Saturday, May 31, 2008

Benjamin Whitmer Says I Should Be Thrown Off a Building or Down a Flight of Stairs

Picture and trailer from Fritz Lang's film M.

Tell ’em you’ll put the butt out when [American moms] snuff the kid and not a moment before. Better yet, tell ’em they should snuff themselves, as well as the kid, and do the planet a real favor. Just "kidding" (heh-heh)."---Ward Churchill

Today is the eighth anniversary of the death of Ward Churchill's late wife, the Canadian Indian Leah Kelly.

According to the Denver Post:

Churchill's third wife, 25-year-old Leah Kelly, was killed May 31, 2000, when hit by a car outside Boulder, and Churchill's biography of her continues to stir bad feelings with her family. Kelly had a blood-alcohol content of 0.35 percent when a motorist came upon her outside of town. He said she was lying in the road and he had no time to stop. Churchill later wrote that her death "left a crater in my soul," but he blamed her alcoholism, and her demise, on the colonial treatment Indians received from white people. [UPDATE--The Rocky Mountain News (3-16-2005) gives the date of Leah Kelly's death as a day later, June 1, 2000.]

For decades, the anti-American propagandist Ward Churchill has been selecting out Americans who he thinks deserve to be "snuffed." For example, he claimed that two FBI agents who were protecting Indians from criminals deserved to be murdered in cold blood.

Ward Churchill has even claimed that he was on Pine Ridge when these murders happened [see also here]. The two agents were murdered on June 26, 1975, in a symbolic reenactment of "Custer's Last Stand" (June 25-26, 1876).

According to this 2004 article, Ward Churchill told Canadian college students that he was "a member of the American Indian Movement (AIM) security team at the Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota in the early 1970's."

Ward Churchill has boasted that he taught the Weathermen how to make bombs.

Ward Churchill reportedly once told a crowd of people that it would be a "good thing" if a college student named Grant Crowell were executed, dismembered, and cremated like some NAZI cartoonist. Grant Crowell had lampooned Ward Churchill in a political cartoon.

Ward Churchill finally became infamous outside of academia when he wrote that the 9-11 victims were "little Eichmanns" who deserved to be suffocated by poisonous fumes or burned alive.

On May 21, 2008, Ben Whitmer, an instructor at the University of Colorado and of of the last followers of the disgraced ex-professor Ward Churchill, commented after a post on his blog:

They ought to give a medal for throwing Snapple over a fence. Or off a building. Or down a flight of stairs. [5-21-08]

Why not over a cliff, Ben? Isn't that the way of your people?

I suppose Ben would like someone to throw me off a building because I criticize Ward Churchill for his public terroristic threats against other people. Mr. Whitmer's old blog once posted that I deserve to slip on a pencil and break my neck.

Ben Whitmer's mentor Ward Churchill is nothing but a pathetic totalitarian thug who tries to silence other people with terroristic threats because his pitiful views can't withstand debate.

The same is true of Churchill's acolyte, the CU Boulder instructor Ben Whitmer, who once wrote that two Colorado journalists should be disemboweled or "fucked with a wood rasp."

Benjamin Whitmer also claims he "heard" these threats about throwing people off bridges at a demonstration against Newmont Mining:

How’s about we throw Wayne Murdy off a bridge?

How’s about we throw Madeleine Albright off an even bigger bridge?

How’s about we feed a cyanide cocktail to your kids?
[See also here.]

A competent English teacher would be able to defend his views without resorting to profanity or terroristic threats, such as threatening to use cyanide to murder children.

Ward Churchill does not just gloat over the murders of FBI agents and New York business people; he has also threatened young women, mothers, and children. He admits he abused his young Indian wife Leah Kelly and once wrote:

I broke and slammed [Leah] back against our bedroom wall, telling her that if she kept it up, she’d be apt to land in a hospital.

Leah died eight years ago today on May 31, 2000.

Ward Churchill has "joked" that yuppy mothers should snuff their children and kill themselves to reduce the population and save the Earth:

Every yuppie born counts as much as another seventy Chinese.

Lay that one on the next soccer mom who approaches you with a baby stroller and an outraged look, demanding that you to put your cigarette out, eh? It is plainly absurd for any American to complain about smoking when you consider the context of the damage done by overall U.S. consumption patterns. Tell ’em you’ll put the butt out when they snuff the kid and not a moment before. Better yet, tell ’em they should snuff themselves, as well as the kid, and do the planet a real favor. Just 'kidding' (heh-heh)."---Ward Churchill [Cache (heh-heh!); see also a slightly different version of this essay which appears as Chapter 13 in Acts of Rebellion: The Ward Churchill Reader, especially page 296.]:

Ward Churchill assaulted a T.V. reporter who was asking him questions about a plagiarized piece of art that he misrepresented and sold as his own [story and video here].

Professor Thomas Brown writes:

In 1998, Churchill published Pacifism as Pathology, a manifesto justifying the use of political violence. Churchill claims to have taught bomb-making to the Weather Underground. Churchill called for breaking the kneecaps of tourists headed for Hawaii, as a political statement in support of Hawaiian nationalism. He repeatedly called for the destruction of the United States. Churchill gave speeches in which he offered justifications and explicit strategies for successful terrorist actions against the US.

I also read that Churchill, a white radical who pretends to be an Indian, gave a public speech in Canada where he reportedly told college students:

The colonized can over-come their situation through slitting the throat of their colonizer.

Ward Churchill claims he is for free speech, but how can we have free speech if Wardo or one of his minions cuts our throats? It is pretty obvious that Wardo advocates free speech only for himself and likeminded cohorts.

Ward Churchill has long sought media celebrity for his views. He once even compared the media circus surrounding his person to the media spectacle that followed the JonBenet Ramsey murder.

JonBenet Ramsey was the Boulder child who was found "snuffed" in her parents' basement on 12-26-1996, Mao's birthday. The little kindergartener had been strangled, and her head was bashed in. Some people believe she died on 12-25-96, but the exact time of her murder is not known. I think the killer would have waited until after midnight to make sure the parents were asleep.

