Signs of the Times - 2003-09-05

This is the hottest and most explosive story behind the scenes in Washington in terms of how it could affect the Bush administration.

Ambassador Joseph Wilson has been turning up the heat in this situation. He revealed on Friday August 29 in a symposium in Washington the person in the Bush administration, who had leaked it out to the Washington Post that Wilson's wife is a CIA agent of 26 years. As a consequence of this leak, her entire team of overseas assets were liquidated.

The leaker, it turns out, was none other than the notorious Karl H. Rove, Bush's so-called White House advisor. Ambassador Wilson identified him as Karl Roverer, with the umlaut over the "o."

According to reliable sources, as well as our own Al Martin Raw.com investigation, Karl Rove is, in fact, the grandson of Karl Heinz Roverer, the gauleiter of Mecklenburg, who was also a partner and senior engineer of Roverer Sud-Deutche Ingenieurbüro AG. They built Birchenau, the concentration camp in Nazi Germany.

So Karl Rove has been identified as the leaker responsible for the deaths of more than 70 CIA assets overseas [...]

Wilson has announced that he will have his private attorneys petition the Department of Justice demanding that Roverer a/k/a Karl Rove be prosecuted under the 1982 Intelligence Identity Protection Act. This law specifically supposed to prevent what has happened in this case i.e. the Bush administration attempting to retaliate against a senior government official who tells the truth about that administration by revealing the identities of intelligence members within their own families.

This is a law that was specifically designed to prevent this from happening. It is a law that was proffered by the Democrats in 1982 that the Republicans fought and could not defeat. The law carries an automatic mandatory 10 years to life imprisonment as punishment. [...]

Wilson's problem is that he has no greater legal standing than that of a private citizen. The Department of Justice, unbeknownst to anybody, has had a lot of communications with Wilson's attorney and they're claiming that Wilson has no special status, that he's just an everyday citizen, so that any demand he would make for prosecution would carry no more weight than a private citizen or OFU.

(OFU is George Bush Senior's term to describe the average American citizen. It stands for "One Fodder Unit.")

Wilson is saying, however, that when Rove leaked this out, he was still formally employed by the State Department. Wilson, it should be remembered, was the former ambassador during the Clinton Regime, was formally rehired, and he received a paycheck from the Department of State. When these leaks took place he still had another three weeks left on his contract. Therefore he was still a United States Ambassador and that apparently is also a key legal point. [...]

The way the Bush Regime is trying to quash it is to slow it way down by exerting so much pressure against Pro-Bush Media. Please note that you have not heard one word about this on CNN or MSNBC or Fox News And not one word about this on ABC, CBS, or NBC. [...] See here for more on the story

When George Tenet, the director of the CIA, testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee last week about dubious intelligence data on the Iraqi threat that made it into President Bush's State of the Union address in January, he said an ad-hoc committee called the Office of Special Plans, set up by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, and other high-profile hawks, rewrote the intelligence information on Iraq that the CIA gathered and gave it to White House officials to help Bush build a case for war, according to three Senators on the intelligence committee. [...]

Ridge: Al-Qaeda network is growing, prisoners little help

WASHINGTON (AP) — Al-Qaeda operatives in custody are providing only the barest information on the terror network's activities, often proving too canny to be broken down quickly during interrogation, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said Wednesday.

(above) Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge explains, using his fingers, the size of the al-Qaeda threat.

Still, through the prisoners and other intelligence sources, U.S. understanding of the network is growing, Ridge said in an interview with The Associated Press.

"We are still their No. 1 target," Ridge said. "If there's a consistent theme to all the intelligence we've received over the past two-plus years, it's their interest in undermining the United States economy, with an emphasis on aviation and infrastructure."

Ridge provided a glimpse into the ongoing interrogation of top al-Qaeda operatives such as Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah and others captured in the worldwide dragnet since Sept. 11, 2001.

"They're schooled. They're practiced. And extracting information from them is a very time-consuming, arduous, difficult, painstaking, complex task," he said.

Comment: We are not surprised Tom, we too would find it a "time-consuming, arduous, difficult, painstaking, complex task" to try to extract factual information from fictitious people, belonging to a fictitious group about fictitious terror attacks. But we know you can do it Tom!

The leaders of Germany and France have rejected Washington's new U.N. draft resolution on Iraq, saying it does not transfer political power to an Iraqi government quickly enough.

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and French President Jacques Chirac added Thursday the draft does not give the United Nations a large enough role in post-war Iraq. They say they hope Washington will be open to changes in the resolution.

The United States' draft calls for a multinational peacekeeping force under the "unified command" of the United States. It also calls on Iraq's U.S.-appointed Governing Council to work with U.S. and U.N. officials to produce a timetable for holding elections and drafting a new Iraqi constitution. But it leaves political and military control of Iraq in the hands of the United States.

The U.N. Security Council is set to hold an informal meeting on the draft Friday.

The developments came as U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made an unexpected visit to Iraq Thursday to meet with U.S. commanders and troops. He told reporters he wants more Iraqi and international forces, not additional U.S. troops, to bolster security in Iraq. He added plans are also underway to recruit former members of the Iraqi military into a new army. Commander of coalition forces Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez told reporters Thursday that he had enough troops to accomplish the tasks at hand. But he added more would be welcome to help with upcoming security issues, such as controlling the nation's borders and guarding against terror attacks.

"Progressive controlled disarmament would proceed to the point where no nation would have the military power to challenge the progressively strengthened UN Peace Force." - US State Dept. publication 7277: Freedom From War.

"My vision of a New World Order forsees a U.N. with a revitalized peacekeeping function. It is the sacred principles enshrined in the U.N. Charter to which we henceforth pledge our allegiance." -George Bush ex-president, addressing the General Assembly of the U.N.,February 1, 1992.

