Political Assassination Prevented In Rome As Unemployed Man Tries To "Shoot Politicians"

by Tyler Durden

While suicides out of desperation had long been a tragic, if recurring, staple in depressionary Europe, so far popular anger had been directed at within, with few if any murderous outbursts targeted at other people, and certainly not at politicians (or financiers). This obviously has been a critical aspect of the current economic collapse in Europe - one needs but recall that it was a political assassination that sparked World War I in Sarajevo, and indirectly, via the Weimar collapse of Germany, set the stage for World War II, leading to the death of tens of millions around the globe. Today we came close. As the AP reports, during today's swearing in ceremony of Italy's new pseudo-technocrat yet anti-austerity government which has the blessings of Berlusconi, an "unemployed Italian gunman shot and seriously wounded two policemen Sunday in a square outside the premier's office in Rome, but he "wanted to shoot politicians," Rome prosecutor Pierfilippo Laviani said.

"Shots rang out in Chigi Square near a busy shopping and strolling area shortly after 11:30 a.m. just as Italy's new government -- Premier Enrico Letta and his new ministers -- were taking their oaths at the Quirinal presidential office, about a half-mile away. The suspected gunman, dressed in a dark business suit, was immediately grabbed by other police in the square, wrestled to the ground and taken away. Laviani, who later questioned the alleged assailant, said the man "wanted to shoot politicians, but given that he couldn't reach any, he shot the Carabinieri" police. Laviani added that the man "confessed everything," but didn't appear mentally unbalanced."

From AP:

The shooting "was the tragic gesture of an unemployed man," Interior Minister Angelino Alfano also told reporters after briefing Letta and his new Cabinet about the attack.

...

Alfano said the alleged gunman -- 49-year-old Luigi Preiti -- wanted to kill himself after the shooting but ran out of bullets. He said six shots were fired.

Italian media reports said the assailant was from southern Calabria and had lived for several years in northern Italy before moving back to Calabria after his marriage fell apart.

Sky TG24 TV quoted the man's brother as saying the alleged attacker had lost his job in a construction firm and was upset over marital problems.

This time only innocent policemen were shot. What about next time? Surely the socio-economic situation of the assailant is not in any way unique in Italy or any other depressionary European countries, of which there are many. And it doesn't take much for any one person, hope crushed and money gone, to go so far beyond the metaphorical ledge, that they are willing to die but not before taking some politicians with them.

More :

A woman passing by during the shooting was also slightly injured, Rome's mayor said. It was unclear if she was grazed by a bullet or hurt in the panic sparked by the gunfire.

It was not immediately clear if the shooting outside the Chigi Palace, which houses the premier's office and other government offices, was timed to coincide with the swearing-in ceremony. But tensions have been running high in Italy following inconclusive elections in February that left the country mired in political deadlock amid a deep recession.

The 46-year-old Letta nailed down a coalition deal only a day ago between two bitter political enemies -- his center-left forces and the conservative bloc of ex-Premier Silvio Berlusconi.

Reporters inside the Chigi Palace press office heard the shots and raced outside. An AP television producer saw the two wounded Carabinieri officers in the square outside the palace. One of them lay on the pavement with blood pouring out of his neck.

...

Security was immediately stepped up near key venues in the Italian capital, but Alfano said authorities were not worried about related attacks.

"The general situation of public order is not causing any worry," he said. "Our initial investigation indicates the incident is due to an isolated gesture, although further investigations are being carried out."

Doctors at Rome's Umberto I Polyclinic said the more seriously injured of the two police officers was a 50-year-old brigadier. They told reporters that a bullet had entered the right side of the officer's neck, damaged his spinal column and was lodged near his shoulder.

The doctors said it wasn't yet known if the spinal column injury had caused any paralysis.

The other victim was a 30-year-old officer who was shot in the leg and had suffered a fracture, hospital officials said.

Preiti was taken to another Rome hospital. News reports said a protective collar was seen around the man's neck.

An aide to Foreign Minister Emma Bonino told reporters at the presidential palace that the new Cabinet members were kept briefly inside for security reasons until it was clear there was no immediate danger.

The new Cabinet ministers were seen smiling in a group photo as news of the shooting broke and it was apparent they weren't immediately aware of the attack.

