Top Secret! Clear Evidence that Flight 77 Hit The Pentagon on 9/11: a Parody - Simon Sackville Evidence That a Frozen Fish Didn't Impact the Pentagon on 9/11 - and Neither Did a Boeing 757 - Joe Quinn Neoconservatism, the Israeli Lobby, and other Power Relations - Andrés Perez-Alonso Political Ponerology - Laura Knight-Jadczyk 94% - Laura Knight-Jadczyk Signs Monthly News Roundups! June 2005
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Bush Approval Rating Falls to Record Low, Poll Shows
A total of 58 percent of those surveyed by today’s Newsweek poll said they disapprove of how Bush is handling his job...
Impeachment Poll
Back in June, Zogby asked Americans if they agreed or disagreed with
the following question: "If
President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to
war with Iraq, Congress should consider holding him accountable through
impeachment." An astonishing 42 percent of Americans agreed.
Nowhere to run
There is a remarkable article in the latest issue of the American Jewish
weekly, Forward.
It calls for President Bush to be impeached and put on trial "for
misleading the American people, and launching the most foolish war
since Emperor Augustus in 9 BC sent his legions into Germany and lost
them".
Bush job approval falls to new low of 34 percent: poll
Vice President lied as White House sought to defuse leak inquiry
Did Vice President Dick Cheney help cover-up the outing of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson in the months after conservative columnist Robert Novak first disclosed her identity? … Friday’s grand jury indictment sheds new light on a pattern of strategic deception by the Vice President and the White House to defuse an inquiry into who leaked the name… Months after Plame’s identity was disclosed by conservative columnist Robert Novak, Cheney continued to hide the fact that he and his aides were intimately involved in disseminating classified information about her to journalists.
America is facing the mother of all Constitutional
crises -- and the media remains silent. Will Plamegate lead to the collapse
of the Bush presidency or even impeachment? I seem to recall reading similar words over
two years ago when this story was first broken by the alternative, internet
media, which a full year before I ever heard it mentioned in the mainstream.
A Grave Indictment, but Grave Questions Remain
Fitzgerald knows far more than what is in the Libby indictment. But the American public may never learn what he has uncovered. There might be no further indictments, and Fitzgerald dismissed the idea of writing a final report… after the government has paid for a two-year investigation, the public may be left in the dark about much of what happened in the leak case. The leakers may never be held accountable. Rove’s role, Bush’s knowledge, Cheney’s potential involvement--all of that could remain a secret, even though Fitzgerald has apparently dug deep and unearthed much of the tale… When a reporter asked Fitzgerald if he had learned how Washington works, he replied, "Yes," and said no more. [...]
Dubya-Cheney ties frayed by scandal
The CIA leak scandal has peeled back the veil on the most closely held White House secret of all: the subtle but unmistakable erosion in the bond between President Bush and Vice President Cheney. "The relationship is not what it was," a presidential counselor said. "There has been some distance for some time." [...]
Some conservatives question Rove’s future
Breaking
with the White House and fellow conservatives, Republican Sen. Trent
Lott and the head of the Cato Institute questioned on Tuesday whether
top White House adviser Karl Rove, who remains in legal jeopardy in
a CIA-leak probe, should keep his policy-making job… Lott
of Mississippi and William Niskanen of the libertarian Cato Institute
both echoed Democratic calls for a White House shake-up.
Karl
Rove’s colleagues
don’t know exactly when it will happen, but they are already
laying out the reasons they will give for the departure of the man
President George W. Bush dubbed the architect… The
expected departures are among a host of new signs suggesting that Bush’s
sixth year in office--the last one before midterm elections and a turn
in attention toward the 2008 race to succeed him--will be very different
from his first five.
An excerpt from Scooter Libby’s novel gives a nice
insight to his thinking:
At age ten the madam put the
child in a cage with a bear trained to couple with young girls so the
girls would be frigid and not fall in love with their patrons. They
fed her through the bars and aroused the bear with a stick when it
seemed to lose interest. [...] Family
values just ooze from this, don’t
they?
DeLay gets new judge in Texas case
A
judge presiding over the money laundering and conspiracy case involving
U.S. Republican Rep. Tom DeLay, one of America’s
most powerful politicians, was ordered to step aside on Tuesday after
DeLay’s attorneys said the judge was too staunchly Democrat to
give a fair trial… [DeLay’s] efforts
contributed to Republicans taking control of the Texas Legislature for
the first time since the Reconstruction era after the U.S. Civil War,
and then remapping congressional districts to increase the number of
Republicans in the U.S. House. Earle said the several thousand dollars
Perkins had given Democrats over the years was "paltry" in
comparison to how much money DeLay has raised and in some cases, used
in "intimidating judges with whom he disagreed."
This is a man who calls the Environmental Protection Agency "the Gestapo of government" and favors repealing the Clean Air Act because "it’s never been proven that air toxins are hazardous to people"; who insists repeatedly that judges on the other side of issues "need to be intimidated" and rejects the idea of a separation of church and state; who claims there are no parents trying to raise families on the minimum wage—that "fortunately, such families do not exist" (at least Newt Gingrich was intrigued by the challenges of poverty); who once said: "A woman can’t take care of the family. It takes a man to provide structure." I could go on all day. Congress has always had its share of extremists. But the DeLay era is the first time the fringe has ever been in charge.
Bush critics say US is losing war on terror
U.S. terrorism experts Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon have reached a stark conclusion about the war on terrorism: the United States is losing.
Thousands protest across US on anniversary of Bush re-election
Bush’s Popularity Reaches New Low
The 'Agonizing Political Decline' of George W. Bush
With Katrina, 'Plamegate' the situation in Iraq and ’the rash of scandal' spreading, Bush’s poll numbers have never been lower. He is even accused of having misled Congress and the nation about Saddam and his WMDs. According to this op-ed article from the Tunis Hebdo of Tunisia, ’the crook Nixon fell flat on his face for less than that.'
The failure of Bush’s FEMA to deal with the Katrina catastrophe can not be hidden forever from the public. Nor can the loss of manufacturing jobs and their export overseas. Nor can the rising price of gasoline and the obscene profits of the oil companies. Nor can the upward redistribution of national wealth from the producers to the owners of that wealth. Nor can the corruption and the consequent indictments or investigations of the malefactors: DeLay, Safavian, Frist, Libby, Abramoff, and now Tomlinson. Nor can the horrendous tales of torture in Bush’s Gulag. Nor can the shredding of our Constitution and the loss of our “inalienable rights.” Nor can the mounting casualties from the Iraq war…
ImpeachPAC Announces First Congressional Endorsement
"The crowd went crazy," Trupiano said in
an interview. "I mean the crowd absolutely went nuts. Some people
who are consulting for the campaign said they cringed when I said impeachment,
but when they saw how the crowd reacted they breathed easier. You know,
we shouldn’t be afraid of impeachment. Impeachment is there for
a reason. If the President has not lied to us, if he is innocent of all
of these charges, give us a chance to investigate. Impeachment is a non-partisan
idea. It is the way to hold the government accountable."
…what if he was used, unwittingly, his callous cruel arrogant nature exploited by those who really are Evil Incarnate, and who are going to make him go down in the "History" he alternately validates and despises as the worst and stupidest president ever? How painful for the spoiled brat, who as Texas governor mocked a born-again Christian death-row inmate, pursing his lips to the camera in mock desperation cracking that she'd pleaded, "Please, don’t kill me!" before he happily decreed her death. How painful for a child of privilege accustomed to abusing everybody else to wake up and discover he’s been had by people far more aware and intelligent than him.
Bush Mocks Karla
Tucker on Death Row, “Please don’t kill me.”
What are the signs
of creeping totalitarianism? Certainly
the gradual stripping of freedoms from the public, ever-tightening
control over the lives of ordinary people, and growth of the powers
of the executive leaders. How about the government spying on its
own people, suppressing alternative political opinions, grinding
down the poor and middle classes so that they haven’t the leisure
to examine what’s happening to them? How
about being surprised by policies that were deliberated and decided
upon in secret, without public consent? And when this happens in
the face of obvious lies and deceit and the suppression of investigation
on the part of those leaders, you ought to know you’re in serious
trouble. It’s possible that most Americans
don’t even realize what has already been lost and the danger
they are now in.
The Police State Is Closer Than You Think
Police states are easier to acquire than Americans appreciate. The hysterical aftermath of September 11 has put into place the main components of a police state. Habeas corpus is the greatest protection Americans have against a police state. Habeas corpus ensures that Americans can only be detained by law. They must be charged with offenses, given access to attorneys, and brought to trial. Habeas corpus prevents the despotic practice of picking up a person and holding him indefinitely. President Bush claims the power to set aside habeas corpus and to dispense with warrants for arrest and with procedures that guarantee court appearance and trial without undue delay. Today in the US, the executive branch [the president] claims the power to arrest a citizen on its own initiative and hold the citizen indefinitely. Thus, Americans are no longer protected from arbitrary arrest and indefinite detention. These new "seize and hold" powers strip the accused of the protective aspects of law and give rein to selectivity and arbitrariness…
…fascism’s principles are wafting in the
air today, surreptitiously masquerading as something else, challenging
everything we stand for. The cliché that people and nations learn
from history is not only overused, but also overestimated... Laurence
Britt identifies 14 characteristics common to fascist regimes. His comparisons
of Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Suharto, and Pinochet yielded this list
of 14 "identifying characteristics of fascism." Read on for the familiar list.
When
people think of fascism, they imagine Rows of goose-stepping storm
troopers and puffy-chested dictators. What they don’t see is
the economic and political process that leads to the nightmare. Big
business is very well off, and successive Canadian and U.S. governments,
of whatever political stripe, have made this their primary objective
for at least the past 25 years. Fascist dictatorships were borne
to power in Germany and Italy by big business, and they served the interests
of big business with remarkable ferocity… Before
the rise of fascism, Germany and Italy were, on paper, liberal democracies…
The
Congressional Millionaires Club
There
is little reason for anyone to be confused by the events leading up
to the unraveling of America. All one has to do is ignore the rhetoric
and simply follow the money to reveal the hidden mechanisms that are
operating the American government… The influence of
corporate money in politics has made a mockery of the whole political
process. Remember that Mussolini’s own definition of fascism
is “a merger of government and corporate power.” Read
the article for many examples.
Tom DeLay and the GOP: Milking the system to live high on the
hog
“There’s no shame in hitting up a lobbyist.” Stephen Brown, vice president and general counsel at Dutko Worldwide, told The Hill. “That’s why God gave you lobbyists — to buy lunch.”
A growing
wariness about money in politics
Lobbyist,
lawmakers face possible prosecutions — and ballot box uprising.
Storm Clouds Gathering: Scandal could take in at least a dozen
in Congress
Last week’s guilty plea by Abramoff’s onetime partner, a former top aide to the beleaguered Rep. Tom DeLay, darkened the skies further. Michael Scanlon’s admission he had conspired to bribe public officials and defrauded four Indian gaming casinos of millions in fees effectively makes him the government’s star witness in a probe that threatens to ensnare officials throughout the nation’s capital. U.S. News has learned that the conduct of at least a dozen representatives and senators is now being scrutinized by a small army of federal prosecutors and FBI agents.
Bush says congressman taking bribes 'outrageous'
, America, sleep. Sleep the dreamy, undisturbed sleep of the contented. Breathe deeply to the cadence of our president’s lullaby: "We are strong, you are safe, go to sleep."
The Grave Threat Is the Bush Administration
The war… no longer serves the Republicans’ political interest and must be got rid of… but the police state Bush built at home is still in place. The Pentagon is expanding its domestic surveillance activity and that all sorts of proposals are afoot to allow military agencies to spy on law-abiding Americans and to build secret dossiers on citizens. The demand for police state powers is said to be necessary in order to fight the "war on terror." Terrorist attacks in America are even more rare than an honest politician…
Ex-intel Official: Bush Admin Will Restrict Liberties After Next
Terror Attack
"In a time of fear, I believe that the majority of the American people will cling to authority," Ellsberg told the gathering at Columbia High School for New Jersey Peace Action’s annual luncheon. "And if there is another terror attack," Ellsberg added sarcastically, "I believe the president will get what he wants. And what he wants is a new Patriot Act, one that will make the current Patriot Act look like the Bill of Rights."
According
to a printout from a computer controlled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation
and the U.S. Department of Justice, I am an enemy of the state… Although the file
finds no criminal activity by me or members of my immediate family,
it remains open because I
am a "person of interest" who has "written and promoted
opinions that are contrary to the government of the United States of
America." [...] According
to my file, the banks where I have both business and checking accounts
have been forced to turn over all records of my transactions, as have
every company where I have a charge account or credit card… Read the
entire article to get a good look at how paranoid the administration
is, and how serious they are about crushing dissent.
White House keeps dossiers on more than 10,000 'political enemies'
Spurred by paranoia and aided by the USA Patriot Act,
the Bush Administration has compiled dossiers on more than 10,000 Americans
it considers political enemies and uses those files to wage war on those
who disagree with its policies. [...] Capitol
Hill Blue has spoken with a number of current and former administration
officials who acknowledge existence of the enemies list only under a
guarantee of confidentiality. Those who have seen
the list say it is far more extensive than Richard Nixon’s famous “enemies
list” of Watergate fame or Bill Clinton’s dossiers on political
enemies.
Feds Using ISPs to Spy on Internet Users
Having
recently reported how ISPs are being pressurized into revealing information
on internet users, the USA stands on the threshold of a far more ominous
threat to privacy that will force ISPs to allow a wide range of law
enforcement agencies direct real time access to their own systems…
Pentagon Expanding Its Domestic Surveillance Activity
The
Defense Department has expanded its programs aimed at gathering and
analyzing intelligence within the United States, creating new agencies,
adding personnel and seeking additional legal authority for domestic
security activities… Read for
information on expansion of the little-known CIFA agency in the Pentagon.
Our new COINTELPRO, run by military intelligence and
probably the CIA, will make the old COINTELPRO pale in comparison. More about CIFA. Every
American should know about counterintelligence programs (COINTEPRO). Intelligence
is finding out truth, counterintelligence is about suppressing it and
hiding it – from you and everyone outside the inner circles of
power. Read up on COINTELPRO. So much for transparent government.
COINTELPRO: The Untold American Story
In Hunt for Terrorists, Bureau Examines Records of Ordinary Americans
The
FBI came calling in Windsor, Conn., this summer with a document marked
for delivery by hand…They gave George Christian
the letter, which warned him to tell no one, ever, what it said. Under
the shield and stars of the FBI crest, the letter directed Christian
to surrender "all
subscriber information, billing information and access logs of any person"
who used a specific computer at a library branch some distance away. Christian,
who manages digital records for three dozen Connecticut libraries,
said in an affidavit that he configures his system for privacy. But
the vendors of the software he operates said their databases can reveal
the Web sites that visitors browse, the e-mail accounts they open and
the books they borrow. Christian
refused to hand over those records… The FBI now issues
more than 30,000 national security letters a year, according to government
sources, a hundredfold increase over historic norms. The letters --
one of which can be used to sweep up the records of many people --
are extending the bureau’s reach as never before into the telephone
calls, correspondence and financial lives of ordinary Americans… [...] The
House and Senate have voted to make noncompliance
with a national security letter a criminal offense. The House would
also impose a prison term for breach of secrecy.
German Priest, Martin Nimoeller was one
of the victims of the Nazi
regime in the 1930’s. After the war, he stated:
First they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Next they came for Communists
But I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for Trade Unionists
Ann I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade Unionist.
Then they came for Catholics
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a catholic
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak for me.
Giving airline data to US illegal: EU court
The European Union’s transfer of airline passenger data to the
United States -- part of U.S. efforts to fight terrorism -- should be
declared illegal, an adviser to the European Union’s highest court
said on Tuesday.
EU setting up system of spy satellites
The European Union is building its own network of spy satellites, allowing
Brussels to ensure nations and private individuals are obeying its policies.
The multibillion-dollar system, known as Global Monitoring for Environment
and Security, should be up and running by 2010, a commission spokesman
said Monday.
The Case of Ahmed Abu Ali: The Shocking Trial of an American Citizen
Ahmed Abu Ali is an American--a resident of Falls Church, Virginia. In the summer of 2003, Abu Ali was taking final exams in a Saudi Arabian university, and looking forward to returning home to his family in Northern Virginia for the summer. But Abu Ali did not come home. Instead, Saudi law enforcement authorities forcibly removed him from his classroom and imprisoned him for twenty months…
US Senate measure prevents legal challenges from terrorist suspects
The US Senate has passed a measure that would prevent terrorist suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba from challenging their detention in US courts, which the US Supreme Court allowed last year.
Bush Picks Alito for Supreme Court
1,000th execution slated for next week
An execution once every 10 days since moratorium lifted -- "Let’s do it."
With those last words, convicted killer Gary Gilmore ushered in
the modern era of capital punishment in the United States, an age of busy death chambers that will likely see its 1,000th execution
in the coming days. After a 10-year moratorium, Gilmore in 1977 became
the first person executed following a 1976 U.S. Supreme Court decision
that validated state laws to reform the capital punishment system. Those death chambers are likely to get a lot busier if
Alito gets on the Supreme Court and the neocons are able to continue
their clampdown less fettered.
The
Internal Revenue Service has warned one of Southern California’s
largest and most liberal churches that it is at risk of losing its
tax-exempt status because of an antiwar sermon two days before the
2004 presidential election. [...] On June 9, the church received a
letter from the IRS stating that "a
reasonable belief exists that you may not be tax-exempt as a church … " The federal tax code prohibits tax-exempt organizations, including
churches, from intervening in political campaigns and elections.
