TOO HIGH TO FAIL

CANNABIS AND THE NEW GREEN ECONOMIC REVOLUTION

By Doug Fine

June 29, 2012

"Two years ago, I found you with cannabis, you went to jail. Today I see you're just more farmers in our community, like I see at the Farmer's Market with my wife on Saturdays." ~ Mendocino County (CA) Sheriff's Department Sergeant Randy Johnson, addressing permitted cannabis farmers at a 2011 meeting

With that pithy statement, cannabis cultivation administrator Johnson, one of the many society-spanning figures who populate Doug Fine's fascinating account of America's sustainable cannabis growing industry, sums up the rapidly evolving development of the new "green economy" and changing attitudes from all sides of the issue. The results have bearing on all of our lives in the realms of government spending and civil liberties.

In TOO HIGH TO FAIL (Gotham Books; August 2012), Fine, an international investigative journalist and author of the acclaimed Farewell, My Subaru, moves his family half way across the country to a place where a small group of resourceful and determined individuals are creating a roadmap for America's economic future.  
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Spurred by journalistic curiosity, a dawning awareness of the role cannabis (aka hemp) played in his own family's daily life, and, finally, a too-close-for-comfort breach of his own back yard by America's Drug War, Fine searched for a locale that even today could demonstrate the benefit of decriminalizing cannabis ~ an event that could simultaneously tap a multi-billion-dollar resource for the American and world economies and provide medical relief to millions. 

He found it in Mendocino County, California, a "northern coastal paradise" where a small group of farmers are legally growing cannabis for medical purposes and creating a template for sustainable farming.

Cannabis, Fine reminds us, has played an important role in the world's economy since ancient times, having been used in the earliest known fabric and oldest surviving paper, as well as "food, shelter, clothing, baskets, medicine and/or spirituality on every continent except Antarctica." 

The paper on which Jefferson wrote the "Declaration of Independence" and the cloth covering pioneer wagons? Made from cannabis.  In the 21st century, Fine found hemp ingredients in everything from his health shakes to his children's diapers, his twine, and his soap ~ none of which were made in the U.S. or benefit its economy.

America's War on Drugs, officially declared by the Nixon administration in 1971, actually has its roots in prohibition era crusaders, and the opposition of competing industries (timber, and chemical and petroleum based synthetics) led by Williams Randolph Hearst and Pierre DuPont.   Critics of the War on Drugs, according to Fine, point out how keeping marijuana illegal allows illegitimate growers and distributors to thrive, thus supporting the black market, organized crime and Mexican drug cartels, not to mention costing taxpayers $15.5 billion annually in Drug War financing.   Fine takes us along on several raids to show how the constitutionally-questionable war is often fought (AKA how the money is spent), and its strange choices of targets.

The legalization of cannabis in this country, Fine argues, "not only has the potential to return thousands of American small family farmers to the land," but "could have a staggeringly large and positive impact on the American economy in sectors far beyond the agricultural; beyond the cannabis field itself.  

Think domestic energy.  

Think South Carolina textile industry.  

Think Nebraska family farmer." In such an economy, says Fine, marijuana for recreational use could merely be a niche market. 

ED: Think also that big incarceration would NOT like this because marijuana is the crime of crimes that fills the prison system with slave labour.

Armed with this knowledge, Fine moves to Mendocino to learn firsthand about an agricultural and community template for how such an economy might develop; a place where cannabis has been effectively decriminalized and tightly regulated in order to provide medical marijuana to nearby California residents. It is also proving an indispensable source of financing for the local economy. 

It helps that this happened in a place where cannabis was already 80% of the economy, to the tune of billions of mostly black market dollars per year. With this legitimate medical purpose of cannabis in mind, Fine carries out his investigation by following one local farmer's plant from birth through cultivation, harvesting and into the hands, literally, of a patient in need. 

After settling his family into their almost-as-romantic-as-it-sounds cabin in the Mendocino hills, Fine immerses himself in the local culture and seeks out the key players in the MendoGrown trade group as well as local law enforcement officials. 

Ultimately, he is connected with Tomas Balogh, a 33-year old Berkeley graduate who thus far had only developed the indoor variety of the plant as a means of paying his tuition.  Now, however, Balogh, like other Mendocino farmers, is on a mission to "pay his taxes and provide medicine for patients while demonstrating the economic and social legitimacy" of sustainably-grown, fairly-traded cannabis farming. 

