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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]

 

April 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!

Sars virus 'mutating rapidly' - The virus thought to cause Sars is constantly changing form, say scientists - which will make developing a vaccine difficult. The Beijing Genomics Institute reported that the virus is "expected to mutate very fast and very easily". Other experts have warned that, once established, it could be particularly hard to stop the Sars virus causing problems. Sars appears to be caused by a new strain of a coronavirus which may have "jumped" from animals to humans in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong.

Is the Sub-continent immune to SARS menace? - Is the Sub-continent immune to SARS menace? Are people from India and Indian sub-continent immune to the fast spreading SARS virus? This question is baffling the medical community, with doctors discussing the possibility of the virus being race-specific. Some doctors are of the view that people of the sub-continent may have a higher level of immunity to the virus. They reason that with a large number of Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Sri Lanka frequenting SARS-affected regions like Singapore, Hong Kong and other territories, hardly anyone has contracted the virus. WHO (Delhi HQ) Information Officer, Harsharn Pandey avers: "It has been almost five months since the first case of SARS was reported from China, and the virus has spread to 23 countries, but not a single case of SARS has been reported from Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh". AIIMS virologist, Dr Shobha Broor says," Viruses are never race sensitive but it could be possible that people from this part of the sub-continent could have developed antibodies to counter the SARS virus."

CHILDREN HELD AT CAMP X-RAY - Children under the age of 16 are being held prisoner at America's brutal Camp X-Ray jail in Guantanamo Bay, the US military admitted today. A spokesman for the camp in Cuba was forced to confirm the detention of children after a report by Australia's ABC television.

Discover: Anything into oil - In an industrial park in Philadelphia sits a new machine that can change almost anything into oil. Really. "This is a solution to three of the biggest problems facing mankind," says Brian Appel, chairman and CEO of Changing World Technologies, the company that built this pilot plant and has just completed its first industrial-size installation in Missouri. "This process can deal with the world's waste. It can supplement our dwindling supplies of oil. And it can slow down global warming."

What happened to Iraq’s "weapons of mass destruction"? - It is now more than a month since the US assault began, and American military forces have gained control of virtually every square mile of Iraq’s territory. Not a single biological or chemical weapon has been found, nor any site which shows signs of recent manufacture, use or even disposal. Despite intensive searches, and despite incessant Bush administration claims before the war that thousands of suspected weapons sites were under surveillance by US intelligence agencies, the results are, in round figures, zero.

MSNBC Reveals Facts on Israel's Weapons of Mass Destruction - Here is MSNBC, giving us more information on Israel's weapons of mass destruction (WMD)than I've seen in any left-wing or peace-activist news source. Here is the mainstream U.S. media, that beast we love to hate, giving us a story that gives away the store. It's a story we expect the elite media to hide, because it is so embarrassing to U.S. policymakers. How could anyone cheer for the carnage in Iraq, where no WMD have yet been found, if they knew that Israel is the only Middle Eastern nation with a proven WMD arsenal? How could anyone approve of a U.S. policy that kills where WMD don't seem to exist and turns a blind eye where they obviously do? Far from hiding the story, though, MSNBC uses its graphic skills to put all the details just a mouse-click away. What's going on? Supporters of Israeli policy will give you an answer in a single word: anti-semitism. These folks are always amazing us with their charges of anti-Israel bias in the U.S. media, which they insist proves anti-semitism. It's silly, of course. If the media were biased against Israel, the facts about Israeli WMD would have been headline news every day during the debate about the Iraq war. Those facts were headline news in the Arab world. They were absolutely crucial, because they undermined the Bush administration's principal justification for war. But mainstream news sources here paid very little attention. Comment: here is the actual MSNBC page on israel's weapons of mass destruction

Analysis: WMD hunt vital for Blair - The hunt for Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, begun by Hans Blix and the U.N. inspectors before the war, is being carried on by coalition forces. It is no longer a matter of urgency militarily. But politically it could not be more important -- at least for UK Prime Minister Tony Blair. When British lawmakers backed military action on March 18, they did so because Blair told them Iraqi weapons represented a threat to international peace and security. Regime change was not the objective of British members of parliament. They authorized sending troops to get rid of the weapons which ministers promised them were the legal justification for war.

