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The most successful tyranny is not the one that uses force to assure uniformity but the one that removes the awareness of other possibilities, that makes it seem inconceivable that other ways are viable, that removes the sense that there is an outside.
Allan Bloom The Closing of the American Mind

"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it." - Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural

It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong. --Voltaire--

Faith of consciousness is freedom
Faith of feeling is weakness
Faith of body is stupidity.
Love of consciousness evokes the same in response
Love of feeling evokes the opposite
Love of the body depends only on type and polarity.
Hope of consciousness is strength
Hope of feeling is slavery
Hope of body is disease. [Gurdjieff]

Life is religion. Life experiences reflect how one interacts with God. Those who are asleep are those of little faith in terms of their interaction with the creation. Some people think that the world exists for them to overcome or ignore or shut out. For those individuals, the worlds will cease. They will become exactly what they give to life. They will become merely a dream in the "past." People who pay strict attention to objective reality right and left, become the reality of the "Future." [Cassiopaea 09-28-02]

March 24, 2003 Today's edition of Brought to You by The Bush Junta, Produced and Directed by the CIA, based on an original script by Henry Kissinger, with a cast of billions....The "Greatest Shew on Earth," no doubt, and if you don't have a good sense of humor, don't read this page! It is designed to reveal the "unseen." If you can't stand the heat of Objective Reality, get out of the kitchen!

I find it strange that many people today were "outraged" and "disgusted" at the showing of dead and captured American soldiers on television. I am outraged at ANY death in this illegal and barbaric invasion of Iraq, since none are justified. War is death, it seems many in the west, particularly Americans have come to believe the false view of war that has been presented to them by their government. They believe war is about flashes in the night sky and images of cheering Iraqis, to them war is nice, shiny fighter planes and handsome young men in clean bright fatigues. To the British it is "our boys overseas". Even the soldiers themselves have been fooled by the propaganda of their own leaders. They march off to war having been lied to that they will be greeted as heros by the locals. When the Iraqis shoot back they must be really surprised. "Waddaya mean they're firing back? They're not meant to do that!" For all the dehumanising that takes place in US army training camps, the real dehumanising takes place now, when they first feel the fear and realise that someone is really trying to kill them, quickly realising that it is kill or be killed. The US has invaded Iraq, little different to the way Hitler invaded Poland heralding the start of the 2nd WW. In war, people die, its just most people in the west have never seen war as it acutally is. These pictures of dead and captured US soldiers are par for the course. You support this war? Mourn for the victims, but get used to these pictures, because that is war and you wanted it. You dont support this war? Mourn for the victims and get used to these pictures, because you will not stop it. If you see further "atrocities" carried out by Iraqi forces during the course of this agression, remember this photo of the result of a US attack on Baghdad and then you will perhaps understand better what motivates the Iraqi soldiers and people to resist any rescuing by the US

War in Iraq - news vacuum Philadelphia - The war against Iraq is being conducted by the Anglo-American coalition in an atmosphere of complete information vacuum. Turn on the CNN, MSNBC, FOX or any other major news network and the picture is the same everywhere – no news.

The same old statements from the same old Rumsfeld; the same video footage used and reused by all TV news networks thousands of time over the past three days; the same old Wesley Clark reminding the world that he is still the US Army’s most incompetent general, even if now retired. The TV news channels seem to have all of that but real news on what is happening on the front.

Yesterday I was flipping through the hundreds of channels offered by my satellite TV service in hopes of finding any new information about the war in Iraq. The CNN was showing… photos and headlines from some Kuwaiti newspaper. After talking for half-an-hour about this newspaper and looking at the print from every possible angle, the CNN “field reporter” pulled out… one more Kuwaiti newspaper and talked about it for another fifteen minutes. That was pathetic even for the CNN.

I wonder how this works: “Camera! Lights! We are going live in one, two … Quickly! Get me a newspaper!” They are getting desperate there, I’m telling you… But you’ve probably been watching the news as well, so you should already know all of that. This day and age after being unable to find any decent news on TV or in the press well-connected people turn to the Internet, so here you are reading what some “Venik” has to say about the war in Iraq.

The complete lock down by the coalition command on the flow of information is rather unusual. Normally, the military would at least actively use the media for disinformation purposes, as the US military did during the first Persian Gulf War and during the bombing of Yugoslavia (and during all those dozens of other armed conflicts in between). But a complete absence of any significant news makes one very suspicious: how are things really going in Iraq? Is Saddam really losing control of the country and of his troops? Are the Americans and Brits are really in Basra and Umm Quasar? Did all the planes really return to their bases as the Pentagon officials in Washington say?

And then there some very lame attempts at propaganda by the US military. Consider the false report about the entire Iraqi 51st Infantry Division surrendering to the coalition troops. An entire division surrendered, really? This must be huge news. There must be hundreds of videos all over the world’s news networks showing hordes of demoralized and hungry Iraqi troops. There must be hundreds of interviews with the Iraqis themselves and much footage of all the destroyed and abandoned armor and artillery numbering in hundreds.

Where in the hell is all this stuff? All we got was one or two lame staged videos shot by the military showing a few dozen Iraqis half of whom are not even wearing any uniforms. For that I know they may be civilians or not even Iraqis. There is no footage of any weapons – was the entire division unarmed? And then, of course, all the speculation fueled by official US government reports of a possible missile strike that might have killed Saddam. As Rumsfeld put it: “He [Saddam] is either dead or alive.” Yeah, no shit…

Meanwhile, we have no clue as to what is going on in Iraq. Thank God for the ex-Soviet GRU and a few dedicated Russian army experts who provide their intelligence reports on the Web. But as far as mainstream media goes in terms of accurate war reporting– you might as well be watching the Junk Yard Wars on the TLC.

A day ago it was reported that Bush was meeting with his entire cabinet, the top military commanders and all of his advisors at Camp David. Even the elusive like the white rabbit from “Alice in Wonderland” Dick Cheney was to be there. That in itself is major news. Clearly Bush was not meeting with all these smart folks just to drink beer and eat pretzels. And, yet, this meeting was not, in my opinion, adequately covered by the media.

It is clear that the war in Iraq was the reason for this meeting. And after the meeting Bush said that the will be harder and longer than some expected. That the second time in the past three days that he mentioned the “harder and longer” part of this war. Obviously, something is going on and, as usual, CNN’s got no clue and continues repeating Rumsfeld’s abracadabra. I understand when the government wants to brainwash the enemy, but bullshitting its own people is just sad. Comment: Not only is it sad, it leads to US troops getting shot and paraded on TV and innocent civilians dying, but then the government has been sytematically lieing to the people since its inauguration and so has every other US administration, so they aint gonna stop now.

US says it has "credible evidence" of Russian arms sales to Iraq The United States has "credible evidence" that Russian firms have sold military equipment to Iraq, despite denials from Moscow, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said. The spokesman said the information was "disturbing" and that Washington had expressed its concerns to Moscow. Earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov rejected the US accusations, saying an investigation into the claims had yielded no results.

"Russia strictly fulfills all its international obligations and has not supplied any equipment, including military, to Iraq in violation of the sanctions regime," Ivanov told journalists. Ivanov said the relevant Russian agencies had investigated the US claims but "no facts regarding the US concerns were discovered." A top US official said Sunday that private Russian experts were in Iraq helping the regime jam satellite signals that could guide bombs and military aircraft used by the US-led coalition in its war to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Comment: The obvious and crass nature of US hypocracy is getting a little boring at this stage, should we go and get the 12000 page UN report from Iraq listing the over 40 US companies that supplied Iraq qith WMDs? Oh yes, I forgot, the US can sell its enemies WMD to justify going to war with them, but no one else is allowed to.

