America’s Secret Deal with Mexican Drug Cartels
By Tom Burghardt
Global Research, September 03, 2012
Url of this article: http://www.globalresearch.ca/managing-the-plaza-americas-secret-deal-with-mexican-drug-cartels/
Los entresijos del mundo del narcotráfico, una plaga que asola el mundo entero, es el asunto que preocupa a Tom Bughardt en un artículo bien documentado y serio, que apunta a complicidades sorprendentes pero probablemente ciertas. El blanquear dinero procedente de la droga es un negocio floreciente y sin fronteras.
In a story which should have made front page headlines, Narco News investigative journalist Bill Conroy revealed that “A high-ranking Sinaloa narco-trafficking organization member’s claim that US officials have struck a deal with the leadership of the Mexican ‘cartel’ appears to be corroborated in large part by the statements of a Mexican diplomat in email correspondence made public recently by the nonprofit media group WikiLeaks.”
A series of some five million emails, The Global Intelligence Files, were obtained by the secret-spilling organization as a result of last year’s hack by Anonymous of the Texas-based “global intelligence” firm Stratfor.
Bad tradecraft aside, the Stratfor dump offer readers insight into a shadowy world where information is sold to the highest bidder through a “a global network of informants who are paid via Swiss banks accounts and pre-paid credit cards. Stratfor has a mix of covert and overt informants, which includes government employees, embassy staff and journalists around the world.”
One of those informants was a Mexican intelligence officer with the Centro de Investigación y Seguridad Nacional, or CISEN, Mexico’s equivalent to the CIA. Dubbed “MX1? by Stratfor, he operates under diplomatic cover at the Mexican consulate in Phoenix, Arizona after a similar posting at the consulate in El Paso, Texas.
His cover was blown by the intelligence grifters when they identified him in their correspondence as Fernando de la Mora, described by Stratfor as “being molded to be the Mexican ‘tip of the spear’ in the U.S.”
In an earlier Narco News story, Conroy revealed that “US soldiers are operating inside Mexico as part of the drug war and the Mexican government provided critical intelligence to US agents in the now-discredited Fast and Furious gun-running operation,” the Mexican diplomat claimed in email correspondence.
Those emails disclosed “details of a secret meeting between US and Mexican officials held in 2010 at Fort Bliss, a US Army installation located near El Paso, Texas. The meeting was part of an effort to create better communications between US undercover operatives in Mexico and the Mexican federal police, the Mexican diplomat reveals.”
“However,” Conroy wrote, “the diplomat expresses concern that the Fort Bliss meeting was infiltrated by the ‘cartels,’ whom he contends have ‘penetrated both US and Mexican law enforcement’.”
Such misgivings are thoroughly justified given the fact, as Antifascist Calling reported last spring, that the Mexican government had arrested three high-ranking Army generals over their links to narcotrafficking organizations.
In Conroy’s latest piece the journalist disclosed that the “Mexican diplomat’s assessment of the US and Mexican strategy in the war on drugs, as revealed by the email trail, paints a picture of a ‘simulated war’ in which the Mexican and US governments are willing to show favor to a dominant narco-trafficking organization in order to minimize the violence and business disruption in the major drug plazas, or markets.”
A “simulated war”? Where have we heard that before? Like the bogus “War on Terror” which arms and unleashes throat-slitting terrorists from the CIA’s favorite all-purpose zombie army of “Islamist extremists,” Al Qaeda, similarly, America’s fraudulent “War on Drugs” has been a splendid means of managing the global drug trade in the interest of securing geopolitical advantage over their rivals.
That major financial powerhouses in Europe and the U.S. (can you say Bank of America, Barclays, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, HSBC, ING and Wachovia) have been accused of reaping the lions’ share of profits derived from the grim trade, now a veritable Narco-Industrial Complex, the public continues to be regaled with tales that this ersatz war is being “won.”
While the Mexican body count continues to rise (nearly 120,000 dead since 2006 according to the latest estimates published by the Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía, or INEGI, as reported by the Paris daily Le Monde in a recent editorial) the United States is escalating its not-so-covert military involvement in Mexico and putting proverbial boots on the ground as part of the $1.6 billion U.S.-financed Mérida Initiative.
But have such “initiatives” (in actuality, taxpayer-funded boondoggles for giant military contractors), turned the corner in the drug war? Not if estimates published the United Nations are accurate.
According to the 2011 World Drug Report, published by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC): “US authorities have estimated for the last couple of years that some 90% of the cocaine consumed in North America comes from Colombia, supplemented by some cocaine from Peru and limited amounts from the Plurinational State of Bolivia. For the year 2009, results of the US Cocaine Signature Program, based on an analysis of approximately 3,000 cocaine HCl samples, revealed that 95.5% originated in Colombia (down from 99% in 2002) and 1.7% in Peru; for the rest (2.8%), the origin could not be determined. The trafficking of cocaine into the United States is nowadays largely controlled by various Mexican drug cartels, while until the mid-1990s, large Colombian cartels dominated these operations.”
Despite more than $8 billion lavished on programs such as Plan Colombia, and despite evidence that leading Colombian politicians, including former President Álvaro Uribe and his entourage had documented links to major drug trafficking organizations that go back decades, the myth persists that pouring money into the drug war sinkhole will somehow turn the tide.
But drug seizures by U.S. agencies only partially tell the tale.
As UNODC Executive Director Yury Fedotov pointed out in the introduction to the agency’s 2011 report, Estimating Illicit Financial Flows Resulting from Drug Trafficking and Other Transnational Crimes, “all criminal proceeds are likely to have amounted to some 3.6 per cent of GDP (2.3-5.5 per cent) or around US$2.1 trillion in 2009.”
