THE MONTHLY SEARCH FOR TRUTH IN NEWS

October 2005


THIS MONTH’S TOPICS: 

U.S. Educational System

U.S. Domestic Policies And Creeping Totalitarianism

Bush Administration In Crisis

U.S. Foreign Policy Including Iraq And Iran

Britain And Australia

Israel And Palestine

China

Venezuela

Civil Unrest In France

Economy

Internet

Natural Disasters



U.S. EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM

 

20% of Seniors Flunk High School Graduation Exam

“The exit exam - which has come under criticism by some educators, legislators and civil rights advocates - is geared to an eighth-grade level in math and to ninth- and 10th-grade levels in English.”

 

Bush administration found involved in illegal 'covert propaganda'

“The administration of President George W. Bush broke the law as it resorted to illegal "covert propaganda" in trying to sell its key education initiative to the public, US congressional investigators have found…  The finding, made public by the Government Accountability Office on Friday, added to a plethora of big and small ethics scandals besetting the administration and its top Republican allies  the Education Department had paid newspaper columnist and television commentator Armstrong Williams thousands of dollars to help promote the No Child Left Behind Law.  The 2002 bipartisan measure established new testing requirements for public schools designed to ensure that students achieve an acceptable level of proficiency in reading and mathematics.  Folks, this means that, in the classic, oft-repeated style of the current administration, they wanted to redefine failure as success, and then attribute that success to themselves.  In such cases, though no problem is solved, all that people hear and register in their brains is, “problem solved.  Bush good.”  Take a closer look at the “ Texas Miracle” scam under Governor Bush in the 90s. 

 

Probe of Armstrong Williams Widens

The Government Accountability Office has concluded that the Education Department engaged in illegal "covert propaganda" by hiring Williams to promote the No Child Left Behind Act without requiring him to disclose that he was being paid…  Now the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia is investigating whether Williams accepted public money without performing his required duties…  "It's bad enough the administration bribed a journalist to promote their policies, but now it looks like taxpayer dollars were handed over for work that was never done," said Lautenberg.

 

The ‘Texas Miracle’ (from CBS 60 Minutes, 2004)

“It was called the “Texas Miracle,” a phrase you may remember because President Bush wanted everyone to know about it during his 2000 presidential campaign. It was an approach to education that was showing amazing results, particularly in Houston , where dropout rates plunged and test scores soared… it turns out that some of those miraculous claims which Houston made were wrong.  one assistant principal took a close look at his school’s phenomenally low dropout rates – and found that they were just too good to be true.  “I was shocked. I said, ‘How can that be,’” says Robert Kimball… His school claimed that no students – not a single one – had dropped out in 2001-2002… “I had been at the high school for three years, and I had seen many, many students, several hundred a year, go out the door. And I knew that they were quitting. They told me they were quitting.” … 463 kids left Sharpstown High School that year, for a variety of reasons. The school reported zero dropouts… School officials hid that fact by classifying, or coding, them as leaving for acceptable reasons: transferring to another school, or returning to their native country…  The Houston school district reported a citywide dropout rate of 1.5 percent. But educators and experts 60 Minutes checked with put Houston ’s true dropout rate somewhere between 25 and 50 percent.  Those low dropout rates – in Houston and all of Texas - were one of the accomplishments then-Texas Gov. George Bush cited when he campaigned to become the “Education President.” … Houston School Superintendent Rod Paige was given credit for the schools' success, by making principals and administrators accountable for how well their students did… Principals who met the goals got cash bonuses of up to $5,000, and other perks. Those who fell short were transferred, demoted or forced out.”  Basically, principals were paid to lie to make George Bush and Superintendent Paige look good.  Once he was elected president, Mr. Bush named Paige as secretary of education. And Houston became the model for the president’s “No Child Left Behind” education reform act.”

 

Texas Education, Miracle or Mirage?  (from 2000)

“Two weeks before the election, a new study on student test scores in Texas has landed like a stink bomb on George W. Bush's campaign…  On the campaign trail, Bush boasts of a 40-point gain by Hispanic eighth-graders on the Texas math exam. African-American fourth graders, he says, have "better math skills in Texas than in any state in the country." But the new study found the Texas tests often showed two, three or four times more “improvement” than the national exams. The discrepancies “raise serious questions about the validity” of the Texas test scores.

 

Media, media everywhere, and no time left to think?

The average American is a ravenous media junkie, consuming up to nine hours a day of television, web time or cellphone minutes.. Some experts question whether as consumers are swamped by information, they lose the ability to decipher fact from rumor, or find it hard to think through what they hear.”

 

Where to Attack Next?

A brief video of Australians interviewing random Americans on the street.  Speaks for itself. 

 

From the book The Underground History of American Education

Ninety-six and a half percent of the American population is mediocre to illiterate where deciphering print is concerned. This is no commentary on their intelligence, but without ability to take in primary information from print and to interpret it they are at the mercy of commentators who tell them what things mean. A working definition of immaturity might include an excessive need for other people to interpret information for us.

 

AGAINST SCHOOL

Inglis breaks down the purpose - the actual purpose - of modem schooling into six basic functions…


The
adjustive or adaptive function.
Schools are to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority. This, of course, precludes critical judgment completely.


The i
ntegrating function.
This might well be called "the conformity function," because its intention is to make children as alike as possible.

The diagnostic and directive function. School is meant to determine each student's proper social role.


The
differentiating function.
Once their social role has been "diagnosed," children are to be sorted by role and trained only so far as their destination in the social machine merits - and not one step further.


The
selective function.
This refers not to human choice at all but to Darwin 's theory of natural selection as applied to what he called "the favored races." In short, the idea is to help things along by consciously attempting to improve the breeding stock. Schools are meant to tag the unfit…


The
propaedeutic function.
The societal system implied by these rules will require an elite group of caretakers. To that end, a small fraction of the kids will quietly be taught how to manage this continuing project, how to watch over and control a population deliberately dumbed down and declawed in order that government might proceed unchallenged and corporations might never want for obedient labor.

 

Who is Reading Books

One-third of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives.

 

The Politics of the Closed Mind

I met a man today who did not know the difference between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden; he did not even know the difference between Iraq and Afghanistan . But he did know about the War on Terrorism--well, sort of.  "We had to do something when they knocked those buildings down in New York ," Joe insisted, his mouth twisted with anger.  I calmly explained to this World War II veteran and former mechanical engineer that it was not Iraqis who flew those airplanes into the World Trade Center towers but al Qaeda, which was based not in Iraq but in Afghanistan , two very different countries.  Joe replied with a look of confusion, and then said, "When they say all those foreign names, I just turn my mind off."  "Turn your mind off?"  "Yeah, turn off my mind" he repeats defiantly.

 

Learning to Be Stupid in the Culture of Cash

The question my experiences in the classroom raise is why have these young people been educated to such abysmal depths of ignorance.  "I don't read," says a junior without the slightest self-consciousness.  The novel she has trouble reading is Isabel Allende's "Of Love and Shadows," set in the post-coup terror of Pinochet's junta's Nazi-style regime in Chile , 1973-1989. No one in the class, including the English majors, can write a focussed essay of analysis, so I have to teach that. No one in the class knows where Chile is, so I make photocopies of general information from world guide surveys. No one knows what socialism or fascism is, so I spend time writing up digestible definitions. No one knows what Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" is, and I supply it because it's impossible to understand the theme of the novel without a basic knowledge of that work--which used to be required reading a few generations ago. And no one in the class has ever heard of 11 September 1973, the CIA-sponsored coup which terminated Chile 's mature democracy. There is complete shock when I supply US de-classified documents proving US collusion with the generals' coup and the assassination of elected president, Salvador Allende.  Geography, history, philosophy, and political science--all missing from their preparation…  Let me put it succinctly: I don't think serious education is possible in America . Anything you touch in the annals of knowledge is a foe of this system of commerce and profit, run amok.

 

Acquiescence and Conformity

In 1967, a middle school history teacher found himself being asked the following kinds of questions by his students in regards to the atrocities committed by the Nazi regime during World War II. --How could the German populace claim ignorance of the slaughter of the Jewish people?  --How could the townspeople, railroad conductors, teachers, doctors, etc., claim they knew nothing about concentration camps and human carnage? --How can people who were neighbors and maybe even friends of the Jewish citizens say they weren't there when it happened?  His answer was to try a social experiment with his students… 

 

Drug Up Your Teen Today! - This just in: Prozac is a better treatment than talking to your kid. Isn't life fabulous?

 

U.S. Alters Test Policy On Psychiatric Drugs - FDA Won't Require 6-Month Studies

the policy would cause drug companies to scale back on developing new drugs because of the potential increase in expense and risk.  The drug business is staggering in size and profitability and virtually owns major arms of the US gov’t.  It is Donald Rumsfeld’s pillaging ground of choice between gov’t posts.  And they absolutely love these dangerous, mind-numbing psychiatric drugs, which they’ve successfully promoted to tens of millions because, hey, everyone wants to “feel better,” right?  Ever consider what is making so many people miserable? 

 

Colleges Expand Mental Health Services

 

Yet Another Prozac Scandal

 

U.S. DOMESTIC POLICIES AND CREEPING TOTALITARIANISM

 

Pentagon seeks power to gather secret intelligence in US

The US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) is seeking authority to secretly collect information about US citizens and emigres, a department official told The Washington Post. DIA General Counsel George Peirce said the agency was seeking to expand its powers to help recruit sources of intelligence information, the paper reported.  "This is not about spying on Americans," Peirce was quoted as saying in an interview with the Post.

 

Bush Call to Expand Military Powers at Home Seen as Unnecessary, Political

President Bush recently suggested that the military be given broader powers to deal with domestic crises like Hurricane Katrina or a potential bird flu epidemic, but emergency response and security groups in the U.S. say the military already has the power it needs to provide both relief and protection to citizens, and question whether the president's real motives aren't political.  He is always, always seeking more power  Earlier this week, Bush asked Congress to review the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which prohibits the armed forces from engaging in police-type work within U.S. borders…  "I cannot imagine U.S. troops surrounding a town where avian flu has broken out with fixed bayonets to prevent people from getting out of the town--that's just nuts," says retired army Lieutenant General, Robert G. Gard  a weakening or removal of Possee Comitatus would not mean an increase in security as much as a change in command away from the states and to the president, Gard says.   

 

Republican Congressman Slams Bush On Militarized Police State Preparation - Ron Paul says indictment story is far more damaging than media is portraying, avian flu martial law provisions aimed at gun confiscation Congressman Ron Paul has accused the Bush administration of attempting to set in motion a militarized police state in America by enacting gun confiscation martial law provisions in the event of an avian flu pandemic. Paul also slammed as delusional and dangerous plans to invade Iran , Syria , North Korea and China   "I think there's a lot more excitement coming and it's not going to be good for the Republicans…  The things that I hear have to do with Karl Rove and Abramoff and that's much much worse than anybody would believe and it involves DeLay as well."  Paul responded to President Bush's announcement last week that he would order the use of military assets to police America in the event of an avian flu outbreak.  "To me it's so strange that the President can make these proposals and it's even plausible. When he talks about martial law dealing with some epidemic that might come later on and having forced quarantines, doing away with Posse Comitatus in order to deal with natural disasters, and hardly anybody says anything. People must be scared to death."  Paul, himself a medical doctor, agreed that the bird flu threat was empty fearmongering  Paul opined that the martial law provisions now being promoted by the Bush administration were a direct response to people's unwillingness to relinquish their firearms, as was seen in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.  The long-standing, well documented New World Order conspiracy theory proposes that an essential step is for Americans to be relieved of their guns  Paul opined that the government was on a delusional power trip that threatened the country.  "These guys are ready to start a war with Iran , Syria , North Korea or China . They can't possibly do that, it's so insane, we don't have the money, we don't have the troops, we probably don't even have the ammunition.  But, if they are truly delusional they just might do something that's totally irrational."  Mr. Paul forgot about Venezuela, Cuba, and perhaps Bolivia . 

 

Judges liken terror laws to Nazi Germany

A powerful coalition of judges, senior lawyers and politicians has warned that the Government is undermining freedoms citizens have taken for granted for centuries and that Britain risks drifting towards a police state. One of the country's most eminent judges has said that undermining the independence of the courts has frightening parallels with Nazi Germany .  Senior legal figures are worried that "inalienable rights" could swiftly disappear unless Tony Blair ceases attacking the judiciary and freedoms enshrined in the Human Rights Act… 

 

Harper's Magazine: We Now Live in a Fascist State

 

The Sorrows of Empire is a book in which author Chalmers Johnson writes:

"Four sorrows ... are certain to be visited on the United States . Their cumulative effect guarantees that the U.S. will cease to resemble the country outlined in the Constitution of 1787.


First, there will be a state of perpetual war, leading to more terrorism against Americans wherever they may be and a spreading reliance on nuclear weapons among smaller nations as they try to ward off the imperial juggernaut.


Second is a loss of democracy and Constitutional rights as the presidency eclipses Congress and is itself transformed from a co-equal 'executive branch' of government into a military junta.


Third is the replacement of truth by propaganda, disinformation, and the glorification of war, power, and the military legions.


Lastly, there is bankruptcy, as the United States pours its economic resources into ever more grandiose military projects and shortchanges the education, health, and safety of its citizens."  The Bush administration is well into Stage 4 now. 

 

THE HYPE DIMENSION

This is a long article, but a recommended read.  OFFICES OF STRATEGIC DECEPTION - the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace recently accused the Bush administration of systematic misrepresentation. They concluded that Bush had prior knowledge of the absence of any evidence regarding Saddam Hussein's chemical and biological weapons programmes before taking the decision to go to war…  The Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld went out of his way to bypass the enormous intelligence agency briefings and to go to his own personalized office where he could sift through and present the intelligence that supported the war on Iraq and to jettison any embarrassing data that could lead them away from a unilateral military expansion…  PSYOPS/"INFORMATION DOMINANCE" - A rather infamous military unit with a less than all-American, apple pie history has been assigned to implement the policies of the OSP: the Army's Psychological Operations Command (PSYOPS)…  PSYOPS is the tool of an oligarchy and an empire that is highly secretive and conspiratorial by nature.

 

Former CIA Analyst: Government May Be Manufacturing Fake Terrorism

Mr McGovern stated that the war "has nothing to do with democracy or freedom or defending "our way of life", it is to do with enriching the pockets of those who support this administration…  it does seem that those who have his (Bush's) ear are hell bent on giving away or providing wider responsibilities to our military. Witness what they are talking about now with giving the military primary responsibility for catastrophes, for hurricanes and so forth." … He amazingly went on to suggest that if another attack took place we should not accept what the government tells us because it could be them carrying out the terror.  "We have to be careful, if somebody does this kind of provocation, big violent explosions of some kind, we have to not take the word of the masters there in Washington that this was some terrorist event because it could well be a provocation allowing them, or seemingly to allow them to get what they want."  McGovern said he would not put it past the Government to "play fast and loose" with terror alerts and warnings and even events themselves in order to rally people behind the flag.  Last week we revealed how a major terror alert in New York was outed as a fake, and magically boosted Mayor Bloomberg's ratings.

 

Bush's Veil Over History

SECRECY has been perhaps the most consistent trait of the George W. Bush presidency…  But perhaps the most egregious example occurred on Nov. 1, 2001, when President Bush signed Executive Order 13233, under which a former president's private papers can be released only with the approval of both that former president (or his heirs) and the current one…  Mr. Bush can prevent the public from knowing not only what he did in office, but what Bill Clinton, George H. W. Bush and Ronald Reagan did in the name of democracy  Mr. Bush can prevent the public from knowing not only what he did in office, but what Bill Clinton, George H. W. Bush and Ronald Reagan did in the name of democracy…  George W. Bush and his father can see to it that their administrations pass into history without examination. Their rationales for waging wars in the Middle East will go unchallenged. There will be no chance to weigh the arguments that led the administration to condone torture by our armed forces. The problems of federal agencies entrusted with public welfare during times of national disaster - 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina - will be unaddressed. Details on no-bid contracts awarded to politically connected corporations like Halliburton will escape scrutiny, as will the president's role in Environmental Protection Agency's policies on water and air polluters.

 

Harper's Magazine: We Now Live in a Fascist State

Knowing the source of this piece makes it all the more disturbing. It is not every day that the editor of a respected national magazine publishes an essay claiming that America is not on the road to becoming, but ALREADY IS, a fascist state…

·  Parliamentary democracy is by definition rotten because it doesn't represent the voice of the people, which is that of the sublime leader.

·  Doctrine outpoints reason, and science is always suspect.

·  Critical thought is the province of degenerate intellectuals, who betray the culture and subvert traditional values.

·  The national identity is provided by the nation's enemies.

·  Argument is tantamount to treason.

·  Perpetually at war, the state must govern with the instruments of fear.

·  Citizens do not act; they play the supporting role of "the people" in the grand opera that is the state. [...]

 

FBI Claims 84 Videos Show NO Flight 77 Impact

Photos taken after the Pentagon crash do not support the Government conspiracy theory that Flight 77, a Boeing 757 airliner, demolished a major portion of the masonry structure…  Even though America's Coverup Agencies, the FBI and the Pentagon, have fought tooth and nail to prevent disclosure of what really happened at the Pentagon on 9/11 photos, witnesses have already filled in the blanks. Get up to speed by reading the RENSE article, Sneak Preview - 911 Pentagon Tapes.

