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La grande erreur de vos analyses c’est que vous assimiler les opinions britanniques à l’ensemble de l’Europe: Il n’y a vraiment pas de distinctions sufisantes entre les deux côtés de l’Atlantique. J’espère que vous allez changer ce parti-pris afin que nous profitions de vos brillantes intuitions

Greece sails past EU target on deficit
By Graham Bowley International Herald Tribune Saturday, March 19, 2005
Berlusconi bristles at idea that Italy might miss mark, too Greece recorded a budget deficit of 6.1 percent of gross domestic product in 2004, official figures showed Friday, the biggest deficit in percentage terms of a European Union country since the introduction of the single currency in 1999.The Italian deficits in 2003 and 2004 could also be revised above the 3 percent limit of the battered EU Stability and Growth Pact, according to Eurostat, the EU statistics agency. The overshoots come before what is likely to be a fractious meeting of European governments in Brussels on Sunday, when finance ministers will try to agree to rework the pact amid widespread flouting of the rules by several EU countries. The doubt cast on Italy’s economy drew a blistering response from Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s prime minister, who has been among the vanguard of EU nations seeking to relax the rules. Berlusconi said he would contest Eurostat’s figures. “We’re pretty tired of all this bureaucracy,” Berlusconi said in Rome, Reuters reported. “We are really determined to do battle over this because Europe’s job should not be to create difficulties for member states, but precisely the opposite.” The pact’s rules were put in place at the end of the last decade, largely at Germany’s insistence. They were meant to underpin public confidence in Europe’s fledgling currency by restricting countries’ freedom to run up large budget deficits. Germans were afraid that traditionally high-spending countries like Italy or Greece would undermine the stability they enjoyed under the Deutsche mark. But Germany, which has broken the 3 percent cap outlined in the pact for the past three years, is now leading a group of countries, including France, to weaken the rules by introducing a list of mitigating factors that would allow a country to escape punishment. Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of Germany said during a visit to Vienna on Friday that the new pact should put more emphasis on economic growth. “Stability is important, but growth is at least as important,” he said, according to Reuters. A meeting of finance ministers broke up in acrimony this month as they argued over the list of mitigating factors. Germany wants to be excused the massive payments it has made to support the former East Germany since reunification in 1990. France has wanted to leave out spending on defense and on research. Italy wants to exempt infrastructure. Britain, which does not participate in the euro currency, also wants to limit the powers of the European Commission to enforce sanctions on countries. But these moves have been resisted by fiscal disciplinarians like Austria and the Netherlands, as well as some of the new EU nations of Eastern Europe, which fear the relaxation of the rules could fatally undermine the euro before they can join. A decision on reform requires unanimity among all 25 EU nations. This week, Luxembourg, which holds the EU rotating presidency, floated a compromise to break the deadlock, in which countries could draw up their own list of special factors they could use to avoid sanctions if they broke the limit. This approach would represent a severe watering down of the pact compared with the strict rules put in place in the late 1990s. But the new figures could undermine the efforts of some EU countries to relax the rules, economists said. “These figures will add a little bit of weight to the argument that discipline is needed and should be applied with some severity,” Nicolas Sobczak, an economist at Goldman Sachs in Paris, told Bloomberg. Greece’s budget deficit was sharply higher than the government’s own estimate of 5.3 percent, although the figure could be revised still higher, Eurostat said. Questions remain about Greece’s spending on the Olympics, unpaid bills by hospitals and on the government’s accounting for payments to and from the EU central budget. The Greek government promised Friday to work with the European Union “in a framework of transparency” to fix the public accounts. “This is the heritage of fiscal disorder the Socialist governments left behind,” the Finance Ministry said in a statement in Athens. The ill will between countries could spill over into a meeting of EU heads of state and government in Brussels on Tuesday and Wednesday. EU leaders are hoping to focus on broader attempts to revitalize Europe’s slow-growing economies. They will try to restart the stalled Lisbon Agenda, an EU policy began five years ago that was aimed at making Europe the world’s most competitive economy by 2010. But one of the centerpieces of the new agenda, a directive to open up the EU market in services, has come under severe attack in the past few weeks. Countries like France and Germany have criticized it. They fear it will lead to social dumping. This would involve companies from low-cost countries in Eastern Europe undermining higher standards of social protection in western member states. This week Jaques Chirac, the French president, said the services directive was “unacceptable.” A demonstration against the services proposal, involving thousands of protesters, is expected in Brussels on Saturday. José Manuel Barroso, the European Commission president, called Friday for renewed political commitment to revive the EU reforms and boost the popularity of the Union. “What has been missing is a lack of sufficient political drive and commitment in many of our member states,” Barroso said in a speech in Poland. Carter Dougherty contributed reporting from Frankfurt.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/03/18/business/euro.html

