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P
I C T U R E O F T H E D
A Y
Cedar at Night
©2005 Pierre-Paul
Feyte
TONY
BLAIR last night defiantly insisted: "I have never
told a lie" as the Tories continued to target his
character in an election campaign onslaught.
Mr Blair hit back in an interview for Adam Boulton
of Sky News: "I have never told a lie. No. I don't
intend to go telling lies to people. I did not lie over
Iraq." [...] |
A key question is whether
there is in truth a need for an assessment of whether
Iraq's conduct constitutes a failure to take the final
opportunity or has constituted a failure fully to cooperate
within the meaning of OP4 such that the basis of the
cease-fire is destroyed. If an assessment is needed
of that situation, it would be for the Council to make
it....
In other words, we would need to be able to demonstrate
hard evidence of non-compliance and non-cooperation....
you will need to consider very carefully whether the
evidence of non-cooperation and non- compliance by Iraq
is sufficiently compelling to justify the conclusion
that Iraq has failed to take its final opportunity....
But a "reasonable case" does not mean that
if the matter ever came before a court I would be confident
that the court would agree with the view....
OPs 4 and 12 do requ1re a further Council decision
in order to revive the authorisation in resolution 678....
If we fail to achieve the adoption
of a second resolution we would need to consider urgently
at that stage the strength of our legal case in the
light of circumstances at the time. |
BRITISH Prime Minister
Tony Blair last night faced a ferocious attack on his
leadership and calls for Gordon Brown to take over.
The assault in the journal New Statesman - owned by
Geoffrey Robinson, a supporter of Mr Brown - claimed
that Mr Blair was technically a psychopath.
During a torrid few weeks Mr Blair has been accused
of most things by his backbenchers. Madness has not
besen among them and the charge was not taken too seriously.
Westminster's conspiracy theorists were given plentiful
ammunition, however, by a series of articles in the
New Statesman that highlighted the qualities of Mr Brown
and suggested that Mr Blair might have outlived his
usefulness.
The magazine denied any co-ordination and friends of
Mr Robinson made plain that he had no role in determining
the editorial line.
A leading article said that now that Mr Blair had lost
so much public trust over the Iraq war "Mr Brown
is probably the better bet for elections.
"Paradoxically, Mr Blair looks a rather dangerous,
unpredictable figure given to foreign adventures and
silly schemes for turning public services upside down
. . . the reality is that a Brown government would have
a sense of purpose that Blair governments lack."
This was followed by an item by a writer who said he
had spent several weeks talking to psychologists about
what drove Mr Blair.
He wrote: "One view emerged strongly: there appears
to be something worryingly adrift in the mind of Anthony
Charles Lynton Blair, a man who doesn't really know
who or what he is. More technically, he is diagnosed
as a psychopath capable of reinventing himself with
remarkable dexterity." |
WASHINGTON -- More than 227 years
into their democracy, Americans have come to distrust
their political leaders and suspect them of lying a
lot.
Some politicians say the public is dead right.
There are many explanations for all the lying, ranging
from naked self-interest to a philosophical line of
reasoning that some degree of deception is essential
to effective leadership, according to scholars of political
science and some of its practitioners.
"At an individual weakness level, politicians
too frequently fall victim to a desire to please, and
therefore they outline contrary positions to differing
sides, and it is out of this dynamic that most truth-saying
problems arise," said Rep. James A. Leach, R-Iowa,
who has served in Congress for 27 years.
"Lying and its first cousin, 'spinning,' are easily
rationalized when power is at stake and personal careers
are in jeopardy."
Democrats and Republicans alike tend
to oversimplify complicated realities, and that, too,
is a form of deceit, said Rep. Robert Matsui, D-Calif.,
chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
"It's easier to talk in absolutes
than with ambiguity," Matsui said. "I think
it goes on now more than it has in the past. Politicians
now do it without any embarrassment. They believe it's
justified. People want you to be firm."
Distortion is rewarded.
"If you are very provocative,
you are more likely to be called to go on these TV shows
and you get more attention," Matsui said.
Most political lying is about policy issues.
"Politicians regularly
describe their positions as matters of principle when
they are actually concessions to special interest pressures,"
said Tim Penny, a former Democratic representative from
Minnesota with a wide reputation as a straight-shooter.
Politicians also lie "because
we want them to," Penny said. "We say we don't
want politicians to mislead us, but we really don't
want to hear the truth. If they speak the truth, they
will be punished more often than not."
Sometimes politicians lie unconsciously, said former
House Majority Leader Richard Armey, R-Texas, who admits
that enthusiasm, momentum and partisan zeal occasionally
led him over the borderline of truth.
"I've studied this business of lying for years,"
Armey told a group of reporters at a breakfast shortly
before he retired from Congress last year. "The
best liars are the guys who convince themselves before
they try to convince somebody else."
There is even scientific evidence
correlating deceptive behavior with leadership qualities.
A 1993 study by Colgate University psychologists found
that the best liars among preschool children emerge
as leaders during play periods.
Caroline F. Keating, who helped design and conduct
the research, also studied adults and came to the conclusion
that "leaders are the best misleaders."
Keating found that "very young children successfully
masked their deception by smiling. Successful adult
deceivers made eye contact with the listener."
"To be an effective leader does take acting skills,"
she said in an interview. "You have to look confident
even when you feel unsure. You must look like you feel
well even when you may be sick. You must express emotions
that are powerful, like anger and defiance, even when
you are anxious."
Citizens' expectations of their leaders thus add to
the problem.
"We want them to look smart and strong, so a successful
leader becomes very good at feigning those things even
when he or she does not feel them," Keating said.
"It makes them powerful and effective communicators."
So politicians lie by overpromising, to gain or keep
power, to protect personal secrets and, often, to serve
what they consider higher purposes, like national security
or the common good.
Political leaders also represent a
society where casual lying may be found among many groups:
accountants, lawyers, creators of advertising campaigns,
college professors, used car salesmen and journalists,
too.
Politicians have a special excuse. A succession of
thinkers, from Plato to Machiavelli to Disraeli, have
told them that lying is a legitimate part of governing.
Sissela Bok, a Harvard philosopher who has studied
and written extensively on the subject, said politicians
often claim an ethical basis for deliberately misleading
the public:
"They argue that vital objectives in the national
interest require a measure of deception to succeed in
the face of powerful obstacles. Negotiations must be
carried on that are best hidden from public view; bargains
must be struck that simply cannot
be comprehended by a politically unsophisticated electorate.
A certain amount of illusion is necessary for public
servants to be effective."
Dissembling is contagious, easily spread by example
-- especially when it is done by the men at the very
top of the political order. Richard Nixon's "I
am not a crook," Bill Clinton's "I did not
have sex with that woman, Monica Lewinsky," and
George H.W. Bush's "Read my lips -- no new taxes"
were notorious examples, although history offers many
more.
The false front has always been a feature of politics.
President Franklin Roosevelt did all he could to hide
his physical infirmities from public awareness, keeping
his wheelchair out of sight. John F. Kennedy's outward
vigor masked constant back pain and the fact that he
was suffering degenerative Addison's disease and taking
multiple drugs.
The public may be deceived, but not for long. Voters
sense what is really going on.
In July 2000, pollster John Zogby asked people which
professions they trusted the most. Dentists and doctors
topped the list. Politicians were at the bottom, lower
than car dealers, auto mechanics and lawyers. A national
poll last November by the Pew Research Center for the
People and the Press found that 55 percent of those
asked did not believe that "most elected officials
are trustworthy."
Lies from politicians can have serious consequences.
Self-government presumes the consent of those governed.
Lies "manufacture consent" by misleading people,
authors Lionel Cliffe, Maureen Ramsey and Dave Bartlett
wrote in their book, "The Politics of Lying: Implications
for Democracy."
Those who run for public office agree, but compulsory
truth-telling makes them uncomfortable.
In New Jersey, the State Senate once buried a bill
that would have imposed fines up to $10,000 on candidates
who make false accusations during a campaign. It simply
wasn't realistic. Negative campaign ads designed to
destroy an opponent are a favorite political forum for
lies.
There was a flap in the U.S. Senate last year over
some sensitive leaked information about terrorism from
the Select Committee on Intelligence. The FBI was called
in to find the leak. Investigators suggested polygraph
tests for those with access to the information, including
members of Congress.
Fat chance.
In a burst of candor, Sen. Richard
Shelby, R-Ala., then vice chairman of the committee,
declared: "I don't know who among us would take
a lie detector test." |
UN Secretary-General
Kofi Annan said today Iran is co-operating with European
countries in discussing its nuclear energy programme
and that he did not foresee a military strike by the
US, which accuses Iran of developing nuclear weapons.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said today Iran is
co-operating with European countries in discussing its
nuclear energy programme and that he did not foresee
a military strike by the US, which accuses Iran of developing
nuclear weapons.