 

ISRAELIS were 9-11 short sale stock buyers, betting on WTC terror strikes, story killed...

 

To get away with crimes, pretend to be a crime fighter

Most people think I am exaggerating when I tell them that the 9-11 "truth movement" is dominated by wolves in sheep's clothing…  Those of us who expose corruption actually face two problems:  ·  Convincing people that our government is corrupt beyond anything they dreamed possible   ·  Convincing people that most of the "truth seekers" are trying to cover up the corruption, or they are rival criminals trying to take over while Bush appears vulnerable. The 9-11 attack is not a game.  This article exposes the details of the tricks:  Deception is the preferred weapon, Warn the victim ahead of time, Offer to help solve the crime, Give false evidence, Find naive people to pay for the cover-up, Bury the truth with nonsense, Give conspiracy theories a bad image, Find useful idiots to promote nonsense, etc.  

 

G8 summit police lied, says report

The trial of 28 police officers accused of beating up anti-globalisation protesters during the G8 summit in Genoa in 2001 is due to start in Italy . The BBC News website has seen a copy of the prosecutor's report…  Italian police framed peaceful protesters as violent by planting Molotov cocktails, “discovering” them, and going on a beating rampage. 

 

The Great Green Scare – FBI turns its sights on environmental groups

“With nothing much better to do and an unlimited budget to burn, the FBI is turning its mighty inquisitorial arsenal on environmental groups across the country…  Now that…Communism has faded…, the corporate world's PR mavens have had to concoct a new spine-tingling metaphor to evoke the threat environmentalism poses to their bottom line: eco-terrorism…  Of course, the feds haven't had much luck finding Bin Laden. And our mean-spirited Clouseaus didn't stop any of his kamikazes, even though their own agents shouted out repeated internal alarums. And when the whistleblowing agents went public, the FBI brass cracked down on them, gagged some and gave others, such as the courageous Sibel Edmunds, the boot. Several of the feds' biggest terrorism arrests have blown up in their faces...  Even the feds can't cite a single death resulting from an alleged act of eco-terrorism. But that doesn't matter. After the horrors of New Orleans , it should be clear to all that it's the protection of property, not people, that really gets the feds going.  As I like to point out, the 3000 sudden, violent, bloody deaths on 9/11 are a small matter to drunk drivers of America , who bring sudden, violent bloody death to that many Americans every two months.  But, those are just lives and a few cars, not involving the kind of property damage, as on 9/11, that would trigger the engagement of the FBI.  Since 9/11, there are still only 3000 American dead from terrorism, but 80,000 dead from drunk driving, and an additional 8000 Americans have been killed in the Mideast , having been sent to kill over 100,000 Muslims there.  The so-called “eco-terrorists” haven’t yet killed anyone, but they do damage the property of the wealthy, and based on the actions of the FBI, that is a much more serious crime.  ”So this FBI witchhunt is already well underway and will soon be coming to a community group near you. The lives of part-time activists, mothers, nurses, students, will be turned upside down. They will be harassed, bullied and encouraged to inform on their colleagues. Organizations will be infiltrated and wrecked from the inside. False stories will be planted in the press. Environmental funders will be scared off. Foundations will be audited, hauled before hostile congressional committees and threatened with revocation of their tax status. It's a creepy new twist in an old narrative.”

 

FBI, Michigan Police Tag Peace, Affirmative Actions Groups as 'Terrorists'

 

“An FBI document, released on August 29 by the ACLU, shows extensive monitoring of a whole bunch of organizations, ranging from the Aryan World Church and the Christian Identity movement to animal rights groups, an anti-war collective, and a leading pro-affirmative action coalition…”

 

University of Arizona Professor Reported to FBI for "Hating" America

A series of ads have been running in student newspapers across the country charging that universities are dominated by liberal or left-wing professors. The ads are paid for by well-funded groups like Students for Academic Freedom and the Independent Women's Forum. Some of the ads encourage students to report any so-called anti-American faculty or statements made by professors. And that is apparently what happened to David Gibbs, an Associate professor of History and Sociology at the University of Arizona . After his Spring course "What is Politics?", a student wrote the following on an anonymous evaluation form:  "I believe that the university should check into David Gibbs. He is an anti-American communist who hates America and is trying to brainwash young people into thinking America sucks. He needs to go and live in a Third World country to appreciate what he has here. Have him investigated by the FBI. FBI has been contacted." I remember that in school they taught us to fear communism, equating that system of economics with the totalitarian system of politics.  We students were horrified by the stories of kids “informing” on their own parents. Remember the young kid in 1984 who looked at Winston Smith and declared, “You’re a thought criminal!”  Now, the same mentality is being instilled in young people by those who wish to crush open opposition to the politics of war and violence – and it is an orchestrated effort.  Did you know that the US military in Iraq distributes free cigarette packs that, on the side, say, “Inform on your neighbors.  Most don’t yet recognize that  the US has swung all the way around and is now embracing the very horrors of totalitarianism that it once taught its children to fear?  This story is exactly like so many that took place in the early days of Hitler’s regime. 

 

Wal-Mart Turns in Student's Anti-Bush Photo, Secret Service Investigates Him

 

How Rotten Are These Guys?

The separation of the Bush political machine from organized crime is often like the thin layer of rock between a seemingly ordinary surface and volcanic activity rumbling below. Sometimes, the lava spews forth and the illusion of normalcy is shattered…  So far, the mainstream news media has focused mostly on the white-collar abuses of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay… or on deputy White House chief of staff Karl Rove… Both offenses represent potential felonies, but they pale beside new allegations linking business associates of star GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff – an ally of both DeLay and Rove – to the gangland-style murder of casino owner Konstantinos “Gus” Boulis in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in 2001.  These criminal cases also are reminders of George H.W. Bush’s long record of unsavory associations, including with a Nicaraguan contra network permeated by cocaine traffickers, Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s multi-million-dollar money-laundering operations, and anti-communist Cuban extremists tied to acts of international terrorism. [For details on these cases, see Robert Parry’s Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq.] 

 

Protest is criminalised and the huffers and puffers say nothing

“The police abuse terror and harassment laws to penalise dissent while we insist civil liberties are our gift to the world…  All politicians who seek to justify repressive legislation claim that they are responding to an unprecedented threat to public order. And all politicians who cite such a threat draft measures in response which can just as easily be used against democratic protest.”

 

Mother of slain US soldier arrested in Iraq war protest

 

Woman Sees Husband Off to War, Gets Fired

"We gave her sufficient time to get back to work," Clark Galloway, vice president of operations for Benefit Management, told The Grand Rapids Press for a story published Wednesday. 

 

SEALs Launching Public Recruiting Effort

 

Deadly bacteria detected in US capital during anti-war march

 

Did Bush administration attack peace movement with military grade biological bacteria?

What do we make of the Saturday, October 1 Washington Post headline “Poison Found in Air During Anti-War Protest”?  Washington D.C. Public Health Director Greg A. Pane posed the right question in the Post article, “Why that day? That’s what is not explained.” Pane pointed that it was “just this 24-hour period and none since.” The Post noted that Pane found “. . . it was puzzling that the finding was from a day when the mall was packed with people.” Puzzling? Indeed. Biohazard sensors detected tularemia bacteria at the mall on Saturday, September 24…  Unfortunately, tularemia has been long used as a military biological weapon. We should consider the presence of tularemia a shot across the bow to the peace movement from an administration willing to cheat, steal, torture, lie and kill to further its political agenda. Karl Rove, the president’s brain, brags of his worship of Machiavelli and will do anything to keep his Texas prince in power.  This history of tularemia suggests it is a long-standing weapon used by fascists, militarists and authoritarians.  Japanese germ warfare research units operating in Manchuria between 1932-45 admit to possessing the tularemia bacteria.

 

Peace march coincidences

 

The Nexus of Politics and Terror

I referred to the latest terror threat - the reported bomb plot against the New York City subway system - in terms of its timing. President Bush's speech about the war on terror had come earlier the same day, as had the breaking news of the possible indictment of Karl Rove in the CIA leak investigation. I suggested that in the last three years there had been about 13 similar coincidences - a political downturn for the administration, followed by a "terror event" - a change in alert status, an arrest, a warning.

 

Media, Democrats Complicit in Rush to War

While President Bush and his War Cabinet bear full moral responsibility for Iraq, they could not have taken us to war without the complicity of the "adversary press" and "loyal opposition." … indispensable enablers of war are the New Democrats and potential presidential nominees, Sens. Kerry, Edwards, Clinton, Biden, and Bayh. Fearful that Bush and Rove would use their refusal to authorize war in October 2002 to impeach Democrats' patriotism, they voted to give him a blank check for war. Six months later, Bush cashed it  the Senate surrendered the war powers the Founding Fathers reserved for Congress to the president and abdicated its constitutional duty. [...]

 

E-voting hobbled by security concerns

All but one of Maryland 's 24 counties use Diebold machines, first tested in the 2002 gubernatorial election, without voter-verifiable audit trails. After some Diebold source code leaked to the Internet, a group of computer scientists, including Maryland resident Avi Rubin, analyzed the software and concluded in a 2003 report that it falls "far below even the most minimal security standards applicable in other contexts."

 

Landowners must yield to ballpark

 

Don't blame us

The US gun and fast food industries are among those celebrating a wave of legislation aimed at protecting businesses from 'frivolous' lawsuits...  Legislation like this and the recent changes to bankruptcy laws continues the US toward a more and more repressive society weighted heavily in favor of corporate interests.  Another piece of legislation aimed at curbing class action lawsuits against big business overcame Democratic opposition in February. The measure transfers most class action suits, which allow plaintiffs to combine claims into a single suit, from state to federal courts…  In another nod to big business, a proposal was, incidentally, rejected by the Senate this week that sought to raise the minimum wage from $5.15 an hour, a level that it has stood at since 1997 - accounting for inflation, it is now the lowest it has been since 1956.

 

Another Military Blogger Silenced

Months ago, in response to a post I wrote about the military blogger Colby Buzzell, Kate of Broken Windows told me to pay attention to Daniel Goetz, a soldier writing a blog called All the King's Horses. Regrettably, I never followed her advice. And now, as Lizzy, Fred, and Navyswan tell us, it is too late.  It is too late because Daniel has been silenced, against his will. And not only has he been silenced - he has been forced to publicly declare himself "a supporter of the administration and of her policies."

 

 

US wants to push ocean boundaries to limit terror threat

The United States wants to search foreign ships far outside its territorial waters to stop a possible terrorist attack on the country coming from the sea, a U.S. coastguard leader said on Wednesday…  In August Washington said it planned to put sensors on oil rigs and weather buoys to spot security threats at sea and said it might use satellites to track suspect vessels…  Nations would have to agree a new legal framework to allow countries to inspect or board ships outside their own territorial waters.  Totalitarianism seeks control of absolutely everything. 

 

The Mindless American: A Tragedy In The Making

As a result of nine-eleven's jarring impact upon our nation, journalists have discovered a near paranoid rise in retaliation against individuals attempting to expose governmental malfeasance. Increasingly government officials have begun punishing individuals for nothing more than reasoned attempts to inform the American public concerning: How the military has systematically abused (tortured) foreign detainees; How the government intentionally withheld evidence suggesting that an attack upon the United States by Al Qaeda had been eminent; How the military has begun to wage war upon soldiers who, in good conscience, have come to believe that it is wrong for them to kill in a war that, according to international law, is illegal, one that, the reasons for going to war, were fabricated by the President of the United States; How the United States has a sixty-year history (1945-2005) of assassinating foreign leaders who have chosen not to support the government's foreign policy goals, initiating the overthrow of duly-elected foreign democracies, while simultaneously supporting brutal authoritarian dictatorships all in order to fill the coffers of America's military-industrial complex, an egregious imperialistic force with but one goal: To take command of the world economy.  As a result, many of these individuals have been incarcerated, accused of being a traitor, of having sided with the enemy, told that their career will be destroyed, and threatened with extended imprisonment…

 

Casualties of the Bush administration

Read this important article for over a score of cases of demoted, fired, or resigned professionals who dared not to go along with the Bush administrations insane assertions, shockingly bad judgment, or unethical behavior. 

 

US to crack down harder on illegal immigrants

 

U.S. Ranks 44th in Worldwide Press Freedom Index

Nation's openness sinking after Sept. 11, northern Europe tops the list.  The annual worldwide press freedom index from Reporters Without Borders shows the United States , which is supposedly spreading freedom and liberty throughout the world, is in a fast decline regarding the freedom of its own press.  The report ranked the United States in 44th place, an atomic drop from a favorable position of 22nd held last year, and from a handsome 17th place in 2002…  European nations Denmark , Finland , Ireland , Iceland , the Netherlands , Norway and Switzerland tied for first. North Korea was ranked last out of 167 countries surveyed.

 

RFID Chips To Travel in U.S. Passports

 

Powerful Government Accounting Office report confirms key 2004 stolen election findings

As a legal noose appears to be tightening around the Bush/Cheney/Rove inner circle, a shocking government report shows the floor under the legitimacy of their alleged election to the White House is crumbling.  The latest critical confirmation of key indicators that the election of 2004 was stolen comes in an extremely powerful, penetrating report from the General Accounting Office that has gotten virtually no mainstream media coverage.

 

Proposal would use military in disasters

Adm. Timothy Keating, head of the military's defense command for the United States , on Tuesday said he's proposing that the Department of Defense be given complete authority for response to rare, catastrophic disasters like Hurricane Katrina.  The long campaign to promote the military as domestic saviors is working.  Do an internet search on “Posse Comitatus Act.”  You’ll find that it’s a law designed to prevent use of the military as or by police forces.  It is designed to protect the US population from the military. 

 

Rumors of rescue copters under fire unfounded

Among the rumors that spread as quickly as floodwaters after Hurricane Katrina, reports that gunmen were taking potshots at rescue helicopters stood out for their senselessness…  more than a month later, representatives from the Air Force, Coast Guard, Department of Homeland Security and Louisiana Air National Guard say they have yet to confirm a single incident of gunfire at helicopters.  Likewise, members of several rescue crews who were told to halt operations say there is no evidence they were under fire.  Yet this was used as an excuse for suspending rescue operations.  The storm created so much confusion that government officials cannot even agree on whether they ever issued an order to halt flights or other rescue efforts.

 

Anger simmers in New Orleans' dead Ninth Ward

"They're focused over there," she said, gesturing toward the relative bustle of the city's French Quarter and Uptown district, where restaurants have opened and residents have returned. "They should be here, where we need help." … Many residents have not been allowed back to retrieve what they can from their homes…  "There's almost a concerted effort to keep African Americans from returning to the city."

 

Republicans in Congress Propose Budget Cuts to Fund Storm Relief

Jettisoning earlier reservations, congressional Republican leaders say they intend to cut spending to pay for hurricane relief along the Gulf Coast, setting up a major confrontation over what programs to pick and how deep the reductions…  "As usual, the prime targets are the poor and others who rely on federal programs for their health, education, disability, agriculture, and veterans' benefits," said Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, the senior Democrat on the Agriculture Committee.

 

Iraq war delayed Katrina relief effort, inquiry finds

“Relief efforts to combat Hurricane Katrina suffered near catastrophic failures due to endemic corruption, divisions within the military and troop shortages caused by the Iraq war, an official American inquiry into the disaster has revealed…”

 

New Orleans Police Beating Caught on Tape

 

Lawyer: Taped Beating Subject Wasn't Drunk

 

Bush picks loyalist for Supreme Court

“George W. Bush nominated White House counsel and longtime loyalist Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, a move that may shape legal battles on divisive issues like abortion for decades… Miers, 60, has never served as a judge, but has been a close aide to Bush ever since he was governor of Texas.”  Newsweek (July 9, 2000) reported that the Bush campaign "launched a secretive research operation designed to scour all records relating to his Vietnam-era service" while preparing for Bush's 1998 re-election campaign. They paid Dallas lawyer Harriet Miers $19,000 to review the records.

 

Bush pick revealed as fawner

The Texas state library has released more than 2000 documents detailing correspondence between Ms Miers and Mr Bush when he was governor of Texas .  The notes reveal the deep friendship between the two and praise verging on the fawning from Ms Miers, who has never been far from Mr Bush's side since becoming his personal lawyer in the mid-90s.  "You are the best governor ever - deserving great respect!", Ms Miers wrote to Mr Bush on his 51st birthday in 1997, in a tone typical of the notes she sent him… 

 

Bush: Miers' Religion Key Part of Her Life

 

Embarrassing setback for Bush's nominee - Problems mount over supreme court candidate

 

Bush Works to Reassure G.O.P. Over Nominee for Supreme Court

After a blistering week, the White House is scrambling to control a conservative uprising over the nomination of Harriet E. Miers to the Supreme Court, with President Bush pitching his choice directly to the public on Saturday as his Republican allies plotted strategy to shore up support…  It was the third time since he picked Ms. Miers on Monday that the president has come to her defense.

 

Right Wingers Getting Nervous as Miers' Role in Bush Corruption Unfolds

"It's time for the President to withdraw this dreadful nomination or, if politics dictate, Harriet Miers to withdraw herself from consideration," arguing " so we might avoid another long, painful, and needless examination of old matters that probably would be better off never exhumed.” … Putting Judge Hill's potentially crooked connection with the Texas lottery corruption cover-up puts his exuberant endorsement of Miers in a very different context. He was, and possibly still is her partner in her law firm and possibly in a criminal coverup.