Europe should defend its position just as vigorously as Bush’s vulcans

By Stewart Fleming

SHORTLY after President George W. Bush’s first election victory, during a high level seminar hosted by the European Commission, a top American diplomat grew tired of listening to British officials bleating about the new regime in Washington. Her advice: if you do not like the new unilateralism, you should stop whingeing and stand up for yourselves.

Bush’s choice of Paul Wolfowitz, one of the neo-Conservative ‘vulcans’ behind the president’s bellicose Middle East democratisation project, to head the World Bank has provoked yelps of pain from those of a puppy dog disposition. They should take the advice of that State Department official.

Bush’s visit to Brussels last month cast a patina of diplomatic conviviality over the EU-US relationship. Since his departure, those naïve enough to have been seduced into believing that the Bush administration’s unilateralist instincts have been diluted since the president’s second election success should have suffered a rude awakening. The Wolfowitz appointment, made without any meaningful consultations in advance, is just another sign that Bush may be softening his Texan vowels but not his ruthless Texan political instincts.

There have been two main lines of attack on the imminent Wolfowitz appointment. One, that he is not qualified for the job. The other, that the choice of leader of this important global financial institution should not continue to be in the gift of the American president.

The first criticism is easily dealt with. Some may not like the cut of Paul Wolfowitz’s political jib, but he is a highly intelligent, vastly experienced, government official, whose selection would not have caused much more than a ripple of surprise had it not been for the Iraq war.

As for Bush’s licence to select the new leader, here too the critics are missing the point. It is too soon to abandon the ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ that the US should have the right to choose the head of the World Bank and western European countries to select the managing director of the Bank’s sister institution, the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The time is fast approaching when this convention will have passed its sell-by date. But Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize winner in economics and a former World Bank chief economist, is mistaken to say it already has.

It is not just because the European Union, with its 30% stake, and the US, with around 16%, are still the main ‘shareholders’ in the World Bank and the IMF that he, and his supporters, are wrong.
It is American, European and Japanese taxpayers and investors who underpin the finances of the Bretton Woods ‘sisters’ in Washington.

When it comes to financial crises, it is the advanced industrial countries which have the resources, and the incentive, to organise rescues. It matters, too, that the leaders of the IMF and the World Bank are citizens of stable democracies. The over-hasty invitation to Russia to become a member of the Group of Seven (G7) in 1998 serves as a warning on this score. Already the managing director of the World Bank, Shengman Zhang, is Chinese. Do we really want its President to be the appointee of a potentially unstable or authoritarian regime?

The governance of the global economy is in flux. Chinese, Indian, South African and Brazilian officials are now invited to fringe meetings of the G7 finance ministers. Before too long, the G7 will be expanded to include them as full members.

The more interesting immediate issue, however, is why has Bush put so senior an official as Wolfowitz into the World Bank? What should not be overlooked is that this is an institution which lends $20 billion (e15bn) a year. And Washington is running short of the readies. The ability, through the World Bank, to influence both the direction and volume of this lending, and to shape the intellectual debate about economic development, is a prize not to be sniffed at by a country which is militarily stretched and whose ‘soft power’ tank is running on empty.

Bush’s realisation that he needs, belatedly, to pay more attention to the fragility of America’s finances is also manifested in the acrimonious breakdown in transatlantic discussions about the future financing of Boeing and Airbus civilian jets.

Because of Airbus, exports of Boeing civilian jets are not making the contribution they should to narrowing a US current account deficit which has just hit an annual rate of $700bn (e530bn), close to 7% of national output. In Washington, protectionist voices are rising too.

The deficit with China alone hit $162bn (e123bn) last year. But when, this week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice raised the trade issue with her hosts in Beijing, she was not too politely reminded that it is partly the reverse flow into US Treasury bills of the funds from China’s trade surplus which is keeping the American economy afloat. It is not just Washington’s worries about European exports of military hardware to China, but also the strengthening of Europe’s trade position there as a result of any lifting of the EU arms embargo that is motivating Washington’s opposition to such a step.

