By Abby Ohlhseir, Slate - Posted Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2012, at 11:28 AM ET
The violence that claimed the life of Chris Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya, and three of his American staff members yesterday appears to have been sparked by an obscure, anti-Islam film produced by Sam Bacile, an Israeli-American real-estate developer who says his goal was to draw attention to the hypocrisies of Islam.
So, what do we know about Bacile? In short, not much.
A man claiming to be Bacile spoke to a number of international news outlets by phone after going into hiding in the wake of the attacks. As Religion Dispatch's Sarah Posner points out, the man appears to have given a number of conflicting details about himself—including describing himself as 52 years old to the Wall Street Journal and as 56 to the Associated Press—so at the very least there are some doubts about the veracity of the man's claims. [Update at 2:30 p.m.: And increasing questions about whether Bacile is even a real person.]
Not a whole lot more is known about his film, Innocence of Muslims, which appears to have been screened only once, to a near empty theater in Hollywood earlier this year. Judging by the 13-minute trailer posted to YouTube in July, the film is supposed to be a "satirical" portrayal of the life of Muhammad. In addition to its criminally low production values, the film also takes care to portray Muhammad as a pedophile-appeasing, bumbling spreader of false doctrine. The offensive Muhammad narrative is interspersed with scenes of bearded men in generic Middle Eastern streets raiding missionary hospitals and threatening and killing young Christian women.
According to the New York Times, yesterday's violence in Egypt and Libya was prompted by reports in Egyptian media about the film after it was dubbed into Egyptian Arabic last week and posted to YouTube.
What we know the most about, however, is the main promoter of the film, Terry Jones, who is an old hand at garnering media attention. He's been using the anniversary of the 9-11 attacks for years as an opportunity to draw attention to his anti-Islam activism.
Jones is best known for threatening to burn a Quran on September 11, 2010. His church in Gainesville, Fla., eventually did burn one in the spring of 2011, sparking deadly riots across Afghanistan. Lately, despite a beyond long-shot run for president, Jones had been laying relatively low, focusing some of his efforts on "free-speech" issues in Dearborn, Michigan, where his appearances have drawn mob scenes. Last year, Jones was in New York for the 10th anniversary of 9/11, hanging out at a rally led by activists Pamela Gellar and Robert Spencer. This year, he was back in Gainesville on September 11 for "International Judge Muhammad Day," which his site standupamericanow.com livestreamed.
Jones and his cohort have usually dealt with deaths related to their activism by deflecting any potential blame to Islam, which seems to be the case in a statement released by Jones' organization soon after the most recent attacks:"The fact that angry protesters climbed the wall at the US embassy in Cairo, today, ripped down the American flag and tore it apart further indicates the lack of respect that Islam has for any other religion, any other flag, any freedom of speech, freedom of expression and freedom of religion. It further illustrates that they have no tolerance for anything outside of Mohammad.
They raised up a black flag stating “There is no God but Allah and Mohammad is his Messenger.” Islam is a religion that is totally incompatible with Western free society. It is a religion that cannot be criticized because of their extreme fear and knowing that if the religion of Islam is criticized and examined it will be revealed for what it is, a total deception."
Link to the movie's trailer:
http://m.youtube.com/?reload=9&rdm=ma79fyma#/watch?v=iC6yGzpSvjU
Wednesday 12 September 2012
Prophet "Muhammad" Mentioned In the Old Testament
In the 5th chapter of the Shir haShirim ( שיר השירים ), which is one of the five megilot or Sacred Scrolls that are part of the Hebrew Bible or for short the "Song of Solomon" (also called "Song of Songs"). That chapter is giving a prophecy about an individual to come, a mystery man.
Song of Songs 5:15 compares this prophetic mystery man to the land of "Lebanon" which is the land of the Arabs. This implies that the mystery man would be an Arab.
Song of Songs 5:10 says: "My beloved is white and ruddy, pre-eminent above ten thousand." This is a prophecy of Prophet Muhammad as he conquered Mecca. It is a well known historically documented fact that in the year 630 CE Muhammad entered Mecca as the leader of an army of "ten thousand men". This verse and the preceeding verse (v. 11) also match Muhammad's physical discription as found in Muslim sources (light skin and black hair).
In reading the English translation of Song of Songs 5:16 it finishes the description by saying: "He is altogether lovely" but what most people don't know is that the name of that man was given in the original megilot. Here is the name written in ancient Hebrew as it appears in verse sixteen: מחמד . It is read as : "Mahammad". According to Ben Yehuda's Hebrew-English Dictionary, it is correctly pronounced as "Mahammad".
Bible mentions the name "Muhammad" in the original Hebrew language
Part 1:
http://m.youtube.com/?reload=9&rdm=ma79fyma#/watch?feature=relmfu&v=Mc47-gyqodg
Part 2:
http://m.youtube.com/?reload=9&rdm=ma79fyma#/watch?feature=related&v=wm3sZfPwv1g
Tuesday 11 September 2012
Revelations on Rafik Hariri's Assassination
By Thierry Meyssan, VoltaireVet, Nov 2010
All the conflicts rocking the Middle East today crystallize around the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL).
(My note: Meyssan wrote this report before onset of the so-called civil strife in Syria. The writer is now active in reporting on that latter subject.)
Peace hinges on it, and so does war. For some, the STL should bring about the dissolution of the Hezbollah, quell the Resistance and establish a Pax Americana. Others consider that the STL is flouting the law and subverting the truth to ensure the takeover of a new colonial order in the region.
The Tribunal was created on 30 May 2007, pursuant to UN Security Council resolution 1757, to prosecute the alleged sponsors of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri’s assassination. In the political context at that time, this implied nothing more and nothing less than bringing to trial serving Presidents Bashar el-Assad of Syria and Emile Lahoud of Lebanon, not exactly favourites of the neo-conservatives. However, the charges were not pursued since they were based on flimsy evidence planted by false witnesses. With no accused left, the Tribunal could easily have disappeared in the meanders of bureaucracy were it not for a turn of events that catapulted it back into the epicenter of the turbulent Middle East political scene.
On 23 May 2009, Atlanticist journalist Erick Follath disclosed on Der Spiegel Online that the prosecutor was poised to indict new suspects: certain Hezbollah military leaders. For the past 18 months, Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s secretary-general, has been proclaiming his party’s innocence. He maintains that the real aim of the proceedings is to decapitate the Resistance and clear the region for the Israeli army. For its part, the U.S. administration in a sudden surge of righteousness pledged that no one would be allowed to shun international Justice.
In any event, the indictment - which all believe to be imminent - against Shia leaders for the assassination of a Sunni leader is of such a nature as to spark off a fitna, namely a Muslim civil war, plummeting the region into new depths of bloodshed and violence.
During his 15 and 16 November official visit to Moscow, Saad Hariri - current Lebanese Prime Minister and son of the deceased - reiterated that the political exploitation of the Tribunal exposes his country to the risk of a new conflagration. President Medvedev retorted that Russia wants Justice to be served and reproves any attempt to discredit, weaken or delay the Tribunal’s proceedings. This position of principle arises from the confidence that the Kremlin decided to place in the STL. But it risks being severely eroded by Odnako’s revelations.
Indeed, we deemed it desirable to delve into the circumstances of Rafik Hariri’s assassination. The data we unearthed has opened a new avenue, making one wonder why it had never been explored until now. In the course of our lengthy investigation, we encountered a great number of actors, too many no doubt, so that the news of our work spread quickly, alarming those for whom the assassination trail implicating the armed Lebanese Resistance represents a real godsent. Aiming to intimidate us, the Jerusalem Post on 18 October launched a preventive attack through a piece referring to our work. In a purely libelous vein, it accuses the author of this article of having received 1 million dollars from Iran to exonerate Hezbollah.
Getting down to facts, Rafik Hariri’s convoy was attacked in Beirut on 14 February 2005. Twenty-three people were killed and one hundred injured. A preliminary report commissioned by the Security Council calls attention to the unprofessional conduct of the Lebanese magistrates and police. To redress the situation, the SC assigned its own investigators, providing them with the important means that Lebanon was unable to offer. From the outset of the investigation, it was generally accepted that the attack had been perpetrated by a suicide bomber driving a van packed with explosives.
Having been established to compensate for the Lebanese lack of professionalism, one would have expected the United Nations mission to scrupulously observe the classical criminal procedures. Not so! The crime scene - on the basis of the topography still intact as well as the photos and video footage shot on that day - was not examined in detail. The victims were not exhumed and no autopsies were performed. For a long time, no attempt was made to ascertain the modus operandi. After discarding the hypothesis of a bomb buried in the ground, the investigators espoused the one involving the van withough bothering to verify it.
And yet, this version is implausible: looking at the crime scene, anyone can easily observe the very large and deep crater that a surface explosion could not have dug out. Faced with the adamancy of the Swiss experts who refused to endorse the official version, on 19 October the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) recreated the crime scene behind closed doors. It didn’t take place in Lebanon, nor in the Netherlands which is the seat of the STL, but in France, one of the countries funding the Tribunal. The buildings surrounding the crime scene were reconstructed and earth was brought in from Beirut. The convoy was reconstituted, including the armoured vehicle. The aim was to demonstrate that the height of the concrete buildings had confined the explosion, making it possible for the blast to produce the crater. The results of this costly experiment have never been divulged.
When looking at the photos and videos taken immediately after the attack, the first most striking feature is the blaze. Car parts and various types of objects are burning all around. Then, the bodies of the victims: they are charred on one side and intact on the other. An astonishing phenomenon which bears no resemblance to what is normally caused by conventional explosives. The theory that the van was transporting a mix of RDX, PETN and TNT does not account for the damages occurred.
What is more, from the photos showing Rafik Hariri’s corpse one can observe that his solid gold wristwatch has melted, whereas the collar of his luxury shirt still hugs his neck in pristine condition.
So, what really happened?
The explosion generated a blast of an exceptionally intense heat and exceptionally brief duration. Thus, the flesh exposed to the blast was instantly carbonized, while the body underneath was not burnt.
High-density objects (such as the gold watch) absorbed the heat and were destroyed. Conversely, low-density objects (like the delicate fabric of Hariri’s shirtcollar) didn’t have enough time to absorb the heat and were unaffected.
Rafik Hariri’s remains.
Moreover, the videos show that a number of limbs were severed by the explosion. Oddly, the cuts are clean, as if made on clay statues. There is no sign of shattered or jutting bones, nor of any torn flesh. The reason is that the explosion sucked up all the oxygen and dehydrated the bodies, rendering them friable. In the hours that followed, several on-the-spot witnesses complained of breathing ailments. Wrongfully, the authorities interpreted them as a psychosomatic reaction following their psychological trauma.
Such observations constitute the abc of any criminal inquiry. They should have been the starting point, yet they do not figure in any of the reports submitted by the "professional experts" to the Security Council.
When we asked a number of military experts what kind of explosives would be capable of generating such damage, they mentioned a new type of weapon which has been developed over several decades and is featured in reports appearing in scientific journals. The combination of nuclear and nonotechnology science can trigger an explosion the exact strength of which can be regulated and controlled. The weapon is set up to destroy everything within a given perimeter, down to the nearest centimeter.
Always according to the same military specialists, this weapon can also produce other types of effects: it exerts a very strong pressure on the area of the explosion. The minute it stops, the heaviest objects are propelled upwards. Accordingly, cars were sent flying through the air.
There is one unequivocal fact: this weapon is equipped with a nano-quantity of enriched uranium, emanating radiations which are quantifiable. Now, it just so happens that one of the passengers in Rafik Hariri’s armoured car survived the explosion. Former Minister Bassel Fleyhan was taken to a topnotch French military hospital for treatment. The doctors were astounded to discover that he had been in contact with enriched uranium. But no one linked this to the attack.
Technically speaking, the weapon is shaped like a small missile, a few tens of centimeters long. It must be fired from a drone. Actually, several witnesses assured they had heard an aircraft flying over the scene of the crime. The investigators asked the United States and Israel, whose surveillance satellites are permanently switched on, to provide them with the pertinent images. On the day of the attack, the United States had deployed AWACS aircraft over Lebanon. The live feeds could help to establish the presence of a drone and even to determine its flight path. But Washington and Tel Aviv - which indefatigably urge all parties to cooperate with the STL - turned down the request.
Hezbollah intercepted and released videos from Israeli drones surveying Rafik Hariri’s movements and the scene of the crime.
At a press conference held on 10 August 2010, Hassan Nasrallah showed a video which, according to him, was shot by Israeli military drones and intercepted by his organisation. All of Rafik Hariri’s movements had been registered for months, until the final day when all the surveillance converged on the bend in the road where the attack was staged. Thus, Tel-Aviv had been surveying the area prior to the assassination. Which is not to say, as Mr Nasrallah himself points out, that they were the authors of the crime.
So, who fired the missile?
This is where things get complicated. According to the military experts, in 2005, Germany was the only country which had a handle on this new technology. It is, therefore, Berlin which supplied and set up the crime weapon.
Hence, it is easy to understand why former Berlin Attorney General Detlev Mehlis - a very controversial figure within his own profession - was eager to preside the UN Investigation Commission. He is, in fact, notoriously linked to the German and U.S. secret services. Assigned in 1986 to shed light on the attack against the La Belle disco in Berlin, he diligently covered up all Israeli and U.S. fingerprints to falsely accuse Libya and justify the bombing of Mouammar Khadafi’s palace by the U.S. Air Force. In the early 2000s, Mr Mehlis was lavishly paid for his stint as researcher at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (think-tank linked to AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby) and at the Rand Corporation (think-tank attached to the U.S. military industrial complex). All elements which cast a shadow over his impartiality in the Rafik Hariri affair and should have sufficed to have him taken off the case.
Mehlis was seconded by Commissioner Gerhard Lehmann, who is also a well-known German and U.S. secret services agent. He was formally identified by a witness as having taken part in the programme run by the Bush Administration in Europe, involving the abduction, detention and torture of prisoners in "black holes". His name is mentioned in the ad hoc Report by the Council of Europe. Notwithstanding, he managed to dodge all judicial proceedings on the strength of a strong though unlikely alibi provided by his colleagues in the German police.