Fine also familiarizes himself with the perspective of the law enforcers: the members of the Mendocino Sheriff's department, including Mendocino Sheriff Tom Allman himself, a local boy who developed a begrudging respect for the law-abiding farmers and their mission. 

Their job is to enforce the "Ordinance 9.31 Zip-tie program" that allows for local farmers to legitimately grow up to 99 cannabis plans annually (the zip-ties being the being the registration anklets that farmers must purchase and attach to the stalk of every permitted plant). 

It is through the steep cost of the zip-ties (approximately $8500 per farmer annually) that the crop contributes directly to the Mendocino county budget ~ in 2011 those funds prevented the lay-offs of seven county deputies. That's not counting the value of hundreds of first time above-ground taxpayers. People who can now call the Sheriff in an emergency.  And Fine follows several who do.

From greenhouse to outdoor crop, through an extended California rainy season and federal raids, Fine follows the Mendocino growing season and, in particular, "Lucille," his farmer's chosen plant, for nine months until, at last, she is harvested, dried, and trimmed. 

Fine accompanies Balogh as he personally delivers a jar of Lucille's flowers to an elderly husband and wife who joined a collective in order to have access to the pesticide-free cannabis their doctor has recommended for chemotherapy-related appetite stimulation.

Having witnessed first-hand the seriousness, dedication and example set by the Mendocino farmers and the legitimacy of their industry, Fine considers the failed War on Drugs and why several generations of American presidents and politicians, including President Obama, have refused to end it. 

Relying on the journalist's tool of "following the money," he spells out how the end to cannabis prohibition is a threat to many influential industries that benefit from the ongoing war: pharmaceuticals, banking, the private prison industry, and the prison guard lobby (not to mention the DEA). 

If taxed, though, cannabis would bring in tens of billions of dollars in revenue to the American economy. Not the first time a substance that Americans very much like will have bailed out the economy: at times in the nineteenth Century, alcohol provided 70% of federal tax revenue.

Fine also acknowledges the risks that legalization of cannabis would entail, namely addiction, but suggests that the risks are, judging by the experiences of law enforcement in Mendocino, without doubt less threatening than those of alcohol and prescription drugs. Abuse of the latter is the real epidemic, Sheriff Allman insists, and influential studies are even showing that cannabis can help in a patient's alcoholism or pill addiction battle. 

Ultimately, Doug Fine concludes in a narrative the reads like wildly humorous investigative journalism, the benefits of ending the 40-year, trillion-dollar Drug War, particularly the enormous potential such a decision has to revive the American economy and cripple the drug cartels, far outweigh the risks. As Sheriff Allman puts in,

"I was raised to believe these people were ruining our county. Now I think they're helping save it."

Local law enforcement gets it. The question is, will the open, taxpaying farmers Fine follows avoid federal prosecution at the tail end of the War on Drugs?

About The Author: Doug Fine is an investigative journalist, author and solar-powered New Mexican goat herder.  He has reported from five continents for the Washington Post, Wired, Salon, High Times, The New York Times, Outside, NPR, and US News & World Report, and he has a regular column in New Mexico magazine.  Fine is the author of two previous books, Not Really an Alaskan Mountain Man and Farewell, My Subaru. A Web site of his work and a short film about Too High to Fail are at www.dougfine.com

THE RIGHT TO DESTABILIZE IS SINGULAR: A FAREWELL TO MAX BLUMENTHAL AND HILLARY’S PROPAGANDISTS

June 24, 2012

By Scott Creighton

Max Blumenthal has said “enough is enough” and taken his little pen and walked away from his staff position at Al Akhbar English over what he claims is their editorial tolerance of “Assad apologists”. According to Max in an article on his website explaining his decision to leave in a huff (The right to resist is universal: A farewell to Al Akhbar and Assad’s apologists) “the apologia for Assad and his crimes has reached unbearable levels.”

I once had a great deal of respect for Max Blumenthal. His work on the Palestinian issue has been courageous to say the least. But now I have to say farewell to Max and remove his link from my blogroll. His disingenuous and downright dishonest efforts to prop-up the progressive Assad demonetization train turns my stomach and I will never be able to post a single thing he writes without having to question the man’s integrity.