As The Rocky Mountain News reported:

After Churchill told students that one national broadcaster had advertised the e-mail addresses for members of the CU Board of Regents, encouraging people to sound off against Churchill, one of Churchill's students asked if he might put the addresses on the classroom blackboard, so that Churchill's students could also write the regents. Churchill allowed him to do so.

He also told his class he has received nearly 200 media interview requests in recent days.

"If there were five of me, I couldn't possibly keep up with it," Churchill said. "And I'm not even JonBenet Ramsey."

I always think of Audrey Hepburn and her bitter-sweet song "Moon River" when I see pictures of JonBenet Ramsey singing and dancing.

Audrey Hepburn was in the Dutch Resistance as a child and raised money for the Resistance by secretly dancing for groups of people. Because of the suffering she witnessed and experienced during WWII, Hepburn became a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF and was honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her work.

Hepburn's Wikipedia notes:

In 1940, the Germans invaded the Netherlands. During the Nazi occupation, Hepburn adopted the pseudonym Edda van Heemstra, modifying her mother's documents because an 'English sounding' name was considered dangerous. This was never her legal name. The name Edda was a version of her mother's name Ella.[9]

By 1944, Hepburn had become a proficient ballerina. She secretly danced for groups of people to collect money for the Dutch resistance. She later said, "the best audience I ever had made not a single sound at the end of my performance."[10]

After the Allied landing on D-Day, living conditions grew worse. During the Dutch famine over the winter of 1944, the Germans confiscated the Dutch people's limited food and fuel supply for themselves. People starved and froze to death in the streets.

Hepburn and many others resorted to making flour out of tulip bulbs to bake cakes and biscuits.[5][11]

Arnhem was devastated by Allied artillery fire that was part of Operation Market Garden. Hepburn's uncle and her mother's cousin were shot in front of Hepburn for being part of the Resistance.

Hepburn's half-brother Ian van Ufford spent time in a German labour camp. Suffering from malnutrition, Hepburn developed acute anemia, respiratory problems, and oedema.[12]

In 1991, Hepburn said "I have memories. More than once I was at the station seeing trainloads of Jews being transported, seeing all these faces over the top of the wagon. I remember, very sharply, one little boy standing with his parents on the platform, very pale, very blond, wearing a coat that was much too big for him, and he stepped on to the train. I was a child observing a child."

Hepburn also noted the similarities between herself and Anne Frank: "I was exactly the same age as Anne Frank. We were both ten when war broke out and fifteen when the war finished. I was given the book in Dutch, in galley form, in 1946 by a friend. I read it – and it destroyed me. It does this to many people when they first read it but I was not reading it as a book, as printed pages. This was my life. I didn't know what I was going to read. I've never been the same again, it affected me so deeply."

"We saw reprisals. We saw young men put against the wall and shot and they'd close the street and then open it and you could pass by again. If you read the diary, I've marked one place where she says 'five hostages shot today'. That was the day my uncle was shot. And in this child's words I was reading about what was inside me and is still there. It was a catharsis for me. This child who was locked up in four walls had written a full report of everything I'd experienced and felt."

These times were not all bad and she was able to enjoy some of her childhood. Again drawing parallels to Anne Frank's life, Hepburn said "This spirit of survival is so strong in Anne Frank's words. One minute she says 'I'm so depressed'. The next she is longing to ride a bicycle. She is certainly a symbol of the child in very difficult circumstances, which is what I devote all my time to. She transcends her death."

Rev. Michael Pfleger Exhorts Crowd to "Snuff" John Riggio

"Rev. Michael Pfleger, pastor of St. Sabina's Church, exhorted the crowd to "drag" [gun] shop owner, John Riggio, from his shop "like a rat" and "snuff" him."---Illinios Review [Pfleger's terroristic remarks in MP3 format].

Most people have now seen the Catholic priest Rev. Michael Pfleger (shown above) embarrass Senator Obama and denigrate Senator Clinton with his racist tirade against Senator Hillary Clinton [video]. The despicable Rev. Pfleger put racist words in Senator Clinton's mouth that she didn't say.

According to a blog called Illinios Review, Rev. Pfleger also called for a suburban gun store owner to be "snuffed." The blog also reports that Rev. Pfleger also called for the murder of politicians who don't agree with his views on gun control.

Illinios Review, citing the the Illinois State Rifle Association (ISRA), reports:

During an address at an anti-gun rally in front of Chuck's, Rev. Michael Pfleger, pastor of St. Sabina's Church, exhorted the crowd to "drag" [gun] shop owner, John Riggio, from his shop "like a rat" and "snuff" him. Rev. Pfleger went on to tell the crowd that legislators that vote against gun control legislation should be "snuffed" as well. As many know, "snuff" is slang for especially violent murder.

The ISRA has a recording of Pfleger's remarks in MP3 format.

"Certainly Fr. Pfleger has offered Absolution to a murderer or two during his tenure as a priest," commented ISRA Executive Director, Richard Pearson. "That's why it's shocking to hear him actually advocate the murder of a gun shop owner who has never committed a crime in his life. He then compounds the problem by calling for the murder of legislators who disagree with his personal political views -- something I suspect is a felony in this state. Pfleger's comments were disgusting and dangerous. And, I seem to remember that the Fifth Commandment frowns on murdering one's neighbor."

For the same story, see also Cybercast News Service (5-29-08).

The AP reports (5-30-08) that Senator Obama has worked with Rev. Pfleger to get state grants to help inner-city blacks:

While Pfleger is not nearly as close to Obama as Wright had been, he has donated to the candidate's state Senate and presidential campaigns and sat on a Catholics for Obama committee until a few weeks ago. When Obama was in the Illinois Legislature, he helped land more than $200,000 in state grants for outreach programs run by Pfleger's church.

The Swamp (5-29-08), a blog of the Chicago Tribune reports:

Pfleger gave Obama's campaign $1,500 between 1995 and 2001, including $200 in April 2001, about three months after Obama announced $225,000 in grants to St. Sabina programs...Pfleger said he made those donations personally, not on behalf of the church or to win grants.

I also feel strongly that there should be more control over gun ownership and that people in poor communities should be better protected by the police from criminals with guns. Like Rev. Pfleger, am against drugs and prostitution; but I don't think that government money should be going to clergymen/terrorists like Rev. Pfleger who call for "snuffing" people.