Either by incompetence or by design, George W. Bush allowed the 9/11 attacks to happen, and probably was involved in the planning of them. The American people might stand by and allow him to slaughter every nation in the world, but they will not stand for it when they know he participated the mass killing of his own people.) The Official Version Of 9/11 Is A Hoax By John Kaminski skylax@comcast.net 3-22-3

Opposed by everyone in the world who was not bought off, the illegal invasion of Iraq was undertaken for many reasons - the imminent replacement of the dollar by the euro as the world's primary currency, the tempting lure of untapped oil reserves, the desire to consolidate U.S./Israeli military hegemony
over a strategically vital region - but the most important reason was to further obscure questions about the awesome deception staged by the American government that has come to be known as 9/11.

9/11 was a hoax. This is no longer a wild conspiracy assertion; it is a fact, supported by thousands of other verifiable facts, foremost of which are:

The attacks of 9/11 COULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED without the willful failure of the American defense system. In Washington, Air Force pilots demanded to fly but were ordered to stand down. Yet instead of prosecuting the president and military leaders for this unprecedented dereliction of duty, military leaders were promoted and the president was praised for presiding over a defense system that suspiciously failed the most crucial test in its history. None of the deaths would have happened without the deliberate unplugging of America's air defenses.

Planes that lose contact with control towers are usually intercepted by fighter jets inside of ten minutes, as the incident with the golfer's plane a few months earlier so clearly demonstrated. Yet on 9/11, the jetliners that struck New York were allowed to proceed unmolested for more than a half-hour, and the plane that supposedly crashed in Washington was not intercepted for more than an hour and forty minutes after it was widely known that four planes had been hijacked.

The twin towers could not have collapsed as a result of burning jet fuel. Most of that fuel was consumed on impact. In the south tower, most of the fuel was spilled outside the building. Heat caused by burning jet fuel does not reach temperatures needed to melt steel. What does stand out as particularly suspicious and still unexplained is that fires raged out of control beneath THREE of the collapsed towers for ONE HUNDRED DAYS, clearly indicating the presence of some kind of substance utilized in the demolition of the structures.

The Twin Towers did not fall because of plane impacts or fires. Most likely explosives were placed on structural supports in the towers (as was done in Oklahoma City), and these controlled implosions snuffed out the livesof three thousand people. FBI Director Robert Mueller insisted officials had no idea this kind of attack could happen when in fact the FBI had been investigating the possibility of EXACTLY this kind of attack for almost TEN YEARS. Numerous previous attempts at using planes as weapons, intimate knowledge of terror plans called Project Bojinka, and knowledge of suspicious characters attending flight schools who were being monitored by the FBI make his utterance a clear lie on its face.

In the weeks before 9/11, the U.S. received warnings from all over the world that an event just like this was about to happen, but FBI investigations into suspected terrorists were suppressed and those warnings were deliberately disregarded. The names of the alleged hijackers, all ostensibly Muslims, were released to the public only hours after the attacks, despite Mueller saying we had no knowledge this would happen. This is an impossible twist of logic. If he didn't know of a plan to strike buildings with planes, how would he know the names of the hijackers? Various artifacts were discovered in strategic places to try to confirm the government's story, but these have all been dismissed as suspicious planting of evidence. Since that time several names on that list have turned up alive and well, living in Arab countries. Yet no attempt has ever been made to update the list. And why were none of these names on the airlines' passenger lists?

Much like the invasion of Iraq, the anthrax attacks were designed to deflect attention from unanswered 9/11 questions in the patriotic pandemonium that followed the tragedy. In addition to making large amounts of money for the president's father and his friends from the hasty sale of inefficient drugs to a panicked populace, the investigation into these killings was abruptly halted when the trail of evidence led straight to the government's door, and has not been reopened. The anthrax attacks also amped up the climate of fear and deflected attention from the passage of the government's repressive Patriot Act.

The Patriot Act was presented in the days after the tragedy supposedly as a response to it, yet it was clear that this heinous act, drafted to nullify provisions for freedom in the U.S. Constitution, was put together long before 9/11. In addition, testimony by Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) revealed that most members of Congress were compelled to vote for the bill without even reading it. This was a vote to eliminate the Constitutional Bill of Rights, which has defined American freedom for 200 years, and it was accomplished when legislators voted for the bill without even reading it.

The invasion of Afghanistan was presented as an attempt to pursue the alleged perpetrators of 9/11, yet it had been discussed for years prior to the tragedy and actually planned in the months before the attacks on New York and Washington. Statements by Zbigniew Brzezinski and the Republican-written Project for a New American Century have stressed that America needed a formidable enemy to accomplish its aggressive geopolitical aims. The supposed enemy we attacked in Afghanistan was a diverse group of men from all over the world who were initially recruited, encouraged and supported by the American CIA. The hole in the Pentagon was not made by a jumbo jet. Damage to the building was simply not consistent with the size of the hole nor the absence of debris. At the supposed point of impact, a whole bank of windows remained unbroken and there were no marks on the lawn. No airplane debris (except what was planted on
the lawn) nor remains of passengers were ever found.

The president has admitted that he continued to read a story to schoolchildren in a Florida school for 30 minutes after being informed that two planes had struck New York and that the nation was under attack. He has never explained this puzzling behavior, nor how he saw the first plane hit. It was never televised, only recorded by a French crew filming firemen in New York. In that film, the plane in question does not appear to be a passenger airliner. The plane in Pennsylvania was shot down and broke apart in midair. No other explanation can account for the wreckage, which was spread over a six-mile area, or the eyewitness accounts that describe debris falling from the sky.

Cellphone calls cannot be made from airliners in flight that are not close to the ground. As research by Professor A. K. Dewdney has shown, the emotional conversations between hijacked passengers and others would not have been possible under conditions that existed at that moment. These calls were cynical fabrications, exploiting the distraught emotions of those who lost loved ones.

Radio communications from firefighters on the upper floors of the Trade Center towers clearly indicate that fires were under control and the structure was in no danger of collapsing. These are merely a few of the deliberately false statements made by U.S. officials about 9/11. They provide crystal clear evidence that our president, his staff, and many legislators should be indicted on charges of treason, obstruction of justice and mass murder. Above all, these evil men should be removed from their positions of authority before they implement more of their moneymaking murder schemes like the one they are now perpetrating on the innocent people of Iraq.

Otherwise, we face a future of endless war abroad and merciless repression at home. Consider just a few more of the other unanswered questions from among the thousands of unexplained loose ends that all point to 9/11 being an inside job.

Who benefited from the suspiciously high numbers of put options purchased prior to September 11 for shares in companies whose stock prices subsequently plummeted, on the supposition that whoever was behind the hijacking was also behind most of the purchases of these put options? And what was the role of the new executive director of the CIA, Buzzy Krongard, who handled these transactions?

Why was the debris from the collapsed Twin Towers removed from the site with no forensic examination? Why was almost all of it sold to scrap merchants and shipped abroad where it would not be available for scientific examination?

Why does the government refuse to release any transcripts of communications or any records at all relating to signals of any form transmitted by those jets?

Why did so many people, from San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown to many employees of companies in the World Trade Center who failed to come to work that day, know in advance that something bad was going to happen on Sept. 11, 2001?

