'Vive
la France! Vive le Canada!' hails PM
CBC
Online News
Last Updated Thu, 22 May 2003 22:23:51
OTTAWA - Prime Minister Jean Chrétien says France and
Canada must work together to restore trust with the United States
after recent tensions over the war in Iraq.
Chrétien and French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin
held a joint news conference Thursday in Ottawa...
Besides signing a number of co-operative agreements,
Chrétien said both nations agreed the United Nations must be
returned to the centre of international law.
The
prime minister delivered the same message Wednesday night during a
dinner in honour of Raffarin.
Chrétien said the tensions between Europe and the U.S.
must not be allowed to weaken transatlantic relations.
He
said Canada will work with France to restore what he called the
traditional culture of co-operation and trust with the
Americans.
Raffarin, for his part, said he's pleased Canada and France
still agree the UN should play a lead role in international
affairs.
He
also said there must be an international order based on the rule of
law, and such an order must be run by the UN.
Chrétien toasted his French guests, saying "Vive la
France. Vive le Canada."
Most
of the remarks at the state dinner were in French, and at least one
VIP in attendance, American ambassador to Canada Paul Cellucci,
might have missed most of what was said.
The
U.S. has a different view on the UN than Canada or France. The
differences are sure to come up at a meeting of G-8 leaders in
Evian, France, in 10 days.
Decision not to join Iraq war vindicated, PM
says
The
Toronto Star
OTTAWA (CP) — Canada's decision not to join the war in
Iraq has been vindicated by the U.S. failure to uncover weapons of
mass destruction, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien suggested
today.
"They didn't find (weapons of mass destruction in Iraq) so far,
and we did not participate either, so it is for the people to pass
a judgment, it is not for me," he said at a news
conference.
He
quickly added, "I was of the view that there was a need for more
time."
Chrétien, who said Canada would consider going to war only
if a United Nations mandate was drafted and another deadline set,
said other countries tipped the balance.
He
said Americans and others in the coalition — which included
Britain — were not "flexible" enough to allow a peaceful
resolution.
"Perhaps if there had been a bit more flexibility not only on
the part of Americans, but others, we might have succeeded, but we
have done our best," he said.
Canada takes it on the chin from U.S.A.
WASHINGTON (CP) — There are always alarmed Americans
scrambling to build barriers along the northern border. Listen to
them and you'll hear that Canada has exported millennium bombers, a
biblical plague (SARS), subsidized wheat and, now, tainted meat
across the 49th parallel.
Canada's first case of mad cow disease in a decade has prompted
keen-eyed U.S. Customs agents to serve notice: not one American
will be slain by a salami sandwich. Turkey, ham and even spam are
being seized at the border.
Marcy Viselli told the Detroit News she was queried about her
luncheon meat before she crossed over the Ambassador
Bridge.
"What are they going to do, open my pita and take the meat
out?" Viselli asked on her way from Windsor, Ont., to her
advertising job in Detroit. "It's just ridiculous."
These are dim days for Canada in the United States.
There are still members of the U.S. Congress who believe the
Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists must have somehow sneaked into the
United States from Canada, rather than receiving their aeronautics
training under their noses at various American flight
schools.
The
legislators who don't believe that myth are certain Canada is
killing their family farms by shipping unfairly subsidized grain
across the border or laying waste to the U.S. lumber industry by
dumping softwood into their market.
Canadian companies are being shut out of lucrative contracts to
rebuild Iraq because of Ottawa's opposition to the war to topple
Saddam Hussein...
Canadian cows represent the current danger descending from the
North. A single cow in Alberta has inflicted the latest black eye
to Canada's image in the United States. The sickly Black Angus was
slaughtered in January, but it was only this week that Canadian
officials admitted the cow was afflicted with bovine spongiform
encephalopathy.
The
reaction was instantaneous: everyone from Kansas cattle ranchers to
one of Boston's trendiest steak chefs began treating Canadian beef
as if it were kryptonite.
Steaks from Canadian cattle are about 55 cents a kilo cheaper
than U.S. beef, but it won't be served at Grill 23 and Bar in
Boston's toney Back Bay neighbourhood...
Canada is the top foreign supplier of live cattle to the United
States, making up 75 per cent of U.S. imports.
The
Bush administration lavishly praised Canada's handling of the
crisis, but quickly sent a team of its own experts to ensure all is
being done to trace and contain the disease.
Time's attack on Canada doesn't ask right
question
DAVID OLIVE COLUMNIST
The Toronto Star
The
cover of Time magazine's latest Canadian edition notes that our
"nation's influence in the world is shrinking."
Inside this edition of the branch-plant magazine are 10 pages
of features and columns on Canada's pint-sized military, dwindling
diplomatic corps and shrinking foreign aid budget. Plus a reminder
it's not too late for Canada to win a coveted prime ministerial
invitation to George W. Bush's ranch in Texas by following the
ennobling Aussie example of outsourcing your foreign policy to
Washington.
The
cover image is a map of North America in which there's a big empty
space where Canada used to be. And the main headline: "Would anyone
notice if Canada disappeared?"
Well, hypotheticals are tough.
What
if Austria disappeared? Or Donald Rumsfeld? Or kabuki?
My
own speculations run in the opposite direction.
What
if George Orwell came back, or the Marx Brothers?
Would anyone miss Time, whose reporting on the Iraqi crisis
lacked the investigative enterprise of Newsweek, the Washington
Post and Britain's Guardian?
Iraq, and Canada's non-participation in the U.S.-led assault on
that country, is of course what prompted this latest attack on our
tender sensibilities.
Soon
enough, editorialists and callers on the CBC's talk-back lines will
respond to this latest slur.
They
will argue that Canadian-inspired or heavily supported initiatives
like the land-mines convention and the new International Criminal
Court, and our break with the U.S. in ratifying the Kyoto accord on
global warming and deciding not to join Iceland and the Solomon
Islands in the "coalition of the willing" in Iraq, have projected
our influence in the world far more substantially than any increase
in our defence budget could do.
Canada is an act of faith, which like the Eucharist, cannot be
reduced to a lapel pin. ...
For
war supporters in the U.S., Canada's skepticism about White House
war aims in Iraq was sharply irksome, relevant because America's
friend and neighbour, of all places, was disputing their conception
of a moral cause.
And
Americans with an anti-war view seemed to feel that if Canada
disappeared, North America would lose its last bastion of democracy
and free speech.
An
arguable point, for sure, but less so than the undeniable
importance of Canada to Americans who dissented from what they
perceived as a pro-war groupthink in their country.
Here's what some of them had to say:
"The
people leading my country are very scary and at times I even
consider moving to our neighbours to the North. Hopefully, this
madness will only last for 1 ¾ years. And we can get a new
administration with a more mature view of the world." -M.M.,
Washington, D.C.
"Thank God that we can read articles like yours distinct from
the U.S. newspapers and media that do not travel in lockstep with
our administration." - S.R., Olympia, Wash.
"I
am an American, even a South Texan, but despise Bush and his insane
cartel in this lunacy called `Iraqi Freedom.' I am pitifully
grateful for rays of sanity from Canada. What has happened to the
U.S.?" -J.J., Houston
"I
read your column on antiwar.com. Thanks from a Yank vet. Too bad we
USA citizens need to get our best coverage from Canada and the Brit
papers." -D.H. [no address]
"I
live in the U.S. and the only place we can get any truth in the
news is from Canada, or Europe. I'm afraid the Bush cabal is going
after Syria next. You won't hear anything about this in the U.S.
press, however, it's being censored." -M.B., South Haven,
Mich.
"Thank you for a Canadian perspective. I truly believe that my
country is no longer a `democracy' because this nightmare started
with the installation of the Bush government. More than half of us
did not vote for this man." -D.E., Soquel, Calif.
"I'm
American and so you can imagine my profound frustration, surrounded
by a population that just sucks up the deception and is oblivious
of our collective denial." -T.W., Santa Fe., N.M.
"We
have blind Americans hating dissenting Americans, even in
`victory.' It's sickening." -C.N., Boston, Mass.
