Bush shines in the time of the
lie
By
Gordon Livingston
The Baltimore Sun
June
2, 2003 IT IS SAID that each of society's institutions is a
crystallization of the dominant values of the culture. If so, we
appear to be living in the time of the lie.
Falsehoods perpetrated by
journalists have been much in the news of late, and confidence in
the veracity of those who inform us is at a low point. Not so long
ago it was the business world that appeared at the forefront of
lying as Enron, WorldCom and Arthur Andersen became familiar
names.
The
military in the recent action in Iraq treated us to the Jessica
Lynch POW rescue, which turned out to be an elaborate fabrication
notable for its absence of enemy soldiers, not to mention the
disappearing gunshot and stab wounds that she was alleged to have
suffered.
Lying has traditionally
been seen as an inevitable part of politics. A recent study by
political scientists in Britain said, "Politics should be regarded
as less like an exercise in producing truthful statements and more
like a poker game" in which deception is understood.
This
cynical view appears to be implicitly endorsed by the current
administration, which has so inundated us with lies that most of
them pass unnoticed. Unlike the lies about sex that are the legacy
of our previous president, the ones being perpetrated by Bush &
Co. appear more consequential.
The
central rationale behind the invasion of Iraq was the certain
threat posed by its weapons of mass destruction, including the
imminent development of a nuclear capability.
In
the aftermath of the war, we are left with the argument that while
we have found no significant evidence of chemical, biological or
nuclear weaponry, Saddam Hussein was a despot who mistreated his
own people and the war was therefore justified. Contrary to the
administration's prewar claims, the CIA, FBI and British
intelligence have found no link between al-Qaida and
Iraq.
On
the home front, President Bush proclaimed that a report by leading
economists concluded that the economy would grow by 3.3 percent in
2003 if his tax cut proposals were adopted. No such report
exists.
To
explain why he has turned a $236 billion budget surplus into a
projected $307 billion deficit in 2004, the president claimed that
he had said during the campaign that he would allow the federal
budget to go into deficit in times of war, recession or national
emergency but never imagined he would have a "trifecta." Actually,
Mr. Bush never made such a campaign statement. These three caveats
on deficits were promulgated by Al Gore.
While Richard Nixon set the
standard on presidential lying, it was Ronald Reagan who seemed to
blur the lines between fiction and reality, as when he told
anecdotes from movie plots as if they had really
happened.
Listen to President Bush in
December 2001 explaining publicly how he learned about the
terrorist attacks three months before: "I was in Florida. And ... I
was sitting outside [an elementary school] classroom waiting to go
in, and I saw an airplane hit the tower - the TV was obviously on,
and I used to fly myself, and I said, 'There's one terrible
pilot.'"
This
account is obviously false since network cameras were not trained
on the towers at the time the first airliner hit; it was only later
that amateur video of this event was broadcast.
The
president also said to the father of twins, "I've been to war. I've
raised twins. If I had a choice, I'd rather go to war." Mr. Bush
was a member of the Texas Air National Guard between 1968 and 1973
and never left the country in pursuit of his duties.
It's
too facile to say that all politicians lie and that leaders
commonly deceive in pursuit of their goals. We are entitled to
expect more from someone who campaigned on a pledge to "restore
integrity to the White House."
A complex society, no less than a family, functions on the basis of
trust. If we cannot depend on each other to obey the law, we risk
chaos and there is no number of police that will save us. If, as
the result of being lied to, we lose trust in those who govern, how
can they ask us to put our sons and daughters in peril?
The
people who founded this country promised more than their lives and
fortunes to the risky cause of independence. They pledged their
sacred honor. Should we expect less from the leaders of today?
Gordon Livingston is a psychiatrist who lives in
Columbia.
Vice President Tells West Point Cadets
"Bush Doctrine" Is Serious
Sgt.
1st Class Doug Sample
American Force Press Service
WASHINGTON, June 2, 2003
— "If there is anyone in the world today who doubts the
seriousness of the Bush Doctrine, I would urge that person to
consider the fate of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and of Saddam
Hussein's regime in Iraq," Vice President Richard Cheney told an
applauding 2003 West Point graduating class May 31.
