THE MONTHLY SEARCH FOR TRUTH IN NEWS

November 2005


THIS MONTH’S TOPICS: 

BUSH ADMINISTRATION IN CRISIS

DOMESTIC POLICIES AND CREEPING TOTALITARIANISM

US FOREIGN POLICY / IRAQ

IRAN

BRITAIN AND AUSTRALIA

CIVIL UNREST IN FRANCE

ISRAEL AND PALESTINE

RUSSIA AND CHINA

VENEZUELA AND LATIN AMERICA

ELSEWHERE

ECONOMY

INTERNET

NATURAL DISASTERS


BUSH ADMINISTRATION IN CRISIS

 

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.

 

Worse than Watergate?

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.

 

A White House Without Rove?

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.

 

SCOOTER’s SEX SHOCKER

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."

 

Tom DeLay’s House of Shame

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 Sleeping Giant Stirs

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."

 

Bush the Dupe?

…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.”

 

U.S. DOMESTIC POLICIES AND CREEPING TOTALITARIANISM


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 Anyone?

…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.

 

Fascism then. Fascism now?

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, The Naive: Listen to the President’s Soothing Words, and Ignore Those Who Disturb Your Rest.

, 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."

 

An Enemy of The State

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 stateAlthough 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.

 

CIFA: Pentagon’s COINTELPRO

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

 

The FBI’s Secret Scrutiny --

 

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."
Click to Expand Article


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.

 

IRS Targeting Pro-Peace Churches; Pro War, No Problemo

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.

 

Cheney’s 'Dark Arts'

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.

 

Sleaze, Deceit and Torture

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 tortureCheney 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

 

Bushwhacking the Constitution

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.

 

Martial Law

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…

 

Bush’s War on the Press

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? - Part 1

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?

 

Are You Brainwashed? - Part 2

 

Controlling the Opposition...

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…

 

Fake News

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

 

Philosopher’s Stone

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.

 

The Imperial Presidency

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?!!"

 

Newsday Does 9/11

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.

 

One Hour Guide To 9/11

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.

 

Family Members Of Doomed 911 Flights ’strangely Silent' About Irregularities & Inconsistencies Of Official Government Story

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.

 

The Media is the Enemy

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.

  1. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies: Diebold and ES&S.
  2. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry.
  3. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers.
  4. The chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush campaign organizer and donor who wrote in 2003 that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."
  5. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He became Senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines.
  6. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, long-connected with the Bush family, was recently caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee.
  7. Senator Chuck Hagel was on a short list of George W. Bush’s vice- presidential candidates.
  8. ES&S is the largest voting machine manufacturer in the U.S. and counts almost 60% of all U.S. votes.
  9. Diebold’s new touch screen voting machines have no paper trail of any votes. In other words, there is no way to verify that the data coming out of the machine is the same as what was legitimately put in by voters.
  10. Diebold also makes ATMs, checkout scanners, and ticket machines, all of which log each transaction and can generate a paper trail.

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.

 

Open Letter to George’s Mama

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)


the Christian fundamentalists weren’t distracted. With messianic zeal, they focused on a plan to control the nation’s political agenda by securing the Senate Israel would be backed virtually without question in its conflict with the Palestinians because that would fulfill a prophecy portending the second coming of Christ. Foreign countries would have to pass a moral litmus test to receive U.S. aid. The American "Christian Right" is firmly entrenched in the White House and the Pentagon. They have succeeded in creating hell on Earth by shaping world events to conform to their distorted and erroneous beliefs about the Bible, bringing about a self-fulfilling prophecy of Armageddon…

Neocon Pundits Malign American Muslims


Three militant neocon pundits spoke vehemently against the Bush administration’s gesture to include American Muslim leaders in discussions on how to deal with the rising tide of anti-Americanismand restore the level of trust and support the United States enjoyed prior to the missteps the administration took at the neocons’ urging… [Frank] Gaffney belongs to a small but vocal group of militant pundits driven by deep-seated hate of Islam and Muslims, and bent on maligning Muslim leaders and organizations in a bid to marginalize and isolate mainstream American Muslims. He joined Mowbray and Daniel Pipes, two other well-known Muslim-bashers, in demonizing ISNA and the leaders of the national Muslim organizations who met with Hughes. Pipes, who bashes Muslims in his writings and effectively wrote, “Arabs smell bad,” was appointed by Bush to the US Institute of Peace, much to the outrage of Muslims. This demonstrates how Bush feels about Muslims in general. Pipes and all neocons recognize the need to continue their fake war on terror, and being in positions where they can sow seeds of mistrust and anger suits them well.

Pipes Nominated to USIP Board (from 2003)

Utah Lawyer Hospitalized After Being Targeted by Homeland Security for Information Linking Five U.S. Supreme Court Justices With Bribery Over Bush v. Gore Decision

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...
Click to Expand Article

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."

 

DRONES ’tO FLY OVER CITIES'

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."

 

This isn’t the real 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!
Click to Expand Article

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.

 

 

U.S. FOREIGN POLICY, INCLUDING IRAQ

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.

 

A name that lives in infamy

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 raidsGround 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.

 

US Official, reflecting the latest attitude of the US government, calls for Regime Change in Syria "Diplomatically if Possible by Force is Necessary"

 

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

 

The President Betrayed Us

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."

 

Al Qaeda – The Database

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.

 

 

IRAN

 

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.

 

 

BRITAIN AND AUSTRALIA

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

 

CIVIL UNREST IN FRANCE

 

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

 

CNN Got It Wrong

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."

 

Long Integrated, Marseille Is Spared Southern Port Was Largely Quiet as Riots Raged in Other French Cities

"Here, we all have contact with each other. That’s the way it’s always been here. We are not separate from each other.".

 

Panic in Paris

’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.

 

 

ISRAEL AND PALESTINE


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.

 

Israel and the Neocons

 

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, sleeplessnessAlthough 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 victory over death and hate

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.

 

The Jordan river of lies

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.

 

Still not believable

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.

 

The Incubator Lie

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 AND CHINA

 

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.

 

Putin’s Hidden War

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. [...]

 

 

 

VENEZUELA AND LATIN AMERICA

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.

 

 

ELSEWHERE

 

 

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.

ECONOMY

Housing market going down. Carmakers going down. US gov’t explicitly refusing to help, and even exacerbating decline.

 

Discontinuance of M3

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

 

Let them eat pork

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.

 

GM prepares to wield job ax

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

 

Metals futures broadly higher

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!

 

Wal-Mart Watch

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…

INTERNET

 

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

 

Wikipedia Watch

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.

NATURAL DISASTERS


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 5.4 - NORTHERN PERU

Magnitude 5.1 - BAY OF BENGAL

Magnitude 5.1 - EASTER ISLAND REGION

Magnitude 5.1 - NEPAL

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 5.2 - VIETNAM

Magnitude 5.0 - NEAR THE EAST COAST OF KAMCHATKA, RUSSIA

Magnitude 4.5 - CENTRAL ALASKA

Magnitude 5.8 - ECUADOR

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

Aliens - or pie in the sky?

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

 

 

SCIENCE, MISCELLANIA


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

 

The mystery of the eye

What was up the clear numeral 2 appearing in the eye of Hurricane Wilma?

 

  US military sets laser PHASRs to stun

 

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

 

Americans constitute 5% of the world’s population but consume 24% of the world’s energy.

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.

The Stargate Conspiracy

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...]


THE STARGATE CONSPIRACY

...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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