"I
am an American, and am against this war. I love my country, but
don't love its foreign policy. Unfortunately, your article will be
dismissed as anti- American, just as everyone living in this
country who disagrees." -S.J., Des Moines, Iowa
"The
U.S. is bullying the world by the `Coalition of the Mindless.' I am
an American but sadly not proud of it at this point in our history.
Thank you for being one of the unwilling." -B.R.,
Honolulu
"Your Canadian perspective is sorely needed down here amidst
the glut of flag- waving U.S. `journalism.' Three cheers for `Old
Europe' and our friends in Canada." -M.M., Coventry, Vt.
Some
of America's friends in Canada worried that the U.S. would look
like a bully in this unequal contest, undermining its moral
stature. Rather late, pro- war pundit Thomas Friedman of the New
York Times during his travels in Iraq this week has discovered that
Iraq was in no position to defend itself. And the depredation has
only grown worse since the great victory was secured.
"With all due respect to the U.S. military," Freidman wrote
yesterday, "in socio-economic terms, "we were at war with the
Flintstones."
Something like 3 per cent of the world population agreed with
this war. For the rest — watching the Philippine dissidents
now being suppressed by the Pentagon, the U.S.-backed Christian
Sudanese at war with the regime in Khartoum, the Chileans suddenly
frozen out of free-trade talks by a vengeful White House —
the question that should trouble Time's editors in New York is,
"How many people in the world wish that America was a little less
visible right now?"
Comment: Canada has long been a laboratory
for US interests. With its long common border, the influence of US
media through TV, movies and music (most Canadians have direct
access to US TV at home), Canada is the country that has been most
the thoroughly subjected to US brainwashing other than the US
itself. Canada has been a firm supporter of US policies since the
end of WWII. Eighty percent of Canada's foreign trade and
forty-five percent of the US foreign trade or done between the two
countries. US corporations own large sections of almost all sectors
of the Canadian economy. On September 11, 2003, Canadians opened
their homes to stranded US travellers who were unable to get home.
One might wonder how much better "friends" two countries could be?
And yet, at the first sign of "independence" of thought on the part
of the Chretien government, the US has begun a propaganda campaign
that flies in the face of the facts. No wonder Chretien and Rafarin
had something to share during their meetings. Look at what the US
has been saying about France!
Canadians should be aware of pre-WWII relations
between Germany and Austria. The Bush Reich is laying the
groundwork for the complete takeover of Canada, for in what other
manner would it be possible for Canada to "disappear", as Time is
suggesting?
Algerian Quake Kills 1,000, Thousands
Homeless
Thu
May 22, 2003 07:06 PM ET
By
Hamid Ould Ahmed
BOUMERDES, Algeria (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of Algerians
spent a second night sleeping in the open as rescue workers tore
frantically at rubble for survivors from an earthquake that killed
more than 1,000 people and injured 7,000...
Rescuers, many working with bare hands while others used
bulldozers and cranes, said hundreds could still be under debris
from the quake that struck the capital and towns to the east along
a populous Mediterranean coastal strip Wednesday night.
[...] The quake, 6.7 on the Richter scale, sent many terrified
people running into the streets. Others were killed when their
homes collapsed in the quake, Algeria's worst in more than 20 years
and felt as far away as Spain.
[...] The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake's epicenter had
been 70 km (45 miles) east of Algiers. It said the quake was the
biggest to hit Algeria since 1980, when one measuring 7.7 on the
Richter scale demolished more than 70 percent of the city of El
Asnam, west of Algiers. It was subsequently rebuilt as
Chlef.
NORAD's Wag The
911 Window Dressing Tale
With
a minute-by-minute chronology from 7:59 a.m. till 10:06:05 a.m.,
this article will dismantle the Wednesday September 18, 2001 North
American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) Press Release. This
press release encompasses the (supposed) response times of the
United States Air Force on Tuesday, September 11, 2001.
This
article will explain to you exactly what happened for the almost
one hour and fifty-three minutes that elapsed between the time
American Airlines Flight 11 lost voice contact with air traffic
control and was hijacked at 8:13:31, till the time United Airlines
Flight 93 crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania at
10:06:05.
When
reading this article, please keep in mind the following five very
significant pieces of information.
1)
The United States Government will spend more on the military in
fiscal year 2003, than all the rest of the countries on Earth
combined. Current expenditures are 437 billion and our past
obligations are 339 billion, this equals 776 billion. 46% of our
Taxes go to the Military Industrial Complex: This figure
doesn’t even begin to account for all of the off-budget,
black projects, homeland security nor the 40+ billion the United
States Government will spend on intelligence in 2003.
2)
The United States Air Force (USAF) is the most technologically
advanced, and the most dominate military force ever known to man.
There were seven Air Stations that were armed and on full alert to
protect the continental United States on Tuesday September 11,
2001. The Air National Guard exclusively performs the air
sovereignty mission in the continental United States, and those
units fall under the control of the 1st Air Force based at Tyndall
Air Force Base (AFB) in Panama City, Florida. The Air National
Guard maintains seven alert sites with 14 fully armed fighters and
pilots on call around the clock. Besides Tyndall AFB, alert birds
also sit armed and ready at; Homestead Air Reserve Base (ARB),
Homestead, Florida; Langley AFB, Hampton, Virginia; Otis Air
National Guard (ANG), Falmouth, Massachusetts; Oregon ANG,
Portland, Oregon; March ARB, Riverside, CA; and Ellington ANG,
Houston, Texas.
There were at least 28 other USAF bases that were in range of
the 4 airliners on 911.
3)
New York City and Washington D.C. are far and away the top two
cities in the United States that would be targeted by
terrorists.
4)
NORAD is a binational United States and Canadian organization
charged with warning of attack against North America whether by
aircraft, missiles, or space vehicles, utilizing mutual support
arrangements with other commands. Aerospace control includes
providing surveillance and control of Canadian and United States
airspace. The job of NORAD is to know every inch of the skies over
North America.
5)
Almost one hundred and thirteen minutes elapsed between the time
American Airlines Flight 11 lost contact and was hijacked at
8:13:31 till the time United Airlines Flight 93 crashed in
Shanksville, Pennsylvania at 10:06:05. One hour and fifty-three
minutes went by and the USAF did not intercept any one of these
four "hijacked" airlines.
Comment: In short, the complicity of the
current Administration in the 9-11 attacks is a
certainty.
'The British officer took out his pistol and hit me on
the head. There was a lot of blood'
From Michael Evans in Rumaila
The Times Online
May 23,
2003
THE
Iraqi at the centre of the war crimes allegations against Colonel
Tim Collins claimed yesterday that the British commander subjected
him to a mock execution. Tracked down by The Times to Ramaila, a
small desert village in southern Iraq, Ayoub Yousif Naser said that
Colonel Collins put him and his son against a wall and ordered a
soldier to kill them. They waited, but nothing happened.
Mr
Naser also reinforced charges already made that the officer
pistol-whipped him, kicked him in the shins and ribs, and fired at
his son's feet.
If
true, such conduct would breach the Army's rules of engagement and
the Geneva Conventions. Colonel Collins is being investigated by
the Army's Special Investigations Branch after a junior American
officer made a complaint...
There appeared to be little sympathy for Mr Naser in the
village. As the senior Baathist representative in Rumaila, he was
both feared and despised, according to other villagers.
"The Average
Civilian Casualty Episode"
The
phrase "the average civilian casualty episode" was coined on April
8th 2003 by Jamie McIntyre, CNN's Senior Pentagon
Correspondent.
For the occasion he wore,
as almost always when on camera, a neatly tailored dark suit and
tie.
Just behind him was an American flag, and on the wall to his left
was the same white symbol before which Donald Rumsfeld tosses
crusty tidbits to the Pentagon press corps.
Comment: This link
points out the sheer callousness of the Bush Reich media. Step by
step he describes the process how this psychopathic phrase was
coined. Highly recommended, but only if your stomach is strong
enough. It may be a good idea for us all to strengthen our stomachs
for as long as there is a Bush in the White
House.
Cloudcroft chief stops Israelis with suspicious
cargo
By
Michael Shinabery
Staff Writer
Alamogordo Daily News
Monday, May 19, 2003 - 11:54:45 AM MST
CLOUDCROFT - That they were speeding through the school zone
first got his attention. That they had Israeli driver's licenses
and expired passports made him suspicious...
