The
president's real goal in Iraq
By JAY BOOKMAN
deputy editorial page editor
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The
official story on Iraq has never made sense. The connection that
the Bush administration has tried to draw between Iraq and al-Qaida
has always seemed contrived and artificial. In fact, it was hard to
believe that smart people in the Bush administration would start a
major war based on such flimsy evidence.
The
pieces just didn't fit. Something else had to be going on;
something was missing.
In
recent days, those missing pieces have finally begun to fall into
place. As it turns out, this is not really about Iraq. It is not
about weapons of mass destruction, or terrorism, or Saddam, or U.N.
resolutions. This war, should it come, is intended to mark the
official emergence of the United States as a full-fledged global
empire, seizing sole responsibility and authority as planetary
policeman. It would be the culmination of a plan 10 years or more
in the making, carried out by those who believe the United States
must seize the opportunity for global domination, even if it means
becoming the "American imperialists" that our enemies always
claimed we were.
Once
that is understood, other mysteries solve themselves. For example,
why does the administration seem unconcerned about an exit strategy
from Iraq once Saddam is toppled?
Because we won't be leaving. Having conquered Iraq, the United
States will create permanent military bases in that country from
which to dominate the Middle East, including neighboring
Iran.
Comment: And, as we have stated repeatedly: the
Bush gang plans to NUKE Israel. That's the goal. The destruction of
Israel has been the goal ever since the whole Zionism movement was
created by Nordic Elitists and foisted on the Jews. That was the
reason for the persecution of the Jews in WWII - scare them so bad
they would WELCOME the "resurrection of Zion," and would leave
their homes and flock to Israel to be "safe." It's just about the
cleverest Machiavellian manipulation we've ever seen - and it can
only be seen by a careful study of the history of these events,
including the connections between the movers and shakers. And
Israel has fallen for it hook, line and sinker. Sound too
"conspiratorial?" Well... sure. And we hope we are
wrong.
Israeli tanks
pour into Gaza
BBC
News On-Line
Palestinian boys run for cover as Israeli tanks enter Beit
Hanoun
The
Israeli army has launched a large-scale offensive in the Gaza
Strip, in what is being seen as a fresh blow to US efforts to push
a new peace plan for the region.
About 50 tanks and helicopters entered the northern town of
Beit Hanoun, leaving four Palestinians dead - including a
12-year-old boy, according to Palestinian witnesses.
The
Israelis say the raid was launched after dozens of mortar bombs and
rockets were fired at Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and the
southern Israeli town of Sderot in recent days.
The
incursion comes on Nakba, which Palestinians describe as
"Catastrophe day" - when they mark the anniversary of the
displacement that accompanied the creation of the state of Israel
in 1948.
It
also comes two days before the first meeting between Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon and his counterpart Mahmoud Abbas - widely known as
Abu Mazen.
Thursday's raid on Beit Hanoun was the largest Israeli
operation in recent months.
'Left to die'
Witnesses say Israeli bulldozers destroyed four homes belonging
to suspected militants.
They
say the Palestinians killed in the raid included two men and a
12-year-old boy.
According to doctors, the boy was left to bleed to death, as
Israeli troops prevented paramedics from reaching the
scene.
The
Israeli army said it knew nothing about the circumstances of the
boy's death....
There were clashes on Wednesday in the Gaza Strip, where the
Israeli army shot dead five Palestinians.
Observers say the renewed violence suggests the international
peace plan is having no impact....
Comment: So we have Palestinian
"terrorists", Hamas, financed by the Mossad, provoking Israeli
attacks to derail the so-called "peace process." And every day it
gets worse.
If you are American, think back to before Bush
stole the election. Think about your life as it was then. Can you
feel the differences in how secure you felt, in the things you
worried about under Clinton and the terror of the situation under
the Bush Reich?
Of course, if you were Palestinian, you would have
been living under these conditions since the Zionist terrorists
expelled the Palestinians from their homes and land after WWII. But
that happened in one, fell swoop. The water is being turned up to
boiling one degree at a time in the US so that you get used to the
change, so that it starts to feel warm and comfortable having the
Bush gang "taking care" of you, looking out against those
foreigners who don't value the American way of death.
And those protesters, aren't they disturbing? Why
don't they just shut up. They make so much noise...and about what?
We can't DO anything anyway...boy it feels good here in this
warmth...I'm feeling just a bit tired...maybe I'll catch a few
winks before the game...mmmm
"Settlements: a user guide"
Gabriel Ash
YellowTimes.org Columnist (United States)
Colin Powell's list of humiliations in Israel included a
lecture by Prime Minister Sharon explaining to him why Israel
cannot stop expanding settlements. Sharon asked Powell, "What do
you want, for a pregnant woman to have an abortion just because she
is a settler?"
The
imagery of settlers as benign civilians, just wanting to live their
lives as they choose, serves Sharon's intentions of burying the
"roadmap" and saving Israel once more from the looming threat of
peace. Indeed, the continuing expansion of settlements during the
Oslo process already "saved" Israel from peace once. From 1993 to
2001 settler population in the West Bank increased 91 percent,
convincing Palestinians that Israel had no intentions to leave the
Occupied Territories.
But
that imagery is false. West Bank settlements are nothing like
suburbs in New Jersey. They are a fundamental aspect of what is
unique about Israel. It is therefore necessary to understand
settlements for what they really are -- weapons.
Comment: Excellent analysis from Yellow
Times...
Al-Qaeda Said Hated Vinnel Corporation
Marian Wilkinson in Washington
The Age - Australia 5-15-3
The
bloody attacks in Riyadh are telling because of their targets, in
particular the Vinnell Corporation. The residential compound and
the offices used by Vinnell were hit, killing nine of the company's
employees and injuring several others, two critically.
Al-Qaeda has a particular hatred for the US Vinnell Corporation
because it trains the Saudi Arabian National Guard, the country's
internal security force and an integral part of the Saudi military
forces.
...In 1992 Vinnell was taken over by the Carlyle group, whose
chairman was Ronald Reagan's former defence secretary, Frank
Carlucci. George Bush snr would later act on behalf of Carlyle and
in 1993 Mr Bush snr's former secretary of state, James Baker,
joined the company.
...Indeed Vinnell, says Briody, "paved the way for co-operation
between the United States and Saudi Arabia during the (first) Gulf
War". It was this co-operation that infuriated Osama bin
Laden.
Comment: With Al Quaeda as the CIA and US
government's "spokesperson" in the Middle Mast (and just about
anywhere else they are needed), it seems the
bombing of the Vinnel Corporation's offices was just another
inside job or 9/11 on a small scale. For the masses it establishes
the "proof" of a "terrorist" threat in Saudi, and to the Saudi
Royals themselves (who know only too well who the real terrorists
are) it sends the message that they are next in line for
"liberation" US style, with the subsequent acquisition of their oil
supplies - the largest in the world, coincidentally.
For the past 100 years various US agencies have
been engaged in secret wars to secure American worldwide economic
predominance, but there is only so much that can be achieved in
secret however since the "shock and awe" value to other countries
is lost. Now, with the entrance of Al Quaeda onto the world scene
the US has conveniently been provided with the perfect oportunity
to take its, to date, secret war out into the open. All must now
bow before the force of the American drive to dominate
all.
Sound dramatic? The real drama hasn't even begun
yet...
Local Company's
Employees Die In Saudi Bombing Fairfax Company Has 70 Employees In
Targeted Area
NBC4
While there were casualties in Monday's attacks, there also was
fortunate coincidence. At the time of the suicide bombing, 50 of
the 70 employees were away on a training mission.