Tracking phones for traffic reports
Several state transportation agencies, including those
in Maryland and Virginia, are beginning to test technology that allows
them to monitor traffic by tracking cellphone signals and mapping them
against road grids. The technology highlights how readily cellphones
can become tracking devices for companies or government agencies - a
development that troubles privacy advocates. When it gets to the point where you can read something
like this in the paper, you should suspect strongly that its development
is already well beyond what is suggested – its
military application is probably already mature and working.
Miami Police Take New Tack Against Terror
Miami police announced Monday they will stage random
shows of force at hotels, banks and other public places to keep terrorists
guessing and remind people to be vigilant. What the??? They
mean to keep ordinary citizens scared to death. What will those citizens
do when they find out that there are and never were any “terrorists” of
the sort they were told?
FBI Patriot Act Plan Concerns Lawmakers
Under the Patriot Act, the FBI issues more than 30,000 national security letters allowing the investigations each year, a hundred-fold increase over historic norms, The Washington Post reported Sunday, quoting unnamed government sources.
Congress May Curb Some Patriot Act Powers
Even with the changes, however, every part of the law set to expire Dec. 31 would be reauthorized and most of those provisions would become permanent.
CIA runs secret terrorism prisons abroad
… virtually
nothing is known about who the detainees are, how they are interrogated
or about decisions on how long they will be held… Readers
will tend to assume that these prisons have nothing to do with them,
but the executive has already assumed the power to label anyone (US
citizens included) a terrorist at will, kidnap you, and imprison you
anywhere they like, without charges. You
are subject to this now. And
as the next article shows, no one can find you.
U.S. Has Detained 83,000 in War on Terror
Enough prisoners to nearly fill the NFL’s largest stadium...
EU May Suspend Nations With Secret Prisons
EU
Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Franco Frattini warned Monday
any EU nation found to have operated secret CIA prisons could have
their EU voting rights suspended.
CIA flight probes make governments squirm
A wave of investigations into whether the CIA broke laws and violated human rights while using Europe as a hub for secret transfers of terrorist suspects poses awkward questions for both European governments and Washington. Pressure has grown on all sides in the past week to explain dozens of flights criss-crossing the continent by CIA planes, some suspected of delivering prisoners to jails in third countries where they may have been mistreated or tortured.
Opposition suspects CIA planes landed in Portugal
Portugal’s left-wing opposition asked the government on Wednesday to explain a news report suggesting that CIA airplanes had used airports in Portugal to transport Islamic militant suspects.
EU to Investigate Secret CIA Gulags
Human Rights Watch said it matched the flight patterns of the CIA aircraft with testimony from some of the hundreds of detainees in the war on terrorism who have been released by the United States. [...] "We have been using flight logs of CIA rendition aircraft combined with some witness testimony of people who have been released from Guantanamo and Afghanistan to paint a picture of how the CIA is moving prisoners from Afghanistan to secret detention facilities worldwide," said Garlasco, a former civilian intelligence officer with the Defense Intelligence Agency. [...]
Inquiries into ’secret CIA detention centres'
US Torture is being investigated by EU Council
U.S. Will Address E.U. Questions on CIA Prisons
Bush and Hitler: What The ’torture Memos' Reveal
On
May 13, 1941, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, the head of the Armed Forces
High Command, issued an order in Hitler’s
name, severely limiting functions of the military courts martial system,
and virtually giving immunity to German forces for war crimes against
Russians: "With regard to offenses committed against enemy civilians
by members of the Wehrmacht, prosecution is not obligatory, even where
the deed is at the same time a military crime or offense." Read
the article for a history of the steps taken by the Bush administration
to legalize torture. We’ve
already seen that despite its widespread use, as policy, only a few show
trials of low-level service people have resulted.
Tortured Truth: Bush says the U.S. doesn’t abuse detainees, but the evidence says otherwise
…Dick Cheney has kept right on pushing for a free hand in dealing with detainees, even as the UN is asking European officials to look into the secret holding facilities.
Vice president exposed as being above the law, just like the commander in chief. "Vice President Cheney is aggressively pursuing an initiative that may be unprecedented for an elected official of the executive branch: He is proposing that Congress legally authorize human rights abuses by Americans. . . . He will be remembered as the vice president who campaigned for torture." Vice President Cheney is the man who unleashed torture and promoted it within our military and our intelligence service.
Torture Under the Philosophical Guidance of Cheney
According to retired U.S. Army Col. Larry Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s chief of staff, the “philosophical guidance” of Dick Cheney is behind Bush’s rape and torture gulag. “There’s no question in my mind where the philosophical guidance and the flexibility in order to do so originated—in the vice president of the United States’ office. His implementer in this case was Donald Rumsfeld and the defense department…
CIA interrogates in a unique way, claims its chief
The head of the CIA [Porter Goss] waded into the debate
over the treatment of detainees yesterday, saying it questioned
prisoners in a "variety of unique and innovative ways" but
did not torture them… He added pointedly, however, that the techniques prohibited by such a
ban had yielded vital intelligence in the fight against terrorism. So, he said the CIA doesn’t torture, but that they’ve
gotten some great information by torturing. Doublespeak
anyone?
GOP Leaders Urge Probe in Secret Prisons Leak
Lawmakers from both parties immediately expressed misgivings about the request. Democrats pounced on it, suggesting that if the GOP leaders believe the disclosure of information on secret prisons deserves to be investigated, so does the leak of inaccurate intelligence on Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction and White House officials identifying Plame as a covert CIA operative. [...]
GOP
hypocritically calls for probe of CIA secret prison leak
Rumsfeld: U.S. Right To Keep U.N. From Detainees
Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says the government was right to keep United
Nations human rights investigators from meeting with detainees at Guantanamo
Bay… Many of the nearly 500 prisoners
at Guantanamo Bay have been held for more than three and a half years
without being charged or having access to lawyers.
Ex-Official Speaks Out on Prison Abuse
Ex-commander of Abu Ghraib prison says she was a scapegoat
The former US commander of Abu Ghraib prison says that she was held up unfairly as a scapegoat by "male warriors" but the real blame for the abuse scandal rests with military leaders and the White House…
Is America above the Geneva Conventions?
The debate over an anti-torture bill is a sad moment for a country that once stood for human rights. This administration is now openly and baldly saying that it claims the right to torture, at its discretion. All the fictions that sustained the war on terror -- that abuses were one-time mistakes by low-level grunts; that the rules about human rights weren’t clear; that soldiers didn’t understand the parameters when they beat and humiliated and tortured prisoners -- have been replaced by a clear declaration: The United States is going to torture people as it sees fit…
The Senate agrees to Imprisonment without Charges
It’s like voting for an end to freedom. And, yet, this is exactly what happened on Friday, November 11, when the Senate passed the Graham amendment which overturns an earlier Supreme Court ruling [that allowed] Guantanamo detainees to challenge their imprisonment in federal court. None of the Guantanamo inmates have ever been charged with a crime. The Senate vote ensures that they never will.
Bush and his zealots have succeeded in bringing Iraq ever closer to becoming a theocratic regime closely allied with Iran … Bush has destroyed the trust and admiration for his country that so many people in the region used to have.
Torture and the Empire: Who We Are
Even his supporters acknowledge that Bush’s policies have created enormous ill will throughout the world. More ethically worrisome, cried his critics, those policies don’t represent who we really are. Most Americans, for example, abhor torture.
173 prisoners found beaten and starved in Iraq government bunker
A deputy interior minister said he was stunned by their treatment. "I've never seen such a situation like this during the past two years in Baghdad. This is the worst," he told CNN. "I saw signs of physical abuse by brutal beating, one or two detainees were paralysed and some had their skin peeled off."
Some Apparently Tortured Detainees Found
Iraq’s prime minister said Tuesday that 173 Iraqi
detainees — malnourished and showing signs of torture — were
found at an Interior Ministry basement lockup seized by U.S. forces in
Baghdad. The discovery appeared to validate Sunni complaints of abuse
by the Shiite-controlled ministry…
Detainee Policy Sharply Divides Bush Officials
The
Bush administration is embroiled in a sharp internal debate over whether
a new set of Defense Department standards for handling terror suspects
should adopt language from the Geneva Conventions prohibiting
"cruel," "humiliating" and "degrading" treatment,
administration officials say. Advocates…
contend that moving the military’s detention policies closer to
international law would prevent further abuses and build support overseas
for the fight against Islamic extremists… Their opponents, who include aides to Vice President Dick
Cheney and some senior Pentagon officials, have argued
strongly that the proposed language is vague, would tie the government’s
hands in combating terrorists and still would not satisfy America’s
critics, officials said. In other words, powerful forces at the highest level of
government want more secrecy and free hand to torture people. Some people
are born with conscience, others are not.
The Washington Post Gets Scooped - On Purpose?
Yesterday
we wrote about the Washington Post’s
decision not to disclose the "Eastern
European democracies" in which the CIA set up its clandestine "black
sites" -- interrogation centers where U.S. laws do not apply
to the treatment of suspected terrorists. We wondered if the fact that
the CIA was operating inside "democracies" with their own laws
didn’t defeat the purpose… By withholding the country names, the
Post is directly enabling the rendition, secret detention, and torture
of prisoners at these locations to continue. That is a ghastly responsibility."
White House defends fight against torture ban
Cheney’s 'Dark Side' Is Showing
… Cheney is on a passionate, mostly secret and sometimes lonely campaign to prevent Congress from approving prohibitions against torture… Cheney has waged an intense and largely unpublicized campaign to stop Congress, the Pentagon and the State Department from imposing more restrictive rules on the handling of terrorist suspects, according to defense, state, intelligence and congressional officials… Increasingly, however, Cheney’s positions are being opposed by other administration officials, including Cabinet members, political appointees and Republican lawmakers who once stood firmly behind the administration on all matters concerning terrorism…
Cheney wants to give free rein to prison interrogators
Report Warned C.I.A. on Tactics In Interrogation
A classified report issued last year by the Central Intelligence Agency’s inspector general warned that interrogation procedures approved by the C.I.A. after the Sept. 11 attacks might violate some provisions of the international Convention Against Torture, current and former intelligence officials say.
If Cheney’s for torture, why not use it on Scooter?
If Dick Cheney is pushing for
the authority to torture terror suspects to find out what they know
and what threats they pose to national security, why would he be opposed
to using the same methods on his former chief of staff?
Dick Cheney: Sabotaging America
As Karen Hughes goes about her urgent job of trying to repair America’s disastrously debased image throughout the world -- especially the Muslim world -- she is being undercut by what has become her mission’s worst nightmare. Dick Cheney.
Ex - Powell Aide Criticizes Bush on Iraq
In
an Associated Press interview Monday, former Powell chief of staff
Lawrence Wilkerson also said that wrongheaded ideas for the handling
of foreign detainees after Sept. 11 arose from a coterie of White House
and Pentagon aides who argued that '’the president
of the United States is all-powerful,'' and that the Geneva Conventions
were irrelevant.
Cheney 'created climate for US war crimes'
Wilkerson sez: Under Mr Cheney’s protection, "the Secretary of Defence moved out to do what they wanted to do in the first place". Asked whether the Vice-President was guilty of a war crime, Col Wilkerson said it was "an interesting question". It was certainly a domestic crime "to advocate terror", and "I would suspect it is for whatever it’s worth, an international crime as well".
Some light is thrown on a shadowy and malign force
Mr
Cheney has all along held two overriding beliefs. The first is in the
supreme power of the presidency, a power that frees Mr Bush of the
need to observe the constraints of international agreements. The second
is that Islamic terrorism represents an existential threat to the United
States. Therefore all means to defeat it are legitimate. From this
mindset stem most of the decisions that have stained America’s
reputation: the reckless treatment of pre-war intelligence on weapons
of mass destruction, ignoring the views of the UN and the International
Atomic Energy Agency, the prison abuse scandals in Afghanistan, at Guantanamo
Bay and Abu Ghraib - even the use of white phosphorus in Fallujah. Perhaps
the most poignant of Mr Wilkerson’s claims this week was his recollection
of General Powell once screaming down a phone to the Defence Secretary
as the international furore grew about the US treatment of prisoners: "Donald, don’t you understand
what you are doing to our image?" Even if they understood, Donald
and Dick evidently did not care.
White House Briefing: McClellan Deflects Questions on Torture
Exemption A Couple Dozen Times
British-trained police in Iraq 'killed prisoners with drills'
British-trained
police operating in Basra have tortured at least two civilians to death
with electric drills, The Independent on Sunday can reveal. John Reid,
the Secretary of State for Defence, admits that he knows of "alleged deaths in custody" and other "serious
prisoner abuse" at al-Jamiyat police station, which was reopened
by Britain after the war. Militia-dominated
police, who were recruited by Britain, are believed to have tortured
at least two men to death in the station. Their bodies were later found
with drill holes to their arms, legs and skulls.
Alexis Ponce: "The Mossad trained the Ecuadorean police in torture techniques"
“The Mossad trained the Ecuadorean police in torture techniques between 1986 and 1994,” said Alexis Ponce during the Axis for Peace international conference, organized by Voltaire Network on November 17-18, 2005, in Brussels. “The Israeli secret services gave technical support to the tyranny that stained Ecuador with blood…
Torture claims 'forced US to cut terror charges'
Dutch Foreign Minister Bot Warns US On Human Rights
Bot declined to say at what stage the Netherlands might no longer want to collaborate with the US. "This remains a weighing-up of the interests of the fight against terrorism on the one hand and respect for human rights on the other." Bot added: "We must not now say definitively: there lies the point beyond which we will not go. We are involved in operations with the Americans; we will carry on with these and we put the emphasis on proper treatment of prisoners and compliance with the Geneva Conventions."
Robert Fisk on Torture: "We Have Become the Criminals...We Have No Further Moral Cause to Fight For"
Torture’s out. Now they call it abuse
U.S. Senate proves as disdainful of the Constitution as George W. Bush. Be forewarned. These are weighty and momentous considerations that go far beyond the detainees at Guantánamo. . . [This amendment] . . . takes away jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of the United States. It is untenable and unthinkable and ought to be rejected. …would effectively close our federal courts to any charges of abuse, including torture, of Guantánamo prisoners. The amendment passed 84 to 14.
If we, the people, allow government leaders to commit unnamed, unaccounted-for tortures upon those we hold in far-flung gulags – in “support” of a war that these leaders can’t explain to the American people or the world – it won’t be surprising when, in the event of domestic chaos at home, they visit like horrors upon their own citizens. Since Katrina, the mention of martial law is trendy in government circles and in the media. The trouble is: it’s a short conceptual leap from the pushing of a recalcitrant homeowner out of a hurricane zone at the end of a federal bayonet, to the violent dispersal of angry crowds gathered to voice disapproval of a fascist state.
Rove’s Security Clearance Widely Questioned
… in the White House, where Karl Rove is under federal investigation for his role in the exposure of a covert CIA officer, the longtime advisor to President Bush continues to enjoy full access to government secrets. That is drawing the attention of intelligence experts and prominent conservatives as a debate brews over whether Rove should retain his top- secret clearance and remain in his post as White House deputy chief of staff…
Rove aide called back to testify as inquiry into Rove’s role wraps up, lawyers say
According to Rawstory, Prosecutor Fitzgerald is trying to determine if Karl Rove made false statements during his grand jury testimony and misleading statements to Justice Department and FBI investigators when he was first interviewed about his role in the Plame leak case in October 2003…
Fitzgerald sees new grand jury proceedings
Patrick Fitzgerald said on Friday his investigation would be going back before a grand jury. Lawyers in the case said the investigation could be moving into a new phase that could result in charges against other top administration officials. President George W. Bush’s top political adviser, Karl Rove, was told by prosecutors last month that he remained under investigation and could still be charged, lawyers said.
New twist in CIA leak case dents White House hopes
BUSH LABOR DEPARTMENT MADE SWEETHEART DEAL WITH WAL-MART
The
Labor Department’s inspector general strongly
criticized department officials yesterday for "serious breakdowns" in
procedures involving an agreement promising Wal-Mart Stores 15 days'
notice before labor investigators would inspect its stores for child
labor violations. How has Wal-Mart (criticism of which is abundant and loud)
gotten so immense and powerful? Can
you say “in cahoots with the government?” The
report by the inspector general faulted department officials for making "significant concessions" to
Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest retailer, without obtaining anything
in return. Do you really think the officials were getting “nothing
in return?” And why
would Wal-Mart seek to negotiate such a deal if they weren’t violating
child labor laws? Why does
Wal-Mart spend so much on creating a friendly image for itself?
US Senate secret session focuses on Iraq, spy scandal
Frist said the move to invoke the rarely used "Rule 21" allowing for secret debate on the Senate floor was "unprecedented" in recent history, and accused Democrats of hijacking the US legislature. Democrats however said the session was necessary because the Senate’s Intelligence Committee had failed to examine the national security implications of a CIA leak scandal. "Americans deserve a searching and comprehensive investigation about how the Bush administration brought this country to war," said Reid. [...]
Vice President lied as White House sought to defuse leak inquiry
Congress Must Investigate Lies, Leaks
…yet this Congress has not looked into the matter at all…
With its unprecedented campaign to undermine and, where possible, eliminate independent journalism, the Bush Administration has demonstrated astonishing contempt for the Constitution and considerable fear of an informed public. Consider the bill of particulars: …
Sinclair Employees Claim They Were Ordered To Slant News
In interviews appearing in GQ magazine, the employees
describe how they were subjected to political litmus tests before being
hired, how they were ordered
to report only
"good news" about Iraq... As soon as false data presented by corporate media about
corporate government doings enters your head, if you believe it, if you treat
it uncritically, the brainwashing has begun. You
begin to surmise other things based on the false data, you interpret new data
through the prism of the crooked views implanted in your mind. You succumb
to the messages, “you
are in danger,” “you are afraid,” “only your government
can protect you,” “your government needs you to give it more power,
more money,” and of course, when Dick Cheney lambastes critical thinkers,
the message is, “do not question us.”