Why do all the major U.S. media continue to act as if none of these questions is legitimate or relevant? Today, millions of people around the world are protesting the criminal destruction of the nation of Iraq. But these protests won't change the number of minds necessary to stop America's criminal madmen from continuing with their genocidal aim of enslaving the entire world. What WILL stop them is spreading the realization that President George W. Bush and his billionaire accomplices in the oil industry perpetrated 9/11 as an excuse to begin the militarization of America for the purpose of world conquest. History has shown all too clearly the deceived American people WILL support the destruction of faraway countries on phony pretexts of defending so-called freedom.

Thus the needless wars continue. Right now we watch high-tech weapons slaughter the defenseless people of Iraq. Soon it will be Iran, Syria, Colombia, Venezuela, North Korea, Egypt, Libya, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and who knows where else. All these misguided atrocities will be possible because of the hoax known as 9/11. But the American people will not - and cannot - tolerate leaders who kill our own people merely to invent a pretext - the war on terror - to go around killing anyone they like. If the American people DO tolerate such an insane strategy, then they clearly do not deserve to survive as a nation or a people.

John Kaminski is a writer who lives on the coast of Florida and can't understand why the president hasn't been arrested for his obvious lies and crimes.

Baghdad rocked by midnight air raids 24/03/2003 Explosions shook Baghdad just before midnight, rattling buildings and setting off car alarms just south of the city, followed by a series of blasts early today local time at the start of the sixth day of the US led war on Iraq. It wasn’t immediately clear what was causing the explosions, which were getting louder and closer to central Baghdad.

At the same time, the call to prayer rang from the city’s minarets, and even the dogs stopped barking during what appeared to be a fierce bombardment. Earlier in the evening, air raid sirens wailed and explosions were audible coming from the outskirts of the capital. Comment: Just watch the pretty flashes in the sky, you dont worry about the children's heads being blown off and we wont show you the pictures, then we can all sleep soundly continuing to believe the, by now fantastical fantasy, that the US is "the greatest democracy on earth".

Low tech Iraqi weaponry downed two helicopters Iraqi forces, with a hail of small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades, downed two Apache helicopters today and forced 30 other helicopters in their brigade back to their base, The New York Times reported. One two member crew was unaccounted for; the other was rescued.

All 32 helicopters sustained some damage, occasionally slight, US army officials told the newspaper. The attack on the helicopters today surprised US army leaders, and may cause them to adjust their military strategy, which relied on the Apaches to destroy Iraq’s armoured divisions that ring Baghdad, said the Times A CNN correspondent accompanying the United States Army Fifth Corps 11th Attack Helicopter Regiment, said the unit had been on a night-time combat mission targeting units of the elite Republican Guard.

The correspondent cited one of the pilots as saying they had run into a “hornet’s nest, a barrage of antiaircraft fire,” near the city of Kerbala, 70 miles south-west of Baghdad. The Apaches use a powerful radar, called the Longbow, that directs their Hellfire missiles. But the Apaches are suddenly coming under attack from relatively low-technology weaponry. The Times said the US army may now may consider new tactics, such as additional close aerial bombardment, to support the Apaches as they hunt for armoured divisions. Comment: But isnt the US military machine unstoppable? Don't all the US officials nearly wet their pants when they talk about how amazing and wonderful all the high tech weapons are? That couldnt be more BS, could it??

Syria Says U.S.-Led Forces Killed Five Syrians Syria said on Monday U.S. and British aircraft bombed a bus carrying Syrian civilian workers returning home from Iraq, killing five and injuring an unspecified number in what it described as a "criminal act."

"U.S. and British aircraft bombed a Syrian civilian bus carrying Syrian workers working in Iraq on their way to Syria. This criminal act resulted in the death of five of the Syrian citizens and the injury of others," an official statement said. The U.S. and British envoys to Damascus were summoned to the Foreign Ministry and handed an official protest, the statement said, noting that Syria reserved the right to seek compensation.

"This act represents a breach of the 1949 Geneva convention on protecting civilians during war...therefore the Syrian Arab Republic condemns this act and reserves the right to demand compensation in line with international law," it said. An earlier report from the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) said a U.S. plane had fired a missile at a bus carrying 37 Syrians, killing five and wounding at least 10. SANA said the incident occurred on Sunday morning in Iraq's al-Rutbeh area, some 160 km (100 miles) from the Syrian border. The bodies of the dead were taken to a Damascus hospital, hospital director Abdullah al-Asali told Reuters. "The deaths were caused by an explosion... We saw shrapnel wounds and distortions due to an explosion," he said.

A bus passenger interviewed by Syrian television said the bus was part of a convoy of three heading to Syria. "An aircraft fired a missile at us. Some survived, others were hit," he said. Another passenger told the television the passengers did not see the aircraft, but "we heard its roar. It must have been flying at high altitude." A Syrian source told Reuters the bus passengers were young, apparently laborers returning home after war started.

Syria, the only current Arab member of the United Nations Security Council, has been a staunch opponent of the U.S.-led war on fellow Arab state Iraq. Oil-rich Iraq has attracted laborers from Arab and Asian countries for years, despite crippling economic sanctions imposed on Baghdad for its 1990-91 occupation of Kuwait. Comment: Perhaps this was just a shot across the bows by the US, a small signal to say, "You're next" to the Syrians.

Elite Sets the Stage for World War Three Something very worrisome is happening. Some of Rockefeller's best toadies oppose the Iraq war. But Rockefeller and his ilk are responsible for this war. What gives? It appears the global elite is dividing its minions into two "house teams" again. The last time this happened we had the Fascist-Communist slugfest called World War Two. The same satanic cabal controlled both sides and picked Germany to take the fall.

This time, the U.S., Britain and the "coalition of the willing" are on one side. On the other are France, Germany, Russia and China. The centre of global power is moving to China, Europe and Russia. I see a world war over Korea, or more likely Iran and control of Middle East oil. The U.S., overextended from Kuwait to Korea, will come up short. My guess is that the US will find itself increasingly isolated and vilified as a result of the Iraq war. I suspect the hidden agenda is to bring down the world's last superpower; to replace the UN with a new instrument of "world government"; to kill a lot of people, and to wean Americans off democracy and their high standard of living.

GLOBALISTS AGAINST THE IRAQ WAR? Jimmy Carter, Nelson Mandela, George Soros, Mikail Gorbachev and Walter Cronkite are all globalist elder statesmen-for-hire. Curiously, they all oppose the Iraq war. Jimmy Carter, a creation of Rockefeller's "Trilateral Commission" publicly supported more UN inspections. Mikhail Gorbachev said the war is a big mistake. Nelson Mandela called it a "tragedy" and warned Bush was plunging "the world into a holocaust." Financial maven George Soros said:" The Bush doctrine is grounded in power; legality and legitimacy are decorations." Finally, Walter Cronkite, who is linked to Rockefeller's CFR warned: "We are going to be in such a fix when this war is over, or before this war is over. Our grandchildren's grandchildren are going to be paying for this war. I look at our future as, I'm sorry, being very dark."

The leaders of Russia, France, Germany and China also voiced opposition with uncharacteristic bluntness. They must have the OK of the global money masters. "Military action ... is a big mistake," Vladimir Putin said. " Iraq has presented no danger..." China urged the US and Britain to halt their military actions. France, Russia and Germany all refused a U.S. request to close their Iraqi embassies. North Korea apparently is preparing for war. Even in England, major newspapers like The Mirror have been scathing in their criticism of Tony Blair. British newspapers belong to the same clan. I suspect England will defect to Europe's side before this fiasco is over.

