NATO Expands to Border of Russia, Then Blames Russia for Being On NATO`s Doorstep Posted: 2014-10-31 From: Source Share on TwitterFacebook Russia at the gates? US State Dept, Pentagon grilled over NATO expansion. Watch the video or read the transcript: with clowns like these, it is no wonder that the USA has lost wars in Viet Nam, Afganistan, Iraq, etc. US State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki and Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby have been challenged over the Department of Defense's claims that the US must “deal” with “modern and capable” Russian armed forces on NATO's doorstep. Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu expressed “grave concern” and “surprise” at a Wednesday speech made by US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel during the Association of the United States Army’s annual conference. Hagel declared that US armed forces "must deal with a revisionist Russia - with its modern and capable army - on NATO's doorstep.” Kirby was confronted by AP journalist Matt Lee over NATO expansion closer to the Russian borders at the State Department's daily press briefing on Thursday. Here is their exchange: Matt Lee, AP journalist: What did he [Chuck Hagel] mean by “revisionist Russia?” John Kirby: Pentagon Press Secretary: I think what he was referring to there is that there appears to be in their intentions and their motives, a calling back to the “glory days of the Soviet Union”. L: He also used the phrase that its army – he means Russian army is on NATO’s doorstep. Why is that? Is it not logical to look at this and say – the reason why Russia’s army is at NATO’s doorstep, is because NATO has expanded, rather than Russian expanding? In other words, NATO has moved closer to Russia rather than Russia moving closer to NATO. K: I think that’s the way President [Vladimir] Putin probably looks at it – it is certainly not the way we look at it. L: You don’t think that NATO has expanded eastward towards Russia? K: NATO has expanded… L: So the reason that the Russian army is at NATO’s doorstep is not the fault of the Russian army, not the Russian army that’s done it, it’s NATO that moved closer east. K: It wasn’t NATO that was ordering tons of tactical battalions and army to the Ukraine border... L: I am pretty sure that Ukraine is not a member of NATO, unless that’s changed…? K: NATO is not an anti-Russia alliance; it is a security alliance…. L: For 50 years it was an anti-Soviet alliance. How can you not even see how the Russians perceive it as a threat, the fact that it keeps getting closer to their border. K: I can tell that NATO is a defense alliance… L: But it moved east. Correct? K: It expanded but there is no reason to believe that the expansion is a hostile and threatening move. L: You are moving closer to Russia and you’re blaming the Russians for being close to NATO. K: We are blaming the Russians for violating the integral territory of Ukraine and destabilizing the security situation inside Europe. L: Which is NOT in NATO… In terms of new threats at NATO’s borders, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said on Friday that it is the US which has been “stubbornly approaching...closer to our doors.” Relations between Russia and NATO have been tense since the alliance accused Russia of becoming involved in the Ukrainian conflict – a claim Russia has continuously and consistently denied. Following Crimea's accession to Russia in March, the US and Europe bombarded Moscow with sanctions. NATO also significantly increased its military presence near Russia's borders, especially in Poland and the former Soviet Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, which have expressed concern at the potential for Russian incursions into their territories. some viewer comments: I wonder what those rewards that cretin has on his chests are for? Russia isn't on NATO's doorstep, NATO is on theirs. If NATO is a defense alliance, why did they bomb Libya and Kosovo and participate in Iraq and Afghanistan? Did any of those countries attack NATO? These Yanks are idiots and dangerous. It's sad and unbelievable that these two represent American foreign policy. While I'm an englishmen, I say stand strong against us Russia. The aggression we push and blame it on you guys is disgusting. Russia constantly asks for membership in NATO since 1954, to work together to defend against "external threats". But NATO rejected all these requests!!! And we keep hearing about that "NATO - not an anti-Soviet alliance". So why the lie? Its clear that NATO - is a direct threat to Russia! How refreshing to see a free press objectively question it's government Ukraine has Nazi's in their parliament and they have Nazi batallions that fly Nazi flags (with the Wolfsangel symbol which also had been used by the SS) and recently they made the day of the founding of the WWII Ukrainian Nazi army a national holiday. So by your reasoning Russia should have every reason to be worried about events in Ukraine. John Kirby is not the brightest bulb in the US chandelier of US non-elected power. So far i think there is no one bright bulb there in Washington and Pentagon RFLOL..... I saw a Youtube of general Wesley Clark, where they gonna take out 7 countries in 5 years. what is done. And when he asked his colleague why they gonna fight those countries the man did not know. Can you imagine...!!! Note how proud Kirby is he barely passed the history class at the Florida college he attended. He says it twice. Double Speak is a powerful way to induce country psychosis. It is an effective weapon of mass indoctrination. Look up please, the research writing of Jean-Claude Paye. He will explain the phenomenon the way the Americans employ it to ultimate effect. John Kirby the US State Department spokes man gives an inspired example of Orwell's double speak. "Russia is at NATO's door!" Americans are really dumb and full of double standards. The journalist Matt Lee tied him up good and proper. The Like of Matt Lee should be a politician, the U.S might actually benefit. What logic is behind the accusation, that when you expand towards Russia, and then blame Russia for being there? They are more stupid than I thought... But dangerous stupid I think. Next they will bomb Russia using the same excuse they used to invade Iraq... It's so transparent that the US-NATO are the aggressors here and desperate to carry out their expansionist plans which have been in the pipeline for decades. Utterly pathetic propaganda to paint Russia as the new demon. Anyone with an ounce of critical ability can see through all this nonsense. Admiral Kirby finally admitted he had no clue about the region, pleading that he "barely got a history degree from the University of South Florida." These people are running the Pentagon! Truth Unoccupied HeyU Quality Ads Tony Carlucci The slogans, leaders, and agenda of the "Occupy Central" movement are supposedly the manifestations of Hong Kong's desire for "total democracy," "universal suffrage," and "freedom." In reality, the leaders of "Occupy Central" are verified to be directly backed, funded, and directed by the US State Department, its National Endowment for Democracy (NED), and its subsidiary, the National Democratic Institute (NDI). Despite admitting this overwhelming evidence, many "Occupy Central" supporters still insist the protests are genuine and now some propose that the "Occupy Central" leadership does not truly represent the people of Hong Kong. While the leadership of "Occupy Central" indeed in no way represent the people of Hong Kong, the fact still remains that the protest itself was prearranged at least as early as April 2014, revealed by "Occupy Central" co-organizers Martin Lee and Anson Chan before NED in Washington DC. The talk titled, "Why Democracy in Hong Kong Matters," spanned an hour, with NED regional vice president Louisa Greve leading the duo through a full introduction of the "Occupy Central" movement, its characters, agenda, demands, and talking points. Anson Chan - Hong Kong’s Chief Secretary under British rule - in particular, with her perfect British accent, insisted repeatedly that the issue was China's apparent backtracking on "deals" made with the UK over the handover of Hong Kong in the late 1990's. Lee, as well as members of the audience, repeatedly stated that Hong Kong's role was to "infect" mainland China with its Western-style institutions, laws, and interests. Lee also repeatedly appealed to Washington specifically to ensure they remained committed to defending American interests in Hong Kong. Both Lee and Chan would also state that