Puppet MastersS


Eye 1

Best of the Web: China and America: The Tibet Human Rights PsyOp

Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research
Mon, 14 Apr 2008 15:57 UTC
The human rights issue has become the centerfold of media disinformation.

China is no model of human rights but neither are the US and its indefectible British ally, responsible for extensive war crimes and human rights violations in Iraq and around the World. The US and its allies, which uphold the practice of torture, political assassinations and the establishment of secret detention camps, continue to be presented to public opinion as a model of Western democracy to be emulated by developing countries, in contrast to Russia, Iran, North Korea and the People's Republic of China.

Human Rights "Double Standards"

While China's alleged human rights violations in relation to Tibet are highlighted, the recent wave of killings in Iraq and Palestine are not mentioned. The Western media has barely acknowledged the Fifth "anniversary" of Iraq's "Liberation" and the balance sheet of the US sponsored killings and atrocities perpetrated against an entire population, in the name of a "global war on terrorism".
There are more than 1.2 million Iraqi civilian deaths, 3 million wounded. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) indicates a figure of 2.2 million Iraqi refugees who have fled their country and 2.4 million "internally displaced persons":
"Iraq's population at the time of the US invasion in March 2003 was roughly 27 million, and today it is approximately 23 million. Elementary arithmetic indicates that currently over half the population of Iraq are either refugees, in need of emergency aid, wounded, or dead." (Dahr Jamail, Global Research, December 2007)
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Penis Pump

SOTT Focus: The Sport Of Psychopaths - Does Cheney Hunt Human Beings?


Sott.net
Thu, 10 Apr 2008 07:51 UTC
Today Sott editors came across a short entry on Boingboing.net featuring a photograph of Dick Cheney posted on the "Outdoors" section of the official US government Whitehouse.gov website.

The photograph is captioned "Vice President Dick Cheney spends an afternoon fly-fishing on the Snake River in Idaho."

See for yourself:

Image
©WhiteHouse.gov

And a close up:

Whitehouse.gov
©Whitehouse.gov

The poster on Boingboing.net suggested that the reflection in Cheney's glasses bears a resemblance to a naked human being, which brings to mind that story of Cheney shooting his "friend" in the face. The explanation that Cheney shot Whittington "by accident" being something of a joke. It is clear to the careful observer that the reflection really is just Cheney's hand, however, since the topic has been raised, we simply could not, in all conscience, turn down the opportunity to point out Dave McGowan's article from The Center for an Informed America, where he muses on the idea that perhaps Cheney really does enjoy playing "The Most Dangerous Game" from time to time.

Comment: Highly recommended by Sott is Dave McGowan's book, Programmed To Kill.

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Gear

China orders Tibetans 'reeducated' about Dalai Lama

Barbara Demick
Los Angeles Times
Tue, 08 Apr 2008 09:20 UTC
BEIJING - In an effort to quell unrest, Communist Party officials are ordering Tibetans back to school.

Buddhist monks, civil servants and public school students have been instructed to attend special classes in the virtues of Chinese rule and the evils of their exiled leader, the Dalai Lama. In these classes, the Tibetans read and recite from texts that denounce the Dalai Lama as a "political reactionary" and a "betrayer of the motherland."
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Bad Guys

Should the U.S. End Aid to Israel?

Alison Weir
Counter Punch
Fri, 04 Apr 2008 00:00 UTC
April 1st I participated in a debate in San Francisco that raised the question of US aid to Israel.

It was highly appropriate that this debate was held two weeks before tax day, since in Israel's sixty years of existence, it has received more US tax money than any other nation on earth.