[...]
[...]"the United States has
freed two nations from oppression and terror."
"We
destroyed the al Qaeda's grip on Afghanistan, removed the
repressive Taliban regime from power, and nearly half of al Qaeda's
leadership has been captured or killed. In Iraq, a regime that
supported terrorists, brutalized its own people and threatened its
neighbors and the peace of the world is no more," Cheney said.
[...]
"We
cannot allow ourselves to grow complacent," he said. "We cannot
forget that the terrorists remain determined to kill as many
Americans as possible, both abroad and here at home, and they are
still seeking weapons of mass destruction to use against
us.
"With such an enemy, no
peace treaty is possible; no policy of containment or deterrence
will prove effective. The only way to deal with this threat is to
destroy it, completely and utterly."
[...]"To defend our country
from terrorists and terror states, the American armed forces will
continue to gain in speed, agility, precision, and every advantage
we need to dominate the field of battle," he said.
"The
military," he said, "displayed vast new capabilities (in Iraq) that
were not yet operational 12 years ago when I was Secretary of
Defense. With less than half the ground forces used in Desert
Storm, and two-thirds of the air power, our military achieved a far
more difficult objective in less time and with fewer
casualties."
Cheney told the class that
historians and military planners will study the battles in Iraq for
years to come, but he said the "basic reasons" for U.S. success is
already known: "The most obvious factor was speed," he
noted.
"Our
soldiers and Marines raced to Baghdad across 350 miles of hostile
terrain in one of the fastest advances in history," he said.
[...]
"With our victory in Iraq,
we have removed a threat to our country and to our friends in the
region. And all nations, friend and foe alike, can be certain that
the United States military is second to none, and our commander
–in chief is indeed a man of his word." [...]
Comment:
Brace yourself. It sounds like this "Bush Doctrine" is being used
to implement perpetual war for secret reasons where deception is
key to shoving it onto the world stage. Some "basic reasons" this
war will talked for those of us who don't plan battles will be, the
senseless slaughter of civilians, the ensuing turmoil, and the lies
before, after and during by the Bush clan and the media, and the
potential trigger for increased terrorism the world over. To
understand some of the implications of the "Bush doctrine" check
out these flash presentations:
Election
Iraq
war
Wolfowitz Tells All-What the
War Wasn't About
By JASON
LEOPOLD
June 3, 2003
Counterpunch.org
While the
hawks in the Bush administration attempt to justify the logic
behind a preemptive strike against Iraq now that its become clear
the country's alleged weapons of mass destruction are nowhere to be
found, the true reasons for going to war are finally coming to
light.
In his
State of the Union address in January, President Bush said
intelligence reports from the CIA and the FBI indicated that Saddam
Hussein "had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin,
mustard and VX nerve agent," which put the United States in
imminent danger of possibly being attacked sometime in the
future.
Two
months later, despite no concrete evidence from intelligence
officials or United Nations inspectors that these weapons existed,
Bush authorized the use of military force to decimate the country
and destroy Saddam Hussein's regime.
Now it
appears the weapons of mass destruction will never be found and
many critics of the war are starting to wonder aloud whether the
community was duped by the Bush administration.
Secretary
of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul
Wolfowitz, both of who spent a better part of the past decade
advocating the use of military force against Iraq, put the issue to
rest once and for all.
Judging
by recent interviews Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz gave to a handful of
media outlets during the past week, the short answer is yes, the
public was misled into believing Iraq posed an imminent threat to
the United States. Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz admit that the war with
Iraq was planned two days after the terrorist attacks on September
11, 2001. [...]
Comment: Indeed, at some stage as the NWO comes
fully into being, there is no longer a need for pretense or
charade. With the rigging of elections, complete media control, and
a population that is such a "push over", Rumsfeld and Co. can
afford to be open and honest for a change. They can admit, "yes we
lied about Iraq, yes, we rigged the election, yes we knew about
9/11," because the bottom line is that none of us can do anything
about it. Think about it. The American people are as helpless as
Chileans were under Pinochet. You shut up and accept it, or your
shut up and accept it. It's that simple.