Yeah, it’s that bad. Max Blumenthal is an outright liar. No one, and I mean NO ONE with his resources and experience in the Middle East could miss the boat so badly on this topic without doing so deliberately unless he was a total and complete idiot. And Max is not an idiot. He is however, the son of Sidney Blumenthal who was a long term adviser to Bill Clinton (during the destabilization of Yugoslavia as coincidence would have it) and then a campaign adviser to Hillary Clinton who expected to serve in her State Department before Rahm Emanuel put his foot down for some reason. Max’s daddy is also reportedly a close friend of Tony Blair. Just thought I would throw that in for good measure.

Yes, Max Blumenthal is a liar. And I will now show you how I came to that conclusion. As to the why, well… you be the judge.

1. THE TAL AL ZATAAR GUILT BY ASSOCIATION PLOY

Max starts off his article condemning Al Akhbar and Bashir Assad with a rather odd quote. He’s attempting to demonize the Assad regime by referencing the Tal al Zataar refugee camp massacre when Syria came in to supposedly defend the camp, but in fact they were quite brutal toward the Palestinian refugees.

First of all, this occurred in 1976 when Bashir al Assad was all of 11 years old. Trying to use that incident to demonize Assad would be tantamount to linking Barack Obama with the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention fiasco and riots simply because he is a democrat and from Chicago.

Assad had nothing to do with al Zataar so it has no bearing on this issue what-so-ever except to poison the well as it were, a typical troll propaganda tactic that I would have expected Blumenthal to be well above using. But there it is just the same.

The other aspect of the al Zataar massacre that Max seems to have forgotten is that it took place during the Lebanese Civil War and those Palestinians weren’t simply innocent refugees hanging out hoping for CHANGE… they were actively involved in fighting around their camp and they were actively involved in fighting the Lebanese and Christian Phalangist forces.

There is no doubt that the result was a slaughter and that Syrian forces took part in it, but in reality it’s a bit more complicated than the Sesame Street version that Max tries to present in his article. So he’s starting off his article on a rather disingenuous note and he continues in the same vein throughout the rest of it.

2. MAX’S CLINTONISTA DADDY

Max Blumenthal is NOT a self-made man. His writing career is a direct result of his being the off-spring of Sidney Blumenthal, a long time adviser to the Clinton White House and then a personal adviser to Hillary Clinton during her run for president back in 2008. Among other globalist rags, Max writes for the Huffington Post and Salon. His daddy wrote for all the same institutions and was even Washington bureau chief for Salon.com.

In fact, Blumenthal’s daddy wrote copy for the Clinton administration and handed it out to the press for them to regurgitate back in the late 90′s. That was his job: Propagandist in Chief for the Clinton administration. Then he just happens to go work for the same institutions that he was feeding bullshit to for years taking his son along with him for the ride.

Also interesting about his father is the fact that he is a HUGE proponent of the so-called “third way” movement across the globe. More on that later.

Odd isn’t it? Here we have Max, prodigal son of a lifelong Clintonista, taking a stand for a destabilization campaign primarily being run by none other than Hillary Clinton. Small world, huh?

One credible critique of Bashir Assad is the fact that he inherited his presidency from his father back in 2000. But honestly, how is that different than George H. W. Bush (his daddy was Prescott. Look it up Max), George W Bush, Rand Paul or even Max Blumenthal himself?

Well, here’s one difference: even the neocon warmongers had to admit that Assad enjoys the support of just over 55% of the population of Syria. The MAJORITY WANTS ASSAD TO BE PRESIDENT.

Blumenthal never mentions that in his “scholarly” article.

But if we are looking at the crimes of the father in order to demonize the son, Max has some penance to serve as well.

3. MAX’S HORRIBLE FACTS: WORTHY OF “ACTIVISTS SAY” JOURNALISM

The vast majority of the so-called “evidence” Max uses to demonize the Assad regime has been long since discredited. There is no doubt about this. In fact, he actually tells Paul Jay at the Real News Network that he gets his info from “activists” and associated “journalists” embedded with the CIA backed terrorists. Here are just SOME of Max’s so-called “facts” and his admission of where he gets them. Take a look.