Mehlis and Lehmann propagated the theory of the explosives-laden suicide van to deflect the investigation from the German weapon that was used to commit the crime.
Various earth samples were taken from the scene of the crime. They were first mixed, then divided into three jars that were sent to three different laboratories. In the first two no trace of explosives was found. The third jar was kept by Mehlis and Lehmann, who personally sent it to the third laboratory. Here, remnants of explosives were detected. In principle, if the decision is made to resort to three judiciary experts, in case of disagreement it is the majority opinion that prevails. No way! Mehlis and Lehmann violated the protocols. They deemed that theirs was the only reliable sample and embarked the Security Council on a false trail.
The profoundly flawed character of the Mehlis-Lehmann investigations has amply been proven. Their successors acknowledged as much sotto voce and declared entire sections of proceedings nul and void.
Amidst their manipulations, the most famous one relates to the false witnesses. Five individuals purported to have seen the preparations for the attack and incriminated Presidents Bashar el-Assad and Emile Lahoud. While these allegations were fueling the drums of war, their lawyers exposed the lies and the prosecution backed down.
Detlev Mehlis, President of the UN Investigation Commission violated all the rules of the criminal procedure, fabricated evidence and used false witnesses to exonerate Germany and accuse Syria.
Based on these false testimonies, Detlev Mehlis arrested - in the name of the international community - four Lebanese generals and had them incarcerated for four years. Pushing his way with his cow-boys into private homes, without a warrant from the Lebanese authorities, he also detained for questioning members of their entourage. With his assistants - who spoke Hebrew to each other - he manipulated the families. Thus, on behalf of the international community, he showed the wife of one of the generals a doctored picture to prove that her husband had not only obscured his implication in the murder, but was also two-timing her.
Concurrently, he tried the same maneuver on the son of the "suspect"’, but in this case to convince him that his mother was a woman of loose morals, a situation which had plunged his desperate father into a murderous folly. The aim was to induce a family crime of honour, thereby tarnishing the image of respected and respectable people.
Even more incredible is Lehmann’s proposition to libertate one of the four imprisoned generals in exchange for his false testimony against a Syrian leader.
Moreover, German journalist Jürgen Cain Külbel highlighted a disturbing detail: it would have been impossible to trigger the explosion by remote control or by marking the target without first disactivating the powerful interference system built into Rafik Hariri’s convoy. A system among the most sophisticated in the world, manufactured in ... Israel.
Külbel was approached by a well-known pro-Palestinian advocate, Professor Said Dudin, to promote his book. However, the outrageous declarations frequently made by Dudin served to torpedo it instead. Külbel, a former East German criminal police officer, was quick to find out that Dudin had a long-standing reputation for being a CIA mole within the German left-wing. The journalist published a number of old East-German reports attesting to this fact and was sentenced and briefly imprisoned for illicit dissemination of documents; meantime, Dudin was settling into the German Embassy in Beirut for the purpose of infiltrating the families of the four generals.
Overlooked in the Middle East, Germany’s role in this region is worth spotlighting. After Israel’s war of aggression against Lebanon in the Summer of 2006, Chancellor Angela Merkel deployed a very large contingent to join the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). The 2 400 soldiers from Germany control the maritime infrastructure to prevent arms supplies from reaching the Resistance via the Mediterranean. On that occasion, Ms Merkel declared that the mission of the German army was to protect Israel. A wind of rebellion arose among the officers. By the hundreds, they sent letters to remind her that they had enlisted to defend their homeland not a foreign country, be it an ally.
An unprecedented development took place on 17 March 2008 and 18 January 2010, when the German and Israeli governments held a joint Council of Ministers meeting where various programmes were adopted, especially in the defense sector. At this stage, there shouldn’t be too many secrets left between the Tsahal and the Bundeswehr.
The investigation conducted by Detlev Mehlis is both steeped in ridicule as regards the false witnesses, and tainted with the illegal detention of the four generals. To the extent that the UN Human Rights Council’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention formally and firmly condemned this excess of power.
This being said, the opprobrium that befalls Mr Mehlis’ work should not reflect on the Special Tribunal for Lebanon which is in no way responsible for his manipulations. But here, again, things get complicated. The credibility of the STL rests on its ability to curb, in the first place, all those who attempted to mask the truth and falsely accused Presidents Bachar el-Assad and Emile Lahoud, with the intention of provoking a war.
Now, it transpires that the Tribunal refuses to try the false witnesses, giving the impression that it is covering up the manipulations under Mehlis’ watch and is in fact pursuing the similar political objectifs (this time against the Hezbollah, and perhaps against others in future). Even worse, the Tribunal will not hand over to Jamil Sayyed (one of the four generals illegally detained) the minutes of his accusers’ hearings, thereby barring him from requesting compensation and making it look as if it condones four years of arbitrary detention.
In more prosaic terms, the Tribunal is shirking its responsabilities. On the one hand, it must judge the false witnesses to thwart further manipulations and to make plain its impartiality; on the other hand it refuses to undertake a "clean-up" operation which might force it to arrest Prosecutor Mehlis. However, Odnako’s revelations on the German lead render this posture untenable. All the more since it’s already too late: General Jamil Sayyed filed a complaint in Syria and a Syrian examining magistrate has already indicted Detlev Mehlis, Commissioner Gerahrd Lehmann plus the five false witnesses. One can imagine the commotion at the STL should Syria decide to call on Interpol to have them arrested.
Just as the Mehlis commission was supposed to compensate for the lack of professionalism on the part of the Lebanese forces of law and order, the STL should equally have ensured the impartiality that the Lebanese courts may have been short of. But things are far off target, which raises the question of the Tribunal’s legitimacy.
Kofi Annan didn’t want the Lebanon Tribunal to exert international jurisdiction, but to function as a national Lebanese tribunal with an international character. It would have been subjected to Lebanese law while half of its members would have been nationals of other countries. The plan did not materialize because the negotiations came to a sudden end. More precisely, an agreement was reached with the Lebanese government presided at the time by Fouad Siniora, the former authorised representative of the Hariri estate, but it was never ratified either by Parliament or by the president of the Republic. Hence, the agreement was endorsed unilaterally by the UN Security Council (Resolution 1757 of 30 May 2007). The end result is a hybrid and fragile entity.
As pointed out by Kofi Annan, this Tribunal is not analogous to any other so far created within the purview of the United Nations. "It is neither a subsidiary organ of the UN, nor a component of the Lebanese judiciary system"; it is simply "a conventional organ" sitting between the executive authority of the Lebanese government and the UN. Judging by the international rule of separation of powers and independence of the judiciary, the STL cannot be regarded as a genuine tribunal, but rather as a joint disciplinary commission within the executive frameworks of the UN and the Lebanese Government. Whatever decision it may make will inevitably be coated with suspicion.
Worse still, any Lebanese government can terminate it since, not having been ratified, the related agreement was binding only on the previous government. As a result, the present Lebanese coalition government has become a battlefield between partisans and foes of the Tribunal. In an attempt to maintain governmental stability, week after week Lebanese President Michel Sleimane has been dissuading the Council of Ministers from taking a vote on any issue linked with the STL. This embargo cannot hold out forever.
Bad news coming in pairs, suspicions have now extended to the President of the STL, Antonio Cassese. This reputable international jurist was President of the International Criminal Tribunal For the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). He happens to be a ardent supporter of the Jewish colonialisation of Palestine. A personal friend of Elie Wiesel, Cassese received and accepted an honorary award, presented by Wiesel himself. He should normally have withdrawn and resigned when Hassan Nasrallah disclosed that Israeli drones had been reconnoitering the crime scene as well as the victim’s movements for months.
According to the President of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, Antonio Cassese, the armed resistance in Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan should be tried for "terrorism".
Worst of all, Judge Cassesse personifies an interpretation of international law that causes division in the Middle East. Although his official curriculum vitae obscures it, he took part in the 2005 negotiations between member states of the European Union and those bordering the Mediterranean Sea ("Barcelona Process: Union for the Mediterranean"). His definition of terrorism blocked the discussions. According to him, terrorism is exclusively the act of individuals or private groups, never states. It follows that a struggle against an occupying army would not be considered as "resistance" but as "terrorism". In the local context, this juridical view is consistent with a colonial framework and disqualifies the STL.
The methods of the Special Tribunal do not differ from those applied by the Mehlis Commission. STL investigators collected mass files on Lebanese students, social security recipients and subscribers of public utility services. On 27 October, in the absence of the Lebanese judges, they even tried to snatch medical records from a gynecological clinic frequented by the wives of Hezbollah members. It is obvious that these probes have no link whatsoever with the Rafik Hariri assassination. Everything leads the Lebanese to believe that the information is actually earmarked for Israel, of which, in their eyes, the TSL is merely an offshoot.
All these problems had clearly been foreseen by President Putin when, in 2007, he had vainly made a pitch for a different wording of the STL founding resolution. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin had denounced the "juridical loopholes" of the system. He deplored that the Security Council should threaten to resort to force (Chapter VII) to achieve unilaterally the creation of this "conventional organ". He had emphasised that while the Tribunal should be working towards the reconciliation of the Lebanese people, it was devised in such a way as to divide them even more. Finally, Russia - as China - refused to endorse Resolution 1757.
The truth ultimately seeps through. The Israeli drone videos released by the Hezbollah expose Israel’s involvement in the crime preparations. The facts revealed by Odnako point to the use of a sophisticated German weapon. The puzzle is nearly complete.
All the conflicts rocking the Middle East today crystallize around the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL).
(My note: Meyssan wrote this report before onset of the so-called civil strife in Syria. The writer is now active in reporting on that latter subject.)
Peace hinges on it, and so does war. For some, the STL should bring about the dissolution of the Hezbollah, quell the Resistance and establish a Pax Americana. Others consider that the STL is flouting the law and subverting the truth to ensure the takeover of a new colonial order in the region.
The Tribunal was created on 30 May 2007, pursuant to UN Security Council resolution 1757, to prosecute the alleged sponsors of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri’s assassination. In the political context at that time, this implied nothing more and nothing less than bringing to trial serving Presidents Bashar el-Assad of Syria and Emile Lahoud of Lebanon, not exactly favourites of the neo-conservatives. However, the charges were not pursued since they were based on flimsy evidence planted by false witnesses. With no accused left, the Tribunal could easily have disappeared in the meanders of bureaucracy were it not for a turn of events that catapulted it back into the epicenter of the turbulent Middle East political scene.
On 23 May 2009, Atlanticist journalist Erick Follath disclosed on Der Spiegel Online that the prosecutor was poised to indict new suspects: certain Hezbollah military leaders. For the past 18 months, Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s secretary-general, has been proclaiming his party’s innocence. He maintains that the real aim of the proceedings is to decapitate the Resistance and clear the region for the Israeli army. For its part, the U.S. administration in a sudden surge of righteousness pledged that no one would be allowed to shun international Justice.
In any event, the indictment - which all believe to be imminent - against Shia leaders for the assassination of a Sunni leader is of such a nature as to spark off a fitna, namely a Muslim civil war, plummeting the region into new depths of bloodshed and violence.
During his 15 and 16 November official visit to Moscow, Saad Hariri - current Lebanese Prime Minister and son of the deceased - reiterated that the political exploitation of the Tribunal exposes his country to the risk of a new conflagration. President Medvedev retorted that Russia wants Justice to be served and reproves any attempt to discredit, weaken or delay the Tribunal’s proceedings. This position of principle arises from the confidence that the Kremlin decided to place in the STL. But it risks being severely eroded by Odnako’s revelations.
Indeed, we deemed it desirable to delve into the circumstances of Rafik Hariri’s assassination. The data we unearthed has opened a new avenue, making one wonder why it had never been explored until now. In the course of our lengthy investigation, we encountered a great number of actors, too many no doubt, so that the news of our work spread quickly, alarming those for whom the assassination trail implicating the armed Lebanese Resistance represents a real godsent. Aiming to intimidate us, the Jerusalem Post on 18 October launched a preventive attack through a piece referring to our work. In a purely libelous vein, it accuses the author of this article of having received 1 million dollars from Iran to exonerate Hezbollah.
Getting down to facts, Rafik Hariri’s convoy was attacked in Beirut on 14 February 2005. Twenty-three people were killed and one hundred injured. A preliminary report commissioned by the Security Council calls attention to the unprofessional conduct of the Lebanese magistrates and police. To redress the situation, the SC assigned its own investigators, providing them with the important means that Lebanon was unable to offer. From the outset of the investigation, it was generally accepted that the attack had been perpetrated by a suicide bomber driving a van packed with explosives.
Having been established to compensate for the Lebanese lack of professionalism, one would have expected the United Nations mission to scrupulously observe the classical criminal procedures. Not so! The crime scene - on the basis of the topography still intact as well as the photos and video footage shot on that day - was not examined in detail. The victims were not exhumed and no autopsies were performed. For a long time, no attempt was made to ascertain the modus operandi. After discarding the hypothesis of a bomb buried in the ground, the investigators espoused the one involving the van withough bothering to verify it.
And yet, this version is implausible: looking at the crime scene, anyone can easily observe the very large and deep crater that a surface explosion could not have dug out. Faced with the adamancy of the Swiss experts who refused to endorse the official version, on 19 October the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) recreated the crime scene behind closed doors. It didn’t take place in Lebanon, nor in the Netherlands which is the seat of the STL, but in France, one of the countries funding the Tribunal. The buildings surrounding the crime scene were reconstructed and earth was brought in from Beirut. The convoy was reconstituted, including the armoured vehicle. The aim was to demonstrate that the height of the concrete buildings had confined the explosion, making it possible for the blast to produce the crater. The results of this costly experiment have never been divulged.
When looking at the photos and videos taken immediately after the attack, the first most striking feature is the blaze. Car parts and various types of objects are burning all around. Then, the bodies of the victims: they are charred on one side and intact on the other. An astonishing phenomenon which bears no resemblance to what is normally caused by conventional explosives. The theory that the van was transporting a mix of RDX, PETN and TNT does not account for the damages occurred.
What is more, from the photos showing Rafik Hariri’s corpse one can observe that his solid gold wristwatch has melted, whereas the collar of his luxury shirt still hugs his neck in pristine condition.