A religious fundamentalist, Bush heads the most ideologically committed administration in the United States’ short history. The policy fine-tuning and the appointments Bush has made, including that of another ‘vulcan’, John Bolton, to be his UN ambassador, are a sign not of his conversion to the value of working with multilateral institutions but of the unavoidable necessity he faces of having to work more through them. Europe’s job is to stand up for its own interests just as vigorously.

·  Stewart Fleming is a former US editor of the Financial Times.

© Copyright 2005 The Economist Newspaper Limited. All rights reserved.

http://www.europeanvoice.com/current/article.asp?id=22494

Finance ministers keen to quiz Wolfowitz soon

THE EU is pressing the US administration to send Paul Wolfowitz, its nominee for president of the World Bank, to Brussels to answer questions about his likely policies.

At this week’s Brussels summit (22-23 March) EU finance ministers decided that they would like a meeting with Wolfowitz, attended by either finance or development ministers.

The aim would be to question Wolfowitz before the World Bank’s board meets next Wednesday (30 March) to appoint a successor to outgoing president James Wolfensohn.

A spokesman for the Council of Ministers said that he expected formal inquiries to be made with the US administration “in the next day or so” about possible dates.

At the very least, the Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker plans to question Wolfowitz, currently the US deputy defence secretary, in the next few days.

Luxembourg Economics Minister Jeannot Krecke said that there was “some concern about the way Mr Wolfowitz intends to handle the policy of the World Bank”.

German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder yesterday (23 March) said he believed that Europe would not block Wolfowitz’s nomination and UK Foreign Minister Jack Straw told BBC radio: “Paul Wolfowitz is a very distinguished and experienced international public servant and if his nomination is approved, we will happily work with him.”

The Belgian Finance Minister Didier Reynders said that Wolfowitz would be approved, adding “there is no other candidate”.

Since his nomination, Wolfowitz has sought to appease his critics, telling Le Monde that Africa would be his priority.

But, in the European Parliament, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, joint leader of the Greens/European Free Alliance group, UK Liberal MEP Andrew Duff, French centre-right deputy Alain Lamassoure and Austrian Socialist member Hannes Swoboda have signed a declaration urging member states not to accept US President George W. Bush’s nomination.

© Copyright 2005 The Economist Newspaper Limited. All rights reserved.

http://www.europeanvoice.com/current/article.asp?id=22486

March 29, 2005
Ex-Diplomats to Urge Rejection of Bolton as U.N. Ambassador
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
ASHINGTON, March 28 (AP) - A group of former American diplomats plan to send a letter to urge the Senate to reject John R. Bolton’s nomination to be the next United States ambassador to the United Nations.

“He is the wrong man for this position,” the group of 59 former diplomats say in the letter, addressed to Senator Richard G. Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Mr. Lugar, Republican of Indiana, has scheduled hearings for April 7 on Mr. Bolton’s nomination.

“We urge you to reject that nomination,” the former diplomats said in a letter dated Tuesday that was obtained by The Associated Press.

The former diplomats have served in both Democratic and Republican administrations, some for long terms and others briefly. They include Arthur A. Hartman, ambassador to France and the Soviet Union under Presidents Carter and Reagan and assistant secretary of state for European affairs under President Nixon.

Others who signed the letter include Princeton N. Lyman, ambassador to South Africa and Nigeria under President Reagan, the elder President Bush and President Clinton; Monteagle Stearns, ambassador to Greece and Ivory Coast in the Ford, Carter and Reagan administrations; and Spurgeon M. Keeny Jr., deputy director of the Arms Control Agency in the Carter administration.

Their criticism dwelt primarily on Mr. Bolton’s stand on issues as the State Department’s senior arms control official. They said he had an “exceptional record” of opposing American efforts to improve national security through arms control.

But the letter also chides Mr. Bolton for his “insistence that the U.N. is valuable only when it directly serves the United States.”