Until recently, the US said that while it would pursue
diplomatic means to persuade Iran to give up its nuclear
programme, it was not prepared to take the military
option off the table.
But after Europe made clear it would not support the
use of force against Iran, Washington changed tactics,
toned down its rhetoric and agreed to offer Tehran economic
incentives in return for permanently freezing its nuclear
programme.
However, Iranian President Mohammad Khatami has said
no incentives exist that would persuade Iran to give
up its nuclear ambitions. The current round of negotiations
with the European powers is scheduled to end on Friday.
“There are serious discussions going on between
Iran and three European countries – Germany, the
UK and France. Iran has been co-operating with them
very well,” Annan told reporters during a visit
to India.
Asked whether he expected US military action against
Iran, he said “I don’t think that is in
the cards.” |
The United States
plans to sell Israel 100 of its most effective bombs
designed to destroy deep underground facilities, amid
growing concern in the Middle East that Israel might
resort to military strikes to halt Iran's nuclear program.
US Defence Department officials say the proposed deal
involves "bunker busting" bombs first used
during the 1991 Gulf War to destroy Iraqi underground
command and control centres.
The Israeli Air Force plans to arm its F-15 fighter
jets with the bombs. |
A
state department report which showed an increase in
terrorism incidents around the world in 2004 was altered
to strip it of its pessimistic statistics, it emerged
yesterday.
The country-by-country report, Patterns of Global Terrorism,
has come out every year since 1986, accompanied by statistical
tables.
This year's edition showed a big increase, from 172
significant terrorist attacks in 2003 to 655 in 2004.
Much
of the increase took place in Iraq, contradicting recent
Pentagon claims that the insurgency there is waning.
Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of
state, ordered the report to be withdrawn and a new
one issued minus the statistics.
A Democratic congressman, Henry Waxman, has written
an angry letter about the change to Cameron Hume, the
state department's inspector general, arguing that Ms
Rice's decision "denies the public access to important
information about the incidence of terrorism".
Mr Waxman said: "There appears to be a pattern
in the administration's approach to terrorism data:
favourable facts are revealed while unfavourable facts
are suppressed."
Ms Rice's spokesman, Richard Boucher, denied the change
was politically inspired and said Ms Rice had decided
the statistics would be better handled by the national
counter-terrorism centre. |
WASHINGTON - Terrorists
staged nearly 200 significant attacks in Iraq in 2004,
exceeding the record number of strikes worldwide the
year before, according to data the Bush administration
gave to Congress but has been withholding from the public.
The total didn't include some Iraqi
insurgent attacks and more than 100 operations by foreign
terrorists in Iraq, because they didn't fit the State
Department's strict criteria of what constitutes an
international terrorism attack.
The data raised questions about President Bush's claim
that the United States and its allies are winning the
war on terrorism and came as the Pentagon acknowledged
that violence in Iraq remains as high as last year.
"In terms of incidents, it's right about where
it was a year ago," Air Force Gen. Richard Myers,
the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Tuesday.
Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., the senior Democrat on
the House Governmental Affairs Committee, disclosed
the data in a letter sent Tuesday to Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice, in which he asked that the statistics
be made public.
Rice had decided several weeks ago to replace a report,
"Patterns of Global Terrorism," which has
been published every year for 19 years, with a document
stripped of country-by-country statistics on attacks
and casualties for 2004. [...] |
After three months
of political deadlock, Iraq’s first government
after the toppling of the former Iraqi leader Saddam
Hussein was formed on Thursday.
Ending power vacuum the country suffered since January
elections, the 275-seat parliament approved on Thursday
the cabinet list submitted yesterday by the Iraqi Prime
Minister-designate Ibrahim al-Jaafari.
The Cabinet was approved by 180 lawmakers out of the
185 present in the 275-member parliament, Parliament
speaker Hajim al-Hassani said.
The formation of the new Iraqi government coincides
with 68th birthday of the country’s toppled leader
Saddam Hussein.
In an attempt to accommodate almost all Iraq's ethnic
and sectarian groups amid growing tension, the cabinet,
which consists of 31 ministers and four deputy prime
ministers, includes members of Iraq's main Shiite, Sunni
and Kurdish factions.
But according to Iraqi officials, most of the posts
went to the Shiites, who represent the majority of the
country’s population.
Shiites make up 60 percent of Iraq's 26 million people.
The Kurds make up 20 percent, and the Sunni Arabs, represent
only 15 to 20 percent of the country’s population.
Also the Kurds and Sunni Arabs were strongly represented.
It is noteworthy that seven of the ministries went to
women.
However, the new Iraqi PM failed to name permanent
ministers to five ministries - oil, defense, electricity,
industry and human rights.
Al Jaafari, a Shiite, will be acting defense minister,
a position that was supposed to go to a Sunni Arab.
Ahmad Chalabi, a former Pentagon ally, will be one
of four deputy prime ministers and acting oil minister.
Rowsch Nouri Shaways, a Kurdish official and former
Vice President will be another deputy and acting electricity
minister.
Al Jaafari’s initial choices of a Sunni deputy
prime minister and defense minister were strongly rejected
by the Shiite leaders, who fear they might have ties
to Saddam Hussein's Baath Party.
Al Jaafari also has been struggling with his United
Iraqi Alliance, the largest bloc in parliament, over
the oil and electricity portfolios.
The newly appointed Iraqi President Jalal Talabani
and his two vice presidents signed off on the list before
Thursday's historic vote.
Outgoing Prime Minister Iyad Allawi is expected to
hand over power to the new Prime Minister Ibrahim Al
Jaafari within days, Al Jaafari told reporters Wednesday.
Speaking to reporters, Al Jaafari said that "the
Iraqis will find that this government has religious,
ethnic, political and geographic variety, in addition
to the participation of women".
"Now that the process has started, we will spare
no effort to bring back a smile to children's faces."
Allawi’s party out
Allawi's party was excluded from the new Cabinet.
Allawi has long been resented by many Shiite leaders,
who accuse his outgoing administration of including
members of the Baathist party in the government and
security forces. [...] |
Unknown
gunmen shot dead an Iraqi woman MP on the doorstep
of her home in eastern Baghdad on Wednesday, an interior
ministry official said.
"Armed men knocked at her door and when she answered,
they shot her," the official said.
Lamiya Abed Khadawi was a member of former Prime Minister
Iyad Allawi’s coalition.
She was attacked shortly after she returned home following
a meeting of the National Assembly in Baghdad.
The attackers escaped right after they killed her.
Khadawi is the first parliament member to be killed
in Iraq since the January 30 elections. She was among
90 other women elected to Iraq’s National Assembly. |
AMNESTY International
blasted the United States today for failing to launch
an independent probe into Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison scandal,
a year after images of abused detainees first shocked
the world.
The London-based human rights organisation
also condemned signs of fresh torture and sexual abuse
in the country by the Iraqi prison authorities.
"People around the world will be recalling the
horrific images they saw a year ago and wondering what
happened to those prisoners," said Amnesty secretary
general Irene Khan, noting that only a handful of low-ranking
US soldiers had been prosecuted or disciplined over
the outrage.
"But what was the role of those
higher up, including, for example, the US secretary
of defence?" she said, referring to Donald Rumsfeld.
A year after the dramatic revelations of sexual and
physical abuse at the prison on Baghdad's western outskirts
were leaked to the media, only five of seven US guards
have been punished.
The senior commander of the US military in Iraq at
the time of the scandal, Lieutenant General Ricardo
Sanchez, was cleared on Saturday of any wrongdoing by
a US military probe.
"The US government must set up an independent
inquiry into all aspects of the USA's 'war on terror'
detention and interrogation practices," said Ms
Khan.
Torture was unacceptable and any government
taking part in such abuse destroyed the values that
it claimed to protect, she said.
"When a major power like the USA resorts to torture
or ill-treatment, other countries may see a green light
to follow suit," said Ms Khan in a statement.
The US-led invasion of Iraq was designed to end the
suffering inflicted by former dictator Saddam Hussein
on his people, but instead has led to new reports of
torture carried out by the post-Saddam Iraqi security
forces, Amnesty said.
In February, three men died in custody after being
arrested at a police checkpoint, the rights body said.
The bodies "were found three days later, bearing
clear marks of torture from beatings and electric shocks",
it said.
The rights group also spoke
about cases of torture carried out at Iraq's interior
ministry and claimed that the US authorities were aware
of them.
It cited one former prisoner, Ali Safar al-Bawy - an
Iraqi resident in Sweden - describing how he was given
an electric shock while held captive for three weeks
in July last year. The man also
alleged that a child prisoner had been sexually abused
by Iraqi guards.
