Posts Tagged ‘DUFF’
28
Apr

By Press TV US Desk

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“We’re pretending that al-Qaeda is there (Yemen). In reality, we’re interfering in internal politics and we are assassinating political enemies of our friends in Yemen to maintain power.

But that’s part of a larger policy where we are migrating an imaginary terror organization over to Africa where we’re soon going to be starting drone attacks. We’ve been hoping for permission to do these in northern Nigeria against Boko Haram, Niger, Mali, Chad, and the C.A.R (Central African Republic).” (Gordon Duff, Senior Editor, Veterans Today)

 

Press TV has conducted an interview with Gordon Duff, with Veterans Today, to further discuss the issue.
The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

YouTube – Veterans Today -

Press TV: In addition to these killings going on by these assassination drones, under the nose of the UN, and also along with that there’s zero accountability for the US government, In some respects, a mockery is being made out of international law. Tell us your comments on that and, also, what is going on when in January Obama finally admits to the use of these drones and then now these ‘signature strikes’ four months later? Are they preparing the grounds for something that maybe we’re unaware of, that they’re laying the groundwork for it?
Duff: Two things. Both speakers you have here are exactly correct. We hope the new president of Pakistan will be Imran Khan who will put an end to drone strikes entirely – a good friend.
I had negotiated with General [Ashfaq Parvez] Kayani, the head of the army, and Al-Jazeera… a ten-day photo trip through Waziristan for the same purpose. After it was announced, I found myself in protective custody outside of Islamabad for some period of time – protective custody – under circumstances, let’s say, other than I approved of. There is every desire to make sure that none of this is seen.

YouTube – Veterans Today -

The issue that Jim Fetzer had made, there is no such thing as al-Qaeda. There has never been. Osama bin Laden died in 2001. His CIA handler, Lee Wanta, works for Veterans Today. He’s been entirely debriefed.
I have seen in its entirety Osama bin Laden’s CIA file. I have read the entire thing. I have it in my computer – send the cover sheet at anytime, nothing beyond it. I’m a defense contractor. That’s my job.
As far as the game in Yemen, this is what it is. We’re doing these drone strikes here. We’re pretending that al-Qaeda is there. In reality, we’re interfering in internal politics and we are assassinating political enemies of our friends in Yemen to maintain power.
But that’s part of a larger policy where we are migrating an imaginary terror organization over to Africa where we’re soon going to be starting drone attacks. We’ve been hoping for permission to do these in northern Nigeria against Boko Haram, Niger, Mali, Chad, and the C.A.R (Central African Republic).
That’s where we’re moving imaginary al-Qaeda because we want to fight that war in Africa because we’ve been fighting it in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and we’ve been having our tail kicked.
It’s better to fight an imaginary war than a real one, and we do so, love fighting these wars with a joy stick and a drone.

YouTube – Veterans Today -

Press TV: You had something to say but before you say that, I’d like to find out from you. You say that Imran Khan, maybe, is going to be the next president of Pakistan – Pakistan doesn’t like these drones, on the surface, in the news they say that.
But there’s that Baghram Air Base, for example, 1.2 billion dollar tender, is said to be these robotic intelligence warfare equipment to include the use of drones. Drones are pretty much here to stay in different parts of the world.
Duff: I’ve talked at length with Imran Khan about drones. We’ve certainly sat down together, gone over the effect they’ve had in destabilizing Pakistan, which our other speakers have brought out very, very accurately.
The fact that drones themselves have caused militants – we’re talking about killing militants. Why are people militants? Because drones have killed their families. Everyone in Waziristan wears a beard. Everyone has a gun, and once you kill their family with a drone they’re going to be militant. From that day forward in their lives they’re going to kill Americans.
What’s behind this, what’s always behind this is economics. The issue here, of course, is that we have all of the world’s major currencies in freefall collapse. We’re having a difficult time collateralizing currencies with hydrocarbons – which Iran is one of the countries that depend on hydrocarbons.
This is why we’re moving towards Africa, because we’re able to collateralize with diamonds. We need to be able to collateralize with currencies, with rare earths which exists in, let’s say, considerably more value, and in limited amount of gold.
But the issues behind all of these games are economics. Of course, why do we have Occupy? Because we have a very small number of people in the world who control all of the assets of the world, and the rest of us are being pushed into police states. We live in slavery. We live with, exactly as your other speaker said, drones over our heads threatening us with non-lethal or less-than-lethal weapons.
The breakdown of society, we’re looking at the edge of it because society is going to break down when we are no longer able to run the world on counterfeit currencies. When we come to an end, when we’re no longer able to go down and buy gasoline and food, it’s all going to come apart. They need this police state mechanism and these technologies so they can control all of us.
We the people, all of us, all of the people of the world, are a potential enemy and these technologies exist for nothing other than controlling the people of the world as the enemy of – we can’t even name who we’re being enslaved by. We don’t even know.


Related Posts:

  • Duff on Press TV: Americans ashamed of troops atrocities in Afghanistan
  • VT Contributor, Imran Khan Blasts US for War Stance
  • GORDON DUFF: IMRAN KHAN DEMANDS FREEDOM FOR DR. AAFIA, ASHCROFT RENDITION VICTIM
  • GORDON DUFF: ORCHESTRATING A PHONY WAR IN AFGHANISTAN
  • GORDON DUFF: PAKISTAN’S IMRAN KHAN; LOOKING FOR “AMERICA” IN THE STRANGEST PLACES

Short URL: http://www.veteranstoday.com/?p=203358

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09
Apr

 

By Press TV US Desk

“The US has made an incredible number of errors and we could pass those errors by simply lying about it…because the American troops were simply lost and broke into the wrong home. That’s happened not dozens of times but hundreds of times.””

The United States and Afghanistan have signed a deal on the controversial night raids carried out by the US-led forces.

YouTube – Veterans Today -

However, Afghan President Hamid Karzai had demanded an end to such operations, with Afghans saying the raids violate their privacy.

Press TV has conducted an interview with Gordon Duff, senior editor for Veterans Today, to further discuss the issue. The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Technically speaking, in operational terms, what is going to change after this MOU is signed between the Afghan Government and the US military?

Duff: According to the agreement, over the last year, the US has been involved in 3,000 night operations which, as you’ve had described to you, simply refers to having troops breaking into people’s homes in the middle of the night and fighting their children.

The US claims that 81 percent of those raids have yielded terror suspects.

In a recent poll held in the United States, 69 percent of Americans are opposed to US involvement in the war in Afghanistan. By those standards, US troops could break into 69 percent of American homes and could detain suspects as well.

This is an issue we have in this country all the time with our own police. They’re continually breaking into the wrong homes, shooting innocent civilians in their sleep. It’s a very common thing.

The issue is very simple, it was a deal that Karzai cut with tribal leaders to allow the Americans to stay even though the US is totally dependent on these operations.
We agreed because it was more important for us to stay and save face, and depend on the Afghan troops that our commanders have been telling us for 11 years, ‘we’re never coming up to capability’.

Two days ago the Special Operations troops in Afghanistan were no good at all. Today they’re the best in the world. Why? -Because if we don’t use them the US has to leave.

Press TV: There are various types of raids that are carried on homes in Afghanistan, like the ones conducted by the CIA forces. Does this MOU encompass all types of operations targeting Afghan homes or is it just talking about a particular type?

Duff: When they refer to Special Operations forces, the MOU probably includes all CIA and CIA contractors. It’s a fairly wide statement. Your earlier speaker with his point was a critical one.
I remember this during the Vietnam War. For these raids, you depend on intelligence. That intelligence comes through signals-intelligence which is overhearing satellite calls using our sophisticated equipment or it depends on what people tell us.

Well, that depends on people not lying to Americans. Were I an Afghan who considered myself a patriot, giving information to Americans that would lead to arrests in the middle of the night, might not be consistent with my values.

The US has made an incredible number of errors and we could pass those errors by simply lying about it.