Are you brainwashed? What about some of your neighbours, are they brainwashed? Before you answer that, let us ask you a few preliminary questions: Do you believe that the United States was struck by a terrorist attack on Sept. 11? Do think that the people behind that attack were “Arabs” and that its “mastermind” was this fellow Osama bin Laden, operating from a cave in Afghanistan? Do you believe that the way to stop terrorism is to hit them hard, to hit them at their “bases” in such places as Afghanistan, and to hit the nations who might sponsor them, like, say Iraq?
Although bogus organisations and fronts like the AFF claim to have been set up to counteract cults (and that is how most people will blindly see them), exactly the opposite is true. The dark powers have set up the AFF to ensure that the secret work of cult-making and the experimental/functional use of brainwashing mind-control techniques can continue to be used by those powers without any real opposition because they then control the opposition! [...] As we have often shown before, an example of this would be the US forces setting up the bogus organisation, Al Qaeda, and then making it look real and frightening in order to control the population effectively. [...] Enemies are necessary for the effective survival of evil powers. This is like a page out of Orwell’s book, "1984". Manufactured enemies serve a purpose, but most never realise how is being manipulated or in what way.[...] I can tell you this: You will notice that once you start to look into all these things for yourself (and I hope you do) and then even tell others about it, you will suddenly find that you begin to bear the brunt of attacks and defamations from the most surprising, unexpected quarters.
Hollywood, Iraq and 9/11: Reinforcing the Party Line
Moviegoers in the upcoming months will be bombarded by films about the Iraq war and 9/11. These movies will uniformly reinforce the official party line that 9/11 was carried out by 19 Arabs with box cutters and that the invasion of Iraq was a heroic act of liberation in the defense of America.
NYT: spinning the Iraq war lies
The
spin of the New York Times to explain its deplorable coverage leading
to the war in Iraq is the usual anti-conspiracy remedy of claiming
stupidity. The publisher, editors and, in particular, Judith Miller,
were all completely taken in by liars such as Chalabi, Curveball, al-Libi
and Cheney … It is now coming out that the spin is itself a lie…
Administration-friendly television broadcasters now
air government-produced videotapes under the guise of independent news,
and administration-friendly senators may kill the attempt to expose such
flagrant propaganda.
Sleepwalking through slaughter: on the western media’s concealment of crimes against humanity
Following a week in which TV and newspapers reported the US military’s illegal use of chemical weapons in Iraq, and the employment by the US-backed Iraqi government of torture chambers and paramilitary death squads, one might be forgiven for thinking that the media is carrying out the essential task of relaying the information necessary for us to be able to assess our government’s policies. In fact, it is the media’s near total failure to report on the bloodshed caused by our side in the ongoing conflict that keeps many current US-UK government officials in their jobs, if not out of the International Criminal Court on charges of committing war crimes. The reality is that gruesome atrocities continue to be committed by the occupying powers in Iraq, and that these pass with little or no mention in the mainstream media on either side of the Atlantic. As such the media are accessories to these crimes, standing as they do between the criminals and accountability.
The Things That Iraqis 'Cannot Understand'
Iraqis ’may understand' that the Americans and the government cannot end the insurgency, but what they 'cannot understand' according to this op-ed article from Iraq’s Azzaman newspaper, are the atrocities committed by and ignored by the occupation forces and Iraqi government officials.
UK Media Gagged Over Contents of Bombing Memo Targeting Al Jazeera
Twenty-Five Ways To Suppress Truth: The Rules of Disinformation
Investigation Shows Mainstream Media Not Interested In Freedom Of Information
“I requested the Pentagon’s FOIA request logs because I believed that former New York Times reporter Judith Miller may have filed FOIA requests, and I was curious to know what she and other New York Times journalists had FOIAed,” Petrelis said… According to the logs, Miller made no FOIA requests of the Pentagon.
Entrepreneur taps mistrust of media for new venture
While he has yet to discuss the specifics of his next venture, he has hinted at an interactive website on which users could decide which parts of the news really matter to them and even report some of it themselves. "Things need to change," he said. "The big issue in the US is that newspapers are afraid to talk truth to power. The White House press corps don’t speak the truth to power - they are frightened to lose access they don’t have anyway." The White House press corps seems to enrage him especially. "No one is taking their job seriously there," he recently remarked. "Now it could be that they could be under a directive to not do so. We don’t know. I've spoken to a lot of journalists who are very frustrated."
Sleazy GOP Attack Machine Kicks Into High Gear to Tear Down and Smear John Murtha
Murtha’s become the man of the week by saying "Our
military’s done everything that has been asked of them. The U.S.
cannot accomplish anything further in Iraq militarily. It’s time
to bring the troops home." Murtha believes that the longer we stay
in Iraq the worse we make the situation: "It is evident that continued
military action in Iraq is not in the best interest of the United States
of America, the Iraqi people, or the Persian Gulf region." VP Dick "Five-Deferments" Cheney said: "The president
and I cannot prevent certain politicians from losing their memory or
their backbone. But we are not going to sit by and let them rewrite history."
John Murtha: An Eagle Amid the Turkeys
But then came the gobble-fest over Congressman John Murtha’s call to withdraw our troops from Iraq in a responsible and timely way, and turkeys once again ruled the day… The biggest turkey, make that a five-deferment capon, was Dick Cheney, emerging from the bunker in a plumped-up tuxedo, which managed to give him an uncanny resemblance to Batman’s old nemesis, the Penguin. Accusing those politicians who once supported the war but now criticize its conduct of losing their memory, he snarled, "The saddest part is that our people in uniform have been subjected to these cynical and pernicious falsehoods day in and day out.” No, the saddest part is that they're being maimed and killed, day in and day out, due to the Penguin’s own pernicious falsehoods that put them in harm’s way.
Costly Withdrawal Is the Price To Be Paid for a Foolish War
While Potomac courtiers were reading the entrails of the cooked goose of Scooter Libby -- the first Bushist honcho caught in the slow-grinding gears of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s investigation -- in Wiltshire, Flight Lieutenant Malcolm Kendall-Smith faced a court martial after declaring that the Iraq war was illegal and refusing to return for his third tour of duty there, The Guardian reports. He has been charged with four counts of "disobeying a lawful command." But Kendall-Smith, a decorated medical officer in the Royal Air Force, says that his study of the recently revealed evidence about the lies, distortions and manipulations used to justify the invasion has convinced him that both the war and the occupation are "manifestly illegal." Thus any order arising from this criminal action is itself an "unlawful command," The Sunday Times reports.
Dick Cheney’s day of reckoning
When I Lewis “Scooter” Libby enters the courtroom on perjury charges, the behaviour of his former patron, United States vice-president Dick Cheney, will also be on trial, says Sidney Blumenthal.
Democrats: Deceit made us back war
Significant
numbers of Democrats in Congress swallowed the Bush Administration’s
deceptions and brushed aside contrary evidence, voting enthusiastically
in October 2002 to transfer their constitutionally mandated war power
to the White House, and cheering the invasion that killed over 2,000
American servicemembers and tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians. Nearly
all congressional Dems voted for the USA Patriot Act. Now they're having
second thoughts… It seems obvious that the Dems have virtually
the same foreign policy as the Repugnicans. They even made it rather
clear during the 2004 election campaigns that they’d ramp up the phony “war
on terror” even further, and the 2006 campaigns promise once again
to be all about “national security.” This
is because the Reps did such a thorough job of convincing Americans that “Islamic
terrorism” poses a grave threat to America. That misconception
still holds, as “security”
is the sole issue that puts the Reps on top. The
Dems could easily expose the Rep lies and deceit, but they choose not
to, so they’ve no choice but to campaign on a “tough on
terror”
platform. Pathetic – yet
it is powerful evidence that this entire nightmare illusion aimed at
strengthening gov’t power in general is a fully bi-partisan effort.
George Bush has assumed Caesar-like powers in the name
of defending America. The results, however, have been to increase the
threat to our national security.
Hillary Clinton Defends Pro-War Vote
It’s Time To Dump The Dems, Support The Green Insurgency
Congressional Theater, Media Illusions and Controlling the Debate
Typically, we see
this kind of internecine bloodletting among the U.S. Democrats and
Republicans, during their election campaigns. In those times it is
ultimately about who benefits from the spoils from U.S. imperialism
and wars… they fight for who will control of the wealth robbed
from their victim nations and the workers and oppressed of this country.
But this time their cannibalism has an added dimension. This
time the dogfight in congress is an attempt by the Democrats to suddenly
disavow their involvement and complicity in the U.S. war on the people
of Iraq…
Bush to Unveil Super-Flu Strategy Tuesday
Expect recommendations on how to isolate the sick… The president will ask Congress for unspecified new money, not just for a vaccine against bird flu but to fund a buildup of infrastructure ready to deal with any pandemic, said a senior administration official, who spoke Saturday on condition of anonymity. Stockpiling drugs and vaccines is just one component. [...]
Rumsfeld recuses himself from avian flu decisions
US
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he has recused himself from
decisions involving avian flu prevention or treatment because he
has stock in the company that developed the anti-viral remedy Tamiflu… The
California-based biotech company developed and receives a royalty for
the production of Tamiflu, one of the few known remedies for the avian
flu. Rumsfeld was its chairman from 1997 until
he joined the Bush administration in 2001, and according to federal
disclosure forms still retains a holding valued at between five and
25 million dollars. Tamiflu is Rumsfeld’s drug and he profits
wonderfully from stoking fear over Avian Flu. Even
this revealing article says that Tamiflu actually works against Avian
Flu – quite possibly disinformation, as others call the H5N1
virus
“Tamiflu-resistant.” .
Suicides linked to Tamiflu - so is only weapon against bird flu safe?
The Costs of War – by Cindy Sheehan
We
who have made the "ultimate sacrifice" know
the true cost of war… When
we received word of the indictments, many of us protestors outside the
White House were cheering with happiness and relief… I
put down my end of the banner and sat down on the curb and cried... I
cried because there are people in this world who have lied about smaller
things and have been punished more harshly. I cried because there was
a shill of the right near me holding a sign that read
"Put Cindy in Abu Ghraib" when there are war criminals and immoral
war profiteers running amok in our country. I cried because George, Dick, Condi,
Colin, Alberto, Donald, Scooter, Paul, Karl, Judith, O'Reilly, Hannity, Limbaugh,
etc., lied about the reasons for invading Iraq and because of their lies, my
son, who rarely told anything but the truth, is dead. When
are we going to stand up as a country and yell a collective:
"bull-shit?!!"
Today, November 6th, Newsday published a story admitting that questioning the "official" 9/11 story is becoming mainstream, but trying to write off all such questioning as being another conspiracy theory.
Is it REALLY baseless idiocy that drives people to
question the official account of 911? Are the millions
of Americans (which include Senators, FBI agents, Doctors, Lawyers, Professors,
Scientists, Engineers, etc.) all paranoid loons for suggesting a TRULY
independent investigation of 911 is needed? The government and
media would have you think so… The VERIFIABLE truth is, for decades
our government has been doing very nasty things that most Americans would
NEVER believe to be true. The verifiable truth is, the media
has fed you a steady diet of MEANINGLESS news stories instead of sharing
information that is vitally important to the future of this country. The verifiable truth is, if it wasn’t for the internet (which the
media is now demonizing and the government is trying to get control of)
most of us would have NEVER known how badly we've been lied to by those
we've trusted.
Mainstream Media at Last Reports: Questioning what happened on 9/11
Read the transcript in the article and witness how Tucker
Carlson badgers Professor Steven Jones of Brigham Young University
and prevents him from explaining his hypothesis that pre-planted
explosives brought down the World Trade towers, including #7, which
was not hit by an aircraft.
Physics Prof Says
Explosives, Not Fires Brought Down WTC Towers
Taking a Closer Look: Hard Science and the Collapse of the World Trade Center
None of the many 9-11 researchers can definitively
say exactly what happened on that fateful day in September almost 3 years
ago. But any sensible person can easily spot
dozens of inconsistencies in the official story that is being forced
upon us. And the fact is, most of the available 9-11 evidence points
to at least some level of government complicity or foreknowledge… Please,
read more for yourself. Don’t take my word for it. Most
of all, do not buy the double-speak that visible politicians and the
media use to discount any question about 9-11.
BYU professor thinks bombs, not planes, toppled WTC
Professor Steven E. Jones adds his voice to those of
previous skeptics, including the authors of the Web site www.wtc7.net,
whose research Jones quotes. Jones' article can be found at www.physics.byu.edu/research/energy/htm7.html. Jones,
who conducts research in fusion and solar energy at BYU, is calling for
an independent, international scientific investigation "guided not
by politicized notions and constraints but rather by observations and
calculations.
No Evidence? It Must Be Conspiracy
The twin towers did not fall because aircraft hit them. Demolition explosive charges made them collapse.
Except for Ellen Mariani, whose husband was reported on Flight 175, others who lost relatives on the airplanes have kept quiet in stark contrast to those who lost loved ones at Ground Zero. But when those from the 'airplane community' talk like Linda Gay and Frank Calley, who respectively had family members on Flight 11 and 77, they accept the government 9/11 story hook, line and sinker. In contrast, family members who experienced Ground Zero losses have been more than happy to speak, as over a hundred family members of Ground Zero victims have been contacted by the Arctic Beacon, and even more by other publications, with an overwhelming majority having no problem to talk openly about their loss and their feelings about the 9/11 investigation.
President Bush may have committed a lot of crimes,
but the most important criminals are Edgar Bronfman, Sumner Redstone,
Samuel Newhouse, and other people
who control Hollywood, television, school textbooks, and other sources
of information. They are allowing wars and corruption on a phenomenal
scale…
GOP memo touts new terror attack as way to reverse party’s decline
A
confidential memo circulating among senior Republican leaders suggests
that a new attack by terrorists on U.S. soil could reverse the sagging
fortunes of President George W. Bush as well as the GOP and "restore
his image as a leader of the American people." I
hear it frequently from pundits on the news: polls
clearly show that the only category
of issues in which the Republicans get positive marks from the American
people is that of “security.” All
political parties employ analysts and strategist to determine their strengths
and their opponents’ weaknesses and how to exploit both, so it’s
a certainty that this is well known. These
“true believer” Republicans will do anything to stay in power,
because they believe that what they’re doing is right. If
that means deception, if that means hoping for the deaths of Americans at the
hands of terrorists so that their support grows, so be it. Could
it mean perpetrating false-flag attacks themselves?
Govt lacks ways to gauge wins against terrorism
The
Bush administration’s yardsticks for progress
in its fight against terrorism are inadequate and do not show whether
the United States is winning or losing, a study by a congressional think
tank says. Dick Cheney has already said this “war” will
go on for
“generations,”
and others have said, “a hundred years.” Could
the lack of metrics be deliberate, to impart the impression of endlessness?
Which conspiracy theory do you believe?
It seems to me that we really haven’t a choice in believing or disbelieving "9/11 conspiracy theories" in general, but rather which conspiracy theory to believe, including the "official" conspiracy promulgated by the Bush Administration and the "9/11 Commission"… I’m sorry to say that the official version is presented to us by a most dubious source, with a most serious track record for disseminating disinformation about non-existent "weapons of mass destruction" and impossible links between the religious fanatic Osama bin Laden and the staunch secularist Saddam Hussein.
Zarqawi Flubs and Kills Israel’s Enemies
It’s amazing the way the corporate media simply passes along unsubstantiated claims and outright Bushcon propaganda as fact—for instance, over at the Chicago Tribune, it is said an “al-Qaida offshoot” is “spearheading the anti-U.S. insurgency in Iraq,” in other words, according to Joel Greenberg of the Tribune, the al-Zarqawi black op designed to discredit Iraqis who are attempting to end the illegal occupation of their country are terrorists who blow up hotels in neighboring countries. No doubt Greenberg is paid well to make up such fairy tales—or rather pass along the lies and distortions contrived by his editors and the Bushcons.
20 Amazing Facts About Voting in the USA
Before reading this, remember that it was Stalin who said, “The
voters decide nothing. The
vote counters decide everything.” Read the article for further
links to each fact.
And ten more!
Ohio’s Diebold Debacle: New machines call election results into question
One of the first times electronic voting machines were used, in the 1988 New Hampshire presidential primary, former CIA director George Herbert Walker Bush pulled off a stunning and unpredicted upset. The last poll before that primary showed Senator Bob Dole winning with 8 percentage points. Bush won by 9 points, a startling 17-point shift. Bush’s e-voting victory allowed him to claim the White House and paved the way for his son to become the United States’ chief executive.
N.C. Judge Declines Protection for Diebold
N.C.
Judge Declines to Protect Voting Machine Maker Diebold Inc. from criminal
prosecution should it fail to disclose software code as required by
state law…
So George, how do you feel about your mom and dad? (from 2003)
Psychologist Oliver James analyses the behaviour of the American president -- … Most fundamentalist Christians have authoritarian personalities… According to Frum when Bush talks of an "axis of evil" he is identifying his enemies as literally satanic, possessed by the devil. Whether he specifically sees the battle with Iraq and other "evil" nations as being part of the end-time, the apocalypse preceding the day of judgment, is not known. Nor is it known whether Tony Blair shares these particular religious ideas. [...]
