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P
I C T U R E O F T H E D
A Y
Abeille
© Pierre-Paul
Feyte
The
shadow people
This mad fetish for war is really a case of blaming
others for our own guilt, of our own unprocessed fear of
death being projected outward into the world |
By John Kaminski
skylax@comcast.net |
Who is the third
who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
-But who is that on the other side of you?
- T.S. Eliot, "What the Thunder Said"
I resist the notion, now so popular among segments of
our desperately flailing human intelligentsia, that beings
from other worlds seeded our planet with life, or that
these ETs abduct people for demonic Freudian experiments,
or that mysterious dark forces, be they angels or aliens,
control human destiny for their own petulant purposes.
It's all just too complicated, and it smacks of copping
a plea, grasping for some lame excuse, or refusing to
take responsibility for one's own actions. I mean, why
ascribe evil to some esoteric mystical force when mindless
savagery has always been a hallmark of typical human behavior?
We need no additional motivation for depravity beyond
the inner pit of our own personal darkness.
All these fantastic mythologies are clearly a case of
trying to blame others for guilt that is our own.
Yet humanity continues to be imprisoned in the thrall
of these supernatural shibboleths, whether the principal
objects of our groveling fear reside in the cathedral
or the cosmos.
The more conscious among us have always downgraded these
sensationalized spirits - whether inspirational or injurious
- into mere metaphors for life's natural processes.
But beyond trying to classify imaginary creations that
are exclusively based on the unanswered questions about
our own mortality looms an even more dangerous question:
Why is it so popular to conclude that there appear to
be two types of humans on this planet? I'm talking about
the basic good and evil split: those who live by lies
and relish war versus those who speak forthrightly and
covet peace.
I was recently reminded of this dangerous classification
trend during a small waterfall of hundred dollar bills
that filled my mailbox with many unsigned letters (by
readers who strive to keep me afloat for a few more months),
by one reader who noted that my willingness to consider
the possibility that there were people without souls,
called by some "organic portals," was really
no different from other discriminatory schemes concocted
by the world's worst despots, whether it was - to cite
two well known examples - the way Adolf Hitler regarded
Jews or Ariel Sharon regards Arabs. (Two peas in a pod,
you might say.)
Assigning fundamental differences to various perceived
groups was really no different, he asserted. And no less
toxic. After all, most of the world's wars have been waged
on the claims of one group being somehow less human than
another. And most of these slanderous campaigns have been
staged as a cynical excuse to steal something valuable
from the supposedly evil group. (As is so obvious today
in what we call the Middle East.)
So I had to admit the validity of his point. It's simply
damaging and potentially tragic to arbitrarily classify
any group as somehow morally inferior or intrinisically
more sinister than another, even though that's what every
religion in the world does to every other group all the
time.
But the big problem for me in accepting his routinely
moral assertion was that decades of evidence - hey, just
read the newspapers! - clearly shows that some hard-to-identify
group was provoking all these conflicts throughout history
for the express purpose of making large amounts of money
from instigating wars.
When you really read the real history of the 20th century,
you come to understand that one small group of very rich
men has controlled both sides in all the major wars. And
controls them still, always counting the cash, but never
the bodies.
I don't know about you, but this is not the way my parents
taught me to be. Hence, the temptation to contemplate
theories that explain heartless avarice and mass murder
without a second thought. I tell myself that this is something
that I and my friends would not do. So, is there actually
a different breed of cat, a darker pigmentation in some
human hearts, that rules people differently from those
I know and love? Are some people missing some essential
biological ingredient of humanity?
The question is .... are there really shadow people?
Judging by the behavior of American troops in Iraq, who
murder innocent families as if they are only electronic
silhouettes in some video game, or of Israeli soldiers,
who make sport out of shooting Palestinian children for
no reason other than their own Talmud-induced pathology
of superiority, it appears that there really are.
I mean, what part of "Thou shalt not kill"
- the central thesis of all religious thought - don't
they understand? Everyone agrees there are no caveats
to this. But in the space between agreement and practice
lies the shadow. And tragedy. And very possibly the end
of all life on this planet.
Let me take great care to define what I mean by shadow
people.
I'm not talking about Art Bell's shadow people, which
apparently are visual apparitions that appear when your
eyes are focused in another direction, and are never there
in the spot you thought you saw them when you actually
fix your gaze on that spot. Nor am I talking about Carlos
Castaneda's brujos, who apparently are people you talk
to who later are proven not to really exist, which may
actually have been a private joke about don Juan Matus
himself.
I'm not talking about ghosts, spirits, time travelers,
ectoplasmic wraiths, interdimensional beings, or people
who reside in other physical realities like supposedly
Nick Herbert.
I'm talking about people who say one thing and do another,
people like George Bush and Dick Cheney (and Bill Clinton
and Al Gore), people who mouth pleasant platitudes and
then thoughtlessly commit atrocities, which they then
spin as heroic deeds essential to your well-being (which
presumably is why they always cost so much money).
Could it be true, as many people believe, that these
belligerent cads were born without souls? Not likely,
I suspect.
And I'm talking about Mr. Ordinary American, too, who,
when you tell him that 9/11 was an inside job, his face
goes slack and his mind goes blank. And when you present
him with the mountains of evidence indicating the undeniability
of your statement, he just quivers and turns away, muttering
"our government would never do something like that"
without daring to contemplate the reality that our leaders
"do something like that" every day.
Yes, the fabled Mr. Ordinary American, who, when you
tell him the 2004 election was fixed and that Kerry actually
won it with a large margin of electoral votes except for
the computer shenanigans that reversed the decision, accuses
you being some kind of liberal delusionary, even when
you explain you have utter contempt for both major candidates,
and don't believe a thing either of them ever said.
Mr. Ordinary American, who can't hear a word when you
say he threw away the lives of his own children on a war
that was lie because he actually believed what he heard
on television.
And beyond that, Mr. and Mrs. Ordinary Human Being, residing
anywhere on the planet, who believe that some venerated
superbeing, usually named God, controls their every movement,
and that the God of their neighborhood is most definitely
better than and superior to any other God that has ever
been invented anywhere else.
What is wrong with all these people? And why are they
in such a preponderant majority, so that the wars never
cease, and lying for profit has always been the dominant
way of life?
Well, I'm going to tell you now. I'm going to make it
perfectly clear. I'm going to lay it all out in excruciating
detail for you. And if you turn away and say, "That
guy's wacked!", that means you're one of the shadow
people, still controlled by a demon you dare not confront.
But if you understand what I'm saying, well, that means
there's still a faint ray of hope for this planet, dim
though it may be.
We all carry with us the shadow of death. It is, as the
natural scientists have said for a long time, what distinguishes
humans from all of our fellow animal species. Foreknowledge
of death. It rules every move we make.
To deny that we die, and invent some strategy that when
our mortal bodies expire we either go to some cool place
- to go bowling with the angels, just as an example -
or get sucked into some ephemeral process that some people
call the bardo (which is like some dark carnival funhouse
where all these scary faces pop out at you, reminding
you of every nasty thing you've done in your entire life)
and therein choose the time and place (and parents) of
your next incarnation - all these mental machinations
are constructed to deny the obvious. That when our hearts
stop and our brains cease all functions a few minutes
later, that's the end of us as individuals. After that,
we're mulch. Our contributions to the universe end there,
and what we have done is all we will ever possess for
all of eternity.
I know that this will come as a shock to many of you,
and you will squirm and wriggle and deny with every fiber
of your being that this is the case. Why? Simple. Our
brains absolutely refuse to contemplate our own nonexistence.
They fight with every fact at their disposal to create
a scenario where this is not the case, because they are
wired to survive, not to cease functioning. And yet they
do.
Numerous philosophers have reflected that the human curse
is having an infinite imagination trapped in a finite
body. Based on the primary instinct to survive, the body's
mind rejects the notion of a limited amount of life in
time and finds a way to transcend it by any means possible.
Logic, reality and reason become nonfactors and spirit
is born. And the entire populace commits to the conspiracy,
because it gives them the answer they sought. Spirit is
born, and the soul is its offspring. And along with them
form parasitic religions, which trade on and profit from
the desire of people to avoid death by providing concocted
formulas to do just that. None of these formulas actually
work, but no one in the conspiracy will admit it, because
that result is not desired. This is a clear case of reality
is not desired. The illusion is more comfortable. Insecurity
is eliminated by eternal life.
But because it is not real, the fear remains. The purpose
of religion cannot be proven, it can only be believed.
And since it is such an obvious lie, the honest mind eventually
comes to know it is a lie, and begins to hate itself for
lying, for being afraid of the ultimate truth, which is
that we don't live forever, and have but a little time
to make the most of what we have been given.
Given by whom? We can only guess. We call it God. But
even the lamest cleric will admit we cannot know God in
its entirety. God is only a word, after all. Some unfathomable
process that we call God invented man, but man invented
the word and concept of God in a feeble attempt to explain
the unexplainable.
And what have we been given? Well, if you're lucky like
me (and who knows why?), we have been given a slice of
paradise, a sensual experience so astonishingly beautiful
that we can make no other sense of it that to eventually
believe that a seemingly omnipotent force has created
the very conditions of heaven right on this little blue
and green spheroid. That's why I always say, heaven is
not something somewhere else to be sought, it is right
here, and we're put here to make it what it is supposed
to be - heaven!
But we - each of us - only get a little time to do it.
And none of us every really succeeds, except in small
ways, for the benefit of only a few people. But that in
itself is exquisite proof that this really is heaven,
if only we make it so.
For sure, thinking heaven is somewhere else and yearning
for it is the surest way to make this place hell, which
is exactly what we've done for the last 5,000 years, thanks
in large part to believing that God is somewhere else
and we want to go there rather than realizing God is right
here, helping us all the time to make the Earth heaven.
This has happened in large part BECAUSE religions have
told us that heaven was somewhere else, instead of right
here.
The only real fruits of religions can be seen flashing
from the barrel of a gun, and heard in the moans of the
innocent wailing for their unjustly murdered loved ones.
This is what religions seek to accomplish, and they succeed,
because people have decided not to understand what life
is really about, or the true nature of the gift we have
been given.
In being greedy and expecting to find a magic formula
that will insulate us from the inevitability of death
(can't you see it's the way the system works?), we trash
the very things that give us life in the first place.
And thanks to psychotic marching orders like the Book
of Revelation, we are very likely to destroy the conditions
that allow us this great gift of life simply because we
refuse to accept the condition of our gift, that it does
not last forever, that nothing lasts forever, not even
our great and wild universe.
That's why I always say, without death, the possibility
of goodness would not exist. When you have to sacrifice
everything to achieve the right thing, that is love. If
we lived forever, none of these things would matter, since
we would have everything we wanted, and nothing would
mean anything to us.
Therefore, believing that we have everything in the security
of an eternal life is precisely what is causing us to
trash our planet and murder innocent people with impunity,
because the lies our minds know are lies but our mouths
nevertheless say in order to vainly attempt to convince
ourselves that we don't die are lashing out in unexpected
ways.
