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Picture
of the Day
Christmas
in Iraq
THE FRIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS |
SOTT
Dec 24/04 |
'Twas the night before Christmas, when all
through America
Not a Muslim was stirring, not even a radical shi'ite cleric(a);
The brownshirts were guarding the borders with care,
In fears that terrorists soon would be there;
The people were trembling awake in their beds,
While visions of anthrax danced in their heads;
And mamma on Prozac, and I with my Ritalin,
Medicating ourselves to become model citizens.
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
And away from the window I cowered afraid,
as the search lights made patterns through my night shade
They were rounding up enemies of the Patriot Act,
to ship them to Cuba in cages like rats.
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But Dubya in a jumpsuit, and his eight puppeteers,
With a face like a monkey, and brains turned to mush
I knew in a moment it must be Junior Bush.
More rapid than eagles his handlers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;
"Now, Condi! now, Rummy! now, Gonzo and Rover!
On, Cheney! on Wolfy! on, Boykin and Porter!
Into the heart of Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran!
We'll torch the Middle East as fast as we can!
And before the world can mount a protest,
we'll plunder their country and leave them with the mess.
So onto the Arabic countries they flew,
With an airplane full of bombs, and Democracy too.
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The heavy thud of his Presidential jackboot.
As I drew in my hand, and was turning around,
He broke down the front door, and came with a bound.
He was dressed all in camoflage, from his head to his toes,
Like deer in the headlights, my family froze.
A bundle of guns he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a predator about to attack.
His eyes -- how they narrowed! his scowl in place!
His forked tongue sticking out of both sides of his face.
His evil little mouth and teeth clenched in rage,
A dog-eared Bible with blood on the page;
He said we were terrorists for not supporting the war,
And deserved to be tortured while chained to the floor;
Then he put us in handcuffs and onto a train,
said we'd never see the beauty of the fatherland again.
He was righteous and angry, a with a thundering yell,
And I cried when I saw him, in spite of myself;
I saw a vision of flames and horns on his head,
Soon gave me to know I had much more to dread;
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
Rounding up citizens; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his finger on the button of the bomb,
invoking apocalypse was his plan all along;
He sprang to his jetplane, to his team gave orders,
And away they all flew to the next set of borders.
But I heard him exclaim, ere he flew out of sight,
"Scary Christmas to all, and to all a good-fright." |
The world's biggest earthquake in almost
four years has struck 800 km off the coast of Tasmania, Australian
seismological officials said.
Geoscience Australia said the quake, measuring 8.1 on the Richter
Scale hit the Macquarie Rise, in the Pacific Ocean, at 1.59am.
The earthquake, which occurred half-way between Australia and
Antarctica, was felt throughout Tasmania, seismologist Cvetan
Sinadinovski said.
It caused buildings in parts of the state to shake for up to
15 seconds, he said.
However, no one was injured in the quake and structures were
in no danger of collapsing because it struck so far off the coast.
"If it happened underneath a population
centre in Australia, this would probably have destroyed a whole
city," Dr Sinadinovski said.
"In terms of size, this could have been more than 30 times stronger
than the Newcastle event of 1989."
It was the biggest quake since one occurred off the coast of
Peru in early 2001, Dr Sinadinovski said. [...] |
Ten thousand people are feared dead after
a two-hour earthquake ripped through the Nicaraguan capital of
Managua.
Initial reports suggest whole communities have been wiped out
as an estimated 80% of buildings have been flattened with little
hope of finding survivors.
The earthquake which reached 6.5 on the Richter Scale has sparked
huge fires causing fears those who survived the initial attack
may not escape the flames.
Nicaragua was struck at 1240 local time when all electricity
and water supplies to the country were cut.
Telegraph and telephone links have also been severed.
Aid workers are trying to clear the area to prevent the spread
of diseases such as typhoid so that experts can search for survivors
and get food and water to the hundreds now homeless. [...] |
(South Africa) - The drought-ravaged southern
Cape was battered by thunderstorms yesterday, flooding towns,
cutting power supplies and washing away roads.
Last night the weather bureau issued a storm alert for southern
KwaZulu-Natal, with heavy rains forecast for today.
The bureau said a "big cold system" which had brought the rains
to the Cape was moving along the east coast.
"The very heavy rains are moving east and by the morning, southern
KwaZulu-Natal could get a great deal of rainfall," said a forecaster.
"There are likely to be some thunderstorms on Friday, but it will
clear quickly. [...] |
Someone in deep black space
deliberately bombards the Earth with meteorites
Residents of Jakarta and two other neighboring Indonesian towns
were frightened with a series of loud explosions on December 18th
overnight. Western special services warned Jakarta of possible terrorists
acts in the country on Christmas Eve. The police, however, did not
find any destruction either in Jakarta, or near it. Local television
channels reported that several people had seen some objects, possibly
meteorites, falling down from the sky. There were no meteorites
found in the area either.
The Indonesian Air Force confirmed the meteorite origin of the
above-mentioned explosions in Jakarta: radars registered an unidentified
flying object, which was falling down on the ground at a very high
speed. Astronomers supported the space version too: they said that
eyewitnesses had seen meteorites, not a crashed spacecraft.
The mystery of December blasts in Jakarta has not been unveiled
yet. If it was really a large meteorite that fell into pieces and
exploded in the Earth's atmosphere, one may say that it was not
a "timely" meteorite at all.
December is the time of meteor showers, especially the Geminids
and the Ursids. The Geminids light the night sky as they fly from
the constellation of Gemini on December 14th. The mysterious explosions
in Jakarta occurred on December 19th - it was too late for the Geminid
meteor shower, as it had flown away already on December 17th. There
is another meteor shower called Ursid - these meteorites are considered
to be fragments of 8P/Tuttle comet, which, as scientists believe,
neared Jupiter and exploded 600 years ago. December 19th was not
a good date for the Ursids either, for they appear in the sky at
night of December 22nd. If there was a meteorite in Jakarta, it
must have been a very unusual meteorite.