"They said this is a U-Haul truck and handed me a rental
agreement (for) in- town delivery only in Illinois, (which) had
expired two days before," Green said...
"We
got them out and started digging a little deeper," Green said, "got
permission to search the truck. They claimed they were hauling
furniture from Austin to Chicago."
When
officers advised the men they were not exactly en route from one
town to another, Green said the two men claimed they were Deming
bound.
"But
they couldn't give us an address in Deming they were going to," he
said. "Once we got into the truck, they had some junk furniture I
wouldn't have given to Goodwill."
Also
inside the vehicle were, Green said, "50 boxes" they claimed was a
"private" delivery, but the men insisted they had no "idea what was
in them."
At
that point, the officers called for drug-sniffing and bomb-sniffing
dogs. The men were turned over to the Immigration and
Naturalization Service, and U-Haul recovered the truck. Contents of
the boxes remain unknown, pending investigation.
The New
World 0rder's Fascist Pedigree
By
Henry Makow Ph.D.
April 13, 2002
US
President Theodore Roosevelt said in 1906: "Behind the ostensible
government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no
allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To
destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance
between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of
the statesmanship of today."
Economist Robert Brady defined the Nazi state as "a
dictatorship of monopoly capitalism. Its 'fascism' is that of
business enterprise organized on a monopoly basis, and in full
command of all the military, police, legal and propaganda power of
the state." (Richard Sasuly, "I.G. Farben," 1947, p.
128)
The
holocaust was very good business. Throughout the 1930's Wall Street
investment banks participated in "aryanization" which meant getting
Jewish owned breweries, banks, factories, department stores etc.
for 30% of their true value. The gold from the teeth of holocaust
victims ended up in their vaults. It is not an exaggeration to say
that the Nazi war effort was financed by the Bank of England
(which, for example, transferred the Czech gold reserves to the
Nazis), Wall Street (Prescott Bush, W's grandfather was one of the
leading Nazi financiers) and Jewish plunder. It was finessed by
lawyer John Foster Dulles, a member of the Council on Foreign
Relations, who later became US Secretary of State. [...]
[T]he Third Reich was an early attempt at the New World Order.
The purpose of this kind of "globalization" is to institutionalize
the political power of the cartels. This is the hidden agenda
behind the current "war on terror."
Bush equated with Hitler in 'Matrix'
sequel?
Image of president shown with dictator in discussion of
evil
By
Joe Kovacs
WorldNetDaily.com
May 22, 2003
Is
President
Bush
equated with Adolf Hitler in the science-fiction flick "The Matrix
Reloaded"?
The
question is being asked in connection with a scene in the new movie
where images of Bush and the German dictator are displayed during a
discussion of evil in the world.
[...] During the scene in question, actor Keanu Reeves ( who
portrays the hero "Neo" ) is standing in front of a large bank of
video screens as he discusses mankind's history with the designer
of the computer-simulated world which is called "the
Matrix."
Images of wickedness begin to rapidly flash on the monitors,
including photos of nuclear warfare and notorious
killers.
"When the architect of the Matrix describes the folly of man,"
Scott Bowles of USA Today says, "look at the screens behind Neo,
which show images of a historical monster and a contemporary
president."
The
historical monster to whom he refers is Hitler, and the president
is George W. Bush, as well as his father for a brief
moment.
[...] Messageboard threads on Yahoo and Free Republic.com
include a host of reactions which span the political
spectrum:
"[Bush is] appropriately just to the right of
Hitler."
[...] "I saw it. The TV monitors show Nazis, Hitler, and an
atomic explosion, and somewhere in the midst of all that the face
of George W. Bush can be seen for a second or so. Why would such a
peace-loving president so emotionally engaged with the struggle of
the common man ever be included alongside such dark images? What
could the filmmakers have been thinking? Is it too late to start a
boycott of this film? ... Maybe if enough pressure can be exerted,
they can have the offensive image removed before they press the
DVD!"...
Comment: Excuse me?! Peace-loving president?
Emotionally engaged with the struggle of the common man? This
comment is evidence that the lies and propaganda of the Bush Reich,
disseminated through a complicit media, are having the intended
effect of dumbing down and controlling the general
populace.
How does one respond to brainwashing? To people who
are so abysmally ignorant, blind and asleep that they do not even
have a clue? So many of us have asked, over and over again, how
could the Holocaust have happened in the 20th century? How could
the German people have been taken in by Hitler? How could they have
been so ignorant, blind and asleep that they didn't have even a
clue? Well, brace yourselves. It's happening again. It seems that
there are more pathetic people like Mr. Szorady, quoted above, than
we can imagine.
This comment comes from a member of the
QFS:
Yikes! I think that I have slipped into a parallel
universe. "peace loving president so emotionally engaged with the
struggle of the common man"?...Yup, I've flown through the
stargate.
It is amazing the effectiveness of the MCS mind
control programs. I got chewed out by a friend's wife the other
night after dinner when I began talking about my opinion that Bush
was going to tank the economy intentionally. She began screaming
that she loves this country and will always support her president.
I'm talking hysterical outburst here. I reminded her that it was ok
to have that opinion and to express it, if that was her choice, but
please don't attempt to impose it on me. It got very frosty after
that.
The frightening thing was that she had never
demonstrated any opinion in the past, when her hubby and I
discussed the state of current affairs in her presence. The
crucible kicks it up a notch.
Republic of
Fear
Cultivating & Exploiting American Anxiety
By
CARL ESTABROOK
CounterPunch
May 22, 2003
By
any reasonable calculation, members of the Bush administration
should be looking for jobs as desperately as this year's college
graduates. There are two million fewer jobs in the American economy
today than on the day George Bush took office, and that fact alone
should be enough for the voters in 2004 to turf out this ridiculous
president and what Matt Taibbi calls his "small gang of snickering,
stupid thugs whose vision of paradise is full of explosions and
beautifully designed prisons".
[...] In the propaganda campaign for the Bush administration's
second demonstration war against a helpless country, Kanan Makiya
was a helpful player. His book Republic of Fear: The Politics of
Modern Iraq (1989, republished in 1998) retailed the horrors of
Saddam Hussein's government without much emphasis on the fact that
they were accomplished with US aid and support. As Iraq became the
official hate-object in America through the fall and winter of
2002, Makiya's prominence grew -- e.g., he became the capstone for
an article advocating war in the "liberal" New York Times
Magazine.
But
the true "republic of fear," it was clear by then, is the United
States of America. Only in America was government propaganda able
to make citizens personally afraid of Saddam Hussein, sufficiently
to promote a war for non- existent "weapons of mass destruction."
911 was a godsend to the Bush administration, for in all the world
only Americans could be made to fear Saddam Hussein because of his
supposed link to "terrorism."
[...] In America the fears of foreign attack are bracketed with
much more reasonable fears of personal economic collapse. Can the
Bush administration continue to cover one fear with the other, so
that it can go on with its policy of imperial war abroad and
transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich at home? Since no real
critique will come from the "other" party (with an occasional
exception), that seems likely. The policy of aggressive war has
both domestic and foreign attractions for any United States
government...
A Quick
Transfer to Democracy? Forget It The Nether-Nether World of G.W.
Bush
By
BARRY LANDO
CounterPunch
May 22, 2003
What
is truly astonishing in light of the newest wave of terrorist
bombings, the shredding of the Road Map, and the mounting problems
in Iraq and Afghanistan, is the fact that, so far at least, none of
this seems to be impacting on the popularity of G.W.
Bush.
It's
like Orwell's 1984 is here and gone; we're floating in some surreal
Matrix Reloaded. Reality is either ignored or blatantly distorted;
dialogue consists of eloquent non sequiturs.
There's show business even in the President's radio talks. Last
Friday, for instance, surrounded by wounded veterans of Gulf War
II, George W. Bush spoke glowingly of the valor of the troops, the
technological wonder of the weapons, and historic speed of conquest
and "the liberation of Iraq and Afghanistan"-as if Iraq was not
sinking deeper each day into chaos and disillusionment (ditto
Afghanistan). And U.S. troops which were supposed to start
withdrawing from Iraq en masse by September, are now being
augmented by tens of thousands of new soldiers. Plans for a quick
transition to democracy-forget it.