We are blinded by this false light of our own creation,
an inauthentic abomination that deep in our hearts and
minds we know is a lie. Yet we are transfixed by this
artificial light, because it keeps us from realizing our
clock is ever ticking and our lease will be soon be up.
(Any resemblance of this light to a TV screen is not purely
coincidental.)
To really see, and to really know why we are here, we
may not keep insisting that we will live forever by the
power of magic incantations and formulas, but we must
screw up our courage and wander into the darkness of our
own shadows, and begin to understand how the seepage from
this gigantic ontological lie is causing all this unnecessary
death and destruction. We delude ourselves into thinking
that killing enemies prolongs our own life, but that is
only a fearful illusion.
Once upon a time I said, true warmth is found in the
coldest dream. Now I would suggest that the brightest
light is found confronting the deepest darkness.
It is not an exaggeration to say that everything depends
on you understanding this. It will not take many more
days of ignoring this problem for all of us to perish
permanently in the abyss of our own self-deception, with
no one left to say this was the epitaph of the shadow
people, destroyed by their own fearful religions.
John Kaminski is a writer who lives near the eternal
ocean in a fading paradise called Florida. His numerous
Internet essays are for sale in anthologies at http://www.johnkaminski.com/
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Soldiers in Uzbekistan
have surrounded a crowd of 2,000 protesters in eastern
Andijan's main square, following an overnight jailbreak.
President Islam Karimov is flying to the city to handle
the protest.
Earlier, shots were fired into the crowd. Nine people
were killed and 34 injured, according to government
officials. The scene is now calmer.
The protest's apparent trigger was the trial of 23
local businessmen on charges of Islamic extremism.
Protesters are calling for "justice" and
"freedom".
The BBC's correspondent in Tashkent, Monica Whitlock,
says the unrest feeds on long pent-up anger in Andijan
regarding the treatment of prisoners, poverty, unemployment
and other social problems.
Media clampdown stifles news
Overnight, a group of unidentified armed men broke
open Andijan jail, freeing everyone inside - perhaps
as many as 4,000 inmates, both political prisoners and
ordinary criminals.
They poured out into the city, some of them carrying
guns.
"The people have risen," AP news agency quoted
Valijon Atakhonjonov, the brother of a defendant in
the long-running trial.
Negotiations
Some protesters have occupied the mayor's office in
Andijan, while the majority are in the main square.
Earlier, three snipers were reportedly pulled down
from a roof by protesters.
An official in Uzbekistan's foreign ministry, who described
the protesters as "armed criminals", said
negotiations with them were under way.
All foreign news broadcasts, including
those of the BBC, have been blocked.
In the capital Tashkent, 300 km away, a man was shot
dead outside the Israeli embassy, upon suspicion he
was a suicide bomber.
Our correspondent says the incident, while apparently
unrelated to the protests, shows how tense the situation
has become.
Barometer of feeling
Andijan is one of the main cities in the most politically
sensitive part of this country, our correspondent says.
It is the barometer of feeling for
a long, densely populated valley called Ferghana with
a long tradition of independent thought, and the authoritarian
government in Tashkent has always eyed the valley with
suspicion, she says.
The government has locked up probably
thousands of local young men, many of them prominent
members of the community, accusing them of Islamic extremism.
Neighbouring Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan have shut their
borders with Uzbekistan. Protests
in Kyrgyzstan in March resulted in the overthrow of
its then President, Askar Akayev.
|
Seven months before
Sept. 11, 2001, the State Department issued a human
rights report on Uzbekistan. It was a litany of horrors.
The police repeatedly tortured prisoners, State Department
officials wrote, noting that the most common techniques
were "beating, often with blunt weapons, and asphyxiation
with a gas mask." Separately, international human
rights groups had reported that torture in Uzbek jails
included boiling of body parts, using electroshock on
genitals and plucking off fingernails and toenails with
pliers. Two prisoners were boiled to death, the groups
reported. The February 2001 State
Department report stated bluntly, "Uzbekistan is
an authoritarian state with limited civil rights."
Immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks, however, the
Bush administration turned to Uzbekistan as a partner
in fighting global terrorism. The nation, a former Soviet
republic in Central Asia, granted the United States
the use of a military base for fighting the Taliban
across the border in Afghanistan. President Bush welcomed
President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan to the White House,
and the United States has given
Uzbekistan more than $500 million for border
control and other security measures.
Now there is growing evidence that the United States
has sent terror suspects to Uzbekistan for detention
and interrogation, even as Uzbekistan's treatment of
its own prisoners continues to earn it admonishments
from around the world, including from the State Department.
The so-called rendition program, under
which the Central Intelligence Agency transfers terrorism
suspects to foreign countries to be held and interrogated,
has linked the United States to other countries with
poor human rights records. But the turnabout in relations
with Uzbekistan is particularly sharp. Before Sept.
11, 2001, there was little high-level contact between
Washington and Tashkent, the Uzbek capital, beyond the
United States' criticism.
Uzbekistan's role as a surrogate
jailer for the United States was confirmed by a half-dozen
current and former intelligence officials working in
Europe, the Middle East and the United States. The
C.I.A. declined to comment on the prisoner transfer
program, but an intelligence official estimated that
the number of terrorism suspects sent by the United
States to Tashkent was in the dozens.
There is other evidence of the United States' reliance
on Uzbekistan in the program. On Sept. 21, 2003, two
American-registered airplanes - a Gulfstream jet and
a Boeing 737 - landed at the international airport in
Tashkent, according to flight logs obtained by The New
York Times.
Although the precise purpose of those flights is not
known, over a span of about three years, from late 2001
until early this year, the C.I.A. used those two planes
to ferry terror suspects in American custody to countries
around the world for questioning, according to interviews
with former and current intelligence officials and flight
logs showing the movements of the planes. On the day
the planes landed in Tashkent, the Gulfstream had taken
off from Baghdad, while the 737 had departed from the
Czech Republic, the logs show.
The logs show at least seven flights were made to Uzbekistan
by those planes from early 2002 to late 2003, but the
records are incomplete.
Details of the C.I.A.'s prisoner transfer program have
emerged in recent months from a handful of former detainees
who have been released, primarily from prisons in Egypt
and Afghanistan, and in some cases have alleged they
were beaten and tortured while being held.
The program was created in the mid-1980's as a way
for the C.I.A. to transfer crime suspects arrested abroad
to their home countries. After Sept. 11, the C.I.A.
used it to send prisoners suspected of being senior
leaders of Al Qaeda to a half-dozen countries for detention.
American intelligence officials estimate that the United
States has transferred 100 to 150 suspects to Egypt,
Jordan, Syria, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Uzbekistan.
|
The Russian security
service claimed yesterday to have discovered spies working
for the British, US, Saudi and Kuwaiti governments who
were operating under the cover of non-governmental organisations.
Nikolai Patrushev, the director of
the Federal Security Service, the successor to the KGB,
told parliament that his agency had "prevented
a series of espionage operations carried out through
foreign non-governmental organisations".
Among those he named was the British medical charity
Merlin, which denied the allegation last night.
The FSB comments, an unusually detailed reiteration
of suspicions it has often voiced, came days after the
Russian president, Vladimir Putin, hosted George Bush
and other world leaders for the Victory Day celebrations
in Moscow. The visit of Mr Bush, who described the Soviet
occupation of Europe as one of the great wrongs of the
20th century, underlined growing mistrust of the west
among Kremlin hardliners.
A year ago, Mr Putin attacked NGOs
for pursuing "dubious group and commercial interests"
and for taking foreign money.
Mr Patrushev did not specify how many spies were found
or what they were accused of doing, except "pursuing
the interests" of other states.
In a broad reference to the supporting role that Washington
and EU member states played in three protest-led regime
changes in the former Soviet Union during the past 19
months, Mr Patrushev added: "Our
opponents are steadily and persistently trying to weaken
Russian influence in the commonwealth of independent
states and the international arena as a whole. The latest
events in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan unambiguously
confirm this."
He also accused an American NGO of
organising a meeting in Slovakia last month at which
further "velvet revolutions were discussed".
The US and EU have each condemned the regime of Alexander
Lukashenko, the president of the former Soviet republic
of Belarus, as the "last dictatorship in Europe".
Mr Lukashenko retains a brittle alliance with Mr Putin,
with both leaders facing calls for greater democracy.
The British charity Merlin "categorically denied"
the spying allegation.
A spokeswoman said the group had been working in Russia
in 1996 and never experienced visa problems. "All
of Merlin's programmes have been approved by the relevant
authorities." She said it was funded by the EU.
Mr Patrushev, a close ally of Mr Putin, also named
as spies the US Peace Corps, thrown out of Russia amid
spying allegations in 2002, the Saudi Red Crescent,
and the Society for Social Reform, a Kuwait group.
According to Interfax, Mr Patrushev said most industrialised
states did not want "a powerful economic competitor
like Russia", adding that Russia had lost £2bn
a year via "trade discrimination" with the
US, EU and Canada.
|
Nongovernmental
organizations--the notionally independent, reputedly
humanitarian groups known as NGOs--are now being openly
integrated into Washington's overall strategy for consolidating
global supremacy.
Events surrounding last month's coup
in post-Soviet Georgia, read in light of recent State
Department documents, suggest that seemingly innocuous
NGOs now play a central role in the policy of US-engineered
"regime change" set forth in the notorious
National Security Strategy of the United States.
The November 24 Wall Street
Journal explicitly credited the toppling of Eduard Shevardnadze's
regime to the operations of "a raft of non-governmental
organizations . . . supported by American and other
Western foundations." These NGOs, said the
Journal, had "spawned a class of young, English-speaking
intellectuals hungry for pro-Western reforms" who
were instrumental laying the groundwork for a bloodless
coup.
Astute commentators have correctly noted connections
between these provocateur NGOs and mega-philanthropist
George Soros, but the billionaire speculator did not
act independently. Georgia's
so-called "Velvet Revolution" appears to have
been a textbook case of regime change by stealth, carefully
planned and centrally coordinated by the US government.
Thanks to first-rate reporting by Mark McKinnon in
the Toronto Globe & Mail and Mark Ames in the Moscow-based
online journal The Exile <www.exile.ru>, the
Georgian coup can be understood as a virtual scene-for-scene
rerun of the overthrow of Yugoslavia's Slobodan Milosevic--right
down to the role of US Ambassador, played in both cases
by spooky career diplomat Richard Miles.
But while foreign-funded NGOs played a significant
minor part in the Yugoslavian operation, in Georgia
they were granted star billing. This bold, all but overt,
deployment of NGOs in service of US imperialism represents
a new wrinkle in regime change, reflecting adjusted
post-9/11 priorities at State and in the US Agency for
International Development (USAID).
Illuminating background is available in a watershed
USAID report, Foreign Aid in the National Interest:
Promoting Freedom, Security and Opportunity, released
in January 2003 but ignored by a press swept up in pre-invasion
hysteria. In the report, USAID
vows that development programs will no longer be directed
primarily toward alleviating human misery, but will
be committed to "encouraging democratic [i.e.,
US-friendly] reforms." This policy shift is explicitly
linked to the National Security Strategy of the United
States, the 2002 White House blueprint for a new, openly
aggressive phase of US imperialism.
