It is hoped the threat of the Pink Peril will cut
misbehaviour
The threat of arriving at school on a pink "punishment bus" is
acting as a deterrent to badly behaved youngsters.
The
bus known as "Pink Peril" is the Isle of Wight Crime and Disorder
Partnership's answer to misbehaviour on school buses. Niki Haytack,
Crime and Disorder Manager, said: "When troublemakers get a taste
of the pink medicine, they don't want a second dose."
Threatening, abusive, violent or disruptive behaviour earns
offending youngsters a ticket on the bus of shame.
Comment: "Threatening, abusive, violent or
disruptive behaviour" sounds like a good description of the Bush
Reich to us. It should earn them a ticket on the bus out of the
White House in the next election. Too bad its probably already
rigged.
Wolves and
Sheep
SF Indymedia by Stan Goff Sunday May 18, 2003 at
08:38 PM
[...] Killing civilians was routine by now. This harrowing
description from Laurent Van der Stockt, a Gamma Agency
photographer with the New York Times Magazine:
On the morning of April 7, the Marines decided to cross the bridge.
A shell fell onto an armored personnel carrier. Two marines were
killed. The crossing took on a tragic aspect. The soldiers were
stressed, febrile. They were shouting. The risk didn't appear to be
that great, so I followed their advance. They were howling,
shouting orders and positions to each other. It sounded like
something in-between a phantasm, mythology and conditioning. The
operation was transformed into crossing the bridge over the River
Kwai.
Later, there was some open terrain. The Marines were advancing and
taking up position, hiding behind mounds of earth. They were still
really tense. A small blue van was moving towards the convoy. Three
not-very-accurate warning shots were fired. The shots were supposed
to make the van stop. The van kept on driving, made a U-turn, took
shelter and then returned slowly.
The Marines opened fire. All hell broke loose. They were firing all
over the place. You could hear 'Stop firing' being shouted. The
silence that set in was overwhelming. Two men and a woman had just
been riddled with bullets. So this was the enemy, the threat.
A second vehicle drove up. The same scenario was repeated. Its
passengers were killed on the spot. A grandfather was walking
slowly with a cane on the sidewalk. They killed him too. As with
the old man, the Marines fired on an SUV driving along the river
bank that was getting too close to them. Riddled with bullets, the
vehicle rolled over. Two women and a child got out, miraculously
still alive. They sought refuge in the wreckage. A few seconds
later, it flew into bits as a tank lobbed a terse shot into it.
Marines are conditioned to reach their target at any cost, by
staying alive and facing any type of enemy. They abusively make use
of disproportionate firepower. These hardened troops, followed by
tons of equipment, supported by extraordinary artillery power,
protected by fighter jets and cutting-edge helicopters, were
shooting on local inhabitants who understood absolutely nothing of
what was going on.
With my own eyes I saw about fifteen civilians killed in two days.
I've gone through enough wars to know that it's always dirty, that
civilians are always the first victims. But the way it was
happening here, it was insane.
Comment: The writer of this article,
Stan Goff, is a retired U.S. Army Special Forces Master Sergeant,
and he is angry. We have snipped away most of this article which
gives a detailed analysis of the illegal war in Iraq, often with
harrowing snapshots like the one above. He makes a point of
pointing out the psychopathic behavior of the Bush Reich, and the
horrible reality of how they used the military. After reading this
article in it's entirety, you just might want to have
Bush
impeached.
In Reversal,
Plan for Iraq Self-Rule Has Been Put Off
by Patrick E. Tyler
New York Times
BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 16 In an abrupt reversal, the United States and
Britain have indefinitely put off their plan to allow Iraqi
opposition forces to form a national assembly and an interim
government by the end of the month. [...]
"They retracted what they said before," an Iraqi political figure
said. The provisional government idea is gone, he said. As for the
idea of convening a national assembly to select a government, he
said, "there is no such thing anymore." [...]
Plan for Iraq handover government scrapped
Peter Beaumont, foreign affairs editor
The Observer
Sunday May 18, 2003
US and British plans for rebuilding Iraq were descending into
chaos this weekend as officials admitted they had indefinitely
scrapped plans for a transitional government and Spain revealed a
gaping hole in funding for reconstruction.
Allied officials told leaders of the Iraqi exile community, who
have flooded back to Baghdad that they had abandoned plans to allow
Iraqi opposition forces to form a national assembly and
transitional government by the end of the month.
Instead, say opposition sources who attended a Friday meeting
with Paul Bremer, the Pentagon-appointed civilian administrator in
Iraq, US and British diplomats announced they would remain in
charge for an undisclosed period.
[...] Meanwhile there is a crisis over funding for
reconstruction following claims that oil revenue will fall far
short of the $41 billion (£26bn) required over the next two
years to get the shattered nation on its feet. Before the war
senior US administration officials, including President George W.
Bush, suggested that the sale of Iraqi oil - at present still
covered by UN sanctions and administered by the UN's Oil For Food
programme - would largely pay for the reconstruction.
[...] Although Iraq has more than 112 billion barrels of proven
oil reserves, the second largest in the world, its oil
infrastructure is under-developed and deteriorating and - experts
say - would require considerable investment to realise its
potential as the economic engine of a postwar economy. In 2002 Iraq
pumped $13bn worth of oil, a figure it is unlikely to come anywhere
close to this year after deliberate firing of wells by Saddam's
regime and the near-complete disintegration of Iraq's civic
society.
According to the Spanish figures, renovating and modernising
Iraq's oil industry will cost $3.5bn alone...
Comment: Are we supposed to believe
that the Bush administration was unaware of the state of Iraqi's
oil infrastructure? And now that the courageous liberators have
freed Iraq from any semblance of social order, what are Iraqi
families supposed to do?
Iraqi Parties Say US Sidelining
Them
Maher Chmaytelli (AFP)
Arab News
BAGHDAD, 19 May 2003 "7 Two of Iraq's main parties
blasted the United States yesterday, accusing Washington of going
back on what they said was a firm US commitment to give Iraqis a
free hand in running the country.
Officials from one of the two main Kurdish factions
and the leading Shiite movement said the new US overseer, Paul
Bremer, turned back the clock on months of talks that began before
the war to prepare a post-Saddam Hussein government.
The charges stem from a meeting Friday night at
which they said Bremer had announced he planned to prolong the US
coalition's control over the country and sideline Iraqis from the
political decision-making process.
"What we're hearing now from Bremer is what we
heard several months ago," said Adel Abdul Mahdi, a political
adviser from the Supreme Assembly of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq
(SAIRI), the top Shiite movement.
"It's a return to square one," he said, referring
to negotiations before the war about the role of anti-Saddam
Hussein groups in a future government.
[...] "The Americans are doing as they please,"
said Adel Murad, spokesman for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan
(PUK). "Iraq is a big country. Foreigners cannot run
it."
The emotionally and politically explosive issue of
when the United States would be prepared to hand over power to an
Iraqi government was largely left untouched in the immediate
aftermath of Saddam's fall on April 9.
Kurds go it alone with international oil deals: Local
authorities ignore US administration and seek to lure major
companies with generous contracts
Andrew Buncombe in Washington
The Independent
May 18, 2003
Kurdish authorities in northern Iraq are offering hugely
lucrative oil deals to European and American companies without
consulting either the US administration in Baghdad or any other
Iraqi groups. The move threatens to raise new problems over the
future ownership of Iraq's vast oil reserves.
The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), which controls the
Sulaymaniyah region as part of the regional government of Kurdish
Iraq, has in recent weeks started seeking investment from
international companies interested in oil exploration and
production.
While most companies appear wary of getting involved in deals
with the regional authorities in the absence of a settled - and
internationally approved - government in Baghdad, the proposed
deals represent a challenge to the US-led occupying force. Some
have even suggested the proposals may be an effort by the PUK to
present any new government in Baghdad with a fait accompli...