UNODC analysts disclosed that illicit money flows related to “transnational organized crime, represent the equivalent of some 1.5 percent of global GDP, 70 percent of which would have been available for laundering through the financial system. The largest income for transnational organized crime seems to come from illicit drugs, accounting for a fifth of all crime proceeds.”
“If only flows related to drug trafficking and other transnational organized crime activities were considered,” UNODC asserted, “related proceeds would have been equivalent to around US$650 billion per year in the first decade of the new millennium, equivalent to 1.5% of global GDP or US$870 billion in 2009 assuming that the proportions remained unchanged. The funds available for laundering through the financial system would have been equivalent to some 1% of global GDP or US$580 billion in 2009.”
“The results,” according to UNODC, “also suggest that the ‘interception rate’ for anti-money-laundering efforts at the global level remains low. Globally, it appears that much less than 1% (probably around 0.2%) of the proceeds of crime laundered via the financial system are seized and frozen.”
Commenting on the nexus between global drug mafias and our capitalist overlords, former UNODC director Antonio Maria Costa told The Observer in 2009, “that the proceeds of organised crime were ‘the only liquid investment capital’ available to some banks on the brink of collapse last year. He said that a majority of the $352bn (£216bn) of drugs profits was absorbed into the economic system as a result.”
Would there be an incentive then, for U.S. officials to dismantle a global business that benefits their real constituents, the blood-sucking gangsters at the apex of the capitalist financial pyramid? Hardly.
Nor would there be any incentive for American drug warriors to target organizations that inflate the balance sheets of the big banks. Wouldn’t they be more likely then, given the enormous flows of illicit cash flooding the system, to negotiate an “arrangement” with the biggest players, particularly the Sinaloa Cartel run by fugitive billionaire Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán?
In fact, as Narco News disclosed last December, a “quid-pro-quo arrangement is precisely what indicted narco-trafficker Jesus Vicente Zambada Niebla, who is slated to stand trial in Chicago this fall, alleges was agreed to by the US government and the leaders of the Sinaloa ‘Cartel’–the dominant narco-trafficking organization in Mexico. The US government, however, denies that any such arrangement exists.”
Narco News reported that according to “Zambada Niebla, he and the rest of the Sinaloa leadership, through the US informant Loya Castro, negotiated an immunity deal with the US government in which they were guaranteed protection from prosecution in exchange for providing US law enforcers and intelligence agencies with information that could be used to compromise rival Mexican cartels and their operations.”
In court pleadings, Zambada Niebla’s attorneys argued that “the United States government considered the arrangements with the Sinaloa Cartel an acceptable price to pay, because the principal objective was the destruction and dismantling of rival cartels by using the assistance of the Sinaloa Cartel–without regard for the fact that tons of illicit drugs continued to be smuggled into Chicago and other parts of the United States and consumption continued virtually unabated.”
Those assertions seem to be borne out by emails released by WikiLeaks. Conroy disclosed: “In a Stratfor email dated April 19, 2010, MX1 lays out the Mexican government’s negotiating, or ‘signaling,’ strategy with respect to the major narco-trafficking organizations as follows:
The Mexican strategy is not to negotiate directly.
In any event, “negotiations” would take place as follows:
Assuming a non-disputed plaza [a major drug market, such as Ciudad Juarez]:
• [If] they [a big narco-trafficking group] bring [in] some drugs, transport some drugs, [and] they are discrete, they don’t bother anyone, [then] no one gets hurt;
• [And the] government turns the other way.
miércoles, 5 de septiembre de 2012
martes, 4 de septiembre de 2012
Los manejos secretos del 9/11
9/11 Attacks: Criminal Foreknowledge and Insider Trading lead directly to the CIA's Highest Ranks
CIA Executive Director "Buzzy" Krongard managed Firm that handled "Put" Options on UAL
By Michael C. Ruppert
URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=32323
Global Research Editor's note
As September approaches, we are reminded that the anniversary of the tragic events of 9/11 will soon be upon us once again. 11 years later, are we any closer to the truth about what really happened on that fateful day? For the next month until September 11, 2012, we will be posting on a daily basis important articles from our early archives pertaining to the tragic events of 9/11. The following text by Michael C. Ruppert published in October 2001 brings to the forefront the issue of foreknowledge and insider trading pertaining to airline listings on the Chicago Board Options Exchange including United Airlines and American Airlines.
Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, August 13, 2012
Han pasado 11 años desde los atentados del 9/11 en EEUU, pero en opinión de algunos estudiosos, quedan muchas zonas de sombra en torno a lo que realmente sucedió. Las conexiones con los grandes centros financieros son el objetivo analizado por Michael C. Ruppert y publicado por primera vez en 2001.
Suppressed Details of 9/11 Criminal Insider Trading lead directly into the CIA`s Highest Ranks
CIA Executive Director "Buzzy" Krongard managed Firm that handled "put" Options on UAL
by Michael C. Ruppert
FTW Publications, 9 October 2001, Centre for Research on Globalisation, globalresearch.ca, 20 October 2001
Although uniformly ignored by the mainstream U.S. media, there is abundant and clear evidence that a number of transactions in financial markets indicated specific (criminal) foreknowledge of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. That evidence also demonstrates that, in the case of at least one of these trades -- which has left a $2.5 million prize unclaimed -- the firm used to place the "put options" on United Airlines stock was, until 1998, managed by the man who is now in the number three Executive Director position at the Central Intelligence Agency. Until 1997 A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard had been Chairman of the investment bank A.B. Brown. A.B. Brown was acquired by Banker's Trust in 1997. Krongard then became, as part of the merger, Vice Chairman of Banker's Trust-AB Brown, one of 20 major U.S. banks named by Senator Carl Levin this year as being connected to money laundering. Krongard's last position at Banker's Trust (BT) was to oversee "private client relations." In this capacity he had direct hands-on relations with some of the wealthiest people in the world in a kind of specialized banking operation that has been identified by the U.S. Senate and other investigators as being closely connected to the laundering of drug money.
