); and "Dispersant Type 2," Corexit 9527A (PDF). Tom Philpott of Grist, who found that these product numbers matched those identified unofficially by his sources, writes,
"The data sheets for both products contain this shocker: 'No toxicity studies have been conducted on this product" -- meaning testing their safety for humans and both data sheets include the warning 'human health hazards: acute.'"
(As Philpott reported, the MSDS for Corexit 9527A states
'excessive exposure may cause central nervous system effects, nausea, vomiting, anesthetic or narcotic effects,' and 'repeated or excessive exposure to butoxyethanol [an active ingredient] may cause injury to red blood cells (hemolysis), kidney or the liver.'
'"Prolonged and/or repeated exposure through inhalation or extensive skin contact with EGBE [butoxyethanol] may result in damage to the blood and kidneys.'"
The solvents 2-Butoxyethanol and petroleum distillate appear "most dangerous," writes Philpott, but these chemicals continue to be saturating water and air.
Out of work shrimper, oil clean-up work Clint Guidry reported, “The closest I got [to the Gulf water] was Venice, Louisiana, and you could smell it from Venice... they were actually spraying Corexit 9527A on the oil spill on top of the water and spraying all around - Venice sits on a peninsula, the Mississippi River, right at the - right above the Head of the Passes.
"And they were actually spraying this Corexit in the air all around where people were living, with kids and children, and continuously saying how safe it was."
By May 24, New York Times reported that 700,000 US gallons (2,600,000 l) of Corexit dispersants had gassed the area, "approaching a world record." BP was ordered to take “immediate steps to scale back the use of dispersants" that the military was reportedly spraying. Both entities seemingly follow orders from a higher command. Chemical gassing of Gulf life continued.
Benzene-related leukemias have been reported to develop in as short as nine months according to IARC.
The satiation of toxic air, water and food has posed serious health risks to all people of the Gulf, but especially to pregnant women, the elderly and people with health vulnerabilities such as asthma and emphysema. Gina Solomon, NRDC Senior Scientist outlined health risks Louisianians and other Gulf Coast residents face.
Oil spill VOC (volatile chemicals) acute health effects include "headaches, dizziness and nausea," and "[o]ver the long term, many of these chemicals have been linked to cancer, so there are lots of reasons to worry about inhaling them," advised Solomon. (Dupre, Hitting rock bottom calls for intervention, Examiner, May 9, 2010) The first nine Gulf spill workers were hospitalized for "dizziness, headaches and nausea" as Solomon predicted weeks before according to VOC effects, plus shortness of breath and nosebleeds, likely symptomatic of Corexit.
Adding fire to the fuel, burning the slick as the petrochemical-military-industrial complex are also doing, has compounded the public health risk. Dr. Marcel Casavant, chief of Pharmacology and Toxicology at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, has stated, "Smoke from burning oil contains many chemicals; some are potentially lethal poisons...” (ABC News, BP Gulf Oil Spill: Human Health Risks Small But Fears May Linger) Casavant indicates those at greatest risk are children.
Oil toxic poisoning does not always have immediate impact. One study showed that the effect is generational: women exposed to oil toxins have daughters with reproductive health problems, such as miscarriages. (See: Dupre, FUEL DVD countdown to end old, dirty, dangerous, corrupt business, Examiner, May 11. 2010; and Josh Tickell, FUEL, 2009)
Within days of the Gulf incident, the smell of oil was so strong in coastal deep south, it was reported that one lady had to shut all her windows, turn on her AC and "if her asthma keeps up like this, she'll need to go on her breathing machine tonight." Meanwhile, police were driving up and down the beach "explicitly telling tourists to 'just stay out of the water.'" (It's BP's Oil, Mother Jones, May 24, 2010) That was almost a month ago. How is she now?
Harassed for attempted survival
CNN reported that commercial shrimper working on the "clean-up," John Wunstell Jr. filed a temporary restraining order in federal court against BP to stop its harassment of workers that voice health concerns. He "wants the oil giant to give the workers masks." Among first reported workers hospitalized for oil/gas injury, Wuntsell alleges that BP confiscated his clothing stripped from him in the hospital, and told him that they would not be returned. This story is eerily similar to those of Nazi gas chambers.
Such negative public relations for corporatism has almost been blacked-out. Gulf Coast residents lack information about serious risks BP's poisons are inflicting on them. Solomon's words of warning were a silenced clarion call to Gulf residents.
Another mild warning for Louisinans was finally offered today. A New Iberia, Louisiana chemist, Wilma Subra advised in a WWL TV new report (Youtube video below) that people experiencing ill health effects from the gassing should relocate, "move out of the area."
Regardless of presidential or other statements about holding accountable those responsible for the latest oil assault on humanity, the U.S. military objective in the Gulf for its ultimate goal of Full Spectrum Dominance has been achieved.
Gulf Coast residents and The World Can't Wait calling a Gulf Emergency Summit for citizens to take charge of the Gulf crisis face U.S. military and BP's hired private army mercenaries, similar to during Katrina's aftermath.