1,700
Baghdad Civilians Killed in the battle for the Iraqi
capital:
LAURA KING Toronto Star
More than 8,000 injured, say records of hospitals, clinics.
Pentagon has no plans to present an official account of
casualties
BAGHDAD At least 1,700 Iraqi civilians died and more than 8,000
were injured in the battle for the Iraqi capital, according to a
Los Angeles Times survey of records from 27 hospitals in the
capital and its outlying districts.
In addition, undocumented civilian deaths in Baghdad number at
least in the hundreds and could reach 1,000, according to Islamic
burial societies and humanitarian groups trying to trace those
missing in the conflict.
More than a month after the war, no official tally of civilian
casualties has been given. With disorder attending the collapse of
Saddam Hussein's regime and the start of American military
occupation, one might never be made.
Robert Fisk: So
what was the war for?
LONDON. (The
Independent)
More than 50 dead in a week. Thanks for the Iraq
war.
Thank you, Mr Bush and Mr Blair, for making our world safer by
ridding us of the one tyrant - Saddam Hussein - who never had any
connection with 11 September 2001, or with the Riyadh bombings or
with the bombings in Casablanca.
The "liberation" of Iraq was supposed to free us from the bombers
of al Qaeda. So said Mr Blair. So said Mr Straw. Could you talk to
us, please, Messrs Blair and Straw? What was Iraq for? No, we don't
have any "claim of responsibility" for the Casablanca massacre, but
the nature of the cold calculation behind the Casablanca bombings
is sufficient. [...]
Afghanistan is in a state of anarchy, its pathetic government
scarcely ruling over Kabul. Iraq is in an even more incipient state
of anarchy, largely without electricity, money or petrol. And this
is a war of good against evil?
Casablanca is a sorry and pertinent page in the history of
America's folly in the Arab world. So what comes next? More boasts
by President Bush that he is winning the "war against terror" or
more claims - yes, he told you so - that the "war on terror" is
eternal? Heaven spare us all.
1,700 civilians died as US took Baghdad
By Andrew Gumbel
The Independent
May 19, 2003
A tally of Baghdad hospital records published yesterday
suggested that at least 1,700 civilians died in the Iraqi capital
during the US invasion and another 8,000 were injured. Several
hundred other civilian deaths went undocumented because of the
chaos of the conflict and the destruction of some hospital records.
As many as 1,000 people are still missing, according to Islamic
burial societies and humanitarian groups.
The tally "6 much higher than US propaganda might have led the
world to believe "6 was compiled by the Los Angeles Times and based
on a tour of hospitals in Baghdad and its immediate suburbs. The
paper relied on the meticulousness common to all Iraqis and dating
from Saddam Hussein's obsessively bureaucratic era.
[...] There was further disappointment over the weekend when it
emerged that the US and Britain had decided to put off plans for an
interim Iraqi government because of the security situation. This
had been planned for the end of this month and the postponement is
likely to bolster the perception that the foreign presence
represents a de facto colonial takeover.
Comment: Perception of a colonial
takeover? It IS a colonial takeover, pure and simple.
Do you
want to know who the Americans running Iraq really
are?
By
Jan Oberg 05/15/03: (TFF)
They
are people with a background in the far-right of the Republican
Party, the Israel lobby, Perle and Wolfowitz henchmen, central to
the war on terror, to the Homeland Defence authorities, to anti-ABM
and pro-Ballistic Missile Defence (Star Wars), close to
conservative think tanks, affiliated with mercenary companies, the
military-industrial complex (MIC) and CIA. They are former
"stabilisers" in Bosnia and Kosovo, and Marine Corps-people (many
in Vietnam); they are private consulting firm executives affiliated
with the inner circles of power in Washington. And, of course,
several are associated with the oil industry, the computer industry
as well as the media and public relations industry. With a few
exceptions they are Pentagon and not State Department people, they
are generals and technocrats.
Less
than a handful have any prior experience in Iraq or in
nation-building, conflict-resolution, reconciliation, post-war
trauma healing, civil society empowerment and other quite relevant
matters. In short, they are perfectly fit to "do" Iraq for the US
and totally unsuitable for the Iraqis. They are not accountable to
anyone, except President Bush and Secretary of Defence Donald
Rumsfeld. Their operations and decisions are not transparent to the
world community or any world organisation.
...DONALD RUMSFELD, PAUL
WOLFOWITZ & RICHARD PERLE
Ideologists with their own
Special Plans. Masters of a war meaning peace and other
"Newspeak"
With
the illegal war on and occupation of Iraq, the first two
personalities need no further introduction. They are Secretary of
Defense, Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Secreary of Defence, Paul
Wolfowitz.
Then
there one of the leading architects of the whole Iraq imbroglio,
"The Prince of Darkness", Richard Perle of the American Enteprise
Institute and of the Defense Policy Board. It's objective is to
"serve the public interest by providing the Secretary of Defense,
Deputy Secretary and Under Secretary for Policy with independent,
informed advice and opinion concerning major matters of defense
policy. Nine members of the Board have ties to defense contractors.
Further, Perle is well-connected to the international media world
through Hollinger Digital Inc., the media management and investment
arm of Hollinger International Inc. whose online newspapers and
holdings include The Daily Telegraph in London and Jerusalem Post.
Perle is also former director of the latter. He is on the board of
Onset Technology, the world's leading provider of message
conversion technology also with close ties to Israeli companies and
investment funds. Here is a more personal interview with Perle
about his background and beliefs. Perle is on the advisory board of
JINSA, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs. Los
Angeles Times recently revealed more about Perle's combined
political and business interests.
Comment: For a run down on the rest of the men
behind the scences read the full article
here:
New Front Sets
Sights On Toppling Iran Regime
By MARC
PERELMAN FORWARD STAFF
A
budding coalition of conservative hawks, Jewish organizations and
Iranian monarchists is pressing the White House to step up American
efforts to bring about regime change in Iran.
For
now, President Bush's official stance is to encourage the Iranian
people to push the mullah regime aside themselves, but observers
believe that the policy is not yet firm, and that has created an
opportunity for activists. Neoconservatives advocating regime
change in Tehran through diplomatic pressure — and even
covert action — appear to be winning the debate within the
administration, several knowledgeable observers said.
"There is a pact emerging
between hawks in the administration, Jewish groups and Iranian
supporters of Reza Pahlavi [the exiled son of the former shah of
Iran] to push for regime change," said Pooya Dayanim, president of
the Iranian-Jewish Public Affairs Committee in Los Angeles and a
hawk on Iran.
The
emerging coalition is reminiscent of the buildup to the invasion of
Iraq, with Pahlavi possibly assuming the role of Iraqi exile
opposition leader Ahmed Chalabi, a favorite of neoconservatives.
Like Chalabi, Pahlavi has good relations with several Jewish
groups. He has addressed the board of the hawkish Jewish Institute
for National Security Affairs and gave a public speech at the Simon
Wiesenthal Center's Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, and met
with Jewish communal leaders.
Pahlavi also has had quiet
contacts with top Israeli officials. During the last two years,
according to a knowledgeable source, he has met privately with
Prime Minister Sharon and former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu,
as well as Israel's Iranian-born president, Moshe
Katsav.
In
another parallel to the pre-invasion debate over Iraq, an intense
policy battle is heating up between the State and Defense
departments over what to do in Iran.
"The
president, the vice president and, even more so, the Pentagon
support regime change," said a source who follows the internal
debate closely. "But State does not want to meddle in Iran, so you
have a big fight right now within the administration."
As
was the case during the Iraq debate, Weekly Standard editor William
Kristol is leading the charge for a more aggressive policy on Iran.
In the magazine's May 12 issue, he wrote an editorial pushing for
covert action and other steps to trigger regime change in
Tehran.
...Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld and his deputies Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith are
known to support regime change, although they have been much less
vocal about Iran than Iraq.