So, what really happened?
The explosion generated a blast of an exceptionally intense heat and exceptionally brief duration. Thus, the flesh exposed to the blast was instantly carbonized, while the body underneath was not burnt.
High-density objects (such as the gold watch) absorbed the heat and were destroyed. Conversely, low-density objects (like the delicate fabric of Hariri’s shirtcollar) didn’t have enough time to absorb the heat and were unaffected.
Rafik Hariri’s remains.
Moreover, the videos show that a number of limbs were severed by the explosion. Oddly, the cuts are clean, as if made on clay statues. There is no sign of shattered or jutting bones, nor of any torn flesh. The reason is that the explosion sucked up all the oxygen and dehydrated the bodies, rendering them friable. In the hours that followed, several on-the-spot witnesses complained of breathing ailments. Wrongfully, the authorities interpreted them as a psychosomatic reaction following their psychological trauma.
Such observations constitute the abc of any criminal inquiry. They should have been the starting point, yet they do not figure in any of the reports submitted by the "professional experts" to the Security Council.
When we asked a number of military experts what kind of explosives would be capable of generating such damage, they mentioned a new type of weapon which has been developed over several decades and is featured in reports appearing in scientific journals. The combination of nuclear and nonotechnology science can trigger an explosion the exact strength of which can be regulated and controlled. The weapon is set up to destroy everything within a given perimeter, down to the nearest centimeter.
Always according to the same military specialists, this weapon can also produce other types of effects: it exerts a very strong pressure on the area of the explosion. The minute it stops, the heaviest objects are propelled upwards. Accordingly, cars were sent flying through the air.
There is one unequivocal fact: this weapon is equipped with a nano-quantity of enriched uranium, emanating radiations which are quantifiable. Now, it just so happens that one of the passengers in Rafik Hariri’s armoured car survived the explosion. Former Minister Bassel Fleyhan was taken to a topnotch French military hospital for treatment. The doctors were astounded to discover that he had been in contact with enriched uranium. But no one linked this to the attack.
Technically speaking, the weapon is shaped like a small missile, a few tens of centimeters long. It must be fired from a drone. Actually, several witnesses assured they had heard an aircraft flying over the scene of the crime. The investigators asked the United States and Israel, whose surveillance satellites are permanently switched on, to provide them with the pertinent images. On the day of the attack, the United States had deployed AWACS aircraft over Lebanon. The live feeds could help to establish the presence of a drone and even to determine its flight path. But Washington and Tel Aviv - which indefatigably urge all parties to cooperate with the STL - turned down the request.
Hezbollah intercepted and released videos from Israeli drones surveying Rafik Hariri’s movements and the scene of the crime.
At a press conference held on 10 August 2010, Hassan Nasrallah showed a video which, according to him, was shot by Israeli military drones and intercepted by his organisation. All of Rafik Hariri’s movements had been registered for months, until the final day when all the surveillance converged on the bend in the road where the attack was staged. Thus, Tel-Aviv had been surveying the area prior to the assassination. Which is not to say, as Mr Nasrallah himself points out, that they were the authors of the crime.
So, who fired the missile?
This is where things get complicated. According to the military experts, in 2005, Germany was the only country which had a handle on this new technology. It is, therefore, Berlin which supplied and set up the crime weapon.
Hence, it is easy to understand why former Berlin Attorney General Detlev Mehlis - a very controversial figure within his own profession - was eager to preside the UN Investigation Commission. He is, in fact, notoriously linked to the German and U.S. secret services. Assigned in 1986 to shed light on the attack against the La Belle disco in Berlin, he diligently covered up all Israeli and U.S. fingerprints to falsely accuse Libya and justify the bombing of Mouammar Khadafi’s palace by the U.S. Air Force. In the early 2000s, Mr Mehlis was lavishly paid for his stint as researcher at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (think-tank linked to AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby) and at the Rand Corporation (think-tank attached to the U.S. military industrial complex). All elements which cast a shadow over his impartiality in the Rafik Hariri affair and should have sufficed to have him taken off the case.
Mehlis was seconded by Commissioner Gerhard Lehmann, who is also a well-known German and U.S. secret services agent. He was formally identified by a witness as having taken part in the programme run by the Bush Administration in Europe, involving the abduction, detention and torture of prisoners in "black holes". His name is mentioned in the ad hoc Report by the Council of Europe. Notwithstanding, he managed to dodge all judicial proceedings on the strength of a strong though unlikely alibi provided by his colleagues in the German police.
Mehlis and Lehmann propagated the theory of the explosives-laden suicide van to deflect the investigation from the German weapon that was used to commit the crime.
Various earth samples were taken from the scene of the crime. They were first mixed, then divided into three jars that were sent to three different laboratories. In the first two no trace of explosives was found. The third jar was kept by Mehlis and Lehmann, who personally sent it to the third laboratory. Here, remnants of explosives were detected. In principle, if the decision is made to resort to three judiciary experts, in case of disagreement it is the majority opinion that prevails. No way! Mehlis and Lehmann violated the protocols. They deemed that theirs was the only reliable sample and embarked the Security Council on a false trail.
The profoundly flawed character of the Mehlis-Lehmann investigations has amply been proven. Their successors acknowledged as much sotto voce and declared entire sections of proceedings nul and void.
Amidst their manipulations, the most famous one relates to the false witnesses. Five individuals purported to have seen the preparations for the attack and incriminated Presidents Bashar el-Assad and Emile Lahoud. While these allegations were fueling the drums of war, their lawyers exposed the lies and the prosecution backed down.
Detlev Mehlis, President of the UN Investigation Commission violated all the rules of the criminal procedure, fabricated evidence and used false witnesses to exonerate Germany and accuse Syria.
Based on these false testimonies, Detlev Mehlis arrested - in the name of the international community - four Lebanese generals and had them incarcerated for four years. Pushing his way with his cow-boys into private homes, without a warrant from the Lebanese authorities, he also detained for questioning members of their entourage. With his assistants - who spoke Hebrew to each other - he manipulated the families. Thus, on behalf of the international community, he showed the wife of one of the generals a doctored picture to prove that her husband had not only obscured his implication in the murder, but was also two-timing her.
Concurrently, he tried the same maneuver on the son of the "suspect"’, but in this case to convince him that his mother was a woman of loose morals, a situation which had plunged his desperate father into a murderous folly. The aim was to induce a family crime of honour, thereby tarnishing the image of respected and respectable people.
Even more incredible is Lehmann’s proposition to libertate one of the four imprisoned generals in exchange for his false testimony against a Syrian leader.
Moreover, German journalist Jürgen Cain Külbel highlighted a disturbing detail: it would have been impossible to trigger the explosion by remote control or by marking the target without first disactivating the powerful interference system built into Rafik Hariri’s convoy. A system among the most sophisticated in the world, manufactured in ... Israel.
Külbel was approached by a well-known pro-Palestinian advocate, Professor Said Dudin, to promote his book. However, the outrageous declarations frequently made by Dudin served to torpedo it instead. Külbel, a former East German criminal police officer, was quick to find out that Dudin had a long-standing reputation for being a CIA mole within the German left-wing. The journalist published a number of old East-German reports attesting to this fact and was sentenced and briefly imprisoned for illicit dissemination of documents; meantime, Dudin was settling into the German Embassy in Beirut for the purpose of infiltrating the families of the four generals.
Overlooked in the Middle East, Germany’s role in this region is worth spotlighting. After Israel’s war of aggression against Lebanon in the Summer of 2006, Chancellor Angela Merkel deployed a very large contingent to join the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). The 2 400 soldiers from Germany control the maritime infrastructure to prevent arms supplies from reaching the Resistance via the Mediterranean. On that occasion, Ms Merkel declared that the mission of the German army was to protect Israel. A wind of rebellion arose among the officers. By the hundreds, they sent letters to remind her that they had enlisted to defend their homeland not a foreign country, be it an ally.
An unprecedented development took place on 17 March 2008 and 18 January 2010, when the German and Israeli governments held a joint Council of Ministers meeting where various programmes were adopted, especially in the defense sector. At this stage, there shouldn’t be too many secrets left between the Tsahal and the Bundeswehr.
The investigation conducted by Detlev Mehlis is both steeped in ridicule as regards the false witnesses, and tainted with the illegal detention of the four generals. To the extent that the UN Human Rights Council’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention formally and firmly condemned this excess of power.
This being said, the opprobrium that befalls Mr Mehlis’ work should not reflect on the Special Tribunal for Lebanon which is in no way responsible for his manipulations. But here, again, things get complicated. The credibility of the STL rests on its ability to curb, in the first place, all those who attempted to mask the truth and falsely accused Presidents Bachar el-Assad and Emile Lahoud, with the intention of provoking a war.
Now, it transpires that the Tribunal refuses to try the false witnesses, giving the impression that it is covering up the manipulations under Mehlis’ watch and is in fact pursuing the similar political objectifs (this time against the Hezbollah, and perhaps against others in future). Even worse, the Tribunal will not hand over to Jamil Sayyed (one of the four generals illegally detained) the minutes of his accusers’ hearings, thereby barring him from requesting compensation and making it look as if it condones four years of arbitrary detention.
In more prosaic terms, the Tribunal is shirking its responsabilities. On the one hand, it must judge the false witnesses to thwart further manipulations and to make plain its impartiality; on the other hand it refuses to undertake a "clean-up" operation which might force it to arrest Prosecutor Mehlis. However, Odnako’s revelations on the German lead render this posture untenable. All the more since it’s already too late: General Jamil Sayyed filed a complaint in Syria and a Syrian examining magistrate has already indicted Detlev Mehlis, Commissioner Gerahrd Lehmann plus the five false witnesses. One can imagine the commotion at the STL should Syria decide to call on Interpol to have them arrested.
Just as the Mehlis commission was supposed to compensate for the lack of professionalism on the part of the Lebanese forces of law and order, the STL should equally have ensured the impartiality that the Lebanese courts may have been short of. But things are far off target, which raises the question of the Tribunal’s legitimacy.
Kofi Annan didn’t want the Lebanon Tribunal to exert international jurisdiction, but to function as a national Lebanese tribunal with an international character. It would have been subjected to Lebanese law while half of its members would have been nationals of other countries. The plan did not materialize because the negotiations came to a sudden end. More precisely, an agreement was reached with the Lebanese government presided at the time by Fouad Siniora, the former authorised representative of the Hariri estate, but it was never ratified either by Parliament or by the president of the Republic. Hence, the agreement was endorsed unilaterally by the UN Security Council (Resolution 1757 of 30 May 2007). The end result is a hybrid and fragile entity.
As pointed out by Kofi Annan, this Tribunal is not analogous to any other so far created within the purview of the United Nations. "It is neither a subsidiary organ of the UN, nor a component of the Lebanese judiciary system"; it is simply "a conventional organ" sitting between the executive authority of the Lebanese government and the UN. Judging by the international rule of separation of powers and independence of the judiciary, the STL cannot be regarded as a genuine tribunal, but rather as a joint disciplinary commission within the executive frameworks of the UN and the Lebanese Government. Whatever decision it may make will inevitably be coated with suspicion.
Worse still, any Lebanese government can terminate it since, not having been ratified, the related agreement was binding only on the previous government. As a result, the present Lebanese coalition government has become a battlefield between partisans and foes of the Tribunal. In an attempt to maintain governmental stability, week after week Lebanese President Michel Sleimane has been dissuading the Council of Ministers from taking a vote on any issue linked with the STL. This embargo cannot hold out forever.
Bad news coming in pairs, suspicions have now extended to the President of the STL, Antonio Cassese. This reputable international jurist was President of the International Criminal Tribunal For the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). He happens to be a ardent supporter of the Jewish colonialisation of Palestine. A personal friend of Elie Wiesel, Cassese received and accepted an honorary award, presented by Wiesel himself. He should normally have withdrawn and resigned when Hassan Nasrallah disclosed that Israeli drones had been reconnoitering the crime scene as well as the victim’s movements for months.
According to the President of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, Antonio Cassese, the armed resistance in Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan should be tried for "terrorism".
Worst of all, Judge Cassesse personifies an interpretation of international law that causes division in the Middle East. Although his official curriculum vitae obscures it, he took part in the 2005 negotiations between member states of the European Union and those bordering the Mediterranean Sea ("Barcelona Process: Union for the Mediterranean"). His definition of terrorism blocked the discussions. According to him, terrorism is exclusively the act of individuals or private groups, never states. It follows that a struggle against an occupying army would not be considered as "resistance" but as "terrorism". In the local context, this juridical view is consistent with a colonial framework and disqualifies the STL.
The methods of the Special Tribunal do not differ from those applied by the Mehlis Commission. STL investigators collected mass files on Lebanese students, social security recipients and subscribers of public utility services. On 27 October, in the absence of the Lebanese judges, they even tried to snatch medical records from a gynecological clinic frequented by the wives of Hezbollah members. It is obvious that these probes have no link whatsoever with the Rafik Hariri assassination. Everything leads the Lebanese to believe that the information is actually earmarked for Israel, of which, in their eyes, the TSL is merely an offshoot.
All these problems had clearly been foreseen by President Putin when, in 2007, he had vainly made a pitch for a different wording of the STL founding resolution. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin had denounced the "juridical loopholes" of the system. He deplored that the Security Council should threaten to resort to force (Chapter VII) to achieve unilaterally the creation of this "conventional organ". He had emphasised that while the Tribunal should be working towards the reconciliation of the Lebanese people, it was devised in such a way as to divide them even more. Finally, Russia - as China - refused to endorse Resolution 1757.
The truth ultimately seeps through. The Israeli drone videos released by the Hezbollah expose Israel’s involvement in the crime preparations. The facts revealed by Odnako point to the use of a sophisticated German weapon. The puzzle is nearly complete.