That view, the letter says, would not help him negotiate with other diplomats at the United Nations.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/29/politics/29bolton.html?th&emc=th&oref=login

Empire virtuel dites-vous ? Je n’en suis pas si sûr.  L’idée qui voudrait qu’il s’agisse au fond d’une bataille visant à abolir l’Histoire – thèse adjacente de celle de Fukuyama – elle ne tient pas pour la bonne raison que l’Histoire n’existe pas, vu qu’elle est une sorte de boussole fabriquée par la raison humaine (je n’engage pas ce débat).
Que l’Amérique soit la puissante dominante, nous sommes d’accord, même si l’Amérique ne présente pas tous les attributs de la puissance au sens européen du terme, c’est-à-dire de « pax romana ».A cela une seule raison – parmi d’autres – l’Amérique est une île et comme l’Angleterre de jadis, ignore superbement le reste du monde (en terme culturel).
Je vous renvoie, par ailleurs, aux analyses des géopoliticiens allemands, à savoir l’opposition entre puissance maritime et puissance continentale, toujours d’actualité.
La raison pour laquelle, à mes yeux, l’Amérique est une puissance éphémère, c’est qu’elle n’a aucune unité raciale (tension culturelle permanente entre « noir », « chicanos » « jaune » « juif » et « blanc » avec demain la perte de l’anglais comme langue majoritaire). Sauf qu’aujourd’hui elle est « incontournable » et qu’elle est en train de changer la face du monde. Les dégâts seront-ils irréversibles ? à l’heure où l’Europe se délite et ne fait montre d’aucune « volonté de puissance » ?
Pour aller vite, et je pense qu’il y a là un axe de réflexion, ce qui me frappe c’est le changement d’échelle de la puissance sur le temps long (historique si vous voulez). Exception faite des empires greco-romains (ce qui fait dire à Valéry que les civilisations sont mortelles), nous assistons à un changement d’échelle sur lequel s’exerce la puissance dans le temps : on est passé du territoire à la nation, de la nation à l’empire (austro-hongrois, russe, etc.) pour aboutir aujourd’hui aux continents (Europe, Amérique, Asie). D’où ma question : et après ? Que peut-il donc bien y avoir au-dessus du continent ? Rien, l’espace ? Où le retour au Moyen Age mais style Mad Max !
Relire Nietzsche, je suis d’accord avec vous.

L’utilisation de l’euro impliquera la guerre. Voir Saddam.

J’essaye de suivre le lien que vous donnez sur la Force protection (ce vendredi matin, for the record) :

Star s & stripes

Le lien ne fonctionne pas, le site est introuvable. Introuvable du genre “le serveur n’existe pas”

Donc réflexe : aller sur anonymizer

tapez y le lien :
http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=27980

et cela marche ...

conclusion :
sachant que ma connexion provient du gros fournisseur historique français (Wa ... ) le site Stars & Stripes filtre les accès en fonction des adresses ip et jarte les connexions grand public françaises. Et ce n’est pas le seul (beaucoup des sites de l’US Army par exemple ... )

ou alors c’est le vendredi matin qui n’est pas propice

It’s worth noting that all of the anti-american commentary that you cite in the press reaction to Wolfie’s nomination to the World Bank, seems to be coming from Americans. It’s a bad sign for this administration when Yanks start doing ideology critique. Worse that I word, is the connection now being made between neo liberal Ideology and the kind of propaganda that was used to scam the world investiment community by Enron and whihc is now be deployed to scam the Amerian public over Social Security “reform.” Readers should take a look at Frank Rich’s latest column in the New York Times’ Arts section, “Enron: Patron Saint of Bush’s Fake News,” for biting criticism. Rich is yet another example of a NYT columnist who - like Paul Krugman - has suddenly evolved into an “accidential radical” and become a major thorn in the side of this mendacious and corrupt Administration.

Wolfowitz s’en va, la radioactivité reste.

Paolo

Vous trouverez sur le site

defendrelafrance.canalblog.com

des illustrations adéquates de constatations de cet article.

Berlusconi a du réagir par rapport à des prochaines élections régionales , reste à voir en septembre ce qu’il en adviendra ... effectivement .
Quant à la mort de Calipari , Sgrena est mise en avant mais si surtout les américains
avaient voulu éliminer
une possibilité d’entrer
en contact , traiter avec des opposants et hors de leur contrôle .. Clipari étant déjà intervenu à diverses reprises dans d’autres cas .

Bush est louche.