...One key Pahlavi
supporter who has become popular in Iranian American circles is
former Reagan administration official Michael Ledeen, now a fellow
at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.
In
numerous addresses and articles, Ledeen has been arguing that the
mullah regime is on the brink of collapse and that the time has
come for Washington to push it over the edge. He has joined with
Amitay, ex-CIA head James Woolsey, former Reagan administration
official Frank Gaffney, former Senator Paul Simon and oil
consultant Rob Sobhani to set up a group called the Coalition for
Democracy in Iran. Several of them took part May 6 in a one-day
American Enterprise Institute conference titled "The Future of
Iran." During the event, Ledeen argued that help from outside
actors was needed to help ignite revolutionary changes in
Iran.
While Ledeen has not called
for military action, some of his declarations appear to suggest
that aggressive action could be taken.
Last
month, Ledeen gave a speech to a pro-monarchist crowd in Los
Angeles. In the question-and-answer session, he reportedly said
that with $20 million, there could be a "free Iran" — and
that he knew how best to use the money.
Ledeen, who was involved in
the Iran-contra scandal but never charged, declined
comment.
Asked about the possibility
of covert action, a member of the Pentagon-linked Defense Policy
Board answered with one word: "maybe." He refused to elaborate.
Comment: America's relentless march towards world domination
continues.
Our
friends the Sauds: Why Britain continues to allow Saudi Arabia's
corrupt ruling house to get away with murder
Nick Cohen
The Observer
[...] In Britain's case the corruption wasn't 'all about oil,' but
all about bombs. Between 1986 and 1988 Britain signed the
al-Yamamah arms deals, which authorised what was probably the
biggest weapons sale in history. The scale of the deal was
staggering. By the mid-1990s, Saudi Arabia, a country of just 13
million people, was accounting for 75 per cent of total UK arms
sales.
Just about everything else to do with al-Yamamah has been kept
secret. After this newspaper published accusations in 1989 that
bribes had been given and taken by both the Saudi royal family and
'British citizens with close contacts to the government', the
National Audit Office launched an investigation.
Its
report was not released. In fact, many MPs on the Public Accounts
Committee, which is meant to supervise the NAO, were not allowed to
read it either. Jonathon Aitken lied through his teeth in his libel
case against the Guardian to cover up the fact that John Major had
made him the Minister responsible for supervising arms procurement,
even though he had been up to his neck in arms deals with Saudi
Arabia.
You can say with certainty that the people of Saudi Arabia haven't
benefited. Their money has been pocketed by 'middlemen' and
channelled overseas to become the lifeblood of the British arms
industry. Without al-Yamamah there wouldn't be much of a British
arms industry.
There's a bluff common-sensical view which is usually dignified
with the label 'pragmatism' or 'realism' that mimsy ethical
considerations cannot stand in the way of business. But the result
of 'realism' towards Saudi Arabia has been to blind us to the
reality of one of the most frightening countries in the
world.
US POW rescue was 'stage-managed'
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
SATURDAY, MAY 17, 2003
NEW DELHI: The dramatic rescue of US soldier Jessica Lynch on April
2 from an Iraqi hospital made headlines everywhere, including in
this newspaper.
The
whole world saw dramatic footage - conveniently filmed by US Army
night vision cameras - of helicopter-borne American special forces
kicking down doors and firing their guns, apparently at Iraqi
soldiers.
The
rescue of the young POW boosted morale on the US home front at a
time when the invasion of Iraq had appeared to run aground. "It was
a classic operation done by some of our nation's finest warriors,
who are dedicated to never leaving a comrade behind", US brigadier
general Vincent Brooks declared. And the entire media breathlessly
retailed this story.
There was only one problem:
the story simply wasn't true. The dramatic rescue was a
well-prepared 'infowar' operation staged for the cameras. The
purpose being to shift media focus away from the killing of
civilians by the US bombardment of Iraq and on to the 'heroism' of
US forces.
Interviews conducted by the
Toronto Star and BBC at the hospital in Nasiriya where Lynch was
being treated have revealed the following facts about the entire
affair:
All
Iraqi troops and fidayeen had withdrawn from the area two days
before the 'daring' rescue.
The
hospital staff had driven Lynch to a US checkpost in an ambulance a
day earlier in an attempt to hand her over but were fired upon. US
soldiers involved in the rescue fired blanks to create the
impression that they had to fight their way in.
"It
was like a Hollywood film", Dr Ammar Uday told the BBC, "They cried
'go, go, go', with guns and blanks without bullets and the sound of
explosions. They made a show...".
"The
most important thing to know", Dr Harith Houssona told the Toronto
Star, "is that Iraqi soldiers and commanders had left the hospital
almost two days earlier".
He
said that the night they left, his colleagues moved Jessica Lynch
out of intensive care and into an ambulance. "We began to drive to
the Americans, who were just 1 km away. But when the ambulance got
within 300 metres, they began to shoot".
The
BBC, whose documentary on the stage-managed 'rescue' will be
telecast on Sunday, said the Pentagon "had been influenced by
Hollywood producers of reality TV and action movies, notably the
man behind Black Hawk Down, Jerry Bruckheimer," whose advice "was
taken on and developed on the field of battle in Iraq".
Comment: Welcome to
reality, designed, constructed and presented to you by US
government think tanks, all in glorious techincolor, please deposit
your brain in the lobby before taking your seats - you wont need
it. Enjoy the show.
Casablanca bombings
fuel calls for global fight on terror
UN
Secretary General Kofi Annan called for an international campaign
to stamp out terrorism as governments already on high alert
condemned suicide bombings just days apart in Morocco and Saudi
Arabia.
Analysts have warned of the risk of more carnage to come after 28
late-night revellers and 13 suicide bombers died in Casablanca,
just days after a triple suicide bombing blamed on al-Qaeda killed
34 people in Saudi Arabia.[...]
"The secretary general considers that the recent wave of terrorist
outrages, coupled with fresh warnings of further attacks being
planned, underlines the need for the international community to
give its full attention to the need for a broad-based and sustained
campaign against international terrorism," Eckhard
added.[...]
US President George W. Bush, who launched a war on terror after the
September 11, 2001 attacks left about 3,000 people dead in New York
and Washington, immediately offered Morocco assistance to track
down those behind the blasts. The US administration has been
criticised in recent days, amid charges the war on Iraq has
detracted it from its bid to smash the al-Qaeda terror network
blamed for September 11.
U.S. suspects al Qaeda in Morocco
bombings
From Chris Plante
Sunday, May 18, 2003
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The United States suspects that
al Qaeda was responsible for Friday night's bombings in Morocco and
warns that similar attacks are likely.
[...] Future attacks will likely be "on a small
scale" and against "soft targets" like the ones attacked in
Casablanca, U.S. officials said.
[...] A well-placed U.S. counterterrorism official
told CNN that "there may not be much we can do" to stop such
suicide operations.
Al Qaeda is suspected in the bombings because of
their coordinated nature and the tactics used, he said, though he
added that available intelligence has not established a direct
link.
Comment: When has the US
ever provided a direct link in the so-called War on Terror? Think
about it. When has the Bush Reich provided any evidence that
actually stands up to even the slightest scrutiny? It's all lies,
smoke, and mirrors designed to terrorize Americans and their allies
into submitting to the Reich's agenda.
[...] Al Qaeda might "feel the need to show they
are still there" after being largely ousted from Afghanistan by the
U.S. military and having its international operations disrupted by
international law enforcement efforts, a counterterrorism official
said, adding that the organization might be considered "akin to a
wounded animal -- getting more dangerous" as it finds itself in
greater peril.
Also, in recent months al Qaeda has "had some
success in recruiting" new followers to its cause, he
said...
Comment: More of the
same old Osama-Under-the-Bed routine...