Henceforward, the report promises, only friendly regimes
will be rewarded with development money, while hostile
(or merely independent) states will be punished by NGO-driven
"reform" programs that sound suspiciously
like old-fashioned destabilization ops.
The document notes with approval the explosive growth
of NGOs worldwide and points to the NGO network as an
attractive conduit for the strategic distribution of
dollars. Of course, not every NGO is controlled by the
US foreign policy establishment, and many rank-and-file
aid workers continue to perform thankless but essential
relief work in countries decimated by capitalism and
war. But there's no mistaking which way the wind is
blowing in the development community: "NGOs used
to work at arm's length from donor governments,"
the USAID report smugly observes, "but over time
the relationship has become more intimate."
To be sure, the vast global
network of privately-funded foundations and NGOs has
done enormous damage in its own right over the past
two decades. With or without direct US assistance, NGOs
continue to prop up immiserating neoliberal reforms,
abet the schemes of transnational finance and agribusiness,
and thwart the struggles of Third World people to claim
better lives as of right. (The broader case against
NGOs has been exhaustively set forth by James Petras,
among others, and is powerfully advanced in the current
issue of Aspects of India's Economy.)
But USAID's new emphasis on "building strategic
partnerships" with humanitarian groups promises
far worse to come. In thinly coded language, Foreign
Aid in the National Interest touts NGOs and other private
donors for their ability to lay groundwork for coups
d' état: "Assistance can be provided to
reformers to help identify key winners and losers, develop
coalition building and mobilization strategies, and
design publicity campaigns. . . . Such assistance may
represent an investment in the future, when a political
shift gives reformers real power."
As summarized by Hoover Institute fellow Larry Diamond,
a self-described "specialist on democratic development
and regime change" who contributed to the report:
"Where governments are truly rotten, the report
suggests channeling assistance primarily through nongovernmental
sources, working with other bilateral aid donors and
multilateral aid agencies to . . . coordinat[e] pressure
on bad, recalcitrant governments."
Shevardnadze, for many years
a reliable US client, seems to have become truly rotten
at around the time of his perceived tilt toward Russia,
a development which potentially
threatened US military access to the region and control
of the $2.7 billion Baku-Ceyhan pipeline.
Per script, coordinated pressure began immediately.
An interlocking network of development-oriented foundations,
think tanks, and NGOs was mobilized to disseminate propaganda,
recruit opposition leaders, and fund an ex nihilo "student
resistance movement" modeled on Yugoslavia's CIA-connected
Otpor. Meanwhile, NGOs like the Liberty Institute--a
USAID subcontractor managed by Mikhail Saakashvili,
the US-approved candidate for Georgian leadership--worked
hand-in-glove with the US Embassy (and presumably the
CIA) to destabilize civil society.
Even the coup's immediate pretext--allegations of electoral
fraud -- conveniently emerged from an "election
support" operation run by USAID in consort with
a Soros-connected NGO, Open Society Georgia Foundation.
TV-friendly street demos and orchestrated international
outcry followed in due course. Shevardnadze accepted
the inevitable and agreed to go quietly. Within two
weeks, Donald Rumsfeld was in Tbilsi as guest of the
coup leaders, discussing a timetable for Russian troop
withdrawals.
In the near future, the smashing success of the Georgia
operation may be expected to lead to similarly coordinated
attempts on independent-minded governments worldwide--Cuba,
now doing its best to cope with an invasion of foreign-sponsored
"reform" organizations, is an especially likely
candidate.
Meanwhile, as the US continues to assimilate worldwide
humanitarian endeavors to its imperial ambitions, the
heavy hitters of the NGO establishment are preening
for another round of mediagenic self-celebration at
the upcoming World Social Forum. Suggested new slogan:
"Another Coup is Possible."
|
|
Just
joking around |
FORT HOOD, Texas (Reuters) - A U.S. Army reservist accused
of attaching wires to a hooded Iraqi prisoner did
so in a joke shared with the prisoner, her lawyer
said at the start of a court-martial on Thursday.
Spc. Sabrina Harman, who pleaded innocent to charges
of conspiracy, dereliction of duty and maltreatment
of subordinates, also photographed abuses because she
wanted to document what she felt was wrongful behavior,
attorney Frank Spinner said.
"She was upset as early as 20 October, 2003, at
some of the things she was seeing. She was offended
by what she saw and she hoped at some point that she
could prove it," Spinner told a military jury at
the start of her trial.
The former pizza restaurant worker, who joined the
Army reserves after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, is
linked to several of the most notorious Iraqi prisoner
abuse photos.
She appears in a photo near naked Iraqi prisoners and
is charged with photographing as they were forced to
masturbate. She is also charged with placing wires on
a detainee dubbed Gilligan and telling him he would
be electrocuted if he stepped off a box in a picture
seen worldwide.
"This was a joke. Gilligan understood
it to be a joke. It was all part of their relationship,"
Spinner said. "It was a relationship beyond what
the pictures showed."
|
Another
Iraqi prisoner joined in on the "joke"
with his US military friends by very convincingly
"playing dead", which included beating
himself with an iron bar and permanently stopping
his heart and brain functions. |
Later, military investigator Warren Worth said Harman
testified in January 2004 that abuse ringleader Charles
Graner told her military intelligence wanted Gilligan
deprived of sleep for interrogation purposes.
Spinner also said other notorious pictures did not
constitute abuse as the prisoners were hooded and thus
did not know they were being photographed.
The prison abuse scandal has highlighted the U.S. treatment
of prisoners in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba. Some criticize the focus on low-ranking soldiers
rather than their superiors.
"Where are all the higher-ups
who were supposed to be supporting us? Why aren't they
in this courtroom?" Matthew Bolinger, England's
supervisor, said last week at Fort Hood.
|
BAGHDAD, Iraq - American fighter
jets flattened a suspected insurgent safe house near
the Syrian border, the U.S. military said Friday, and
hundreds of U.S. troops conducted house-to-house searches
in remote desert villages for followers of Iraq's most-wanted
militant leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
American forces have met little resistance since the
first two days of Operation Matador, which began Saturday,
aimed at clearing a region believed to be a haven for
foreign fighters slipping into Iraq from Syria, the
military said. American intelligence
indicates the insurgents are either in hiding or have
fled, U.S. Capt. Jeffrey Pool said.
Villagers reached by telephone said gunmen still roamed
some areas and they continued to be hit by U.S. shelling.
The U.S. offensive - one of
the largest since militants were forced from Fallujah
six months ago - came amid a surge of militant
attacks that have killed more than 420 people in just
over two weeks since Iraq's first democratically elected
government was announced.
Snipers opened fire on the motorcade of Interior Ministry
undersecretary Maj. Gen. Hikmat Moussa Hussein in western
Baghdad on Friday, killing one of his guards and wounding
three, police Maj. Moussa Abdul Karim said. Hussein
escaped unharmed.
Elsewhere in western Baghdad, insurgents fired on Iraqi
soldiers who were searching the area, prompting a 30-minute
gunbattle, said police Maj. Abdul Karim. There was no
immediate word on casualties.
North of the capital, a car bomb exploded as an Iraqi
army patrol was moving through Baqouba, killing three
people and wounding six, police Col. Mudhafar Mohammed
said. The dead included two soldiers and a civilian,
he said.
In Hillah, about 60 miles south of Baghdad, mortar
rounds slammed into an Iraqi army checkpoint, killing
three soldiers and wounding three others, police said.
Two more explosions rocked the capital Friday. A roadside
bomb hit an American convoy on a highway to the airport,
police said. No casualties were reported, but Associated
Press Television News video showed a U.S. Humvee, its
hood open, consumed by flames. The cause of the second
blast was not immediately known.
Gen. Richard Myers, chairman
of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, indicated Thursday
that the insurgency could last for many more years.
[...]
Residents reached by telephone in Saadah and Karabilah
said American forces were periodically shelling their
villages Friday.
"The situation is very bad. ... Most of the people
have fled to the desert," said Samran Mukhlef Abed,
a tribal leader in Saadah. "The Americans are all
around ... and medical services do not exist here. If
someone is hurt, we have to take him to cities that
are far way from here, and that is impossible with the
situation."
The U.S. military denied residents'
reports that some areas have been without electricity
and running water since the offensive began late Saturday,
but said regional hospital services were disrupted when
a suicide car bomber attacked the hospital in Haditha,
140 miles northwest of Baghdad, on Saturday. [...]
The U.S. military said it was receiving
intelligence from residents who are fed up with the
presence of foreign fighters. But residents voiced equal
frustration with U.S. forces, who pounded the area with
airstrikes, artillery barrages and gunfire.
"They destroyed our city,
killed our children, destroyed our houses. We have nothing
left," one man told APTN in Qaim. He did not give
his name and hid his face with a scarf to address the
camera. [...] |
NEW YORK (Reuters)
- A senior Chinese diplomat on
Thursday accused the Bush administration of undermining
efforts to revive negotiations with North Korea and
said there was "no solid evidence" that Pyongyang
was preparing to test a nuclear weapon, the New York
Times reported.
The comments by Yang Xiyu, a senior Foreign Ministry
official and China's top official on the North Korean
nuclear problem, reflect growing frustration in Beijing
with the Bush administration, the newspaper said in
a report from Beijing.
Even as the White House presses China to find a solution
to the nuclear issue, Chinese officials say, it has
hurled insults at North Korea and given its leaders
excuses to stay away from the bargaining table, according
to the Times.
"It is true that we do not yet have tangible achievements"
in ending North Korea's nuclear weapons program, Yang
said in an interview with the newspaper.
"But a basic reason for the unsuccessful effort
lies in the lack of cooperation from the U.S. side."
Yang said that when President Bush called North Korea
leader Kim Jong-il a "tyrant" last month,
Bush "destroyed the atmosphere"
for negotiations. [...]
|
The U.S. Army will allow recruits
to sign up for just 15 months of active-duty service,
rather than the typical four-year enlistment, as it
struggles to lure new soldiers amid the Iraq war, a
general said on Thursday.
Maj. Gen. Michael Rochelle, U.S. Army Recruiting Command
head, also said this was "the toughest recruiting
climate ever faced by the all-volunteer Army,"
with the war causing concern among potential recruits
and their families and the economy offering civilian
job prospects.
America abolished the draft in 1973 during the tumult
of the Vietnam War era and has since relied on a military
made up exclusively of volunteers.
Rochelle said the Army this week expanded nationwide
a pilot program in place since October 2003 in 10 cities
offering recruits the option of a 15-month active-duty
enlistment.
In a conference call with reporters, Rochelle expressed
concern about a recent spike in recruiting improprieties.
The Army said this week it will suspend recruiting on
May 20 to counsel its 7,545 recruiters on ethics.
The Army is examining allegations recruiters offered
to help people cheat on drug tests or get phony diplomas.