As a rule, meteorites do not fall down on inhabited localities.
They prefer to hit seas, lakes, fields and even the Antarctic. There
can be exceptions from the rule, of course. A large meteorite blew
up above the village of Boqate Ha Sofonia in Lesotho, South Africa,
two years ago. The space rock burst into thousands of small fragments
(400 of them were found afterwards) and showered down on village
houses. One of the pieces flew into a kitchen window and burnt a
plastic container there. Local residents had to experience the invasion
of scientists later, who determined that the meteorite originally
weighed about one ton. It was orbiting the Sun for 4.6 million years,
until it broke into the Earth's atmosphere at the speed, which exceeded
the sound speed 50-100 times.
A recent research showed that the number of meteorite collectors
considerably increased owing to the Internet. It is noteworthy that
the black market of meteorites has been very active in 2004. Meteorite
trafficking and robbery has become much more frequent; the prices
on space rocks started growing too. Lunar and Martian stones are
especially expensive - the prices on them can reach $30,000 per
gram, which is 3,000 times as expensive as gold.
Reports about meteorites falling down on
Earth appear almost every week. A strange object was seen
flying across the Australian sky shortly before the above-mentioned
Jakarta meteor. Unusual luminescence and roaring sounds have recently
been registered in the sky above several German towns. Scientists
said that those phenomena had been caused with fragments of asteroids
in the Earth's atmosphere.
Doctor Valeri Rudakov from the Institute of Earth's Physics believes
that one should not underestimate the meteor danger. "Meteorites
might cause considerable damage to our civilization. They can destroy
enterprises, level electric power stations, not to mention nuclear
power plants. In addition to it, meteorites can cause tremendous
earthquakes and volcano eruptions," the scientist said.
Reports about meteorites appearing in the sky of planet Earth have
become much more frequent indeed. It was generally believed before
that small meteorites hit the Earth once in a hundred years whereas
large meteorites, the Tunguska meteorite, for example, fall down
on the planet once in a thousand years. It is clear now that it
was a wrong assumption. One may recollect the large Vitimsky meteorite,
which fell down two years ago in Siberia - it has become the second
"gift" from space in 100 years. The need in space protection
programs is becoming more obvious. Russian and American scientists
were going to create a joint space interception system several years
ago. The governments of the two countries, however, preferred not
to assign any money for the program, and the question went into
the background.
The international symposium dedicated to the asteroid security
took place a week ago in Tenerife. Doctor Sergei Gusyakov represented
Russia at the conference - the scientist took part in the mission
to explore the phenomenon of the Vitimsky meteorite. "The pictures
that we took in the Siberian woods in the north of the Irkutsk region
produced a sensation. It became clear that it was a huge meteorite,
which could have caused a monstrous devastation in Europe, for example,"
Gusyakov said. When the researcher returned home from the symposium,
he was informed about another incident in the Irkutsk region: a
large 10-ton celestial body fell down in the northern part of the
region again.
Experts do not know why incidents with meteorites
have become so frequent nowadays. One of the versions says
that someone in deep black space deliberately bombards the Earth
with meteorites.
Spacecraft Impactor is to collide with Tempel-1 comet on 4 July
2005. Flyby spaceship, which carries the Impactor to the target,
will observe the first-ever collision between the man-made craft
and the celestial body. The goal of the 300-million-dollar program
called "Deep Impact" is to obtain the inner substance
of the comet. Scientists believe that the comet substance will be
the source of extremely important information about space, for the
substance has remained unchanged since the time, when the Solar
System was formed.
The Flyby spacecraft is to be launched on 28 January 2005. Impactor
will fly to the comet at the speed of 37,000 kilometers per hour.
Flyby's scientific equipment and telescopes of astronomic laboratories
on Earth will analyze the cloud of the comet substance after the
impact. It is not ruled out, though, that someone will wish to explore
our planet with the help of such a barbaric method too. |
MOSCOW, July 25 (AFP) - A
giant meteorite that struck the Irkutsk region of Siberia last September
had the force of a nuclear bomb of medium power and devastated a
huge area of taiga, Russian scientists reported Friday.
A 10-strong expedition of scientists and doctors was unable to
identify and reach the place where the meteorite landed until mid-May.
It was finally located in the very remote, wooded semi-mountainous
region of Bodaibo, northeast of Irkutsk and Lake Baikal.
"Over an area of 100 square kilometres (60 square miles) trees
were smashed in a pattern characteristic of very powerful blast
effects," expedition leader Vadim Chernobrov told a news conference.
He said that the meteorite had disintegrated before hitting the
ground and had left about 20 craters, up to 20 metres (nearly 70
feet) in diameter, with an explosion " equivalent to the power
of an atomic bomb of medium size".
A video made by the expedition and shown to reporters showed shattered
and sometimes burnt tree stumps, charred by the high temperatures
released by the explosion.
Meteorites are large rocks which tumble through space and then
get caught in the Earth's gravity, becoming red-hot with the heat
of the atmosphere.
Unlike meteors, which burn up completely as they fall and are occasionally
visible in the night sky as shooting stars, meteorites are rocks
which are so big they make it all the way to the ground.
The brighest such phenomenon ever recorded during human history
also happened over Siberia. In 1908 a meteorite hit the Tunguska
region, devastating the forest over an area of some 2,000 square
kilometers (770 square miles).
Many scientists also believe that in prehistoric times a massive
meteorite that hit what is now Central America may have caused the
disappearance of the dinosaurs |
But further observations expected
to eliminate risk
LOS ANGELES - There’s a 1-in-300
chance that a recently discovered asteroid, believed to be about
1,300 feet (400 meters) long, could hit Earth in 2029, a
NASA scientist said Thursday, but he added that the perceived risk
probably will be eliminated once astronomers get more detail about
its orbit.