"To achieve One World Government it is necessary to remove from the minds of men their individualism, their loyalty to family traditions and national identification." - Brock Chisholm, former director of UN World Health Organisation

"It seems to many of us that if we are to avoid the eventual catastrophic world conflict, we must strengthen the United Nations as a first step toward world government patterned after our own government with a legislature, executive and judiciary, and police to enforce its international laws and keep the peace. To do that, of course, we Americans will have to yield up some of our sovereignty. That would be a bitter pill. It would take a lot of courage, a lot of faith in the New Order." - Walter Cronkite speaking at the U.N. to those assembled including Hillary Clinton, calling openly for world government – and an end to the notion of U.S. sovereignty. October 1999

"The Bush Administration, would like to make the U.N. a cornerstone of its plans to construct a New World Order."
- Time Magazine, September 17, 1990

"A world government can intervene militarily in the internal affairs of any nation when it disapproves of their activities." -Kofi Anan, U.N. Secretary General

Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov says any decision on whether to send Russian troops to Iraq will depend on whatever resolution the U.N. Security Council may adopt. Mr. Ivanov says Russia wants to see a unanimous resolution that would grant the United Nations more control over the situation in Iraq. .

Comment: "But it became clear as time went on that in Mr. Bush's mind the New World Order was founded on a convergence of goals and interests between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, so strong and permanent that they would work as a team through the U.N. Security Council." -A. M. Rosenthal, in the New York Times January 1991 "Unless sanctions are eased quickly, Iraq will face malnutrition, disease and a food emergency unprecedented in modern times."

Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said: "Preliminarily speaking, I can say that this initiative deserves attention since the content of the proposed resolution reflects those principles which Russia has consistently championed."

The statement came a day after the Russian Defence Minister said that Moscow might send peacekeepers to Iraq as part of an international force. [...]

US 'corporate invasion' brings no respite from war

By Justin Huggler and Seb Walker in Baghdad
05 September 2003

Donald Rumsfeld flew to Baghdad yesterday. Not to a skyline bristling with cranes but to a city where there is still no electricity for much of the day because less power is being generated than under Saddam Hussein.

Almost five months after the overthrow of Saddam, entire neighbourhoods are still without phone lines. The government offices bombed in the war are still blackened shells. Next to them stand the burnt-out ruins of ministries and shopping centres set on fire in the looting that followed.

But the US Defence Secretary was unlikely to see those, cocooned in security to keep him from the seething anger against the American occupation. Much of Baghdad is still an armed American camp. The country's infrastructure is in a worse state than it was under Saddam.

One of the accusations levelled at the US invasion was that it was simply paving the way for a subsequent American corporate invasion. But despite billions of dollars of contracts won by American companies, there are no visible signs of reconstruction at all.[...]

The oil industry - Iraq's only big export sector - is producing less oil than it did under Saddam immediately before the war. Production is around 1.7 million barrels a day, compared with 3 million a day before the war. Paul Bremer, the US civilian administrator, does not expect to get oil production back to pre-war levels before October next year.

Comment: What is clear is that the US invaded Iraq, killed 10,000 civilians and plundered its resources with absolutely no justification (if indeed there ever could be any for such action). Due to incessant media propaganda, it may be difficult for many people to accept this as fact, but the facts are there before our eyes. If some semblance of doubt still remains, then we suggest a review of the history of US foreign policy to understand that this aggression in Iraq is only the latest in a long line of similarly brutal attacks throughout the globe over the course of the last century.

BILL ANDREWS

THE United States allowed members of Osama bin Laden’s family to jet out of the US in the immediate aftermath of September 11, even as American airspace was closed.

Former White House counter-terrorism tsar Richard Clarke said the Bush administration sanctioned the repatriation of about 140 high-ranking Saudi Arabians, including relatives of the al-Qaida chief.

"Somebody brought to us for approval the decision to let an aeroplane filled with Saudis, including members of the Bin Laden family, leave the country," he said.

Mr Clarke said he checked with FBI officials, who gave the go ahead. "So I said: ‘Fine, let it happen.’"

Comment: The above article is indicative of the deep slumber into which the American population have fallen. The evidence for government complicity in 9/11 is overwhelming, yet it appears that the vast majority of people do not want to know. At this stage, if Bush were to appear on TV and say: "yes we knew about 9/11, we let it happen", it is likely that barely a response would be registered from the American public. Such is the level of programmed apathy.

TEHRAN, IRAN – Iranians mourned this week the consequences of Anglo-American regime change as they marked the 50th anniversary of a CIA coup that toppled their democratically elected prime minister.

At a time when the United States has adopted a policy of preemptive action in its war on terrorists - and is portrayed here as encouraging student street protests - the 1953 overthrow of Mohammad Mossadegh's government is taking on fresh relevance for some Iranians.

"This year, many political groups in Iran are showing more interest in the history of the [US-orchestrated] military coup," says Ibrahim Yazdi, a former foreign minister and leading member of a political party that traces its origins to Mossadegh's National Front. "Now it seems that the Americans are pushing towards the same direction again. That shows they have not learned anything from history."

Organized by the CIA and the British SIS to secure Iran's oil resources from a possible Soviet takeover, the coup marked America's first intervention in the Middle East. Its aftershocks are still being felt.

The end of Iran's first democratic government ushered in more than two decades of dictatorship by Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi, who relied on US aid and arms. The anti-American backlash in 1979 shook the whole region and helped spread Islamic militancy.

"If there had not been a military coup, there would not have been 25 years of the Shah's brutal regime, there would not have been a revolution in 1979 and a government of clerics," says Mr. Yazdi, who served briefly as foreign minister in the first cabinet after the fall of the Shah. "What we have now is a result of the coup."

Today, Mr. Mossadegh remains a hero to many Iranians who believe he fought against colonial exploitation and dictatorial rule during his 26 months in office. Perhaps because he represents a future denied and what might have been, his memory has approached myth.