since China appears to be concerned over global perception of how it rules its people, this could be exploited to excise from Beijing concessions over Hong Kong's governance. This included mention of previous protests, including those led by "activist" Joshua Wong and his suspicious "Scholarism" organization that has been tracked since at least 2012 by the US State Department's NDI. And of course, future destabilization was submitted as a viable solution to bending Beijing toward Western concessions. For those able to listen to the entire 1 hour interview as well as questions and answers, the entire "Occupy Central" narrative is laid bare, verbatim, in Washington DC months before demonstrations began in the streets of Hong Kong. For a supposed "pro-democracy" protest seeking self-governance and self-determination and denouncing "interference" from Beijing, that their leaders are funded by foreign interests, and the plans for "Occupy Central" laid in a foreign capital is ironic at best - utter and very intentional deceit at worst. Democracy indeed assumes self-governance and self determination. If the US State Department is colluding with, funding, and directing the politicians and protest leaders behind "Occupy Central," the people of Hong Kong are governing and determining nothing Washington and Wall Street are. Martin Lee and collaborator Anson Chan complain about Beijing dictating policy in Hong Kong, while they sit together in a room full of foreign interests who would dictate Hong Kong's governance instead. Laid bare is "Occupy Central's" true agenda. It is not about having Hong Kong vote for who they desire to see in power, it is about getting the foreign-backed political cabal behind "Occupy Central" into power, and disarming Beijing of any means to prevent what is for all intents and purposes the "soft" recolonization of Hong Kong, and a further attempt to divide and destabilize China as a whole. Terrorism and Turmoil: US Containment of China With Hong Kong's "Occupy Central" fully exposed as US-backed sedition, readers should be aware that this latest turmoil is but one part of a greater ongoing campaign by the United States to contain and co-opt the nation of China. As early as the Vietnam War, with the so-called "Pentagon Papers" released in 1969, it was revealed that the conflict was simply one part of a greater strategy aimed at containing and controlling China. Three important quotes from these papers reveal this strategy. It states first that: “...the February decision to bomb North Vietnam and the July approval of Phase I deployments make sense only if they are in support of a long-run United States policy to contain China.” It also claims: “China—like Germany in 1917, like Germany in the West and Japan in the East in the late 30′s, and like the USSR in 1947—looms as a major power threatening to undercut our importance and effectiveness in the world and, more remotely but more menacingly, to organize all of Asia against us.” Finally, it outlines the immense regional theater the US was engaged in against China at the time by stating: “there are three fronts to a long-run effort to contain China (realizing that the USSR “contains” China on the north and northwest): (a) the Japan-Korea front; (b) the IndiaPakistan front; and (c) the Southeast Asia front.” While the US would ultimately lose the Vietnam War and any chance of using the Vietnamese as a proxy force against Beijing, the long war against Beijing would continue elsewhere. This containment strategy would be updated and detailed in the 2006 Strategic Studies Institute report “String of Pearls: Meeting the Challenge of China’s Rising Power across the Asian Littoral” where it outlines China’s efforts to secure its oil lifeline from the Middle East to its shores in the South China Sea as well as means by which the US can maintain American hegemony throughout the Indian and Pacific Ocean. The premise is that, should Western foreign policy fail to entice China into participating in Wall Street and London's “international system” as responsible stakeholders, an increasingly confrontational posture must be taken to contain the rising nation. This proxy war has manifested itself in the form of the so-called "Arab Spring" where Chinese interests have suffered in nations like Libya that have been reduced to chaos by US-backed subversion and even direct military intervention. Sudan also serves as a proxy battleground where the West is using chaos to push Chinese interests off the continent of Africa. More recently, political turmoil has hit Southeast Asia. Thailand has only just recently ousted a US-proxy regime headed by dictator Thaksin Shinawatra, while neighboring Myanmar attempts to stave off sedition headed by US-British political fronts led by Aung San Suu Kyi. Within China itself, the US wields terrorism as a means to destabilize and divide Chinese society in an attempt to make the vast territory of China ungovernable. In the nation's western province of Xianjiang, the United States fully backs violent separatists. Indeed, first and foremost in backing the Xinjiang Uyghur separatists is the United States through the US State Department’s National Endowment for Democracy (NED). For China, the Western region referred to as “Xinjiang/East Turkistan” has its own webpage on NED’s site covering the various fronts funded by the US which include: International Uyghur Human Rights and Democracy Foundation $187,918 To advance the human rights of ethnic Uyghur women and children. The Foundation will maintain an English- and Uyghur-language website and advocate on the human rights situation of Uyghur women and children. International Uyghur PEN Club $45,000 To promote freedom of expression for Uyghurs. The International Uyghur PEN Club will maintain a website providing information about banned writings and the work and status of persecuted poets, historians, journalists, and others. Uyghur PEN will also conduct international advocacy campaigns on behalf of imprisoned writers. Uyghur American Association $280,000 To raise awareness of Uyghur human rights issues. UAA’s Uyghur Human Rights Project will research, document, and bring to international attention, independent and accurate information about human rights violations affecting the Turkic populations of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. World Uyghur Congress $185,000 To enhance the ability of Uyghur prodemocracy groups and leaders to implement effective human rights and democracy campaigns. The World Uyghur Congress will organize a conference for pro-democracy Uyghur groups and leaders on interethnic issues and conduct advocacy work on Uyghur human rights. It should be noted that the above list was taken from NED's website in March 2014 - since then, NED has deleted several organizations from the list, as it has done previously regarding its support in other nations ahead of intensified campaigns of destabilization it wished to cover up its role in. All of these NED-funded organizations openly advocate separatism from China, not even recognizing China’s authority over the region to begin with – referring to it instead as “Chinese occupation.” Of the March 2014 terror attack in Kunming, the US-funded World Uyghur Congress would even attempt to justify it by claiming Chinese authorities have left the separatists with little other choice. The US State Department’s “Radio Free Asia” report titled, “China’s Kunming Train Station Violence Leaves 33 Dead,” reported: World Uyghur Congress spokesman Dilxat Raxit said in an emailed statement that there was “no justification for attacks on civilians” but added that discriminatory and repressive policies provoked “extreme measures” in response. From full-blown proxy wars in the 1960's spanning Southeast Asia, to the US-engineered "Arab Spring" in 2011, to terrorism in Xinjiang and turmoil in Hong Kong today - what is taking place is not a battle for "democracy" or "freedom of expression," but an existential battle for China's sovereignty. For whatever problems the Chinese people have with their government, it is their problem and theirs alone to solve in their own way. Using the promotion of "democracy" as cover, the US would continue its attempts to infect China with US-backed institutions and policies, subvert, co-opt, or overthrow the political order in Beijing, and establish upon its ashes its own neo-colonial order serving solely Wall Street and Washington's interests - not those of the Chinese people. Image: Protest leader Benny Tai - fully entwined with the US State Department's National Democratic Institute - sitting as a director for