Killing Hope:
U.S. Military and CIA Interventions
Since World War II

[...] George Bernard Shaw used three concepts to describe the positions of individuals in Nazi Germany: intelligence, decency and Naziism. He argued that if a person was intelligent and a Nazi, he was not decent. If he was decent and a Nazi, he was not intelligent. And if he was decent and intelligent, he was not a Nazi.

Permit me, therefore, to record an updated version of Shaw's three
concepts:

1. If a person is decent and a pro-government American patriot, he or she is not intelligent.
2. If a person is intelligent and a pro-government American patriot, he or she is not decent.
3. And if a person is decent and intelligent, he or she is not a pro-government American patriot.

A very useful rule of thumb.

A very high percentage of Americans are simply not intelligent. Even if they lead relatively decent lives they are total fools for the professionally crafted propaganda that saturates the corporate mass-media. And that propaganda is created by American patriots of the second variety: they may be intelligent, but they surely are not decent.

Comment: Those of you from the US of A might want to check out this bumper sticker.

DRCongo leaders, rebels remove last obstacle to interim government

KINSHASA (AFP)
June 29, 2003

The former warring parties in the civil war that has devastated the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) signed a military deal on Sunday that removed the final obstacle to setting up a transitional government.

The deal, signed in the presence of President Laurent Kabila by the government, the three main rebel groups and their respective allies, resolved the issue of control over the army once a new government is in place. [...]

Has Bush snubbed Madiba?

...The fact that United States President George Bush has not asked to see former president Nelson Mandela during his 36-hour visit to the country next month cannot go by any other name than a "snub".

Some would say it is revenge for the tongue-lashing Mandela gave Bush Mandela criticised Bush - and British Prime Minister Tony Blair - for their intention to ignore the United Nations Security Council and declare war against Iraq if it failed to disarm.

Mandela said Bush "cannot think properly" and called Blair the "foreign minister of America".

His astonishing attack on the two world leaders created a storm in the US and provoked an outpouring of criticism of him. Before his outburst, Mandela had been regarded as being above reproach.

Last week Mandela again lambasted Bush for by-passing the UN and toppling Iraq's president by force...

According to sources close to Mandela, he has made peace with Blair by apologising - without withdrawing his comments -in a telephone chat.

But Mandela's irritation with Bush ran deeper, apparently because Bush had declined to accept a call from him.

The word in diplomatic circles is that White House national security adviser Condoleezza Rice decided not to put through his call.

As far as can be established the only other world leader who has refused to take Mandela's call is Saddam Hussein, who feared doing so would disclose his whereabouts to would-be American assassins.

Global Eye -- Errand Boy

By Chris Floyd
Moscow Times

So now we know. After all the mountains of commentary and speculation, all the earnest debates over motives and goals, all the detailed analyses of global strategy and political ideology, it all comes to down to this: George W. Bush waged war on Iraq because, in his own words, God "instructed me to strike at Saddam."...

During the tense talks at the summit, Bush sought to underscore the kind of authority he could bring to efforts at achieving peace in the Middle East. While thundering that there could be "no deals with terror groups," Bush sought to assure the rattled Palestinians that he also had the ability to wring concessions from Sharon. And what was the source of this wonder-working power? It was not, as you might think, the ungodly size of the U.S. military or the gargantuan amount of money and arms the United States pours into Israel year after year.

No, Bush said he derived his moral heft from the Almighty Himself...

No votes, no inspections, no proof or lack of proof -- in fact, no earthly reason whatsoever -- could have stopped Bush's aggressive war on Iraq. It was God's unalterable will: the Lord of Hosts gave a direct order for George W. Bush to "strike at Saddam."...

And this is the mindset -- or rather, the primitive fever-dream -- that is now directing the actions of the greatest military power in the history of the world. There can be no doubt that Bush believes literally in the divine character of his mission. He honestly and sincerely believes that whatever "decision" forms in his brain -- out of the flux and flow of his own emotional impulses and biochemical reactions, the flattery and cajolements of his sinister advisers, the random scraps of fact, myth and fabrication that dribble into his proudly undeveloped and incurious consciousness -- has been planted there, whole and perfected, by God Almighty.

And that's why Bush acts with such serenity and ruthlessness. Nothing he does can be challenged on moral grounds, however unethical or evil it might appear, because all of his actions are directed by God. He can twist the truth, oppress the poor, exalt the rich, despoil the Earth, ignore the law -- and murder children -- without the slightest compunction, the briefest moment of doubt or self-reflection, because he believes, he truly believes, that God squats in his brainpan and tells him what to do.

And just as God countenanced deception on the part of Abraham, just as God forgave David for the murders he ordered, just as God blessed the armies of Saul as they obliterated the Amalekites, man, woman and child, so will He overlook any crime committed by Bush and his minions as they carry out His will. That's why Bush can always "do whatever it takes" to achieve his goals. And by his own words to Abbas, we see that he places his election in 2004 above all other concerns, even the endless bloodshed in the Middle East.

So what new crimes will the Lord have to countenance to keep His appointed servant in power?

Army pardoned for burying woman alive

Sydney Morning Herald
June 28 2003

A military prosecutor has exonerated Israeli soldiers of the death in March of an American peace activist, the army said on Thursday, refuting witness claims that the woman was in the line of sight of a bulldozer driver who buried her alive in the Gaza Strip.

Rachel Corrie, 23, of Washington, was crushed to death on March 16 while trying to block the demolition of a doctor's house in the Rafah refugee camp by standing in front of the army bulldozer. The army said the home was being destroyed in an effort to block arms smuggling.

According to the army, military police investigating the Corrie case found the soldiers operating the bulldozer were unaware of her presence in the area and had no intention of harming her.

The International Solidarity Movement said it was not surprised by the army's findings. "Their only concern is to protect their people and not arrive at the truth," it said.

Israel withdraws from town in northern Gaza as militants announce truce

Monday June 30, 6:06 AM

Israeli troops withdrew from part of the northern Gaza Strip, as four hardline Palestinian groups announced a three-month freeze on anti-Israeli attacks in a major boost for the US-backed peace "roadmap."

But Israel was unimpressed by the ceasefire declarations and warned it would only deal with the Palestinian Authority.

Despite the Jewish state's tough stance, Israeli troops withdrew Sunday night from the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanun, as part of a deal aimed at implementing the "roadmap," which aims to end 33 months of violence and establish a lasting peace.

The movement on the peace front coincided with a visit to the region by US national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, who US President George W. Bush has tapped to ensure his Middle East policy is implemented.

The Israel redeployment came after the two most hardline groups fighting Israel -- Hamas and Islamic Jihad -- issued a joint statement declaring a three-month ceasefire.

They were followed hours later by the Fatah party of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and the leftist Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP).

The factions failed to produce a joint statement after differences emerged over the inclusion of a reference to the "roadmap," which calls for a Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel by 2005. [...]

Israel rejects truce offer

29-June-2003
Channel 4 News

The Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad have declared an immediate three-month ceasefire with Israel after 33 months of conflict - but Israel has already dismissed the gesture.

A statement from the two militant factions said they had "suspended military operations against the Zionist enemy," on the condition that Israel ceased all operations against them and lifted blockades on Palestinian regions.

Israel says the ceasefire is aimed at giving Palestinian militants time to regroup for more violence against Israelis.

Gideon Meir, Foreign Ministry deputy director-general:

"This ceasefire is a ticking bomb because it actually maintains the infrastructure of terror."

The militant's demands in return for the truce include:

"The total cessation of all forms of Zionist aggression against our people, of incursions, demolitions, closures, sieges on cities, villages and refugee camps, including the siege imposed on President Yasser Arafat, the bulldozing of agricultural land, attacks on land and property...the total cessation of all assassination operations, massacres and of all arrest and deportation campaigns against our people, their leaders and their fighters."