Krongard (re?) joined the CIA in 1998 as counsel to CIA Director George Tenet. He was promoted to CIA Executive Director by President Bush in March of this year. BT was acquired by Deutsche Bank in 1999. The combined firm is the single largest bank in Europe. And, as we shall see, Deutsche Bank played several key roles in events connected to the September 11 attacks.
The Scope of Known Insider Trading
Before looking further into these relationships it is necessary to look at the insider trading information that is being ignored by Reuters, The New York Times and other mass media. It is well documented that the CIA has long monitored such trades - in real time - as potential warnings of terrorist attacks and other economic moves contrary to U.S. interests. Previous stories in FTW have specifically highlighted the use of Promis software to monitor such trades.
It is necessary to understand only two key financial terms to understand the significance of these trades. "Selling Short" is the borrowing of stock, selling it at current market prices, but not being required to actually produce the stock for some time. If the stock falls precipitously after the short contract is entered, the seller can then fulfill the contract by buying the stock after the price has fallen and complete the contract at the pre-crash price. These contracts often have a window of as long as four months. "Put Options," purchased at nominal prices of, for example, $1.00 per share, are sold in blocks of 100 shares. If exercised, they give the holder the option of selling selected stocks at a future date at a price set when the contract is issued. Thus, for an investment of $10,000 it might be possible to tie up 10,000 shares of United or American Airlines at $100 per share, and the seller of the option is then obligated to buy them if the option is executed. If the stock has fallen to $50 when the contract matures, the holder of the option can purchase the shares for $50 and immediately sell them for $100 - regardless of where the market then stands.
A "call option" is the reverse of a put option, which is, in effect, a derivatives bet that the stock price will go up.
A September 21 story by the Israeli Herzliyya International Policy Institute for Counterterrorism, entitled "Black Tuesday: The World's Largest Insider Trading Scam?" documented the following trades connected to the September 11 attacks:
Between September 6 and 7, the Chicago Board Options Exchange saw purchases of 4,744 put options on United Airlines, but only 396 call options... Assuming that 4,000 of the options were bought by people with advance knowledge of the imminent attacks, these "insiders" would have profited by almost $5 million.
On September 10, 4,516 put options on American Airlines were bought on the Chicago exchange, compared to only 748 calls. Again, there was no news at that point to justify this imbalance;... Again, assuming that 4,000 of these options trades represent "insiders," they would represent a gain of about $4 million. [The levels of put options purchased above were more than six times higher than normal.]
No similar trading in other airlines occurred on the Chicago exchange in the days immediately preceding Black Tuesday.
Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co., which occupied 22 floors of the World Trade Center, saw 2,157 of its October $45 put options bought in the three trading days before Black Tuesday; this compares to an average of 27 contracts per day before September 6. Morgan Stanley's share price fell from $48.90 to $42.50 in the aftermath of the attacks. Assuming that 2,000 of these options contracts were bought based upon knowledge of the approaching attacks, their purchasers could have profited by at least $1.2 million.
Merrill Lynch & Co., which occupied 22 floors of the World Trade Center, saw 12,215 October $45 put options bought in the four trading days before the attacks; the previous average volume in those shares had been 252 contracts per day [a 1200% increase!]. When trading resumed, Merrill's shares fell from $46.88 to $41.50; assuming that 11,000 option contracts were bought by "insiders," their profit would have been about $5.5 million.
European regulators are examining trades in Germany's Munich Re, Switzerland's Swiss Re, and AXA of France, all major reinsurers with exposure to the Black Tuesday disaster. [FTW Note: AXA also owns more than 25% of American Airlines stock making the attacks a "double whammy" for them.]
On September 29, 2001 - in a vital story that has gone unnoticed by the major media - the San Francisco Chronicle reported, "Investors have yet to collect more than $2.5 million in profits they made trading options in the stock of United Airlines before the Sept. 11, terrorist attacks, according to a source familiar with the trades and market data.
"The uncollected money raises suspicions that the investors - whose identities and nationalities have not been made public - had advance knowledge of the strikes." They don't dare show up now. The suspension of trading for four days after the attacks made it impossible to cash-out quickly and claim the prize before investigators started looking.
"... October series options for UAL Corp. were purchased in highly unusual volumes three trading days before the terrorist attacks for a total outlay of $2,070; investors bought the option contracts, each representing 100 shares, for 90 cents each. [This represents 230,000 shares]. Those options are now selling at more than $12 each. There are still 2,313 so-called "put" options outstanding [valued at $2.77 million and representing 231,300 shares] according to the Options Clearinghouse Corp."
"...The source familiar with the United trades identified Deutsche Bank Alex. Brown, the American investment banking arm of German giant Deutsche Bank, as the investment bank used to purchase at least some of these options..."
As reported in other news stories, Deutsche Bank was also the hub of insider trading activity connected to Munich Re. just before the attacks.
CIA, the Banks and the Brokers
Understanding the interrelationships between CIA and the banking and brokerage world is critical to grasping the already frightening implications of the above revelations. Let's look at the history of CIA, Wall Street and the big banks by looking at some of the key players in CIA's history. Clark Clifford - The National Security Act of 1947 was written by Clark Clifford, a Democratic Party powerhouse, former Secretary of Defense, and one-time advisor to President Harry Truman. In the 1980s, as Chairman of First American Bancshares, Clifford was instrumental in getting the corrupt CIA drug bank BCCI a license to operate on American shores. His profession: Wall Street lawyer and banker.