years of the Centre for Comparative and Public Law (CCPL) which collaborates with and receives funding from the US government - calls for the "occupation" of Hong Kong. Hong Kong was already occupied - by Britain from 1841 to 1997. For the mobs of "Occupy Central," many have good intentions, but the leadership is knowingly in league with foreign interests seeking to subvert, divide, and destroy the Chinese people - not unlike what China had suffered at the hands of European powers in the 1800's to early 1900's. More About the “Occupy” Backers Hong Kong’s “Occupy Central” is US-backed Sedition Column: Society Region: Eastern Asia Country: China Protesters of the “Occupy Central” movement in Hong Kong shout familiar slogans and adopt familiar tactics seen across the globe as part of the United States’ immense political destabilization and regime change enterprise. Identifying the leaders, following the money, and examining Western coverage of these events reveal with certainty that yet again, Washington and Wall Street are busy at work to make China’s island of Hong Kong as difficult to govern for Beijing as possible. Naming Names: Who is Behind “Occupy Central?” Several names are repeatedly mentioned amid coverage of what is being called “Occupy Central,” the latest in a long line of US-engineered color revolutions, and part of America’s vast, ambitious global geopolitical reordering which started in earnest in 2011 under the guise of the so-called “Arab Spring.” Benny Tai, a lecturer of law at the University of Hong Kong, is cited by various sources across the Western media as the primary organizer – however there are many “co-organizers” mentioned alongside him. The South China Morning Post in an article titled, “Occupy Central is on: Benny Tai rides wave of student protest to launch movement (1),” mentions most of them (emphasis added): Political heavyweights including Civic Party chairwoman Audrey Eu Yuet-mee, former head of the Catholic diocese Cardinal Jospeh Zen Zi-kiun and Democratic Party founding chairman Martin Lee Chu-ming addressed the crowd. The Post also mentions (emphasis added): Jimmy Lai Chi-Ying, the embattled boss of Next Media who is under investigation by the Independent Commission Against Corruption over donations to pan-democrat politicians, said he arrived immediately after a call from Martin Lee Chu-ming. Benny Tai regularly attends US State Department, National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and its subsidiary the National Democratic Institute (NDI) funded and/or organized forums. Just this month, he spoke at a Design Democracy Hong Kong (NDI-funded) conference on political reform. He is also active at the University of Hong Kong’s Centre for Comparative and Public Law (CCPL) – also funded by NDI. CCPL’s 2013-2014 annual report lists Benny Tai as attending at least 3 of the center’s functions, as well as heading one of the center’s projects. Martin Lee, Jimmy Lai, and Joseph Zen are all confirmed as both leaders of the “Occupy Central” movement and collaborators with the US State Department. Martin Lee, founding chairman of the Democratic Party in Hong Kong, would even travel to the United States this year to conspire directly with NED as well as with politicians in Washington. Earlier this year, Lee would even take to the stage of NED’s event “Why Democracy in Hong Kong Matters.” Joining him at the NED-organized event was Anson Chan, another prominent figure currently supporting the ongoing unrest in Hong Kong’s streets. Media mogul Jimmy Lai was reported to have met with Neo-Con and former president of the World Bank, Paul Wolfowitz in June 2014. China Daily would report in an article titled, “Office opposes foreign interference in HK,” that: A special edition of Eastweek showed Lai, owner of Next Media and Apple Daily, meeting Paul Wolfowitz, a former US deputy secretary of defense in George W. Bush’s administration. The pair met on Lai’s private yacht for five hours in late May. Wolfowitz, who was also president of the World Bank between 2005 and 2007, is wellknown in the US for his neo-conservative views and belief in a unilateral foreign policy. Wolfowitz also held the post of under secretary of defense between 1989 and 1993. He is currently a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Lai would also seek Wolfowitz’ help in securing various business deals in Myanmar. The South China Morning Post in their article, “Jimmy Lai paid Paul Wolfowitz US$75,000 for help in Myanmar,” reported that: Leaked documents show Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai Chee-ying paid former US deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz US$75,000 for his help with projects in Myanmar. According to a July 22, 2013, remittance notice by the Shanghai Commercial and Savings Bank, Wolfowitz received the money from Lai as “compensation for services in regards to Myanmar”. 15385666631_ce65467461_zLai’s liasons with notorious Neo-Con Wolfowitz should be no surprise – as NED, the principle director of Washington’s vast portfolio of political agitators worldwide is rife with Neo-Cons who intermingle both on NED’s board of directors, as well as in various other corporate-financier funded think tanks. NED itself is merely a front, couching geopolitical and corporate-financier interests behind the cover of “promoting freedom” and “democracy” around the world. There is also “student leader” Joshua Wong, who was arrested amid the protests. Wong has had his career tracked by the NDI’s “NDItech” project since as early as 2012. In a post titled, “In Hong Kong, Does “Change Begin with a Single Step”?,” NDI reports: Scholarism founder Joshua Wong Chi-fung, 15, has become an icon of the movement, and his skillful interactions with media have been memorialized and disseminated on Youtube. Through this page, Hong Kong youth have coalesced around common messages and images – for example, equating MNE with “brainwashing” and echoing themes reminiscent of the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement. Wong’s work serves to challenge attempts by Beijing to reestablish Chinese institutions on the island, preserving Western-style (and co-opted) institutions including the education system. The aforementioned Civic Party chairwoman Audrey Eu Yuet-mee is also entwined with the US NED, regularly attending forums sponsored by NED and its subsidiary NDI. In 2009 she was a featured speaker at an NDI sponsored public policy forum hosted by “SynergyNet,” also funded by NDI. In 2012 she was a guest speaker at the NDI-funded Women’s Centre “International Women’s Day” event. The Hong Kong Council of Women (HKCW) itself is also annually funded by the NDI. Just this year, should would also find herself associated with CCPL, presenting at one of its functions beside “Occupy Central” leader Benny Tai himself. In addition to SynergyNet, CCPL, and HKCW, there are several other US-funded NGOs supporting, legitimizing, and justifying “Occupy Central,” or hosting those leading it. Among them is the US NED-funded “Hong Kong Transition Project” which claims it is “tracking the transition of Hong Kong people from subjects to citizens.” In name and mission statement alone, the goal of the US in Hong Kong is clear – to turn Hong Kong into an epicenter of foreign-funded subversion with which to infect China’s mainland with more directly. The Transition Project was tasked with legitimizing Occupy Central’s “pro-democracy referendum” conducted earlier this year – which then served as justification for increasing unrest on Hong Kong’s streets. Guardian in a June 2014 article titled, “Hong Kong’s unofficial pro-democracy referendum irks Beijing,” would report: About 730,000 Hong Kong residents – equivalent to a fifth of the registered electorate – have voted in an unofficial “referendum” that has infuriated Beijing and prompting a flurry of vitriolic editorials, preparatory police exercises and cyber-attacks. Occupy Central with Love and Peace (OCLP), the pro-democracy movement that organised the poll, hopes to pressure Beijing into allowing Hong Kong’s 7.2 million residents to choose their own leader by 2017. If Beijing refuses, OCLP says, the movement will mobilise at least 10,000 people next month to block the main roads in Central, a forest of skyscrapers housing businesses and government offices on Hong Kong island’s northern shore. The Transition Project links with other US-funded organizations, including the Hong Kongbased “think tank” Civic Exchange. Funded by Exxon, the US State Department’s NDI, the British Council, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Morgan