The key issue, there is no way to enter a private home, no matter whose it is, safely. And there is no way for American troops to travel across Afghanistan in the middle of the night with the most remote idea of where they are.

Frankly, so many of these incidents, when I read the real reports on them, are because the American troops were simply lost and broke into the wrong home. That’s happened not dozens of times but hundreds of times.

Press TV: The US government claims to be the torch bearer for human rights in the world. How does this justify violations of the privacy of Afghan homes on such a large scale, as you’ve just pointed out?

Duff: The funny thing is the same issue, people entering American homes without knocking, kicking down doors. The same purpose of Special Operations troops operate throughout the United States all the time.

To Americans, we’re just as armed as any people on earth or more so. If someone comes to my home in the middle of the night and kicks down the door, they’ll find me with an assault rifle firing back. That’s here.

It’s considered a simple human right to defend. It’s part of our right as American citizens to defend our homes. We should extend that right to everyone else. The point you’re making is we are not doing it.


Related Posts:

  • Duff on Press TV: Americans ashamed of troops atrocities in Afghanistan
  • A Tin Foil Hat Day, We All Need More of These
  • Prosthetic’s for Peace. The costs of Land Mines and War.
  • “Occupy HUD” Movement Gains Traction
  • Why Wall Street Hates Obama

Short URL: http://www.veteranstoday.com/?p=198841

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06
Dec

 

By Gordon Duff, Senior Editor hosted by Kevin Barrett, VT Staff Writer

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Another amphetimine driven marathon session with VT Senior Editor, Gordon Duff and Truth Jihad Radio host and VT staffer, Kevin Barrett.  The combination of politics, hard intelligence, conspiracy theory and, most important of all, “little green men” is sure to delight the casual listener and enrage more than a few.

Today’s subjects begin with the controversial death threat against presidential hopeful Ron Paul but hardly stops there.  In fact….

 


Related Posts:

  • The Crisis of Misdirection, Time to Get Off the Bus
  • DIMITRI KHALEZOV, GORDON DUFF AND KEVIN BARRETT-NUCLEAR TERRORISM (video)
  • Dear Geraldo Rivera: 9/11 Murder is NOT a Joke
  • America and Pakistan – Questions and Answers
  • Ron Paul Assassination Hoax: Is It an Israeli Threat?

Short URL: http://www.veteranstoday.com/?p=168746

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04
Dec

THE “WHO-LESS” RANT

 

By Gordon Duff, Senior Editor

 

There big news here in the United States is that, one a mainstream news show, Dylan Ratigan, almost began to speak the truth before he reined himself in.  He got some of it out, lots of “what” and no “who.”  Days later when “who” started to trickel out, Ratigan had obviously been “spoken to.”  We take what we can get.  However, as is always the case, what is “not said” is always most important.  Sometimes “not saying” is the loudest rant of all.

For those who have not heard “the rant,” here it is:

YouTube – Veterans Today -

First of all, Dylan, I have to say “good energy there.”  As a continual guest on “marginal” TV and radio, no pay and occasionally warned what to say and what not to say, his rant is where I go when the valium and caffeine levels go wrong.

We are supposed to be thankful that someone notices these things:

  • Some utterly unknown entity, later misidentified as the “tax code” and “Chinese” are stealing all the money in the world like a Willy Wonka gone bad, perhaps it’s the Grinch?
  • American has no economic policy.  Thank you for pointing that one out.  You get “5″ out of 5 on that one.
  • “Congress has been bought.”  There we finally begin going somewhere and mainstream media can’t “take it home.”  It is like you are describing a sale, which is exactly what happened to America’s government but never mentioning the buyer.   Good move there.

Dylan , just as a beginning, a minor one, let’s go one step further:

  • Where has the money gone.  You say “tens of trillions of dollars” are missing.  Where are they now?
  • Who took them?
  • Why did they take them?  Who could spend that much?
  • Let me ask this again.  Why?

There is another problem, Dylan, “understatement.”

  • A couple of weeks ago, Merrill Lynch, the “gutted” subsidiary of the nearly bankrupt Bank of America tried to “launder $79 trillion into the FDIC.

I can’t even make other points.  I have to stop right here.  Merrill Lynch isn’t worth anything, it has no value, it went under in 2008.  How in the name of all that is holy, could the bankrupt subsidiary of a bankrupt bank be holding enough money to buy China, actually a couple of times over.

Are we all dead here?

Doesn’t anyone ask questions?  ML claims they are holding more money than exists, more than the Federal Reserve has every printed since its inception in 1913, in “bad securities,” some call them “toxic deriviatives.”  There is no evidence that this “money” or these “derivatives” ever existed, no evidence of where they came from, nobody bought them, no government issued them or regulatory entity ever authorized their issue.

Could someone, please, just mention this, or part of it.  You do realize that, when the scope of this is looked at, no conspiracy theory in history comes even close.

Here is the beginning of what we are finding out:

  • The “bailout” wasn’t $700 billion but $7 trillion or more, money “lent” to the banks which they made huge profits out of.
  • We know that congress never authorized this and the actions of the Federal Reserve in doing so were criminal acts requiring arrest, trials, incarceration, things like that.
  • We now know this illegal “looting” that went on, made billions which were paid out to certain individuals, now estimated to be $13 billion, no taxes were paid, the money never went into banks, the money never even went into the United States.
  • In fact, most of the “bailout” is not included on any list of our “national debt” or any legal transaction of our government at all.  It was a private, “under the table” deal cut between individuals, not really banks at all, and a group of individuals best described as what they are, organized crime, who are allowed to do anything, no matter how illegal or damaging to America, because they are above any law.

Nothing on this scale has ever been done before.  The official estimate for “money” stolen, the stuff Ratigan is talking about, is $1,450 trillion dollars, money in excess of all wealth on earth.

It isn’t just America’s congress but the EU, Russia, China and Japan who are covering this up.  What we want to know, as I ask again:

  • Where is the money?
  • Why was it stolen?
  • What is the plan, world domination,  turning the planet over to lizard aliens or something worse, though my imagination is now beginning to wear thin here.

I can’t even begin to imagine what congress or the Federal Reserve or all these organizations, and there are so many, are thinking.

How can there be “debt” when nobody sold anything to anyone, nothing changed hands.  Do you think this money is all “bad mortgages for evil Negroes” as the Republican Party tried to tell us 3 years ago, when only they knew and were busy lying to all of us?

With public and private debt across the world estimated at over $2500 trillion dollars, do we owe all that money to China for VCRs sitting in Salvation Army stories, unwise purchases made during the 1990s or is it all owed to Verizon Wireless for “data overage” charges on Android phones?

You do undertand that the numbers we are tossing around are considered “real” by major financial entities and are sufficient to “collateralize” the purchase of the sun?  Is someone planning to sell it?  What would you wrap it in?

Any other suggestions?

THE IGNORED REALITIES

Ratigan talks about “bought congress.”  Here is who bought congress:

  • The “Israel lobby” is the single biggest holder of financial levage on congress with a continual agenda involving support of a) Protecting financial criminals, b) Staying at war continually for reasons that are now “unclear,” c) Laundering foreign aid to Israel back to the US in the form of bribes to congress, a form of “pump priming.”
  • Drug cartels:  $100 billion per year, 80% from Afghanistan, some from Mexico, is pared down to about $2 billion in election financing laundered through “corporations” now allowed unlimited and unaudited political contributions
  • The Same Old Guys:  The oil, drug, pollution and, let’s not forget, the Republican Party’s love affair with filling America with illegal aliens to push down wages.  Leading this effort?  The US Chamber of Commerce, keeping America’s borders unguarded for decades now.

Ratigan, next time you rant, do remember to use a teleprompter.

Ratigan describes the biggest crime wave in history, obviously something done by an organization that is above any government.  I can understand him not wanting to put any name on it.  I feel the same way.  Every time I say “New World Order,” I can see eyes roll back into heads.