Comment: What a surprise! The terrorist
pilots who allegedly flew planes into the WTC were Saudis - Vinnell
has been training the Saudi guard for 25 years - and now Vinnell
employees were "coincindentally" away "on a training mission" at
the time of the attack...
The article doesn't mention the real nature of
Vinnell Corp. Why, they're just our neighbors...even if access is
by coded key. Welcome to our neighborhood! Can you say "C-I-A
F-R-O-N-T"?
And check out the sidebar in this article on how to
protect your family. Turning up the heat, one degree at a
time.
U.S. sees
organized crime in Baghdad
Betsy Pisik
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
BAGHDAD — U.S. military officials yesterday blamed
organized gangs affiliated with the deposed Ba'ath Party and
Iranian-backed Shi'ite groups for the lawlessness sweeping the
Iraqi capital and pledged to crack down on the groups.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld announced in Washington
the deployment of an additional 15,000 to 20,000 troops to Iraq to
add "muscle" to that effort.
[...] The instability has compromised the good will of ordinary
Iraqis toward U.S. forces, who are seen as impotent against the
looters or, worse, unconcerned. Many Iraqis swear they have seen
U.S. tanks and troops stand by as looters break into museums,
libraries and schools.
While some of the chaos is the work of common criminals, Iraqis
and American officials agree that organized elements increasingly
are using the violence to undermine U.S. credibility.
Comment: Credibility! As if the lying,
disinfo, hypocrisy, and manipulation were not to blame.
They
say the gangs are affiliated either with Saddam Hussein's deposed
Ba'ath Party or with Shi'ite groups, both of which are eager to
turn Iraqi citizens against the American presence.
[...] Mr. Rumsfeld and Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, vice
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, announced that 15,000 to
20,000 troops from the 1st Armored Division would arrive in Iraq in
the next seven to 20 days to complement more than 140,000 service
members already there. [...]
Comment: What, 140,000 troops and the best
military toys money can buy aren't enough?
Bremer
demands law and order in Baghdad
CBC
News On-Line
BAGHDAD - The new U.S. administrator in Iraq says his top
priority is to bring law and order to the streets of
Baghdad...
"It
is my responsibility as the administrator of the coalition
provisional authority … to bring security back to Iraq,"
Bremer said...
The
military denied a report that soldiers on the ground are operating
under a shoot-to-kill policy dealing with looters – even as a
looter was shot and wounded in Mosul.
The
U.S. army said members of the 101st Airborne Assault Division
returned fire from a group of looters, wounding one. The rest
escaped...
The
lawlessness began when the regime of Saddam Hussein rapidly
crumbled in early April. Bremer said the situation worsened as
remnants of Saddam's regime began sabotaging the U.S.-backed
administration's efforts.
The
level of disorder in Iraq is in part a result of Saddam's general
amnesty granted last October to hundreds of thousands of prisoners.
Many of those freed were political prisoners, Bremer said, but many
were criminals who need to be rearrested.
Despite the problems, Bremer said "across most of Iraq, life is
getting better."
Comment: Yeah, all the problems are still
Saddam's fault. However, no one is looting the well-guarded oil
fields.
U.S. forces shoot looter in Iraq
Pauline Jelinek
May
15, 2003 | WASHINGTON (AP) -- A day after denying a shoot-to-kill
policy against Iraqi looters, U.S. forces wounded a looter from a
group they said fired on Americans.
Looters fired on 101st Airborne Assault Division soldiers
Thursday morning in Mosul, said the U.S. Central Command. Soldiers
returned fire on the looters, wounding one, and four others
escaped, it said.
"Coalition forces continue to actively patrol Iraq to make it
safe to conduct humanitarian assistance operations," Central
Command said in a statement issued from the occupying force's
offices in nearby Kuwait...
Blount also said U.S. forces reserved the right to protect
themselves against attacks and looters.
"We're not going to go out and shoot children that are picking
up a piece of wood out of a factory and carrying it away or a bag
of cement," he said. "Our soldiers have the right to defend
themselves, and have. And if a looter is carrying a weapon and the
soldier feels threatened, of course he is going to
engage."
Pentagon officials said Thursday's shooting was the result not
of a changed policy on looting but of a consistent policy on that
right to self-defense. Comment: We have seen how children have
become targets of the Zionist occupation of Palestine. Children
have been explicit targets in Iraq since the first Gulf War,
admitted by Madeleine Albright when she told an US network audience
that the deaths of 500,00 Iraqi children were "worth it" in the war
against Saddam.
Powell
flip-flops on lifting Iraq sanctions at UN
CBC
News On-Line
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell
briefly raised the possibility of suspending UN sanctions against
Iraq as Russia and France have urged but quickly back-tracked and
said the United States wants them lifted immediately...
Some
diplomats saw Powell's raising the possibility of suspending
sanctions during a news conference in Bulgaria as a trial balloon
for a compromise.
Eliminating the embargoes is preferable, Powell
said.
"But
we will look at the idea of initially suspending
sanctions."
The
White House and the U.S. Mission to the United Nations quickly
issued "clarifications," stressing the U.S. position is to lift
sanctions.
During the short flight from Buglaria to Germany, Powell was
back on message.
"We
are going for lifting the sanctions," he said.
"We
want to get 15-0 in the Security Council. I think a lift is
achievable."
The
resolution...would end UN control over the country's vast oil
wealth and allow the United States and its allies now in charge of
Iraq to use the money.
And
the new text would still authorize the United States and Britain to
run the country for a year - with automatic extensions, unless
Washington and London determined otherwise - and to control a new
Development Fund for Iraq where money from oil sales would be
deposited...
Planet X Appears
in Iraq
(Near Tikrit, Iraq-AP) May 15, 2003 - The US military says a
pre-dawn raid called Operation: Planet X in northern Iraq Thursday
netted more than 260 prisoners. Heavily armed US Army troops
stormed a village near Saddam Hussein's hometown of
Tikrit.
Comment from a QFS member: Well it appears
Nancy was right! It appears Planet X arrived today in the form of a
military operation in northern Iraq.
US
needs to export Iraq's oil to avoid storage problems:
Pentagon
WASHINGTON (AFP) May 15, 2003 US officials are eager to ramp up
Iraqi oil production, but are stymied by the problem of finding
somewhere to store it all, a top Pentagon official said
Thursday.
"Iraq cannot produce much more oil or refine much more gasoline
without approaching its maximum limit of storage," Douglas Feith,
undersecretary for defense policy, said at a hearing of the House
of Representatives' Committee on International
Relations.
He
made his comments in support of US moves at the United Nations to
lift sanctions, resume Iraqi oil exports and effectively put the
country's vast oil reserves under US-British control for at least a
year.
"With oil production at only 125,000 barrels a day, out of a
prewar production of 2.5 million barrels a day, there is already a
dearth of spare capacity to store crude oil and fuel oil," Feith
said.
"This has led to shortages of both gasoline and propane, and we
have been forced to import both into a country that, as you know,
is rich in natural gas and petroleum."
Iraq
sits on the second-largest oil reserves in the world, exceeded only
by Saudi Arabia.
The
UN Security Council is considering the US proposal. Russia, France
and China -- all of which wield vetoes on the security council --
have been anxious to secure UN involvement to prevent Washington
from taking full control of Baghdad's oil riches until it hands
over power to an Iraqi administration.
Comment: Geez, they'll come up with any
excuse necessary to get their hands on Iraq's oil.
Worldwide
terror warnings issued
BBC
On-Line News
The
US has urged its citizens to leave Saudi Arabia Terror alerts are
in force around the world with Australia and New Zealand warning
their nationals to be on their guard in South East Asia.
The
Australian foreign office said Australians should be extremely
cautious in Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, the Philippines, East
Timor and Brunei.