Articles on Syrian Crisis
French Foreign Minister: Fall of Syrian Government “Unavoidable”
Syrian Rebels are Foreign-backed Terrorists
Obama authorizes secret U.S. support for Syrian rebels
U.S. Moves Closer to Arming Syrian Rebels
Syrian rebels aim to use chemical weapons, blame Damascus – report
Russia accuses Syrian rebels of using “tactics of terror”
Obama approves non-lethal aid to Syrian rebels
CIA, Mossad Backed Rebels Attack Syrian Television Station, Kill 7
Report: France, US arming Syrian rebels with anti-aircraft missiles
Britain in secret talks with Syrian rebels
Reuters: Jihadists Join Aleppo Fight, Eye On Islamic State
Sat Sep 8, 2012 11:17am EDT
* French surgeon returns after 2 weeks in Aleppo hospital
* Says French fighters inspired by Toulouse gunman Merah
* Says Turkey flooding parts of border to stop refugees
By John Irish, Reuters
PARIS, Sept 8 (Reuters) - Foreign Islamists intent on turning Syria into an autocratic theocracy have swollen the ranks of rebels fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad and think they are waging a "holy war", a French surgeon who treated fighters in Aleppo has said.
Jacques Beres, co-founder of medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres, returned from Syria on Friday evening after spending two weeks working clandestinely in a hospital in the besieged northern Syrian city.
In an interview with Reuters in his central Paris apartment on Saturday, the 71-year-old said that contrary to his previous visits to Homs and Idlib earlier this year about 60 percent of those he had treated this time had been rebel fighters and that at least half of them had been non-Syrian.
"It's really something strange to see. They are directly saying that they aren't interested in Bashar al-Assad's fall, but are thinking about how to take power afterwards and set up an Islamic state with sharia law to become part of the world Emirate," the doctor said.
The foreign jihadists included young Frenchmen who said they were inspired by Mohammed Merah, a self-styled Islamist militant from Toulouse, who killed seven people in March in the name of al-Qaeda.
Assad himself has consistently maintained that the 17-month-old insurgency against him is largely the work of people he refers to as "foreign-backed terrorists" and says his forces are acting to restore stability.
During his previous visits to Syria - in March and May - Beres said he had dismissed suggestions the rebels were dominated by Islamist fighters but he said he had now been forced to reassess the situation.
The doctor's account corroborates other anecdotal evidence that the struggle against Assad appears to be drawing ever greater numbers of fellow Arabs and other Muslims, many driven by a sense of religious duty to perform jihad (holy war) and a readiness to suffer for Islam.
But while some are professional "jihadists", veterans of Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya or Libya who bring combat and bomb-making skills with them that alarm the Western and Arab governments which have cheered the rebels on, many have little to offer Syrians but their goodwill and prayers.
Beres described treating dozens of such jihadists from other Arab countries, but also at least two young Frenchmen.
"Some of them were French and completely fanatical about the future," he said. "They are very cautious people, even to the doctor who treated them. They didn't trust me, but for instance they told me that Mohammed Merah was an example to follow."
Merah tore a wound in France's fragile sense of community in March when he gunned down three soldiers from North African immigrant families, a rabbi and three Jewish children.
Paris has for several years been concerned that French radical Islamists who have travelled to lawless zones would return to plot attacks at home. Merah had travelled to Afghanistan and Pakistan to receive training.
INDISCRIMINATE BOMBING
On his previous trips he worked in makeshift hospitals, but this time Beres said he received as many as 40 injured people each day in a normal hospital that was under rebel control in the economic hub Aleppo.
He said he had treated civilians who had been queuing for bread at a market place when it had been shelled.
"The baker was killed. He was a thin man completely covered in white flour with shrapnel holes and blood all over. It was a striking and troubling image," he said.
"What people have to know is that the number of dead is a far cry from what's been announced. I'd say you have to multiply by two to get the real figure."
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says that more than 23,000 people have been killed in the uprising. More than 200,000 Syrians have fled to neighbouring Turkey, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon.
Beres, who entered Syria via Turkey's northern border, said he had also seen signs that Ankara was trying to stop Syrians crossing the border.
Showing his muddied surgical case, shoes and clothes, Beres said that Turkish forces had flooded the Reyhanli border area with water making it difficult for refugees to cross unnoticed.
"We were caught by the Turkish army. It took us 20 hours to cross the border and I was fined $500 for crossing the border illegally. They flooded the border completely so that they can hear who is crossing. Those they do catch they are sending back," he said.
* French surgeon returns after 2 weeks in Aleppo hospital
* Says French fighters inspired by Toulouse gunman Merah
* Says Turkey flooding parts of border to stop refugees
By John Irish, Reuters
PARIS, Sept 8 (Reuters) - Foreign Islamists intent on turning Syria into an autocratic theocracy have swollen the ranks of rebels fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad and think they are waging a "holy war", a French surgeon who treated fighters in Aleppo has said.
Jacques Beres, co-founder of medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres, returned from Syria on Friday evening after spending two weeks working clandestinely in a hospital in the besieged northern Syrian city.
In an interview with Reuters in his central Paris apartment on Saturday, the 71-year-old said that contrary to his previous visits to Homs and Idlib earlier this year about 60 percent of those he had treated this time had been rebel fighters and that at least half of them had been non-Syrian.
"It's really something strange to see. They are directly saying that they aren't interested in Bashar al-Assad's fall, but are thinking about how to take power afterwards and set up an Islamic state with sharia law to become part of the world Emirate," the doctor said.
The foreign jihadists included young Frenchmen who said they were inspired by Mohammed Merah, a self-styled Islamist militant from Toulouse, who killed seven people in March in the name of al-Qaeda.
Assad himself has consistently maintained that the 17-month-old insurgency against him is largely the work of people he refers to as "foreign-backed terrorists" and says his forces are acting to restore stability.
During his previous visits to Syria - in March and May - Beres said he had dismissed suggestions the rebels were dominated by Islamist fighters but he said he had now been forced to reassess the situation.
The doctor's account corroborates other anecdotal evidence that the struggle against Assad appears to be drawing ever greater numbers of fellow Arabs and other Muslims, many driven by a sense of religious duty to perform jihad (holy war) and a readiness to suffer for Islam.
But while some are professional "jihadists", veterans of Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya or Libya who bring combat and bomb-making skills with them that alarm the Western and Arab governments which have cheered the rebels on, many have little to offer Syrians but their goodwill and prayers.
Beres described treating dozens of such jihadists from other Arab countries, but also at least two young Frenchmen.
"Some of them were French and completely fanatical about the future," he said. "They are very cautious people, even to the doctor who treated them. They didn't trust me, but for instance they told me that Mohammed Merah was an example to follow."
Merah tore a wound in France's fragile sense of community in March when he gunned down three soldiers from North African immigrant families, a rabbi and three Jewish children.
Paris has for several years been concerned that French radical Islamists who have travelled to lawless zones would return to plot attacks at home. Merah had travelled to Afghanistan and Pakistan to receive training.
INDISCRIMINATE BOMBING
On his previous trips he worked in makeshift hospitals, but this time Beres said he received as many as 40 injured people each day in a normal hospital that was under rebel control in the economic hub Aleppo.
He said he had treated civilians who had been queuing for bread at a market place when it had been shelled.
"The baker was killed. He was a thin man completely covered in white flour with shrapnel holes and blood all over. It was a striking and troubling image," he said.
"What people have to know is that the number of dead is a far cry from what's been announced. I'd say you have to multiply by two to get the real figure."
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says that more than 23,000 people have been killed in the uprising. More than 200,000 Syrians have fled to neighbouring Turkey, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon.
Beres, who entered Syria via Turkey's northern border, said he had also seen signs that Ankara was trying to stop Syrians crossing the border.
Showing his muddied surgical case, shoes and clothes, Beres said that Turkish forces had flooded the Reyhanli border area with water making it difficult for refugees to cross unnoticed.
"We were caught by the Turkish army. It took us 20 hours to cross the border and I was fined $500 for crossing the border illegally. They flooded the border completely so that they can hear who is crossing. Those they do catch they are sending back," he said.
Friday 27 April 2012
Before It Is Too Late
What triggered the following lines is an old/new, absent/present, and forgotten/remembered thought.
As humans beings, we were meant to be forgetful, ungrateful, and at many times, short-sighted.
Many of us live most of their lives thinking that actions have no consequences, what so ever. One does not need to be an avid believer in a Higher Entity, say God for example, to think otherwise. People with a minimum dose of humanity and logic do understand that "what goes around comes around". Call it Karma or Divine retribution...be my guest. The point is, one shall eventually 'harvest' what one has 'planted', if even if later, rather than sooner, in their lives.
Because retribution tends to crawl its way into our lives subtly and sometimes way after-the-fact, many of us are fooled into wrongly believing that they can escape the consequences of their doings.
Well think again... It will come back to you...in a different shape, a different setting, with different people. Bottom line, it will come to back.
Despite the risk of sounding like those bogus preachers, I am compelled to say that, yes, we do get another chance, but we do have to act upon it. And then one can give themselves the luxury of thinking of their wrongdoings as forgone, like water under the bridge.
Because man is forgetful and favors shortcuts, man cab be easily fooled into thinking 'let bygones be bygones', and thus, gets self-lured into pursuing that same 'carefree' path.
Luck, if it exists, owns us, and no, we don't own it. In my book, luck is personified by 'fate', and fate is a two-pronged plan: one(the larger part) is dictated upon us, and another is left to our discretion.
As by the dictated part, retribution shall undoubtedly catch-up with us even if we flee to the remotest of the remotest lands. As for the discretionary part, it obviously means that man is free to choose to take corrective measures he/she thinks suitable.
In my opinion, and because in life 1 plus 1 does not necessarily add up to 2, correcting, or attempting to do our best to redress a wrong does not by itself deliver us from the potential 'slap on the hand'.
Regardless of the way our actions come back at us... whether we get with just a slap on the hand or with something more serious, or even if we are granted a clean break, we always have to revisit our wrongdoings and try to do clean up the mess we left behind. It is never too late...never.
In my humble opinion, man was created such that he/she has the natural tendency to make the wrong choices. Wrong choices are more appealing, every single time. I know it, you know it, and, more importantly, God knows it.
However, wrong choices tend to, in the majority of the cases, shake our balance; they might bring about insomnia, a sour throat, a tummy ache, or a head ache...you name it.
Yes we do have a choice, even when it seems that we were pushed against our will into doing something we never intended. We can choose to be humble enough to undertake corrective measures, not only out the fear of a possible retribution, but more importantly, out of sheer humanity.
Whether you stole or hit or lied to someone, make sure that you do your part of correcting the damage...you don't know who else will hold you responsible for your actions.
Even if it was a small simple foolish action, don't let your pride stand in the way. Pick up that phone, write that email, or make that trip...and try to be just to yourself and to those whom you wronged.
Life is too short...too short...You might not be here tomorrow. They might be here tomorrow. Do not take anything in this world for granted, for nothing in life is constant but 'change' itself. The whole world can change overnight...so don't leave it till tomorrow...tomorrow might not present you with the same chances you see on the table today.
One more thing: even if one fails to undo what they did...the act of trying is purifying by itself. As for the balance of right and wrong actions, we don't know which way it tilts. God holds that balance, and He knows better which outweighs which. We just have to strive to favor the weight of the good side...all we can do is to try.
God created us. He knows our limits. I know He is forgiving and merciful...but we have to seriously and sincerely try.
Go ahead...make that call, write that email, or make that visit.
Bless you all.
As humans beings, we were meant to be forgetful, ungrateful, and at many times, short-sighted.
Many of us live most of their lives thinking that actions have no consequences, what so ever. One does not need to be an avid believer in a Higher Entity, say God for example, to think otherwise. People with a minimum dose of humanity and logic do understand that "what goes around comes around". Call it Karma or Divine retribution...be my guest. The point is, one shall eventually 'harvest' what one has 'planted', if even if later, rather than sooner, in their lives.
Because retribution tends to crawl its way into our lives subtly and sometimes way after-the-fact, many of us are fooled into wrongly believing that they can escape the consequences of their doings.
Well think again... It will come back to you...in a different shape, a different setting, with different people. Bottom line, it will come to back.
Despite the risk of sounding like those bogus preachers, I am compelled to say that, yes, we do get another chance, but we do have to act upon it. And then one can give themselves the luxury of thinking of their wrongdoings as forgone, like water under the bridge.
Because man is forgetful and favors shortcuts, man cab be easily fooled into thinking 'let bygones be bygones', and thus, gets self-lured into pursuing that same 'carefree' path.
Luck, if it exists, owns us, and no, we don't own it. In my book, luck is personified by 'fate', and fate is a two-pronged plan: one(the larger part) is dictated upon us, and another is left to our discretion.
As by the dictated part, retribution shall undoubtedly catch-up with us even if we flee to the remotest of the remotest lands. As for the discretionary part, it obviously means that man is free to choose to take corrective measures he/she thinks suitable.
In my opinion, and because in life 1 plus 1 does not necessarily add up to 2, correcting, or attempting to do our best to redress a wrong does not by itself deliver us from the potential 'slap on the hand'.
Regardless of the way our actions come back at us... whether we get with just a slap on the hand or with something more serious, or even if we are granted a clean break, we always have to revisit our wrongdoings and try to do clean up the mess we left behind. It is never too late...never.
In my humble opinion, man was created such that he/she has the natural tendency to make the wrong choices. Wrong choices are more appealing, every single time. I know it, you know it, and, more importantly, God knows it.
However, wrong choices tend to, in the majority of the cases, shake our balance; they might bring about insomnia, a sour throat, a tummy ache, or a head ache...you name it.
Yes we do have a choice, even when it seems that we were pushed against our will into doing something we never intended. We can choose to be humble enough to undertake corrective measures, not only out the fear of a possible retribution, but more importantly, out of sheer humanity.
Whether you stole or hit or lied to someone, make sure that you do your part of correcting the damage...you don't know who else will hold you responsible for your actions.
Even if it was a small simple foolish action, don't let your pride stand in the way. Pick up that phone, write that email, or make that trip...and try to be just to yourself and to those whom you wronged.
Life is too short...too short...You might not be here tomorrow. They might be here tomorrow. Do not take anything in this world for granted, for nothing in life is constant but 'change' itself. The whole world can change overnight...so don't leave it till tomorrow...tomorrow might not present you with the same chances you see on the table today.