Mossadegh incurred the wrath of Britain by nationalizing the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and then argued his case successfully at the UN Security Council.

After considering military action, Britain opted for a coup d'état. President Harry Truman rejected the idea, but when Dwight Eisenhower took over the White House, he ordered the CIA to embark on one of its first covert operations against a foreign government.

A new book on the coup - "All the Shah's Men," by New York Times reporter Stephen Kinzer - describes how the CIA and the British helped to undermine Mossadegh's government through bribery, libel, and orchestrated riots. Agents posing as communists threatened religious leaders, while the US ambassador lied to the prime minister about alleged attacks on American nationals.

In an allusion to the US-led invasion of Iraq, the daily Yas-e No wrote that some Iranians might wrongly assume the best way to solve the country's problems now would be to turn to a foreign power: "If a foreign country comes to an area, it will think about its own national interest first and not care about the people's rights."[...]

In the 60's, 70's and 80's, - under the pretense of 'fighting the spread of communism' - overthrow legitimate democracies around the world that will not play ball the American way. Help right wing extremist leaders take control. In this way secure control of the country's various resources and contribute to the 'overpopulation problem'

In the 90's and 00's - under the pretense of 'fighting the spread of terrorism' - overthrow the same right wing extremists that you placed in power, because they are 'a threat to our national security' or they 'possess WMD'. Either concoct evidence or just ignore the need for any. This time however simply take complete control of the country turning it into a US protectorate.

The little Secret Service agent at the National Constitution Center seems more interested in John Ashcroft's tight USA Patriot Act spin-tour schedule than any constitutional rights when he stops me from following a flock of television reporters heading for a brief presser with the man who could not even beat a corpse. "You can't go in here," says the little Secret Service agent, (…) "I am sorry," she says as the last of the camera crews whiz by. "But he is not talking to print. Only talking to television." Pens may no longer be as mighty as the camera, but apparently they make Ashcroft and his guardians squeamish. I protest and try to follow TV. This time around the little Secret Service agent is not so fun. He orders me escorted away from the scene. […]

The Marriott hotel in Jakarta was still burning when Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Indonesia's security minister, explained the implications of the day's attack: "Those who criticise about human rights being breached must understand that all the bombing victims are more important than any human rights issue." In a sentence, we got the best summary yet of the philosophy underlying Bush's so-called War on Terror (WOT).

Terrorism doesn't just blow up buildings; it blasts every other issue off the political map. The spectre of terrorism - real and exaggerated - has become a shield of impunity, protecting governments around the world from scrutiny for their human rights abuses. […]

The Hong Kong government has postponed indefinitely plans to introduce controversial security legislation.

The anti-subversion bill sparked in July the territory's biggest political crisis in years. Huge public protests against the bill rocked Hong Kong's government and alarmed leaders in Beijing.

"We will consult the public again and before that we will not legislate," Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa told reporters on Friday. [...]

Comment: What about a nice terror attack? That would sort out the pesky meddling public. They wouldn't be long giving up their precious freedoms then! We recommend the Hong Kong government contact Mossad for details.

By Professor Alastair Hay Dr Kelly's Friend And Colleague

YESTERDAY'S hearing shows there was no evidence of Iraqi chemical weapons.

Baghdad's capacity was over-emphasised which might suggest what was being said was: The threat from weapons of mass destruction was not imminent.

It could be in the future, but if that was the case why wasn't weapons inspector Hans Blix allowed to carry on his work in Iraq? [...]

Tony Blair's case for invading Iraq was in tatters last night after damning public criticism by two senior intelligence officials of the way the September weapons dossier was manipulated by government "spin merchants".

Brian Jones, who headed the intelligence department dedicated to investigating Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programme, told the Hutton inquiry there was deep disquiet among his colleagues about the way significant evidence they had supplied for the dossier was altered. He said evidence in the dossier was "over-egged", the language was too strong and there were misgivings over the now-infamous claim that Iraq could launch weapons of mass destruction in 45 minutes.

The other official, identified to the Hutton inquiry as "Mr A" and described as the country's foremost authority on chemical warfare, disclosed how a claim in the dossier about chemical weapons was inserted despite protests from him and other experts. He wrote in an e-mail to David Kelly, whose apparent suicide is being examined at the inquiry, that the dossier would become "tomorrow's chip wrappers''. Mr A told the inquiry: "The perception was that the dossier had been round the houses several times in order to find a form of words that would strengthen certain political objectives.''

The inquiry was told that the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), which compiled the dossier, did not even meet to discuss the final draft of the document before John Scarlett, the committee's chairman, signed it off. Such was the level of unhappiness about alleged political interference that Dr Jones wrote a memo to his superiors in the Defence Intelligence Staff listing his concerns a few days before the dossier was published on 24 September.

Dr Jones, who recently retired, told the inquiry: "The impression I had was that on 19 September the shutters were coming down on this particular paper. The discussion and argument had been concluded. It was an impression I had at the time that our reservations about the dossier were not being reflected in the final version."

Some of his staff were "concerned and unhappy'' about "all aspects" of the dossier, Dr Jones said. The chief chemical authority on the team - not Mr A - had particularly strong reservations. "They were really about the tendency in certain areas, from his point of view, to, shall we say, over-egg certain assessments, particularly in relation to the production of chemical weapons," he said.Describing himself as "probably the most senior and experienced intelligence official working on WMD" - a claim not challenged by the Ministry of Defence - he stressed the disquiet felt about the way information supplied by his department had been used for the sake of political expediency.

Dr Jones's use of the phrase "over-egg" was yet another addition to the ever-growing lexicon of the inquiry, prompting comparisons with the expression that has dominated proceedings so far: "sexed-up"[..]