PARALLELS TO WORLD WAR TWO Before World War Two, a faction of the British elite built up Hitler. This was known as the "policy of appeasement." After Hitler fell into the trap of attacking Poland, they did a "sleight of hand" and replaced the accommodating Chamberlain with the defiant Churchill. Iraq is a similar trap. The United States has squandered the sympathy and good will it earned on Sept 11. The images of the World Trade Centre have been replaced in the world's mind by the spectacular explosions in Baghdad. The US comes across as a bully too cowardly to pick on anyone its own side. Notch this victory up beside its thrashings of Grenada, Panama and Serbia. The gloating by US TV commentators is particularly distasteful to the outside world

The damage to America's moral authority is incalculable. After this war, who will have sympathy for Americans if Chinese atomic bombs rain down on Los Angeles and New York? The devil degrades his victims before he destroys them. For almost 100 years, the American leadership class has belonged to an international cabal that is determined to dissolve all human loyalties, including the nation state, and establish a global tyranny. George Bush, who is part of this cabal, has led the American people into a trap. Who in their right mind would deliberately alienate 1.3 billion Muslims? Of course Hussein is a bad man but this is not the motive. The U.S. is acting as gofer for the Zionists and the oil cartels, two leading parts of the cabal. They will come out ahead while Americans will foot the bill and take the brunt of Muslim indignation.

Can the U.S. even count on Israel? At his trial, Israeli Spy Jonathon Pollard was called "the greatest traitor in the history of the United States" (Gordon Thomas, Seeds of Fire, p.31-32). In the words of CIA Director George Tenet, Pollard, an American Jew, stole "every worthwhile intelligence secret we have." In the year prior to his arrest in Nov. 1986, Pollard transmitted "over 360 cubic feet of top secret paper to Israel," his trial was told. According to Thomas, Israel's Mossad routinely trades information and technology with China's Secret Intelligence Service. (482) Pollard's information could have commanded a pretty price. Thomas says the theft from Los Alamos of the last 50 years of US nuclear research was also a joint Mossad-Chinese operation (33). He says an Israeli team inspected the American EP-3 spy plane the Chinese forced down in April 2001. (487)

But Israeli espionage must be seen in the context of the treachery of the American political elite in general. During the Clinton Administration, there was massive transfer of critical military technology to China. For example, in late 1994 the Chinese bought and dismantled a McDonnell Douglas plant in Columbus OH that allowed them to produce ultra-modern airplanes and silkworm cruise missiles. This technology transfer is continuing under the Bush Administration. Consider the recent sale to China of a GM plant in Valparaiso IN, laying off hundreds of workers and moving sophisticated equipment used for making smart bombs. This transfer of nuclear and other technology to China is reminiscent of what took place after World War Two when secrets of the atom bomb were provided to Russia. (See George Jordan USAF (ret) From Major Jordan's Diaries 1952.)

Can you see the pattern? Russia and China belong the cabal and are being used to subjugate the United States. China is to be the new hub because its people are already used to tyranny. In another parallel with the past, American industry is relocating to China and other low-cost countries. At least 3.3 million US white-collar jobs and $136 billion in wages will shift there by 2015. (See The New American magazine, March 10, 2003). Similarly, Wall Street invested heavily in Nazi Germany in the 1930's. Standard Oil (through subsidiary I.G. Farben), General Motors, Ford, ITT and IBM were mainstays of the Nazi war machine. In conclusion, while Americans are distracted by jingoism and jiggle, they are being set up for a nasty fall. The leadership class has already "left the building" as it were. The end of the Iraq war will find the United States isolated and reviled. As the Bush cabal tries to push its advantage, it will come into conflict with China and other nuclear powers. A major confrontation will ensue and an overextended US will be humbled. Americans will take a greatly reduced place in a new world order. Americans should direct their anger not at their country but against their political and cultural elite, which is corrupt, cowardly, and traitorous.

Israel showing signs of increasing violence against Palestinians As an imminent attack on Iraq draw closer, it appears increasingly likely that Israel will use the distraction of the world's media as a cover for massive violations against Palestinians in the occupied territories. There are several warning signs of Israel's intentions to step up attacks against Palestinian civilians, including:

The murder of US peace activist Rachel Corrie, a deliberate attempt to frighten away internationals trying to protect Palestinians while publicising messages about Israeli violations to the international community;

The upgrading of violent Israeli attacks in the Gaza strip, likely to be in preparation for a full-scale invasion while the international media is distracted by a war in Iraq. According to recent figures, 30 per cent of Palestinian children are already suffering from chronic malnutrition, while 46 per cent of cancer patients needing treatment are unable to access such treatment and 42 per cent of people needing dialysis are unable to access it.

Since the beginning of the current intifada, 2344 Palestinian have been killed by Israeli soldiers, police or settlers. Nineteen per cent of those deaths were children. If we compare with the population of the US, that would translate as 180 000 deaths and 3.7 million injuries. From the past experience of the first US war in the Gulf region, Israel can once again impose a total, 24-hour curfew on resident of the west Bank and Gaza Strip, for weeks on end – destroying the economy, health care services and educational system of the Palestinian people.

As an American protectorate in the Middle East, Israel is the only country in the world without a specific border. It is also the only country that possesses nuclear bombs in the Middle East, but the world has remained silent while the atrocities against the Palestinians continue. Comment:
Q: (L) What is going to happen with the Middleastern situation; this Afghanistan or whatever?
A: Herding of population to much finer order of control.
Q: (L) What is the purpose of this control; this increasing control.
A: Preparation for war in Palestine.
Q: (L) But nobody has said anything about having a war in Palestine. They're all talking about having a war in Afghanistan. How does Palestine fit in here?
A: It is the ultimate objective of Israel.
Q: (L) Why would they want to have war in their own country? Well, aside from the fact that they've been having a war in their own country for a long time. I guess they want to bring it to a final conclusion. What is going to be the result of this plan?
A: Destruction of Jews.
Q: (L) Well obviously this is not what THEY are planning, is it?
A: No.
Q:(L) They are planning destruction of Palestinians, right?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) It seems that through out history whenever the jews have plotted and planned to destroy somebody, they are the ones who have ended up being destroyed themselves. Or am I misreading my history here?
A: No.

C.I.A. Aides Feel Pressure in Preparing Iraqi Reports The recent disclosure that reports claiming Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger were based partly on forged documents has renewed complaints among analysts at the C.I.A. about the way intelligence related to Iraq has been handled, several intelligence officials said. Analysts at the agency said they had felt pressured to make their intelligence reports on Iraq conform to Bush administration policies.

For months, a few C.I.A. analysts have privately expressed concerns to colleagues and Congressional officials that they have faced pressure in writing intelligence reports to emphasize links between Saddam Hussein's government and Al Qaeda. As the White House contended that links between Mr. Hussein and Al Qaeda justified military action against Iraq, these analysts complained that reports on Iraq have attracted unusually intense scrutiny from senior policy makers within the Bush administration.

"A lot of analysts have been upset about the way the Iraq-Al Qaeda case has been handled," said one intelligence official familiar with the debate. That debate was renewed after the disclosure two weeks ago by Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, that the claim that Iraq sought to buy uranium from Niger was based partly on forged documents. The claim had been cited publicly by President Bush. "The forgery heightened people's feelings that they were being embarrassed by the way Iraqi intelligence has been handled," said one government official who has talked with C.I.A. analysts about the issue.

The forged documents were not created by the C.I.A. or any other United States government agency, and C.I.A. officials were always suspicious of the documents, American intelligence officials said. But the information still ended up being used in public by Mr. Bush. Intelligence officials said there was other information, which was deemed to be credible, that raised concerns about a possible uranium connection between Niger and Iraq. Several analysts have told colleagues they have become so frustrated that they have considered leaving the agency, according to government officials who have talked with the analysts.

