Humor: You Didn’t Build That!

President Obama has corrected the record regarding the means of production…

• A D V E R T I S E M E N T

And some of course are true…

CONFIRMED: Turkey Running Proxy-Invasion of Syria

Tony Cartalucci
Infowars.com
July 26, 2012

The Washington Post has just published an article with the very misleading titled, “Turkey a hub for Syria revolution as illegal border crossing points abound,” in which it describes “Salafi Muslims,” who have “come to offer help from the countries of the Persian Gulf region” arming and joining the so-called “Free Syrian Army.” The article also claims “weapons are ferried into Syria, delivered by Turkish military trucks and picked up by fighters on the other side in the dead of night.”

A more apt title would be, “Turkey hosts invading Saudi and Qatari mercenary army.”

This confirms earlier reports featured in the New York Times and the Washington Post, that not only are the Gulf States of Saudi Arabia and Qatar funding and arming militants via Turkey, but that the US is coordinating the logistical aspects of the operation as well.

Likewise, CNN has attempted to spin concessions made by its own Ivan Watson, traveling with sectarian extremists into Syria, where it was admitted:

Meanwhile, residents of the village where the Syrian Falcons were headquartered said there were fighters of several North African nationalities also serving with the brigade’s ranks.

A volunteer Libyan fighter has also told CNN he intends to travel from Turkey to Syria within days to add a “platoon” of Libyan fighters to armed movement.

CNN has now added:

On Wednesday, CNN’s crew met a Libyan fighter who had crossed into Syria from Turkey with four other Libyans. The fighter wore full camouflage and was carrying a Kalashnikov rifle. He said more Libyan fighters were on the way.

The foreign fighters, some of them are clearly drawn because they see this as … a jihad. So this is a magnet for jihadists who see this as a fight for Sunni Muslims.

CNN then attempts to claim the “real” Syrian “revolutionaries” “do not want an Islamist political agenda to be mixed in with their revolution.”

Photo: The face of Libya’s “revolution” was literally Al Qaeda. Abdul Hakim Belhaj, commander of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) listed by the US State Departmentas a “Foreign Terrorists Organization,” was armed and backed by NATO (including the US) in his efforts to topple the government of Libya. Belhaj more recently pledged (NATO) weapons, cash, and Libyan militants to the “Free Syrian Army.”

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Unfortunately for CNN, despite its best efforts, it cannot qualify its claim that these foreign fighters are “unwanted,” – for the so-called “Free Syrian Army” (FSA) has long since exposed itself as a sectarian extremist front infiltrated with foreign fighters and foreign weapons,stretching back as far as 2007.

Saudis and Qataris Attempt “Arab League-UN” Rescue of Faltering Mercenaries

Perhaps as a sign the Gulf States of Saudi Arabia and Qatar are stretched to the limits of their ability to covertly undermine Syria, they have announced plans to seek “UN General Assembly action” for a “political transition and establishment of a democratic government in Syria.” For the despotic, unelected, grandiose nepotism of Saudi Arabia and Qatar to call for a “democratic government in Syria” is truly a move made as much out of desperation as it is one of farcical hypocrisy.

Image: In “progressive” Saudi Arabia, who is calling for a “democratic transition” in Syria, women are not even allowed to drive, let alone vote for their leaders – who with Qatar, are amongst the few remaining absolute monarchies on Earth.

….

Both Gulf State nations are run by absolute monarchies – some of the only kind still left in the world. In Saudi Arabia, not only are elections out of the question, but women are in fact, prohibited from even driving. How the Saudis themselves are not subject to UN resolutions, open condemnations, sanctions of all kinds, and ultimatums over their own dictatorship is a true indication of the bankrupted, hypocritical, self-serving dysfunction that punctuates a Western corporate-financier dominated “international order.” It is an “international community” that creates the illusion of urgency and injustice when it seeks to expand its interests into one nation, but conveniently ignores real injustice when it jeopardizes their interests elsewhere.


Turkey Supports Subversion of Syria, While Crushing Dissent at Home

Turkey itself has been waging a decades-long bloody campaign against its own armed uprising in predominately Kurdish areas bordering Syria, Iraq, and Iran. In fact, at one point, the US allowed Turkish tanks to cross into American-occupied Iraq to attack villages suspected of harboring armed Kurdish separatists in 2008, mirroring the very tactics Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is now condemning Syria for. The Guardian reported in their 2008 article, “Iraq demands Turkey withdraw from border conflict with Kurds,” that the conflict had been raging since 1984 and had cost the lives of 40,000 people.

Turkey has in recent weeks, violated Iraq’s airspace in order to strafe and bomb Kurdish villages inside Iraqi territory. Iraq has lodged a complaint with the UN Security Council – a complaint likely to go unnoticed.

One can only imagine the “threat” Syria would be portrayed as if it were to likewise strafe and bomb targets beyond its borders in pursuit of now admittedly foreign-armed, foreign fighters invading its country via Turkey. Turkey, a NATO member since 1952, would most likely invoke “Chapter V” of NATO’s treaty, a mutual defense clause that makes an attack on one alliance member an attack on all members – thus opening up the door for more direct foreign military intervention.

Turkey’s ruling government led by PM Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is in fact undermining its own national security by running errands for NATO versus Syria. By supporting foreign terrorists invading neighboring Syria, it undermines the legitimacy of its own campaign against Kurdish rebels within its borders, not to mention beyond them. Turkey’s current stance vis-a-vis Syria is not shared by all members of Turkey’s government, and at this critical stage, now more than ever they need to make their voices heard both to the Turkish people and to the people of the world.

Carving Out “Safe Havens” for the US State Department’s SNC

The ultimate goal of inundating Syria with foreign fighters and weapons while Saudi Arabia and Qatar farcically call for a “democratic transition” in Syria is to create a “safe haven” from which the US State Department coached and directed “Syrian National Council” (SNC) can rule from – further dividing and undermining the Syrian nation-state.

