If pharmacies and poorly stocked and supplies and medication are rationed minimally, how can any medical journal describe socialized medicine a success? As Obama continues to push the racial and class warfare scorecard in order to achieve an absolute dominance and hegemony over our nation's political and economic infrastructure, the same trend is again occurring as Obamacare continues to ravage the general public's capacity to afford any health insurance:
Mr. Obama not only has lied, but he in fact is achieving what has occurred in Cuba. He intends to grow his supporters in entertainment who produce dramatized accounts of his political agenda's propaganda. Under communism in Cuba, which the Castro regime has adopted a dual system of economics, the wealthy who support him are lavished with rewards while the remained of his proletariat comrades grow more impoverished, to the tune again of less than $1,000 per capita according to the World Bank rather than the state figures as high as $5,000. With medicine not free in Cuba and unaffordable for the masses which continue to grow poorer, the goal of the president it to enact an unprecedented trend as this under a national spoils system whereby those who donate to his campaigns or the Democratic Party in general will be richly reward with entertainment's continually growing tax breaks, subsidies and the same to be said with loopholes always being added for the wealthy. He promised not to add taxes to the bottom 2% of wage earners and, in fact, cut them for the very poorest, and did the opposite for all by hiking rates at by higher percentages for the poor and middle income wage earners than for the poor. The poor will not be able to afford the Obamacare insurance premiums, doctor visit co-pays, nor will the middle class, and they will face exorbitant confiscatory penalties in the form of more taxes. The wealthy and politicians in Washington despite GOP opposition will be exempt from the law in one manner of speaking or the other.
Inequities more damningly exist in the actual medical profession, as the education for many do not meet the same higher standards of others who attained better universities for their educational training:
Inequality exists also in the training of Cuba’s health professionals. The internationally acclaimed Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM) in Havana is one of the finest medical education institutes in the world. It provides a completely free education to students are sent from all over the world to train in medicine, however it is only available to international students. 6 Despite such an opportunity being deprived of potential Cuban health professionals this has not stopped a continued rise in the number of health professionals Cuba is able to produce. The current national health system has 70,594 physicians, 10,554 dentists and 25,022 with degrees in nursing amongst other health sector groups. 17 However, on graduation and completion of their training, students are under legal obligation to initially work for the Cuban government. Thus wherever the government decides they are to be sent- to a local polyclinic or abroad- they have no choice in the matter. 16 As a result many doctors end up defecting, due to the poor pay, conditions, and treatment in the developing countries to which they are sent. As for work in Cuba itself, the conditions (as previously outlined) and pay are often not much better. On average Cuban doctors are paid $15 a month of which is barely enough to support them. 12 This is a poor return for the restricted professional freedom of a Cuban doctor:
“Cuban doctors are not permitted to talk to foreign journalists or diplomats. They must seek permission to travel outside of their assigned municipalities, and doctors who have defected say Cuban and Venezuelan intelligence operatives kept close tabs on their whereabouts.” 24
In spite of this aspect the Cuban medical education is unique to any other in the world. Due to the emphasis on community integration in the primary healthcare sector, medical students are educated in a very holistic manner, learning about local cultures, indigenous medicines and effective community relations in practical conditions. This produces not just a professional adequate for providing healthcare but also a well rounded, valuable member of the local community.
Cuba’s Medical Diplomacy
Medical diplomacy, another key branch of the Cuban health care strategy, has not only improved Cuba’s relationship with other international governments but has also helped improve the health of millions of people. In 2005 Cuba was collaborating with 68 different countries15 and also accepting international medical students into Cuban education (as previously mentioned). For Cuban doctors being sent abroad, many to the US, they have the opportunity to seek a better life. Many people escape Cuba every year for this very reason and for doctors sent to places such as the US this gives them a much better chance of seeking a visa to stay than if they had entered the county as escapees like many of Miami’s Cuban residents. 25 However, considering Cuban doctors and health professionals back in Cuba, due to the vast numbers being sent abroad in the name of medical diplomacy, a doctor shortage might result in the future -- putting more pressure on those left to work in Cuban hospitals, clinics and polyclinics. 5
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Let us recap the following figures for Cuba's inequities in medical education in comparison to our nation:
Despite such an opportunity being deprived of potential Cuban health professionals this has not stopped a continued rise in the number of health professionals Cuba is able to produce. The current national health system has 70,594 physicians, 10,554 dentists and 25,022 with degrees in nursing amongst other health sector groups. 17 However, on graduation and completion of their training, students are under legal obligation to initially work for the Cuban government. Thus wherever the government decides they are to be sent- to a local polyclinic or abroad- they have no choice in the matter. 16 As a result many doctors end up defecting, due to the poor pay, conditions, and treatment in the developing countries to which they are sent. As for work in Cuba itself, the conditions (as previously outlined) and pay are often not much better. On average Cuban doctors are paid $15 a month of which is barely enough to support them. 12
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This is yet another trend growing under Obamacare's destruction of our national medical profession. The administration has forced the hands of medical professionals to engage in providing care for all who enter the offices, but as the market for health care grows and patients enter hospital emergency rooms for minor issues that a primary health care professional could provide, this very dangerous oversaturation of patients requires more doctors. The issue is most Americans are not intellectually-equipped to proficiently learn the anatomy of the human body or are mentally-sound enough to endure the stresses involved with extreme scholastic demands. Doctors are also resigning their positions en masse and ending their medical practices due to having their capacity to treat patients transferred to the non-medical professionals within the federal bureaucracies within the Department of Health and Human Services. As there will no doubt come time where the law of averages favors a natural increase in doctors and nurses simply due to the growth in our national population, supply even under socialism and its most extreme form, communism, leads pay rates to plummet as the state determines how it will pay for treatments, what treatments it is willing to fund and finally, if a patient is dying or elderly and ill, if their medical bills will be paid at all and therefore, be left to die to save money. These are the death panels we read about constantly, which Obama and his sycophants deny exist, and yet a little girl in Pennsylvania just two years ago nearly died when former Sec. of HHS Kathleen Sebelius initially blocked funding for her providing her with lungs to transplant in place of her failing ones. Public opinion forced Sebelius' hand, but this is the ugly fundamental truth Americans face under Obamacare.