People like Rev. Pfleger who publically incite crowds to murder people and politicians with whom they disagree should be called terrorists. I also wonder if Rev. Pfleger has ever demonstrated in front of the homes of the criminals who prey on his neighborhood and incited crowds to snuff them. Is John Riggio selling those people guns? It isn't clear.

Rev. Pfleger is advocating terrorism. He is a hater. He is a lot like Ward Churchill, the ex-professor who used his "pulpit" at the University of Colorado to celebrate the murder of two FBI agents, who "jokingly" called for "snuffing" American children, who "daydreamed" in an essay about hanging politicians, and who denigrated the victims of 9-11 as "little Eichmanns."

The Swamp (5-29-08) reports:

Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign on Thursday was forced to again apologize for the remarks of a Chicago pastor backing his candidacy who spoke from the pulpit of his longtime church.

"As I have traveled this country, I've been impressed not by what divides us, but by all that that unites us," Obama said in a statement. "That is why I am deeply disappointed in Father Pfleger's divisive, backward-looking rhetoric, which doesn't reflect the country I see or the desire of people across America to come together in common cause."

If Senator Obama believes this, then why did the Senator support this divisive, backward priest with government money? If he becomes President, is Senator Obama going to sponsor other people who advocate terrorist murder when they don't get their way?

Even stranger, why would Rev. Pfleger embarrass Senator Obama after he saw the political fallout against Senator Obama from Rev. Wright's extremist rhetoric and lies about AIDS?

Maybe Rev. Pfleger doesn't really care about Senator Obama's candidacy or about helping black people. Maybe he cares more about fomenting hate and inciting terrorism, which will not help black people and is not the message of Jesus.

Is Rev. Pfleger trying to undermine Senator Obama, or is he just such a self-absorbed drama queen that he couldn't resist a chance for his fifteen minutes of fame?

Lynn Sweet of the Sun Times News Group (5-30-08) reports:

Pfleger, a passionate advocate for the down-and-out, immediately issued an apology: ''I regret the words I chose on Sunday. These words are inconsistent with Senator Obama's life and message, and I am deeply sorry if they offended Senator Clinton or anyone else who saw them.''

Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt said Pfleger stepped down from a ''Catholics for Obama'' committee a few weeks ago, but would not say why.

The Clinton campaign at first had no comment, then Thursday evening said Obama did not go far enough in distancing himself from Pfleger. "Divisive and hateful language like that is totally counterproductive in our efforts to bring our party together and have no place at the pulpit or in our politics," said a statement issued by Clinton spokesman Phil Singer. "We are disappointed that Senator Obama didn't specifically reject Father Pfleger's despicable comments about Senator Clinton, and assume he will do so."

Chicago Sun-Times religion reporter Mike Thomas asked Cardinal Francis George's office for a reaction, and his spokeswoman, Colleen Dolan said, ''The cardinal has made it clear to Father Pfleger in the past on more than one occasion that it's inappropriate to speak about political issues from the pulpit and that his own personal opinions are his own personal opinions.''

The campaign of presumptive GOP nominee Sen. John McCain declined comment.

Pfleger is a longtime Obama friend and was in the audience at the National Press Club for that Wright press conference, and when we talked afterward, he realized Wright created a problem for Obama.

I was told Pfleger's comments stunned some in the Obama camp because they expected him to be more politically savvy -- and not take on Clinton, especially at Trinity, of all places.

Sunday, May 25, 2008

VICTORY!

"A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on."---Winston Churchill's famous quotes

[Listen to Churchill's speeches.]

"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile—hoping it will eat him last."

"You ask, What is our policy? I will say; “It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy.” You ask, What is our aim? I can answer with one word: Victory—victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival."

"We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and the oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender."

"Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fall, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth lasts for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour!'"

Friday, May 23, 2008

In the Spirit of Coler and Williams


UPDATE: I read a comment posted by a newbie named "Friedricha" at Pirate Ballerina :

Snapple! Where does it say that Richard Two Elk did the 'in the spirit of coler and williams' youtube movie? Does he do An Oh Gee productions? Friedricha 05.23.08 - 8:31 pm #

My updated post should answer "Friedricha's" question. Yes. Richard Two Elk has a company called OG Productions. The OG is short for Oh Gee Productions. On the site called No Parole Peltier, Richard Two Elk is credited for the video. Two Elk's video was first posted at American Indian Mafia under the title "Leonard Peltier: In His Own Words." The Realplayer video on that site is titled "Ima Thug" and the artist is identified as Richard Two Elk.

***********

On June 26, 1975, two young FBI agents named Jack R. Coler and Ronald A. Williams were ambushed and shot to death execution-style at close range after they were already injured and on the ground. Their faces were obliterated. Leonard Peltier was indicted for the murder of the two agents and for aiding and abetting in those murders. In 1977, Peltier received two consecutive life sentences. Here is a good overview of what happened.

Agents Coler and Williams were ambushed while going about their routine FBI business of protecting the Indians who live on the Pine Ridge Indian reservation from the dangerous criminals like Leonard Peltier who preyed on them.

The FBI has a special unit called "Indian Country" that protects Indians. Unfortunately, when people spread lies about the FBI's role on the reservations, the FBI has a difficult time protecting the rights of Indians. As the Minneapolis FBI has said:

The trust and help of reservation residents are vital to the accomplishment of our sworn duty.

Here is a video that shows the truth about the murders of Agents Coler and Williams. The video also exposes Peltier's lies: Peltier damns himself right out of his own mouth because he keeps changing his story.

This video by Richard Two Elk [see also his media company OG Productions] and a commentary are also posted at No Parole Peltier, which explains:

Richard Two Elk is a direct descendent of Oglala Dakota Chief Two Elk and has devoted much of his life to research, education and lecturing on Native American traditions, history and social issues. To learn more about Richard Two Elk and the American Indian Movement, see the definitive history of AIM, Wounded Knee II and Resmurs in American Indian Mafia by Joseph H. Trimbach and John Trimbach.

Two Elk's video was originally posted at American Indian Mafia under the title "Leonard Peltier: In His Own Words." The Realplayer video is titled "Ima Thug" and the artist is identified as Richard Two Elk.