John Foster and Allen Dulles - These two brothers "designed" the CIA for Clifford. Both were active in intelligence operations during WW II. Allen Dulles was the U.S. Ambassador to Switzerland where he met frequently with Nazi leaders and looked after U.S. investments in Germany. John Foster went on to become Secretary of State under Dwight Eisenhower and Allen went on to serve as CIA Director under Eisenhower and was later fired by JFK. Their professions: partners in the most powerful - to this day - Wall Street law firm of Sullivan, Cromwell.
CIA Executive Director "Buzzy" Krongard managed Firm that handled "Put" Options on UAL
By Michael C. Ruppert
URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=32323
Global Research Editor's note
As September approaches, we are reminded that the anniversary of the tragic events of 9/11 will soon be upon us once again. 11 years later, are we any closer to the truth about what really happened on that fateful day? For the next month until September 11, 2012, we will be posting on a daily basis important articles from our early archives pertaining to the tragic events of 9/11. The following text by Michael C. Ruppert published in October 2001 brings to the forefront the issue of foreknowledge and insider trading pertaining to airline listings on the Chicago Board Options Exchange including United Airlines and American Airlines.
Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, August 13, 2012
Han pasado 11 años desde los atentados del 9/11 en EEUU, pero en opinión de algunos estudiosos, quedan muchas zonas de sombra en torno a lo que realmente sucedió. Las conexiones con los grandes centros financieros son el objetivo analizado por Michael C. Ruppert y publicado por primera vez en 2001.
Suppressed Details of 9/11 Criminal Insider Trading lead directly into the CIA`s Highest Ranks
CIA Executive Director "Buzzy" Krongard managed Firm that handled "put" Options on UAL
by Michael C. Ruppert
FTW Publications, 9 October 2001, Centre for Research on Globalisation, globalresearch.ca, 20 October 2001
Krongard (re?) joined the CIA in 1998 as counsel to CIA Director George Tenet. He was promoted to CIA Executive Director by President Bush in March of this year. BT was acquired by Deutsche Bank in 1999. The combined firm is the single largest bank in Europe. And, as we shall see, Deutsche Bank played several key roles in events connected to the September 11 attacks.
The Scope of Known Insider Trading
Before looking further into these relationships it is necessary to look at the insider trading information that is being ignored by Reuters, The New York Times and other mass media. It is well documented that the CIA has long monitored such trades - in real time - as potential warnings of terrorist attacks and other economic moves contrary to U.S. interests. Previous stories in FTW have specifically highlighted the use of Promis software to monitor such trades.
It is necessary to understand only two key financial terms to understand the significance of these trades. "Selling Short" is the borrowing of stock, selling it at current market prices, but not being required to actually produce the stock for some time. If the stock falls precipitously after the short contract is entered, the seller can then fulfill the contract by buying the stock after the price has fallen and complete the contract at the pre-crash price. These contracts often have a window of as long as four months. "Put Options," purchased at nominal prices of, for example, $1.00 per share, are sold in blocks of 100 shares. If exercised, they give the holder the option of selling selected stocks at a future date at a price set when the contract is issued. Thus, for an investment of $10,000 it might be possible to tie up 10,000 shares of United or American Airlines at $100 per share, and the seller of the option is then obligated to buy them if the option is executed. If the stock has fallen to $50 when the contract matures, the holder of the option can purchase the shares for $50 and immediately sell them for $100 - regardless of where the market then stands.
A "call option" is the reverse of a put option, which is, in effect, a derivatives bet that the stock price will go up.
A September 21 story by the Israeli Herzliyya International Policy Institute for Counterterrorism, entitled "Black Tuesday: The World's Largest Insider Trading Scam?" documented the following trades connected to the September 11 attacks:
Between September 6 and 7, the Chicago Board Options Exchange saw purchases of 4,744 put options on United Airlines, but only 396 call options... Assuming that 4,000 of the options were bought by people with advance knowledge of the imminent attacks, these "insiders" would have profited by almost $5 million.
On September 10, 4,516 put options on American Airlines were bought on the Chicago exchange, compared to only 748 calls. Again, there was no news at that point to justify this imbalance;... Again, assuming that 4,000 of these options trades represent "insiders," they would represent a gain of about $4 million. [The levels of put options purchased above were more than six times higher than normal.]
No similar trading in other airlines occurred on the Chicago exchange in the days immediately preceding Black Tuesday.
Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co., which occupied 22 floors of the World Trade Center, saw 2,157 of its October $45 put options bought in the three trading days before Black Tuesday; this compares to an average of 27 contracts per day before September 6. Morgan Stanley's share price fell from $48.90 to $42.50 in the aftermath of the attacks. Assuming that 2,000 of these options contracts were bought based upon knowledge of the approaching attacks, their purchasers could have profited by at least $1.2 million.
Merrill Lynch & Co., which occupied 22 floors of the World Trade Center, saw 12,215 October $45 put options bought in the four trading days before the attacks; the previous average volume in those shares had been 252 contracts per day [a 1200% increase!]. When trading resumed, Merrill's shares fell from $46.88 to $41.50; assuming that 11,000 option contracts were bought by "insiders," their profit would have been about $5.5 million.
European regulators are examining trades in Germany's Munich Re, Switzerland's Swiss Re, and AXA of France, all major reinsurers with exposure to the Black Tuesday disaster. [FTW Note: AXA also owns more than 25% of American Airlines stock making the attacks a "double whammy" for them.]
On September 29, 2001 - in a vital story that has gone unnoticed by the major media - the San Francisco Chronicle reported, "Investors have yet to collect more than $2.5 million in profits they made trading options in the stock of United Airlines before the Sept. 11, terrorist attacks, according to a source familiar with the trades and market data.
"The uncollected money raises suspicions that the investors - whose identities and nationalities have not been made public - had advance knowledge of the strikes." They don't dare show up now. The suspension of trading for four days after the attacks made it impossible to cash-out quickly and claim the prize before investigators started looking.