Israel has said it would begin withdrawing forces from Gaza on Monday in support of a new US-backed peace plan.

Comment: The truth is self-evident: Israel, backed by the Zionists in Washington, are the real terrorists. It is obvious that they have no intention of agreeing to any ceasefire. They are determined to further inflame violence and hatred in the middle east.

Man shot despite Palestinian ceasefire

30/06/2003 - 12:05:00

A motorist was was shot dead in the West Bank today less than a day after armed Palestinian factions said they would observe a temporary truce.

The Israeli military said the victim was a Romanian worker involved in road construction by Israel near the West Bank village of Yabed. The worker was driving in a truck when he was shot in the head.

The assailants fled and there was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Comment: More of Sharon's handiwork?..

Notice to Ariel Sharon

Ariel Sharon and all the worlds sadistic bullies: your victims are your future. You will never escape them in a million years. You think you can get away with your crimes against humanity, but you might as well try to escape your own shadow. Your evil accompanies you everywhere, at all times, like a spiritual shadow. Evil is your escort in life, and so it will be in your death, and beyond. Whether you die violently, like your victims, or quietly in your sleep, there is one thing that is guaranteed your victims are your future.

Comment: Don't know who this guy is, but he's pretty awake it seems. Too bad he's so angry he comes off sounding hysterical.

Israeli Likens BBC Program to Nazi Press

STEVE WEIZMAN
Associated Press

JERUSALEM - An Israeli government official said Sunday that a BBC program charging Israel with secretly stockpiling nuclear and chemical weapons demonized Israel in a way reminiscent of anti-Semitic tracts published in Nazi Germany.

Government Press Office chief Daniel Seaman said a TV report entitled "Israel's Secret Weapon" was the latest in a number of programs by the British Broadcasting Corp. questioning Israel's right to exist. He declined comment on media reports that he intended to impose sanctions.

The BBC said it stood by the program.

The program, part of the "Correspondent" series, was aired in Britain in March but first shown in Israel on Saturday night. It cites experts as saying Israel has "the world's sixth largest nuclear arsenal with small tactical nuclear weapons ... as well as medium-range nuclear missiles launchable from air, land or sea."

It also says Israel has undeclared biological and chemical capabilities and used an unknown gas against Palestinians in Gaza in February 2001 that sent 180 people to the hospital with severe convulsions.

Israel at the time denied having used poison gas.

"The accusations are very reminiscent of the most horrible anti-Semitism," Seaman said. "This is very reminiscent of Der Stuermer," he added, referring to a virulently anti-Semitic newspaper from Nazi-era Germany.

The Jerusalem Post reported Sunday that the Government Press Office intends to impose visa restrictions on BBC staff and to refuse to make officials available for BBC interviews, or to help BBC journalists facing problems with army roadblocks and airport security checks.

"Let's say that the hospitality extended by the government of Israel through the GPO is not something engraved in stone," Seaman said without elaborating.

BBC spokeswoman Kate Atkins said the broadcaster had not been officially informed of any pending Israeli action.

"We stand by the Correspondent program and regret any response the Israeli government might make," she said.

Israel is widely assumed to have nuclear weapons, but the government's public policy is purposefully vague, stating only that Israel will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East.

Israel has refused to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, aimed at stopping the spread of nuclear weapons, because it objects to international inspections.

In 1986, Mordechai Vanunu, a former technician at the country's Dimona nuclear plant, gave pictures of what appeared to be nuclear weapons at the plant to a London newspaper. He is serving an 18-year term for treason and espionage.

Israel has fallen out with the BBC before, protesting bitterly over a June 2001 documentary in which legal experts said Prime Minister Ariel Sharon should be indicted for failing to prevent the 1982 massacre of hundreds of Palestinians in refugee camps during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

The killings were carried out by a Lebanese Christian militia allied with Israel. An Israeli inquiry found Sharon indirectly responsible and forced him to resign as defense minister in 1983.[...]

Comment: Only to have the same man later installed as Prime Minister...

"Israel may have the right to put others on trial, but certainly no one has the right to put the Jewish people and the State of Israel on trial," - Ariel Sharon

"Every time we do something, you [Shimon Peres] tell me America will do this and will do that... I want to tell you something very clear: Don't worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it."
- Ariel Sharon, Israeli Prime Minister, homicidal psychopath, Jewish Mafia member, Knesset, Tel Aviv, October 3, 2001.

But, then, Israel has a history of electing former terrorists...

"Neither Jewish morality nor Jewish tradition can be used to disallow terror as a means of war... We are very far from any moral hesitations when concerned with the national struggle. First and foremost, terror is for us a part of the political war appropriate for the circumstances of today... " - Yitzhak Shamir, Israeli Prime Minister and Zionist terrorist in an August 1943 article titled "Terror", written for Hazit the journal of Lehi, the terrorist organization he belonged to.

These people will stop at nothing, including terrorising and victimizing other Jews. As Rabbi Michael Lerner puts it:

"It does take courage, because Jewish people who speak out against Israeli terrorism are hated all the more intensely by demented Zionists, who label them as traitors and self-hating Jews . Zionists are fundamentally evil people, and the most twisted of them have never hesitated to murder even fellow Jews if they are judged to be a serious threat to The Cause which was Israel, but is now Eretz Israel , or Greater Israel. In 1924, Jewish professor Yisroel Yaakov De Haan was murdered by Zionists in Jerusalem, right outside a synagogue, because he was an implacable opponent of Zionism. Yitzhak Shamir, who later became a Prime Minister of Israel, personally murdered a Jewish colleague during the Zionist terrorist struggle for statehood against the British Empire. Such murders were not uncommon, and still aren t.

"Many rabbis and professionals have told me recently that they fear for their jobs should they even begin to articulate their doubts about Israeli policy much less give explicit support to calls for an end to the occupation."

Actually, decent Jewish people in America fear for more than their jobs if they dare to speak the political and moral truth. Some have received death threats for speaking out, and they know that being Jewish does not make them immune to murder by Zionist fanatics.

Pre-emptive assassination - the new U.S. policy

Heather Wokusch
29 June 2003

The White House predictably responded to recent clashes by denouncing Palestinian suicide bombers; less predictably, Bush also criticized Israel's botched attempt to assassinate a senior Hammas leader, which ended up instead killing three bystanders and setting off the fresh wave of violence.

Labeling the pre-emptive assassination strike a "troubling" blow to peace, Bush later bowed to pressure from pro-Israel lobbying groups and Congress members; White House opinion now firmly backs the Sharon government's crackdown on militant groups, covert lethal operations and all.

No wonder. Eager to follow Sharon's lead in pre-emptively bumping off enemies, the Bush administration is said to be working with Israeli government officials to establish the legal framework for creating America's own targeted-assassination policy. The Israeli justification (that ongoing conflict in the West Bank and Gaza Strip necessitates substituting warfare laws for self-defense) sits well with a US president hoping to fight a never-ending "war on terror."

Coincidence? The Israeli attorney-general's office calls "legal and legitimate" the systematic elimination of almost 100 Palestinian militants (not to mention innocent bystanders) since the intifada broke out in late 2000. The US State Department similarly defined its own hit job on an Al-Aqaeda operative in Yemen last November as "legal and necessary."

Pre-emptive assassination strikes are not the Bush administration's only covert method of eliminating enemies. Plans are underway to turn the controversial detention facility at Guantanamo Bay into a full-fledged death camp, equipped with its own death row and execution chamber.