One more thing: even if one fails to undo what they did...the act of trying is purifying by itself. As for the balance of right and wrong actions, we don't know which way it tilts. God holds that balance, and He knows better which outweighs which. We just have to strive to favor the weight of the good side...all we can do is to try.
God created us. He knows our limits. I know He is forgiving and merciful...but we have to seriously and sincerely try.
Go ahead...make that call, write that email, or make that visit.
Bless you all.
Wednesday 18 April 2012
Leaked Stratfor Emails Show Us Security Firm SCG Is Helping Syrian Rebels
Press TV, April 6, 2012
Leaked emails show an American private security company, SCG
International has been helping the Syrian opposition in its efforts to
overthrow President Bashar al-Assad at the request of US officials.
The whistleblower website, Wikileaks, released the emails sent by
SCG Chief Executive James F. Smith, the former director of the notorious
company Blackwater, which is blamed for the killing of many civilians in Iraq
and Afghanistan.
In one of the emails, Smith says his company was contracted to
engage the Turkey-based Syrian opposition in a so-called “fact finding
mission,” but “the true mission is how they can help in regime change.”
The emails were sent to the vice president of intelligence at
Stratfor, Fred Burton. Stratfor, a US-based global security think tank,
describes itself as a source of geopolitical analysis to corporate and
government clients.
Smith introduces his company to Burton by saying his “background
is CIA and his company is comprised of former Department of Defense (DoD), CIA
and former law enforcement personnel,” and his company provides services for
those same groups in the form of training, security and information collection.
SCG’s mission with the Syrian opposition had “air
cover from US Congresswoman Sue Myrick,”a Republican lawmaker
from North Carolina, according to the emails.
Smith also provided intelligence to Stratfor on Libya, where SCG
International was contracted to protect Libyan National Transitional Council
(NTC) members and train Libyan rebel fighters.
Impressed by
Smith’s intelligence, Burton praises him in one of the emails saying “Good
skinny. This is what is defined as a credible source. Not some windbag Paki
academic belching and passing gas.”
The emails are among a trove of five million messages hacked from
Stratfor in mid-December by the hacker group Anonymous.
PG/HGH
Arab Spring Or "Post-Modern Coup D’états"
by ISMAEL HOSSEIN-ZADEH,Counterpunch WEEKEND EDITION APRIL
13-15, 2012
Within the first few months of 2011, the U.S. and its allies lost
three loyal “friends”: Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, Zine el-Abbidine Ben Ali in
Tunisia and Saad Hariri in Lebanon. While Mubarak and Ali were driven out of
power by widespread popular uprisings, Hariri was ousted by the parliament.
Inspired by these liberating developments, pro-democracy
rebellions against autocratic rulers (and their Western backers) soon spread to
other countries such as Bahrain, Yemen, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
As these revolutionary developments tended to politically benefit
the “axis of resistance” (consisting of Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas) in
the Middle East, the US-Israeli “axis of aggression” and their client states in
the region mounted an all-out counterrevolutionary offensive.
Caught off-guard by the initial wave of the Arab Spring in Egypt
and Tunisia, the US and its allies struck back with a vengeance. They employed
a number of simultaneous tactics to sabotage the Arab Spring. These included
(1) instigating fake instances of the Arab Spring in countries that were/are
headed by insubordinate regimes such as those ruling Iran, Syria and Libya; (2)
co-opting revolutionary movements in countries such as Egypt, Tunisia and
Yemen; (3) crushing pro-democracy movements against “friendly” regimes ruling
countries such as Bahrain, Jordan and Saudi Arabia “before they get out of
hand,” as they did in Egypt and Tunisia; and (4) using the age-old divide
and ruletrick by playing the sectarian trump card of Sunnis vs. Shias, or
Iranians vs. Arabs.
1. Instigating Fake Arab Springs, or post-modern coup
d’états
Soon after being caught by surprise by the glorious uprisings in
Egypt and Tunisia, the counterrevolutionary forces headed by the United States
embarked on damage control. A major strategy in pursuit of this objective has
been to foment civil war and regime change in “unfriendly” places, and then
portray them as part of the Arab Spring.
The scheme works like this: arm and train opposition groups within
the “unfriendly” country, instigate violent rebellion with the help of covert
mercenary forces under the guise of fighting for democracy; and when government
forces attempt to quell the thus-nurtured armed insurrection, accuse them of
human rights violations, and begin to embark openly and self-righteously on the
path of regime change in the name of “responsibility to protect” the human
rights.
As the “weakest link” in the chain of governments thus slated to
be changed, Gadhafi’s regime became the first target. It is now altogether
common knowledge that contrary to the spontaneous, unarmed and peaceful protest
demonstrations in Egypt, Tunisia and Bahrain, the rebellion in Libya was
nurtured, armed and orchestrated largely from abroad. Indeed, evidence shows
that plans of regime change in Libya were drawn long before the overt onset of
the actual civil war [1].
It is likewise common knowledge that, like the rebellion in Libya,
the insurgency in Syria has been neither spontaneous nor peaceful. From the
outset it has been armed, trained and organized by the US and its allies.
Similar to the attack on Libya, the Arab League and Turkey have been at the
forefront of the onslaught on Syria. Also like the Libyan case, there is
evidence that preparations for war on Syria had been actively planned long
before the actual start of the armed rebellion, which is branded as a case of
the Arab Spring [2].
Dr. Christof Lehmann, a keen observer of geopolitical developments
in the Middle East, has coined the term “post-modern coup d’états” to describe
the recent NATO-Zionist agenda of regime change in the region. The term refers
to an elaborate combination of covert operations, overt military interventions,
and “soft-power” tactics a la Gene Sharp:
“A network of think tanks, endowments, funds and foundations,
which are behind the overt destabilization of targeted sovereign nations. Their
narratives in public policy and for public consumption are deceptive and
persuasive. Often they specifically target and co-opt progressive thinkers, media
and activists. The product is almost invariably a post-modern coup d’état.
Depending on the chosen hybridization and the resilience of government, social
structures and populations perceived need for reform, the product can be more
or less overtly violent. The tactics can be so subtle, involving human rights
organizations and the United Nations that they are difficult to comprehend.
However subtle they are, the message to the targeted government is invariably ‘go
or be gone’” [3].
It is no secret that the ultimate goal of the policy of regime
change in the Middle East is to replace the Iranian government with a “client
regime” similar to most other regime in the region. Whether the policy will
succeed in overthrowing the Syrian government and embarking on a military
strike against Iran remains to be seen. One thing is clear, however: the
ominous consequences of a military adventure against Iran would be
incalculable. It is bound to create a regional (and even very likely global)
war.
2. Co-opting the Arab Spring (in Egypt, Tunisia and
Yemen)
When the Arab Spring broke out in Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen, the US
and its allies initially tried to keep their proxy rulers Hosni Mubarak, Ben
Ali and Abdullah Saleh in power as long as possible. Once the massive and
persistent uprisings made the continued rule of these loyal autocrats
untenable, however, the US and its allies changed tactics: reluctantly letting
go of Mubarak, Ali and Saleh while trying to preserve the socioeconomic
structures and the military regimes they had fostered during the long periods
of their dictatorial rule.
Thus, while losing three client dictators, the US and its allies
have succeeded (so far) in preserving the three respective client states. With
the exception of a number of formalistic elections that are designed to co-opt
opposition groups (like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt) and give legitimacy to
military rulers, not much else has changed in these countries. In Egypt, for
example, the NATO/Israel-backed military junta of the Mubarak era, which now
rules Egypt in collaboration with Muslim Brotherhood, has become increasingly
as repressive toward the reform movement that gave birth to the Arab Spring as
it was under Mubarak.
Economic, military and geopolitical policies of the new regimes in
these countries are crafted as much in consultation with the United States and
its allies as they were under the three autocratic rulers that were forced to
leave the political scene. The new regimes are also collaborating with the US
and its allies in bringing about “regime change” in Syria and Iran, just as
they helped overthrow the regime of Gadhafi in Libya.
3. Nipping Nascent Arab Springs in the Bud
A third tactic to contain the Arab Spring has been the withering
repression of peaceful pro-democracy movements in countries headed by U.S.
proxy regimes in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and other kingdoms in the
Persian Gulf area before those movements grow “out of hand,” as they did in
Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen. Thus, in collaboration with its Western patrons,
Saudi Arabia has over the past year cracked down viciously against peaceful
protesters not only within its own borders but also in the neighboring country
of Bahrain. Leading the invasion militaries of the Persian Gulf kingdoms into
Bahrain last spring, the armed forces of Saudi Arabia continue with the support
of Western powers to brutalize peaceful pro-democracy protesters there.
While the Saudi, Qatari and other Persian Gulf regimes have been
playing the vanguard role in the US-Israeli axis of aggression against
“unfriendly” regimes, NATO forces headed by the Pentagon have been busy behind
the scene to train their “security” forces, to broker weapons sale to their
repressive regimes, and to build ever more military basses in their territories.
“As state security forces across the region cracked down on
democratic dissent, the Pentagon also repeatedly dispatched American troops on
training missions to allied militaries there. During more than 40 such
operations with names like Eager Lion and Friendship Two that sometimes lasted
for weeks or months at a time, they taught Middle Eastern security forces the
finer points of counterinsurgency, small unit tactics, intelligence gathering,
and information operations—skills crucial to defeating popular uprisings. . . .
These recurrent joint-training exercises, seldom reported in the media and
rarely mentioned outside the military, constitute the core of an elaborate,
longstanding system that binds the Pentagon to the militaries of repressive
regimes across the Middle East” [4].
These truly imperialistic policies and practices show, once again,
that the claims of the United States and its allies that their self-righteous
adventures of “regime change” in the Greater Middle East are designed to defend
human rights and foster democracy are simply laughable.
4. Employment of the Divide and Conquer Tactic:
Sunni vs. Shia
One of the tactics to crush the peaceful pro-democracy movements
in the Arab-Muslim countries ruled by the US client regimes is to portray these
movements as “sectarian” Shia insurgences. This age-old divide-and-rule tactic
is most vigorously pursued in Bahrain, where the destruction of the Shia
mosques is rightly viewed as part of the regime’s cynical policy of
“humiliating the Shia” in order “to make them take revenge on Sunnis,” thereby
hoping to prove that the uprising is a sectarian one [5].
Quoting Nabeel Rajab, who describes himself as secular with both
Sunni and Shia family relatives, reporter Finian Cunningham writes: “The
government is attempting to incite divisive sectarian tensions, to intimidate
Sunni people into not supporting the pro-democracy movement because it is being
presented as a Shia movement.”
Cunningham further writes: “The targeting of the Shia is a tactic
by the regime to distort the pro-democracy movement from a nationalist one into
a sectarian one. It is also a way of undermining international support for the
pro-democracy movement by trying to present it as an internal problem of the
state dealing with ‘troublesome Shia’. In this way, the Bahraini uprising is
being made to appear as something different from the uprisings for democracy
that have swept the region” [5].
In brief, the magnificent Arab Spring that started in Egypt and
Tunisia in the early 2011 has been brutally derailed, distorted and contained
by an all-out counter-offensive orchestrated by Western powers and their allies
in the Greater Middle East, especially Israel, Turkey and the Arab League. How
long this containment of democratic and national liberation aspirations of the
Arab/Muslim masses will continue, no one can tell. One thing is clear, however:
the success of the Arab (or any other) Spring in the less-developed, semi-colonial
world is integrally intertwined with the success of the so-called 99% in the
more-developed, imperialist world in achieving the goal of defeating the
austerity policies of the 1%, reallocating significant portions of the colossal
military spending to social spending, and enjoying a standard of living worthy
of human dignity.
In subtle and roundabout ways, imperialist wars of choice and
military adventures abroad are reflections, or proxies, of domestic fights over
allocation of national resources: only by inventing new (and never ending)
enemies and engaging in permanent wars abroad can the powerful beneficiaries of
war and militarism fend off the “peace dividends” and enjoy the substantial
“war dividends” at home.
In the fight for peace and economic justice, perhaps the global
99% can take a cue from the global 1%: just as the ruling 1% coordinate their
policies of military aggression and economic austerity on an international
level, so can (and should) the worldwide 99% coordinate their response to those
brutal policies internationally. Only through a coordinated cross-border
struggle for peace and economic justice can the workers and other popular
masses bring the worldwide production of goods and provision of services to a
standstill, and restructure the status quo for a better world—a world in which
the products of human labor and the bounties of Nature could benefit all.
© Ismael Hossein-zadeh is Professor Emeritus
of Economics, Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa. He is the author of The Political Economy of U.S. Militarism (Palgrave
– Macmillan 2007) and the Soviet Non-capitalist Development: The Case of
Nasser’s Egypt (Praeger Publishers 1989). He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion,
forthcoming from AK Press.
References:
[1] Michel Chossudovsky, “When War Games Go Live.”
[2] See, for example, Dr.
Christof Lehmann, “The Manufacturing of the War on Syria.”
[3] Dr. Christof Lehmann, “The National Counsel of Syria and U.S. Unconventional
Warfare.”
[4] Nick Turse, “Did the Pentagon Help Strangle the Arab Spring?”
[5] Finian Cunningham, “Bahraini Rulers Play sectarian card in Bid to Trump
Pro-democracy Movement.”
Albert Einstein: Plagiarist of the Century?
Albert Einstein is held up as the most intelligent human to ever walk the earth. However, several researchers have compiled a lot of evidence that Einstein plagiarized the work of other physicists, and that the Zionists in the media decided to promote Einstein rather than the goyim scientists. (http://iamthewitness.com/DarylBradfordSmith_Einstein.html)
Einstein plagiarised the work
of several notable scientists in his 1905 papers on special relativity and E=mc2,
yet the physics community has never bothered to set the record straight.
by Richard Moody Jr
Abstract
Proponents of Einstein have acted in a way that appears to corrupt the historical record. Albert Einstein (1879-1955), Time magazine's "Person of the Century", wrote a long treatise on special relativity theory (it was actually called "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies", 1905a), without listing any references. Many of the key ideas it presented were known to Lorentz (for example, the Lorentz transformation) and Poincaré before Einstein wrote the famous 1905 paper.