In a recent incident in Texas, a recruiter threatened
a 20-year-old man with arrest if he did not get to an
interview at a recruiting station by a given time.
"Some of the incidents were flying just below
my radar," said Rochelle, who acknowledged the
stress experienced by recruiters who work nearly 80
hours per week to attract new soldiers.
Army Recruiting Command spokesman Douglas Smith said
as of April 29, the Army had fielded 480 allegations
of improper conduct by recruiters in fiscal 2005 beginning
Oct. 1. So far, there have been 91 substantiated improprieties,
with eight recruiters relieved and 98 recruiters admonished,
Smith said. [...] |
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon will
propose shutting more than 150 military installations
from Maine to Hawaii, including 33 major bases, The
Associated Press learned Friday, triggering the first
round of base closures in a decade and an intense struggle
by communities to save their facilities.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld will also recommend
a list of scores of other domestic bases from which
thousands of troops would be withdrawn, or in some cases
added from other installations in the United States
or overseas. He has said the move would save $48.8 billion
over 20 years while making the military more mobile
and better suited for the global effort against terrorism.
Rumsfeld's plan calls for a
massive shift of U.S. forces that would result in a
net loss of 29,005 military and civilian jobs at domestic
installations. Overall, he proposes pulling 218,570
military and civilian positions out of some U.S. bases
while adding 189,565 positions to others, according
to documents obtained by The AP.
The closures and downsizings would occur over six years
starting in 2006.
"Our current arrangements, designed for the Cold
War, must give way to the new demands of the war against
extremism and other evolving 21st Century challenges,"
Rumsfeld said in a written statement.
Among the major closures were Cannon Air Force Base
in New Mexico, which would lose more than 2,700 jobs,
the Naval Station in Ingleside, Texas, costing more
than 2,100 jobs, and Fort McPherson in Georgia, costing
nearly 4,200 jobs.
Other major bases - including the Army's Fort Bliss
in Texas, the Naval Shipyard in Norfolk, Va., and Andrews
Air Force Base in Maryland - would see gains, as they
absorb troops whose current home bases are slated for
closure.
Before closures or downsizings can take effect, the
Defense Department's proposal must be approved or changed
by a federal base closing commission by Sept. 8, and
then agreed to by Congress and President Bush, in a
process that will run into the fall. [...]
Lawmakers say it is unwise to close bases while U.S.
troops are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. But
the Pentagon argues that the timing is perfect to enlist
cost-cutting measures given pressures from the ballooning
federal deficit and to reshuffle the stateside network
of bases while it reshapes the entire military. [...] |
WASHINGTON (AP) - FBI
agents posing as cocaine traffickers in Arizona caught
16 current and former U.S. soldiers and law enforcement
personnel who took payoffs to help move the drugs through
checkpoints, Justice Department officials said Thursday.
Those charged include a former Immigration and Naturalization
Service inspector, a former Army sergeant, a former
federal prison guard, current and former members of
the Arizona Air National Guard and the state corrections
department, and a Nogales, Ariz., police officer, officials
said.
All 16 have agreed to plead guilty to being part of
a bribery and extortion conspiracy, the result of the
nearly 4 1/2-year FBI sting, acting assistant attorney
general John C. Richter and FBI agent Jana D. Monroe
said.
The FBI set up the phony trafficking organization in
December 2001, then lured military and police personnel
with money to help distribute the cocaine or allow it
to pass through checkpoints they were guarding, officials
said.
|
(AP) - BOGOTA, Colombia-Two
U.S. soldiers detained for allegedly attempting to sell
ammunition to Colombian right-wing paramilitary groups
have been quietly flown to the United States, where
they were placed in custody, officials said Tuesday.
Warrant Officer Allan N. Tanquary and Sgt. Jesus Hernandez,
who have diplomatic immunity status within Colombia,
were flown to the United States on Friday and placed
in custody of the U.S. Defense Department, a U.S. Embassy
spokesman said after a reporter asked about the pair's
whereabouts.
The case and other allegations of wrongdoing by U.S.
troops in Colombia have sparked ire in the country which
is battling a long-running insurgency fueled by drug
trafficking.
"OUT OF CONTROL," the newsmagazine Semana
said on its cover this week, referring to the American
soldiers, who are supposed to be helping Colombia's
effort.
U.S. Ambassador William Wood said Friday that he would
allow local investigators to question Tanquary and Hernandez,
but hours later they were flown out of the country,
granted diplomatic immunity under a 1974 treaty. It
was not immediately clear whether such questioning took
place before they boarded the plane.
The pair were arrested May 3 at a luxury estate near
a military base southwest of Bogota and accused of plotting
to deliver 40,000 rounds of ammunition to a paramilitary
group. The outlawed paramilitary factions have been
waging a dirty war of assassinations and massacres against
leftist rebels and their suspected collaborators.
Their departure for the United States came despite
widespread calls from lawmakers and senior officials
for them to face trial in Colombia. The case has embarrassed
Washington, coming less than two months after five U.S.
service members were detained for allegedly smuggling
cocaine aboard a military aircraft to the United States.
The United States has denied secretly helping the paramilitary
United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, which
is on the U.S. list of terrorist organizations.
Tanquary and Hernandez were among hundreds of U.S.
servicemen and contractors stationed
in Colombia as part of a multi-billion-dollar program
funded by U.S. taxpayers.
|
In the past few years
one coup d'Etat by the Venezuelan military, four general
strikes to disrupt its economy and a Recall Referendum
on August 15, 2004, which allows a President to be removed
from office after mid-term, have failed. (See our analysis
in a previous publication [1].) Now the imperialist
forces are left with few avenues of toppling him. One
of them is a military intervention, on some excuse (s)
and through a shill or proxy country.
But what excuses and which country?
The two most likely ones are "war on terrorism
(counterinsurgency) and war on drugs"; and the
country likely to spearhead the military intervention
is Colombia-a neighbor of Venezuela, struggling to defeat
its own internal Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
(FARC, and others) who control a considerable part of
Colombia. (See below).
To date, Colombia has received the largest amount
of US military aid in Latin America. The aid has grown
ten-fold since 1995. Since 2003 there are 800 US military
trainers and 600 civilian contractors in Colombia.
The US has provided $3 billion in military aid to
Colombia in the past three years [2A]. An armada of
60 US made Huey II and Blackhawk attack helicopters
are the main weapons bought for quick deployment of
Colombian troops in FARC controlled southern Colombia
to provide security for the planes doing aerial spraying
of drug crops (coca plants) [3].
To protect the pipelines owned by the US-based Occidental
Petroleum in Arauca department (province) on the land
of the indigenous U'wa tribe, a $98 million aid was
given in 2002 for the purchase of 12 surveillance and
attack helicopters. Occidental has spent years lobbying
for military assistance to Colombia [4]. In July 2002
another $35 million was allocated for operation in Peru
and areas of Paraguay, Argentine and Brazil where drug
smugglers presumably operate [5].
Colombia –the background
Colombia is a country of 44 million, where 56 percent
of land is owned by 0.4% of the population and 23 percent
of the population earn less than $ 1 a day [6]. Since
its independence from Spain in 1823 till today it had
a violent history. After its independence there were
eight general civil wars, 14 local civil wars, countless
small civil uprisings, two international wars with Ecuador,
and three coups d'Etat. It took several years, starting
in 1858, to create a constitution and from 1885 the
country began to call itself Republic of Colombia. In
the wake of this poor peasants and indigenous people
rose in revolt.
A civil war, called "War of Thousand days"
broke out in 1899-1902. Approximately 100,000 people
were killed. From 1903 to 1920 a semi dictatorial regime
was established by the oligarchs that pursed the policy
of brutal repression of union movements and indigenous
people [7]. From the late 1920s on, the country began
to industrialize. Labor strikes led by the unions became
common. To suppress them the army was often called upon.
In 1928, the army fired on a peaceful demonstration
of banana workers in Cienaga killing 1,000 workers.
In 1948 Jorge Eliecer Gaitan, a leftist populist Mayor
of Bogotá was assassinated. Riots and rebellion
went on for a decade-1948-1958- called "la violencia"
period. Some 20,000 armed rebels, organized in rebel
groups, operated in Colombia. One of the groups was
to become The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
(FARC) in 1964-the largest peasant/workers organization.
[8]. Other guerilla groups called National Liberation
Army (ELN) and M-19 (April 19 Movement) were formed
in 1965 and 1970 respectively. In 2000-2001 these groups
control and administer approximately 50 percent of Colombian
national territory [9].
Enter the Multinational Corporations ( MNCs ) and
the US Involvement
By 1970 a large number of MNCs –mostly from
US- had billions invested in Colombia: The MNCs were:
Petroleum and natural gas reserves-, ExxonMobil, Occidental,
Cano-Limon and British Petroleum. Coal mines- Drummond
Company, Birmingham Alabama;, Coca Cola, with 17 plants
employing 10,000 workers. Banana exporting companies-Chiquita,
Dole, and Del Monte. Dole bought 20% of Colombia's flower
industry and is now the largest single exporter of fresh-cut
Colombian flowers [10]
Throughout Colombia indigenous tribes, peasants, small
cultivators and small miners stand in the way of oil
drilling, pipeline laying through Indian tribal lands,
agro-businesses, and large scale mining that causes
dispossession of land and environmental damage. Revolutionary
peasants and indigenous organizations developed armed
resistance and disrupted the operations of MNCs. Between
1982 and 1999 there were more than 600 guerilla attacks
on the pipelines-with a 1.6 billion barrels of oil spilled
along the way; in 2001 the pipeline was bombed 170 times
and was out of commission for 266 days cutting heavily
into [Occidental] company's profits [11]. It became
obvious that to safeguard MNCs investment and profits,
US military protection and security was (is) required.
Paramilitary, revolutionary peasants and first excuse
for intervention
A first step was taken in the early 1970s to subdue
insurgency, which was to encourage the Colombian military,
in conjunction with the big landlords and financed by
drug cartels, to arm and train civilian to form paramilitary
force [12] The mandate of the Paramilitary was to pacify-assassinate
through its death squad-the revolutionary peasants and
guerrillas in the countryside, and to do the same to
the activists, labor leaders and organizers in the urban
areas. These included hospital workers unions, electrical
workers unions, teachers unions, journalists, priests,
nuns, lawyers, women's right's groups, human right groups,
indigenous community leaders, directors of agriculture
cooperatives, journalists and other activists. Those
journalists not in favor of military and paramilitary
and large coca growers were also assassinated [14]
Second excuse for intervention-drugs.
During the post Vietnam years drug use (primarily
recreational) began to increase in US, and so did the
drug (cocaine) export from Colombia. Drug barons in
conjunction with large landlords controlled the expanding
cocaine production and trade reaping windfall profits
US and Colombian media and diplomatic sources have steadfastly
maintained that it is the revolutionary groups- FARC
and EL N, and not the paramilitary, that finances its
operations through drug (cocaine).