Et encore bravo !
    l’Omnivore Sobriquet

Bravo, comme d’habitude, de defensa a bien vise une guestion essentielle - quelle est nature du regime en place a Washington dominee par une faction radicale du camp “transformationaliste neo-conservateur, dont l’approche au monde exterieur est plus Bonapartiste que traditionaliste.
Interessant a noter donc, que le comite de redaction du National Interest, le forum de debat principal sur la politique exterieure Americaine des conservateurs divers, s’est casse en deux cette semaine et que la fraction neo-conne ont tous demissione en bloc pour protester contre la violence des critiques neo-realistes de la politque Bushevik permis dans le journal sour la ligne editioriale du Dimtry Simes,  redacteur en chef, etpresident du Nixon Center.
Le radicalisme des nationalistes du style du John Bolton (plus neo-confedere que neo-conservateur) provoque des fortes tensions au sein de la classe dirigeante americaine. C’est le moment pour s’interesser un plus aux clivages qui font des ravages au sein du Parti Republicain. Les contraints sur l’adventurisme Bushienne ne sont pas tous trouve a l’exterieur des Etats Unis.
John Mason

FALLUJA, ARMI PROIBITE: PERCIO’ LA SGRENA DOVEVA MORIRE
07/03/2005
Maurizio Blondet

Dopo l’atroce battaglia di Falluja, l’armata americana vi è entrata con bull-dozer e autobotti. I bull-dozer hanno cominciato a scorticare il terreno tutto attorno ai crateri di esplosione delle loro bombe. Hanno asportato accuratamente 200 metri quadri di terreno attorno ad ogni cratere, caricato la terra su autocarri e l’hanno portata in località sconosciuta (1). La stessa cosa hanno fatto con alcune delle case bombardate. Hanno abbattuto gli edifici e portato via il materiale. Queste operazioni sono state compiute soprattutto nei quartieri di Julan e di Jimouriya, teatro dei più feroci scontri, ma anche a Nazal, Mualmeen, Jubail. Attenzione, solo “alcune” case sono state demolite. Quelle dove erano cadute le “bombe speciali” usate dagli americani. Le stesse che avevano formato i crateri accuratamente ripuliti.

Di che bombe si trattava? Tutti gli abitanti di Falluja che erano ancora in città durante i raid le hanno descritte così. “Facevano una colonna di fumo a forma di fungo. Poi, piccoli pezzi cadevano dall’aria, con una coda di fumo dietro ogni pezzetto”. Cadendo, questi “pezzetti” esplodevano con grandi fiammate che “bruciavano la pelle della gente, anche quando vi si gettava sopra dell’acqua. Molti hanno sofferto tanto per questo effetto, combattenti non meno che civili”.
E’ la descrizione esatta degli effetti di bombe al fosforo, molto usate dai liberatori anglo-americani contro Germania e Giappone. Ma vietate dalle convenzioni internazionali, e perciò sostituite dagli Usa con l’invenzione del Napalm, mistura gelatinosa e adesiva di celluloide sciolta in benzina che ha il “vantaggio”, come il fosforo, di appiccicarsi alla pelle mentre brucia, ed è molto più economico (brevetto Dow Chemicals). L’uso del fosforo però è più “efficiente” se lo scopo è di ridurre corpi umani a tizzoni ardenti carbonizzati, con un effetto terroristico aggiuntivo.
L’uso di queste armi è un crimine contro l’umanità. Ecco perché, dietro ai bull-dozer, il Pentagono ha inviato anche grosse autobotti: le quali hanno “lavato” con potenti getti forzati tutti i muri o quel che ne restava in piedi, evidentemente per dilavare il fosforo. E’ il tentativo di coprire il crimine, di farne sparire le tracce.

Ciò potrebbe spiegare anche parte della sciagurata avventura di Luciana Sgrena. Come si ricorderà, la giornalista stava andando a un appuntamento con alcuni profughi di Falluja quando fu, molto opportunamente per i criminali di guerra, “rapita” da “insorti”. Altrimenti avrebbe potuto raccontare di quelle bombe al fosforo, cosa che non hanno mai fatto “i grandi giornali” neocon ed ebraici, come il Corriere della Sera o il New York Times. Lo stesso discorso si può fare per la francese Aubenas di Libèration: sempre giornalisti di piccoli giornali no-global poco controllabili dalla nota lobby.
Naturalmente, la Sgrena non ha saputo nulla: ha recitato la parte che le è stata assegnata, “drammatizzando” in video, e ascoltando i suoi rapitori ripetere che in Irak “non vogliono nessuno”, nemmeno, anzi specialmente, giornalisti simpatizzanti con la guerriglia; frasi che acquistano un senso illuminante, se attribuite a “terroristi” dal Pentagono. La sua tentata uccisione dopo la “liberazione” con riscatto pagato dai contribuenti ai cosiddetti “insorti” (probabilmente la solita banda Al-Mossad, che ci ha fatto anche un guadagno) può essere interpretata forse come “una lezione” da dare agli italiani. E va ascritta anche ad errori da parte italiana. Il primo dei quali è non voler capire chi è, in Irak, il nemico principale.