 

Calls for Miers to withdraw get louder – Moves to mollify critics aren’t working

 

Bush Lays Groundwork for Miers to Back Out

 

Miers Withdraws Supreme Court Nomination

 

The Miers Fiasco – White House in Meltdown

Bush, after five years, is now at the point Clinton reached in the early summer of his first year in office: a total collapse in political credibility. Clinton reached out to a Republican fixer, David Gergen, and to Jesse Helms' campaign strategist, Dickie Morris, plus the most squalid denizens of his own party.  Who can Bush turn to? The first lifeline would be a dishonorable mention of Dick Cheney in the grand jury's indictment, prompting the all-powerful vice president to resign.  The path would then be clear for a return of the old guard, with James Baker ­ the man who fixed Florida for Bush in 2001, as the Renovator. The corporate sponsorship of the White House would shift from Halliburton to the Carlyle Group.

 

Bush's Pick for State Post Criticized

Ellen Sauerbrey, a Republican loyalist chosen by President Bush to head the State Department's refugee program, is the latest nominee to face tough questions from senators about her qualifications…  Sauerbrey, a two-time Republican candidate for Maryland governor who ran Bush's 2000 campaign in the state…

 

Declaration of Dependence and the Fall of the American Empire

 

IS THIS THE DEATH OF AMERICA?

America's sense of itself - its pride in its power - has been profoundly damaged…  a crippled and tone-deaf president, a negligent government, corruption, military atrocities, soaring debt, racial conflict, poverty, bloated bodies in floodwater, people dying on camera for want of food, water and medicine - it seemed things were falling apart in the land where happiness is promoted in the constitution…  AMERICA, which has the world's costliest health care, had, it turned out, higher infant mortality rates than the broke and despised Cuba   37 million living under the poverty line, largely unnoticed by the richest in a country with more than three million millionaires…  The typical white family has $80,000 in assets; the average black family about $6,000. It's a wealth gap out of the Middle Ages. Some 46 million can't afford health insurance, 18,000 of whom will die early because of it.  Americans have been angered by a reports that US troops have routinely tortured Iraqi prisoners. Some 230 low-rankers have been convicted - but not one general or Pentagon overseer. Disgruntled young officers are leaving in increasing numbers.

 

BUSH ADMINISTRATION IN CRISIS

 

Espionage Case Breaches the White House - Accused Marine Worked in Vice President's Office

Both the FBI and CIA are calling it the first case of espionage in the White House in modern history… "I don't know of a case where the vetting broke down before and resulted in a spy being in the White House," said Richard Clarke, a former White House advisor who is now an ABC News consultant…  Officials say the classified material, which Aragoncillo stole from the vice president's office, included damaging dossiers on the president of the Philippines . He then passed those on to opposition politicians planning a coup in the Pacific nation.

 

US official admits spying for Israel

A top US Defence Department analyst with expertise in the Middle East has pleaded guilty to giving classified information to an Israeli embassy official and members of a pro-Israel lobbying group. Lawrence Franklin, 58, said in court on Wednesday that he was frustrated with government policy and that he had hoped the two members of American Israel Public Affairs Committee could influence policy with their connections at the National Security Council…  Conspiracy -- The two AIPAC officials who allegedly received the information, Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, also have been charged with conspiring to obtain and disclose classified US defence information.

 

NIGER-GATE: THE SCANDAL BEHIND THE SCANDAL

In his January 28, 2003 State of the Union Speech, President Bush uttered 16 words that have since come back to haunt him. "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa ." [...] This quote came from a document issued by Number 10 Downing Street titled, " Iraq 's Weapons of Mass Destruction: The assessment of the British Government". This document has since become more widely known as the "Dodgy Dossier" … Tony Blair has since apologized for this document. [...]Following Bush's speech repeating the Niger claim that Wilson knew to be false, Wilson went public … As part of a campaign to discredit Wilson and prevent him from further exposing the truth of the matter, Joe's wife, Valerie Plame was revealed as a CIA operative. [...] Originally, George Bush tried to dump the blame for the Niger claim on the CIA's George Tenet. The CIA then demanded an investigation into the outing of Plame. Then Attorney General John Ashcroft stalled for months, then handed the investigation to Patrick Fitzgerald.  However, months before Joe Wilson's article appeared, the International Atomic Energy Agency had examined the documents which had surfaced in Italy purporting to document the sale of uranium to Iraq and determined that they were forgeries, and indeed, very clumsy ones.  This is the scandal behind the scandal. The outing of Valerie Plame was not done out of revenge, or as the Washington Post reports, part of a feud between Karl Rove and the CIA. Joe Wilson's article started to focus attention on the fact that the documents used to claim that Iraq was buying uranium from Niger were fakes!  The fact that the Niger documents were fake is hard proof that the lies that tricked this nation into war were not an accident, not "misinterpreted" or "bad" intelligence, but deliberate falsehood with malice aforethought. Read the whole article for much, much more! 

 

The Scandal isn't the Leak, But the Illegal War

The unraveling of the Valerie Plame affair is but a step toward exposing this truly epic scam. Beyond compromising the identity of a CIA officer, the Bush administration had carried out what former intelligence official Larry Johnson called "a classic 'covert action' program against the citizens of the United States ."

 

KARL ROVE, MICHAEL LEDEEN SPIES PROCURED FORGED NIGER DOCUMENTS

Michael Ledeen, Rove's "brain," is one of the leading advocates for a US attack on Iran .

 

Tell us who fabricated the Iraq evidence

President Bush's principal adviser Karl Rove is to be questioned again over the improper naming of a CIA official. Mohamed ElBaradei, accused by the American right of being insufficiently aggressive, wins the Nobel Peace Prize for his stalwart work at the helm of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Pentagon official Larry Franklin pleads guilty to passing on classified information to Israel . Just a normal week in politics. But there is a thread linking these events and it is Iraq

 

CIA leak illustrates selective use of intelligence on Iraq

 

Rep: Nadler: "Expand the investigation"

"In light of recent developments in the CIA leak investigation and other recent revelations, Congressman Jerrold Nadler today called for Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald to expand his investigation to include a criminal investigation to examine whether the President, the Vice President, and members of the White House Iraq Group conspired to deliberately deceive Congress into authorizing the war in Iraq .

 

Republicans Testing Ways to Blunt Leak Charges

 

US officials brace for decisions in CIA leak case

The federal prosecutor investigating who leaked the identity of a CIA operative is expected to signal within days whether he intends to bring indictments in the case, legal sources close to the investigation said on Wednesday… The inquiry has ensnared President George W. Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, and Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby. The White House had long maintained that Rove and Libby had nothing to do with the leak but reporters have since named them as sources…  The outcome of the investigation could shake up an administration already reeling from criticism over its response to Hurricane Katrina and the indictment of House Republican leader Tom DeLay on a conspiracy charge related to campaign financing.

 

In ominous move, prosecutor in CIA leak case sets up Web site

Although aides to Patrick Fitzgerald urged reporters not to read too much into the move, its timing Friday gave new fodder to speculation that White House political strategist Karl Rove and Lewis "Scooter" Libby, chief of staff for Vice President Richard Cheney, could be in legal trouble. [...]

 

White House prepares for possible indictments

 

NBC's Fineman: White House in civil war over Karl Rove by John in DC

HOWARD FINEMAN, NBC CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's the point of the lance of this whole thing. “Right now, my sense, in reporting this, Chris, is that the Bush family, political family, is at war with itself inside the White House. My sense is, it's Andy Card, the chief of staff, and his people against Karl Rove, the brain.”

 

'Hidden Scandal' in Miller Story, Charges Former CBS Newsman

 

Colleagues call for removal of New York Times journalist in CIA leak case

 

Will the French Indict Cheney?

Yet another sordid chapter in the murky annals of Halliburton might well lead to the indictment of Dick Cheney by a French court on charges of bribery, money-laundering and misuse of corporate assets. …three days before Christmas, the Paris daily Le Figaro front-paged the news that Judge van Ruymbeke had notified the Justice Ministry that Cheney might be among those eventually indicted as a result of his investigation. [...]

 

Plame charges could sink dollar, bonds, stocks

Charges would be "detrimental to the dollar, a psychological blow," said Alex Beuzelin, senior market analyst with Ruesch International in Washington .

 

Blunt Money Laundering; DeLay, Successor Swapped Donations

Tom DeLay deliberately raised more money than he needed to throw parties at the 2000 presidential convention, then diverted some of the excess to longtime ally Roy Blunt through a series of donations that benefited both men's causes.  When the financial carousel stopped, DeLay's private charity, the consulting firm that employed DeLay's wife and the Missouri campaign of Blunt's son all ended up with money, according to campaign documents reviewed by The Associated Press.

 

UN nuclear agency and its chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, win Nobel Peace Prize

You may remember ElBaradei as one of the men that the Bush administrations did not find credible when he said there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq .  Subsequently, for making such trouble by reporting the truth, the US tried for a year to get ElBaradei dismissed from his IAEA post. 

 

Bushies feeling the boss' wrath - Prez's anger growing in hard times

Facing the darkest days of his presidency, President Bush is frustrated, sometimes angry and even bitter, his associates say.  With a seemingly uncontrollable insurgency in Iraq , the White House is bracing for the political fallout from a grim milestone that could come any day: the combat death of the 2,000th American G.I.  The specter of losing Rove, his only truly irreplaceable assistant, lies at the heart of Bush's distress. But a string of political reversals… have also exacted a personal toll. Presidential advisers and friends say Bush is a mass of contradictions: cheerful and serene, peevish and melancholy, occasionally lapsing into what he once derided as the "blame game." … these sources say Bush, who has a long history of keeping staffers in their place, has lashed out at aides as his political woes have mounted.  "The President is just unhappy in general and casting blame all about," said one Bush insider. "Andy [Card, the chief of staff] gets his share. Karl gets his share. Even Cheney gets his share. And the press gets a big share." [...]

 

Groups unhappy with Bush performance: poll

Evangelicals, Republican women, Southerners and other critical groups in US President Bush's political coalition are worried about the direction the nation is headed and disappointed with his performance, an AP-Ipsos poll found...  Sentiment about the nation's direction has sunk to new depths at a time people are anxious about Iraq, the economy, gas prices and the management of billions of dollars being spent for recovery from the nation's worst natural disaster.  Only 28 percent say the country is headed in the right direction while two-thirds, 66 percent, say it is on the wrong track, the poll found.

 

Support for Bush policies falling: poll

 

Dean calls for end to 'culture of corruption'

The Bush White House is the most corrupt administration in U.S. history since President Warren G. Harding's, said Howard Dean…  To deal with the "culture of corruption," Dean said, there needs to be an ethics code in Congress and stronger campaign finance laws.

 

Viggo Mortensen Interview: Impeach Bush

Q: Are you anti-Bush, as the pundits say?

Mortensen: No, I'm not anti-Bush; I'm anti-Bush behavior. In other words, I'm against cheating, greed, cruelty, racism, imperialism, religious fundamentalism, treason, and the seemingly limitless capacity for hypocrisy shown by Bush and his Administration.

 

Poll: Americans Want Bush Impeached

By a margin of 50% to 44%, Americans want Congress to consider impeaching President Bush if he lied about the war in Iraq , according to a new poll commissioned by AfterDowningStreet.org, a grassroots coalition that supports a Congressional investigation of President Bush's decision to invade Iraq in 2003…  Passion for Impeachment is Major Unreported Story - The strong support for impeachment found in this poll is especially surprising because the views of impeachment supporters are entirely absent from the broadcast and print media…

 

BUSH APPROVAL DIPS EVEN FURTHER

 

Kristol: "One or More Indictments in the Next Three Weeks"

Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol on Fox News Sunday:  “Criminal defense lawyers I've spoken to who are friendly to the administration are very worried that there will be one or more indictments in the next three weeks of senior administration officials, just looking at what Fitzgerald is doing and taking him at his word, you know, being a serious prosecutor here. And I think it's going to be bad for the Bush administration.”  Someone like Bill Kristol doesn't get information like this by accident. It's being fed to him so, if there is an indictment, he can prepare the base. Towards the end of the segment, Kristol got started, saying, "I hate the criminalization of politics."  Too bad that such a large part of politics is a criminal endeavor. 

 

Is the Bush presidency unraveling?

Three recent front-page headlines on a single day testified to the unraveling of the Bush presidency.  The lead story in The Washington Post on Sept. 29 reported that "the Senate defied the White House yesterday and voted to set new limits on interrogating detainees in Iraq and elsewhere," with 46 Republicans joining the Democrats to pass restrictions on prisoner abuse so unacceptable to President Bush that he has threatened his first-ever veto.  A second story on the same page recounted that "the conservative uprising against President Bush escalated yesterday as Republican activists angry over his nomination of White House Counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court confronted the president's envoys during a pair of tense closed-door meetings." Participants described it as the biggest split with the GOP base in his five years in office.   And elsewhere on the page was the news that the Central Intelligence Agency's director had rejected a recommendation from its inspector general that he convene a formal "accountability board" to judge the possible complicity of senior officials in the failures that preceded the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The action triggered a statement of concern from the Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and criticism from families of 9/11 victims.

 

Fun with Dick and George: The biggest story of 2005 is hiding in plain sight

Dick Cheney and George W. Bush don't like each other anymore.

 

Bush credibility haunts Rice testimony

 

Rice: U.S. May Still Be in Iraq in 10 Years

 

Bush Calls Recent Woes 'Background Noise'

 

Saddam's defense team wants to put Bush on trial

 

Bush Acting Like Stalin in 1953, Claiming A Foreign Cabal Is Out to End His Presidency

Skolnick said Bush has been ranting and raving in the White House, claiming "the Jews, the French and a foreign cabal" are conspiring to take down his Presidency and are behind the well-known and imminent Fitzgerald indictments…  "Reports are Bush also has made a last ditch effort to go to the Supreme Court to have the indictments quashed but only two of the nine high court justices were in favor of listening to his story." when Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez recently met with Fitzgerald, seeing the severity of the indictments, he immediately disqualified himself from the case, refusing to sign or issue the indictments against his colleagues in the White House.

 

Berlusconi faces possible Milan trial for TV fraud

A Milan court will start hearings on Friday to decide whether to indict Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and 13 others in a probe over alleged fraud at broadcaster Mediaset.  Berlusconi is, of course, of the US president’s closest allies. 

 

Major Republican Donor Indicted in Ohio

Tom Noe was accused in a federal indictment of giving money to 24 friends and associates, who then made the campaign contributions in their own names. In that way, he skirted the $2,000 limit on individual contributions, prosecutors said.

 

Barbara Bush not welcomed in DC area

 

 

U.S. FOREIGN POLICY, INCLUDING IRAQ , IRAN

 

The Greatest Strategic Disaster in US History

"It's like working in an insane asylum. People walk around like they're in a trance. We're the dance band on the Titanic, playing out our last songs to people who know the ship is sinking and none of us are going to make it… it is one temper tantrum after another from Bush, whose "cakewalk war" has turned into interminable conflict, whose idiocy in diverting funding for New Orleans' levees to war in Iraq was disastrous for the famous city, and whose Social Security privatization has been rejected by the electorate. Even rah-rah Republican Newt Gingrich says the White House is surrounded by failure…  Condi Rice was dispatched to Princeton last week to inform the university that democracy comes out of the barrel of a gun. US military force, said the secretary of state with a straight face, is required to force democracy down the throats of the Muslims in order to save future American generations from "insecurity and fear." Condi obviously doesn't want Bush to put her in the "against us" camp. She told Princeton that she agreed with Bush "that the root cause of September 11 was the violent expression of a global extremist ideology, an ideology rooted in the oppression and despair of the modern Middle East ." Every American should be scared to death that a secretary of state can make such an ignorant and propagandistic statement.  Many Middle Eastern countries are ruled by puppets on the American payroll. Even the Saudis are under American protection. If there is oppression in the Middle East, it is because US puppets and protectorates are doing what the US government wants, not what the people they rule want. What kind of fool believes that the way to bring democracy to a country is to invade, destroy cities and infrastructure, and kill and maim tens of thousands of civilians, while creating every possible animosity by aligning with some members of the society against the others?  Lt. Gen. William Odom, Director of the National Security Agency during President Reagan's second term, a scholar with a distinguished career in military intelligence, declared Bush's invasion of Iraq to be the ‘greatest strategic disaster in United States history.  No one can impugn Gen. Odom's patriotism. When I wrote on April 1, 2003, that "the U.S. invasion of Iraq is a strategic blunder," the hate mail poured in from bloody-minded Bush supporters, who assured me that the war would be over in one week. Only a liberal pinko Bush-hating commie could fail to see that the war was won, they jeered…  The Bush administration is blaming Syria and Iran for its failure in Iraq . "Our patience is running out," declared US ambassador to Iraq Zaimay Khalilzad.  The Israelis have told their US puppet that if the US doesn't use force to destroy Iran 's nuclear energy programs, then Israel will undertake to bomb Iran . This despite the announcement by the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency that two years of unfettered access to Iran 's nuclear programs has failed to turn up any sign of a weapons program."  The writer assumes that gross incompetence is the reason for the mess in Iraq , but what if, in fact, it’s turning out just the way the powers want it to? 