Thousands
of al-Qaida suspects ready to attack, warns US official
Giles Tremlett
The Guardian
A senior US official warned that thousands of al-Qaida activists
are still at large and preparing more attacks, as police raids
around the world netted several dozen suspects yesterday.
"We have had good evidence that there are literally thousands of
al-Qaida trainees around," Porter Goss, chairman of the House
Intelligence Committee, told ABC television. "And there is good
reason to believe that some of those people are in the United
States of America."
US Democrats said last week's attacks in Morocco and Saudi Arabia
showed that George Bush had overstated claims of success in the war
against terrorism. "Al-Qaida never went out of business," Senator
John Kerry, a Democratic presidential candidate, said on CBS
television. "What's happened is we broke the beehive, but we didn't
kill the bees and we certainly haven't killed the queen bee," he
said.
U.S.
public warned to be on alert for truck bombers
By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
In
the wake of the deadly terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia this week,
the State Department issued a nationwide alert yesterday for the
U.S. public and American businesses to be on the lookout for
possible attacks by suicide truck bombers in this country.
Saying it had no specific information that a truck bombing of any
kind was being planned in the United States, the department —
through its Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC) — said
the nationwide alert was designed to pre-empt any such attack by
advising the public as well as people who own and operate
businesses on how such a terrorist event might take
place.
Comment: Woowoo! Look out behind you!
Ahhhhhh!!! Run for your lives! They're out to get us!! Jesus!
Jesus! Where are you? SAVE US!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Democrats turn on Bush over handling of national
security
By Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles
The Independent
May 19, 2003
Democratic contenders for next year's presidential election made
their first spirited attack on George W Bush over the weekend on
the issue widely regarded within the United States as his greatest
strength "6 his handling of national security and the so-called
"war on terrorism".
[...] Senator Edwards said: "We should not cede this issue to a
President and a party whose idea of homeland security is plastic
wrap and duct tape."
[...] Mr Dean said: "This President has ruled by making us fear
each other. We've lost a lot in the past two and a half years."
Carol Moseley Braun, the former senator of Illinois, focused on
Mr Bush's tax cuts: "This crowd is into fighting the needy and
helping the greedy."
[...] Such sentiments went down well with the union-heavy crowd
in Des Moines. A long struggle still lies ahead, however, in
convincing a scared and largely trusting electorate that the man in
the White House, with his talk of war and crisis without end, is
part of the problem and needs to be replaced.
[...] The new-found vigour of the Democrats in Iowa went only so
far, however. Like all presidential candidates since the Cold War,
they avoided discussing the United States' role in the world. There
was no mention of Mr Bush's diplomatic isolationism or policies of
pre-emptive defence or drastically increased military budgets.
Comments: The Democrats are
avoiding the real issues. The two different parties exist only to
present the illusion of choice. Ultimately, they are two sides of
the same coin.
Cooperation
Under USA Patriot Act Considered a Crime
by Michelle Locke
commondreams.org
ARCATA, CALIFORNIA -- More than 100 cities, and one state, have
condemned the USA Patriot Act as giving the government too much
snooping power. In Arcata, a liberal fold in Northern California's
Redwood Curtain, the City Council has gone a step farther and
criminalized it.
Starting this month, a new city ordinance makes it a crime
punishable by a $57 fine for a city department head to voluntarily
cooperate with unconstitutional investigations or arrests under the
aegis of the Patriot Act, the anti-terrorism bill passed in the
dark days after Sept. 11.
Arcata's law is more than a bit symbolic. The federal Patriot Act
trumps local law and the ordinance is moot if a court rules the act
is constitutional, a decision that hasn't come up yet.
[...]
Villagers vs oil giant: Ashcroft to the rescue
Jim Lobe (Inter Press Service) WASHINGTON
-
In a
move that has provoked outrage from human-rights groups here, US
Attorney General John Ashcroft has asked a federal appeals court in
effect to nullify a 214-year-old law that has provided foreign
victims of serious abuses access to US courts for redress.
Ashcroft's Justice Department has filed a "friend of the court"
(amicus curiae) on behalf of California-based oil giant Unocal in a
civil case brought by Myanmese villagers who claimed that the
company was responsible for serious abuses committed by army troops
who provided security for a company project.
But the department's brief was not limited to defending the company
against the plaintiffs. Instead, the document, which was submitted
last week to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in California,
asked the court to reinterpret the 1789 Alien Tort Claims Act
(ATCA) in a way that would deny victims the right to sue in US
courts for abuses committed overseas.
"This is a craven attempt to protect human-rights abusers at the
expense of victims," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of New
York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW). "The Bush administration is
trying to overturn a long-standing judicial precedent that has been
very important in the protection of human rights."
Military waste under fire: $1 trillion missing - Bush plan targets
Pentagon accounting
Tom Abate Chronicle Staff Writer
[...] Though Defense has long been notorious for waste, recent
government reports suggest the Pentagon's money management woes
have reached astronomical proportions. A study by the Defense
Department's inspector general found that the Pentagon couldn't
properly account for more than a trillion dollars in monies spent.
A GAO report found Defense inventory systems so lax that the U.S.
Army lost track of 56 airplanes, 32 tanks, and 36 Javelin missile
command launch-units. [...]
Comment: What's a trillion dollars among
psychopaths...
Local
Communities Refuse to Enforce Patriot Act
Foxnews
WASHINGTON In a rare occurrence, conservative watchdogs are siding
with liberal groups who say that several provisions of the
anti-terror USA Patriot Act (search)Êare cause for concern by
Americans seeking to protect their basic rights.
"We must balance at all times the fact that national security is
important, but freedom is essential," said Phil Kent, president of
the conservativeÊSoutheastern Legal Foundation (search), which
has taken issue with expanded federal surveillance powers granted
under the law.
Kent and others are applauding local efforts to try to ward off
provisions of the Patriot Act. As of this week, the state of Hawaii
as well as 104 cities and counties across the country have passed
resolutions protesting federal law enforcement measures in the USA
Patriot Act.
Sri Lanka
Floods, Landslides Kill 84
The Associated Press
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka May 18
Flash floods and landslides killed at least 84 people in
south-central Sri Lanka and 47 more were missing and feared dead,
officials said Sunday.
About 150,000 people have been evacuated from their homes, said
a relief official in the capital, Colombo. They are being housed in
temples, schools and public buildings.
"The worst has happened, an entire village has been wiped out
rising our death toll to more than 80," said chief administrator
Malini Premaratne in Ratnapura district, 60 miles southeast of the
capital, Colombo.
[...] Floods of this magnitude are rare in Sri Lanka, a small
tropical island country off India's southern coast.
Last week, a cyclone hit Sri Lanka, blowing roofs off houses,
uprooting trees and leaving some streets in the capital under three
feet of water. Since then it has been raining heavily in central
and southern parts of the country, caused by a depression in the
Bay of Bengal...
Israel closes West Bank after string of
attacks
Sunday, May 18, 2003
JERUSALEM (CNN) -- The Israel Defense Forces closed
off the West Bank on Sunday after a string of terror attacks killed
nine Israelis and prompted Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to postpone
a meeting with President Bush at the White House.
The most deadly attack came Sunday morning in
Jerusalem as a suicide bomber dressed as an Orthodox Jew and
wearing a prayer shawl got on a commuter bus, Israeli police
spokesman Gil Kleiman said...
Comment: If
all you ever read were the US media, you might think that the
Palestinians were uncivilized dogs, that is, the opinion of the
Palestinians held by the Zionists around the world. However, the
Zionists stole Palestine from the Palestinians after the Second
World War, drove them from their homes, and forced them into camps
where they have lived in horrific conditions for over fifty years.
Palestinian children are gunned down by Israeli soldiers on a
regular basis. Houses are plowed under. Israeli "settlements" are
established on Palestinian land. Hamas was set by and funded by the
Mossad to counter Arafat in the eighties. When the so-called
"roadmap" for peace was brought forward, the Israeli government
stepped up its persecution of the Palestinians. Yet it is the
Palestinians who are labeled "terrorists".