Standard Operating
Procedure
By PAUL
KRUGMAN
(New York
Times) The mystery of Iraq's missing weapons of mass destruction
has become a lot less mysterious. Recent reports in major British
newspapers and three major American news magazines, based on leaks
from angry intelligence officials, back up the sources who told my
colleague Nicholas Kristof that the Bush administration "grossly
manipulated intelligence" about W.M.D.'s.
And
anyone who talks about an "intelligence failure" is missing the
point. The problem lay not with intelligence professionals, but
with the Bush and Blair administrations. They wanted a war, so they
demanded reports supporting their case, while dismissing contrary
evidence.
In
Britain, the news media have not been shy about drawing the obvious
implications, and the outrage has not been limited to war
opponents. The Times of London was ardently pro-war; nonetheless,
it ran an analysis under the headline "Lie Another Day." The paper
drew parallels between the selling of the war and other misleading
claims: "The government is seen as having `spun' the threat from
Saddam's weapons just as it spins everything else."
Yet few
have made the same argument in this country, even though "spin" is
far too mild a word for what the Bush administration does, all the
time. Suggestions that the public was manipulated into supporting
an Iraq war gain credibility from the fact that misrepresentation
and deception are standard operating procedure for this
administration, which - to an extent never before seen in U.S.
history - systematically and brazenly distorts the facts.
[...]
Iraq repercussions trouble top
advisers
RATIONALE FOR INVASION
CHALLENGED
By
John Walcott
Mercury News Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -Some of
President Bush's top advisers, who had hoped the war in Iraq would
be the turning point in the battle against terrorism and the
centerpiece of the president's re-election campaign, fear it is
instead becoming a political, diplomatic and military mess.
"The postwar period in Iraq is messy. We haven't found what we said
we'd find there and there are unpleasant questions about
assumptions we made and intelligence we had,'' said a senior
national security official, who spoke on the condition of
anonymity. "If many more months go by and our troops are still
there, the Iraqis are still fighting each other and us, and we
still haven't found any WMD'' -- weapons of mass destruction --
"there will be hell to pay.'' [...]
Ex-Army boss: Pentagon won't admit reality
in Iraq
By
Dave Moniz
USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — The
former civilian head of the Army said Monday it is time for the
Pentagon to admit that the military is in for a long occupation of
Iraq that will require a major commitment of American
troops.
Former Army secretary
Thomas White said in an interview that senior Defense officials
"are unwilling to come to grips" with the scale of the postwar U.S.
obligation in Iraq. The Pentagon has about 150,000 troops in Iraq
and recently announced that the Army's 3rd Infantry Division's stay
there has been extended indefinitely. [...]
Iraqi Troops, Tribes to U.S.: Leave or Face
War
By
Andrew Marshall
BAGHDAD (Reuters) -
Thousands of sacked Iraqi soldiers swarmed angrily around U.S.
headquarters in Baghdad on Monday, as squabbling tribal leaders
told the Americans they could face war if they did not leave
soon.
"The
entire Iraqi people is a time bomb that will blow up in the
Americans' face if they don't end their occupation," tribal chief
Riyadh al-Asadi told Reuters after meeting a U.S. official for
talks on the future of Iraq after Saddam Hussein. [...]
Top secret Iraqi documents
strewn across missile facility
Tuesday,
June 3, 2003 Posted: 22:38 GMT
BAGHDAD,
Iraq (AP) -- More than a decade of suspicions about Iraq's missile
industry and its capabilities for delivering weapons of mass
destruction could be investigated quickly now that American forces
control the country.
But no
U.S. weapons hunters or intelligence officials have visited the
heart of Iraq's missile programs -- the state-owned al-Fatah
company in Baghdad, which designed all the rockets Saddam Hussein's
troops fired in 1991 and again this year. Not only that, it's not
even on their agenda.