"... October series options for UAL Corp. were purchased in highly unusual volumes three trading days before the terrorist attacks for a total outlay of $2,070; investors bought the option contracts, each representing 100 shares, for 90 cents each. [This represents 230,000 shares]. Those options are now selling at more than $12 each. There are still 2,313 so-called "put" options outstanding [valued at $2.77 million and representing 231,300 shares] according to the Options Clearinghouse Corp."
"...The source familiar with the United trades identified Deutsche Bank Alex. Brown, the American investment banking arm of German giant Deutsche Bank, as the investment bank used to purchase at least some of these options..."
As reported in other news stories, Deutsche Bank was also the hub of insider trading activity connected to Munich Re. just before the attacks.
CIA, the Banks and the Brokers
Understanding the interrelationships between CIA and the banking and brokerage world is critical to grasping the already frightening implications of the above revelations. Let's look at the history of CIA, Wall Street and the big banks by looking at some of the key players in CIA's history. Clark Clifford - The National Security Act of 1947 was written by Clark Clifford, a Democratic Party powerhouse, former Secretary of Defense, and one-time advisor to President Harry Truman. In the 1980s, as Chairman of First American Bancshares, Clifford was instrumental in getting the corrupt CIA drug bank BCCI a license to operate on American shores. His profession: Wall Street lawyer and banker.
John Foster and Allen Dulles - These two brothers "designed" the CIA for Clifford. Both were active in intelligence operations during WW II. Allen Dulles was the U.S. Ambassador to Switzerland where he met frequently with Nazi leaders and looked after U.S. investments in Germany. John Foster went on to become Secretary of State under Dwight Eisenhower and Allen went on to serve as CIA Director under Eisenhower and was later fired by JFK. Their professions: partners in the most powerful - to this day - Wall Street law firm of Sullivan, Cromwell.
viernes, 31 de agosto de 2012
El Harry (no Potter) enseña trasero.
 |
| Buero, como ya el mundo entero le ha visto el muy triste culo, blanquecino y fofo, al niñato real menor de UK, les ahorro ese mal rato del peor gusto y aquí lo exhibo, tachan, tachan, disfrazado de soldadito valiente. No de nazi por el momento. Si lo mandan a Afganistán se iba a enterar el tío de lo que vale un peine. Pero no, God bless the Queen, que lo del capitancito es la juerga no la guerra. (Fotos de "El País). |
El rey se enfada mucho.
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| Amigas y amigos, cualquiera se coje un buen cabreo, es decir enfado o disgusto, por vaya usted a saber qué causa. Eso fue lo que le sucedió ayer al Jefe del Estado español, don Juan Carlos I. Y resultó hasta gracioso ver a su Majestad abroncando al chófer, sufrido y seguro que impecable servidor suyo, debido a que no aparcaba en el lugar exacto que la real y soberana persona deseaba. No se sabe muy bien el motivo de su destemplanza. Puede que tuviera que ver con la prolongada, sonora y bullanguera pitada que le estaban dedicando en ese momento un grupo de funcionarios para hacer constar su disgusto con los recortes de su paga de Navidad. Os aclaro que por funcionarios se entiende en España profesionales como los bomberos, los miembros de la policía, los maestros con plaza fija obtenidas en duras oposiciones. Que quieren que les diga. En España estamos atravesando por una etapa muy dura. Y la verdad me pregunto dónde están los esos empresarios innovadores. Los que arriesgan para crear riqueza. No veo sus patentes de alta tecnología, sus actividades en el exterior. Hay banqueros chapuceros. Hay especuladores de tres al cuarto. Hay latifundistas de corte feudal. No tenemos un Bill Gates. Los parados de larga duración vienen a ser algo así como yogures caducados. Y encima se los tilada de vagos y chupones de papá estado. Majestad, con el debido respeto, preste atención a lo que dice la gente de la calle y deje que su chófer aparque allí donde le parezca mejor. Usted está para conducir a buen puerto cosas más difíciles e importantes. ¿O no?. |
miércoles, 29 de agosto de 2012
Ruth y José Bretón, inocentes perdidos
Hoy voy a contarles a las/ los amigos de fuera de España un triste suceso que tiene conmovido al país y frente al que olvidamos las vicisitudes (y hasta miserias) cotidianas.
Hace ahora 11 meses desaparecieron dos niños llamados Ruth y José Bretón. Su madre, casada con el padre de las criaturas, denunció al hombre por presuntos maltratos psíquicos. La mujer, corajuda y valiente, deseaba separarse de su torturador.
Pero entonces ocurrió algo inesperado: los niños salieron con el padre para no regresar nunca. Y allí comenzó el calvario de la mujer y las búsquedas incansables de la policía. El juez que llevaba (que lleva el caso), con muy buen juicio y templada actuación, dictó prisión preventiva para José Bretón. Un hombre frío que según Serafín Castro, el policía que dirige las diligencias, junto con un amplio equipo multidisciplinar, a veces parece tomarse las cosas hasta con cierto humor. Frío, calculador y sarcástico.
La policía practicó un minucioso registro y búsqueda en la ya tristemente célebre finca de la familia Bretón "Las Quemadillas". Allí encontraron restos de una hogera en la que aparecieron pequeños huesos medio calcinados. El primer análisis antropológico forense, descartó que pertenecieran a los pequeños. Podían ser restos animales. Pero otros exámenes practicados por el antropólogo vasco Dr. Echeverría, de la Universidad del País Vasco, que se brindó a ayudar a la desesperada mujer, han arrojado un resultado muy diferente: resulta que los huesos son humanos y de los niños. Coincide su tamaño y estructura con la edad de los pequeños. Las piezas dentarias son humanas. Posiblemente de la niña.
