Red Mafiya


Book Description

In the past decade, from Brighton Beach to Moscow, Toronto to Hong Kong, the Russian mob has become the world's fastest-growing criminal superpower. Trafficking in prostitutes, heroin, and missiles, the mafiya poses an enormous threat to global stability and safety. Today, the mafiya controls over 80 percent of Russia's banks and has siphoned off billions of dollars in Western loans and aid, almost certainly derailing the chance for a stable democracy there. But that is just the beginning, for the mafiya is now in every corner of the United States and has infiltrated some of the banks and brokerage firms that handle your money. And American law enforcement is just waking up to this staggering problem. No journalist in the world knows more about the mafiya than Friedman, who has covered the Russian mob for Details, Vanity Fair, and New York. At great peril to himself, Friedman interviewed many of the top mobsters, who were stunningly candid about their activities. In their depravity, ruthlessness, and brutality, Russian gangsters make the traditional Mafia look like choirboys. Red Mafiya will appeal to anyone interested in the Mob.




Operation Gladio


Book Description

This disturbing exposé describes a secret alliance forged at the close of World War II by the CIA, the Sicilian and US mafias, and the Vatican to thwart the possibility of a Communist invasion of Europe. Journalist Paul L. Williams presents evidence suggesting the existence of “stay-behind” units in many European countries consisting of five thousand to fifteen thousand military operatives. According to the author’s research, the initial funding for these guerilla armies came from the sale of large stocks of SS morphine that had been smuggled out of Germany and Italy and of bogus British bank notes that had been produced in concentration camps by skilled counterfeiters. As the Cold War intensified, the units were used not only to ward off possible invaders, but also to thwart the rise of left-wing movements in South America and NATO-based countries by terror attacks. Williams argues that Operation Gladio soon gave rise to the toppling of governments, wholesale genocide, the formation of death squads, financial scandals on a grand scale, the creation of the mujahideen, an international narcotics network, and, most recently, the ascendancy of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, a Jesuit cleric with strong ties to Operation Condor (an outgrowth of Gladio in Argentina) as Pope Francis I. Sure to be controversial, Operation Gladio connects the dots in ways the mainstream media often overlooks.




Drugs, Oil, and War


Book Description

Peter Dale Scott's brilliantly researched tour de force illuminates the underlying forces that drive U.S. global policy from Vietnam to Colombia and now to Afghanistan and Iraq. He brings to light the intertwined patterns of drugs, oil politics, and intelligence networks that have been so central to the larger workings of U.S. intervention and escalation in Third World countries through alliances with drug-trafficking proxies. This strategy was originally developed in the late 1940s to contain communist China; it has since been used to secure control over foreign petroleum resources. The result has been a staggering increase in the global drug traffic and the mafias associated with it--a problem that will worsen until there is a change in policy. Scott argues that covert operations almost always outlast the specific purpose for which they were designed. Instead, they grow and become part of a hostile constellation of forces. The author terms this phenomenon parapolitics--the exercise of power by covert means--which tends to metastasize into deep politics--the interplay of unacknowledged forces that spin out of the control of the original policy initiators. We must recognize that U.S. influence is grounded not just in military and economic superiority, Scott contends, but also in so-called soft power. We need a "soft politics" of persuasion and nonviolence, especially as America is embroiled in yet another disastrous intervention, this time in Iraq.




The Vatican Exposed


Book Description

Over 50 billion dollars in securities. Gold reserves that exceed those of industrialized nations. Real estate holdings that equal the total area of many countries. Opulent palaces containing the world's greatest art treasures. These are some of the riches of the Roman Catholic Church. Yet in 1929 the Vatican was destitute. Pope Pius XI, living in a damaged, leaky, pigeon-infested Lateran Palace, could hear rats scurrying through the walls, and he worried about how he would pay for even basic repairs to unclog the overburdened sewer lines and update the antiquated heating system. How did the Church manage in less than seventy-five years such an incredible reversal of fortune? The story here told by Church historian Paul L. Williams is intriguing, shocking, and outrageous. The turnaround began on February 11, 1929, with the signing of the Lateran Treaty between the Vatican and fascist leader Benito Mussolini. Through this deal Mussolini gained the support of the staunchly Catholic Italian populace, who at the time followed the lead of the Church. In return, the Church received, among other benefits, a payment of $90 million, sovereign status for the Vatican, tax-free property rights, and guaranteed salaries for all priests throughout the country from the Italian government. With the stroke of a pen the pope had solved the Vatican's budgetary woes practically overnight, yet he also put a great religious institution in league with some of the darkest forces of the 20th century. Based on his years of experience as a consultant for the FBI, Williams produces explosive and never-before published evidence of the Church's morally questionable financial dealings with sinister organizations over seven decades through today. He examines the means by which the Vatican accrued enormous wealth during the Great Depression by investing in Mussolini's government, the connection between Nazi gold and the Vatican Bank, the vast range of Church holdings in the postwar boom period, Paul VI's appointment of Mafia chieftain Michele Sindona as the Vatican banker, a billion-dollar counterfeit stock fraud uncovered by Interpol and the FBI, the "Ambrosiano Affair" called "the greatest financial scandal of the 20th Century" by the New York Times, the mysterious death of John Paul I, profits from an international drug ring operating out of Gdansk, Poland, and revelations about current dealings. For both Catholics and non-Catholics this troubling expose of corruption in one of the most revered religious institutions in the world will serve as an urgent call for reform.