"We have
the most sensitive documents here," said Marouf al-Chalabi,
director-general of al-Fatah. "We were sure the Americans would
target us but they haven't even dropped by."
Looters,
however, have ransacked the place. The three-building complex has
been stripped of everything from drafting tables to light
switches.
Among the
few things left behind, though, are what U.N. inspectors long
believed existed but never obtained: design plans and test results
for every missile system and warhead the Iraqis
developed.
Plans for
rocket engines, guidance systems and even missile warheads are
strewn across the dusty office floors and swirl in the parking lot
outside. Some have been blown into nearby bushes. "They're
scattered everywhere," al-Chalabi said, marveling at the mess.
[...]
Al-Chalabi, who studied
engineering at the University of Colorado from 1964 to 1969, is
convinced none will be found. He said he showed U.N. inspectors
everything he had and was ordered by Saddam not to violate U.N.
resolutions.
"We don't
have those weapons. I think they must know this by now," al-Chalabi
said. "I even signed a paper that said I would be executed if I
violated the range fixed by the U.N. resolutions."
Government blames
intelligence 'rogue elements' in weapons
row
PM to face Commons inquiry over arms controversy
By Andrew Grice and Rupert Cornwell in
Washington
04 June 2003
A senior Minister has blamed "rogue elements" in the intelligence
services for questioning the evidence behind Tony Blair's decision
to go to war in Iraq.
As
the pressure built on the Prime Minister, John Reid, the Leader of
the Commons, launched an extraordinary attack on parts of the
security services. He told The Times: "There have been
uncorroborated briefings by a potentially rogue element or indeed
rogue elements in the intelligence services. I find it difficult to
grasp why this should be believed against the word of the British
Prime Minister and the head of the Joint Intelligence
Committee."
Dr
Reid repeated his claim today and called on critics to "put up or
shut up". There was "15 years of evidence" that Saddam had such
weapons, he said.
He
told the BBC Breakfast programme that no one had a greater respect
than him for the security services after his experience in Northern
Ireland and at the Ministry of Defence.
"What has happened over the past week has been as big an attack
on the leadership of those security services and intelligence
services as it has on the Prime Minister," he said.
"We
have now had five days during which the allegation is made that not
only has the Prime Minister and people like myself and the Cabinet
been dishonest and duplicitous in deceiving our Cabinet colleagues
or Parliament ... but also that the chairman of the joint
intelligence committee, and the joint intelligence committee itself
... allowed their integrity to be impeached, allowed evidence to be
misrepresented ... these are scurrilous attacks on people who have
served this country," he said.
His
intervention came after it became clear that the all-party Foreign
Affairs Select Committee is to launch an inquiry which will focus
on whether the Foreign Office and the Government "presented
accurate and complete information to Parliament in the period
leading up to military action in Iraq, particularly in relation to
Iraq's weapons of mass destruction".
Comment: As
mentioned in yesterday's Signs of the Times page, there does indeed
seem to be some "rogue elements" at work here. When Dr. Reid above
mentions that the origin is likely within the British secret
service (MI5, MI6) and that he has great respect for them,
referencing their work in Northern Ireland, he is likely telling
the truth. These are the agencies that effectively perpetuated the
conflict in Northern Ireland, using the dirtiest of tricks and to
this day seek to keep the opposing political factions at each
others throats, thwarting any truly just settlement to the
conflict. When dealing with these types of people, all morality and
convention goes out the window. In the compromised position that
Blair and the British cabinet find themselves at present (probably
as a result of the same secret services), they are right to have
"respect" for these people, however it is a respect that is given
not out of admiration but fear.
The truth, the whole truth and nothing but
...
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON - When all three major US newsweeklies - Time,
Newsweek and US News & World Report - run major features on the
same day on possible government lying, you can bet you have the
makings of a major scandal.
And
when the two most important outlets of neo-conservative opinion -
The Weekly Standard and The Wall Street Journal - come out on the
same days with lead editorials spluttering outrage about
suggestions of government lying, you can bet that things are going
to get very hot as summer approaches in Washington.