This geopolitical objective was first summarized in the Fortune 500-funded Brookings Institution’s March 2012 Middle East Memo #21 “Assessing Options for Regime Change (.pdf)and recently reiterated almost verbatim by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The US foreign-policy think-tank, Brookings Institution blueprinted designs for regime change in Libya as well as both Syria and Iran. In their report, “Assessing Options for Regime Change” it is specifically stated (emphasis added):

“An alternative is for diplomatic efforts to focus first on how to end the violence and how to gain humanitarian access, as is being done under Annan’s leadership.This may lead to the creation of safe-havens and humanitarian corridors, which would have to be backed by limited military power. This would, of course, fall short of U.S. goals for Syria and could preserve Asad in power. From that starting point, however, it is possible that a broad coalition with the appropriate international mandate could add further coercive action to its efforts.” –page 4, Assessing Options for Regime Change, Brookings Institution.

Image: Also out of the Brookings Institution, Middle East Memo #21 “Assessing Options for Regime Change (.pdf),” makes no secret that the humanitarian “responsibility to protect” is but a pretext for long-planned regime change.

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The Brookings Institution’s “safe havens” and “humanitarian corridors” are meant to be established by NATO-member Turkey, who had been threatening to partially invade Syria in order to accomplish this. And while Turkey claims this is based on “humanitarian concerns,”examining Turkey’s abysmal human rights record in addition to its own ongoing armed campaign against the Kurdish people both within and beyond its borders, it is clear they are simply fulfilling the agenda established by their Western patrons on Wall Street and in the city of London.

There is still extreme danger that with Aleppo still under threat by foreign fighters and the so-called “Free Syrian Army,” NATO is preparing cross-border provocations to justify the “limited military power” Brookings calls for in establishing its prescribed “safe havens.” Fabricated “massacres,” “humanitarian crisis,” and false flag attacks involving chemical weapons are also pretexts the West might use for a limited military incursions into Syria in an attempt to cripple its military and lend its militant proxies a “safe haven” in Syria to rule over.

Tony Cartalucci is the writer and editor at Land Destroyer

US Military and Local Police Working Together on American Streets

Susanne Posel
Infowars.com
July 26, 2012

The US military is being usedto protect civilian events, like the 2012 Democratic and Republican Party National Conventions in Tampa, Florida and Charlotte, North Carolina.

USNORTHCOM and Leon Panetta, US Secretary of Defense, has readily admitted that US armed forces will collaborate with local law enforcement “if called upon”.

In fact, more than 20,000 troops were brought home and readied for deployment within the US to assist in “civil unrest and crowd control”.

The US military will prop up the US Secret Service “for operational security reasons we do not discuss the numbers of military personnel and resources that are involved. Additionally, we do not share our operational plans,” said U.S. Navy Lt. Cdr. William G. Lewis.

The extent of use of military forces on civilian matters, as reported by mainstream media (MSM) have included the reallocation of hundreds of military police officers being trained to “assist local authorities” in investigation, crime scene and case building.

An estimate 500 military police and dogs will be used as “law enforcement battalions”. These soldiers, having served on tours in Afghanistan, will now be activated and based out of military bases across America to help local police forces.

National Guard has been witnessed in Virginia conducting “wellness checks” and patrolling residential neighborhoods as well as downtown city areas.

In Southern California, the TSA have been caught patrolling train stations and bus terminals.

The US Congress has given over $25 million in more funding to support unannounced TSA checkpoints.

According to one whistleblower : “We’re doing patrols in the parking lot with dogs, we’re even going as far out to the train station because the train station is connected to the airport here and we have guys walking around the train station, walking around the rental cars, we’re inspecting cars coming into the parking garage, I mean we’ve fully expanded – we’re no longer just at the gate and just at the security checkpoint.”

Military soldiers and TSA checkpoints are not the only tricks up the US government’s sleeve.

Researchers at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, led by Roland Brockers, have developed micro-aerial vehicles (MAVs) that utilize a camera pointed at the ground to navigate, choose landing destinations and identify people and targets.

Operators have only to command the MAVs to a location, beginning with the starting point, and the specialized GPS system will guide the micro-drone through mapped out sites, dimensions and landscapes.

Other military defense contractors like Lockheed Martin and LaserMotive have combined to preform drone testing with the use of wireless energy technology.

While the US government is facilitating the military on American streets and the TSA are beefing up their range with new checkpoints and areas of patrol, the national debate over gun control continues.

The National Rifle Association (NRA) are bringing attention to the anti-gun purveyors like New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg who are calling for immediate restriction of gun sales to average Americans.

Thomas Menino, Mayor of Boston and member of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, commented: “The best way to honor the memory of those who senselessly lost their lives in Aurora is to make it harder for this to ever happen again. Our political leaders need to lead – and we demand they act now.”
NRA members are reporting, according to a new survey, that they are not only purchasing more guns because of recent events like the Batman shooting, but recognize that their purchases may put them on a terrorist watch list.

John Velleco, director of federal affairs for Gun Owners of America, acknowledges that gun control is a heated topic “in the wake of this horrible shooting” but that “more gun control could actually make situations worse by making it harder for law-abiding folks to own and carry guns, which means for lunatics that there are more unarmed, potential victims.”

Velleco admits that as of now, legislation is lacking in the gun control debate, however he recognizes that these anti-gun advocates are “kind of like vultures to take advantage of a situation to further an agenda that doesn’t get traction and that people don’t support.”

The NRA has political pull in swing states, which is being suggested by the MSM as a deterrent from Obama to support stricter gun laws; however Obama and Clinton have both publicly stated their support of the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) being discussed by the UN in conference in New York until July 27th.

Susanne Posel’s post first appeared on her blog, Occupy Corporatism.

Chicago Alderman Moves to Ban Business for Politically Incorrect View on Gays

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
July 26, 2012

Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy.

In Rahm Emanuel’s Chicago, the Alderman controlling Logan Square wants to block Chick-fil-A from opening a store because its CEO opposes gay marriage.

Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy said last week he believes in the biblical definition of marriage as between a man and a woman.

“I think we’re inviting God’s judgment when we shake our fist at him, you know, [saying], ‘We know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage.’ And I pray on God’s mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude to think that we would have the audacity to try and redefine what marriage is all about,” Cathy said.

“Same sex marriage, same-sex couples — that’s the civil rights fight of our time. To have those discriminatory policies from the top down is just not something that we’re open to,” said Moreno. “We want responsible businesses.”

In other words, business that does not tote the political agenda of government – and theUnited Nations – will not be allowed to operate. Like the former Soviet Union, Chicago will only permit business (called “enterprises” in the Soviet Union) to exist if it follows the political dictates of government.