The
President went on: "we have removed allies of al Qaeda, cut off
sources of terrorist funding, and made certain that no terrorist
network will gain weapons of mass destruction from Saddam Hussein's
regime."
Ignored, of course, the fact that the adminstration has yet to
find any WMD. Most reports have it that the Pentagon is not even
really seriously looking any more. But not to worry, according to
latest public opinion polls, most Americans don't care if WMD are
never found. Europeans still do, Americans apparently don't. And
U.S. politicians who criticised Bush's rush to war, are now too
timorous to speak out...
Afghanistan Drug Production Equals International
Aid
05/22/2003 18:54
Pravda.ru
Afghanistan has become the world's largest producer of
drugs
In
2002 Afghanistan became the world's largest producer of illegal
opiate narcotics, according to statements by Russian Foreign
Minister Igor Ivanov at the conference "Routes to Deliver Drugs
from Central Asia to Europe."
The
minister said that, according to estimates by UN experts, this
trend in the opiate narcotics production would continue to develop
in 2003 too. The Russian minister pointed out that drug trafficking
income in Afghanistan was $1.2 billion in 2002.
Routes to transport drugs from Afghanistan have already reached
London. Igor Ivanov said that Afghan opium and heroine had
conquered many world markets, including those of the United States,
Japan and Australia.
The
output of narcotics in Afghanistan is virtually comparable to the
volume of international aid that the country has been getting. The
Russian foreign minister said that a large part of that huge amount
of money was used to fund international terrorist groups,
imperiling the security of many countries.
Afghans'
uranium levels spark alert
By
Alex Kirby
BBC News Online environment correspondent
May 22, 2003
A
small sample of Afghan civilians have shown "astonishing" levels of
uranium in their urine, an independent scientist says.
Critics suspect new weapons were used in Afghanistan He said
they had the same symptoms as some veterans of the 1991 Gulf
war.
But
he found no trace of the depleted uranium (DU) some scientists
believe is implicated in Gulf War syndrome.
Other researchers suggest new types of radioactive weapons may
have been used in Afghanistan.
The
scientist is Dr Asaf Durakovic, of the Uranium Medical Research
Center (UMRC) based in Washington DC.
[...] The UMRC says: "Independent monitoring of the weapon
types and delivery systems indicate that radioactive, toxic uranium
alloys and hard-target uranium warheads were being used by the
coalition forces."
Shock results
It
says Nangarhar province was a strategic target zone during the
Afghan conflict for the deployment of a new generation of
deep-penetrating "cave- busting" and seismic shock
warheads.
The
UMRC says its team identified several hundred people suffering from
illnesses and conditions similar to those of Gulf veterans,
probably because they had inhaled uranium dust...
To
test its hypothesis that some form of uranium weapon had been used,
the UMRC sent urine specimens from 17 Afghans for analysis at an
independent UK laboratory.
It
says: "Without exception, every person donating urine specimens
tested positive for uranium internal contamination.
"The
results were astounding: the donors presented concentrations of
toxic and radioactive uranium isotopes between 100 and 400 times
greater than in the Gulf veterans tested in 1999.
"If
UMRC's Nangarhar findings are corroborated in other communities
across Afghanistan, the country faces a severe public health
disaster... Every subsequent generation is at risk."...
DoD: U.S. troops will remain in Iraq
By
Pamela Hess
UPI Pentagon Correspondent
Published 5/22/2003 8:06 PM
WASHINGTON, May 22 (UPI) -- U.S. troops will remain in Iraq
long after Iraqis have taken over day-to-day operations of their
country, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee Thursday. However, he refused to
estimate how long and how many that would be.
"While it is our intention to withdraw relatively rapidly from
Iraqi political life and day-to-day decisions, we will remain in
Iraq as an essential security force for as long as it takes,"
Wolfowitz said.
"The
problem is it's very difficult to predict that," he said, in a
tense exchange with Delaware Democrat Sen. Joseph Biden.
Biden opened the hearing with a contentious challenge: that the
peacekeeping deployment in Iraq is going to be longer and the
reconstruction more costly than any other overseas commitment the
United States has.
"When are you going to tell the American people that?" Biden
asked Wolfowitz, who was one of the main champions inside the
administration of the war...
United States Paves Way for Military Terrorism
Tribunals
Thu
May 22, 2003 05:26 PM ET
By
Will Dunham
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon on Thursday named a chief
prosecutor and defense counsel and began seeking civilian defense
lawyers for trials of suspects seized in the U.S. war on terrorism
in a key step toward bringing Guantanamo Bay prisoners before
military commissions.
Air
Force Col. Will Gunn, designated as acting chief defense counsel,
called for a process "as open as possible within the constraints of
national security." During a Pentagon briefing, he said the world
would judge the United States "by virtue of whether or not the
process was fair and just."
Gunn
said chief defense counsel was not a job he sought. "When I was
contacted about taking on this position, I immediately recognized
that the glamour position here was that of chief prosecutor, the
opportunity to be America's hero."
[...] Defense Department officials on May 2 issued instructions
for the trials. Some legal experts argue they were crafted to make
winning convictions and getting the death penalty as easy as
possible. They point to a series of restrictions placed on defense
lawyers -- including monitoring of all conversations with
defendants -- and a lack of guidelines for what charges could bring
the death penalty.
"To
some extent, these things are not set up to give a fair trial, but
set up to compel guilty pleas out of people," said Michael Ratner,
president of the New York-based Center for Constitutional
Rights...
FBI Admits: No Evidence Links 'Hijackers' to
9-11
Exclusive To American Free Press
By Michael Collins Piper
The
possibility that 19 Muslim men accused of being the Sept. 11
hijackers were not, in fact, the hijackers, is not so extraordinary
an idea as it might seem.
After seven months of non-stop declarations by U.S. government
spokesmen that there exists solid proof tying 19 Muslim men to
plotting the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, FBI Director Robert
Mueller has now admitted quite the opposite. That 19 Muslim men who
have apparently disappeared have been named as the hijackers is not
in doubt.
What
is in doubt is whether those 19 men were actually plotting
anything, either individually or together.
The
amazing possibility remains that others carried out the Sept. 11
terrorist attacks, using the identities of the 19 Muslims who have
been assigned guilt in the tragedy. [...]
The
FBI director explained away the absence of evidence by making the
disingenuous assertion that the hijackers used “meticulous
planning, extraordinary secrecy and extensive knowledge of how
America works” to conceal their scheme.
Mueller made this claim despite the fact that in the immediate
wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, a variety of U.S. officials and media
sources speciously announced, almost instantaneously, that there
was firm evidence not only that these 19 Muslim men were agents of
Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda “network” but that
they were indeed the individuals who hijacked the doomed flights on
Sept. 11.
Mueller seems to forget that early government and media reports
loudly hyped “discoveries”—letters and other
documents—in the luggage and personal belongings of the
presumed hijackers which “proved” that they were on a
“mission for Allah,” etc etc.
Now
Mueller’s comments seem to contradict everything that’s
been said.
Expert tells of pre-9/11 failures: Undercover tester says FAA
ignored warnings of lax airport security
BY RON MARSICO
Star-Ledger Staff
WASHINGTON -- U.S. aviation
security failed on Sept. 11, 2001, because top Federal Aviation
Administration officials did not heed earlier serious warnings on
the system's vulnerability, a federal whistle-blower testified
yesterday.
Comment: Yet again another article with the rather tired blame
game of not enough security. "If we had total information awareness
than you will be safe," is the subtle (or not so subtle, if one has
the eyes to see) morphine drip the American people are being
subjected to. Don't forget there where no Arabic people on those
9/11
flights.
Iraq
War Commander Gen. Franks to Step Down
Thu
May 22, 2003 06:11 PM ET
By
Tabassum Zakaria
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Army Gen. Tommy Franks, who commanded
the U.S.-led war against Iraq and the war in Afghanistan, will step
down as U.S. Central Command chief in the coming weeks and retire
from the military this summer, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
said on Thursday.
Government sources indicated that Franks, who hails from
President Bush's childhood town of Midland, Texas, was not
interested in the job of Army Chief of Staff amid reports that
Rumsfeld wanted him to replace outgoing Gen. Eric Shinseki, who
leaves his post next month.