The
controversy over whether the administration of President George W
Bush either exaggerated or lied about evidence that it said it had
about the existence of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq
before the US-led invasion has mushroomed over the past
week.
"This is potentially very serious," said one Congressional
aide. "If it's shown we went to war because of intelligence that
was 'cooked' by the administration, heads will have to roll, and
not just little heads, big ones."
The
administration was already on the defensive last week as the
controversy took off in Europe, particularly in Britain where Prime
Minister Tony Blair found himself assailed from all directions for
either willfully exaggerating the intelligence himself or being
"suckered", as his former foreign minister Robin Cook called it
this weekend, by Washington's neo-conservative hawks, who started
agitating for war even before the dust settled in lower Manhattan
after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
Matters took a turn for the worse when the London Guardian
reported the existence of a transcript, obviously leaked from a
senior British official, of an exchange at the Waldorf Hotel in New
York between US Secretary of State Colin Powell and British Foreign
Minister Jack Straw just before Powell's presentation of the
evidence against Iraq before the United Nations Security Council
February 5.
It
quotes Powell, whose forceful case to the council was decisive in
persuading US public opinion that Baghdad represented a serious
threat, as being "apprehensive" about the evidence presented to him
by the intelligence agencies. He reportedly expressed the hope that
the actual facts, when they came out, would not "explode in their
faces". (At a Rome press conference on Monday, Powell insisted that
he considered the evidence "overwhelming" when he spoke before the
council.)
But
it appears that Powell's musing was accurate, as, after almost two
months in uncontested control of Iraq, US troops and investigators
have failed to come up with concrete evidence of an Iraqi WMD
program, let alone an actual weapon.
The
scenario of an uneasy Powell received a major boost in the accounts
of the three newsweeklies. US News reported, for example, that
during a rehearsal of Powell's presentation at Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA) headquarters on February 1, the normally mild-mannered
retired general at one point "tossed several pages in the air. 'I'm
not reading this', he declared. 'This is bullshit'."
The
same magazine also reported that the Defense Intelligence Agency
(DIA) formally concluded that "there is no reliable information on
whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons" in
September 2002, just as Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld was telling
Congress that the Baghdad "regime has amassed large, clandestine
stockpiles of chemical weapons, including VX, sarin, cyclosarin and
mustard gas".
The
accounts of Newsweek and Time were similarly damning. One "informed
military source" told Newsweek that when the US Central Command
(CENTCOM) asked the CIA for specific WMD targets that should be
destroyed in the first stages of the invasion, the agency only
complied reluctantly. But what it provided "was crap", a CENTCOM
planner told the magazine, consisting mainly of buildings that were
bombed in the first Gulf War in 1991.
If
true, that contradicts a series of bald assertions by
administration officials and their supporters over the last nine
months. "Simply stated," Vice President Dick Cheney declared in the
first call to arms last August, "there is no doubt that Saddam
Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction".
"We
know where [the WMD] are," declared Rumsfeld in a television
interview March 30, well into the first week of the war. "They're
in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and
north somewhat." He has since retreated from that certainty,
suggesting last week that the Iraqis "may have had time to destroy
them, and I don't know the answer".
We Used To Impeach
Liars
By
William Rivers Pitt
Tuesday 03 June 2003
truthout.org
In
September of 2002, fully six months before George W. Bush attacked
Iraq, I published a small book entitled "War on Iraq: What Team
Bush Doesn't Want You To Know." The essential premise of the book
was that the threats surrounding weapons of mass destruction in
Iraq were wildly overblown by the Bush administration for purely
political reasons. [...]
This was
a straightforward argument, set against stern and unrelenting
prophesies of doom from Bush administration officials, and from
Bush himself. I can tell you, as the writer, that it was a tough
sell. The facts contained in the book were absolutely accurate, as
has been proven in the aftermath of war, but Americans are funny.
They fall for Hitler's maxim on lies over and over again: "The
great masses of the people will more easily fall victim to a big
lie than to a small one." Over and over and over and over and over
again, the American people were told that Saddam Hussein had
weapons of mass destruction practically falling out of his ears.