The military now controls one of the nation's most important ports, its most inland port, Baton Rouge, and the nation's largest river, the Mighty Mississippi. These are primary resources required in the Pentagon's quest for total control of "land sea, and air superiority." (See USSPACECOM's Vision for 2020, and www.spacecom.af.mil/usspace)
On June 2, 2000, Defense News reported that "Full-spectrum dominance" is the key term in "Joint Vision 2020," the blueprint DoD will follow in the future" and that " Innovation has always been a hallmark of the American military. In 2020, this native American talent will be even more important." For those who dare look, the Gulf operation has been a demonstration of such innovation.
Deepwater Unified Command Gulf Operation
In its quesst for the Gulf of Mexico, the U.S. military innovation enabled it to seize control of Haiti within hours of its earthquake, then the entire Gulf after the "spill," and now, in secret maneuvers will soon include more U.S. coastal land and inhabitants according to WMR. (See Gassed in the Gulf Part I) The petro-chemical-military industrial complex includes BP's "security firm" Wackenhut, hired as a private army to help control the people of the Gulf region, hide Gulf atrocities and control the region through the 'Deepwater Horizon Unified Command military operation.
A foreign company, British Petroleum and U.S. government agencies, including the US Coast Guard, Department of Defense, Department of State, and Department of Homeland Security are running Deepwater Unified Command according to Scahill.
Wayne Madsen reports that "36 urban areas on the Gulf of Mexico are expecting to be confronted with a major disaster from the oil volcano" and "emergency plans are being made for cities and towns from Corpus Christi, Texas, to Houston, New Orleans, Gulfport, Mobile, Pensacola, Tampa-St.Petersburg-Clearwater, Sarasota-Bradenton, Naples, and Key West."
Citing sources within the US Army Corps of Engineers, FEMA, and Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Madsen asserts that “the Obama White House and British Petroleum are covering up the magnitude of the volcanic-level oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and working together to limit BP’s liability for damage caused by what can be called a ‘mega-disaster."Florida is preparing to evacuate, with FEMA taking the lead.
For this operation to succeed, mainstream media must participate in the PR campaign, (propaganda) since most Americans still believe and even center their lives around their TVs. An example of mainstream "news" propaganda presented was the reporting of BP containing one of the leaks. Madsen stated it was “pure public relations disinformation designed to avoid panic and demands for greater action by the Obama administration, according to FEMA and Corps of Engineers sources.”
Gulf military operation LYHOP or MYHOP
A "spill" reflects an accident. BP's reported "spill," actually an underwater oil volcano, was either a LYHOP, a Let It Happen On Purpose, or a MYHOP, a Make It Happen On Purpose. Both are false flag operations to further justify military control on U.S. soil in the already existing coup that began during the Bush administration in October 2008 when US troops were deployed for duty on U.S. soil.
“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before,” said Rahm Emanual and David Rockefeller has said, “All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order.”
It has also been said that fascism will come when the people ask for it. Now that BP admits it cannot control the Gulf crisis, will the American people ask for military control, be grateful for it, or at least simply continue allowing its latest major step in "full spectrum" control, same as Americans allowed passage of the USA PATRIOT ACT after 911?
The gulf crisis was predicted if not planned by more than one person knowing human and other life would be injured or killed. Exxon Mobil Chairman Rex Tillerson told a House of Representatives subcommittee that BP's operation was "a dramatic departure from the industry norm in deepwater drilling."
The explosion's cause is attributed to a $500,000. missing piece of equipment, an acoustic switch, required in other countries. With G.W. Bush's deregulations, the Gulf operation could proceed without the safety equipment, leading to military intervention. New York Times reports that during a Congressional hearing, members learned that BP also decided not to conduct a “cement bond log” test that would have measured the cement's strength. Halliburton Energy Services was producer of the casing being run and cemented. This company knows how to make a profit. It is the same company profiting most from U.S. illegal Middle East invasions, Hurricane Katrina and Haiti's earthquake.
Soon after the Gulf explosion, oil workers requesting anonymity report that they heard a telephone conversation in which the head of the rig was crying while telling the other party on the phone, "We knew this was going happen. Are you satisfied now?"
Defense News reports that Army Col. Patrick R. Bossetta, commander of State Aviation Command in Hammond, La. stated that the operation tempo is almost as high as Louisiana aviation units deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan experienced. (Department of Defense News, Louisiana Aviators Battle Oil Spill, Army Sgt. 1st Class Paul C. Meeker 241st Mobile Public Affairs Detachment)
“We’re thinking ahead over the long term" said Army Maj. Gen. Abner C. Blalock, Alabama’s adjutant general during a DoD roundtable. "[A]ssets from Missouri and Illinois have been tapped to support operations in Louisiana through the Emergency Management Assistance Compact." (Department of Defense News, States Prepare to Help Louisiana, Army Sgt. 1st Class Jon Soucy, National Guard Bureau) "Six months" in Afghanistan occupation time means years.
Regrettably for some 911 survivors offended by the comparison, as during the 911 false flag black operation, hiding evidence is paramount to mission success. A prime example of this during the 911 black operation was Bush's demand for a fake investigation. The Gulf operation evidence is being hidden. As noted in Part I of this series, military personnel and mercenaries have blocked journalists from the Gulf area and BP has coerced oil spill responders to sign contracts preventing them from talking to the press about their observations in the region.