Stanley, Citi Group, the British Consulate itself, and many others, its claim of being “Hong Kong’s independent public policy think tank” is scandalous. The Agenda: What Does “Occupy Central” Really Want? 345435US NDI openly states on its own page dedicated to its political meddling in Hong Kong that: In 2005, NDI initiated a six-month young political leaders program focused on training a group of rising party and political group members in political communications skills. In 2006, NDI launched a District Council campaign school for candidates and campaign managers in the lead-up to the 2007 elections. NDI has also worked to bring political parties, government leaders and civil society actors together in public forums to discuss political party development, the role of parties in Hong Kong and political reform. In 2012, for example, a conference by Hong Kong think tank SynergyNet supported by NDI featured panelists from parties across the ideological spectrum and explored how adopting a system of coalition government might lead to a more responsive legislative process. Indeed, the very organizations, forums, and political parties the “Occupy Central” movement is associated with and led by are the creation of foreign interests – specifically the US State Department through NDI. Since “democracy” is “self-rule,” and every step of “Occupy Central” has seen involvement by foreign interests, “democracy” is surely not the protest’s true agenda. Instead, it is “soft” recolonization by Washington, Wall Street, and London. If “Occupy Central” is successful and Beijing ever foolishly agrees to allowing the leaders of this foreignorchestrated charade to run for office, what will be running Hong Kong will not be the people, but rather foreign interests through a collection of overt proxies who shamelessly sustain themselves on US cash, political backing, and support across the West’s vast media resources. The West’s Long War With China “Occupy Central” is just one of many ongoing gambits the US is running against Beijing. A visit to the US NED site reveals not one, but four pages dedicated to meddling in China’s internal politics. NED’s activities are divided among China in general, Tibet, Xinjiang – referred to as “East Turkistan” as it is called by violent separatists the US backs – and Hong Kong. All of NED’s funding goes to politically subversive groups aligned to and dependent on the West, while being hostile toward Beijing. They range from “monitoring” and “media” organizations, to political parties as well as fronts for violent extremists. And as impressive as this network of political subversion is, it itself is still but a single part of a greater geopolitical agenda to encircle, contain, and eventually collapse the political order of Beijing and replace it with one favorable to Wall Street and Washington. As early as the Vietnam War, with the so-called “Pentagon Papers” released in 1969, it was revealed that the conflict was simply one part of a greater strategy aimed at containing and controlling China. While the US would ultimately lose the Vietnam War and any chance of using the Vietnamese as a proxy force against Beijing, the long war against Beijing would continue elsewhere. This containment strategy would be updated and detailed in the 2006 Strategic Studies Institute report “String of Pearls: Meeting the Challenge of China’s Rising Power across the Asian Littoral” where it outlines China’s efforts to secure its oil lifeline from the Middle East to its shores in the South China Sea as well as means by which the US can maintain American hegemony throughout the Indian and Pacific Ocean. The premise is that, should Western foreign policy fail to entice China into participating in the “international system” as responsible stakeholders, an increasingly confrontational posture must be taken to contain the rising nation. This includes funding, arming, and backing terrorists and proxy regimes from Africa, across the Middle East, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, and even within China’s territory itself. Documented support of these movements not only include Xinjiang separatists, but also militants and separatists in Baluchistan, Pakistan where the West seeks to disrupt a newly christened Chinese port and pipeline, as well as the machete wielding supporters of Aung San Suu Kyi in Myanmar’s Rakhine state – yet another site the Chinese hope to establish a logistical hub. Meddling in Thailand and stoking confrontation between China and an adversarial front including Vietnam, the Philippines, and Japan are also components of this spanning containment policy. Whatever grievances those among “Occupy Central’s” mobs may have, they have forfeited both their legitimacy and credibility, not to mention any chance of actually achieving progress. Indeed, as the US-engineered “Arab Spring” has illustrated, nothing good will come of serving insidious foreign interests under the guise of “promoting democracy.” The goal of “Occupy Central” is to make Hong Kong ungovernable at any cost, especially at the cost of the people living there – not because that is the goal of the witless though well-intentioned participants being misled by Washington’s troupe of seditious proxies, but because that is the goal of those funding and ultimately directing the movement from abroad. ISIS: the Useful Enemy by ISMAEL HOSSEIN-ZADEH The dark force of ISIS is apparently an invincible and unstoppable war juggernaut that is mercilessly killing and conquering in pursuit of establishing an Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. In reality, however, it is not as out of control as it appears. It is, indeed, carefully controlled and managed by its creators and supporters, that is, by the United States and its allies in the regions—those who now pretend to have established a coalition to fight it! The U.S., Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and other allies in the region do not really need to fight ISIS to (allegedly) destroy it; all they need to do to extinguish its hellish flames is stop supplying fuel for its fire, that is, stop supplying it with funds, mercenaries, military training and armaments. There are many ways to show the fact that, in subtle ways, ISIS benefactors control its operations and direct its activities in accordance with their own geopolitical interests. One way is to pay attention to its purported mission: to dismantle the corrupt and illegitimate regimes in Iraq and Syria and replace them with a “pure” Islamic state under the rule of a “pious caliphate.” Despite this professed mission to fight the dictatorial regimes that have tarnished Islam, however, ISIS does not question the most corrupt, dictatorial and illegitimate regimes in the region—such as the Saudi, Qatari, Kuwaiti and Jordanian regimes that fund and arm its operations. Another way is to compare ISIS’s attack (in early August) on the Iraqi Kurds in Irbil with its current attack on the Syrian Kurds in Kobani. When Irbil came under attack by ISIS, the U.S. unleashed the full force of its air power in concert with the Kurdish peshmerga fighters to repel the attack. By contrast, while the Kurdish city of Kobani in Northern Syria is being attacked by the disproportionately better armed forces of ISIS, and thousands of its besieged residents face certain mass killings if it falls, the forces of the “coalition to fight ISIS” are watching—in effect, playing a game of hide-and-seek, or perhaps trick-or-treat, with ISIS—as the outgunned and outmanned Kurdish forces are valiantly fighting to death against the attackers. Only occasionally the coalition forces carry out bombing missions that seem to be essentially theatrical, or just for the record. So, why are the Kurds in Kobani treated differently than those in Irbil? I find Ajamu Baraka’s answer to this question quite insightful: “The reason why the Kurds of Kobani are to be sacrificed stems from the fact that they are the wrong kind of Kurds. Masoud Barzani and the bourgeois Kurds of the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) are the “good Kurds” and the predominant force among the Kurds of Iraq. Their control of almost 45% of Iraqi oil reserves and the booming business that they have been involved in with U.S. oil companies and Israel since their ‘liberation’ with the U.S. invasion makes them a valued asset for the U.S. The same goes for Turkey where despite the historic oppression of Kurds in Turkey, the government does a robust business with the Kurds of Iraq” (Source). While the U.S., Turkey and their allies in the region do not view KDP as a threat to their