If an alderman (essentially a Mafia don) disagrees with the personal opinion espoused by a business owner, he will be run out of town after a self-righteous tongue lashing.

“If he’s in the business of selling chicken in Chicago, he should be in the business of having equal rights for everyone. Period,” Moreno told the Sun-Times. “If it looks like a chicken, talks like a chicken, walks like a chicken, it’s a chicken. If you’re saying you don’t respect the values and rights of same-sex couples, that trickles down through the organization. … That’s paramount to the way the company behaves.”

Chick-fil-A had received zoning approval for the restaurant in the 2500 block of North Elston on Chicago’s westside. The company still needs City Council approval. This may not be forthcoming thanks to Moreno and Chicago mayor Emanuel.

Chicago’s godfather agrees with the alderman. “Chick-fil-A’s values are not Chicago values. They’re not respectful of our residents, our neighbors and our family members. And if you’re gonna be part of the Chicago community, you should reflect Chicago values,” Emanuel said Wednesday.

“What the CEO has said as it relates to gay marriage and gay couples is not what I believe, but more importantly, it’s not what the people of Chicago believe. We just passed legislation as it relates to civil union and my goal and my hope … is that we now move on recognizing gay marriage. I do not believe that the CEO’s comments … reflects who we are as a city.”

Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian of Young Turks say Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy “hates” gays:

Foreign Lawmakers Slam “Assassin” Obama Over Drone Strikes

President “Violating the principles of the Western world”

Steve Watson
Infowars.com
July 26, 2012

British and Danish politicians have spoken out in disgust at the US policy of drone strikes in Somalia, Pakistan and Yemen, calling it targeted assassination.

“It’s terrible,” said Rasmus Helveg Petersen, the foreign policy spokesperson for Radikale, the Danish Social Liberal Party.

“The United States has no right to carry out these types of executions of suspected political adversaries. It contravenes international law.” Petersen said in an interview with the Politiken newspaper.

Peterson added that Obama was mirroring terrorist activity by adhering to the policy. ”It is tantamount to terrorism where you also kill people for political motives in someone else’s territory.” Peterson said.

Another Danish lawmaker, Soren Pind, of the Venstre party, Denmark’s opposition party, also blasted Obama. In an interview with Ræson magazine, Pind said “I criticised George Bush for combining the presidency with something we could view as torture. But what Obama is doing is combining the presidency with assassination. In reality it is much worse. Obama is completely ignoring the western world’s principles, and in the long run it will be detrimental,”

Officials from another far left party in Denmark, Enhedslisten, also weighed in, saying they would push the issue in the Danish parliament’s foreign policy committee.

• A D V E R T I S E M E N T

Denmark’s foreign minister, Villy Sovndal was less critical but still intimated that the government was displeased with the US policy of drone strikes.“I am not prepared to comment further than saying that we do not use drones ourselves and that international rules must be adhered to,” said Sovndal.

Denmark has traditionally been a strong ally to the US. However, Ole Wæver, political scientist at the University of Copenhagen notes “Obama has used up his goodwill account…There has been until now broad political agreement that we stood shoulder to shoulder with the US, but people are slowly realising that the world order is changing.”

Neither the US government, nor the US Embassy in Denmark has responded to the criticism.

Meanwhile, in Britain, a group of twelve parliamentarians are reported to have penned a letter to Obama demanding that drone strikes in Pakistan are halted.

The International Herald Tribune reports that the officials contend that the strikes are only serving to fuel hatred of the US and provide justification for future terrorist activities and that too many innocent people are being killed as a result of the attacks. The letter also notes that the strikes are a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty.

Earlier this week, it was reported that the incoming head of Pakistan’s intelligence network plans to demand that the US halt the drone strikes and let Pakistan deal with weeding out militants.

In related developments, a UN report released this week states that US drone aircraft over Somalia pose a significant danger to air traffic and may also violate an arms embargo against the country.

As we reported Monday, there is a huge growing movement in Pakistan speaking out against US aggression in the country.

One prominent voice is that of Imran Khan, the leader of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party (PTI) who recently slammed the US policy of targeting militants in Pakistan and elsewhere with unmanned drone strikes, calling the practice “immoral and insane”.

The Obama administration has been heavily criticized for moving to block the release of information relating to its overseas drone assassination programme, and will not even acknowledge that it exists, despite countless public references to the programme and the proven existence of an official “kill list”.

It is common knowledge that the Obama administration has exponentially increased the use of drone missile attacks in countries such as Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.

The president has referred to the programme several times in public, as have officials such as counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan.

Earlier this year, the New York Times ran a major piece on the programme, revealing that the White House has asserted the right to carry out state-sponsored assassination anywhere in the world without having to provide any evidence or go through any legal process.

Furthermore, the Times revealed that Obama adopted a policy that “in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants.”

The administration merely has to state that the target is a terrorist and it doesn’t matter whether they are an American citizen or not, as we saw in the case of American-born Anwar al-Awlaki and his son, who were both killed last year.

In December of last year, Obama administration lawyers reaffirmed their backingfor state sponsored assassination, claiming that “U.S. citizens are legitimate military targets” and do not have the right to any legal protection against being marked for summary execution.

During a CBS 60 Minutes interview in January, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta revealed that Obama himself personally approves the policy to kill American citizens suspected of terrorism without trial on a case by case basis.

Perhaps the real reason that the administration wants the details of the programme kept under wraps is that, as reported by Propublica recently, the programme is potentially much bigger in scope than anyone had previously thought.

The administration’s figures do not add up, they are chock full of contradictions and discrepancies, and there can be little doubt that there have been many many more civilian deaths as a result of drone attacks than have been publicly acknowledged.

Experts, including UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions Christof Heyns, as well as Pakistan’s UN ambassador in Geneva, Zamir Akram, have described the drone assassination programme as a violation of the international legal system, saying that some attacks may constitute war crimes.

Akram, who noted that US drone strikes had killed more than 1,000 civilians in Pakistan, also said “We find the use of drones to be totally counterproductive in terms of succeeding in the ‘war against terror’. It leads to greater levels of terror rather than reducing them.

Many also contend that the attacks infringe the national sovereignty of Pakistan and constitute an act of war.

In 2010, a report by Washington think tank The New America Foundation found that 32% of the more than 1,200 people killed since 2004 in Pakistan, or around 1 in 3, were innocent bystanders rather than dangerous terrorists.