In the 911 black operation designed to further fascism by catapulting the war on terror, early stage response workers were not provided preventive gear and therefore breathed toxic dust. Today, oil assault response workers are breathing toxins and not provided preventive gear. BP spokesman Darren Beaudo claims constant air quality monitoring, by boats and wearable "badges" worn by supervisors on boats in areas judged the most dangerous, show no air quality problem and no need for workers to wear masks, all untrue according to reports highlighted in Part I of this series.
Years of military intervention are now needed in the U.S. because the Gulf emergency is greater than the public has been informed and the military needs control of the Gulf. Wayne Madsen reports that "when the Army Corps of Engineers first attempted to obtain NASA imagery of the Gulf oil slick -- which is larger than that being reported by the media -- it was turned down. However, National Geographic managed to obtain the satellite imagery shots of the extent of the disaster and posted them on their web site."
"BP is the operator and principal developer of the Macondo Prospect with 65% of interest, while 25% is owned by Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, and 10% by MOEX Offshore 2007, a unit of Mitsui. (Wikipedia)
BP's Gulf exploration dangers were known for years. Explaining technological requirements for oil companies to drill as deeply as intended for fossil fuels in the Gulf, in the movie, FUEL, Ken Hern, now chairman of the board of Homeland Renewable Energy, emphatically alerts, "It would be easier to send a man to the moon than to drill as deep as they are planning."
People of integrity, from Van Jones and oil rig supervisors to the UN Renewable Energy Ambassador of Goodwill Josh Tickell and a host of other environmentalist leaders, tried to prevent the Gulf disaster. They could have succeeded in saving lives and the planet if powers that be want that.
............................................................................................................................. Isaiah 55:6Make search for the Lord while he is there, make prayer to him while he is near:Isaiah 55:7Let the sinner give up his way, and the evil-doer his purpose: and let him come back to the Lord, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for there is full forgiveness with him. John 3:16For God had such love for the world that he gave his only Son so that whoever has faith in him may not come to destruction but have eternal life
God bless you! ......................................... You can share this note by clicking on the button below.
A low-pressure area over the western Caribbean now has an 80% chance of developing into a tropical depression as it heads toward the Yucatan Peninsula and the Gulf of Mexico, the National Hurricane Center reports in their 2:00 p.m. update.
If a depression and then a storm does form, it would be named Alex, and could play havoc with Gulf oil cleanup operations. Tropical depressions have wind speeds of below 39 mph, and become named tropical storms when their wind speeds surpass 39 mph.
Possible worst disaster:
An Air Force reconnaissance plane will be investigating the disturbance later today to determine whether a tropical cyclone has formed, the center says.
"Shower activity has become a little more concentrated this morning ... and surface pressures are falling," the center reports. "Upper-level winds are gradually becoming more conducive for development ... and the system is likely to become a tropical depression before it reaches the Yucatan Peninsula in a couple of days."
Regardless of whether the system is a depression or named tropical storm, extremely heavy rain will affect Central America and the western Caribbean over the next few days, according to meteorologist Jeff Masters of the Weather Underground.
Honduras will be the nation most at risk from the system, he notes, as 4-8 inches of rain could drench northern parts of the nation over the next two days. Heavy rain of 3-6 inches can also be expected in northeast Nicaragua, Cuba, Belize, the Cayman Islands and Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula.
As for its potential affect on the USA, Masters says the computer models that forecasters use to predict its path can't seem to make up their minds yet: "A likely landfall location is difficult to speculate on at this point, and the storm could hit virtually anywhere along the Gulf of Mexico coast given the current uncertainty in its development."
.............................................................................................................................................. Isaiah 55:6Make search for the Lord while he is there, make prayer to him while he is near:Isaiah 55:7Let the sinner give up his way, and the evil-doer his purpose: and let him come back to the Lord, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for there is full forgiveness with him. John 3:16For God had such love for the world that he gave his only Son so that whoever has faith in him may not come to destruction but have eternal life
God bless you! .........................................You can share this note by clicking on the button below.
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN Just when Barack Obama's presidency was drowning in BP's crude oil, a megalomaniacal US Army general called Stanley McChrystal, commander of the US-led coalition in Afghanistan, did him several huge favors.
• He took the spotlight off the Gulf of Mexico.
• He gave Obama a marvelous opportunity to act the decisive Commander-in-Chief, packing his insubordinate general into retirement.
• By committing political suicide he created a vacancy for the one general the right wing can't fault Obama for putting in his place - Gen David Petraeus.
Weeks before McChrystal and his drunken retinue fired from the lip, pouring their contempt for Obama and his top Afghan advisors into the notebook of Rolling Stone reporter Michael Hastings, the writing was on the wall. A steady stream of leaks from the Pentagon registered dissatisfaction among the top Pentagon brass at the way the war in Afghanistan was going.
Last year McChrystal courted immediate dismissal by publicly daring Obama to deny him the extra troops he demanded to instrument the counter-insurgency strategy he pledged would vanquish the Taliban, win over the Afghan people and allow Obama to promise liberal critics of the Afghan war he'd have the troops out by 2011.
Obama had the opportunity then to emulate Harry Truman's famous firing of World War Two hero Gen Douglas MacArthur for insubordination. But Obama blinked. He gave McChrystal almost exactly what he wanted.