“The Assad regime was running an institution of torture in prisons. Possibly 100,000 people are in prison right now. And this makes Israel look like, you know, a champion of human rights.” Max Blumenthal

“I can not disagree with anyone who claims that the United States and the Saudi royals aim to ratchet up their regional influence on the backs of the shabby Syrian National Council while Israel cheers on the sidelines” Max Blumenthal

“This is a point where, by all accounts, the Assad regime had killed as many as 10,000 people in order to remain in power, possibly 13,000, according to people I know inside Syria who’ve come out.” Max Blumenthal

“But, I mean, it (Houla Massacre) was part of their campaign of suppression inside Syria, to crush what I consider to be a legitimate attempt at removing a dictator.” Max Blumenthal

“I started really paying attention to the coverage closely on the website, and mainly the opinions following the Houla massacre, which was by all accounts (really? read the German study yet Max?) carried out by shabiha affiliated with the Assad regime, to the embarrassment of the Assad regime.” Max Blumenthal

“…a regime that’s ideologically hollow that represents nothing beyond a fascistic security apparatus, married to (and sometimes literally, in some cases) a rich neoliberal business class…” Max Blumenthal

“But I made a personal decision based on my own values and based on the accounts that I was getting from Syrian activists, from Syrian intellectuals, and from journalists I respect who have been inside Syria, who’ve been in Homs, who’ve been with the revolution in Syria. And, I mean, these are people I trust.” Max Blumenthal

To completely dissect the virtual cornucopia of hardcore disinformation that Max spews on the subject of the Syrian “uprising” would take forever and most of the readers here are already well aware of the various studies and facts that have come to light over the last month or so that proves Max completely wrong on all these accounts. I will still delve into them a little since I am sending Max a copy of this article.

FIRST:

Israel isn’t standing on the sidelines cheering the destabilization campaign as Max mistakenly characterizes their involvement. They’re an ACTIVE PARTICIPANT with a GREAT DEAL on the line (Golan Heights? Water rights? oil and Natural Gas exploration two weeks ago?) which is something that you would imagine Max would be well aware of.

SECOND:

“By all accounts” Syria has not killed 13,000 Syrian civilians. However, if by saying “by all accounts” you are talking about the Syrian “opposition” supported by the CIA (admitted and covered by the New York Times and others) and their Mockingbird Press Corps (like the institutions Max’s daddy works for) then of course, that would be “by all accounts”. Of course, expecting Max to understand this is an assumption and I may be giving him too much credit.

THIRD:

The Houla Massacre was conducted NOT by the Assad regime but rather by the opposition in an attempt to demonize the Assad regime and ferment support for an all out invasion. Even the National Review knows that.

“As quietly as possible, BBC world news editor Jon Williams has admitted that the coverage of last month’s Houla massacre in Syria by the world’s media and his own employer was a compendium of lies.

Datelined 16:23, June 7, Williams chose a personal blog to make a series of fairly frank statements explaining that there was no evidence whatsoever to identify either the Syrian Army or Alawite militias as the perpetrators of the May 25 massacre of 100 people.” WSWS

Max… come on. How could you have POSSIBLY missed that one? John Pilger gets it. Why can’t you?

“The threats against Syria, coordinated in Washington and London, scale new peaks of hypocrisy. Contrary to the raw propaganda presented as news, the investigative journalism of the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung identifies those responsible for the massacre in Houla as the ”rebels” backed by Obama and Cameron.” John Pilger

The Free Syrian Terrorists have been conducting a terrorist bombing campaign, assassinations, and kidnappings all across Syria for months. Burhan Ghalion, head of the Syrian Transitional National Council recently said they need MORE TERRORISM in Syria, not less.

The latest massacre is already attributed to them and the others involved. Here, take a look at the handiwork of the so-called “activists” that Max Blumenthal supports.

What if the Tea Party activists in America piled up the corpses of cops and soldiers and Obama supporters like this on the streets of Maine or Tennessee so they could film them being desecrated like this?

What do you think Blumenthal’s take on that would be?

In fact, your daddy’s friend Hillary Clinton has also admitted that “al Qaeda” is inside Syria helping them destabilize the country. Now why the hell would they do that?

Well, I guess it’s ok for Max to support the efforts of the Syrian Freedom Fighters. If Lyin Joe Lieberman is on board, how much of a lie could it be?

FORTH:

Tossing out buzz words like “neoliberal business class” in order to try to sway the in tune progressives to your side is beyond tasteless. There is NOTHING, and I do mean NOTHING about the Assad regime that is neoliberal.

The vast majority of the industry in Syria is nationalized or run by the state. This is part of what makes the overthrow of Assad so appealing to the neoliberals. They can PRIVATIZE everything and hand it over to their crony buddies in big business. They have NOT opened their doors to hot money speculators NOR have they privatized their central banking system.

