Sri Lanka flood toll hits 237
May 20, 2003
Flash floods and mudslides killed 237 people and displaced
177,000 families over the weekend in southern Sri Lanka, the
government confirmed.
The flood damage was severe in five districts in the south of
the island, but homes had been submerged in western province too, a
statement said Tuesday.
"The Ministry of Social Services has announced that over 177,000
families have been displaced and 237 persons were killed due to
floods and landslides in a number of districts in the country," the
government statement said.
Chinese Web site operator sentenced
BEIJING (APOnline) - A Chinese computer engineer was sentenced
to five years in prison for subversion after politically sensitive
articles were posted on his Web site, a court official said
Monday.
Huang Qi, 40, was sentenced May 9 by the Chengdu Intermediate
People's Court in the southwestern province of Sichuan, the court
official said. Huang spent nearly three years in police custody
following his 2000 arrest.
The official refused to discuss other details, including why
Huang was detained so long before sentencing. The official also
refused to give his name.
The sentencing of computer engineer Huang followed an April
order by a Communist Party leader calling for a crackdown on "enemy
efforts," the Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy
said.
Huang and his wife started the Web site www.6-4tianwang.com in
1999 as a forum for information about missing people. The site
became a popular place for posting articles about politically
sensitive topics, including a potential opposition party and the
banned Falun Gong spiritual movement, because its name is shorthand
for June 4.
[...] China encourages Internet use for business and education
but lashes out at efforts to use it to criticize communist rule and
demand political reform. Authorities try to block access to Web
sites abroad run by dissidents and human rights groups.
At least 33 people have been detained for posting political
material online, according to human rights groups.
Huang's sentencing followed a secret order issued April 28 by
Luo Gan, a member of the party's ruling Standing Committee, to
"sternly suppress 'enemy efforts'," the Information Center said.
Luo is the senior party official in charge of law and order...
Comment: Get ready America, because
this is exactly where the US is heading. Under the Patriot Act,
what happened to Huang Qi in China can happen to any US citizen.
It's only a matter of time.
Canada Finds 'Mad Cow'; U.S. Bans Beef
Imports
By
DeNeen L. Brown
Washington Post Foreign Service
TORONTO, May 20 -- "Mad cow" disease was discovered in a single
cow in the province of Alberta, Canada's agriculture minister
announced today, prompting the United States to immediately ban all
beef imports from Canada.
An
8-year-old cow that was killed in January after showing signs of
illness was confirmed today to have had mad cow disease, or bovine
spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), Lyle Vanclief, the minister, told
reporters. The human form of it, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease,
is almost always fatal. [...]
U.S.
Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman said in an announcement that
the risk to people in the United States was low, as was the
possibility that the disease was transmitted to animals in the
United States. Veneman said the USDA nonetheless banned beef
imports pending further investigation. The United States sent a
technical team to Canada to help the investigation.
Comment: Given US anger at Canada for its
refusal to join the "Coalition of the Willing", might it be too
much to suggest that the Americans are engaging in a little
chemical warfare themselves in its fight to subdue its "Austria"?
Nah...that'd be too much like a conspiracy theory....
A Journey to the Dark Side of
Baghdad
By BRIAN BENNETT AND MICHAEL WEISSKOPF
Time Online
Baghdad nights are full of menace. The smoke of looted, burning
buildings turns the sunset blood orange. Once darkness falls,
tracer fire arcs across the sky like red fireworks. It's dazzling
but dangerous. One recent salvo came down on a gasoline tanker,
setting off an explosion that killed a man and injured several
others.
When the sun goes down, the streets empty quickly. Curfew
unofficially begins at 11 p.m., but few drivers, even those earning
dollars from foreigners, stay out that late. One learns to fear the
shadows that move. Gunfire punches holes in the city's eerie quiet.
Two sharp cracks signal an American checkpoint firing warning
shots. Rapid automatic fire sounds the news that electricity has
returned to a neighborhood. Most ominous of all is the single
shot.
One evening last week a small crowd gathered around two men
lying on the central divider of Saadoun Street an hour after
nightfall. We stopped our car for a closer look. Both men had been
shot in the head. One was plainly dead, the other bleeding from a
bullet hole in his right eye and struggling to breathe. The
onlookers merely gawked at the grisly scene, muttering "Ali Baba,"
Arabic slang for thieves. We didn't know if they meant the victims
or the gunmen.
In a city virtually without civil authority since Saddam
Hussein's fall, many districts have organized vigilante night
patrols to scare off looters and shooters. But these victims
received no help: no phones work; no police patrol the beat. None
of the gawkers even lent a hand as we tried to lift the wounded man
into our Daewoo sedan. It took several universally understood
expletives to elicit help.
After a 15-minute dash across a city lighted only by a full
moon, we pulled up at al-Yarmouk hospital, an over-burdened 700-bed
facility guarded by U.S. troops. Frustrated staff members trying to
practice lifesaving without morphine, stretchers or clean linen
could do little. "We have no neurologist here," a white-smocked
doctor said. "It's hopeless."
Three doctors dragged the unconscious man to a wheelchair and
pushed him to an emergency room filled with similar unfortunates.
Medics hoisted him onto an unsheeted gurney and hooked up a bag of
saline. Doctors said he was the 12th gunshot victim in five hours;
before the war, they might have handled one such case a day.
Iraqis complain of illness near nuclear
facility
'My skin itches. I can't breathe well'
From Karl Penhaul
CNN
Friday, May 16, 2003
TUWAITHA, Iraq (CNN) -- Villagers near Iraq's largest nuclear
research facility complain that they are falling ill from what
doctors say may be radiation poisoning.
The research facility, which stores nonweapons-grade radioactive
materials, was looted in the final days of the Iraq war. Many
containers were stolen and used by residents near the Tuwaitha
complex to store drinking water, among other things. The facility
is about six miles (10 kilometers) south of Baghdad.
U.N. weapons inspectors who monitored the site before the war
said low-grade radioactive material may have been stored in the
drums.
Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency said they
had sealed nuclear materials before the start of the war.
It is unclear how long the nuclear complex was left unguarded.
U.S. troops are now on the scene...
Comment: The question that is not
asked in this article is why wasn't the facility secured by US
forces before it could be looted? Bush repeatedly claimed that
weapons of mass destruction are the reason for war against Iraq.
Yet this research facility, a potential goldmine of radioactive
material for making "dirty bombs," sat untouched and unguarded by
US forces. Perhaps the soldiers were too busy looting Saddam's
palaces and Iraq's cultural institutions.
Museum Shattered by Looters
Jim Clancey, CNN
April 16, 2003
Other than a professional job, there have been rumors that U.S.
Marines were involved in this, opening the doors to the museum.
I talked to the one man today who was actually there when the
looters plundered the building. He said the Marines were absolutely
not involved in any way.
The Marines did come briefly, firing over the heads of the
looters, he said. The looters left, but came back when the Marines
departed and cleaned up the job, devastating the museum.
Troops 'vandalise' ancient city of
Ur
Ed
Vulliamy
The Observer
One
of the greatest wonders of civilisation, and probably the world's
most ancient structure - the Sumerian city of Ur in southern Iraq -
has been vandalised by American soldiers and airmen, according to
aid workers in the area.
They
claim that US forces have spray-painted the remains with graffiti
and stolen kiln-baked bricks made millennia ago. As a result, the
US military has put the archaeological treasure, which dates back
6,000 years, off-limits to its own troops. Any violations will be
punishable in military courts. [...]
There are reports that walls have been damaged by spray-painted
graffiti, mostly patriotic or other slogans, and regimental mottos.
One graffiti reads: 'SEMPER FE' - Always Faithful - the motto of
the Marines, who stormed through this region on their way to
Baghdad, and form a contingent at the base.
Other reports by groups who cannot be named for fear of losing
access to medical patients being treated on the base say there has
been widespread stealing of clay bricks baked to build and restore
the structures at Ur.
The
Army Public Affairs office at Ur refused to speak to The
Observer.
Just where are those weapons?
By Steve Chapman
CHICAGO - The Bush administration's claims that there were
weapons of mass destruction in Iraq are starting to sound about as
convincing as O.J.'s effort to find the real killer.
It's
been two months since we went to war to prevent Saddam Hussein from
terrorizing us with these armaments, and we haven't found a single
warhead, artillery shell, barrel or refrigerator containing his
vile creations. What would Johnnie Cochran make of that?
The
best the U.S. government has been able to do is locate a couple of
trailers that military specialists thought were mobile laboratories
for making biological agents. But by the end of last week, the
Pentagon was abandoning that claim.
As
embarrassments go, this one is in a league with having your pants
fall down on Main Street at high noon. In his State of the Union
address, the president managed to give the impression that Mr.