"The news arrived after the swearing-in," said Dario Franceschini, one of the new ministers. `'Premier Letta is following the situation."

Metal fencing closes off Chigi Square, which flanks Via del Corso, one of Rome's most popular streets with strollers. The public can cross the square by showing identification, and sometimes people can cross it without being stopped. It was unclear if the assailant had asked permission to enter the square.

Rome was jammed Sunday with tourists and residents enjoying a warm sunny morning on the last day of a four-day weekend.

All of this goes back to the bigger picture: for now the myth of the solvent welfare state, both in Europe and the US, has been successful at keeping the broader population within acceptable limits of docility, with only occasional bursts of murderous rage, either accompanied by terrorist intentions or not. Yet as every passing day demonstrates to the public that just like the stock market and the global economy, so too the welfare net is one big ponzi which is just as insolvent as every other aspect of the "developed" west, how long before political assassination attempts either in Rome, or everywhere else where a demoralized public just sees no other way out, become the norm?

And how many policemen will be taken down as they protect a regime which has no other mathematical option but to fail?

Finally, as noted earlier, it was a political assassination that set off the WWI dominoes some 100 years ago.

Will this time not be any different either as history once again repeats itself?

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Assassination as Speech Suppressor

by Jacob G. Hornberger

As most everyone knows, after President Obama?s election, most liberals went silent with respect to the defense of civil liberties and condemnation of the war on terrorism. Of course, there have been a few notable exceptions, such as Glenn Greenwald and the ACLU and others, but by and large liberals ended up doing what conservatives do when their man is in office. They sealed their lips.

But there is another factor that Americans now have to consider with respect to criticism of the president, the Pentagon, the CIA, or any other of the activities of the federal government in general.

That factor is the government?s publicly proclaimed power to assassinate Americans, along with the government?s lesser power to round up Americans, cart them away to concentration camps or military installations, incarcerate them indefinitely without trial, torture them, and even execute them as enemy combatants in the war on terrorism.

Sure, it?s true that so far the Pentagon and the CIA have exercised these extraordinary powers against only a few Americans, including the American they assassinated while he was riding in a car in Yemen at the start of the war on terrorism and, more recently, Anwar al-Awlaki and his teenage son.

There?s also the case of Jose Padilla, the American citizen who was removed from federal court jurisdiction and transferred into the custody of the military, which kept him incarcerated for some 3 years in a military dungeon, where the military employed techniques of psychological torture, including isolation and sensory deprivation, knowing that such torture would be likely to cause permanent mental damage.

But the number of victims is not the point. The point is that everyone knows that the federal government now possesses these extraordinary powers. If they can legally exercise such powers against a few Americans, they can employ them against all Americans. All they need is the right crisis or emergency to make it politically palatable.

Let?s not forget that the federal courts have upheld what they did to Padilla knowing that the holding would apply to all Americans. Let?s also not forget that the federal courts denied Awlaki?s father?s request to prevent them from assassinating his son.

The point is this: Everyone now knows that given the right crisis, U.S. officials now wield the omnipotent power to round up, detain, and torture large numbers of Americans and to even assassinate them, right here in the United States because, as U.S. officials have emphasized ever since 9/11, in the war on terrorism the entire world, including the United States, is the battlefield.

Who are the people likely to be targeted for such actions in an extreme crisis, such as a major war or some devastating terrorist attack?

The answer: The critics of government. They are the ones that government officials inevitably view as potential or real enemies ? fifth columnists ? people who are hurting the war effort ? people who are demoralizing the troops ? people who are encouraging the enemy with their criticisms of the government.

Would federal officials do such a thing?

Well, they did it at the outset of World War II, when they rounded up thousands of Americans of Japanese descent and carted them away to concentration camps.

And in World War I, they prosecuted, convicted, and punished people for simply questioning the draft or advocating ?un-American? beliefs.

Combine those powers with the post-9/11 powers to assassinate Americans or to round them up, take them to concentration camps, detain them for life, torture them, or execute them as enemy combatants.

How can Americans not consider such things today even though the government is so far employing such powers against only a small number of Americans?

After all, the FBI was compiling secret lists of potential American enemy sympathizers long before America entered World War II. During the Cold War, they kept lists of suspected communists and did their best to destroy those Americans. Most everyone knows that the government today has compiled a secret list of people to be assassinated.