El Ministro de Interior español enseguida compareció para asegurar que se harían todas las investigaciones científicas pertinentes. Quizás se pueda extraer ADN de las piezas dentales y dar jaque mate al asunto.
Los investigadores españoles, los laboratorios de la Policía Científica, no tienen nada que envidiar a otros de países que presumen de alta tecnología. Pero a veces ocurren errores científicos. Con material óseo sometido a altas temperaturas cabe un dictámen erróneo.
Si he dedicado mi post a tan doloroso asunto es para animar a las mujeres (donde quiere que estén) sometidas a cualquier forma de maltrato a que denuncien o en su defecto que se alejen de su maltratador, aunque reconozco que según que países eso puede costarles hasta la vida.
La madre de Ruth y José es una Madre Coraje. .
Del sujeto, presundo criminal de sus pequeños hijos, prefiero no hablar. Para eso tenemos la justicia.
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| Ruth y José in memoriam. |
Hace ahora 11 meses desaparecieron dos niños llamados Ruth y José Bretón. Su madre, casada con el padre de las criaturas, denunció al hombre por presuntos maltratos psíquicos. La mujer, corajuda y valiente, deseaba separarse de su torturador.
Pero entonces ocurrió algo inesperado: los niños salieron con el padre para no regresar nunca. Y allí comenzó el calvario de la mujer y las búsquedas incansables de la policía. El juez que llevaba (que lleva el caso), con muy buen juicio y templada actuación, dictó prisión preventiva para José Bretón. Un hombre frío que según Serafín Castro, el policía que dirige las diligencias, junto con un amplio equipo multidisciplinar, a veces parece tomarse las cosas hasta con cierto humor. Frío, calculador y sarcástico.
La policía practicó un minucioso registro y búsqueda en la ya tristemente célebre finca de la familia Bretón "Las Quemadillas". Allí encontraron restos de una hogera en la que aparecieron pequeños huesos medio calcinados. El primer análisis antropológico forense, descartó que pertenecieran a los pequeños. Podían ser restos animales. Pero otros exámenes practicados por el antropólogo vasco Dr. Echeverría, de la Universidad del País Vasco, que se brindó a ayudar a la desesperada mujer, han arrojado un resultado muy diferente: resulta que los huesos son humanos y de los niños. Coincide su tamaño y estructura con la edad de los pequeños. Las piezas dentarias son humanas. Posiblemente de la niña.
El Ministro de Interior español enseguida compareció para asegurar que se harían todas las investigaciones científicas pertinentes. Quizás se pueda extraer ADN de las piezas dentales y dar jaque mate al asunto.
Los investigadores españoles, los laboratorios de la Policía Científica, no tienen nada que envidiar a otros de países que presumen de alta tecnología. Pero a veces ocurren errores científicos. Con material óseo sometido a altas temperaturas cabe un dictámen erróneo.
Si he dedicado mi post a tan doloroso asunto es para animar a las mujeres (donde quiere que estén) sometidas a cualquier forma de maltrato a que denuncien o en su defecto que se alejen de su maltratador, aunque reconozco que según que países eso puede costarles hasta la vida.
La madre de Ruth y José es una Madre Coraje. .
Del sujeto, presundo criminal de sus pequeños hijos, prefiero no hablar. Para eso tenemos la justicia.
La psiquiatría como arma arrojadiza
Are people being thrown into psychiatric wards for their political views?
by Washington's Blog
URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=32450
Mental Health Diagnoses are Sometimes Politically-Motivated
La psiquiatría es una respetable especialidad médica encaminada al estudio y tratamiento de las enfermedades del sistema nervioso central, o como se dice a aquellas dolencias denominadas "mentales". De momento carece de los recursos de otras disciplinas clínicas ya que el conocimiento del cerebro, y las técnicas para su estudio "in vivo", están en pañales. Aún así, la psiquiatría ha sido empleada con fines muy lejanos de los que estipulan los juramentos hìpocráticos. Cuando la psiquiatría se usa como arma arrojadiza contra las libertades de los ciudadanos se pueden llegar a cometer verdaderas atrocidades. Ya ha ocurrido: lo hicieron el fascismo de Hitler y el estalinismo soviético. Falta por ver si los gobiernos que se dicen democráticos sucumben, en su lucha actual contra el terrorismo, al empleo de un arma sucia y peligrosa. Aquí se expone lo que tiene que decir al respecto un blog que puede consultarse en la URL señalada.
Many psychologists and psychiatrists are good people, who are only trying to help their patients.
But the Nazi government substantially supported psychologists ... many of whom, in turn, espoused extermination of the people they considered to be “racially and cognitively compromised”.
Soviet psychiatrists famously aided Stalin in applying fake insanity diagnoses to political dissenters. The official explanation was that no sane person would declaim the Soviet government and Communism.
American psychologists created the American program of torture which was specially-crafted to produce false confessions to justify U.S. military policy. And see this. And authoritarian American psychologists are eager to label anyone “taking a cynical stance toward politics, mistrusting authority, endorsing democratic practices, ... and displaying an inquisitive, imaginative outlook” as worthy of a trip to the insane asylum. (Those traits may also get one labeled as a potential terrorist.)
As prominent forensic psychiatrist James Knoll – psychiatry professor at SUNY-Syracuse and director of a forensic fellowship program – writes in the Psychiatric Times: When psychiatric science becomes co-opted by a political agenda, an unhealthy alliance may be created. It is science that will always be the host organism, to be taken over by political viruses.... [P]sychiatry may come to resemble a new organism entirely — one that serves the ends of the criminal justice system. Even psychologists with good intentions can erroneously label people delusional simply because they themselves make bad assumptions.