Hussein had piles of the stuff reaching to the sky. That was why we
had to act immediately. [...]
Before the war, Mr. Hussein's arsenal was hidden away under the
tightest control, and he didn't dare use it. Today, the nastiest
stuff he owned could be in the hands of Osama bin Laden and his
confederates, who will use anything they can get. Are you feeling
safer?
WMD: Looted and Lost?
MSNBC
Last
week the ground-forces commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. David McKiernan,
told NEWSWEEK he's confident evidence will emerge. "We haven't
found yet the big, hard evidence, but I think that will come," he
said. Officials in Washington spoke more cautiously. "I think we're
going to find that they had a weapons-of-mass-destruction program,"
said Stephen Cambone, under secretary of Defense for
intelligencecarefully not saying the weapons themselves would be
found. Proving Saddam's guilt is almost beside the point. The
urgent job now is to keep his WMD materials out of terrorist hands
if it isn't already too late.
Comment: The gist of the above article is
that the U.S. can't find weapons of mass destruction because the
looters got there first! There is a new excuse almost every day,
and they are becoming more and more fantastic. And this excuse
nicely sets up an explanation for new terrorist attacks. Where did
they get the makings for a dirty bomb? From a looting raid
committed underneath the U.S. military's noses, of
course.
Coalition set for long Iraq role
The
US remains in the driving seat in post-Saddam Iraq Occupying US and
British forces are due to stay for a long-term role in Iraq,
British officials say.[...]
Iraqis believe American corporations favoured by the Bush
administration will benefit regardless of merit, our correspondent
says.[...]
Comment: If Iraq wants the freedom that Bush
promised them, than they are going to have to stand up and demand
it in front of the world. The
U.S. had no intention of giving back soverignty to
France, Germany, Japan, or Italy after WWII. Imperalistic
intentions go way back. Terrorist acts won't work, since that will
only turn world opinion against them. They are probably smart
enough to figure that out, but we won't be surprised if terrorism
continues unabated. Perpertated by who, no matter what the Bush
Reich media says, is the question.
Iraq's 'new patriots' A Baghdad group plays `watchdog'
in pursuit of a democracy that's inclusive, moderate and
unified
MITCH POTTER
For
Nadthme and friends, these are words worth fighting for. The
essence of their argument is that the true voice of a future and
sovereign Iraq is being railroaded by the machinations of the
American reconstruction effort and the formerly exiled opposition
groups.
"When I spoke before the war, I was holding back," Nadthme
acknowledged. "But not just about Saddam. We all know he lost touch
with reality after 1991. What I could not reveal then is how
shameful we find the opposition groups who are working with the
Americans.
"They have no authority, no constituency, no claim on what will
become of the new Iraq."
Nadthme complains that he and the others are being kept in the
dark, literally and figuratively.
There was no electricity in his home on this night, thanks to
rotating blackouts that continue in the Iraqi capital.
"But
we also have no clue about what the American's are up to inside the
Republican Palace, whatever plans they are making about our oil,
our future.
"This is very disturbing."[...]
"One
way or another, we will get our country back."
Bodies of Kurds found at desert
site
From Stephen Farrell in al-Shinafiyah
The Times
A MASS grave believed to contain the bodies of hundreds of Kurds
killed after the chemical attack on Halabja has been found in a
desert in southern Iraq.
Villagers of al-Shinafiyah, 50 miles south of Najaf, led The
Times to a site where they claimed that Iraqi soldiers had shot men
and women in July 1988 and buried them in a trench. One said he saw
the massacre, another that he had heard machinegun fire daily.
What the site at al-Shinafiyah holds may be the latest evidence
of Saddam's Anfal campaign in the late 1980s, when tens of
thousands of people disappeared as he sought to depopulate the
Kurdish countryside and wreak revenge for the Kurdish guerrillas'
decision to side with Iranian forces during the Iran-Iraq War.
Even as the Anfal genocide continued, Saddam's most infamous
atrocity was perpetrated in March 1988, when he dropped nerve gas
on Halabja, killing 5,000 people. Four months later, al-Shinafiyah
villagers say, buses arrived in the area and the killings
began.
Hadi Khadoum, a shepherd, said that he saw soldiers use a
mechanical digger. The next day he saw three cars and 25 green
buses, their windows painted out. "The buses were reversed to the
trench and soldiers were pulling people by the arm and throwing
them as far as they could into the ditch, while the soldiers around
the trench started shooting. I just heard some women screaming and
that was all."
Comment: Remember this:
This war is brought to you by ...
By Pepe Escobar
[...] Strange, no journalist has stood up and ask Rumsfeld, in
one of those cosy Pentagon spinning sessions, how was his 90-minute
session with Saddam in Baghdad in December 20, 1983. The fuzzy
photo of Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam, observed by Iraqi vice
premier Tarik Aziz, is now a collector's item. Rumsfeld was sent by
Reagan to mend relations between the US and Iraq only one month
after Reagan had adopted a secret directive - still partly
classified - to help Saddam fight Iran's Islamic Revolution that
had begun in 1979. This close cooperation led to nothing else than
Washington selling loads of military equipment and also chemical
precursors, insecticides, aluminum tubes, missile components and
anthrax to Saddam, who in turn used the lot to gas Iranian soldiers
and then civilian Kurds in Halabja, northern Iraq, in 1988. The
selling of these chemical weapons was organized by Rumsfeld...
Bush's New Nuclear Push
The Pentagon is hard at work pushing to develop the first new
class of U.S. nukes since the end of the cold war
May. 19, 2003
By MARK THOMPSON
Time Online
Although President Bush spends endless hours trying to stop the
spread of nuclear weapons, his Administration isn't above creating
a few itself. The Pentagon is hard at work pushing to develop the
first new class of U.S. nukes since the end of the cold war. Two
plans are on the table: retooling existing warheads into atomic
sledgehammers capable of destroying bunkers under 1,000 feet of
rock, and designing new mini-size nukes ideal for targeting
stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons. Congress banned work
on mini-nukes for the past decade out of fear that smaller nuclear
weapons might be more likely to be used. But the Bush
Administration, citing the jump in what it calls hard and deeply
buried targets (HDBTs) has persuaded the House and Senate Armed
Services Committees to lift the prohibition. Both houses could vote
on the measure as early as this week when they take up next year's
military budget. The Pentagon has included $21 million for the two
new programs as well as $25 million to jump-start nuclear tests, if
the Administration sees fit.
Why does the U.S. need new nukes? The Administration argues that
the current arsenal consists largely of mammoth city blasters that
can't burrow underground where U.S. officials believe nations such
as Iran and North Korea are assembling weapons of mass destruction.
Moreover, Pentagon officials say, this arsenal is no longer an
effective deterrent. Washington's enemies, they say, calculate that
the U.S. won't use its existing nuclear weapons because of the
widespread carnage they would cause.
But the new plans have their own detractors, including nuclear
scientist and Pentagon adviser Sidney Drell, who says even a tiny
1-kiloton weapon exploding 50 ft. deep in rock would spew
radioactivity across a wide swath of the planet. Arms-control
advocates worry that possessing smaller and more precise nuclear
weapons would scuttle efforts to stop worldwide proliferation. Said
Senator Dianne Feinstein last week: "This Administration seems to
be moving toward a military posture in which nuclear weapons are
considered just like other weapons."
Comment: The Bush Gang's hypocrisy
knows no bounds.
Senate Backs Study of Low-Yield Nuclear
Weapons
May 20, 2003
By Vicki Allen
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate on Tuesday
backed the scrapping of a decade-long ban on researching
"mini-nuke" weapons, but Democrats condemned the measure which they
said would spur a new arms race and heighten risks of nuclear
warfare.
The Senate voted 51-43 to uphold a request from
President Bush to repeal the ban on research and development of
tactical nuclear weapons with one-third or less the force of the
bomb dropped on Hiroshima in World War II that killed more than
100,000 people.
[...] Rumsfeld said the administration just wanted
to study these weapons, "not to develop, not to deploy, not to use"
them.
But Democrats said it was foolish to think the
administration would invest in research on the weapons with no
intention of producing them.
[..] "The hard-liners say things are different
today. A nuclear war won't be so bad if you just make the nukes a
little smaller," said Sen. Edward Kennedy, a Massachusetts
Democrat. "Is half of Hiroshima okay? Is a quarter of Hiroshima
okay?"...
Opinion: It's time to be un-British and grab the
spoils of war
We have been far too polite in allowing US companies to hog
Iraqi contracts
Patience Wheatcroft
The Times
There really is no delicate way to put this: Britain helped the
United States in the Iraq war and now we want our financial
reward.