In direct breach of Geneva Conventions, the United States has held hundreds of prisoners of war at Guantanamo, long-term and without charge, some prisoners as young as 13 years old. But plans have been revealed to try, convict and execute prisoners without a jury or right of appeal. It's a new twist on the concept of pre-emptive assassination: kill POWs so they can't fight you later.

But the ultimate in pre-emptive assassination was the recent invasion of Iraq. Claiming America was under "imminent threat" because of Hussein's supposed WMD program, the White House invoked a "pre-emptive war" policy to justify inadvertently killing thousands of Iraqi civilians.

Ethical and legal implications aside, it's reckless for the US to continue pursuing a pre-emptive assassination policy, in any form. How ironic that US government and political leaders play up their Christianity, yet don't put pre-emptive killing in the obvious biblical context: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

Conflicting Storylines in Iraq

By Matt Bivens Moscow Times
Monday, Jun. 30, 2003.

... The Russians hit Chechnya in 1994 with "shock & awe" carpet-bombing, and with ground troops. Chechen guerrillas fought back, often in ways that drew Russian fire upon civilians -- which, of course, radicalized the civilian population. After a brief and uneasy truce, the war was reprised in 1999 -- carpet-bombing, then ground troops, then guerrilla war. There was initially some fine talk about making Russian-occupied territories into a shining democracy with rebuilt schools, pension payments, milk and honey. Instead, the schools provided cover for guerrillas, and Russian forces would return fire against both.

There are dozens of ways this tragedy can't be compared to the occupation of Iraq. And American anti-guerrilla campaigns aren't like Russian zachistki operations -- they aren't broodingly, systematically evil. But they are just as doomed and self-defeating.

Consider the events of June 9, when Americans searching for "pro-Saddam" fighters roared into the village of Thuluya with helicopter gunships and heavy armor, shouting in English, and with an "informer" -- a man with a burlap sack over his head -- to point out whom to arrest. In the process, one shy teenage boy was gut-shot twice and left to die, another holding a 7-month-old girl was shot in the arm and dropped the baby, and a mentally retarded 19-year-old struggled in terror because he feared he would be suffocated as soldiers duct- taped his mouth shut. By week's end, 50 Iraqi men were still being held in a secretive, makeshift detention center with "Welcome to Camp Black Knight" spray- painted over the entrance. And the informer with the bag over his head was marked for revenge-death.

Events like these are common in occupied Iraq...

14 guerillas killed in Chechnya over past 24 hours

Interfax. Monday, Jun. 30, 2003, 12:35 PM Moscow Time

GROZNY. June 30 (Interfax) - Fourteen guerillas have been killed and two guerilla field camps eliminated in Chechnya over the past 24 hours, Deputy Commander of the Combined Federal Forces in the North Caucasus Lt. Col. Nikolai Berzeitis told Interfax on Monday...

US push for global police force

By Esther Schrader of the Los Angeles Times and Tom Allard
June 28 2003

The United States would train and lead an international police force, bypassing traditional peacekeeping bodies such as the United Nations and NATO, under a proposal by the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld.

The plan, involving thousands of Americans permanently assigned to peacekeeping, would also be a major reversal by the Bush Administration, which has strongly opposed tying up its troops in such operations.

"I am interested in the idea of our leading, or contributing to in some way, a cadre of people in the world who would like to participate in peacekeeping or peacemaking," Mr Rumsfeld told defence industry leaders in Washington last week.

"I think that it would be a good thing if our country provided some leadership for training of other countries' citizens who would like to participate in peacekeeping ... so that we have a ready cadre of people who are trained and equipped and organised and have communications that they can work with each other."

One defence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: "It's something that is being discussed in a very serious way by some very serious people right now."...

Charles Pena, of the Cato Institute, a Washington-based think tank, said: "We're not terribly good at peacekeeping, so I don't know why we would be training people to be peacekeepers."

However, a senior defence official said: "The way Secretary Rumsfeld envisions it, anyone with concerns about US peacekeeping should be assuaged, because the whole idea is for us to do less, rather than more, peacekeeping."

Although it would keep a small number of US forces in peacekeeping, it would aim to enlist other countries to contribute the vast majority of troops, with the promise that they would be trained and organised by the US.

Comment: So this form of "multilateralism" would keep the US in the driver's seat, training and organizing the "peacekeepers", but would put the onus of staffing the force on their minions. US controls, the others do the dirty work.

Get the Desert Hat That Helped Us Win

America won the war in Iraq, and for a time, it seemed that our greatest enemy was not Saddam’s loyalists but Mother Nature.

As American and coalition combat troops moved relentlessly north across the barren Iraqi desert, they were met with stiff resistance from fierce sandstorms, an unvanquished sun and extreme heat.

The answer to these elements was the Desert Camouflage Hat – known in Army lingo as the desert boonie hat. You can now get your own Desert Camouflage Hat, the same one worn by Army and Marine Corps combat troops in Iraq – just click here now.

First developed for American GIs fighting in the jungles of Vietnam, the hat has been modified for several climatic and terrain conditions.

[...]

Comment: Maybe Mother Nature was trying to tell the American warmongers something, but if so then the message has fallen mostly on deaf ears. Proud "patriots" can now wear the same spiffy hat many Iraqi's saw as their last sight on this earth, only seconds before their brains were blown out by by invading American soldiers. This "souvenir" version camo-hat should have been colored black and blood red with a Skull and Bones logo embroidered on it ...

BBC has fresh details to support its dossier claim

By Kim Sengupta
30 June 2003

The BBC will present fresh details about how the Iraqi weapons dossier was allegedly "sexed up'' by Downing Street and accuse Alastair Campbell of giving "inaccurate'' evidence to the official inquiry into the affair.

Publication of the claims, in the next 48 hours, will reignite the unprecedented row just as the Blair Government appears keen to damp it down. According to senior sources, the corporation has decided at the highest level not to give in to the relentless pressure from the Government.

Journalists and officials at the BBC have spent the weekend poring over the testimony given by Mr Campbell to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee.

According to the sources they have discovered "inaccuracies and inconsistencies'' in what the Prime Minister's communications chief told MPs. Andrew Gilligan, the BBC reporter who has been the focus of government attacks, will produce further information on how the intelligence services were supposedly pressured by Mr Campbell about the "45-minute threats'' posed by Saddam Hussein, which appeared in the first Downing Street dossier last September.

Ministers knew war papers were forged, says diplomat

US official who identified documents incriminating Iraq as fakes says Britain must have been aware of findings

By Andrew Buncombe in Washington and Raymond Whitaker in London
29 June 2003

A high-ranking American official who investigated claims for the CIA that Iraq was seeking uranium to restart its nuclear programme last night accused Britain and the US of deliberately ignoring his findings to make the case for war against Saddam Hussein.

The retired US ambassador said it was all but impossible that British intelligence had not received his report - drawn up by the CIA - which revealed that documents, purporting to show a deal between Iraq and the west African state of Niger, were forgeries. When he saw similar claims in Britain's dossier on Iraq last September, he even went as far as telling CIA officials that they needed to alert their British counterparts to his investigation.

The allegation will add to the suspicions of opponents to the war that last week's row between the BBC and Tony Blair's director of communications Alastair Campbell was a sideshow to draw attention away from more serious questions about the justification for the war.

British PM no longer trusted, should quit: Poll

Agence France-Presse
London, June 29

Most British voters say Prime Minister Tony Blair is no longer trustworthy, and more people want to see him quit than want him to stay on, according to a poll released on Saturday.
Blair's ruling Labour party is running neck and neck with the opposition Conservatives on 35 per cent, according to the Mori poll of 1,007 adults for the News of the World tabloid newspaper.