What is wrong with
this picture?
Yet the Jews in
Israel have been led into a trap. The Zionists and the Nazis
collaborated to put into place the psychological mechanism to lead
the Jewish sheep to slaughter by collecting them in the land stolen
from the Palestinians, collecting them together in one place where
they could all be wiped out, Palestinian and Jew alike, by the
inferno Bush and Co and now stoking in the Middle East.
For a good look at
the issue of the settlements, look at this article in a past
Signs
page,
"Settlements: a user guide".
Sharon spokesman
hints at Arafat's removal
Sunday May 18, 2003
A spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon mulled the
possibility of removing Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, whom
Sharon's office accused of being responsible for a double attack
which killed seven people plus the two bombers.
"Let me just refer you to an experiment that took place in Iraq
a month ago -- what happened when a reign of terror by one leader
was taken off, how the people reacted," Raanan Gissin told
reporters Sunday.
Comment: A more appropriate
comparison would be between Sharon and Saddam. And in any case,
after Saddam's reign of terror was ended by the noble American
"liberators," all hell broke loose in Iraq while the US forces sat
around the oil fields and roasted marshmallows.
"... When people say 'he's the leader and he's doing this' well,
they haven't had the opportunity really to see what it means to
live, or to behave or to act without Yasser Arafat calling the
shots, literally," Gissin said.
Comment: And what would life be
like for the Palestinians AND Israelis without Sharon calling the
shots?
Gissin stressed any hope for moving along the peace process
rested not on the internationally-backed Middle East roadmap, which
calls for the creation of a Palestinian state by 2005, but in
ousting Arafat as president of the Palestinian Authority...
Israel
"aided Hamas directly
...the Israelis wanted to use it as a counterbalance to the PLO
(Palestinian Liberation Organization)," said Tony Cordesman, Middle
East analyst for the Center for Strategic Studies.
Israel's support for Hamas
"was a direct attempt to divide and dilute support for a strong,
secular PLO by using a competing religious alternative," said a
former senior CIA official.
According to documents
United Press International obtained from the Israel-based Institute
for Counter Terrorism, Hamas evolved from cells of the Muslim
Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in 1928. Islamic movements in Israel
and Palestine were "weak and dormant" until after the 1967 Six Day
War in which Israel scored a stunning victory over its Arab
enemies.
According to ICT papers,
Hamas was legally registered in Israel in 1978 by Sheikh Ahmed
Yassin, the movement's spiritual leader, as an Islamic Association
by the name Al-Mujamma al Islami, which widened its base of
supporters and sympathizers by religious propaganda and social
work.
According to U.S.
administration officials, funds for the movement came from the
oil-producing states and directly and indirectly from Israel. The
PLO was secular and leftist and promoted Palestinian nationalism.
Hamas wanted to set up a transnational state under the rule of
Islam, much like Khomeini's Iran.
...A
further factor of Hamas' growth was the fact the PLO moved its base
of operations to Beirut in the '80s, leaving the Islamic
organization to grow in influence in the Occupied Territories "as
the court of last resort," he said.
When
the intifada began, Israeli leadership was surprised when Islamic
groups began to surge in membership and strength. Hamas immediately
grew in numbers and violence. The group had always embraced the
doctrine of armed struggle, but the doctrine had not been practiced
and Islamic groups had not been subjected to suppression the way
groups like Fatah had been, according to U.S. government
officials.
But
with the triumph of the Khomeini revolution in Iran, with the birth
of Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorism in Lebanon, Hamas began to
gain in strength in Gaza and then in the West Bank, relying on
terror to resist the Israeli occupation.
Israel was certainly
funding the group at that time. One U.S. intelligence source who
asked not to be named said that not only was Hamas being funded as
a "counterweight" to the PLO, Israeli aid had another purpose: "To
help identify and channel towards Israeli agents Hamas members who
were dangerous terrorists."
In
addition, by infiltrating Hamas, Israeli informers could only
listen to debates on policy and identify Hamas members who "were
dangerous hard-liners," the official said.
In
the end, as Hamas set up a very comprehensive counterintelligence
system, many collaborators with Israel were weeded out and shot.
Violent acts of terrorism became the central tenet, and Hamas,
unlike the PLO, was unwilling to compromise in any way with Israel,
refusing to acquiesce in its very existence.
But
even then, some in Israel saw some benefits to be had in trying to
continue to give Hamas support: "The thinking on the part of some
of the right-wing Israeli establishment was that Hamas and the
others, if they gained control, would refuse to have any part of
the peace process and would torpedo any agreements put in place,"
said a U.S. government official who asked not to be
named.
"Israel would still be the
only democracy in the region for the United States to deal with,"
he said.
All
of which disgusts some former U.S. intelligence
officials.
...Aid to Hamas may have
looked clever, "but it was hardly designed to help smooth the
waters," he said. "An operation like that gives weight to President
George Bush's remark about there being a crisis in
education."
An
Israeli defense official was asked if Israel had given aid to Hamas
said, "I am not able to answer that question. I was in Lebanon
commanding a unit at the time, besides it is not my field of
interest."
Asked to confirm a report
by U.S. officials that Brig. Gen. Yithaq Segev, the military
governor of Gaza, had told U.S. officials he had helped fund
"Islamic movements as a counterweight to the PLO and communists,"
the official said he could confirm only that he believed Segev had
served back in 1986.
Comment: The bottom
line is that Israel is behind Hamas and many of the suicide
bombings. How else can you explain the fact that Sharon has
repeatedly benefiited from such attacks, coming as they so often do
right at a time when he needs support for this genocial policies
and to further scupper any chance of peace? Very similar in fact to
the realtionship between US and al-Qaeda.
Possible Hamas link with bomber
18/05/2003 14:01 - (SA)
Hebron, West Bank - A
19-year-old Palestinian from the southern West Bank town of Hebron
with close ties to the Islamic radical Hamas movement, was most
likely the author of Sunday's early-morning suicide bombing in east
Jerusalem, which left seven passengers dead, his family
said.
Israel in charge of the US military
dictatorship,
By
Tariq Al-Maeena 5/18/03
If
"Terror" attacks were to stop, then Israel would lack any viable
excuse to continue killing Arabs. The bulldozers would fall silent.
For Israel, that would be the worst thing that could happen. Even
worse than the so-called "Road Map." In America, the Religious
Right mandates Bush that the "Holy Land" must be purged of all
Muslim Arabs. They cite that act as a Christian Religious Edict,
supported by their interpretation of Biblical Scripture. Bush
cannot be reelected without their support, nor can he be reelected
without Jewish support.
Ariel Sharon is not a Religious man, and he has stated that he
would not form a Government if he had to form a coalition with
Orthodox Religious Jews, or any other Jewish Religious groups.
Obviously, Sharon is ruthless, controls Israeli Intelligence, and
that Service readily admits it has "operatives" inside all Arab
Organizations. Israeli Intelligence is rated the best in the world,
with complete! access to American Intelligence, and they are not
shackled by any sort of morality.