geopolitical plans (at least for now), they do so when it comes to the “bad” Kurds in the selfgoverning area in Northern Syria, led by the Kurdish People’s Protection Unit (YPG). Contrary to KDP that tends to shun the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in Turkey in order not to antagonize the Turks, the United States and their allies in the region, YPG welcomes support from PKK in its fight against ISIS. Turkey’s overriding interest in Syria is not so much against ISIS as it is against the Syrian Kurds, as well as the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad; because the rabidly anti-Kurd regime in Ankara fears that the weakened regime of Assad may not be able to do away with the selfgoverning Kurds in Kobani and the surrounding Kurdish areas. The Turkish regime is concerned that if the Kobani Kurds succeed in fending off the ISIS forces, their success and their experience of self-government in the Kobani region, may serve as a tempting model of self-rule for the 15-million Kurds in Turkey. The Turks are also concerned that the success of the Syrian Kurds against ISIS would thwart their long-harbored ambitions to occupy and/or annex the oil-rich Kurdish region in Northern Syria—hence their insistence on a buffer or nofly zone in that region. This helps explain why the Turkish regime insists that the overthrow of the Assad regime must take precedence over the fight against ISIS. It also explains why it is feverishly trying to prevent the Kurdish volunteers to cross its border with Syria to help the besieged Kobani defenders against the brutal ISIS attack—in effect, helping ISIS against the Kurds. The inaction or half-hearted action of the United States in the face of the preventable slaughter of the Syrian Kurds, which makes it complicit in the carnage, can be explained by its political horse-trading with Turkey in exchange for the Turks’ collaboration with the pursuit of its imperialistic interests in the region. The U.S. approach to ISIS would be better understood when it is viewed in the context of its overall objectives in the region—and beyond. That overriding objective, shared and reinforced by its client states, is to undermine or eliminate “the axis of resistance,” consisting of Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas and, to a lesser extent, Shia forces in Iraq, Yemen, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. Achievement of this goal would also be achievement of another, even broader, goal: undermining Russia’s influence and alliances in the region and, by extension, in other parts of the world—for example, its critically important role within both the Shanghai Cooperation Council (China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan) and the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). To intervene in order to achieve these goals, the U.S. and its allies need pretexts and/or enemies—even if it means inventing or manufacturing such enemies. Without ISIS, resumption of U.S. military operations in Iraq and extension of those operations into Syria would have been difficult to justify to the American people. A year or so ago, the Obama administration’s drive to attack Syria was thwarted by the opposition from the American people and, therefore, the U.S. congress. The rise of ISIS quickly turned that opposition to support. Viewed in this light, ISIS can be seen as essentially another (newly manufactured) instrument in the tool-box of U.S. foreign policy, which includes “global terrorism,” the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, weapons of mass destruction, Iran’s nuclear technology, Al-Qaeda, and many other radical Islamic groupings—all by-products of, or blowbacks to, imperialistic U.S. foreign policies. Why is there a Debate over Voter ID Laws? In the debate over requiring photo identification to vote, advocates claim it will help prevent voter fraud, while opponents dismiss fraud as too infrequent to justify such laws. So imagine the surprise of a North Carolina Republican and voter-ID proponent when he reportedly caught the attorney suing the state to overturn its voter-ID rules violating election law. Molotov Mitchell, also a WND video columnist, is running as the GOP nominee for North Carolina State Senate District 16 against incumbent Democrat Josh Stein. Stein’s father, Adam Stein, is part of a team of attorneys suing the state to overturn its voter-ID law, set to go into effect in 2016. A new video released by Mitchell purports to show a polling place with signs clearly marked forbidding the distribution of election materials, but a photo reveals Adam Stein well beyond the signs handing out voter guides. “Two Republican candidates were there witnessing him handing out those flyers,” Mitchell told WND. “A Senate candidate, Mary Lopez Carter, took the picture because she saw him stand- ing there handing out voter guides. She didn’t know it was Adam Stein until her husband asked the guy his name and then [Stein] started bragging about his son, Josh. “In addition,” Mitchell said, “another Democrat there with Stein contacted Carter about how disappointed he was that this video is out there of Adam Stein under the overhang handing out voter guides. He inadvertently confirmed that was Adam Stein and those were voter guides in his hand. “I wish she would have responded by saying, ‘I’m disappointed the guy suing our state over voter-ID laws is so brazen as to stand out there violating electioneering laws at the same time,’” Mitchell said. In the video Mitchell created, he pressed the point even further. “[Adam Stein] tells us that removing the voter-ID requirement won’t enable more voter fraud, there’s nothing to worry about,” Molotov commented. “But I’m a little suspicious when I hear that coming from a guy who’s already breaking voting laws.” Mitchell’s video further points to evidence of rampant voter fraud already demonstrated in North Carolina. For example, WRAL-TV in Raleigh reports North Carolina’s Board of Elections found over 35,000 cases of people who voted in North Carolina in 2012 whose names and birthdates match those who voted in other states in the same election. In some of the cases, votes were cast under the names of those who were already dead. And according to the Voter Integrity Project, the North Carolina voter rolls contain over 700,000 “phantom voters,” names registered to vote at addresses where they don’t actually live. Jay DeLancy, founder and director of the Voter Integrity Project, explained to WND how those “phantoms” could be used to commit voter fraud. “Without voter ID,” DeLancy said, “anyone who walks into a polling place who can correctly recite the name and address of a registered voter, they will hand that person a ballot, no questions asked. “The fact is Bill Clinton created a law that has caused surplus registrations on the North Carolina roll of over 700,000 names – that’s 10 percent of our voter roll – people who no longer live at those addresses and no longer realize that they’re registered at those addresses,” he continued. “What I’m worried about is someone stealing those identities, just like they used to steal votes of dead people.” In an ironic twist, Mitchell invited DeLancy to his home to find out if any “phantom” voters were registered at his address, and DeLancy found one: a “Barbara Jo Allen.” “All Barbara Jo Allen has to do is walk into a poll, give them her name and my address and they will give her a ballot right there,” Mitchell told WND. “I think the evidence is overwhelming that voter fraud is a real concern in North Carolina,” he continued. “First we discovered 35,000 voters who had identical birth dates and other pertinent personal information on voter rolls in other states. Then we find out that there’s more than 700,000 people who have the wrong address listed on the voter rolls. The fact that we have the better part of a million people putting the wrong addresses down on the voter rolls should give people pause. There’s definitely something worth investigating here. “It all boils down to the common sense solution of presenting an ID when we vote,” Mitchell concludes. “Requiring an ID at the polls is the least painful, least invasive, most common sense solution to real voter fraud in North Carolina.” SCYTL A Spanish vote-tabulation firm with ties to billionaire globalist George Soros is purchasing software to give it greater power over the voting in U.S. elections. In a press release under a Barcelona and Tampa, Florida dateline, Scytl announced: Scytl's end-to-end election modernization solution covers the full election cycle (Pre-election, Election Day and