(Newser) – The Pentagon directly oversaw the creation of a Shiite militia force that set up secret detention sites and tortured opponents during the US occupation of Iraq, as part of American attempts to put down the budding Sunni insurgency, according to a new report by the Guardian that is being called “staggering.” Colonel James Steele, a 58-year-old retired special forces veteran of “dirty wars” campaigns in Central America, was chosen by Donald Rumsfeld to organize the paramilitary forces. A second adviser, retired Colonel James H. Coffman, worked closely with Steele and reported directly to David Petraeus.
“They knew everything that was going on there … the torture, the most horrible kinds of torture,” says General Muntadher al-Samari, who spent a year working with Steele and Coffman while the Shiite militias were being organized. The allegations are backed up by several others, including journalists who say they were with Steele when torture was being performed nearby. Steele and Coffman had no comment on the charges, while a spokesman for Petraeus said the general always reported incidents of torture he discovered. Full investigation here.
After more than 13 years of research convinced him that children have the ability to learn almost anything on their own, 2013 TED Prize winner Sugata Mitra aspires to shape the future of learning by building a School in the Cloud, helping kids “tap into their innate sense of wonder.”
In the spirit of Mitra’s invitation to the world to “ask kids big questions, and find big answers,” we asked four brilliant young people to tell us: What do you think is the future of learning?
Click on Image to Enlarge
Here, their answers.
Adora Svitak, 15-year-old writer, teacher and activist
“One of the most powerful shifts in the future of education will come from not only the tools at our disposal, but from an underutilized resource:the students whose voices have for too long been silent. We’re increasingly pushing for seats at the decision-making tables, empowering ourselves by shaping our own learning, and taking on activist roles both online and off. To me, this signals one of the most hopeful signs of the future of education — the shift from a top-down, learning-everything-from-the-authority-figure approach to an approach characterized by peer-to-peer learning, empowerment and grassroots change.”
“My older brother and I believe kids and grown ups can change the world. We’re on a mission with our web series, Kid President, to do just that. If every classroom in the world could be full of grownups and kids working together, we’d live in a happier world. Kids want to know about the world and about how they can make an impact. Kids also have ideas. It’d be awesome if teachers and students could work together and put these ideas into action. There should be lessons in things like compassion and creativity. If those two things were taught more in schools we’d see some really cool things happen.”
From the article: “In the arsenal of eternal skeptics there are few tools more dramatically and more commonly used than Ockham’s razor. It is triumphantly applied to resolve arguments about ghosts (more parsimoniously seen as misperceptions by distraught family members or the suggestible), UFOs (evidently hoaxes and mistaken observations of natural phenomena) and telepathy (a “delusion” of wishful thinking and poorly-constructed tests).”
Taking Vallee's point a step further, such truncated-reasoning is also used to dismiss “Conspiracy Theories”. False-Flag Terror and Manufactured International Strife are simply labeled as ‘Blowback', and the true perpetrators/complicit actors within one's own government and world power structures are simply labeled as ‘Incompetent' instead of ‘Criminal'.
Tuesday, March 5, 2013 For BBC Television, Palast met several times with Hugo Chàvez, who passed away today.
As a purgative for the crappola fed to Americans about Chavez, my foundation, The Palast Investigative Fund, is offering the film, The Assassination of Hugo Chavez, as a FREE download. Based on my several meetings with Chavez, his kidnappers and his would-be assassins, filmed for BBC Television. DVDs also available.
Media may contact Palast at interviews (at) gregpalast.com.
Venezuelan President Chavez once asked me why the US elite wanted to kill him. My dear Hugo: It’s the oil. And it’s the Koch Brothers – and it’s the ketchup.
Colorado Public Television Channel 12 — wild-eyed no-account radicals or patriots with a brain? Seven seconds! 400 truck loads a day of evidence rapidly removed and exported to China.