There have been only a limited number of sightings of Asteroid
2004 MN4, which has been given an initial rating of 2 on the 10-point
Torino Impact Hazard Scale used by astronomers to predict asteroid
or comet impacts, said Donald Yeomans, manager of the Near Earth
Object Program at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.
No previously observed asteroid has been graded higher than 1.
On Friday, April 13, 2029, “we can’t yet rule out an
Earth impact,” Yeomans said. “But the impact probability,
as we call it, is 300-to-1 against an impact.”
The asteroid was discovered in June and rediscovered this month.
“This is not a problem for anyone and it shouldn’t
be a concern to anyone, but whenever we post one of these things
and ... somebody gets ahold of it, it just gets crazy,” he
said.
“In the unlikely event that it did hit, it would be quite
serious. We’re talking either a tsunami if it hit in the ocean,
which would be likely, or significant ground damage,” Yeomans
said.
Its estimated size has been inferred from its brightness, which
assumes that its reflectivity is similar to other asteroids that
have been observed. At about 1,320 feet in length, it would have
about 1,600 megatons of energy, Yeomans said. |
In response to Tuesday’s attack on a US base
in Mosul, the New York Times published an extraordinary front-page
article yesterday, entitled “Fighting is the only option, Americans
say.” The piece quoted a number of people who expressed their
full support for the ongoing occupation, and presented their views
as being representative of the US population as a whole.
While the article was presented as an objective characterization
of the nation’s mood following the deaths of the US soldiers,
it amounted to nothing more than a crude
propaganda piece, aimed at limiting any domestic political fallout
from the bombing in northern Iraq. The
intended effect is to create the impression that any demand for
an end to the occupation is beyond the “mainstream” and illegitimate.
Published under the byline of Kirk Johnson, the article began
by quoting a man named Dallas Spear, an oil and gas industry worker
from Denver. “I would never have gone there from the beginning,
but that’s beside the point now,” he declared. “We upset the apple
cart and now there’s pretty much no choice. We have to proceed.”
“Mr. Spear’s sentiment was echoed in interviews in shopping
malls, offices, sidewalks and homes on a day when the news from
Iraq was bleak,” the Times continued. “With 14 American service
members killed and dozens injured, it was apparently the worst
one-day death toll for American forces since United States forces
defeated Saddam Hussein’s regime in spring 2003.
“Many people said they were dispirited or angry, but many expressed
equal unhappiness about seeing a lack of options. Whether one
supported or opposed the invasion has become irrelevant, many
said—there is only the road ahead now, with few signs to guide
the way.”
This was all presented as a news article. In all likelihood,
however, the material for the piece was gathered after the headline
had been decided upon in advance. What
was depicted as the typical viewpoint of ordinary people is, in
reality, a reflection of the pro-war agenda of the newspaper.
A number of questions could be addressed to the Times’ public
editor. Which “shopping malls, offices, sidewalks and homes” are
being referred to? How and where were these people found, and
on what basis was the decision made to present their views as
being representative of the entire nation?
The Times’ assertion that the average
American has responded to the deaths of 24 people by saying “we
must press forward” is nothing short of obscene. Two dozen
families have lost a loved one only days before Christmas, and
more than 60 people were badly wounded in the incident.
While most people reflected on the human suffering inflicted
by the bombing, the Times hurriedly concocted a story backing
the war. The suffering incurred by the
US forces in Iraq is of absolutely no concern to the newspapers
editors, or to the political establishment as a whole. The soldiers
are merely expendable instruments used for the advancement of
the US’s geo-strategic interests.
The article quoted 7- year-old Air Force veteran Bob Mayo, who
repeated the Bush administration’s claim that the increased violence
in Iraq was an indication of the insurgents’ desperation. “It
tells me that they are worried that they are going to lose,” he
declared. “They are just trying to make it as painful as possible
and they don’t care how they do it.”
The Times added that the veteran would not characterize the
situation in Iraq as getting worse. “There is no worse in war.
War is the worst thing that can happen.” Traci Sillick, a financial
advisor from Colorado, added that “the nation should protect the
soldiers, give them a clear mission, and then help the Iraqi people
as best it can.”
Antiwar sentiments, however vague, were given short shrift.
Mike Lepis, a small business owner from Oregon, stressed his support
for the troops. Carolyn Jolly, a Army civilian employee Virginia,
hoped to see the troops come home “as soon as possible” after
the Iraqi elections. Mike Hoffman, of Iraq Veterans Against the
War, noted that attacks such as the one in Mosul would continue
so long as the occupation is maintained.
No one was quoted making any reference to the wider political,
legal and moral questions involved in the Iraq war,
nor was any criticism of the Bush administration noted.
“[W]hile some said the attack reinforced their belief that the
Bush administration had failed in its goals, others found it hard
to place blame,” the article declared. “Stan Joynes, a real estate
lawyer and developer in Richmond, Va., said the administration
was not upfront about what would be required in Iraq. But maybe,
he added, the administration did not know either. ‘We know now
we weren’t getting the whole picture,’ he said. ‘I don’t think
they knew the whole picture.’”
Every opinion poll demonstrates that,
contrary to the Times’ assessment, there is massive antiwar sentiment
throughout the country and widespread hostility to the Bush administration’s
policies. The latest poll conducted for ABC News and the
Washington Post found that 57 percent said they disapproved of
the president’s handling of the situation in Iraq, and 56 percent
described the war as not worth fighting. When asked if the US
should withdraw from Iraq, “even if that means civil order is
not restored there,” 39 percent said yes.
The Times noted that another poll recently reported 47 percent
of those surveyed thought the situation in Iraq had gotten worse
in the past 12 months, compared to just 20 percent who believed
the situation had improved.
But the newspaper hinted at a potential solution
for such damaging findings—the elimination of opinion surveys.