Post-election), providing electoral bodies the most secure, transparent, auditable and accessible solution in the marketplace and allows Scytl to offer personalized election modernization roadmaps to their customers combining both traditional and online voting solutions as needed. n order to consolidate such beginning-to-end control, Scytl has purchased software from a trio of organizations within the gravitational pull of planet Soros. Again, from the press release: Scytl, the worldwide leader in secure online voting and election modernization, continues receiving electoral and industry expert recognition for its end-to-end election modernization technology and electoral roadmap implementation approach from organizations such as IDC, Ovum and ACEEEO. Regarding the benefit of its cooperation with Ovum, Scytl writes: "We believe Scytl's wide variety of offerings, investment into certifications, and emphasis on security, auditing, and testing position the company as a dominant provider in election modernization," says Nishant Shah, Research Analyst at Ovum and author of the On the Radar: Scytl report. Shah’s biographical sketch on the Ovum website is worth reading in light of his influence on the machines that count votes in American elections. Before joining Ovum, Nishant’s work spanned organizational strategy, project management, sustainability, and business development. This included facilitating large-scale public-private partnerships in international health for Ambassador Richard Holbrooke and his Global Business Coalition.... That snippet contains several red flags. First, there is Shah’s facilitation of “large-scale publicprivate partnerships” or PPPs. A PPP is often defined as “a contract between a public sector authority and a private party, in which the private party provides a public service or project and assumes substantial financial, technical and operational risk in the project.” As part of this scheme, a private company is given control over some public function typically provided by government. It is a tactic very much in vogue in internationalist circles and is considered an effective way to sneak the influence and the control of the UN in the back door. Regardless of the rhetoric, the true purpose of PPPs is to consolidate government and private corporations, giving them joint control over public entities. The result is the elimination of local sovereignty and the insidious replacement of county election commissions with a board of directors of a company whose mission statement calls for the creation of an executive governing body that is neither fish nor fowl, but is obliged to enforce international treaties and regulations written by the apparatchiks at the UN. Given the UN’s role in promoting PPPs, it is likely that those administering these centralized partnerships will come from a coterie of managers accustomed to looking to the international body or federal agencies for guidance, if recent initiatives such as Agenda 21 are any example. As envisioned by the UN and the internationalists in the U.S. government, PPPs will slyly seize control of elections, transferring authority for this vital expression of republican government from local and state boards to pseudo-private agencies made up of a mish-mash of federal agents and bureaucratic overseers adhering to global government regulations. The second warning bell that sounds in the Shah biography is his affiliation with the GlobalBusiness Coalition. George Soros is the “founding supporter” of Global Business Coalition. There is yet another Shah-Soros connection. Later in Shah’s Ovum bio, his work with the Acumen Fund in Pakistan is noted. Soros’s daughter, Andrea, serves on the board of this organization. She also sits on the board of her father’s Open Society Foundation. Following the dotted lines connecting the Open Society Foundation to Scytl and on to Soros, is a bit of a challenge, but one worth accepting. In an article published on World Net Daily, Aaron Klein ably guides readers from strand to strand in this web of influence. Scytl purchased the software division of Gov2U, described as a non-profit organization dedicated to developing and promoting the use of technology in the fields of governance and democracy. A Scytl press release said: “Gov2U created its software division in 2004 and, since then, it has developed a wide array of innovative award-winning eDemocracy solutions that have been implemented in multiple countries across Europe, Africa and America at the local, regional and federal government levels.” The Spain-based company says the “main purpose of these tools is to engage citizens in participatory processes through the use of online and offline platforms, bringing more transparency and legitimacy to decision-making processes.” Gov4U is currently partnered with Soros’ Open Society to support and develop a group called the Declaration on Parliamentary Openness. The group runs a website, OpeningParliament.org, which says it is a forum “intended to help connect the world’s civic organizations engaged in monitoring, supporting and opening up their countries’ parliaments and legislative institutions.” Gov4U, meanwhile, has eight partners of its own listed on its website, including the Sorosfunded and partnered National Democratic Institute, or NDI. Aside from receiving financial support for Soros, NDI has co-hosted scores of events along with Soros’ Open Society. The two groups work closely together. NDI and the Open Society, for example, worked together to push for electoral and legislative reform in Romania. NDI boasts that with Open Society Institute funds it conducted a political leadership training series for Romanian activists to “bring tangible improvements to their communities.” NDI describes itself as a nonprofit, nonpartisan, nongovernmental organization working to establish and strengthen political and civic organizations, safeguard elections and promote citizen participation, openness and accountability in government. NDI previously stated it was founded to draw on the traditions of the U.S. Democratic Party. WND found that NDI is also listed as the only U.S.-associated organization of Socialists International, the world’s largest socialist umbrella group. NDI was originally created by the federally funded National Endowment for Democracy, or NED, which itself founded joint NDI projects with the Open Society. Another NDI financial backer is the United States Agency for International Development, USAID. It is disturbing to discover that not only is Scytl found in the Soros sphere, but it has demonstrable connections to international socialism, the U.S. Democratic Party, and the United Nations, as well. Taken alone, these unsettling associations might make voters question their electoral board’s contracting with Scytl to administer elections in the United States. When viewed in context of the spread of Scytl’s support of vote counting, however, the picture takes on a darker aspect. For example, the state of Florida was using Scytl to tabulate election results, but later rescinded the contract after uncovering evidence of significant risks in the methods the Barcelona-based company was employing. According to the report issued by the Florida Department of State: Our findings identified vulnerabilities that, in the worst case, could result in (i) voters being unable to cast votes, (ii) an election result that does not accurately reflect the will of the voters, or (iii) disclosure of confidential information, such as the votes cast by a voter. Then in 2010, the Scytl system in use in Washington, D.C. was hacked. As part of an effort to determine the reliability of the devices, the D.C. Board of Elections & Ethics reportedly “encouraged outside parties to hack and find flaws in its new online balloting system.” Answering the challenge, students from the University of Michigan successfully violated the site and programmed it to play the University of Michigan fight song every time a vote was cast. Why should this alarm Americans who don’t live in those jurisdictions? Chiefly because during the midterm elections in November 2010, Scytl was contracted by 14 states to “modernize” their voting apparatuses. Scytl is set to deploy its software in 900 U.S. jurisdictions. The firm already handles the balloting for members of the U.S. military and their families living overseas. During that election cycle (midterm 2010) the following states used Scytl’s technology in tabulating votes: New York, Texas, Washington, California, Florida, Alabama, Missouri, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, New Mexico, Nebraska, West