di Maurizio Blondet

*La foto che accompagna l’articolo mostra un gruppo di abitanti di Falluja presso un cratere causato da una bomba sganciata durante un attacco aereo che, secondo quanto riportato dagli americani, mirava a colpire militanti coinvolti in rapimenti e attentati.

Note

1)Dahr Jamail, “Odd happenings in Falluja”, Electronic Iraq, 18 gennaio 2005.

SI PREPARA IL BIS DELL’ 11 SETTEMBRE?
05/03/2005

Maurizio Blondet

Sempre nuovi indizi che il gruppo di potere americano sta preparando un nuovo auto-attentato da infliggere ai suoi cittadini, per persuaderli alla nuova tornata di guerre in programma.
Primo indizio: il presidente George Bush è tornato a parlare di Osama Bin Laden. Dopo averlo trascurato per anni (del resto anche Osama non ha dato molti segni di vita) Bush lo ha ricordato di punto in bianco. Mettendo le mani avanti: “bloccare Osama è la più difficile sfida dei nostri giorni.Al Qaeda progetta ancora di attaccarci sul nostro suolo”, ha detto (1). Lo ha fatto il 3 marzo scorso alla cerimonia d’insediamento di Michael Chertoff, il nuovo capo della Homeland Security, cioè della sicurezza interna. Lo stesso giorno, recatosi alla Cia a salutare il nuovo direttore Porter Goss (un membro della società segreta di Yale “Skull & Bones”, da cui sono usciti quasi tutti i capi dell’Agenzia) il presidente è tornato sul discorso: “ogni giorno raccogliamo informazioni per localizzare Bin Laden. Non dormiamo sugli allori”.

Il motivo apparente di questo improvviso ritorno d’interesse per il tenebroso saudita sarebbe un “messaggio” che Osama avrebbe mandato ad Al-Zarqawi per incitarlo a colpire i suolo americano. Né sulle modalità di trasmissione (piccioni viaggiatori?) né sul contenuto del messaggio si sa nulla: l’unica fonte al proposito è una voce anonima uscita dalla Cia - ciò che nei tempi sovietici si chiamava dizinformazija o maskirovska.
Altro indizio. Il sindaco di New York Michael Bloomberg (ebreo) ha rivelato quanto segue: la “cellula di Al Qaeda colpevole dell’attentato alla metropolitana di Madrid aveva in progetto di fare un attentato esplosivo anche alla Grand Central Station, nel cuore di Manhattan (2). La scoperta sarebbe in un dischetto di computer trovato in un appartamento di Madrid che sarebbe stato occupato da un terrorista, tale Moutaz Almallah, ritenuto ‘un membro importante di Al Qaeda’”. Inutile dire che Moutaz s’era reso uccel di bosco già nel gennaio 2002, molti mesi prima dell’attentato di Madrid. A proposito dell’attentato di Madrid, bisogna ricordare che è avvenuto l’11 marzo 2004. Come mai il dischetto con il piano del nuovo attentato a New York è apparso solo oggi, non si sa. L’Fbi ha farfugliato che la polizia spagnola s’è resa conto dell’importanza del contenuto solo nel dicembre scorso, per via “della sua natura tecnica” (“c’erano delle piante della stazione di New York”). In ogni caso, perché la storia emerge ora?