The American people were told that Hussein was giving away these
weapons to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda the way you and I might
give away birthday presents. [...]
Once upon
a time, we impeached a sitting President for lying under oath about
sexual trysts. No one died, no one had their legs or arms or face
or genitals blown off because of the lies of a President who had
been caught with his pants down. Today in America, we endure a
sitting President who lied for months about the threat posed by a
sovereign nation. That nation was invaded and attacked, and
thousands died because of it. The aftereffects of this action will
be felt for generations to come. The very democracy which gives us
meaning as a country has been put in peril by these deeds. When the
smoke cleared, every reason for that war was proven to be a
lie.
Of
course, there will be no impeachment with a Republican Congress.
This must not dissuade us from demanding satisfaction. Let the
House be brought to order. Gavel the members to attention, and let
the evidence be brought forth. Let there be justice for the living
and the dead. Let this man Bush be impeached and cleansed from
office for the lies he has told. These are not innocent lies. The
dead remember.
Comment: They
are certainly not innocent lies. Neither are the ones that the
American people tell themselves about their country's psychotic
neo-con leaders. All Americans are responsible for their country's
imperialist actions if they refuse to recognise the reality of the
situation. Can something be done? it is difficult to say, but
before we can contemplate what we can do we have to want to SEE the
truth, or in this case, the horror of the situation.
We Interrupt Your Normal Show
to Bring You an Important Message from Michael Powell and the FCC:
"Go to Hell, Americans!"
By ELAINE
CASSEL
June 3, 2003
Counterpunch.org
Driving
long distances in the Washington, D.C. area has one
advantage--C-Span radio is good company. I am unsure as to how its
signal will be affected by the FCC handover of the airwaves to
media wolves today, but C-Span served me well yesterday. For I was
able to listen to all the FCC commissioners speak in defense of
their votes to loosen media ownership rules.
Many
others far more knowledgeable than I about media and FCC law will
cover the technicalities of the Commission's decision. I am more
concerned with the rhetoric of the majority and their gleeful
pronouncement that they didn't give a damn what the American people
thought or wanted. So much for the FCC representing the public
interest. Their public, obviously, is Rupert Murdoch and
friends.
The
schism between Americans was obvious in the Commissioners' comments
and votes. Though it had 3 votes needed to change the rules, the
majority ignored 750,000 public comments, 150 congressional
representatives, and groups like the NRA, NOW, and Common Cause,
which were opposed to the decision. The arrogance of the majority
mirrors the arrogance of the majority in the U.S. Congress.
[...]
The
majority decision was based on facts and logic; the dissenters,
they said, were well meaning but misguided by the same emotions and
fear of Americans who were against the hijacking of the airwaves.
Fools they, and fools we, Abernathy said. History will prove
Americans wrong, and the three who know better than we what is in
our public interest chose the right path for us. Monopolistic
control of the media will benefit diversity of views (there is that
Bush regime Alice-in-Wonderland logic again). [...]
The Final Brick in the
Wall
FCC, Bush, Ashcroft and the Control of the US
Media
By SAM
HAMOD
June 3, 2003
Counterpunch.org
Having
just returned from Washington, DC, I was shocked by the insularity
of the "inside the beltway" crowd that runs America today. I had
been there from 1980 through 1995, and had seen an insularity then,
but nothing like that of today. This insularity, and closed
situation is complimented these days by armed troops, police and
plain clothes operatives near every major landmark, barricades,
street closings and the general gloom of a police state under
siege. In fact, it reminded me more of a Third World country than
the D.C. I lived in; also, a little like Tel Aviv or
Jerusalem--with all the trappings of patriotism and power, guarded
by security because the alleged democracy had failed.
At this
time, I feel our democracy has failed and is going to go even
further into the tank. As of today, all the bricks of the wall will
be in place for total domination of the American public--and even,
perhaps much of the world. I say the "world" because these news
allowances for an oligopoly in media will allow Rupert "Faux News"
Murdoch, control over all the satellite news and sports
transmissions in the world with the other "major networks" getting
the chance to gobble up all other competition that still exists in
TV and radio. This will all be courtesy of the FCC, which is led by
Michael Powell and two other very right wing commissioners who have
tried to keep their work secret--though it was supposed to be open
with major public hearings throughout the USA.