Amnesty International called for the anniversary of
the publication of the photographs from Abu Ghraib "to
be marked by the strongest condemnation of all forms
of torture by the US and Iraqi governments".
"One year on, the US authorities must establish
an independent investigation into the abuses and bring
the perpetrators to justice." |
A passenger on a cross-country
flight Tuesday morning immediately tipped off flight
attendants after noticing that the
man seated beside him had odd vials of liquid in his
pockets and electrical wires running into his coat.
Informed about the situation while the plane cruised
about 6 miles above the ground en route to San Francisco
from New York, the United Airlines captain declared
an emergency and diverted to the closest landing strip
that could handle a Boeing 757--O'Hare International
Airport.
As the plane made an unusually rapid descent, the
passengers were herded to the front of the cabin and
belted into available seats to put as much distance
as possible between them and the suspicious man and
his companion.
The plane landed hard at O'Hare at
10:40 a.m. and was met by emergency vehicles and teams
of heavily armored police officers and bomb-sniffing
dogs who scrambled aboard.
The vials, it was soon discovered,
held a homeopathic herbal lotion carried by a Japanese
national who calls himself a "healer," authorities
said. The wires were connected to his portable music
player.
The incident appears to have been exacerbated by language
differences. [...]
As the emergency played out Tuesday, a flight attendant
brought the vials, which were secured tightly with rubber
bands, to the cockpit for the captain to see, authorities
said. Unsure what they could be, the captain declared
an emergency and requested immediate clearance to O'Hare.
"The pilots and the flight
attendants agreed the materials looked strange and wanted
to have everything checked out by authorities,"
United spokesman Jeff Green said.
As a precaution before landing, flight attendants
moved the 64 other passengers to seats in the front
of the plane.
The crew did not speak Japanese, and the suspicious
passenger did not speak much English, officials said.
[...]
The Federal Aviation Administration cleared the airspace
to allow the plane to make a quick descent.
"We took a dive out of the sky from 35,000 feet
into O'Hare," said passenger Richard Myers, 63,
of Manhattan, adding that the captain came on the cabin
intercom to announce a security threat. "It was
a very hard landing."
"It was a terrible situation. I've been on planes
before when engines went out, but not on one where there
was a bomb scare," Myers added. "It's terrifying
when they dive down like that."
O'Hare air-traffic controllers taxied the plane to
a holding pad known as "the bomb scare area."
Armored police and bomb-sniffing dogs boarded and ran
to the rear cabin.
Passengers said the two men seated there were taken
off the plane, along with a travel case. Meanwhile,
members of the police bomb and arson team began throwing
carry-on baggage and airline pillows from overhead bins--plus
virtually everything else that wasn't tied down in that
section of the plane--out of emergency escape hatches.
Passengers were quickly led off the plane through
the front door and down stairs to buses. Several dozen
firetrucks and other emergency vehicles circled the
plane.
"We could see them taking apart seats, throwing
seat cushions off the plane," said Stan Rockson,
55, who watched the hunt for explosives while sitting
in a bus with his son, Colin, 18.
"The thing that frightened
me the most is the crew on the plane became very brusque
in their behavior, barking to sit down, the attendants
were moving back and forth," Rockson said.
Hours after the incident Tuesday, the man carrying
the vials was released after questioning, Chicago police
spokesman Carlos Herrera said.
The United plane later resumed its flight to San Francisco,
arriving about 3 1/2 hours late and three vials lighter. |
Saudi newspaper 'reveals'
Israel's shame after Pentagon report finds no weapons
of mass destruction in Iraq, contradicting Mossad agents'
findings
Do they know something we don't? The Mossad is one of
the main organizations affected by the Pentagon's report
revealing evidence that no weapons of mass destruction
have been found in Iraq, the Saudi "al-Wattan"
newspaper reports Wednesday.
The newspaper says that according to a European security
official, the Mossad is "angry" at certain
agents that were stationed in Iraq during the U.S.-lead
attack on Saddam Hussein's regime.
According to the official, U.S.
troops had searched sites in
accordance with Mossad field reports,
but found no unconventional weapons.
As a result, says the official, Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon has ordered the agents return to Israel and have
them replaced with other operatives, trusted by the
agency's head.
The agents removed from Iraq can no longer enter Arab
countries and have been placed in office jobs in Israel
or in the territories, al-Wattan says.
Contradicting reports
The newspaper "reveals"
that these recent changes by Sharon are due to an 80-page
Mossad report concluding accounts by field agents of
Iraq's weaponry until August 2004.
The report includes a description of Iraq's unconventional
military capability and a list of arsenal storage sites.
Meanwhile, the newspaper also "reveals" that
Israel is not satisfied with the new field agents stationed
in Iraq and has sent a new network of operatives into
Syria and Iran. |
Israel and the US today
reacted coolly to an offer by the Russian president,
Vladimir Putin, to host a Middle East peace conference
as the Russian president began his historic visit to
Israel.
Mr Putin, who arrived in Israel yesterday after travelling
from Egypt, proposed that the conference should take
place in Moscow in the autumn after Israel had completed
its withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and four West Bank
settlements.
He said he would raise the idea of a conference -
which is called for in the road map peace plan and has
been warmly welcomed by the Palestinians - in a meeting
with the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, later
today.
However, a senior Israeli official
said Israel "strongly opposes this idea of an international
conference" at this stage.
The road map - sponsored by the so-called quartet of
Middle East mediators, including Russia - calls for
a conference to be held at its second stage. Israel
argues the plan has not yet been implemented because
the Palestinians have not fulfilled their obligation
to disarm militant groups.
Israel has also failed to meet its initial obligations,
including freezing settlement construction and dismantling
illegal West Bank settlement outposts. [...] |
Thank Odin for email.
If not for this wonder of technology, I would have no
idea what the “other side” thinks of my
blog and articles. For instance, consider the following
email, received after my article “Blackjack
with Iran” appeared two weeks ago on the Counterpunch
site. This email languished in my inbox for days—buried,
as usual, by an avalanche of email and uninvited spam—and
I only read this morning:
I take issue with the entirety of your ill-informed
article (Blackjack with Iran). Your opinions are clearly
based on your contempt for Israelis and self-loathing
disdain for Americans. What happened in your sad childhood?
Were you were bullied in school? Did the Jewish girl
turn you down for the prom? Did you envy Epstein’s
house?
As usual, it is all about the Israelis and any criticism
of Israel stems from anti-Semitism, probably as a result
of mistreatment at the hands of Jews or a burning envy
of them from early childhood on. Of course, this is
simply emotional nonsense, quite aside from the issues
I addressed in the article. I find it interesting, however,
that criticism of U.S. foreign policy is deemed “self-loathing
disdain for Americans,” a sort of new take on
the archetypal of the self-hating Jew, that is to say
any Jew who doesn’t like what the Israelis are
doing to the Palestinians.
Your paranoid article is crammed with more lies
than even the Mullahs can muster. The Iranians themselves
will not deny the existence of their own Manhattan project—-they
don’t blame the whole outrage on doctored Israeli
photos as you do. How silly.
Of course, in order to lie, one has to know the facts
and distort them, as Bush did with the “intelligence”
on Saddam’s hallucinated weapons of mass destruction
that crossed his desk. I merely speculated that the
Israelis had contrived photos purporting to show the
evil mullahs at work on nukes. I do not know this for
a fact.
However, as history demonstrates, the Israelis are
masters at contriving not only fake “intelligence”
(consider Israel’s part in “developing a
false picture of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass
destruction capability,” as admitted by retired
Brigadier
General Shlomo Brom), but also contrived situations,
for instance the now well-known Lavon Affair, a bungled
terrorist event directed against targets in Egypt—most
notably, the United States Information Services Libraries
in Cairo—and blamed on Arabs. Remarkably, this
botched attack was recently “celebrated”
in Israel and three of the surviving Egyptian Jews who
carried out the bomb attacks in Cairo and Alexandria
in the 1954 “received letters of thanks from Israeli
President Moshe Katsav who also handed similar letters
to the families of the six other culprits,” according
to Magda
El-Ghitany of the Egyptian newspaper al-Ahram.
Unfortunately, there is nothing “silly”
about this brazen attempt to honor terrorists, but then
Israel has a nasty habit of honoring its terrorists.