"Several people have told me how distraught they have been about what has been going on," said one government official who said he had talked with several C.I.A. analysts. None of the analysts are willing to talk directly to news organizations, the official said. A senior official of the agency said no analysts had told C.I.A. management that they were resigning in protest over the handling of Iraqi intelligence. At the State Department, by contrast, three foreign service officers have resigned in protest over Mr. Bush's policies.

TV stations criticise the use of 'images of war' News organisations faced criticism last night over use and censorship of disturbing images of war. Sharp differences have emerged in the editorial values of the Western and Arab media. In a discussion on BBC Radio 5 Live, Richard Sambrook, the director of BBC News, defended the corporation's decision not to show horrific images of Iraqi child casualties that were widely screened on Arab television stations.

When accused of bias, Mr Sambrook said that pictures of a 10-year-old boy who had suffered appalling head injuries in bombing were not suitable for a British audience. Steve Anderson, controller of ITV News, said: "I have seen some of the images on Al-Jazeera television. I would never put them on screen. I'm not criticising them for that. There seems to be an acceptance of images I don't think would be acceptable here." Comment: Notice the implicit criticism here? "There seems to be an acceptance of images I dont think would be acceptable here". Yes, those Iraqi barbarians, they show pictures of 10 year old boys with half of their heads missing, we, the wonderful west on the other hand, would never stoop so low as to show such a reality, we prefer to actually blow the children to pieces and then show you pictures of our President telling us how bad the Iraqis are. I'll tell you why there is an acceptance of images of dead children in Iraq, BECAUSE THEY ARE IRAQI CHILDREN THAT ARE DEAD! Meanwhile back at home, popular alternaitve news site www.yellowtimes.org has been shut down for showing images of the captured US soldiers. Yep, you can show anything in the US, as long as it aint the truth.

TV avoids showing deadly side of war Networks seem content to parade Pentagon line Washington resists press corps' efforts to deal with horror Deeply embedded as I am in war TV coverage, my remote control thumb seeing as much action as a B-52 pilot's trigger finger, my faith has been restored, almost.

Not so much in the networks themselves, most of which are parading the Pentagon line, but in the reporters assigned to one of the deadliest journalistic minefields ever: The White House Press Briefing Room. Let me explain.

Yesterday, when the America bombardment of Baghdad — and parts untelevised — began, the excitement among the anchors was palpable. "Shock & Awe underway'' read the onscreen graphics. Finally, explosions! Mushroom clouds! Towering plumes of smoke! CNN even had little graphics to count them off, so viewers could see how closely spaced the bombs were. Was ABC's Peter Jennings serious when he repeated the propaganda about this being a "precision" campaign, as if the Tomahawks and Patriots, which sound more like baseball teams than deadly missiles, were programmed only to search and destroy brutal vicious dictators?

But for the light and sound show, all seemed calm and bright on Baghdad's streets, thanks to the stationary cameras left behind by the networks. Why was nobody saying, "Hmm, this is a city of 5 million people, do you think any of them have been hurt?" The full horror didn't hit until later on CBC, where the Dubai Business Network's Tamara Al Karram, voice quavering, was providing a boom-by-boom account for Peter Mansbridge.

"Are you on a rooftop?" he asked. "Are you with other people?"

Then a blast, followed by a numbing, chilling, silence.

"All right, we've lost her," he said, his voice just a little too steady for me.

Flipping from CBC's "Attack On Iraq" to CNN's "Strike On Iraq" to CBS' "America At War" and on and around up to the business-oriented CNBC's "The Price Of War," I kept searching for signs of death. If this is a war, people are being killed. Where are the bodies? But, if any of the 500 reporters travelling with the troops found any, they didn't reveal them when they did their here-I-am on an aircraft carrier sniffing the fumes stand-ups — was that an NBC flag on one tank turret? — asking the boys how they feel as they're moving in.

In the words of the distinguished journalist Russell Baker, these embeds are "serving as megaphones for fraud."

So far anyway.

(Incidentally, one thing U.S. TV didn't show but BBC beamed around the world: live video of President George W. Bush having his hair pouffed as he fidgeted in the Oval Office just before Wednesday night's speech announcing the launch of Operation Iraqi Freedom.Knight-Ridder newspapers reported he pumped his fist and said, "Feels good.")

But who could blame the networks when they had been issued their marching orders from the Pentagon? Just before 2 p.m., U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld held a news conference where he lectured reporters on the TV coverage: "I heard various commentators expansively comparing what's taking place in Iraq today to some of the more famous bombing campaigns of World War II.

"There is no comparison. The weapons that are being used today have a degree of precision that no one every dreamt of in a prior conflict. They didn't exist."

Okay, but when is when?

"We're having a conflict at a time in our history when we have 24-hours-a-day television, radio, media, Internet, and more people in the world have access to what is taking place," Rumsfeld continued. "You couple that with the hundreds — literally hundreds of people in the free press — the international press, the press of the United States, from every aspect of the media — who have been offered and accepted an opportunity to join and be connected directly with practically every aspect of this campaign ... and I doubt that in a conflict of this type there's ever been the degree of free press coverage as you are witnessing in this instance."

Translation: Don't mess with us or we're court-martialing your embeds.

But not all was lost, thanks to an increasingly irate White House press corps.

Throughout most of the briefing that chief Bush spokesperson Ari Fleischer held mid-afternoon, they hammered him about what the president was watching on TV. Had he seen the horrific images? Had he contemplated the effects of his decision to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction even as he was unloading megatonnes of the same on the country?

Try as they did though, the journalists could not penetrate Fleischer's defences.

"(T)he president deeply regrets that Saddam Hussein has put innocents in a place where their lives will be lost," he said. "The other portion of what the president remembers when he thinks about the innocents are the 3,000 innocents who lost their lives on Sept. 11th in the United States. And if it were not for the worries that the president had about an Iraqi regime, in defiance of the United Nations, possessing weapons of mass destruction, which he fears could again be used against the United States, you might not see this developing."

Just in case you were wondering. Comment: My hope is slowly being restored, the Bush administration is beginning to sound so ridiculous and unvelievable that I feel something must crack soon. This is a farce of the largest magnitude. The end truly must be nigh for these goons, their own massively inflated egos and sense of invulnerability will surely be ised to orchestrate their downfall.

No Chemical Weapons Found At Site In Najaf - TV U.S. officials said Monday that no chemical weapons were found at a suspected site at Najaf in central Iraq, U.S. television networks reported. NBC News reported from the Pentagon that no chemicals at all were found at the site. CNN, also reporting from the Pentagon, said officials now believe the plant there was abandoned long ago by the Iraqis. Comment: First we have the reports that a 100 acre chemical weapons factory has been found, then later it proves to be false. It seems to me that there is a tactic being used here, one that was used to great effect leading up to this illegal war. The US government is perhaps happy to appear foolish by claiming things that later prove to be false, because they know that the first story to some extent sticks. How do we explain the fact that 43% of Americans believe that Saddam was responsible for 9/11? It is someting akin to NLP (Neurolinguistic programming) where you can create a general belief by reiterating lies and even when they are shown be just that, in the mass memory the lie will have found roots.

The Bottom Line On Iraq: It's The Bottom Line Boys, boys, you're all right. Sure, it's Daddy, oil, and imperialism, not to mention a messianic sense of righteous purpose, a deep-seated contempt for the peace movement, and, to be fair, the irrefutable fact that the world would be a better place without Saddam Hussein. But there's also an overarching mentality feeding the administration's collective delusions, and it can be found by looking to corporate America's bottom line. The dots leading from Wall Street to the West Wing situation room are the ones that need connecting. There's money to be made in post-war Iraq, and the sooner we get the pesky war over with, the sooner we (by which I mean George Bush's corporate cronies) can start making it.