Such words are not for the squeamish. They will feed the
prejudices of the peaceniks and appal the sensibilities of the
chattering classes. Only behind the most solidly shut of closed
doors do even the most fervent capitalists concur with each other
that justice demands that a share of the contracts for rebuilding
Iraq should come Britain's way...
Comment: Iraq is in complete chaos,
and yet dear Patience (ironic, don't you think?) is whining about
her reward. The greed is unbelievable. This is the world of the
Organic Portal, run according to their
desires, their "soulless" view of reality. This is the norm, this
is the standard by which all is measured in the realm of the
Absolute
3.
German Attorneys Sue Bush for Iraqi
War
Pravda
This
became possible thanks to new legislation adopted in Germany last
year German attorneys have registered a claim against US President
George W. Bush in the General Office of the Public Prosecutor in
Germany. In addition to George W. Bush, the claim includes members
of the German and British governments, who are all alleged to be in
violation of international law in launching the war in
Iraq.
Registration of this claim became possible thanks to new
legislation adopted in Germany last year. Now courts of the country
can consider cases connected with violations of international law
even in situations in which the violation doesn't concern Germany
directly.
Heinrich Comes, one of the 14 attorneys suing the US president,
says: "The American president is protected from prosecution by
immunity. However, we hope to take other governmental officials
mentioned in the claim to court."
Germany didn't give its official support to the war campaign
against Saddam Hussein's regime; however, it allowed coalition
warplanes to cross German airspace.
2nd forecasting group sees a busy hurricane
season
MIAMI (USATODAY.com) - Government forecasters are predicting a
busier-than-normal Atlantic hurricane season. Six to nine
hurricanes overall, including two to four major storms packing
winds of at least 111 mph, are likely, the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration said Monday.
Last month, William Gray of Colorado State University and his
group updated their 2003 prediction to say there would be eight
hurricanes, three of them severe.
The NOAA forecasters said higher-than-normal ocean temperatures
and other factors should make conditions ripe for hurricanes this
year.
They also said there is a 70% chance that La Niña will
develop this summer. The weather phenomenon of lower-than-normal
eastern Pacific Ocean temperatures near the equator typically leads
to more hurricane activity. Last summer's El Niño, on the
other hand, probably reduced the number of hurricanes.
Overall, 11 to 15 tropical storms are expected develop during
the season that runs from June 1 to Nov. 30; the historical average
is 10 tropical storms and six hurricanes.
Last year, there were 12 tropical storms and four
hurricanes.
Since 1995, forecasters have noted an increase in overall
tropical storm and hurricane activity. Officials are warning
residents to be prepared...
Mass murder and cannibalism claims emerge in
Congo
May 21, 2003
By Basildon Peta, Southern Africa
Correspondent
The Independent
Reports of mass murder and cannibalism emerged in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo (DRC) yesterday, as French military officers
arrived yesterday to assess the possibility of France deploying
peace-keeping troops.
Aid workers said they had found 231 bodies of people killed
since 4 May on the streets of Bunia, in the north-east, including
women and children, some decapitated, others with their hearts,
livers and lungs missing. United Nations officials are already
investigating reports of cannibalism and have asked the European
Union and Britain to send troops.
[...] In January, UN officials said they had substantiated
reports that ethnic militias were killing Congo bushmen, also known
as pygmies, for food. Aid workers said they were being told of
ethnic militias feeding on the hearts and livers from bodies of
civilians belonging to other ethnic groups. They said reports of
such murders were common in the eastern part of the Congo. One
added: "Sometimes you don't have to see these atrocities to
believe. The misery and fear of the fleeing civilians is enough to
make you believe the extent of the atrocities..."
White House warns on national debt
limit
By Martin Crutsinger
May 19, 2003 | WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration warned
Congress on Monday it would run out of room by May 28 to juggle the
government's books to stay within the current national debt
limit.
Legislation to boost the debt limit by $984 billion -- the
largest increase in history -- has been caught up in a battle
between Democrats and the White House over President Bush's
proposed new tax cuts.
[...] The House has passed a bill to boost the current debt
limit of $6.4 trillion to $7.38 trillion, but so far it has been
blocked in the Senate by Democrats, who are trying to use the issue
to hold down the size of new tax cuts.
Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., criticized Snow's letter, saying
Republican tax-cut policies will push the national debt to $12
trillion by the end of 2013, right before a wave of baby boomer
retirements dramatically increases demands on Social Security.
Two of America's Richest Assail Bush Tax
Cut
NEW
YORK (Reuters) - You would think two of the wealthiest Americans
would have no problem with a tax cut that would put thousands, if
not millions, of dollars in their pockets.
But
billionaire investors Warren Buffett ( news -web sites ) and George
Soros, Nos. 2 and 24 on Forbes Magazine's list of the 400 richest
Americans, both railed on Tuesday against President Bush ( news
-web sites )'s plan to deepen income tax cuts and eliminate taxes
on corporate dividends.
Bush, who has campaigned around the country touting the plan as
a way of creating jobs and boosting stock prices, is pressing for
final agreement this week as Congress wrangles to fit the package
into a $350 billion limit set by the Senate.
[...] Soros, renowned for both his swashbuckling speculative
bets on currencies as well as his philanthropic work, dismissed the
tax cuts. He said they would not revive the U.S. economy in the
short-term but were only aimed at helping the rich get
richer.
"This move is designed not to have much impact now. It's
designed to have an impact over an extended period and it's
basically using the recession to redistribute income to the
wealthy," Soros said in an interview with financial news network
CNBC.
"I
think that is really not a very effective way of using a deficit,"
said Soros, whose wealth is estimated at $6
billion.
Soros Says He's Selling the Dollar
Reuters Tuesday, May 20, 2003; 1:54 PM
NEW
YORK (Reuters) - Billionaire investor George Soros, in an interview
with cable television station CNBC on Tuesday, said he was selling
the dollar against most major currencies.
In
the wide-ranging interview in which he assailed the Bush
administration's policies, Soros said he was buying the euro and
the currencies of Australia, Canada and New Zealand against the
dollar, as well as gold. The euro briefly broke above $1.17
following his comments before retreating.
Soros was sharply critical of Snow's policy shift, branding it
a "mistake," and labeling it a wrongheaded attempt to stimulate the
U.S. economy at the expense of other economies.
"It's a beggar-thy-neighbor policy," he said. "I think (Snow)
was somewhat irresponsible by talking down the dollar."
[...]
With
the dollar already under pressure, traders sent the euro above
$1.17 , a fraction of a cent from Monday's four year high at
$1.1738 -- a hair below the single currency's launch price. Gold,
meanwhile, set a three-month high at $370 an ounce.
The
Canadian dollar held a six-year high against its U.S. counterpart,
trading near C$1.3476 , or 74.21 U.S. cents.
Children's agency funds study of men's sex
lives
By
Robert Stacy McCain
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
A
federal children's health agency is funding a study of the sex
habits of old men. The National Institute of Child Health and Human
Development (NICHD) provided more than $137,000 for a three-year
study to "provide the most comprehensive picture to date of the
sexual behavior of aging men." [...]
That
NIH-approved project was called "disgusting" by a congressman who
said the agency rejected his request three years earlier to study
whether the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine was associated with
autism. "The NIH couldn't find the money to look into this
relationship between kids with regressive autism and the mandatory
MMR vaccine, but they can pay people $150,000 to watch
pornography," Rep. Dave Weldon, Florida Republican, said in
December. The NIH annual budget of $27 billion has more than
doubled in the past five years.
Federal sex research turns "Uncle Sam into a taxpayer-funded
Peeping Tom," Mr. Knight said. "Wouldn't you love to ask James
Madison if this was the sort of expenditure he envisioned when
drafting the Constitution?"
Unemployment rate continues to rise
Puget Sound Business Journal
The
state Employment Security Department said Tuesday that Washington's
seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in April was 7.3 percent, its
highest level since a 7.4 percent rate was recorded in September
2002.
The American Taxpayer Is Paying Dearly to Be Attacked
by Terrorists
Ivan
Eland
Independent Institute
Despite President Bush's expansive and expensive "war on
terrorism," al Qaeda-by apparently and simultaneously bombing
several housing complexes in the police state of Saudi Arabia-has
shown its continued viability and potency as a terrorist group.
According to the Saudi Interior Minister, the attacks were
conducted by men who escaped Saudi authorities a week ago, but left
behind an arms cache. The Saudi government noted that the men were
bent on attacking U.S. and British targets in Iraq, as well as the
U.S.-supported Saudi royal family. They chose to do so shortly
before Secretary of State Colin Powell arrived in Saudi Arabia. In
addition, one target of the bombing was a complex housing the
employees of an American company that uses former U.S. military
personnel to train the Saudi National Guard. Despite victims of
other nationalities, early evidence indicates that the main targets
of the attack were the United States and Britain, the two nations
conducting the war against Iraq.