The
time has come to put 2+2 together and understand where "World
Terrorism" is originating or being exploited, and the purpose it
serves. Bin Laden may have started this process, but Israelis
understand how to use it to further their ambitions. Suicide
bombers can be either manipulated, or used as "scapegoats" for any
explosion. ( Israelis claimed the last Bus bombing was caused by a
bomber entering the front of the Bus, yet the photographs show the
roof of the Bus pealed back from the rear, where the charge was
set)
Anthrax: Finally, the FBI
Uncovers a Tantalizing Clue Investigators have stumbled on a new
theory of the 2001 anthrax attacks
NEWSWEEK May 26 issue
After months of frustration, FBI investigators have stumbled on
a new theory of the 2001 anthrax attacks that some sleuths hoped
could crack the case. Earlier this year, acting on a tip, FBI
divers recovered a plastic container from the depths of an
ice-covered pond near Frederick, Md. Some suspect it could have
been used as a crude piece of lab equipment. THE BUREAU HAS long
believed that the anthrax perp is a disgruntled bioweapons
researcher. One of the "persons of interest" the bureau has focused
on is Steven J. Hatfill, a doctor and bioterrorism researcher who
formerly worked at the U.S. Army Research Institute of Infectious
Diseases in Frederick. (Hatfill has steadfastly denied any
involvement in the attacks and has criticized the FBI for singling
him out.) Earlier this month The Washington Post reported the
discovery of the new evidence, a clear plastic container resembling
a "glove box," a device often used by researchers handling deadly
pathogens to protect them from contamination. The Post also
reported a tantalizing new theory. Some investigators believed that
the perp may have submerged the box underwater to manipulate the
spores into envelopes without sickening or killing himself. While
some law-enforcement officials are taking the novel theory
seriously, others have dismissed it as fantasy. "It got a lot of
giggles," says one FBI source.
But what is more intriguing to the FBI is the source of the tip
in the first place. NEWSWEEK has learned that the tipster was an
acquaintance of Hatfill's; agents searched the pond after
interviewing the friend, who relayed a provocative conversation
he'd had with the bioweapons researcher. Hatfill, the source told
the bureau, was questioning the FBI's current theory of the case,
that whoever manufactured the anthrax would have needed access to
sophisticated equipment and a lab. He said the toxic bacteria could
be made in the woods and the evidence could be tossed "in a lake."
When agents found the box in the Frederick pond, they thought they
had a eureka moment. The FBI tested the box for residue of anthrax
bacilli, and at first got a positive result. But subsequent tests
have been negative. (It is possible that the spores would wash off
underwater.) Investigators still have no physical evidence linking
Hatfill, or anyone else, to the crime. Hatfill's lawyer, Tom
Connolly, would not comment on the discovery of the box or his
clients's alleged conversation. "Dr. Hatfill had nothing to do with
the anthrax attacks. Period," Connolly told NEWSWEEK. Next month
the FBI may drain the entire pond in hopes of finding new evidence.
One item agents might be looking for: a wet suit that could have
been used and disposed of by the anthrax attacker. —Daniel
Klaidman and Michael Isikoff
If 9/11
prompted the attack on Iraq, then thousands will die beneath a
mountain of lies
Opposed by everyone in the world who was not
bought off, the illegal invasion of Iraq was undertaken for many
reasons -- the imminent replacement of the dollar by the euro as
the world's primary currency, the tempting lure of untapped oil
reserves, the desire to consolidate U.S./Israeli military hegemony
over a strategically vital region -- but the most important reason
was to further obscure questions about the awesome deception staged
by the American government that has come to be known as
9/11.
by John Kaminsky
9/11 was a hoax. This is no longer a wild conspiracy assertion;
it is a fact, supported by thousands of other verifiable facts,
foremost of which are:
* The attacks of 9/11 COULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED without the
willful failure of the American defense system. In Washington,
D.C., Air Force pilots demanded to fly but were ordered to stand
down. Yet instead of prosecuting the president and military leaders
for this unprecedented dereliction of duty, military leaders were
promoted and the president was praised for presiding over a defense
system that suspiciously failed the most crucial test in its
history. None of the deaths would have happened without
deliberately unplugging America's air defenses.
* Planes that lose contact with control towers are usually
intercepted by fighter jets inside of 10 minutes, as the incident
with the golfer Stewart Payne's plane a few months earlier so
clearly demonstrated. Yet on 9/11, the jetliners that struck New
York were allowed to proceed, unmolested, for more than a
half-hour, and the plane that supposedly crashed into the Pentagon
was not intercepted for more than an hour and 40 minutes after it
was widely known that four planes had been hijacked.
* The twin towers could not have collapsed as a result of
burning jet fuel. Most of that fuel was consumed on impact. In the
south tower, most of the fuel was spilled outside the building.
What does stand out as particularly suspicious and still
unexplained is that fires raged out of control beneath three of the
collapsed towers for 100 days, indicating the possibility of some
kind of substance utilized in the demolition of the structures.
The Twin Towers did not fall because of plane impacts or fires.
Most likely explosives were placed on structural supports in the
towers (as was done in Oklahoma City), and these controlled
implosions snuffed out the lives of at least 3,000 people.
* FBI Director Robert Mueller insisted officials had no idea
this kind of attack could happen when, in fact, the FBI had been
investigating the possibility of exactly this kind of attack for
almost 10 years. Numerous previous attempts at using planes as
weapons, intimate knowledge of terror plans called Project Bojinka,
and knowledge of suspicious characters attending flight schools who
were being monitored by the FBI make his utterance a clear lie on
its face.
In the weeks before 9/11, the U.S. received warnings from all
over the world that an event just like this was about to happen,
but FBI investigations into suspected terrorists were suppressed
and those warnings were deliberately disregarded.
* The names of the alleged hijackers, all ostensibly Muslims,
were released to the public only hours after the attacks, despite
Mueller saying we had no knowledge this would happen. This is an
impossible twist of logic. If he didn't know of a plan to strike
buildings with planes, how would he know the names of the
hijackers? Various artifacts were discovered in strategic places to
try to confirm the government's story, but these have all been
dismissed as suspicious planting of evidence. Since that time
several names on that list have turned up alive and well, living in
Arab countries. Yet no attempt has ever been made to update the
list and none of these names were on the airlines' passenger lists.
So, where did the FBI get the names of these suspected
terrorists?
* Much like the invasion of Iraq, the anthrax attacks were
designed to deflect attention from unanswered 9/11 questions in the
patriotic pandemonium that followed the tragedy. In addition to
making large amounts of money for the president's father and his
friends from the hasty sale of inefficient drugs to a panicked
populace, the investigation into these killings was abruptly halted
when the trail of evidence led straight to the government's door,
and has not been reopened. The anthrax attacks also amped up the
climate of fear and deflected attention from the passage of the
government's repressive Patriot Act.
* The Patriot Act was presented in the days after the tragedy
supposedly as a response to it, yet it was clear that this heinous
act, drafted to nullify provisions for freedom in the U.S.
Constitution, was put together long before 9/11. In addition,
testimony by Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) revealed that most members of
Congress were compelled to vote for the bill without even reading
it. This was a vote to eliminate the Constitutional Bill of Rights,
which has defined American freedom for 200 years, and it was
accomplished when legislators voted for the bill without even
reading it.
* The invasion of Afghanistan was presented as an attempt to
pursue the alleged perpetrators of 9/11, yet it had been discussed
for years prior to the tragedy and actually planned in the months
before the attacks on New York and Washington. Statements by
Zbigniew Brzezinski and the Republican-written Project for a New
American Century [see the website at newamericancentury.org and
read the neo-conservative think tank's arrogant vision for U.S.-led
global corporate imperialism] have stressed that America needed a
formidable enemy to accomplish its aggressive geopolitical aims.
The supposed enemy we attacked in Afghanistan was a diverse group
of men from all over the world who were initially recruited,
encouraged and supported by the American CIA.
* The hole in the Pentagon was not made by a jumbo jet. Damage
to the building was simply not consistent with the size of the hole
nor the absence of debris. At the supposed point of impact, a whole
bank of windows remained unbroken where jet engines and wings
should have smashed them. There were no marks on the lawn and no
airplane debris (except what was planted on the lawn) nor were
remains of passengers ever found.
* The president stated he watched as the first plane hit, yet
continued to read a story to schoolchildren in Florida for 30
minutes after being informed a second airplane had struck New York
and the nation was under attack. He has never explained this
puzzling behavior, nor how he saw the first plane hit. It was never
televised, only recorded by a French crew filming firemen in New
York. In that film, the plane in question does not appear to be a
passenger airliner.