These alerts follow American warnings of possible terrorist
attacks throughout East Africa and parts of South East Asia in the
wake of the triple suicide bombing in Saudi Arabia on
Tuesday.
The
US also said it had received details of a specific threat against
an area of the Saudi city of Jeddah...
...The state department also warned of a "continuing concern"
of attacks against Americans in Malaysia, particularly in the state
of Sabah.
...Western and Saudi officials have warned of the danger of
more attacks in Saudi Arabia.
The
US state department said there was a "potential of further
terrorist attacks", while the British Foreign Office described the
threat as "high".
Comment: Out of one side of their mouths,
they tell us that the war in Iraq has made the world "safer"; out
of the other, they turn up the heat another notch. They do this
with impunity and arrogance, assuming that people won't put the two
facts together and see they are contradictory. What is going
on?
Secret November
Deal for Iraq's Oil The Pentagon and Halliburton
JASON LEOPOLD
Months before the United States military showered Iraq with
bombs and missiles, the Department of Defense was secretly working
with Vice President Dick Cheney's old company, Halliburton Corp.,
on a deal that would give the world's second largest oil services
company total control over Iraq's oil fields, according to
interviews with Halliburton's most senior executives.
Moreover, classified Halliburton documents obtained by
CounterPunch over the past month prove that the war in Iraq was as
much about controlling the world's second largest oil reserves as
it did about overthrowing the regime of Iraq's President Saddam
Hussein.
The
deal between the Department of Defense and Halliburton unit
Kellogg, Brown & Root to operate Iraq's oil industry, which was
hatched as early as October 2002, according to the documents, and
could ultimately be worth $7 billion, couldn't have come at a
better time for Halliburton.
Back
in October of last year, Halliburton was saddled with a
multibillion-dollar asbestos liability and the company was also
suffering through a slowdown in domestic oil production.
Halliburton's stock price responded swiftly, plummeting to $12.62
in October 2002, from a high of $22 the year beforee, and rumors
began to swirl that the company would be forced to file for
bankruptcy.
But
news of a pending war in Iraq meant that Halliburton's financial
troubles would, like Saddam Hussein's regime, be
history.
Comment: This article is a detailed look at
this subject.
Blair wins US congress medal for Iraq war
support
WASHINGTON (AFP) May 15, 2003
The
US Senate voted early Thursday to award British Prime Minister Tony
Blair the congressional gold medal for his steadfast support of the
US-led military efforts to oust the Iraqi regime.
The
award was made "in recognition of his outstanding and enduring
contributions to maintaining the security of all freedom-loving
nations." "Congress finds that Prime Minister Tony Blair of the
United Kingdom has clearly demonstrated, during a very trying and
historic time for our two countries, that he is a staunch and
steadfast ally of the United States of America," the text of the
bill reads.
Comment: Excuse us while we lose our
breakfast...next in line are Pol Pot, Ghengis Khan, Idi Amin, and a
long shot, but still in the running: Adolf Hitler.
Reject Nomination of Bush and Blair for Nobel
Prize
Dear
Nobel Prize committee,
I am
writing to protest the nomination of UK Prime Minister Tony Blair
and US President George W. Bush for the Nobel Peace Prize, and to
urge the committee not to award this prestigious recognition to
them.
Norwegian Member of Parliament Harald Tom Nesvik announced that
he has submitted a nomination for Tony Blair and George W. Bush for
"their decisive action against terrorism, something I believe in
the future will be the greatest threat to peace."
From
what I understand, the provisions set by Alfred Nobel specify that
the winner of the Peace Prize "shall have done the most or the best
work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction
of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace
congresses."
However, Tony Blair has ordered more military actions than any
U.K. leader since World War II, with at least one military action
every year since 1998. George W. Bush has initiated a war not only
against Afghanistan, but an undefined, open ended "War on
Terrorism" which administration officials threaten to expand to
other nations such as Iran, North Korea, and Iraq.
In
pursuit of his "War on Terrorism," Bush has urged massive increases
to the size and funding of the U.S. standing military. He has also
embroiled the U.S. in civil wars throughout the developing world.
U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney has stated that the global "War on
Terrorism" launched by Bush "may never end. At least, not in our
lifetimes."
Many
global peace groups have been working hard and making change toward
ending violence and global suffering, but have been stonewalled or
even intimidated by the war administrations of Bush and Blair. The
courageous, nonviolent direct work for peace by groups such as
Women in Black (a 2001 Nobel Peace Prize nominee) and the
Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, stands in
direct contrast to the global warfare launched by Prime Minister
Blair and President Bush.
Perpetual war is not peace. Whether or not Bush and Blair's
actions are justified, their extensive and expanding pursuit of
warfare is not the same thing as working for peace by any
definition of the word, and does not amount to "fraternity between
nations, ... the abolition or reduction of standing armies and ...
holding and promotion of peace congresses."
I
hope that the Nobel Peace Prize committee will reject Nesvik's
proposal and choose to make an award that will respect the unique
prestige of the Nobel Peace Prize, and the individuals and groups
who have truly worked for global peace.
From Vietnam To Iraq We had to destroy Iraq in order to liberate
it: some eerie similarities between Iraq and
Vietnam.
Edward Herman
ZMag April 30, 2003
IRAQ
There are, of course, important differences between the US
invasions of Vietnam and Iraq. In Vietnam, from 1954 and till 1965
the United States simply tried to impose an imported puppet
government on a populace that supported a deeply- rooted communist
leadership and movement, and only in the last phase of the US
intervention did this country move to a full-scale direct invasion.
That invasion ultimately failed to conquer the target country, even
after a multi- year and devastating effort. By contrast, the
ongoing invasion-conquest of Iraq displaced an unpopular regime,
although one that had been supported by the invaders only 15-20
years back when its use of "weapons of mass destruction" was
serviceable to -- and the weapons provided by -- the current
invaders. The Iraq invasion effort also took little time to oust
the target regime, although the pacification process is just under
way.
But
there are also important similarities that reflect both the
continuity in character and policy of the imperial state managers
and their agents of propaganda and the minimal constraint on the US
exercise of power in the global system. One important similarity is
that both invasions represent cases of aggression in the accepted
meaning of the word, while in both cases the propaganda agencies
simply brushed aside or ignored such charges and usages,
considering them irrelevant to the operations of their leaders,
just as the right to exterminate the Native Americans and seize
Mexican territory had been unquestioned by their predecessors. In
the case of Vietnam, while admitting that its chosen and imposed
minority government couldn't compete politically with Ho Chi Minh
and the forces we were fighting, US officials and media charged
that it was Ho and the National Liberation Front (NLF) that were
committing aggression in resisting the rule of our puppet. We even
coined the wonderful phrase "internal aggression" to describe the
resistance of the South Vietnamese to our imposed government -- the
people in the country were committing aggression, whereas we were
"defending South Vietnam," meaning protecting against its own
citizenry a government of our choosing. The media never challenged
this Orwellian usage.
[...] Bush and Blair have committed an even more
straightforward aggression in Iraq, a case as clear as Mussolini's
attack on Ethiopia in 1936 or Hitler's invasion of Poland in 1939,
with an armed invasion of conquest against a small, distant country
that posed no threat to the aggressors, who were unable even to get
a Security Council legal cover for their attack despite bribery and
intense arm- twisting. It goes almost without saying that the
mainstream media are no more able to call this attack aggression
than the Italian and German media of the 1930s called their attacks
by their right name.
Comment: It's business as usual for the
military-industrial- pharmaceutical complex and it's lap dog media.