The nugget of truth that former Bush economic guru Lawrence Lindsey let slip last fall shortly before he was shoved out the oval office door says it all. Momentarily forgetting that he was talking to the press and not his buddies in the White House, he admitted: "The successful prosecution of the war would be good for the economy." To hell with worldwide protests, an unsupportive Security Council, a diplomatically dubious Hans Blix, an Osama giddy at the prospect of a united Arab world, and a panicked populace grasping at the very slender reed of duct tape and Saran Wrap to protect itself from the inevitable terrorist blow-back -- the business of America is still business.

No one in the administration embodies this bottom line mentality more than Dick Cheney. The vice president is one of those ideological purists who never let little things like logic, morality, or mass murder interfere with the single-minded pursuit of profitability. His on-again, off-again relationship with the Butcher of Baghdad is a textbook example of what modern moralists condemn as "situational ethics," an extremely convenient code that allows you to do what you want when you want and still feel good about it in the morning. In the Cheney White House (let's call it what it is), anything that can be rationalized is right.

The two were clearly on the outs back during the Gulf War, when Cheney was Secretary of Defense, and the first President Bush dubbed Saddam "Hitler revisited." Then Cheney moved to the private sector and suddenly things between him and Saddam warmed up considerably. With Cheney in the CEO's seat, Halliburton helped Iraq reconstruct its war-torn oil industry with $73 million worth of equipment and services -- becoming Baghdad's biggest such supplier. Kinda nice how that worked out for the vice-president, really: oversee the destruction of an industry that you then profit from by rebuilding.

When, during the 2000 campaign, Cheney was asked about his company's Iraqi escapades, he flat out denied them. But the truth remains: When it came to making a buck, Cheney apparently had no qualms about doing business with "Hitler revisited." And make no mistake, this wasn't a case of hard-nosed realpolitik -- the rationale for Rummy's cuddly overtures to Saddam back in '83 despite his almost daily habit of gassing Iranians. That, we were told, was all about "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." No, Cheney's company chose to do business with Saddam after the rape of Kuwait. After Scuds had been fired at Tel Aviv and Riyadh. After American soldiers had been sent home from Desert Storm in body bags.

And in 2000, just months before pocketing his $34 million Halliburton retirement package and joining the GOP ticket, Cheney was lobbying for an end to U.N. sanctions against Saddam. Of course, American businessmen are nothing if not flexible. So his former cronies at Halliburton are now at the head of the line of companies expected to reap the estimated $2 billion it will take to rebuild Iraq's oil infrastructure following Saddam's ouster. This burn-and-build approach to business guarantees that there will be a market for Halliburton's services as long as it has a friend in high places to periodically carpet bomb a country for it. In the meantime, Halliburton, among many other Pentagon contracts, has a lucrative 10-year deal to provide food services to the Army that comes with no lid on potential costs. Lenin once scoffed that "a capitalist would sell rope to his own hangman." And, while the man got more than a few things wrong, he's been proven right on this one time and time again: from Hewlett-Packard and Bechtel helping arm Saddam back in the 80s, to the good folks at Boeing, Hughes Electronics, Lockheed Martin, and Loral Space whose corporate greed helped China steal rocket and missile secrets -- and point a few dozen long-range nukes our way.

Clearly, our national interest runs a distant second when pitted against the rapacious desires of special interests and the politicians they buy with massive campaign contributions. Oil and gas companies donated $26.7 million to Bush and his fellow Republicans during the 2000 election and another $18 million in 2002. So does it really come as any surprise that Cheney's staff held secret meetings in October with executives from Exxon Mobil, ChevronTexaco, ConocoPhillips -- and, yes, Halliburton -- to discuss who would get what in a post-Saddam Iraq? As they say, to the victors -- and the big buck donors -- go the sp-oil-s. Here's my bottom line: at a time of war, at what point does subverting our national security in the name of profitability turn from ugly business into high treason

Battles Rage in Iraqi Cities, Bodies Litter Desert Charred Iraqi corpses smolder in burned-out trucks. Black smoke hangs over bombed cities where U.S. troops battle Iraqi soldiers. Youths greet British tanks with smiles, then sneer when they have passed. Reuters correspondents in southern Iraq -- some with U.S.-led forces, some operating independently -- watched the war to topple Saddam Hussein unfold on Sunday as U.S. convoys advanced on Baghdad and battles raged for control of key cities.

In the desert near the Shi'ite holy city of Najaf, just 100 miles south of Baghdad, correspondent Luke Baker traveled through a plain littered with Iraqi bodies and gutted vehicles after U.S. forces fought a seven-hour battle against militiamen desperately trying to halt their advance. Some vehicles were still smoldering, and charred ribs were the only recognizable part of three burned bodies in a destroyed car lying in the roadside dust.

"It wasn't even a fair fight. I don't know why they don't just surrender," said Col. Mark Hildenbrand, commander of the 937th Engineer Group. "When you're playing soccer at home, 3-2 is a fair score, but here it's more like 119-0." U.S. troops showed reporters a hideout said to have been used by an Iraqi militiaman. The soldier who had used the hideout had only a filthy blanket to protect him from the cold desert nights, and just a plastic bag of raw meat for food.

When he fled, he left behind a picture of his two children. Southeast of Najaf, Reuters correspondent Sean Maguire saw explosions and huge plumes of smoke over Nassiriya, a strategic city on the Euphrates river where U.S. forces have been fighting to secure bridges to allow them to advance toward Baghdad. "It looks like artillery, or possibly air strikes," said Maguire, traveling with the U.S. 1st Marine Division.

In the southeastern city of Umm Qasr, Iraq's only deep-water port, U.S. and British forces used planes and tanks in a battle to dislodge at least 120 Iraqi Republican Guards. Reuters correspondent Adrian Croft said British Harrier jets had dropped 500-pound bombs on the city, sending columns of black smoke curling into the air. When the bombing ended, some Iraqis could be seen waving white flags and surrendering. As night fell U.S. soldiers were still using machinegun, artillery and mortar fire in an attempt to flush out another group of Iraqi fighters from a hideout.

Civilians streamed out of Umm Qasr and the city of Basra. Reuters correspondent Rosalind Russell, south of Basra, watched dozens of trucks and battered cars pass, crammed full with household belongings. Machine gun and artillery fire echoed behind them. "There is fighting in the center, on the streets.It is terrible," said Hussein, a 24-year-old engineer who works for the state-run southern oil company in Basra. "We don't want Americans here. This is Iraq." One group of Iraqi boys on the side of the road smiled and waved as a convoy of British tanks and trucks rolled by. But once it had passed, leaving a trail of dust and grit in its wake, their smiles turned to scowls. "We don't want them here," said 17-year-old Fouad, looking angrily up at the plumes of gray smoke rising from Basra.

He pulled a piece of paper from the waistband of his trousers. Unfolding it, he held up a picture of Saddam, showing the Iraqi leader sitting on a throne with a benign smile. "Saddam is our leader," he said defiantly. "Saddam is good." Comment: Can't they figure it out? The Iraqi people do NOT want them there. They are NOT liberators, they are INVADERS!!!

So just which companies were given first crack at the post-Saddam spoils? Well, given Team Bush's track record, it will probably not fill you with "shock and awe" to learn that the common denominator among the chosen few is a proven willingness to make large campaign donations to the Grand Old Party. Between them, the bidders -- a quartet of well-connected corporate consortiums that includes Bechtel Group, Fluor Corp., and, of course, Vice President Cheney's old cronies at Halliburton -- have donated a combined $2.8 million over the past two election cycles, 68 percent of which went to Republicans.