 

US policy and the 'Oval Office cabal'

As top officials in the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney's office await possible criminal indictments for their efforts to discredit a whistle-blower, a top aide to former secretary of state, Colin Powell, on Wednesday accused a "cabal" led by Cheney and Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld of hijacking US foreign policy by circumventing or ignoring formal decision-making channels. Lawrence Wilkerson, a retired colonel, also charged that, as national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice was "part of the problem" by not ensuring that the policy-making process was open to all relevant participants…  "The case that I saw for four-plus years was a case that I have never seen in my studies of aberrations, bastardizations and perturbations in the national-security [policy-making] process," he said. "What I saw was a cabal between the vice president of the United States , Richard Cheney, and the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, on critical issues that made decisions that the bureaucracy did not know were being made…  He said they both were members of the "military-industrial complex" that former president, Dwight Eisenhower, warned the nation against in his 1961 farewell address. "  It’s important to know how the German felt while Hitler was doing the same thing.  Read They Thought They Were Free, which states, “What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could not understand it, it could not be released because of national security.[...]  This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter.”   

 

Americans' anger at an all-time high

Americans have become increasingly frustrated with their President's Iraq policy.  According to most recent surveys, just 28 percent of Americans think the president is doing a good job, the lowest in a decade. But pollsters say that even without running a poll; just wandering down to the local coffee shops you will see the amount of anger and frustration as a result of Iraq war, the mounting casualties, skyrocketing energy prices and the government's policy…

 

Poll shows Iraqis back attacks on UK, US forces

Forty-five percent of Iraqis believe attacks on U.S. and British troops are justified, according to a secret poll said to have been commissioned by British defense leaders and cited by The Sunday Telegraph. Less than 1 percent of those polled believed that the forces were responsible for any improvement in security, according to poll figures.  Eighty-two percent of those polled said they were "strongly opposed" to the presence of the troops.

 

How To End The War

…who noticed the great contradiction in Bush's speech. On the one hand, he claims steady progress toward freedom and democracy in Iraq . On the other hand, he seeks the American public's support for open-ended war.  In her Princeton speech, Condi Rice made it clear that Iraq is just the beginning: "We have set out to help the people of the Middle East transform their societies. Now is not the time to falter or fade."  On October 5 Vice President Cheney let us know how long this commitment was to last: "Like other great duties in history, it will require decades of patient effort." …  Is there a single person in the Office of Management and Budget, the US Treasury, the Congressional Budget Office, or the Federal Reserve who thinks the US, already drowning in red ink, has the resources to fight wars for decades?  And where will the troops come from? … Last month suicide bombers killed 481 Iraqis and wounded 1,074.  Has anyone in the administration put these numbers in a decades long context? … Americans may feel that they cannot undercut a president at war, in which case Americans will become an embattled people consumed by decades of conflict. Americans can boot out Bush or pay dearly in blood and money.

 

U.S. REP. JIM MCGOVERN TO INTRODUCE BILL ENDING FUNDING FOR IRAQ WAR

 

Please Don't Support My Troop

My son returned from Iraq last weekend after a year's service. I confess to breathing much easier now that he is out of that quagmire.  I have a personal request for all of you George W. Bush supporters and Christian warhawks: please do not support my troop. I have visions and aspirations of having him around, seeing him settle down and start a family at some point, and being near as I grow older. Your support would mean that he would be sent back to this war started and continued on lies to become a target for those who would rather live their lives without the interference of a foreign, empire-seeking, new-world-order, invader.  Actually, my son completed his contractual obligation to the military several months ago, but thanks to your support, he has been stop-lossed and has no idea when he will be allowed to resign his commission. Why would I not want your support for my troop, you ask? Considering your support of our criminal government has led to the death, destruction and misery of millions of people on this planet, that is basically a no-brainer.

 

2000th Death Sparks New Protests by Sheehan, Peace Movements

 

Bush Teleconference With Soldiers Was Staged

It was billed as a conversation with U.S. troops, but the questions President Bush asked on a teleconference call Thursday were choreographed to match his goals for the war in Iraq and Saturday's vote on a new Iraqi constitution. Consider the incredible transparency of this bit of propaganda, the fakery of which was discovered almost immediately and even lampooned the following weekend on Saturday Night Live, and then consider what might not be so transparent. 

 

White House prepares for possible indictments

Last week, there were signs that the White House's usual clinical competence at staging events was coming unstuck. In one omission, broadcasters were able to watch live footage of military officials prepping soldiers in Iraq for a satellite question and answer session with Mr Bush.

 

Ex-Marine publishes French book on US-Iraq war

US military training has created troops so desensitised to violence that battleground brutality in Iraq is rampant -- and has helped fuel the bloody insurgency seen there today, according to a new book written by a former Marine and released Thursday in France.  In his book, 'Kill! Kill! Kill!', he says he and other Marines in his unit killed dozens of unarmed Iraqi civilians because of an exaggerated sense of threat, and that they often experienced sexual-type thrills doing so…  violence exhibited by him and his men was the deliberate result of combat training approved by the very highest US authorities… The briefings they received, he said, made US troops view "everyone as a potential terrorist -- they put fear and panic into my Marines."

 

Iraq rebuilding slows as U.S. money for projects dries up

On paper, the Iraqi Army barracks was a gleaming example of the future Iraq . The plans called for a two-story, air-conditioned barracks housing 850 soldiers, a movie theater, classrooms, basketball courts, a shooting range, even an officer's club. But when the $10 million project in southern Iraq is finished this month, it will fall far short of those ambitious plans. The theater, classrooms, officer's club, basketball courts and shooting range have all been scrapped. The barracks will be one story instead of two.  The reason for scaling back the barracks? The U.S. government is running out of money…  Congress appropriated $18.4 billion for Iraq reconstruction in November 2003, but last year nearly $5 billion of it was diverted to help train and equip Iraq 's security forces as the insurgency grew in strength. And the security costs keep increasing. Originally estimated at 9% of total project costs, security costs have risen to between 20% and 30%, says Brig. Gen. William McCoy Jr., commander of the Army Corps of Engineers in Iraq  

 

Billions of dollars short, U.S. must scale back Iraq reconstruction

The Bush administration cannot fulfill all its grand promises to rebuild Iraq because soaring security costs, mismanagement and poor planning have cost billons of dollars, federal auditors said Tuesday…  In one case, security costs for a U.S. Agency for International Development program on economic reform increased from $894,000 to $37 million, an auditor told Congress…  Consider all the no-bid reconstruction contracts given to friends of the Bush administration.  Perhaps there’s no intention of rebuilding Iraq , just transferring US taxpayers’ money into the pockets of administration crony companies? 

 

Drinking the Kool-Aid by Col. W. Patrick Lang

What does drinking the Kool-Aid mean today? It signifies that the person in question has given up personal integrity and has succumbed to the prevailing group-think that typifies policymaking today. This person has become "part of the problem, not part of the solution."  What was the "problem"? The sincerely held beliefs of a small group of people who think they are the "bearers" of a uniquely correct view of the world, sought to dominate the foreign policy of the United States in the Bush 43 administration, and succeeded in doing so through a practice of excluding all who disagreed with them. Those they could not drive from government they bullied and undermined until they, too, had drunk from the vat.  What was the result? The war in Iraq   Without objective facts, decisions are based on subjective drivel. Wars result from such drivel. We are in the midst of one at present.

 

Casualties of the Bush administration – no-bid contracts awarded KBR called abusive

In late August 2005, after 20 years of service in the field of military procurement, Bunnatine ("Bunny") Greenhouse, the top official at the US Army Corps of Engineers in charge of awarding government contracts for the reconstruction of Iraq , was demoted. For years, Greenhouse received stellar evaluations from superiors - until she raised objections about secret, no- bid contracts awarded to Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR) - a subsidiary of Halliburton, the mega-corporation Vice President Dick Cheney once presided over. After telling Congress that one Halliburton deal was "the most blatant and improper contract abuse I have witnessed during the course of my professional career", she was reassigned from "the elite senior executive service ... to a lesser job in the civil works division of the corps"…

 

Pentagon late on reimbursing troops for Iraq gear

“The Pentagon has not devised rules for reimbursing U.S. troops for body armor and other gear bought with their own money for duty in Iraq and Afghanistan despite a law that required such guidelines seven months ago…  Pentagon officials did not offer an explanation for why they had not complied with the deadline set in the law…”

 

Ex-Iraqi Officials Sought in $1B Theft

 

Dust off the Nuremberg Files

…the ongoing American and British slaughter of thousands of Iraqi and Afghan civilians constitutes a blatant war crime… 

 

Rally in Warsaw demands Polish troops back from Iraq

 

Danish PM faces Iraq war lawsuit

…24 citizens have brought a suit against the Danish prime minister over Denmark 's role in the Iraq war.  The plaintiffs are seeking to challenge the legitimacy of Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen's decision to go to war against Iraq   They contend that the prime minister breached the constitution on two counts, taking the country to war without a United Nations Security Council resolution, and devolving sovereignty over Danish troops to a foreign power without the necessary constitutional authority.

 

Bush will veto anti-torture law after Senate revolt

The Bush administration pledged yesterday to veto legislation banning the torture of prisoners by US troops after an overwhelming and almost unprecedented revolt by loyalist congressmen.  This debate is absurd.  We have laws against torture, yet the administration has made torture an official policy, as many have come forth to admit, so we have to pass more laws against torture?  Why?  So the administration can violate them, too?  The late-night Senate vote saw the measure forbidding torture passed by 90 to nine, with most Republicans backing the measure. Most senators said the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal and similar allegations at the Guantanamo Bay prison rendered the result a foregone conclusion. So despite 90+% of the supposed representatives of the people voting against torture, the president still wants to torture people and will defy the will of the people. 

 

U.S.: License to Abuse Would Put CIA Above the Law

The Bush administration is now the only government in the world to claim a legal justification for mistreating prisoners during interrogations, Human Rights Watch said today. The administration recently approached members of the U.S. Congress to seek a waiver that would allow the CIA to use cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment on detainees in U.S. custody outside the United States .

 

C.I.A. to Avoid Charges in Most Prisoner Deaths

Federal prosecutors reviewing cases of possible misconduct by C.I.A. employees have recently notified lawyers that they do not intend to bring criminal charges in several cases involving the handling of terrorism suspects and Iraqi insurgents, the officials said.

 

The Real Indictment of Dick Cheney

The Vice President of the United States is actively lobbying for torture right now. Not in the 1800's. Not in the 1950's. Right now. And the sick thing is -- he has an excellent chance of winning…  As I write this, I think, what kind of a world do we live in? What have we become? ... the President has threatened to veto the entire defense spending bill if he is not allowed to continue torturing people. Just yesterday there was another report of at least 21 homicides of detainees under our supervision. We beat and strangled some of these people to death. I guess this is the type of thing Rush Limbaugh would call a frat house prank.  What have we become? … How can this administration argue that it was a few rogue soldiers who committed the abuses at Abu Ghraib (and all of the other prisons all over Iraq and Afghanistan), when they are arguing for the right to treat detainees with "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" right now?  Because lying is not an obstacle. 

 

HUMAN RIGHTS - US: Dozens of Abu Ghraibs

U.S. human rights groups have denounced before the U.N. Human Rights Committee that there are perhaps dozens of secret detention centres around the world where Washington is holding an unknown number of prisoners as part of its "war on terror"…  "There are locations you know about, like Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib, and Bagram in Afghanistan," commented Patel, "but there are other locations which you know exist, but you don't know exactly how many or where they are." … "There are around 20 of them in Afghanistan , but you don't know how many people are being held there, and you don't know how they are being treated," …

 

Truth is the enemy

Mr Bush has at last admitted what we all knew: the Lynndie England's and all the other poor soldiers who have been punished for torturing and mistreating their captives in Abu Ghraib and elsewhere were in fact following orders…  In January, an Italian judge, Clementine Forieo ruled that five North Africans accused of terrorism could not be so described because they were in reality resistance fighters against an illegal occupation force.  That judgment is supported more recently, by the German Federal Administrative Court which ruled that the attack launched by the US and its allies against the nation of Iraq was a clear war of aggression that violated international law - as specified in Article 4, Paragraph 4 of the UN Charter .

 

An American in chains

James Yee entered Guantanamo as a patriotic US officer and Muslim chaplain. He ended up in shackles, branded a spy. This is his disturbing story…  “My real "crime" had been that I had tried to ensure that the suspected Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters detained in the Gitmo cages were given every opportunity to practise their religion freely, one of the most fundamental of American ideals…”

 

UN Official: US Troops 'Starving' Iraqi Civilians

"A drama is taking place in total silence in Iraq , where the coalition's occupying forces are using hunger and deprivation of water as a weapon of war against the civilian population," Ziegler told a news briefing. Two 1977 protocols to the 1949 Geneva Conventions, which lay down rules of conduct in armed conflicts, ban using deprivation of food or water as a weapon of war. They also prohibit destruction of food stocks or interruption of food supply lines.

 

White House denies Bush God claims

A senior White House official has denied that the US president, George Bush, said God ordered him to invade Afghanistan and Iraq   The claims are due to be broadcast in a three-part BBC documentary which analyses attempts to bring peace to the Middle East .  Mr Shaath, the Palestinian foreign minister in 2003, claims Mr Bush told him and other delegates that he was spoken to by God over his plans for war.  He told the film-makers: "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.

 

Cheney, Libby Blocked Papers To Senate Intelligence Panel

The new information that Cheney and Libby blocked information to the Senate Intelligence Committee further underscores the central role played by the vice president's office in trying to blunt criticism that the Bush administration exaggerated intelligence data to make the case to go to war. [...]

 

Bush Is Cooking Up Two More Wars

“Mired in interminable conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan , the Bush administration is moving toward initiating two more wars, one with Iran and one with North Korea . With no US troops available, the Bush administration is revamping US war doctrine to allow for "preventative nuclear attack." In short, the Bush administration is planning to make the US the first country in history to initiate war with nuclear weapons. The Pentagon document, "Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations," calls for the use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear adversaries in order "to ensure success of US and multinational operations."  In the case of Iran and North Korea , the Bush administration is using diplomacy not for diplomatic purposes of reaching agreements, but in order to set the two countries up for nuclear attack. In the case of Iran , the Bush administration's plan is now obvious. The Bush administration is leveling false charges against Iran, just as it did against Iraq, of conspiring to make nuclear weapons. These charges are known to be false by the Bush administration and by the entire world.  For the past two years the International Atomic Energy Agency has had unfettered access to inspect Iran for any sign of a nuclear weapons program. The head of the IAEA has announced that there is no sign of a weapons program. The Bush administration nevertheless insists that Iran is making weapons, but can produce no evidence. As in the case of Iraq , the Bush administration substitutes allegations for facts…  By bullying the 35 members of the IAEA, the Bush administration last week managed to get 22 votes that could lead to the referral of Iran to the UN Security Council. The Bush administration will now lobby for the referral. Once it has the referral, even if the Security Council does not act on it, the Bush administration can use it as an excuse to attack Iran . The Bush administration knows that few Americans have any knowledge of international law and procedures and will simply believe whatever President Bush says. The highly concentrated US media is a proven walkover for the war-mongering Bush administration  The Bush administration is betting that it can demonize Iran the way it did Iraq. As both Congress and the American public have failed to hold Bush accountable for deceiving them about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, the administration assumes that its tactics will work a second time.  However, a nuclear attack on Iran would leave the Bush administration isolated. The US would instantly become a pariah nation, loathed and hated everywhere else.  Moreover, it would leave our battered troops in Iraq in a perilous situation. The only reason our army in Iraq has not been destroyed is that the Shi'ites, who comprise the vast majority of the population, have not taken up arms against us, expecting the US to turn over Iraq to them. As the Iraqi Shi'ites are allied with the Iranians, who also are Shi'ite, the US cannot attack Iran without destroying its position in Iraq .  Maybe something else could be blamed on Iran to justify an attack.  Maybe a missile or two launched at Israel ? 

 

Syria warns 'gates of hell will open' if U.S. attacks

Premier Naji Otari said "all the gates of hell will open on the U.S. if it attempts to attack Syria ." Otari was replying to a report this week in Newsweek magazine revealing that Washington had debated launching military strikes inside Syria against camps used by insurgents operating in Iraq .

 

Iran not to invite Solana to next round of Iran-EU nuclear talks

 

Rice, French official warn Iran on nukes

 

Rice Fails to Win Russian Support on Iran

 

Wiped off the map

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has caused a political storm by calling for Israel to be "wiped off the map". The hardline authoritarian President was speaking in front of 3,000 students at a conference in Tehran entitled "The World without Zionism".  But could outrage at such a statement be hypocritical?   The Palestinian state decreed by the international community had been forcibly 'wiped off the map', to use Ahmadinejad's phrase. Successive Israeli governments ensured that it was never to emerge…  "To repress Palestinian resistance, a senior Israeli officer in early 2002 urged the army to "analyze and internalize the lessons of…how the German army fought in the Warsaw ghetto." …  An Israeli soldier who operated a bulldozer in the assault on Jenin breathlessly described the experience: "I wanted to destroy everything. I begged the officers…to let me knock it all down, from top to bottom. To level everything…. For three days, I just destroyed and destroyed…. I found joy with every house that came down, because I knew that they didn't mind dying, but they cared for their homes. If you knocked down a house, you buried 40 or 50 people for generations. If I am sorry for anything, it is for not tearing the whole camp down. …I had plenty of satisfaction. I really enjoyed it." 