THE OBVIOUS

Let’s talk about “when.”  This wasn’t done before, it was done when Bush came into office.  Bush had a advisors and planners.  His advisors were PNAC, a largely Israeli based group that planned, they claim, to position the United States to “rule the world” after a “Pearl Harbor” type incident would allow the government to enact new laws and start a chain of wars in Central Asia.

The “in place” management was to be Donald Rumsfeld and Richard Cheney, who would control the military and intelligence operations during the Bush presidency.

Less formally were a group of financial criminals who were appointed to stop all financial regulation.  In fact, all oversight and regulation, from environment to working standards to veterans health and welfare came to a virtual halt after the Supreme Court appointed Bush to the presidency, an power denied that body by the Constitution of the United States.

In fact, this is the last time we saw any evidence of there being a constitution.  Since 2001, no branch of government, be it legislative, judicial or executive has made mention of other than the most minor constitutional abuses.  Cases involving torture or violations of speech are brought before the court but the only substantive action was the bizarre move to empower corporations, multi- national “deathless” entities with no legal restraints to suddenly be empowered with very special and unique political rights, rights that have allowed them to use their financial leverage, leverage gained through operating in an illegal and unregulated environment, to repay the politicians who very simply ended all enforcement of criminal and civil law.

There are exceptions.  Laws against the poor are “alive and well.”  Selective enforcement against political enemies, whistleblowers and “mavericks,” real ones anyway, is also “alive and well.”

MORE THAN OBVIOUS

Whether we are talking to “Occupy” activists, or simply the citizens of the world, there is one watershed that changed everything.

9/11

For over 10 years, beginning the second “the incident” began, a carefully scripted cover story involving violations of every scientific principle and dozens of laws and well established precedents went into motion.  Hundreds of thousands of tons of steel vaporized in a small fire, two towers were hit but three collapsed and a missile hit the Pentagon.

For 10 years, the lies have been sold and resold, news but mostly movies and TV shows, all peddling everything but the truth.

FEAR OF 9/11 DISCLOSURE

Evidence exists that Israelis ran the 9/11 attack exists, enough evidence to convice any jury.  In fact, there was a trial in Britain regarding their “9/11″ which they call “7/7.”  It was proven during the trial that the London attacks by “Muslims” was actually done by Israeli intelligence.  You won’t read about it anywhere else but all you will ever need to be convinced is here:  Suppressed News: “False Flag” Whistleblower Acquitted in Britain

For those who have managed to avoid dealing with the controversy of 9/11, those subjected to the controlled media barrage that I believe is very much a part of the orchestrated effort to steal enough money to buy the sun, this Tony Lawson video is a reasonable “baby step” toward becoming sane again.  If  a twinge of return to reality is stimulated here, we can help.

YouTube – Veterans Today -

A critical issue is Israeli involvement in 9/11, something we believe we can prove.  This is, in itself, a problem.  If one speaks about Israel doing wrong, one is attacked as an “antisemite.”  In fact, a flurry of name calling and personal attacks seems to have been part of the plan from the beginning and, for awhile, it worked quite well.

What if those who use the term “antisemite” with such regularity, often against people who never show the courage of even pointing out evidence of Israeli complicity, are attacked as “antisemites” anyway?  It happens every day.

Some might call it “proof.”  Others might be simply made suspicious.  Suspicion is a good place to begin, it was where I started.  Now, for reasons none of us know anything of, the world has changed, black is white, white is yellow and, as Dylan Ratigan tells us, “tens of trillions of dollars have vanished.”

They vanished like hundreds of thousands of tons of structural steel on 9/11, the like United States Air Force vanished.  All these mysterious “vanishings” are related, if you hadn’t guessed already.  Did you see when the constitution vanished?  It is gone also, vanished like our government, the one that Dylan Ratigan says has been “bought.”  Is that a form of “vanishing” too?  Is it, just maybe, our “freedoms” and “rights” that disappeared?

Now, and I am not sure why, Americas relationship with Israel, despite superficial claims to the contrary, has fallen apart.  We actually get along with Pakistan better than we get along with Israel.  Can I explain why?

Of course not, all I know is what the news tells me and I know the news is “invented,” at least any part involving issues Israel is involved in.  Why is that?

This takes us back to the Ratigan rant.  He said someone “owned” congress but never mentioned who.

I am saying someone “owns” the press but I am not mentioning who.

Why would Dylan Ratigan claim that congress is “owned” and Gordon Duff claim the press is “controlled” and yet refuse to name who “owns” and who “controls?”

Why indeed?

 

 


Related Posts:

  • Greedy Bastards – MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan Nails American Leadership Corruption
  • Straight Talk on Jews and 9/11
  • 9/11: An Open Letter to Anthony Lawson about “Absurdities”
  • The Absurdity of the No-Planes-in-New York Theory
  • OBAMA – WHEN CONSPIRACIES GO TOO FAR

Short URL: http://www.veteranstoday.com/?p=168034

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04
May







THE “OSAMA-SICKLE”

THE FAIRY TALES START AGAIN…

Osama bin Laden’s death, who do you believe?

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    BBC WORLD SERVICE WITH VETERANS TODAY’S ALAN SABROSKY AND GORDON DUFF DISCUSSING THE “DEATH” OF OSAMA BIN LADEN

By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor

The incident this week in Abbottabad, Pakistan was always intended to be “self-discrediting.”  In a time of rigged voting machines and rule by decree, a time of military tribunals and tortured defendants, the concept of evidence and accountability is a joke.  Consider the current bin Laden farce what it was intended to be, the American government reminding its people and the people of the world how little respect it has for them.

There is no need for conspiracy theory, no need for talk of hoaxes, we have gone far beyond that.  Evidence of bin Laden’s death being covered up by the Bush administration is, not only overwhelming, but long ago entered the public domain.

As the hours pass and reality soaks in, a more serious question arises; “Why now?”

Newshounds and insiders are aware that Wikileaks has been proven to have ties to an intelligence organization hostile to, not just Iran and Pakistan but the United States as well.  Though the story broke last summer, it wasn’t until early December, 2010 that Zbigniew Brzezinski provided confirmation.  So when Wikileaks, only a few days ago, announced that a nuclear weapon had been placed “underneath” a major European target by “Al Qaeda” to be detonated upon the capture of Osama bin Laden, a man most knew to be dead for a decade, “insiders” became both fearful and vigilant.

Real insiders are far more wary of threats from Wikileaks than “Al Qaeda.”  Wikileak threats come true, is that, just perhaps, because they come from people capable of making them come true?

Two things happened:

  1. Intelligence agencies across Europe went on full alert, searching for a nuclear weapon
  2. A vigil began, seeing how many hours before Osama bin Laden’s corpse would be “killed” in a heroic episode of “counter-terrorism” that would also be used to damn Pakistan.

The idea of bin Laden’s death has settled in.  The factions have taken stock, conspiracy theorists, the government apologists and disinformationalists and the professionals.  Years ago, top military and intel insiders had all agreed bin Laden died in late 2001.  The CIA’s director, Leon Panetta, now Secretary of Defense stated, flat out, that nothing had been heard of bin Laden since “late 2001.”  By saying this, he indicated with categorical certainty, that all supposed Al Qaeda or bin Laden statements since that time were deemed “unreliable” by the CIA. 

Expect video of bin Laden’s killing to be released, medals to be given out, backs to be slapped and, as usual, pockets to be lined.  The videos could be as old as the frozen corpse of bin Laden himself, dumped into the Indian Ocean.

There has been little out of Washington DC since the “world domination” cabal, PNAC (Project for a New American Century) or the Brzezinski “World Chessboard” counterparts outlined the need for a “Pearl Harbour scale” event with a “cardboard cutout” boogeyman to act as backdrop for re-engineering the face of the planet.  After the “event,” we would see the seizure of Central Asia’s hydrocarbon resources, the collapse of the world’s monetary systems and a political upheaval to spread across the world that would leave ever political institution in every country vulnerable to the dictates of an unseen “globalist” hand.