Terzo indizio. E’ il più grave, e consiste nell’insediamento di Michael Chertoff a capo della Homeland Security col grado di ministro. Ora Chertoff (figlio di un rabbino, cittadino israeliano) ha avuto strani legami con un sospetto finanziatore dell’attentato dell’11 settembre, tale Magdy Elamir. E’ una vecchia faccenda, di cui diede notizia a suo tempo - il 20 giugno 2000 - The Record, il giornale della contea di Bergen, New Jersey. Magdy Elamir era stato accusato dallo Stato del New Jersey di ammanchi e malversazioni finanziarie per 16,7 milioni di dollari. Fra cui 5,7 milioni “trasferiti a beneficiari sconosciuti”. Elamir aveva una specifica connessione con il primo attentato alle Twin Towers, avvenuto nel 1993 e anch’esso di marca “islamica”. Infatti, l’attentato era stato architettato nella moschea di Al-Salam a Jersey City, dove predicava il mullah estremista Omar Abdel-Rahman, considerato il mandante di quel primo attentato. Come ebbe a dire l’allora poliziotto Allan Duncan, “alla moschea di Al-Salam era stato permesso di continuare ad essere un centro di attività terroristiche in Usa”. Inoltre, nel 1999, Elamir con suo fratello erano stati perseguiti dall’Fbi per aver cercato di comprare armi e munizioni da un informatore dello stesso Fbi, Randy Glass, ed era per questo stato condannato a 30 mesi.
Insomma, un tipo altamente sospetto. Ma chi ha difeso il losco Elamir davanti alla corte del New Jersey nel 2000? Sì, avete indovinato, proprio lui: Michael Chertoff, il figlio del rabbino (3). Che era allora avvocato.
Ma il brillante israeliano ha fatto una rapida carriera. Nell’estate del 2001 - attenzione alla data, poche settimane prima dell’11 settembre - Chertoff riappare come vice-Attorney General della sezione penale del ministero della Giustizia. La vicenda del tentato acquisto di armi del suo ex cliente capita proprio sotto la sua giurisdizione, come ha ricordato il solito poliziotto Allan Duncan. Ebbene, che cosa fa il nuovo vice-procuratore Chertoff? Blocca di autorità i capi d’accusa contro Elamir.

Ma non si creda che Chertoff fosse salito alla carriera di pubblico accusatore per salvare Magdy Elamir. A ben altri compiti lo destina quel posto. Come si ricorderà, l’11 settembre una cameriera nota cinque ragazzoni che, sul tetto di un camion di traslochi, si fotografano a vicenda sullo sfondo delle due Torri in fiamme, facendo il segno di vittoria con le dita. La cameriera segnala la targa alla polizia di New York, che ferma i cinque. Risultano tutti israeliani, esibiscono documenti falsi, uno di loro ha 4500 dollari in contanti in una calza. Parecchi di loro ammettono di essere membri del Mossad. Consegnati alla giustizia federale, i cinque vengono.espulsi perché il loro visto (sui passaporti falsi) risulta scaduto. Restituiti ad Israele. Chi è che li espelle? Ma lui, il figlio del rabbino Chertoff! Sempre Chertoff aveva, poco prima, espulso (cioè liberato) almeno un centinaio di agenti israeliani beccati in una gigantesca retata della Dia (antidroga) e dell’Fbi, alcuni dei quali abitavano accanto ai “terroristi arabi” indiziati per l’11 settembre.
Dopo queste belle imprese, Chertoff viene elevato ancora più in alto: giudice federale d’Appello, una carriera fulminante. Ed oggi, ministro della Homeland Security, che già dal nome (“Sicurezza della Patria”) promette di essere una sorta di Gestapo o di Stasi. La posizione giusta per coprire il prossimo mega-attentato e i “terroristi musulmani” che lo compieranno. Magari con un camion di traslochi.

Ad ogni buon conto, vale l’avviso ai turisti dato dai servizi segreti italiani ed europei (che certo hanno qualche indizio di ciò che si prepara): evitate Gran Central Station, state alla larga da luoghi turistici anche medio-orientali.
Quando avverrà, non dite che non vi avevano avvertito.

di Maurizio Blondet

Note

1)Joseph Curl, “Stopping Bin Laden is ‘greatest challenge’”, Washington Times, 4 marzo 2005.
2)Ben Sills, “Al Qaida plan to bomb Grand Central station”, Guardian, 3 marzo 2005.
3)Michael Chertoff è nato nel 1953 da Livia Chertoff, israeliana e dal rabbino Ghershon, di nazionalità sconosciuta. La madre Livia è stata una hostess della El Al e partecipò nel 1945 all’operazione Tappeto Magico, il trasporto forzato di 45 mila ebrei yemeniti messi ad occupare i territori dei palestinesi: un agente del Mossad dunque anche la mamma.