According to Clovis Maksoud, the former Arab League
ambassador to the United Nations, “the Israeli
government supports museums that honor assassins and
terrorists—including one located on a street named
for a terrorist (Avraham Stern),” as Jason
Vest writes for the Village Voice. So beloved is
the mass murdering Stern, Israel issued a stamp
with his likeness. It is odd Israel would do this because,
as Wikipedia
notes, “Stern attempted to make an agreement with
the German Nazi authorities, offering to ‘actively
take part in the war on Germany’s side’
in return for ‘the establishment of the historic
Jewish state on a national and totalitarian basis, bound
by a treaty with the German Reich’. Another attempt
to contact the Germans was made in late 1941, but there
is no record of a German response in either case.”
Of course, it makes perfect sense that Stern would be
a hero in Israel since he was an adherent of the Revisionist
Zionist movement founded by Ze’ev Jabotinsky,
the spiritual godfather of the Likudites.
You state that Israel will not unilaterally attack
Iran due to the population imbalance? Pacifists like
you should really not dabble in military matters. The
Israeli Air Force alone could destroy much of Iran,
with or without nukes. Population is as irrelevant as
it was when Israel was attacked by the Egyptians and
Syrians or when Israel attacked the Osirak reactor project
in Iraq (which you no doubt denounce as an invasion
of Iraqi sovereignty). I am sure you would have also
denounced the invasion of Normandy and the bombing of
Dresden because that’s the kind of fool that you
are.
Serious medication is required for this person, who
shall remain anonymous (unlike many unethical scallywags
on the right, I never post names or email addresses
of the people who send hate email my way). It would
seem, for this person, nuking Iran is not only doable,
it is hunky dory, an actual foreign policy initiative.
As for comparing this possibility to the invasion Normandy,
again I believe this poor hateful and deluded soul needs
a spot of medication, possibly thorazine. As for Dresden…
yeah, well, I have on numerous occasions denounced the
firebombing of Dresden, an egregious war crime resulting
in the murder of 140,000 innocent civilians.
Finally, your assertion that the Israelis are “pathologically
racist” to think that someone would want to attack
them is laughable. Do you remember 1948? How about 1973?
The Gulf War?
Here’s what I “remember” about 1948:
the Zionists expelled 80 percent of the indigenous population
(750,000 Palestinians), in other words they ethnically
cleansed three quarters of a million people. “Chief
among the Zionist leadership’s regrets in the
aftermath of the 1948 war was its failure to conquer
the whole of Palestine,” writes Norman
G. Finkelstein, a professor of political theory
at DePaul University in Chicago. “Come 1967, Israel
exploited the ‘revolutionary times’ of the
June war to finish the job…. The landmark Fourth
Geneva Convention, ratified in 1949, for the first time
‘unequivocally prohibited deportation’ of
civilians under occupation (Articles 49, 147). Accordingly
Israel moved after the June war to impose the second
of its two options mentioned above—apartheid.”
It should be noted that by May 1948 Zionist forces
had already invaded and occupied large parts of the
land which had been allocated to the Palestinians by
the UN Partition Plan, well before the “war”
of 1948. “The evidence that the Zionist colonizers
started the 1948 war comes from Zionist sources. The
History of the Palmach (a Zionist pre-state militia),
which was released in portions in the 1950s (and in
full in 1972), details the efforts made to attack the
Palestinians and secure more territory than was allotted
to the Jewish state by the UN partition plan (Kibbutz
Menchad Archive, Palmach Archive, Efal, Israel),”
writes Ahmad
Nimer. “Israeli historians have also refuted
the claim that the Arabs started the 1948 war. Benny
Morris uncovered a June 30, 1948, report from the Israeli
Defense Force Intelligence Branch which shows that it
was Zionist policy to attack to expel the Palestinians.”
In fact, the so-called Arab invasion was a defensive
attempt to hold on to the areas allotted by the Partition
Plan for the Palestinian state.
As for the 1973 “war,” this was a response
on the part of Egypt and Syria after Washington and
Tel Aviv ignored overtures by the two Arab states to
negotiate the return of land stolen by Israel in earlier
“wars.” As early as 1956, Israel had planned
to grab the Sinai. As for the Golan Heights (actually
the Syrian Heights), Israel engaged in continual border
provocations (violating a July 20, 1949 agreement between
the Zionist state and Syria) right up to the eve of
the 1967 “war.” In the wake of this “war,”
neighboring Arabs were angered by the fact Israel routinely
expelled Egyptians, Syrians, and Palestinians while
installing Jewish settlers in their thousands. By 1973
nearly 100 settlements had been established and hundreds
of thousands of Palestinians had been displaced, expelled,
imprisoned or deported. On 6 October 1973 the Egyptian
and Syrian armies attacked Israeli positions in the
Sinai and on the Golan Heights in an attempt to liberate
their territory occupied by Israel. The Secretary-General
of the Arab League explained the Arab action thus: “In
a final analysis, Arab action is justifiable, moral
and valid under Article 51 of the Charter of the United
Nations. There is no aggression, no attempt to acquire
new territories. But to restore and liberate all the
occupied territories is a duty for all able self-respecting
peoples” (Sunday Times, 14 October 1973).
As for the so-called “Gulf War,” consider
the following explanation by Mark
Zepezauer, from his book, The CIA’s Greatest
Hits:
The Gulf War further destabilized the region and
made Kuwait more dependent on us. US oil companies
can now exert more control over oil prices (and thus
boost their profits). The US military got an excuse
to build more bases in the region (which Saudi Arabia,
for one, didn’t want) and the war also helped
justify the “need” to continue exorbitant
levels of military spending. Finally, it sent a message
to Third World leaders about what they could expect
if they dared to step out of line.
Your simple, isolationist views went out with Pearl
Harbour (which I am sure you attribute to anti-Japanese
propagandists) and 9-11 (which the Republicans manufactured).
Actually, if documents held formerly in bomb-proof
vaults (a naval storage vault in Crane, Indiana) over
the last 60 years are any indication (these documents
were, under FOIA directive, eventually moved to the
National Archives in Washington, D.C, in 1994), the
United States had broken the Japanese code early on
and knew an invasion of Pearl Harbor was imminent. Of
course, this is hardly news, simply one example of a
long record of government deception. Howard
Zinn writes: “If more people knew something
about the history of government deception, of the lies
that were told getting us into the Mexican War, the
lies that were told getting us into the Spanish-American
War, the lies that were told getting us into the war
in the Philippines, the lies that were told getting
us into World War I, the lies that were told again and
again in Vietnam, the lies on the eve of the Gulf War,
they would have questions about what they are hearing
from the government and the media to justify [Bush II’s]
war.”
As for nine eleven… fact of the matter is we
have no idea who “manufactured” it (and
I agree, it was manufactured), although we have a good
idea who benefited (as in cui bono)—and it sure
the hell wasn’t those alleged Saudi hijackers
(seven
who are still alive), Osama bin Laden, or the Taliban
(or the Afghan people, who were bombed mercilessly).
Considering nobody in Washington is serious about an
impartial investigation of nine eleven, chances are
we will never know who “manufactured” the
attacks. As I have written elsewhere, though, I consider
it an absurdity the attacks were hatched and launched
by cave-dwelling Muslims in Afghanistan.
You will never amount to anything, because you
write out of hate as opposed to fact and reason. Stick
to photography, ass-fucker.
Nice finale, wouldn’t you say? But then, of course,
this is exactly the sort of response I expect from right-wingers
and rabid apologists for Zionism, especially the new
crop, many of them former Maoists (like Horowitz) and
assorted disillusioned commies and political malcontents.
I almost pine for the days of polite and more or less
benign John Birchers, guys like Pat Buchanan who are
loony right-wingers without all the overt hatred, venom
and expletives (this is the second reference to buggery
I’ve read in a 24 hour period from a maniacal
right-winger). I guess, though, this email is innocuous
enough, considering a few months ago a guy wanted to
take a baseball bat to my head. Others simply want to
send me to Iran to be tortured by mullahs (or thrown
to the myhtical Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi), one guy even
offered to buy a one-way ticket to some dismal third
world country. It appears the worst are unrepentant
Zionists, such as Steve Plaut, who excel at viciousness,
as does the anti-Muslim nark Debbie
Schlussel, who takes special pride in dissing the
dead. |
Toronto adman contacted by
U.S. Senate committee
Calls White House nominee for post at U.N. `a thug'
WASHINGTON - A Toronto man has emerged as a key player
in a debate roiling the U.S. capital, confirming details
of mistreatment of an underling by John Bolton, the
man George W. Bush wants as his ambassador to the United
Nations.
Uno Ramat, the creative director of a Toronto ad agency,
described the embattled Bolton yesterday as a "really
creepy guy" who harassed and threatened a female
colleague of his when they worked together in Kyrgyzstan
in 1994.
He confirmed the latest in a litany of tales of abuse
and harassment by Bolton, when he was contacted by the
U.S. Senate foreign relations committee.