“Some people said that polls themselves were part of the problem,”
the article claimed. “Charlie Eubanks, a cotton farmer and lawyer
from the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas, said he supported President
Bush but had been lukewarm about going to war. Now, he said there
was no choice but to fight on, and that reports on opinion polls
were only ‘aiding and abetting’ the enemy by making opponents
think the American will is weak. ‘We’ve got to hang in there and
get it done,’ Mr. Eubanks said.”
These comments, reported without rebuttal by the Times, can
only be understood to mean that the newspaper may support, in
the interests of the war effort, the blanket censorship and suppression
of any antiwar expression.
The editorial line of the “liberal” newspaper of record is broadly
reflective of the more farsighted layers of the American ruling
class. At the same time as it issued various criticisms of the
Bush administration’s tactless diplomatic machinations prior to
the invasion of Iraq, it amplified the Bush administration’s lies
about alleged weapons of mass destruction, and declared the country
a grave threat to the security of the US.
The Times is again stepping forward at a critical juncture for
the US’s fortunes in the Middle East. Coming less than two months
after the destruction of Fallujah, which was heralded as a major
blow against the resistance, the Mosul attack has demonstrated
the fragility of the entire US operation, which now hangs in the
balance.
The occupying forces confront a nationwide insurrection, with
Iraqi fighters capable of striking anywhere with impunity. Enjoying
broad support among the Iraqi people, the resistance has taken
control of many sectors of Iraq’s major cities and provinces.
The elections scheduled for January 30 are
entirely bogus, and are widely recognized as such. Wide
sections of the Iraqi population will view any government formed
after the vote—if indeed it goes ahead as planned, which is by
no means certain—as no more legitimate than Iyad Allawi’s stooge
regime.
The Times’ editors are acutely aware that these developments
threaten American imperialism with a catastrophic defeat.
Yesterday’s lead editorial, “Grim realities in Iraq,” noted
the precariousness of the situation. “Some 21 months after the
American invasion, United States military forces remain essentially
alone in battling what seems to be a growing insurgency, with
no clear prospect of decisive success any time in the foreseeable
future.
“Washington has no significant international
military partners besides Britain, and no Iraqi military support
it can count on. The election that once looked as if it
might produce a government with nationwide legitimacy increasingly
threatens to intensify divisions between the groups that are expected
to participate enthusiastically—the Shiites and Kurds—and an estranged
and embattled Sunni community, which at this point appears likely
to stand aloof.”
Defeat is unimaginable for the US ruling class—and for the editors
of the New York Times. The editorial called for increased recruitment
into the armed forces, more troops to be sent to Iraq, and for
the stepping up of efforts to cultivate a pro-US Sunni layer.
The newspaper prudently avoided, however, any
discussion of their strategy to manipulate and suppress popular
opinion on the subject of the war. |
Scary
world eh? A bit of an indictment of the progress homo sapiens
has made these past few million years, that a man who this week
stunned a press conference with the phrase: "I’m not going to
negotiate with myself in public" should not only lead mankind
but be hailed for that inspirational leadership by so-called intellectuals.
A man who last month said he was willing to help out with the
Northern Ireland peace process, before breaking off to say he
had to "go get a burger".
Call me old-fashioned but I thought this year’s heroes were
people like the emergency workers of Madrid and Beslan, poisoned
Ukrainian politician Viktor Yushchenko, executed aid worker Margaret
Hassan, released nuclear whistle-blower Mordechai Vanunu, even
Bono. People whose lives are a force for good.
But no. According to America’s finest brains the person who
made the biggest difference to the planet this year is the monkey-like
puppet of ruthless neo-con hawks, who yelled "ah feel good," as
he unleashed shock and awe on women and babies.
And he won because he edged an election victory in a land where
half the voters registered their disgust at his policies which
have killed thousands of people and dragged their country’s reputation
into the gutter.
I know the Yanks aren’t big on irony but surely it hasn’t escaped
Time’s notice that last year they gave the award to The American
Soldier. More than a thousand of whom have died in Bush’s personal
Iraq war, 19 this Tuesday.
Yet this year’s Man of the Year is honoured for killing last
year’s in their droves? And Americans wonder why we think they’re
going from dumb to dumber.
Don’t they realise when they honour the monkey they also honour
his organ-grinder, Donald Rumsfeld. A man who used to visit Iraq
on behalf of George Bush’s dad to flog Saddam Hussein tracking
satellites, helicopter gun-ships, germ-seed for anthrax, pumps
for nuclear plants and the ingredients to make chemical weapons.
The calculating monster who made the lies and the illegal invasion
possible, who turned a blind eye to the torture in Abu Ghraib
and Guantanamo Bay, who plots the next phase of US colonisation
and who has been signing letters of condolence to the families
of dead troops using a "mechanical device".
This is a cold, hard, killing machine who couldn’t be bothered
to sign letters regretting the loss of another young American
life, because he cared so little about their futile deaths.
If Rumsfeld and Bush feel so little about the fate of their
own people in Iraq, imagine how little they care for the fate
of those they claim to be liberating?
Bush as Man of the Year? Only if the Man is short for Maniac.
|
MOSUL, Iraq - The questions from the troops
for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld were considerably more
friendly on his Christmas Eve visit to Iraq than they were on his
previous trip to the region a couple of weeks ago.
"How do we win the war in the media?"
asked one soldier in Mosul. Another soldier in Tikrit wondered why
there is not more coverage of reconstruction efforts going on in
the country.
"I guess what's news has to be bad news to
get on the press," Rumsfeld responded to the first question
— after supposing, with a big grin, "that does not sound
like a question that was planted by the press."
"I think the American people get it," he responded to
the second. "I agree with you, I wish it was possible that
more of the good works you're doing here ... were considered newsworthy
and were reported in a way that people would understand the progress
that is being made, and it is being made because of you," he
told the woman in Tikrit.
But he said in Mosul that the full picture "gets through eventually"
and that "people do understand the acts of kindness and that
large parts of the country are peaceful."
"We are a great country and we can benefit
from having a free press," said Rumsfeld. "From time to
time people can be concerned about it, but look where we've come
as a country because we do have a free press."