The phenomena of health tourism for Cuba is rather intriguing, and why the president has studied through infiltrating its society with other Latinos from Central and South America to act in a spy capacity to study the atmosphere. Once this issue was recorded and detailed no doubt meticulously, Obama determined he had to engage in the same policy if he wanted to complete the final stages of his ultimate goal:
The revenues of Cuba’s healthcare system come largely from booming health tourism in the country. People travel from miles around for the quality service in Cuba, available to those paying in dollars. Cosmetic surgery is the most commonly provided service along with other tertiary health care practices such as heart surgery and radiology. 9
For the doctors, physicians and nurses working within this sector, working conditions are superb and access to medication and supplies is not a problem due to their availability to pay for with dollars. 26 Seeing as this is such a main source of revenue for the Cuban government, such hospitals and clinics are well stocked and well subsidized, which in.
Despite the perks of working within clinics tailored for the needs of the wealthy abroad, ethical standards and morality integral within the healthcare sector are again brought into play. Cuban healthcare should prioritize Cubans. In a country where its citizens are still resorting to illicit migration to seek a better quality of life in other countries such as the US, 27 the state efforts of improvement in Cuba itself, should ethically not be invested into luxury medical services for wealthier foreigners.
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Why indeed is Manuel Noriega filing a lawsuit from his country club style prison over an alleged depiction of his likeness in a Call of Duty game when he once was the dictator over a nation? This may not be a matter of socialized medicine granting him the right as a non-U.S. citizen to sue over a tort violation, but once Latin America inevitably merges into a Pan American empire with I assume all the power centralized in Washington, will these dictators having handed over their sovereignty to the president and the United Nations suddenly have the right as a non-documented civilian in principle to file a lawsuit as is Noriega right now? Already are we reading of illegal immigrants filing lawsuits over discrimination, medical malpractice and police brutality; they do not attend court proceedings in many cases. The law will favor Latinos and those already naturalized who do not comprise of the WASP male population which generally does not vote Democratic by a plurality. If Obama cannot complete scrap the Constitution on the surface, he will simply utilize public health opportunities through Obamacare to lure undocumented foreigners, including providing asylum for the terrorists he currently funds, stateside. The WASP male population will then be like the Jewish or other politically or ethnic undesirables in Hitler's Germany and be excluded from the state provisions of the rest of the population.
To conclude the British medical journal's account on Cuban public health, it also provides its final thoughts:
In reference to a concept often used to describe the relationship between healthcare distribution and the actual need for it, the inverse care law is one that could indeed apply to Cuba. Curtis writes: “…. the ‘inverse care-law’ has often been used to summarize an inequitable situation in which the relative level of provision of care for local communities is inversely proportional to their relative need for health care. This is the reverse of the objective of equity, or territorial justice.” 1 Although Cuba has achieved free access to healthcare for 100% of the population, the means by which health professionals have to diagnose and treat the Cuban population is minimal and still not adequate. Despite the well developed infrastructure of the Cuban healthcare system, which does deserve of the accolades given by governments from around the world, it is still far from equitable, not only for the patients, but for the professionals themselves.
We have yet to see if and how the Cuban healthcare system evolves under Raul Castro’s administration. Most information on Cuba’s health care system is often unreliable and reliant on anecdotal evidence. Cuba without question has managed to create a health care miracle relative to the resources available to it, but both practical and ethical challenges remain as Cuba undergoes new reforms in a changing global economy.