While the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee has stated that the Pakistani government is actively facilitating the attacks by providing bases from which to launch the drones, Pakistani authorities have consistently voiced opposition to cross border missile strikes, which have been ongoing for years, but have accelerated since day one of Obama’s presidency. During Obama’s first year in office, there were 53 reported drone missile attacks; more than were carried out during the entirety of George W. Bush’s two four year terms in office.

Reports from 2009, drawn up by Pakistani authorities, indicated that close to 700 civilians had already perished, with just 14 wanted Al Qaeda leaders killed in the attacks.

The ACLU estimates that US drone strikes have killed as many as 4,000 people in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia since 2002. Of those, a significant proportion were civilians.

Last week it was revealed that the families of three US citizens killed in drone strikes in Yemen last year – including al-Qaeda preacher Anwar al-Awlaqi – have filed a civil lawsuit against top US officials.

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Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor for Alex Jones’ Infowars.com, andPrisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham in England.

Second Amendment: It’s Not About Hunting, It’s About Tyranny

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
July 26, 2012

Now that Obama has tested the water on government gun control with a speech delivered before the National Urban League, we can expect the divisive issue to play a role in his re-election campaign.

Obama and his globalist handlers – who ultimately want every gun confiscated – understand that the American people by and large support the Second Amendment. This is why the president patronized hunters and shooters with an oily sleight of hand.

“I also believe that a lot of gun owners would agree that AK-47s belong in the hands of soldiers, not in the hands of criminals,” Obama said. “That they belong on the battlefield of war, not on the streets of our cities.”

In fact, according to the founders, guns – including AK47s in the modern context – belong in the hands of the citizens and their state militias, as plainly and eloquently spelled out in the Second Amendment. Thomas Jefferson and the founders did not craft the Second Amendment to protect the right of hunters and target shooters. It was included – right after the First Amendment guareenting political speech – to ensure the right of citizens to violently oppose a tyrannical federal government if need be.

AK47s and other “assault” weapons are the sort of tools that will be used if push comes to shove and the people must violently oppose the government.

Obama supporters and other lovers of the state recoil at the prospect of armed resistance to a tyrannical centralized federal government and refuse to accept that this is what the Second Amendment is all about. “The rights of conscience, of bearing arms, of changing the government, are declared to be inherent in the people,” wrote Fisher Ames, a member of the Massachusetts convention that ratified the Constitution in 1788. This concept is antithetical to the modern liberal who believes government to be a force of good.

“The Second Amendment was to protect the ability of the people to violently overthrow the government,” writes Richard Schrade, an attorney from Georgia and member of the Libertarian National Committee. “Let’s remember that this country was formed in a violent revolution. Let’s remember that at Lexington and Concord citizen fired on and killed government soldiers sent by the central government to confiscate their weapons and arms…. When viewed in this light, it is apparent that a limitation on automatic weapons would be an infringement on the purposes of the Second Amendment.”

If Obama supporters, Democrats, “progressives” and others demanding the government take our firearms in a misplaced effort to stop maniacs from killing people were honest, they would work to repeal the Second Amendment instead of chipping away at it piecemeal. “If we are going to have gun control then let’s not dicker around the fringes. Let those who would limit the law-abiding citizen’s access to arms first repeal the Second Amendment. That would be the intellectually honest way to address the issue,” writes Schrade.

Such a debate is only possible today because formerly free men no longer have a grasp of history and have been brainwashed by decades of government mandated public education and propaganda. Early on in America, both the Federalists and the anti-Federalists agreed that arms and liberty are inextricably linked. George Mason and others knew reflexively that the most effective way to enslave a people is to disarm them. Mason, in particular, argued that divine providence had given every individual the right of self-defense – including the right to defend against a tyrannical government. Today, we have forgotten all of this.

Obama can easily get away with making an outrageous speech about hunting and target shooting and almost completely ignore criticism and not be called to task. We are told that he is a constitutional scholar. How could a constitutional scholar be completely ignorant of the Second Amendment’s true purpose and the admonitions of the founders? What constitutional scholar would be ignorant of Jefferson’s famous assertion, made in a letter to William Smith in 1787, that the “tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants”?

Obama is not a constitutional scholar. It is a phony title like just about everything else about the man. He is a teleprompter reader for a shadow global elite determined to debar access to weapons and take away those already in our possession. Not because of maniacs in theaters or classrooms, but in order to render us helpless against the violence of the state.

TSA: Filming Checkpoints is ‘Terrorism’

Aaron Dykes
Infowars.com
July 26, 2012

Evidently, TSA isn’t looking for press coverage during its roll out of checkpoints at train stations across the nation.

Citizen journalist Julio Rausseo, a roaming correspondent for WeAreChange.org, was labeled a “terrorist” and threatened with arrest for filming a TSA checkpoint at the Union train station in Chicago.

An Amtrack police official confronted Rausseo, telling him that the government had sent them video of him filming the checkpoints, warning them to look out for people filming the station. A week after Rausseo filmed the TSA, Amtrack identified the reporter eating at restaurant inside Union Station and confronted him. That conversation is recorded in the following video:

“I’m telling you to your face, do not video tape us,” the Amtrack officer can be heard telling Rausseo in the video. “If you come beyond that point… if you come like you did before, you’re going to jail, Sir. Because it could be used for terrorist activity. Right now, you’re in violation.”

When Rausseo objected that he was a reporter and not a terrorist, the employee asked: “Did you approach us and ask to take video?”

When the reporter responded, “I didn’t think I had to. I thought this was America,” the Amtrack police official told him, “No, America nothing. You know better.”

• A D V E R T I S E M E N T

The incident continued, with the employee demanding his ID and claiming that illegal activity had taken place, before admitting, incredibly, that the company had been sent video of Rausseo filming the checkpoint. Clearly, the company keeping tabs on such “trouble makers.”

“And the video didn’t even come… it came from the government. They sent it to us because now somebody is taking pictures of us doing our activity,” the Amtrack officer finally admitted.

These checkpoints are a violation of the 4th Amendment, and as such blatantly unconstitutional, yet they have seamlessly expanded from airports to train stations, and will soon be pervasive in all public life, unless the TSA is stopped politically and the fear of terrorism checked by the exercise of American rights and the return of common sense.