The
terrorist attacks support the views of those who argued against
such a war on the grounds that it would increase anti-American
terrorism, not reduce it. After arriving in Saudi Arabia, Secretary
Powell said: "Terrorism strikes everywhere and everyone. It is a
threat to the civilized world." Although the Secretary's statement
is technically true, he needs to read his own department's reports
entitled "Patterns of Global Terrorism." Those annual reports
regularly indicate that terrorists launching international attacks
strike U.S. targets an astounding 40 to 60 percent of the time.
Those numbers are unusually high for a nation that has no ethnic or
civil war within its borders, has no unfriendly neighbors stoking
such internal unrest, and is far removed from the world's major
centers of conflict.
[...]
When
people in the United States speak of U.S. foreign policy, they
often use the term "we." Although most Americans supported the war
against Iraq, the average citizen might consider that the
neo-conservatives currently running the U.S. government have
different interests than they do. The neo-conservatives freely use
the words "American empire"-an utterance that Americans have
avoided ever since they shook off their own colonial oppressors
during the American revolution. Empires cost money and lives as
defense budgets go through the roof and America's sons and
daughters die in foreign brushfire wars. Now, blowback from such
overseas military adventures-in the form of terrorist reprisals-has
and will likely continue to harm U.S. citizens even here at home.
Throughout history, governments have gone to war and the common
people have paid the price. Same stuff, different day.
Buy One, Get One Free
May 20, 2003
Arundhati Roy
The entire United States is beginning to stink like New
Jersey.
In these times, when we have to race to keep abreast of the
speed at which our freedoms are being snatched from us, and when
few can afford the luxury of retreating from the streets for a
while in order to return with an exquisite, fully formed political
thesis replete with footnotes and references, what profound gift
can I offer you tonight?
As we lurch from crisis to crisis, beamed directly into our
brains by satellite TV, we have to think on our feet. On the move.
We enter histories through the rubble of war. Ruined cities,
parched fields, shrinking forests, and dying rivers are our
archives. Craters left by daisy cutters, our libraries.
So what can I offer you tonight? Some uncomfortable thoughts
about money, war, empire, racism, and democracy. Some worries that
flit around my brain like a family of persistent moths that keep me
awake at night.
Some of you will think it bad manners for a person like me,
officially entered in the Big Book of Modern Nations as an "Indian
citizen," to come here and criticize the U.S. government. Speaking
for myself, I'm no flag-waver, no patriot, and am fully aware that
venality, brutality, and hypocrisy are imprinted on the leaden soul
of every state. But when a country ceases to be merely a country
and becomes an empire, then the scale of operations changes
dramatically. So may I clarify that tonight I speak as a subject of
the American Empire? I speak as a slave who presumes to criticize
her king.
Since lectures must be called something, mine tonight is called:
Instant-Mix Imperial Democracy (Buy One, Get One Free)...
Sign gets anti-Bush makeover Message on
billboard
By Laura Casey
Under cover of night last weekend, pranksters brought their
anti-corporate, anti-Bush administration message to a Piedmont
Avenue billboard.
Baywolf restaurant owner Larry Goldman noticed the sign Monday
as he came to work. Once a campaign for the cellular phone provider
Verizon Wireless, it now reads:
"Get
on the gulf war gravy train, Halliburton. To the victor goes the
spoils." The "oil" in "spoils" is written in red.
"It
does get people's attention," Goldman said.
Billboard "improvements" such as the one on Piedmont Avenue
usually can be traced to the politically charged, guerrilla art
group Billboard Liberation Front.
The
group has been "liberating" billboards around the Bay Area since
1977. Attempts to contact the group failed.
Michelle Williams, who works on Piedmont Avenue, immediately
recalled a sign on the street that changed earlier this year from a
Sony Playstation ad to an anti-Bush denunciation. "It just kind of
took me by surprise," she said, blinking at the sign above
her.
Does
she hate it? Not at all.
"It
makes me feel good," she said. "It's cool to know you can get away
with it here in Oakland."
Except for a mother who kept her head down while pushing a baby
in a stroller and mumbled, "I like to keep to myself," very few
people on Piedmont Avenue reacted negatively to the message on the
sign.
Josh
Burke, who works at a nearby hospital, says he is a card-carrying,
NPR-listening, democratic liberal. The sign is his piece of
cake.
"It
is sort of nice to see a reflection of what's not being popularly
disseminated to people," he said.
Adam
Drucker said he laughed a bit watching two "little old ladies" look
at it for a long while.
"This is the third one I've been awake for," he
said.
Comment: This
comic complements the article
nicely.
Bush Denounces
Castro on Cuban Independence Day>
May 20, 2003
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush marked Cuban Independence
Day on Tuesday by denouncing Cuban President Fidel Castro and
expressing hope his rule will soon end.
"My hope is for the Cuban people to soon enjoy the same freedoms
and rights as we do. Dictatorships have no place in the Americas.
May God bless the Cuban people who are struggling for freedom,"
Bush said in a message played on U.S.-backed Radio Marti, which is
beamed into Cuba.
[...] Washington has condemned Cuba's imprisonment of about 75
dissidents in recent weeks, Havana's harshest crackdown in decades.
Havana called the crackdown and prison sentences of six to 28 years
a defense against U.S. "mercenaries."
Last week the United States expelled 14 Cuban diplomats,
accusing them of "unacceptable activities" -- a diplomatic
euphemism for spying.
Bush announced no new steps against Cuba in response to the
actions against dissidents, although one Bush administration
official said, "We will determine what we do when its convenient
for us."
[...] But the White House is discussing ways to aid
pro-democracy forces, such as giving dissidents communications
equipment, an activist said. The administration was also seeking to
rally additional international opposition to Castro...
Paths of Glory
By PAUL KRUGMAN
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.
Still, isn't the Bush administration doing its best to fight
terrorism? No.
[...]
I've
written before about the Bush administration's amazing refusal to
pay for even minimal measures to protect the nation against future
attacks measures that would secure ports, chemical plants, nuclear
facilities and so on. (But the Department of Homeland Security
isn't completely ineffectual: this week it helped Texas Republicans
track down their Democratic colleagues, who had staged a
walkout.)
U.S. says Iranian threat
growing
TOM
INFIELD and WARREN P. STROBEL
Knight Ridder Newspapers
[...] U.S. officials are pushing the International Atomic
Energy Commission to declare Iran in violation of the nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty and are urging Russia not to cooperate
with Iran's nuclear power program. The Russians have said they
won't stop helping Iran.
One
longtime Iran expert said the faster-than-expected progress in
Iran's nuclear program, Iran's links to terrorism and other
developments have forged an administration-wide consensus that the
country poses a major threat.
But
"they haven't yet figured out what they're going to do about it,"
said the analyst, who also asked not to be named.
Rumsfeld Renews U.S. Charges of Iran-Al Qaeda
Link
May 20, 2003
By Will Dunham
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld,
brushing off Iranian denials, on Tuesday renewed U.S. allegations
that al Qaeda figures were operating inside Iran and pointedly
warned against giving safe haven to members of "terrorist"
groups.
[...] "There's no question but that there are al Qaeda in Iran.
There's also a good deal of speculation about their role in what
took place in Saudi Arabia," Rumsfeld said on Tuesday.
Asked this alleged role, Rumsfeld said: "I know. ... (But) I'm
not going to get into it. That's for others to do."
Rumsfeld did not state the nature of the evidence that led him
to believe al Qaeda operatives were located inside Iran, nor did he
name the al Qaeda members he believed were in Iran.
Comment: Of course not. The idea is
to operate by innuendo, slurring your enemies with "
ambiguous" slander to justify more slaughter of
innocent lives so that Americans can have gas for their SUVs while
the Bush Reich conquers the Middle East and carries out its plan
for the annihilation of the Semitic peoples.
Rumsfeld did say, "I have no information that people who engaged
physically in terrorist acts in Saudi Arabia have since fled to
Iran."
Comment: But he can imply a
connection by bringing it up, just as he did with the alleged
connections between Saddam and al-Quaeda, accusations that had no
basis, no proof.
Saudi authorities have arrested several suspects they said were
linked to Saudi-born Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network in the
aftermath of the coordinated bombings in Riyadh that killed at
least 34 people, including eight Americans. The United States has
accused al Qaeda of carrying out the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on
America.
U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, have said al
Qaeda figures in Iran include Saif al-Adel, an Egyptian indicted
for conspiracy in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. Embassies in east
Africa. One official also said bin Laden's son Saad, while not
considered a top al Qaeda leader, may be in Iran...
Comment: See
here for an analysis that debunks the link between
al-Quaeda to the Riyadh bombing, showing how it is much more likely
the bombers were Sausi anti-monarchists.