Osama's Revenge


Book Description

A shocking exposé on the potential for nuclear terrorism on U.S. soilEven after 9/11, most experts continue to underestimate the dangers of extremist terrorism. Not Paul Williams. America cannot afford to ignore his terrifying contentions. Williams reminds us that we have not seen the last - or even the worst - of Osama bin Laden and his hydra-headed network of terror organizations. - Neil J. Kressel, Ph.D., author of Mass Hate: The Global Rise of Genocide and TerrorIt's important to know your enemy. And Paul Williams in this book sheds light on the evil intentions of Osama bin Laden like few others do. - Brian Kilmeade, cohost of Fox & FriendsFormer consultant for the FBI on organized crime and international terrorism and a seasoned investigative reporter, Paul Williams reveals the potential for nuclear terrorism on U.S. soil in this shocking exposé. Based on the findings of U.S., Israeli, Pakistani, and U.K. intelligence, Williams describes how the theft of tactical nuclear weapons from Russian arsenals have in all likelihood made their way to al-Qaeda cells throughout the United States in preparation for the next terrorist attack.Williams presents evidence showing that, in the chaos following the demise of the Soviet Union, the Chechen mafia got their hands on portable Russian nuclear weapons. Between 1996 and 2001, they negotiated the sale of twenty nuclear suitcase bombs to representatives of Osama bin Laden. According to Williams, reliable sources indicate that these bombs may already be in the possession of al-Qaeda cells in New York, Washington, Miami, Chicago, Las Vegas, Houston, and Los Angeles. In addition, bin Laden has recruited former Soviet scientists and technicians to maintain these weapons and recharge their nuclear cores so that they may be deployed immediately on his command. In 2001, he issued a statement boasting of a Hiroshima against America.Also included in the book are bin Laden's Letter to America and his Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places, as well as the World Islamic Statement declaring Jihad against Jews and Crusaders. These crucial documents highlight the rationale behind and the depth of bin Laden's hatred for the United States. Moreover, Williams documents that Osama has the international network of embedded terrorists to carry out his threats.Although the media have reported on some of these threatening developments and government insiders have acknowledged the threat of nuclear attack, no one until now has put all the pieces together in a coherent, no-nonsense way. Williams makes a persuasive case that Bin Laden and his deputies have the motive and the means and are waiting for the right opportunity to launch an apocalyptic attack against the Great Satan of America.Paul Williams, Ph.D. (Clarks Green, PA), is a journalist and author of The Vatican Exposed: Money, Murder, and the Mafia among other books. Formerly, he served as a consultant for the FBI, editor and publisher of the Metro, and an adjunct professor of Humanities at the University of Scranton.




Experience, Memory, and Reasoning


Book Description

First published in 1986. The chapters in this collection are based on presentations made at the First Annual Workshop on Theoretical Issues in Conceptual Information Processing (TICIP) grew out of that. It was held in Atlanta, Georgia in March 1984 and included 50 people with roughly the same world view. In particular, the contributors were interested in content-based theories of conceptual information processing. Each chapter addresses some issue associated with the relationships between memory, experience and reasoning.




The Bulletin


Book Description




The Al Qaeda Connection


Book Description

In this new work by a terrorism expert, the author of "Osama's Revenge: The Next 9/11" further explores the shocking dimensions of the international terrorist threat to America. Illustrations.




Zealots for Zion


Book Description

The peace agreement between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization gives us hope for the future of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, but no one expects the transition to be easy. Who are the Jewish zealots who care so deeply about retaining that land for their own? Robert I. Friedman, a prize-winning journalist, takes a hard, close look at the legacy of the controversial policy of building settlements in the Occupied Territories.