Here is Julio Rausseo’s previous video of the train station checkpoint run jointly by TSA and Amtrack in Chicago. He defends his first amendment right to film the checkpoint and report it to the world:

90 arrested in DEA-led crackdown on bath salts, synthetic drugs

Sarah Freishtat
washingtontimes.com
July 26, 2012

More than 90 people in 31 states were arrested in a nationwide crackdown on synthetic drugs Wednesday.

The U.S Drug Enforcement Agency, along with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Internal Revenue Service, the Postal Inspection Service and other agencies seized $36 million during the crackdown and about $6 million more in assets. This is the first major crackdown on new “designer drugs,” such as synthetic marijuana and a substance known as bath salts.

“Although tremendous progress has been made in legislating and scheduling these dangerous substances, this enforcement action has disrupted the entire illegal industry, from manufacturers to retailers,” said DEA spokeswoman Michele M. Leonhart in a statement.

Read more

LEAKED UN TREATY PROVES IT BANS GUNS IN AMERICA! RED ALERT!!!!!!

The text of the anticipated and hotly-contested United Nations Arms Trade Treaty has been leaked, with the treaty itself set to be adopted and signed by member States as early as tomorrow, July 27. President Obama, today joining the chorus for gun control inside the United States in the wake of the Batman massacre, has previously indicated that he would sign the treaty, which would then have to be ratified by the Senate.

Masked behind the language of promoting peace in an international world by preventing genocide, the UN has unleashed a great Trojan Horse that calls upon States to enact national legislation sufficient to meet the minimum goals outlined in this treaty– including gun registries, background checks, import/export controls and more for arms of all types, including small & conventional weapons. “Each State Party shall adopt national legislation or other appropriate national measures regulations and policies as may be necessary to implement the obligations of this Treaty,” the treaty text states in part.

It makes specific note that the treaty places no limit upon greater gun control efforts within individual nations, and additionally places no expiration on the agreement. The scope of this language proves the analysis by Infowars (1, 2, 3, 4), writers at Forbes and many other publications that have been warning about this deceptive encroachment to be correct– there is an effort to disarm America underway.

The devil, as usual, is in the details.

Repeatedly, the treaty obligates States to establish “national control systems” to meet the particulars of the treaty. While the phrase “within national laws and regulations” appears to suggest that the 2nd Amendment would limit the implementation, properly read in the context of the wording and history itself, it really only invites new “regulations” where no “law” can be established.

These international goals will undoubtedly pressure changes in the executive branches’ many policies, as we have already seen with the ATF, who are trying to outlaw most types of shotguns, and who separately placed greater reporting burdens on gun shops in the Southwest border states as a response to the Fast & Furious set-up by Eric Holder & co. to demonize and destroy gun ownership.

• A D V E R T I S E M E N T

The first “principle” outlined in the preamble reads: “1. The inherent rights of all States to individual or collective self-defense.” While the language of the treaty appears to recognize the legal right to keep such arms, the text actually recognizes the “inherent right of States” to “individual and collective” self-defense.

This is NOT the same as individual persons’ inherent right to keep and bear arms as recognized and enumerated in the United States’ Bill of Rights. Instead, it puts the collectivist unit known as the State above the individual, in complete defiance of the system set-up in the United States. Individual defense for a State, for instance, refers to what is known on the international scene as “unilateral war,” while collective defense is recognize in such actions as that of NATO or other allied bodies. The States’ right to maintain internal order has also been recognized by the UN, but all other purposes for arms ownership are seen as illegitimate.

It specifically recognizes [only] the “lawful private ownership and use of conventional armsexclusively for, inter alia, recreational, cultural, historical and sporting activitiesfor States where such ownership and use are permitted or protected by law.” There’s been a great deal of rhetoric from gun grabbers over the years attempting to emphasize gun ownership for legitimate sporting uses, but the real purpose of arms ownership is a balance of power at the individual level in order to discourage tyranny at the State level. THAT is what the founding fathers intended, and that is the historical legacy Americans cherish.

NO SPECIFIC PROTECTION for individual persons is contained in this dangerous treaty, though the same media who’ve been demonizing critics of the UN’s effort as delusional and paranoid will attempt to argue otherwise, clinging to deliberately inserted clauses herein that look like stop-guards and protections for gun rights, but properly read, do no such thing.

While the UN advises States to keep within the scope of their own laws, the end-run assault against American’s 2nd Amendment is unmistakeable.

The text was released two days ago, but has received almost no attention in the press. TheInternational Association for the Protection of Civilian Arms Rights and The Examiner have analyzed the treaty, while pointing out that member states like France have “let slip that their ultimate goal is to regulate legitimately-owned ‘weapons.’”

The United Nations has a sordid history of pursuing “general and complete disarmament,” and individual arms including legally owned arms have always been part of that focus. The United Nations treaty from 2001, known as the “SADC Protocol: Southern African Development Community” is, according to the UN’s own disarmament website, a “regional instrument thataims to curtail small arms ownership and illicit trafficking in Southern Africa along with the destruction of surplus state weapons. It is a far-reaching instrument, which goes beyond that of a politically binding declaration, providing the region with a legal basis upon which to deal with both the legal and the illicit trade in firearms.”

As we have previously noted, U.S. troops have been trained to confiscate American guns, while the confiscation in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina has already set the precedent. The deception over aiming for legal guns while pretending to target “illicit” weapons is continued here in this 2012 monster treaty.

Below is the text in full, as it has been proposed and released. Any changes in the signed version will be noted when that time comes:

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UNITED NATIONS ARMS TRADE TREATY TEXT

PREAMBLE

The States Parties to this Treaty.

Guided by the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations.

Recalling that the charter of the UN promotes the establishment and maintenance of international peace and security with the least diversion for armaments of the world’s human and economic resources;

Reaffirming the obligation of all State Parties to settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered, in accordance with the Charter of the UN;

Underlining the need to prevent, combat and eradicate the illicit trade of conventional arms and to prevent their diversion to illegal and unauthorized end use, such as terrorism and organized crime;

Recognizing the legitimate political, security, economic and commercial rights and interests of States in the international trade of conventional arms;

Reaffirming the sovereign right and responsibility of any State to regulate and control transfers of conventional arms that take place exclusively within its territory pursuant to its own legal or constitutional systems;

Recognizing that development, human rights and peace and security, which are three pillars of the United Nations, are interlinked and mutually reinforcing.