He said he has great confidence "in the center of gravity"
of the American people to sort through all the coverage to come
to their own conclusions, but that "what hurts most" is
"vicious" misrepresentations by the Arab media.
Two weeks ago at a forward base in Kuwait, a handful of soldiers
openly challenged him about inadequate equipment and long deployments.
Rumsfeld cut off their complaints by saying, "You go to war
with the Army you have, not the Army you might want or wish to have."
That set off a wave of criticism of the defense chief's brusque
manner.
It was disclosed later that a question about inadequate
armor on some vehicles was arranged in advance by a reporter. |
CAMP BUEHRING, Kuwait - Disgruntled U.S. soldiers
complained to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Wednesday
about the lack of armor for their vehicles and long deployments,
drawing a blunt retort from the Pentagon chief.
"You go to war with the Army you have," he said in a
rare public airing of rank-and-file concerns among the troops.
In his prepared remarks earlier, Rumsfeld had urged the troops
— mostly National Guard and Reserve soldiers — to discount
critics of the war in Iraq and to help "win the test of wills"
with the insurgents.
Some of soldiers, however, had criticisms of their own —
not of the war itself but of how it is being fought.
Army Spc. Thomas Wilson, for example, of the 278th
Regimental Combat Team that is comprised mainly of citizen soldiers
of the Tennessee Army National Guard, asked Rumsfeld in a question-and-answer
session why vehicle armor is still in short supply, nearly two years
after the start of the war that ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
"Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for
pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to uparmor
our vehicles?" Wilson asked. A big cheer arose from the approximately
2,300 soldiers in the cavernous hangar who assembled to see and
hear the secretary of defense.
Rumsfeld hesitated and asked Wilson to repeat
his question.
"We do not have proper armored vehicles to carry with us north,"
Wilson said after asking again.
Rumsfeld replied that troops should make the best
of the conditions they face and said the Army was pushing manufacturers
of vehicle armor to produce it as fast as humanly possible.
And, the defense chief added, armor is not always a savior in the
kind of combat U.S. troops face in Iraq, where the insurgents' weapon
of choice is the roadside bomb, or improvised explosive device that
has killed and maimed hundreds, if not thousands, of American troops
since the summer of 2003.
"You can have all the armor in the world on a tank and it
can (still) be blown up," Rumsfeld said. [...]
During the question-and-answer session, another
soldier complained that active-duty Army units sometimes get priority
over the National Guard and Reserve units for the best equipment
in Iraq.
"There's no way I can prove it, but
I am told the Army is breaking its neck to see that there is not"
discrimination against the National Guard and Reserve in terms of
providing equipment, Rumsfeld said.
Yet another soldier asked, without putting it to
Rumsfeld as a direct criticism, how much longer the Army will continue
using its "stop loss" power to prevent soldiers from leaving
the service who are otherwise eligible to retire or quit.
Rumsfeld said that this condition was simply a fact of life for
soldiers at time of war.
"It's basically a sound principle,
it's nothing new, it's been well understood" by soldiers, he
said. "My guess is it will continue to be used as little as
possible, but that it will continue to be used."
[...] |
Thirteen-year-old Yehiya Moharab got up at
5am, ate his breakfast of pitta bread with powdered thyme and
olive oil, and prepared to go to school.
About an hour later, perhaps the same time as Tony Blair was
waking up in Jerusalem, Yehiya heard gunfire around the Nasser
hospital in the centre of Khan Yunis.
His mother told him that the Israeli army had launched an incursion,
there would be no school and he was forbidden to leave the house.
"When I heard there was shooting I wanted to go... so when my
mother wasn't looking I ran out of the house," he said yesterday
from his hospital bed. "Then shooting started
all around me. I tried to hide but I was hit in my stomach and
legs."
Other boys carried him into the hospital, where doctors removed
the shrapnel and left him to recover in
a corridor with a dozen other wounded boys.
By Gaza standards, the raid that coincided with Mr Blair's meetings
in Jerusalem and Ramallah was restrained: only three people killed
and about a dozen houses demolished.
The previous incursion into Khan Yunis, which ended at the weekend,
left 11 dead and 39 houses demolished.
The Israeli army said it launched yesterday's raid because 15
missiles and rockets had been fired at Jewish settlements close
to Khan Yunis since Saturday.
But the outcome is the expansion of no-go zones around Israeli
positions and settlements, a strategy being repeated all over
the Gaza Strip.
Yesterday's military activity closed
schools and enveloped the town in fear, as Israeli machine gun
fire echoed down the streets and drones buzzed overhead.
People of all ages stood among the bullet-marked houses in the
roads around the hospital. Their numbers thinned out close to
the Israeli lines, near the houses that were demolished yesterday
morning. All that remained among the rubble were seven white flags
on sticks.
Umm Mohammad, 50, and Amna Abu Baida, 39, both mothers of five,
fled to the UN-run elementary school yesterday morning after their
apartment block was surrounded by tanks.
Their previous homes were demolished two years ago, and the
Israelis have now moved the front line to their new apartments.
"I was here with my family for three days," said Umm Mohammad.
"I went home on Sunday and then last night I heard the shooting
start again. The moment it starts, the men leave because we don't
know if they will be killed or arrested. It doesn't matter if
they are innocent."
The school was packed with families. Some of the children played
as if nothing had happened, but many looked traumatised.
"It's not just that we are losing our homes," said Umm Mohammad.
"No children are getting an education. We are losing our future
as well."
The school, built with money donated by the EU, was meant to
restart lessons yesterday but it reverted to a refugee camp within
a refugee camp instead.
|
JERUSALEM - The United States has demanded
Israel confiscate Chinese-owned drone aircraft that were sent
to Israel for an upgrade, an Israeli military official said Wednesday.
The demand puts Israel in the awkward position
of having to either defy the United States, its main ally, or
China, a growing market for Israeli high-tech and military exports.