Half of those questioned agreed Blair was doing a good job as prime minister in difficult circumstances, but 46 percent wanted him to go while 45 per cent believed he should stay.

On the question of trust, Blair was backed by 36 per cent but doubted by 58 per cent.

Comment: Can we imagine the true status of Bush's ratings? Although living in a dictatorship these kinds of details are never revealed. [...]

France Defends Round-Up of Iranian Dissidents

Sun June 29, 2003 03:48 PM ET

PARIS (Reuters) - France's interior minister on Sunday defended raids earlier this month on the offices of an exiled Iranian opposition group, saying France would not become a "stomping ground for any terrorist organization." French police rounded up about 160 sympathizers of the People's Mujahideen in the raids and has put seven of them, including the leader of its political arm Maryam Rajavi, under formal investigation for possible links to terrorism.
Several suitcases stuffed with $100 bills totaling more than $8 million were seized, with computers and files belonging to the main armed opposition group to Iran's Islamic leaders.

"Eight and a half million dollars in cash. Is that normal for people who do not work?" Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy told Europe 1 radio.

"If one of the people out there listening had as much as one percent of the cash we found in the coffers of the People's Mujahideen, they would have serious problems with the police and would have to justify themselves," he added. [...]

'North Korea could test nuke by Dec.'

Yomiuri Shimbun

Kenneth Quinones, a former North Korea analyst for the U.S. State Department during the administration of U.S. President Bill Clinton, said Friday it was possible for North Korea to test a nuclear weapon by the end of this year. During an interview with The Yomiuri Shimbun, Quinones--who was involved in negotiations that resulted in the 1994 Agreed Framework between Washington and Pyongyang--said this viewpoint is shared by officials of the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush.

Following is an excerpt of the interview:

The Yomiuri Shimbun: Could you tell us about the common viewpoint in Washington regarding the situation in North Korea?

Quinones: To the best of my knowledge, based on very well-informed Washington sources, North Korea's nuclear program is moving ahead very quickly. Basically, this means North Korea reprocessing is almost finished, or has finished. This means North Korea now has enough plutonium to make six to 10 nuclear weapons.

There is the problem of how do you know if it will work. If North Korea wants to use their nuclear weapon as negotiating leverage, they must test it. If the test works, they want us to know. Why? They want to frighten us. To make us negotiate with them.

There is the question of how can they deliver this. It is impossible for North Korea to have nuclear warheads. The technology is too sophisticated. They do not have that technology. However, it is possible to deliver a large nuclear weapon using a ship.

The only ballistic missile that works in North Korea is the Rodong--or Scud, possibly. The Rodong is designed (to hit) U.S. military bases in Japan. You are the target of the Rodongs.

North Korea cannot send nuclear weapons to the United States. The only country they can send it to besides South Korea is Japan. So you have three problems. You have abducted Japanese citizens, you have ballistic missiles and you have nuclear weapons.

This is a very difficult situation for Japan, not just Washington. [...]

N. Korea: Taking nuclear issue to UN a `prelude to war'

By The Associated Press

SEOUL - A move by Washington to bring the standoff over North Korea's nuclear program to the United Nations will be seen as a "prelude to war," the North warned yesterday, adding it would respond with a "corresponding measure."

North Korea's official KCNA news agency did not elaborate on the corresponding measure. The communist country has been
sharpening its anti-U.S.rhetoric amid tensions over its suspected nuclear weapons development.

The United States has proposed that the Security Council issue a statement denouncing North Korea's nuclear program. Washington and its allies have been pressuring the North to abandon its nuclear ambitions.

The North said it would consider the introduction of the nuclear issue at the UN Security Council "as a prelude to a war and
take a corresponding measure." Washington's "intention to refer the issue to the UN can never be tolerated, as it seeks to use the UN in achieving its criminal aim to isolate and stifle" North Korea, KCNA said.

Also yesterday, KCNA released a copy of a letter from North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam Sun
to the Security Council, harshly criticizing the United States and urging the council to remain neutral on the nuclear dispute.

"It can be said that now, the United Nations is at the crossroads of whether it will maintain the international order led by the United Nations or give way to the establishment of a dangerous world order led by an individual country," the letter said.

Two more US soldiers injured in Iraq

Associated Press
12:24 Sunday 29th June 2003

Two American soldiers have been injured and an Iraqi civilian killed in an attack on a US military convoy.

The attack was latest in a series which had taken the toll of American dead since the war began to more than 200.

The attack, which involved an improvised bomb, happened as the convoy made its way on a highway in south west Baghdad that heads out to the airport, said Corporal. Todd Pruden, a military spokesman.

It was not clear if the explosive device was thrown at the convoy, or placed in the road, he said, adding that two vehicles were damaged.

The injured were evacuated to a military hospital and no arrests were made.

US Says Won't Be Deterred - Iraq Death Toll Passes 200

By James Hossack
6-29-3

BAGHDAD (AFP) - The US military dug its heels in Sunday, confronting an enemy widening its tactics, with more than 200 US troops now killed in the war to oust Saddam Hussein and the campaign to rebuild Iraq.

Paul Bremer, the top US administrator in Iraq, said Sunday that "chances of catching Saddam are very high. We will catch him."

"There's no doubt that the fact that we had not been able to show his face allows these remnants of that Baathist regime to (say) ... we will come back, so don't cooperate with the coalition," Bremer told BBC television.

Bremer's remarks come amid mounting armed resistance to the US-led coalition from militiamen still loyal to Saddam. [...]

Iraq weapons amnesty has proved a washout, defence officials admit

Richard Norton-Taylor
Monday June 30, 2003
The Guardian

A promise of amnesty for Iraqis who voluntarily gave up their weapons has been "remarkably unsuccessful", British defence sources admitted yesterday.
Britain and the US concede that to get Iraqis to give up their rifles, mainly Kalashnikovs, is an impossible task for the foreseeable future. The amnesty was designed to get them to hand over heavier weapons, including machineguns, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades.

However, this has failed and is unlikely to make any headway until Iraqis feel secure, a prospect which at present is not even on the horizon, defence sources say. Military commanders also make it clear that they are angry at the failure of British and American civil agencies to deliver on promises to restore or renew Iraq's infrastructure, notably power and water supplies.

That, they say, is fuelling resentment among ordinary Iraqis, and increases the influence of groups with their own extreme political or religious agendas. [...]

US forces launch massive Iraq operation

Associated Press
18:00 Sunday 29th June 2003

US forces have launched a massive operation in Iraq to crush insurgents and capture senior figures from Saddam Hussein's fallen regime.

The operation, codenamed Sidewinder, has involved more than 20 raids involving air and ground forces, and has so far resulted in the arrest of more than 60 suspects.

The operation is taking place in a huge swathe of central Iraq stretching from the Iranian border to the areas north of Baghdad, and is expected to last for several days.

The region has become "the nexus of paramilitary activity in central Iraq," the military said in a statement.

"Sidewinder" kicked off near Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad.

"We go in with such overwhelming combat power that they won't even think about shooting us," Lt. Col. Mark Young said before the start of the operation.

"The raids target former Ba'ath Party loyalists, terrorists suspected of perpetrating attacks against US forces and former Iraqi military leaders," the military statement said.

The American forces arrested a man in Khalis, 45 miles north of Baghdad, suspected of recruiting young men to launch attacks on US troops.

In Dojima, a town where Sunni Muslim residents recently polished the still-standing portrait of Saddam Hussein, police raided the homes of alleged Saddam loyalists they suspected of hiding caches of arms, including rocket-propelled grenades - the weapon of choice in many recent ambushes.

There are no reports of US casualties, the military said, nor is there any indication that the operation had netted any of Iraq's most wanted fugitives.