Today,
the Bush controlled FCC is going to put the final brick in place
for fascistic control of the American people. Up to now, it has
been Bush, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and their war policies and their
endless wars against "terrorism", with Ashcroft and his minions
attacking civil and human rights unseen since the days of the
Nazi's in Germany, and now Michael Powell, the son of the servile
Colin Powell, is handing unlimited media power to a small few who
will continue supporting the Bush fascistic causes.
[...]
Media fear-mongering ruins intentions of terror
alert system
Dan
Flannery
The Post Crescent
[...]Anyhow, last Tuesday,
when the terror alert was raised to orange, CNN pandered to the
fear in all of us. In reporting the story, the network split the
screen in quarters and showed us San Francisco’s Golden Gate
Bridge, Chicago’s Sears Tower, Seattle’s Space Needle
and the White House and Washington Monument in Washington,
D.C.
Intermittently, the images
stayed on the screen throughout the afternoon. The spoken message
was that terrorists may be plotting to attack any of those national
landmarks.
The
words that accompany the images are almost invariably spoken in a
tone guaranteed to produce hysteria, not preparedness.
The
unspoken message is that CNN has cameras in place to show you the
impending destruction of America. You need not miss one second of
terrorist attacks. You’ll be able to see them on CNN,
“the most trusted name in news.”
This
is journalistic voyeurism and fear-mongering, an unfortunate part
of today’s “tell-me-now” mentality. The 24/7
coverage of the war in Iraq was filled with that too. The luxury of
perspective has been replaced by the demand for immediacy, not
always a good tradeoff.
The
sky is not falling. Not yet.
But
when it does, you'll see it live. Hope that makes you feel more
secure in America.
Bush wins "firm" Arab
rejection of terror
Wednesday
June 4, 12:43 AM
US President George W. Bush used his maiden Middle East mission to
win "firm" Arab rejection of terror and urged Israel to give the
Palestinians a whole state they "can call home."
Bush
heard strong Arab statements of support for the internationally
drafted peace roadmap at a summit in Egypt, which included
Palestinian prime minister Mahmud Abbas, whom he met for the first
time.
"We
welcome the roadmap," Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said on
behalf of Abbas and four other Arab leaders at a press conference
with Bush. "We particularly appreciate the strong commitment of
President Bush to implement it in full."
The
roadmap, drafted by the United States, Russia, the United Nations
and the European Union, outlines steps both the Israelis and
Palestinians must take to end 32 months of violence and create a
Palestinian state living in peace with Israel by 2005.
Israel
was not represented at the meeting here, but Bush is scheduled to
hold another summit in Jordan's Red Sea resort of Aqaba on
Wednesday, with Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
[...]
Sharon to dismantle 10 rogue settlements
June 4,
2003 6:06 am (Singapore time)
JERUSALEM
(AFP) -- Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will tell US President George
W. Bush in Jordan on Wednesday that he plans to dismantle about 10
Jewish settlement outposts to advance the peace roadmap, Israeli
public television reported.
ISRAELI
OUTPOSTS
According
to the Israeli group Peace Now, there are 102 West Bank outposts,
many of them just a few homes or an antenna position.
In
addition, there are 150 more established settlements which house
about 230,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza. [...]
The dismantling of 'illegal' outposts in the West Bank, often no
more than a caravan, is a condition of the US-backed road map for
peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
Israel's
Deputy Defence Minister Zeev Boim said on Monday that 'at most'
around 10 outposts built on Palestinian land would be
dismantled.
The
Israeli movement Peace Now, which opposes the policy of
settlements, estimates that more than 60 such outposts -- some of
them not inhabited -- have been set up since Mr Sharon came to
power in March 2001. [...]
Has Sharon set a trap for
Bush?