The argument centers on a shipment of Harpy drones that Israel
sold to China in the early 1990s. The planes are designed to destroy
radar stations or anti-aircraft batteries. China shipped the unmanned
attack planes back to Israel earlier this year for a technological
upgrade.
The United States demanded Israel keep them. Israel has not
yet decided whether to return the drones or give in to the American
demand, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The Israeli Defense Ministry had no comment.
In Beijing, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said officials
were aware of the reports but had no immediate comment.
The United States, which fears the military technology could
be used to threaten Taiwan and endanger U.S. forces in case of
war with China, torpedoed a US$2 billion (?1.5 billion) Israeli-Chinese
deal in 2000.
Although China blamed the United States for interfering in the
sale of PHALCON reconnaissance planes, Israel said the botched
deal caused lingering ill will between the countries that was
resolved only after Israel paid China reparations.
Israeli-Chinese ties have recovered, and Israel's
military industries are believed to have extensive links with
China's People's Liberation Army, including help in the
development of Chinese jet fighters.
Neither the Harpy system nor the PHALCON have U.S.-made parts
or technology. Under American regulations, the United States can
veto export of its systems to third countries,
but its veto of the Israel-China deals is based only on the closeness
of Israel-U.S. relations. |
Why would Israel risk its crucial life-and-death
relationship with its main protector and ally in order to transfer
some American secrets and classified American technology to the
Chinese? Once you ask the question, the answer becomes immediately
obvious.
Every single aspect of what the Israelis
do can only be understood in the light of their massive project
(which I'll call the 'Project'), which may take fifty or a hundred
years, to create Greater Israel in a swath across the Middle East
from the Nile to the Euphrates. The coalition of Likud
and Labour just clarifies that there is really no democracy in
Israel, just an insane government force committed to this one
goal. The hundred thousand or so dead Iraqis
in the Israeli-inspired attack on Iraq are just a down payment
on the millions of people who are going to have to die in the
Middle East and elsewhere before Greater Israel is finished. You
can't kill that many people, and cause that much disruption and
destruction, without having the whole world furious with you.
It is therefore imperative to have the biggest motherfucker on
the block to watch your back, and the United States is that motherfucker.
It would be impossible for the Israelis to treat the Palestinians
the criminal way they do without the aiding and abetting of the
United States, and furthering the Project would be impossible
without similar help.
Problem. The United States is a giant turd circling the toilet
bowl, and George Bush is flushing as fast as he can. It's funny
how empires at crucial junctures in their histories sometimes
find themselves with inspired leaders, and sometimes find themselves
with chimps, and the United States has lucked out with a chimp.
The combination of religious nuttiness, disdain for the environment,
crazy class-warfare tax policy, and ruinous wars would be bad
enough, but the real problem is economic, and Bush's complete
disinterest in even addressing the debilitating problem of the
two massive deficits, budget and trade, which are bound to become
progressively worse. He has no ideas for the trade deficit, and
his big ideas for the budget deficit, needless to say, involve
removing what few benefits poor people now receive in return for
their taxes. For all intents and purposes, the United States is
bankrupt, by which I mean it will never, ever, be able to pay
back what it owes the rest of the world. The only reason the rest
of the world continues to fund this disaster is that it needs
to keep the American economy on enough life support to maintain
the value of the trillions of American dollars held outside the
United States, and support the American consumer demand which
keeps foreign factories running to create such massive foreign
prosperity.
The American economy is just a big Ponzi scheme, with its prosperity
an illusion created on its ability to borrow more and more money.
Like all Ponzi schemes, this can't go on forever, and eventually
the rest of the world will figure a way to get out as painlessly
as possible. This will cause problems all over the world, but
mostly in the United States, as the drastic decline in the value
of the U. S. dollar will cause the cheap Walmart consumer goods
made in China - the real opium of the masses - to become expensive
consumer goods made in China. When that happens, we
may get to see what revolution looks like in the surprisingly
passive American poor, and those semi-secret concentration camps
set up by the Office of Homeland Security may see some use.
If you're a long-range Zionist planner of the Project, you have
to be alive to all these things, and be ready for the handoff
of imperial power. I'm not suggesting that the United States will
become powerless, but only that its economic and domestic problems
will reduce it to the status of a less great power, like Britain
or Russia. That much power will make the U. S. an insufficiently
powerful country to provide back-up against the whole world for
the Project. When the British Empire officially ended at the end
of the Second World War, the Americans had Britain over a financial
barrel. The British literally could no longer afford their colonial
empire, and Britain handed the keys for the Middle Eastern parts
of that empire over to the Americans. China will soon have the
United States over the same barrel, and in return for economic
concessions, will be entitled to the same prize.
The current series of American wars is just the death throes
of empire, as the Americans attempt to blackmail the rest of the
world into continuing to finance its profligate ways by threatening
to control the entire world supply of oil. It's not going to work,
as the U. S. military is simply not up to the job of winning the
wars it has to win, having essentially lost both Afghanistan and
Iraq. While the United States wastes money on wars, money it doesn't
have, China just makes stuff, and becomes ever more wealthy.
The biggest whore in the Middle East is looking for a new pimp,
and the new mack daddy is China (with India on the horizon). What
better way to impress your new pimp with your loyalty than to
betray the secrets of your old pimp? |
What follows is a prime example of disinformation
dressed up as journalism. Note that it makes no attempt whatsoever
to investigate Walters claims that 9/11 was an "inside job". Nor
does it attempt to spell out his accusations in any detail. Instead,
Reuters blandly trots out the official version of events, without
question. To compensate, this website has added a few links of
its own. (Ed - thetruthseeker.co.uk)
Jimmy Walter has spent more than $3 million promoting a conspiracy
theory the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States were "an
inside job" and he is offering more cash to anyone who proves
him wrong.
The millionaire activist is so convinced of
a government cover-up he is offering a $100,000 reward to any
engineering student who can prove the World Trade Center buildings
crashed the way the government says.