Is there any surprise that the “reported” killing of Osama bin Laden has not been accepted in the United States as more than “ho hum” news?  First off, the wingnuts have created a new Obama conspiracy and, as usual, they have gotten it totally wrong.  The staging of the bin Laden “street theatre” has far more ominous consequences than the simple manipulation of public opinion in the United States.

Now, out from under rocks, from the deepest recesses of the political world, the long discredited characters like Donald Rumsfeld, are now crawling out into the sunlight, fabricating wild conspiracy tales to support their criminal acts, the kidnapping, murder and torture that they inflicted on the world on a scale not seen since the death of Adolf Hitler.

Let’s not let facts get in the way.

First of all, for those of you who don’t know it, bin Laden had nothing to do with 9/11, was charged with nothing about it.  Secondly, the criminal charges against bin Laden were not backed by any evidence, not enough for an honest indictment.

Osama bin Laden was a CIA fundraiser with no experience whatsoever in terrorist activities, military planning, weapons, explosives or leading people.  Furthermore, Sibel Edmonds, former FBI translator (and VT staff writer) had, during her employment, seen documents verifying Osama bin Laden’s continued service to the United States, even on 9/11/2001.  He was assisting the CIA in funding covert operations while the World Trade Center was being demolished and the documents prove it.

The reports released to the public, beginning with the falsified “death photo” published by the Associated Press to the stories of bin Laden using his wife as a “human shield” are, each, wilder than the rest.  Each story is carefully calculated to misdirect attention from real questions of import.  Asking how real or imaginary bin Laden, most likely no more alive than a chicken leg after a microwave defrost cycle, “acted” when confronted by 25 Navy Seals is no more valid than those dedicated to 9/11 Truth bickering about explosive compounds that brought down Building 7 when the real issues of who was responsible are allowed to “slip away” unnoticed like a thief in the night.

What can we say about Osama bin Laden?  He is certainly dead now and has, in all probability, been dead for a decade.  We can also expect that his “public” death will act a a harbinger of misfortune for the world, heralding a period of long calculated destabilization aimed at Pakistan and Iran, but ultimately striking the heart of America and NATO.

What we can expect is an act of carefully staged “false flag” revenge.

The frozen body of Osama bin Laden, very real “currency,” would not have been spent on less.





More questionable reporting comes from the Washington Post.  This is the lead line in their front page coverage today:

On Sept. 11, 2001, the core of al-Qaeda was concentrated in a single city: Karachi, Pakistan.

But we though Osama bin Laden planned it all, over a period of years, in Afghanistan.  Is there a reason to “deflect” attention from bin Laden, now known to have been dead for so many years despite the continual release of video and now audio tapes by the Israeli news agency SITE Intelligence?

According to the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States, the last bin Laden transcript included the following statement (from a classified CIA archive):

  • “I have already said that I am not involved in the 11 September attacks in the United States.”
  • “Neither I had any knowledge of these attacks nor I consider the killing of innocent women, children, and other humans as an appreciable act. . Islam strictly forbids causing harm to innocent women, children, and other people. Such a practice is forbidden ever in the course of a battle.” (Central Intelligence Agency Official Translation)

UPI’s Editor, Arnaud de Borchgrave says the following regarding the death of Osama bin Laden:

CIA Director Leon Panetta said in early July that the intelligence agency hadn’t been able to positively confirm any specific information on the uber-terrorist since “late 2001.” And all those audio and video tapes broadcast by the Qatar-based Al Jazeera global television network? Clever Israeli forgeries, says Duff.

Many other voices in cyberspace claim the bin Laden myth is kept “alive” to justify the Afghan war and the global war on terror.

Angelo Codevilla, who teaches international relations at Boston University, is a former U.S. intelligence officer who studied Soviet disinformation techniques during the Cold War. He says a close examination of all the alleged bin Laden tapes, including the videos, have convinced him that Elvis Presley is more alive than Osama bin Laden.

By all accounts from those who knew him prior to 9/11, bin Laden was a deeply religious man and his early tapes after 9/11 were sprinkled with references to God and the Prophet Muhammad. Not so the later ones, which were subsequently analyzed by some experts who said they were professional forgeries.

The last time credible intercepts of bin Laden’s voice were made by overhead satellites in early December 2001 as he was escaping through the Tora Bora mountain range from Afghanistan to the sanctuary of Pakistan’s tribal areas.

With bin Laden dead, is there a Wikileaks “agenda” to put Pakistan under the gun, particularly after reports tying admitted murderer Raymond Davis to an Indian/Israeli terrorist cell working with the Taliban.  Pakistan’s advanced missile program and new “nuclear capable’ long range bombers may be seen as a threat to moves in the region if Paksitan-American relations continue to cool.

The biggest giveaway is the return to attacks on Pakistan and her intelligence services.   This seems to be the greatest area of Wikileaks bias.  The Daily Beast reports:

Pakistan Intelligence Service Labeled as Terrorism
A damning document that surely won’t help strained relationships between the U.S. and Pakistan: The main Pakistani intelligence service, ISI, was listed by American authorities as a terrorist organization—on par with al Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah. “Through associations” with these groups, the documents say, the ISI was linked to “terrorist or insurgent activity.”

However, the Economic Times reports, only two weeks ago:

WASHINGTON: Pakistani spy master Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha flew into Washington for what an official called a “frank discussion” with Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director Leon Panetta on the strained US-Pakistan relationship.

CIA spokesman Preston Golson called the discussions between Pasha and Panetta “productive” and said the “CIA-ISI relationship remains on solid footing.”

In fact, the “damning document” referred to by Newsweek is one of dozens carefully “seeded” into Wikileaks and equally “seeded” into the Newsweek story.

Yes, the documents are “damning” but more for Newsweek, Israel and Julian Assange.

General Mirza Aslam Beg, former Chief of Staff, Army of Paksitan, said this in an article in Veterans Today:

The Wikileaks revelations confirm the obvious, more than what it informs us about the darker corners of ‘US diplomacy, cloaked in securitocracy.’ In fact, it is Cyber War, in the new game of psy-warfare, targeting individuals and countries, to cover-up the shame of defeat of war on Afghanistan, war on Iraq and 2006 Israeli war on Lebanon. The cyber war has been launched, impacting public opinion globally, and focusing on three objectives mainly:

1.To cause defamation of the countries which have had a role, direct or indirect, in the defeat of the Americans and their allies, in Iraq, Lebanon and Afghanistan, and create mistrust amongst them, so that they are not able to challenge future American plans in the region.

2.To create conditions for a civil war in Afghanistan and out of the chaos and confusion, reduce Pakistan and Iran to subservience, something they have not been able to achieve during the last thirty years.

3. To establish Indian hegemony over South Asia, including Afghanistan, and project American strategic interests in the region.

The technique used in making these revelations is typical of psy operations approach, of mixing truth with lies in a manner that truth tends to get submerged under the lies, as is the case here. The report has not said a word about Israel, nor it gives any disadvantage to US in the implementation of policies in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and other Muslim countries, which have been particularly targeted. The Wikileaks betrays the role of a country with resources to break the secret code of US diplomatic order, because it is not possible for an individual like Julian Assange, the fugitive, to accomplish such high profile task. The report, no doubt, has created ripples around the world, but will subside as it is looked into with a deeper perspective, regarding its source, intent and purpose.

WASHINGTON POST GOES “NUTTER” ON BIN LADEN

Mixed with Wikileaks “chickenfeed” and unsubstantiated reports of the heinous acts of every nation but Israel (despite Julian Assange’s assertion that he would publish “dirt” on Israel many months ago) is wild conjecture steamed up by the papers themselves.  Worst of all is the Washington Post.

Mixing Wikileaks with unsupported and unfounded text, the Post buries themselves in their attempt to establish Osama bin Laden as “alive and well” in Pakistan, a position they have taken with no sources, not even Wikileak material.

The Post is simply “making it all up.”