Al-Qaeda threatens 'stunning blows' against US,
Israel
May 20, 2003
(ABC Australia) - Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda terror network has
threatened to deliver devastating blows to the United States and
Israel, a Saudi-owned weekly reports.
"The next strikes will stun the Americans and Israelis," Abu
Mohammad al-Ablaj, "coordinator of the al Qaeda-affiliated
Mujahedeen Training Centre," said in an email published by
London-based Al-Majallah on Friday.
"The upcoming strikes will throw the enemy off balance. They
will target the rear of the snake (the United States), which Abu
Abdullah (bin Laden) said should be hit," he wrote.
"These strikes will hearten the faithful and disconcert the
infidels," he said, applauding Monday's triple suicide bombings in
Riyadh which killed at least 34 people, including nine bombers.
The threats came as US President George W Bush said in his
weekly address that half of the Al Qaeda leadership had been
eliminated...
Military Says Computer Dragnet to Include
Limits
May 20, 2003
By Andy Sullivan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A controversial Defense Department
program that would comb computer records to identify potential
terrorists will have safeguards to ensure it does not violate
individual rights, the Pentagon said on Tuesday.
Responding to concerns that its Total Information Awareness
program would allow unfettered surveillance, the Pentagon said in a
report to Congress that the program would have built-in mechanisms
to ensure that it did not intrude on Americans' privacy.
The Pentagon also renamed the program Terrorist Information
Awareness.
Launched in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, TIA would
search a wide array of travel records, credit card transactions and
other public and private data sources in an effort to prevent
terrorist activity.
[...] Privacy expert Marc Rotenberg said that compared to
telephone wiretaps and other forms of electronic surveillance, TIA
is subject to very limited oversight.
"This research program still has at its core a belief that a
centralized system of surveillance can be made privacy-friendly,
and I think that premise is essentially rejected by the U.S.
Constitution," said Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic
Privacy Information Center.
Comment: The idea of a centralized
system of surveillance that does not violate citizens' privacy is
rejected by good old fashioned common sense. It doesn't matter,
anyway. Once the next big attack on US soil is created by the Bush
Reich, Americans can kiss goodbye any rights they may have
left.
New Name of Pentagon Data Sweep Focuses on
Terror
By ADAM CLYMER
WASHINGTON, May 20 Saying they are worried about Americans'
privacy, Pentagon officials announced in a report today that they
were changing the name of a projected system to mine databases for
information to help catch terrorists to Terrorist Information
Awareness from Total Information Awareness.
The
officials said the name was changed because the earlier version
created a false impression that system was being created "for
developing dossiers on U.S. citizens."
The
report, which Congress demanded 90 days ago as a condition for
allowing further research, said the Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency was complying with all federal privacy laws as it
developed the program. The report said the Darpa was not tapping
into government or private databases, but was using synthetic or
artificial information generated for the program "to resemble and
model real-world patterns of behavior."
The
Pentagon said it would be up to agencies that would use the program
with real information to comply with privacy laws.
Privacy advocates said that was not good enough, because
federal laws had huge national security loopholes. Senator Ron
Wyden, the Oregon Democrat who pushed through the legislation that
required the report and barred using the system without new
legislation, said it was insufficient to promise that the system
would deal only with "legally collected information."
"Legally collected information," Mr. Wyden said, "includes just
about everything. There really isn't much with teeth to protect
lawfully collected medical records, travel records, credit records
and financial data." [...]
"These transactions would form a pattern that may be
discernable in certain databases to which the U.S. government would
have lawful access."
Comment: American QFS members are already
reporting that they are being requested to sign consent forms at
doctors' and chiropracters' offices to allow government access to
their medical records. Does knowing who has a lumbar adjustment
help find terrorists? These are probably just formalities, so that
after there is a huge uproar they can point out that Americans have
signed away their freedoms. What patterns are they looking
for?
A Game of Capture the Flag Whither American
Nationalism?
May 19, 2003
by AHMAD FARUQUI
There is nothing that infuriates us Americans more than a
suggestion that our intensely held feelings of patriotism amount to
nationalism. Nationalism, we contend, is a quality found in older
nations. And it does not take much for actions by other Americans
to be considered unpatriotic. Thus, during the build up to the Iraq
war, anti-war protestors were called unpatriotic. As the war began,
the anti-war community splintered into two groups. The larger
group, saying it supported the troops, muted its opposition to the
war. The smaller group said it could not support the troops,
because they were fighting an immoral war. Not surprisingly, it
drew much flak for its "unpatriotic" actions, which some said
amounted to treason.
[...] Just because [they] fail to recognize their own
nationalism does not mean it does not exist. American nationalism
is based on values rather than ethnicity or race. According to Paul
McCartney of Rutgers University, it embodies two values that are
often at cross-purposes with each other. The first value is
universalism, which says that Americans share the same moral ideals
as the rest of humanity, including freedom, liberty and democracy.
The second value is exceptionalism, which says that Americans have
a right to pursue policies to preserve their national sovereignty,
but other countries do not have a similar right. The dichotomy
between these values is as evident to those outside of the U.S. as
it is invisible to those living within the U.S.
[...] The U.S. is troubled when its enemies possess weapons of
mass destruction, but is not troubled when its allies or itself
possess similar weapons. Thus, the presence of such weapons by
itself is not intrinsically evil. The rest of the world sees this
as hypocrisy but most Americans don't.
Arafat's fate hangs in balance, Israel braces for more
bombings
May 21, 2003
Yasser Arafat's fate hung in the balance after five suicide
attacks in 48 hours killed 17 people and encouraged the Israeli
cabinet to push for the Palestinian leader's ouster.
Palestinian prime minister Mahmud Abbas's future was also on the
line, with US President George W. Bush stressing in his first phone
call to the moderate premier that he was expecting him to fight the
militant groups responsible for the wave of bombings.
[...] "The wave of attacks has not reached its peak and will
continue," a senior defence official warned Tuesday, quoted on
Israeli radio.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer described Bush's first
conversation with Abbas, also called Abu Mazen, since he was sworn
in on April 30 as "friendly and hopeful" but the US president
continued to put the onus on the Palestinians.
[...] But the Israeli government appeared to be giving Abbas a
chance to make an impression and put the blame for the latest
violence squarely on Arafat, with Israeli ministers stepping up
calls for his expulsion.
"We have to hit Arafat, because from his headquarters in
Ramallah he is continuing to send messages abetting terrorism,
receiving guests, when he should be completely isolated, his life
made more difficult and his political death precipitated," Science
and Technology Minister Eliezer Zandberg, from the centrist Shinui
party, told public radio.
Comment: Arafat has not been able
to stop the terrorism...waged by the Israelis against his
people.
Crushed: the farmers caught between the Israeli army
and Hamas
By
Sa'id Ghazali
in Beit Hanoun, Gaza Strip
Independent
"We
have lost our livelihood. We have lost our orange gold," said Maher
al-Shawwa, walking through his ruined citrus groves. "Each tree is
like my baby." [...]
The
worst collective punishment on Beit Hanoun, however, is the
destruction of more than 70 per cent of its citrus groves since the
beginning of the uprising 32 months ago. In the latest occupation
300 hectares were bulldozed, bringing the total to 1,000
hectares.
"Will this stop terrorism?" asked Mr Shawwa. "It is leading to
the opposite.
"I,
my uncle and my two aunts have lost 2,500 citrus trees. [This] is
more than a catastrophe. It is real terrorism. It will generate
terrorism."
U.S. Raises Terror Alert, FBI Warns of
Attack
May 20, 2003
By Deborah Charles
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government on Tuesday raised its
terror alert status to the second-highest level because of the
renewed risk of terrorist attack in the United States in light of
recent attacks in the Middle East.
The decision to raise the alert level to "high" or "orange" from
"elevated" or "yellow" on the color-coded scale was made by top
national security officials after a review of recent
intelligence.
"This change is based upon the recent terrorist bombings in
Saudi Arabia and Morocco, also in conjunction with intelligence
reports concerning anti-U.S. terrorist groups' intentions," said
Department of Homeland Security Undersecretary Asa Hutchinson.
"The United States' intelligence community believes that
terrorists continue to plan attacks against targets in the United
States, and for this reason the alert level has been raised," he
told reporters.
[...] "Recent intelligence suggests (these) attacks may be a
prelude to an attack on the United States," the FBI said in a
message sent to law enforcement agencies across the country.
"However, the FBI possesses no information indicating a specific
threat in the United States." [...]
Comment: Scared enough yet? Scared
enough to do something about this? To refuse the lies of the Bush
Reich? Your freedoms are being stripped away so that the merchants
of war can enrich their coffers, so that any dissent can be
labelled "terrorism", so that the US can be brought completely
under the heel of the new Nazis.