* The plane in Pennsylvania was shot down and broke apart in
midair.
No other explanation can account for the wreckage, which was
spread over a six-mile area, or the eyewitness accounts that
describe debris falling from the sky.
* Cellphone calls cannot be made from airliners in flight that
are not close to the ground. As research by Professor A. K. Dewdney
has shown, the emotional conversations between hijacked passengers
and others would not have been possible under conditions that
existed at that moment. These calls were cynical fabrications,
exploiting the distraught emotions of those who lost loved
ones.
* Radio communications from firefighters on the upper floors of
the Trade Center towers clearly indicate that fires were under
control and the structure was in no danger of collapsing.
These are merely a few of the facts that counter the
deliberately false statements made by U.S. officials about 9/11.
They provide crystal clear evidence that our president, his staff,
and many legislators should be indicted on charges of treason,
obstruction of justice and mass murder. Above all, these evil men
should be removed from their positions of authority before they
implement more of their moneymaking murder schemes like the one
they are now perpetrating on the innocent people of Iraq.
Otherwise, we face a future of endless war abroad and merciless
repression at home.
Consider just a few more of the other unanswered questions from
among the thousands of unexplained loose ends that all point to
9/11 being an inside job.
* Who benefited from the suspiciously high numbers of
“put” options purchased prior to September 11 for
shares in companies whose stock prices subsequently plummeted, on
the supposition that whoever was behind the hijacking was also
behind most of the purchases of these put options? And what was the
role of the new executive director of the CIA, Buzzy Krongard, who
handled these transactions?
* Why was the debris from the collapsed Twin Towers removed from
the site with no forensic examination? Why was almost all of it
sold to scrap merchants and shipped abroad where it would not be
available for scientific examination?
* Why does the government refuse to release any transcripts of
communications or any records relating to signals transmitted by
those jets?
* Why did so many people, from San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown
to many employees of companies in the World Trade Center who failed
to come to work that day, know in advance that something bad was
going to happen on Sept. 11, 2001?
* Why do all the major U.S. media continue to act as if none of
these questions is legitimate or relevant?
Today, millions of people around the world are protesting the
criminal destruction of the nation of Iraq. But these protests
won't change the number of minds necessary to stop America's
criminal madmen from continuing with their genocidal aim of
enslaving the entire world.
What WILL stop them is spreading the realization that President
George W. Bush and his billionaire accomplices in the oil industry
perpetrated 9/11 as an excuse to begin the militarization of
America for the purpose of world conquest.
History has shown all too clearly the deceived American people
WILL support the destruction of faraway countries on phony pretexts
of defending so-called freedom.
Thus the needless wars continue. Right now we watch high-tech
weapons slaughter the defenseless people of Iraq. Soon it will be
Iran, Syria, Colombia, Venezuela, North Korea, Egypt, Libya,
Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and who knows where else. All
these misguided atrocities will be possible because of the hoax
known as 9/11.
But the American people will not -- and cannot -- tolerate
leaders who kill our own people merely to invent a pretext -- the
war on terror -- to go around killing anyone they like.
If the American people DO tolerate such an insane strategy, then
they clearly do not deserve to survive as a nation or a people.
John Kaminski is a writer who lives on the coast of Florida
and can't understand why the president hasn't been arrested for his
obvious lies and crimes. He can be emailed at
skylax@comcast.net.
"Naturally, the common people don't
want war, but after all, it is the leaders of a country who
determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag
people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship
or a parliament or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the
people can always be brought to the bidding of the
leaders.
"This is easy. All you have to do is
tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for
lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the
same in every country."
~Hermann Goering, Hitler's Reich-Marshall, speaking at the
Nuremberg Trials following WWII
Flashback:
Russian MP
claims US carried out September 11 attacks
Ananova.com
An
outspoken Russian MP says he believes America is responsible for
the September 11 attacks. Vladimir Zhirinovsky claims the US
carried out the attacks to maintain world domination.
He made
the remarks at a Nato parliamentary conference in Ottawa,
Canada.
Zhirinovsky, a former
Russian presidential candidate, is known for his inflammatory
statements. "The United States is responsible. All the terror has
been organised by the United States. Osama (bin Laden) had nothing
to do with it," he said.
Speaking through an
interpreter, he added: "The United States, in order to consolidate
its efforts and to produce a coalition, needed to have some sort of
provocation in order to invoke Article 5 of the Nato treaty. It is
a new political technology to keep domination in the
world."
Zhirinovsky says the war
against terrorism is phoney and has been triggered by an unstable
US dollar, oil prices and a military industrial complex that "needs
an enemy".
"In
the 20th century, there were some symbols to fight against, like
fascism and communism," he said. "They don't exist any more. Now
they have found such a symbol, which is terrorism, which has no
borders, which has no time limits."
He
believes the Americans could capture bin Laden if they wanted to,
reports the
Winnipeg
Sun.
India, Russia to hold
joint naval exercises
Press Trust
of India Moscow, May 18
In their largest deployment since the 1991 break-up of the Soviet
Union, Russian warships are set to begin long-planned naval
exercises with India this week in the Arabian Sea and the Bay of
Bengal, Russia's Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said today,
according to the Interfax-Military News Agency.
Nine
Russian warships including the Black Sea Fleet's flagship missile
cruiser Moskva and the Pacific Fleet's anti-submarine ships Marshal
Shaposhnikov and Admiral Panteleyev are already in the
region.
Ivanov, speaking during a
working visit in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur, said the
exercises would begin on Tuesday and Wednesday. Interfax quoted him
as saying that ships from Russia's Black Sea fleet will train with
the Indian Navy's western fleet the Arabian Sea, while the Pacific
Ocean fleet vessels will conduct manoeuvres with India's eastern
fleet in the Bay of Bengal.
Russian President Vladimir
Putin said earlier this month that the joint exercises are a first
of their kind for Russia, whose clout on the seas has declined
since the Soviet collapse.
Russia's Defense Ministry
announced the planned exercises last month and denied media
speculation that the deployment to the Indian Ocean had anything to
do with events in Iraq.
"We
purposely delayed the start ... And waited for the end of the war,"
Interfax quoted Ivanov as saying Sunday.
Meanwhile, Ivanov praised
Wednesday's Russian air forc exercises, which involved six
strategic bombers firing cruise missiles over the Indian Ocean. He
said it was the first time that this type of exercise was carried
out "at a very long distance from our borders.
Comment: hmmm...
Ethiopia food crisis 'overlooked'
Sunday, May 18, 2003
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Ethiopia is sliding toward
a famine in what aid agencies and politicians complain is a "silent
emergency" that has evaded the world's spotlight because of crises
in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Ravaged by drought and recently flooding, roughly
one-fifth of Ethiopia's population is estimated to be at risk of
starvation and while aid workers stress the situation is not as
dire as the 1984 famine when a million people died, it is very
serious.
[...] "We are seriously concerned about the
situation in Ethiopia. We are at a point where we have 12.6 million
people at risk. We can still avert a large-scale crisis as long as
we can move quickly to get food to the people who need it. It
certainly is looking like it could be a critical situation," said
WFP spokesman Jordan Dey.
Aid agencies complain the world has turned a blind
eye to Ethiopia's plight, preferring to focus on conflicts in Iraq
and Afghanistan.
[...] U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf, a Virginia Republican,
said he visited Ethiopia in January and saw the same tragic scenes
he also witnessed in 1984.
[...] "If nothing is done, soon we will have a
famine of biblical proportions," Wolf added.
Study: Big California quake may be really
big
CNN
Sunday, May 18, 2003
LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- The faults that
crisscross Southern California may be capable of rupturing in
concert to produce larger earthquakes than previously thought,
according to several studies of the magnitude-7.9 quake that rocked
Alaska last year.
[...] A suite of new studies examining the
earthquake reveal that it was actually a composite of three smaller
quakes that began on one fault, skipped to a second and then moved
on to a third. Details appear Thursday in the journal
Science.