CIA Intelligence Reported Seven Months Before 9/11: Iraq posed No Threat to US

by Jason Leopold
www.globalresearch.ca 28 June 2003

Seven months before September 11, 2001, CIA Director George Tenet, testified before Congress that Iraq posed no immediate threat to the United States or to other countries in the Middle East.

But immediately after the terrorist attacks on 9-11, which the Bush administration claims Iraq is partially responsible for, the President and his advisers were already making a case for war against Iraq without so much as providing a shred of evidence to back up the allegations that Iraq and its former President, Saddam Hussein, was aware of the attacks or helped the al-Qaida hijackers plan the catastrophe.

It was then, after the 9-11 attacks, that intelligence reports from the CIA radically changed from previous months, which said Iraq posed no immediate threat to the U.S., to now show Iraq had a stockpile of chemical and biological weapons and was in hot pursuit of a nuclear bomb. The Bush administration seized upon the reports to build public support for the war and used the information to eventually justify a preemptive strike against the country in March even though much of the intelligence information in the latest CIA report has since been disputed..

In just seven short months, beginning as early as February 2001, Bush administration officials said Iraq went from being a threat only to its own people to posing an imminent threat to the world without providing evidence to back up its claims. Indeed, in a Feb. 12, 2001 interview with the Fox News Channel Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said: “Iraq is probably not a nuclear threat at the present time.” [...]

Lies about Iraq

International Herald Tribune

PARIS The only member of the United States Senate who voted against granting war powers to President George W. Bush, Robert Byrd of West Virginia, holds that lies were told by the president to justify the Iraq war, and that eventually truth will out.

One would like to believe it true. But while Senator Byrd will be vindicated in the long run, the culture of lies that prevails in the Bush administration is an integral part of a larger culture of expedience and systematic dishonesty that dominates the present leadership of American political society and business. There is little reason to expect this soon to change.

Expedient lies have always been part of politics; and American business, at its higher levels, has often been crooked, but uneasily so, in conflict with the residual puritanism of the American establishment.

This puritanism was contemptuously discarded by the profit-driven business ethic that took over in the 1980s. Thus no effort is deemed necessary today to mask the connections of members of this administration with corporate profit-taking from defeated Iraq.

The personal links of high officials, including the president and vice president, with the commercial interests and business sectors that expect to profit from Iraq's reconstruction and the privatization of Iraq's resources are not only widely known but largely uncontroversial. In the past, they would have been considered scandalous.

As for the lies told to justify invasion of Iraq, one had no need to wait for Paul Wolfowitz to tell Vanity Fair magazine that the proclaimed threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction - deployable within 45 minutes, as the president's ally, Prime Minister Tony Blair, helpfully added - was simply the theme of bureaucratic choice. True or not, it was plausible and could be sold.

In the lead-up to the war it was painful for an American to watch Secretary of State Colin Powell present to the UN Security Council as serious evidence of the Iraqi menace, the flimsy texts, equivocal photos and tissues of supposition that he reportedly did not wholly believe himself.

It was still more embarrassing to see Blair try to make the same case, because Blair really does believe in the cause. Now the credulous prime minister is the man in danger, not his friend in Washington. Parliament takes a graver view of governmental lies than the sitting United States Senate. A House of Commons select committee is taking evidence on the matter. Conservatives now lead Labour in the polls.

MI6 insiders, unwilling to take the rap for Downing Street, and senior retired CIA and State Department people have for many weeks been in the corridors and on the Internet to express outrage at the use by Washington and London of rigged intelligence on Iraq - reaching even into Bush's State of the Union message in January.

That these were lies was made obvious when the United States proved unable to give valid or even interesting leads on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to the UN inspectors, when they went back into Iraq.

A good deal has already been written about corrupting the intelligence services to serve ideological interests. Not so much has been said about plain lies, which travel a long way in an electorate as uninterested in international affairs and as ill-served by press and television as today's American electorate.

Bush convinced the majority of Americans that Saddam Hussein not only had weapons of mass destruction but was about to use them against America. He convinced the public majority that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were linked, and that Iraq collaborated in the Sept. 11 attacks. He has now convinced the public that Iran is a nuclear threat, and 56 percent of American opinion would support military intervention in that country to deal with the claimed danger.

Presidential lies to Congress, strictly speaking, are constitutional ground for impeachment. They really are something more serious. They rupture the relationship of responsibility that is supposed to exist between president and public.

Partisan or personal interest and equivocation are one thing. Lies about matters of state, and about war, are another. To lie to the citizenry is to reject the confidence freely given a president. It destroys the moral bond that holds a democratic society together.

Massacre in a Lawless Land

Jon Swain, Nicholas Rufford - Sunday Times June 29, 2003

Basim Ali Hassan, 20, was sleeping when there was a tremendous hammering on the door. He opened it to have a rifle thrust into his chest.

“I want anything you have like this,” a large British soldier said, waving a pistol in his face.

Next thing, according to Basim, more British soldiers were inside with dogs — animals that Muslims regard as impure and keep outside.

One sniffer dog was allowed to crawl over the blanket on his mother’s bed and sniff through her underwear stored in a wooden chest.

“My blood was boiling, but what could I do?” said Basim, whose father was executed by Saddam Hussein 12 years ago.

The soldiers were members of the 1st Battalion, the Parachute Regiment, who raided Abu Al-Allaa, Basim’s village in southern Iraq, last Saturday hunting for hidden weapons.

When they later drove out of its baking hot streets, the dust clouds rolling behind their camouflaged vehicles, the paras left behind a village seething with resentment.

The villagers took their complaints to Majar al-Kabir, the main town four miles away. Soon Majar’s souk was buzzing with tales of how the British had violated tribal honour by frisking women — and had even shot a guard dog.

British commanders deny the paras had acted aggressively; they had been in southern Iraq long enough to understand local sensibilities.

Nonetheless, their search in Abu Al-Allaa was followed by such an explosion of anger in Majar that six British military policemen were killed on Tuesday by a frenzied mob. It was the worst day for deaths in the British army since it invaded Iraq in March.

Neocon-Nazi War Crimes

By Schuyler Ebbets
thepeoplesvoice.org
June 27, 2003

Historian Omer Bartov points out that in the ideological confrontation with Russia, the German army reverted to the crudest moral code of war ever exercised. According to their doctrine, everything that ensured one's survival was permitted and considered moral, and everything even remotely suspect of threatening one's survival was defined as immoral and therefore destroyed. To reinforce this harsh philosophy, the German troops were indoctrinated by constant propaganda, which helped shape their perception of Russian civilians as combatants.

In an interview conducted By Bob Graham for the Evening Standard in Baghdad, Sergeant First Class John Meadows revealed a similar moral justification for murder which has led to hundreds of innocent Iraqi civilians being slaughtered. "You can't distinguish between who's trying to kill you and who's not," he said. "Like, the only way to get through shit like that was to concentrate on killing as many people as you can..." Another soldier, Corporal Michael Richardson, 22, said; "There was no dilemma when it came to shooting people who were not in uniform, I just pulled the trigger. It was up close and personal the whole time, there wasn't a big distance. If they were there, they were enemy, whether in uniform or not. Some were, some weren't."

Hossam al-Sayed, Chief Correspondent for IslamOnline.net reported that American troops murdered more than one hundred Iraqi civilians, most of them killed while sleeping in their beds on the morning of June 13, in Rawah, 400 kilometers to the northwest of Baghdad. According to eyewitness accounts, U.S. forces opened fire from tanks and helicopter gun ships in a residential neighborhood. After the carnage, Abu Saadoun a town tribal leader said, "The bodies of 12 of our boys were found tied with ropes, each with a bullet in the head. The Americans detained them and immediately executed them in this horrible way."