City braces to meet elevated terror risk Security
beefed up for holiday weekend
By
Shannon Tan
Indy Star
Just
days before visitors by the hundreds of thousands arrive for the
Indianapolis 500, the nation has raised its terror threat level to
orange, signifying a high risk for attacks.
Local and federal officials said they had not received any
information that the Indianapolis 500 is a possible target, but
Mayor Bart Peterson announced the city would increase security for
the weekend. On the heels of a Downtown parade Saturday that could
draw 250,000 spectators, Sunday's race could attract an even bigger
crowd -- and two former presidents -- making it the largest
national event after the heightened warning. [...].
"People who are planning to drop off somebody or pick up
somebody need to be aware their vehicle could be searched," he
said.
Comment: Terrorist's are everywhere, every
beer cooler could contain a dirty bomb, every car could contain a
suicide bomber. Is this the kind of America anyone would want to
live in? If not, get busy, and
Impeach Bush.
Sloppy hiring let screener felons
through
May 20, 2003
By Shaun Waterman From the Washington Politics
& Policy Desk
WASHINGTON, May 20 (UPI) -- Homeland Security Secretary Tom
Ridge acknowledged Tuesday that "sloppiness" in the recruitment of
passenger screeners for airports allowed many with criminal records
to pass background checks designed to weed them out.
He said that faced with time constraints imposed by congress --
which gave a strict deadline for the new federalized screener
system to be in place -- the Department of Homeland Security turned
to the private sector to get the background checks completed on
time.
"We couldn't possibly get the FBI and others to do that," he
told lawmakers on the new House Homeland Security Committee, "so we
had to engage companies within the private sector."
Comment: So much room for "
ambiguity"...
US
conceives a morning-after-the-blast-before pill
Military officials in the United States are expressing
enthusiasm about an experimental drug that they say could help
protect troops, police officers and emergency medical personnel
against nuclear weapons or "dirty bombs." The drug appears to offer
significant protection from radiation sickness. "We want it on the
fast track," said Navy Admiral James Zimble, a top military health
official who is president of the Uniformed Services University of
the Health Sciences. "We've been very encouraged by the very
positive results" of tests on animals.
Comment: The police, the troops,
and the big-wigs get the pill. Remember what they
have in store for the rest of us...(from
Signs of the Times,
May 16, 2003).
The pressures of spin
Smith and Fleisher - psychically linked?
By Nick Assinder
BBC News Online political correspondent
Tony Blair and George Bush may be close - but for them to lose
their spokesmen on the same day is verging on the paranormal.
Just a couple of hours after White House press secretary Ari
Fleischer announced he was standing down, the prime minister's
official spokesman Godric Smith revealed he too was quitting.
On this, however, there is absolutely no sign that the
announcements were co-ordinated - so it must be planetary
alignments!
Blair 'broke his promise not to tap MPs'
phones'
By
Marie Woolf, Chief Political Correspondent
Independent
Tony
Blair has been accused of misleading MPs and concealing the tapping
of politicians' telephones by the security services.
The
Prime Minister promised when he came to power in 1997 that no MPs'
telephones would be tapped, and to make a statement to the Commons
if the policy changed. But two MPs - one a minister - are known to
have had their phone conversations recorded by the security
services. MI5 was named in reports as having taped conversations
between Martin McGuinness, Sinn Fein MP for Mid Ulster, and Mo
Mowlam while she was Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
between 1997 and 1999.
Norman Baker, MP for Lewes, and Andrew Mackinlay, Labour MP for
Thurrock, have written to the Prime Minister requesting that he
state whether authorisation had been given to tap the phone of any
Member of Parliament since 1 May 1997.
Mr
Blair has refused to make a statement on the tapping of phones used
by Mr McGuinness and Mo Mowlam despite being asked twice in the
House of Commons.[...]
'Lords of the World' Put AKP Under
Microscope
zaman.com
Istanbul, TURKEY, May 17, 2003 -The State Minister for Finance
Ali Babacan's participation in the 49th Bilderberg meetings at the
'Trianon' Hotel in Versailles, France this weekend, has caused
controversy.
Stating the participants of the meeting are not allowed to
issue statements and to write articles about the subjects being
discussed, an analysts pointed out that Minister Babacan needed to
inform the public about the meetings. The participant of Bilderberg
meetings participants are not allowed to issue statements and to
write articles about the subjects to be discussed in the meetings.
However, the analysts assert that the minister Babacan should
inform the public about the meetings as well as journalist-writer
Fehmi Koru, well-known for his studies on Bilderberg meetings who
said that minister Babacan has to make statements about the issue
in a group meeting or in the parliament.
In
the meeting, plans for a new Middle-East map in the post-Iraq war
period were reportedly discussed. This, the first serious encounter
between the new Justice and Development Party (AKP) government and
the 'Lords of the New World Order', which have been following
Turkey closely for years, is truly significant, says researcher
Aytunc Altindal. He said: "Some demands will be made of the AKP
there. If they satisfy the demands, they will feel free in foreign
and internal politics, otherwise they will find themselves in a
very tough situation indeed." He added that swift changes on
economic policies would be a primary demand.
Babacan had met with Bilderberg Turkey Representative
Selahattin Beyazit during Forum 2003 meeting previous week in
Istanbul.
Comment:
The Propaganda Matrix made the
interesting connection that shortly after this meeting Turkey gets
a
taste of terrorism. Was it a message being sent
to Babacan that he had better fall in line, or a mere coincidence?
We don't know.
Bush family funded Adolf Hitler
BY
ASTRID BARNET
Special for Granma International
HAVE
you ever wondered how Adolph Hitler a mediocre painter of Austrian
origin transformed himself into Germany's Fuhrer during the 1930s
and 1940s?
The
Nazi phenomenon was no historical coincidence, and far less a
philosophical whim made real by just one man. Nazism had its
followers, many of them exceptionally wealthy, veritable alchemists
of the financial world back then.
According to research carried out over the last few years, Wall
Street bankers (amongst others) financed Hitler's rise to power
whilst making large profits at the same time. What is yet still
more deplorable is the fact that relatives of the current U.S.
president were amongst this group of individuals.
U.S.
authors Webster G. Tarpley and Anton Cheitkin reveal in the
recently published George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography that
Prescott Bush (George W. Bush's grandfather) and other directors of
the Union Banking Company (UBC) were Nazi collaborators.
The
book relates how in 1922 when national socialism was emerging
railroad impresario W. Averell Harriman traveled to Berlin and
interviewed the Thyssen family with a view to founding a
German-U.S. bank. The Thyssens were already behind-the-scenes
owners of several financial institutions that allowed them to
transfer their money from Germany to the Netherlands and from there
onto the United States.
The
banks in question were the August Thyssen Bank whose headquarters
were located in Berlin; the Bank voor Handel (Netherlands) and the
Union Banking Corporation (New York). At the beginning of the
1920s, one of the members of this family, Fritz Thyssen author of I
Paid Hitler contributed some $25,000 USD to the recently formed
German National Socialist Workers' Party, becoming the prime and
most important financier of the Fuhrer in his ascent to
power.
According to the book's authors, Thyssen was fascinated by
Hitler, citing his talent as a public speaker and his ability to
lead the masses. However, what impressed him most was the order
that prevailed at his rallies and the almost military discipline of
his followers.
And
so, in 1931 Thyssen joined the Nazi party, becoming one of the most
powerful members of the Nazi war machine.
At
that time, the magnate presided over the German Steel Trust, a
steel industry consortium founded by Clarence Dillon, one of Wall
Street's most influential men. One of Dillon's most trustworthy
collaborators was Samuel Bush: Prescott's father, George Senior's
grandfather and great-grandfather of the current U.S. president
George W. Bush.
In
1923, Harriman and the Thyssens decided to set up a bank and
appointed George Herbert Walker Prescott's father-in-law as
president. Later, in 1926, they established the Union Banking
Corporation (UBC) with Prescott Bush at the helm. That same year,
he was also named vice president and partner at Brown Brothers
Harriman. Both firms allowed the Thyssens to send money to the
United States from Germany via the Netherlands.
U.S.
economist Victor Thorn has noted that although a large number of
other corporations aided the Nazis (such as Standard Oil and
Rockefeller's Chase Bank, as well as U.S. automobile manufacturers)
Prescott Bush's interests were much more profound and
sinister.
Thorn adds that UBC became a secret channel to protect Nazi
capital leaving Germany for the United States via the Netherlands.
When the Nazis needed to retrieve their funds, Brown Brothers
Harriman sent them directly to Germany.
In
this way, UBC received money from the Netherlands and Brown
Brothers Harriman sent it back. And who was on the executive of
both of these companies? Prescott Bush himself, the Nazis' first
money launderer.