A key aide to British Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon contradicted his boss's testimony Thursday at the inquiry into the death of weapons expert David Kelly. Kelly was the Ministry of Defence weapons expert who was the source of a BBC story claiming the British government exaggerated intelligence reports on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

In July, days after being tied to the story, Kelly was found dead near in home in Oxford, his wrist slashed in an apparent suicide. Hoon told the inquiry he was not involved in the government decision to reveal Kelly as the source of the story. But on Thursday, Hoon's special adviser, Richard Taylor, said Hoon was at the meeting and it was held in Hoon's office. Political analysts said the revelation could end Hoon's career.

Comment: Well it's obviously a misunderstanding...the problem is the definition of the word 'office' you see.
"Mr Hoon's office" can have many meanings, and therein lies the solution to the problem. See? Politics is very complicated, the average citizen can't really get their head around it. Best just to let the politicians handle it...oh and by the way the word "lie" has many meanings too.

Israeli troops killed a Palestinian militant and arrested three during a West Bank gun battle today before blowing up the seven storey apartment building where the men had been hiding
Several loud blasts were heard during the two hour battle in Nablus, the West Bank’s largest town.

The military said the wanted men threw grenades. Israeli soldiers blew up the badly damaged building, which had been evacuated, bringing down the tall structure that housed 28 apartments.[...]

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli commandos killed a West Bank commander of the militant group Hamas in a raid on Friday that could deal a blow to reformist Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas's battle for political survival. [...]

QALQILYA, WEST BANK – Yusif Josef Ramsi is still farming, if you can call it that. The West Bank farmer, never a major landowner, once tended his seven-acre plot of fig and olive trees with pride. Now, what's left of his patrimony sits in a few dozen black plastic buckets.

"The rest is all over there," says Mr. Ramsi, pointing a gnarled hand beyond the sleek gray expanse of Israel's security barrier, just a few feet away.

At 26 feet high, the barrier around Qalqilya is the most striking example of Israel's attempt to physically separate itself from the Palestinians.

Israelis say the structure will end the militant attacks that have scarred their cities and left so many families in grief.But the barrier's detours into the West Bank have claimed hundreds of acres of fertile Palestinian land, Ramsi's included, leading Palestinians to question whether security is Israel's only consideration. "We'll have a Palestinian state you can fit in a Coca-Cola bottle," Ramsi jokes bitterly.

Concerns about the barrier's route have brought it center stage. President Bush has raised it with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. The State Department is proposing sanctions against Israel for construction in Palestinian areas. While Israeli officials stress the barrier's security function, Israelis outside government say it is also driven by a desire to define the borders of a Palestinian state. As such, it could derail the shaky Israeli-Palestinian peace plan now under discussion.

"[The barrier] will profoundly change the geographical and political landscape of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," RAND Corporation analyst Bruce Hoffman wrote recently.

The barrier is also the latest manifestation of a tragic trend in this conflict, in which the long-term security that Israelis desire and the state that Palestinians envision are in danger of becoming mutually exclusive possibilities.[..]

It’s corporate America, not government, that is emerging as the clearest embodiment of Big Brother — the all-seeing, all-knowing entity in Orwell’s novel “1984.”

With technology already available or on its way, corporations can block your e-mail from particular senders, stop you from printing documents deemed too sensitive and record instant-messaging conversations among workers.

“People worry a lot about the FBI spying on them,” said Lewis Maltby, president of National Workrights Institute. “But your chances of being spied on by the FBI are 1 in a million. Your chances of being spied on by your boss are better than 50-50.”

Bright flashes in the California sky Thursday evening were likely a small meteor or debris from space burning up in the Earth's atmosphere, authorities said.

Nothing hit the ground but the clear sky over parts of the state made for a spectacular light show, said Sheryl Tankersley, a spokeswoman for the state Office of Emergency Services.

Bluish white lights reportedly moving west to northeast were seen at 8:24 p.m. in Palm Springs and as far north as Napa, Amador and Merced counties, according to witnesses and the OES.

A brief North American Aerospace Defense Command investigation concluded that the lights were a small asteroid or space debris. Vandenberg Air Force Base reported it had not tested missiles or made any other launch Thursday night.

Ginger Jeffries, a weathercaster at KESQ-TV in Palm Springs, called the light "extremely bright."
"I was looking at it and going 'Mars isn't over there, what is that?'"

"We had dust storms overhead, you couldn't see much at all in the sky," she said. "But this was as clear and bright as anything."

[...] There are several impact craters visible on the Earth's surface, one of them is the Haughton crater in Canada, formed 23 million years ago, but many terrestrial craters are now covered by water or forests, or have been eroded away over thousands of years. There is now compelling evidence that the death of the dinosaurs was accelerated by the impact of an asteroid that struck the Earth in the Yucatán peninsula, off the coast of Mexico.

The Earth is in danger not only from asteroid strikes but also from their icy equivalents, comets. They could wreak havoc if they were to collide with our world. These objects usually live far away beyond even Pluto but can be jolted from their usual orbits by passing stars or gigantic gas clouds. [...]

TOKYO -- A crater from a meteorite impact more than 20,000 years ago has been discovered in the Japanese Alps, an amateur geologist announced this week. The crater is the first found in this country.

Masao Sakamoto said the crater stretches 900 yards in diameter and spreads out across rugged, heavily forested land in Nagano prefecture (state), about 100 miles west of Tokyo. [...]

WASHINGTON, Sept. 4 (UPI) -- Government scientific advisers and officials painted a grim picture Thursday of the consequences of a terror attack on the nation's power grid, saying that any outage that lasted longer than a couple of days would reduce urban centers to chaos and collapse the economy.

"With power out beyond a day or two, both food and water supplies would soon fail. Transportation systems would be at a standstill ... natural gas pressure would decline and some would lose gas altogether -- not good in the winter time ... Communications would be spotty or non-existent. ... All in all, our cities would not be very nice places to be... Martial law would likely follow," Paul H. Gilbert of the National Research Council told a congressional panel. [...]