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Brilliantly summarized and objectively observed. It recognized how Cuba indeed achieved a public health miracle despite its limited resources. There again, though, is that reference to "limited resources", or how a centrally-planned economy cannot keep pace with the demands of rising price indexes or inflation without inducing fixed measures to artificially stifle inflation, which failed in the 1970s during the phenomenon of stagflation. The term free health care is the most misleading reference to any health care system globally; nothing is free because the Cuban people pay for their care out of their taxed wages which at one point were garnished from the checks. The means for diagnoses and treatment are still insufficient, the conditions would lead to these hospitals to be condemned here, and more attention to care for foreigners who are wealthy is observed by the Castro regime than for the proletariat residing within the slums of Havana or the countryside. If medical professionals globally rely upon spurious data or evidence reported by the state health ministry, it should be ashamed of itself for ever considering a communist state to be fully transparent or even slightly so. Like with the president regarding the economy, six months of 200,000 added jobs seems wonderful until one reads how many more in proportion left the labor force due to their inability to procure an adequate-paying position even if slightly less than what was previously earned. And as more naturalized Americans are receiving welfare benefits in both record totals as well as over those who are gainfully-employed taxpayers, the Obama Doctrine for the destruction of an economically-free America is well on course as an object to being met. And if you consider the following graph with regarding to the staffing disparities for medical professionals and office personnel to handle federal guidelines and for billing, you might be astounded:
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Graph Tabulating the Growth of Physicians and Administrators, 1970-2009
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Above you see the exorbitant rate of growth at an far higher pace exponentially than actual doctors due to growing federal regulations, as America is the most heavily-regulated medical system globally already. But below is the most troublesome of all since every nation below us has a state-funded socialized medical system:
And lastly, this:
Keep in mind how we do not have a socialized health care system. If I want to be sarcastic about this, I will simply refer to Wikipedia's slam at conservatives who oppose their more "politically correct" term of "universal coverage" by what that site referred to as the U.S.'s pejorative.
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I last intend to address for the Western Hemisphere imperialist expansion the following from International Policy Digest:
Amnesty and Guatemala’s Civil War
By Taylor Dibbert | December 29, 2011
Guatemala’s civil war was, by far, Latin America’s bloodiest—leaving approximately 200,000 people dead.
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Álvaro Colom, former president of Guatemala with the current president of Guatemala, Otto Pérez Molina, in Caracas, Venezuela for the CELAC conference. Photo: Luis Echeverría
A United Nations-supported truth commission found that more than 90 percent of the human rights violations were committed by the military, including over 600 massacres in primarily indigenous villages. Since the conclusion of the war in 1996, the pursuit of accountability has not gone well. This past August, a Guatemala City judge sentenced four former soldiers to over 6,000 years in prison, for having participated in a massacre in 1982. This was a good thing, but it is nowhere near enough.
Earlier this month, human rights activist Jennifer Harbury (who has been outspoken on questions of accountability in Guatemala for decades), has cited that some people within Guatemala suspect former army personnel will attempt to turn amnesty into official policy. Harbury has said that, “within the next few weeks it is very likely that the army officers facing war crimes charges will push through a de facto amnesty, either by removing Claudia Paz, the amazing attorney general, an illegal congressional amnesty (‘punto final’), or through a court ruling canceling international human rights law.”
Since any of the three abovementioned developments would obviate the prospect of any former army official being held accountable for what was undoubtedly genocide, Harbury has implored people to act quickly. This includes her suggestion that people make “emergency” calls to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in the coming weeks. Whether such a plan is actually in the works is not clear; such a scheme certainly would not be surprising.
During his campaign, Otto Pérez intimated that he might sack Attorney General Paz if he were elected president. Although earlier this month, Pérez publicly reiterated that he would not remove Paz from her post once he became president. Was the president-elect being disingenuous? More recently, Paz has bravely been demanding that on-going Guatemalan genocide cases continue. Even though she is not necessarily an impartial analyst of Guatemalan politics, Harbury is both knowledgeable and well-sourced—so her claims should not be discounted.
Conversely, it seems unlikely that current president Álvaro Colom or incoming president Pérez would try to get rid of Attorney General Paz. A Paz Attorney Generalship fits in so nicely with Pérez’s firm anti-crime stance and his forthcoming battle against drug traffickers. She is probably not going anywhere. Pérez could reserve the right to remove her later for any number of reasons, like ineffectiveness or baseless allegations of corruption.
There is also a sad and bitter reality that the current dialogue about amnesty in Guatemala has missed: To a great extent, former Guatemalan security personnel have already won. In Guatemala, one rarely sees justice of any kind. About two months ago, a court ruled that erstwhile Guatemalan dictator Óscar Mejía was “too sick” to face charges of war crimes. Similar judicial decisions would not be surprising.
Like anywhere else, holding former military personnel accountable for past atrocities or violations of international humanitarian law poses enormous challenges. In spite of the progress Attorney General Claudia Paz y Paz has made, human rights supporters are going to be dissatisfied regarding Guatemalan war crimes trials and broader questions of accountability. Guatemala’s impunity-laced past only helps foment on-going human rights violations and pervasive lawlessness which outgoing president Álvaro Colom has done nothing to address. According to the US State Department, Guatemala’s current prosecution rate is somewhere between two and three percent. The current White House petition that Harbury and others are pushing could be a helpful awareness-raising exercise, although it is unlikely to have a significant impact on Guatemalan or US policy.