The colleague — Melody Townsel of Dallas, who
is a former official with the U.S. Agency for International
Development — added her voice to a string of former
associates who have outlined often bizarre behaviour
by the man Bush wants as his top U.N. diplomat. In an
open letter to the Senate foreign relations committee,
she told of being chased around a Moscow hotel by the
"madman" Bolton.
The Bush administration tried anew to rally support
for Bolton yesterday, a day after an attack of "conscience"
by an Ohio Republican threatened to derail confirmation
of Bush's handpicked nominee as the next U.N. ambassador.
The nomination of Bolton, 56, has become the president's
most contentious selection amidst the elevation of a
string of loyalists who were intimately involved in
planning the Iraq war. But the undersecretary of state's
promotion has faltered on his allegedly abrasive management
style and is emerging as a cautionary tale for any boss
on this continent whose bullying and autocratic style
is resented by underlings.
In Bolton's case, the underlings are coming back to
bite their boss.
In earlier testimony, Bolton has been described as
a "kiss-up, kick-down guy" who kicked harder
the further down the ladder his underlings were and
who pressured intelligence analysts at the state department
to come up with findings that he wanted.
In Kyrgyzstan, Townsel was in daily phone contact
with Ramat, who described her as being harassed and
"under a great deal of pressure."
He said he met Bolton in Bishkek.
"He was a thug. He was a hired hit man. He had
been hired to come and get Melody to shut up and get
her off the project," he said. "He was incredibly
intimidating and threatening, not just to me but to
the entire office, expats and the locals. The entire
office was terrorized after he left.
"He blew into town and left after two or three
days."
At the time, Ramat was working for IBTCI, a subcontractor
for USAID, the U.S. development agency, which was working
on a project to privatize services in Kyrgyzstan.
Townsel said she had to take refuge in her Moscow
hotel room after being chased through the lobby by Bolton,
who threatened her and threw items at her.
Bolton then was a lawyer representing a client that
was in a dispute with USAID.
She said even when she sought solace in her room,
Bolton pounded on the door and tried to shove items
through a mail slot.
With new Senate hearings on his nomination set for
the second week of May, the Bush administration appears
to be swimming upstream in continuing their support
of Bolton.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters
travelling with her to Lithuania that she understands
the Senate needs more time to consider the appointment.
"I continue to believe that John Bolton would be
a really great U.N. permanent representative,"
Rice said.
"We make a mistake in that suddenly management
style is part of the confirmation process."
Scott McLellan, the president's spokesperson, said
Democrats are playing politics with Bolton's nomination.
"I think what you're seeing is the ugly side
of Washington, D.C.," he said.
Late Tuesday afternoon Bolton appeared headed for
narrow approval at the Senate foreign relations committee,
a 10-8 vote strictly along party lines, which would
have sent the nomination to the Senate floor where Republicans
have a majority.
But as Democrats, led by Joe Biden of Delaware and
Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, pushed for further
hearings because more allegations about Bolton had come
to light, George Voinovich stunned his Republican colleagues
with a quiet intervention.
"I've heard enough today that I don't feel comfortable
about voting for Mr. Bolton," he said. "I
think one's interpersonal skills and their relationship
with their fellow man is a very important ingredient
in anyone that works for me."
Voinovich was immediately branded a "traitor"
to Republicans in radio ads running in his home state
sponsored by the conservative MoveAmericaForward.org.
Yesterday, Townsel said she felt under siege and was
a target of right-wing bloggers who accused her of being
with a group called Moms Against Bush in the last campaign.
She confirmed she was part of that group, but she
wouldn't back down.
"The last time I looked, your political leanings
didn't make you a liar or not," she said.
Ramat said he has no political agenda, does not even
follow U.S. politics and can't even remember the name
of the U.S. senator who phoned him.
Bolton, a Yale-educated lawyer, is undersecretary
of state for arms control and international security
and served as assistant secretary of state for international
organization affairs from 1989 to 1993.
He would replace John Danforth, who left the U.N.
post after a very brief tenure in January and has since
been critical of the influence the Christian right wields
in the Republican party.
Initially, criticism of Bolton's nomination centred
on his unilateralist beliefs where American interests
were paramount and his disdain for the U.N. itself.
"I'm less concerned about the interests of the
U.N. than I am the interests of the United States of
America and how we can look straight-faced in the mirror
and say, `this guy is the face we want to put forward
to the whole world,'" Biden said.
"We're setting ourselves up for failure here.
This is not a good choice."
Norm Coleman, a Minnesota Republican and critic of
the U.N., said Bolton has what's needed to reform the
U.N.
"It is about having somebody who has the experience
and has the passion and has the intellect to do some
very heavy lifting — very heavy lifting,"
he said.
"Whether it's oil-for-food, whether it's sexual
abuse in Africa, whether it's harassment, the U.N. is
in trouble. And it's in our interest to have the kind
of strength that you need to work reform." |
A full month before Bush
announced he was attacking Iraq and even publicly
admitted it was going to happen, regardless of national
and international protests against it or that there
were no facts to support it, Bolton was telling people
he had "no doubt" it was going to happen.
From HaaretzDaily.com,
Feb. 18, 2003:
U.S. official says Syria, Iran will be dealt
with after Iraq war
U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton said in
meetings with Israeli officials on Monday that he
has no doubt America will attack Iraq, and that it
will be necessary to deal with threats from Syria,
Iran and North Korea afterwards.
Bolton, who is undersecretary for arms control and
international security, is in Israel for meetings
about preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction.
In a meeting with Bolton on Monday, Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon said that Israel is concerned about the
security threat posed by Iran. It's important to deal
with Iran even while American attention is turned
toward Iraq, Sharon said.
Bolton also met with Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
and Housing and Construction Minister Natan Sharansky.
Somone should send warmongers like Bolton to stand at
a checkpoint in Fallujah, not to represent the U.S.
at the United Nations.
|
A common complaint is that revelations
from the Gomery inquiry have brought the operation of
the federal government effectively to a halt. One front
that Ottawa seems to keep doggedly moving ahead on -
regrettably - is our military integration with the U.S.
Indeed, while the Gomery issue built to a crescendo
last week, hardly any attention
was paid to the release of a defence policy review that
signalled Ottawa's intention to make the Canadian military
more part of the U.S. war machine — a change that
would likely offend most Canadians if they were aware
of it.
Of course, it wasn't stated like that. Rather, the
change was billed as part of our "new, more sophisticated
approach to our relationship with the United States."
In essence, this "more sophisticated" approach
boils down to linking our military operations more with
Washington's. "Today our ships integrate seamlessly
with U.S. Navy formations," the review notes enthusiastically,
holding up this model of "interoperability."
Of course, Canada has a long history of military co-operation
with the U.S., but the Bush administration's more aggressive
military stance has threatened to change the nature
of that relationship. Washington
wants us to join their global war against "terror"
— a murky, open-ended war that allows the U.S.
to intervene anywhere in the world.
A report in the Wall Street Journal last month described
a new top-level Pentagon planning document which calls
for the U.S. military to become more "proactive"
and "focused on changing the world instead of just
responding to conflicts."
This is hair-raising stuff that goes beyond even the
frightening notion of pre-emptive war.
Now Washington seems to be talking about using its unsurpassed
military might to force nations to behave as it wants
them to. Only the most rabid pro-Washington zealot would
fail to see the opportunities for abuse in such unchallenged
power.
Canadians have no interest in being part of an aggressive
force bent on remaking the world. But Ottawa's defence
review, part of its overall foreign policy review, portrays
our defence needs as essentially the same as Washington's:
"(M)ost of the new dangers to the United States
are no less risks to Canada."
In fact, our situations are very different. Few terrorists
want to attack us, because we don't have a long history
of intervening in other countries the way Washington
has. For that matter, Washington
exaggerates its own vulnerability in order to keep Americans
willing to go to war.
Canadians are overwhelmingly resistant to the kind
of military adventurism favoured by hawks in the Bush
administration. At the same time, we're willing to put
money and manpower into maintaining peacekeeping forces
around the world.
If we associate our military with peacekeeping —
as the government no doubt hopes we will — we'll
be more inclined to accept the massive $13 billion increase
in military spending Ottawa has proposed.
But, with Ottawa's emphasis on integrating Canada's
defence policy with Washington's, it's not peacekeeping
but war-making that's likely to be on the agenda. |
Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld has launched the latest attack in the
administration's war on a free and independent media.
The Pentagon is requiring reporters covering the court-martial
of U.S. Army Sgt. Hasan Akbar at Fort Bragg, N.C., to
" sign agreements that limit their ability to perform
their jobs under the First Amendment (http://www.militaryreporters.org/)
of the U.S. Constitution."