The education system is based on the FRENCH model not the for-profit Chilean style created by Augusto Pinochet and now being implemented by Barack Obama here in the states. Claiming Assad is a neoliberal is ridiculous and a pathetic (and obvious) attempt to sway a certain segment of the population to your side of the fence without a SHRED of evidence.

And by the way, I also noticed you offered not one single link to support ANY of your claims in your article on your site. I guess that speaks volumes as well.

LASTLY:

We already know who the so-called “activists” are and who’s paying them. We know that the National Council is nothing more than a group of opportunists and neoliberal puppets looking to cash in like their counterparts down in Libya did. We also know what “embedded journalists” are so your “evidence” is beyond pathetic and you know it as well. Which is probably why you offered no links to prove a single claim you make.

Hell, even Stratfor has admitted that the “activists” in Syria are fabricating stories about the situation there. And Max still buys into it?

I wonder if one of Blumenthal’s credible sources happens to be Rami Abdelrahman from the London based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. After all, they were the very first to assign blame for the Houla Massacre on Assad and the shabbiha…

“The shabbiha (Assad’s militiamen) broke into three houses overnight and slaughtered a family of five ~ the father, wife and their three children, a family of seven in another house and a eight in a third,” dissident in exile Rami Abdelrahman, who heads the British-based Observatory, told the news service. MSNBC

Of course, Rami Abdelrahman doesn’t actually exist. He’s a propaganda construct exposed a long time ago…

Firstly, there is NO individual by the name of Rami Abdul Rahman. This is just an alias that was being used by all SOHR members and mainly by the founders of the SOHR when articles were being originally published. SOHR

Again, maybe that is why Max doesn’t offer links or quotes to support his condemnation of Assad. I wonder if his daddy did while he was handing out propaganda to the press corps back in his Clinton days?

4. MAX PLAYS BOTH SIDES OF THE ISSUE

Throughout Max Blumenthal’s article and his interview on the Real News network, he continually tries to play both sides of this issue while always continuing to make the argument that even though this is CLEARLY a destabilization campaign and even though there are terrorists committing atrocities in Syria and trying to blame them on the regime, Assad must be removed from power because he’s a bad man committing the atrocities against the “legitimate” uprising.

Blumenthal does this simply because he DOES understand that the vast majority of evidence is out there showing that what this is is an external aggression being waged against a sovereign state, illegally mind you, and he can’t possibly generate support like they did before the evidence came out.

Like in Libya, this is a small group of individuals in Syria who understand that there is a great deal of money to be made if they play ball with the imperialists and help them overthrow the legitimate government of Syria. It’s that simple.

Of course you could have a small group of people within a nation who want to change its ruling party if you factor that in. But what Blumenthal NEVER mentions is the fact that Assad has made SEVERAL concessions to the nation and implemented SEVERAL key changes to how the country is run.

He also fails to mention the fact that the majority of the people of Syria support Assad (just like the majority of the people of Libya supported Gadhafi). These FACTS simply never factor into Blumenthal’s equation.

CONCLUSION

I have to admit, I was quite surprised by Max Blumenthal’s take on all of this. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been. I never took the time to look into his family history and how he got his start writing for institutions like Salon, Al Jazeera English, and the Huffington Post. I took him at face value thanks to his work on the Palestinian rights issue. That oversight is on me and I hope that this… correction… is not too late.

Unfortunately I have to conclude that Max is in bed with his daddy who is in bed with the Clintons on this one. I guess eventually while the Mockingbird Press allows you to build up credibility over the years, a time will come when you have to sit in front of Paul Jay and spew senseless propaganda to pay for your birthright entitlements in the neoliberal class of “third way” centrists.

To his credit though, it does look like Max was a little sickened by what he was doing during the Real News interview. I guess the globalist shill hat doesn’t feel so good sitting upon his head. I hope that when the Obama administration starts the bombing campaign and kills scores of Assad supporting innocent Syrians, our little entitled friend Max has a couple of sleepless nights to pay for his role in helping gin up left wing support for it.

Anyway, for whatever good it does, Max Blumenthal is off my blog-list and I will never post a link to anything he does again. Cus he’s a liar and a fraud who sold out the Syrian people for god knows what.

ISRAEL, NATO’S LITTLE HELPER: THE OVERLOOKED PLAYER IN THE SYRIAN DESTABILIZATION CAMPAIGN

Pro-Assad Syrian Druze of the Golan Heights

It is all about the Formation of The Greater Israel, each coveted area under bombardment in a different manner, each marked for assimilation.  Needless to say, the illegal Israelis quoted with the images I have added insist that they made the desert bloom! No one there in the first place I suppose. .