However, a report by "Klaus Nydholm, the representative
in Colombia of the United Nations Drug Control Program
(UNDCP) told reporters on May 8, 2001 that right wing
paramilitary 'are indeed involved' in drug trafficking',
even more than the guerrillas of the FARC, to such an
extent that there are regions of the country in which
it is hard to tell who are drug traffickers and who
are paramilitary' Although the rebels 'finance their
war with taxes on the drug trade, Nydholm said, 'we
do not consider the FARC drug traffickers. We believe
that it is still a matter of guerrilla organization
with political objectives', and the ELN 'never has been
very involved' in drug trafficking" [16].
Expansion of US military aid and bio-chemical warfare
Although the cover story for the expansion of US military
aid to Colombia is that it is a part of a "war
on drugs" in Latin America, yet its real purpose
is well understood by the commanders of FARC and the
Colombian military and paramilitary military forces.
As one of the guerilla leaders stated, increased militarization
of antinarcotics operation is a pretext for stepped
up counterinsurgency action and extending the war against
them by the U.S. [17]. And so did the paramilitary and
military commanders who said "we do not differentiate
between counter-insurgency and counter-narcotic operations-its
the same thing. We do a raid on the drug-traffickers,
and we know we're hitting the guerrillas" [18].
However, to perpetuate the charade that U.S. is not
directly intervening in Colombia, rather private corporation
and organizations are the primary participants, much
of the military and biochemical operation is "contracted
out" to private firms and private armies. Early
in 2003 the U.S. State Department reported that there
are 17 primary contracting companies working in Colombia,
initially receiving $3.5 billion [20].
Biochemical warfare
Biological-chemical-bacteriological warfare against
the peasants also started, full force, during 1998.
DynCorp, a defense contractor and a Fortune 500 company,
has a $ 600 million contract to carry out aerial spraying
to eliminate coca crops which also contaminates maize,
Yucca, and plantains-staple foods of the population;
children and adults develop skin rashes. The herbicide
that is sprayed, glyphosate, commonly known as Roundup,
is manufactured by Monsanto, a US company. It should
be noted that the aerial spraying with Roundup, in the
manner in which it is done in Colombia, is illegal in
the US where Glysophate is considered to be category
II, highly toxic. Other chemicals sprayed are registered
as category I, extremely toxic [22]. Fumigation, along
with machine gun shootings, and a heavy military and
paramilitary presence, linked to a low-intensity warfare
have taken the lives of more than 1,300 villagers in
various municipalities in FARC contolled Putumayo department
[23].
US and Colombia allege that revolutionary guerillas
and drug traffickers from Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and
Venezuela work in tandem; they find shelter in the trackless
1.9 million square miles area of rain forests and rivers
of Amazon. To crush them a new American financed, $1.4
billion system for radar and sensor was installed to
monitor this area [24]. (See below).
Resistance by Colombian revolutionary forces, along
with Venezuela's progressive populist policies is a
major threat to imperialist and its allies in Latin
America. A victory for or even a modus vivendi with
the revolutionary forces in Colombia along with Venezuela's
successful policies are likely to present an alternate
socio-economic model spawned by the WB/IMF and MNCs.
This momentum has to be defeated by military force,
if necessary, and Chavez has to go [25].
Chavez has to go if Colombia is to be secured for
MNCs
Coups and strikes failed to topple Chavez. With his
victory at the Recall Referendum on August 15, 2004,
he has emerged a bigger threat than before for imperialist
and its subalterns in Latin America. Venezuela presents
an example for other indebted and exploited countries
of Latin America countries to take charge of their nations
for its people. In the wake his Referendum victory,
Chavez called on the country's private business operators
to work with his government in moving the country away
from capitalism. He stated "We have to eliminate
large land holding in Venezuela. What we have done so
far has been very, very superficial. Everybody expects
Chavez to get tougher and deepen the revolution [26].
These are threatening words for those who follow the
US, WB/IMF lead in establishing a capitalist, free enterprise,
for profit economic order, and Colombia has affirmed
to follow the WB/IMF policies [27].
Grounds for intervention.
Venezuela and Colombia share a common, semi porous,
1370 miles border where drug trafficking, kidnapping
and smuggling are common. Since 2003 there have been
several incursions by Colombian paramilitary forces
into Venezuela's western provinces of Zulia and Tachira
killing civilians and National Guard troops, both a
s a provocation and a threat. In July 2003 Chavez ordered
an additional 2,700 troops to reinforce security, in
addition to the 20,000 already posted along the Colombian
border [28].
In 2001 the US State Department put two Colombian
revolutionary groups, FARC and ELN on "terrorist
list", accusing them of drug trafficking-smuggling,
disrupting country's democratic process and sabotaging
country's economy. US also charged that Venezuela facilitates
Middle Eastern terrorist to enter the US via Venezuelan
territory [30]. In contrast, in 2004, US removed Colombian
paramilitary force, which has one of the worst human
right recorded, from the terror list, where it had been
placed three years previously [31]. This gives the US
military a clean chit to supply paramilitary with arms.
Grounds are also being laid on a political-ideological
level. In 2004, in his annual Posture Statement , US
Southern Commander General James Hill identified "radical
populism" (Venezuela) and gangs (revolutionary
guerillas) as major dangers facing the region. At the
same time a new doctrine, called Effective Sovereignty",
was developed by the Bush administration which contends
that the US national security is threaded by Latin American
governments failure to exercise control over the "ungoverned
spaces", such as Amazon basin, which invites unlawful
elements of societies. This doctrine permits US to intervene
in other countries to protect and maintain its security.
And permits a steady flow of weapons and military personnel
for this region. [32]
In fact attempts to foment a revolt/coup started three
months prior to Chavez's referendum victory in August
2004. In May 2004, about 120 members of Colombian paramilitary,
wearing Venezuelan military uniform, landed clandestinely
near Venezuelan capital to link up with other anti national
groups and disgruntled unions within the country to
foment revolt, sabotage and help remove Chavez. Most
of them were apprehended by local police [33].
Because of these developments Venezuela reduced it
military ties with Washington. To strengthen it security,
in November 2004 it ordered 100,000 Russian semi-automatic
rifles, anti-tank guns, 40 helicopters and 50 MiG-29MST
warplanes as replacement for US made F-16 jets. Both
Washington and Colombia viewed it with suspicion and
alarm. Colombia accused Chavez as a military threat
it poses to Colombia. It is the purchase of Mig-29 that
is regarded as hostile act toward Colombia and Colombian
officials declared that Chavez resembles a war leader
who has put in military officers in government posts
traditionally occupied by civilians. [34]
In November 2004 assassination of Venezuelan judicial
prosecutor Danilo Anderson, who was prosecuting 2002
coup leaders, was assassinated. Other Venezuelan rightist
fugitive in Florida and Colombia openly advocate on
Florida-Colombia TV assassination of high officials,
including Chavez. In June 2004 Miami TV Channel 41 hosted
a fund raiser to overthrow Chavez. In October 2004,
an asylum seeker-fugitive anti Chavez actor Urdaneta
stated that efficient commandos be hired to assassinate
Chavez.
Discredited former President Carlos Perez and other
high ranking military fugitives in Colombia advocate
assassination of high government officials, showing
that subversion has made a qualitative leap to a generalized
offensive indicating a well-financed and organized terrorist
network based in Colombia and Florida which along with
assassinations, also begin attacks against energy and
transport infrastructure [35-Solo].
Other pressures to disrupt Venezuelan economy were
also set in motion. Soon after Chavez's Referendum victory
(August 16, 2004), on September 11, 2004 US decided
to impose sanctions on Venezuela because of its alleged
role in the international trafficking of women and children
for sexual exploitation-trafficking within the country
and abroad to Spain and Guyana. Countries such as Sudan,
Cuba and North Korea that oppose US policies are also
accused of not combating trafficking and thus subject
to sanction. The sanction that US may impose is blocking
a loan request of $250 million by Venezuela to the Inter
American Development Bank aimed at combating poverty
[36].
However, thus far such methods and tactics have not
deposed Chavez. Hence a military intervention is anticipated.
Early in 2004 Colombia agreed to buy 46 tanks from Spain
equipped with 120 mm (4.7 inch) guns and its accompanying
shells, which according one security official "are
clearly targeted against Chavez" particularly in
the border area. The form the war is likely to take
would be where Colombian military and paramilitary attack
border communities which Venezuelan army would repel.
This would then be presented as Venezuelan aggression
against Colombia and the US would "help" Colombia
repel aggression and take over the war [37]
At the same time due to Colombian internal conditions,
protests and demonstrations have grown in intensity
and density which have engaged much of the Colombian
military and paramilitary forces, and hence they my
find it difficult to mount an incursion, other than
the border engagements by paramilitary forces [38].
In this context, the Colombian President Alvaro Uribe-the
only South American leader to back Bush's invasion on
Iraq-has invited Americans to invade Colombia [39],
which should present several opportunities to intervene
in Venezuela and the newly re-elected war president,
as Bush calls himself, will certainly seize the first
opportunity to do so.
Footnotes
1-Today Colombia spends $7.3 million a day on arms,
ammunition, purchase of equipment, intelligence, maintenance
e of troops, fuel, etc. The guerilla and the paramilitary
spend around $2.6 million daily, and the US sends more
than $1.6 million a day for military expenditure [2B-]
2 - Railways, roads, river navigation, ports, oil
drilling, coal mining, gold mining, textile and other
factories were established.
3- The paramilitary is armed and trained by the regular
Colombian military. The US provides arms for both the
military and the paramilitary. One of the major source
of paramilitary financing is drug trafficking-cocaine-many
of whom are directly involved in its manufacturing and
trafficking [13]
4- Three out of five murders of labor activists in
the world occur in Colombia, although Colombia has one
of the lowest rates of unionization in Latin America-about
7% of the working population, a total of 900,000 members
[15]
5- From 1998-1999 a stampede to supply armament and
biochemical weapons to Colombia started. What started
the stampede? In 1998 a peasant guerilla force wiped
out an elite counter-guerilla unit of 228 troops. General
Charles Wilhelm of US Southern command recommended military
intervention. The State Department concurred, circulating
a paper, stating that FARC and ELN could take over power
in Colombian in five years, and the stampede started.
[19].
6-Virginia-based DynCorp, with 17,500-plus employee,
one of the Pentagon's largest contractors, has annual
revenues of more than $ 1.3 billion. Its services are
integrated into the Drug Enforcement Agency, Department
of Justice, Environmental Protection Agency, Federal
Communication Commission, Internal Revenue Services
and Treasury Department. It recruits its pilots,, aerial
spraying experts, and technical personnel in Latin America,
mostly Colombia and Bolivia [21]
7-In March 20 Colombian paramilitary attacked and
killed seven national Guard troops, ambushed army troops,
looted and burned homes and killed civilians in the
border areas. On March 31, 2003, Chavez ordered bombing
of an area where Colombian paramilitary attacked. During
August-September, 2004 more than 20 soldiers were killed
and more than a dozen unidentified bodies were found.