US derides 'chocolate makers' for EU military headquarters plans

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States sneered at plans by four European countries to create an autonomous European military command headquarters near Brussels separate from NATO, referring to the idea's proponents as "chocolate makers."

In unusually blunt language that drew surprised gasps from reporters, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher scoffed at Belgium, France, Germany and Luxembourg for continuing to support the proposal that they first introduced at a mini-summit in April.

He described the April meeting as one between "four countries that got together and had a little bitty summit" and then referred to them collectively as "the chocolate makers." [...]

Comment: The psychopaths are getting braver, meeting little resistance to their crude brutality and barbaric world view. As the mask of sanity falls we will witness more of their inane, ignorant bravado. Perhaps one in a series of ploys to have the whole world not only hate the U.S. government, but U.S. citizens as well. Herding them in as they demand big brother protect them from the rest of the world, having no idea why they are hated except what the media tells them ("they hate our freedom").

Washington suffered a double blow in its plans for Iraq yesterday as France and Germany balked at proposals for an international force while the Prime Minister gave a cautious response to a call for 5,000 extra British troops. [...]

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Denying any anti-American sentiment on his part, actor Johnny Depp (news) said on Thursday that quotes attributed to him as likening the United States to a "dumb puppy" were inaccurate and taken out of context.

"I am an American. I love my country and have great hopes for it," Depp said in a statement released by his Los Angeles-based publicist. "It is for this reason that I speak candidly and sometimes critically about it. I have benefited greatly from the freedom that exists in my country and for this I am eternally grateful." [...]

Comment: When did criticizing U.S. government policies become "Anti-American"? When did being a patriot come to mean that one must say "all hail the king"?

The Myth: Iraqis, prior to occupation, lived in little beige tents set up on the sides of little dirt roads all over Baghdad. The men and boys would ride to school on their camels, donkeys and goats. These schools were larger versions of the home units and for every 100 students, there was one turban-wearing teacher who taught the boys rudimentary math (to count the flock) and reading. Girls and women sat at home, in black burkas, making bread and taking care of 10-12 children.

The Truth: Iraqis lived in houses with running water and electricity. Thousands of them own computers. Millions own VCRs and VCDs. Iraq has sophisticated bridges, recreational centers, clubs, restaurants, shops, universities, schools, etc. Iraqis love fast cars (especially German cars) and the Tigris is full of little motorboats that are used for everything from fishing to water-skiing.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that most people choose to ignore the little prefix "re" in the words "rebuild" and "reconstruct". For your information, "re" is of Latin origin and generally means "again" or "anew".

In other words, there was something there in the first place. We have hundreds of bridges. We have one of the most sophisticated network of highways in the region: you can get from Busrah, in the south, to Mosul, in the north, without once having to travel upon those little, dusty, dirt roads they show you on Fox News. We had a communications system so advanced, it took the Coalition of the Willing three rounds of bombing, on three separate nights, to damage the Ma’moun Communications Tower and silence our telephones.

Yesterday, I read how it was going to take up to $90 billion to rebuild Iraq. Bremer was shooting out numbers about how much it was going to cost to replace buildings and bridges and electricity, etc.

Listen to this little anecdote. One of my cousins works in a prominent engineering company in Baghdad – we’ll call the company H. This company is well known for designing and building bridges all over Iraq. My cousin, a structural engineer, is a bridge freak. He spends hours talking about pillars and trusses and steel structures to anyone who’ll listen.

As May was drawing to a close, his manager told him that someone from the CPA [Coalition Provisional Authority] wanted the company to estimate the building costs of replacing the New Diyala Bridge on the South East end of Baghdad. He got his team together, they went out and assessed the damage, decided it wasn’t too extensive, but it would be costly. They did the necessary tests and analyses (mumblings about soil composition and water depth, expansion joints and girders) and came up with a number they tentatively put forward: $300,000. This included new plans and designs, raw materials (quite cheap in Iraq), labor, contractors, travel expenses, etc.

Let’s pretend my cousin is a dolt. Let’s pretend he hasn’t been working with bridges for over 17 years. Let’s pretend he didn’t work on replacing at least 20 of the 133 bridges damaged during the first Gulf War. Let’s pretend he’s wrong and the cost of rebuilding this bridge is four times the number they estimated – let’s pretend it will actually cost $1,200,000. Let’s just use our imagination.

A week later, the New Diyala Bridge contract was given to an American company. This particular company estimated the cost of rebuilding the bridge would be around – brace yourselves – $50 million! [...]

Comment: We aren't sure if this blogger is who she says she is, others are discussing this issue, but the points made in the above clip are relevant.

London - The Defence Ministry on Wednesday announced that it will pay compensation to 11 Iraqis who were allegedly beaten by British soldiers during a raid in southern Iraq aimed at tracking down the killers of six Royal Military Police officers.[...]

AFP
Friday September 5, 4:37 PM

US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld took a first-hand look at Iraq's security needs amid growing alarm at rising violence and communal tensions that have plagued the US-led occupation.

Rumsfeld helicoptered to the town of Tikrit some 175 kilometers (110 miles) north of Baghdad, the stronghold of ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, to meet with members of the US 4th Infantry Division trying to tame an increasingly troubled region.

Addressing the troops, Rumsfeld told them they were succeeding in the fight against remnants of the Baathist regime despite their casualties.

"Your service has in many instances been tough and difficult," he said, adding that he had visited wounded soldiers in military hospitals in the United States.

But he added: "What you're doing -- know it's important, know it is succeeding, and it is still succeeding. [...]

The father of a US soldier who died in the Iraqi ambush that turned Jessica Lynch into a national heroine has criticised her for signing a million dollar book deal.

Randy Kiehl said the book, which is due out in November, will taint the memory of the soldiers killed in the attack.

He told a TV station in Comfort, Texas: "Pretty severe, isn't it? That she makes money off the death of my son and off the deaths of so many others." [...]