Powell puts France on notice - Secretary of State Colin Powell has warned France that it will face consequences over its unyielding opposition to the U.S.-led war in Iraq. Even as France appeared eager to mend fences, the top U.S. diplomat — viewed as the least hawkish among the top Bush administration figures — indicated that Washington was reviewing its overall relationship with the government of President Jacques Chirac.

Empire vs. Republic - George W. Bush’s doctrine of preemptive wars is creating a new deep divide in U.S. politics. On one side, Bush and his backers see the Iraq War as the start of an American global empire built around unparalleled military power. On the other, a scattered grouping of skeptics dig in for what they see as a fight for the soul of the American republic. Click for Printable Version Without doubt, the Bush side now owns the strategic high ground, asserting vindication in the U.S. ouster of Iraq’s dictator Saddam Hussein. Bush also can claim near total mastery of a U.S. news media that shed any pretense of “objectivity” as it flooded the nation with heroic images of American soldiers and heart-warming scenes of grateful Iraqis, while downplaying civilian dead and growing signs that many Iraqis resent the U.S. occupation.

Exploiting the Delusions of Money - We wondered why it is that amid all the right wingers in America today, the government continues to grow. And despite one privatization scheme after another, or one promise after another to reduce taxes here or government there, the government continues to grow. The American Constitution, as I understand it, was set up initially to protect the individual's liberty by making it incumbent on Congress to limit government. How else do you protect the market's (consumer's) sovereignty? But despite all the hoopla about how capitalist the Republican right appears to represent themselves today, most of them are simply part of the winning argument - big government. The rest of us, libertarians included, are irrelevant. Individuality is irrelevant. Because government continues to grow, somehow, and despite all the conservatives in power. Today you're going to find out how, if you don't already know.

Down a Dangerous Path - What Else Hasn't Israel Told America?- I was still a teenager, but I still vividly remember Israeli television, Channel I, showing some Lebanese women throwing flowers at advancing Israeli tanks that thrust themselves into the heart of Beirut in 1982. Israel invaded Lebanon with a long list of pretexts; one was to liberate the Lebanese people from Syria and "terrorist Palestinian groups". Following the "liberation", Israel staged an election that was 'won' by its main Christian Philangists ally, Bashir Gemayel. We have already learned of the Israeli role in the war on Iraq.

But aside from policymaking, American and Israeli media have informed us, on several occasions, that Marines Corps were dispatched to Israel to learn of the 'successful' Israel army tactics used to 'quell the Palestinian uprising in the Jenin refugee camp. (US News & World Report--Feb, 17, 2003) But if America, the brave, humbled itself to the point that it accepted to draw its lessons from the tiny nation of Israel, then maybe its time to learn the Lebanon lesson from start to finish. When millions of people around the world set to avoid the unjustifiable American army invasion of Iraq, they were moved by a straightforward point of reason: one, you don't impose democracy, and two, you don't free a nation with cluster bombs, let alone the lack of legitimacy and the unmistakable business interests tainting the Iraq "war adventure" from day one.

Others wished to see their resentment regarding the war as part of a greater, and more complex picture. In the last few years, there was more than one self-indicting doctrine, composed by the George Bush administration's top players that sought world dominance, even before the tragic attacks of September 11, 2001. A quick flip through the 90-page document: "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategies, Forces And Resources For A New Century", a blue print for future American foreign policy drawn by the same famous characters that have orchestrated and implemented the invasion of Iraq, would highlight the American quest for world dominance, for the sake of cheap energy and strategic control.

Marginalizing the United Nations, forging a British war alliance and invading Iraq was outlined in the document, and has been implemented, word for word. But "even should Saddam pass from the scene, bases in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait will remain permanently--despite domestic opposition in the Gulf regimes to the stationing of US troops--as Iran may well prove as large a threat to US interests as Iraq has". It's the above scenario that many of us fear, as we witness American government's eagerness in re-shaping the future of our world and the future of coming generations.