In order to gain access to the proceeding, reporters
must " pledge
to not interview soldiers at Fort Bragg about the
case or ask legal advisors in the media room to speculate
on the outcome." Reporters who don't sign aren't
allowed to cover the case. These restrictions aren't
taken lightly. To ensure compliance, journalists are
"escorted everywhere while on base and some were
monitored as they went to the restroom." Eugene
Fidel, a military law expert, said
he has "never heard of restrictions against
talking to soldiers," calling such limitations
"crazy." |
Former CIA officer
Ed Wilson is a free man today after 22 years in prison.
He was imprisoned in 1983 when prosecutors presented
a CIA affidavit which later was shown to be 'false.'
Wilson was convicted of shipping weapons to Libya and
selling 20 tons of C-4 plastic explosives to Moammar
Gadhafi's Libya.
He was branded a traitor and a threat to the country.
Wilson said he was working with
the CIA and that the agency knew and approved of everything
he was doing with Libya, including the shipment of the
explosives according to ABC News.
Federal judge, Lynn Hughes, freed Wilson today and
identified about 24 government lawyers, who participated
in the use of a false CIA affidavit that sent Wilson
to prison.
Judge Hughes wrote, "In the course of American
justice, one would have to work hard to conceive of
a more fundamentally unfair process, than the fabrication
of false data by the government, under oath by a government
official, presented knowingly by the prosecutor in the
courtroom with the express approval of his superiors
in Washington."
Nothing was said about the CIA and some 24 lawyers
being punished for their actions.
|
Washington — A civilian patrol
group that has been monitoring the Mexican border for
illegal immigrants wants to expand its mission to the
Canadian border, organizers said Tuesday.
Minuteman Project leaders said their volunteers alerted
U.S. authorities to more than 330 cases this month of
illegal immigrants crossing into the United States across
a 37-kilometre stretch of Arizona's southern border.
Now they plan to extend their patrol along the rest
of the border with Mexico and are helping organize similar
efforts in four states that neighbour Canada.
“In the absence of the federal government doing
its mandated duty to secure our borders, we will pick
up the slack. Reluctantly,” said Chris Simcox,
a Minuteman co-organizer who also operates Civil Homeland
Defense, another Arizona group that monitors illegal
immigration.
“We shouldn't have to be doing this,”
Mr. Simcox said in Washington, where he was to meet
with legislators Wednesday.
“But at this point, we will continue to grow
this operation — also to the northern border.”
Mr. Simcox offered no timeline to indicate when the
Canadian border patrol might begin its rounds in Idaho,
Michigan, North Dakota and Vermont.
A spokesman for the U.S. Border Patrol did not return
a call for comment Tuesday.
“We're not supportive of vigilantes,”
said Dan Whiting, spokesman for U.S. Senator Larry Craig,
an Idaho Republican. |
TORONTO (CP) - The shooting death
of Wolfgang Droege will do little to slow the growth
of a new generation of potentially violent white supremacists
in Canada, warns a former CSIS mole who helped discredit
the neo-Nazi leader.
In the age of the Internet, smaller, independent extremist
cells can get their ideological inspiration from abroad
instead of rallying around a highly visible leader,
said Grant Bristow, once an informant with Canada's
spy agency.
"Some of these more insidious organizations are
able to articulate the message without that necessity
for either face-to-face contact or that group camaraderie,"
Bristow, who remains in hiding, told The Canadian Press
in a rare interview.
"It makes it very difficult for the intelligence
community to do their job."
Droege, the 55-year-old co-founder
of the Heritage Front, once Canada's most prominent
and active neo-Nazi organization, was found shot in
the head and chest in the hall of his apartment building
two weeks ago.
Police have charged Droege acquaintance Keith DeRoux,
43, with second-degree murder and continue to believe
the shooting had nothing to do with the extremist right-wing
views that were Droege's life's work.
But his death, coupled with the deportation to Germany
last month of Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel, has left
a void in the leadership of Canada's white right. Both
men were racist lightning rods, attracting attention,
recruits and cash to their cause, and were well-known
to Canadian authorities, Bristow said.
"Here's the danger: You're going to see another
lightning rod (which) may not have to be in Canada,"
Bristow said in a telephone interview from an undisclosed
location.
High-profile leaders, formal organizations and direct
contact have become less relevant to militant racists,
he said.
Instead, more are embracing the idea of "leaderless
resistance," which advocates acts of race-based
terrorism without the advice or consent of any organized
leadership.
"You don't have to have meetings to be effective."
Bristow has been credited with helping to bring down
the Heritage Front by befriending its leader and positioning
himself as a trusted deputy and confidant. The revelation
that he was a spy effectively destroyed the organization
and Droege's career as a racist "superstar,"
he said.
Critics, however, have said Bristow's
work with the group helped to foster its growth - a
position dismissed by a 1995 review committee, although
he was admonished for tactics that "tested the
limits" of acceptable and appropriate behaviour.
Bristow now lives quietly under an assumed name somewhere
in western Canada, where he teaches part time, works
as a tax accountant and gives lectures to police and
security organizations on undercover work.
In the absence of strong leadership and groups in
Canada, Bristow said many of
the Front's hard-core Canadian members have turned to
more radical, violence-prone American hate groups that
advocate for leaderless resistance in hopes of touching
off an all-out race war.
Andrew Mitrovica, who also interviewed Bristow for
an article published Sunday in the online version of
Walrus magazine, said the insidious nature of leaderless
resistance has already manifested itself in tragic ways
in the U.S.
Examples are Timothy McVeigh, who 10 years ago carried
out the deadly bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal
Building in Oklahoma City, and Eric Rudolph, who pleaded
guilty earlier this month to bombing the Atlanta Olympics,
a lesbian nightclub and women's clinics.
"There isn't a sun anymore to revolve around,"
Mitrovica said. "The gravitational force now that
draws (white supremacists) together is the ideology,
not the figure."
Bristow said intelligence services will have to learn
to adapt.
"(White supremacists) have to have a certain
amount of contact with these organizations to become
indoctrinated," he said.
"The key is going to be in the ability to look
at organizations and the dot-com hatemongers on a much
wider scale." |
MADRID, Spain - Police arrested
21 suspects in a five-city crackdown on the Spanish
branch of an international neo-Nazi group called Blood
& Honor, the Civil Guard said yesterday.
The suspects - ranging in age from 17 to 34 - were
arrested on charges of crimes against civil liberties,
defending the Holocaust, illegal association, and possessing
and trafficking arms, said a statement from the paramilitary
police force.
Blood & Honor has affiliates across Europe and
the United States, the Civil Guard said. The Spanish
group is accused of organizing concerts at which they
would incite xenophobia, racism, anti-Semitism and the
use of violence.
The concerts, attended by some 300 to 500 followers,
were held on the summer and winter solstices, or on
dates commemorating the births or deaths of Nazi figures,
such as Adolf Hitler or Rudolf Hess, the Civil Guard
said.
The gang had been operating
since 1999, and maintained contact through fanzines
and the Internet, it said.
Police seized two guns, knives and swords, as well
as an array of Nazi paraphernalia, in raids on the suspects'
homes and the group's meeting places in Madrid, Seville,
Jaen, Burgos and Zaragoza. |
On April 20, 2005, incidentally
the birthday of Hitler and the anniversary of the Columbine
High School rampage, the local news station reported
on a “wonderful” program being used in Spokane,
Washington to “keep our schools safe.” Considering
the spate of recent incidents of guns in schools in
Spokane, that claim is questionable.
The program, called “Keep Guns
Out of School” pays $75 rewards “to students
who contacted an adult when they had information that
lead to solving vandalism, removing a weapon or confiscating
drugs on school property.”
A lady working with the program in Spokane went on
the air stating to the effect that anything that produced
safer schools was acceptable. In other words, the end
justifies the means.
News articles are appearing nation-wide about this
“wonderful” program. Quite obviously, the
source of it, claims or no claims, is not local to any
of the areas reporting on the program.
It didn’t take long to find the source: the
United States Department of Justice / Safe Neighborhoods
Program. Another of those top-down but made to appear
bottom-up, grass-roots, local in flavor initiatives
funded by federal grants (with strings attached) to
insure that what is done in Spokane, Washington or Minneapolis,
Minnesota or _______ (fill in the blank) conforms to
the federal agenda in the systems approach to global
order.
But please don’t think for a moment that the
Keep Guns Out of School program is the first of its
kind. Far from it. The DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education)
program, used in schools for many, many years is another
of this same ilk. It also taught
children to “snitch” on siblings, friends,
neighbors and parents just as the Hitler youth snitched
on their siblings, friends, neighbors and parents.