Bush rarely speaks to father, 'family is split'
President Bush feels betrayed by several of his most
senior aides and advisors and has severely restricted access to the Oval
Office, INSIGHT magazine claims in a new report.
The president’s reclusiveness in the face of relentless public
scrutiny of the U.S.-led war in Iraq and White House leaks regarding
CIA operative Valerie Plame has become so extreme that Mr. Bush has also
reduced contact with his father, former President George H.W. Bush, administration
sources said on the condition of anonymity.
You said this in 2003, a little over a year before my dear, sweet Casey was killed by your son’s policies: "Why should we hear about body bags and deaths? Oh, I mean, it’s not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?" (Good Morning America, March 18, 2003) … Barbara. I didn’t want to hear about deaths or body bags either. On April 04, 2004, three Army officers came to my house to tell me that Casey was killed in Iraq. I fell on the floor screaming and begging the cruel Angel of Death to take me too. But the Angel of Death that took my son is your son…
Bush’s Christian Guru Marvin Olasky Aims to Reshape America (from 2001)
But Opponents Fear Reversal of Country’s Principles…
God Told Me to Invade Iraq, Bush Tells Palestinian Ministers (from 2004)
Nabil Shaath says: "President Bush said to all of us: 'I’m driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, "George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan." And I did, and then God would tell me, "George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq …" And I did. And now, again, I feel God’s words coming to me, "Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East." And by God I’m gonna do it.'"
Is the President’s Soul in Jeopardy?
An Evangelical Christian Looks at Bush’s Skull and Bones Initiation -- "After this the initiate is brought before a picture of Judas Iscariot, whose name the group screams three times, and then he is led to the heart of the rite: the initiate is pushed to his knees before a human skull filled with blood placed at the foot of a human skeleton called Madame Pompadour. The crowd "implores him to 'Drink it! Drink it! Drink it!'" and he does.
God put Bush in charge, says the general hunting bin Laden (from 2003)
The
general leading the hunt for Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein has
publicly declared that the Christian God is "bigger" than
Allah, who is a false "idol", and believes the war on terrorism
is a fight with Satan, it emerged yesterday… He [General Boykin]
told one gathering, "Why is this man in the
White House? The majority of Americans did not vote for him. He’s
in the White House because God put him there for a time such as this." Gen
Boykin told NBC that he would be curtailing his speeches to religious
groups… "I don’t
want to come across as a Right-wing radical," he said.
A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion
to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment
from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other
hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has
the gods on his side.
- Aristotle
-
Sharon meets 'Jews for Jesus' follower
Haggard told Sharon that the official policy of the organization he represents is "to support the state of Israel come hell or high water. We are staunch supporters. We believe that you were chosen by God to lead the people of Israel in this difficult period. We fully support you, because we believe it is God’s will." He said that Bush used those exact words – support for Israel 'come hell or high water' – during a meeting the President had with Evangelical leaders prior to November’s elections. The main purpose of the delegation’s visit, according to officials in the Prime Minister’s Office, was to help market Israel to the enormous Evangelical community abroad.
Onward, Christian Soldiers (from 2003)
Neocon Pundits Malign American Muslims
Pipes Nominated to USIP Board (from 2003)
The head of a Chicago-based court reform group said the attorney, Paul Young, was targeted by 'American Gestapo Agents' posing as businessmen. Sherman Skolnick says he has been warned by a federal judge that he also is a target of a bogus Homeland Security probe that may land the 50-year 'judge busting' truth seeker in jail.
Mayor: Sever Thumbs of Graffiti Artists
"I’m saying maybe you put them on TV and cut off a thumb," the mayor added. "That may be the right thing to do."
Jailed microbiologist’s appeal rejected
Some researchers believe the US government has used the case to frighten scientists...
A COURT in Texas has rejected an appeal from Thomas Butler, the microbiologist jailed after reporting that plague bacilli were missing from his laboratory in 2003. Police accused him of making a false report, but Butler was eventually sentenced to two years in prison for unrelated financial irregularities and for shipping bacilli without the proper paperwork.
The shocking use of police stun guns
"Tasers are suffering from mission creep," says Nick Lewer, who studies conflict resolution at the University of Bradford in the UK. "From being an alternative to lethal firearms they are now becoming an indiscriminate compliance tool."
HONEYWELL is developing a micro flying spy drone -- that would be used for civilian law enforcement!
Jimmy Carter: Bush not in line with American Values
"In the last 5 years there’s been a dramatic and disturbing and radical change in the values of this country," Carter said. For example, he says peace is an American value, not pre-emptive war. He says another American value is human rights. For decades the US has supported the Geneva convention saying we won’t torture prisoners, but he says now "our senators are voting to keep torture. It’s inconceivable this would happen in the United States of America."
JIMMY CARTER was the 39th president of the United States. His newest book is "Our Endangered Values: America’s Moral Crisis," published this month…
CIA’s “Torture Taxi” in the spotlight
American anti-torture activists arrested.
Clinton says Iraq invasion was a big mistake
The United States made a "big mistake" when it invaded Iraq, former President Bill Clinton said Wednesday…
US to cut Katrina hotel payments
USING ILLEGAL LABOR TO CLEAN UP AFTER KATRINA Gulf Coast Slaves
Halliburton and its subcontractors hired hundreds of undocumented Latino workers to clean up after Katrina -- only to mistreat them and throw them out without pay.
ALERT: EPA TO ALLOW PESTICIDE TESTING ON ORPHANS & MENTALLY HANDICAPPED CHILDREN
The rule allows for government and industry scientists to treat children as human guinea pigs in chemical experiments in the following situations: (1) Children who "cannot be reasonably consulted," such as those that are mentally handicapped or orphaned newborns may be tested on. (2) Parental consent forms are not necessary for testing on children who have been neglected or abused. (3) Chemical studies on any children outside of the U.S. are acceptable…
Forced Inoculations Beginning Of Bush’s Bad Bird Flu Plan
In essence, however, it would force Americans to receive inoculations against
a disease that has yet to kill one of them, while removing their constitutional
right to seek redress in our courts in case of injury or death from the shots
because of company negligence… Who
really knows what’s in these injections? The
proposal, now moving its way through the Senate, would also ban
citizens from using the Freedom of Information Act and other popular
informational laws to discover whether the new vaccine (when it is finally
produced) was effective and safe, and even whether anyone had suffered adverse
reactions to it. I guess they’ve seen to it that no one can find out. Hey,
what if the bird flu scare is phony –
just a way to get some chemical into the blood of Americans?
NETWORKS PLAN 'END OF AMERICA' SHOWS
The nets have filled their development slates with a bevy of brave ideas and bold format experiments, VARIETY reports on Monday, including shows about THE END OF AMERICA!
ABC alone has at least two would-be shows set in post-apocalyptic
America ("Resistance" and "Red & Blue") while Gavin
Polone and Bruce Wagner are teaming for the comfy-sounding plague drama
"Four Horsemen" at CBS (which also is developing "Jericho,"
about life in a small town after America is destroyed). No empire
is everlasting and America is clearly being brought down by its leadership. Maybe this shows that more people than
ever are contemplating it.
All wars are economic. Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was invaded after he started sell oil in Euros in the fall of 2000. Circumventing the US economic hegemony called the Petrodollar system couldn’t be allowed to gain steam. In late March, 2006, the Iranian Oil Bourse (Euro-based oil exchange) goes into business, in direct competition with Wall Street. Lots of countries have incentive to use it, but if it looks for a moment like it will be successful, the US will have to take Iran down. Of course, the real reason, money, won’t be admitted to the public because the average person would find that murdering people to protect your business is unpalatable, regardless of the truth. There will have to be one or more other excuses, like we saw with Iraq, which had nothing to do with former US ally Saddam Hussein, threats of terrorism, Iraqi oil, or anybody’s “freedom.” Let’s see if the demonization of Iran escalates in the coming months. This won’t be an easy road for the US or Israel, especially because China and Russia are allies of Iran and Syria.
US forces bomb houses in western Iraq, killing 10 suspected rebels
25 dead as suicide car bomb rips through Iraqi market
Car bomb kills at least 21 in Iraq
Iraq battle stress worse than WWII
McCain urges more US forces for Iraq
US Soldiers Danced Around Dead Iraqi Civilians: Report
Pentagon Black Ops: Abducting Peacemakers in Iraq
’trophy' video exposes private security contractors shooting up Iraqi drivers
This video can be found on the internet if
you search. I found it. It disgusts.
Tim Spicer’s License
to Kill Iraqi Motorists
Cindy Sheehan says leaders without family in Iraq lack personal stake
The Case Against This Monstrous War
It may sound like an exaggeration to say that just about every major claim made about Iraq and Saddam by the U.S. government since the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait has been misleading or simply false, and that the mainstream media has bought into these distortions with nary a peep of opposition, but that’s just about the only conclusion one can draw… If you think it’s an open and shut case that Saddam "gassed his own people," … you need to read this.
The destruction of Falluja was an act of barbarism that ranks alongside My Lai, Guernica and Halabja. One year ago this week, US-led occupying forces launched a devastating assault … preceded by eight weeks of aerial bombardment. US troops cut off the city’s water, power and food supplies, condemned as a violation of the Geneva convention by a UN special rapporteur… Two-thirds of the city’s 300,000 residents fled, many to squatters' camps without basic facilities… the Red Cross, Red Crescent and the media were kept out, while males between the ages of 15 and 55 were kept in. US sources claimed between 600 and 6,000 insurgents were holed up inside the city - which means that the vast majority of the remaining inhabitants were non-combatants…
US forces 'used chemical weapons' during assault on city of Fallujah
Powerful new evidence emerged yesterday that the United States dropped massive quantities of white phosphorus on the Iraqi city of Fallujah during the attack on the city in November 2004, killing insurgents and civilians with the appalling burns that are the signature of this weapon… In a documentary to be broadcast by RAI, the Italian state broadcaster, this morning, a former American soldier who fought at Fallujah says: "I heard the order to pay attention because they were going to use white phosphorus on Fallujah. In military jargon it’s known as Willy Pete." "Phosphorus burns bodies, in fact it melts the flesh all the way down to the bone ... I saw the burned bodies of women and children. Phosphorus explodes and forms a cloud. Anyone within a radius of 150 metres is done for." [...]
Pentagon Used White Phosphorous in Iraq
Pentagon officials acknowledged
Tuesday that U.S. troops used white phosphorous as a weapon against insurgent
strongholds during the battle of Fallujah last November. But they denied
an Italian television news report that the spontaneously flammable material
was used against civilians… In The Independent, Jeff Englehart, a
former marine who spent two days in Fallujah during the battle said of the
attacks, “I saw the burned bodies of women
and children." Given
that the military lied about using the chemical in the first place, how much
credence has their claim that it wasn’t used against civilians, especially
when we know that they attacked ambulances, poisoned water supplies, etc.
White phosphorus, Fallujah and some burning questions
The documentary, Fallujah: the Hidden Massacre, by the state broadcaster RAI, cited one Fallujah human-rights campaigner who reported how residents told how "a rain of fire fell on the city"… an examination by The Independent of the available evidence suggests the following: that WP shells were fired at insurgents, that reports from the battleground suggest troops firing these WP shells did not always know who they were hitting and that there remain widespread reports of civilians suffering extensive burn injuries.
US intelligence classified white phosphorus as 'chemical weapon'
The US used chemical weapons in Iraq - and then lied about it
Now we know napalm and phosphorus bombs have been dropped on Iraqis, why have the hawks failed to speak out?
'I treated people who had their skin melted'
"They used these weird bombs that put up smoke like a mushroom cloud," he said. He had seen "pieces of these bombs explode into large fires that continued to burn on the skin even after people dumped water on the burns". Some saw what they thought were attempts by the military to conceal the use of incendiary shells. "The Americans were dropping some of the bodies into the Euphrates near Fallujah," said one ousted resident, Abdul Razaq Ismail.
Behind the phosphorus clouds are war crimes within war crimes
WHY WE ALWAYS THINK WE'RE RIGHT
I always ponder why Johnson and Nixon believed they were right to issue orders that killed and maimed so many of my brothers and sisters, and the sons and daughters of other nations. Today, why does George Bush think he’s right, while most everyone thinks he’s wrong? Why do Benedict, Sistani, and Robertson believe they speak for the same God? … Humans appear to have a psychological need to deceive themselves. We pretend to have answers about the most fundamental issues - the nature of reality - where there are only unanswered questions. We depend on delusions.
Microwave gun to be used by US troops on Iraq rioters
Second Saddam trial attorney killed
1,100 lawyers leave Saddam team
About some 1,100 Iraqi lawyers have withdrawn from Saddam Hussein’s defense team, citing insufficient protection following the slayings of two peers representing co-defendants of the ousted Iraqi leader.
Wounded Saddam defence lawyer flees Iraq
Witness in Saddam Hussein Case Dies
Saddam on trial: Ten reasons justice may not be served
WHITE HOUSE PLAN IF SADDAM FOUND 'NOT GUILTY'
What if Saddam Hussein is
found not guilty in his trial? "There
will be more charges filed against him, and more charges after that, if needed...
he has committed tremendous crimes," a top Bush source explained last
week from Washington.
Syria accuses US of military raids – Ground War Already Begun in Syria?
The charge follows leaks in Washington that the
US has already engaged in military raids into Syria and is contemplating
launching special forces operations on Syrian soil to eliminate insurgent
networks before they reach Iraq, the report said… The
increased blurring of battle lines between Iraq and Syria came as reports
said Syria could face far tougher demands than expected today to compel its
regime to co-operate with a UN investigation into the assassination of former
Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, who had opposed the presence of Syrian
troops in his country… Russia and China, two of the five permanent members of the 15-member
Security Council, said they would vote against sanctions.
Talabani: Iraq cannot stop US using bases against Syria
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said he opposed military action against neighbouring
Syria but lacked the power to prevent US troops from using his country as a
launchpad if it chose to do so. "I categorically refuse the use
of Iraqi soil to launch a military strike against Syria or any other Arab country," Talabani
told the London-based Arabic daily Asharq Al-Awsat in an interview published
Tuesday. "But at the end of
the day my ability to confront the US military is limited and I cannot impose
on them my will." On
Monday, US warplanes struck what commanders described as a house sheltering
an
"Al-Qaeda cell leader" near the border town of Al-Qaim, in the latest
in a string of operations against suspected foreign fighters in the region. But
medics in the town and Arabic media reports spoke of 35-plus civilian deaths
in the air strike.
180 Detained In US-Iraqi Sweep Near Syrian Border
At least 180 suspected terrorists were arrested Tuesday during a sweep against
insurgents in the far western Iraqi town of Husayba, near the border with Syria,
the US military said. Think about it. Are there 180 terrorists in the whole
world? They tell us there are cells
of three or four all over the place. Do
180 frequently hang out together to terrorize bigger targets? Why are they
using the word “terrorists” to
describe what are probably mostly ordinary people?
UN Double Standards Again on Display With Syria Resolution
The beginning of the drive to justify the use of force or other serious actions against Syria for its possible involvement in Rafiq Hariri’s killing is reminiscent of the run-up to the 2003 US-led war against Iraq. As then, it is the United Nations Security Council which is the instrument for escalating the tensions, with yesterday’s unanimous passage of its resolution demanding that Syria co-operate in UN investigator Detlev Mehlis’s Hariri investigation by arresting those he suspects of complicity and that interrogations be conducted outside Syria. If the Iraq experience is a guide, the demands will multiply regardless of the level of co-operation Syria offers, with the US still free to resort to war if it chooses.
Mossad Behind Hariri Assassination (from February 2005)
Russia, China call for U.S. troops to go
security
bloc led by China and Russia has called on the United States to set a deadline
for the withdrawal of its troops from Central Asia… In
July, the group requested a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from
Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, reflecting growing Russian and Chinese unease over
the U.S. military presence in the resource-rich region, the newspaper said. The
US military withdrew from its bases in Uzbekistan rather abruptly last year.
Russian Company to Build Two Billion Dollar Oil Refinery in Syria
Russian Arms Exports Up 15-fold in Last 3 Years — State Agency
That’s like having your annual salary go from $66,000
to a million – an immense increase. And
Russia isn’t exactly a “small start-up” when it comes
to dealing arms. Sounds like someone is gearing up for
some fighting.
Half of U.S. Marines to leave Okinawa
Withdrawal follows years of complaints from local residents…
Intelligence on Vietnam War 'faked'
ONE of
America’s top spy agencies faked key intelligence
used to justify its intervention in the Vietnam War, it has been revealed. But
the revelation was kept secret by the National Security Agency, partly because
of fears that it would boost criticism of the intelligence services over the
war in Iraq. According to material
uncovered by the NSA’s own historian, Robert Hanyok, middle-ranking officers
altered material relating to the Gulf of Tonkin incident. [...] It has long been revealed that the alleged attack on a
US ship in the Gulf of Tonkin never happened, but was simply said to have happened,
deliberately and expressly as an excuse for the US to “counterattack”
North Vietnam. The US government wanted that war and
they started it. They said
we went in to
“secure freedom” for Vietnam. 50,000+ Americans and millions of Vietnamese
died as a result (though George Bush and Dick Cheney managed to escape going
there), and a lot of powerful war-machine investors got very rich.
What Do You Know -- Bogus Intel Got Us Into Another War
Finally, the government has admitted it doctored intelligence that plunged us into a disastrous war. The Vietnam War, that is. The New York Times reported this week that a National Security Agency historian concluded that communications intercepted by U.S. eavesdroppers during the Gulf of Tonkin incident were altered to make it appear that North Vietnamese had attacked American warships in August 1964.