An interesting way to spend an afternoon is to research the
internet on Cointelpro activities in the 60's, and how activist
groups where infiltrated and the outrageous attempts at
discrediting them. The same is happening now, but with newer
technology and they have learned from their mistakes. Knowledge
protects.
Propaganda in the Free Press An Interview With Edward
Herman
ZNet
[...] DR: Is it compatible with a democracy to have these
filters [as described in the linked article] in the mass media,
filtering out unwanted information that is contrary to an elite
agenda?
Ed
Herman: I don't think it is. A democracy assumes that you're going
to have a free flow of information that is not going to be
constrained by special interests, and these filters reflect special
interests. The majority of people are not involved in the working
of these filters. The majority of people, for example, are being
hurt by downsizing and by the growing insecurity in the economy.
There ought to be media that would attend to these issues. In fact
there are. There are marginal alternative media institutions that
will publicize these things, but the New York Times and CBS will
not.
In
1986, Alan Greenspan went before Congress and explained why there
wasn't a great threat of inflation in the United States. The
reason, he said, was because workers were scared to death. Workers
were so insecure that they were not able to ask for wage increases.
I thought at the time, and I still think, 'My god, what a
condemnation of the system.' Worker insecurity should be considered
a real welfare detriment. If the system is making workers insecure,
isn't this bad? Isn't the system supposed to be helping, making the
workers happy? Yet the media didn't pick this up at all.
All
the union busting and the terrible weakening of the unions in the
1980's got almost zero attention. The media were focusing on the
stock market, in which 80 percent of the people were not
participating in any degree whatsoever. So, if you argue that
democracy requires a media that is going to be able to treat the
interests of 80 percent of the people generously and fairly, this
elite media that we have doesn't do it.
In
the election of 2000, the New York Times explained why it was okay
for presidential candidate, Ralph Nader, not to participate in the
national debates, and why his candidacy was irrelevant. They said
the other two parties "afford adequate options" to the public.
Nader was opposing the big military budget and the corporate abuses
that were growing, but he was not allowed into the debates. I think
this is a very good illustration of the fact that the media were
not allowing a discussion of the basic issues that were affecting
the majority of people. They were following an elite agenda. They
wouldn't talk about an agenda that would address the interests of
80 percent of the public.
This
has a corollary in the political system itself. The election was
essentially between two parties that were funded by business and
that served the business agenda. So the inadequacy of the media as
a democratic instrument was well paralleled by the inadequacy of
the political options that were given to the public. A democracy
needs a really good information system that is going to speak for
the majority as well as the elite and discuss issues that are
relevant to the needs of the majority. If this doesn't happen, then
we don't have a democracy.
DR:
If the media is a propaganda organ with these filters that filter
out objective information, where can listeners go to learn the
truth?
Ed
Herman: That's a tough proposition. Actually, if you read the
mainstream media, and if you have some advance knowledge of what to
look for, there's a lot in there that you can find, but you have to
know what to look for. In other words, you have to have frames of
reference and an analysis that allows you to look at the media
critically. [...]
July 3,
National Public Hearings to Repeal the Patriot
Act
Kellie Gasink Thursday May 15, 2003
On
July 3, cities around the country will sponsor independent public
hearings called by the National Coalition to Repeal the Patriot
Act. I would like the folks in each city to select a representative
to work with me because I will be working through ALL the steps to
make these a successful public hearings with all the cities that
choose to hold public hearings.
Comment: Information on
how to participate is available at the original
article.
Arab Reaction
to Riyadh Bombing
Los
Angeles Times
AMMAN, Jordan The suicide bombing attacks in the Saudi capital
of Riyadh this week left many Arabs appalled at the death toll and
frustrated that the United States seems blind to the anger
triggered by its Mideast policies.
People on the street, policy experts and major newspapers alike
expressed a mix of sympathy for the victims and exasperation with
U.S. leaders. Many Arabs believe that the U.S. adheres to a double
standard, unleashing its fury against Muslim Iraq but ignoring
transgressions by other countries.
At
the same time, the perpetrators of the car bomb attacks - which
killed 34, including at least seven Americans - found few
defenders. The fact that the attack claimed the lives of civilians
and fellow Arabs didn't play well in the region.
[...] "These attacks are going to keep happening, because each
time the U.S. does things to humiliate the Arabs and Muslims, it is
encouraging these fundamentalists," he said.
But
hatred and resentment are no excuse for murder, said Syrian
merchant Amin Rammal.
"God
did not say go kill people and bomb them even if they were
bastards," he said. "I hate what my neighbor does to me, but I will
not torch his house. On the contrary, I visit him when he is sick -
this is what God wants us to do."
The
attacks also drew condemnation from Palestinian Authority President
Yasser Arafat, who has been frozen out by Washington for allegedly
failing to rein in militants, and from Arab League chief Amr
Moussa.
Arab
League spokesman Hisham Youssef said extremism is fed by U.S.
favoritism toward Israel and by unilateral military actions against
nations such as Iraq.
"The
American policy is not conducive to defeating terrorism, whether in
the occupied territories or in Iraq. What we are seeing now are
repercussions of that policy," Youssef said.
Palestinian newspaper columnist Adli Sadek wrote in the Al
Hayat al Jadeeda daily that the U.S. could not uproot terrorism
unless it "adopted clean and just policies, quit its greedy
ambitions in Iraq, ended its bias toward the killers in the
occupied Palestinian land and stopped threatening
others."
Others think that the attackers were targeting Saudi Arabia
more than the United States.
Comment: The U.S. knows exactly what it is
doing. The Bush Reich is sowing the seeds of terror and mayhem and
perpetual war.
Lawmakers
question $5.6B bioterror bill
Nicholas M. Horrock
UPI Chief White House Correspondent
WASHINGTON, May 15 (UPI) -- House Homeland Security Committee
members on Thursday sharply questioned the cost, usefulness and
adequacy of a $5.6 billion, 10-year Bush administration plan
designed to pay drug companies incentives to make vaccines and
treatments for deadly terrorist bio-weapons like
anthrax.
...The pharmaceutical industry wanted the government to provide
companies with liability protections in this event, but Tauzin said
such provisions are not in this version of the bill. The Joint
Committee on Homeland Security also will present its version of the
bill.
Comment: A convenient way to take out large
chunks of the American population. The pharmaceutical companies
can't be sued and they can always claim they where just trying to
save lives. Manufactured terrorist events with a manufactured "bio
terror product" where the cure is worse than the disease. The U.S.
government sees you as the enemy to their plans.
France Accuses Bush of Smear Campaign
Phil
Brennan
Thursday May 15, 2003
France says it is a victim of a smear campaign by the Bush
administration whose officials are spreading lies about French
complicity with Saddam Hussein's regime, a charge Washington
dismisses.
The
French government's accusation comes in a letter written by the
French ambassador Jean-David Levitte to the United States, due to
be delivered to the White House and Congress today, a French
diplomat familiar with its contents told CNN.
"This is not acceptable," said one French diplomat. France
"does not consider it a policy, but considers that some people have
done some damage to the relationship."
But
a U.S. official involved in national security matters told CNN the
French claim was baseless. "There are a lot of things we don't
like, and we have not been shy about that," the U.S. official told
the cable network. "But there is no campaign against the French."
That the Bush administration bitterly resented the French role in
blocking a U.S.-led attempt to win the support of the U.N. Security
Council for a second resolution authorizing military action in Iraq
is no secret, especially since the French campaign succeeded and
the United States, Great Britain and Spain were forced to go ahead
and invade Iraq with a "coalition of the willing" without U.N.
backing.
"We
cannot accept to be accused repeatedly for stories sourced in the
administration for things we have not done," said the French
diplomat familiar with the letter. "Who did this? Why? For what
agenda?" the diplomat wondered aloud.