There is even a label for this – the “Martha Mitchell Effect” – defined as: The process by which a psychiatrist, psychologist, or other mental health clinician mistakes the patient’s perception of real events as delusional and misdiagnoses accordingly. The authors of a paper on this phenomenon (Bell, V., Halligan, P.W., Ellis, H.D. (2003) Beliefs About Delusions. The Psychologist, 6 (8), 418-422) conclude: Sometimes, improbable reports are erroneously assumed to be symptoms of mental illness [due to a] failure or inability to verify whether the events have actually taken place, no matter how improbable intuitively they might appear to the busy clinician.
In other words, psychologists who haven’t taken the time to examine for themselves the claims of their patients will tend to label as delusional anything which they “intuitively” feel is improbable. As such, psychologists and psychiatrists are just as prone to acting out their irrational prejudices as anyone else ... unless they take the time to investigate and educate themselves.
Governments Indefinitely Detaining Citizens In Psychiatric Wards Without Due Process of Law. As such, detention in psych wards on mere “suspicion” of posing a danger – without due process of law – is troubling.
For example, former marine Brandon Raub was just carted off and locked in a psychiatric ward for his allegedly “anti-government” Facebook posts.
AP reports today:
Police – acting under a state law that allows emergency, temporary psychiatric commitments upon the recommendation of a mental health professional – took Raub to the John Randolph Medical Center in Hopewell. He was not charged with any crime. Col. Thierry Dupuis, the county police chief, said Raub was taken into custody upon the recommendation of mental health crisis intervention workers. He said the action was taken under the state’s emergency custody statute, which allows a magistrate to order the civil detention and psychiatric evaluation of a person who is considered potentially dangerous.
New York Police officer Adrian Schoolcraft was involuntarily hospitalizated in a psychiatric ward after he recorded videotapes of his fellow police officers engaging in corruption. Claire Swinney of New Zealand was also held in a psychiatric ward and called “delusional” for criticizing the government. Susan Lindauer was held under the Patriot Act for a year at Carswell Air Force Base – where psychiatric drugs were pushed on her – after she alleged government corruption.
The Daily Mail notes: The [British] Government has established a shadowy new national anti-terrorist unit to protect VIPs, with the power to detain suspects indefinitely using mental health arguments.The team’s psychiatrists and psychologists then have the power to order treatment – including forcibly detaining suspects in secure psychiatric units.
Using these powers, the unit can legally detain people for an indefinite period without trial, criminal charges or even evidence of a crime being committed and with very limited rights of appeal.
Until now it has been the exclusive decision of doctors and mental health professionals to determine if someone should be forcibly detained. But the new unit uses the police to identify suspects – increasing fears the line is being blurred between criminal investigation and doctors’ clinical decisions.
Scotland Yard, which runs the shadowy unit, refuses to discuss how many suspects have been forcibly hospitalised by the team because of “patient confidentiality”.
The purpose of the centre is “to evaluate and manage the risk posed to prominent people by...those who engage in inappropriate or threatening communications or behaviours in the context of abnormally intense preoccupations, many [Many? That means that some are not] of which arise from psychotic illness.”
Who gets to decide what “inappropriate” or “threatening” means? What if a whistleblower has information that a member of parliament has engaged in bribes? Would trying to reveal such information constitute “inappropriate or threatening communications or behaviours” in the context of “abnormally intense preoccupations” with that MP’s illegal actions?
Indeed, a study published in the International Journal of Law and Psychiatry found a high rate of false positives in the British identification of dangerous persons.
The Mail continues: So-called ‘sectioning’ allows a patient to be held for up to six months before a further psychological assessment. Patients are then reviewed every year to determine if they can be released.
Human rights activists fear the team, whose existence has never been publicised, may be being used as a way to detain suspected terrorists without having to put evidence before the courts. Last night human rights group Liberty said the secret unit represented a new threat to civil liberties.
Policy director Gareth Crossman said: “There is a grave danger of this being used to deal with people where there is insufficient evidence for a criminal prosecution.“This blurs the line between medical decisions and police actions. If you are going to allow doctors to take people’s liberty away, they have to be independent. That credibility is undermined when the doctors are part of the same team as the police.“This raises serious concerns. First that you have a unit that allows police investigation to lead directly to people being sectioned without any kind of criminal proceedings.“Secondly, it is being done under the umbrella of anti-terrorism at a time when the Government is looking at ways to detain terrorists without putting them on trial.”(Leer el resto en la URL correspondiente).
by Washington's Blog
URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=32450
Mental Health Diagnoses are Sometimes Politically-Motivated
La psiquiatría es una respetable especialidad médica encaminada al estudio y tratamiento de las enfermedades del sistema nervioso central, o como se dice a aquellas dolencias denominadas "mentales". De momento carece de los recursos de otras disciplinas clínicas ya que el conocimiento del cerebro, y las técnicas para su estudio "in vivo", están en pañales. Aún así, la psiquiatría ha sido empleada con fines muy lejanos de los que estipulan los juramentos hìpocráticos. Cuando la psiquiatría se usa como arma arrojadiza contra las libertades de los ciudadanos se pueden llegar a cometer verdaderas atrocidades. Ya ha ocurrido: lo hicieron el fascismo de Hitler y el estalinismo soviético. Falta por ver si los gobiernos que se dicen democráticos sucumben, en su lucha actual contra el terrorismo, al empleo de un arma sucia y peligrosa. Aquí se expone lo que tiene que decir al respecto un blog que puede consultarse en la URL señalada.
Many psychologists and psychiatrists are good people, who are only trying to help their patients.
But the Nazi government substantially supported psychologists ... many of whom, in turn, espoused extermination of the people they considered to be “racially and cognitively compromised”.
Soviet psychiatrists famously aided Stalin in applying fake insanity diagnoses to political dissenters. The official explanation was that no sane person would declaim the Soviet government and Communism.