Over 40 experts in high-rise architecture, structural engineering, metallurgy, chemistry, physics, explosives, and controlled demolition share their professional expertise and insights about the events of 9/11. Additionally, 8 psychological experts discuss why proving controlled demolition of the three World Trade Center skyscrapers can be so difficult for individuals to accept.
From a human source I've named SLOW PITCH. Original World Trade Center was built in 1966-1967. Larry Silverstein was present at the creation, including the six story underground footings that may or may not have included an “end of life” explosive solution. Personally I doubt the nuclear option as a one-size solution. Much more likely is the pervasive use of nano-thermite means, along with the controlled military grade thermile demolitions — the first to vaporize, the second to bring down buildings comprised of vertical steel beams 14 inches apart all the way around. HOWEVER, see below update that adds considerably to the nuances of this explanation.
UPDATE 2: Additional more focused excerpts from SLOW PITCH:
Supporting article: NOTE: I am NOT the anon physicist referred to in this article.
The official 9/11 story is a lie. The 9/11 plane hijackings and crashes were clever hoaxes. The WTC1, WTC2 and WTC7 towers were brought down by demolition, and there is evidence for the use of small nuclear bombs in the demolition of WTC1 and 2. All in all, 9/11 was a massive and cruel hoax foisted upon the world, done in order to spark the obscene “war on terror”, to cover up financial fraud and to further the ends of the global elite. 9/11 was only the most egregious of several other recent false-flag terror operations.
Feb 2011 – shorter than book and video – good summary – plus personal account by investment trader (interviewer) who was in NJ and saw it all go down – no planes explained in simple fashion (fly and fly swatter)
Is it possible for a nuclear explosion to occur in lower Manhattan without devastating and destroying the entire population of New York City?
Yes. Because it occurred deep underground. If it were on the surface level or above it, the 150 kiloton bomb would almost destroy New York City in its entirety, as well as making the rest of it uninhabitable. Just imagine that 150 kiloton is 8 times the size of the first atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. However, since the 150 kiloton bombs detonated deep under each of the WTC Twin Towers and under the WTC-7 they did not cause much damage – just only the damage you can see in the immediate aftermath of the actual WTC demolition on 9/11.
these radioactive vapors caused extreme damage to the health of those who worked without gas-masks on ground zero. Now almost all ground-zero responders suffer from leukemia and other secondary effects of chronic radiation sickness – mainly from various cancers. Also many of these responders have died since then and many more are dying right now.
. . .
Please tell me briefly how according to the science of physics that it is absolutely impossible for a jumbo-jet to penetrate the frame of the former World Trade Center.
Many people naively think that the WTC facades were made from huge panes of glass – because the “planes” shown in 9/11 footage appear to penetrate in too easily – without even reducing their speed upon the impact. However, it is not so simple in reality. In reality the facades of the Twin Towers were made from densely positioned thick steel perimeter columns.
There were 59 of such columns on each of the 4 facades and these columns were positioned every one meter from one other. Each column represented a hollow tube square in cross-section. Each of the four walls of such perimeter column was as thick as the front armor of a tank.
Do you think that an aluminum plane could penetrate steel thick as tank’s front armor? Try to be realistic… Yes, intuitively it might appear to some people that a massive, fast-flying aircraft, even though it is made from aluminum, has a lot of kinetic energy to penetrate steel. But this is a very wrong perception. You intuition badly cheats you in this particular case. Aluminum cannot penetrate steel irrespectively of its mass and its speed. Because if it were so simple then artillery armor-piercing shells would be made from aluminum. However, anti-tank rounds are not made from it. They are made from Wolfram (Tungsten) or from Depleted Uranium. Because either of these materials is harder than steel.
. . .
Who were the actually perpetrators and what were there motives?
De-facto perpetrators are some individuals from the Mossad and from French secret services. But it is only an outward appearance. The real planners and the real perpetrators are, of course, those folks who promote the New World Order, so-called “globalization”, and other means of the final enslavement of humanity on this Planet. Basically they are the very same guys who stood behind the United Nations Organization, Bilderberg Club, the WTO, the so-called “Council on Foreign Relations”, “Trilateral Commission”, Olympic Games enterprise, “Greenpeace”, “Amnesty International”, and other well-known and little-known instruments of the so-called “globalization”. The 9/11 job was conceived and ordered by these guys, of course. The Mossad and the French are merely hired executors – similar to contract killers in the common sense; they are by no means the masterminds.