The findings suggest a similar situation could
arise in seismically analogous Southern California, where a rupture
on the Sierra Madre thrust fault could trigger an earthquake on the
strike-slip San Andreas fault. In strike-slip faults, two blocks
move past each other in a horizontal fashion to produce
earthquakes. Thrust faults do so when one block pushes upward over
another, as if moving up a ramp.
The San Andreas runs nearly the length of
California but comes no closer than about 40 miles (65 kilometers)
of Los Angeles. The Sierra Madre passes just miles from downtown
Los Angeles.
An earthquake that struck simultaneously on both
faults could be as large as magnitude-8, or larger than expected
for so close to Los Angeles...
Arkansas Picking Up After Storms,
Floods
Sat May 17, 2003
By PEGGY HARRIS, Associated Press Writer
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - Rivers swollen by overnight
storms flooded fields and county roads Saturday, hindering efforts
to restore electricity to homes and businesses.
At least two traffic deaths were blamed on the rain
and heavy wind that started Friday and continued into early
Saturday.
Officials in five counties declared local
emergencies because of the flooding and wind damage, said Jennifer
Gordon, a spokeswoman for the state Emergency Management
Department.
[...] The National Weather Service had not yet
confirmed that tornadoes were to blame for wind damage at Osceola,
and in Jackson and White counties. Meteorologist John Robinson
confirmed a tornado rated a path 4.7 miles long through Benton in
Saline County...
Astronomy's
lords of the ring invade Scotland for eclipse
Stephen Khan, Scotland
editor
Sunday May 18, 2003
The Observer
The
giant fiery ring will rise before humbled masses as nature takes
its course. A flaming circle of Sun above the sea is due to delight
thousands of awe-struck sky-gazers drawn to Scotland's extremities
from across Europe.
This phenomenon of nature is the annular eclipse - the first
visible in Britain for more than 80 years. It is a spectacle
expected, for sheer drama, to rival the solar eclipse that drew
thousands to Cornwall in 1999.
If -
and in Scotland it's a big 'if' - the skies are reasonably clear,
television crews, astronomers, tourists, druids, sun-worshippers
and latter-day pagans gathered at John O'Groats in the early hours
of 31 May will be treated to a stunning event. The newly risen Sun
will be almost entirely blotted from the sky by the Moon, but
unlike the solar eclipse seen in southern England four years ago,
this time a narrow circle of sunlight will be visible around the
Moon.
Only
those who make the long journey to the north coast of Scotland or
beyond will be able to catch a glimpse of the first annular eclipse
visible in Britain since 1921. The last solar eclipse prior to 1999
was in 1927. A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between
the Earth and the Sun. An annular eclipse occurs when the Moon
covers the centre of the Sun but not its edges, so that a ring - or
annulus - of light is left around the Moon.
Taking
A Shot At Einstein
By Robert Kunzig
Seeking a grander theory, rebel physicists break a cosmic speed
limit.
Even
if João Magueijo had not advocated castrating an editor at a
prestigious science journal, and even if he hadn't suggested that
rival physicists, ostensibly brilliant like Magueijo, were just
posers--in short, even if Magueijo were a less colorful rebel, his
ideas would have attracted attention. After all, he is taking on
Einstein, and ever since we placed Einstein on a pedestal, we have
been titillated by the idea of knocking him off. Magazine editors
know that putting the antic-haired genius on the cover, perhaps
over the words Faster Than the Speed of Light--the somewhat
misleading title of Magueijo's recent book--all but guarantees
sales.
And
yet Magueijo, a physicist at Imperial College, London, is for real,
and he is not alone. As we near the end of our first century in a
relative universe, challenges to Einstein's theory are in the air.
They are respectful challenges; even Magueijo isn't proposing to
throw relativity out the window, any more than Einstein junked
Newton. "We get E-mail and letters all the time from amateurs who
think they have found a mistake in Einstein's theory," says Lee
Smolin, a physicist at the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo,
Ontario. "That's not what is going on here." If relativity is
wrong, it is wrong by such tiny amounts or in such particular
circumstances that you have to go to great lengths to find the
error.
But
there is optimism these days that, by studying light from the
distant universe, researchers may soon be able to measure such
smaller-than-nano deviations. They may need to find them, if they
are ever to create a unified theory of all the forces of nature. To
fulfill that dream, which obsessed Einstein after he turned 40 or
so, physicists may have to tinker with the theory he invented when
he, too, was a young revolutionary, disguised as a patent clerk.
They may have to bend his best-known principle: the one that says
the speed of light is an absolute, always and everywhere the same,
and faster than anything else.
C is
special. That principle was born in 1905, when Einstein wedded
space and time into something called spacetime. Until then, in
Newtonian physics, space and time were separate, independent of
each other and of the things in them. Time flowed at the same rate
for everyone, and space was a fixed stage on which the universe
played out its history. Nineteenth-century physicists filled that
stage with a mysterious, invisible "aether," a medium that
transmitted light waves the way air transmits sound waves. The
aether was assumed to be at absolute rest, a fixed "reference
frame" for all motions.
No
one could ever detect the aether, though; in the 1880s, Albert
Michelson and Edward Morley tried ingeniously and failed. And after
Einstein proposed his theory of special relativity two decades
later, physicists realized they should give up on absolute space
and time. Einstein postulated, first, that the laws of physics
don't prefer one reference frame over another, as long as each is
moving at a constant velocity. Second, he said that c, the speed of
light, will appear exactly the same to every observer, in every
frame of reference.
A
century later, that second postulate still defies common sense. It
says that if you're driving down the highway at a quarter the speed
of light, you'll still see the photons from your headlights racing
ahead of you at light speed--not three-quarters light speed. If I'm
coming from the opposite direction at half light speed, I'll still
see your photons approaching at c--not 1.5 times c. Since speed is
just space divided by time, and we both agree about the speed of
light, we can't possibly agree about space and time. You say my
clock is too slow and my yardstick has shrunk (not to mention my
whole car). Maddeningly, I say the same about you. The one thing we
agree on, aside from c itself, is the distance covered by the
photons in the weird new reference frame of four-dimensional
spacetime.
Read
more:
Strange
Creature Forces Maru Women Indoors
Women in Maru, headquarters
of Maru Local Government area of Zamfara have been forced to remain
indoors in the evenings for fear of a strange creature which chases
them.
The
News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) learnt that the mysterious creature,
said to be half human, half horse, usually appear in the early
hours of the morning and in the evenings.
The
appearance of the strange creature has crippled the socio-economic
activities in the town, especially at night as people prefer to
stay at home from 4 pm till morning.
The
creature believed to have surfaced in different locations of the
town is causing so much anxiety and fear among residents,
particularly women.
When
contacted to comment on the issue, one of the sons of Emir of Maru,
Alhaji Isa Maru said the rumour was strong and "we are still trying
to get to the root of it."
Escape 'The Matrix,' Go Directly to Jail
Some Defendants in Slaying Cases Make Reference to Hit
Movie
By
Tom Jackman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 17, 2003; Page A01
Josh
Cooke wasn't merely a fan of the hit movie "The Matrix." He
believed he lived inside The Matrix, his lawyers say.
The
19-year-old had a huge movie poster hanging in his Oakton bedroom
and a trench coat like the one worn by Neo, Keanu Reeves's
character. He bought a 12-gauge shotgun, similar to one of the
weapons Neo uses to fight the "agents" in the movie.
And
on Feb. 17, Fairfax County police say, he walked into his family's
basement and shot his father seven times with the shotgun and his
mother twice. He then called the police -- twice -- to calmly
report the killings.
Cooke's fascination with the movie is shared by others who also
have been charged with murder. Some high-profile crimes since the
movie's 1999 release have allegedly been committed without any
obvious motive other than attempts to escape The
Matrix.
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