Another of the same ilk is the DFYIT (Drug Free Youth
In Town) program out of Texas. This program rewards
children who join the club which requires them to give
regular urine samples that must be drug free. Those
who join and are drug free are given discounts (rewards)
by local businesses.
Does the program decrease the incidence of drug abuse?
No. Six years after being implemented in the Coeur d’Alene,
Idaho schools, the schools were bringing in dope sniffing
dogs to search students, lockers and cars on school
grounds. The program was implemented in the Nine Mile
Falls School District northwest of Spokane in the mid
1990’s. The dope sniffing dogs are now being used
there also.
What has resulted from the
program is that any student who does not join “the
club” is considered to be on dope. After all,
as the flawed logic goes, if you aren’t on dope
you would have no qualms about giving a urine sample.
Constitutional rights are not part of the equation
just as they aren’t part of the equation with
cameras placed at intersections to watch traffic —
if you aren’t breaking the law, why should you
care if there’s a camera watching you? The same
is true of body searches at airports — if you
aren’t breaking the law, why should you have a
problem with being searched?
Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty?
Guess that archaic notion only stands when one of the
proponents of this concept gets caught in the snare
he/she thinks is so great so long as it applies to everyone
but them! The mind-set is one of extreme ignorance,
and in the long haul, self-destructive.
Now we have the Safe Neighborhoods Program that incorporates
the underlying concept of both the DARE program and
the DFYIT program in rewarding students for being snitches.
So, today we reward the child
for snitching, for doing what we want. And in the process
we teach the child to be extrinsically motivated (motivated
by external stimuli), reinforced over time, the concept
becomes engrained, natural, part of the subconscious.
This is how we train an animal, just as the rats
in the Skinner Rat Box, just as the Pavlovian slobbering
dogs. [...] |
Major
temblors hit area in 3,000-year cycles, scientists say
Major quakes on seismic faults that run beneath Lake
Tahoe have ruptured the earth's crust there roughly
every 3,000 years or so, and scientists are trying to
determine just when the last big one hit.
Although the temblors may be few and far between, they've
thrust masses of ground up or down by 10 feet or more
in the past, say the scientists, who have dug trenches
where past quakes have struck on the shore of the Nevada
community of Incline Village.
A team headed by geophysicist Graham Kent of the Scripps
Institute of Oceanography at UC San Diego has probed
through thick sediments of the lake bottom to reveal
the bedrock underneath -- and has traced, in unprecedented
detail, segments of three major faults that extend beyond
the lake and onto the land.
The work supports the conclusion published four years
ago by a team from the University of Nevada at Reno:
that a major quake might some day generate a Lake Tahoe
tsunami three stories tall.
Kent's team has found that the Incline Village fault
thrusts east on the lake bottom and runs just a few
steps from the Incline Elementary School on land. Near
the school, there's a well-defined cliff-like scarp
some 30-feet high created by many past quakes. A deep
trench has been dug there by another team of scientists,
led by Gordon G. Seitz of San Diego State University,
to analyze the long-buried remains of old trees to determine
the date of the last major quake there.
Right now, Kent said Wednesday in an interview, the
date is still uncertain, and Seitz is working on refining
it. "It was somewhere between a few thousand and
20,000 years ago," he said, "but Seitz should
know very soon." [...]
Four years ago, a group from the University of Nevada
at Reno headed by John G. Anderson, director of the
Seismological Laboratory there, found evidence that
large quakes had once occurred on several faults threading
across the bottom of Tahoe's deep blue water. They calculated
that a magnitude 7 temblor, with crustal blocks surging
upward or dropping swiftly on either side of a fault,
could generate huge tsunamis 30 feet high inside the
lake.
Anderson and his colleague Gene A. Ichinose estimated
that the probability would be no more than 2 to 4 percent
for another Tahoe earthquake that large within the next
50 years. [...] |
As 37-year-old John
Kempen traveled the Parks Highway to Nenana at about
2 a.m. Saturday, he watched the sky, hoping to point
out the northern lights to his girlfriend.
But instead of spotting a blur of emerald green, Kempen
saw a bright flash of bluish white with sparks for a
tail and fiery "chunks breaking off."
The comet-like object, maybe the size of a basketball,
slid across the sky from the southwest to the northeast.
Kempen figured the object was a meteor.
According to Neal Brown, director of the space grant
program at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical
Institute, Kempen probably saw a piece of space junk.
An estimated 5,000 to 10,000 pieces of useless debris
orbit the Earth, Brown said, and more is continually
added. Among the objects are rocket motors, and bolts
and flanges, which are adapters between rocket motors.
Also orbiting the earth are old satellites and out-of-commission
spacecraft.
"From about 100 to 5,000 miles away from the Earth,
it's a virtual junkyard," Brown said. "I think
there's an astronaut's glove still out there."
Gravity pulls the junk back to Earth.
"It's coming in all the time," Brown said.
The main reason Kempen's sighting sounds more like
junk than a meteor is that it exhibited color, Brown
said.
"Meteors don't have any blue or green or any colors,"
he said. "Most of the meteors are just rocks."
Secondly, the sighting was in the wrong part of the
sky to be a Lyrid meteor, which would likely travel
from northeast to southwest.
"It's the exact opposite of what they described,"
Brown said. "It still could have been a meteor,
but I really don't think so." |
Fears over increase
in skin cancer as scientists report that climate change
continues to destroy the earth's protection
The protective ozone layer over the Arctic has thinned
this winter to the lowest levels since records began,
alarming scientists who believed it had begun to heal.
The increased loss of ozone allows more harmful ultraviolet
light to reach the earth's surface, making children
and outdoor enthusiasts such as skiers more vulnerable
to skin cancer - a disease which is already dramatically
increasing.
Scientists yesterday reinforced the warning that people
going out in the sun this summer should protect themselves
with creams and hats.
Research by Cambridge University shows that it is not
increased pollution but a side effect of climate change
that is making ozone depletion worse. At high altitudes,
50% of the protective layer had been destroyed.
The research has dashed hopes that the ozone layer
was on the mend. Since the winter of 1999-2000, when
depletion was almost as bad, scientists had believed
an improvement was under way as pollution was reduced.
But they now believe it could be another 50 years before
the problem is solved.
What appears to have caused the further loss of ozone
is the increasing number of stratospheric clouds in
the winter, 15 miles above the earth. These clouds,
in the middle of the ozone layer, provide a platform
which makes it easier for rapid chemical reactions which
destroy ozone to take place. This year, for three months
from the end of November, there were more clouds for
longer periods than ever previously recorded.
Cambridge University scientists said yesterday that,
in late March, when ozone depletion was at its worst,
Arctic air masses drifted over the UK and the rest of
Europe as far south as northern Italy, giving significantly
higher doses of ultraviolet radiation and sunburn risk.
The results, which were announced at a Geophysical
Union meeting in Vienna yesterday, are part of a European
venture coordinated by Cambridge University's chemistry
department, which has been studying the relationship
between the ozone layer and climate change since May
2004.
Yesterday, Professor John Pyle, from the university,
said: "These were were the lowest levels of ozone
recorded since measurements began 40 years ago. We thought
things would start to get better because of the phasing
out of CFCs and other chemicals because of the Montreal
protocol, but this has not happened.
"The pollution levels have levelled off but changes
in the atmosphere have made it easier for the chemical
reactions to take place that allow pollutants to destroy
ozone. With these changes likely to continue and get
worse as global warming increases, then ozone will be
further depleted even if the level of pollution is going
down."
The relationship between the
depletion of the ozone layer and climate change is so
complex that the EU is investing £11m in a five-year
project to try to understand and predict what is happening.
Reporting the results of the first year, the
scientists told the meeting in Vienna yesterday that
"the atmospheric lifetime of these [ozone depleting]
compounds is extremely long and the concentrations will
remain at dangerously high levels for another half century."
|
BANDA ACEH : Flash floods swept
through a village in the tsunami-stricken Indonesian
province of Aceh, leaving nine people dead and 20 missing,
residents and officials said Wednesday.
The floods, which destroyed about 30 homes in the
village of Lawe Mengkudu in southeastern Aceh late Tuesday
night, were caused when a river burst its banks after
a day of heavy rain.
Erizal, of the Southeast Aceh district police, said
nine bodies including that of a paramilitary officer,
had been recovered by 2:30 pm (0730 GMT)Wednesday. About
18 people were injured, he said.
Another policeman on duty at the same office, Burhanuddin,
said about 20 people were missing.
Residents said rescue workers were still sifting through
the debris and mud to find survivors. [...] |
SANAA - Flash floods have killed
at least 10 people in Yemen and destroyed acres of agricultural
land in the poor Arab state, officials said on Wednesday.
They said tens of houses were also destroyed by rushing
water in the past two days after heavy rains lashed
several parts of the country.