One must wonder why America, a so-called "democracy," is using soldiers to slaughter civilians. Where has this monstrous idea of gathering up groups of innocent people and killing them come from? What can Americans possibly have to gain that will justify being labeled as "war criminals"? The U.S. Army's actions in the town of Rawah are ominously reminiscent of Nazi Germany's reprisal killings for the deaths of their soldiers in World War II.

On March 23, 1944, a bomb exploded in Rome killing thirty-two German police. Hitler ordered Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, to execute ten Italian hostages for every German killed in the attack. Kesselring carried out Hitler's command assembling 335 innocent civilians, ten more than required. The people were herded into Ardeatine Cave and shot in the back as they knelt among the corpses of those killed before. Following the murders, the cave was demolished with explosives in an attempt to cover up the crime, but Kesselring was subsequently convicted of two counts of War Crimes and sentenced to death.

Although Reich Fuhrer Hitler was able to escape justice by killing himself, his top field marshals and members of his inner circle were tried in Nuremberg, Germany for acts committed both before and during World War II. In a similar fashion, President Bush, General Tommy Franks, and others in the white house were charged by Belgium's Justice Ministry with "war crimes" and "crimes against humanity,"for murders committed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The world has quickly recognized the criminality of the Neocon regime and their "never ending war," it will only be a matter of time before most of the American people recognize it also.

Night of the Long Knives

On this day in 1934, Hitler radioed the codeword 'Kolibri' to Berlin. This was the signal for the SS to smash the SA. Ernst Rohm, the Hitler appointed leader of the SA was murdered on the spot. Other members of the SA were rounded up and later butchered by the SS. The SA's behavior which had been previously encouraged was now an embarrassment to Hitler, and he used this raid for propaganda value. This event later came to be called the Night of the Long Knives. One example of the problem of aligning oneself with such villains. They use you, and discard at will. Perhaps Americans should consider this as they align themselves with the President.

See People With Connections To The Bush Dynasty Who Met With Suspicious And Untimely Deaths, as compiled by VOX NEWS. With such examples as:

William S. Farish: He was one of Prescott Bush's partners in business deals with Adolph Hitler. He was devastated by the intense grilling he received from the Senate about his dealings with Nazis, and while Prescott Bush skated free, Farish collapsed and died on November 29, 1942.

Michael Hand: He was a Green Beret and an Army Colonel assigned to the CIA. He ran the Nugan Hand Bank, a front for CIA drug money, in Sydney, Australia. He was in frequent contact with George Bush after his election to Vice President, according to CIA operative Trento Parker. Michael Hand was found in his car on a remote road outside Sydney, an apparent suicide. There were no fingerprints on the gun.

Katherine Smith: She had been implicated in February in a phony passport scheme said to be related to the September 11 hijackers. One day before she was due in court, she was incinerated in her car after having hit a utility pole. An investigation revealed that the crash was minor and was not the cause of the fire that burned Smith beyond recognition. Who was really behind 9/11? Was Katherine Smith privy to that information? Why did she have to die, and who killed her?

As Robert D. Hare states in Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of Psychopaths Among Us, "Psychopaths usually don't get along well with one another. The last thing an egocentric, selfish, demanding, callous person wants is someone just like him. Two stars is one too many. Occasionally, however, psychopaths become temporary partners in crime - a grim symbiosis with unfortunate consequences for other people. Generally, one member of the pair is a 'talker' who gets his or her way through charm, deceit, and manipulation, whereas the other is a 'doer' who prefers direct action - intimidation and force. As long as their interests are complementary, they make a formidable pair." For some reason, this quote brings to mind the present and past Bush administrations.

US should let opponents of Iraq war help reconstruction: lawmakers

Monday June 30, 12:43 PM

The United States should accept offers of help in Iraq from its allies, even those who opposed the US-led war, to tackle the huge responsibilities of rebuilding the country and establishing a new government, US senators said.

"We need to involve the world, the globe" in Iraq, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist told ABC. "We're talking about freedom not just for the United States, not just for Iraq, but indeed freedoms for people around the world."

Reconstruction "is going to be a long process," said Frist. "It's going to be a difficult process. But one that we are absolutely committed to achieving success in." [...]

An influential Democrat on the Senate's Foreign Affairs Committee, Joseph Biden told the Fox network it was important for Washington to accept NATO members' help.

Biden said he wanted to see French, German and Turkish troops deployed in Iraq to let Iraqis know that, more than just the United States, the international community was in Iraq.

Comment: Can't find any of Saddam's alleged WMDs after invading Iraq? Just invite the rest of the world to help rebuild, occupy, and profit from the country.

Japan to send over 1,000 troops to Iraq

Monday June 30, 11:29 AM

Japan plans to send more than 1,000 troops to Iraq to help rebuild the war-torn country under new legislation expected to pass by late July.

As a first step, some 500 Ground Self-Defence Force troops, the core of the Japanese mission, are likely to be deployed starting in early October, the Tokyo newspaper said.

The troops are expected to supply fuel and water to US forces and citizens in Baghdad, the daily said, citing a Defence Agency outline on reconstruction efforts in Iraq.

Japanese and US officials plan to discuss the details based on the outline in a meeting Monday, the report said. [...]

The Bush Body Count

ASIO spying on the increase

By Shelley Hodgson
June 29, 2003

AUSTRALIANS are one of the most spied on people in the Western world, with mail interceptions and telephone taps rising daily. Terry O'Gorman - concerned about ASIO's new powers.

And civil liberties groups claim new legislation will give ASIO, Australia's main intelligence agency, more power than the FBI in the US and Britain's MI5.

More than 17,000 Australians had their mail investigated, mainly by federal government agencies, last year -- almost 30 times the number checked a decade ago.

Australian police forces are using electronic surveillance at 27 times the per capita rate of their US counterparts. The 2514 court warrants issued for phone taps last financial year -- almost double that issued in the US -- was a tenfold increase in the past decade and a 16 per cent rise on the previous year. [...]

"The very fact ASIO suspects your friends or your family of somehow being involved (in terrorism) means you can be arrested and held for seven days without anyone knowing where you are," Senator Brown said. [...]

45 die in monsoon floods

Associated Press
09:30 Sunday 29th June 2003

Monsoon floods battering parts of Bangladesh have claimed 45 lives in the past four days.

The rains have washed away many houses and displaced thousands of villagers, relief officials say.

Twelve people drowned in floods in the southeastern Chittagong district when another three died of diarrhoea after drinking flood-tainted water in neighbouring Khagrachari district.

The floods, which started on Thursday, forced about 5,000 people from their homes in hardest-hit Khagrachari district, where officials reported an outbreak of diseases such as diarrhoea and fever.

Al-Qaeda joke sparks air scare

Herald Sun

A SWISS air traffic controller jokingly put an "al-Qaeda" label on a French helicopter that strayed into restricted air space during the Group of Eight summit, nearly leading to a shootdown by the French air force, officials confirmed today. [...]

Giuliani, the Great Race Divider, Says He'll Be Europe's Healer

By Sydney H. Schanberg
Village Voice Writer

Now that Rudolph Giuliani's beatification has obscured his interesting past, he has become difficult to place in human terms. We can see he is definitely campaigning for something, but he has been reaping huzzahs and big money in so many different places that one can’t tell if he’s shooting for a world greed record or the Nobel Peace Prize or the American presidency in 2008. It’s very confusing.

Did you notice, just the other day, that he was named by President Bush to head the American delegation to a conference in Vienna aimed at wiping out anti-Semitism in Europe? Think of it, the mayor who divided New York City’s races more grievously than any modern mayor before him is going to put an end to intolerance in all of Europe. Holy Moses!