Thus, it doesn?t take a rocket scientist to figure out that speaking out against the military?s and the CIA?s conduct today ? or indeed the conduct of any federal agency ? could well subject the critic to severe retribution in the midst of some future crisis or emergency.

Consider the military dictatorship in Egypt, which has long been a favorite of both the Pentagon and the CIA. Ironically, that dictatorship has long possessed the same omnipotent powers over the Egyptian people that the U.S. government now possesses over the American people.

Egypt?s military dictatorship has justified such powers with the same rationale that the U.S. regime has justified its post-9/11 powers: the war on terrorism.

Who have been the ones targeted by the Egyptian military dictatorship? Critics of the regime, which the regime has labeled terrorists and enemies of the state. They?re the ones who have been rounded up for some 30 years, incarcerated without trial, tortured, and even executed. That?s why the one of the principal demands of the Egyptian protestors has been the relinquishment of such powers, a demand that the dictatorship steadfastly refuses to grant.

Through it all, the U.S. government has continued to subsidize Egypt?s dictatorship with billions of dollars in foreign aid, knowing full well how it was employing its omnipotent ?emergency? powers against the Egyptian people. In fact, don?t forget that the CIA even chose the torture branch of Egypt?s military dictatorship to torture the suspected terrorist that the CIA kidnapped in Italy and renditioned to Egypt.

Or recall the Pinochet military dictatorship in Chile, which the Pentagon and the CIA and other U.S. officials enthusiastically supported. After assuming office in the midst of an ?emergency,? it proceeded to round up thousands of ?enemy sympathizers,? detained them without trial, tortured them, and executed them, all without a peep of protest by U.S. officials. Indeed, the CIA even participated in the assassination of a young American journalist, Charles Horman, in the midst of the Chilean ?emergency.?

Libertarians have long been ardent defenders of civil liberties and continue to be. Undoubtedly, we would be among those targeted in a major crisis or emergency. Obviously that possibility has not dissuaded us from continuing to speak out, in the hopes that we can change the direction of the country and restore a constitutionally limited republic to our land before it?s too late.

Conservatives have always been a disaster when it comes to civil liberties. Therefore, it?s no surprise at all that they have been fully supportive of President Bush?s and President Obama?s assumption of the powers of indefinite detention, torture, and assassination.

Liberals, however, have traditionally been supportive of civil liberties. That tradition, however, came to a screeching halt with Obama?s election. One reason obviously was a warped sense of political loyalty. But who can say that the federal government?s post-9/11 powers to round up, detain without trial, torture, execute, and assassinate haven?t played a role in the silence as well?
__
Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of the Future of Freedom Foundation.

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Obama: Iran 'Will Pay a Price' for Assassination Plot

By LEE FERRAN | ABC News ? 16 hrs ago

President Barack Obama said today that Iran will "pay a price" through sanctions and international pressure for its recent hostile behavior including the alleged Iran-directed plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the U.S. in Washington, D.C.

Echoing previous statements by top U.S. officials, Obama said that when dealing with Iran, "We don't take any options off the table," but did not make any mention of possible military action in favor of pushing harsh economic sanctions and corralling international condemnation of Iran's alleged action.

"We're going to continue... to mobilize the international community to make sure that Iran is further and further isolated and pays a price for this kind of behavior," Obama said.

Obama declined to comment on whether he believed the highest levels of the Iranian government were aware or involved in the alleged plot, but said even if the Iranian president or supreme leader did not have "detailed operational knowledge, there has to be accountability with respect to anybody in the Iranian government engaging in this kind of activity."

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"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened..." - Winston Churchill

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The Assassination Decider

by Jacob G. Hornberger

Statists are continuing to say that President Obama?s assassination of American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki (through his CIA and military forces) was justified because Awlaki was supposedly exhorting Muslims to resist U.S. foreign policy with force and that he was also supposedly engaged in operational activities to bring this about. For his part, Obama is remaining mum on the subject, as are the CIA and the Pentagon.

The statists are missing the point, however. What Awlaki was doing or not doing is irrelevant. He?s now dead and nothing can bring him back to life. And his family will be precluded from bringing any wrongful death actions against the government owing to the doctrines of ?national security,? ?state secrets,? and ?war on terrorism.?