UN
Votes 14-0 to Lift Iraq Sanctions
Thu
May 22, 2003 06:49 PM ET
By
Evelyn Leopold
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council voted 14-0
on Thursday to end 13-year-old crippling sanctions on Iraq and gave
the United States and Britain extraordinary powers to run the
country and its lucrative oil industry.
Despite misgivings by many council members, the vote was a
victory for the Bush administration, which is struggling to bring
order to Iraq and improve its devastated economy after invading in
March to oust President Saddam Hussein.
Washington made last-minute concessions opening the door to an
independent, albeit limited, U.N. role and the possibility of U.N.
weapons inspectors returning to post-war Iraq.
[...] The resolution transfers legal control over Iraq's oil
immediately from the United Nations to the United States and
Britain. Oil revenues will go into a new Iraqi Development Fund for
rebuilding the country, controlled by the two countries and
overseen by an international board...
Behind the UN Vote on Iraq
The
antiwar bloc at the UN has endorsed a U.S.-led occupation. Here's
why
By
TONY KARON
Time
Thursday, May. 22, 2003
The
UN Security Council's endorsement of the U.S.-British occupation of
Iraq is simply a recognition of the facts on the ground. It has
been abundantly clear for the past month to the member states who
had most strongly opposed the war - Russia, Germany, China and
France - that history could not be reversed by the power of
Security Council veto. And trying once again to block the U.S. at
the Security Council would further damage dangerously frayed
transatlantic relations, render the UN irrelevant to a world
managed by U.S. power, and prolong the humanitarian crisis facing
the Iraqi people. Instead, they negotiated for a few weeks to
salvage what they could by way of recognition of their commercial
interests in Iraq and also of a visible, although mostly
decorative, role for the UN in rebuilding the country, and then
voted 14-0 for a U.S.-authored resolution lifting sanctions against
Iraq, freeing up its oil for sale on world markets, and recognizing
the U.S. and Britain as the de facto government of Iraq until such
time as a functioning representative government is constituted - a
process that could take months, or years.
The
resolution creates a legal framework for the U.S. and Britain to
run Iraq and sell its oil in order to help finance reconstruction.
The antiwar nations had hoped to put the UN in charge of that
reconstruction effort, and the political process of creating an
Iraqi government, but Thursday's vote was a recognition that
possession is nine tenths of the law - a UN special representative
will be appointed to play an unspecified role in helping create a
new government, UN officials will be appointed in various advisory
capacities and weapons inspectors may yet be invited back in. But
in whatever aspect of rebuilding Iraq, the UN's role is envisaged
as an adjunct to the occupying powers. And the international body's
vote to ratify the occupation of one member nation following an
invasion to which most member nations were opposed is a dramatic
indicator of the extent to which the UN has been subordinated to
Pax Americana...
Iraq's free fall
By
Imad Khadduri
Former Iraqi nuclear scientist
YellowTimes.org Guest Columnist (Canada)
(YellowTimes.org) -- There are no weapons of mass destruction
in Iraq. This apparently became the case a few months after the end
of the 1991 war when Hussain Kamel, the man in charge of the
nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs, ordered the
destruction of the chemical and biological materials and their
warheads. The nuclear weapon program had already come to a halt on
the first night of bombing in January 1991. The weapons were
destroyed secretly, in order to hide their existence from
inspectors, in the hopes of someday resuming production after
inspections had finished. Hussain Kamel disclosed the location of
even those hidden documents during his futile escape to Jordan in
1995.
Yet,
Bush, Blair and their senior cohorts kept brandishing their
"intelligence sources" in order to whip up a fervor over the danger
of Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction up until the last
day before the invasion of Iraq. Once they were in Iraq, with their
hundreds of "specialists," they promised to uncover the hidden
weapons of mass destruction.
[...] America's threadbare credibility on Iraq's WMDs is
stretched to the limit. Ari Fleischer declared on April 10, in the
heat of the invasion, "That is what this war was about." Now Donald
Rumsfeld is saying something to the effect that they are invading
another country to eliminate its weapons of mass destruction, but
he doubts whether they will find them unless people there tell the
invaders where they are. Whatever happened to America's
"intelligence" that was constantly touted as justification to
attack Iraq?
To
further underscore their utter intelligence failure, the Americans
are now offering a $200,000 reward to any "noble Iraqi," as
broadcasted on the radio, for providing information that may lead
to the discovery of Iraqi WMDs, their locations and even the Iraqi
scientists that participated in WMD programs. Were not these the
same Iraqi scientists who were being chastised by the Americans,
for cowering in fear from their government, for not coming forth
when UNMOVIC and the IAEA inspectors were on the ground in Iraq
last winter? What is stopping these scientists now from coming out
to collect this reward, perhaps to be hand delivered by the same
Iraqi defectors who were already paid similar amounts for spreading
these lies during the past few years and who marched behind the
American tanks during the invasion of Iraq?
[...] Bush, Blair and their senior officials have, in essence,
lied to their people and waged a war-criminal invasion in lieu of
this unintelligent "intelligence." Is this the democracy model for
a "liberated" Iraq?
[...] The Americans have only proved that they excel in
mobilizing armed forces and in dropping missiles and bombs, but not
how to prevent a society from disintegrating. American intelligence
is so flawed, that it is pathetic. In addition to their delusions
about weapons of mass destruction, Bush and his neo-conservatives
are nothing but war robots and see the world only through U.S.
goggles. Preventing a society from disintegrating is not in the
agenda or the thinking of these neo-conservatives. The Americans
and the British have, in a sense, raped Iraq and left it bleeding.
There they stand, with their pants down, licking their lips, just
waiting to manipulate the oil industry...
Surveys
pointing to high civilian death toll in Iraq
Preliminary reports suggest casualties well above the Gulf
War.
By Peter Ford
Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
BAGHDAD - Evidence is mounting to suggest that between 5,000
and 10,000 Iraqi civilians may have died during the recent war,
according to researchers involved in independent surveys of the
country.
None
of the local and foreign researchers were willing to speak for the
record, however, until their tallies are complete.
Such
a range would make the Iraq war the deadliest campaign for
noncombatants that US forces have fought since Vietnam.
Though it is still too early for anything like a definitive
estimate, the surveyors warn, preliminary reports from hospitals,
morgues, mosques, and homes point to a level of civilian casualties
far exceeding the Gulf War, when 3,500 civilians are thought to
have died...
John Pilger: "Palestine is Still the Issue" Part
I
Why
Has This Documentary, Never Been Broadcast On U.S. Media
?
Twenty-five years ago, I made a film called Palestine Is Still
The Issue. It was about a nation of people - the Palestinians -
forced off their land and later subjected to a military occupation
by Israel. An occupation condemned by the United Nations and almost
every country in the world, including Britain.
But
Israel is backed by a very powerful friend, the United States. So
in 25 years, if we're to speak of the great injustice here, nothing
has changed. What has changed is that the Palestinians have fought
back.
Stateless and humiliated for so long, they've risen up against
Israel's huge military machine, although they themselves have no
arm, no tanks, no American planes and gun ships or
missiles.
Some
have committed desperate acts of terror, like suicide bombing. But
for Palestinians, the overriding, routine terror, day after day,
has been the ruthless control of almost every aspect of their
lives, as if they live in an open prison. This film is about the
Palestinians and a group of courageous Israelis united in the
oldest human struggle - to be free.
US to review ties with France
BBC
The
United States will reconsider its links with France following their
disagreement over Iraq, US Secretary of State Colin Powell has
said.
Mr
Powell - who is in Paris for a meeting of G8 foreign ministers -
said Washington was not seeking to punish Paris for its opposition
to the war.
But
he said past disputes had to be confronted.
Washington's top diplomat welcomed French support for the
US-sponsored UN resolution on Iraq, calling the decision a "step in
the right direction".
[...] Mr Powell told French television that the US had been
"disappointed" that France was not on its side in Iraq.
"But
since we have been friends and allies for so long, such a
difference will not break an alliance or friendship," he
added...
US drops France from "Red Flag" air combat
exercise
WASHINGTON (AFP) May 22, 2003
The
United States has scratched France from a major air force exercise
in Nevada next year, preferring to give slots to countries "with
whom we will likely be participating in operations in the future,"
a Pentagon spokesman said Thursday.