"There has been a lot of damage to property due
to heavy rain in the last week," one official said,
adding that it was too early to provide accurate estimates
of material damage.
Yemen, at the southern tip of the Arabian peninsula,
is prone to floods during spring and summer. The worst
rains hit Yemen in 1996 and officials at the time estimated
damage at $1.2 billion. |
ADDIS ABABA (AP) - Some 82 people
died in floods that swept eastern Ethiopia on the weekend
and the death toll will rise further unless help gets
to survivors soon, the government's relief co-ordinator
said Wednesday.
Tens of thousands of people were left homeless when
the Wabe Shebelle river in the eastern Somali region
burst its banks on Saturday after two days of heavy
rains, crashing through 40 villages and sweeping families
away, said relief co-ordinator Muktar Mohammed Seyyid.
"This is a catastrophe," Muktar said by
telephone from the region. "If we don't take action,
I am afraid the death toll will increase."
Muktar said if the rains continue - forecasters expect
thunderstorms will continue into the weekend - further
deaths could occur from flooding.
"Even now there are still people in trees because
they are afraid of crocodiles," he told the Associated
Press by telephone from the worst affected area, Gode.
Some plastic sheeting and high-energy biscuits have
arrived in the region but as yet rescuers have been
unable to get them to survivors, said Ahmed Abdi of
the UN's World Food Program.
He said many areas still remain cut off. |
VIETNAM: HANOI - A 20-year-old
Cambodian woman who died in Vietnam this week was killed
by bird flu, taking the death toll in Asia to 52, a
health official said on Friday. The woman died just
hours after being rushed to hospital on Tuesday in Vietnam's
southern province of Kien Giang, suffering from high
fever and respiratory problems, a doctor who treated
the woman told Reuters.
"This case has tested positive," said a
Ho Chi Minh City official, who declined to be identified,
following tests on samples from the woman at the city's
Pasteur Institute.
Four Cambodians have now died of bird flu, all of
them from Kampot province, which borders Vietnam. The
H5N1 virus has also killed 36 Vietnamese and 12 Thais.
Health experts fear the virus could mutate into a
form which can pass easily between humans and millions
could die in a global pandemic and cases in places like
Cambodia, where health and monitoring systems are rudimentary,
only sharpen the fears.
The virus is endemic in several areas of Southeast
Asia and Vietnam, the country hardest hit, says it does
not expect to be able to contain it until next year
or 2007 because the way it spreads still baffles experts. |
Bird
find fuels abuse fears
Loomis raid discovers 22 wild Canada geese, some 'mutilated'
|
By: Michelle Miller, Journal
Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 27, 2005 12:49 AM PDT |
Wardens from the California Department
of Fish and Game and volunteers from Gold Country Wildlife
Rescue raided an adult care facility Tuesday in Loomis
to confiscate 22 wild Canada geese that were reportedly
trapped, mutilated and possibly fed to the home's elderly
residents. [...]
"You can clip the wings to make the bird flightless
so feathers don't grow," said Fish and Game warden
Mark Jeter. "Compared to
human (anatomy), these birds were missing hands and
forearms. They were mutilated, not just clipped."
Several months ago, neighbors tipped off game wardens
that Canada geese were being trapped and their wings
clipped to keep them on the property. The
informant claimed the geese were a food source for the
senior residents, Jeter said.
"The guess the neighbor has is - as much as he's
witnessed - he didn't believe two people living there,
the main caretakers, could consume that much as food
on their own," he said.Jeter said there is no evidence
of the geese being used for food, but it is under investigation.
[...]
Wardens were able to videotape (owner) Titus Bujdei
baiting the trap with bread and waiting from afar.
"He was real secretive about it and was careful
to take away the wings and dispose of bodies,"
Jeter said.
A plywood fence was erected on the edge of the property,
Jeter suspects, to keep prying eyes out.
Geese were likely beheaded where wardens found a hatchet
and scarred tree trunk on the property, he said.
"Imagine how many animals were
whacked right here," Jeter said, pointing to a
bend in the tree trunk. "There was so much blood,
it turned the bark black."
Wardens will work on maybe one case a season where
a goose is hunted above limits, he said, but he's never
seen anything like this. [...] |
PORTLAND, Oregon - Oregon came
a step closer to bidding au revoir to foie gras after
the state's Senate passed a bill to outlaw the production
and sale of fattened duck and goose livers. The bill,
passed on Tuesday by 18-8 votes, would make it a crime
to force-feed fowl or serve the fattened livers in restaurants,
although the law has yet to go into effect since it
will next face a vote in Oregon's House of Representatives.
The French delicacy has become a national issue in
the United States. Animal rights
activists argue that enlarging the birds' livers to
produce the delicacy is cruel.
If enacted into law, Oregon would become the second
state in the nation to ban foie gras production. In
California, a law passed last year bans the force-feeding
of ducks and geese to make foie gras starting in 2012.
Laws outlawing foie gras have been proposed in New
York, Illinois and Massachusetts. [...] |
ADELAIDE, Australia, - Thousands
of feral camels on South Australian rural lands will
be culled by marksmen shooting from helicopters because
they are encroaching on ranches, a state rural lands
official told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation
today.
Rural lands inspector Chris Turner said the camels
are drinking scarce water supplies needed for sheep
and cattle in the far northwest, so their numbers should
be reduced. "The simplest, quickest and most cost
effective way of doing that is an aerial cull,"
Turner said. The cull could begin as early as next month.
The cull was proposed just 11 days after South Australian
Premier Mike Rann together with Environment and Conservation
Minister John Hill announced a legislative program to
prevent cruelty to animals.
On April 15, Rann and Hill released a discussion paper,
developed in collaboration with the Australian branch
of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals (RSPCA), proposing changes to the Prevention
of Cruelty to Animal Act 1995.
"Anyone who is responsible for cruel acts against
defenseless animals need to be made accountable for
their actions," said Premier Rann. The premier
did not comment on the planned camel cull.
Animal welfare groups, including
the RSPCA, were upset by the idea of shooting camels
from the air because they may not be killed outright.
Hugh Wirth, president RSPCA Australia said, "You
cannot cleanly kill, instantly kill, humanely kill a
moving animal from a moving platform."
Turner did not say how many camels would be killed
from the air, but he said there are as many as 60,000
feral camels near ranch lands. [...] |
PASADENA, Calif. - A close flyby
of Saturn's big moon Titan by the international Cassini
spacecraft revealed an upper atmosphere brimming with
complex organic material, a finding that could hold
clues to how life arose on Earth, scientists said Monday.
Cassini flew within 638 miles of Titan's frozen surface
on April 16 and discovered a hydrocarbon-laced upper
atmosphere.
Titan's atmosphere is mainly made up of nitrogen and
methane, the simplest type of hydrocarbon. But scientists
were surprised to find complex organic material in the
latest flyby. Because Titan is extremely cold - about
minus 290 degrees - scientists expected the organic
material to condense and rain down to the surface.
"We are beginning to appreciate the role of the
upper atmosphere in the complex carbon cycle that occurs
on Titan," said Hunter Waite, a professor at the
University of Michigan.
Scientists believe Titan's atmosphere may be similar
to that of the primordial Earth and studying it could
provide clues to how life began.
The $3.3 billion Cassini mission, funded by NASA and
the European and Italian space agencies, was launched
in 1997 and took seven years to reach Saturn. The European
Huygens probe carried aboard Cassini was released on
Dec. 24 and plunged to the surface of Titan in January. |
How to describe sneaky advertising,
flying into our minds under the false flag of news or
entertainment? To sum up such sneaking in one word,
call it "corrupt." To sum it up in five additional
words, call it "the wave of the future." [...]
Back in the real world, the truth may prove even stranger
than fiction. Earlier this month, New Scientist magazine
reported that Sony had received a patent for a technology
that beams information directly into one's head. "No
invasive surgery is needed to assist a person, such
as a blind person, to view live and/or recorded images
or hear sounds," Sony's patent states.
This technology is great news for the blind, but surely
Sony's invention, if it works out, has even greater
potential for those who wish to send messages into targeted
brains, whether the recipients like it or not. What
might advertisers do with such technology? The name
of the advertising game these days is "personalizing"
the pitch, and so Sony's signal-sending might be too
tempting for Madison Avenue to resist.
Of course, the feds might pass a law against such
technology. Which leads one to ask: Would the government
really forswear from using such brain-invasive technology
itself? After all, don't we want the government to improve
our education? Don't we want Uncle Sam to daze and confuse
our enemies? The beast of new technology, once loosed,
is impossible to pen up again.
And so sneaky product placement on TV shows will ultimately
yield to something more profound: idea placement, straight
into our minds. |
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