 

Blair delivers blunt 'action' warning to Iran

TONY Blair last night issued a clear threat to Iran and suggested that military action against the Islamic republic could no longer be ruled out by the international community…  "If they carry on like this, people are going to believe they are a real threat to world stability," Mr Blair said. "If they carry on like this, the question people are going to ask me is, 'When are you going to do something about this?'"

 

British MK Suggests Sanctions Against Israel

 

Russia is ready to expand cooperation with Iran

 

Russia says will defend Syria against UN sanctions

 

The "Ist" Du Jour

“An Interview with Cindy Sheehan…  I think even more than oil, it has to do with the industrial military complex that Eisenhower warned us about. They have to keep us afraid of something or someone. During the 1950s and 60s it was the Communists. We lost that focus in the 1970s – so the evil Rumsfeld, Cheney and Perle, along with the rest of the neocons, kept that alive. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, we needed a new enemy; so now it is terrorists … they are the "ist" du jour. It really is impossible to fight "ists" and "isms." You just can't do it. All we get in the end is prolonged, evil, and unnecessary war and death  violence can't produce peace – no matter what George W. Bush and his buddies say.’”

 

Neo-Cons for a "Strong Europe"

Here is a little scoop : Bill Kristol, Robert Kagan, Gary Schmitt and other members of PNAC (the Project for a New American Century) (possibly the most violent and immoral of the right-wing think tanks, who openly advocate American involvement in wars (that means killing people and destroying their property) just to keep other nations in fear of us and to keep money flowing into the war machine, in which they heavily invest)  are launching a new club called “Committee for a Strong Europe.”  By “Strong Europe”, of course, they don’t mean “A Europe in which governments would be strong enough to say no to any crazy American military invasion plan,”  but the statement of principle of the committee is so broadly crafted than many people could sign it. The purpose is to promote democracy, to have a stronger economy, to keep confidence in our values, etc.  Have no doubt that they intend to achieve these noble aims by, that’s right, killing people who don’t want to be “democratized” (code for submitting to US economic hegemony) and that the values they speak of equate to US global economic hegemony.  PNAC is the organization that penned the infamous “Rebuilding America ’s Defenses” document, which has served as the blueprint for the 9/11 attacks, the  launching of wars in the middle east, and the tens of billions spent on the war machine. 

 

BUILDING A BOOGEYMAN

 

Zarqawi's war whoops

Many Iraqis are now wondering whether Zarqawi is a real figure or not.  "Zarqawi is a good pretext for striking any Iraqi city or town," Professor Ali explains.  "If Zarqawi is defending the Sunnis and his followers are operating in the Sunni areas, why were Najaf and Sadr city (mostly Shiite areas) targeted by the Americans and Iraqi forces several times before?"  Many Iraqis believe the Americans and the government are behind the Zarqawi communiqué of targeting Shiites.  "Do you think that Zarqawi, if he is real, is ready to gain more enemies by such a communiqué?" asks Al-Ubaidi.

 

Kiss of Death

Does Zarqawi have an infinite supply of lieutenants/deputies/aides/associates/second-in-commands/etc., or do we just arbitrarily declare that every 100th insurgent we capture or kill is "a top aide" to Zarqawi? … Below is an almost comprehensive list (I'm sure I missed a few) of Zarqawi's "top lieutenants" we've captured, killed, or acknowledged over the last two and a half years. I count 33. Read on and start to recognize propaganda for what it is.  Think about why the government wants to keep a name, a boogeyman, in the headlines, and to keep building his legend.  Could it be so that they can claim an enormous victory, when they need it, by“capturing him” someday?  Propaganda is mostly fiction.  Do you think that the media don’t realize that they’re constantly reporting on a man that was reported dead years ago? 

 

Fill in the blanks to Make Your Own Zarqawi propaganda story. 

Headline:
[top | important | most wanted | close | key] al-Zarqawi [aide | lieutenant | associate | "cell prince" | figure] [captured | arrested]

Body:
[Iraqi | US | US and Iraqi] forces have [nabbed | captured | arrested] [a | one | two] [senior | middle] [figure | operations chief | terrorist operative] of [Jordanian | al-Qaeda-linked | Iraq 's most wanted] terrorist Abu Musab Zarqawi. (arabic name), also know as (other arabic name), was [detained | picked up]  on (some date) during an [Iraqi police | US military | US and Iraqi] [raid | road block | operation] in (some place in Iraq ). [spokesman | US General | Iraqi minister] said ["major catch" | "significant impact" | "big step forward"].

Some real examples of “journalism” made from this template. 

 

June 16, 2005 U.S. Says It Has Captured Al Qaeda Leader for Mosul Area

 

June 5, 2005 Militant linked to Zarqawi arrested

 

May 25, 2005 Top aide to al-Zarqawi arrested north of Baghdad

 

May 25, 2005 US: al-Zarqawi aides arrested

 

May 9, 2005 Gains seen after new arrest of al-Zarqawi aide

 

April 19, 2005 Iraqi Security Forces Capture Two Zarqawi Associates

 

March 12, 2005 Female Al Qaeda member arrested

 

March 9, 2005 A Zarqawi cell "prince", six others captured in Baquba

 

March 1, 2005 Major Arrests Show a Shift in Iraq

 

February 26, 2005 Top al-Zarqawi aide captured

 

January 28, 2005 Three Top Zarqawi Lieutenants Arrested

 

January 24, 2005 Zarqawi's 'Most Lethal' Lt. Nabbed

 

January 8, 2005 Zarqawi-linked leader arrested

 

December 15, 2004 Iraq says aide to Zarqawi killed, two arrested

 

December 12, 2004 US Marines Arrest 2 Zarqawi-linked Insurgent Leaders

 

November 25, 2004 Iraq says top Zarqawi aide arrested in Mosul

 

October 23, 2004 Senior Terrorist Arrested in Iraq

 

July 7, 2004 Zarqawi's brother-in-law arrested in Jordan: family

 

April 30, 2003 Associate of Al Qaeda-Linked Fugitive Caught in Baghdad

 

John Pilger blames Basra on the Britishal-Zarqawi has been dead for years

Here are questions that are not being asked. Were explosives and a remote-control detonator found in the car of the two SAS men "rescued" from prison in Basra on 19 September? If true, what were they planning to do with them? Why did the British army put out an unbelievable version of the circumstances that led up to armoured vehicles smashing down the wall of a prison? … Do we simply accept the customary arrogance of the Defence Secretary, John Reid? "Iraqi law is very clear," he said. "British personnel are immune from Iraqi legal process." He omitted to say that this fake immunity was invented by Iraq 's occupiers…  The Anglo-American goal of "federalism" for Iraq is part of an imperial strategy of provoking divisions in a country where the communities have long overlapped, even intermarried  "He is simply an invention," said the imam of al-Kazimeya Mosque in Baghdad . "Al-Zarqawi was killed in the beginning of the war in the Kurdish north. His family even held a ceremony after his death." Whether or not this is true, al-Zarqawi's "foreign invasion" serves as Bush's and Blair's last veil for their "war on terror" and botched attempt to control the world's second-biggest source of oil.

 

Pentagon: Bin Laden deputy complains about money, Iraq tactics – letter to Zarqawi intercepted

The United States obtained a recent letter that appears to be from Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda's No. 2 figure, to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, outlining both the strategy and concerns of the terrorist network, said Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman.  In the letter, al-Zawahiri warns that some of the tactics currently employed by the insurgency, including the slaughtering of hostages and the suicide bombings of Muslim civilians, may risk alienating the "Muslim masses," Whitman said Thursday.  The message:  they want you to believe that it is the “insurgency” that is killing its own people.  Reading from a summary of the letter, Whitman said al-Zawahiri concedes that al Qaeda has lost many key leaders, is resigned to defeat in Afghanistan, and that its lines of communication and funding sources have been seriously disrupted. Al-Zawahiri includes a plea for financial support, indicating he is strapped for money, Whitman said. You’re free to believe this if you want, but keep in mind a key form of propaganda during WWII in which soldiers captured by Germany and Japan were made to “admit” that they were losing the war and were no match for the illustrious Germans and Japanese.  There’s no reason that you can’t pretend to “intercept” enemy communications in which the enemy admits they’re in dire straits. 

 

Zawahiri Letter to Zarqawi: A Shiite Forgery?

The letter then says how much Zawahiri misses meeting with Zarqawi. Zarqawi was not part of al-Qaeda when he was in Afghanistan . He had a rivalry with it. And when he went back to Jordan he did not allow the Jordanian and German chapters of his Tawhid wa Jihad group to send money to Bin Laden. If Zawahiri was going to bring up old times, he would have had to find a way to get past this troubled history, not just pretend that the two used to pal around.  My gut tells me that the letter is a forgery. Most likely it is a black psy-ops operation of the US . But it could also come from Iran , since the mistakes are those a Shiite might make when pretending to be a Sunni. Or it could come from an Iraqi Shiite group attempting to manipulate the United States . Hmmm.

 

US cannot explain suspicious Zawahri letter passage

"And especially, by God, if by chance you're going to Falluja, send greetings to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi," it states. [...]

 

Al-Qaida says letter from its No.2 leader to al-Zarqawi is a U.S. fake

"We in al-Qaida declare that there is no truth to these claims, and they are baseless, except in the imagination of the politicians of the Black (White) House," according to the statement on a website known as a clearing house for al-Qaida material.

 

Bin Laden to surface after new attack on US soil: ex-CIA expert  

Osama bin laden is expected to remain in hiding until he stages another attack on the United States, an ex-CIA expert who had tracked the terror mastermind for two decades warned in an interview… "We mistake quiet for defeat or irrelevance. And all quiet is disquiet," said Scheuer, a fierce critic of the Bush administration and its "War on Terror" policy since he left the CIA in November last year.  The gist here is, “don’t forget to fear the original Arab boogeyman, because we can pull him out of the hat when needed, too.  Pakistan said last month that bin Laden was now isolated as his communication network had been shattered.  But Scheuer, currently an adjunct professor of security studies at Georgetown University , said, "I'm one that believes that we have not destroyed their (Al-Qaeda's) capability to attack us.  "I think bin Laden still commands the international media at a moment's notice if he decides to make a media appearance. He is very important. So, I think again there is lot of whistling past the graveyard at the moment."

 

CIA chief says he has 'excellent idea' where Osama bin Laden is (from June)

 

CIA 'knows Bin Laden whereabouts' (from June)

And don’t forget all of the “terrorist plots detected” and “terror cells broken up”--  unproven claims that can be made up any time the president, Homeland Security, or the PATRIOT Act needs a boost. 

 

Iraqis apprehend two Americans disguised as Arabs trying to detonate a car bomb

Five minutes after the arrival of the Iraqi puppet police on the scene a large force of US troops showed up and surrounded the area. They put the two Americans in one of their Humvees and drove away at high speed to the astonishment of the residents of the area…  Quds Press pointed out that about a month ago, the Iraqi puppet police in the southern Iraqi city of al-Basrah arrested two Britons whom they accused of attempting to cause an explosion in the city. The Britons were taken into custody by the Iraqi puppet police only to be broken out of prison by an assault of British occupation troops.  Maybe the whole war on terror is being faked? 

 

10 terrorist plots detected: Bush

United States President George Bush says at least 10 serious al-Qaeda terrorist plans have been detected and disrupted by the U.S. and its allies since the devastating attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.  The president gave no details or evidence of the plots in question. 

 

Mayor Bloomberg announces New York Subway possible target of terrorism

 

Police flood New York subway system in response to terror threat

By now you’ve learned enough to run a propaganda state yourself, right?  If you were given control of a country and wanted to sap its money and resources for yourself and your friends in government and industry while keeping your domestic political opposition in check, you would make up several “news story” templates (the bogeymen and the threats on one side, the detections, arrests, and victories on the other) and rotate them in the press ad infinitum in a prearranged design.  Maybe sprinkle in the idea that your political opponents are giving “aid and comfort to the enemy,” too. This will keep your whole population afraid, forking over money to you, and blessing you as their savior and protector. 

 

Bush Says War in Iraq Isn't Cause of Rising Terrorism

Wow!  Could it be statements like this that cause, for instance,Gordon Liddy recently saying on the Sean Hannity Show that Bush 'ought to be put in a monkey cage? 

 

Maxwell Smart in Iraq

He had a number of catchphrases, including 'Would you believe . . .?', used at the beginning of each of a series of preposterous lies. The increasingly preposterous stories told by the British government to explain what recently happened in Basra are starting to sound like Maxwell Smart...  After the initial series of denials, the next official British explanation for what these men were up to was to claim that they were working on a mission to stop the smuggling into Iraq of Iranian munitions which were being used by the insurgency against British soldiers. This isn't an original story, but is just a copy of the same claim made by the Americans. The British have even elaborated on the story ( Iran denies it). This story had a number of problems… 

 

Lawyer for Saddam Co-Defendant Found Dead

Heavy protection was provided for prosecutors and judges in the Saddam trial…  But security measures do not appear to have been extended to the defense lawyers for Saddam and his seven co-defendants. Their identities have been known, though most of them have not been prominent in the press.

 

Iraqis Probe 'Unusually High' Yes Tally

Iraq 's election commission announced Monday that officials were investigating "unusually high" numbers of "yes" votes in about a dozen provinces during Iraq 's landmark referendum on a new constitution, raising questions about irregularities in the balloting…

 

Voting Tallies Provoke Investigation

 

Suspicions of irregularities in the voting tallies being reported in some provinces in Iraq have provoked the Higher Electoral Commission to conduct an investigation. In six Shiite-majority provinces in the South, 95 percent or more of voters are reported as having cast votes favoring the constitution…

 

Spain issues warrant for U.S. soldiers

A judge in Spain has issued an international arrest warrant for three U.S. soldiers in the shelling of a hotel in Baghdad that killed a Spanish journalist…

 

Afghanistan Addicted to Heroin Economy

…But the country is facing another threat to its stability — its growing addiction the production and trafficking of heroin, which is controlled by some of the most powerful people in the country.
Afghanistan is now the world’s largest exporter of heroin…  In all of Afghanistan there are barely 100 people in jail for drug offenses, most of them small time players.  Interesting that Afghanistan rose to the top of the drug-producing heap only after the US invasion and occupation. 

 

Bush equates bin Laden with history's greatest tyrants

U.S. President George W Bush said Thursday that al-Qaida was bent on building a "totalitarian empire" grounded in radical Islam, and put its leader Osama bin Laden on a par with Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot and Joseph Stalin.  Psychopaths accuse others of the very crimes they commit themselves.  Bin Laden is not a national leader, not even a political leader. 

 

Bush's Terrifying Terror Speech

George W. Bush's Oct. 6 speech demanding "complete victory" in the "war on terror" unnerved some Americans who saw a president who looked and sounded like an obsessed sea captain charting the ship of state into an endless storm.

 

Pentagon nominee aims for more positive Iraq stories

President George W. Bush's nominee to be the Pentagon's chief public affairs official told Congress on Tuesday he hoped to encourage more positive stories about the Iraq war by encouraging the practice of embedding reporters with U.S. troops in Iraq.  There you have plain admission that embedding generates positive reports about the military obliteration of Iraq .  Who’s going to report negatively on the men they rely upon to stay alive? This is an act of desperation to keep hidden the reality of the destruction of Iraq .  Oklahoma blasted U.S. media coverage of the war in Iraq, saying that it focused mostly on bad news, and said he hoped Smith could "somehow shame the press" into providing more positive coverage.  In other words,more propaganda.  In other words, if Smith shot his mother ten times, he might spin it by saying, “See how wonderfully her wounds are healing?  Why don’t you focus on that! 

 

US, Israeli game theory duo win economics Nobel

“The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences gave the 10 million crown prize to Thomas Schelling and Robert Aumann for work that has found uses in "security and disarmament policies, price formation on markets, as well as economic and political negotiations." …  Schelling, whose career began with work on the U.S. Marshall Plan to help rebuild Europe after World War Two, has applied game theory to global security and the Cold War arms race…  Game Theory had prior contributors such as John von Neumann and John Nash.  Nash’s idea was that “players” were forced to join in cooperation to advance in a “game” and then double-cross each other in the end so that there is only one “winner.”  Unfortunately, those who practice lies, deception and other conscienceless behavior, have a distinct advantage in such “games.” 

 

Dying For the Emperor? No Way

" US President Harry S. Truman, with consent of his top brass, ordered the atomic bombings of Japan in order to save one million US lives. The Japanese were fascists….”  What a bunch of post-war revisionist nonsense.  America , this is a lie. It’s time you faced up to the truth about the war and the atomic bombings…

 

 

 

BRITAIN AND AUSTRALIA


Given the tyrannical, power-tripping, freedom-restricting behavior the British and Australian prime ministers, you’d think that the US, Britain , and Australia were all controlled by the same person.  I wonder?  Though the British public, at least, seems to be far more vocal in its opposition to Tony Blair’s foreign policy, it doesn’t seem to be stopping the march toward fascism in that country.   

 

British troops in Iraq to be cut by 500 in November: minister

LONDON - Britain said it will cut its military presence in Iraq by around 500 troops to 8,000 next month as it closes two small bases and hands over some training duties to the Iraqi security forces.