For those thoughtful individuals who refused to buy into the frenzy of the media and government war hawks' claims of an immanent Iraqi threat, the war is technically over. But those who are bold enough to admit that the end of the Iraq war is just the beginning of an illegal occupation that has already drawn lessons from the illegal and brutal Israeli occupation of Palestine and Lebanon, must realize that their responsibility in standing for peace and justice, has just grown tremendously.

Hawks Rip Into Mideast Plan- Israel's allies in DC tear up the roadmap

 

April 22, 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!

Mutation discovery raises fears over Sars vaccine - China's top genomics institute discovered that the Sars virus was mutating rapidly when it independently sequenced its genetic blueprint, raising new fears about developing a vaccine to combat it. "A few nucleotide differences among individual genomes were detected, as the virus is expected to mutate very fast and easily," said the Beijing Genomics Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in a statement on the internet. The institute says the mutations will need to be studied further to find an accurate diagnostic test and effective treatment for the fast-spreading and sometimes lethal viral infection.

BA Scott Ritter War Interview - On the issue of Iraq and Weapons of Mass Destruction, there is nobody I respect more than Scott Ritter, the former U.S. Marine Corps captain and disarmament specialist who served as a UNSCOM weapons inspector in Iraq for seven years throughout the 1990s. I have not simply taken his word for his insistent views in the last two years that Iraq had been qualitatively disarmed by 1997 and poses no threat to the region or the world. On each question raised by the warhawks, I have cross-checked Ritter’s arguments and assertions with others I respect in the scientific and intelligence communities who have assured me Ritter is correct in that regard. In that sense I believe President Bush and British Prime Minister Ton Blair have been misled on the WMD issues by their own hawkish advisors. I cannot vouch for the opinions of the war which Ritter expresses in this March 27 interview with the Foreign Policy Association’s R. Nolan. The situation may not be as bleak as he believes, and I certainly hope he is wrong about what the future holds, but the interview is important enough for me to put aside this weekend’s economics lesson and present it here in its entirety: more

Blix: 'US undermined inspectors' - American officials tried to discredit the work of inspectors in Iraq to further their own case for war, the chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix has charged. In an interview with the BBC, Mr Blix said American officials leaked suggestions that inspectors had deliberately suppressed information to the media in an attempt to undermine their work in Iraq. Excerpts of the interview were released just before Mr Blix went to address the Security Council in a meeting that could begin to determine whether he and his team are ever to return to Iraq. Inspectors were withdrawn shortly before the US launched a war to topple Saddam Hussein, whom Washington insists possessed weapons of mass destruction. The US has since deployed its own teams to look for weapons, which it cited as the key reason for launching war, but so far none are reported to have been found. Many nations on the Security Council say UN inspectors should be the ones to verify any new discoveries, and Mr Blix says his team could return to Iraq within two weeks if he was told to do so.

'Disturbing' Mr Blix said that in the run-up to war, the US had seized on his alleged failure to include details of a drone and cluster bomb found in Iraq in his oral presentations to the Council. Where are banned weapons? "The US was very eager to sway the votes in the Security Council, and they felt that stories about these things would be useful to have, and they let it out," he said. "And thereby they tried to hurt us a bit and say that we had suppressed this. "It was not the case, and it was a bit unfair, and hurt us. [We] felt a little displeased about it." He also reiterated his disquiet at how documents the International Atomic Energy Agency "had no great difficulty finding out were fake" managed to get through US and UK intelligence analysis. Also disturbing, he said, was the question of who was responsible for the falsification. US unenthusiastic Washington has so far shown little interest in the return of UN inspectors to Iraq. On Monday officials repeated that they saw "no immediate role for Dr Blix and his inspection teams". Although no decision is likely to be made soon, correspondents say Tuesday's meeting could be the start of a diplomatic initiative aimed at persuading the Bush administration of the benefits to be gained from allowing the UN inspectors back. The argument from many on the council is that independent UN verification that the weapons have been destroyed would help to win international support for the swift lifting of economic sanctions against Iraq.