Let’s take a look at his mayoral résumé. Perhaps a more realistic picture will emerge ....

Canada reports new SARS death; toll reaches 39  

The death toll in Canada arising from SARS has reached 39, following an announcement by Ontario's Health Ministry of the latest victim to succumb to the flu-like disease.

Comment: Will Canadians stand up for themselves as WHO tests it's powers to control countries by restricting travel and ruining economies by inventing a disease? Because it is not stopping with SARS. The Signs team has posted reports of purported Dengue and encephalitis outbreaks. That should help scare away investors, lowering the value of real estate and businesses which then can be bought for a song from those individuals who are behind these inventions.

Rage. Mistrust. Hatred. Fear. Uncle Sam's enemies within

Neil Mackay
The Sunday Herald
29 June 2003

WHEN the Hollywood actor Tim Robbins took to his feet before the National Press Club in Washington DC in April this year, he delivered a speech laced with deliberate echoes of Bob Dylan's protest song Blowin' In The Wind. While Dylan, however, sang of freedom and liberty one day triumphing over repression and control, Robbins was saying that the greatest democracy on earth, the United States of America, was heading in the opposite direction under President Bush: to a future where freedom had lost out to repression and liberty to control. [...]

Just days before this speech, Saddam's statue in Baghdad was wrapped in the Stars and Stripes and dragged to earth by US tanks. To millions of Americans like Robbins, the image must have been replete with irony. Here was democratic America destroying one of the most tyrannical regimes on earth in the name of freedom -- yet in the process of fighting for democracy abroad, America's own freedoms were being systematically eaten away at home.

A few things have happened recently that show just how powerful -- and, perhaps, unstoppable -- is the march of the right-wing machine in the US. This month the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a right-wing think tank umbilically tied to the Bush administration, declared open warfare on non-governmental organisations (NGOs) deemed too left-wing and set up an organisation called NGOWatch to monitor these liberal pressure groups. NGOs that have fallen foul of its wrath include groups promoting human rights, women, the environment and freedom of speech; among its targets are the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Amnesty International, Greenpeace and the World Organisation Against Torture. Only this February, George Bush boasted that 20 AEI members were working for his administration. AEI fellows include Lynne Cheney, the vice- president's wife, and Richard Perle, the most influential of all neo-conservative hawks. [...]

Naomi Klein, author of the anti-corporate bestseller No Logo, points out that Andrew Natsios, head of the government-run United States Agency for International Development (USAID), attacked NGOs this May 'for failing to play a role many of them didn't realise they had been assigned: doing public relations for the US government'. Klein says NGOWatch is a 'McCarthyite blacklist, telling tales on any NGO that dares speak against the Bush administration's policies or in support of international treaties opposed by the White House'.

But the Bush administration might not find the term 'McCarthyite' all that insulting if the poster-girl of the American right, Ann Coulter, gets her way. Coulter is set to knock Hillary Clinton, the former first lady, off the top of the US bestseller lists with her book Treason: Liberal Treachery From The Cold War To The War On Terrorism. Its central thesis is that Senator Joe McCarthy, the man behind the communist witch-hunts of the 1950s, was a good guy and an all-American patriot. Coulter is the woman who said after September 11: 'We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.' She also said US citizens should carry passports on domestic flights to make it easier to identify any 'suspicious-looking swarthy males'.

McCarthy was censured by his Senate colleagues: despite levelling charges of communism at all and sundry, he was unable to produce the name of a single card-carrying communist in the US government. The Encyclopaedia Britannica says he was seen by his detractors as a 'self-seeking witch-hunter who was undermining the nation's traditions of civil liberties', yet his accusations led to the persecution of many of those he condemned .

Coulter says: 'The myth of McCarthyism is the greatest Orwellian fraud of our times. Liberals are fanatical liars, then as now. Everything you think you know about McCarthy is a hegemonic lie ... Liberals denounced McCarthy because they were afraid of getting caught ... McCarthy was not tilting at windmills. Soviet spies in the government were not a figment of right-wing imaginations. He was tilting at an authentic communist conspiracy.' [...]

Calif. Near Financial Disaster

Hours Remain to Solve $38 Billion Shortfall

By Rene Sanchez
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 30, 2003

LOS ANGELES -- Any day now, community colleges here may begin telling faculty members that they cannot be paid and students that summer classes are canceled.

Nursing homes are losing so much state aid that many soon may have to shut down or limit their services, a prospect that has elderly residents confused and frightened.

As many as 30,000 government workers who had been expecting pay raises in the fall are instead receiving formal notices warning that they could lose their jobs by then, because the state is broke.

This is life in California, on the brink of a fiscal disaster.

The nation's most populous state, home to one of the world's largest economies, has been staring in disbelief at the same dire predicament for months: a $38 billion deficit, the largest shortfall in its history and an extreme example of the budget woes afflicting many states. But now it has only hours left to solve the problem.

State lawmakers have until midnight to reach a compromise with Gov. Gray Davis (D) on a budget that would wipe out the enormous deficit, but the odds of that happening appear slim. And without a deal, the state will be bound by law to begin cutting off billions of dollars in payments to its agencies and its contractors in July -- and could run out of money by August. [...]

Comment: One wonders how many states will soon follow in California's footsteps. The economic fabric of the U.S. is in tatters, and all Bush can do is pull a reverse Robin Hood: a "tax cut" that effectively steals from the poor to give to the rich. And don't forget that many of California's problems began with an energy crunch compliments of our old friend Enron, to which practically the entire Bush administration had ties.

Ohio bill could force universities to expel student protesters

By Amy McCullough
The Lantern (Ohio State U.)
06/26/2003

(U-WIRE) COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Only a few days remain before the fate of Ohio's budget is determined, but the declining economic times are not the only issue on the line.

A controversial provision in the 2004-2005 budget could compromise the First Amendment rights of Ohio's students by restricting their right to take a stand on important issues, said Sen. Bob Hagan, D-Youngstown.

The bill would require all state-funded universities to immediately expel any student convicted of "rioting" or "failure to disperse." The state would deny financial aid to individuals for two years and other state-funded universities would be prohibited from admitting the convicted individual for one year. [...]

Two Dead in Samurai Attack in Irvine

KABC-TV Los Angeles
June 29, 2003

IRVINE — A man wielding a samurai-style sword killed two people and injured three others at an Albertsons supermarket Sunday morning before police fatally shot him, authorities said. [...]

NASA to study man who survives on liquids and sunlight

June 30 2003

An Indian man, who claims to have survived only on liquids and sunlight for eight years, has been invited by NASA to show them how he does it.

Hira Ratan Manek - also known as Hirachand - a 64-year-old mechanical engineer who lives in the southern state of Kerala, apparently started disliking food in 1992, the Hindustan Times newspaper reported. In 1995, he went on a pilgrimage to the Himalayas and stopped eating completely on his return.

His wife, Vimla, said: "Every evening he looks at the sun for one hour without batting an eyelid. It is his main food. Occasionally he takes coffee, tea or some other liquid."

Last June, scientists from the US space agency verified that Manek spent 130 days surviving only on water, the report said. They even named this subsistence on water and solar energy after him: The HRM (Hira Ratan Manek) Phenomenon.

Mr Manek is now in the US to show NASA's scientists how he survives without food. The US space agency hopes to use the technique to solve food storage and preservation problems on its expeditions, the report said.

Mr Manek said he "eats through his eyes" in the evening, when the sun's ultraviolet rays are least harmful. He and his wife claim the technique is totally scientific. However, doctors warn that staring at the sun can make you blind.