Few of Guatemala’s former military men will ever be brought to justice. The November election of former General Otto Pérez-Molina served as a rather sickening reminder of this. What could possibly further exemplify a resounding post-conflict “army victory” than an Otto Pérez presidency?
If Harbury is right and a push for amnesty is in the works, US intelligence assets in Guatemala would be well-aware of such a plan and would have probably already briefed the White House. President Obama should publicly denounce any move by Guatemalan army officers for amnesty related to war crimes. It is also important to remember that Guatemala’s civil war was not just a battle between a well-funded Latin American army and a leftist insurgency; that is an oversimplification. There were far more actors than that, including United States civilians and military personnel.
For starters and principally for ideological reasons that arose during the Cold War, the US had much to do with the Guatemalan military’s past “successes.” Through financial support, training, and other forms of assistance, President-elect Otto Pérez is a product of those mistakes. President Obama called Pérez to congratulate him on his electoral victory in late November, but only mundane talking points were released to the public. One would hope President Pérez receives a tepid response when he makes his first trip to Washington, even though history suggests otherwise.
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By "mundane talking points... released to the public", no doubt the journalist means the sycophant private sector mainstream mass media, the majority of which leans in favor of Far Left favoring socialism. No one can possibly suspect that there was not a soul in the media knew of their conversation or what exactly these talking point were. Like many other issues, one would have to Google foreign news agencies and state media outlets to find official answers to what foreigners are willing to provide in information. I do this because I know well that our media, even Fox News Channel, will not cover every issue either due to the political agendas risking being undermined or due to the volume of information. The BBC is a favorite of mine as well as any British publication, for instance, and Reuters is another.
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Section II: Obama Funds Qatar as the Chief Supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and ISIS
Evil often is not so apparent, and while Barack Obama has embarked upon several injurious policies domestically and echoing what for generations has been a Democratic Party planck to oppose Israel at all costs, there are far more dangerous, insidious activities afoot that are impeachable. By this, I mean how the president is sponsoring Qatar as the current guardians of several authority figures within the Muslim Brotherhood that were toppled, prosecuted and either imprisoned or executed, or fled Egypt in exile following the rise of the new government. There are further reports of the president sponsoring Hamas and ISIS, engaging in more of the latter to finish toppling the Assad regime in Syria. There are a few key news pieces I located in further global searches, and I choose to now address the controversial act of slipping some $11 billion into the Sheikh of Qatar's coffers, including the addition of another player that proves the impartiality of this global body that considers itself the international arbiter of peace.
Ban Ki-Moon Travelled to Mideast on Flight Financed by Hamas Backer Qatar
by TheTower.org Staff | 07.22.14 9:53 am
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon flew to Cairo on a Qatari-chartered plane, Newsweek reported Monday.
Accepting the flight from Qatar, which sponsors the terrorist organization Hamas, puts Ban in a compromised position. Newsweek notes that when he condemned the Israeli efforts to defend itself from Hamas rockets on Sunday, it marked “the first time in two weeks that Ban did not mention rocket or other attacks against Israelis.”
Aside from coloring Ban’s statements, his coziness with Qatar also threatens his ability to arrange a long-term ceasefire that would effectively restrain Hamas.
Ban’s choice of Qatar as the first Middle East capital on his trip has raised eyebrows in the region. Egypt, in particular, has bitterly criticized what Cairo’s foreign minister, Sameh Shukri, has called Qatar’s “conspiring” — along with Hamas and its other regional ally, Turkey — against Egyptian attempts to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
The US has made clear in recent days it sees Egypt as the only viable mediator, and toward that end Secretary of State John Kerry landed in Cairo Monday. Dujarric said that Ban, too, supports Egypt’s attempts to arrange the negotiations. “Obviously, I think the focus here is on supporting Egypt’s leadership in mediating a durable ceasefire,” he said. “No one is questioning Egypt’s leadership in this effort.”
Ban’s acceptance of the flight is one more in a series of scandals that calls into question the UN’s neutrality in the conflict between Israel and the Gaza-based terror organization. Last week it was reported that the United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) handed over twenty missiles it found near one of its schools back to Hamas. UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness has a record of anti-Israel activism that prompted Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Ron Prosor, to demand his suspension.
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Oil-rich and blossoming tourist hub for the Middle East, Qatar enjoys the world's highest standard for living according to totals indicating per capita income. Some of the globe's wealthiest people reside there, particularly oil magnates. And while the wealth in the nation is apparently overflowing for some, it also holds the dubious distinctions for the world's highest percentages of citizens suffering from diabetes and obesity.
Qatar is a noted sponsor for Islamic terrorist cells and is likely to be safe from ISIS as it will no doubt either attempt to fund their conquest of Persia, Arabia, the Sinai Peninsula and North Africa or it already is bankrolling them. Regardless of the last issue, I have yet to Google for information regarding Qatar's relationship with the Taliban and al-Qaeda, their spawn in ISIS, but most especially in the Islamic world's most secretive and deadly historical sponsor for terror in Pakistan as it has always been dominated behind the scenes politically by the ISI (Inter-State Intelligence).