The insider track given these fat cat donors proves afresh that splurging on a politician is one of the soundest and safest investments you can make. Where else will a $2.8 million ante offer you a one-in-four shot at raking in a $1.5 billion payoff?

March 23, 2003 Today's edition of Brought to You by The Bush Junta, Produced and Directed by the CIA, based on an original script by Henry Kissinger, with a cast of billions....The "Greatest Shew on Earth," no doubt, and if you don't have a good sense of humor, don't read this page! It is designed to reveal the "unseen." If you can't stand the heat of Objective Reality, get out of the kitchen!

Just so you have an idea of the level of BS and propaganda (is there a difference?) being claimed about the "precision" of the military arsenal in this illegal war. As I speak US B2 bombers are dropping their payloads on the Iraqi capital Baghdad with its 5 million inhabitants. The B-2 bomber carries sixteen 2'000 lb. JDAM bombs. If all goes 100% as planned (the bomb does not fall outside of its specified margin of error of 13 meters, and the GPS guidance system is not foiled by a $50 radio jammer kit, easily purchased), then here is what one such bomb does:everyone within a 120 meter radius is killed; to be safe from serious shrapnel damage, a person must be at least 365 meters away; to be really safe from all effects of fragmentation, a person must be 1000 meters away, according to Admiral Stufflebeem. Yep, thats what I call precision!

U.S. dismayed as Turkish troops pour into northern Iraq The United States has formally abandoned the prospect of a northern front in the war against Iraq as Turkey has once again balked at cooperating with the U.S. war effort. But what is looming as a major crisis is the danger that Turkey will militarily pursue its own agenda in northern Iraq.Washington has been dismayed by the invasion of Turkish troops into northern Iraq. Officials said thousands of Turkish troops have crossed the border into Iraq in an operation that was not coordinated with the United States.

Flashback: Feb. 21, 2003 — Turkey plans to invade northern Iraq
"It would be notably unhelpful if [Turkish troops] went into the north in large numbers," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said. Turkey has denied an invasion of Iraq, Middle East Newsline reported. But at the same time Turkish authorities are believed preparing to expel foreign journalists along the Iraqi-Turkish border. "As an independent state Turkey does whatever it pleases," Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said. "We don't want to be misunderstood and therefore we are discussing the issue with our ally."

U.S. officials said Turkey has proven uncooperative in efforts to send American troops through that country and toward Iraq. They said Ankara has also delayed its agreement to allow U.S. aircraft through Turkish air space for strikes on Iraq. Officials said dozens of U.S. warships waiting off the Turkish coast were ordered to leave the eastern Mediterranean and head for the Persian Gulf. The ships were said to be containing about 20,000 troops from the U.S. Army's 4th Infantry division. Comment: I dont believe the US are "dismayed" at all The report that the Turks have invaded without US support is contradicted by the Turks themselves. The US is arming and supporting the Kurds who the Turks will likely attempt to wipe out once and for all. Nice setup, more death and destruction.

US: Attack from within An American soldier has died in a grenade attack carried out by another US serviceman at a military camp in Kuwait. Sixteen troops were also injured when the soldier, thought to be a Muslim, lobbed three grenades into tents housing commanding officers from the 101st Airborne Division at Camp Pennsylvania. Sky correspondent Stuart Ramsay, who is in the camp, said the first grenade was rolled into a tent where commanding officer Colonel Ben Hodges was based, but it did not go off.

But two other grenades thrown into tents where the unit's majors and captains sleep did explode, injuring Col Hodges as he ran out of the first tent. Ramsay watched as the suspect, an engineer from the 327th infantry assigned to the 101st Airborne Division, was held. "It appears he was hiding in a bunker near where the attacks happened," Ramsay said. "As the man who carried out the attack moved away there was some shooting. He was shot in the leg. He was held on the ground less than 100 yards from where the attack happened."

Ramsay said the soldier had been guarding a grenades depot at the time. He said fears about the soldier's behaviour had been raised by colleagues. "In recent days they were concerned about his behaviour and were not going to send him up to the front when the soldiers were going to be deployed." It is not clear whether the soldier, who Ramsay said would have been in the Gulf for some weeks, had planned the attack before being deployed. "To be honest we just do not know," Ramsay said. "Talking to other soldiers, it could be that he was disgruntled. They said he had been acting 'weird' for days."

War in Iraq - movement around Basra

The following is the English translation of the Iraq War report based on the Russian military intelligence reports. March 22, 2002, 0800hrs MSK (GMT +3), Moscow - Information received during the last night is very contradictory. During all day and night fighting continued around Basra, Al-Nasiriya, and on the Faw (Fao) peninsula. Despite of numerous reports by the American and British command about the capture of Umm Qasr the coalition forces have so far failed to establish full control over this small borderline town. Exchange of fire in the city is continuing. Elements of the [Iraqi] 45-th Infantry Brigade, which is defending the town, are surrounded but continue to resist and are trying to break out toward Basra.

According to intelligence reports, at Umm Qasr American and British forces have sustained 10 killed and around 40 wounded soldiers and officers. Additionally, the Iraqis have destroyed up to 8 British and US armored personnel carriers. "Iraqi resistance turned out to be far more determined than we've expected," the British and US commanders are reporting. - "They are surrounded but continue fighting even after losing much of their heavy equipment. Often we could only advance after completely destroying them with artillery and aviation."

So far there was no success in trying to clarify the reports about the capture or surrender of the 51st Infantry Division. According to intercepted radio communications, this division was fighting as a part of the 3rd Army Corp (Al-Nasiriya). It's brigades took up defensive positions along the northwestern approaches to Basra and participated in combat since the first day of fighting, which makes their voluntary surrender unlikely. Analysts believe that the anglo-american coalition reports refer to a surrender by a capture of one of the destroyed units or to a successful operation by their special forces.

Analysis of the video footage of the captured Iraqis, distributed by the coalition press-service, makes it difficult to accept the Iraqi army's "moral breakdown" story advertised by the Americans. Most of the captives retain their dignity and show no fear or ingratiation characteristic of demoralized enemy. In addition to that, Americans did not come up with a single video recording of destroyed or abandoned combat vehicles or any other equipment, nor did they provide any interviews with the captured Iraqis.

The US forces have halted their advance into Iraq and are now actively engaged in reconnaissance along the directions of Al-Nasiriya, An-Najafa and Al-Ammara. However, the main efforts of the coalition are being concentrated around the approaches to Basra. It is expected that by tomorrow they will build up a strike force to storm the city. Most major events of the upcoming several days will be unfolding in this region. Radio intercepts show that up to 25,000 British and American troops are already in the Basra region. The city is under a constant artillery and aviation bombardment.

During the past night a fuel supply convoy of the US 3rd Infantry Division was attacked by Iraqi special forces. Up to 7 fuel trucks have been lost in the attack. Three US soldiers were killed and nine wounded. Another three US soldiers are considered MIA and are believed to have been captured by the Iraqis.

As was expected, after realizing the failure of the coup against Hussein the US have resorted to intensive bombing of Baghdad beginning on the evening of March 21st. Just during that night Baghdad was attacked with 500 cruise missiles and over 1,000 aviation bombs. The city is engulfed by numerous fires.

Additionally, more than 20 other Iraqi cities were also bombed. More than 1,000 cruise missiles were launched against various targets and over 3,000 bombs were dropped. At the moment it is difficult to estimate the effectiveness of these strikes. However, judging by the high activity levels of Iraqi radio transmitters, the US was unable to disrupt the control of the Iraqi army.