Here is the official FBI account of the murders and pictures of the two young men.

The investigation and trial showed that the two FBI agents didn't fire many shots. They seem to have been surprised by the shooters.

According to the FBI:

During this ordeal, a combined total of five rounds had been fired by both Williams and Coler's weapons.

I have written about this vicious double murder in several posts, but especially here and here. The two men were executed on the anniversary of "Custer's Last Stand" (June 25-26, 1876).

Boulder, Colorado's evil, dishonest ex-professor Ward Churchill---who has written falsehoods about this double homicide---is a nasty, vicious, goul who also "jokes" that yuppy mothers should snuff their children and kill themselves to reduce the population and save the Earth:

Every yuppie born counts as much as another seventy Chinese.

Lay that one on the next soccer mom who approaches you with a baby stroller and an outraged look, demanding that you to put your cigarette out, eh? It is plainly absurd for any American to complain about smoking when you consider the context of the damage done by overall U.S. consumption patterns. Tell ’em you’ll put the butt out when they snuff the kid and not a moment before. Better yet, tell ’em they should snuff themselves, as well as the kid, and do the planet a real favor. Just 'kidding' (heh-heh)."---Ward Churchill [Cache (heh-heh!); see also a slightly different version of this essay which appears as Chapter 13 in Acts of Rebellion: The Ward Churchill Reader, especially page 296.]

The despicable anti-FBI propagandist Ward Churchill has falsely claimed in his anti-FBI diatribe Agents of Repression:

The reality, of course, was that Coler and Williams were vastly outgunned from the moment they commenced firing, although it is doubtful they realized it at the outset. Further, AIM and its supporters had sufficient firepower available to turn back the initial attempts at reinforcement, sealing the two agents--Custer-like--in their self-made trap

...[Agents Coler and Williams] were apparently to serve as "point" elements of an elaborate plan to trap the Tent City AIM group into a gun battle near Oglala on June 26, 1975. They were sent in, cut off and abandoned by their colleagues (241-242).

When the mendacious Ward Churchill falsely suggested that the two murdered FBI agents deliberately provoked and initiated the shooting and so deserved to die "Custer-like--in their self-made trap," he denigrated these innocent victims as perpetrators in exactly the same way that he denigrated American mothers and our children for destroying the earth. He denigrated these FBI men the same way that he denigrated the innocent 9-11 victims as "little Eichmanns."

I think Ward Churchill is the one who sounds like the evil, anti-semitic conspiracy-theorist Adolf Eichmann who denigrated innocent, defenseless Jews for imaginary crimes. It is especially destructive that Ward Churchill poses as an Indian when he writes his hatful screeds.

Ward Churchill's dishonest, deceptive, fabricated histories are reminiscent of that notorious anti-semitic forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Wikipedia explains:

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion...is a plagiarism, literary forgery, and a hoax, alleging a Jewish and Masonic plot to achieve world domination. The writing has been revealed to be originally an antisemitic and anti-Masonic (and subsequently anti-Zionist) diatribe and conspiracy theory. It was first published in 1903 in Russian, in Znamya ("The Banner," a newspaper).

Ward Churchill savors other people's suffering. He even likes to daydream about hanging politicians he doesn't like.

On an Indian radio show (11-4-99), Vernon Bellecourt stated (possibly sarcastically):

[I]n his book Agents of Repression, [Ward Churchill] stated that he was behind the hill from the Jumping Bull community the day after the gun fight that erupted there and killed two FBI agents...

Bellecourt's comment made Ward Churchill reaffirm his earlier claim that he was on Pine Ridge reservation on "that day." He told radio host Harlan McKosato:

In my book [ie Agents of Repression], I did not state that I was on the other side of the ridge from the Jumping Bull [Compound]... I was at Potato Creek which is some distance away on the Pine Ridge reservation. I had arrived there that day in an International Scout vehicle without a radio, I had no idea what was going on and was surprised by one of the FBI sweep operations, that’s what I recount. I was on my way to Spearfish, South Dakota to take up a faculty position, I had not resided in South Dakota nor had I been in South Dakota since I was 6-years-old, at the time I arrived at Pine Ridge. That’s simply another flat out, disinformational statement. [Full text]

What did Churchill actually say in Agents of Repression? In this book, Churchill claims he was on Pine Ridge on June 27, 1975:

Author Churchill experienced one of these sweeps firsthand when, while driving across Pine Ridge on June 27, 1975, he stopped to urinate alongside the road, about five miles south of Porcupine. Over the ridge came an APC, accompanied by some 20 FBI and BIA police personnel, moving "on line," carrying M-16s, and dressed in Vietnam-style jungle fatigues, boots and bush hats. Most of the group were also wearing military-issue flack-jackets. Needless to say, the whole scene afforded a sense of deja vu to the viewer, given that he had spent a year in Southeast Asia in combat." [page 438, footnote #49]

Maybe Ward Churchill, who loves to write about all the people who he believes deserve to die, actually was on Pine Ridge about the time two FBI agents were murdered; or maybe he is just bragging to give himself radical "cred." Churchill makes up so many things, it is hard to know the truth.

Real teachers don't want to be tricked by professors into teaching deliberate falsehoods to their students. Now we can show Richard Two Elk's video, and students can see Leonard Peltier's many contradictory versions of "the truth."

I am really appreciative that Richard Two Elk's research has shown us what really happened on June 26, 1975, so that teachers, students, Americans, and people all over the world aren't fooled by Ward Churchill's divisive, stupid, poisonous falsehoods about how the FBI tried to use young agents as "'point' elements" to provoke a gun battle and then supposedly abandoned them to die "Custer-like---in their self-made trap."

Ward Churchill is a dishonest teacher who has lied to his students and to the whole world. He fabricates history that never happened and mischaracterizes the words of honest scholars in order to give his evil, destructive, stupid, divisive lies credibility.

Ward Churchill also claims that he is a defender of human rights, but really he celebrates murder and terrorism. It is the FBI and real human rights activists like Richard Two Elk who are protecting our rights.

Ward Churchill even wrote in a KGB-sponsored publication, The Covert Action Information Bulletin, that FBI-backed death squads on Pine Ridge killed 342 Indians.