 

British Government publishes anti-terror bill

Tony Blair today insisted the case for holding terrorism suspects without trial was "absolutely compelling" as the government published new legislation allowing detention for 90 days wihout charge...  This sound familiar?  The bill includes new offences of making preparations for a terrorist act, distributing terrorist publications and undertaking terrorist training, and also aims to tackle extremist preachers who glorify or encourage terrorism.

 

Britain recruited terrorists, Meacher claims

“AN astonishing claim that M16 recruited Muslim extremists in Britain for terror training abroad has been made by Oldham MP and former cabinet minister Michael Meacher.  Mr Meacher also suggest that a British Muslim held under sentenced of death in Pakistan for beheading a US journalist is being kept alive because he was a British double agent…  Mr Meacher also highlights the case of UK-born Muslim Omar Saeed Sheikh, sentenced to death for the murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002.  Mr Meacher writes that Sheikh has been allowed 32 appeals against his sentence, the last being adjourned "indefinitely". He says the same Delhi foundation describes Sheikh as a British agent.  Mr Meacher adds: "This is all the more remarkable when this is the same Omar Sheikh who, at the behest of General Mahmood Ahmed, head of the ISI, wired $100,000 to Mohammed Atta, the leading 9/11 hijacker, before the New York attacks, as confirmed by Dennis Lomel, director of FBI's financial crimes unit."  Mr Meacher’s argument is that the UK and US security service do not want a proper investigation into these links because it would expose how they encouraged and helped to recruit Islamic 'warriors' when it suited their purposes but that these same forces eventually turned on the west, inflamed by what they saw as anti-Islamic occupations and pro-Israeli international policies.” 

 

Tony Blair – Former MI5 Informant?

Ex-MI5 officer David Shayler alleged so at a public meeting in Bristol last week, as was reported in the Bristol Evening Post. Money quote:  Mr Shayler believes Dr David Kelly was an MI6 agent who was murdered and he alleged that Tony Blair worked for MI5 before he became Labour leader…  I don't know how involved Blair is – it's a difficult question to answer. I mean, certainly I know, as I say, the intelligence services do things behind the backs of government, the cabinet and parliament – it's very easy in this country to do that, as there's no oversight of the services. And, in some ways, they don't want the government to know, so, when they are sent out to deny these things, as Robin Cook was, they can do it looking honest, basically 

 

London Bombing ringleader, Haroon Rashid Aswat – double agent for MI6?

In a lengthy statement that will send shockwaves around the world, John Loftus, a terrorism expert and a former prosecutor for the US Justice Department, has publically revealed that the so called mastermind of the 7/7 London Bombings, Haroon Rashid Aswat, is a British ‘Intelligence Asset'.  Just as Osama bin Laden was irrefutably a US intelligence asset when he was armed by the US during the Soviet-Afghan war.  The question is, did he ever leave the organization?  "This is the guy [Aswat], and what's really embarrassing is that the entire British police are out chasing him, and one wing of the British government, MI6 or the British Secret Service, has been hiding him. And this has been a real source of contention between the CIA, the Justice Department, and Britain …he is a double agent.  The CIA and the Israelis all accused MI6 of letting all these terrorists live in London not because they're getting Al-Qaeda information, but for appeasement. It was one of those you leave us alone, we leave you alone kind of things."

 

Iran 'has proof' of British role in bombings

Iran said Thursday it has proof that Britain was involved in a double bomb attack last week that killed six people and injured more than 100 in the restive southwestern city of Ahvaz   "The information shows that Britain is seeking to create insecurity in our country by interfering in our internal affairs," he added, warning that the consequences "could be worrying for the British."  The British embassy in Tehran immediately denied the allegations.

 

Who's Blowing Up Iraq?  (from September)

New evidence that bombs are being planted by British Commandos…

 

UK security services filmed London bomber

British intelligence officials secretly filmed one of the four bombers who killed 52 people on London 's transport network in July the year before the attack, the BBC reported on Tuesday.  Mohammed Sidique Khan, 30, featured in a 2004 surveillance operation speaking to a British-based terrorism suspect, according to the report, which cited a single, unnamed "well-placed source." … The BBC report appears to contradict initial media suggestions that all the bombers were previously unknown to the security services. [...]

 

Dissent isn't taken lightly Down Under

 

Terror bill will make Australia a police state

With its draconian anti-terrorism laws being rushed through parliament in frenetic hurry, Australia is moving towards a police state, according to the country’s Law Council.  The latest Bali bombings have brought forth warnings of an attack on Australia and trenchant criticism of the government’s record in countering terrorism in the region.  The Attorney General, Philip Ruddock, said recently that a terrorist attack on Australia was “highly probable” but his job was to do everything possible to ensure it did not happen.  “We understand that the people are scared, we understand that terrorism is the major, major issue, but we must not take away fundamental rights without asking our government to assure us that we are going to be safe,” North said.  He said he was particularly concerned about the shoot-to-kill provisions in the draft legislation, and the plan to allow children as young as 16 to be detained without charge for up to 14 days.  Sound familiar?  It’s clear that Britain and Australia are working from a script developed by the neocons in the US .  This enormous power grab shows every sign of being orchestrated.  The latest debate on the new draft laws came as thousands of emergency workers and bureaucrats began a week-long anti-terror exercise, Mercury 05, across the country on Monday. More public conditioning to the idea that we’re threatened by terrorists at every turn.  If the terrorists didn’t exist, heck, governments would have to invent them if they wanted to keep enjoying their expanded wealth, power, and prestige. 

 

Labor spokesman Stephen Smith says the Government is out of control

The Federal Opposition has accused the Government of being "drunk with power" after announcing it will present two major pieces of legislation into Parliament on consecutive days…  "Now we've seen them do some pretty low things over the years but hiding behind Australia 's great national sporting event, the Melbourne Cup, to have Parliament debate and pass through your shoot-to-kill laws is as low as you can go," Mr Beazley said. [...]

 

Foreknowledge of the Bali Terror Bombings? – According to Indonesian & Australian reports

Over the past five years, the Howard government has, with Labor’s parliamentary and political support, already used the “war on terror” as a pretext to introduce a barrage of laws, each granting unprecedented powers to the federal government and its security agencies.  “Terrorism” has been made punishable by life imprisonment and defined so widely that it covers many traditional forms of political dissent. Cabinet has been given the power to outlaw organisations that it labels terrorist. The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) has been authorised to secretly detain and interrogate people without trial, even if they are not suspected of links to terrorism. Terrorist trials can be held behind closed doors. The military can be called-out to combat “domestic violence,” that is, civil unrest.  Note that these powers of control over citizens are the same ones that GW Bush has garnered, and from the same pretext. 

 

Police 'had role in' Bali blasts

INDONESIAN police or military officers may have played a role in the 2002 Bali bombing, the country's former president, Abdurrahman Wahid has said.  In an interview with SBS's Dateline program to be aired tonight, on the third anniversary of the bombing that killed 202 people, Mr Wahid says he has grave concerns about links between Indonesian authorities and terrorist groups…

 

Claims military involved in Jakarta blast (from 2003)

An advisor to the Indonesian government claims the armed forces may have been involved in the recent car bomb attack on the Marriott Hotel in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta . A car bomb killed at least 10 people and injured scores more at the luxury hotel…

 

CIA behind Jakarta, Bali blasts, alleged Islamic militant leader says (from August)

Indonesian prosecutors were due later to recommend a sentence for alleged terror group chief Abu Bakar Bashir, as the Muslim cleric accused US intelligence of carrying out deadly bombings in Bali and Jakarta   In a radio interview before the hearing, he said his trial has produced no proof of his guilt. "The issue now is the extremely high likelihood that foreigners have intervened in it," Bashir told Elshinta radio.  The 64-year-old cleric alleged that the US Central Intelligence Agency was behind last week's car bombing of the American-run JW Marriott hotel, which killed 11 people…

 

Bashir condemns embassy bombing  (from 2004)

The jailed cleric accused of heading a militant group blamed for last week's Australian embassy bombing condemned the attack today, while accusing Indonesian authorities of trying to frame him

 

US Embassy cancelled the booking of Marriott Hotel 4.5 hours before the explosion.

There was something interesting happened just hours before the explosion shocked the JW Marriott Hotel, Mega Kuningan, South Jakarta . The US Embassy cancelled the booking of 10-20 rooms in that hotel. The cancellation was on 8.00 West Indonesian Time, Tuesday, or only 4.5 hours before the explosion… 

 

Jakarta police 'knew hotel was a target'

Jakarta police seized documents last month showing terrorists were planning an attack in the area around the Marriott Hotel, where 14 people died yesterday…  So, why did the Australian foreign minister deny this? 

 

Downer denies Marriott on hit list

FOREIGN Minister Alexander Downer today rejected claims that Indonesian police had discovered a list of terrorist targets, including the JW Marriott Hotel, in recent raids on terror suspects…  Downer seems to have made quite a career of denying knowledge of interesting things: 

 

Downer Denies Receiving Bali Warning

Downer Denies Police Spying

Downer Denies Knowledge of Indonesian Summit

Downer Denies Butler Report Damages Case For War

Downer Denies Intel Clash

Downer Denies Hicks Move An Election Ploy

 

Indonesian Terror Suspect Omar Al-Faruq Recruited by The CIA

 

Former State Intelligence Coordinating Board (BAKIN) chief A.C. Manulang has said that Kuwaitd citizen Omar Al-Faruq, a terrorist suspect who was arrested in Bogor, West Java, on June 5, 2002 and handed over to the US three days later, is a CIA-recruited agent.  Al Faruq was assigned to infiltrate Islamic radical groups and recruit local agents within these groups.  "When Al Faruq finished his assignments, the CIA created a scenario that he had been arrested," Manulang told Tempo News Room in Jakarta on Thursday afternoon (19/9)…  As for Al Faruq's testimony in Time magazine that he had masterminded the plan to murder Indonesian President Megawati and several bombings in Indonesia , Manulang considered this as an attempt to making Islamic groups the scapegoats for all terrorism incidents.  "Anti-Islam intelligence agencies committed the bombings in Indonesia . They have been trained for this and they are very organized," said Manulang.

 

ISRAEL AND PALESTINE

 

Galloway: "Zionists Not Jews"

“The controversial leader of the Respect Party George Galloway this week provoked a fresh wave of condemnation after he launched a stinging attack on Zionism and Israel during a radio interview in America .  The MP, who this year won the Bethnal Green and Bow Parliamentary seat … was denounced by community leaders and political peers for his comments which suggested Zionists had effectively engineered anti-semitism.  During the show, broadcast on stations across the US and online Galloway declared that, Israel and dirty tricks have a long history,” denouncing it as a “little settler state on the Mediterranean ” whose purpose was to ‘act as an advanced guard in the Arab world.’”  Galloway just keeps speaking frankly.  What serious historian can deny that Israel was created as a proxy for the US and Britain in the Mideast ?  Governments don’t carve a new nation out of the map, throw out its inhabitants and hand it over to others (all illegal actions, by the way) out of the goodness of their hearts.  It was classically self-serving. Galloway points out that Zionists do not have the interests of the Jewish people at heart.  ”Responding to interviewer Alex Jones’ claims that Zionists funded Hitler because “they said he’s going be good, he’s going to persecute Jews and he likes our plan of Palestine”, Galloway stated, “This is the thing about Zionism. It has nothing to do with Jewishness. Some of the biggest Zionists in the world are not Jews…. These people have used Jewish people.”  He added: “They created the conditions in the Arab countries and in some European countries to stampede Jewish people out of the countries that they had been living in for many hundreds of years and stampede them into the Zionist state.” … Galloway himself told the Jewish News: “I stand by all those comments. Everything I have said there is fact and there are shelves full of books to prove it. I believe that Zionism has exploited the Jewish people as much as the Palestinian people and has turned the people of Einstein and Epstein into one apparently represented by Sharon and Netanyahu.”

 

Come and get me, British MP Galloway challenges US Congress

British MP George Galloway has challenged the United States to charge him with perjury after he was accused of lying to a Senate committee over the UN oil-for-food programme in Iraq .  Galloway, a strident opponent of the Iraq war, said he was "completely bemused" by fresh allegations that he personally solicited and received eight oil vouchers from Saddam Hussein's regime between 1999 and 2003. Galloway added: "I'm still willing to go to the United States and still willing to face any charge of perjury in front of that Senate committee.  "I'm demanding that they charge me with contempt and with perjury, I'm demanding it. "If a Senate committee can go on the international airwaves without putting this to you, without sending me an advance (copy) and accuse me of lying under oath in front of a Senate committee, then I demand they charge me with perjury -- and I'll be on the next plane to face it."

 

Mordechai Vanunu: “Having the atomic bomb is what has allowed Israel to fearlessly carry out its apartheid policy”

In 1986, Mordechai Vanunu, an engineer at the Dimona nuclear centre, revealed to the Sunday Times the existence of the secret Israeli nuclear program. He was Kidnapped in Italy by the Israeli secret services following his contacts with the British reporters and before the publication of the article with his revelations, he was judged behind doors and jailed for 18 years. Although he is still banned from contacting reporters, Mordechai Vanunu answers Silvia Cattori’s questions in an exclusive interview for Voltaire Network…  Vanunu has long been an internationally recognized hero with an enormous, worldwide following, yet almost unknown in the USA due to lack of media coverage.  Why? 

 

Telegraph 'irresponsible' over Galloway, court told

 

In Kurdistan, Mossad is an embarrassment to the U.S.

The secret long standing ties between Iraq’s Kurds and Israel, which were resumed after the former leader Saddam Hussein was ousted by the U.S.-led occupation, came to a crushing end in the past few months, under pressure from Washington…  The Israeli government deployed instructors, often disguised as businessmen in Erbil and Souleymanieh, to improve the training of the peshmerga, the Kurdish militiamen. According to French military estimates, not less than 1,200 agents either from Mossad or from the Israeli military intelligence operated in Kurdistan earlier in 2004, trying to set up strong Kurdish commandos to counter Iraq ’s Shiites in the South. [...]

 

Our Kurdish Problem

Aside from the overwhelming American presence, there is also the less obtrusive but no less important presence of the Israelis. Seymour Hersh broke the story of how the Israelis have penetrated Kurdistan in the wake of the American invasion and are using it as a forward base from which to keep a close eye on the Iranians. This piece, which first appeared in Le Figaro, reports some trouble on that front, a "conflict of interests" between the Israelis and Talabani, who has a history of good relations with the Iranians and has to keep up the pretense of upholding the fictitious unity of the Iraqi state…  Read the full article for more insights into the complexity of what’s going on in Kurdistan and how it is completely left out of the US headlines.  If the Kurds truly want the dissolution of Iraq and independence for themselves.  As Iran and Israel face off on Iraqi terrain and the country falls into chaos and civil war, U.S. troops are caught in the crossfire – and still our politicians do nothing.

 

More Israeli Jews favor transfer of Palestinians, Israeli Arabs - poll finds 

Israeli-Arabs pose a threat to Israel's security, according to 61 percent of the Jewish population, while around 80 percent are opposed to Israeli-Arabs being involved in important decisions, such as delineating the country's borders, up from 75 percent last year and 67 percent in 2000. Imagine a country in which the majority would like to remove nearly half its own citizens on the basis of race.  Can you see the conflict that is building in Israel ? Some believe that it would not take much to spread the war there.  This overall shift to the right has been coupled by a significant fall in support for the Oslo process; down from 58 percent last year, to 35 percent this year. Support for the establishment of a Palestinian state has also dropped from 57 percent last year to 49 percent this year.

 

The Real Sharon - Mistrust as an asset

For fifty years Ariel Sharon tried to fool us. Now we are willing to fool ourselves.  It may be rather unusual, but it is a fact: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's most valuable asset is his lack of credibility. For fifty years at least, since David Ben-Gurion wrote that he (Sharon) could have been an excellent military leader had he been accustomed to telling the truth, Sharon built himself an image of a cynical bulldozer who does what he likes and never blinks when lying - adopting the strategy with his supporters and foes alike.

 

Israel opposes transferring control of West Bank towns to Palestinians

 

Israeli army kill three Palestinians on Gaza border

 

Israel citing 'security' to limit Palestinian rights: UN

 

Palestinians: Cause of Yasser Arafat's death remains a mystery

 

Three Israelis shot dead in West Bank

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the Sunday attack, the first of its kind in four months…

 

Israel clamps down after West Bank attacks Staff and agencies

 

Jund El Sham Threatens to Slay Mehlis, Calling him Mossad Officer

A throat-slitting threat has been served against Lebanon 's reigning authority by a group calling itself Jund El Sham, which also threatened to slaughter German Prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, who is heading a U.N. team investigating Rafik Hariri's assassination.  "We will slaughter without hesitation the reigning Lebanese authority and those who make up the majority in Parliament for collaborating with the West… to impose a new tutelage over Lebanon," … "We shall overthrow this authority by all means," Jund El Sham vowed in the leaflets that included Mehlis as a slaying target "because he is one of the senior-most officers of the Mossad," Israel's secret service, according to the newspaper that speaks for the Hariri family and Saniora.

 

Syrian general in UN inquiry found dead

General Kenaan, 63, was one of several top officials caught up in a UN investigation into the murder of Lebanon 's former prime minister, Rafik Hariri, on 14 February this year.