It is not yet confirmed who killed them [29]
Note: See link for references
|
Outed and accused of
sexual abuse, the mayor of Spokane might have dodged
one of his own barbaric bullets.
It's almost too good to be true: One of the most powerful,
antigay Republican politicians in Washington turns out
to be gay. The Spokesman-Review reports that Spokane
Mayor Jim West spent time cruising the Internet for
young men, apparently from City Hall.
He denies having told a City Council member that he
masturbated during these online exchanges. "I didn't
masturbate in my office," he insists with Clintonian
specificity. He did, however, admit to masturbating
with an 18-year-old date in a parking lot.
Further, the outed pol complains, "I am being
destroyed because I am a gay man, which is fine. I've
been in public life. I can accept that. Because I am
a gay man, because of this double life, it has been
hell."
So a new poster child for gay rights is born.
It is tempting to become distracted by the monumental
hypocrisy of it all, coming from one of the state's
chief gay persecutors. Jim West is a right-winger who
has actually enjoyed legislative gay bashing. Not only
that, in 1990 he tried to outlaw all sexual contact
between teenagers, including oral sex and heavy petting.
Maybe his legislative actions were a kind of cry for
help written in lipstick on the mirror of law: "Stop
me before I have sex with teens again!" We'll let
his shrink sort that out.
But as King County Executive Ron Sims said of West,
on Al Franken's national Air America radio broadcast
from Town Hall on Monday, May 9: "Don't let him
hide behind being gay."
The headline in the Seattle Post- Intelligencer last
week screamed, "Gay Sex Scandal Rocks Spokane,"
but the "gayness" of the scandal was the least
of it. The issue isn't whether West is bisexual or gay
or confused, or whether he does it in the office, in
the parking lot, or even with prospective interns. Nor
is it about a politician succumbing to the twin aphrodisiacs
of power and secrecy. Let's stay focused: There are
alleged victims who say he's a serial pedophile.
While some of his supporters are no doubt horrified
by West's wild gay ways, and while liberals relish the
downfall of another self-loathing conservative queer,
dwelling on his gayness is a distraction. His lies,
explanations, and bad judgment offer us, at most, context
for the truly serious charge
that he molested kids in the 1970s and '80s while he
was a Boy Scout leader and deputy sheriff-sometimes
in his squad car. West denies the charges and
is on leave to defend against them.
The headline "Boy Scout leader molests boys"
is starting to read like a dog-bites-man pronouncement
that surprises no one these days. But the alleged crimes
here aren't about public outrage but about the real,
sometimes lifelong damage done when adults sexually
exploit kids. These crimes go way beyond the stupidity
of using your government computer for sex chats or having
a private life completely at odds with the public policies
you propound. We're talking about rape by folks who
are trusted to take care of the kids they're abusing.
And they say gay marriage will destroy our sacred institutions.
The Spokesman-Review should be commended for getting
these allegations out in the open with two victims willing
to go on the record. There was a time when such stories
went unreported, or were actively suppressed. Longtime
Seattleites will remember that rumors swirled for years
around King County Superior Court Judge Gary Little,
a charismatic and well-connected man who sexually abused
teenage boys. Media investigations never quite seemed
to get the goods on him, and his behavior was a kind
of creepy open secret for years before he was finally
nailed by reporter Duff Wilson, then at the P-I. On
the eve of exposure in 1988, Little took his own life,
but the question that lingered long after his death
was: Why did it take so long to stop this guy?
The Spokesman-Review took its time: The stories about
West capped a three-year probe. During that time, we
all went to school on the massive Catholic Church abuse
scandals, which have helped to educate the public on
how widespread abuse is and how the patterns of abuse,
cover-up, and denial work. The benefit of the doubt
is now shifting from the powerful perpetrators to the
victims and accusers. The West story might never have
been reported had not so many victims in other cases
stepped forward and found vindication, and had not the
stigma of being a victim decreased a little.
West is having his day in the court of public opinion.
Whether that leads to any other days in court is unknown.
If so, it's lucky for him he hasn't always gotten his
way. Back in 1990, when West
was pushing the bill to ban teen sex, GOP right-wingers
in Olympia were pushing a bill that would allow the
state to castrate sex offenders. A proposal to make
castration mandatory died in committee, but a
second bill, co-sponsored by state Sen. Ellen Craswell,
would have incentivized castration by offering offenders
shorter sentences in exchange for their family jewels.
The Senate passed the bill. West
was one of those voting "yea."
So West should thank his lucky stars that wiser heads
eventually prevailed and that the barbaric bill never
became law.
|
Press Release: Larry
Flynt
John R. Bolton Court Divorce Records Show His First
Wife Fled Home When He Was Traveling Abroad
From Larry
Flynt
Publisher Larry Flynt's Questions Posed to State Department
Regarding Corroborated Allegations that First Wife was
Forced into Group Sex go Unanswered
May 11-LOS ANGELES - Court records concerning the divorce
of John R. Bolton, the Bush administration's nominee
to become the next ambassador to the United Nations,
show his first wife fled the couple's marital home when
he was traveling abroad in mid-August 1982. The records
further show that she took most of the couple's furniture.
Corroborated allegations that Mr. Bolton's first wife,
Christina Bolton, was forced to engage in group sex
have not been refuted by the State Department despite
inquires posed by Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt
concerning the allegations. Mr. Flynt has obtained information
from numerous sources that Mr. Bolton participated in
paid visits to Plato's Retreat, the popular swingers
club that operated in New York City in the late 1970s
and early 1980s.
"The first Mrs. Bolton's conduct raises the presumption
that she fled out of fear for her safety or, at a minimum,
it demonstrates that Mr. Bolton's established inability
to communicate or work respectfully with others extended
to his intimate family relations," said Mr. Flynt.
"The court records alone provide sufficient basis
for further investigation of nominee Bolton by the Senate."
(Click here for court records). Mr. Flynt continued,
"The U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations must
be free of any potential source of disrepute or blackmail."
Mr. Flynt has contacted the State Department asking
that they confirm or deny the allegations of Mr. Bolton's
prior conduct concerning his wife and the alleged paid
visits to Plato's Retreat. He has also called upon the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee to conduct an inquiry
into the very serious evidence concerning his first
wife's fear of him.
Neither the State Department nor the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee has yet responded to Mr. Flynt's
inquiries.
The Hustler magazine publisher demanded an immediate
response from Mr. Bolton. Mr. Flynt has personal knowledge
about sources corroborating the allegations of nominee
Bolton's misconduct, and he has called upon these persons
to publicly come forward with their information.
"First wife Christina Bolton has understandably
remained silent on what led her to flee her husband
of 10 years and to take the family belonging with hers.
A full inquiry would necessarily involve meetings with
Mrs. Bolton to uncover the circumstances of her flight
and the Committee should subpoena her in private session,"
Mr. Flynt said.
Mr. Flynt has no further comment at this time, except
to ask that the press examine the attached court document
pertaining to Mrs. Bolton flight from her home.
Mr. Flynt is awaiting further leads regarding Mr. Bolton's
private behavior, at which point he will have more information
to convey.
|
Minority Leader Harry Reid strayed
from his prepared remarks on the Senate floor yesterday
and promised to continue opposing one of President Bush's
judicial nominees based on "a problem" he
said is in the nominee's "confidential report from
the FBI."
Those highly confidential reports are filed on all
judicial nominees, and severe sanctions apply to anyone
who discloses their contents. Less clear is whether
a senator could face sanctions for characterizing the
content of such files.
"Henry Saad would have been filibustered anyway,"
Mr. Reid said on the floor yesterday, about the Michigan
Appeals Court judge who is nominated to the U.S. Court
of Appeals for the 6th Circuit.
"All you need to do is have a member go upstairs
and look at his confidential report from the FBI, and
I think we would all agree that there is a problem there,"
Mr. Reid continued.
Republican staff members and supporters of Mr. Bush's
nominees were outraged. [...] |
The great enemy of
clear language," wrote George Orwell, "is
insincerity." So it is natural that a man as dishonest
as Alan Dershowitz should hate clarity and abhor consistency.
Actually Dershowitz will never forgive you if you hold
him to his word. I find that heartening; one might've
feared that utter shamelessness precluded feelings of
embarrassment, but there is hope.
Dershowitz has chutzpah. That's the title of one of
his tedious books, and that's Norman Finkelstein's conclusion
in his upcoming book Beyond Chutzpah, which demonstrates
the banality of the mendacious intellectual using the
example of Alan Dershowitz's The Case for Israel. After
trying, and failing, to stop the publication of Finkelstein's
book, Dershowitz composed a smear of Finkelstein that
was posted on several websites.
In it he lists the "The Ten Biggest Lies Finkelstein
Has Been Caught Telling." It's a puzzling read:
Finkelstein had said the Dershowitz never cited a mainstream
human rights organization in The Case For Israel to
support his depiction of Israel's human rights records.
"The truth", Dershowitz yells, is that "Dershowitz
cites Amnesty on at least five occasions, B'Tselem on
three occasions and numerous other human rights groups.
Amnesty and B'Tselem even appear in the index."
Finkelstein was right. He said that Dershowitz adduced
statistics from the IDF, and sources such as the New
York Times and the Atlantic Monthly, to conclude that
the Israeli army did not deliberately kill a single
Palestinian civilian in the Battle of Jenin, and that
a mere 18 per cent of Palestinian casualties were innocent.
That's like citing the Sudanese government, and pro-Janjaweed
publications, to prove that reports of a catastrophe
in Darfur are exaggerated.
The Case for Israel's index includes one entry for
Amnesty International, which leads to pages 190, 191
and 230. In page 190, Dershowitz quotes Amnesty in "The
Accusers" section at the beginning of chapter 29.
Amnesty accused the IDF and Palestinian militias of
showing disregard for the lives of children. Dershowitz
disputes Amnesty's charge against the IDF, but in the
next page he approvingly quotes them condemning suicide
bombings as "a crime against humanity." On
page 230, he writes that Amnesty-"an otherwise
wonderful organization, which I support"-"has
contributed to the false comparisons between Israel
and the outlaw nations that do not respect the rule
of law."
In the preceding pages, Dershowitz denied that Israel
tortured Palestinian prisoners; that the majority of
Palestinians killed by the IDF were innocent civilians;
that collective punishment and the razing of homes and
groves was unjust; and that Israel's illegal colonies
were a "barrier to peace"-all this by ignoring
the carefully documented reports of Amnesty International,
Human Rights Watch, and B'Tselem, which are evidently
"wonderful" only when they address Palestinian
terrorism, or Cuban and North Korean and Syrian human
rights abuses.
B'Tselem is cited twice in the index; leading to page
173 in the "Accusers" section of chapter 25,
where he quotes their condemnation of Israel's policy
of assassinations (they're wrong, says Dershowitz: assassinations
are "perfectly proper") and to page 218, where
he writes that B'Tselem's criticisms against Israel
are "misused" by antisemites.
Those organizations' findings on Israeli war crimes
against Palestinians, and the copious research by their
fieldworkers, are not once cited in Case for Israel,
simply because they contradict the Israeli government's
propaganda i.e. the "The Reality" and "Proof"
sections of The Case for Israel.