What matters is this: the Awlaki assassination confirms that we now live in a country in which the ruler has the unfettered, non-reviewable power to kill his own citizens, without a trial or any due process of law. That?s where the U.S. government's pro-empire foreign policy and the resulting ?war on terrorism? have brought us. That?s not exactly what the founders of this country envisioned when they brought the federal government into existence.

The fact is that Obama is now the decider when it comes to assassinating American citizens. He wields the omnipotent power to order his intelligence and military forces to kill any American he labels a terrorist or a threat to ?national security.? He knows that no court is going to second-guess him, especially when his attorneys in the Justice Department simply mention to some presiding federal judge the magic terms ?national security? and ?state secrets.? And he knows that the Congress isn?t going to impeach him for killing an American, especially since he can simply say, ?I have a legal opinion from my Justice Department authorizing me to assassinate Americans whom I determine are terrorists, and you can?t second-guess my decisions on this because it?s part of the ?war on terrorism.??

What can an American who has been placed on Obama?s assassination list do about it? Nothing. If he asks a friend or relative to seek the assistance of the federal courts with an injunction enjoining the government from assassinating him, the federal judge will summarily dismiss the case based on the fiction that the person lacks standing to bring the suit, knowing full well that if the target of the assassination brings the suit himself, he will be assassinated by the president?s forces before he even has the chance to enter the courthouse.

Suppose the CIA and the military proceed to assassinate him. Then what? Then nothing. Remember that under our post-9/11 political system the president is the assassination decider. He makes the final, non-reviewable determination on assassinating an American. If the victim?s family later sues the government for wrongfully and unconstitutionally assassinating this American, the federal judge will immediately dismiss the case on hearing the magic terms ?national security? and ?state secrets? come out of the mouths of Obama?s lawyers. And, again, the Congress isn?t going to get involved with any investigations into why an American was assassinated because they?re not going to second-guess Obama?s ?war on terrorism? decision to take out the American.

The omnipotent, non-reviewable power to assassinate one?s own citizens is, needless to say, the hallmark of a totalitarian regime. It is, in fact, the ultimate power in the tool chest of a totalitarian dictator. It obviously trumps the power to tax, the power to inflate, the power to confiscate guns, the power to suppress religion, and the power to censor speech. In fact, the dictator can permit the citizenry to exercise all those rights, knowing that the omnipotent, non-reviewable power to kill his own citizens (and, of course, the power to seize them, throw them into a military dungeon and incarcerate them forever without a trial, and torture them) will keep them in line.

After the 9/11 attacks, when President Bush and his CIA and military forces began torturing and assassinating foreigners, we libertarians emphasized that the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, which prohibits U.S. officials from depriving a person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, applied, by its express terms, not just to American citizens but to all persons, including foreigners. We said that once the power to arrest and detain indefinitely, torture, and assassinate people was permitted to be wielded against foreigners, there was no way to prevent such power from being ultimately wielded against Americans.

Unfortunately, we have once again been proven correct. As the Awlaki assassination shows and as the Jose Padilla case showed, the president now wields the omnipotent, non-reviewable power to round up, detain indefinitely, torture, and assassinate his own citizens ? the same omnipotent, non-reviewable power that U.S.-supported dictators in the Middle East wield against their citizens.

Meanwhile, even as people in the Middle East are demanding that their governments abandon such totalitarian powers over them, American statists continue to sing, ?Thank God I?m an American because at least I know I?m free,? reminding us of Johann von Goethe?s immortal words, ?None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.?
__
Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.

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"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened..." - Winston Churchill

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JFK Assassination and Executive Order 11110 – Also Willie Nelson Discusses New World Order

Click to expand conspiracy quotes from this video John was the most charismatic of the presidents and had great support from the American people. And he felt he could defy the international bankers and get away with it. He wasn’t just killed because he was favoring some rights for black people. The president has power to just, with an executive order, make a law. Executive order 11110, signed into law early 1963. Where with the stroke of his pen he took away the power of the Federal Reserve to print the money. He put 4 billion dollars into circulation in 2 dollar and 5 dollar denominations, but all 4 billion was backed by silver. Six months later, like it was with Lincoln, he was shot down in Dealey Plaza. you see, the international bankers must not be defied, because they run presidents and kings.
Related conspiracies: Executive Order 11110, Federal Reserve, JFK conspiracy

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