Mr Kiehl said: "Where's the million dollar book deal for the other members of the 507th who were killed? How do they tell their story? Now, she's a profiteer because what she did was in the line of duty." [...]

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is moving to block the financial assets of 10 people allegedly associated with an al-Qaida-linked Southeast Asian terror group believed to be behind last year's deadly Bali bombings.

The Treasury Department says they are connected to the Jemaah Islamiyah terror group and thus were being added Friday to the U.S. government's list of specially designated global terrorists. [...]

Agence France-Presse
Baghdad, September 4

The US-led coalition has hired former intelligence agents of Saddam Hussein as it seeks to get tough in the battle against foreign Islamists and loyalists of the ousted dictator, a pro-US faction said.

"They've started recruiting ex-Mukhabarat," said Ali Abdul Amir, spokesman for the Iraqi National Accord, a group with longstanding ties to the US defence establishment that counts Iraq's new interim interior minister Nuri Badran among its members.

"The coalition has been recruiting them. Iraqi parties have also been helping recruit," said Abdul Amir.

"Many of them are ex-intelligence officers who went into exile, but others are being tapped from the old regime, as long as it is clear they did not commit abuses against the Iraqi people."[..]

Amnesty International is calling for an investigation into claims that Serbian police tortured suspects held after the assassination of Zoran Djindjic, the pro-reform prime minister.

"We believe that the use of torture and ill-treatment during 'Operation Sabre' was widespread,'' the human rights organisation said yesterday. Operation Sabre was the code-name for the police operation that led to the detention of 10,000 people after the killing. Mr Djindjic was shot through the heart by a sniper outside the main government building in Belgrade on 12 March.

"Allegations of torture by security forces of detainees include asphyxiation by taping bags over the head, beatings, electric shocks to the head and body, and mock executions,'' the Amnesty report said. [...]

The Nigerian navy said Friday a new ship donated by the United States will be used to curb oil smuggling from the west African country.

A navy spokesman told AFP the new vessel, "NN Nwanbe", was the latest of three Amercian ships donated to Nigeria to strengthen defence ties between the two countries. [...]

People who knew Brian Douglas Wells can't believe he could have masterminded any bank heist, particularly a plot as bizarre as the one the 46-year-old deliveryman has been linked to for a week.

But a former FBI profiler tells CBS News she thinks it was a "fairly elaborate suicide." [...]

FBI Agent Kenneth McCabe said through a spokesman Wednesday he has never heard of such a collar-bomb device being used in America but that he was aware of at least one similar case in Colombia. [...]

One of Wells' co-workers, Robert Pinetti, 43, was found dead Sunday at his home in nearby Lawrence Park Township, Pa., likely from a drug overdose.

On the Early Show Wednesday, McCabe said so far, there is "no link" between the two deaths, but former FBI profiler DeLong thinks there is. [...]

A BABY boy died from a ruptured liver after his father squeezed him because he was crying, a court heard yesterday. [...]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. employers cut jobs in August at the fastest pace since March, the government said in an unexpectedly grim report on Friday showing Americans are struggling to find jobs even as other areas of the economy are recovering. [...]

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- A judge revoked the security clearance of a janitor at defense contractor Lockheed Martin because of a Defense Department policy that flags workers in financial trouble.

The janitor, Michael Lynch, had argued that nearly all his back taxes had been paid and he had an unblemished 19-year work record at Lockheed's Moorestown, N.J., plant. Administrative Judge James A. Young ruled Aug. 26 that although Lynch had made progress, he admits that if another family emergency arose, he may let those bills lapse again.

Lynch has 15 days to appeal. His lawyer, James Katz, declined comment Thursday. Lockheed Martin has promised Lynch a job even if he lost the clearance.Defense Department policy states that people in financial trouble may be tempted to sell military secrets to escape debt. The department asked the judge to revoke Lynch's clearance after finding out he had a 1993 bankruptcy and an unpaid city tax bill.

In the 1980s, Lynch, 50, was out of work for three years after surgery to remove a brain tumor, then in the early 1990s, his wife stopped working to help their blind daughter with her studies. The city tax bill went unpaid when Lynch and his wife chose to pay their daughter's tuition instead.

A 31-year-old man accused of stabbing three of his children to death has been charged with murder.

Taxi driver Fa'afua Lameko is charged with three counts of murder and two of attempted murder. He is in hospital recovering from self-inflicted knife wounds.

Lameko allegedly used a kitchen knife to murder his 2-year-old daughter Loretta Sarai Lameko, 4-year-old son Fa'anuu Lorenzo Lameko and 4-month-old daughter Janelle Ramona Fautua at an apartment in Brisbane on Wednesday.

The Samoan national also allegedly stabbed his 11-month-old son, who has not been named, and his wife, Piula Lameko, before he began stabbing himself during the attack, police said. [...]

Spanish doctors removed organs from holiday girl

By Nicola Woolcock
(Filed: 05/09/2003)

A child who died on holiday had her internal organs removed without her parents' permission, the Foreign Office said yesterday.

Megan Jones, two, died of natural causes in Tenerife in April after contracting a virus. The removal of the organs was discovered only when a second inquest and post mortem examination were carried out in Merseyside. Her body had been packed with surgical padding.[...]

LOS ANGELES (AP) - An Australian judge has ordered a Los Angeles man to pay $61,000 for defaming an Australian journalism professor on several Web sites.

The judge ruled against Bill White this week after finding White's allegations that Trevor Cullen was an academic fraud and child molester were untrue. Master David Wallace Newnes ruled in favor of Cullen, a professor at Edith Cowan University, at the Supreme Court of Western Australia in Perth.

"The conduct of the defendant can be attributed only to a conscious desire on his part to cause the plaintiff the maximum amount of damage, hurt and embarrassment by what amounts to a campaign of deliberately offensive vilification," said Newnes.