As was typical of Einstein, he did not discover theories; he merely commandeered them. He took an existing body of knowledge, picked and chose the ideas he liked, then wove them into a tale about his contribution to special relativity. This was done with the full knowledge and consent of many of his peers, such as the editors at Annalen der Physik.
The most recognisable equation of all time is E=mc2. It is attributed by convention to be the sole province of Albert Einstein (1905). However, the conversion of matter into energy and energy into matter was known to Sir Isaac Newton ("Gross bodies and light are convertible into one another...", 1704). The equation can be attributed to S. Tolver Preston (1875), to Jules Henri Poincaré (1900; according to Brown, 1967) and to Olinto De Pretto (1904) before Einstein. Since Einstein never correctly derived E=mc2 (Ives, 1952), there appears nothing to connect the equation with anything original by Einstein.
Arthur Eddington's selective presentation of data from the 1919 eclipse so that it supposedly supported "Einstein's" general relativity theory is surely one of the biggest scientific hoaxes of the 20th century. His lavish support of Einstein corrupted the course of history. Eddington was less interested in testing a theory than he was in crowning Einstein the king of science.
The physics community, unwittingly perhaps, has engaged in a kind of fraud and silent conspiracy; this is the byproduct of simply being bystanders as the hyperinflation of Einstein's record and reputation took place. This silence benefited anyone supporting Einstein.
Introduction
Science, by its very nature, is insular. In general, chemists read and write about chemistry, biologists read and write about biology, and physicists read and write about physics. But they may all be competing for the same research dollar (in its broadest sense). Thus, if scientists wanted more money for themselves, they might decide to compete unfairly. The way they can do this is convince the funding agencies that they are more important than any other branch of science. If the funding agencies agree, it could spell difficulty for the remaining sciences. One way to get more money is to create a superhero-a superhero like Einstein.
Einstein's standing is the product of the physics community, his followers and the media. Each group benefits enormously by elevating Einstein to icon status. The physics community receives billions in research grants, Einstein's supporters are handsomely rewarded, and media corporations like Time magazine get to sell millions of magazines by placing Einstein on the cover as "Person of the Century".
When the scandal breaks, the physics community, Einstein's supporters and the media will attempt to downplay the negative news and put a positive spin on it. However, their efforts will be shown up when Einstein's paper, "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies", is seen for what it is: the consummate act of plagiarism in the 20th century.
Special Relativity
Jules Henri Poincaré (1854-1912) was a great scientist who made a significant contribution to special relativity theory. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy website states that Poincaré: (1) "sketched a preliminary version of the special theory of relativity"; (2) "stated that the velocity of light is a limit velocity" (in his 1904 paper from the Bull. of Sci. Math. 28, Poincaré indicated "a whole new mechanics, where the inertia increasing with the velocity of light would become a limit and not be exceeded"); (3) suggested that "mass depends on speed"; (4) "formulated the principle of relativity, according to which no mechanical or electromagnetic experiment can discriminate between a state of uniform motion and a state of rest"; and (5) "derived the Lorentz transformation".
It is evident how deeply involved with special relativity Poincaré was. Even Keswani (1965) was prompted to say that "As far back as 1895, Poincaré, the innovator, had conjectured that it is impossible to detect absolute motion", and that "In 1900, he introduced 'the principle of relative motion' which he later called by the equivalent terms 'the law of relativity' and 'the principle of relativity' in his book, Science and Hypothesis, published in 1902". Einstein acknowledged none of this preceding theoretical work when he wrote his unreferenced 1905 paper.
In addition to having sketched the preliminary version of relativity, Poincaré provided a critical part of the whole concept-namely, his treatment of local time. He also originated the idea of clock synchronisation, which is critical to special relativity.
Charles Nordman was prompted to write "They will show that the credit for most of the things which are currently attributed to Einstein is, in reality, due to Poincaré", and "...in the opinion of the Relativists it is the measuring rods which create space, the clocks which create time. All this was known by Poincaré and others long before the time of Einstein, and one does injustice to truth in ascribing the discovery to him".
Other scientists have not been quite as impressed with "Einstein's" special relativity theory as has the public. "Another curious feature of the now famous paper, Einstein, 1905, is the absence of any reference to Poincaré or anyone else," Max Born wrote in Physics in My Generation. "It gives you the impression of quite a new venture. But that is, of course, as I have tried to explain, not true" (Born, 1956). G. Burniston Brown (1967) noted, "It will be seen that, contrary to popular belief, Einstein played only a minor part in the derivation of the useful formulae in the restricted or special relativity theory, and Whittaker called it the relativity theory of Poincaré and Lorentz... "
Due to the fact that Einstein's special relativity theory was known in some circles as the relativity theory of Poincaré and Lorentz, one would think that Poincaré and Lorentz might have had something to do with its creation. What is disturbing about the Einstein paper is that even though Poincaré was the world's leading expert on relativity, apparently Einstein had never heard of him nor thought he had done anything worth referencing!
Poincaré, in a public address delivered in September 1904, made some notable comments on special relativity theory. "From all these results, if they are confirmed, would arise an entirely new mechanics...would be, above all, characterised by this fact that no velocity could surpass that of light...because bodies would oppose an increasing inertia to the causes, which would tend to accelerate their motion; and this inertia would become infinite when one approached the velocity of light... No more for an observer carried along himself in a translation, he did not suspect any apparent velocity could surpass that of light: and this would be then a contradiction, if we recall that this observer would not use the same clocks as a fixed observer, but, indeed, clocks marking 'local time'." (Poincaré, 1905)
Einstein, the Plagiarist
It is now time to speak directly to the issue of what Einstein was: he was first and foremost a plagiarist. He had few qualms about stealing the work of others and submitting it as his own. That this was deliberate seems obvious.
Take this passage from Ronald W Clark, Einstein: The Life and Times (there are no references to Poincaré here; just a few meaningless quotes). This is how page 101 reads: "'On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies'...is in many ways one of the most remarkable scientific papers that had ever been written. Even in form and style it was unusual, lacking the notes and references which give weight to most serious expositions..." (emphasis added).
Why would Einstein, with his training as a patent clerk, not recognise the need to cite references in his article on special relativity? One would think that Einstein, as a neophyte, would overreference rather than underreference.
Wouldn't one also expect somewhat higher standards from an editor when faced with a long manuscript that had obviously not been credited? Apparently there was no attempt at quality control when it was published in Annalen der Physik. Most competent editors would have rejected the paper without even reading it. At the barest minimum, one would expect the editor to research the literature to determine whether Einstein's claim of primacy was correct.
Max Born stated, "The striking point is that it contains not a single reference to previous literature" (emphasis added) (Born, 1956). He is clearly indicating that the absence of references is abnormal and that, even by early 20th century standards, this is most peculiar, even unprofessional.
Einstein twisted and turned to avoid plagiarism charges, but these were transparent.
From Bjerknes (2002), we learn the following passage from James MacKaye: "Einstein's explanation is a dimensional disguise for Lorentz's… Thus Einstein's theory is not a denial of, nor an alternative for, that of Lorentz. It is only a duplicate and disguise for it... Einstein continually maintains that the theory of Lorentz is right, only he disagrees with his 'interpretation'. Is it not clear, therefore, that in this [case], as in other cases Einstein's theory is merely a disguise for Lorentz's, the apparent disagreement about 'interpretation' being a matter of words only?"
Poincaré wrote 30 books and over 500 papers on philosophy, mathematics and physics. Einstein wrote on mathematics, physics and philosophy, but claimed he had never read Poincaré's contributions to physics.
Yet many of Poincaré's ideas – for example, that the speed of light is a limit and that mass increases with speed – wound up in Einstein's paper "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies" without being credited.
Einstein's act of stealing almost the entire body of literature by Lorentz and Poincaré to write his document raised the bar for plagiarism. In the information age, this kind of plagiarism could never be perpetrated indefinitely, yet the physics community has still not set the record straight.
In his 1907 paper, Einstein spelled out his views on plagiarism: "It appears to me that it is the nature of the business that what follows has already been partly solved by other authors. Despite that fact, since the issues of concern are here addressed from a new point of view, I am entitled to leave out a thoroughly pedantic survey of the literature..."
With this statement, Einstein declared that plagiarism, suitably packaged, is an acceptable research tool.
Here is the definition of "to plagiarise" from an unimpeachable source, Webster's New International Dictionary of the English Language, Second Edition, Unabridged, 1947, p. 1,878: "To steal or purloin and pass off as one's own (the ideas, words, artistic productions, etc. of one another); to use without due credit the ideas, expressions or productions of another. To commit plagiarism" (emphasis added). Isn't this exactly what Einstein did?
Giving due credit involves two aspects: timeliness and appropriateness. Telling the world that Lorentz provided the basis for special relativity 30 years after the fact is not timely (see below), is not appropriate and is not giving due credit. Nothing Einstein wrote ex post facto with respect to Lorentz's contributions alters the fundamental act of plagiarism.
The true nature of Einstein's plagiarism is set forth in his 1935 paper, "Elementary Derivation of the Equivalence of Mass and Energy", where, in a discussion on Maxwell, he wrote, "The question as to the independence of those relations is a natural one because the Lorentz transformation, the real basis of special relativity theory..." (emphasis added).
So, Einstein even acknowledged that the Lorentz transformation was the real basis of his 1905 paper. Anyone who doubts that he was a plagiarist should ask one simple question: "What did Einstein know, and when did he know it?" Einstein got away with premeditated plagiarism, not the incidental plagiarism that is ubiquitous (Moody, 2001).
The History of E=mc2
Who originated the concept of matter being transformed into energy and vice versa? It dates back at least to Sir Isaac Newton (1704). Brown (1967) made the following statement: "Thus gradually arose the formula E =mc2, suggested without general proof by Poincaré in 1900".
One thing we can say with certainty is that Einstein did not originate the equation E=mc2. Then the question becomes: "Who did?" Bjerknes (2002) suggested as a possible candidate S Tolver Preston, who "formulated atomic energy, the atom bomb and superconductivity back in the 1870s, based on the formula E=mc2".
In addition to Preston, a major player in the history of E = mc2 who deserves much credit is Olinto De Pretto (1904). What makes this timing so suspicious is that Einstein was fluent in Italian, he was reviewing papers written by Italian physicists and his best friend was Michele Besso, a Swiss Italian. Clearly, Einstein (1905b) would have had access to the literature and the competence to read it. In "Einstein's E=mc2 'was Italian's idea'" (Carroll, 1999). We see clear evidence that De Pretto was ahead of Einstein in terms of the formula E = mc2.
In terms of his understanding the vast amount of energy that could be released with a small amount of mass, Preston (1875) can be credited with knowing this before Einstein was born. Clearly, Preston was using the E = mc2 formula in his work, because the value he determined – e.g., that one grain could lift a 100,000-ton object up to a height of 1.9 miles – yields the equation E=mc2.
According to Ives (1952), the derivation Einstein attempted of the formula E=mc2 was fatally flawed because Einstein set out to prove what he assumed. This is similar to the careless handling of the equations for radioactive decay which Einstein derived. It turns out that Einstein mixed kinematics and mechanics, and out popped the neutrino. The neutrino may be a mythical particle accidentally created by Einstein (Carezani, 1999). We have two choices with respect to neutrinos: there are at least 40 different types or there are zero types. Occam's razor rules here.
The Eclipse of 1919
There can be no clearer definition of scientific fraud than what went on in the Tropics on May 29, 1919. What is particularly clear is that Eddington fudged the solar eclipse data to make the results conform to "Einstein's" work on general relativity. Poor (1930), Brown (1967), Clark (1984) and McCausland (2001) all address the issues surrounding this eclipse.
What makes the expeditions to Sobral and Principe so suspect is Eddington's zealous support of Einstein, as can be seen in his statement, "By standing foremost in testing, and ultimately verifying the 'enemy' theory, our national observatory kept alive the finest traditions of science..." (emphasis added) (Clark, 1984). In this instance, apparently Eddington was not familiar with the basic tenets of science. His job was to collect data-not verify Einstein's theories.
Further evidence for the fraud can be deduced from Eddington's own statements and the introduction to them provided by Clark (ibid., p. 285): "May 29 began with heavy rain, which stopped only about noon. Not until 1.30 pm when the eclipse had already begun did the party get its first glimpse of the sun: 'We had to carry out our programme of photographs on faith..."' (emphasis added). Eddington reveals his true prejudice: he was willing to do anything to see that Einstein was proved right. But Eddington was not to be deterred: "It looked as though the effort, so far as the Principe expedition was concerned, might have been abortive"; "We developed the photographs, two each night for six nights after the eclipse... The cloudy weather upset my plans and I had to treat the measures in a different way from what I intended; consequently I have not been able to make any preliminary announcement of the result" (emphasis added) (Clark, ibid.).
Actually, Eddington's words speak volumes about the result. As soon as he found a shred of evidence that was consistent with "Einstein's" general relativity theory, he immediately proclaimed it as proof of the theory. Is this science?
Where were the astronomers when Eddington presented his findings? Did anyone besides Eddington actually look at the photographic plates? Poor did, and he completely repudiated the findings of Eddington. This should have given pause to any ethical scientist.
Here are some quotes from Poor's summary: "The mathematical formula, by which Einstein calculated his deflection of 1.75 seconds for light rays passing the edge o the sun, is a well known and simple formula of physical optics"; "Not a single one the fundamental concepts of varying time, or warped or twisted space, of simultaneity, or of the relativity of motion is in any way involved in Einstein's prediction of, or formulas for, the deflection of light"; "The many and elaborate eclipse expeditions have, therefore, been given a fictitious importance. Their results can neither prove nor disprove the relativity theory... (emphasis added) (Poor, 1930).
From Brown (1967), we learn that Eddington could not wait to get out to the world community that Einstein's theory was confirmed. What Eddington based this on was a premature assessment of the photographic plates. Initially, stars did "appear" to bend as they should, as required by Einstein, but then, according to Brown, the unexpected happened: several stars were then observed to bend in a direction transverse to the expected direction and still others to bend in a direction opposite to that predicted by relativity.