In
their book, Tarpley and Cheitkin explain that in this way a
significant part of the Bush family's financial base is related to
supporting and aiding Adolph Hitler. Therefore, the current U.S.
president, just like his father (former CIA director, vice
president and president) reached the peak of the U.S. political
hierarchy thanks to his great-grandfather and grandfather and
generally his entire family, who financially aided and encouraged
the Nazis.
Some
time later, in October 1942, the U.S. authorities confiscated Nazi
bank funds from the New York UBC, whose then president was
Prescott. The firm was condemned as a financial and commercial
collaborator with the enemy and all its assets were
seized.
Later, the U.S. government also ordered the seizure of the
assets of a further two leading financial agencies directed by
Prescott through the accounts of the Harriman banking institution:
the Holland-America Trading Corporation (a U.S.-Dutch commercial
firm) and the Seamless Steel Equipment Corporation.
Then
on November 11, 1942, an embargo was imposed on the
Silesian-American Corporation another firm headed by Bush and
Walker under the same Trading with the Enemy Act.
However, in 1951, the embargo was lifted and the enterprising
businessman recovered some $1.5 million USD, earmarked for new
investments largely to swell the Bush family's
patrimony.
To
this should be added a resume of files belonging to Dutch and U.S.
information services confirming the direct links between Prescott
Bush, the German Thyssen family and the blood money of a group of
rich U.S. families from the Second World War.
Tarpley and Cheitkin affirm that the great financial crash of
1929-1931 affected the United States, Germany and Britain,
weakening their respective governments. At the same time, Prescott
Bush became even more diligent, still more desirous of doing
everything that was necessary to safeguard his place in the world.
It was during this crisis that some members of the Anglo-U.S
wealthy class supported the installation of Hitler's regime in
Germany.
To
sum up, the authors categorically state that the Bush family's
fortune arose as a result of its unconditional support for Adolph
Hitler's political project.
The
UBC, under Prescott Bush's direction and with the long-term
cooperation of Fritz Thyssen's German Steel Trust participated in
the emergence, preparation and financing of the Nazi war machine
through the manufacture of armored vehicles, fighter planes, guns
and explosives.
The
Bush family's habit of dominating territories and wealth is nothing
new. Their fascist genes were generated during the 1930s. Therefore
defining the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq and the threats to
other countries as a continuance of blitzkreig offensives as
fascist is no blunder. Neither is convening an anti-fascist front
is a rhetorical exercise.
Comment: For more information regarding the
background of the current Bush Reich you may want to check out the
online book
George Bush:
The Unauthorized Biography by Webster G. Tarpley & Anton
Chaitkin.
God and George W. Bush
By
BILL KELLER
New York Times
Is
President Bush a religious zealot, or does he just pander to that
crowd? That, crudely put, is probably the most persistent question
I hear about Mr. Bush when I travel outside the country, and it
comes up all the time in the less godly American precincts
(universities, Bush-hater Web sites, Hollywood, the island of
Manhattan). On issues from Saddam to sodomy, the assumption is that
Mr. Bush is an evangelist for a moralistic agenda that grows from
his born-again Christianity. Or else (the more cynical variation),
regardless of what he believes in, he has handed over the
presidential portfolio to the preacher pols of the religious right
in exchange for their influence as campaign ward heelers.
[...]
But
it is a nonsectarian comfort. Mr. Bush has talked of bonding with
Vladimir Putin over the story of a crucifix Mr. Putin's mother gave
him. According to Deborah Sontag's reporting in The New York Times
Magazine last Sunday, Mr. Bush startled Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the
devout Muslim who now leads Turkey, by declaring: "You believe in
the Almighty, and I believe in the Almighty. That's why we'll be
great partners." [...]
Justice details 9-11
investigations
By
Eric Lichtblau
The New York Times
WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department, in the most detailed
public accounting of how it has used its expanded powers to fight
terrorism, released information on Tuesday showing that federal
agents have conducted hundreds of bugging and surveillance
operations and visited numerous libraries and mosques using new law
enforcement tools.[...]
Convoy of Death
Information Clearinghouse
May 20, 2003
Why have US television stations refused to broadcast this
documentary?
In Afghanistan, filmmaker Jamie Doran has uncovered evidence of
a massacre: Taliban prisoners of war suffocated in containers, shot
in the desert under the watch of American troops.
Watch clips from this documentary
Download the entire movie (53 MB, QuickTime
required)
Taiwan SARS crisis getting worse, China says under
control
May 21, 2003
Taiwan recorded its largest single day rise in SARS deaths and
new cases as the crisis in the island's hospitals worsened, while
China said most of the country was close to controlling the
epidemic.
[...] Hong Kong is reporting just a handful of cases daily,
Singapore has recorded just one new case in 20 days and, despite
some scepticism, the number of new cases in China has plummeted
from some 200 a day to just 17 Tuesday.
The exception is Taiwan where 39 new cases of the illness were
reported, bringing the total number of cases to 383. Another 12
deaths were recorded from the disease, bringing the death toll on
the island to 52.
[...] In Brussels, US Health Secretary Tommy G. Thompson warned
SARS was likely to kill people in more continents before the end of
the year.
[...] Asked how confident he was that United States and Europe
could avoid SARS deaths, he said: "I'm not confident at all. I
think you will see them..."
The truth ... is it out there?
By:CHRIS WILLIAMS Staff Writer
The Starr Democrat (Maryland) 05/18/2003
EASTON - Someone get Agents Mulder and Scully on the phone.
Mysterious crop circles have appeared in Talbot County.
When Easton attorney Lex Kramer drove into town along
Matthewstown Road on Saturday morning, he noticed an odd formation
in the wheat fields, but didn't think much of it.
Then he noticed another one.
And another.
"It's like a very defined shape that looks like someone had
taken a roller out there and rolled it in some sort of
configuration," Kramer said.
In nearly every wheat field between the Tuckahoe Bridge and
Easton, elliptical imprints appeared over the last day or so. The
winter wheat crops, most of which are still green, were flattened
in some areas with adjacent crops left untouched.
"It looked like the whole field had been done," Kramer said. "It
was likely some hoax, maybe. I don't want to be looked at as some
kind of crackpot, but there's definitely something there."
UFO in Baku
21/05/2003 02:11
Baku Today
UFO was observed in various parts of capital approximately from
5 pm to 7pm (Baku time). In the cloudless sky the large light stain
similar to an extended “drop of milk” has appeared.
The object was not similar to a cloud, aboard the plane or the
helicopter, as moved on a complex trajectory, Ekho newspaper report
says. At 18:35 "drop" suddenly started quickly to leave, was not
dissolved yet in the sky. The abnormal object has caused interest
not only the people of Baku, but also Azerbaijani experts.
Professor Elchin Khalilov, chief of a commission on the abnormal
phenomena at presidium of Academy of Sciences, shot the UFO on
amateur. Mr. Khalilov has noted that they had already started to
study the video.
"With similar UFO we face for the first time," he told to
reporters. "It is already unequivocally clear, that the fixed
object is not the plane, helicopter or other flying means. The UFO
represents enough, slightly extended form. Thus is abundantly
clear, that it is object of a technical origin."...
As Baku Today reported early this year, an UFO appeared on Baku
on January 2. Some scientists claim that UFOs were also observed
before and warned about natural disaster. Mr. Gasimov stated that
UFOs hinder the prediction of earthquakes and researches carried
out in this field.
"They don't want mankind reveal their secret. But there are some
facts stating that UFOs keep in touch with the scientists. Though
most approach these unserious, objects keep in touch with selected
persons by the means of Morse alphabet or telepathy signals and
transmit information related to the future," he told to journalists
in January of this year. It seems UFO will become “normal
guest” for Baku inhabitants soon.
Tests Reveal Different Sources of "Kokomo
Hum"
By Joy Danison, Kokomo Tribune
The Kokomo hum may consist of several different sounds coming
from several different potential sources.
That's what sound and ground vibration measurements are telling
consultants hired by the city to study the low-frequency
phenomenon...
An earlier trip in March included visits to six or seven
different places. The tests have revealed the presence of both
infrasound -- sound that is so low in frequency it can't be heard
by the human ear -- and audible noise, said Jim Cowan, a senior
consultant for Acentech and project manager for the Kokomo
study.
Further array testing, used to determine the direction a sound
is coming from, suggests the hum could be coming from several
potential locations, Cowan said, though he declined to give further
details.
"At this point, I'd like to be as nonspecific as possible,
because we still have data to go through," Cowan said.
Earthquake Swarms studied in Georgia
DACULA Georgia
Something weird was happening near Dacula in 1995.