Recalling the United Nations Disarmament Commission guidelines on international arms transfers adopted by the General Assembly;

Noting the contribution made by the 2001 UN Programme of Action to preventing combating and eradicating the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons in all its aspects, as well as the 2001 Protocol against the illicit manufacturing of and trafficking in Firearms, their parts and components and ammunition, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime;

Recognizing the security, social, economic and humanitarian consequences of the illicit trade in and unregulated trade of conventional arms;

Recognizing the challenges faced by victims of armed conflict and their need for adequate care, rehabilitation and social and economic inclusion;

Bearing in mind that the women and children are particularly affected in situations of conflict and armed violence;

Emphasizing that nothing in this treaty prevents States from exercising their right to adopt additional more rigorous measures consistent with the purpose of this Treaty;

Recognizing the legitimate international trade and lawful private ownership and use of conventional arms exclusively for, inter alia, recreational, cultural, historical and sporting activities for States where such ownership and use are permitted or protected by law;

Recognizing the active role that non-governmental organizations and civil society can play in furthering the goals and objectives of this Treaty; and

16. Emphasizing that regulation of the international trade in conventional arms should not hamper international cooperation and legitimate trade in material, equipment and technology for peaceful purposes;

Have agreed as follows:

Principles

Guided by the Purposes and Principles of the Charter of the United Nations, States Parties, In promoting the goals and objectives of this Treaty and implementing its provisions, shall act in accordance with the following principles:

The inherent rights of all States to individual or collective self-defense;

2. Settlement of individual disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered;

3. The rights and obligations of States under applicable international law, including international humanitarian law and international human rights law;

4. The responsibility of all States, in accordance with their respective international obligations, to effectively regulate and control international transfer of conventional arms as well as the primary responsibility of all States to in establishing and implementing their respective national export control systems; and

5. The necessity to implement this Treaty consistently and effectively and in a universal, objective and non-discriminatory manner.

Article 1
Goals and Objectives

Cognizant of the need to prevent and combat the diversion of conventional arms into the illicit market or to unauthorized end users through the improvement of regulation on the international trade in conventional arms,

The goals and objectives of this Treaty are:

– For States Parties to establish the highest possible common standards for regulating or improving regulation of the international trade in conventional arms;

– To prevent, combat and eradicate the illicit trade in conventional arms and their diversion to illegal and unauthorized end use;

In order to:

– Contribute to international and regional peace, security and stability;

– Avoid that the international trade in conventional arms contributes to human suffering;

– Promote cooperation, transparency and responsibility of States Parties in the trade in conventional arms, thus building confidence among States Parties,

Article 2

– A. Covered Items

– 1. This Treaty shall apply to all conventional arms within the following categories:

– a. Battle Tanks

– b. Armored combat vehicles

– c. Large-caliber Artillery systems

– d. Combat aircraft

– e. Attack helicopters

– f. Warships

– g. Missiles and missile launchers

– h. Small Arms and Light Weapons

– 2. Each State Party Shall establish and Maintain a national control system to regulate the export of munitions to the extent necessary to ensure that national controls on the export of the conventional arms covered by Paragraph a1 (a)-(h) are not circumvented by the export of munitions for those conventional arms.

– 3. Each State Party shall establish and maintain a national control system to regulate the export of parts and components to the extent necessary to ensure that national controls on the export of the conventional arms covered by Paragraph A1 are not circumvented by the export of parts and components of those items.

– 4. Each State Party shall establish or update, as appropriate, and maintain a national control list that shall include the items that fall within Paragraph 1 above, as defined on a national basis, based on relevant UN instruments at a minimum. Each State Party shall publish its control list to the extent permitted by national law.

– B. Covered Activities

– 1. This Treaty shall apply to those activities of the international trade in conventional arms covered in paragraph a1 above, and set out in Articles 6-10, hereafter referred to as “transfer.”

– 2. This Treaty shall not apply to the international movement of conventional arms by a State Party or its agents for its armed forces or law enforcement authorities operating outside its national territories, provided they remain under the State Party’s ownership.

Article 3
Prohibited Transfers

A State Party shall not authorize any transfer of conventional arms within the scope of this Treaty if the transfer would violate any obligation under any measure adopted by the United Nations Security Council acting under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations, in particular arms embargoes.

A State Party shall not authorize any transfer of conventional arms within the scope of this Treaty if the transfer would violate its relevant international obligations, under international agreements, to which it is a Party, in particular those relating to the international transfer of, or illicit trafficking in, conventional arms.

A State Party shall not authorize a transfer of conventional arms within the scope of this Treaty for the purpose of facilitating the commission of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes constituting grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, or serious violations of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention of 1949.

Article 4
National Assessment

Each State Party, in considering whether to authorize an export of conventional arms within the scope of this Treaty, shall, prior to authorization and through national control systems, make an assessment specific to the circumstances of the transfer based on the following criteria:

Whether the proposed export of conventional arms would:

Be used to commit or facilitate serious violations of international humanitarian law;
Be used to commit or facilitate serious violations of international human rights law;
Contribute to peace and security;
Be used to commit or facilitate an act constituting an offense under international conventions and protocols relating to terrorism or transnational organized crime, to which the transferring State is a Party;

In making the assessment, the transferring State Party shall apply the criteria set out in Paragraph 2 consistently and in an objective and non-discriminatory manner and in accordance with the principles set out in this Treaty, taking into account relevant factors, including information provided by the importing State.

4. In assessing the risk pursuant to Paragraph 2, the transferring State Party may also take into consideration the establishment of risk mitigation measures including confidence-building measures and jointly developed programs by the exporting and importing State.

5. If in the view of the authorizing State Party, this assessment, which would include any actions that may be taken in accordance with Paragraph 4, constitutes a substantial risk, the State Party shall not authorize the transfer.

Article 5
Additional Obligations

Each State Party, when authorizing an export, shall consider taking feasible measures, including joint actions with other States involved in the transfer, to avoid the transferred arms:
being diverted to the illicit market;
be used to commit or facilitate gender-based violence or violence against children;
become subject to corrupt practices; or
adversely impact the development of the recipient State.