Virginia, and Washington, D.C. Furthermore, Voter Action, an election integrity advocacy group, filed a complaint with the U.S. Election Assistance Commission in April 2010 alleging that the use of Scytl’s systems in the voting process “raises national security concerns.” “Foreign governments may also seek to undermine the national security interests of the United States, either directly or through other organizations,” the complaint claimed. In support of this last assertion, the complaint reveals that Scytl was formed in 2001 as the result of work done by a research group at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, work which was financed in large part by the Spanish government’s Ministry of Science and Technology. Such associations are certainly worth examining very closely before control of our elections is handed over to Scytl. Especially in light of Scytl’s practice of downloading the votes from each precinct where its devices are in use to a company-owned server where they will be stored. Once the votes are collected, counted, and collated by Scytl and saved on its own proprietary servers, it would be nearly impossible to track any discrepancies between the numbers it reports and the actually vote tallies as taken at the local polling places. Finally, although it certainly doesn’t crow about its strong ties to George Soros and international socialism, Scytl boldly declares that its services “power 90% of binding elections....” The list of its current “partners” is enough to give pause to citizens in these states and justify a demand that local election boards disclose how much control over the voting process they’ve surrendered to Scytl. The following states are listed as current customers on the Scytl website: Alaska Arkansas Kentucky North Carolina Arizona Mississippi Virginia West Virginia Florida Alabama New York and the city of Washington, D.C. 1.) The Obama Government has outsourced the counting of votes for the 2012 election. But since WHEN does the nation need to outsource a task as uncomplicated and straightforward as vote-counting? 2.) Obama outsourced the counting to a Tampa Florida company, named SOE, that had previously been used to administer the vote counting process for over 500 American jurisdictions. 3.) But recently, SOE software has now been sold to a company named SCYTL, owned by George Soros, headquartered in Spain. 4.) The votes will go to SCYTL, the question becomes as to WHY Must local votes for each precinct will be downloaded to SCYTL�s main server � leaving no TRACEABLE record of how many, and what votes were scored! Which of course means that said votes will be MERGED; and any discrepancies at lower levels will be IMPOSSIBLE to track. 5.) But wait, it gets murkier: SCYTL is shadow owned by Pere Valles, a former CEO of Global Net; who just HAPPENS to have been a maximum level contributor to the Obama Campaign in 2008. Not surprisingly, Valles is also has contacts with Media Matters, a communication consortium owned by: George Soros. 6.) Now the bad news: according to the �Black Box� voting site, this centralizes one �middleman� access point for over 525 voting jurisdictions: (AL, AZ, CA, CO, DC, FL, KY, MI, KS, IL, IN, NC, NM, MN, NY, SC, TX, UT, WA. � and growing).� As local election results funnel through SOE's servers (typically before they reach the public elsewhere), those who run the computer servers for SOE essentially get "first look" at results and the ability to immediately and privately examine vote details throughout the USA. In 2004, many Americans were justifiably concerned when, days before the presidential election, Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell redirected Ohio election night results through the Tennessee-based server for several national Republican Party operations. This is worse: This redirects results reporting to a centralized privately held server which is not just for Ohio, but national; not just USA-based, but global. A mitigation against fraud by SOE insiders has been the separation of voting machine systems from the SOE results reports. Because most US jurisdictions require posting evidence of results from each voting machine at the precinct, public citizens can organize to examine these results to compare with SOE results. Black Box Voting spearheaded a national citizen action to videotape / photograph these poll tapes in 2008. With the merger of SOE and SCYTL, that won't work (if SCYTL's voting system is used). When there are two truly independent sources of information, the public can perform its own "audit" by matching one number against the other. These two independent sources, however, will now be merged into one single source: an Internet voting system controlled by SCYTL, with a results reporting system also controlled by SCYTL. With SCYTL internet voting, there will be no ballots. No physical evidence. No chain of custody. No way for the public to authenticate who actually cast the votes, chain of custody, or the count. SCYTL is moving into or already running elections in: the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Norway, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, South Africa, India and Australia. SCYTL is based in Barcelona; its funding comes from international venture capital funds including Nauta Capital, Balderton Capital and Spinnaker. This VC group has accepted funds from George Soros. The Obama administration has sold the processing rights of our votes in the general election to a company from Spain (SCYTL) It will no longer be possible to track and verify our votes. The CEO of the company donated the maximum amount to Obamas’ 2008 campaign. Polio: The crippling disease of the 1950’s making a comeback Amid fears of Ebola’s reach into the U.S., a more enigmatic virus is suspected of causing paralysis in dozens of children nationwide as doctors race to solve one of the most perplexing mysteries of their careers. Enterovirus D68, which has hospitalized hundreds of children in almost every state and been linked to at least four deaths, may also have caused unexplained paralysis in cases from Boston to San Diego, doctors said. Researchers said they fear EV-D68 could be this generation’s version of polio, said Ben Greenberg, a Dallas-based neurologist. Enterovirus typically causes only mild cold symptoms in most patients. Now, though, U.S. health officials are probing whether EV-D68 is directly linked to the paralysis. At the same time, more than 50 doctors at top U.S. hospitals are holding regular calls and pooling research, seeking to pinpoint physical changes that may lead to a treatment or a vaccine. They are in a race against time as the EV-D68 outbreak has yet to wane. ‘We don’t want to repeat mistakes of history,’’ said Greenberg, of the University of Texas Southwest Medical Center. “If we could have accelerated the polio vaccine by a decade we could have saved a lot of people from the illness.” Photographer: Cyrus McCrimmon/Denver Post via Getty Images A boy recovering at Rocky Mountain Hospital for Children at Presbyterian/St. Luke's... Read More Greenberg, who spoke by telephone, said he didn’t realize the full scope of the problem until early last week. After reports of a cluster of 10 paralysis cases in Colorado, he and 30 other neurologists, infectious disease experts and public health officials hastily organized a conference call Sept. 29. Many Cases To Greenberg’s surprise, almost every doctor on the call, from Boston to Chicago to Los Angeles, had seen at least one case of unexplained paralysis in the past several months, and some had seen as many as 10. There have been 594 confirmed cases of EV-D68 in 43 states, beginning in the Midwest in August, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, though doctors said the number is probably far greater since not all those infected are tested. Most only experience symptoms such as a runny nose, though a small percentage develop serious breathing difficulties, especially those with a history of such issues including asthma. In cases where children develop paralysis, the symptoms usually start with those similar to a cold or stomach bug. They are followed by a fever, headaches, neck pain and, within a few days or weeks, a swift and sudden paralysis that in the most severe cases left children bound to a wheelchair, unable to speak or breathe on their own, said Keith Van Haren, a Stanford School of Medicine neurologist who has been studying a link between the virus and paralysis since 2012. Similar Look While there were some variations, most images from medical scans of those with paralysis looked strikingly