In
his letter, Ambassador Levitte cited eight examples he charged
proves that there is a deliberate U.S. campaign to spread
misinformation about the French government....
Here
is an edited excerpt of the text from the list from CNN:
In a
September 2002 "Week in Review" section, The New York Times
published an article entitled "Psst ... Can I Get a Bomb Trigger?"
alleging that in 1998 France and Germany had supplied Iraq with
high-precision switches used in detonating nuclear
weapons.
The
French Embassy issued a denial, which was published the following
week in that section's Letters to the Editor column, noting that a
French company had indeed received an order for 120 switches,
presented as "spare parts" for medical equipment, but that the
French authorities had immediately barred this sale and alerted
both Germany and the country that had previously sold the equipment
that incorporated the switches.
[NewsMax]Editor's note: France Hates America and Is in Bed With
Saddam - Boycott Cowardly France!
[Signs of the Times] Editor's note: America
Hates France and Is in bed with Osama...and Saddam...and
Pinochet...and Duvalier...and every other evil despot since the
Second World War. Note to the Patriots: Feel free to send your
boycotted French wine to our offices...
A
Terror Tracking System By Any Other Name
The
Pentagon's Total Information Awareness program gets an image
makeover
TIMOTHY J. BURGER
Wednesday, May. 14, 2003 After attacks from civil liberties
advocates on the left and the right, the Pentagon is planning to
change a controversial system now being developed to hunt
terrorists plotting attacks on the U.S. Change its name,
anyway.
In a
report to Congress expected May 20 and now being circulated to top
Defense Department brass for comment, the Total Information
Awareness program headed by controversial ex-Navy Admiral John
Poindexter is slated to be re-named with the more narrowly-focused
moniker Terrorist Information Awareness, sources in and outside the
Pentagon tell TIME. Pentagon spokespeople declined comment on the
plan or on what, if any, substantive changes might accompany a
possible name- change.
In a
recent congressional hearing, Tony Tether, head of the Pentagon
agency that houses the program, said TIA would be operated with the
expectation that "the American public and their elected officials
must have confidence that their liberties will not be violated
before they would accept this kind of technology."
Critics have said the program, as described by Poindexter at
various points since its inception, could promote Big Brother-like
government snooping on ordinary Americans as much as on terror
suspects.
"We
must become much more efficient and more clever in the ways we find
new sources of data, mine information from the new and old,
generate information, make it available for analysis, convert it to
knowledge, and create actionable options," Poindexter said last
year. Poindexter has been controversial for his role in the Reagan
administration Iran-Contra scandal, which led to a 1990 conviction
for providing false information to Congress, though that verdict
was ultimately overturned in 1992.
Comment: We have already seen how the Bush
Reich is putting laws into place that will turn anyone expressing
dissent into a "terrorist", so this name change is just another
example of the window-dressing being done to fool those who prefer
prime-time idiocies to thinking clearly.
9/11: "The Opportunity of Ages"
Lack
of 9/11 investigation fuels war against the world
by
Rodger Herbst
Washington Free Press
[T]he Bush administration's National Security Strategy... lays
out a plan for permanent U.S. military and economic domination of
every region on the globe, unfettered by international treaty or
concern. To meet the demands of empire, a much larger military
presence over the globe is advocated, in addition to the roughly
130 nations in which US troops are already deployed. This strategy
is derived directly from conservative think-tank policy dating as
far back as 1992, when it initially drew so much criticism that it
was withdrawn and repudiated by president Bush Senior. Now, because
of 9/11, it's back again, without the benefit of public
debate.
According to journalist John Pilger, the conservative think
tank Project for a New American Century (PNAC) proposed two years
ago that what was needed for America to dominate the world and its
resources was "some catastrophic and catalysing event"like a new
Pearl Harbor." According to Pilger's report, "The attacks of 11
September 2001 provided the 'new Pearl Harbor,' described as 'the
opportunity of ages.'... The PNAC was founded by Dick Cheney,
Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz (deputy defense secretary), and
others, including Richard Perle. Pilger cites a quote from Perle
from a recent interview. Perle said "This is total war. We are
fighting a variety of enemies. There are lots of them out there.
All this talk about first we are going to do Afghanistan, then we
will do Iraq... this is entirely the wrong way to go about it. If
we just let our vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it
entirely and we don't try to piece together clever diplomacy, but
just wage a total war... our children will sing great songs about
us years from now." (London New Statesman, 16 December 2002,
pilger.carlton.com)
Contributions flow from firms wanting Iraq
work
By
THOMAS HARGROVE
Scripps Howard News Service May 14, 2003
WASHINGTON - Construction and engineering firms seeking federal
contracts to rebuild war-torn Iraq made millions of dollars in
political contributions last year, including extensive use of
big-money donations to the major political parties.
Three-minute
discrepancy in tape Cockpit voice recording ends before Flight 93's
official time of impact
WILLIAM BUNCH
THE
FINAL three minutes of hijacked United Flight 93 are still a
mystery more than a year after it crashed in western Pennsylvania -
even to grieving relatives who sought comfort in listening to its
cockpit tapes in April.
A
Daily News investigation has found a roughly three-minute gap
between the time the tape goes silent - according to
government-prepared transcripts - and the time that top scientists
have pinpointed for the crash.
Several leading seismologists agree that Flight 93 crashed last
Sept. 11 at 10:06:05 a.m., give or take a couple of seconds. Family
members allowed to hear the cockpit voice recorder in Princeton,
N.J., last spring were told it stopped just after 10:03.
The
FBI and other agencies refused repeated requests to explain the
discrepancy.
Comment: And the Bush Reich needs a good
source of propaganda for the easily duped, and to hide their
complicity. The signs team has just discovered this site that
points out the many discrepancies.
http://www.flight93crash.com/
But this is a small "discrepency" compared to that
around the "plane" that hit the Pentagon. Keep the public focused
on Flight 93 so that they don't ask too many questions about Flight
77. We see this manoeuver over and over again. This week we have
Bob Graham venting his storm and fury about the Congressional
investigation into 9/11, all staged to make us think that the CIA,
the Pentagon and the other spooks had prior information but didn't
act...which ignores the real questions about the complicity of the
Pentagon etc in the actual organization of the attacks of 9/11 in
order to implement the whole Bush Reich fascist agenda.
But, no, that is just too scary to think about
while the temperature is being turned up one degree at a
time...
Dirty
bomb victims 'may be shot'
JOHN
INNES
The Scotsman
POLICE could be forced to shoot members of the public to
maintain order in the event of a terrorist "dirty bomb" or
biological attack on Britain, it was claimed yesterday.
The
Police Federation annual conference in Blackpool was told that so
few officers have been trained to deal with a chemical, biological,
nuclear or radiological strike that they would have to resort to
"very unsavoury but necessary" crowd control.
Bob
Elder, the chairman of the constables’ central committee, did
not refer specifically to officers firing on civilians, but sources
within the organisation said it was clear police could have to
resort to firearms to stop contamination being spread by fleeing
victims.
The
government had failed to explain how important it would be to keep
the public inside a cordon after such an atrocity, Mr Elder
said.
"This is not about creating mass hysteria," he said. "This is
about the opposite. The public has a right to know.
"The
natural reaction from the public caught up in such an incident will
be to get as far away from the scene as possible. This could, of
course, only extend the problem."
In
another reference to the possible use of firearms to keep control
of an area, Mr Elder added: "We will be the ones who would have to
carry out that containment and we would be the ones held
responsible for our actions - whatever those may be."
Comment: Is it just me or until now wasnt
this type of scenario the stuff of science fiction and the movies?
Welcome to the 21st century, by the looks of things it may not last
very long, but just sit back and enjoy the show, you're part of it
after all..