The American public got the impression that McChrystal, leading the Afghan mission, but answering to Gen Petraeus, now in charge of Central Command, was going to follow the latter's famous 'surge' in Iraq. This was essentially a PR operation, aimed at declaring victory and getting the hell out. Petraeus is touted as America's only success story in that doomed venture and his national standing is high.
Afghanistan is a very different proposition. McChrystal came from five years of running the Pentagon's death squads – Joint Special Forces Command -- killing or kidnapping America's enemies in the Great War on Terror. But now he was trying to introduce doctrines of counter-insurgency (COIN), formulated in the Counter-Insurgency Manual for the US Army, assembled by Petraeus.
It does not require the intellect of Sun Tzu to see that you do not win the hearts and minds of a civilian population by bombing their wedding parties, raping their daughters, torturing their sons and, where deemed necessary, reducing their villages to rubble. COIN put these simple thoughts into military language.
McChrystal duly issued stringent rules of engagement, crimping the eagerness of field officers to whistle up close air support to drop tons of high explosive on suspect neighborhoods. These restrictions drew strident protests from his forces, as endangering their lives. McChrystal said there was no other option. But then came McChrystal's showcase operation in Marjah earlier this year, designed to drive the Taliban out of this rural district.
As the high command back in the Pentagon studied the intelligence reports they found that it hadn't been long before the Taliban, prudently absenting themselves during the Marjah offensive, were back in business. With the Pentagon background briefers whispering to the New York Times and Washington Post that the COIN strategy was misfiring badly, McChrystal put off a larger lunge into Kandahar until this autumn. The backstabbing didn't stop.
For his part, Obama has been nervously eyeing his commitment to a 2011 withdrawal. The way things were going, withdrawal would simply mean "rout", politically disastrous for Obama. To insist on an extension would land him in trouble with his liberal supporters in the run-up to a re-election bid in 2012. McChrystal and, far more subtly, Petraeus were already deploying politically for a ditching of the 2011 deadline. Furthermore, there was talk that Petraeus would soon retire from the Army and step into the race for the Republican nomination.
Then - a blessing from heaven for Obama - came the Rolling Stone story. McChrystal no doubt blames the Iceland volcano which left him stranded in Paris, staying at the awful Hotel Westminster on the Rue de la Paix, sipping Bud Lite Lime beer (does he sport silk women’s underwear under those manly fatigues) in Kitty O'Shea's, with his retinue, 'Team America', cavorting drunkenly on the dance floor and showing off to the Rolling Stone reporter as they displayed their utter contempt for their civilian and military superiors.
How could McChrystal have been so stupid? Megalomania. A senior US military commander has the powers and appurtenances of a Roman proconsul, of a Julius Caesar in Gaul. McChrystal had been successful in massaging the press with confidential briefings and seemingly total access. Talking to Rolling Stone, he probably thought this magazine deserved a more unbuttoned approach than the New York Times.
Less careful than the adroit Petraeus, he over-reached himself, possibly because he insists on sleeping only four hours a night, running seven miles at dawn and eating one meal every 24 hours. (Petraeus has the same sort of Spartan life style. Rather than pour out indiscretions to a reporter Petraeus passed out briefly in a Senate hearing two weeks ago, stating later that he'd been dehydrated.)
The White House pounced eagerly on the opportunity offered by Rolling Stone. Aside from everything else, it was a chance for the president, regarded by most Americans to have been a wimp towards BP, to act tough. Without Pentagon backing, McChrystal was a goner.
Now begins a delicate dance in what bids to be Act IV or even V in Obama's foolish campaign commitment to nail al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. Obama has staked all on Petraeus who has accepted command of a mission doomed from the get-go. Though Americans are prepared to equate the Taliban with al-Qaeda, they can't really see the point of the war. It's gone on for nine years, America's longest. Two weeks ago the Pentagon desperately refloated a very old story that Afghanistan is rich in mineral resources, like lapis lazuli and lithium.
Will success, however contrived, propel Petraeus towards the White House in 2012 or 2016? Probably not. Americans honor warriors, but they elect draftdodgers. Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush. There's a precedent for Petraeus's fainting fit. Julius Caesar famously suffered from blackouts. He crossed the Rubicon, but he didn't survive long thereafter.
Obama’s Green Light to BP
In our latest newsletter Jeffrey St Clair excavates the corruption across three presidencies that led to that appalling disaster in the Gulf. It was bad under Clinton; worse under Bush. But it was Obama and his Interior Secretary Ken Salazar who set the stage for catastrophe.
In the first year of the Obama administration, Salazar’s Interior Department put 53 million acres of offshore oil reserves up for lease, far eclipsing the records set by the Bush administration. As St. Clair describes, Salazar was adamant in retaining Chris Oynes as associate director of offshore drilling at the Minerals Management Service. As St. Clair explains, an outraged inspector general of the Interior Department discovered that on Oynes’s watch “the repeat offenders in the oil industry were allowed to police themselves, writing their own environmental analyses, safety inspections and compliance reports, often in pencil for MMS regulators to trace over in ink.”
By the time Obama declared on March 31 that “we’ve still got to make some tough decisions about opening new offshore areas for oil and gas development in ways that protect communities and protect coastlines,” his administration had given the green light to BP’s Deepwater Horizon well, giving this notoriously criminal company—a big contributor to the Obama 2008 campaign—a pat on the back for its safety record.