By Scott Creighton

American Everyman

June 29, 2012

All too often we find ourselves talking about the United States and Britain’s destabilization campaign in Syria and we forget to mention the other partner in crime working to break the country up into little pieces: NATO’s Little Helper, Israel.  

Israel’s involvement in the terrorist centered destabilization campaign is extensive to say the least and their motives to assist in the NATO efforts are just as obvious.

Israel has more than a few prime motivations to see that the current regime in Syria is overthrown and replaced by a puppet regime friendly to the west and Israel in particular. The first and foremost, is the survival of Israel itself and this has nothing to do with some existential threat posed by Syria.

Israel has been occupying the Golan Heights since the end of the Six Day War back in 1967. It’s managed under Israeli military rule and is still quite disputed by the vast majority of the civilized world. 

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In 1973 Syria won back part of the Golan Heights and Assad has never given up on taking back all of it from the Israeli occupiers. Fewer than 10% of the people living in the Heights have accepted Israel’s offer of citizenship thus the vast majority of the Druze living in the Heights are still Syrian.

In 1981, Israel began building settlements in the Heights which drew immediate international condemnation in the form of  UN Security Council Resolution 497 which stated

“the Israeli decision to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights is null and void and without international legal effect“ 

The resolution was passed by the Security Council by a vote of 15-0. The United States uncharacteristic did not veto the resolution to protect Israel’s interests.

According to the CIA World Factbook, as of 2010,

“there are 41 Israeli settlements and civilian land use sites in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights“.

Even the CIA admits the Heights are occupied Syrian territory.

What makes the Golan Heights so important to the state of Israel right now is the fact that Israel gets 1/3rd of it’s water from the Heights which makes it the main water source for all of Israel.

Without Golan, Israel would literally dry up and blow away.

A large percentage of the rest of their water comes from the occupied West Bank. So they literally bleed what they need from their neighbors. Nice, huh?

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An image of the late Syrian President stand facing the Sea of Galilee a the Golan Heights

Now, you might think that would be reason enough for Israel to help push along a Libyan style imperialist overthrow of the Syrian government or a Balkanization of the country. That is the plan; to break up Syria into little pieces based on sectarian differences, just like the Clintons did to Yugoslavia.

Who says so?

Well, the Israelis say so for one…
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A timely article in the Jerusalem Post last month brings to the forefront the unspoken objective of US foreign policy, namely the breaking up of Syria as a sovereign nation state ~ along ethnic and religious lines ~ into several separate and “independent” political entities.

The article also confirms the role of Israel in the process of political destabilization of Syria.  The JP article is titled: “Veteran Kurdish politician calls on Israel to support the break-up of Syria‘ (by Jonathan Spyer) (The Jerusalem Post (May 16, 2012)

The objective of the US sponsored armed insurgency is ~ with the help of Israel ~ to “Break Syria into Pieces“. ~ Global Research

In the aftermath of whatever shakes out of the turmoil being caused by the CIA, NATO, and the rest of the low-intensity warfare players, 

Israel stands to take and keep the Golan Heights 

for real this time 

making it part and parcel of Israel for good.

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I would say that is pretty good motivation, wouldn’t you?

Well, it gets better.

For being”Gods chosen people”, the Israeli’s got stuck with the short end of the stick when it comes to oil and LNG in the region. Seems like Israel is the only country in the entire Middle East with no real reserves to speak of on their property.

There are some reserves off the coast of Gaza which explains Israel’s efforts there and their “slant drilling” operation they don’t want people to see. But, for the most part, Israel doesn’t have jack squat when it comes to oil riches. They depend on importing 99% of their oil needs.

 .

"When we started, we were pioneers. We came here with the government's blessing," said Brayer, who has spent 34 years in the Golan. "We planted orchards, vineyards, modern agriculture."

The "pioneering" days are over in an area where ski resorts, wineries and tourism now supplement fruit and cattle farming, shaping what the settlers hope will be a permanent reality.

That may change after the Heights become Israel East so Israel is getting busy looking for their missing black gold. Who says so? Well, again, the Israelis say so:

“The (Israeli) government has secretly green-lighted exploratory drilling for oil and gas in the Golan Heights, almost 20 years after diplomatic initiatives put operations on hold.

National Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau (Yisrael Beytenu) approved exploratory drilling in the Golan Heights for petroleum and natural gas a few weeks ago despite the risk of Syrian indignation.

“His view is that the State of Israel must utilize all options for oil exploration across the country in order to break free from dependence on Arab oil,” sources close to the minister told the daily Yedioth Ahronoth on Sunday.” ~ The Times of Israel, May 13 2012

Israel’s exploration for natural resources in an occupied territory is clearly a violation of various international laws. They say themselves that they wouldn’t be able to do it without risking a national incident were it not for the fact that the United States and her brothers in crime over at NATO were in the process of tearing Syria into little pieces like they are doing down in Libya.

Of course, the MSM says nothing about this.

Brayer is keen to distinguish Israeli settlers in the Golan from their more militant, religious counterparts in the West Bank, where he recognizes that Palestinians claim the same land. "It's a tragedy there because there are two nations in one place," he said. "Here it was different. We never did something wrong to the Arabs because when we came here it was empty."

Israel for their part has been aiding and abetting the international crimes against humanity taking place in Syria. They have been caught providing weapons to the Free Syrian Terrorists as the Syrian government has confiscated numerous Israeli made weapons of all sorts from the captured terrorists.

“The discovery of caches of Israeli weapons in Syria’s Latakia Province, used as a hideout by armed groups, reinforces the notion that Israel is one of the forces inciting violence in Syria.

The weapons, which included machine guns, bombs, automatic rifles and explosive devices, were displayed on Syrian TV on June 15. The incident came two days after Israeli authorities took an official stance against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and endorsed armed gangs operating in Syria.” Press TV

A week or so ago, Israel felt the need to step up the rhetoric swirling around the efforts to justify an outright invasion of Syria by claiming they had stockpiles of chemical weapons and they would use them against Israel.If that sounds a bit like the justification for the invasion of Iraq that is probably because Israel was behind that propaganda as well. At least they had a part in it.

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"We are living here, and we believe we will continue to live here and make wine here," said Shalom Brayer, chief executive of the 25-year-old Golan Heights Winery, which produces about six million bottles a year in the small town of Katzrin.

“On Monday Israeli Maj. Gen. Yair Naveh, the country’s deputy military chief, warned that Syria could pose a threat to Israel with its chemical weapons.” Russia Today

One can only speculate as to why the general would fear some retaliation from Syria against Israel after all of this is done. Perhaps because he knows that Syria knows that Israel is playing a bigger role than most understand in this effort to destabilize their sovereign state. Who knows? But the WMDs story is bogus at best. Israel, not Syria, is the aggressor here and they have been in the region for quite some time.

Israel is a pariah nation which exists not by developing mutually beneficial and amicable trade agreements with their neighbors, but rather by seeing something they need and brutally invading and occupying areas which they can leech what they want.

They’re doing it in the West Bank and off the coast of Gaza and they’re doing it in the Golan Heights as well.

This is Israel’s motivation for helping with the destruction of the state of Syria. Pure, unadulterated greed. What mandates their having to resort to tactics like this is the fact that for decades their leaders have behaved in this bullish and illegal manner and gotten away with it solely because they are friends with the biggest kid on the block, the United States. 

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"As far as Israeli law is concerned, it is a part of Israel, like Tel Aviv or Haifa, so why are we even talking about considering giving it back?" she asked, sitting in her garden.(Israeli farmer in Golan)

After a developed history such as this, few nations are willing to forgive and forget and deal with Israel on a neutral basis and thus, they are left with only the thuggish route to securing the interests of their nation. That and the fact that getting the United States to spend our money bombing them a new water source and some oil reserves is a hell of a lot cheaper.

At any rate, I figured it was high time I spend a little effort exposing NATO’s Little Helper for what they are and the role they are playing killing civilians in Syria for water and profits.

WORLD'S FIRST GM BABIES BORN

Designed just right ~ they knew exactly what they wanted!!

Meanwhile the abortion clinics just keep on aborting.

By Michael Hanlon

Daily Mail

June 30, 2012

The world's first genetically modified humans have been created, it was revealed last night.

The disclosure that 30 healthy babies were born after a series of experiments in the United States provoked another furious debate about ethics.

So far, two of the babies have been tested and have been found to contain genes from three 'parents'.

Fifteen of the children were born in the past three years as a result of one experimental programme at the Institute for Reproductive Medicine and Science of St Barnabas in New Jersey.