UPDATE 1: Below is further discussion of the nuclear aspect of 9/11. SLOW PITCH is a physicist deeply involved with these matters and took umbrage at my unintended dismissal of the nuclear option. A bottom-up nuclear event would not have collapsed the buildings in such a perfect manner — each floor has to be evaluated, no doubt a major reason the US-based perpetrators took such pains to destroy the crime scene immediately — 400 truckloads a day. All that follows is from SLOW PITCH as an aggregator of EXCERPTS from third-party experts:
There could also be micro-neutron bombs involved based on Vancouver conference presentations in June 2012. This discovery prompted me to read Sam Cohen’s autobiography a few months ago (free online). He invented the neutron bomb and wrote a story of the military-industrial complex and their hideous nuclear weapons policy.
HIGHLY plausible – watch embedded video (5 min) – they consider WTC 1 and 2 to have been destroyed by micro-neutron shaped charge bombs as they came down from the top. WTC 7 was classic controlled demolition (underground explosion). The comments discuss both Dimitri’s position and the neutron bombs.
We can say, being cautious, that:
1. 911 was a nuclear event
2. Fission is proven without doubt
3. The evidence for fusion is extremely good
4. The anomalies seen suggest a fission triggered fusion device similar to the Russian RDS-220 detonated in 1961, but on a micro scale.
5. The devices used on 911 were likely neutron bombs, the most feared devices ever developed by humans on earth.
So why are people like Steve Jones and Judy Wood denying nukes then?
Let’s start with Jones. Why would a nuclear physicist be pushing the nanothermite theory and denying nukes? A fair question. You would have to ask Jones what his motives are in covering up nukes but I’ll throw this out there: neutron bombs have always been controversial, even in the military establishment. “The idea of the neutron warhead has been hotly debated since its inception. At the time of its introduction, some felt that its relatively small initial blast and fallout was ideal for use in densely populated areas, like Europe.”
“The invention achieved the objective – to make a nuclear weapon that was tactically useful in the sense of not destroying the country in the process. But, it was quickly squelched by the various interests that concluded that such a device would only make nuclear war more likely. The neutron bomb was, in effect, banned because it destroyed the sharp distinction between conventional and nuclear weapons by minimizing the fission blast and radiation by-products.
Life was breathed back into the concept in the 1970s in an effort to improve NATO defenses by producing a weapon that directly challenged the immense Soviet strength – its tanks and armies. But, it did so without the massive physical damage usually associated with a nuclear weapon. Several hundred of the neutron bomb warheads were actually produced and stockpiled during the Reagan Administration. This new lease on life, however, soon came to an end. Following the first Persian Gulf War, President Bush at General Powell’s recommendation directed that all the tactical weapons be destroyed. ”
So if it ever came out that neutron bombs were used on civilians in a false flag attack there would be a lot of controversy behind the scenes in the military-industrial complex believe it or not. Steve Jones true audience may be the good people in the military establishment who would freak out at the use of tactical nuclear weapons on civilians. He’s probably not trying to convince the average Joe Blow on the street that thermite destroyed these giant skyscrapers. He’s merely trying to keep a lid on the use of nukes. This is classic CYA; he’s covering the assess of his buddies at the nuke labs. Nobody wants to get their government funding cut. Or worse yet go to jail.
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ANYONE AT ALL that hides the nuclear aspect of 911 has no legal, ethical or moral ground to support that stance. Gaining public acceptance of a lie across an entire country, and in Jones’ case an entire planet, is contemptible and criminal as well. Exposure to radiation is horrid and odious. The health effects are forever unknown and any illness can be directly related – even odd illnesses like a gastrointestinal problem 15 years later.