Loud explosions would roll across the countryside and the ground
would shake, sometimes four or five times a day.
The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms believed a
backwoods bomber was behind the suspected blasts, which also drew
the attention of media outlets and scientists.
Although the ATF in Washington D.C. sent agents to investigate,
it was the scientists — or seismologists to be exact —
who had the answer to what had become a real-life mystery for law
enforcement officials and residents near Brooks Road.
It was an earthquake swarm, and it wasn’t the first time
seismologists had trekked to Gwinnett County to study the
phenomenon...
Rob Hoppe, however, has no problem recalling the sequence of
quakes that rattled his neighborhood about one mile south of Dacula
in the winter of 1995. He does, though, have a problem describing
them.
“There’s no way to really describe what you felt
because it was somewhat like you were on a ship hitting a wave. Can
you imagine being in a horror movie and there is something big
pushing against the side of your house?
“Those were the two descriptions we came up with,”
he said...
After placing seismometers in the area, Long was able to confirm
that it was a series of earthquakes with a magnitude of less than 2
on the Richter scale that had everyone all shook up...
Unlike an isolated earthquake — which has foreshocks, a
main event, and aftershocks — a swarm occurs over an extended
period of time. It starts slowly, with a handful of events
happening each day, and then picks up speed. After peaking, it
loses momentum and fades away.
“It’s a cluster of low-intensity earthquakes
occurring in a small area,” Gore said.
As for the cause of the Norris Lake swarm, Georgia Tech’s
Long said there could have been several contributing factors...
Long said there is evidence that the large Nicaraguan quake
changed the rock conditions here, rearranging them in such a way
that there was increased pressure between the subsurface
formations.
An earthquake occurred and released the pressure, but instead of
that being the end of it, the event created pressure elsewhere in
the rock fracture. “That pressure can either decay slowly, or
it can build up and migrate to an area in the rock where another
quake can be triggered,” Long said...
Instead of occurring along fault lines like earthquakes in
California, earthquakes in the Piedmont region of north Georgia
typically result from slight movements along fractures that have
been weakened by groundwater and weathering, said Gore.
“Interestingly, these earthquakes are typically
accompanied by a booming sound, somewhat like an explosion or
thunder,” she said. “These earthquakes sound and feel
like explosions.”
For some who did not have the benefit of technology and
seismologists, the cause of the explosion-like sounds remained a
mystery.
According to Long, native Americans in New England passed down
legends about a “land of thundering rocks.”
The area they were referring to in Connecticut is now known to
have earthquake swarms.
Deep in Universe's Software Lurk Beautiful,
Mysterious Numbers
By George Johnson New York Times
...It's probably not the math lesson that has propelled ["The Da
Vinci Code"] onto the best-seller lists. But the mysterious aura
that has long been attributed to the number adds to the playful
illusion that readers are getting the inside scoop, an important
clue to how the universe works.
In a world otherwise crippled by math anxiety, books about phi
and other so- called constants of the universe are multiplying so
quickly that "The Da Vinci Code" threatens to become part of a
genre.
In "The Golden Ratio: The Story of Phi, the World's Most
Astonishing Number," Dr. Mario Livio offers a more sober, and
nonfictional, treatment of this seemingly ubiquitous parameter.
"Gamma: Exploring Euler's Constant" by Dr. Julian Havil gives the
starring role to another mysterious number, 0.5772156 . . ., which
pops up in enough odd places to suggest to some that it may be an
expression of the underlying beauty of mathematics.
Taking a broader sweep, Dr. John D. Barrow's new book, "The
Constants of Nature: From Alpha to Omega — The Numbers That
Encode the Deepest Secrets of the Universe," closely follows the
work of Dr. Barrow's British colleague, Dr. Martin J. Rees, and his
popular account, "Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces That Shape the
Universe."
Despite the mystical tone of some of the subtitles, these books
are science, not science fiction, yet they tap into a mystery far
more compelling than the shopworn Grail legend: why the world seems
to operate according to mathematical laws.
Nowhere does the phenomenon emerge more forcefully than with the
constants, quantities that seem to be encoded within the software
of the universe. Not all of these numbers are inherently
remarkable. The National Institute of Standards and Technology,
keeper of the constants for the United States Government, defines
the speed of light in a vacuum, called c, as 299,792,458 meters per
second and the charge of the electron, or e, as 1.602176462 10-19
coulombs. (A coulomb is the quantity of electricity transported in
one second by a current of one ampere.)
There is no point in trying to find some cabalistic significance
to these constants any more than there is in the recently issued
NIST peanut butter standard. Too much arbitrariness goes into the
numbers' manufacture. If length is measured in something other than
meters or time in something other than seconds, the numbers would
be expressed by entirely different strings of digits. Nothing very
magical there.
The weirdness comes when you combine c and e with another
quantity called Planck's constant, the most important number in
quantum theory. Twiddle with the units so that the meters and
seconds and other parochial Earthling units cancel out and the
result is a dimensionless, "pure" number, 7.297352533 10-3 or
almost exactly one-137th. The number, called alpha, would be the
same for alien races using measuring sticks based on the width of
the fourth planet circling Betelgeuse or clocks with faces bearing
79 numerals.
Put together from values important to both special relativity
and quantum mechanics, alpha is suspected by some physicists to be
a key to the long-sought theory of everything. The secret of the
universe is why alpha is one-137th and not, say, one-136th or
one-138th. Calculations indicate that if it were slightly
different, stars would not exist to produce elements and there
would be no life...
This kind of obsessive behavior started as far back as the sixth
century B.C., when a cult of number worshipers called the
Pythagoreans taught that fire was made of 24 right-angled
triangles, surrounded by 4 equilaterals, which are made in turn of
6 right-angled triangles. "All is number," the brothers would
intone.
Strip away the religious trappings and the notion that emerges
is not so different from one embraced by numerous physicists and
mathematicians today: God is a mathematician and the universe
experienced by the senses is a shadow play of a deeper reality, the
hidden realm of numbers.
Trying to get a grip on this, the physicist Eugene Wigner
published an essay called "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of
Mathematics in the Natural Sciences." After struggling through and
rejecting some possible explanations for why the world seems to be
ruled by numbers, he concluded that the phenomenon might always
remain a mystery. It's "a wonderful gift," he wrote, "which we
neither understand nor deserve."
Comment: We feel the mystery of the
universe, its vastness, its grandeur. We want to comprehend the
universe and our place within it. Mathematics, as the universal
language, is the key. Unfortunately, due to a general mathematical
illiteracy, the
cosmic COINTELPRO gang can come along and turn it into
mumbo jumbo about sacred geometry and ritual, turning genuine
seekers off the path.
Notice also that, as quoted in CRC Concise
Encyclopedia of mathematics" by Eric W. Wesstein (I recommend this
encyclopedia to everybody), the late British philosopher (and
mathematician) BertrandRussel once whimsically defined mathematics
as:
"The subject in which we never know what we are
talking about nor whether what we are saying is true."
HOLY WATER MYSTERY
by
Cassie Moffat
journalnow.co.uk
A
BLAZE gutted a garage wrecking everything except a bottle of holy
water. Doug and Anne Mangan were amazed to find the plastic bottle
of holy water virtually untouched among the charred remains of
their garage, which was destroyed after a neighbour's touring
caravan exploded and sparked an inferno. The blaze gutted next
door's conservatory and garage before spreading to the
Mangan«s home on Winchester Drive, Prestatyn. It took
firefighters hours to control the fire, which was caused by faulty
electrics in the caravan.
The
devastated couple believed everything in the garage had been
destroyed including a beloved £6000 Yamaha Dragstar motorbike
until Doug made the miracle discovery as he started clearing the
debris. His mother had brought the vial of water back from Lourdes,
France more than 10 years ago and it was kept in a canvas bag in
the garage.[...]
Fetal rights backers seize on case's
emotion
By
David Crary
The Associated Press
Adding fuel to the already fierce debate over abortion,
Republicans in Congress are evoking the Laci Peterson murder case
as they try to enact the first federal law to endow a fetus with
legal rights separate from the expectant mother.
Comment: Oh, if they where only as concerned
about the rights of the children already born . . .
Wife hopes policy will ensure marital
bliss
A woman who is worried her husband might leave her if she loses
her looks has insured her face for £100,000.
Nicole Jones, of Bristol, is paying £3200 a year for the
FaceSafe policy, which will pay out if she is no longer deemed to
be attractive.
She took the policy out as a birthday present for her husband
Simon, who had always joked he would leave her if she let herself
go as she got older.
Mrs Jones, 26, said: "When I met him I knew he was the sort of
person who likes good looking ladies, but I've had a baby now and
my figure isn't what it was before.
"He hated it when I was pregnant and my figure was changing and
it was out of our control."
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