"Indeed", writes Dershowitz in his recent
attack on Finkelstein. "Much of the book is a critique
of the double standard employed by these very organizations
with regard to Israel." What Dershowitz means by
"double standards" isn't clear; those human
rights groups are equally critical of Palestinian human
rights abuses.
And why on earth would he wish to join an organization
that practices a "double standard" against
Israel"?
At a debate, Finkelstein said that Dershowitz disliked
B'Tselem, and Dershowitz responded: "If I were
an Israeli I'd belong to B'Tselem. So don't characterize
my views, you don't know my views." A month after,
he told me that he stood by that comment. But during
a visit to Israel, he told Haaretz that B'Tselem was
no good. And now he says that "much of his book
is a critique" of the standards used by B'Tselem.
What exactly are his views? I shouldn't "characterize";
here is Dershowitz in his words:
"I'm a pro-Palestinian. The only difference between
me and other pro-Palestinians is that they're anti-Israel…my
goal is simply to bring more nuances into the debate…"
Great. But then he says that he misses "the days
when the Israeli-Arab conflict presented a clear cut
conflict between good and evil." He warns against
reductio ad Hitlerums, but responds to supporters of
Jewish-Palestinian secular binationalism with this freak:
"the last dictator who supported a one state solution
was Hitler." He's against identifying Israel's
policies with the Jewish people (as are we all truly,
Mr. Dershowitz) but he believes: "it was right
for the entire German people to suffer for what their
elected leader had unleashed on the world … that
is part of what it means to be a nation or a people."
A majority of Palestinians support suicide bombings,
Dershowitz writes, and "it is just (albeit imperfectly
just) to hold the cause collectively accountable for
the murderous acts perpetrated in its name…"
but he charges the Presbyterian Church with "sinning"
and "bigotry" for divesting from Israel in
protest against Israeli war crimes, which have the support
of a majority of Israeli Jews. He says that a mark of
an anti-Jewish racist is the "singling out"
of Israel for reproach, but he "singles out"
the Palestinians, and he's not a bigot. Have you ever
heard Dershowitz say that Israel bears at least part
of the blame for the past five years of violence? Dershowitz
says that the Palestinians "have suffered greatly,
although mostly at the hands of their own destructive
leadership and their exploitation by other Arab nations."
It seems that just about every country, with the exception
of Israel, in that region oppresses the Palestinians.
Is Israel blameless, or is Dershowitz a stupid racist?
He says that he's "a human rights activist."
He then turns and cheerily proposes that the Israeli
army randomly select Palestinian villages for destruction,
in retaliation for Palestinian suicide bombings. He
says that the New York Times is an "objective newspaper",
although it somehow hired a Middle East bureau chief
who disseminated a "blood libel."
I confronted Dershowitz on that last comment about
Chris Hedges. Hedges had recounted that he witnessed
Israeli soldiers goading Palestinian children onto the
street, where they would shoot them "for sport."
In The Case for Israel, Dershowitz condemned Hedges'
account as a "blood libel."
I asked Dershowitz whether he still respected B'Tselem,
and he said yes. I then read him a passage from a B'Tselem
report:
"A conscript soldier who gave testimony to B'Tselem
told of a procedure in a particular area of the West
Bank during which IDF jeeps were sent as a provocation
to areas of friction with Palestinians in order to serve
as bait for throwers of stones and petrol bombs. When
the latter would approach, the soldiers, who had taken
up position in advance at other points, would shoot
at them. The stated goal of this procedure was to distance
the demonstrations from other sites, but in fact, stated
the soldier, "It became a kind of sport, to "knock
down" as many "fire-bombers" as possible.
It was an obsessive search. It's called ‘strive
to make contact.' What bothers me is had the jeeps not
have entered, there would have been no disturbances
of the peace."
I said "are B'Tselem guilty of ‘blood libel',
is that conscript spreading a ‘blood libel'?"
Dershowitz responded: "No that is different, when
you take it to the terrorists, to suicide bombers."
The conscript, I told Dershowitz, made no mention of
suicide bombers. Dershowitz responded: "fire bombs
are a lethal weapon!" Not one Israeli had died
of a fire bombing since the start of the intifada, I
countered. Dershowitz, that well trained man, barked:
"three were killed today!"
He was referring to an 80 kilogram roadside bomb in
Gaza that targeted an armored American convey, killing
three. "That's a roadside bomb" - by then
I felt a bit embarrassed for Dershowitz's plight - "that
could level a house! That's not a fire bomb, a fire
bomb is a Molotov cocktail."
"No", said the insouciant huckster, "a
fire bomb is any projectile…" at which point
the exasperated moderator interrupted.
Circumambulate Dershowitz's Wonderland, and you will
arrive to Finkelstein's conclusion: Dershowitz is "constitutionally
incapable of saying anything that is true. I think that
if a true word actually came out of him, he would implode."
Actually that is almost true. In his memoirs, you will
discover a nugget of truth spoken by Dershowitz the
advocate for Israel:
"Almost all my clients have been guilty."
|
BANGOR, Maine - An Air France jetliner
en route from Paris to Boston was diverted to Maine
on Thursday to check on a passenger whose name appeared
on a no-fly list, officials said.
The flight continued to Boston less than two hours
later without the passenger of interest and three of
his family members, said Rebecca Hupp, director of the
Bangor airport.
When the plane landed in Maine, federal officials escorted
a man, a woman, a young child and a baby off. The four
were detained by federal immigration officials, said
Ann Davis, spokeswoman for the Transportation Security
Administration in Boston.
The Airbus A-330, carrying 169 passengers, was diverted
because the passenger had the same name as someone on
the U.S. government's no-fly list, Davis said. Air France
and
Federal Aviation Administration officials reported nothing
else unusual about the flight.
Hupp said federal officials were evaluating whether
the passenger was the person on no-fly list or whether
it was a case of mistaken identity.
Sabiha Bishara said the family boarded the flight at
the same time as she did in Egypt before they flew to
Paris, and she spoke to them in Arabic.
"They were sitting next to me, they were very
normal people, there was nothing fishy about them,"
said Bishara, who was headed to the Boston area to attend
her son's college graduation. "When the customs
agents boarded, the wife was very surprised."
U.S. law requires airlines to transmit
to the Homeland Security Department the passenger lists
for flights bound for the U.S. within 15 minutes of
takeoff. Officials then check the names against terrorist
watch lists.
Bangor International Airport has a well-earned reputation
as a stopping off point for trans-Atlantic flights.
It is the last major U.S. airport for jets headed across
the Atlantic and the first for incoming flights.
Last September, a London-to-Washington flight carrying
the singer formerly known as Cat Stevens was diverted
to Bangor. Security officials later said a gap in the
airline passenger-check system permitted Yusuf Islam
- the name the singer took after converting to Islam
- to board the flight to the United States despite being
on a no-fly list for suspected ties to terrorists. Islam
has strongly denied the claim. |
ORLANDO, Fla. -- Florida's
busiest airport will begin using high-tech iris-scanning
technology to filter out possible terrorists and add
an additional layer of security, according to Local
6 News.
Workers and other people at Orlando International Airport
will have both irises scanned at special computers to
determine their identity.
"This will be an additional layer of information
that is enrolled, which will be biometric information,"
OIA director of security Brigitte Rivera Goersch said.
"Employees irises will be enrolled for the additional
layer of security."
The Airport Access Control Pilot Program or AACPP is
a first of its kind, according to the report.
A person would be required to stand in front of a special
mirror and have both eyes scanned.
"It has to verify both irises, not just one iris,"
Goersch. "Statistically it is very reliable. Iris
scanners -- the technology of iris scanning -- is considered
one of the most reliable biometric technologies."
"You know just like we did with the airplanes
with the cockpit doors and air marshals and all of that
kind of stuff," federal security director Art Meinke
said. It is just another step to try to figure out what
can we do better."
Local 6 News reported that the 90-day test could be
expanded and eventually moved to airports throughout
the nation.
|
Vaccines are the only
drugs that American children are mandated to receive.
Although it may be true that state governments mandate
vaccines, the decision to mandate a vaccine is based
on the recommendations of Federal advisory committees.
In the interest of public safety, Congress has a duty
to ensure that advisory committee members involved in
vaccine policy making are not improperly influenced
by conflicts of interest.
In recent years, public trust in the Federal policymaking
related to vaccines causing Autism has been broken by
the practice of ignoring obvious conflicts of interest.
At this point, immediate action by Congress is necessary
to restore public confidence in the safety of childhood
vaccinations.
Is There A Link Between Childhood Vaccines And Autism?
Is there a connection? I'll let readers judge for themselves.
Mercury is a toxic metal that can cause immune, sensory,
neurological, motor, and behavioral dysfunctions similar
to traits defining or associated with autism.
Thimerosal is an organic mercury compound. It is metabolized
to ethylmercury and thiosalicylate and has been used
since the 1930s as a preservative in many vaccines and
pharmaceutical products to prevent bacterial and fungal
contamination.
On Feb 9, 2004, the National Autism Association issued
a press release that reported on one of the larger studies
under review based on the Center for Disease Control's
own Vaccine Safety Datalink. The release reported that
under independent investigation, CDC's data concludes
children are 27-times more likely to develop autism
after exposure to three thimerosal-containing vaccines
(TCVs), than those who receive thimerosal-free versions.
Think about it, twenty-seven times more likely to develop
autism. Then consider this, our government had this
data for years, but deliberately kept it hidden. This
conduct was not due to negligence or laziness, it was
a deliberate cover-up. All those involved should be
criminally charge, prosecuted and punished.
The children who were affected by this cover-up will
require care and support for their entire life. These
children's lives have been destroyed. The costs to their
parents will reportedly exceed $2 million dollars per
child. Justice will not be served until these mercury
poisoned kids and their parents get everything necessary
to make the most of their lives.
The criminals involved better get out there checkbooks,
now!
What Did They Know & When Did They Know It?
Thimerosal is composed of nearly 50% mercury, which
is a known to be especially harmful to fetuses, infants
and children. It has been linked to a range of symptoms
jointly known as Autism Spectrum Disorders. At one end
of the spectrum is severe autism, in which children
are socially withdrawn, do not speak and exhibit bizarre,
repetitive, and sometimes aggressive behavior. At the
other end, are Asperger's Syndrome, a high-functioning
form of autism, Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Attention
Deficit Disorder, and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity
Disorder.
Thimerosal was regularly added to childhood vaccines
as a preservative, and became a major source of mercury
in infants and toddlers. According to the American Academy
of Pediatricians, within the first two years of life,
fully vaccinated children received mercury levels that
exceeded long-established safety limits by the FDA and
other agencies.
However, the focus did not zero in on thimerosal until
1997, when Congress passed the FDA Modernization Act,
which required the FDA to investigate all drugs that
contained mercury to determine their adverse effects
on humans.
Within one year, the FDA called for the removal of
all over-the-counter products that contained thimerosal.