Key Bush Intelligence Briefing Kept From Hill Panel
Ten days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President Bush was told in a highly classified briefing that the U.S. intelligence community had no evidence linking the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein to the attacks and that there was scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al Qaeda, according to government records and current and former officials with firsthand knowledge of the matter.
Pentagon probes office headed by Feith
One
of the questions to be probed by the Pentagon inspector general, Levin said,
is whether Feith, in his position as under secretary of defense for policy,
"provided a separate channel of intelligence, unbeknownst to the CIA,
to the White House - which he did." Doug Feith
is, of course, one of the hardest of hardcore warmongers in America and a chief
proponent and architect of the US destruction of Iraq.
Germans Say U.S. Used Bad Data to Justify Iraq Invasion
German
intelligence officials say the Bush administration ignored warnings about the
intelligence given by the Iraqi defector codenamed Curveball. The Los Angeles
Times interviewed five senior German officials with the Federal Intelligence
Service, who described Curveball’s information as vague and the defector
as unbalanced… It’s well known that defectors tell authorities tall
tales of horror and persecution and “anything they want to hear” if
it will help them get asylum. It
is common knowledge that defectors’ testimony is always suspect. And
yet…. ’this
was not substantial evidence,' one official said. 'We made clear we could not
verify the things he said.' President George W. Bush used Curveball’s
intelligence to say that Saddam Hussein had seven mobile poison gas factories.
Then-Secretary of State Colin Powell’s speech to the United Nations in
February 2003 also depended heavily on Curveball. One
of the officials described Curveball as 'not a stable, psychologically stable
guy.'
Germans: Bush misused data to justify Iraq war
Informant’s handlers say they repeatedly warned of unreliability.
The German intelligence officials responsible for one of the most important
informants on Saddam Hussein’s suspected weapons of mass destruction say
that the Bush administration and the CIA repeatedly exaggerated his claims
before the Iraq war. … they warned U.S. intelligence authorities
that the source, an Iraqi defector code-named Curveball, never
claimed to produce germ weapons and never saw anyone else do so. … President
Bush mischaracterized Curveball’s information when he warned before the
war that Iraq had at least seven mobile factories brewing biological poisons.
Then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell also misstated Curveball’s claims
in his pre-war presentation to the United Nations on Feb. 5, 2003, the Germans
said.
Bush’s misleading statements on Iraq
64
percent of those questioned in the most recent Harris Interactive Poll believe
the administration "generally misleads the public on current issues."
Dick Cheney lambasts Iraq critics
US Vice-President Dick Cheney has launched a vitriolic attack on politicians accusing the White House of misusing intelligence to invade Iraq.
Military fears critics will hurt morale
Pentagon
officials say they are increasingly worried that Washington’s political
fight over the Iraq war will dampen what has been high morale among troops
fighting a tenacious and deadly enemy. In other words, we’re not supposed
to talk about the lies that got the US into this mess. If
that’s not pressure against free speech, what is? And
what do they mean about this “political fight” anyway?
WHO IS THE US CONGRESS LISTENING TO?
Last
night the House of Representatives, despite much posturing for the cameras,
voted 403-to-3 to CONTINUE the war in Iraq. This despite overwhelming opposition
to the war among the American people and th growing awareness that the government
lied to the people to trick us into that war. Folks, might this tell you, more than anything else you
read here today, that the “debate” over Iraq is a sham, a show,
a ploy, an act designed to make you believe that the public’s feelings
are heeded and that the political parties “oppose” each other? The “debate” is
in the news every day, but as the House vote proves, it doesn’t actually
exist. 99.3% of a group doesn’t “debate” the
other 0.7% any more than a ten billion dollar company
“merges” with ten million dollar company. Look
through the polity and neutral connotation of the language.
More Americans want domestic focus
The
public’s belief that the United States should mind its own business internationally
has reached levels not seen since after the Cold War ended more than a decade
ago, a poll found.
Ex- Powell Aide Suggests Pre-War Memo Was Kept From Bush
In
July 2003, USA Today reported the existence of the NSC memo, which examined
the level of troops in peacekeeping operations and concluded that some 500,000
troops would need to be deployed to Iraq. USA Today raised doubts as to whether
the president saw the memo. However, Wilkerson’s assertion seemed to
take the matter a step further, suggesting that aides - Condoleezza Rice or
her deputy, Stephen Hadley - who supported the war intentionally kept the president
in the dark.
U.S. and Britain Lied to Justify Iraq War, Say Americans
Bush Administration Lie about Iraq
We cannot
trust Bush again, and many here and around the world will never be able to
trust the United States again. This is especially serious because there are
countries and people who might really be preparing to attack. Because of
what Bush has done America can no longer sound the alarm. Who would believe?
Who could be sure it isn’t just another mistake -
or trick? This is a dangerous situation.
McCain: Pentagon spending 'unsustainable'
Bush aide admits meeting Italian secret service chief in 2002 (Intelligence
on Iraq War Faked)
According to an investigation published last week by La Repubblicca and
denied by the Italian government, Italy provided false documentation to
its US allies, who were at the time seeking a "smoking gun" in Iraq. The documentation
purported to show that Saddam Hussein’s regime had sought to buy uranium
from Niger to make nuclear weapons. [...] The
case, dubbed "Nigergate" by the Italian media, is linked to a CIA
leak investigation that led to the indictment last week of Vice President Dick
Cheney’s top aide, chief of staff I. Lewis
"Scooter" Libby. [...]
The Last Lie of the Iraq War Exposed
Unforgiveable
All of the Bush administration’s junkyard dogs are out on the attack,
feigning righteous indignation that anyone would suggest that they manipulated
the intelligence and misled the American people. Of course, that is exactly
what they did, and a majority of Americans are finally catching on. That doesn’t
absolve Congress from lazily going along and giving the president the OK to
get American boys killed.
US intel on Iraq-Qaeda ties 'intentionally misleading': document
US military intelligence warned the Bush administration
as early as February 2002 that its key source on Al-Qaeda’s relationship with
Iraq had provided "intentionally misleading" data, according
to a declassified report. Nevertheless, eight months later, President George
W. Bush went public with charges that the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein
had trained members of Osama bin Laden’s terror network in manufacturing
deadly poisons and gases…
Neglecting Intelligence, Ignoring Warnings
A chronology of how the Bush Administration repeatedly and deliberately refused
to listen to intelligence agencies that said its case for war was weak
Chalabi announces intentions to play role in Iraq’s political process
The man
chiefly responsible for supplying the ‘weapons
of mass destruction’ excuse for the Iraq invasion, Ahmad Chalabi, has
once again announced his intentions to play a pivotal role in the country’s
political process… Also
there to welcome him back into the fold will be his influential backers among
the neo-conservatives, who he had helped so much with their grand plan for
starting the Iraq war by providing ‘defectors’ who ‘revealed’ that
Saddam Hussein had an arsenal of chemical and biological weapons. [...] Where Chalabi (a convicted criminal) goes, lies, deceit, secrecy, and lots of
personal gain for him will surely follow.
Jordan
Jail Cell Still Awaits Chalabi
Khader says Chalabi’s arrest Iraqi affair
Chalabi suspected of giving U.S. secrets to Iran (from May 2004)
U.S. fears prospect of Saudi coup, weighs invasion plans
The United States has raised the prospect of a military invasion of Saudi Arabia. The
House Armed Services Committee considered the possibility of a Saudi coup and
U.S. response during a hearing on Oct. 26… "How
should the United States respond if a coup, presumably fundamentalist in nature,
overthrows the royal family in Saudi Arabia?"
O'Hanlon asked. "Such a result would raise the specter of major disruption
to the oil economy."
CIA has set up secret joint counterterrorism centers around world
Admit It: The US Has Been Defeated in Iraq
The war begun by President Bush with such bravado and so
little braino, which was designed to convert him from a dismal president to
a crisp and awe-inspiring commander-in-chief, has been lost. The nearly 2100 Americans who have died
so far to help the president get re-elected, to make him look like a leader,
and to provide cover for his criminal executive power grab, have died for nothing. American military might can destroy
a country. It can kill hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians. It can
sow terror through the use of indiscriminate use of such WMDs as DU explosives,
phosphorus bombs, helicopter and fixed-wing gunships and computerized drones
and missiles. But it cannot defeat a concerted popular resistance. Unpopular occupations always fail. They must. The
occupiers are too few, the natives too many. The natives don’t want the occupiers
there and the occupiers don’t want to be there.
Analysts Foresee Bleak Road Ahead in Iraq
In a February
2003 report, a month before the U.S. invasion, Crane and Terrill had warned
that the United States might
"win the war but lose the peace" if it attacked Iraq. They suggested armed resistance to an occupation would grow, a harsh
American response would further alienate Iraqis, and establishing political
stability would prove difficult — all predictions that were borne out.
Pentagon, intel pros tell Bush war cannot be won
Bush to outline Iraq 'victory' plan
Huh? What did
the previous article say?
52-year-old grandfather ordered to Army duty
Hard-pressed military tapping retirees.
Report: al-Zarqawi may have been killed in Mosul
The Elaph Arab media website reported on Sunday that Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of the al-Qaida in Iraq terror group, may have been
killed in Iraq on Sunday afternoon when eight terrorists blew themselves up
in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. See the October News Round-Up for extensive coverage of
the larger-than-life Zarqawi whom, it appears, will never die until the US
says he’s dead or “captured.”
Cleric says al-Zarqawi died long ago (from September)
"His family in Jordan even held
a ceremony after his death. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is therefore a ploy used
by the Americans, an excuse to continue the occupation. It’s a pretext
so they don’t leave Iraq."
Shortly before his untimely death, former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook told the House of Commons that "Al Qaeda" is not really a terrorist group but a database of international mujaheddin and arms smugglers used by the CIA and Saudis to funnel guerrillas, arms, and money into Soviet-occupied Afghanistan… "The truth is, there is no Islamic army or terrorist group called Al Qaida. And any informed intelligence officer knows this. But there is a propaganda campaign to make the public believe in the presence of an identified entity representing the 'devil' only in order to drive the ’tV watcher' to accept a unified international leadership for a war against terrorism. The country behind this propaganda is the US and the lobbyists for the US war on terrorism are only interested in making money."
Big oil has crude designs on Iraq wealth - report
Big
oil firms may rob Iraq of billions and grab control of its oilfields unless
ordinary Iraqis can have a greater say in how their country’s riches
are tapped, U.S. and British campaigners said on Tuesday. Big
oil is being lured by the Production Sharing Agreement (PSA), promoted
by Washington and London, which gives them huge returns on investment,
but deprives Iraq of up to $194 billion (113 billion pounds), according
to "Crude Designs: The rip-off of Iraq’s
oil wealth". "Under the influence of the U.S. and
UK, powerful politicians and technocrats in the Iraqi oil ministry are pushing
to hand all Iraq’s undeveloped fields to multinational oil companies,
to be developed under production sharing agreements," said
Greg Muttitt, the report’s author. Blow for blow, this is precisely the model
that the West has followed with “undeveloped” nations everywhere. They handsomely pay off the local governments
who turn over development rights to predatory Western corporations, who sap
the country of its wealth and leave its people poor. It is the same practice of pillaging the
third world that has gone on since colonialism began. The only difference
now is that there are richly living “third world” governments
instead of colonial governors.
Relying on Computer, U.S. Seeks to Prove Iran’s Nuclear Aims
The documents,[on the stolen laptop] the Americans acknowledged
from the start, do not prove that Iran has an atomic bomb. They presented them
as the strongest evidence yet...
Nonetheless, doubts about the intelligence persist among some foreign analysts.
In part, that is because American officials, citing the need to protect their
source, have largely refused to provide details of the origins of the laptop
computer beyond saying that they obtained it in mid-2004 from a longtime contact
in Iran. Moreover, this chapter in the confrontation with
Iran is infused with the memory of the faulty intelligence on Iraq’s
unconventional arms. In this atmosphere,... few are willing to accept the United
States' weapons intelligence without question. "I can fabricate
that data," a senior European diplomat said of the documents. "It
looks beautiful, but is open to doubt."
Iran restarts nuclear plans as 40 top envoys face sack
"They are digging themselves into a deeper hole," the diplomat said, referring to the next board meeting of the IAEA later this month which is to decide whether to refer Iran to the UN Security Council. [...]
Iran Says Nuclear Offer Final Chance
Larijani’s letter makes clear that Tehran has no intention of dropping its demand to enrich uranium as part of a full nuclear fuel cycle -- the key sticking point in the tortuous negotiating process with Europe. It says Iran has a "certain and indisputable right to have access to full nuclear fuel cycle and enrichment capability for peaceful purposes such as research, medical, genetics, agricultural and similar applications." [...]
'Iran hiding nuclear materials in several places'
Iran has
expanded the tunnels it uses to hide a major part of its nuclear weapons
program to a network covering a large area of southeastern Tehran, an Iranian
exile who opposes that nation’s Islamic government
said. Sounds a
lot like the kind of “intelligence” that was seized upon and mercilessly
promoted to justify the Iraq war.
Documents possessed by Iran have sole purpose of making nuclear arms: EU
The European Union is accusing Iran of having documents that
serve no other purpose than making nuclear arms and will warn it later Thursday
of possible future referral to the UN Security Council, according to a statement
made available to The Associated Press.
Trend: Britain and Australia, following the US
lead, are virtually caught up in terms of having their callous right-wing
leadership stripping freedom away from their citizens, and using phony
threats of terrorism to frighten their people into giving up more and more
power to the governments. France
will likely go the same route if Sarkozy is “elected” president
there in 2007.
Australia says has intelligence on terror threat
Australia
has received specific information about a possible "terrorist
threat"
to the country, Prime Minister John Howard said on Wednesday, but Australia’s
medium security alert remained unchanged… Howard
refused to give any details about the nature or location of the threat, but
said the government would rush through changes to anti-terror laws to enable
police to respond. [...] My Lord! You
almost have to laugh at the sickening nature of this scam, which we see being
played out again and again. Imagine
Tony Soprano coming to your door and saying, “Hey, I heard on the street
that some guys got it in for you – oh yeah, real bad, too. I can’t say any more, but let me
tell you, I can protect you…” It’s
a protection racket, folks. That’s
all it is.
Australian Anti-terror Arrests: We'll charge more, says Moroney
Last
night police carried out a fresh raid on at least one more Sydney home after
state and federal police and ASIO officers arrested eight men in western Sydney
and nine in Melbourne yesterday. The
NSW Police Commissioner, Ken Moroney, predicted more arrests and charges and
said authorities had "disrupted what I would regard as the final stages
of a large-scale terrorist attack here in Australia"… The NSW
Police Minister, Carl Scully, said he was "satisfied that this state was under an imminent threat of
potentially a catastrophic terrorist act". He was
among politicians and police in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra who spent the
day in a co-ordinated media blitz, claiming how close
the alleged terrorists were to carrying out an attack on innocent civilians. Whew! Thank
goodness! But, you know, they could
have just made up all that stuff, but, no, they wouldn’t do that!
Aussie Fake Terror Linked
to Brit Intelligence
It should come as no surprise the supposed Muslim terrorist group "captured" in
Australia is a creation of the British MI5 and the Australian Security Intelligence
Organization (ASIO). As Greg Ansley writes for the New Zealand Herald, the group was busted by a
"supergrass" agent (the term supergrass is used in Northern Ireland
to refer to arrested paramilitaries who divulged the identities of their compatriots
to the Royal Ulster Constabulary in exchange for immunity from prosecution,
in other words informers).
Amnesty denounces Blair terror laws as 'dangerous, ill conceived'
Amnesty called them "ill-conceived and dangerous", amounting to an
attack on "the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law,"
according to the daily… The bill has already been condemned by senior judges, lawyers
and civil liberties groups. [...] The Amnesty submission
states: "Since the war on
terror was declared by the US government in 2001, the UK authorities have mounted
a sustained attack on human rights, the independence of the judiciary and the
rule of law." [...]
Blair left bloodied
as Blunkett is driven from office again
TONY Blair hit the lowest point of his premiership yesterday, losing David
Blunkett from his Cabinet and his ability to push his agenda through in the
House of Commons… Those
doubts helped fuel the most damaging rebellion Mr Blair has ever endured. Debating
the controversial terrorism bill, Labour MPs reduced his once-impregnable Commons
majority to a single vote. Don’t
you find it utterly bizarre that Tony Blair’s agenda to impose a totalitarian
social agenda on the British public is at odds with practically his whole party? It’s
almost like he knows something, or perhaps is taking his orders from someone/somewhere
else?
Blair’s blunder over MI5 demand to hold suspects for 90
days
CHARLES Clarke, the Home Secretary, has admitted that MI5 did not request
a new law allowing terror suspects be detained without charge for up to 90
days - directly contradicting Tony Blair, the Prime Minister… The
apparent contradiction between Mr Blair’s claim and the reality has caused
concern in parts of the security services, where many have painful memories
of the government’s use of the intelligence services to justify the war
in Iraq. [...]
Power
Über Alles
In England the power to arrest people and to hold them indefinitely without
charges was taken away from kings centuries ago. Bush apparently thinks he
is the reincarnation of an absolute monarch. The
Labour Party–dominated British Parliament will not allow 90 days detention
without charges, but the Republican-controlled US Congress favors indefinite
detention without charges of whomever Bush wants to detain.
Blair defeated over terror laws
MPs are now voting on a compromise detention time limit of 28 days. The vote
will be seen as a blow to the prime minister’s authority.