The babies were born to women who had problems conceiving. Extra genes from a female donor were inserted into their eggs before they were fertilized in an attempt to enable them to conceive.

Genetic fingerprint tests on two one-year- old children confirm that they have inherited DNA from three adults ~ two women and one man.

The fact that the children have inherited the extra genes and incorporated them into their 'germline' means that they will, in turn, be able to pass them on to their own offspring.

Altering the human germline

~ in effect tinkering with the very make-up of our species ~

is a technique shunned by the vast majority of the world's scientists.

Geneticists fear that one day this method could be used to create new races of humans with extra, desired characteristics such as strength or high intelligence.

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Writing in the journal Human Reproduction, the researchers, led by fertility pioneer Professor Jacques Cohen, say that this 'is the first case of human germline genetic modification resulting in normal healthy children'.

Some experts severely criticized the experiments. Lord Winston, of the Hammersmith Hospital in West London, told the BBC yesterday: 'Regarding the treatment of the infertile, there is no evidence that this technique is worth doing . . . I am very surprised that it was even carried out at this stage. It would certainly not be allowed in Britain.'

John Smeaton, national director of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, said: 'One has tremendous sympathy for couples who suffer infertility problems. But this seems to be a further illustration of the fact that the whole process of in vitro fertilization as a means of conceiving babies leads to babies being regarded as objects on a production line.

'It is a further and very worrying step down the wrong road for humanity.' Professor Cohen and his colleagues diagnosed that the women were infertile because they had defects in tiny structures in their egg cells, called mitochondria.

They took eggs from donors and, using a fine needle, sucked some of the internal material ~ containing 'healthy' mitochondria ~ and injected it into eggs from the women wanting to conceive.

Because mitochondria contain genes, the babies resulting from the treatment have inherited DNA from both women. These genes can now be passed down the germline along the maternal line.

A spokesman for the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority (HFEA), which regulates 'assisted reproduction' technology in Britain, said that it would not license the technique here because it involved altering the germline.

Jacques Cohen is regarded as a brilliant but controversial scientist who has pushed the boundaries of assisted reproduction technologies.

He developed a technique which allows infertile men to have their own children, by injecting sperm DNA straight into the egg in the lab.

Prior to this, only infertile women were able to conceive using IVF. Last year, Professor Cohen said that his expertise would allow him to clone children ~ a prospect treated with horror by the mainstream scientific community.
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'It would be an afternoon's work for one of my students,' he said, adding that he had been approached by 'at least three' individuals wishing to create a cloned child, but had turned down their requests.

 WHO'S AFRAID OF DESIGNER BABIES (BBC) 

WORLD’S FIRST GENETICALLY MODIFIED BABIES ‘CREATED’ IN US

Anthony Gucciardi
NaturalSociety
June 29, 2012

In a developing story, the Daily Mail is now reporting that the very first (admitted) group of genetically modified babies have been ‘created’ in the United States. The scientists involved reportedly announced the result on the night of June 27th, stating that 30 babies were born using genetic modification techniques.

Furthermore, 2 of the babies tested were found to contain genes from a total of 3 different parents. The experiment also lasted over 3 years or more according to the researchers, which may be one of many.
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The ‘GM babies’ were born into women who had trouble conceiving their own children. In order to ‘birth’ the babies, extra genes from a female donor were inserted into the women’s eggs before they were fertilized. After conception, scientists fingerprinted 2 of the one-year-old children and confirmed that they inherited DNA from 3 adults ~ one man and 2 women.

What this means is that due to inheriting these extra genes through the genetic modification process, they will now be able to pass them along to their offspring.

In other words, these genetically modified babies ~ if allowed to mate with non-GM humans ~ could potentially alter the very genetic coding of generations to come.

Geneticists state that this genetic modification method may one day be used to create babies “with extra, desired characteristics such as strength or high intelligence.”

The news comes after it was previously reported by British scientists that scientists were creating human-animal ‘monsters’. Such reports highlight the fact that rampant genetic experimentation is already taking place on many humans around the world, which has led a large number of scientists to call for new rules regarding the outlandish practice. 

Chinese scientists have already admittedly inserted human stem cells into goat fetuses, and United States researchers have actively researched the concept of engineering a mouse with human brain cells.

Many experts are now speaking out against the announcement, including leading fertility experts and major organizations. John Smeaton, national director of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, said:

It is a further and very worrying step down the wrong road for humanity.