Article 6
General Implementation

Each State Party shall implement this Treaty in a consistent, objective and non-discriminatory manner in accordance with the goals and objectives of this Treaty;

The implementation of this Treaty shall not prejudice previous or future obligations undertaken with regards to international instruments, provided that those obligations are consistent with the goals and objectives of this Treaty. This Treaty shall not be cited as grounds for voiding contractual obligations under defense cooperation agreements concluded by States Parties to this Treaty.

Each State Party shall take all appropriate legislative and administrative measures necessary to implement the provisions of this Treaty and designate competent national authorities in order to have an effective, transparent and predictable national control system regulating the transfer of conventional arms;

Each State Party shall establish one or more national contact points to exchange information on matters related to the implementation of this Treaty. A State Party shall notify the Implementation Support Unit (See Article 13) of its national contact point(s) and keep the information updated.

State Parties involved in a transfer of conventional arms shall, in a manner consistent with the principles of this Treaty, take appropriate measures to prevent diversion to the illicit market or to unauthorized end-users. All State Parties shall cooperate, as appropriate, with the exporting State to that end.

If a diversion is detected the State or States Parties that made the decision shall verify the State or States Parties that could be affected by such diversion, in particulate those State Parties that are involved in the transfer, without delay.

Each State Party shall take the appropriate measures, within national laws and regulations, to regulate transfers of conventional arms within the scope of the Treaty.

Article 7
Export

Each State Party shall conduct risk assessments, as detailed in Articles 4 and 5, whether to grant authorizations for the transfer of conventional arms under the scope of this Treaty. State Parties shall apply Articles 3-5 consistently, taking into account all relevant information, including the nature and potential use of the items to be transferred and the verified end-user in the country of final destination.

Each State Party shall take measures to ensure all authorizations for the export of conventional arms under the scope of the Treaty are detailed and issued prior to the export. Appropriate and relevant details of the authorization shall be made available to the importing, transit and transshipment State Parties, upon request.

Article 8
Import

Importing State Parties shall take measures to ensure that appropriate and relevant information is provided, upon request, to the exporting State Party to assist the exporting State in its criteria assessment and to assist in verifying end users.

State Parties shall put in place adequate measures that will allow them, where necessary, to monitor and control imports of items covered by the scope of the Treaty. State Parties shall also adopt appropriate measures to prevent the diversion of imported items to unauthorized end users or to the illicit market.

Importing State Parties may request, where necessary, information from the exporting State Party concerning potential authorizations.

Article 9
Brokering

Each State Party shall take the appropriate measures, within national laws and regulations, to control brokering taking place under its jurisdiction for conventional arms within the scope of this Treaty.

Article 10
Transit and Transshipment

Each State Party shall adopt appropriate legislative, administrative or other measures to monitor and control, where necessary and feasible, conventional arms covered by this Treaty that transit or transship through territory under its jurisdiction, consistent with international law with due regard for innocent passage and transit passage;

Importing and exporting States Parties shall cooperate and exchange information, where feasible and upon request, to transit and transshipment States Parties, in order to mitigate the risk of discretion;

Article 11
Reporting, Record Keeping and Transparency

Each State Party shall maintain records in accordance with its national laws and regardless of the items referred to in Article 2, Paragraph A, with regards to conventional arms authorization or exports, and where feasible of those items transferred to their territory as the final destination, or that are authorized to transit or transship their territory, respectively.

Such records may contain: quantity, value, model/type, authorized arms transfers, arms actually transferred, details of exporting State(s), recipient State(s), and end users as appropriate. Records shall be kept for a minimum of ten years, or consistent with other international commitments applicable to the State Party.

States Parties may report to the Implementation Support Unit on an annual basis any actions taken to address the diversion of conventional arms to the illicit market.

Each State Party shall, within the first year after entry into force of this Treaty for that State Party, provide an initial report to States Parties of relevant activities undertaken in order to implement this Treaty; including inter alia, domestic laws, regulations and administrative measures. States Parties shall report any new activities undertaken in order to implement this Treaty, when appropriate. Reports shall be distributed and made public by the Implementation Support Unit.

Each State Party shall submit annually to the Implementation Support Unit by 31 May a report for the preceding calendar year concerning the authorization or actual transfer of items included in Article 2, Paragraph A1. Reports shall be distributed and made public by the Implementation Support Unit. The report submitted to the Implementation Support Unit may contain the same type of information submitted by the State Party to other relevant UN bodies, including the UN Register of Conventional Arms. Reports will be consistent with national security sensitivities or be commercially sensitive.

ARTICLE 12 
ENFORCEMENT

Each State Party shall adopt national legislation or other appropriate national measures regulations and policies as may be necessary to implement the obligations of this Treaty.

ARTICLE 13
IMPLEMENTATION SUPPORT UNIT

This Treaty hereby establishes an Implementation Support Unit to assist States Parties in its implementation.
The ISU shall consist of adequate staff, with necessary expertise to ensure the mandate entrusted to it can be effectively undertaken, with the core costs funded by States Parties.
The implementation Support Unit, within a minimized structure and responsible to States Parties, shall undertake the responsibilities assigned to it in this Treaty, inter alia:
Receive distribute reports, on behalf of the Depository, and make them publicly available;
Maintain and Distribute regularly to States Parties the up-to-date list of national contact points;
Facilitate the matching of offers and requests of assistance for Treaty implementation and promote international cooperation as requested;
Facilitate the work of the Conference of States Parties, including making arrangements and providing the necessary service es for meetings under this Treaty; and
Perform other duties as mandated by the Conference of States Parties.

ARTICLE 14
INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION

States Parties shall designate national points of contact to act as a liaison on matters relating to the implementation of this Treaty.
States Parties shall cooperate closely with one another, as appropriate, to enhance the implementation of this Treaty consistent with their respective security interests and legal and administrative systems.

States Parties are encouraged to facilitate international cooperation, including the exchange of information on matters of mutual interest regarding the implementation and application of this Treaty in accordance with their national legal system. Such voluntary exchange of information may include, inter alia, information on national implementation measures as well as information on specific exporters, importers and brokers and on any prosecutions brought domestically, consistent with commercial and proprietary protections and domestic laws, regulations and respective legal and administrative systems.

4. Each State Party is encouraged to maintain consultations and to share information, as appropriate, to support the implementation of this Treaty, including through their national contact points.