The absurdity of the data collected during the Eclipse of 1919 was demonstrated by Poor (1930), who pointed out that 85% of the data were discarded from the South American eclipse due to "accidental error", i.e., it contradicted Einstein's scale constant. By a strange coincidence, the 15% of the "good" data were consistent with Einstein's scale constant. Somehow, the stars that did not conform to Einstein's theories conveniently got temporarily shelved-and the myth began.
So, based on a handful of ambiguous data points, 200 years of theory, experimentation and observation were cast aside to make room for Einstein. Yet the discredited experiment by Eddington is still quoted as gospel by Stephen Hawking (1999). It is difficult to comprehend how Hawking could comment that "The new theory of curved space-time was called general relativity… It was confirmed in spectacular fashion in 1919, when a British expedition to West Africa observed a slight shift in the position of stars near the sun during an eclipse. Their light, as Einstein had predicted, was bent as it passed the sun. Here was direct evidence that space and time were warped". Does Hawking honestly believe that a handful of data points, massaged more thoroughly than a side of Kobe beef, constitutes the basis for overthrowing a paradigm that had survived over two centuries of acid scrutiny?
The real question, though, is: "Where was Einstein in all this?" Surely, by the time he wrote his 1935 paper, he must have known of the work of Poor: "The actual stellar displacements, if real, do not show the slightest resemblance to the predicted Einstein deflections: they do not agree in direction, in size, or the rate of decrease with distance from the sun". Why didn't he go on the record and address a paper that directly contradicted his work? Why haven't the followers of Einstein tried to set the record straight with respect to the bogus data of 1919?
What makes this so suspicious is that both the instruments and the physical conditions were not conducive to making measurements of great precision. As pointed out in a 2002 Internet article by the British Institute of Precise Physics, the cap cameras used in the expeditions were accurate to only 1/25th of a degree. This meant that just for the cap camera uncertainty alone, Eddington was reading values over 200 times too precise.
McCausland (2001) quotes the former Editor of Nature, Sir John Maddox: "They [Crommelin and Eddington] were bent on measuring the deflection of light…"; "What is not so well documented is that the measurements in 1919 were not particularly accurate"; "In spite of the fact that experimental evidence for relativity seems to have been very flimsy in 1919, Einstein's enormous fame has remained intact and his theory has ever since been held to be one of the highest achievements of human thought" (emphasis added).
It is clear that from the outset that Eddington was in no way interested in testing "Einstein's" theory; he was only interested in confirming it. One of the motivating factors in Eddington's decision to promote Einstein was that both men shared a similar political persuasion: pacifism. To suggest that politics played no role in Eddington's glowing support of Einstein, one need ask only the question: "Would Eddington have been so quick to support Einstein if Einstein had been a hawk?" This is no idle observation. Eddington took his role as the great peacemaker very seriously. He wanted to unite British and German scientists after World War I. What better way than to elevate the "enemy" theorist Einstein to exalted status? In his zeal to become peacemaker, Eddington lost the fundamental objectivity that is the essential demeanour of any true scientist. Eddington ceased to be a scientist and, instead, became an advocate for Einstein.
The obvious fudging of the data by Eddington and others is a blatant subversion of scientific process and may have misdirected scientific research for the better part of a century. It probably surpasses the Piltdown Man as the greatest hoax of 20th-century science. The BIPP asked, "Was this the hoax of the century?" and exclaimed, "Royal Society 1919 Eclipse Relativity Report Duped World for 80 Years!" McCausland stated that "In the author's opinion, the confident announcement of the decisive confirmation of Einstein's general theory in November 1919 was not a triumph of science, as it is often portrayed, but one of the most unfortunate incidents in the history of 20th-century science".
It cannot be emphasised enough that the Eclipse of 1919 made Einstein, Einstein. It propelled him to international fame overnight, despite the fact that the data were fabricated and there was no support for general relativity whatsoever. This perversion of history has been known about for over 80 years and is still supported by people like Stephen Hawking and David Levy.
Summary and Conclusions
The general public tends to believe that scientists are the ultimate defenders of ethics, that scientific rigour is the measure of truth. Little do people realise how science is conducted in the presence of personality.
It seems that Einstein believed he was above scientific protocol. He thought he could bend the rules to his own liking and get away with it; hang in there long enough and his enemies would die off and his followers would win the day. In science, the last follower standing wins-and gets to write history. In the case of Einstein, his blatant and repeated dalliance with plagiarism is all but forgotten and his followers have borrowed repeatedly from the discoveries of other scientists and used them to adorn Einstein's halo.
Einstein's reputation is supported by a three-legged stool. One leg is Einstein's alleged plagiarism. Was he a plagiarist? The second leg is the physics community. What did they know about Einstein and when did they know it? The third leg is the media. Are they instruments of truth or deception when it comes to Einstein? Only time will tell.
The physics community is also supported by a three-legged stool. The first leg is Einstein's physics. The second leg is cold fusion. The third leg is autodynamics. The overriding problem with a three-legged stool is that if only one leg is sawn off, the stool collapses. There are at least three very serious disciplines where it is predictable that physics may collapse.
Science is a multi-legged stool. One leg is physics; a second leg is the earth sciences; a third, biology; and a fourth, chemistry (e.g., cold fusion). What will happen if, for the sake of argument, physics collapses? Will science fall?
References
Proponents of Einstein have acted in a way that appears to corrupt the historical record. Albert Einstein (1879-1955), Time magazine's "Person of the Century", wrote a long treatise on special relativity theory (it was actually called "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies", 1905a), without listing any references. Many of the key ideas it presented were known to Lorentz (for example, the Lorentz transformation) and Poincaré before Einstein wrote the famous 1905 paper.
As was typical of Einstein, he did not discover theories; he merely commandeered them. He took an existing body of knowledge, picked and chose the ideas he liked, then wove them into a tale about his contribution to special relativity. This was done with the full knowledge and consent of many of his peers, such as the editors at Annalen der Physik.
The most recognisable equation of all time is E=mc2. It is attributed by convention to be the sole province of Albert Einstein (1905). However, the conversion of matter into energy and energy into matter was known to Sir Isaac Newton ("Gross bodies and light are convertible into one another...", 1704). The equation can be attributed to S. Tolver Preston (1875), to Jules Henri Poincaré (1900; according to Brown, 1967) and to Olinto De Pretto (1904) before Einstein. Since Einstein never correctly derived E=mc2 (Ives, 1952), there appears nothing to connect the equation with anything original by Einstein.
Arthur Eddington's selective presentation of data from the 1919 eclipse so that it supposedly supported "Einstein's" general relativity theory is surely one of the biggest scientific hoaxes of the 20th century. His lavish support of Einstein corrupted the course of history. Eddington was less interested in testing a theory than he was in crowning Einstein the king of science.
The physics community, unwittingly perhaps, has engaged in a kind of fraud and silent conspiracy; this is the byproduct of simply being bystanders as the hyperinflation of Einstein's record and reputation took place. This silence benefited anyone supporting Einstein.
Introduction
Science, by its very nature, is insular. In general, chemists read and write about chemistry, biologists read and write about biology, and physicists read and write about physics. But they may all be competing for the same research dollar (in its broadest sense). Thus, if scientists wanted more money for themselves, they might decide to compete unfairly. The way they can do this is convince the funding agencies that they are more important than any other branch of science. If the funding agencies agree, it could spell difficulty for the remaining sciences. One way to get more money is to create a superhero-a superhero like Einstein.
Einstein's standing is the product of the physics community, his followers and the media. Each group benefits enormously by elevating Einstein to icon status. The physics community receives billions in research grants, Einstein's supporters are handsomely rewarded, and media corporations like Time magazine get to sell millions of magazines by placing Einstein on the cover as "Person of the Century".
When the scandal breaks, the physics community, Einstein's supporters and the media will attempt to downplay the negative news and put a positive spin on it. However, their efforts will be shown up when Einstein's paper, "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies", is seen for what it is: the consummate act of plagiarism in the 20th century.
Special Relativity
Jules Henri Poincaré (1854-1912) was a great scientist who made a significant contribution to special relativity theory. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy website states that Poincaré: (1) "sketched a preliminary version of the special theory of relativity"; (2) "stated that the velocity of light is a limit velocity" (in his 1904 paper from the Bull. of Sci. Math. 28, Poincaré indicated "a whole new mechanics, where the inertia increasing with the velocity of light would become a limit and not be exceeded"); (3) suggested that "mass depends on speed"; (4) "formulated the principle of relativity, according to which no mechanical or electromagnetic experiment can discriminate between a state of uniform motion and a state of rest"; and (5) "derived the Lorentz transformation".
It is evident how deeply involved with special relativity Poincaré was. Even Keswani (1965) was prompted to say that "As far back as 1895, Poincaré, the innovator, had conjectured that it is impossible to detect absolute motion", and that "In 1900, he introduced 'the principle of relative motion' which he later called by the equivalent terms 'the law of relativity' and 'the principle of relativity' in his book, Science and Hypothesis, published in 1902". Einstein acknowledged none of this preceding theoretical work when he wrote his unreferenced 1905 paper.
In addition to having sketched the preliminary version of relativity, Poincaré provided a critical part of the whole concept-namely, his treatment of local time. He also originated the idea of clock synchronisation, which is critical to special relativity.
Charles Nordman was prompted to write "They will show that the credit for most of the things which are currently attributed to Einstein is, in reality, due to Poincaré", and "...in the opinion of the Relativists it is the measuring rods which create space, the clocks which create time. All this was known by Poincaré and others long before the time of Einstein, and one does injustice to truth in ascribing the discovery to him".
Other scientists have not been quite as impressed with "Einstein's" special relativity theory as has the public. "Another curious feature of the now famous paper, Einstein, 1905, is the absence of any reference to Poincaré or anyone else," Max Born wrote in Physics in My Generation. "It gives you the impression of quite a new venture. But that is, of course, as I have tried to explain, not true" (Born, 1956). G. Burniston Brown (1967) noted, "It will be seen that, contrary to popular belief, Einstein played only a minor part in the derivation of the useful formulae in the restricted or special relativity theory, and Whittaker called it the relativity theory of Poincaré and Lorentz... "
Due to the fact that Einstein's special relativity theory was known in some circles as the relativity theory of Poincaré and Lorentz, one would think that Poincaré and Lorentz might have had something to do with its creation. What is disturbing about the Einstein paper is that even though Poincaré was the world's leading expert on relativity, apparently Einstein had never heard of him nor thought he had done anything worth referencing!
Poincaré, in a public address delivered in September 1904, made some notable comments on special relativity theory. "From all these results, if they are confirmed, would arise an entirely new mechanics...would be, above all, characterised by this fact that no velocity could surpass that of light...because bodies would oppose an increasing inertia to the causes, which would tend to accelerate their motion; and this inertia would become infinite when one approached the velocity of light... No more for an observer carried along himself in a translation, he did not suspect any apparent velocity could surpass that of light: and this would be then a contradiction, if we recall that this observer would not use the same clocks as a fixed observer, but, indeed, clocks marking 'local time'." (Poincaré, 1905)
Einstein, the Plagiarist
It is now time to speak directly to the issue of what Einstein was: he was first and foremost a plagiarist. He had few qualms about stealing the work of others and submitting it as his own. That this was deliberate seems obvious.
Take this passage from Ronald W Clark, Einstein: The Life and Times (there are no references to Poincaré here; just a few meaningless quotes). This is how page 101 reads: "'On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies'...is in many ways one of the most remarkable scientific papers that had ever been written. Even in form and style it was unusual, lacking the notes and references which give weight to most serious expositions..." (emphasis added).
Why would Einstein, with his training as a patent clerk, not recognise the need to cite references in his article on special relativity? One would think that Einstein, as a neophyte, would overreference rather than underreference.
Wouldn't one also expect somewhat higher standards from an editor when faced with a long manuscript that had obviously not been credited? Apparently there was no attempt at quality control when it was published in Annalen der Physik. Most competent editors would have rejected the paper without even reading it. At the barest minimum, one would expect the editor to research the literature to determine whether Einstein's claim of primacy was correct.
Max Born stated, "The striking point is that it contains not a single reference to previous literature" (emphasis added) (Born, 1956). He is clearly indicating that the absence of references is abnormal and that, even by early 20th century standards, this is most peculiar, even unprofessional.
Einstein twisted and turned to avoid plagiarism charges, but these were transparent.
From Bjerknes (2002), we learn the following passage from James MacKaye: "Einstein's explanation is a dimensional disguise for Lorentz's… Thus Einstein's theory is not a denial of, nor an alternative for, that of Lorentz. It is only a duplicate and disguise for it... Einstein continually maintains that the theory of Lorentz is right, only he disagrees with his 'interpretation'. Is it not clear, therefore, that in this [case], as in other cases Einstein's theory is merely a disguise for Lorentz's, the apparent disagreement about 'interpretation' being a matter of words only?"
Poincaré wrote 30 books and over 500 papers on philosophy, mathematics and physics. Einstein wrote on mathematics, physics and philosophy, but claimed he had never read Poincaré's contributions to physics.
Yet many of Poincaré's ideas – for example, that the speed of light is a limit and that mass increases with speed – wound up in Einstein's paper "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies" without being credited.
Einstein's act of stealing almost the entire body of literature by Lorentz and Poincaré to write his document raised the bar for plagiarism. In the information age, this kind of plagiarism could never be perpetrated indefinitely, yet the physics community has still not set the record straight.
In his 1907 paper, Einstein spelled out his views on plagiarism: "It appears to me that it is the nature of the business that what follows has already been partly solved by other authors. Despite that fact, since the issues of concern are here addressed from a new point of view, I am entitled to leave out a thoroughly pedantic survey of the literature..."
With this statement, Einstein declared that plagiarism, suitably packaged, is an acceptable research tool.
Here is the definition of "to plagiarise" from an unimpeachable source, Webster's New International Dictionary of the English Language, Second Edition, Unabridged, 1947, p. 1,878: "To steal or purloin and pass off as one's own (the ideas, words, artistic productions, etc. of one another); to use without due credit the ideas, expressions or productions of another. To commit plagiarism" (emphasis added). Isn't this exactly what Einstein did?