What is Qatar's relationship to the Muslim Brotherhood, and how do they both interact in funding Hamas? The Wilmington Examiner discusses the flight for Ban Ki-moon in further detail, the Sheikh of Qatar's relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood, but more detrimentally the president's slipping Qatar's government $11 billion in military arms and munitions supplemental funds:
Obama inks massive $11 billion weapons deal with Qatar
July 14, 2014
"The British-educated Sheikh is believed to be closer to the Muslim Brotherhood than many in the nation's current leadership..."
In the biggest arms deal so far this year, the Obama Administration finalized a multi-billion dollar weapons deal with the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar. As reported by the Agence France Presse via The Daily Star (of Beirut, Lebanon) on July 15, 2014 and also by the Reuters news service via The Fiscal Times, on July 14, 2014, some of the most advanced American military technology will soon be signed over to the Middle Eastern nation.
While the specifics of the sale were solidly under wraps by Department of Defense officials, the agreement itself was signed off by U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Qatar’s defense minister, Hamad bin Ali al-Attiyah at the Pentagon. However, speaking on grounds of strict anonymity, an American official has verified to Agence France Presse that the Qataris have purchased "roughly" 10 batteries of Patriot missiles, as well as 24 of the cutting edge Apache attack helicopters and 500 Javelin anti-tank missiles.
A standard MIM-104 Patriot surface-to-air missile (SAM) battery can have up to 16 launchers with each launcher stocked with up to 16 PAC3 missiles per. At 256 missiles per battery, not counting however many extra purchased for reserve, the Gulf Arab nation will have at least 2,500 top-notch American missiles at their disposal. Along with the state of the art missiles comes the recently upgraded AN/MPQ-53 radar system, the "Phased Array Tracking Radar to Intercept On Target" or the acronym PATRIOT. Also standard equipment includes the AN/MSQ-104 Engagement Control Station (ECS) which serves as the nerve center of the Patriot firing battery.
With more letters than a pot of alphabet soup, the Federation of American Scientists notes that the Qataris will also be privy to "the main sub-components of the ECS are the Weapons Control Computer (WCC), the Data Link Terminal (DLT), the UHF communications array, the Routing Logic Radio Interface Unit (RLRIU), and the two manstations that serve as the system's man-to-machine interface. The ECS is air conditioned, pressurized (to resist chemical/biological attack), and shielded against electromagnetic pulse (EMP)."
Qatar has been in the American headlines recently as the nation that facilitated the release of five Taliban prisoners from the U.S. military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in exchange for U.S. Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, who is suspected of possibly deserting his unit in Afghanistan to defect to the Taliban. The Gitmo Five will remain for one year in Qatar essentially as guests of the Emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. The British-educated Sheikh is believed to be closer to the Muslim Brotherhood than many in the nation's current leadership.
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There are many implications and consequences to this arrangement, plus one very peculiar issue which I long have wondered would transpire due to the now-severed relationship between Washington and Tel Aviv. First, did anyone ever ask among yourselves why Qatar was the chosen destination for the five Taliban terrorists knowing well their government had numerous ties to a multitude of terrorist organizations? If you did not, you should have. This would do far more than simply imply or infer that there is a warm or at least a cordial relationship between the Qataris and the Taliban, and therefore by association, al-Qaeda. Once this issue is reconciled, the picture is painted far more clearly: Obama was interested in potentially toppling the Karzai government in Kabul. Ironically, as the elections in Afghanistan were held, there was a very close vigil by U.S. military officers and their commanding officers, alongside the leaders running for office were reportedly friendly to the Obama administration. This will be touched upon later; right now, I am only interested in discussing Qatar's rather deadly webs of entanglements.
The second question I want to ask is why Ban Ki-moon bordered Sheikh Tamin bin Hamad Al Thani's private jet to fly to Cairo for negotiations for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas? The issue of neutrality became nullified on July 21; Ban, having only placed fault with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the IDF for all deaths of innocent women and children while fully ignoring photographs of children being used as human shields and other dead from Hamas, joined in unison with Sec. of State John Kerry in demanding a full surrender of Israel to Hamas for all intends and purposes; thankfully, Netanyahu emphatically refused and is now poised to destroy all vestiges of Hamas if it takes such a vile act to prevent Israel's sovereignty and the lives of eight million civilians of differing faiths. And again, Qatar funds Hamas; this is obvious, and every news source globally will not hesitate to acknowledge this in their articles.