 

Robert Fisk: The Ghazi Kenaan I knew was not the sort of man who would commit suicide       

 

Al-Hariri murder probe implicates Syria

"Given the infiltration of Lebanese institutions and society by the Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services working in tandem, it would be difficult to envisage a scenario whereby such a complex assassination plot could have been carried out without their knowledge," the report said…  The Mehlis commission said its findings to date indicated that the truck bombing that killed al-Hariri and 20 others in the streets of Beirut was carried out by a group "with an extensive organisation and considerable resources and capabilities".  The sophistication behind various terror attacks and assassinations around the world far more resembles the work of organized, trained government agencies than that of rag-tag terrorists on the run, doesn’t it?  "The crime had been prepared over the course of several months," it said.

 

Israel and the US - A God-ordained alliance?

“I believe the main reason the United States was founded 250 years ago was so that our great country would be in a position to stand with the restored nation of Israel in these days.”  This astonishing point of view was expressed by a North Carolinian Conservative candidate for the US Congress in conversation with an American pastor friend early in 2004.  Apparently, David Huffman believed that…

 

Israel redraws the roadmap, building quietly and quickly

 

P.A denies Israeli reports of Al Qaeda infiltration into Gaza Saed Bannoura

 

Murdoch sells lunch date on eBay

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch is selling himself as a lunch date for $25,000 on the internet site eBay to raise money for a Jerusalem technology college.

 

History Proves That Israel Will Kill US Military Personnel

Many people on the internet are watching the killings of US military personnel in western Iraq 's border region, and are taking note of how the killings only benefit the Israeli program to take the war into Syria . This article is a very good primer on how this is happening.  However, many naive and well-intentioned folks say that it is insane to believe that Israel would kill US military personnel. After all, these folks believe the Zionist propaganda about how Israel is a best friend of the United States . For these people, the best thing to do is to look back in time and study the historical record of Israel 's attack on the USS Liberty, to realize that Israel has no qualms about killing US military personnel 

 

US to name new security coordinator to Palestine

 

At Least 30 Wounded in Israel Bombing

A suicide bomber blew himself up Wednesday next to a food stand in the central Israeli town of Hadera , wounding at least 30 people and leaving a path of destruction at an open air market, police and rescuers said.  Ambulances rushed to the scene after the explosion at the crowded entrance to a store in the market, Israel Radio reported. The radio said a bomb had been placed at the scene, rather than being a suicide attack.  Police, however, insisted the attack was a suicide bombing and went off at a felafel stand next to the central bus station.

 

Sharon vows broad offensive after bombing

Sharon said there could be no advance toward peace for now because of the "absolute failure of the Palestinian Authority in the fight against terrorism" as he promised to launch a major military operation. Another so-called “man of peace” who has advocated and carried out violent destruction his entire life. 

 

 

CHINA


The real story on China is revealed in bits of pieces of articles in other sections.  There is the Chinese expansion of relationships with energy-producing nations such as Syria and Canada .  In economic articles there is the frequent mentioning of the specter of China as a greater and greater consumer of natural resources, massive holder of U.S. dollars, and beneficiary of an enormous trade imbalance with the U.S. In foreign-policy articles there is common mention of China as a rapidly growing economic and military power that, it should be clear by now, will overwhelm the western world – the only question is “how soon?”  Since the power elite seem to be well aware of China ’s natural ascendancy, they are painting it as a “threat” both subtly and overtly.  Americans were heavily programmed to fear the word “communism” throughout the half-century of the Cold War.  Almost certainly, most don’t even know that it is merely a system of economics.  Notice that China is almost always called “Communist China ” on CNN and Fox News now, as they try to revive the feelings of dread that the word used to stir in Americans. 

 

China military spending larger than reported: Rumsfeld

China is failing to report its growing military might and the amount of money it spends on defence, U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Tuesday.

 

Pentagon fires off new China report

Brace yourself - it turns out that China actually has the unmitigated gall to want to act like a major power and equip its military accordingly. The horror, the horror! At least that is the impression one gets from reading "Military Power of the People's Republic of China ", an annual report the Pentagon produces, the latest version of which was publicly released last Wednesday. For example, the very first paragraph of the executive summary states:  Beijing is pursuing its long-term political goals of developing its comprehensive national power and ensuring a favorable "strategic configuration of power". China's efforts to accomplish its security goals involve an integrated strategy that seeks to apply diplomatic, informational, military, and economic instruments of national power. China 's leaders believe that national unity and stability are critical if China is to survive and develop as a nation. Chinese leaders also believe they must maintain conditions of state sovereignty and territorial integrity. As a generic statement of geopolitical strategy, that is perfectly fine, but as an indication of a threat by a great-power competitor, as many analysts in the United States would interpret it, it is woefully lacking  while there are lots of details regarding Russian weapons sales and technology transfers to China, there is almost nothing on similar transfers from Israel, which has been a longtime supplier to China, dating back to the mid-1980s.

 

Rumsfeld Spars With Chinese Officers

In a rare face-to-face encounter with an American defense secretary, a small group of Chinese officers held a spirited and sometimes pointed debate Thursday with Donald H. Rumsfeld over the two countries' clashing views about the size and meaning of China 's military buildup…  Stressing a theme that he repeated throughout his three-day visit to Beijing, Rumsfeld told students and faculty at the Academy of Military Science that the United States and other countries are concerned not so much that China is expanding its military but that it has been vague about why.  Maybe the fact that the most militarily aggressive and powerful nation in the world has over 200,000 troops in countries closely surrounding China ? 

 

VENEZUELA

 

INTELLIGENCE REPORT: US "private military contractors" already in-country to "deal with" Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez Frias...

Intelligence agencies are revealing that US private military contractors, active in Colombia "under various contract umbrellas, including counter-narcotics and counter-insurgency" are building up to yet another attempted coup d'etat against Venezuela 's President Hugo Chavez.  Carefully described as "private military contractors" (a.k.a. hired mercenary killers), the PMCs are known already to have conducted several incursions across the Colombia-Venezuela border to link up with rebel units of the Venezuelan military operating along the border badlands between the two countries…  A classified intelligence report leaked to this e-publication shows that the espionage ring has operating out of US Vice President Dick Cheney's office with the implicit approval from within the Bush administration.

 

Chavez and Chirac affirm 'common vision'

Presidents Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Jacques Chirac of France met in Paris on Wednesday and agreed to further develop their already close ties.  The meeting, which officials of both countries hailed, was expected to raise hackles in Washington , which is particularly at odds with the leader of oil-rich Venezuela   "They decided to set up an organised mechanism for dialogue to further develop economic and industrial cooperation between the two countries," he added.  It was the third time the two had met this year…  French oil giant Total has a strong presence in Venezuela and could double its output from 200,000 to 400,000 barrels a day after several billion dollars were invested, Chavez said in Paris in March.  Venezuela currently produces 3.1 million barrels of oil a day. It is the world's fifth largest exporter and the only country in Latin America to be a member of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries cartel.  Half of its production goes to the US , providing 15 percent of that country's consumption.

 

 

CIVIL UNREST IN FRANCE

 

Nationwide strikes test Villepin's resolve on reforms

 

Anti-government strikes to tie up France Tuesday

Widespread disruption to business and travel is expected in France on Tuesday, as left-wing parties join trade unions in a call for strikes and protest marches against the government of President Jacques Chirac.

 

 

ECONOMY

Trends evident this month:  US foreign debt is out of control, oil and gas prices are up and oil-company profits are immense, weak US dollar is directionless, price of gold is strongly up (an indicator of weak dollar and lack of confidence in economy), airline and auto companies going bankrupt, other big corporations cutting pension plans, US gov’t still handing out corporate welfare and manipulating markets, new Fed chaiman Bernanke is on the way. 

 

Japan's National Debt Hits $7.1 Trillion

Japan has relied on government bond issues to make up for falling tax revenues, turning into one of the world's most indebted countries.  Japan 's public debt burden is almost 160 per cent of its GDP and already the highest in the industrialized world.  Japan is the largest buyer of U.S. debt.  How bad is it that America ’s chief creditor is the world’s chief debtor? 

 

Gas prices may last six months

The nation's energy chief says it will take six months for U.S. energy production and prices to return to pre-hurricane levels, and he hints at energy shortages in the interim.

 

Consumers fret over high gas prices

 

Consumers Could Face Price Spikes at Pump

 

Exxon Mobil Profit, Sales Soar to Records

Exxon Mobil Corp. rewrote the corporate record books Thursday as the oil company's third-quarter earnings soared to almost $10 billion and it became the first public company ever with quarterly sales topping $100 billion…  Those results led Democrats in Congress to demand a new windfall profits tax. "Big oil behemoths are making out like bandits, while the average American family is getting killed by high gas prices, and soon-to-be record heating oil prices," Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement.

 

Rising bank fees hit consumers

Last year, banks, thrifts and credit unions collected a record $37.8 billion in service charges on accounts, more than double what they got in 1994…  For years there has been a growing trend among corporations to pad their bottom lines by adding and increasing fees, to avoid the open raising of prices.  Yes, it’s deceptive, and what does deception say about their ethics? 

 

Is the Dollar Still Falling?    

 

U.S. Investment Income Close to 'Tipping Point': John M. Berry

The U.S. may be approaching a dangerous "tipping point'' in its international transactions…  Should confidence [in the US dollar] be lost, the value of the dollar could plunge, and a world financial crisis could ensue. At that point, even the U.S. could be forced to stop living beyond its means…

 

Steven Lagavulin commentary

I want to highlight a handful of the many signs that are flooding in to indicate that the first significant "wave" of social crisis appears to be breaking upon us…  The movement in Gold has been catching my eye of late, and after watching it rebound so smartly from the bashing it took early this week...well, I believe this is a major signal that things are slipping "out of hand" (which is actually a double entendre if you believe the price of gold has been manipulated down in recent years...)…  I also experience a healthy and understandable sense of dread over the coming collapse, precisely because I know that it will not unfold in the way I believe it will…  All in all, I've been growing more and more convinced in recent months that what we're seeing are the battle-lines of a broadly-drawn civil war within the Corporatocracy. On one side there's the Neo-Con administration, now backed-into an increasingly "loan-ly" corner, watching their troops desert, and facing the rising backbone of many formerly "third-world" countries (that phrase may become obsolete soon) and the Iranian Oil Exchange coming online in March. They may be feeling the need to gamble it all on one final, decisive act right now...or lose the reins of power altogether. On the other side there are the more complacent Captains of Industry, who undoubtedly never really felt quite the pseudo-religious fervor of the Neo-Con's they nominated to lead the charge. They may not really wish to stake the whole game on the coin-flip of World War...at least not at this time, not at these odds. They'd probably like to draw back, wave the flag of humanitarianism, carpet-bag the U.S. as they buy some time, and then re-coup the ground they've lost on another day.

 

Marshall Auerback commentary

markets in the 21st century are rife with destabilizing speculation and possess no wisdom whatsoever.  As we have explained in earlier pieces, today's markets are driven to an unprecedented degree by a combination of impulses from an ignorant public and amplifying actions by herding institutional money managers who have left their brains on the doorstep…  Ultimately, it would not surprise us to see various restrictions imposed in regard to the holding of foreign currencies and gold.  As recently as the early 1970s, Arthur Burns, then Fed Chairman, railed against the "unsound practice" of Americans having foreign currency bank accounts.  This notion may seem far-fetched in today's high-tech financial world, but the story of the US , particularly post-9/11, has been a steady erosion of economic and political freedoms

 

Al Martin believes 2008 elections will be canceled due to economic crisis

It becomes more likely that this regime would use its Patriot Act powers to cancel the 2008 elections. They, of course, wouldn't come out and cancel them. What they would do is formulate some sort of incident where they could invoke Patriot Act powers to 'suspend' the elections, which would, in fact, be a permanent cancellation…  The actual economic crisis at that point might be a reason for "postponing" the election. Let's put it this way. If the Dow-Jones were trading between 3000 and 4000 by the Fall of 2008, they would declare a national emergency. Of course, it would be Bushonomics that caused it to happen…  Not only are the numbers unprecedented, but they are clearly unsustainable. We have reached levels of debt in this country that, statistically speaking, no other nation in the history of the planet has reached.

 

Gold May Extend Longest Rally This Year on Inflation Concerns

 

The real price of gold

The lust for gold has reached record levels worldwide as India and China have joined developed nations in demanding more jewelry. On the back of this surge, gold prices have reached a 17-year high…

 

Inflation Soars on Surge in Energy Prices

 

Delphi files for bankruptcy

Delphi 's bankruptcy is among the 15 largest since 1980, based on rankings on the BankruptcyData.com Web site…  UAW Vice President Dick Shoemaker noted that just a day before the filing, Delphi increased severance packages for 21 top executives, citing a need to make them more competitive  Delphi is the third large U.S. parts supplier to file for bankruptcy protection in 2005.

 

Ohio Delphi workers denounce company plan to halve wages and slash jobs

One of the central purposes of Delphi 's bankruptcy filing is to obtain a court ruling terminating its pension obligations to unionized employees…  "I have 28 years service and will be cheated out of my pension. There seems to be a global scheme to put all the wealth in the hands of a few people, and in order to get the money and power they are taking everything workers have."

 

Right-wing Social Democrat Steinbrück named finance minister in German grand coalition

The nomination Wednesday of the former North Rhine-Westphalian prime minister, Peer Steinbrück (Social Democratic Party - SPD), to the post of finance minister in Germany's new grand coalition is a clear signal that future government policy will involve new welfare cuts and a further redistribution of wealth from the needy to the rich.

 

Industrial output down 1.3 percent

Output from U.S. factories, mines and utilities tumbled by a surprisingly sharp 1.3 percent in September due to a big drop in oil and gas output after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, a Federal Reserve report showed on Friday.

 

Delta Expects to Post Big Loss for 2005

The airline is trying to get its pilots to agree to another $325 million in concessions. That would be on top of $1 billion in annual concessions the pilots accepted last year.  If the two sides can't agree on the new round of cuts, Delta has said it is willing to try to use the bankruptcy court to impose the cuts. Union officials held meetings starting Monday to discuss their options.  Delta has already posted nearly $10 billion in losses since January 2001.

 

Slowing Is Seen in Housing Prices in Hot Markets

 

The king of real estate's cashing out

Tom Barrack, arguably the world's greatest real estate investor, is methodically selling off his U.S. real estate holdings as prices drive the market to nosebleed levels. [...]  "There's too much money chasing too few good deals, with too much debt and too few brains."

 

House narrowly approves bill to help US refineries

The bill wants to add 2 million barrels per day of capacity by offering abandoned military bases for refinery construction sites…  When over two dozen Republicans initially voted no, DeLay, Barton, House Speaker Dennis Hastert and new Majority Leader Roy Blunt circled the chamber to cajole holdouts.

 

The Invisible Hand (of the U.S. Government) in Financial Markets

The U.S. government is manipulating all major U.S. financial markets - stocks, treasuries, currencies. This article shows how it is possible and how it is done, why it is done, who specifically is doing it, when they do it, and where they get the money to do it.

 

Bush Picks Bernanke As New Fed Chairman

"My first priority will be to maintain continuing with the policy and policy strategies under the Greenspan era," Bernanke added.

 

 

 

INTERNET

 

AOL Time-Warner Censors Alex Jones Websites - Nationwide blackout a clear attempt to shut down free speech or just an error?

The last attempt to shut us down came shortly after the London Bombing, which saw our traffic go through the roof after we released a plethora of articles exposing government involvement… This is part of a growing trend of authoritarian censorship of the Internet in preparation for the emergence of Internet 2, where only government approved websites will be allowed to exist and the old Internet will be shut down.  Monolithic corporations in lock-step with government are following the Chinese model, where any website mildly anti-establishment is immediately shut down and its owners arrested. The vast majority of Internet cafes in China were shut down in 2002 after the government started a fire in one Beijing cafe and then demanded all the rest be shut down for 'safety reasons'.

 

Breaking America's grip on the net

After troubled negotiations in Geneva , the US may be forced to relinquish control of the internet to a coalition of governments -- The issue of who should control the net had proved an extremely divisive issue, and for 11 days the world's governments traded blows. For the vast majority of people who use the internet, the only real concern is getting on it. But with the internet now essential to countries' basic infrastructure - Brazil relies on it for 90% of its tax collection - the question of who has control has become critical.

 

Network feud leads to Net blackout

Two major Internet backbone companies are feuding, potentially cutting off significant swaths of the Internet for some of each other's customers.

 

More lawmakers back U.S. control of Internet

Three lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives called on Friday for the Internet's core infrastructure to remain under U.S. control, echoing similar language introduced in the Senate earlier this week. The resolution, introduced by two Republicans and one Democrat, aims to line up Congress firmly behind the Bush administration as it heads for a showdown with much of the rest of the world over control of the global computer network. "Turning the Internet over to countries with problematic human-rights records, muted free-speech laws, and questionable taxation practices will prevent the Internet from remaining the thriving medium it has become today," said California Republican Rep. John Doolittle in a statement.  Oh boy! 