This is a must-read piece. Also in this crackerjack edition: What’s the best way to create jobs? Eugene Coyle makes the case for the 4-day work week. Have the CIA and MI6 destroyed classical music in the western world? Britain’s best known composer, Howard Blake, says Yes.
........................................................................................................................ Isaiah 55:6Make search for the Lord while he is there, make prayer to him while he is near:Isaiah 55:7Let the sinner give up his way, and the evil-doer his purpose: and let him come back to the Lord, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for there is full forgiveness with him. John 3:16For God had such love for the world that he gave his only Son so that whoever has faith in him may not come to destruction but have eternal life
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In a rare move, Iran has declared a state of war on its northwestern border, debkafile's military and Iranian sources report. Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps men and equipment units are being massed in the Caspian Sea region against what Tehran claims are US and Israeli forces concentrated on army and air bases in Azerbaijan ready to strike Iran's nuclear facilities. The announcement came on Tuesday, June 22 from Brig.-Gen Mehdi Moini of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), commander of the forces tasked with "repelling" this American-Israeli offensive. He said: "The mobilization is due to the presence of American and Israeli forces on the western border," adding, "Reinforcements are being dispatched to WestAzerbaijanProvince because some western countries are fueling ethnic conflicts to destabilize the situation in the region."
In the past, Iranian officials have spoken of US and Israel attacks in general terms. debkafile's Iranian sources note that this is the first time that a specific location was mentioned and large reinforcements dispatched to give the threat substance.
No comment has come from Azerbaijan about any of these reports. Iranian Azerbaijan, the destination of the Revolutionary Guards forces reinforcements, borders on Turkey, Iraq and Armenia. Witnesses say long IRGC convoys of tanks, artillery, anti-aircraft units and infantry are seen heading up the main highways to Azerbaijan and then further north to the Caspian Sea.
On Tuesday, June 22, Dr. Uzi Arad, head of Israel's National Security Council and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's closest adviser, said "The latest round of UN Security Council sanctions on Iran is inadequate for thwarting its nuclear progress. A preemptive military strike might eventually be necessary."
debkafile's intelligence and Iranian sources point to three other developments as setting off Iran's war alert:
1. A certain (limited) reinforcement of American and Israeli forces has taken place in Azerbaijan. Neither Washington nor Jerusalem has ever acknowledged a military presence in this country that borders on Iran, but Western intelligence sources say that both keep a wary eye on the goings-on inside Iran from electronic surveillance bases in that country. 2. Iran feels moved to respond to certain US steps: The arrival of the USS Harry S. Truman Strike Group in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea and its war games with France and Israel, which included live-fire bombing practices against targets in Iran. 3. The execution of Abdolmalek Rigi, head of the Sunni Baluchi rebel organization (including the Iranian Baluchis), on June 20 was intended as a deterrent for Iran's other minorities. Instead, they are more restive than ever. Several Azeri breakaway movements operate in Iranian Azerbaijan in combination with their brethren across the border. Tehran decided a substantial buildup in the province would serve as a timely measure against possible upheavals.
..................................................................................................................... Isaiah 55:6Make search for the Lord while he is there, make prayer to him while he is near:Isaiah 55:7Let the sinner give up his way, and the evil-doer his purpose: and let him come back to the Lord, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for there is full forgiveness with him. John 3:16For God had such love for the world that he gave his only Son so that whoever has faith in him may not come to destruction but have eternal life
God bless you! .........................................You can share this note by clicking on the button below.
In the Gulf, the forever spill has become the forever war. A calamity of untold magnitude is unfolding and, alongside it, a strange militarization has emerged, as the language for managing the crisis becomes the language of war.
War-talk is firing from the mouths of local officials, TV pundits, the Coast Guard and journalists. Campaigning frantically to protect Louisiana, Governor Bobby Jindal urges the TV cameras: “We need to see that this is a war….a war to save Louisiana…a war to protect our way of life.”
Billy Nungesser, indefatigable President of the Plaquemines Parish, implores anyone who will listen: “We will fight this war….We will persevere to win this war.”
For Ragin Cajun, Democratic strategist, James Carville: “This is literally a war... this is an invasion…We need to hear someone say ‘We’ll fight them on the beaches….”
Retired Gen. Russell Honore, who oversaw the Katrina debacle, insists: “We need to act like this is World War 3. Treat this like it’s an invasion...equal to what we decided about terrorists. We’ve got to find the oil and kill it.”
Find the oil and kill it? This is truly strange talk, this talk of war and killing oil. Even President Obama tried to fire up the nation by invoking 9/11, couching the spill as an invasion, a siege, an attack by terrorists. The militarization of the disaster has become the invisible norm, so much so that it is hard to see how misplaced and dangerous the analogy to war actually is.
Visit the BP site (one of the more surreal Alice-Through-the-Looking-Glass internet experiences) and you will see the word “kill”--BP’s favored, faux-techno buzzword--appearing with ritualistic incantation. Kill the well, killthe leak, kill the oil, which morphs into “kill mud” (the mud that will kill the leak) and “kill lines” (the lines that follow the pipes to kill the leak). All this kill-talk has a jaunty, we-know-what-we-are-doing tone, but accumulatively it borders on the bizarre, culminating in the “junk shot”--the weird slurry of car tires and golf-balls that BP fired at the leak to ‘kill’ it--as if, by throwing enough sacrificial detritus of our oil-soaked leisure activities into the maw of the oil-god, we could stop it spewing death.