During periods of recession, when Americans are thrown out of work, homes are repossessed, school budgets cut and businesses fail, Congress continues to give Israel massive amounts of our tax money; currently, about 7 million dollars per day.
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Pistol

The Terrorists Are In Fact Peacemakers

Pepe Escobar
The Real News Network
Tue, 01 Apr 2008 00:00 UTC
Iran is sufficiently powerful to broker a ceasefire deal

Based in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Pepe Escobar writes The Roving Eye for Asia Times Online. He has reported from Iraq, Iran, Central Asia, US and China. He is the author of the recently published Red Zone Blues. Pepe is a regular analyst for The Real News Network.
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Calculator

The Wheels Fall Off China's Boom

Charles Hugh Smith
Charles Hugh Smith
Tue, 01 Apr 2008 00:00 UTC
Please note I am saying "the wheels fall off China's boom" not "off China." That distinction is important. If the Chinese government mishandles the economic/ financial bust which has just started, then the wheels could indeed fall off China, Inc.

I have posted here for years that factories have been moving from China to Vietnam, Thailand and elsewhere. Now BusinessWeek confirms the trend: China's Factory Blues

china red cart
©www.oftwominds.com

The days of ultra-cheap labor and little regulation are gone. As manufacturers' costs climb, export prices will follow

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Black Cat

Congress, the Bush Administration and Continuity of Government Planning

Peter Dale Scott
Counterpunch
Mon, 31 Mar 2008 14:40 UTC
Image
In August 2007, Congressman Peter DeFazio, a member of the House Homeland Security Committee, told the House that he and the rest of his Committee had been barred from reviewing parts of National Security Presidential Directive 51, the White House supersecret plans to implement so-called "Continuity of Government" in the event of a mass terror attack or natural disaster. (1)

Norm Ornstein, of the conservative American Enterprise Institute, commented, "I cannot think of one good reason" for denial. Ornstein added, "I find it inexplicable and probably reflective of the usual, knee-jerk overextension of executive power that we see from this White House." (2)

The story, ignored by the mainstream press, involved more than the usual tussle between the legislative and executive branches of the U.S. Government. What was at stake was a contest between Congress's constitutional powers of oversight, and a set of policy plans that could be used to suspend or modify the constitution.

There is nothing wrong with disaster planning per se. Like all governments, the U.S. government must develop plans for the worst contingencies. But Congress has a right to be concerned about Continuity of Government (COG) plans refined by Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld over the past quarter century, which journalists have described as involving suspension of the constitution. (3)
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USA

When a Great Power Goes Mad

Robert Parry
Consortium News
Sun, 30 Mar 2008 14:04 UTC
An obvious reason why the mainstream US press can't handle the Iraq truth is that to do so would mean that President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, a host of other US officials and even some prominent journalists could be regarded as war criminals, says Robert Parry.

With the fifth anniversary of the Iraq War and the grim milestone of 4,000 US dead, the nation has been awash with news retrospectives on the war and speeches by politicians, mostly offering sanitized versions of what's transpired.

So, you have President George W. Bush, the chief author of this catastrophic war, declaring that "normalcy is returning back to Iraq" even as fighting rages across much of the country and rockets rain down on the highly fortified Green Zone in Baghdad.

Bush's comment invited comparisons to the acronym coined by U.S. Army soldiers during World War II: SNAFU for "situation normal, all f*cked up."
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Light Sabers

Five Things You Need to Know to Understand the Latest Violence in Iraq

Joshua Holland and Raed Jarrar
AlterNet
Thu, 27 Mar 2008 19:58 UTC
It's a relatively straightforward story: Iraq is ablaze today as a result of an attempt to impose Colombian-style democracy on the unstable country: Maliki's goal, shared by the like-minded allies among the Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish communities that dominate his administration, and with at least tacit U.S. approval, is to kill off the opposition and then hold a vote.
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Battery

Egypt to replace Israel as Gaza's power supply


World Tribune
Thu, 27 Mar 2008 11:00 UTC
Egypt has agreed to replace Israel as the leading electricity supplier to the Gaza Strip.

The regime of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has decided to increase electricity to the Hamas regime by nearly nine-fold in 2008. Officials said the agreement reflected weeks of negotiations that included Israel and the United States.
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