 

 

NATURAL DISASTERS

 

EARTHQUAKES, VOLCANOES

Earthquake shakes Israel

2 die, thousands flee as El Salvador volcano erupts

Quake shakes city ( Colorado )

Strong quake rocks Aceh

Huge Alaska landslide gets attention of seismologists

Earthquake strikes the South Pacific island of Tonga – no injures or damage

Earthquake Rattles Three Argentine Provinces

No problems after large earthquake rocks Taiwan

Magnitude 6.0 rocks Greece's eastern Aegean islands

Second quake hits Turkey's Aegean coast

Magnitude 4.0 Quake reported off California coast

Aleutian volcano begins to quake

Small Quakes Hit Central California

Guatemala villages 'mass graves' after landslides

Guatemalan landslides unearth bones

Strong earthquake jolts Indonesia's Aceh

Three Alaska volcanoes showing signs of unrest

Geologists say 'bulge' may turn into volcano

Volcano erupts in PNG's West New Britain

Warning: Possible Volcano Eruption in El Salvador

M6.2 earthquake jolts Tokyo

Minor earthquake hits San Francisco region

Strong Earthquake Hits Northeastern Japan

4.1 Magnitude Earthquake Shakes San Diego Coast

Light earthquake shakes area – Ontario

Strong earthquake hits Turkey

Magnitude 3.0 Quake - GREATER L.A. AREA, CALIFORNIA

Magnitude 5.5 - ANTOFAGASTA, CHILE

Magnitude 6.0 - SEA OF JAPAN

Magnitude 6.0 - PAKISTAN

Magnitude 5.0 - NEAR THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN

Magnitude 5.3 - SAMOA ISLANDS REGION

Magnitude 4.4 - ANDREANOF ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN IS., ALASKA

Magnitude 5.0 - PAKISTAN (followed 6.0 quake on October 23)

Magnitude 5.2 - SOUTH OF THE FIJI ISLANDS

Magnitude 4.4 - TARAPACA, CHILE

Magnitude 5.0 - BANDA SEA

Magnitude 5.9 - NEAR SOUTH COAST OF NEW GUINEA, P.N.G.

Magnitude 5.2 - OFF THE WEST COAST OF NORTHERN SUMATRA

Magnitude 5.0 - PAKISTAN

Magnitude 5.0 - FOX ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN ISLANDS, ALASKA

Magnitude 4.3 - SOUTH OF ALASKA

Pakistan Earthquake death toll crosses 40,000

Up to 2.5m Pakistanis homeless after quake

West's response to Pakistan quake condemned as slow and inadequate

Fresh aftershocks jolt Pakistan, trigger panic

Pakistani extremists take lead on earthquake disaster aid

Quake help 'yet to reach 500,000'

Pakistan-Earthquake

Asian earthquake death toll to reach 80,000

Pakistan earthquake death toll rises to 79,000 Leader promises housing for homeless

Earthquake again jolts Pakistani cities Islamabad

Earthquake aid efforts hindered by image ban

'Losing race against the clock' to help quake survivors, UN official says

"I've never seen such devastation before. We are in the sixth day of operation, and every day the scale of devastation is getting wider," said the UN undersecretary general and emergency relief co-ordinator, Jan Egeland. The UN estimates two million people have been left homeless from the quake that killed about 35,000 people and levelled hundreds of villages.

 

GLOBAL WARMING

Has the Age of Chaos Begun?interesting insight in this article

Global warming to bring heavier rains, snow

Polar regions take center stage in climate crisis

A fern grows in the Arctic Ocean

 

HEAT, COLD, FLOODS, DROUGHTS, STORMS

World Helpless Against Assaults of Nature

Typhoon, quake leave Taiwan shaken, stirred

Flash Flooding in Kansas Traps Many

High Hurricane Activity Foreseen in Oct.

Hurricane Stan kills 46 people in Central America

Early Blizzard Knocks Out Power in West

At least 250 killed as storms lash Central America

Tropical Storm Vince forms in unusual location

Amazon rainforest suffers worst drought in decades

Second tornado strikes Birmingham

Floods hit Quebec's Eastern Townships

Thousands evacuated as dam threatens to burst in Massachusetts

Wilma Strengthens to Category 5 Hurricane

Flood hits Vietnam's southern city

Wilma Batters Florida; One Death Reported

Record-breaking Tropical Storm Alpha in Caribbean

Alert As Gales Sweep UK

Wilma Causes Havoc at Florida Airports

Tropical Storm Beta Forms in Caribbean Sea - Beta is the season's 23rd tropical storm, the most since record keeping began

Beta to Become Yet Another Hurricane

Record heat raises climate fears - UK

 

DISEASE

Asia Scrambles to Contain Dengue Virus

Bird flu jumps transmission barrier in humans

U.S. may use military quarantine to contain flu

Mysterious illness claims four more lives in Toronto

Security fears as flu virus that killed 50 million is recreated

Seniors died of Legionnaires' disease: official

Bird flu reported in eastern Romania

EU experts meet as avian flu spreads

Greece proposes to host meeting on bird flu threat

Venezuela to partly close border with Colombia to avoid bird flu

Britain responds to bird flu threat

Four children in Minnesota contract polio

Bird flu pandemic 'will hit UK'

Greece becomes first EU country to confirm bird flu

Bird flu is global threat, say EU ministers

European avian flu fear leads to drug stockpiling

Avian flu shows signs of drug resistance

Nunavut screens expectant mothers, tracks cases of rare virus

Likely course of UK bird flu pandemic revealed

China, Europe report new bird flu outbreaks

Ukraine orders emergency measures to fend off bird flu

The Excuses Begin to Fly: Bush and Avian Flu

Second case of bird flu virus confirmed in Croatia

CDC Report: New STD Pandemic

 

METEORS, COMETS, ASTEROIDS

Green light in sky was likely a meteor

Green fireball across sky likely a meteor, experts say

'I saw a fireball!'

 

SCIENCE, MISCELLANIA

 

Catholic Church no longer swears by truth of the Bible

THE hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church has published a teaching document instructing the faithful that some parts of the Bible are not actually true…  the first 11 chapters of Genesis, in which two different and at times conflicting stories of creation are told, are among those that this country’s Catholic bishops insist cannot be “historical”. At most, they say, they may contain “historical traces”…  They go on to condemn fundamentalism for its “intransigent intolerance” and to warn of “significant dangers” involved in a fundamentalist approach.  Such an approach is dangerous, for example, when people of one nation or group see in the Bible a mandate for their own superiority, and even consider themselves permitted by the Bible to use violence against others.”  Bingo. 

 

Supernova Storm Wiped Out Mammoths?

A supernova blast 41,000 years ago started a deadly chain of events that led to the extinction of mammoths and other animals in North America , according to two scientists.

 

Bali II: Another Elusive Terror Mastermind on the Loose

Azahari bin Husin, said to be the explosives “mastermind” behind the Bali bombings this past weekend, has a very interesting background. He is not your average rural madrassa religious fanatic or “al-Qaeda” goat herder of the sort captured in Afghanistan . Husin is a “former university lecturer and gifted mathematician,” according to the Sydney Morning Herald  According to Sayed Abdullah, who operates an intelligence services firm in Indonesia, “It is clear that the CIA and the Mossad have infiltrated such organizations [Jemaah Islamiyah, Hamas, and Hezbollah].”… Abdullah believes the Bali bombing of 2002 was “an operation clearly financed and assisted by the CIA and Mossad, made use of Muslims to carry out the final act… Azahari bin Husin’s British connection should be examined, especially in light of the revelations that Haroon Rashid Aswat, the so-called mastermind of the 7/7 London Bombings, worked for British Intelligence, as noted by former Justice Department prosecutor and terror expert John Loftus on, of all places, Fox News…  John Loftus went on to spell out that British Intelligence and the US dept of Justice had protected Haroon Rashid Aswat… This information is startling and again highlights how Al Qaeda exists as an organized body only where the intelligence services have created, funded and employed it.

 

Chemical Hallucinations, Mind Control, and Dr. Jose Delgado

 

THE GREENBAUM SPEECH - Hypnosis in MPD: Ritual Abuse

 

Fluoride water 'causes cancer' - Boys at risk from bone tumours, shock research reveals

Anti-fluoride campaigners argue that the whole issue has become highly politically sensitive. If health scares about fluoride were to be recognised in the courts, the litigation, especially in the US , could be expected to run for decades. Consequently, scientists have been inhibited from publicising any adverse findings.  The new evidence only emerged by a circuitous process. It was contained in a Harvard dissertation by Dr Elise Bassin at the Harvard School of Dental Medicine. The dissertation, completed in April 2001, obviously had merit because Bassin was awarded her doctorate.  However it has not been published. Environmental organisations were repeatedly denied access to it, and even bodies such as the US National Academy of Sciences could not get hold of a copy.

 

Unmasked: the 'real Shakespeare'

 

First day of school for aspiring Vatican exorcists

 

Apocalyptic anxiety runs high in disasters' wake

Apocalyptic beliefs have long been an American staple. A June 2001 survey by the Barna Research Group, for instance, found that 40 percent of adults in the United States believe the physical world will end as a result of supernatural intervention. Fifty percent disagreed, and 10 percent didn't know.

 

One-Fifth of Human Genes Have Been Patented, Study Reveals

Of the patented genes, about 63 percent are assigned to private firms…

 

Sleep Deprivation Driving Drug Use and Cost: New Research Finds Increased Use of Prescription Sleeping Aids

According to the research, the number of adults aged 20-44 using sleeping medications doubled from 2000 to 2004, and rose by 85 percent for children from 10-19. The increase in spending on these medications was highest for 10-19 year olds -- up 223 percent…

 

Rape Up, While Murders Down in 2004

Murders across the United States fell for the first time in five years, while rapes increased slightly last year, the FBI reported Monday…  There were 16,137 murders in the United States in 2004, the last full year for which statistics are available. That was about 350 fewer than in 2003, according to the FBI data. The decrease is the first since 1999, although smaller than what the FBI reported in June. Chicago was largely responsible for the drop, recording 150 fewer murders in 2004 than in 2003.  The number of rapes, however, has increased in three of the past four years, according to the FBI data. In all, rapes increased by .8 percent to 94,635 rapes, or about 750 more than in 2003…

 

Slow Burn: The Great American Antismoking Scam (And Why It Will Fail)

The book examines the most important studies into smoking since the 1964 report and reveals that many if not most of them are fatally flawed by deep antismoking bias on the part of researchers who are supported by abundant antismoking grant money…  At the same time he reports on numerous studies exonerating smoking that the public has never heard about…  Amazon Reviewer: Though written in a conversational and highly accessible tone, this exhaustively-researched book exposes the wildly misleading conclusions drawn by the anti-tobacco fanatics, based on their junk science "studies" and other misinformation…This book ISN'T just for smokers! If you're a nonsmoker who's concerned about the "danger" you're in from other peoples' smoke you should read this book as well... you might find yourself surprised at some of the lies you've been told!  Given that the government knowingly allows and supports exposing its people to a shocking array of toxic chemicals and pollutants in our food, water, and air, it makes no sense for them to show concern about smoking.  What could be the reasoning?  Lung cancer rates among smokers are not what you’ve been led to believe (see charts).  

In Defense of Smokers: Online book

When I began researching the subject, however, I found that, like the myth about smoker's lungs turning brown from cigarette tars, the "thousands and thousands of studies" was also a myth.

 

Smoking and Life Expectancy

…some of the countries with the highest rates of smoking have the lowest rates of lung cancer…  If, as the anti smokers postulate, smoking is a deadly "addiction", trimming years off the life of the smoker, how do they explain such examples as Japan , Israel , Greece , Cuba , Spain , Italy and France ? How can it be that people in these countries smoke far more than people in the United States , yet manage to live substantially longer?  See article for life-expectancy vs. smoking prevalence chart. 

 

The anti-tobacco campaign of the Nazis: a little known aspect of public health in Germany, 1933-45

Historians and epidemiologists have only recently begun to explore the Nazi anti-tobacco movement. Germany had the world's strongest antismoking movement in the 1930s and early 1940s, encompassing bans on smoking in public spaces, bans on advertising, restrictions on tobacco rations for women, and the world's most refined tobacco epidemiology, linking tobacco use with the already evident epidemic of lung cancer…  Medical historians in recent years have done a great deal to enlarge our understanding of medicine and public health in Nazi Germany. We know that about half of all doctors joined the Nazi party and that doctors played a major part in designing and administering the Nazi programmes of forcible sterilisation, "euthanasia," and the industrial scale murder of Jews and gypsies…  Germany had the world's strongest antismoking movement in the 1930s and early 1940s, supported by Nazi medical and military leaders worried that tobacco might prove a hazard to the race. Many Nazi leaders were vocal opponents of smoking. Anti-tobacco activists pointed out that whereas Churchill, Stalin, and Roosevelt were all fond of tobacco, the three major fascist leaders of Europe--Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco--were all non- smokers.  Hitler was the most adamant…

 

Anti-anti-Smoking

 

CIA Invests In No-Fuel Power Generators

 

SILVER KILLS VIRUSES, STUDY FINDS

Already used as a topical antibiotic in the medical industry, silver may now come under consideration as an alternative to drugs when it comes to fighting previously untreatable viruses such as the Tamiflu resistant avian flu.

 

TAMIFLU GILEAD CHAIR WAS ... RUMMY

Donald Rumsfeld, until he resigned and joined the Bush Administration, was the chairman of something called Gilead which just happened to make something called Tamiflu. Now anyone who hasn't been on Mars for the last month or two, knows that there were only two things that were going to stop the human version of bird flu. One was a bird flu vaccine (which probably would work better if you were a bird) and the other was something called Tamiflu. somehow or other it became established that Tamiflu really worked.  This was the party line, anyway, for about a week, until word began trickling back in that maybe Tamiflu didn't work. In fact, the word on Tamiflu has always been positive at first and then eventually negative. It's a kind of pattern.  Now isn't it an 'amazing coincidence' that the drug Tamiflu patented by Gilead Sciences is being pushed by the National Institutes of Allergies and Infectious Diseases as the NUMBER ONE choice for flu, which, wonder of wonders, is sweeping through in one epidemic after another." 

 

Is Bush Nuts?or, at least, an aspartame addict? 

Another big clue to Dubya's displays of dementia comes in "photo-ops" showing him slugging back diet Coke with other Aspartame addicts, like Chicago 's mayor Richard Daley. Their beet red faces spell either embarrassment over Bush's hijacking of America , or aspartame poisoning…  It turns out that methanol in Aspartame converts to formaldehyde in the tissues…  10% of a 200mg can of diet soda is straight methanol wood alcohol! Methanol is such a gross cumulative poison, the EPA's limit for drinking water is 7.8 mg daily. For serious addicts like Bush, the methanol intake can exceed 32 times the EPA's recommended limit…  Clinical case studies shows that, among other symptoms, Aspartame ingestion results in "mind fog", feeling "unreal", poor memory, confusion, anxiety, irritability, depression, mania, and slurred speech. [Neurology 1994]  an Oct. 1980 FDA inquiry found that the formaldehyde formed by Aspartame actually eats microscopic holes and triggers tumors in the brain.  That finding banned Aspartame from the food supply. But three months later, Searle CEO Donald Rumsfeld told that pharma giant's sales staff he would get Aspartame approved pronto. The next month, the FDA commissioner was replaced by Dr. Arthur Hayes. In Nov. 1983 the FDA approved aspartame for soft drinks. Under fire for accepting corporate bribes, Hayes went to work for Searle's public-relations firm. Searle lawyer Robert Shapiro coined the name NutraSweet. Monsanto bought Searle. Rumsfeld received $12 million for his help. Shapiro now heads Monsanto.

 

Aspartame - Anxiety, Depression And Suicide Among Children

Two-thirds of the population and 40% of the children in this country are using products with aspartame (NutraSweet/Equal/Spoonful/Canderel, Benevia, E951, etc.). It is a neurotoxic drug, a deadly chemical poison, and masquerading as an additive.  The 50% phenylalanine in it as an isolate is neurotoxic and goes directly into the brain. It lowers the seizure threshold and depletes serotonin. When you lower serotonin it triggers manic depression or bipolar, mood swings, anxiety, SUICIDAL TENDENCIES, panic attacks, paranoia, hallucinations, etc. It also interacts with ALL antidepressants. In fact, it interacts with just about every drug used to treat the problems it causes. This is all discussed in the huge medical text, Aspartame Disease: An Ignored Epidemic by H. J. Roberts, M.D. www.sunsentpress.com or 1 800 827 7991 … The Trocho Study in 1998 showed the formaldehyde converted from the free methyl alcohol in aspartame accumulates in the cells and damages DNA with most toxicity in the liver.

 

Department of Health and Human Services – Symptoms Attributed to Apartame

 

Accidental invention could light up the future - Quantum dot mixture takes LED lighting to a new level

 

Explaining how the brain creates false memories

 

Remote Control Device 'Controls' Humans

Just imagine being rendered the rough equivalent of a radio-controlled toy car…  Indeed, a small defense contractor in Texas, Invocon Inc., is exploring whether precisely tuned electromagnetic pulses could be safely fired into people's ears to temporarily subdue them. [...]

 

What kind of animal makes a pawprint as big as this?

 

Red Planet set for close approach

 

India's astrologers warn of impending disaster

For India 's astrologers, even at 69,4-million kilometers away, Mars is too close for comfort…  "Mars influences Earth in a big way and these days it is very close. This sort of period is adverse for humanity as a whole. Various places on Earth will see earthquakes, tornados, fires and volcanic eruptions," said Ashok Kumar Joshi, an Indian astrologer.


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