There is a lot of verbal killing going on here, and indeed the Gulf does seem to be bleeding: a vast, streaky, orange-red smear stretching to the horizon. Sixty three days and counting, and the oil eruption gushes unstoppably past 100,000 barrels (BP’s secret, original estimation), past 400,000 barrels and up…We really haven’t a clue how much. In this, our summer of magical counting.
On CNN, Wolf Blitzer gazes at the grey Louisiana horizon and declares: “It looks like a military campaign…heavy lift helicoptors taking sand to the frontlines of the battle against the oil.” I do look, but it doesn’t look like a military campaign to me. Certainly, a few Blackhawk and Chinook helicoptors drop sandbags into a filthy, yellow-brown sea overflown by a few hapless gulls, but a war front it really isn’t. This is, in fact, as unlike a war front as one can imagine. The Louisiana marshes lap quietly with brown ooze; solitary birds heave and flail in the middle of nowhere under the oil’s slow embrace; dolphins gape open-mouthed on beaches; a dead whale washes ashore. No, this is not a war. Only a tremendous failure of the imagination can see this as a war.
So why are people calling the calamity a war and why does it matter that they do?
Calling the oil the ‘enemy’ helps us not to question who was culpable in the first place. Calling the response ‘a battle front’ helps us not ask who, other than the military, should be in charge. Calling the spill an ‘invasion’ helps us not to see that our global culture of militarization is what got us into the mess in the first place. Calling the spill a ‘war’ only fuels the pervasive militarization that produced the crisis in the first place. And calling the oil the enemy helps us not admit how much we, the consumers, having awakened the oil from its ancient slumber to fuel our gas-greedy lives, are the most complicit of all.
A fateful circularity takes shape as the spill is managed in the same terms that produced the spill: that of war. Most critically, militarizing the catastrophe as a war becomes a cover-up for seeing the environmental catastrophe of war.
An unsettling verbal alchemy is at work in all this military talk. “Jindal has declared war!” cries the Florida Pundit. But on whom has Governor Jindal declared war? The murderously irresponsible BP? The Obama government for failing, really, to do anything? The increasingly invisible, but culpable Halliburton? (Wherever there is Halliburton, there is pain). The Sunday Herald, for one, pleaded with Congress not to blame BP: “The oil is the enemy,” it urged, “not each other.” Admiral Allen described the oil as “an insidious enemy that keeps attacking in different places.” Viewed through the prism of war, oil and nature are seen as the enemy, for they have erupted beyond our control. Adopting a warlike stance toward nature is not new. A long-established discourse on conquering the wilderness is ready to hand to justify our rapacious assault on the life-forms around us. Dill, baby, drill. Then, when it all goes horrendously wrong, kill, baby, kill.
And if all this seems merely metaphoric, there is Rush Limbaugh to rely on, for whom the doomed rig explosion was not just a metaphor, but an actual act of war. Limbaugh says the rig was probably attacked by “a foreign government,” with culprits ranging from “Muslim terrorists to the Red Chinese, Venezuela and beyond.” Michael Savage began simultaneously peddling the same story, but with North Korea behind the ‘attack.’ Cherry-pick your terrorist of choice--whatever--it is war.
The war talk of Limbaugh, Savage & Co would be laughable if it didn’t converge with the broader militarization of the spill. Senator Bill Nelson (D-Florida) is calling for the actual military to take charge. But what part of the military’s mission and expertise, I wonder, leads Nelson to believe that the army could stop the oil billowing from the ocean bed, let alone take charge of the massive response? Do we actually have the military hardware to stave off this thing in the first place? Sure we do. We can send in a Predator Drone, point the Oil Vaporizing Missile at the leak, hit the “If-we-dream-hard-enough” button and…hotdamn. Thing works like a charm.
A painful irony is obvious: we can’t send in the army because it is already overstretched by fighting two ruinous wars abroad, both wars fought precisely to secure the dwindling oil we need to lubricate our profligate lifestyles and keep our global military mobile. But the military can barely manage these wars abroad, let alone cope with environmental catastrophes back home, stretched so thin as it is that soldiers return home with post-traumatic stress so severe they commit suicide at the harrowing rate of eighteen a day.
Couching the catastrophe in the language of war conceals the political void at the heart of the clean-up. The administration’s systematic failure to regulate BP, Halliburton et al before the explosion is matched only by its stunning impotence after the explosion. We’re into the second month and Nungesser is still begging to know who is in charge. Even Admiral Thad Allen told reporters: "To push BP out of the way would raise the question of: Replace them with what?" The robust, accountable civilian agencies that should be responsible have been gutted by decades of deregulation. This is what the far right wants. In the last decade, Republican calls for limiting government have given way to calls for dismantling government, in favor of a system run and policed by the very rapacious energy and fiscal barons who caused the crises in the first place.