Lastly, why did Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel sign the transaction for $11 billion when in fact our military is being gutted and downsized to a pre-World War II level of 400,000 regular troops and our troops are being handed pink slips in Afghanistan even as they are fighting? It does not appear to make any sense superficially until you consider what smoke and mirrors appear to be hurled at the general public in the media. We know the president has been funding proxy warfare in Latin America and, in a rather benign manner comparatively, Cuba. The military through the Navy is shifting its geopolitical foci towards East Asia, officially stating it wants to protect American interests and to honor the treaties for defending Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines and Malaysia. Currently, even Vietnam is facing the prospect of armed conflict with the Chinese over border disputes and control of the rich oil resources and natural gas in the South China Sea and Gulf of Tonkin. Japan's current feud with Beijing over a series of what historically have been fishing islands called in Japanese Senkaku and in Chinese Diayu have concerned the Obama administration on the surface of the possibility that armed conflict will first break out between China and Japan. Of course, nothing ever is as it seems, because like the dispute between China and Japan happens to involve oil, our strategic trading partners in the two nations will be crucial to maintain as status quo due to their dominance of our markets as foreigners.
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There are more details necessitating further attention and global awareness. One is to examine Obama's chief diplomat, John Kerry, in how he was frisked and later that day handed a reported $47 million to a Hamas representative in Cairo. What has Hamas spent this money on? The Telegraph reveals that the unstable dictator of North Korea is providing the terrorist organization with arms and munitions:
Hamas and North Korea in secret arms deal
Exclusive: Hamas has paid North Korea for missiles and communications equipment in arms deal worth hundreds of thousands of dollars
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Palestinian militants of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas's armed wing, parade in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip Photo: AFP/GETTY
Con Coughlin By Con Coughlin, Defence Editor7:00PM BST 26 Jul 2014
Hamas militants are attempting to negotiate a new arms deal with North Korea for missiles and communications equipment that will allow them to maintain their offensive against Israel, according to Western security sources.
Security officials say the deal between Hamas and North Korea is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and is being handled by a Lebanese-based trading company with close ties to the militant Palestinian organisation based in east Beirut.
Hamas officials are believed to have already made an initial cash down payment to secure the deal, and are now hoping that North Korea will soon begin shipping extra supplies of weapons to Gaza.
“Hamas is looking for ways to replenish its stocks of missiles because of the large numbers it has fired at Israel in recent weeks,” explained a security official. “North Korea is an obvious place to seek supplies because Pyongyang already has close ties with a number of militant Islamist groups in the Middle East.”
Using intermediaries based in Lebanon, Hamas officials are said to be intensifying their efforts to sign a new agreement with Pyongyang to provide hundreds of missiles together with communications equipment that will improve the ability of Hamas fighters to coordinate operations against Israeli forces.
Like other Islamist terror groups in the region such as Hizbollah, Hamas has forged close links with North Korea, which is keen to support groups that are opposed to Western interests in the region.
The relationship between Hamas and North Korea first became public in 2009 when 35 tons of arms, including surface-to-surface rockets and rocket-propelled grenades, were seized after a cargo plane carrying the equipment was forced to make an emergency landing at Bangkok airport. Investigators later confirmed that the arms cache has been destined for Iran, which then planned to smuggle the weapons to Hizbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.
Following Israel’s latest military offensive against Hamas operatives based in Gaza, Western security officials say Hamas is now trying to persuade North Korea to provide fresh supplies of rockets to replace the thousands of missiles that have been fired at Israel since the commencement of hostilities two weeks ago.
Israeli military commanders supervising operations against Gaza believe North Korean experts have given Hamas advice on building the extensive network of tunnels in Gaza that has enabled fighters to move weapons without detection by Israeli drones, which maintain a constant monitoring operation over Gaza.
The North Koreans have one of the world’s most sophisticated network of tunnels running beneath the demilitarised zone with South Korea, and Israeli commanders believe Hamas has used this expertise to improve their own tunnel network.
The Hamas arsenal has become increasing sophisticated with foreign assistance and now boasts five variants of rockets and missiles. Its basic weapon is the Iranian-designed Qassam rocket with a range of less than ten miles but it also has a large stockpile of the 122mm Katyushas which boast a range of up to 30 miles.
The introduction of the M-75 and Syrian-made M0302 missiles means Hamas boast offensive weapons with a longer range of up to 100 miles and a much greater explosive impact.
Since the 2012 eight-day war, Hamas has increased the size and strength of its rocket arsenal. Israeli military intelligence puts its stockpile at around 10,000 rockets and mortars, including long-range rockets capable of reaching Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and the northern port city of Haifa.
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Ironically when it comes to waging
jihad, Islamists are more than open to siding with atheist communist states in destroying those of Christian or Jew populations, or any other for that matter. Perhaps since communism is amoral and flexible due to adhering to no god, Islam somehow relates to this even though displaying a short memory of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. After all, the Soviet Union provided most Islamic states with weaponry and money during the Cold War. North Korea continually threatens nuclear warfare with the U.S. and Seoul, and having read in recent months of a possible attempt at the Koreas reunification first through Chinese state media and thereafter in South Korea's publications, something is most certainly afoot, especially upon considering Beijing recently militarized the Yalu River border with the North with some 100-150,000 Peoples Liberation Army troops.
Who gains from the increasing growth in the collective few who are enormously wealthy in the Palestine region, and how are they making their fortunes?