Here, from the Post:

According to the documents, four days after the Sept. 11 attacks, bin Laden visited a guesthouse in Afghanistan’s Kandahar province. He told the Arab fighters gathered there “to defend Afghanistan against the infidel invaders” and to “fight in the name of Allah.”

It was beginning of a peripatetic three months for bin Laden and Zawahiri. Traveling by car among several locations in Afghanistan, bin Laden handed out assignments to his followers, met with some of the Taliban leadership and delegated control of al-Qaeda to the group’s Shura Council, presumably because he feared being captured or killed as U.S. forces closed in.

Here the Post attempts to cover its “behind” by cutting off contact with bin Laden after his death on December 14, 2001.  Note that the use of “according to documents” doesn’t reference Wikileaks or provide any references as to whether the documents they are using are ones they wrote themselves, which, in fact, they are.

They go on:

Bin Laden, accompanied by Zawahiri and a handful of close associates in his security detail, escaped to his cave complex in Tora Bora in November. Around Nov. 25, he was seen giving a speech to the leaders and fighters at the complex.

According to the documents, bin Laden and his deputy escaped from Tora Bora in mid-December 2001. At the time, the al-Qaeda leader was apparently so strapped for cash that he borrowed $7,000 from one of his protectors — a sum he paid back within a year.

Yes, bin Laden escaped, and I’ll bet he hasn’t paid back the $7,000 he borrowed.  Invented details like the $7000 loan are a ploy to add credibility to phony story.  Spies, when being trained to plant false information, are told to add colorful details to “sell” their disinformation.

This is exactly what the Washington Post is doing.  The idea of Osama bin Laden, even after his death, borrowing money is absurd for so many reasons.

Here is more from the Washington Post:

The place was teeming with fighters who were awaiting for al-Qaeda to return their passports so they could flee across the border to Pakistan.

What part of “fleeing to Pakistan” involves a Passport?  Weren’t we told that there were hundreds of unguarded mountain passes that made the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan one of the most porous in the World?  Is it because terrorists hiding from the authorities in Pakistan want to be caught with a passport that proves they “fled” from Afghanistan?  Would a terrorist travel dozens of miles an official border checkpoint, all supervised by the CIA and ISI, in order to be questioned?

Shouldn’t the Post be more careful when making things up?

But there’s more and it gets even better:

There are few geographic references in the documents for bin Laden after his flight into Pakistan.  He apparently sent out letters from his hiding place through a trusted courier, who then handed them to Libbi, who had provided the secret guesthouse in Kabul immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks.In May 2005, while waiting for bin Laden’s courier at a drop point, Libi was arrested by Pakistani special forces.

Here, the post, not even citing “documents” simply wings it, bringing “Elvis” bin Laden back from the dead, placing him in Pakistan and attributing him a zombie-like existence in an ethereal world with “few geographic references” until he faded from memory.

LIBYA, ISRAEL AND WIKILEAKS

Perhaps the most controversial and most revealing of the Wikileaks involves Libya. Colonel Gaddafi had been seen as one of the great threats against Israel but, curiously, no pressure against Gaddafi had been placed on the US by Israel, even when Gaddafi had engaged in acts of terror.  Then, with a revolt in full force against Gaddafi in the offing, Israeli papers report that he turned to Israel for military aid against his own people.

YouTube – Veterans Today -

Newsweek, in its unattributed article today included the following:

From Gitmo to Leading Libya’s Rebels
One notable Guantanano inmate in the files is Abu Sufian Ibrahim Ahmed Hamuda Bin Qumu, a captive in the prison for five years who had been deemed a “probable member of al Qaeda” by the U.S. But now his relationship to America is a more complex: Qumu, a native of Libya, is now a leading figure among that’s country’s rebel fighters against Col. Gaddafi. His Gitmo assessment says he has a “non-specific personality disorder.”

A recurring and yet unsupported claim from certain circles in the US closely aligned with Israel is that insurgent forces in Libya are led by Al Qaeda.  Most telling, however, aren’t the unsubstantiated reports, but rather who is making them.  The question is, not whether Al Qaeda is in Libya or not.  Al Qaeda simply doesn’t exist, except in the media and when defense and security agencies around the world are asking for money or dodging having to explain for their involvement in the worldwide heroin trade that has grown up in Afghanistan under NATO occupation.

Primary ‘water carrier’ for the phony Al Qaeda reports on Libya is Admiral James  Stavridis, top American commander in Europe.  Stavridis is also Israel’s “monkeyboy” in the US military.  From the Telegraph:

STAVRIDIS AND HIS WIFE IN TEL AVIV

Admiral James Stavridis, Nato’s Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, said that American intelligence had picked up “flickers” of terrorist activity among the rebel groups. Senior British government figures described the comment as “very alarming”.

Stavridis is a constant visitor to Tel Aviv and is considered Israel’s biggest supporter among America’s top military commanders. One must also note that it is both Stavridis and Wikileaks that are “tasked” with characterizing the “Arab Spring” in Libya whose entire NATO support mechanism is under Stavridis’ personal command as infiltrated by ‘terrorists.’

Why is Admiral Stavridis undermining the mission of his own command?  Why is he telling American forces that they are, according to his beliefs, supporting terrorism?

How is Stavridis keeping his job?

THE WIKI-CABAL

In our latest Wikileak, they are returning to their roots, a rehash of the America bashing of the Iraq video, a rehash of their attacks on Pakistan, seeded with key elements of Israel’s disinformation agenda.

What does this current campaign, and we have to call it that, either “disinformation,” or “psyop,” attempt to accomplish?

Wikileaks has never mentioned nuclear threats before.  There is no intelligence that ties any terrorist organization to a potential nuclear attack on the US or Europe but there are reports of a “false flag” agenda by Israel to push the United States into attacking Iran.  There is a very real nuclear weapons security alert around the world but it has nothing to do with Al Qaeda as this story from Veterans Today tells us:

When “lost nuke” recovery team leader Valerie Plame was framed by Republicans close to President Bush, was this to cover Bush or Tony Blair or Israel. The Plame “outing” puts the lost nukes in Israel. None of the other possible countries that could be holding the weapons would get White House protection. Plame got too close but couldn’t be murdered like Dr. David Kelly, not with a husband that had the kind of political connections that Plame has.

There is only one reason for a threat of nuclear terrorism and only one agenda it would support, one long backed by Israel and Wikileaks, the invasion of Iran by the United States, something that would never be considered under any circumstances less than a nuclear attack.

Thus, this is the top of Wikileaks agenda and in turn, the top of Israel’s wishlist.

With Israel’s partnership with India in the development of long range missiles capable of striking, not only China but the United States as well, Israsel/Wikileaks is paying a debt or perhaps making an investment in returning to attacks on Pakistan.

Intelligence sources at the highest levels of, not only Pakistan, but the United States as well, place full complicity in the endless and deadly terrorist attacks inside Pakistan by the Taliban on, not only India’s RAW but Israel’s Mossad as well.  These attacks, primarily aimed at destabilizing Pakistan, India’s “blood enemy,” have also spilled over into Afghanistan and caused the deaths of dozens of Americans.

It has been Wikileak’s job to try to tie Pakistan’s ISI to the same Taliban forces they are actively fighting, forces that have killed hundreds in Pakistan over the past year alone.   In fact, Pakistan’s influence in Afghanistan is nil, their relations with their own Pashtun population and the Pashtun majority in Afghanistan permanently stained by Pakistan’s seeming complicity in US drone attacks that have killed hundreds of innocent civilians.

Wikileaks characterization of the situation on the ground in Afghanistan and Pakistan, is not only inaccurate but, even by propaganda standards, disturbingly inept.

The oddest lesson of the recent Wikileak is confirmation of suspicions that Libya and Israel have been maintaining a covert alliance for years, one kept secret by Colonel Gaddafi, whose blusterous pronouncements have fooled many into believing him to be a genuine advocate for Palestinian rights.

If anything, those seeking insights into the secret alliances and layered “subtext” of the secret world see Wikileaks as a gift.