In a world of promiscuous deregulation, oil giants like BP take obscene risks and rake in undreamed-of bonanzas. BP, the third largest oil company in the world, has an annual profit of $14 billion; it made $17 billion last year, and $9 billion in the first quarter of this year alone. BP’s top CEO before Tony Hayward, Lord John Browne (at $11 million a year the highest paid CEO in the UK) was so addicted to profit that he cut safety costs at all costs. BP has long been known as the top-ranking safety violator globally. Last year alone, according to OSHA, BP racked up over 700 violations, that is, over 10 violations per day. BP’s Regional Oil Spill Response Plan for the Gulf was so makeshift it included references to walruses and sea-otters, neither of which inhabit the Gulf.
The oil bonanzas are so vast that when the companies are fined for spills, the fines often amount to just a few days annual profits. Exxon Valdes’s fines were reduced by Justice Roberts’ Supreme Court from $5 billion to $500 million and not one company official saw the inside of a jail. So why bother following safety regulations? And when safety regulations are systematically violated, well, stuff happens. Like a dead ocean.
And when stuff happens, what do we do? Who is in charge? Gov. Jindal cries out again: “This is a war. We’ve got to be adaptable.” The trouble is, there is precious little to be adaptable with. Skimmers, sandbags, shovels. Antiquated barges with makeshift vacuums trying to suck up an ocean that is turning black. On TV, I watch men in white overalls hold a puny vacuum-cleaner nozzle to the gargantuan oil slick. Cajun engineering, some wryly call it. Absurd, if it weren’t so awful.
The wildly unregulated oil industry is profit-driven to such a degree that no R and D has gone into developing any clean-up technology for the last forty years. Not since the Santa Barbara disaster in 1969, that is. Not since everyone was still using typewriters. The oil industry has the technology to drill to fabulous, sci-fi, Jules Verne depths, but is still using hopelessly outmoded methods like booms, wetmats, and spades to clean-up after them. Skimmers lumber ineffectually back to shore carrying only 10% oil to 90% water. Kevin Costner’s save-the-day machines are not yet in action. The booms get tangled up in every squall and are laid out with little or no knowledge of the shoreline. I watch as men swirl mops in the ooze.
Where is the R and D for clean-up technology? As I write this, I wonder: I can touch my ipad and in a few seconds beckon from the ethers an invisible book that speeds unseen through the starry skies to materalize magically into print between my fingers. We can pull off this breathtakingly wondrous stunt, but are stumped by the task of scooping up the oil we ceaselessly spill? Why?
It’s not as if there aren’t enough bad spills to warrant spending some serious R and D cash. The sheer untruth of Obama’s claim in April that “oil rigs generally don’t cause spills” could hardly be rivaled. In fact, as much oil is spilled in the world every seven months as was spilled from the Exxon Valdes. In Nigeria’s oil-devastated delta alone, where oil companies operate outside the law, where writer-activist, Ken Saro Wiwa was executed for opposing them, more oil is spilled every year than so far in the current Gulf spill.
But who cares? These spills occur slowly, every day and far away, out of range of the U.S. media’s sensation-driven gaze, evading the disaster-packaging of prime time news. So that Doug Suttels, BP chief, could lie to NBC’s Tom Costello, saying that BP hadn’t developed any remedial spill technology because “there have been so few big spills.” And when warned by a BP engineer that the Deep Horizon was a “nightmare rig,” another BP official responded in an email: “Who cares? It's done... We will probably be fine.”
We aren’t fine, but perhaps by calling this a war we stave off feelings of helplessness by giving familiar symbolic shape to an unforeseen chaos. Perhaps fear is militarized and given a reassuringly violent form. Certainly, Americans are particularly prone to deploying the language of war to deal with social crises. We pretend to wage war on a lot of things that we can’t wage war on: the war on drugs, on crime, on poverty, on AIDS, the forever War on Terror, and now on oil. The militarization of our culture has become so pervasive that every crisis of neo-liberal capitalism rolling in is seen as the next war.
Very early into the spill, the militarization of the Gulf extended even to journalists being prevented from covering the disaster by a motley alliance of BP contractors and Coast Guards, on the grounds that the Gulf was a war zone. After protests, Admiral Allen assured the media that they would have “uninhibited access,” but the blockades only increased, flyover permits were revoked, photography on public beaches was banned, and cleanup workers were silenced. National guardsman blockaded even CNN from filming oil-damaged birds. The question remains why President Obama, who campaigned on the promise of government transparency, would collude with BP in the media blackout, refusing to let even the New York Times fly over “Ground Zero”--a blatantly militarized reference to an industrial disaster? One Coast Guard official referred to journalists as “media embeds,” but embeds in what, precisely?
All this war talk would be understandable, defensible even, were it not for a fatally circular, feedback loop. BP would not be in the Gulf drilling deeper than it knows how to drill were it not for its uniquely profitable relation with the US military war machine. The United States Department of Defense buys more oil than any other entity on the planet. The protection of overseas oil is now so unquestioned that even Defense Secretary Gates warned against the “creeping militarization” of U.S. foreign policy. And to fuel this militarization, the Pentagon uses 75% of the oil bought by the DOD for its jets, bombers, drones, tanks, and Humvees. And in order to keep buying this oil, the military has to keep protecting our regional oil interests, two thirds of which are now in conflict prone zones. US military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan use a staggering ninety million gallons a month. And to garrison this vast, global gas-station, the DOD keeps expanding, which means buying more oil.