Israel Online discusses this in some detail:
"Among the Palestinians, they tell you straight out, 'I want to get rich.'"
In recent days, various media have been publishing photographs of Hamas leaders in luxurious homes with fitness equipment, at luxury hotels around the world, etc. On the other hand, distressing pictures are being shown of the suffering of the Palestinian people in their rundown houses, whom Hamas says it represents.
One of the big mysteries is how much the Hamas leaders, the Arab world's new tycoons, are worth, and how they, born and raised in refugee camps, who raise aloft the cause of their people's welfare, have become so wealthy and reclusive.
Col. (res.) Dr. Moshe Elad, a lecturer in the Middle East Department of the Western Galilee Academic College, who served in senior positions in the territories for 30 years, is attempting to answer these questions.
"The vast majority of Hamas founders and leaders were refugees or second generation refugees, and some of them were the product of marriages between Egyptians and Palestinians. They had no money at all. When they and Hamas were just starting out, the organization (not in its own name) was nurtured by the Israeli military government, which fostered the Islamic associations working in the Gaza Strip as a counterweight to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Their phenomenal wealth started accumulating when they decided to disassociate themselves from Israel and search for alternative financing sources."
Elad explains that the money came from two directions: "Legacies from the deceased; money from charity funds; a donation called zaka, one of the six pillars of Islam; and donations from various countries. It started with Syria and Saudi Arabia, with Iran added later and becoming one of Hamas's biggest supporters, and ended with Qatar, which has now taken Iran's place."
Together with the donations from various countries, fundraisers began operating in the US to collect money for Hamas. Here, the Hamas leaders began to get their hands on some really big money. "One of those fundraisers was Dr. Musa Abu Marzook, the number 2 man in Hamas," Elad says. "At the beginning of the 1990s, he began a fundraising campaign in the US among wealthy Muslims, while at the same time founding several banking enterprises. He himself became a conglomerate of 10 financial enterprises giving loans and making financial investments. He's an amazing financier."
The US administration ordered Marzook's arrest in 1995 on charges of supporting terrorism. After he spent two years in a US prison, it was decided to expel him without trial. He kept the money. "When he was expelled from the US in 1997, he was already worth several million dollars," Elad says, adding, "Somehow he evaded the clutches of the US Internal Revenue Service and was not charged with financing terrorism. People in the know say he probably became connected to the administration and cooperated with it. There is no proof, but it's hard to think of any other reason why he escaped punishment for such serious offenses. In 2001, in the investigation of the September 11 events, it turned out that he had extensive financial connections with Al Qaeda, including the transfer of funds to the 21 Al Qaeda operatives accused of the attacks."
Today, Marzook is considered one of Hamas's wealthiest billionaires. "Arab sources estimate his wealth at $2-3 billion," Elad says.
Another Hamas leader-turned-tycoon is Khaled Mashaal. "Estimates around the world are that Mashaal is currently worth $2.6 billion, but the numbers mentioned by the Arab commentators (based on their many sources) are much higher, varying from $2-5 billion invested in Egyptian and Persian Gulf banks, and some in real estate projects in the Persian Gulf countries," Elad adds.
The next tycoon on the list is Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh. "He is a scion of a family from the Al-Shati refugee camp, and his capital is estimated at $4 million," Elad says, adding, "He registered most of his assets in the Gaza Strip in the name of his son-in-law, Nabil, and in the name of a dozen of his sons and daughters and a few less well known Hamas leaders. They all have homes in good neighborhoods in the Gaza Strip, where the value of every home is at least $1 million."
Another wealthy Hamas official - Iman Taha - is not on the organization's highest levels, but he, too, (and other junior managers) is feeding from the trough. According to Elad, "He was a poor rebellious kid from the al-Borg refugee camp, but he recently built a home in central Gaza worth at least $1 million. He's responsible for coordination between oversea Hamas and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and he's not even a leading figure, but he's already among the millionaires."
The question of where these officials got their money exposes the corrupt system used by Hamas through its control of the money pipelines in the Gaza Strip. They treated the money as their own personal possession. "Most of the money that went into the pockets of people in the Gaza Strip was obtained through tunnel deals and the creation of a flourishing smuggling market, which it is believed has created several hundred millionaires in the Gaza Strip, although most of the people there don't live like that. The man pulling the strings from Egypt with the tunnels is none other than the number two man in the Muslim Brotherhood, Khairat el-Shater. His connection with Hamas was ostensibly for Islamic religious purposes, but they actually built a prosperous business, which earned phenomenal profits," Elad says.
The Asharq Al-Awsat (Middle East) newspaper, one of the most prestigious in the Arab world, recently reported that at least 600 millionaires were living in the Gaza Strip - the same people sitting on the money pipelines there.