The
United States also has reduced US military participation in the
Paris Air Show next month in another sign of lingering US anger
over France's opposition to the US-led invasion of Iraq.
The
United States conveyed its decision to disinvite France from the
Red Flag air combat exercise in a May 8 telephone call to the
French military attache in Washington, French embassy spokeswoman
Nathalie Loiseau said.
Asked if any explanation was given in disinviting France,
Loiseau said, "Not really."
[...]
US slaps sanctions on Chinese, Iranian
companies
WASHINGTON (AFP) May 23, 2003
The
United Stats has slapped sanctions on two major arms companies from
China and Iran, accusing them of working in concert to help the
Islamist government in Tehran modernize and expand its missile
arsenal.
The
penalties, which took effect May 9 but were announced by the State
Department Thursday, call for termination of all existing contracts
between the US government and the North China Industries
Corporation, or NORINCO, and Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group, a
leader Iranian missile manufacturer.
The
order also bans all US assistance to the concerns and calls for the
revocation of all export-import licenses they may have held to
conduct business in the United States, according to State
Department spokeswoman Jo-Anne Prokopowicz.
The
two arms giants are also barred from selling goods and services in
the United States.
"These penalties were imposed because the US government
determined that these entities contributed materially to the
efforts of a foreign country -- in this specific case Iran - to
use, acquire, design, develop, produce or stockpile missiles
capable of delivering weapons of mass destruction," Prokopowicz
told AFP.
The
measures will remain in effect for two years and then
expire.
Comment: That the US would criticize or
punish any nation for selling weapons to another country or
questionable regime is so hypocritical it's nauseating.
Congo Horrors Coming to Light
Paul
Harris
Report by YellowTimes.org
NewsFromtheFront.org
TORONTO (NFTF.org) -- With a truce between Lendu and Hema
militias holding for the moment around the town of Bunia, United
Nations and Red Cross workers have been able to enter the area to
assess the damage. This town of 300,000 in northeastern Democratic
Republic of Congo (DRC) (Background Report) was, until last
weekend's truce, the scene of intense violence following the
departure of Ugandan troops from the area at the end of
April.
Investigators are hearing tales of cannibalism, mass murder,
and unspeakable brutality. There are stories that Lendu militia
have eaten the hearts of their Hema victims or have used their
intestines as headdresses. While the investigators are not
altogether convinced by these stories, they say they are too
persistent to be entirely fictitious. They have uncovered a mass
grave with as many as 30 bodies and that pushes the death toll over
300 from these recent clashes. Although it isn't clear if the
bodies recovered were those of civilians or rival militia members,
most of them had been shot at close range or hacked to pieces by
machete.
In
an editorial appearing The Monitor, published in the Ugandan
capital of Kampala, writer Kintu Nyago refers to this as "the
forgotten holocaust." He points out that this conflict has killed
more people than any other conflict since World War II but "the
attention of the West and the broader international community has
been dismal at best." He questions the value of United Nations
efforts to date noting that there are only a few hundred troops for
an area larger than Britain and France combined and that their
mandate doesn't allow them to intervene in the ongoing conflict.
Nyago repeats the accusation of people in Bunia that the U.N.
troops are only there to protect U.N. personnel...
U.S.
researching N Korea's geological structure
Kyodo News
Wednesday, May 21, 2003 at 06:51 JST
BEIJING - The U.S. Defense Department dispatched a research
team to Japan and South Korea from late last year through early
this year to collect information on the geological structure of
North Korea, Japanese government sources said Tuesday.
Team
members told Japanese and South Korean officials their purpose was
to investigate the North's mineral resources, but experts said it
is possible the United States began the geological survey with
limited air strikes on North Korea in mind, given that it has
important military facilities underground.
US lawmakers pass $400.5 billion defense
bill
By
Vicki Allen
Reuters
WASHINGTON, May 22 - The U.S. Congress on Thursday
overwhelmingly passed a $400.5 billion defense bill that ends a
decade-long ban on research and development of small nuclear
weapons, a step critics said may heighten risks of nuclear
war.
The
Senate voted 98-1 for its bill authorizing next year's defense
programs that repeals the ban on study and development of
"mini-nukes," which Congress imposed in 1993 to stem their spread
to other nations.
The
House passed its bill 361-68, but the White House said its measure
did not offer enough leeway to explore the new generation of
nuclear weapons because it keeps the block on their
development.
[...] The White House has threatened to veto the huge measure
if it keeps House restrictions on the Pentagon's plans to close and
realign military bases, a potent issue for lawmakers with
installations in their districts.
In
other key differences, the House bill gives Rumsfeld power he wants
to manage the Pentagon's 700,000 civilian employees, which
Democrats said would strip them of civil service rights. The Senate
bill is silent on that issue.
[...] The Senate passed a measure to force the Pentagon to open
bidding on contracts for Iraq's reconstruction after complaints
that Halliburton Co., formerly run by Vice President Dick Cheney,
was getting huge contracts without competitive bids to revive
Iraq's oil industry...
Ridge: Unmanned drones may patrol U.S.
borders
By
Jesse J. Holland
May
22, 2003 | WASHINGTON (AP) -- Unmanned aerial drones similar to
ones used in the war on Iraq could be patrolling the U.S. border by
the end of the year to help stem illegal immigration and increase
security, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said
Thursday.
"We
are very serious in looking at UAV (unmanned aerial vehicles) for
both border applications, land and sea," Ridge told the House
Select Committee on Homeland Security.
Predators and other remote-controlled aircraft can watch over a
potential target and fly for hundreds of miles with cameras,
sensors, communications equipment or missiles...
Utah prepares
for firing-squad executions
By
C.G. Wallace
May
22, 2003 | SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- The only state that dispatches
condemned inmates by firing squad is assembling gunmen for
back-to-back executions next month.
The
nation's last execution by firing squad was in 1996.
Exercising their right under Utah law, serial killer Roberto
Arguelles and Troy Michael Kell, a white supremacist who stabbed a
fellow inmate to death, have chosen the firing squad over lethal
injection and are set to die at 12:01 a.m. on June 27 and 28,
respectively.
[...] Anti-death penalty forces are protesting, arguing that
the firing squad amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. And the
prison is bracing for large crowds of protesters.
Utah's use of firing squads predates statehood in 1896 and is a
remnant of the early Mormon belief that bloodshed is a required
punishment for taking a life, said Richard Dieter, director of the
Death Penalty Information Center, which says it is neutral about
the death penalty but critical of its application.
[...] The notion that murder must be atoned for in blood has
never been part of official church doctrine, and the Mormon church
has not taken a formal position on execution methods, said Robert
Millet, Brigham Young University religion professor...
"The White House Reloaded."
Arianna Huffington
A
White House Fluent In Language Of Fanatics
Maybe Karl Rove has moved his office into the "Matrix." Maybe
Laurence Fishburne is auditioning for Ari Fleischer's job. Maybe
it's all just a bad dream: "The White House Reloaded."
I've
been racking my brain, trying to reconcile the ever-widening chasm
between what the White House claims to be true and what is actually
true. After all, we know the president and his men are not stupid.
And despite the tidal wave of misinformation pouring out of their
mouths, I don't believe they are consciously lying.
The
best explanation I can come up with for the growing gap between
their rhetoric and reality is that we are being governed by a gang
of out and out fanatics.
Comment: "Fanatics" is the easy way out. The
psychopath's take on reality is almost impossible for the rest of
us to understand. Is the psychopath "lying"? Does the psychopath
have any notion at all of "truth"? Or is everything related to
feeding? For the psychopath, the only "truth" is self-preservation,
and anything that serves that end is "true". Rational and healthy
individuals can hardly understand this state of existence and are
therefore at a great disadvantage when the psychopath takes over
the store. Robert D. Hare, PhD., who has spent many years studying
psychopaths, has suggested that they may even be a different
species entirely. For more information on Hare's work with
psychopaths, see his book
Without Conscience: The disturbing world of psychopaths among
us.
The
Mists of Falsehoods
I love this administration's ability to remain cloaked in a mist of
falsehoods. If you listen to them, everything is going
swimmingly.