One of Ward Churchill's other anti-American canards is that the U.S. Army deliberately infected the Mandan with smallpox.

In 1945, the scientists E. Wagner Stearn, Ph.D. and Allen E. Stearn, Ph.D. wrote a book called The Effect of Smallpox on the Destiny of the Amerindian. Ward Churchill has mischaracterized what these authors wrote in order to give his lie credibility. Ward Churchill is a mischief maker who does not quote this passage from the book he "cites":

"Mischief makers tried to provoke the Indians against the whites by telling them that they were to be exterminated by smallpox, introduced in clothing sent to them"---Stearn and Stearn. The Effect of Smallpox on the Destiny of the Amerindian (102).

Ward Churchill is like those ignorant people in medieval times who spread false stories about how the Jews were poisoning the wells of Christians with the plague.

Ward Churchill is like those people who claim that the U.S. government made AIDS and bird flu in a laboratory in order to kill black people and Russians. His books are nothing but a pack of contemptable lies and fabrications like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, told in order to incite fear, hatred, and prejudice so that people can't work together peacefully in spite of their differences.

Even the former KGB foreign intelligence chief Primakov has come clean and admitted that it spread the lie that the U.S. military made AIDS. I guess Wardo didn't get the memo.

Saturday, May 17, 2008

Ronald Noble: Secretary General of Interpol

This is Ronald K. Noble, the Secretary General of Interpol. Here is his biography. Mr. Noble, an American citizen, is a tenured Professor of Law at New York University School of Law. He holds a Juris Doctorate Degree from Stanford University Law School. Mr Noble speaks French, German, Spanish, and English. He became Secretary General in 2000 and was unanimously reelected to a second term in 2005.

On Thursday, May 15, 2008, Interpol endorsed the authenticity of computer files seized in a FARC rebel camp.

At a press conference in Bogota, Columbia on May 15, 2008, Mr. Noble stated:

No person, no country, and not even INTERPOL, the world’s largest international police organization, can fully understand the extent to which the terrorist group FARC has prevented the Colombian people from leading their lives as freely as possible without fear of deadly attack, kidnapping, extortion or other crimes.

Only in the last 10 years, FARC has perpetrated 16,500 terrorist attacks; murdered 7,500 people; injured another 9,500; and kidnapped more than 12,000.

The father of your President was just one of the many victims murdered by the FARC. Several presidential candidates have been kidnapped by the FARC. Elected officials, civil servants, police officers and ordinary citizens – all of them have suffered at the hand of the FARC [Full text].

Interpol's forensic computer investigation demonstrated that Colombia did not tamper with computer documents indicating that Venezuela's President Chavez sought to finance and arm the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

Here is the Interpol Press Release and Interpol's Forensic Report on FARC Computers and Hardware Seized by Columbia.

FOX News (5-16-08) reports that Chavez responded to Interpol's report in his usual buffoonish manner:

Chavez responded sarcastically to Interpol's conclusions.

"Do you think we should waste time here on something so ridiculous?" he told reporters in Caracas.

Chavez has denied providing the FARC material support, but did not address the issue directly on Thursday. Instead, he called Interpol's secretary general, Ronald Noble, "a tremendous actor," "Mr. Ignoble" and an "immoral police officer who applauds killers."

I think Chavez shows a lot of contempt for his own people and for the international community when he lies so brazenly and so stupidly about his support of terrorism. I have written about what the documents in the computers said in previous posts. Search Chavez.

Friday, May 16, 2008

Captured Computer Documents Reveal Chavez' Damning FARC Ties

UPDATE: Interpol Press Release and Interpol's Forensic Report on FARC Computers and Hardware Seized by Columbia.

FOX News (5-16-08) reports:

BOGOTA, Colombia — The onus is now on Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to explain evidence of his apparently intimate ties to Colombia's main guerrilla army.

Interpol on Thursday endorsed the authenticity of computer files seized in a rebel camp, announcing that Colombia did not tamper with documents indicating Chavez sought to finance and arm the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

Venezuelan officials set up contacts with Australian arms dealers and arranged for missile training in the Middle East, according to the documents, which were on computer hard drives seized by Colombia and obtained by the Washington Post.

[See Washington Post (5-15-08 here and (5-16-08) here; see articles by WP reporter Juan Forero here.]

Yet Chavez responded sarcastically to Interpol's conclusions.

"Do you think we should waste time here on something so ridiculous?" he told reporters in Caracas.

Chavez has denied providing the FARC material support, but did not address the issue directly on Thursday. Instead, he called Interpol's secretary general, Ronald Noble, "a tremendous actor," "Mr. Ignoble" and an "immoral police officer who applauds killers."

Noble was unequivocal when asked about the authenticity of the computer files, though he made pains to explain that the 186-nation international police agency did not and would not evaluate their content.

More revelations are bound to emerge, as Interpol also turned over to Colombia 983 files it decrypted in a process Noble said took 10 computers two full weeks.

Colombian commandos recovered the three Toshiba Satellite laptop computers, two external hard drives and three USB memory sticks in a March 1 cross-border raid into Ecuador that killed FARC foreign minister Raul Reyes and 24 others...

Colombia has been leaking details from the documents since the day after the raid. The most damning evidence against Chavez was revealed to The Associated Press last week.

More than a dozen rebel messages detail close cooperation with Venezuela, including rebel training facilities on Venezuelan soil and a meeting inside Venezuela's equivalent of the Pentagon.

They suggest Venezuela wanted to loan the rebels $250 million and help them get Russian weapons and possibly even surface-to-air missiles.

Chavez says his only purpose is to ward off a U.S. invasion — not to supply the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC...

But military analysts say it is Colombia that should fear the 100,000 Russian-made assault rifles, 5,000 Dragunov sniper rifles and surface-to-air missiles Venezuela is amassing.

"These are just the sorts of weapons that the FARC would find interesting since these are the standard tools of guerrilla warfare," said John Pike, a military analyst at GlobalSecurity.org.

U.S. military officials say the weapons proliferation far outweighs any threat Chavez faces in the region.
"We are seriously worried about this great quantity of acquisitions," U.S. Lt. Gen. Glenn Spears said recently.[See full text]

Is Ayman al-Zawahiri a Russian Agent?