Oakland
residents arrested while observing police violently detain a young
woman
by
Lia
Independent Media
Four
North Oakland residents arrested this evening while peacefully
observing Oakland police violently detain another Oakland
citizen
Ingrid Chapman, Josh Warren-White, and Brian Lowe were
attempting to photograph at least a dozen police officers as they
brutalized a young woman, choking her as she bled from the mouth,
and breaking her arm. Ingrid, Josh, and Brian were placed under
arrest and taken to the Oakland City Jail on charges of obstructing
an officer.
After loading the young woman police had been beating up into
an ambulance, the same officers then proceeded to a near by
residence and illegally entered and searched the house, without a
warrant or consent from the residents.
Another young man, Tim Barsky who had filmed officers as they
illegally entered the house, continued to film police as they
pulled away in patrol cars and vans. Police then stopped, jumped
out of their cars, placed Tim under arrest and confiscated his
camera.
Police then grabbed an 11 year old girl at the scene, twisting
her leg, arrested her, and confiscated the camera she was holding.
The child was later released.
Tim
Barsky, along with Josh Warren-White, Brian Lowe, and Ingrid
Chapman are still being held under $1500 bond each.
China threatens to execute patients who flout Sars
rule
By
James Palmer 16 May 2003
Victims of severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) who
"deliberately" spread the disease could face life imprisonment or
the death penalty, the Chinese authorities said
yesterday.
The
Supreme Court warning was issued as a doctor who allegedly broke
quarantine and infected more than 100 people became the first
person to be arrested for spreading the virus. Authorities in the
northern city of Linhe were preparing to charge Dr Li Song with
violating China's infectious disease law. He allegedly carried Sars
there from Beijing, violating a quarantine and causing an outbreak
that infected 102 people, including 23 medical staff.
FBI
WARN OF AL-QAEDA FUEL BOMB IN THE UK
Gary
Jones
The Mirror
Terrorists are plotting to hijack petrol tankers and turn them
into horrific mobile bombs.
Scotland Yard has been warned by the FBI that Osama bin Laden's
al-Qaeda plan to launch attacks against soft targets in the UK. One
anti-terrorist detective said: "The belief is that something will
happen soon." The threat comes after 29 were killed and 194 injured
on Monday night in suicide bomb attacks against western targets in
the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh.
The
explosions happened 24 hours after an email warning from al-Qaeda
to a London-based Arab magazine.
"Keeping police on the ground aware of what al-Qaeda are
thinking is a sensible course of action."
He
added: "It is not a question of being alarmist but prepared. We
listen closely to what they FBI have got to say. We'd be foolish
not to."
Senior policemen involved in Operation Lightning have daily
discussions with the FBI's counter-terrorism division in Washington
about the latest intelligence on movements of al-Qaeda
members.
The
FBI's report to Scotland Yard claims known "al-Qaeda operatives
have discussed pre-operational screening and acts of intelligence
involving fuel stations, fuel lorries and underground fuel storage
locations".
FBI
officers apparently intercepted messages between al-Qaeda members
talking about "soft targets" involving fuel.
The
warning ends by telling officers to "remain alert to the potential
for terrorist activity and attacks involving critical
infrastructures". Senior police officers have met Department of
Transport officials to discuss the potential threat.
Comment: Now for the real story. Go back and
read the above again and this time replace every occurance of
"terrorist" and "al-Qaeda" with "CIA". Seriously, it makes so much
more sense.
The
China Syndrome
PAUL
KRUGMAN
New York Times
A
funny thing happened during the Iraq war: many Americans turned to
the BBC for their TV news. They were looking for an alternative
point of view - something they couldn't find on domestic networks,
which, in the words of the BBC's director general, "wrapped
themselves in the American flag and substituted patriotism for
impartiality."
Leave aside the rights and wrongs of the war itself, and
consider the paradox. The BBC is owned by the British government,
and one might have expected it to support that government's
policies. In fact, however, it tried hard - too hard, its critics
say - to stay impartial. America's TV networks are privately owned,
yet they behaved like state-run media.
THE
SECRETIVE WORLD OF VOTING MACHINES
Lynn
Landes, EcoTalk
The
most successful coup is one that few notice.
Over
the last 100 years Americans have slowly but surely surrendered our
public voting process to private corporations and their voting
machines... in violation of our constitutional right to fair, open,
and observable elections. The price paid has been the legitimacy of
our democracy.
Voting machines can be easily rigged and impossible to monitor.
They are sold and serviced by a handful of private companies
dominated by active and wealthy members of the Republican
Party...
In
the secretive world of voting machines... anything is
possible.
Comment: Florida, the fiefdom of Jeb Shrub,
appears to be a laboratory for the future in the US. We have seen
how the Bush gang stole the election in Florida. We have seen how
it is where the "terrorist" pilots were trained at facilities known
to be a CIA front, and anyone who has travelled through Miami has a
good idea of what is laying in store for the rest of the country in
terms of humiliation and abuse simply for wanting to
travel.
Overnight appearance of dozens of bizarre crop
circles
The
Courier-Mail May 16, 2003
...has spooked a Sunshine Coast hinterland farmer and his
workers.
The
phenomenon, which was accompanied by loud "zapping noises", a flash
of green light, lost power and barking dogs has the Gowen family of
Glass House Mountains flumoxed.
Fifth generation land owner Kel Gowen said he was woken about
midnight on Wednesday by two loud "zaps".
His
farm hand, Noel Brady, whose cottage overlooks the 4ha of sorghum,
said he was also woken by the first zapping sound, which was
followed by the loss of power and bright green flashes.
Mr
Gowen said it was only during a routine check of his property early
yesterday morning that he noticed the 30 flattened circles in the
sorghum.
Mr
Gowen said his family had never taken notice of stories of crop
circles or UFOs.
Belgian
war lawsuits "very serious": US defense chief
BRUSSELS (AFP) May 13, 2003
Lawsuits filed in Belgium against US officials for alleged war
crimes are "very serious" and could impact on travel arrangements
of US officials, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff said
Tuesday.
Responding to a lawsit expected to be filed Wednesday against
the US commander in Iraq, General Tommy Franks, General Richard
Myers said it would be up to diplomats to work out the exact
consequences.
But
he said: "It's looked upon by the US government as a very very
serious situation... It is serious and it could clearly have an
impact on where we gather."
On
Wednesday a group of plaintiffs, mostly Iraqis, will file the suit
under a disputed Belgian "universal competence" law which allows
charges to be brought regardless of where the alleged crimes took
place.
Their suit relates to about 20 alleged crimes during the Iraq
war, including three cases where US troops are accused of firing on
ambulances, said lawyer Jan Fermon.
The
impending lawsuit has already sparked alarm in the US government,
which remains concerned about the controversial law despite recent
moves by the Belgian parliament to limit its scope.
In
March US Secretary of State Colin Powell said that, unless
restricted, the law could affect Belgium's status as an
international hub, including the European Union as well as
NATO.
Some
30 current or former political leaders are facing legal action
under the law, including Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon,
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, former US president George Bush
and Powell.
The Deep
Secrets Of Deep Space Might Just Be Alien Chit
Chat
Space Daily
London - May 14, 2003
If
we are not alone in the Universe, why have we never picked up
signals from an extraterrestrial civilisation asks New Scientist in
this weeks issue? Known as the Fermi paradox after physicist Enrico
Fermi, who first posed the question, this long-standing puzzle
remains one of the strongest arguments against the existence of
intelligent aliens.
But
two physicists say they have come up with a solution. They suggest
a way in which aliens could send messages to each other across
space that not only disguises their locations but also makes it
impossible for a casual observer to even distinguish the messages
from background noise. Messages sent by this method could be
criss-crossing our Galaxy without us ever knowing...