Why
Western governments fall apart
Never have the governments of the old Atlantic alliance appeared as weak as
they do today. President George W Bush, his popularity ruined and his political
agenda junked, is boxed into a corner, but his position seems enviable compared
to that of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who just lost a decisive battle
over anti-terror measures.
Blair
says MPs are out of touch
Confidence in the Prime Minister is ebbing away - this has emboldened his
own MPs to vote against him. The PM’s authority cannot recover.
Bruce Anderson: Mr Blair himself has now become a threat to the security of the nation
Blair’s slow, embarrassing death by a thousand leaks
UK Soldiers Iraq murder trial charges
dropped
The charges against seven UK soldiers accused of murdering an Iraqi civilian
have been dismissed by a judge at a court martial in Colchester, Essex. He ruled there was insufficient evidence
against the seven, accused of murdering Nadhem Abdullah.
EXCLUSIVE: BUSH PLOT TO BOMB HIS ARAB ALLY Madness of war memo
PRESIDENT Bush planned to bomb Arab TV station al-Jazeera in friendly Qatar, a "Top Secret" No 10 memo reveals. But he was talked out of it at a White House summit by Tony Blair, who said it would provoke a worldwide backlash.
UK gags paper over Aljazeera memo
Britain’s
Daily Mirror newspaper has been ordered to cease publishing further details
from an allegedly top secret memo revealing that US President George Bush
wanted to bomb Aljazeera. The gag order from Attorney-General Lord Goldsmith
came nearly 24 hours after the paper published details of what it said was
a transcript of talks between Bush and the British Prime Minister Tony Blair… the attorney-general warned that publication of any further details from
the document would be a breach of the Official Secrets Act… According
to Britain’s Guardian
newspaper, it is the first time that the Blair government has threatened to
prosecute a newspaper for publishing the contents of leaked government documents… The
threat by Bush also "casts fresh doubt on claims that other attacks on
Aljazeera were accidents", the Mirror said in its report on Tuesday. It
cited the 2001 direct hit on the channel’s Kabul office in Afghanistan… by
a US missile. None of the crew was at the office at the time. In April 2003, an
Aljazeera journalist, Tariq Ayub, died when its Baghdad office was struck during
a US bombing campaign.
UK Media Gagged Over Contents of Bombing Memo Targeting Al Jazeera
Secrecy gag prompted by fear of new Blair-Bush revelations
The meeting between Mr Bush and Mr Blair took place at a time when Whitehall officials, intelligence officers, and British military commanders were expressing outrage at the scale of the US assault on the Iraqi city of Falluja, in which up to 1,000 civilians are feared to have died. Pictures of the attack shown on al-Jazeera had infuriated US generals.
Al-Jazeera consults lawyers over Bush memo
Blair denies bombing plot knowledge
British Prime Minister Tony Blair has denied receiving any details of a reported US proposal to bomb Aljazeera.
Neocons Floated Idea of Bombing Al Jazeera Before
The idea to bomb al Jazeera out of existence wasn’t an idea that had
never been discussed on some level by people with influence. It had been discussed,
and probably had been discussed within the Pentagon, via the prodding of Frank
Gaffney. [See Neocon
Pundits Malign American Muslims for more on Gaffney.]
Blair faces grilling from Commons committee
Al-Qaeda calls Queen an ‘enemy of Islam’
The Sunday Times - a major disinfo rag - has obtained the full 27-minute video,
which is circulating on secure jihadist websites in the Middle East used
to recruit and inflame prospective terrorists… The
video also contains inflammatory material from Mohammad Sidique Khan, alleged
ringleader of the London bombings which killed 52 commuters. He is urging
Muslims to take part in jihad and seek martyrdom. Never mind that the evidence
suggests that the London bombings were NOT carried out by Muslim Jihadists.
Britain’s Prince Charles sues over leak
The journal contained the heir to the throne’s views on the 1997 hand-over
of Hong Kong to China, including one describing Chinese government people as "appalling
old waxworks".
Britain tops EU league for cocaine abuse
UK closing in on levels seen in American cities -- Deaths involving drug double
in three years
Youths riot for second night in Paris suburb
Hundreds
of French youths fought with police and set cars ablaze in a Paris suburb
on Saturday in a second night of rioting… (Interior Minister Nicolas) Sarkozy, whose law and order policies
have been criticized by human rights groups, launched
a new offensive against crime this month, ordering specially trained police
to tackle 25 tough neighborhoods in cities across France. [...] For those who don’t know, Sarkozy
is a hard-line right winger who aspires to be France’s next president.
Fourth night of riots hit Paris suburb
Police and youths clashed in a fourth night of rioting … Sarkozy was due to visit the prefecture of Seine-Saint-Denis, which also oversees Clichy-sous-Bois, on Monday morning amid criticism that his policies have increased tensions in tough neighbourhoods. [...] Laurent Fabius, a former Socialist prime minister and potential presidential candidate in 2007, said the violence marked a failure for Sarkozy’s policies and mocked his frequent visits to violent areas… "We need to act at the same time on prevention, repression, education, housing, jobs ... and not play the cowboy." [...]
Violence spreads in Paris suburbs
President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin have come
under fire from the opposition Socialist Party for their
"inexcusable" silence over the violence, but most anger has been directed at Sarkozy, who has made it clear he intends
to be a candidate in 2007 presidential
elections on a tough law-and-order platform. "When an interior
minister doesn’t hesitate to use insulting terms, branding as 'rabble'
communities which have the misfortune to be fragile and wanting to turn water-cannon
on them, it is the image of the country that is tarnished," the
Socialists said in a statement. [...] Sarkozy, who had
tried to see the angry families but was rejected by them as "very, very
incompetent", was also invited to Villepin’s office for the talks. [...]
Paris riots spread, shaking French government
Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin…said he was
counting on Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy -- who cancelled a trip
next week to Pakistan and Afghanistan to deal with the situation -- to "take
the necessary measures." [...] Just one week before the riots exploded, [Sarkozy] promised a "war
without mercy" on violence and petty crime in the suburbs. [...]
French gov’t powerless as worsening riots spread from Paris
In a worrying
sign, the rampages that have gripped the poorer immigrant-populated outskirts
of Paris since October 27 spread, for the first time, to other parts of the
country, to Dijon, Marseille and Normandy, and inside the capital itself… Speaking on French television late Thursday, Sarkozy said the violence
was being orchestrated by unknown organisers.
Paris seeks "hidden hands" in riots
With every night that France’s rundown suburbs burn, officials grow increasingly convinced that drug traffickers and Islamist militants are using frustrated youths to challenge law and order here. Many people who watch their cars, shops and schools go up in flames, however, are not buying it. They blame unemployment, racial prejudice and widespread youth boredom for the outbursts. [...] "The politicians blame it on Islamists because the French are afraid of this religion. They think Islam equals bin Laden."
Neo- con/fascist provocateurs behind French riots?
While Sarkozy [a confirmed neo-con
in the tradition of fellow travelers in Italy, Britain, Denmark, the Netherlands,
Israel, and Spain] has inflamed the situation with his anti-immigrant rhetoric,
de Villepin has sought to mollify the situation by not wanting to overreact
and create more turmoil… Sarkozy has strong links to the Likud Party in Israel and the
neo-cons in the Bush administration and the Blair government in London. Sounds
like the neo-con game plan: stir
up trouble, blame it on others, and then take rash action to “solve
the problem,”
while profiting politically and perhaps financially along the way. The
French politician who benefits the most from this explosion of violence
in a country where Muslim citizens constitute a significant minority
is Sarkozy.
More cars torched but situation calmer as France plans anti-riot curfews
The prime minister ruled out an army
intervention to stop the violence, which spread to some 300 towns
over the weekend, but said that 1,500 police reinforcements would be deployed
to restore public order.
France invokes emergency riot powers in main cities
"The prime minister seems to be losing his cool," Le Monde
newspaper wrote in an unusually harsh editorial. Evoking laws dating to France’s
colonial era showed Villepin "does not have the nerves that a statesman
needs," it said. Police said
11,500 police had been deployed overnight to combat the most serious public
disorder since protests in May 1968. Overnight, 280 people were detained. [...] Opposition
Socialists have vowed to closely monitor the application of the emergency powers
law, passed in 1955 when French authorities feared the Algerian insurgency
could spread to metropolitan France… Villepin has promised measures to help young people in poor suburbs find
jobs and to improve educational opportunities, but the opposition says that is not
enough and some have called for Sarkozy to resign.
Paris Prosecutors Eye Blogs Urging Riots
The worst appears to be over but tensions still high
Exactly two weeks into one of the worst crises in the country’s modern
history, France’s government was cautiously hopeful Thursday that the
wave of violence that has swept through many of its towns and cities could
be past its peak.
French riots still making headlines in US press
Muslim: Riots only hitting countries that opposed Iraq war
More fires set on France’s 14th violent night
Uneasy calm returns to French cities, meetings banned in Lyon
The Paris riots weren’t that bad—and the French government handled it well
Chirac admits riots reveal French malaise
Police say France 'back to normal' after rioting
Sarkozy stronger than ever after riots
France’s
weeks of riots may have created many victims, but they have also produced
a clear victor: Nicolas Sarkozy, the ambitious interior minister who sees
himself becoming the next French president… Gee, if
Sarkozy were unprincipled, he might see to more riots to boost his poll numbers
again. Good thing politicians are so trustworthy
Sarkozy challenges Chirac over race policy
"I
challenge the idea that we all start life on the same line. Some people
start further back because they have a handicap - colour, culture or the
district they come from. We have to help them."
"Here, we all have contact with
each other. That’s the way it’s always been here. We are not
separate from each other.".
’scum," French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy called the rioters who have seized control of many working-class "suburbs" around Paris every night since Oct. 27, when two teenagers died in an accident that many blame on the police.
Lawmakers back 'Orwellian' video-surveillance bill
French lawmakers on Thursday backed government plans to allow
greatly increased video-surveillance of public places, a key provision of a new anti-terrorism bill drawn up following
the London transport bombings. France had been
fairly resistant to the “War
on Terror”
nonsense, and their refusal to go along resulted in a smear campaign by
the US government, the results of which had the common American thinking
that France is an enemy. But,
Sarkozy is a key ally of the US and Israeli neocons. As
he gains power, we see France falling in line with the bullying. Before
you know it, we’ll start hearing of “nonspecific terrorist
threats against France,”
too.
France ’singled out' as enemy: intelligence chief
France is viewed as a target by a number of terrorist organisations, with several groups known to be planning attacks against the country, France’s head of domestic intelligence warned on Wednesday.
French terrorism bill clears first step
The law would make it possible to install video cameras on
the public transport system, in places of worship and in shops. It would also
give police wider access to telephone and computer data as well as to previously
confidential customer information from rail, maritime and air transport companies.
Longer prison terms would be introduced for convicts in terrorism cases and
the maximum period for which a suspect can be held without charge would be
increased from four to six days. Here we go again. The
clampdown claims country after country.
The continued
illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine continues to be, as it has been for
decades, a painful thorn in the Arab psyche and the largest obstacle to peace
with Israel. Israel uses Palestinian resistance to
occupation as an excuse to be ever more militant, and to select ever more
ruthless people to lead the country.
Israeli air raids strike northern Gaza
Israeli jets carried out further attacks aimed at halting militant activity in the northern Gaza Strip, as the Palestinian authority called on Washington to press for an Israeli ceasefire… Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz had ordered a resumption of targeted killing operations after a Palestinian suicide bomber killed five Israelis outside a falafel stand in the town of Hadera on Wednesday. [...]
Palestinians killed in shootout
Israeli soldiers have killed three Palestinian militants in operations near the West Bank city of Jenin… A week of violence has now also left 12 Palestinians dead.
France warns Israel on murders; urges Palestinians to improve security
"In this context," he added "we recall that the practice of targeted assassinations is contrary to international law," a blunt reminder to Israel that the murder of Palestinian militants, and often nearby innocent bystanders, is not helping the situation. [...]
Israel conducts mass arrest campaign
Israeli occupation forces have detained more than 20 Palestinians in an overnight
raid across the West Bank. Aljazeera’s correspondent reports
that Israeli troops, backed by 50 military vehicles, raided Jenin and detained
Palestinians who they say are on Israel’s "most-wanted"
list. [...]
Palestinians hit by sonic boom air raids
UN condemns night noise attacks as indiscriminate • Agencies say they
cause trauma and miscarriages. Israel is
deploying a terrifying new tactic against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza
Strip by letting loose deafening "sound
bombs" that cause widespread fear, induce miscarriages and traumatise
children. The removal of Jewish settlers from the
Gaza Strip opened the way for the military to use air force jets to create
dozens of sonic booms by breaking the sound barrier at low altitude, sending
shockwaves across the territory, often at night. Palestinians liken the sound
to an earthquake or huge bomb. They describe the effect as being hit by a wall
of air that is painful on the ears, sometimes causing nosebleeds and "leaving
you shaking inside"… "The stress is phenomenal," said
Eyad El Sarraj, a psychologist and director of Gaza Community Mental Health
Programme, one of the groups filing the petition. "The Israelis do it after midnight and then every one or two hours. You
try to go to sleep and then there’s another one. When it happens night
after night you become exhausted. You get a heightened sense of alert, waiting
continuously for it to happen. People suffer hypertension, fatigue, sleeplessness… Although
the Israelis say the shockwaves do not cause casualties, doctors at Gaza’s
Shifa hospital said the overflights had forced women to miscarry. The number
of miscarriages had increased by 40%...
Not guilty. The Israeli captain who put 17 bullets into a Palestinian
schoolgirl
An Israeli army officer who fired the entire magazine
of his automatic rifle into a 13-year-old Palestinian girl and then said he
would have done the same even if she had been three years old was acquitted
on all charges by a military court yesterday…
Israel Limits Rafah Radioactive Screening After Protests (from
April 2005)
Israeli occupation forces said they would limit the use of a controversial
"radioactive" screening room at Rafah border checkpoint after medical
experts warned of its life-threatening impact on Palestinian travelers… Palestinian
medics said that potential diseases include thrombocytopenic, sterility, congenital
anomalies, cancer, leukemia, mental retardation and ductless glands disorder,
warning that Palestinians are slipping toward slow death.
U.S. Financial Aid To Israel: Figures, Facts, and Impact
Mrs. Clinton Plans a Trip to Israel to Discuss Security With Sharon and His Aides
Mrs. Clinton is also planning
to visit part of the security fence in the West Bank that the Israeli government
built to protect its citizens from incursions by terrorists. Mrs.
Clinton’s advisers say she supported construction of the fence, which
has been criticized by Palestinian leaders and others.
Hillary Clinton clarifies Israel support
U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham
Clinton is in Israel on a visit intended to put to rest any lingering doubts
about her support for Israel.
Israeli Prison fence Will End Chances of Peace
Gaza in danger of turning into a 'giant prison', says Mideast envoy
Knesset Approves Sharon’s Speech Ruling Out Peace or Palestinian State
Indifference to Israeli aggression makes U.S. policy look imbalanced
Secret EU report launches scathing attack on Israel
The report
provides the most detailed and remorselessly critical account yet produced
by a Western international body of Israel’s policy
in East Jerusalem, which has been occupied since its seizure in the 1967 Six
Day War. It points out that … "prospects for a two state solution with East Jerusalem as the capital
of Palestine are receding". European
Foreign Ministers this week vetoed planned publication of the report - which
also warns that rapid expansion of Jewish settlements
in and around East Jerusalem, along with use of the separation barrier to isolate
East Jerusalem from the West Bank, "risk radicalising the hitherto relatively
quiescent Palestinian population of East Jerusalem".
Syria says 400 Mossad agents in Lebanon
Syria’s official Al-Thawra newspaper claimed Thursday that more than 400 agents from Israel’s spy agency Mossad are in Lebanon in the latest volley in an increasingly vitriolic war of words with Lebanon’s new leaders. "You have to recognize the danger of having more than 400 men from Israel’s Mossad in Lebanon …"These agents are encircling Lebanon like a belt that will explode when Israel and its strategic ally the United States decide," he said, charging there was also an increasing number of agents from the CIA and European states in the country.
Militia Boasts of Role in Sabra Massacre
It
was one of the most shocking massacres to scar the Middle East, the slaying
of more than 2,000 Palestinians by Christian militiamen in the wretched Lebanese
refugee camps… Israel’s
Defence Minister at the time, Ariel Sharon, authorised the entry
of members of Gemayel’s Lebanese Forces (a Phalangist militia) and Saad
Haddad’s South Lebanon Army into the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps,
home to 30,000 Palestinians whose refugee families had moved to Lebanon in
successive waves since 1948… For
the next 38 hours, the militiamen raped, tortured, mutilated and massacred
civilians. The exact number killed is still not known. On 22 September the
International Red Cross gave a figure of 2,400, but Palestinians claim more
died. Thus is Sharon known around the world as
The Butcher of Sabra and Shatila
Israel’s Sharon mulls new political party: report
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon may break away from his rightist Likud and form a new political party after a crisis with hardliners who opposed the Gaza pullout, a television report said on Tuesday.
'Political earthquake' shakes Israel as Sharon quits Likud
Sharon’s Critique of the Authoritarian Likud Party
Trinidad police detain Israeli; may be linked to bombings
Islamic leader denies involvement in Trinidad bombings
JDL Member Imprisoned in Bomb Plot Killed
A Jewish Defense League activist imprisoned for his role in a plot to bomb a California mosque and the office of a Lebanese- American congressman was killed at a federal prison in Phoenix, an FBI spokesman said Saturday.