The Jamestown Foundation published this article on January 15, 2004.

A RUSSIAN AGENT AT THE RIGHT HAND OF BIN LADEN?

By Evgenii Novikov [See his biography]

The Arabic television channel Al Jazeera broadcast an audiotape on December 19, 2003, that was said to be from Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the right hand man of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. In it, Zawahiri claimed that his group was chasing Americans everywhere, including in the United States. This claim helped raise the terror threat level.

But where is Zawahiri, whose head now carries a price of US$25 million? Recent media reports have said that he is hiding in Iran, though Iranian authorities deny this. Yet it could be that Russian intelligence knows exactly where he is and may even have regular contact with the elusive Egyptian.

Zawahiri as Prisoner

There are many accounts of Ayman al-Zawahiri published in the press. These stories cover Zawahiri's childhood and his relatives, his study of medicine, his connections to the Muslim Brotherhood, his involvement in the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, his close relations with Osama bin Laden, and his role in major terrorist attacks against the United States. But there are few authors who mention that Zawahiri spent half a year in close contact with representatives of Russian intelligence while in their custody.

Significantly, these contacts led to a change in Zawahiri's political orientation. Long talks with Russian intelligence officers "forced a critical change in his lethal planning. ...America, not Egypt, became the target... Freed from Russian jail in May 1997, Dr. Zawahri found refuge in Afghanistan, yoking his fortunes to Mr. bin Laden. [Zawahiri's group] Egyptian Jihad, previously devoted to the narrow purpose of toppling secular rule in Egypt, became instead the biggest component of al Qaeda and a major agent of a global war against America. Dr. Zawahri became Mr. bin Laden's closest confidant and talent scout." [1]

The story of Zawahiri's Russian experience begins on December 1, 1996, when he was traveling under the alias "Mr. Amin" along with two of his officers--Ahmad Salama Mabruk, who ran Egyptian Jihad's cell in Azerbaijan under the cover of a trading firm called Bavari-C, and Mahmud Hisham al-Hennawi, a militant widely traveled in Asia. The group was accompanied by a Chechen guide. They were trying to enter Russia between the Caspian Sea and the Caucasus Mountains in an effort to discover whether Chechnya could become a base for training militants. It was here that the group was arrested by Russian police for a lack of visas. They were soon handed over to the Federal Security Service, the successor to the KGB. [See the full text]

Monday, May 12, 2008

Paul Wolf Watch: The Fifth Installment

Paul Wolf, "an impostor trying to save his own legacy"

Note: The article posted below was written by the former FBI Special Agent in Charge of North and South Dakota, Joseph H. Trimbach, and was originally posted (scroll down here) in response to a recent blog posting by Washington civil rights attorney, Paul Wolf. [See my earlier article about this here.]

Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

“Anna Mae Aquash was executed by a single gunshot to the back of her head on orders from the American Indian Movement because they believed her to be an informant for the F.B.I.”

That statement by the Supreme Court of British Columbia in June of last year points to a renewed interest in solving this 33-year old murder case. The alleged trigger-man, John Graham, was the subject of the Canadian Court’s order which sent him in chains to South Dakota. He will stand trial later this year. Another person implicated, American Indian Movement (AIM) attorney Bruce Ellison, was labeled a possible co-conspirator in a 2004 trial that found AIM member Arlo Looking Cloud guilty of aiding and abetting the murder.

Bringing the perpetrators to justice and telling the true story of the American Indian Movement’s crimes against the people of Pine Ridge is good news for Indian Country. But not everyone is happy that the truth is finally seeing the light of day. Particularly bothered are the self-anointed “historians” of the AIM legacy, usually found wearing a trench coat of conspiracy theories and half-truths. They do not like their version of Pine Ridge history challenged by anyone, even by people who were there.

A good example was recently provided by Washington-based attorney Paul Wolf. In 2001, Wolf oversaw a report presented to the U.N. Human Rights Commission [See here] about civil rights violations against AIM and other dissident groups. Central to Wolf’s argument are alleged abuses of COINTELPRO, the FBI’s counter-intelligence program originally designed to disrupt the Communist Party’s infiltration of America. While there were some abuses of COINTELPRO, Wolf’s presentation has proven to be a distinctly unreliable source of information for telling us about it. After reading my book, American Indian Mafia, you’ll see that all of Wolf’s assertions regarding the American Indian Movement, for example, are either distortions or outright lies. Also telling, Wolf’s report overlooks the fact that FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover formally terminated all COINTELPRO operations on April 28, 1971, well before AIM violence attracted the attention of federal investigators.

Not surprisingly, Wolf blogged [Scroll down here] that my book should be ignored, mostly because I’m old and cranky. You gotta love that, a civil-rights lawyer in favor of age discrimination. Curious as well, Wolf chose to air his views at indianz.com, where Indian Country bloggers are often critical of fat-cat, white lawyers. (Note to the red-haired attorney: I know Indians. Indians are my friends. Mr. Wolf, you’re no Indian!)

And while it’s true I’m getting up there in years, I’m still young enough to spot an impostor trying to save his own legacy. The problem with Wolf’s report, as he surely knows, is that it is mostly propaganda designed to advance a political agenda. Its credibility is not helped by virtue of its co-authors, among them John Conyers, Cynthia McKinney, and Sheila Jackson Lee, all members of the Congressional Black Caucus. These politicians were evidently enticed into endorsing Wolf’s political nonsense based on assumed government abuses against the Black Panthers, a holdover group of extremists from the violent 1960s. Again, while there may have been some truth to the allegations, it is impossible to tell from this highly falsified report.

Want more proof that Wolf’s rant is political horse hockey? Consider that defrocked Professor Ward Churchill lent his expertise in research, and that Left-wing ideologue Noam Chomsky is listed as an unbiased contributor. Wolf howls about everything from the assumed subversion of the press to the plight of “political prisoner” and convicted killer Leonard Peltier. The unsuspecting reader is thus treated to the usual mantra of an all-powerful government subverting the rights of the common man, with solutions founded in rank socialism. Even Jimmy Carter is implicated in a vast conspiracy to deprive citizens of their rights under the guise of promoting American security. Wolf’s report also proved to be the perfect vehicle from which Bruce Ellison could construct plausible alibis for the murder of Anna Mae Aquash. That’s right, the same Bruce Ellison who, for over 30 years, has been in the business of blaming the FBI for the crime, while skillfully diverting attention away from his own alleged involvement in the murder—nice work if you can get it. Do you suppose the U.N.’s High Commissioner, Mary Robinson, to whom the report was presented, had a clue about any of this?