"Of course, we expect no winners," Walter, 57, heir to an $11
million fortune from his father's home-building business, said
in a telephone interview from California on Wednesday. He
accuses figures in government, the military and business of involvement
in the Sept. 11 attacks.
Walter said a panel of expert engineers would judge submissions
from the students.
Next month, he also launches a nationwide contest seeking alternative
theories from college and high school students about why New York's
World Trade Center collapsed. The contest offers $10,000 to the
best alternative theory, with 100 runner-up awards of $1,000.
Winners will be chosen next June.
The World Trade Center's twin towers were destroyed after hijackers
from Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda militant group slammed two commercial
airliners into them. The attack in New York killed 2,749 people.
Various official investigations give no credence to Walter's
theory. A Sept. 11 commission spokesman said its policy was not
to comment on criticism of the report.
Walter insists there had to be explosives planted
in the twin towers to cause them to fall as they did, and also
rejects the official explanation for the damage done at the Pentagon.
"We have all the proof," said Walter, citing videotapes and
testimony from witnesses.
"It wasn't 19 screw-ups from Saudi Arabia who couldn't pass
flight school who defeated the United States with a set of box
cutters," he said. He dismissed the official Sept. 11 commission
report, saying, "I don't trust any of these 'facts."'
Walter has spent millions of dollars to bolster support for
his case, running full-page ads in The New York Times, the Wall
Street Journal, The New Yorker and Newsweek, as well as alternative
newspapers and 30-second TV spots.
He points to a Zogby poll he commissioned last summer that showed
66 percent of New Yorkers wanted the 9/11 investigation reopened.
Walter has spent about 30 percent of his net worth on his efforts.
"I am a patriot fighting the real traitors
who are destroying our democracy. I resent it when they call me
delusional," he said
|
Undersecretary of Defense Douglas
Feith is the neocon Likudnik who was tasked with cooking up the false
"intelligence" that President Bush used to deceive the U.S.
public into supporting an illegal invasion of Iraq. With the U.S.
military now trapped in the Iraqi quagmire, Feith wants the U.S. to
attack Iran.
President Bush falsely claimed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction,
that Iraq was linked to the terrorist attack on the World Trade
Center, and that Iraq would give weapons of mass destruction to
anti-American terrorists. Senior members of the Bush administration
terrified the U.S. public with prospects of mushroom clouds going
up over U.S. cities.
Having been proved 100% wrong about Iraq, the Bush administration
now claims that the nonexistent WMD are in Iran, or maybe Syria.
During recent weeks, the Bush administration worked overtime to
terrify the U.S. public into believing that Iran is building nuclear
weapons and missiles with which to destroy American cities.
To ward off yet another gratuitous and illegal U.S. attack on a
Muslim country, Europe, the International Atomic Energy Agency,
and U.S. experts such as Gordon Prather have exposed the Bush administration's
false claims. But the Bush administration ignores factual truth.
Bush has his own "truth," a delusional "truth"
independent of all evidence.
Israel's right-wing Likud Party regards Feith as one of its own.
The Jerusalem Post described Feith as "a staunch supporter
of Israel." In an exclusive interview, Feith told that paper
that despite the intercession of Britain, France, Germany, and the
IAEA against a U.S. attack on Iran, the Bush administration has
not ruled out taking military action against Iran.
In other words, the neocon Bush administration has already decided
to attack Iran and Syria. The only question is what kind of lie
can Bush use to get away with it.
But first Bush has to take over the IAEA, which has steadfastly
refused to go along with Bush's propaganda against Iran. According
to the Washington Post, the Bush administration has been tapping
the telephones of the head of the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei, hoping
to find damaging information with which to frame, blackmail, or
taint him as an Iranian ally.
Unable to find or to manufacture any evidence against ElBaradei,
the Bush administration is using an orchestrated campaign of anonymous
accusations in an effort to oust the IAEA director and to replace
him with a U.S. puppet. The problem is that ElBaradei is more highly
regarded than any member of the tainted Bush administration, including
President Bush himself. So far, Bush cannot find anyone anywhere
in the world, including our British puppet, who is willing to be
associated with the Bush administration's disgraceful intentions.
The important unanswered question is: why do the neocons, with
their proven record of duplicity and delusion, still hold the reins
of power in the Bush administration? Why isn't Feith in prison?
Martha Stewart is in prison for "lying" about a non-crime.
Feith's lies have killed thousands. The Iraq war is based entirely
on neocon lies. The war is costing the U.S. a fortune it does not
have. The war is producing U.S. casualties comparable to those of
the Vietnam war and has killed a minimum of tens of thousands of
Iraqi civilians.
The neocons have destroyed Iraq's infrastructure, alienated the
entire Muslim world, and made the U.S. the most hated country on
the planet.
What does Douglas Feith think the effect would be on Shi'ite Iraq
of a U.S. attack on Shi'ite Iran? The only reason the U.S. Army
in Iraq has not been totally destroyed is the wait-and-see attitude
of the majority Shi'ites, who expect to take control of Iraq once
there is an election. If the U.S. attacks Iran, the Iraqi Shi'ite
clerics will not be able to maintain their neutrality toward the
U.S. occupation of Iraq.
The current Iraqi insurgency is drawn from Sunni ranks. Sunnis
comprise only 20 percent of Iraq's population. Yet, Sunnis have
tied down eight U.S. divisions while inflicting horrendous casualties
on U.S. troops. If Bush escalates U.S. aggression in the Middle
East, he will create a larger insurgency.
Imagine the U.S. casualty rate if the Iraqi insurgency were drawn
from 80 percent of the population. The temporary Shi'ite insurgency
of the minor cleric Sadr caused tremendous U.S. consternation. What
would be the U.S. casualty rate if, instead of sitting on their
hands, all the Shi'ites had joined the insurgency?