White said in an e-mail he did not know of the judgment but said it would be "not enforceable in the United States. It is void."

White, 60, created numerous similar sites about people around the world who he says refused to help him uncover an alleged sex scandal at a small Catholic university in Papua New Guinea in 1996.

TEL AVIV (Reuters) - An Israeli scientist said on Wednesday his team had found a way to break into mobile phone calls on ubiquitous GSM networks, potentially allowing eavesdroppers to listen in on conversations and even take on a caller's identity.

The GSM Association, representing companies which depend on the world's largest mobile system, which is used by more than 860 million consumers in 197 countries, confirmed the security hole but said it would be expensive and complicated to exploit. [...]

"Using a special device it's possible to steal calls and impersonate callers in the middle of a call as it's happening," [...]

SAN FRANCISCO - A new Internet worm has surfaced that criticizes British Prime Minister Tony Blair and launches an attack attempting to knock a U.K. government Web site off the Internet, anti-virus software provider Sophos said today.[...]

SEPTEMBER 04, 2003 ( COMPUTERWORLD ) - Antivirus researchers late yesterday discovered what is being described as the first of potentially many "9/11" anniversary viruses spreading on the Internet.[...]

"Like previous worm viruses, the 9/11 virus collects e-mail lists from Microsoft Outlook in order to spread more rapidly, using the provocative headline about 9/11 to get the unsuspecting user to open the e-mail," said Kwon. "In this case, there also appears to be an intention of causing fear, as well as a possible political motivation."[...]

New Mexico researchers have developed a portable device to aid rural areas of the state in the early detection of viruses, specifically the hantavirus.[...]

It can even be used to detect pathogens, such as anthrax, in the event of a bioterrorist attack, she said.[...]

MALAYSIA has bought the rights from a Japanese firm to the world's smallest microchip, which can be embedded in everything from currencies to human bodies and will boost the global anti-terror war, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said.

Mahathir said the revolutionary miniature chip, developed by Japanese firm FEC, could be combined with current technology to "greatly prevent the possibilities of terrorist acts" as well as banknote and document counterfeiting. [...]

CYBERJAYA: Malaysia will produce an advanced microchip the size of dust motes that can be used for a broad range of applications, from fighting forgery to killing cancer cells. [...]

Thu Sep 4, 1:18 PM ET

LITZECHIEN, Taiwan (AFP) - Taiwan staged its biggest ever live-fire military wargames here, firing sophisticated missiles and mobilizing high-tech weaponry in a mock "invasion" by rival China.

The exercise, staged in the northeastern Ilan county and codenamed "Han Kuang 19" (Han Glory), was aimed at fully illustrating the defense capability of Taiwan's armed forces, the defense ministry said on Thursday.

The World Bank and aid agencies are accused of causing famine and ignoring corruption and incompetence in revelations that will send shockwaves through the development community.

In a book to be published this week, Peter Griffiths, a leading international aid consultant, exposes how measures by the World Bank preventing the Sierra Leone government from importing food in favour of the private sector caused disaster in the late Eighties.

In Malawi in the Nineties, Griffiths witnessed the failure of a $20 million credit scheme despite similar schemes getting nowhere.

Griffiths paints a picture in which World Bank staff are promoted only for implementing rigid orthodoxies while whistleblowers questioning government corruption are expelled.

'Most of the Washington package of privatisation and free markets still applies,' said Griffiths, whose attack comes as campaign groups line up to attack the World Trade Organisation ahead of next week's trade talks in Cancun.

Campaigners have written to senior ministers urging them to back moves to make the WTO less opaque. Research out on Tuesday will reveal the arm-twisting negotiations between powerful nations and the world's poorest countries.

Comment: There is a long list of related articles at the URL for the story above.

Mexico Files Trio of WTO Complaints Against US

GENEVA - Mexico has gone on the trade offensive against the US, bringing three separate complaints against its northern neighbor and NAFTA partner to the World Trade Organization. Citing a "catalog" of violations of WTO rules, Mexican WTO Ambassador Eduardo Perez Motta demanded reimbursement of more than 10 years' worth of dumping duties charged by the United States on imports of Mexican cement, and also asked for rulings on the legality of duties on oil pipes and steel plate.

"The only thing we are asking for is a [dispute settlement] panel with enough vision to grant us justice," Perez Motta told a meeting of the WTO's dispute settlement body.

All three requests were blocked by the US which said it was "disappointed" by the demands.[..]

KUALA LUMPUR: International Monetary Fund (IMF) managing director Horst Koehler on Wednesday backed a proposed Asian Monetary Fund (AMF) but urged the region to remain open to the rest of the world.

“I think it’s stupid that when the idea first came up, there was such hostility,” he said when asked about the creation of an AMF independent of the IMF at a luncheon organised by the Malaysian press club.

“It’s best to leave it to the region. If they feel that the AMF is the answer, then they should go ahead. It’s your right in Asia.

“My advice is, be open to the rest of the world because if you build up new walls, it would not help Asia,” Mr Koehler cautioned.

The AMF idea, first proposed by Japan in 1997 after the region was thrown into economic turmoil, was withdrawn after strong US opposition. But many regional leaders had supported Japan, which later refined the plan to complement IMF loans through a regional currency support mechanism.[..]

SALALA, Liberia (Reuters) - Humanitarian workers in Liberia warned of disaster on Thursday as thousands of refugees flooded into already packed camps in the West African country after reports of fighting upsetting the fragile peace process. [...]

NORTHERN Ireland is hoping to recreate the spirit of the Live Aid Ethiopian famine appeal with a concert in Tyrone next week.

Local artists and guests will appear at Dungannon Leisure Centre on September 11 to highlight the plight of the Horn of Africa region, which is experiencing the worst drought in living memory.[...]