Paul
Shuch, director of the SETI League in New Jersey, also points out
that being able to disguise a sender's location would be extremely
useful for secure military communications here on Earth. "In a few
decades, when it's declassified, we may well find that such a
technique is already in use."
Comment: While the above may be "one of the
strongest arguments against the existence of intelligent aliens"
for some, to us it seems rather inept, short sighted, narrow minded
and even deliberately disinformational. Firstly, why would an
extraterrestrial civilisation want to overtly contact us? If alien
life forms exist and they are able to travel the vast distances
across the universe we might suppose that they are at the very
least more technologically advanced than us, giving them the means
to "visit" without our knowledge. It is amazing to see these so
called scientists tackle the "unknown" with such a limited and
restricting set of parameters into which the results must fit. It
is this type of "closed" thinking in general, pandering to the
edicts of the thought police, that is ultimately responsible for
the bleak future that apparently awaits us all.
Red Dots
Red
Dots?: Today, one of the QFS members wrote the
following:
"For
about a week, I've been wondering if someone has me zeroed in their
gunsights.
"When I first noticed a wee, golden light (firefly like)
streaking a half circle, to the right and just above my head, I was
driving to a store at night. At first I passed this off as some
kind of reflection from exterior lights; but, the phenomenon has
persisted, no matter how I alter the circumstances, and is constant
(every few seconds) as long as it's dark out and I'm moving, either
by driving or walking.
"Tonight, there was a marked change.
"I
went for a walk on the beach, to watch the lunar eclipse; instead
of fireflies, little "light bullets" passed, intermittently, from
right to left, in front of my forehead as I walked; but, stopped
whenever I halted and held my position in space.
"Anybody ever experience something similar or have a plausible
explanation?"
To
which another member replied:
"Earlier this evening I caught the very end of the news, and
they were speaking of a woman who had been arrested for reckless
driving with her children in the vehicle. She claimed that she
could not stop because the "red dots" would not allow her
to."
Comment: If you are experiencing red dots,
drop us a line at
sottSPAMNOT@cassiopaea.com.
Growing World
Urban Populations Threatened By Massive
Earthquakes
Space Daily
Boulder - May 12, 2003 A new study by a University of Colorado
at Boulder geological sciences professor suggests one earthquake
causing up to 1 million fatalities on Earth each century could
occur unless more earthquake-resistant construction materials are
implemented.
Professor Roger Bilham's conclusions are based on a study of
the world's urban population growth in the 21st century, including
the number of rapidly expanding "supercities" and their locations
close to major fault lines that have caused past temblors.
[...]
Gov
Urges Memphis to Build For California Style
Earthquakes
Space Daily
Washington - May 14, 2003 The federal government is urging
Memphis and other parts of the Midwest to adopt a new building code
that would make buildings as earthquake resistant as those in
southern California, where shaking is much more likely to seriously
damage a building.
A
new study by researchers at Northwestern University, the Reaves
Firm in Memphis, and Los Alamos National Laboratory finds that the
prescribed measures for the Midwests New Madrid seismic zone (NMSZ)
would cost far more than the damage prevented. The New Madrid
seismic zone includes parts of Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri,
Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, and Mississippi. [...]
Ancient Fault Lines May Have Become
Re-activated
Science Daily
On
June 18, 2002, a magnitude 5.0 earthquake occurred in southern
Indiana, followed by a 1.2 magnitude aftershock on June 25, 2002.
Because the region of occurrence, the Wabash Valley Seismic Zone,
is seismically active, Dr. Won-Young Kim, a seismologist with the
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University, conducted
research to determine the potential hazard of future earthquakes to
this region. His findings suggest that an ancient fault line dating
back to the Precambrian era of geological history (from 4.6 billion
to 570 million years ago) has become reactivated and was the likely
cause of the June 2002 earthquakes. Kim is presenting his findings
at the Seismological Society of America in May, and publishing in
the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America.
Keepers of Bush Image Lift Stagecraft to New
Heights
The
White House makes sure he's always ready for his
close-up.
ELISABETH BUMILLER (Associated Press)
WASHINGTON, May 15 — George W. Bush's "Top Gun" landing
on the deck of the carrier Abraham Lincoln will be remembered as
one of the most audacious moments of presidential theater in
American history. But it was only the latest example of how the
Bush administration, going far beyond the foundations in stagecraft
set by the Reagan White House, is using the powers of television
and technology to promote a presidency like never
before.
Officials of past Democratic and Republican administrations
marvel at how the White House does not seem to miss an opportunity
to showcase Mr. Bush in dramatic and perfectly lighted settings. It
is all by design: the White House has stocked its communications
operation with people from network television who have expertise in
lighting, camera angles and the importance of backdrops.
On
Tuesday, at a speech promoting his economic plan in Indianapolis,
White House aides went so far as to ask people in the crowd behind
Mr. Bush to take off their ties, WISH-TV in Indianapolis reported,
so they would look more like the ordinary folk the president said
would benefit from his tax cut.
"They understand the visual as well as anybody ever has," said
Michael K. Deaver, Ronald Reagan's chief image maker. "They watched
what we did, they watched the mistakes of Bush I, they watched how
Clinton kind of stumbled into it, and they've taken it to an art
form."
The
White House efforts have been ambitious — and costly. For the
prime-time television address that Mr. Bush delivered to the nation
on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, the White House rented
three barges of giant Musco lights, the kind used to illuminate
sports stadiums and rock concerts, sent them across New York
Harbor, tethered them in the water around the base of the Statue of
Liberty and then blasted them upward to illuminate all 305 feet of
America's symbol of freedom. It was the ultimate patriotic backdrop
for Mr. Bush, who spoke from Ellis Island.
For
a speech that Mr. Bush delivered last summer at Mount Rushmore, the
White House positioned the best platform for television crews off
to one side, not head on as other White Houses have done, so that
the cameras caught Mr. Bush in profile, his face perfectly aligned
with the four presidents carved in stone.
[...] Mr. Sforza works closely with Bob DeServi, a former NBC
cameraman whom the Bush White House hired after seeing his work in
the 2000 campaign. Mr. DeServi, whose title is associate director
of communications for production, is considered a master at
lighting. "You want it, I'll heat it up and make a picture," he
said early this week. Mr. DeServi helped produce one of Mr. Bush's
largest events, a speech to a crowd in Revolution Square in
Bucharest last November.
To
stage the event, Mr. DeServi went so far as to rent Musco lights in
Britain, which were then shipped across the English Channel and
driven across Europe to Romania, where they lighted Mr. Bush and
the giant stage across from the country's former Communist
headquarters.
[...] The president's image makers, Mr. Bartlett said, work
within a budget for White House travel and events allotted by
Congress, which for fiscal 2003 was $3.7 million. He said he did
not know the specific cost of staging Mr. Bush's Sept. 11
anniversary speech, or what the White House was charged for the
lights. A spokeswoman at the headquarters of Musco Lighting in
Oskaloosa, Iowa, said the company did not disclose the prices it
charged clients.
[...] Mr. Deaver said. "They understand that putting depth into
the picture makes the candidate or president look
better."
Or
as Mr. Deaver said he learned long ago with Mr. Reagan: "They
understand that what's around the head is just as important as the
head."
Comment: Especially when the head is empty.
Then there is the question of what they are continuing to feed into
the heads of the American public via EM waves so that they buy it
all.
Some
Audience Members Told Not to Wear Ties for Bush
Speech
Jim
Shella News 8 Political Reporter
President Bush came to Indianapolis to send the message that
his tax cut plan will help everyone and not just the wealthy.