Iran covers almost four times the area of Iraq and has more than
2.5 times the population. If Bush attacks Iran, he will create an
insurgency there as well, one that could spill over into Pakistan,
Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt.
Bush's war is achieving a Shi'ite unity that will redraw Middle
Eastern boundaries and eliminate secular Muslim governments. Shi'ite
unity will merge with the anti-American terrorists and drive all
Western expatriates out of the Middle East. Indeed, the departures
are already underway. Israel will be isolated, exposed to the consequences
of its aggression against the Palestinians.
Fox "News" and right-wing talk radio crazies misinform
us that we are kicking terrorist butt, but in non-delusional reality,
we are unifying Islam and ending forever Western influence in the
Middle East.
|
MOSCOW - Russian President Vladimir
Putin is winding up his year expressing doubts about his country's
relationship with the United States.
Putin held his annual end-of-year news conference in Moscow on
Thursday in which he commented on a variety of issues including
the sale of Yukos – Russia's second-largest oil company –
and the upcoming Ukrainian elections.
Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures during a press conference
in the Kremlin, Moscow (CP photo)
"We are not going to predict the result of the [Ukrainian]
elections because that would not be right, although we know what
the polls are saying. I'm personally acquainted with [Viktor] Yushchenko
from his tenure as chairman of the Ukrainian cabinet. We had dealings
with each other and we had normal, business-like relations ... we're
always ready to receive any leader entrusted to Moscow by the Ukrainian
people."
But Putin also says he will ask U.S. President George W. Bush when
they next meet whether Washington is attempting to isolate Russia.
Putin made reference to U.S. criticism of Russia's approach to the
recent controversial Ukrainian election.
"I don't think [isolation] is the goal of U.S. policy. In
the near future, next year, we will meet with President Bush and
I will ask him the question: 'Is it true?'"
The two leaders are scheduled to meet in Slovakia in February.
Putin suggested criticism of Russian involvement in the Ukrainian
election is ill-placed since, he claims, intimidation was a factor
in the last two U.S. elections.
Putin also offered a subtle jab at Washington's Iraq policy, saying
he doubted planned elections there would be democratic while the
country is under full occupation. |
ALL 13 people on board were killed when an
Indonesian air force helicopter crashed and burst into flames
in mountainous central Java island today, officials said.
The locally-assembled Super Puma helicopter came down in bad
weather near Wonosobo, close to the Dieng plateau and 360km east
of Jakarta, First Air Marshal Sagom Tamboen said.
"They flew over Mount Dieng in bad weather and the helicopter
crashed into the mountain," he said. All those on board the helicopter
were air force officers, including five majors, two lieutenants
and three captains, he said.
Earlier, Central Java police chief Khaerul Rasyid said 14 people
were killed in the accident.
Five people were killed yesterday in Indonesia's remote and
mountainous Papua province when a navy helicopter crashed into
a fast-flowing jungle river, also during foul weather. |
The dollar has fallen to a
new record low against the euro after data fuelled fresh
concerns about the US economy.
The greenback hit $1.3516 in thin New York trade, before rallying
to $1.3509.
The dollar has weakened sharply since September when it traded
about $1.20, amid continuing worries over the levels of the US
trade and budget deficits.
Meanwhile, France's finance minister has
said the world faced "economic catastrophe" unless the US worked
with Europe and Asia on currency controls.
Herve Gaymard said he would seek action on the issue at the
next meeting of G7 countries in February.
Ministers from European and Asian governments have recently
called on the US to strengthen the dollar, saying the excessively
high value of the euro was starting to hurt their export-driven
economies.
"It's absolutely essential that at the meeting of the G7 our
American friends understand that we need coordinated management
at the world level," said Mr Gaymard. [...] |
MEXICO CITY (AP) - An oil line explosion
sent 5,000 barrels of crude oil into a river and some of it into
the Gulf of Mexico, where local beaches were affected, Mexico's
state oil company said Thursday.
At least five people were injured, one of them seriously, in
the explosion along an oil line early Wednesday near Santiago
Tuxtla, about 420 kilometres southeast of Mexico City.
The state oil company, Petroleos Mexicanos, said about 798,000
litres flowed into the Coatzacoalcos River and some reached the
Gulf coast city of the same name.
"Unfortunately, the current beat us," said Juan Bueno Torio,
director of Pemex Refinacion, in an interview with ACIR radio.
"Some of the crude went into the sea and it is beginning to affect
some beaches here in Coatzacoalcos."
The oil company said in a news release that 35 boats and 1,000
people were working to clean up the oil, adding beaches should
be free of petroleum by Sunday.
Bueno Torio said about 300 families had to be evacuated from
the river's banks Wednesday night for fear a spark could cause
a fire. They had begun to return home Thursday.
The affected line carries about 360,000 barrels of crude a day.
|
Santa and his reindeer will be able to see their
way better than ever on Christmas Eve, for a mysterious light is
beginning to brighten the dark polar winter. Eskimos and
scientists report a strange "lightness at noon" that is turning
the usual all-day darkness of the high Canadian Arctic into twilight,
apparently in defiance of natural laws. Canadian government officials
say it may be the result of an unusual atmospheric phenomenon
caused by global warming.
Inuit hunters are telling the government's weather station at
Resolute Bay - Canada's second most northerly village, 1,000 miles
from the North Pole - of a new light in the sky.
And Wayne Davidson, the Canadian government official who runs
the station, says he believes it it caused by climate change.
For the past five years, Mr Davidson says, there has been a growing
light along the horizon in the middle of the day in winter. "The
entire horizon is raised like magic, like the hand of God is bringing
it up," he says.
But Mr Davidson's investigations, backed by other scientists,
suggest a more prosaic explanation. Warmer air, from global warming,
is overlaying the cold air of the Arctic and the interface between
the two creates a kind of "mirror in the sky" which reflects the
sun's rays from further south.
So this Christmas Santa may be able to ignore Rudolph's red-nose
and rely on pollution from the world's chimneys to find his way
down them. |
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