For those with the skills and attention span, Wikileaks is a “hardwired” connection into the world of spies and deceit.











Ah, as for those paying for it, this week we learned that General Electric, you know, the guys who really own NBC and a bunch of other stuff, made $14 billion in profit last year and didn’t pay a single cent of income tax.

The typical MacDonalds employee pays about $400 bucks out of a paycheck that puts their yearly income at half the poverty level.  There are street musicians living in cardboard boxes who pay more in taxes than GE.

What does America do for GE?  Most of their income comes at the largess of the American taxpayer and American troops.  For those who are unaware, all across America, major corporations haven’t just been moved off the tax rolls like “dead people,” but also pay greatly reduced utilities, state and local taxes and, most enjoyable of all, less and less in wages and benefits.

The tax hiatus corporate America has been on since the Reagan years, with most disappearing from any fiscal participation in America at all under “Bush the lesser,” has turned corporate America into the biggest pack of welfare cheats and freeloaders on earth.  One city benefits, of course, and that is Washington.  They are having a virtual orgasm, if creatures there are capable of such things, at the influx of cash, first Israel kicking back part of the billions in foreign aid and other defense related “off the books” subsidies we give the world’s richest nation and now, the chiseling corporate world is giving them a run for their money.

It must be hard for members of congress.

“First its Israel, they have the emails I sent that high school kid when I was drunk.  Oh, and Gaddafi’s boys left a briefcase full of cash in my wife’s car.  Briefcase, how ’80′s of them.  Can’t they find someone to hire my wife to do something.  All I hear when I get home every day…’Clarence Thomas got his wife a job and I make a lousy 200 grand a year teaching kids how to smoke cigarettes.’ “

That reminds me, I try to put a something fun and worthwhile into these Sunday things.  I was just reading Paul Sheridan’s piece on Israel’s “terror attack” last week, and the more than minor signs that it was staged, a “magic bullet” as it were, managing to kill a lone Christian Evangelist and British citizen at a very convenient time too, when forces were in place for another Gaza “smackdown.”  There had been attacks on Gaza all along, Ken O’Keefe has been reporting the nightly “Luftwaffe” blitz on Gaza that is laundered from the media.

Before I forget, there are a couple of “gems” in this week’s “Libya/CIA” piece.  Look for 4 or 5 items, a couple on the video, that qualify as “way beyond Wikileaks” material.

Anyway, we had drifted off to the “magic bullet” of Israel, busy competing for news space while Libya is going on, actually, Libya, Bahrain, Niger, Yemen, Jordan, Syria…

Secretary Gates tells us Gaddafi is killing rebels and planting their bodies at sites of NATO bombings.  A bit ago, a family of 5 was found  dead in Israel.  Funny thing, here in America, families are found dead all the time, the same story over and over, “murder-suicide.”

There are no “murder-suicides” in Israel, no car wrecks, no armed robberies.  Everything is a terror attack.  Hey, Secretary Gates, it isn’t just Gaddafi that plays games with dead people.  We learned that years ago when some of the dead in a Tel Aviv bus explosion blamed on a Palestinian suicide bomber weren’t entirely thawed out yet.  Not everyone has a short memory.

Thus, in a circuitous way, we reach back into the past to the Kennedy killings and the great “why?”  Why was Teddy Kennedy allowed to live when, as General Gaddafi has told the world, people from “that special country” were responsible for murdering John and Bobby Kennedy.

YouTube – Veterans Today -

For decades now, Chappaquiddick has been a rallying cry for conservatives.  Films, books and articles depicting the Kennedy family as gangster, even murders as in the case of Marilyn Monroe, have flowed out of, well where?  Some wear the obvious labels of right wing extremism and the Israel lobby, “Heritage Foundation” is a favorite.  Others appear out of nowhere, part of a campaign to continually resell the Dallas killing with the same marketing that is used on 9/11…tell the same lie, tell it big and tell it often.

The “big lie” that gets played the most is Chappaquiddick, the “car accident” where Ted Kennedy supposedly drives off a bridge, dead drunk, and Mary Jo Kopechne ends up dead.  The year was 1969.  Bobby Kennedy, a virtual shoo-in for president was murdered by, well, certainly not by Sirhan Sirhan, we know that for sure.

The two most likely reasons for the destruction of the Kennedy family are its opposition to nuclear weapons in the Middle East, which required that Israel dismantle its program and, one less public, an end to the Federal Reserve system, the largely foreign controlled banks that have maintained an unconstitutional stranglehold over American financial life and, as we see now, may well have ended that life.

Both are equally “Israel” issues.  Federal Reserve is neither “federal” nor does it “reserve’ anything.  The Federal Reserve is the Rothschilds, to a large extent anyway.

Ted Kennedy could never be murdered, lightning had already struck too many times.  It would be like crashing a plane into the Sears Tower (or whatever it is called now) and sending an army into the oil rich areas of Canada looking for a hockey team “gone Taliban.”

The entire “War on Terror” is another of those “curlycue” bullet bullet things like from Dallas or another 9/11 Building 7 “thingies.”

Kennedy had to be discredited.  He knew why his brothers were killed and he blamed Israel.  He wasn’t blind the the USS Liberty and Israel’s hold on Lyndon Johnson and he wanted blood.  Setting him up was easy.  Kennedy was drugged, kidnapped and woke up, well, you know the rest.  Picture yourself there, then you can fill in all the blanks.

And guess who was there to help him get out of it.  As intelligence operations go, this one was so obvious a moron could have figured it out.  The Kennedy family would be destroyed, Henry Kissinger would be placed at the helm of American foreign policy.  He would share the glory for ending Vietnam (sort of) and opening China.

There is a list, one that outlines the fall of American independence and the real end of constitutional democracy.  Some folks today like to say America was never meant to be a democracy.

“You either iz or u ain’t.  We got democracies and we got dictatorships, there ain’t no in betwixt.”

This is the short list:

John Kennedy was murdered over Dimona and the Federal Reserve.

George Wallace shot because there was no other way to control him.

Robert Kennedy murdered over suggesting a “balanced Middle East settlement.”

Ted Kennedy “set up” and blackmailed for life over Chappaquiddick.   Israel fearful of revenge at hands of surviving Kennedy.

Richard Nixon “set up” and force out of office over Watergate.

William Fulbright (Senator, Chairman Senate Foreign Relations Committee) pushed out of office in a rigged primary by Dale Bumpers, dumb as he sounds.  Fulbright opposed foreign lobbying in Washington.

Jimmie Carter victim of economic sabotage and a Bush “October Surprise.”

Ronald Reagan shot for pushing back at Israel.  Whatever “Ronnie” was, nobody dictated to him.  He was never a “Bush leaguer.”

Bill Clinton “set up” for pushing back at Israel.

John Kennedy Jr’s plane was “exploded” for “outing” Shin Bet’s part in the Rabin assassination, part of a larger operation leading directly to 9/11.

(8 year Israel rule of America)

Obama?

As a parting shot, I have to mention Libya one more time.  Gaddafi has poured an estimated $80 million into Washington and New York in the last 30 days with promises of another $200 million to come and Gaddafi is known to pay his bills.

However, what he has failed to do is purchase both government and key “opinion makers” wholesale.  His “literary agent” is too involved in his own career and failed to follow through on promises.  This is genuinely embarrassing.  Half of America’s Republicans are calling for Obama’s impeachment, claiming Gaddafi is a hero saving the world from Al Qaeda and the other half are calling for Gaddafi to be assassinated.

OK, we get the part where Obama is bad.  Now, if we can only get the Gaddafi thing coordinated.  Maybe there can be a compromise.

Perhaps the Republicans can have Gaddafi assassinated after he pays out the entire $280 million?