An earthquake measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale shook New Zealand's South Island late on Thursday local time, government scientists said.[...]

SAN FRANCISCO - An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 3.9 sent a sharp, short jolt through the San Francisco Bay area Thursday evening.[...]

China's capacity to monitor and forecast earthquakes has continued to improve, according to a statement from the China Seismological Bureau released Thursday.

According to the press release, earthquakes measuring above 4 on the Richter Scale can be monitored effectively.[...]

NAPA, Calif. -- Firefighters continued to battle 60 fires caused by a siege of lightning strikes in Northern California, but fire officials warned Thursday that the number could grow during the day.[...]

Ore. Wildfires Grow, Force Evacuations

CAMP SHERMAN, Ore. - Two big wildfires jumped containment lines Thursday in central Oregon, again forcing the evacuation of about 300 residents of this mountain community, officials said.[...]

STEINHATCHEE, Fla. - A growing tropical depression in the eastern Gulf of Mexico sent heavy rain ahead of itself into Florida early Friday, bringing more gloom to areas soaked by one of the wettest summers in recent years.

The Sea Hag Marina at the mouth of the Steinhatchee River was virtually deserted Thursday, a steady rain falling. A downpour — as much as 15 inches — was expected during the weekend as the depression, likely to be Tropical Storm Henri, moves across the state toward the Atlantic Ocean. [...]

WASHINGTON - The CIA is beginning a recruitment drive aimed at attracting linguists to teach Arabic, Chinese and other languages.[..]

ROME (Reuters) - A 67-year-old Capuchin monk was a prisoner of his own parishioners on Thursday after faithful in a small central Italian town bricked him up inside his monastery to protest at plans to close it.

When locals heard Franciscan leaders wanted to close the monastery because of a shortage of priests, they rebelled, bricking up one entrance and barricading the others.[...]

Evidence of ancient skull operation discovered

September 5, 2003

Greek archaeologists have discovered the skull of a man from 2BC, who had undergone a successful skull operation, Greece's culture ministry has announced.

The discovery was made on the Mediterranean island of Chios. The skull of the man, who died in his 50s, featured an artificial 1.6-centimetre wide hole, the ministry said in a statement. Examination showed the man had lived for a long time after the operation.

"It is an important find in the history of medicine," the ministry said. The discovery is a rare case of trepanation - the deliberate drilling of a hole into a patient's skull.

Archaeologists have discovered trepanned skulls as old as 5000 years. The practice was discussed in ancient Greek medical texts. It is not yet clear what was the medical object of trepanation.

Australian scientists are being asked to help to preserve ancient Aboriginal rock art at Uluru, formerly known as Ayers Rock, which is vanishing because of wind, rain and vandalism.

There are about 90 rock art sites around the base of Uluru, depicting the stories and ancestral totems of the Anangu people. But the art, possibly the oldest and most valuable in Australia, is being ravaged by the elements, while graffiti sprayed by tourists is also damaging it.

A team from Melbourne University has started working with the Anangu, the traditional owners of Uluru, to document the paintings for posterity. The scientists are making sketches and digital images of the sites, and recording video footage of Anangu elders recounting the stories associated with them. Three-dimensional images are also being made.

The move was initiated at the request of the Anangu, who feared that their history and "Dreamtime" stories might be lost as older generations died. They hope the use of modern technology may re-engage younger people in their 40,000-year-old culture. [...]

The animal bit four-year-old Jessica Brown after creeping through an open door at her home in Tufnell Park.[...]

Residents in the Rome Township, Proctorville and Chesapeake areas were not necessarily concerned, but were curious about the source of odd lights in the sky Sunday and Monday nights. Two lights appeared to circle as if chasing one another each night over Rome Township, prompting residents to peer skyward. Occasional blips or flashes also appeared at random, sometimes over Ohio 7 and sometimes over Ohio 243 or to the south, toward the Ohio River.

"They were just kind of circling around," said Roger Lambert, of Rome Township.[...]

Comment: We weren't sure if this site was a parody or serious due to the bizarre nature of the subject. Turns out, these guys have 100% belief in their "Rapture Index".In their words,

Sub- indices include Satanism, Gog (Russia), Beast Government (EU... our guess that this is a US site showing the now familiar paranoia of the fundamentalist right of all things European) , Kings of the East (China) etc. etc.ad infinitum & ad nauseam scaled from a low of one to a high of five. The current Index is at 163 up one point!

Remember, we need your help to collect information on what is going on in your part of the world!

We also need help to keep the Signs of the Times online.

Obviously, there are a lot of folks out there who do NOT like what we are doing - our own special brand of news coverage - and they are working day and night to create almost insurmountable problems for us, designed to grind us down and render our plans to be able to increase our production (which include a weekly radio show that is currently in the implementation stage) impossible to bring to fruition. We are coming under increasing pressure from many directions all at once.

Our need for financial support has never been greater, including support for legal initiatives to halt the madness of several of the para-COINTELPRO activities currently launched against us. These operations are designed to create a platform to justify utilizing police state tactics so as to silence, and even ultimately, destroy us.

Please: We need your help.

The campaign of lies and disinformation would be frightening under normal circumstances; considering the present state of the world and the machinations of the "National Security State," it is terrifying.

Please - if you have been helped by our work -
won't you help us NOW?

Contact Webmaster at signs-of-the-times.org
Cassiopaean materials Copyright ©1994-2014 Arkadiusz Jadczyk and Laura Knight-Jadczyk. All rights reserved. "Cassiopaea, Cassiopaean, Cassiopaeans," is a registered trademark of Arkadiusz Jadczyk and Laura Knight-Jadczyk.
Letters addressed to Cassiopaea, Quantum Future School, Ark or Laura, become the property of Arkadiusz Jadczyk and Laura Knight-Jadczyk
Republication and re-dissemination of our copyrighted material in any manner is expressly prohibited without prior written consent.