similar, with the connection between the spinal cord and the muscles killed off with little chance of rebuilding the bridge -- just like seen in scans of those infected with polio, Greenberg said. “There were remarkable similarities,” said Van Haren, who was also on the doctors’ conference call. “They sounded like interchangeable cases.” The CDC hasn’t determined definitively whether the virus is causing the paralysis. EV-D68 hasn’t been detected in all of the paralyzed patients and given its widespread circulation, its presence could be coincidental, the agency said last week. While the CDC continues to study the paralysis cases, “as a member of the clinical community, I think it is just a matter of time before we establish a definitive link between EV-D68 and this polio-like illness that follows,” Van Haren said. New Jersey Case The virus has also been documented in at least four deaths, the CDC said Oct. 1. Since then, New Jersey health officials have attributed the virus to the death of Eli Waller, a 4-year-old New Jersey boy who died suddenly in his sleep. Waller was kept home from school by his mother one day last month because he was developing a little bit of pinkeye, said Jeff Plunkett, the health officer for Hamilton Township where the boy lived. That night, he died in his sleep. The Mercer County medical examiner’s office listed EV-D68 as the cause of death and found swelling of the brain and lymph nodes. He didn’t have any underlying medical conditions, such as asthma, said Plunkett. There are currently no vaccines in development for the virus, which was rarely seen until this year. Before work on one can begin, researchers need more data to prove the virus is the cause of the paralysis, Greenberg said. Too often, samples aren’t taken in time to detect the virus and it’s possible multiple viruses may be to blame. As of last week, the CDC has begun a national surveillance and testing program while Greenberg and other neurologists have formed a group to study patients more in depth. Polio History The cases have doctors brushing up on their knowledge of polio, which hasn’t naturally occurred in the U.S. since 1979 after a vaccine was introduced in the 1950s. When Greenberg started seeing the polio-like cases, he called an older colleague at the National Institutes of Health who had trained in India to get a crash course on the disease and compare notes. In contrast to enterovirus, there has been just one case so far of Ebola that was brought into the U.S. from a patient infected in Liberia. Though Ebola can be lethal, with a mortality rate in Africa as high as 60 percent, it is much less easily transmitted from person to person. Enterovirus is spread through casual contact, such as when an infected person sneezes or coughs while Ebola is only transmitted through the sharing of bodily fluids, like blood, vomit or saliva. Carrie Baker-Bailey fears her son William, 8, is one of those who who may have lost the use of his arm. At the end of August she took him to the hospital near their San Diego home with neck pain, headache and a fever. An x-ray showed some inflammation in his chest and his doctor sent him home with antibiotics, Baker-Bailey said in a telephone interview. Spinal Tap Two days later he was feeling worse and had a stomach ache, was constipated and was complaining of pain all over his body. They went back to the hospital where doctors did a spinal tap, diagnosed him with spinal meningitis and sent him home. That night, Baker-Bailey said she remembers him screaming in pain as he lay with her at 3 a.m. trying to fall back asleep. The next morning she knew something wasn’t right and took him back to the hospital again. By then, he said he couldn’t move his arm. An MRI showed inflammation of his spinal cord and he was admitted to the hospital where he spent 13 days in the intensive care unit. He tested positive for enterovirus though doctors never did further testing to determine which of the more than 100 types of enterovirus he had. Back Home Now, back at home, he still can’t lift or move his arm and has weakness in his back. The once-active little boy who played baseball year-round and swam competitively now has difficulty sitting up on his own in a chair, can’t dress himself and hasn’t been able to start the third grade. Baker-Bailey thinks the virus had something to do with her son’s paralysis, but doctors haven’t been able to give her a clear answer for what caused it or whether he will ever regain use. “How did he get it, what did he even have, and is it ever going to get better, we don’t have any answers,” she said. “Sitting in the ICU for 13 days asking why? Why? Why? And not having any answers, that has been the hardest part. Importing Disease is a form of Viral Warfare How did America become the center of a variety of rare diseases and diseases, like polio that we thought we had killed? The American Thinker said this, “That’s why the obvious question is this: Where did Enterovirus EV-D68 originate and did it ‘entero’ the U.S. via illegal children? “Dr. Besser contended that enteroviruses tend to show up in the summer, which, this year, just so happens to coincide with thousands of unvaccinated and sickly illegal children infiltrating the U.S. border. Besser also claimed the virus spreads when children go back to school. Unfortunately, what the good doctor chose not to mention is that viruses of unknown origin have more of an opportunity to spread if public schools are overrun with illegal students infected with God-knows-what. Then Besser said, and this is a winner for sure, that “This particular Enterovirus EV-D68 is very rare and they have no idea why it showed up this year.” See here. Obama did not just import criminals and law breakers from Central America earlier this year—he imported disease and death. When will the media start reporting this part of the story? Cases of Enterovirus D68 On The Rise In California; Local Hospitals Prepare ByDiana Aguilera, KPVR, 10/3/14 Children’s Hospital Central California says they are taking the necessary precautions to protect patients from Enterovirus D68. Credit Children’s Hospital Central California California public health officials announced Friday that 14 people have now been diagnosed with Enterovirus D-68, a respiratory virus that has sent children to emergency rooms across the country. Out of the 14 cases, there were no cases confirmed in the Central Valley. “We can’t prevent something from arriving here but what we can do is make sure our patients are as protected as possible,” said Zara Arboleda, spokesperson for Children’s Hospital Central California. So far, the virus has affected children ages ranging from 11 months old to 15 years of age in the state, epidemiologist Dr. Gil Chavez said. Mild symptoms include sneezing, runny nose, coughing, fever and muscle aches. Health officials say symptoms can escalate for children with asthma, triggering severe wheezing. Even though doctors say the disease has been spreading at a slower rate compared to other states, it has reached eight counties including cases in Los Angeles and the Bay Area. With the virus expanding throughout the state, hospitals including Children Hospital Central California, say they are taking necessary precautions. “We can’t prevent something from arriving here but what we can do is make sure are patients are as protected as possible,” said Zara Arboleda, the hospital’s spokesperson. “Anyone who comes into our hospital is screened for basic respiratory problems.” The hospital doesn’t just rely on screening. “A lot of the symptoms are similar to other problems like influenza so the only way to truly identify whether a patient has Enterovirus D-68 is for them to get tested specifically for that. So far we’ve had no cases of that.” State health officials say the respiratory illness may be linked with paralysis. But, doctors say they are still trying to investigate more about the association between the two. Out of the 14 cases in the state, one patient had suffered paralysis in Los Angeles. “This is an extremely rare syndrome,” said Dr. Carol Glaser of the paralysis case, who’s the interim chief for the immunization branch of the state’s Center for infectious Diseases. State doctors also announced on Friday that out of 35 patients tested for acute flaccid paralysis since 2012, ages ranging from 5 months to 73 years, only three have been tested positive for Enterovirus D68. State doctors say more information about the possible link between the virus and paralysis should become available in the upcoming weeks. Currently, there’s no vaccine or specific treatment for this virus