Of course, the real travesty of justice was not the actions of government Agents who faithfully and legally did their jobs. It is rather the legitimacy granted those who practice the same type of dishonesty and recklessness in print they accuse others of having committed in upholding the law.

Wolf did not get very far before another blogger [See here] pointed out that he failed to note numerous references to COINTELPRO in my book. No wonder. Referencing the inconvenient truths in American Indian Mafia would have exposed his report for the fraud that it is. Wolf and his ilk cannot afford to analyze my book on its merits; that would require far too much honesty and integrity. I am proud to say that, so far, Native Americans who are not fooled by the usual AIM smoke and mirrors are among my strongest supporters. They know the truth and they see through Wolf’s sheepish attempts to run from it. Your turn, old man.

Joseph H. Trimbach, the former FBI Special Agent in Charge of North and South Dakota, is author of the book, American Indian Mafia, An FBI Agent’s True Story about Wounded Knee, Leonard Peltier, and the American Indian Movement (AIM).

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Jenna Bush and Henry Hager Tie the Knot!

UPDATE: Wedding pictures!

Here is the Texas State Symphony Orchestra playing "The Yellow Rose of Texas." I hope Jenna and her beau Henry Hager have have a beautiful wedding!

The song says, "The sage in bloom is like perfume, deep in the Heart of Texas."

In the picture above, Jenna signs the book for teenagers that she wrote, Ana's Story: A Journey of Hope. The book is about a young woman who was born with AIDS.

Amazon writes:

Ana’s story begins the day she is born with HIV, transmitted from her mother, who dies just a few years later. From then on, Ana's childhood becomes a blur of secrets—about her illness, her family, and the abuse she endures. Shuffled from home to home, Ana rarely finds safety or acceptance. But after she falls in love and becomes pregnant at seventeen, she embarks on a journey that leads her to new beginnings, new sorrows, and new hope.

Based on her work with UNICEF and inspired by the framework of one girl's life, Jenna Bush tells the story of many children around the world who are excluded from basic care, support, and education. Resources at the back of this book share how you can help children like Ana and protect yourself and others.

On this Youtube, Jenna discusses her experiences as an intern with UNICEF. Her job with UNICEF was to write about children and teenagers with AIDS.

Jenna has been visiting schools and educating American kids about how to protect themselves from AIDS.

Here is a 2005 article from the State Department with accurate information about AIDS and a 2005 article from the Washington Post that describes some false beliefs about AIDS that are hurting young people.

I am glad that this young teacher is reaching out to teenagers and showing them how they can help others and protect themselves from AIDS. 80% of the new cases of AIDS are young black people between 18-24. These young people need accurate information that they can relate to. Hopefully, Jenna's book will help adolescents make good choices so they can protect their health.

Jenna is an educator, not a propagandist; so she does not spread false and destructive anti-American canards cooked up by the KGB (as even the Russian Intelligence admitted in 1992) about how the American government deliberately infects people with diseases.

Mendacious charlatans like ex- Professor Ward Churchill, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and the head of the Russian Communist Party Gennady Zyuganov should be ashamed of themselves for masquerading as experts and spreading destructive lies about diseases.

Ward Churchill spread a fabricated story that the American Army deliberately infected the Mandan with smallpox. Rev. Wright spread the discredited KGB lie that the American Army made AIDS to kill black people. The head of Russia's Communist Party Gennady Zyuganov spread the lie that Americans made bird flu. Zyuganov's lie is an embarrassment to real scientists in Russia. Churchill, Wright, and Zyuganov are spreading the same kind of destructive lies as medieval people once disseminated when they accused Jews of poisoning wells to spread the plague.

The truth is that Americans are working hard and spending a lot of money all over the world to educate people about AIDS and to treat this terrible disease.

This beautiful young teacher's simple book is showing teenagers how to be compassionate, how to help the suffering, and how to stay healthy. She isn't using a disease as an opportunity to stir up hatred of our country: hatred that poisons the minds of the very people we are trying to help.

Paul Wolf Watch: The Fourth Installment

This is a picture of Paul Wolf, a so-called human rights lawyer who doesn't even seem to have a business address. [Scroll down to see my other posts about Paul Wolf here.]

Mr. Wolf claims to be heroically defending people's freedoms and human rights by writing exposés about American government agencies such as the FBI and CIA.

If Paul Wolf is interested in defending people's human rights, then why has he never publicized the fact that the lawyer for the American Indian Movement, Mark Lane, had a relationship with the KGB operative Genrikh Borovik?

This relationship was revealed in a book called The Sword and Shield, which was jointly written by a KGB defector named Vasili Mitrokhin and the head of the History Department at Cambridge University, Christopher Andrew.

The Sword and Shield reveals:

Though it dared not take the risk of contacting [Mark] Lane directly, the New York [KGB] residency sent him 1,500 dollars to help finance his research through the intermediary of a close friend whom Lane's KGB file identifies only as a trusted contact. While Lane was not told the source of the money, the residency suspected that he might have guessed where it came from; it was also concerned that the secret subsidy might be discovered by the FBI.

The same intermediary provided 500 dollars to pay for a trip by Lane to Europe in 1964. While there, Lane asked to visit Moscow in order to discuss some of the material he had found. The Centre [ie KGB headquarters] regretfully concluded that inviting him to Russia would reveal its hand in too blatant a way and his proposed trip was "tactfully postponed." Trusted contacts were, however, selected from among Soviet journalists to encourage him in his research. Among them was the KGB agent Genrikh Borovik, who later maintained regular contact with Lane. [Page 228; but Mark Lane is discussed throughout Chapter 14.]

Genrikh Borovik was not any ordinary KGB active measures operative; he was the brother-in-law of the late Vladimir Kryuchkov.