Just a thought…











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15
Sep






Running Head: Instructional Protocol/Sensitivity during Interaction with PTSD Sufferers

By Carol Ware Duff RN, BA, MSN, Healthcare Editor, Veterans Today

The purpose of this teaching program it to establish guidelines and teaching and learning objectives for positive interaction with veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which will ensure a positive experience for the person with PTSD and will encourage communication between patient and staff member. The veteran with PTSD will always be addressed with respect, compassion, and calmness. The teaching target group of learners (staff members) and learning theory employed are discussed. The objectives for this educational learning unit are listed. A teaching method for this program is designed and discussed. The evaluation of the learner’s progress is discussed with its advantages and disadvantages. The process of developing and implementing the teaching project is discussed. Finally, a narrative of this learning program designing process is furnished. A handout for tips on providing positive interactions with veterans with PTSD is included at the end of this paper and the power point instructional tool for information about PTSD and positive interaction with veterans with PTSD and learner evaluation form is attached.

Description of Learners and Background on PTSD

The group of learners this teaching activity will address will be staff members who have contact with veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). By nature of the job structure at the veteran’s facilities, the learners will be adults. Staff members may be current employees who need a refresher for maintaining competency in proper interaction techniques with veterans who have PTSD or new employees.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a common psychiatric disorder with a lifetime risk in the general population of about 9% and more commonly in the veteran population where at least 30% of the veterans who served in Vietnam were affected by PTSD (Dieperink et al., 2005). Currently PTSD is defined as occurring after one experiences, witnesses, or confronts a traumatic event including actual or threatened death, serious injury, or a threat to body integrity of self or others that evokes fear, helplessness, or horror. Traumatic events include physical assault, natural or man-made disasters, combat, and captivity (Cook & Mc’Donnell, 2005). Symptoms of PTSD include re-experiencing (flashbacks or visceral responses), avoidance activities (such as drinking or drug use), emotional numbing with social withdrawal, and arousal or hyper-vigilance. PTSD is acute if symptoms last less than three months and chronic if the symptoms continue for more than three months (Karner, 2008).

Trauma exposure has been associated with the dysregulation of the neuroendocrine, neurotransmitter, and autonomic and central nervous systems, which can cause considerable harm to health. Common responses of avoidance symptomatology of PTSD reduce the chance that the veterans affected will seek medical help. This reduces the chance of preventative or maintenance interventions. Those with PTSD may also have restricted social networks and social isolation, which is important because effective social support seems to be one of the most significant indicators of well-being and positively correlates with health (Lee, 1997).

Freud wrote of the narcissistic bubble of invulnerability or instinct of self-preservation that surrounds all humans and protects us from worrying about death as we go through life. While in a war zone, the bubble is burst and annihilation anxiety can become intense. Later, some veterans can reassemble the bubble but those with PTSD cannot (Garfield and Leveroni, 2000). The emotional numbing symptoms of PTSD lead to withdrawal and difficulties in expressing emotion (Riggs, Byrne, Weathers, & Litz, 1998). Human responses to the disaster of war may prevent the individual from developing the healthy coping responses that are necessary for the individual to use to deal with feelings about combat, trauma, death, and war (Mullins, 1984).

The patient with PTSD may have issues and motivations that make it more difficult to interact with him or her. There is great need for the veteran with PTSD to feel comfortable, helped, respected, and calm in order for them to come to a facility for care. Veterans with PTSD will leave a facility without treatment, rather than to have confrontational interactions where they feel neglected and uncared about. A veteran with PTSD may find it very difficult to leave his or her home to come to an appointment and that last thing that he or she should experience is a staff member who is rushing, brusque, or appears to be uncaring or even condescending. The person with PTSD is intuitive, quick to react, and will often have severe amounts of anxiety about all things and has little resource to deal with stressors of any nature. Patients with PTSD often express difficulties with concentration, attention and memory (Neylan et al., 2004).

Learning Theory

The learning theory employed for this educational program will be social learning theory. The social learning theory works well for this educational module because the learner becomes the center (human agency) and the healthcare environment at a veteran outpatient clinic or facility is a social situation. Bandura observed that people learn by what happens to others and how they interpret the behaviors of others. Leaning is therefore a social experience (Bastable, 2008, pp. 67-77). As noted by Bastable, role modeling is the vital idea of this theory. The staff members who are in tune with the veteran with PTSD will be good role models for others to emulate. Verbal and nonverbal interactions are often observed by others, even if the observer cannot hear specifically what is being said. Non-verbal clues from body language are an important part of this learning and communicating process. The gestures, facial expressions, and body position will also give messages, which can be understood from across a room.

Bastable (2008) also mentions vicarious reinforcement as another concept of social learning theory. Learners will watch how others are accepted or rejected to observe the acceptable way to act in a certain situation. The learner will tap into the constructivism information processing theory. He or she will build their knowledge by using older lessons and adding more and newer knowledge to perfect what is already known. The parts of this information processing is that there is building from acquiring knowledge and skills, being able to plan a course of action, explore new roles, and come back to the world with a new view (Billings & Halstead, 2009, p, 197). The learner is open to new ideas, as new knowledge becomes known with continued research into evidence-based concepts about interactions with veteran who have PTSD. This educational instruction unit will become a basic class offered during the orientation of all new employees and will also be included in the competencies that all employees who interact with veterans with PTSD will be required to renew yearly. Keeping the special communication skills needed in successful interaction with veterans with PTSD current and effectively using them will improve interaction with and cooperation from veterans who have PTSD.

Apply Learning Theory to Group

The learners will receive a refresher power point presentation with educator narrative on signs and symptoms of PTSD and how a veteran with PTSD may respond to various situations, he or she may encounter in the healthcare setting. The particular stressors that affect those with PTSD will be addressed and the presentation will conclude with ways to interact to avoid stressors for the veteran with PTSD. This refresher will reinforce what the staff already has experienced with successful and effective interactions with veterans diagnosed with PTSD and; if measures have been forgotten or neglected, those measures can be relearned. The objectives of this teaching/educational unit are: (1) to define PTSD, (2) to identify potential situations for poor interactions and communication to develop between staff members and veterans with PTSD, and (3) to present an opportunity for role-playing between staff members to facilitate effective communication between staff members and the veteran with PTSD to encourage behaviors on the part of the staff members which will be reflected in positive interactions between staff members and veterans with PTSD.

Adult learners (staff members) usually posses the idea that they can be self-directed and responsible for their own actions. Teaching adults must be done in such a way that their internal motivation is intact. The learners will bring their own experiences to the task and better interaction measures should be introduced in addition to what the staff member may already now about how to deal with a veteran with PTSD (Billings & Halstead, 2009). An adult learner, in this case the staff member, when faced with a problem, will put the problem in the center of the situation and will find ways to reduce the problem. The learners (staff members) can be offered reminders about how veterans with PTSD may act. For instance, a veteran with PTSD should not be seated with a crowd of people around him or her. From a personal account from a veteran with PTSD, being in a crowded room situation is described, “like lighting a fuse on a bomb.” The veteran feels stressed in close proximity with others. Cell phone conversations, running children, and verbal conversations of those nearby are likely to provoke stress and anger. Stress levels will rise and with this other symptoms such as joint pain, elevated blood pressure, feelings of alienation, and paranoia. Two factors are at work here. Veterans are more comfortable with other veterans, but the general level of activity, exacerbated by long wait times, and waiting areas placed in busy areas of the hospital will cause great discomfort. It is necessary for the staff to do what they can to decrease waiting times, offer a waiting area that is free from cell phone use and loud or sudden noises. Frequent checking back with the veteran, to let him or her know that status of his or her waiting process, will help to alleviate the feeling of being abandoned and let the veteran know that someone is interacting with him or her, remembers he or she is still there, and is doing what is possible to help make the healthcare facility visit as non-stressful as possible.