That's why all those people sitting behind him were instructed on
what to wear.
...George W. Bush came to Indianapolis for the picture. And in
that picture, the White House wanted ordinary people.
"These are V.I.P.'s right, ordinary people aren't up on stage
behind the president of the United States when he's speaking but
the trick is to make V.I.P.'s look like they're ordinary people,"
said Bill Bloomquist, political scientist.
That's why everyone sitting behind the president wearing a
necktie was instructed to take it off.
Comment: Another form of mind-control,
folks, though of a more subtle nature.
Paths of
Glory
By
PAUL KRUGMAN (NYTimes Op-Ed)
The
central dogma of American politics right now is that George W.
Bush, whatever his other failings, has been an effective leader in
the fight against terrorism. But the more you know about the state
of the world, the less you believe that dogma. The Iraq war, in
particular, did nothing to make America safer — in fact, it
did the terrorists a favor.
How
is the war on terror going? You know about the Riyadh bombings. But
something else happened this week: The International Institute for
Strategic Studies, a respected British think tank with no
discernible anti-Bush animus, declared that Al Qaeda is "more
insidious and just as dangerous" as it was before Sept. 11. So much
for claims that we had terrorists on the run.
Comment: Yes, indeed, Osama is still under
the bed.
[...] And so it has been with the campaign against terrorism.
Mr. Bush strikes heroic poses on TV, but his administration
neglects anything that isn't photogenic.
[...] Still, we defeated Saddam. Doesn't that make us safer? Well,
no.
Saddam wasn't a threat to America — he had no important
links to terrorism, and the main U.S. team searching for weapons of
mass destruction has packed up and gone home. Meanwhile, true to
form, the Bush team lost focus as soon as the TV coverage slackened
off. The first result was an orgy of looting — including
looting of nuclear waste dumps that, incredibly, we failed to
secure. Dirty bombs, anyone? Now, according to an article in The
New Republic, armed Iraqi factions are preparing for civil
war.
That
leaves us facing exactly the dilemma war skeptics feared. If we
leave Iraq quickly it may well turn into a bigger, more dangerous
version of Afghanistan. But if we stay for an extended period we
risk becoming, as one commentator put it, "an occupying power in a
bitterly hostile land" — just the recruiting tool Al Qaeda
needs. Who said that? President George H. W. Bush, explaining his
decision not to go on to Baghdad back in 1991.
[...] The truth is that the pursuit of televised glory —
which led the Bush administration to turn its attention away from
Al Qaeda, and to pick a fight with a regime that, however nasty,
posed no threat — has made us much less safe than we should
be.
Comment: Of course, making the world a less
safe place is part of the plan.
The Long Reach
of Leo Strauss
William Pfaff (International Herald Tribune)
Thursday, May 15, 2003
PARIS - The trouble with American conservatism during most of
the 20th century was that it was not particularly intelligent. The
Republican Party was and is a business party, anti-intellectual and
to a considerable degree xenophobic.
The
radical neoconservatives, who appeared in the 1960s, are the first
seriously intelligent movement on the American right since the 19th
century. They want to remake the international order under
effective U.S. hegemony, destroy America's enemies and cripple or
eliminate the United Nations and other institutions making a claim
to international jurisdiction.
They
have a political philosophy, and the arrogance and intolerance of
their actions reflect their conviction that they possess a realism
and truth others lack.
They
include Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz; Abram Shulsky of
the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans, Richard Perle of the
Pentagon advisory board, Elliott Abrams of the National Security
Council, and the writers Robert Kagan and William
Kristol.
The
main intellectual influence on the neoconservatives has been the
philosopher Leo Strauss, who left Germany in 1938 and taught for
many years at the University of Chicago. Several of the
neoconservatives studied under him. Wolfowitz and Shulsky took
doctorates under him.
Something of a cult developed around Strauss during his later
years at Chicago, and he and some admirers figure in the Saul
Bellow novel, "Ravelstein." The cult is appropriate because Strauss
believed that the essential truths about human society and history
should be held by an elite, and withheld from others who lack the
fortitude to deal with truth. Society, Strauss thought, needs
consoling lies.
He
held that philosophy is dangerous because it brings into question
the conventions on which civil order and the morality of society
depend. This risks promoting a destructive nihilism...
He
believed that Greek classical philosophy, notably that of Plato, is
more true to nature than anything that has replaced it. Some
critics say that his interpretation of Plato is perverse, but he
said that he had recovered the "real" Plato, lost by later
Neo-Platonic and Christian thinkers.
He
also argued that Platonic truth is too hard for people to bear, and
that the classical appeal to "virtue" as the object of human
endeavor is unattainable. Hence it has been necessary to tell lies
to people about the nature of political reality. An elite
recognizes the truth, however, and keeps it to itself. This gives
it insight, and implicitly power that others do not possess. This
obviously is an important element in Strauss's appeal to America's
neoconservatives.
The
ostensibly hidden truth is that expediency works; there is no
certain God to punish wrongdoing; and virtue is unattainable by
most people. Machiavelli was right. There is a natural hierarchy of
humans, and rulers must restrict free inquiry and exploit the
mediocrity and vice of ordinary people so as to keep society in
order.
This
is obviously a bleak and anti-utopian philosophy that goes against
practically everything Americans want to believe. It contradicts
the conventional wisdom of modern democratic society. It also
contradicts the neoconservatives' own declared policy ambitions to
make the Muslim world democratic and establish a new U.S.-led
international order, which are blatantly utopian.
Comment: So leave the philosophy to Shrub, a
deranged chimpanzee (our apologies to the world's chimps
population...) who no matter how many infinities he was left to
type, couldn't write anything more than a declaration of
war.
U.S.: Ashcroft
Attacks Human Rights Law; Justice Dept. Undermining Key
Precedent
Common Dreams
NEW
YORK - May 15 - A new legal brief filed by the U.S. Justice
Department would roll back twenty years of judicial rulings for
victims of human rights abuse, Human Rights Watch warned
today...
"This is a craven attempt to protect human rights abusers at
the expense of victims," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of
Human Rights Watch. "The Bush administration is trying to overturn
a longstanding judicial precedent that has been very important in
the protection of human rights."
[...] No previous administration has challenged the legitimacy
of ATCA cases against gross human rights abusers. If the
Administration's argument were upheld, some of the cases that would
not have gone forward include:
*
The 1996-97 Holocaust Litigation cases against Swiss banks, which
led to a U.S. government-negotiated settlement to pay Holocaust
survivors approximately $1.25 billion. The cases were brought under
several laws, including the ATCA. [...]
Indigo and Crystal
Children
by
Doreen Virtue, Ph.D.
The
first thing most people notice about Crystal Children is their eyes
large, penetrating, and wise beyond their years. Their eyes lock on
and hypnotize you, while you realize your soul is being laid bare
for the child to see. Perhaps you've noticed this special new
"breed" of children rapidly populating our planet. They are happy,
delightful, and forgiving. This generation of new lightworkers,
roughly ages 0 through 7, are like no previous generation. Ideal in
many ways, they are the pointers for where humanity is headed . . .
and it's a good direction!
Comment from QFS member: I rarely listen to
the Art Bell show but I found myself listening to the show this
morning and there was this person by the name of Doreen Virtue,
Ph.D.(Pretty High and Deluded?) talking about the new "crystal
children" with the "big beautiful hypnotic eyes" whose predecessors
were the "gifted" indigo children. Evidently she firmly believes
these new children being born in large numbers at the present time
are here to save us from ourselves, Yeah, that's right, let the new
kids on the block save us from ourselves. Let's kick back, take a
long vacation and let the kids save the world!
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