Vladimir Kryuchkov became the head of the foreign directorate of the KGB in 1974 and deputy chairman of the entire KGB in 1978 (Jeremy R. Azrael. The KGB in Kremlin Politics. Rand/UCLA Feb 1989. p. 41).

Vladimir Kyrychkov eventually became the head of the entire KGB and even orchestrated the kidnapping of the General Secretary of the Communist Party and the leader of the Soviet Union Mikail Gorbachev. After a while, Kryuchkov was pardoned.

Mark Lane tried to take materials that could be used for bombs
(probably large quantities sanitary napkins that could be used as the plugs for molotov cocktails) into the Indian village of Wounded Knee on Pine Ridge Indian reservation. The FBI confiscated most of the contraband because they believed they would be used as the plugs for molotov cocktails.

The former FBI agent Joseph H. Trimbach has written:

On one occasion, attorney Mark Lane arrived at one of the roadblocks. The Agent on duty opened the trunk of [Mark Lane's] car and reported back to me that he had found materials that could be used to make Molotov cocktails. The Agent detained him and radioed back for permission to place lane under arrest. I relayed the request to the Assistant U.S. Attorney. After a short pause, he vetoed that suggestion and Lane was allowed to proceed, without the contraband. The following year I was called to testify about what happened March 8th. The lawyer who cross-examined me was the same man, Mark Lane. (American Indian Mafia. p. 122; June 28, 2005 letter from Joanne Pierce to Joe Trimbach)

Why is it that Paul Wolf--who claims he wants to protect our freedoms and civil rights--never tells us or the United Nations that a person with links to a violent terrorist organization--the KGB--was taking components for bombs into a tiny Indian town?

A few years after the violence at Wounded Knee, Mark Lane and Charles Garry---the lawyers for the doomed people of the People's Temple at Jonestown---would manage to save themselves and escape into the jungle when almost all their clients were murdered at Jonestown. [Charles Garry was also the lawyer for the Black Panthers Huey Newton and Bobby Seale.]

After Mark Lane saved himself and almost all his People's Temple clients died, Mark Lane wrote a book that claimed that the CIA had murdered the people at Jonestown. That's some nerve, coming from a man who had a relationship with the KGB operative Genrikh Borovik, the brother-in-law of Vladimir Kryuchkov.

I find it really disturbing that Mark Lane, a person who had a relationship with a terrorist organization--the KGB--was on the scene at Wounded Knee and Jonestown. I think it's a really doubtful that Mark Lane---who collaborated with the KGB and wrote conspiracy theories against the American government--was representing the interests of Indians or the more than 900 tragically confused people who were murdered at Jonestown.

Here are Paul Wolf's various documents on COINTELPRO here, here, and here.

The lawyer doesn’t even disclose an address on his homesites here and here!

Scroll down and read all Paul Wolf's claims.

I think that Paul Wolf's real goal is to to hobble and discredit
the FBI and CIA so that Americans and people in other countries aren’t protected from the enemies of our freedoms and civil rights such as the KGB and Middle Eastern terrorists.

I think that Paul Wolf is the opposite of what he claims to be. Why does he only notice the FBI and CIA? Why doesn’t he tell readers about Mark Lane and the KGB?

Paul Wolf represents himself as an "expert" on COINTELPRO, but he doesn't tell people what the head FBI agent at Pine Ridge Joe Trimbach said about COINTELPRO:

As for my role in the secret program to "provoke" selfless heroes, I had heard of COINTELPRO in conjunction with FBI operations of the 1960s but was not involved with it, and certainly never used it against AIM.-- American Indian Mafia p. 28.

Notice that Paul Wolf sent lies and slanders about our country to the U.N. so that people in other countries would hate us, not want to work together with us, and perhaps be incited to attack us.

I don't think that Paul Wolf is protecting the rights and civil liberties of Americans and people in other countries. I think he is trying to empower evil people who want to discredit my country and destroy my freedoms and the freedoms of people all over the world.

I think that the KGB may even have been involved in the killings at Wounded Knee and Jonestown. Vasili Mitrokhin and Christopher Andrew have written that during the 1970s KGB terrorists stirred up racial strife and even exploded a bomb in a black neighborhood and then blamed Jews:

[T]he [KGB] Centre implemented a series of active measures designed to weaken the internal cohesion of the United States and undermine its international reputation by inciting race hatred. In 1971 Andropov personally approved the fabrication of pamphlets full of racist insults purporting to come from the extremist Jewish Defense League, headed by Meir Kahane, calling for a campaign against the "black mongrels" who, it was claimed, were attacking Jews and looting Jewish shops. Thirty pamphlets were mailed to a series of militant black groups in the hope of producing "mass disorders in New York." At the same time forged letters were sent to sixty black organizations giving fictitious details of atrocities committed by the League against blacks and calling for vengeance against Kahane and his chief lieutenants. Probably to the Centre's disappointment, Kahane was assassinated some years later, not by a black militant but by an Arab.

On at least one occasion, the Centre ordered the use of explosives to exacerbate racial tensions in New York. On July 25, 1971 the head of the FCD First (North American) Department, Anatoli Tikhonovich Kireyev, instructed the New York residency to proceed with operation PANDORA: the planting of a delayed-action explosive package in "the Negro section of New York." Kireyev's preferred target was "one of the Negro colleges." After the explosion the residency was ordered to make anonymous telephone calls to two or three black organizations, claiming that the explosion was the work of the Jewish Defense League. [The Sword and Shield. Page 238]

That is how the KGB do terrorism. They orchestrate some violence and then blame an enemy such as the FBI, the CIA, and--of course--the Jews. Some people think that in 1991 the KGB killed hundreds of their own citizens when they blew up apartments in Russia and then blamed it on the Chechens.

Senator John McCain has stated (11-4-2003):

Under President Putin, Russian citizens in Chechnya have suffered crimes against humanity at the hands of Russian military forces. It was during Mr. Putin's tenure as Prime Minister in 1999 that he launched the Second Chechen War following the Moscow apartment bombings. There remain credible allegations that Russia's FSB had a hand in carrying out these attacks. Mr. Putin ascended to the presidency in 2000 by pointing a finger at the Chechens for committing these crimes, launching a new military campaign in Chechnya, and riding a frenzy of public anger into office.