Implementation of Selected Teaching Strategies with Learner

Role-playing between staff members would be an effective mode of teaching for this type of learning activity. Billings & Halstead (2009) share that adult learners appreciate a comfortable physical and psychological environment in which to learn. The room can be made more comfortable with cushioned chairs and practicing interactions with those they work with may facilitate a feeling of well-being during the class instruction. The learners could collaborate with each other to conduct the clinical experience. The staff members can divide into dyads and work as a team. They will compose their own dialog for interactions in front of the group. One student could be the veteran and the other, the staff member. The learners can bring situations that they have found themselves in to the group, play out the interaction with dialog and body language, and the group can analyze was has occurred. There could be group discussion of what may make a better form of interaction and the new scenario then played out. Role-playing is particularly helpful for situations of developing or improving interpersonal relationships and the interaction between a veteran and staff worker is just that. Another plus for using role-playing is that there can be several endings for a scenario and the group can focus on what works best (Billings & Halstead, 2009). Role-playing is effectively used when the learners must evaluate their attitudes and behaviors and need to see an issue from another’s viewpoint. The educator must define the problem, set the climate, and determine the goals. This is part of the planning of the teaching program and can be time-consuming (Lewis, Heitkemper, & Dirksen, 2004).

Evaluation of Learners

Evaluation of the role-playing roles can be accomplished by the educator, learners (staff members), or a combination of the two. The combination of evaluation between educator and learners will create more chances of exploring what makes a good interaction scenario with a veteran with PTSD. Self-evaluation of scenarios can be helpful in that the situation can be revisited and reanalyzed and be given a different outcome. The advantages of role-playing are that it offers the chance to practice peer review and the learners are more apt to be actively involved in the learning process when they are in a sense “performing.” The process can be easily and immediately replayed with changes if necessary (Billings & Halstead, 2009). The role-playing sessions can be videotaped for future use and to re-evaluate interactions. With such a visual and verbal activity, all who are involved in watching the scenario can offer input. The learner can see what mistakes he or she might be making in interacting with veterans and can self-correct. Role-playing is an effective method to change attitudes and perceptions (Bastable, 2003).

Disadvantages for this type of learning are that some may feel self-conscious about performing and the evaluation of role-playing performance could be viewed as subjective. No correct or incorrect answer may leave a gray area (Billings & Halstead, 2009 p. 426), but being able to discuss openly what has happened during the interactions between staff members and pretend veterans with PTSD will allow for a development of an appreciation for the ability to interact positively with the veterans. A certain comfort level is required for role-playing to be a desirable learning method. To facilitate this point, members of the same nursing team or unit or work area, can be grouped so that can feel comfortable with those they are role-playing with. A specific disadvantage for this educational unit would be if the staff member has not had training in successfully communicating with and preventing confrontations with veterans or in being able to decrease the intensity of the confrontation. For the situation of working with veterans who have a great probability of experiencing PTSD, the staff should have some prior knowledge of causes for, symptoms of, and potential pitfalls of not adequately addressing the needs of the veteran with PTSD. This knowledge and instructional unit would be addressed at orientation to the new job as well as during the yearly competency.

Process of Developing and Implementing Project

I felt that this learning project needed to be developed after being in a veteran hospital for my practicum and from personal experiences. PTSD is a very common result of experiencing traumatic events. PTSD is currently being more intensely addressed, as we continue to send men and women into war situations. With the vast influx of potential patients who will be diagnosed with PTSD, there will be a need to interact in a helpful and therapeutic fashion and to do so effectively to offer healthcare to the growing numbers. PTSD is an illness that can be acute or chronic in nature and will be a potential illness as long as humans suffer traumas. Veterans are often negatively affected by the time they have spent in wars. I could see areas of frustration on the part of both the staff and patients and the ones who can more easily change the way they interact are the staff, who for the most part are not veterans and do not have the diagnoses of PTSD. As health care workers and providers, we are ethically responsible for insuring our patient’s well-being and must make the effort to offer the best care possible.

Narrative

After investigating many articles on PTSD, in medical, nursing, psychological, and sociological, and research publications, personal observations, and speaking with veterans, I felt the need to develop this learning opportunity for those who interact with veterans who have PTSD. Veterans with PTSD are at a disadvantage with how they have reacted to the trauma in their lives. They often have sleepless nights, poor emotional ties, which leads to social isolation, trouble dealing with stress, increased response to stressors, poor employment history, have difficulty in controlling painful memories, irritability, difficulty concentrating, hypervigilence, depression, and feel guilt and shame (Iraq War Clinician Guide: National Center for PTSD Fact Sheet, 2004). The continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will create more opportunities for veterans to experience PTSD. Veterans returning from these wars will have difficulties with anger regulation, be hostile, aggressive, may be generally violent, have outbursts of anger, heightened arousal, hostile appraisal of events, loss of ability to engage in self-monitoring, or other inhibitory process, and respond to this as perceived threat (Iraq War Clinician Guide, Assessment and Treatment of Anger, 2004).

It is essential that staff who interact with veterans with PTSD be compassionate, calm, empathetic, efficient, respectful, and clear in what they are saying. People with PTSD do not need to be singled out as a threat, but are clearly members of a group of people who will be hypersensitive and likely on medications that will interfere with their ability to react in a cognizant manner. They may not respond quickly to having their name called, but hear it just the same. It is necessary for staff to be aware that they are dealing with a PTSD patient and to have an adequate “tool box” to prevent potential escalations which as noted previously can include aggressive behaviors in response to perceived threats or varying environmental stimuli. A critical issue for a staff member is that the PTSD sufferer, who may often be the most challenging or demanding, is also the most fragile emotionally with an illness brought on by traumas as diverse as childhood abuse, sexual battery, or hand-to-hand combat in defense of their country. Common responses of the avoidance symptomatology of PTSD reduce the chance that people affected will seek medical help. This reduces the chance of preventative or maintenance interventions. Those with PTSD may also have restricted social networks and social isolation, which is important because effective social support seems to be one of the most significant indicators of well-being and positively correlates with health (Lee, 1997).

In summary, it will be necessary and helpful for the staff to play act situations so they will be prepared to handle actual situations and to understand what they can do to avoid confrontations. Basically, interacting with a veteran with PTSD is parallel to being polite, caring, empathetic, and human. PTSD is an illness that can be acute or chronic in nature and will be a potential illness as long as humans suffer traumas. Veterans are affected by the time they have spent in wars. Wars may end but will continue to come back into the lives of those who fought in them, the veterans.

References

Bastable, S. (2003. Nurse as Educator: Principles of Teaching and Learning for Nursing

Practice (2nd Edition). Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett.

Bastable, S. (2008). Nurse as Educator: Principles of Teaching and Learning for Nursing

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Billings, D., & Halstead, J. (2009). Teaching in Nursing: A Guide for Faculty (3rd edition). St.

Louis, MO: Sanders Elsevier.

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posttraumatic stress disorder in Older Adults. Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry and

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E. (2005). Comparison of treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder among three

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Garfield, D., & Leveroni, C. (2000). The use of self-psychological concepts in a

veterans affairs PTSD clinic. Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic 64(3), 344-364.

Iraq War Clinician Guide, 2nd edition (2004). War-zone-related stress reactions: What families

need to know. Assessment and Treatment of Anger. Walter Reed Army Medical

Center.

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wounds. Generations: Older Men’s Health, June 2008, 82-87.

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APPENDIX A

Handout for Interaction with Veterans with PTSD in the Healthcare Situation

1. Introduce yourself and have a positive attitude, explain what is going to happen if the veteran is there for a procedure.

2. Make eye contact.

3. Be formal unless given permission to be informal.

4. Use a quite tone of voice and speak while looking at the veteran (many have hearing deficits).

5. Use the patient’s name, he or she is not a task or case.

6. Let the veteran know that you appreciate the situation that he or she finds him or herself in.

7. Listen carefully and make sure you understand.

8. Acknowledge and express concern.

9. Listen, clarify, use common language, avoid using rules as reasons to not help.

10. What have you heard is a good question to ask.

11. Offer respect.

12. Appreciate what the veteran has gone through and will be going through.

13. Offer choices when making appointments, try to coordinate all appointments on the same day.

14. Look for the patient’s strengths.

15. Welcome concerns and complaints.

16. Do not hurry. Remain calm.

17. The veteran is always right.








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