Giving due credit involves two aspects: timeliness and appropriateness. Telling the world that Lorentz provided the basis for special relativity 30 years after the fact is not timely (see below), is not appropriate and is not giving due credit. Nothing Einstein wrote ex post facto with respect to Lorentz's contributions alters the fundamental act of plagiarism.
The true nature of Einstein's plagiarism is set forth in his 1935 paper, "Elementary Derivation of the Equivalence of Mass and Energy", where, in a discussion on Maxwell, he wrote, "The question as to the independence of those relations is a natural one because the Lorentz transformation, the real basis of special relativity theory..." (emphasis added).
So, Einstein even acknowledged that the Lorentz transformation was the real basis of his 1905 paper. Anyone who doubts that he was a plagiarist should ask one simple question: "What did Einstein know, and when did he know it?" Einstein got away with premeditated plagiarism, not the incidental plagiarism that is ubiquitous (Moody, 2001).
The History of E=mc2
Who originated the concept of matter being transformed into energy and vice versa? It dates back at least to Sir Isaac Newton (1704). Brown (1967) made the following statement: "Thus gradually arose the formula E =mc2, suggested without general proof by Poincaré in 1900".
One thing we can say with certainty is that Einstein did not originate the equation E=mc2. Then the question becomes: "Who did?" Bjerknes (2002) suggested as a possible candidate S Tolver Preston, who "formulated atomic energy, the atom bomb and superconductivity back in the 1870s, based on the formula E=mc2".
In addition to Preston, a major player in the history of E = mc2 who deserves much credit is Olinto De Pretto (1904). What makes this timing so suspicious is that Einstein was fluent in Italian, he was reviewing papers written by Italian physicists and his best friend was Michele Besso, a Swiss Italian. Clearly, Einstein (1905b) would have had access to the literature and the competence to read it. In "Einstein's E=mc2 'was Italian's idea'" (Carroll, 1999). We see clear evidence that De Pretto was ahead of Einstein in terms of the formula E = mc2.
In terms of his understanding the vast amount of energy that could be released with a small amount of mass, Preston (1875) can be credited with knowing this before Einstein was born. Clearly, Preston was using the E = mc2 formula in his work, because the value he determined – e.g., that one grain could lift a 100,000-ton object up to a height of 1.9 miles – yields the equation E=mc2.
According to Ives (1952), the derivation Einstein attempted of the formula E=mc2 was fatally flawed because Einstein set out to prove what he assumed. This is similar to the careless handling of the equations for radioactive decay which Einstein derived. It turns out that Einstein mixed kinematics and mechanics, and out popped the neutrino. The neutrino may be a mythical particle accidentally created by Einstein (Carezani, 1999). We have two choices with respect to neutrinos: there are at least 40 different types or there are zero types. Occam's razor rules here.
The Eclipse of 1919
There can be no clearer definition of scientific fraud than what went on in the Tropics on May 29, 1919. What is particularly clear is that Eddington fudged the solar eclipse data to make the results conform to "Einstein's" work on general relativity. Poor (1930), Brown (1967), Clark (1984) and McCausland (2001) all address the issues surrounding this eclipse.
What makes the expeditions to Sobral and Principe so suspect is Eddington's zealous support of Einstein, as can be seen in his statement, "By standing foremost in testing, and ultimately verifying the 'enemy' theory, our national observatory kept alive the finest traditions of science..." (emphasis added) (Clark, 1984). In this instance, apparently Eddington was not familiar with the basic tenets of science. His job was to collect data-not verify Einstein's theories.
Further evidence for the fraud can be deduced from Eddington's own statements and the introduction to them provided by Clark (ibid., p. 285): "May 29 began with heavy rain, which stopped only about noon. Not until 1.30 pm when the eclipse had already begun did the party get its first glimpse of the sun: 'We had to carry out our programme of photographs on faith..."' (emphasis added). Eddington reveals his true prejudice: he was willing to do anything to see that Einstein was proved right. But Eddington was not to be deterred: "It looked as though the effort, so far as the Principe expedition was concerned, might have been abortive"; "We developed the photographs, two each night for six nights after the eclipse... The cloudy weather upset my plans and I had to treat the measures in a different way from what I intended; consequently I have not been able to make any preliminary announcement of the result" (emphasis added) (Clark, ibid.).
Actually, Eddington's words speak volumes about the result. As soon as he found a shred of evidence that was consistent with "Einstein's" general relativity theory, he immediately proclaimed it as proof of the theory. Is this science?
Where were the astronomers when Eddington presented his findings? Did anyone besides Eddington actually look at the photographic plates? Poor did, and he completely repudiated the findings of Eddington. This should have given pause to any ethical scientist.
Here are some quotes from Poor's summary: "The mathematical formula, by which Einstein calculated his deflection of 1.75 seconds for light rays passing the edge o the sun, is a well known and simple formula of physical optics"; "Not a single one the fundamental concepts of varying time, or warped or twisted space, of simultaneity, or of the relativity of motion is in any way involved in Einstein's prediction of, or formulas for, the deflection of light"; "The many and elaborate eclipse expeditions have, therefore, been given a fictitious importance. Their results can neither prove nor disprove the relativity theory... (emphasis added) (Poor, 1930).
From Brown (1967), we learn that Eddington could not wait to get out to the world community that Einstein's theory was confirmed. What Eddington based this on was a premature assessment of the photographic plates. Initially, stars did "appear" to bend as they should, as required by Einstein, but then, according to Brown, the unexpected happened: several stars were then observed to bend in a direction transverse to the expected direction and still others to bend in a direction opposite to that predicted by relativity.
The absurdity of the data collected during the Eclipse of 1919 was demonstrated by Poor (1930), who pointed out that 85% of the data were discarded from the South American eclipse due to "accidental error", i.e., it contradicted Einstein's scale constant. By a strange coincidence, the 15% of the "good" data were consistent with Einstein's scale constant. Somehow, the stars that did not conform to Einstein's theories conveniently got temporarily shelved-and the myth began.
So, based on a handful of ambiguous data points, 200 years of theory, experimentation and observation were cast aside to make room for Einstein. Yet the discredited experiment by Eddington is still quoted as gospel by Stephen Hawking (1999). It is difficult to comprehend how Hawking could comment that "The new theory of curved space-time was called general relativity… It was confirmed in spectacular fashion in 1919, when a British expedition to West Africa observed a slight shift in the position of stars near the sun during an eclipse. Their light, as Einstein had predicted, was bent as it passed the sun. Here was direct evidence that space and time were warped". Does Hawking honestly believe that a handful of data points, massaged more thoroughly than a side of Kobe beef, constitutes the basis for overthrowing a paradigm that had survived over two centuries of acid scrutiny?
The real question, though, is: "Where was Einstein in all this?" Surely, by the time he wrote his 1935 paper, he must have known of the work of Poor: "The actual stellar displacements, if real, do not show the slightest resemblance to the predicted Einstein deflections: they do not agree in direction, in size, or the rate of decrease with distance from the sun". Why didn't he go on the record and address a paper that directly contradicted his work? Why haven't the followers of Einstein tried to set the record straight with respect to the bogus data of 1919?
What makes this so suspicious is that both the instruments and the physical conditions were not conducive to making measurements of great precision. As pointed out in a 2002 Internet article by the British Institute of Precise Physics, the cap cameras used in the expeditions were accurate to only 1/25th of a degree. This meant that just for the cap camera uncertainty alone, Eddington was reading values over 200 times too precise.
McCausland (2001) quotes the former Editor of Nature, Sir John Maddox: "They [Crommelin and Eddington] were bent on measuring the deflection of light…"; "What is not so well documented is that the measurements in 1919 were not particularly accurate"; "In spite of the fact that experimental evidence for relativity seems to have been very flimsy in 1919, Einstein's enormous fame has remained intact and his theory has ever since been held to be one of the highest achievements of human thought" (emphasis added).
It is clear that from the outset that Eddington was in no way interested in testing "Einstein's" theory; he was only interested in confirming it. One of the motivating factors in Eddington's decision to promote Einstein was that both men shared a similar political persuasion: pacifism. To suggest that politics played no role in Eddington's glowing support of Einstein, one need ask only the question: "Would Eddington have been so quick to support Einstein if Einstein had been a hawk?" This is no idle observation. Eddington took his role as the great peacemaker very seriously. He wanted to unite British and German scientists after World War I. What better way than to elevate the "enemy" theorist Einstein to exalted status? In his zeal to become peacemaker, Eddington lost the fundamental objectivity that is the essential demeanour of any true scientist. Eddington ceased to be a scientist and, instead, became an advocate for Einstein.
The obvious fudging of the data by Eddington and others is a blatant subversion of scientific process and may have misdirected scientific research for the better part of a century. It probably surpasses the Piltdown Man as the greatest hoax of 20th-century science. The BIPP asked, "Was this the hoax of the century?" and exclaimed, "Royal Society 1919 Eclipse Relativity Report Duped World for 80 Years!" McCausland stated that "In the author's opinion, the confident announcement of the decisive confirmation of Einstein's general theory in November 1919 was not a triumph of science, as it is often portrayed, but one of the most unfortunate incidents in the history of 20th-century science".
It cannot be emphasised enough that the Eclipse of 1919 made Einstein, Einstein. It propelled him to international fame overnight, despite the fact that the data were fabricated and there was no support for general relativity whatsoever. This perversion of history has been known about for over 80 years and is still supported by people like Stephen Hawking and David Levy.
Summary and Conclusions
The general public tends to believe that scientists are the ultimate defenders of ethics, that scientific rigour is the measure of truth. Little do people realise how science is conducted in the presence of personality.
It seems that Einstein believed he was above scientific protocol. He thought he could bend the rules to his own liking and get away with it; hang in there long enough and his enemies would die off and his followers would win the day. In science, the last follower standing wins-and gets to write history. In the case of Einstein, his blatant and repeated dalliance with plagiarism is all but forgotten and his followers have borrowed repeatedly from the discoveries of other scientists and used them to adorn Einstein's halo.
Einstein's reputation is supported by a three-legged stool. One leg is Einstein's alleged plagiarism. Was he a plagiarist? The second leg is the physics community. What did they know about Einstein and when did they know it? The third leg is the media. Are they instruments of truth or deception when it comes to Einstein? Only time will tell.
The physics community is also supported by a three-legged stool. The first leg is Einstein's physics. The second leg is cold fusion. The third leg is autodynamics. The overriding problem with a three-legged stool is that if only one leg is sawn off, the stool collapses. There are at least three very serious disciplines where it is predictable that physics may collapse.
Science is a multi-legged stool. One leg is physics; a second leg is the earth sciences; a third, biology; and a fourth, chemistry (e.g., cold fusion). What will happen if, for the sake of argument, physics collapses? Will science fall?
References
- Bjerknes, C.J. (2002), Albert Einslein: The
Incorrigible Plagiarist, XTX Inc., Dowers Grove.
- Born, M. (1956), Physics in My Generation,
Pergamon Press, London, p. 193.
- Brown, G. Burniston (1967), "What is wrong with
relativity?", Bull. of the Inst. of Physics and Physical Soc., pp.
71-77.
- Carezani, R. (1999), Autodynamics:
Fundamental Basis for a New Relativistic Mechanics, SAA, Society for
the Advancement of Autodynamics.
- Carroll, R., "Einstein's E = mc2 'was
Italian's idea"', The Guardian, November 11, 1999.
- Clark, R.W. (1984), Einstein: The Life and
Times, Avon Books, New York.
- De Pretto, O. (1904), "Ipotesi dell'etere nella
vita dell'universo", Reale Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed
Arti, Feb. 1904, tomo LXIII, parte II, pp. 439-500.
- Einstein, A. (1905a), "Zur Elektrodynamik
bewegter Korper" ("On the Electrodynamics of Moving
Bodies"), Annalen der Physik 17:37-65.
- Einstein, A. (1905b), "Does the Inertia of a
Body Depend on its Energy Content?", Annalen der Physik 18:639-641.
Einstein, A. (1907), "Uber die vom Relativitatspringzip geforderte
Tragheit der Energie", Annalen der Physik 23(4):371-384 (quote on p.
373).
- Einstein, A. (1935), "Elementary Derivation of
the Equivalence of Mass and Energy", Bull. Amer. Math. Soc.
61:223-230 (first delivered as The Eleventh Josiah Willard Gibbs Lecture
at a joint meeting of the American Physical Society and Section A of the
AAAS, Pittsburgh, December 28, 1934).
- Hawking, S., "Person of the Century", Time
magazine, December 31, 1999.
- Ives, H.E. (1952), "Derivation of the
Mass-Energy Relation", J. Opt. Soc. Amer. 42:540-543.
- Keswani, G.H. (1965), "Origin and Concept of
Relativity", Brit. J. Phil. Soc. 15:286-306.
- Mackaye, J. (1931), The Dynamic Universe,
Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, pp. 42-43.
- Maddox, J. (1995), "More Precise Solarlimb
Light-bending", Nature 377:11.
- Moody, R., Jr (2001), "Plagiarism
Personified", Mensa Bull. 442(Feb):5.
- Newton, Sir Isaac (1704), Opticks, Dover
Publications Inc., New York, p.cxv.
- Nordman, C. (1921), Einstein et l'univers,
translated by Joseph McCabe as "Einstein and the Universe",
Henry Holt and Co., New York, pp. 10-11, 16 (from Bjerknes, 2002).
- Poincaré, J.H. (1905), "The Principles of
Mathematical Physics", The Monist, vol. XV, no. 1, January 1905; from
an address delivered before the International Congress of Arts and
Sciences, St Louis, September 1904.
- Poor, Cl. (1930), "The Deflection of Light as
Observed at Total Solar Eclipses", J. Opt. Soc. Amer. 20:173-211.
- The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Jules Henri
Poincaré (1854-1912), at http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/p/poincare.htm.
- Webster, N. (1947), Webster's New
International Dictionary of the English Language, Second Edition,
Unabridged, p. 1878.
©2003 Richard Moody Jr
777 Treadlemire Road
Berne NY 12023 USA
Email: Slmrea@aol.com
777 Treadlemire Road
Berne NY 12023 USA
Email: Slmrea@aol.com
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