Retired Gen. Jay Garner and several of his staff are relieved of
their posts in Iraq but, of course, have done a splendid job. There
is still chaos, looting and a lack of clean water and power, but
reconstruction is proceeding with great progress. America is doing
a worse job than Saddam Hussein in feeding the Iraqi people, but
everyone is so happy to see the tyrant gone — though where he
has gone, we don't know. Perhaps he's with Osama bin Laden and
Mullah Omar. Not to worry, paradise is on the way.
As for al-Qaida, it has been decimated, crippled, rendered
ineffective — except, of course, for those members who
simultaneously blew up three foreign compounds and a business in
Saudi Arabia.
Everything in Afghanistan is peachy-creamy — except, of
course, that it looks remarkably as unstable and undeveloped as it
did a year ago. The president has also committed himself to his
"road map to peace," but never mind that Israeli Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon refuses to accept it and again embarrasses Secretary
of State Colin Powell by clamping down on Palestinians before the
secretary has even shaken off the dust of Palestine from his
shoes.
And, of course, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the American
economy, except the absence of another round of tax cuts. The
ability of this administration to live in a dream world, divorced
from reality, is quite remarkable. Why, the falling value of the
dollar is good for American exports. And the answer to the biggest
string of record trade deficits in history is to have more
free-trade agreements, never mind that they are the cause of the
trade deficits in the first place.
Sometimes I think our whole country is on dope....
Prominent Bush
Critic Alan Hale is Censored in Las Cruces
Alan Hale
Mr. Bush made a stop in Las Cruces, New Mexico, this past Saturday,
primarily to raise campaign funds for Republican Congressional and
Gubernatorial candidates.
I approached the Las Cruces Sun-News editors a week ago and
reminded them that I'd been cooperative with them all the times
they've interviewed me in the past, and also that three years ago
they had broken the story about my first Iran trip before I wanted
it to be broken (explicitly against my wishes), and that I believed
they owed me one. [...]
Needless to say, they did not run it. Needless to say, they did not
have the courtesy or decency to inform me of this. Needless to say,
they ran a gushing, fawning editorial praising Mr. Bush ...
When I angrily called them this morning to find out why they didn't
run my piece, I was told that the publisher "thought it would be
disrespectful to the President [sic] to run it at the time of his
visit." (The publisher is a guy named Michael C. Bush -- I don't
know if there's any relationship.) They didn't have any good answer
as to why they didn't inform me of this decision.
Comment: You can read his censored letter at the
above link.
"Total Information
Awareness" Revisited
You
know about the name change. But what about the shadow sister
agency?
The Bushmen are shrewd and feral political animals, unerring in
their feel for picking moments of distraction to pounce on
their prey. A recent case in point is this week's Total
Information Awareness facelift. The most patently incendiary of
Bush/Ashcroft's proposed domestic surveillance programs, TIA had
come under fire even from within the Republican party for
overreaching any reasonable interpretation of domestic security
needs.
Well, fear not, citizens:
The name is now "Terrorism Information Awareness," and the
president along with DARPA hopes that any confusion or alarm is
thereby cleared up.
One would like to think there would be a huge fuss over such a
transparently cynical gesture if everyone were not fixated on the
terror alert level instead. Probably not, though. As I write the
Democrats are busy going the opposite way, accusing Bush of
being soft on domestic terror readiness. Libertarian conservatives
are practically the only ones opposing Ashcroft et al. with real
verve, and while they are a huge element in the public at large and
on the internet, they don't have much clout in the Republican
party.
The rechristening of TIA isn't the real story here anyway. The real
story has barely been told as far I can tell, apart from a single
New York Times article with a thoroughly misleading headline.
According to this piece by writer John Markoff, the official TIA
program is itself a front for a more furtive, and
ambitious, shadow version that is taking shape completely
removed from public scrutiny under the auspices of the NSA. (Its
official budget is only $100 million, but official budgets don't
mean much in this sort of endeavor.) Markoff writes,
The research being conducted for the National Security Agency,
Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency is
being financed by a little known federal office called the Advanced
Research and Development Activity, established during the Clinton
administration to provide federal intelligence agencies with basic
research capability similar to that of Darpa.
The agency has a budget of about $100 million a year, according to
a former government official. Its research covers a wide range of
areas from nanotechnology to quantum computing.
The agency is pursuing research in areas like facial recognition as
well as basic image recognition technologies, according to computer
scientists. In March 2000, for example, the organization reviewed
45 research proposals and made grants to nine organizations
including corporations, universities and research centers that are
studying various image recognition problems.
ARDA is also financing a program called "Novel Intelligence from
Massive Data," which was begun after the Sept. 11 terrorist
attacks. The intent of the project is to give intelligence analysts
early warning of "strategic surprises" in the same way that the
Total Information Awareness system was intended to provide advance
information about possible domestic terrorist attacks.
Both the Pentagon's Total Information Awareness project and the
ARDA research project seek to detect hidden patterns of activity in
vast collections of digital data.
The kinds of information engines envisioned here are
potentially devastating mechanisms of social control, down to the
most microscopic level--down to you and me. (Already we have
learned that the California Anti-Terrorism Information Center is
being used to surveill and report on anti-war protesters.) But
that's not the only agenda in play. I direct your attention to
LifeLog, another offshoot of the data collection efforts
undertaken after 9/11.
And what is LifeLog? It is a DARPA fantasy at the
moment, but a telling one that may yet prove largely feasible.
Noah Shachtman describes it thus at Wired News,
The embryonic LifeLog program would dump everything an individual
does into a giant database: every e-mail sent or received, every
picture taken, every Web page surfed, every phone call made, every
TV show watched, every magazine read.
All of this--and more--would combine with information gleaned from
a variety of sources: a GPS transmitter to keep tabs on where that
person went, audio-visual sensors to capture what he or she sees or
says, and biomedical monitors to keep track of the individual's
health.
This gigantic amalgamation of personal information could then be
used to "trace the 'threads' of an individual's life," to see
exactly how a relationship or events developed, according to a
briefing from the Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency,
LifeLog's sponsor......
Republicans
will gut Endangered Species Act to Protect
Pentagon
Oakland Tribune and wire reports
The most significant rewriting of the nation's endangered species
protection law in 25 years heads to the House floor this week, the
result of a Pentagon request for exemptions that was broadened to
include all federal agencies.
Robert McNamara's Film Debut: Documentary Reveals Former Defense
Secretary's Role
By Desson Howe
Washington Post Staff Writer
CANNES, France, May 21 -- American filmmaker Errol Morris
introduced festival-goers and the world today to "The Fog of War,"
a stunning documentary about former secretary of defense Robert S.
McNamara that casts new light on his role in major American
political events of the 20th century.[...]
Culled from 20 hours of one-on-one conversations, "The Fog of War"
spends all of its 100-plus minutes with McNamara, 85, a former Ford
Motor Co. president who served as defense secretary under John F.
Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis and Lyndon B. Johnson
during the Vietnam War. McNamara speaks forthrightly about his
behind-the-scenes involvement in those conflicts and others,
including the firebombing of Japan in World War II. [...]
McNamara declares that both men "were behaving as war criminals"
and, had the Americans lost the war, likely would have been tried
as such. McNamara's comments are accompanied by compelling aerial
footage of those devastating bombings. "I was quite unprepared,"
said Morris, referring to McNamara's forthrightness about this and
other matters. "It almost made me feel useless" as an investigative
questioner.
CIA kept prank threat to Santa under 'secret'
classification
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US
Central Intelligence Agency (news - web sites) classified as
"secret" and withheld from public dissemination for nearly 29 years
a prank terrorist threat against Santa Claus, according to
documents released. [...]
Despite the dubious nature of the threat to Father Christmas, the
CIA blacked out all references to it when the situation report was
declassified in 1999, according to the documents.
Boos erupt at mention of Dixie Chicks'
nomination
CNN
The Dixie Chicks were booed when they were announced as nominees
for the Entertainer of the Year Award at the 38th Annual Academy of
Country Music Awards.
But in a program strong on patriotism, some in country music showed
they were not prepared to forgive the Dixie Chicks' Natalie Maines
for remarks critical of President George W. Bush and the war in
Iraq.