Russian radio intercept units are certain that at least one coalition combat plane was shot down in these air raids. Our sources believe that the high-intensity air strikes will continue for another 24 hours and after that the coalition will be forced to scale down the attacks to conduct additional reconnaissance and to regroup its forces. A radio intercept made last night at approximately 4:40 am indicated that two British helicopters were shot down by a "Strela" SAM system after flying into a SAM trap. It is believed that the two SAR helicopters were to retrieve the pilot of the combat plane downed during the earlier air strike. The number of dead and wounded is still being established. So far the coalition command did not report these losses. (1)

The coalition commander Gen. Tommy Franks demanded from the Air Force a maximum possible increase in the close air support of the ground forces. During a "radio-bridge" with the commanders of all units Gen. Franks expressed his concern with the mounting casualties and the stubborn Iraqi resistance. "We've just spent three days trying to capture one small town, so we can only guess what awaits us in Baghdad!" - angrily said the commander and demanded better aviation support to soften up the defending Iraqi forces ahead of the advancing coalition units.

For the past day the coalition losses ar up to 30 killed and around 40 wounded. Ten coalition armored vehicles were destroyed my land mines. At least two armored vehicles were destroyed by anti-tank weapons. Iraqi losses are estimated in the range of 250-300 killed and up to 500 wounded. So far it is not possible to determine the damage from the night bombing raids. However, more than 500 people have been taken to hospitals in Baghdad - all of them were civilians.

Update:

While this article was translated the US Navy has confirmed that two British Sea Knight helicopters of the Royal Navy have crashed killing all onboard - 6 Britons and 1 American - a US Navy officer. The helicopters crashed at around 4:30 am. The official explanation for the loss was that the two helicopters crashed into each other while taking-off from a ship. It is interesting to note that during more than 25 years in British service there wasn't a single collision between the Sea Knights. The Royal Navy operates more than 300 Sea Knights and all helicopter pilots adhere to strict sets of rules during take-offs and landings from ships; rules that are designed to help pilots to avoid this type of collisions. Comment: As mentioned in yesterday's signs it is highly suspicious that the "crashes" to date are in fact that. The US propaganda machine is in full flight and its capacity for outright lieing is endless.

Captured US soldiers, including woman, shown on TV The Arab satellite station Al-Jazeera aired video today of interviews with what the station identified as captured American prisoners. A woman was among the prisoners. It also showed bodies in uniform in an Iraqi morgue that it said were Americans. The station said the prisoners were captured around Nasiriyah, a major crossing point over the Euphrates River 200 miles southeast of Baghdad.

In the interviews, two of the prisoners identified their unit only as the 507th Maintenance. Al-Jazeera was broadcasting footage from Iraqi television. Four bodies could be seen lying on the floor of the room. At least five prisoners, speaking American-accented English, were interviewed. Two were bandaged, including the woman. One of the men, sitting up, was being interviewed by an unseen person holding a microphone labelled “Iraqi TV.” The soldier spoke in English and at one point said: “I’m sorry. I don’t understand you.” The US Central Command had no comment on the footage.

The television crew interviewed several of the troops, including one woman. The narrator provided an Arabic translation, but it was possible to hear some of the comments in English. “I come to shoot only if I am shot at,” said one prisoner, who said he was from Kansas. Asked why he was fighting Iraqis, he replied: “They don’t bother me I don’t bother them.” Another prisoner, who said he was from Texas, said only: ”I follow orders.” A voice off-camera asked “how many officers” were in his unit. “I don’t know sir,” the soldier replied. Earlier US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said there were some American troops missing in Iraq.

He noted that under the Geneva Conventions governing prisoners of war, “It’s illegal to do things to POWs that are humiliating to those prisoners.” Displaying them on TV in a breach of the conventions. An amphibious vehicle carrying US Marines was hit by an Iraqi rocket-propelled grenade today, possibly killing 10, as it entered Nasiriyah, CNN news television reported. The amphibious vehicle was capable of holding 24 soldiers. It was struck by an RPG-7 round that penetrated the light armour with intense heat, CNN said in a report from reporter attached to the troops.Comment: Rumsfeld must be hitting the bottle lately, he seems to have forgotten the images broadcast all over the world of Iraqi POWs on their knees surrounded by razorwire. And I hear Blair is complaining about it as a flagrant violation of the geneva convention, he obviously hasnt heard the expression "people in glass houses..."

Al-Jazeera footage shows dead Americans Al-Jazeera satellite television today broadcast scenes of American bodies lying dead in a makeshift morgue and interviews with American prisoners who the station said were captured around Nasiriyah. Two of the prisoners said they were from the 507th Maintenance. A woman appeared to be among the prisoners. Comment: This is war, contrast this with Bush's hollow words of "peace" and a "just war". War is hell, the man and the people orchestrating this outrage disgust me. Having said that, this type of footage will serve to enflame the US troops in Iraq to show no mercy and commit further war crimes against the Iraqis. This in turn serves the hidden agenda of this war, which is the start of the discrediting and ultimate downfall of Bush and Co and the accompanying imposition of a "saviour government" with its "president in waiting". Who knows it might even be a Rockefeller..........

Senator requests FBI probe of forged Iraq documents The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee asked the FBI on Friday to investigate forged documents the Bush administration used as evidence against Saddam Hussein and his military ambitions in Iraq.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia said he was uneasy about a possible campaign to deceive the public about the status of Iraq's nuclear program. An investigation should "at a minimum help to allay any concerns" that the government was involved in the creation of the documents to build support for administration policies, Rockefeller wrote in a letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller.

Secretary of State Colin Powell has denied the U.S. government had any hand in creating the false documents. "It came from other sources," Powell told a House committee Thursday. "We were aware of this piece of evidence, and it was provided in good faith to the inspectors." Rockefeller asked the FBI to determine the source of the documents, the sophistication of the forgeries, the motivation of those responsible, why intelligence agencies didn't recognize them as forgeries and whether they are part of a larger disinformation campaign.

The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Sarah Ross, a spokeswoman for Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Pat Roberts, said the committee will look into the forgery, but Roberts believes it is inappropriate for the FBI to investigate at this point. The documents indicated that Iraq tried to by uranium from Niger, the West African nation that is the third-largest producer of mined uranium, Niger's largest export. The documents had been provided to U.S. officials by a third country, which has not been identified.

A U.S. government official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said it was unclear who first created the documents. The official said American suspicions remain about an Iraq-Niger uranium connection because of other, still-credible evidence that the official refused to specify. In December, the State Department used the information to support its case that Iraq was lying about its weapons programs. But on March 7, Mohammed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told the U.N. Security Council that the documents were forgeries.

Rockefeller said U.S. worries about Iraqi nuclear weapons were not based primarily on the documents, but "there is a possibility that the fabrication of these documents may be part of a larger deception campaign aimed at manipulating public opinion and foreign policy regarding Iraq." At a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing Thursday, Powell said the State Department had not participated "any way in any falsification." Rep. David Obey of Wisconsin, the committee's top Democrat, noted a Washington Post report that said a foreign government might have been conducting a deception campaign to win support for military action against Iraq. When Obey asked Powell if he could say which country that was, Powell replied, "I can't with confidence."

The Niger documents marked the second time that ElBaradei has challenged evidence presented by the United States meant to illustrate Iraq's nuclear weapons program. He also rejected the U.S. position that aluminum tubes imported by Iraq were intended to make nuclear bombs. ElBaradei has said his inspectors have found no evidence that Saddam has revived its nuclear weapons program.