A Palestinian boy has saved Jews and Arabs alike after he was shot by an Israeli soldier
Who profited from Amman bombings?- Israelis were evacuated hours before the attack
In the wake of recent bomb attacks targeting three hotels in the Jordanian capital Amman, the corporate media attempted to shape events to the liking of the Bushcons and the Israelis. Uruknet suggests that Amman’s attacks were carried out by seasoned experts, particularly from Mossad, with the complicity of Jordan’s intelligence and America’s CIA, in an attempt to shift the support from average Sunni Jordanians for the Sunni resistance in Iraq.
There are all kinds of problems with the Official Story of the Jordanian bombings.
Russian experts see Israeli, US links in Jordan blasts, Lebanon murder
Speakers in a Russian radio discussion have discerned an "Israeli connection" in the recent Amman bomb attacks and accused the USA of being behind the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri.
Who died, and who didn’t, in Jordan
There is an excellent summary of some peculiarities in the Jordan bombings in Xiaodong People, tying it to warnings given to Israelis in other recent ’terrorist' attacks (we might add the Odigo 9-11 warnings).
Confirmed: Israeli’s Knew about "Suicide Attacks" in Jordan’s Capital
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Israelis staying at the Radisson on Wednesday had been evacuated before the attacks and escorted back home "apparently due to a specific security threat." … "It means there was excellent intelligence that this thing was going to happen," said Guiora, a former leader of the Israel Defense Forces who now heads the Institute for Global Security Law and Policy at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. "The question that needs to be answered is why weren’t the Jordanians working at the hotel similarly removed?"
Israel’s latest black op - the most transparent yet?
Al-Qaeda’s sudden co-operativeness in helping the investigation speed towards a predetermined conclusion is as deeply suspicious as its solicitude for the Israeli Jews staying at the Radisson, who were escorted to safety several hours before the attacks.
Why would any of these suicide bombers — all Iraqis, we are told — choose to participate in an attack on Jordan when their own country is currently suffering under a military occupation? This attack only creates division amongst Arabs and the continued destabilization of the region but even more important, it’s an opportunity for a paper like The New York Times to villify Muslims and paint them all as terrorists.
With the video from Jordan showing a woman making shocking accusations, it is worth recalling the last time when a woman was shown on TV making shocking accusations. The day after Iraq invaded Kuwait, the Kuwaitis living in the US hired the public relations firm Hill and Knowlton - a job worth $1 million a month. This was the biggest ever contract in the history of public relations to improve the image of their corrupt, oil-rich regime. The story of how Iraqi troops, in the first days of the invasion, went into Al-Adan hospital, tore the sick babies from incubators and left them on the cold floor to die was graphically told to Congress on November 1990 before the crucial vote to send US troops (passed by about 5 votes). What the audience didn’t know however was that the 15-year old girl who made the moving, tearful testimony was none other than Niyirah al-Sabah - daughter of the US Ambassador to Kuwait. She had allegedly worked as a volunteer in the maternity ward of the hospital. But nurses who live in the two story white building opposite the hospital in Kuwait City claimed that they had never seen the girl before in their life. The entire move towards the Gulf War had thus been motivated by a blatant lie. The girl had been "trained" by Hill and Knowlton. The renowned international human rights group Amnesty International took out full-page newspaper spreads to publicise the babies incident. It had unwittingly (and not for the first time) transformed itself from a charity to a propaganda tool. Andrew Whitley of Middle East Watch described the story as a fabrication but it took months for the truth to come out. President Bush mentioned the incubator incident in five of his speeches and seven senators referred to them in speeches backing a pro-war resolution.
Iraqi Woman Confesses on Jordan TV
Amman Bombings: Corporate Media Revises Script
Israeli Mossad establishing Trinidad & Tobago base against Venezuela
Pollard blasts Israel in phone interview
In a telephone interview Monday evening with talk-show host
Yair Lapid, US prisoner Jonathan Pollard [a former US Navy intelligence analyst,
is serving a life sentence for spying for Israel] blasted the Israeli government
for not recognizing him as an Israeli intelligence agent. Both
Pollard and his wife said that the Israeli government had consciously disposed
of him. Esther even said that the Israel wanted him to commit suicide. Pollard,
in frustration, called the Israeli government a "mafia," which only
protected its own. The intelligence game is full of “useful idiots” who
do what they’re told, but are expendable by their masters. This AIPAC
scandal has been out of the news for ages, but that doesn’t mean that AIPAC, the largest pro-Isreal
lobby in America, isn’t continuing its suspicious activities.
According to Indictment, AIPAC Has Been Under Investigation Since
Early 1999
Israel sets March 28 date for general election, months ahead
of schedule
Presumably the Israel lobby’s political clout would preclude an FBI investigation
of the AIPAC colossus unless it had the president’s approval. If the
wording of Rosen’s indictment is correct, it means that the investigation
was ongoing during the presidency of Bill Clinton, who was all but surrounded
by Zionists. The fact that the investigation is continuing means that President
Bush is aware of it and, so far, approving it.
Israeli Genocide and Apartheid in Hebron
Under cover of the Israeli withdrawal propaganda from the Gaza settlements, which the International Media is reporting day and night, and under the unlimited U.S support for the Jewish State, the Israeli government continues robbing the Palestinian lands in the West Bank cities to increase the Jewish settlements.
An Eyewitness Account of the Murder of Muhammad “Niinu” Al-’Assi
This is a rare eyewitness account of one of Israel’s hundreds of illegal “targeted murders” of young Palestinian men, members of the legal resistance. It is the only eyewitness account of this particular brutal murder….
US Report Calls on Israel to Begin Nuclear Disarmament
The study
also argues that Israel’s action would persuade
other Middle East countries, Egypt or Algeria, to “follow suit and mothball
their own nuclear facilities,” which would lead to a regional halt to
the production of fissile material that would be the most effective method
to successfully isolate Iran. Almost unbelievably, Israel is not “officially” a
nuclear power. In fact, it is a
powerful one. Denials are simply
outrageous. Look at Israel’s Nuclear Weapons
Program, then do a net search on “Vanunu AND Dimona.” Consider
the media and bias when you wonder why Vanunu is considered a hero around the
world, yet is virtually unknown to most Americans.
Russia’s Putin Won’t Seek Third Term
President
Vladimir Putin said Monday he won’t seek
a third term in but vowed not to allow "destabilization" in Russia
following the vote, leaving the door open for drastic action in the event of
a crisis. Many have speculated the same about George
Bush. Research shows that FEMA
was set up, from the beginning, not primarily to deal with crises, but to take
complete, dictatorial control of the USA in the event of a large-enough
“crisis.” Suggested
reading, The
Truth About FEMA
Moscow to close foreign groups
Russia’s
parliament is expected to approve legislation today that would shut down
foreign-funded human rights and pro-democracy groups while tightening controls
over domestic civic organizations… Mr. Putin and other officials have accused internationally funded
NGOs of being a "fifth column" that seeks to destabilize Russia by
creating an opposition movement like those that started Ukraine’s Orange
Revolution and Georgia’s Rose Revolution.
Moscow’s bid to master the predominantly Muslim Caucasus
is a centuries-old and turbulent enterprise, born in tsarist times of an imperial
need to "civilise" a neighbouring people. But since the fall of the
proudly secular Soviet Union, corrupt local government and intense poverty
have been the catalyst of an Islamic revival in the north Caucasus.
Russia, China call for U.S. troops to go.
Four held in US over China military plot: report
FBI agents in Los Angeles have arrested four people with ties to Hong Kong for allegedly trying to smuggle sensitive material on US military technology to mainland China, a press report said Friday. The material included research into silent propulsion systems for US warships, a technology that is banned from export to China, the South China Morning Post reported, citing an FBI affidavit.
US
military activity in western Pacific to be stepped up
US military activity in the Western Pacific will be stepped up after the
relocation of 7,000 US Marines from Okinawa, the US regional naval commander
said… "You're
going to see more training, whether in the sea or in the air, in the western
Pacific region," Leidig said. "You're going to see increased military
presence throughout the region. I’m working specifically on increasing
the number of ships visiting the region," he added. [...]
The US has been badgering Hugo Chavez
(and he says threatening, too) of Venezuela for feeding his hungry, clothing
his naked, and tending to his sick with Venezuelan public money, instead
of systematically forking the majority of it over to the wealthy elite,
as is de rigueur in the first world. He is also attempting to gather
support in Latin America for trading goods and services outside of US-controlled
economic spheres of influence, a dangerous move when you know that war
is all about money and power, and only about money and power. Chavez
is also known for suppressing political opposition in his homeland, so
he’s far from a supporter of true freedom. Could he be America’s
unwitting pawn? An opening to US control of Venezuelan oil?
Venezuela On The Road to Eliminating Homelessness
The Venezuelan government will distribute 14,000 houses before the end of 2005,
as part of socio-economic programs promoted by President Hugo Chavez. Housing
Minister Luis Figueroa said Saturday that by December 31 no Venezuelan will
remain in a shelter. Figueroa said the government provided funds to purchase
houses and will construct others to help reduce housing problems. Housing the homeless is not the American Way, and the spreading
of such an idea infuriates the wealthy who own the US and other governments.
Panicky Bush slinks away
from Chavez
The main target at the event was Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a leader
who is invariably slandered by the media with the monikers "leftist firebrand", "radical
president" (Financial Times) or fiery, populist president (NY Times).
At some point in every article, Chavez is lumped together with Fidel Castro
or Che Guevara in a conspicuous attempt to dismiss him as an anti-American
troublemaker. In fact, Chavez was among the first countries to come to America’s
aid following Hurricane Katrina, offering doctors, medicine and oil to the
devastated region. No major media source publicly credited him for his charitable
contributions. Chavez, of course, is guilty of redistributing some of Venezuela’s
prodigious oil wealth to the poor and needy of his country. This has made him
an imminent threat to the entrenched oligarchy and their teammates in the media.
Poor Americans are Now Getting Charitable Aid from Venezuela
Hugo Chavez vs. the King of Vacations
"The planet’s most serious danger is the government of the United
States ... The people of the United States are being governed by a killer,
a genocidal murderer, and a madman."
… Following
the vast devastation of Hurricane Katrina Chavez responded more quickly than
FEMA, offering to send cheap fuel, humanitarian aid and relief workers to the
disaster area. He offered to provide $1 million of free petroleum via the state
run Petroleos de Venezuela and its subsidiary CITGO for the relief effort. According
to civil rights leader, Jesse Jackson, Chavez also offered two mobile hospital
units, 120 rescue and first aid experts, and 50 tons of food; considerably
more than "Brownie"
was able to produce. "We have
drinking water, food, and we can provide fuel," Chavez told reporters. None of this was, of course, was reported
in the American media which consistently lambastes Chavez as a "radical
leftist". The self-proclaimed
socialist, Chavez, is seen as a serious threat to expanding capital markets
in the southern hemisphere and, therefore, ripe for regime change. This explains
the hostile language the media uses in describing the ebullient and charismatic
Chavez… “they left
the poor, without protection, especially the blacks. That’s horrible!
The government had no evacuation plan. The world’s only superpower is
so involved in Iraq ...but left its own people adrift," Chavez said on
live TV. "And, that cowboy, the king of vacations, stayed at his ranch
and said nothing but, 'You have to flee'. It’s incredible." … "The
US has bombed entire cities, used chemical weapons and napalm, killed women
and children and thousands of soldiers. That’s terrorism," said
Chavez.
"The US government is a threat to humanity." Last
week, Chavez took another swing at the Bush team by ordering the delivery of "12
million gallons of discounted home-heating oil to local charities and 45,000
low-income families in Massachusetts next month." ( Boston Globe) The
deal will provide nine million gallons of oil to institutions that serve the
poor, such as homeless shelters. Families will be able to buy heating fuel
at discount rates, keeping them from freezing to death in the bitter New England
winter.
Chavez says may give US F-16 jets to Cuba, China
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Tuesday his government may give its U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets to Cuba or China and replace them with Chinese or Russian aircraft after accusing Washington of blocking purchases of U.S. military parts. Any exchange of military hardware to those countries would break an agreement with the U.S. government on the transfer of technology without Washington’s permission and further strain fraying ties between Venezuela and the United States. A fierce critic of the Bush administration, Chavez has rattled Washington by strengthening ties with anti-U.S. states like Cuba and promoting his self-described socialist revolution as a counterweight to U.S. regional influence. "If they don’t comply with the contract ... we can do whatever we want with these aircraft, whatever the hell we want. Maybe we'll give 10 planes to Cuba or to China so they can study the technology," Chavez said.
Chavez Accuses Colombia of Coup Conspiracy
President Hugo Chavez charged Wednesday that Colombian intelligence agencies have been behind plots against his government, but he added they failed to undermined relations between the two neighbors… said there are elements in Colombia "who obey Washington'' and who attack Venezuela with false claims about him supporting leftist rebels. Chavez, a leftist, has repeatedly accused the United States of supporting efforts to oust him - accusations that U.S. officials have denied.
Why is Bush so unpopular? - Bush’s visit to Latin America stirs up violent demonstrations
…could it be that he is perhaps the most hated man on Earth? … People in general dislike those who break the law, in the case of Bush, practically every rule in international law and diplomacy, which renders him and his regime liable in future to stand trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Uruguayans Storm Argentina against Bush
Hundreds of Uruguayans gushed into Mar del Plata Monday to condemn the forthcoming presence of US President George W. Bush. NGO’s, social and union organizations travelled to participate at the People’s, or Counter-America’s Summit, where Latin American and Caribbean artists will also perform. Uruguay’s popular organizations are concerned over US presence in the region, especially with military and intelligence installations along the so-called Triple Border. This area involves Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay plus partners of the Common Market of the South.
Israeli Mossad establishing Trinidad & Tobago base against Venezuela
THE INTERNATIONAL FORECASTER editor Bob Chapman writes: We reported on the large contingent of Israelis and Mossad personnel in Colombia a couple of months ago ... they are there in the thousands. Now we find them popping up in Trinidad & Tobago, which is prosperous due to oil and gas production and processing. It is also used by the Israeli Mafia for transshipping drugs. We are beginning to see bombings occur and authorities have arrested Dahtangmik Agaronov. The drug operation … includes 5,000 criminals in Colombia, Moscow and Trinidad & Tobago who not only move cocaine and marijuana, but weapons as well… Our sources tell us they are about to establish, on behalf of George and the neocons and Israel, a base for “revolutionaries,” that is mercenaries, against Venezuela and its President Hugo Chavez Frias ... we’ll keep you updated. We hope Venezuelan intelligence is on top of this.
Memo to Jon Stewart: Glad You're Against Torture, So Why'd You Give Israel a Pass?
Mexico, Venezuela Sever Ties Over Spat
The severing of diplomatic relations came after a week of verbal sparring that highlighted Latin America’s differences over free trade and relations with the United States. The conservative Fox tends to side with Washington on many issues, while Chavez, a socialist and populist, has been one of the hemisphere’s strongest critics of Bush. When asked what the driving issue was behind the flap, the Venezualan ambassador said "look a little bit north" a reference to the United States.
Chavez calls Bush 'killer', ’madman'
"The planet’s most serious danger is the government
of the United States. ... The people of the United States are being governed
by a killer, a genocidal murderer and a madman," Chavez said at a meeting
of Venezuelan and Brazilian business executives in Caracas. He may be right, but he seems surprisingly unafraid to
“stir up” this kind of trouble.
US threatens to block £890m Spanish arms sale to Venezuela
The US
yesterday threatened to block a record-breaking arms deal under which Spain
would sell ships and aircraft to Venezuela, in another sign of increasingly
fraught relations between the Bush administration and the Venezuelan president,
Hugo Chávez. No
one can stop the US from selling arms to whomever it wants, developing any
weapons it wants, etc. Why do you
think it’s okay for the US to dictate how arms flow in the rest of the
world? Why, if the US is so “good” and “friendly” would
it ever be afraid of any other country having arms? There
is more about Chavez’s offer of cheap oil to American poor in this article,
too.
3 New Delhi Explosions Kill at Least 58
Death toll in Ethiopian unrest rises to 36
Muslim Brothers make major advance in Egypt vote
Bin Laden, Bush Serve the Same Master (from November 2002)
“…the Muslim Brotherhood is a tool by the British-based Globalists whose main objective is to overthrow the established world order and create a new one-world system of global governance."
Egyptian vote could be bad news for U.S.
Housing market going down. Carmakers
going down. US gov’t
explicitly refusing to help, and even exacerbating decline.
On March 23, 2006, the Board of Governors of the Federal
Reserve System will cease publication of the M3 monetary aggregate. The Board
will also cease publishing the following components: large-denomination time
deposits, repurchase agreements (RPs), and Eurodollars. The Board will continue
to publish institutional money market mutual funds as a memorandum item in
this release. Measures of large-denomination
time deposits will continue to be published by the Board in the Flow of Funds
Accounts (Z.1 release) on a quarterly basis and in the H.8 release on a weekly
basis (for commercial banks). Bottom line: this will make the US economy easier to
manipulate and to hide that manipulation.
Suddenly, area’s housing market favors the buyers - Cooling of sales to crimp economy
Greater Boston’s once-sizzling home sales have cooled so much this fall that realtors are reverting to a description not heard in a decade: ''Buyer’s market." … The fall slowdown not only represents a sea change for sellers, who for years have enjoyed multiple offers and higher prices, but also indicates the region’s bull housing market is at an end.