5. States Parties shall cooperate to enforce the provisions of this Treaty and combat breaches of this Treaty, including sharing information regarding illicit activities and actors to assist national enforcement and to counter and prevent diversion. States Parties may also exchange information on lessons learned in relation to any aspect of this Treaty, to develop best practices to assist national implementation.

Article 15
International Assistance

In fulfilling the obligation of this Treaty, States Parties may seek, inter alia, legal assistance, legislative assistance, technical assistance, institutional capacity building, material assistance or financial assistance. States, in a position to do so, shall provide such assistance. States Parties may contribute resources to a voluntary trust fund to assist requesting States Parties requiring such assistance to implement the Treaty.

States Parties shall afford one another the widest measure of assistance, consistent with their respective legal and administrative systems, in investigations, prosecutions and judicial proceedings in relation to the violations of the national measures implemented to comply with obligations under of the provisions of this Treaty.

Each State Party may offer or receive assistance, inter alia, through the United Nations international, regional, subregional or national organizations, non-governmental organizations or on a bi-lateral basis. Such assistance may include technical, financial, material and other forms of assistance as needed, upon request.

Article 16
Signature, Ratification, Acceptance, Approval or Accession

This Treaty shall be open for signature on [date] at the United Nations Headquarters in New York by all States and regional integration organizations.
This Treaty is subject to ratification, acceptance or approval of the Signatories.
This Treaty shall be open for accession by any state and regional integration organization that has not signed the Treaty.

4. The instruments of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession shall be deposited with the Depositary.

5. The Depositary shall promptly inform all signatory and acceding States and regional integration organizations of the date of each signature, the date of deposit of each instrument of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession and the date of the entry into force of this Treaty, and of the receipt of notices.

6. “Regional integration organization” shall mean an organization constituted by sovereign States of a given region, to which its Member States have transferred competence in respect of matters governed by this Treaty and which has been duly authorized, in accordance with its internal procedures, to sign, ratify, accept, approve or accede to it.

7. At the time of its ratification, acceptance, approval or accession, a regional integration organization shall declare the extent of its competence with respect to matters governed by this Treaty. Such organizations shall also inform the Depositary of any relevant modifications in the extent of it competence.

8. References to “State Parties” in the present Treaty shall apply to such organizations within the limits of their competence.

Article 17
Entry into Force

This Treaty shall enter into force thirty days following the date of the deposit of the sixty-fifth instrument of ratification, acceptance or approval with the Depositary.

For any State or regional integration organization that deposits its instruments of accession subsequent to the entry into force of the Treaty, the Treaty shall enter into force thirty days following the date of deposit of its instruments of accession.

For the purpose of Paragraph 1 and 2 above, any instrument deposited by a regional integration organization shall not be counted as additional to those deposited by Member States of that organization.

Article 18
Withdrawal and Duration

This Treaty shall be of unlimited duration.

Each State Party shall, in exercising its national sovereignty, have the right to withdraw from this Convention. It shall give notice of such withdrawal to all other States Parties from this Convention. It shall give notice of such withdrawal to all other States Parties and to the Depositary. The instrument of withdrawal shall include a full explanation of the reasons motivating this withdrawal.

A state shall not be discharged, by reason of its withdrawal, from the obligations arising from this treaty while it was a party to the Treaty, including any financial obligations, which may have accrued.

Article 19
Reservations

Each State party, in exercising its national sovereignty, may formulate reservations unless the reservation is incompatible with the object and purpose of this Treaty.

Article 20
Amendments

At any time after the Treaty’s entry into force, a State Party may propose an amendment to this Treaty.

Any proposed amendment shall be submitted in writing to the Depository, which will then circulate the proposal to all States Parties, not less than 180 days before next meeting of the Conference of States Parties. The amendment shall be considered at the next Conference of States Parties if a majority of States Parties notify the Implementation Support Unit that they support further consideration of the proposal no later than 180 days after its circulation by the Depositary.

Any amendment to this Treaty shall be adopted by consensus, or if consensus is not achieved, by two-thirds of the States Parties present and voting at the Conference of States Parties. The Depositary shall communicate any amendment to all States Parties.

A proposed amendment adopted in accordance with Paragraph 3 of this Article shall enter into force for all States Parties to the Treaty that have accepted it, upon deposit with the Depositary. Thereafter, it shall enter into force for any remaining State Party on the date of deposit of its instrument of accession.

Article 21
Conference of States Parties

The Conference of States Parties shall be convened not later than once a year following the entry into force of this Treaty. The Conference of States Parties shall adopt rules of procedure and rules governing its activities, including the frequency of meetings and rules concerning payment of expenses incurred in carrying out those activities.

The Conference of States Parties shall:
a. Consider and adopt recommendations regarding the implementation of this Treaty, in particular the promotion of its universality; TR

b. Consider amendments to this Treaty;

c. Consider and decide the work and budget of the Implementation Support Unit;

d. Consider the establishment of any subsidiary bodies as may be necessary to improve the functioning of the Treaty;

e. Perform any other function consistent with this Treaty.

3. If circumstances merit, an exceptional meeting of the State Parties may be convened if required and resources allow.

Article 22
Dispute Settlement

States Parties shall consult and cooperate with each other to settle any dispute that may arise with regard to the interpretation or application of this Treaty.
States Parties shall settle any dispute between them concerning the interpretation or application of this Treat though negotiations or other peaceful means of the Parties mutual choice.
States Parties may pursue, by mutual consent, third party arbitration to settle any dispute between them, regarding issues concerning the implementation of this Treaty.

Article 23
Relations with States not party to this Treaty

States Parties shall apply Articles 3-5 to all transfers of conventional arms within the scope of this Treaty to those not party to this Treaty.

Article 24
Relationship with other instruments

States Parties shall have the right to enter into agreements on the trade in conventional arms with regards to the international trade in conventional arms, provided that those agreements are compatible with their obligations under this Treaty and do not undermine the objects and purposes of this Treaty.

Article 25
Depositary and Authentic Texts

The Secretary-General of the United Nations is the Depositary of this Treaty.
The original text of this Treaty, of which the Arabic, Chinese, English, Russian and Spanish texts are equally authentic.

(Emphasis in bold added by this author for help in analysis)

Will The Real James Holmes Please Stand Up?

I made this picture to see if people could see the difference. Please Share this article.
I would like the note the difference in the noses. One is clearly pointed.