From whom? In 2009, BP was the Pentagon’s largest contractor at $2.2 billion. The DOD has a longstanding, multimillion dollar business relation with BP, which it says it has no intention of relinquishing, even now, in the aftermath of the Gulf disaster. Despite knowledge that BP has racked up 97% of all flagrant safety violations. In 2005, the DOD paid BP $1.5 billion. Indeed, last year 16% of BP’s profits came from sales to the Pentagon alone.
Keeping this in mind, we would do well to remember that militarization is the number one cause of environmental destruction in the world, and that military production facilities, which are exempt from environmental restrictions, are the most ecologically devastated places on earth. We drill, we spill; nature pays the bill.
Blaming BP means we don’t have to admit our complicity as consumers in the slow-mo, chemical slaughter we have unleashed on the planet. Blaming BP means we don’t have to look too hard in the rear-view mirrors of the cars we drive, or too deep into the plastic water bottles we drink. Last year Americans drank enough plastic water bottles to stretch around the world one hundred and ninety times. Blaming BP means we don’t have to admit how our oil-addiction keeps U.S. foreign policy in thrall to petro-despots and oligarchs.
BP would not be drilling in the Gulf in the first place were it not reaping ungodly, monster profits from our luxurious oil-bingeing. A gas-pedal-to-the-metal nation, we American consumers are especially complicit, our profligate lifestyles devouring 30% of all raw materials used by people globally every year. We Americans siphon 25% of all the earth’s black oil into our cars, trucks, airplanes, helicopters, mega-malls and military bases. Every one of us who drives one, two, three cars is complicit. Every one of us who shops with plastic bags is complicit. Every one of us who strolls through malls heated to a permanent tropical summer in winter, is complicit. We are all complicit in this calamity. We are all BP now.
Anne McClintock is the Simone de Beauvoir Professor of English and Women's and Gender Studies at UW-Madison. She is the author of Imperial Leather: Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest, which was republished online by the ACLS E-Humanities Book Project. McClintock has written short biographies of Olive Schreiner and Simone de Beauvoir and a monograph on madness, sexuality and colonialism called Double Crossings. She has co-edited Dangerous Liaisons with Ella Shohat and Aamir Mufti, as well as two special issues of Social Text: one titled "Sex Workers and Sex Work," and the other titled "Queer Transexions of Race, Nation and Gender."
Isaiah 55:6Make search for the Lord while he is there, make prayer to him while he is near:Isaiah 55:7Let the sinner give up his way, and the evil-doer his purpose: and let him come back to the Lord, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for there is full forgiveness with him.John 3:16For God had such love for the world that he gave his only Son so that whoever has faith in him may not come to destruction but have eternal life
God bless you!
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President Obama will be given the power to shut down the Internet with a 'kill switch' in a new law being proposed in the US.
He would be able to order popular search engines such a Google and Yahoo to suspend access their websites in times of national emergency.
Other US based Internet service providers as well as broadband providers would also come under his control in times of a 'cybersecurity emergency.' Any company that failed to comply would be subject to huge fines.
Critics of the new law, which has been proposed by former presidential candidate Joe Liebermann, said it would be an abuse of power to let the White House control the internet.
TechAmerica, one of the largest U.S. technology lobby groups, said the new law had the 'potential for absolute power.
The proposed legislation, introduced into the US Senate by Lieberman who is chairman of the US Homeland Security committee, seeks to grant the President broad emergency powers over the internet in times of national emergency.
A sustained terror attack on multiple cities would be considered a national emergency as would a cyber attack by 'hackers' on the US financial system.
The director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair warned earlier this year that the US is 'severely threatened' by malicious cyber attacks.
The number of attacks on Government departments has increased by 400 per cent in the last three years.
Under the proposed bill, which has been dubbed an Internet kill switch', the US Government would effectively seize control of access to the internet.
Lieberman argued the bill was necessary to 'preserve those networks and assets and our country and protect our people'.
He said: 'For all of its 'user-friendly' allure, the Internet can also be a dangerous place with electronic pipelines that run directly into everything from our personal bank accounts to key infrastructure to government and industrial secrets.
Traders work on the New York Stock Exchange floor. US senators fear a cyber-attack on the US could paralyse the nation
'Our economic security, national security and public safety are now all at risk from new kinds of enemies--cyber-warriors, cyber-spies, cyber-terrorists and cyber-criminals.'
His bill is formally titled the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act, or PCNAA.
While the US Government would not be able to control the internet in other countries access to the most popular sites would be cut off.
Google,Yahoo and YouTube, the top three most visited sites, are all based in the US.
Google logs an estimated two billion hits a day from 300 million users.
Under the cyber law any company on a list created by Homeland Security that also 'relies on' the Internet, the telephone system, or any other component of the U.S. 'information infrastructure' would be subject to command by a new National Centre for Cybersecurity and Communications (NCCC) that would be created inside Homeland Security.
Google, the world's most popular search engine, refused to comment. A spokesman said the law was not yet Government policy.
.................................................................................................................... Isaiah 55:6Make search for the Lord while he is there, make prayer to him while he is near:Isaiah 55:7Let the sinner give up his way, and the evil-doer his purpose: and let him come back to the Lord, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for there is full forgiveness with him. John 3:16For God had such love for the world that he gave his only Son so that whoever has faith in him may not come to destruction but have eternal life
God bless you!
........................................
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