However, the preservative was still included in more
than 50 vaccines until the Public Health Service (which
includes the FDA, CDC and NIH) and the American Academy
of Pediatrics issued a statement in July 1999 "urging"
vaccine manufacturers to reduce or remove Thimerosal
because of "theoretical potential for neurotoxicity."
So we know by the action taken by the FDA in 1999 that
our government definitely knew about the dangers related
to the preservative. But we also know this because the
staff for Rep Dan Burton (R-Ill) obtained an incriminating
FDA internal e-mail written on June 29, 1999, by former
FDA scientist Peter Patriarca, which offered a "pros
and cons" assessment of the Thimerosal statement
about to be issued at that time, and listed the questions
and issues that would be raised upon its release:
(1) FDA being "asleep at the switch" for
decades, by allowing a potentially hazardous compound
to remain in many childhood vaccines, and not forcing
manufacturers to exclude it from new products. (2) Various
advisory bodies aggressive recommendations for use.
(3) The dose of ethyl mercury was not generated by "rocket
science": conversion of the % of Thimerosal to
actual ug [micrograms] of mercury involves 9th grade
algebra. (4) What took the FDA so long to do the calculations?
(5) Why didn't CDC and the advisory bodies do these
calculations while rapidly expanding the childhood immunization
schedule?
So the experts in the FDA and CDC definitely knew about
the dangers. However, an article published on In These
Times.com on Nov 11, 2003, raised an interesting question:
"If the CDC and FDA seemed to acknowledge the risks
of Thimerosal four years ago and the need to get mercury
out of medical products, today the official stance is
to circle the wagons against mounting public and scientific
criticism about its handling of the Thimerosal issue."
I have the answer. The turn of events can easily be
explained by the fact that there had been a changing
of the guard under Bush since 1999. Keep in mind that
the stakes were high for the pharmaceutical giant Eli
Lilly, a long time friend of the Bush gang, but also
the company that invented Thimerosal.
And sure enough, evidence that Bush came through surfaced
when the pharmaceutical industry was granted protection
(albeit short-lived) from lawsuits from parents of children
who developed autism after being vaccinated, by a provision
sneakily tucked into the Homeland Security Act, at the
very last minute, by Republicans who no doubt were acting
under Bush's direction.
Well their little stunt didn't work because the provision
was soon repealed. While the effort to repeal it was
under way, Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) told Wolf
Blitzer on CNN, "What we have in the dead of night,
a provision put in to help a pharmaceutical company
or series of companies that help the parents and their
rights for protecting their children right off at the
knees."
During the original final debates on the Homeland Security
Bill, Senator Bill Frist (R-TN) had argued forcefully
for granting liability protection to makers of mercury
based vaccine preservatives and said such measures were
needed to boost an industry essential for public health.
He is the only physician in the Senate and one of his
party's leaders on medical issues, the Tennessean reported
on Jan 11, 2003.
But critics of the provision didn't see it that way
and accused "Republicans of tilting the legal system
in favor of drug companies at the expense of autistic
children," noted the Tennessean. "Hundreds
of parents have alleged in lawsuits that the vaccine
preservative thimerosal caused autism in their children.
Eli Lilly & Co., the preservative's chief maker,
and other defendants in the suits deny the charge,"
it said.
Frist's name came up more than others because he headed
the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the Republicans'
political fund-raising arm. Critics were quick to note
the large amount of money that Eli Lilly had donated
to Republicans. In fact, the pharmaceutical and health
products industry was the largest corporate contributor
to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, while
Frist headed it.
And not surprisingly, Eli Lilly was one of the most
generous contributors in the 2002 elections, giving
about $1.4 million to federal candidates and parties,
according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics,
and three-quarters went to Republicans.
Some critics of the amendment pointed out that some
top officials at Eli Lilly had close ties to the White
House. I'll let the readers be the judge of whether
Bush may have had less than admirable motives to allow
that provision to remain in the bill. Here's a sample
of people connected to the administration who have been
on the Eli Lilly payroll:
* Former President George Herbert Walker Bush (one-time
member of board of directors)
* George W Bush's former director of Management and
Budget, Mitch Daniels (a former vice president)
* George W Bush's Homeland Security Advisory Council
member, Sidney Taurel (current CEO of Eli Lilly)
* The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (recipient
of Eli Lilly funding)
Reported by Bruce E Levine, PhD, psychologist and author
of Commonsense Rebellion: Taking Back Your Life (New
York-London: Continuum, 2003).
The Amendment Is Repealed
At the time of debate on repealing the provision, on
Jan 3, 2003, MSNBC reported, "many parents across
the nation are still fuming over four small paragraphs
at the end of 475 pages designed to protect America."
"What it did to the families is it took away their
last option, literally or figuratively closed the door
on their last access to the courts of justice,"
said Professor Lawrence Gostin of Georgetown University
School of Law.
According to MSNBC, outgoing House majority leader
Rep Dick Armey (R-TX) was behind the amendment and argued
that if drug companies weren't protected, they might
refuse to make vaccines, a worry amid fears of bioterrorism.
To that argument I would say good! If the richest industry
in the country refuses to invest a portion of its outrageous
profits into finding vaccines the industry can guarantee
are safe to administer to vulnerable children, then
they shouldn't be in the vaccine business at all.
After listening to Dick Army, congressman Dan Burton
(R-IN) was furious. Burton has a grandson who is autistic.
"For anybody to say they're proud for putting that
kind of an amendment in there is just beyond me,"
Burton said.
To begin with, when the provision was added to the
bill, Burton said he was blindsided by Dick Armey's
last-minute addition, according to MSNBC. "Now,
he can take sole responsibility for it, that's his prerogative
if he wants to, but that amendment is criminal in my
opinion," says Burton.
In the end, Frist announced a proposal to repeal the
amendment. Under the repealed provision, plaintiffs
involved in thimerosal litigation were forced to seek
compensation out of court through a special victims
fund. Under the proposal Frist agreed to, the provision
would be repealed and the legal cases could proceed
without interruption, the Tennessean said.
Americans Must Demand Accountability
In May 2003 the AAP stated, "All routinely recommended
infant vaccines currently sold in the U.S. are free
of thimerosal as a preservative and have been for more
than two years." Yet because the FDA maintained
it did not have enough evidence to justify a recall
of thimerosal vaccines distributed prior to the introduction
of thimerosal-free versions and they were allowed to
remain on the market until they became outdated. That
means that poisonous vaccines were still administered
until November 2002.
"Because the FDA chose not to recall thimerosal-containing
vaccines in 1999," the April 2003, House Committee
on Government Reform report concludes, "in addition
to all of those already injured, 8,000 children a day
continued to be placed at risk for overdose for at least
an additional two years."
The public needs to rise up and demand accountability
from the officials in charge of all regulatory agencies
involved in concealing information that could have saved
many families from the devastation caused by these ill-administered
vaccines.
In order to enroll in public schools, children are
forced to comply with mandatory vaccine programs, which
we now know include vaccines that may not have undergone
the scientific testing necessary to guarantee their
safety, and have the potential to harm millions of children
each year.
If families are expected to trust the Federal government's
approval of vaccines, they have a right to demand that
the vaccines administered are approved based on the
best scientific advice possible, without the undue influence
of money being handed to politicians, scientists, and
the heads of the regulatory agencies by the pharmaceutical
industry.
|
ATLANTA - The quaint bedtime saying
"sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite"
has become a grim mission statement for even the finest
hotels in the United States amid a resurgence of the
tiny bloodsucking pests.
Rising complaints about these unwelcome guests that
bite in the night are leading to red faces at reception
desks and an increase in the number of help calls, according
to pest control firms and entomologists.
Hotels battling infestations typically request discreet
and immediate service, and for good reason. Even though
they don't pose a health threat, bed bugs, which live
off human blood, can take a nasty bite out of a hotel's
reputation and business.
"If a facility is known to have bedbugs, it certainly
is going to cut into their client base," said Frank
Meek, technical director of Orkin Inc., a pest control
firm that saw a 20 percent jump in bed bug-related calls
in 2004.
Many came from the hospitality industry.
Concerns about the wingless insects are such that the
Atlanta-based firm, a unit of Rollins Inc., will soon
begin offering hotels and motels as well as private
homes a preventive treatment that it says will ensure
a bed bug-free environment for one year.
Besides embarrassing hotel managers and leaving guests
itchy and squeamish, bed bugs can trigger lawsuits.
A number of companies have been sued by guests who complained
of being bitten by the insects.
Even upscale hotels are not immune to litigation, and
bug specialists say the pests can thrive even in a spotlessly
clean room. [...]
Entomologists are not sure what
has caused the recent surge in bed bugs. Some
believe it is linked to a reduction in the use of powerful
pesticides that once kept the insects at bay.
Although common in many countries, bed bugs were all
but eliminated in America in the late 1940s and 1950s
when the insecticide DDT was used to rid infestations
in hotels, houses and boarding rooms. [...] |
Three separate mild
earthquakes jolted Marivan and Zarand, the two Iranian
cities in western and southeastern provinces of Kurdestan
and Kerman, Thursday and Friday.
A tremor measuring 3.9 on Richter scale shook Marivan
outskirts in Kurdestan Friday morning at 07:25 hours
local time (0255 GMT), reported the provincial seismological
center in Sanandaj.
The tremble caused no damage to properties, it added.
Marivan was also shaken last March by an earthquake
with its epicenter in Iraq, the center said.
Outskirts of Zarand was also reported to have experienced
two separate quakes Thursday, measuring 4.6 and 3.6
on Richter scale. |
ZÜRICH - Un tremblement
de terre de magnitude 4,1 sur l'échelle de Richter
a secoué le nord-ouest de la Suisse à 03h38.
L'épicentre était situé près
de Balstahl (SO). La secousse n'a pas présenté
de danger pour les centrales nucléaires de Gösgen
et Leibstadt. |
STRASBOURG - A moderate earthquake
measuring 3.8 on the Richter scale shook eastern France
early on Thursday, the Earth Sciences Observatory at
Strasbourg announced.
The quake struck in the area of the eastern town of
Mulhouse at 3:38 am, it said.
It put the epicentre of the quake at 47.29 degrees
north latitude and 7.67 degrees east longitude. |
A weekend earthquake
centered one mile north and northeast of Piedmont on the
Hayward Fault rattled nerves but didn't do any damage,
according to city officials.
The 3.4 magnitude temblor struck at 3:35 a.m. on May
8, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
The organization received 2,362 responses in 111 ZIP
codes about the earthquake, and set the maximum intensity
of the quake at IV--meaning there was light shaking and
no damage.
"It's business as usual to have small earthquakes,"
said U.S. Geological Survey geophysicist Jim Lienkaemper,
who has spent most of his recent career studying the Hayward
Fault.
"Eventually there will be a big earthquake (on the
northern segment of the Hayward Fault)," he said.
Lienkaemper said that a magnitude 3.9 earthquake that
struck in roughly the same area in September 2003, actually
had some effect on the fault creep that geologists measure.
Sunday's earthquake did not have such an effect, he said. |
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