Elad describes how the system worked and to how much money (huge amounts) Hamas leaders were exposed: "Senior Hamas leaders charged a 25% 'tax' and $2,000 on every disassembled vehicle coming through the tunnels. There are hundreds of smuggling tunnels from Egypt to Gaza, and these are the types of tunnel Israel has been less busy in destroying, because Egypt has destroyed many of them. From June 2007 until 2010, $800 million in cash was transferred in tunnel deals (according to information from Hamas money traders). Hamas also taxes Gaza merchants on everything traded, from boxes of vegetables to luxury cars, and the leaders scoop the money into their pockets."
Another source of wealth for Hamas leaders was taking over land. "They took over land mainly near the sea in good areas, such as the former Gush Katif, then sold it. In effect, they are the cat guarding the cream - the land - so they were able to take over land and loot it for themselves," Elad explains.
In addition, there is a system in the Gaza Strip of fictitious recruitment of workers for Hamas for the purpose of obtaining pay slips from people overseas paying for it. "They get the payments from overseas according to the workers' names. It has recently been discovered that there are hundreds of fictitious names of soldiers and officials supposedly in Hamas. Actually, the leaders and officials put the money in their own pockets," Elad asserts.
According to various sources, some of Mashaal's money came from the "Syrian fund." Elad explains: "According to these accusations, following an investigation by the US federal authorities, Mashaal was accused of embezzling the entire Syrian fund. There was a separate fund in Syria for Hamas; Mashaal controlled all the movements in the fund when he lived there. As soon as he left Damascus, he took the Syrian fund, which was worth several billion dollars, and distributed it to himself and others. It is believed that Hamas had $1.5-2.5 billion in assets in Syria, which Mashaal took."
In summary, Elad says, "This is corruption at the highest level… What has united the Palestinian leaders all throughout the years is the saying, 'We have to get rich quick.' This is how the regime sees it. Their leaders have no shame. Shortly after they got power, they took control of fuel, communications, and any other profitable sectors in the country. There are get-rich-quick schemes and corruption in Western society, too, but there it's done sophisticatedly with envelopes of money and complex structures of bribery and the like. Among the Palestinians, they tell you straight out, 'I want to get rich.'"
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on July 24, 2014
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2014
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Ties to al-Qaeda and the September 11, 2001 attacks, tax evasion and corruption through embezzlement of Palestinian civilian taxes, and real estate, which in the Gaza Strip and along the Red Sea would imply that it is not so much Israel razing Gaza housing developments to the ground, but rather on word of good intelligence from Mossad, Tel Aviv is rooting out the sources for terrorist activity where several of these figure perhaps reside. And it appears the Clinton administration funded Hamas during time of the peace talks with Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat of the PLO. Rabin, you may recall, was assassinated November 4, 1995 when I was in 8th Grade, which was where I watched the news of this tragic event while working as a library aide. And according to
documents, Rabin's assassin, a 25 year old Orthodox Jew and right-wing extremist named Yigal Amir, had contact with Hamas and Arafat at least five times, which Arafat revealed to the German news media
Der Spiegel:
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Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, of course, would be involved; the latter terrorist cell, I must add, is one I have not heard about nor read of any major activities in many years. And as the Jewish terrorist organization Molodet evidently conspired with both organizations as led by Rechavam Zeevi to topple first the Rabin and then his successor and current out-going president, Shimon Peres, in favor of the Likud Party, which the center-right wing political party in Israel. As with other areas of the world, there are forces within Israel tolerant and even supportive of terrorism. As the successor for the late Rabin was Peres, why would he choose to assassinate the prime minister for the same purpose as Hamas and the Islamic Jihad? Zeevi's organization might have carried out the hit on Rabin, but let us be clear: he not only was involved in the conspiracy with the two terrorist cells in likely aiding in Amir's shooting the late prime minister, but was rather the
conduit and not the prime conspirator. As Arafat stated, and he would know well this is true, nearly every Islamic state in the Arab League or the Persian Gulf funds radical Islamic terrorist organization; the depth of this conspiracy may never be known as such a chain serves as as very large form of the Mafia in Sicily and in America.
The Islamic Jihad movement of Palestine was formed by the Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood is the oldest such organization in the region, founded in 1928, and in 1979 it initiated the process of forming the Islamic Jihad.
Why would Obama choose to associate closely with the Muslim Brotherhood as he supported its own coup d'etat to topple the government of dictator Hosni Mubarak? The following details might provide clues:
Per
Wikipedia, a Brotherhood spokesman discussed what it is exactly the organization stands for:
We believe that the political reform is the true and natural gateway for all other kinds of reform. We have announced our acceptance of democracy that acknowledges political pluralism, the peaceful rotation of power and the fact that the nation is the source of all powers. As we see it, political reform includes the termination of the state of emergency, restoring public freedoms, including the right to establish political parties, whatever their tendencies may be, and the freedom of the press, freedom of criticism and thought, freedom of peaceful demonstrations, freedom of assembly, etc. It also includes the dismantling of all exceptional courts and the annulment of all exceptional laws, establishing the independence of the judiciary, enabling the judiciary to fully and truly supervise general elections so as to ensure that they authentically express people's will, removing all obstacles that restrict the functioning of civil society organizations, etc.
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