Economists expect sharp recession after real-estate bubble bursts
A downturn in housing could mean more than 1.3 million lost jobs, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. predicts…
Fastest Decline in Real Wages on Record – Inflation Up, Wages Down
Employers' wage costs grew 2.3% over the past year, the slowest growth rate on record, according to today’s report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Factoring in the recent energy-driven increase in inflation, the real wage is down 2.3%, also the largest real loss on record for this series that began in 1981. With hourly wages falling in real terms, the only way working families can raise their incomes is by working more hours…
So, how does the government plan to help this terrible
situation?
US poor set to lose food stamps
With more than 38 million Americans too poor to buy adequate food, the US Congress has begun to take away the food stamps many of them receive. The Republican majority on the House Agriculture Committee has approved budget cuts that will take "food stamps" away from an estimated 300,000 people and could cut off school lunches and breakfasts for 40,000 children. The action came as the US Government reported that the number of people who are hungry because they can’t afford to buy enough food rose to 38.2 million in 2004, an increase of seven million in five years. The number represents nearly 12 per cent of US households.
Rich Senators Defeat Minimum-Wage Hike
Congressional Pay Rises While Minimum Stays Same -- U.S. senators -- who draw
salaries of $162,100 a year and enjoy a raft of perks -- have rejected a
minimum wage hike from $5.15 an hour to $6.25 for blue-collar workers… The
minimum wage was last increased in 1997. Kennedy
called the vote "absolutely unconscionable." [...]
House Passes Sweeping Budget Cut Bill
The bill, passed 217-215 after a 25-minute-
long roll call, makes modest but politically painful cuts across an array of programs for the poor, students and farmers.
House votes to cut $700 million in food stamps
… despite objections from antihunger groups complaining that estimates show some 235,000 people would lose benefits…
Congress Helps Self to $3,100 Pay Raise
Congressional leaders say it’s time to get serious about
the deficit, so they cut $36-billion in spending on the country’s working poor.
And then they give the wealthy $70-billion more in tax breaks.
Poll results: Eliminating poverty should be No. 1 U.S. priority
Eliminating poverty in America is more important than fighting terrorism, U.S. troops should be pulled out of Iraq, and money saved on war should be used to rebuild hurricane-scarred New Orleans, according to a national poll. [...] "I don’t remember poverty ever finishing as the No. 1 priority on any kind of list," said Sergio Bendixen, whose firm Bendixen & Associates conducted the poll. "The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the images of poverty have clearly made a large impact on many Americans."
Big Three carmakers see sales slump in US
While Japanese rivals nearly all produced sales rises in the US market, General Motors posted a 23 percent decline from a year ago to 257,623 vehicles. Ford said its October sales were down 26 percent to 199,847. DaimlerChrysler sales were not as bad, but still fell three percent to 183,163 cars and trucks.
The world’s largest automaker, which has lost nearly $4 billion this year, has said it will provide details by the end of 2005 about its previously announced plan to cut at least 25,000 manufacturing jobs as part of a broader restructuring plan.
GM to cut 3,900 jobs in Ont. as Oshawa, St. Catharines plants to close
GM to raise India workforce by 30%
Ford to cut 4,000 jobs in North America
… or
10 percent of its North American white-collar work force, as part of a larger
restructuring plan… There’s
that word “restructuring” again. Sounds
nice, doesn’t it?
Delta Air reports $1.1 billion loss
Pioneer to cut 1,000 jobs-paper
Japanese electronics maker … Pioneer in March unveiled a plan to cut 2,000 jobs, but said most of the cuts will come from overseas.
Job growth weaker than expected
Inner Cities Continue to Hemorrhage Jobs
Trade gap hits record after Katrina
…a
record $66.1 billion…
Bush Borrowed More Than All Previous Presidents Combined, Group Says
You gotta read this one.
Almost 100% Rise in U.K. Mortgage Repossession
Gas Prices To Increase Online Shopping
Gold is the best known “safe haven” for investors
when they smell trouble brewing in the economy and the markets.
Gold breaks through $500 for first time since 80s
Gold on Tuesday broke through the key psychological level of $500, its highest level since December 1987.
Newmont Mining Forecasts Gold to Rise Above $1,000 on Asian Demand
Newmont
Mining Corp., the world’s largest producer
of gold, says the price of the precious metal may rise to more than $1,000
an ounce in the next five to seven years as demand growth driven by Asia outstrips
global supply.
Conrad Black, Ex-Hollinger Chief, Indicted for Fraud
Conrad Black, the onetime press magnate who built Hollinger International Inc. into the world’s third-largest publisher of English-language newspapers, was charged with helping steal $51.8 million from the company.
BUSH LABOR DEPARTMENT MADE SWEETHEART DEAL WITH WAL-MART
The Labor Department’s inspector general strongly criticized department officials yesterday for "serious breakdowns" in procedures involving an agreement promising Wal-Mart Stores 15 days' notice before labor investigators would inspect its stores for child labor violations.
Wal- Mart employee fired for Christmas email Happy Holidays!
By connecting
and supporting the myriad efforts already underway across the country, Wal-Mart
Watch serves as a catalyst for coordinated action, a fact-based presence
on the truths about Wal-Mart’s business model…
Paris Prosecutors Eye Blogs Urging Riots
US heads for internet showdown
The US
is headed for a showdown with much of the rest of the world over control
of the internet at this week’s UN summit in Tunisia. Most net users probably do not spend a
lot of time worrying about who runs the resource they are using, but there
is a global battle brewing over that very question. The internet grew out of
US military and academic research, and the US government still has certain
measures of control over it. Other nations, however, are clamouring
for a bigger say… Both the
US Departments of Commerce and State have reiterated that the US will maintain
what they call
"stewardship" of the internet… Some
in the anti-US camp are threatening more drastic action. They say, if the US
won’t cede some control, they will create their own internet.
Study Predicts Political, Economic Turmoil If UN’s Internet Governance Schemes Succeed
"After so many conspiracy hoaxes over the years, there is now a serious, ominous effort to replace the efficient and adaptable non-profit entity guiding the Internet with a new UN-sponsored agency," said NTU Government Affairs Manager and Issue Brief author Kristina Rasmussen.
Feds Using ISPs to Spy on Internet Users
Having
recently reported how ISPs are being pressurized into revealing information
on internet users, the USA stands on the threshold of a far more ominous
threat to privacy that will force ISPs to allow a wide range of law enforcement
agencies direct real time access to their own systems…
Deal Reached on Managing the Internet
Negotiators from more than 100 countries agreed late Tuesday to leave the United States in charge of the Internet’s addressing system, averting a U.S.-EU showdown at this week’s U.N. technology summit.
How the Great Firewall of China keeps cyber dissidents in check
There
are two unique characteristics of Wikipedia that can be very damaging to
a person, corporation, or group. The first is that anyone can edit an article,
and there is no guarantee that any article you read has not been edited maliciously,
and remains uncorrected in that state, at the precise time that you access
that article… Wikipedia
is a potential menace to anyone who values privacy. It needs to be watched
closely…
Terrorism threat to Net overblown
Murdoch predicts gloomy future for press
Rupert
Murdoch has forecast a gloomy future for newspapers with the growth of the
internet, saying he doesn’t know "anybody
under the age of 30 who has ever looked at a classified ad". The owner
of the Sun, Times, Sunday Times and the News of the World, who once described
newspaper classified advertising revenue as providing "rivers of gold", now says: "Sometimes
rivers dry up". The internet’s
growth may be the real reason that the US gov’t wants so much to control
it. Newspapers, TV, and radio stations
are held within relatively few hands, making it easy to control their content. The
internet isn’t like that.
GLOBAL WARMING
New Study Warns of Total Loss
of Arctic Tundra
Environmental cloud on horizon for Mediterranean, warns UN
Expanding desert could cover China’s breadbasket in sand
Global Warming More Serious Than Terrorism says Gore
Millions face glacier catastrophe - Global warming hits Himalayas
Pacific Islanders To Be Early Refugees Of Climate Change
Sea level rise doubles in 150 years
Antarctic Ice Shows Long Period of Lower Greenhouse Gas Levels
A nearly two-mile-long core of ice -- the oldest frozen sample
ever drilled from the underbelly of Antarctica -- shows that levels of two
greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide and methane, have not been as high as they
are today for 650,000 years.
EARTHQUAKES,
VOLCANOES
Survivors of the Pakistani earthquake left to die of cold
Halloween night rumbling in western New York was earthquake
Major earthquake exercise under way in Russian Far East
Magnitude 5.1 - EASTER ISLAND REGION
Magnitude 4.6 - NEAR S. COAST OF WESTERN HONSHU, JAPAN
Magnitude 4.7 - OFF THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
Magnitude 4.2 - ANDREANOF ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN IS., ALASKA
Magnitude 5.7 - SERAM, INDONESIA
Magnitude 5.8 - KERMADEC ISLANDS, NEW ZEALAND
Magnitude 5.2 - TONGA
Magnitude 4.3 - PAKISTAN
Magnitude 5.2 - KURIL ISLANDS
Magnitude 5.1 - NORTHERN SUMATRA, INDONESIA
Magnitude 4.7 - PAKISTAN
Magnitude 5.3 - PAKISTAN
Magnitude 5.0 - OFF WEST COAST OF THE SOUTH ISLAND, N.Z.
Magnitude 5.6 - SOUTH SANDWICH ISLANDS REGION
Magnitude 4.4 - CENTRAL ALASKA
Magnitude 4.8 - HOKKAIDO, JAPAN REGION
Magnitude 5.0 - NEAR THE EAST COAST OF KAMCHATKA, RUSSIA
Magnitude 4.5 - CENTRAL ALASKA
Magnitude 5.5
- VANUATU REGION
Magnitude
4.5 - CENTRAL ALASKA
Magnitude
5.5 - TONGA
Magnitude
5.8 - ECUADOR
First
Few Seconds Of Earthquake Rupture Provides Data For Distant Shake Warnings
Magnitude 6.0 - SOUTHEASTERN SIBERIA, RUSSIA
Magnitude 5.1 - MARIANA ISLANDS REGION
Magnitude 5.9 - SOUTH SANDWICH ISLANDS REGION
Magnitude 4.0 - SOUTHERN ALASKA
Powerful earthquake shakes Japan
Colombian volcano threatens eruption
Colombia recommends evacuation of town near volcano
Strong earthquake jolts northern Chile, Bolivia
Section of Plymouth Mass. hit by minor earthquake
Earthquake measuring 5.0 recorded off Indonesia’s Aceh
Northern Australia rocked by earthquake
Southern Japan rocked by strong earthquake
Tiny earthquake shakes St. Louis region
Geologist Says New Orleans Sinking
Colombian volcano spews ash, fumes
Strong quake hits Iran
Quake Hits China
Volcano dust cloud peaks interest
STORMS, FLOODS,
DROUGHTS, HEAT, COLD
October Sets Rainfall Records
in Northeast
Lightning strike kills 68 dairy cows
2 students hurt as possible tornado hits Hamilton
Australia headed for hottest year on record
Deadly Effects of Future U.S. Heat Waves Predicted
Deadly tornadoes tear through U.S. Midwest
Storms Hit Midwest Days After Ind. Tornado
60 MINS: NATURAL DISASTER EXPERT TO NEW ORLEANS RESIDENTS: PULL OUT BEFORE THE COASTLINE PASSES
Calif. Wildfire Is 30 Percent Contained
Gamma Weakens After Lashing Honduras
Tropical Storm Epsilon Forms in Atlantic
Thousands lose power as storm hits Maritimes
Blizzards and Tornadoes Hit Midwest, Arkansas
DISEASE
Canada discovers H5 avian flu virus in wild birds
Bird flu spooking pet panic: expert
Doctors Say ERs Not Ready for a Disaster
Bird Flu Targets Young and Healthy - Doctors puzzled
US Army scientists create "Spanish Flu" virus in laboratory
- medical benefit questionable
One of the two birds infected with bird flu had the H5N1 strain, official says (Kuwait)
Bird flu causes fatal immune storm - study
China confirms first human cases of bird flu Vietnam announces three more outbreak sites
Indonesia reports 8th suspected death from bird flu
Number with HIV 'at highest yet'
China says bird flu virus in humans mutating
FIRE IN THE
SKY
Fireball Sightings on the Rise
Fireballs seen over Germany
spark UFO speculation
Geologists delve into giant crater off Virginia
Big Meteor Shower Puts on Show in Alaska
Meteor shower startles Riverina residents
Skywatchers treated with fiery meteors
Star is observed moving at 1.5 million MPH
Scientific Report Confirms an Alien Presence in Puerto Rico?
1,400-Pound Meteorite Found in Kansas
Sheriff’s office investigating night sky phenomenon ( Colorado)
Dozens of UFOs reported over Wales
UFOs Like 'Inverted Meteors' Caught On Film
X Files Opened: The National Security Agency’s UFO Investigations Unearthed
Man hopes 1,430-pound meteorite will land him seven-figure payout
Nano visionary Richard Smalley dies
In the past few years, Smalley became an outspoken advocate
for dedicating
research to alternative energy technologies. Hmmm.
Live speech-translation technology unveiled
Scientists prove blind people can ’see' with sixth sense
Pluto may have three moons, instead of one
Scientists closing in on 'gravity waves'
Young Earth not as hellish as we thought
What was up the clear numeral 2 appearing in the eye of
Hurricane Wilma?
Einstein’s wrong, relatively speaking
Reg Cahill says he can prove Albert
Einstein and his hundred-year-old theories of relativity are wrong.
The Universe is Only Pretending, Physicist Says
Garage doors work after mystery signal vanishes
Hunger kills 6,000,000 children a year: UN
On average, one American consumes as much energy as:
2 Japanese
6 Mexicans
13 Chinese
31 Indians
128 Bangladeshis
307 Tanzanians
370 Ethiopians
Americans eat 815 billion calories of food each day - that’s roughly
200 billion more than needed - enough to feed 80 million people.
Americans throw out 200,000 tons of edible food daily.
Eighty percent of the corn grown and 95% of the oats are fed to livestock.
There are more shopping malls than high schools.
A Review, analysis, and commentary on the book by Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince (by Laura Knight-Jadczyk) --
I do understand the position of P & P. It’s one thing to pursue conspiracy theories and to find them and track them and think that there are some very naughty folks here on the Big Blue Marble. It’s an altogether different thing, after one has tracked enough of these theories, to come to the realization that they are all just different parts of the same elephant, and that the critter is really thousands of years old. When that fact smacks you in the face, either you run screaming in denial, or you begin to step back from the truly BIG picture, the global-millennial picture, and you see that there is a very stinky rat somewhere. Having arrived at that point, you realize that such a conspiracy could not be carried out by human beings - at least not alone. And then you have to face the most difficult task of all: asking yourself who or what could be behind it. Having asked that question, you realize that you simply cannot answer it unless you open your mind to a whole constellation of possibilities that you would formerly never, ever, in your wildest dreams have considered. Then, if you work very, very hard, you may discover the "truth" that THEY want you to believe. [Click link above to continue...]
...Back in the 1970s, Jacques Vallee wrote a book called Messengers of Deception where he warned that certain UFO "cults" (such as UMMO and the Raelians) might be the creation of quite terrestrial military intelligence agencies using them as psychological warfare testing grounds. Vallee seems to have been somewhat prescient, in that many authors discovered CIA links to the mass ’suicide' at Jim Jones' Jonestown camp in Guyana in the late 70s - John Judge believes that the CIA was interested in just how far a charismatic figure could get people to go (including killing others or taking their own lives), and that they set up Jonestown as an "experiment." Also, just recently, people were shocked by the mass suicide of the Heaven’s Gate sect. What people may not know is that Vallee met "Bo" (Marshall Applewhite) and his companion "Peep" back in the 70s, when they were calling themselves "the Two" and attracting a small cadre of followers. Vallee was already warning people in the 70s that there was something very suspicious indeed about "Bo" and where he was leading his "sheep" - too bad nobody listened. Although Vallee believes in a genuine UFO phenomenon, he warns researchers that there definitely seems to be a rather nasty military interest in manipulating simulation of the phenomenon for their own purposes - whether to conceal "black" projects or to test various kinds of psychological wafare techniques. Thus, some ’sightings' (such as the 1980 Bentwaters/Rendlesham Forest case) may have actually been military experiments. ...
Schwaller de Lubicz and the Fourth Reich
Many readers have written to me asking about the work of Rene Schwaller de
Lubicz, and why I have suggested that work based on his ideas is misleading.
I have before me the lovely boxed set of his magnum opus, The Temple of Man,
in which Schwaller makes all kinds of claims about the "pharaonic intelligence" and
thought, which we must take as true simply because he says so. Oh, indeed,
he does attempt to dazzle the ignorant and easy believer with his mathematical
and "symbolique"
feats of cerebral derring-do, but when his sentences are examined carefully
for content, one makes the most distressing discovery that the word density
of Schwaller is quite low. And he helpfully informs us at the beginning, in
case we don’t get it, that if we don’t get it, it’s going
to be our fault because we aren’t bright enough to get it.
Swerdlow
Controlled via Satellite? or "reductio ad absurdum"
Why do we use Ouija board? To screen out the external disturbance. In particular to make it more difficult for satellites, or other programming signals coming from human and hybrid technology, when and if they come, to affect the message. At least two persons are needed. No rituals. Critical thinking, sometimes, joking, often coffee, fresh minds, loud discussion, and the board. Thinking in terms of possible quantum physics involved in mind-matter interactions it is clear to me that the methods we use are more likely to be robust and shielded against deliberate bombarding from outside by mind controlling signals. On the other hand, talking directly to "Mind-God" as Swerdlow does is more susceptible to interference. For example, a weak outside EM signal can be talking directly to a tiny implant in our teeth, and we will take it for on Oversoul....
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