American psychologists created the American program of torture which was specially-crafted to produce false confessions to justify U.S. military policy. And see this. And authoritarian American psychologists are eager to label anyone “taking a cynical stance toward politics, mistrusting authority, endorsing democratic practices, ... and displaying an inquisitive, imaginative outlook” as worthy of a trip to the insane asylum. (Those traits may also get one labeled as a potential terrorist.)
As prominent forensic psychiatrist James Knoll – psychiatry professor at SUNY-Syracuse and director of a forensic fellowship program – writes in the Psychiatric Times: When psychiatric science becomes co-opted by a political agenda, an unhealthy alliance may be created. It is science that will always be the host organism, to be taken over by political viruses.... [P]sychiatry may come to resemble a new organism entirely — one that serves the ends of the criminal justice system. Even psychologists with good intentions can erroneously label people delusional simply because they themselves make bad assumptions.
There is even a label for this – the “Martha Mitchell Effect” – defined as: The process by which a psychiatrist, psychologist, or other mental health clinician mistakes the patient’s perception of real events as delusional and misdiagnoses accordingly. The authors of a paper on this phenomenon (Bell, V., Halligan, P.W., Ellis, H.D. (2003) Beliefs About Delusions. The Psychologist, 6 (8), 418-422) conclude: Sometimes, improbable reports are erroneously assumed to be symptoms of mental illness [due to a] failure or inability to verify whether the events have actually taken place, no matter how improbable intuitively they might appear to the busy clinician.
In other words, psychologists who haven’t taken the time to examine for themselves the claims of their patients will tend to label as delusional anything which they “intuitively” feel is improbable. As such, psychologists and psychiatrists are just as prone to acting out their irrational prejudices as anyone else ... unless they take the time to investigate and educate themselves.
Governments Indefinitely Detaining Citizens In Psychiatric Wards Without Due Process of Law. As such, detention in psych wards on mere “suspicion” of posing a danger – without due process of law – is troubling.
For example, former marine Brandon Raub was just carted off and locked in a psychiatric ward for his allegedly “anti-government” Facebook posts.
AP reports today:
Police – acting under a state law that allows emergency, temporary psychiatric commitments upon the recommendation of a mental health professional – took Raub to the John Randolph Medical Center in Hopewell. He was not charged with any crime. Col. Thierry Dupuis, the county police chief, said Raub was taken into custody upon the recommendation of mental health crisis intervention workers. He said the action was taken under the state’s emergency custody statute, which allows a magistrate to order the civil detention and psychiatric evaluation of a person who is considered potentially dangerous.
New York Police officer Adrian Schoolcraft was involuntarily hospitalizated in a psychiatric ward after he recorded videotapes of his fellow police officers engaging in corruption. Claire Swinney of New Zealand was also held in a psychiatric ward and called “delusional” for criticizing the government. Susan Lindauer was held under the Patriot Act for a year at Carswell Air Force Base – where psychiatric drugs were pushed on her – after she alleged government corruption.
The Daily Mail notes: The [British] Government has established a shadowy new national anti-terrorist unit to protect VIPs, with the power to detain suspects indefinitely using mental health arguments.The team’s psychiatrists and psychologists then have the power to order treatment – including forcibly detaining suspects in secure psychiatric units.
Using these powers, the unit can legally detain people for an indefinite period without trial, criminal charges or even evidence of a crime being committed and with very limited rights of appeal.
Until now it has been the exclusive decision of doctors and mental health professionals to determine if someone should be forcibly detained. But the new unit uses the police to identify suspects – increasing fears the line is being blurred between criminal investigation and doctors’ clinical decisions.
Scotland Yard, which runs the shadowy unit, refuses to discuss how many suspects have been forcibly hospitalised by the team because of “patient confidentiality”.
The purpose of the centre is “to evaluate and manage the risk posed to prominent people by...those who engage in inappropriate or threatening communications or behaviours in the context of abnormally intense preoccupations, many [Many? That means that some are not] of which arise from psychotic illness.”
Who gets to decide what “inappropriate” or “threatening” means? What if a whistleblower has information that a member of parliament has engaged in bribes? Would trying to reveal such information constitute “inappropriate or threatening communications or behaviours” in the context of “abnormally intense preoccupations” with that MP’s illegal actions?
Indeed, a study published in the International Journal of Law and Psychiatry found a high rate of false positives in the British identification of dangerous persons.
The Mail continues: So-called ‘sectioning’ allows a patient to be held for up to six months before a further psychological assessment. Patients are then reviewed every year to determine if they can be released.
Human rights activists fear the team, whose existence has never been publicised, may be being used as a way to detain suspected terrorists without having to put evidence before the courts. Last night human rights group Liberty said the secret unit represented a new threat to civil liberties.
Policy director Gareth Crossman said: “There is a grave danger of this being used to deal with people where there is insufficient evidence for a criminal prosecution.“This blurs the line between medical decisions and police actions. If you are going to allow doctors to take people’s liberty away, they have to be independent. That credibility is undermined when the doctors are part of the same team as the police.“This raises serious concerns. First that you have a unit that allows police investigation to lead directly to people being sectioned without any kind of criminal proceedings.“Secondly, it is being done under the umbrella of anti-terrorism at a time when the Government is looking at ways to detain terrorists without putting them on trial.”(Leer el resto en la URL correspondiente).
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| Libro antiguo de anatomía: encéfalo y neurona. |
lunes, 27 de agosto de 2012
México lindo y querido
Estoy muy contenta y hasta un poco orgullosa, de las visitas desde México. Invito a las amigas y amigos del planeta azteca que participen. Estaría muy bien algúna colaboradora desde allí. Quedo con vosotros hasta pronto.
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