Blix Questions Case for Iraq War Before U.N. Speech - Chief United Nations (news - web sites) weapons inspector Hans Blix on Tuesday questioned intelligence pointing to Iraqi weapons of mass destruction used by Washington and London to justify invading the country. In excerpts from an interview aired on BBC radio shortly before he was due to address the U.N. Security Council, Blix also accused U.S. officials of seeking to discredit his team ahead of the Iraq (news - web sites) war to try to win support for military action. "I think it's been one of the disturbing elements that so much of the intelligence on which the capitals built their case seemed to have been shaky," said Blix, faulted by Washington for not coming up with evidence of illegal weapons. Blix and his team withdrew from Iraq shortly before U.S.-led forces invaded in March. They are willing to return but Washington says it can do the arms inspection job itself.

Al-Jazeera TV crew filming Brit tank set on fire by local Iraqis banned - US exports to Saudi Arabia in the first half of 2002 plunged to a 12-year low, a report said Thursday amid strained relations between the traditional allies almost a year after the September 11 attacks. The value of reached 2.2 billion dollars on June 30, a drop of 30.5 percent from the same period in 2001, the Foreign Trade Division of the US Census Bureau said in figures released on the internet.

The Lesson Of History Which America Will Ignore At Its Own Peril - US exports to Saudi Arabia in the first half of 2002 plunged to a 12-year low, a report said Thursday amid strained relations between the traditional allies almost a year after the September 11 attacks. The value of reached 2.2 billion dollars on June 30, a drop of 30.5 percent from the same period in 2001, the Foreign Trade Division of the US Census Bureau said in figures released on the internet.

US exports to Saudi plunged to a 12-year low - US exports to Saudi Arabia in the first half of 2002 plunged to a 12-year low, a report said Thursday amid strained relations between the traditional allies almost a year after the September 11 attacks. The value of reached 2.2 billion dollars on June 30, a drop of 30.5 percent from the same period in 2001, the Foreign Trade Division of the US Census Bureau said in figures released on the internet.

Letter asking for money 'is a forgery' - George Galloway yesterday strongly denied soliciting money from Saddam Hussein's regime and dismissed the official Iraqi letter suggesting otherwise as a possible forgery. In the course of a long conversation, the Labour MP said it was "preposterous" to suggest that his pro-Iraq campaigning activities were funded by the Iraqi dictator. Asked to explain away the document found in Baghdad, he said: "Maybe it's the product of the same forgers who forged so many other things in this whole Iraq picture. Maybe The Daily Telegraph forged it."

Report: U.S. Has Plans to Bomb N.Korea Nuke Plant - The Pentagon has drawn up plans to bomb a North Korea nuclear plant if it reprocesses spent nuclear fuel rods, according to an Australian newspaper report on Tuesday that was quickly downplayed by Australian officials. Citing "well-informed Canberra sources close to U.S. thinking," The Australian's foreign editor Greg Sheridan said the U.S. has produced a blueprint to bomb Yongbyon if the plant went ahead with reprocessing spent nuclear fuel rods to make atom bombs.

Did the New York Times just change the rules of journalism? - The much-ballyhooed story claiming that Iraq destroyed its WMDs just as the US invaded raises more questions about the New York Times than it does about Saddam.

The shadow war: euro vs. dollar - In a recent article titled "It's not about oil or Iraq; it's about the U.S. and Europe going head-to-head on world economic dominance," the Australian economist and columnist Geoffrey Heard wrote: "Why is George Bush so hell bent on war with Iraq? Why does his administration reject every positive Iraqi move? It all makes sense when you consider the economic implications for the USA of not going to war with Iraq. The war in Iraq is actually the U.S. and Europe going head to head on economic leadership of the world."

IRAQ MUSEUM LOOT SHOWS UP HERE - Ancient art stolen from a Baghdad museum already appears to be rolling up on U.S. shores.