Fault Lines - The other debt crisis: Climate debt

Was Ahmadinejad's Comments on 9//11 outrageous?

Here are 5 surprising facts about spying in America.

We understand if some of this sounds far-fetched. But take a look for yourself, and see if you can disprove these claims.

1: Cheney and Rumsfeld Pushed for Warrantless Wiretaps in the '70s

Dick Cheney, Donald Rumseld and other government officials who held high positions in the George W. Bush administration pushed for wiretaps without approval by a judge ... in the 1970s.

2: Massive Spying on Americans Began Before 9/11

You know about the government's massive program of spying on Americans which has been justified as a necessary response to 9/11?

Whistleblowers from major telecommunications companies have testified that the program began before 9/11 (confirmed here and here).

3: U.S. and Allied Intelligence Heard the 9/11 Hijackers Plans from Their Own Mouths

The 9/11 hijackers were largely unknown prior to that horrible event, right?

Actually, U.S. and allied intelligence services heard a lot from the hijackers' own mouths prior to 9/11:

• An FBI informant hosted and rented a room to two hijackers in 2000. Specifically, investigators for the Congressional Joint Inquiry discovered that an FBI informant had hosted and even rented a room to two hijackers in 2000 and that, when the Inquiry sought to interview the informant, the FBI refused outright, and then hid him in an unknown location, and that a high-level FBI official stated these blocking maneuvers were undertaken under orders from the White House. As the New York Times notes:
  

  Senator Bob Graham, the Florida Democrat who is a former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, accused the White House on Tuesday of covering up evidence ....
  

  The accusation stems from the Federal Bureau of Investigation's refusal to allow investigators for a Congressional inquiry and the independent Sept. 11 commission to interview an informant, Abdussattar Shaikh, who had been the landlord in San Diego of two Sept. 11 hijackers.

• According to Le Monde, the intelligence services of America's close ally France and of other governments had infiltrated the highest levels of Al-Qaeda's camps, and actually listened to the hijackers' debates about which airlines' planes should be hijacked, and allied intelligence services also intercepted phone conversations between Al-Qaeda members regarding the attacks

• According to journalist Christopher Ketcham, America's close ally Israel tracked the hijackers' every move prior to the attacks, and sent agents to film the attack on the World Trade Centers

• The National Security Agency and the FBI were each independently listening in on the phone calls between the supposed mastermind of the attacks and the lead hijacker. Indeed, the FBI built its own antenna in Madagascar specifically to listen in on the mastermind's phone calls

• According to various sources, on the day before 9/11, the mastermind told the lead hijacker "tomorrow is zero hour" and gave final approval for the attacks. The NSA intercepted the message that day and the FBI was likely also monitoring the mastermind's phone calls

• Shortly before 9/11, the NSA also intercepted multiple phone calls to the United States from Bin Laden's chief of operations

• The CIA and the NSA had been intercepting phone calls by the hijackers for years (see also this)

• According to the Sunday Herald, two days before 9/11, Bin Laden called his stepmother and told her "In two days, you're going to hear big news and you're not going to hear from me for a while.” U.S. officials later told CNN that “in recent years they've been able to monitor some of bin Laden's telephone communications with his [step]mother. Bin Laden at the time was using a satellite telephone, and the signals were intercepted and sometimes recorded." Indeed, before 9/11, to impress important visitors, NSA analysts would occasionally play audio tapes of bin Laden talking to his stepmother.

• And according to CBS News, at 9:53 a.m on 9/11, just 15 minutes after the hijacked plane had hit the Pentagon, "the National Security Agency, which monitors communications worldwide, intercepted a phone call from one of Osama bin Laden's operatives in Afghanistan to a phone number in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia", and secretary of Defense Rumsfeld learned about the intercepted phone call in real-time (if the NSA monitored and transcribed phone calls in real-time on 9/11, that implies that it did so in the months leading up to 9/11 as well)

4: The Spying Program Has Not Been Narrowly Tailored to Keeping Americans Safe

We would all hope that the spying program has been tightly focused on protecting Americans from terrorists.

However, as I noted in 2008:

• The NSA spied on U.N. diplomats in their deliberations on the Iraq war (so that the U.S. could figure out which countries were against the war and their reasons, to gain an advantage in twisting arms and selling the war)

• The government has been spying on journalists from the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other publications for years

• Some 8 million average Americans are now listed in government threat assessment databases as potentially suspect

As one writer puts it:

"If we know of illegal administration spying on journalists and other non-suspects, and we know of pre-9/11 surveillance, then we for all intents and purposes know that these are not programs designed to fight some foreign terrorists threat."
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YogA Vasistha

About Yoga Vasistha

It is said that this book alone can lead to spiritual liberation. The conversation between Sage Vasistha and Prince Rama is of that between a great enlightened sage and a seeker who is about to reach completeness. This is amongst those rare conversations which directly leads to Truth.

This scripture provides several understandings, scientific ideas, philosophies, and explains about consciousness, creation of the world, the multiple universes in this world, our perception of world, dissolution of the world and the liberation of this soul, the non-dual approach to this creation.

Just as the blue sky is an optical illusion this entire world and the creation is but such an optical illusion. When the illusion ends in the mind, the world and its miseries too end. The self is the seer of all, the self is the perceiver of all and the self is the experiencer of all. And that self is only one. There is no two, there is no subject, seer and the object. It is all one.

Another oft repeated verse in the text is that of Kakathaliya (coincidence). The story of how a crow alights on a palm tree and that very moment the ripe palm fruit falls on the ground. The two events are apparently related, yet the crow never intended the palm fruit to fall nor did the palm fruit fall because the crow sat on the tree. The intellect mistakes the two events as related, though in reality they are not.

All of creation is the play of consciousness. As an unenlightened person may have a desire for action, and then perceives themselves doing action, the two are unrelated as the crow and the palm fruit. Consciousness is the actor, the action, the process and the witness of action.

The book is divided into 6 parts:

1. Dispassion
2. Qualifications of a seeker
3. Creation
4. Existence
5. Dissolution
6. Liberation

The Yoga Vasishta sums up the spiritual process in terms of the Seven Bhoomikas:

1. Subecha. Longing for the Truth

The yogi or sadhaka rightly distinguishes between permanent and impermanent; cultivates dislike for worldly pleasures; acquires mastery over organs, physical and mental; and feels a deep yearning to be free from Samsara.

2. Vicharana. Right inquiry

The yogi has pondered over what her/she has read and heard and has realized it in his/her life.

3. Tanumanasa. Attenuation or thinning out of mental activities.

The mind abandons the many and remains fixed on the ONE.

4. Sattvapati. Attainment of Sattva

The Yogi at this stage is called Brahmavid or Knower of Brahman.

In the above 4 stages, the yogi is subject to Sanchita, Prabrabdha and Agami Karmas. He/she has been practicing Samprajnata Samadhi or contemplation in which consciousness of duality still exists.

5. Asamsakti. Unaffected by anything

The yogi, now called Brahmavidvara performs necessary duties of own will.

6. Pararthabhavani. See Brahman everywhere

External things do not appear to exist to the yogi, now called Brahmavidvariya, and f unctions are performed only at the prompting of others.

Sanchit and Agami Karmas are now destroyed. Only a small amount of Prarabdha Karma remains.

7. Turiya. Perpetual Samadhi

The yogi is known as Brahmavidvaristha and does not perform his duties either by his will or the promptings of others. The body drops off after approximately three days of entering this stage.

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