The show repeatedly saluted the armed forces, including cheers for
three freed POWs of the Iraq war who were invited on stage -- Chief
Warrant Officer Ronald Young Jr. from Fort Hood, Texas; and Pfc.
Patrick Miller and Spc. Shoshana Johnson, both from Fort Bliss,
Texas.
Comment: Perhaps if they had flashed these
pictures
up on the big screens some of them may have been willing to give up
their biochemical induced bliss of patriotism. The Bush Reich media
is showing as few of these as they can get away with. Just enough
so the old cliche "war is hell" can be trotted out, and everyone
can go back to sleep.
New Type Of Vaccine Against Nicotine Addiction
Developed By TSRI Scientists
Scripps Research Institute
2003-05-21
Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have
designed a new way to make vaccines against drugs of abuse that
could become a valuable tool for treating addiction by helping the
body clear the drug from the bloodstream. The latest vaccine they
created using this approach induces the body to clear
nicotine.
"These new vaccines greatly suppress the reinforcing aspects of
the drug," says principal investigator Kim D. Janda, Ph.D.
"Blocking it before it gets to the brain--that's the
key."
[...] The new idea that they have developed is to take a
chemical that resembles nicotine and use it to induce an active
immune response. In this immune response, the body produces
antibodies against nicotine that can neutralize it in the
bloodstream. If a smoker later smokes a cigarette, the antibodies
will clear the nicotine from the system before it reaches the
brain...
Comment: It's not enough for the system to
try and stamp out smoking around the world to prevent the barnyard
animals from ingesting things that "spoil the meat." With this
treatment, the body prevents the nicotine from reaching the brain,
and special additives like mercury can be included in the vaccine
to help dumb down the patient even more.
FIRST-TIME-EVER
SNAPSHOT RELEASED OF MOTHER EARTH FROM MARS
Paul
Morledge Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. (Phone:
818/354-0850)
RELEASE: 03-179
Have
you ever wondered what you would see if you were on Mars looking at
the Earth through a small telescope? Now you can find out, thanks
to a unique view of our world recently captured by NASA's Mars
Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft currently orbiting the Red
Planet.
This
first-ever image of its kind not only shows Mother Earth as a tiny
alien world in the vast darkness of space, but also includes a view
of the giant planet Jupiter and some of its larger moons. The
camera aboard MGS photographed both planets in an alignment, as
seen in the evening sky of Mars, at 9 a.m. EDT, May 8,
2003.
Sars 'from
the stars'
By
Richard Black BBC science correspondent
The
virus believed to cause Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Sars)
may have come to Earth from outer space, according to scientists
writing in a leading British medical journal. In a letter to The
Lancet, the scientists, led by Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe of
Britain's Cardiff University, say the Sars coronavirus is so unlike
other viruses that an extra-terrestrial origin is
logical...
The
idea that Sars comes from the stars relates to a theory called
panspermia. This says that life itself evolved somewhere out in the
cosmos, and is carried from one planet to another on
comets...
Professor Wickramasinghe admits there is no hard evidence for
his theory; and researchers who have been working on Sars reacted
with a mixture of disbelief and ridicule.
Stretches of Rio Grande drying up
5/22/2003 7:06 PM
TERLINGUA, Texas, May 22 (UPI) -- Stretches of the Rio Grande
—- one of the most famous rivers in the American Southwest
—- are drying up in the Big Bend National park for the first
time in 50 years, park officials said Thursday.
A
lingering drought, upstream diversions for irrigation and municipal
uses, and a reduced snow pack in the mountains of New Mexico and
Colorado are blamed for the intermittent dry conditions, said David
Elkowitz, a spokesman for the remote park in the southwest corner
of Texas. "We're hopeful we will get a rainy season this year," he
said...
"Although the river has been dwindling for years, this is an
event of historical proportions," Park Suprintendent Frank J.
Deckert said recently. "In places, the river bed is now a series of
stagnant pools separated by reaches of bone-dry gravel
beds."
The Other
Side of Holocaust Denial
By
Henry Makow Ph.D. May 19, 2003
[...]The Second World War was a human calamity. Over 55 million
people died. Why focus on the Jewish experience? This is the cause
of anti Semitism in the first place. Jewish power brokers are
perpetuating a vicious cycle.
I am
also troubled by the attempt to classify people like Ernst Zundel
as a "hate criminal." Zundel's website claims only one million Jews
were murdered, there were no gas chambers, and Hitler didn't intend
genocide. Zundel's claims are repugnant, but he has a right to be
wrong. Society needs people to dispute the historical record. One
may be right. If spreading false information is a crime, shouldn't
we also lock up Tom Brokaw? [...]
When
questioning the truth becomes "hate", we have entered Orwell's
"1984" era of thought crime. Don't kid yourself. This is the
slippery slope to tyranny and Jewish organizations are partly to
blame. We must stand up in defiance. [...]
Jewish powerbrokers use anti Semitism to disarm opposition to
their political agenda. The promotion of the Jewish Holocaust
maintains the Jews' status as the world's premier "victims." This
gives them immunity from criticism. It makes people feel more
favourable to them and more willing to accede to their direction
and influence. [...]
To
maintain victim priority, it's necessary for the Jewish
establishment to practise "holocaust denial" when it comes to other
people.
Jewish organizations dishonor Holocaust victims by using them
for political purposes. It is tasteless to cast Jews as the world's
premier victims. Humanity is one family and no genocide is more
important than another. To use "hate" to disarm opposition to the
Zionist agenda is also repugnant. It leads to tyranny and more anti
Semitism.
For
Ernst Zundel to deny or understate the Jewish Holocaust is
grotesque. But it is not a crime. In these questions, only the
truth matters. Let the truth speak for itself. Let Zundel be judged
by it.
Let
me close with an anecdote. In 1961 when I was 11, my family was
travelling in Germany. We stopped at tavern-restaurant where some
workingmen were having a loud conversation. They looked at us (a
couple with three young children) and said, "We'd better shut up.
There may be Jews present."
My
family felt threatened. We ate and quickly left. But I realise now
those workmen might have been afraid of us.
Hate
is born out of fear. Let us expose the forces that make us fear
each other for no reason.
On the trail of elusive panther
By
Stephen Gibbs
May
23 2003
After days of debate over pedophilia and terminal illness, the
state's MPs yesterday turned their attention to dancing bears and a
mysterious monster moggie.
[...] Earlier this month the citizens held a public meeting to
discuss a March 20 attack attributed to the cat on 17-year-old Luke
Walker at Kenthurst.
"In
a terrifying struggle with the creature, Mr Walker received deep
lacerations to his right arm," the Hills Shire Times reported on
May 6. "Sightings of the monster cat have been reported in an area
stretching from Galston to Pitt Town since the Kenthurst
attack."
The
Mayor of Hawkesbury, Rex Stubbs, told the Times: "I believe there
is significant danger and something needs to be done."
Mr
Campbell said that in the past 30 years there had been about 60
reports of a large, cat-like animal savaging livestock and humans
in Sydney's west, north- west, the Blue Mountains and
Lithgow.
They're Flocking to See 'Python Boy'
Thu
May 22, 2003 09:33 AM ET
SIT
TBOW, Cambodia (Reuters) - Cambodians are flocking to see a
three-year-old boy they believe was the son of a dragon in a former
life because his best friend is a four-meter-long
python.
Curled up for an afternoon snooze inside the coils of his scaly
companion, the child, Oeun Sambath, attracts regular visits in the
impoverished southeast Asian nation from villagers anxious to make
use of what they believe are his supernatural powers.
"He
has been playing with the python ever since he could first crawl,"
said his mother Kim Kannara, who is perfectly happy to allow her
son to sleep cheek-by- jowl with the giant constrictor even though
it could easily have him for dinner...
His
special powers will probably make him a traditional healer at the
age of seven, but meanwhile the bond between boy and snake is
limiting the movements of the family.
Cockroaches to
have Buddhist funeral
Cockroaches were popular pets in Thailand last year Thailand is
preparing to cremate more than 1,000 giant cockroaches - and then
hold a traditional Buddhist funeral to appease their owners. The
mass cremation is the result of a government ban on the popular
pets, after officials became concerned they might spread
disease.
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