His wife said: "He has a special taste for sun energy. He believes only 5 per cent of human brain cells are used by most people. The other 95 per cent can be activated through solar energy."

'I have never worked a (bleepin) day in my life': Kennedy comment draws fire

by Andrew Miga

Saturday, June 28, 2003 WASHINGTON - U.S. Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy was in damage-control mode yesterday, scrambling to explain flippant remarks at a Democratic party about never having to work a day in his life. [...]

Slayings raise alarm over rising abuse cases

By JAMES PINKERTON
Houston Chronicle

Inside their narrow bedroom, strewn with pornography and decorated with symbols of both witchcraft and religion, police saw what appeared to be a headless doll at the foot of the bed.

They soon realized it was the decapitated body of 1-year-old John Esthefan Rubio. His head and the bodies of his two sisters -- Julissa Quezada, 3, and Mary Jane Rubio, 2 months -- their heads also severed, were found stuffed in trash bags nearby.

The couple confessed, Brownsville police have testified, to severing their children's heads with a large kitchen knife, pausing to clean house and have sex between the slayings. [...]

[...] the state budget recently adopted by the Texas Legislature, which made significant reductions in social services, has community activists concerned that more children could die.[...]

A Nation of Victims

by RENANA BROOKS
The Nation
[from the June 30, 2003 issue]

George W. Bush is generally regarded as a mangler of the English language. What is overlooked is his mastery of emotional language--especially negatively charged emotional language--as a political tool. Take a closer look at his speeches and public utterances, and his political success turns out to be no surprise. It is the predictable result of the intentional use of language to dominate others.

President Bush, like many dominant personality types, uses dependency-creating language. He employs language of contempt and intimidation to shame others into submission and desperate admiration. While we tend to think of the dominator as using physical force, in fact most dominators use verbal abuse to control others...

Bush uses several dominating linguistic techniques to induce surrender to his will. The first is empty language. This term refers to broad statements that are so abstract and mean so little that they are virtually impossible to oppose. Empty language is the emotional equivalent of empty calories...

Bush's 2003 State of the Union speech contained thirty-nine examples of empty language. He used it to reduce complex problems to images that left the listener relieved that George W. Bush was in charge. Rather than explaining the relationship between malpractice insurance and skyrocketing healthcare costs, Bush summed up: "No one has ever been healed by a frivolous lawsuit." The multiple fiscal and monetary policy tools that can be used to stimulate an economy were downsized to: "The best and fairest way to make sure Americans have that money is not to tax it away in the first place." The controversial plan to wage another war on Iraq was simplified to: "We will answer every danger and every enemy that threatens the American people." In an earlier study, I found that in the 2000 presidential debates Bush used at least four times as many phrases containing empty language as Carter, Reagan, Clinton, Bush Senior or Gore had used in their debates.

Another of Bush's dominant-language techniques is personalization. By personalization I mean localizing the attention of the listener on the speaker's personality. Bush projects himself as the only person capable of producing results. In his post-9/11 speech to Congress he said, "I will not forget this wound to our country or those who inflicted it. I will not yield; I will not rest; I will not relent in waging this struggle for freedom and security for the American people." He substitutes his determination for that of the nation's... Contrast Bush's "I will not yield" etc. with John F. Kennedy's "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."

The word "you" rarely appears in Bush's speeches...

Poll after poll demonstrates that Bush's political agenda is out of step with most Americans' core beliefs. Yet the public, their electoral resistance broken down by empty language and persuaded by personalization, is susceptible to Bush's most frequently used linguistic technique: negative framework. A negative framework is a pessimistic image of the world. Bush creates and maintains negative frameworks in his listeners' minds with a number of linguistic techniques borrowed from advertising and hypnosis to instill the image of a dark and evil world around us. Catastrophic words and phrases are repeatedly drilled into the listener's head until the opposition feels such a high level of anxiety that it appears pointless to do anything other than cower...

Bush is a master at inducing learned helplessness in the electorate. He uses pessimistic language that creates fear and disables people from feeling they can solve their problems. In his September 20, 2001, speech to Congress on the 9/11 attacks, he chose to increase people's sense of vulnerability: "Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen.... I ask you to live your lives, and hug your children. I know many citizens have fears tonight.... Be calm and resolute, even in the face of a continuing threat." (Subsequent terror alerts by the FBI, CIA and Department of Homeland Security have maintained and expanded this fear of unknown, sinister enemies.)...

To create a dependency dynamic between him and the electorate, Bush describes the nation as being in a perpetual state of crisis and then attempts to convince the electorate that it is powerless and that he is the only one with the strength to deal with it. He attempts to persuade people they must transfer power to him, thus crushing the power of the citizen, the Congress, the Democratic Party, even constitutional liberties, to concentrate all power in the imperial presidency and the Republican Party.

THOUSANDS PROTEST BUSH FUNDRAISERS in NORTHERN CALIFORNIA & LOS ANGELES

Demonstrators in California poured into the streets on Friday, June 27 to protest Bush's visit to the state to raise millions for his re-election campaign. From Burlingame (south of San Francisco) to Los Angeles, the chants of thousands were heard throughout the state. The demonstrations in California, initiated by the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, let Bush know that he cannot sneak in and out of the state without facing the anger of the people.

In spite of near triple-digit heat and snarled traffic, at 11 a.m. on Friday, 2,000 strong protested Bush in a Burlingame hotel near the San Francisco airport...

That evening, people from all over Southern California -- Los Angeles, Orange County, Ventura, Santa Barbara, San Diego, Riverside -- converged to boo Bush in front of the Century Plaza Hotel in Century City...

In the last week, Bush has been dogged by protesters during his mega-fundraising. On June 23, thousands demonstrated in New York City against the occupation of Iraq and in support of women's rights. Many carried signs calling for Bush's impeachment.

Tropical storm expected to hit Gulf coast Monday night

Associated Press

A tropical storm rapidly developed in the Gulf of Mexico today and was expected to hit somewhere along the Texas or Louisiana coasts by Monday night...

While Bill is only predicted to be a minimum tropical storm, Lichter said parallels can be drawn to another minimum storm: June 2001's Tropical Storm Allison, which paralyzed the nation's fourth largest city.

Allison, which organized for less than a day from a disturbance off the upper Texas coast, came ashore near Houston on June 5 as a minimal tropical storm. Its remnants drifted into deep East Texas, only to backtrack and swamp Houston the night of June 8. By week's end, it had dumped more than 36 inches of water on some spots, caused $5 billion in damage and killed 22 people.

It was the costliest tropical storm in U.S. history and crippled Houston's downtown, the Texas Medical Center, and large residential areas across central and northeastern Harris County...

Virgins Meet in Sin City, Tout Abstinence

By CHRISTINA ALMEIDA
The Associated Press
Sunday, June 29, 2003; 7:54 AM

LAS VEGAS - In a city known more for sin than virtue, a group of virgins from around the country gathered this weekend to send a message: wait until marriage.

It was a clash of the "Good Girls" and the sin-seekers as about 200 teens, parents and youth counselors descended on the Strip to pass out cards promoting abstinence.

"What better place to bring this than Sin City?" said participant Deanna Grimm, 24, of Sioux Falls, S.D. "They need to hear it."...

A national study published last week by the conservative Heritage Foundation found that girls who begin sexual activity at age 13 are twice as likely to become infected by a sexually transmitted disease as girls who begin having sex at the age of 21.

The study also found nearly 40 percent of girls who start having sex at ages 13 and 14 will give birth outside of marriage. And they're more than three times as likely to become single mothers.

"The earlier a girl had begun sexual activity, the less likely she was to be happy in her life many, many years later," said Robert Rector, senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a speaker at the convention.

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