Henry Siegman
International Herald Tribune
[...] In Sharon's case, the skepticism has nothing to do with his
ability to deliver on the road map's demands, which he
unquestionably can, but with his intentions. Since becoming prime
minister in February 2001, Sharon has accepted every peace
initiative, including the Oslo accords, the Mitchell Commission
proposals and the Tenet guidelines, and yet managed to torpedo each
with "reservations" and "conditions." If anything, the reservations
Sharon has attached to his acceptance of the road map are far more
destructive than the conditions that enabled him to defeat previous
peace initiatives while skillfully avoiding blame for doing so.
[...]
America's Matrix
By
Robert Parry
consortiumnews.com
“Matrix” and
its sequel. “Matrix Reloaded,” offer a useful analogy
for anyone trying to make sense of the chasm that has opened
between what’s real and what Americans perceive is real. Like
the science-fiction world of the two movies, a false reality is
being pulled daily over people’s eyes, often through what
they see and hear on their TV screens. Facts have lost value. Logic
rarely applies.
Some living in this “American Matrix” are like the
everyday people in the movies, simply oblivious to what’s
going on beneath the surface, either too busy or too bored to find
out. Others appear to know better but behave like Cipher, the
character in the original movie who chooses the fake pleasures of
the Matrix over what Morpheus calls “the desert of the
real.”
Many
Americans so enjoyed the TV-driven nationalism of the Iraq War, for
instance, that they didn't’t want it spoiled by reality.
During the conflict, they objected to news outlets showing mangled
bodies or wounded children or U.S. POWs. Presenting the ugly face
of war was seen as unpatriotic or somehow disloyal to “the
troops.” Only positive images were welcome and dissent was
deemed almost treasonous.
Now,
even as U.S. forces in Iraq slide closer to the guerrilla-war
quagmire that some skeptics predicted, Americans continue to say
they trust George W. Bush to handle the situation. Some military
analysts close to the Bush administration are beginning to feel
differently, however. “We’re hanging on by our
fingernails,” one told me recently.
But
Americans still prefer to feel good about the war. They want to
believe that the U.S. invasion was just, and that Saddam Hussein
really was poised to use weapons of mass destruction. By large
majorities, Americans either believe that these weapons have
already been found or they don’t care that the Bush
administration may have misled the world. [...]
Blair
'more popular than Bush'
By Steve Schifferes
Tuesday, 3 June, 2003, 18:39 GMT
BBC News Online, Washington
Tony
Blair is more respected as a world statesman by the people of the
United States than George W Bush, a poll suggests.
The Pew Research Center global attitudes survey asked 16,000 people
in 20 nations around the world about their attitude towards world
affairs.
More Americans, when asked whether they had confidence in a world
leader to "do the right thing" regarding world affairs, said they
trusted the British prime minister (83%) [more] than their own
president (78%).
Mr Blair
was also the most trusted world leader in Australia and Canada -
but not in his own country, where he was just beaten by United
Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan.
Mr Annan
was the most trusted leader in a number of other countries,
including Brazil, South Korea, Italy and Spain, while Mr Bush was
the most trusted leader only in Israel.
Disillusion with US - and
UN
The
results generally suggest an increasing polarisation of world
opinion as a result of the squabble over the Iraq war.
Compared
with one year ago, the number of people having a favourable view of
the United States has declined sharply, especially in Germany,
France and Russia - countries whose governments opposed the
war.
But the
fall has been particularly marked in the Muslim world, where only
38% of Nigerian Muslims, 15% of people in Turkey and Indonesia, and
12% of Pakistanis have a favourable view of the US.
Among the
countries surveyed, only Great Britain, Canada, Italy and Australia
have a positive view of America. [...]
Comment:
We have
included the above article only to highlight the ridiculousness of
such polls. A poll of equal weight and significance is presented
here to clarify the point:
A survey of 100 sheep was
conducted. The results of the survey are as follows:
When asked if they preferred pasture grass or field grass:
61% stared blankly and munched grass
39% bleated and munched grass
When asked if they thought
grass was "good" or "quite nice":
99% rolled over onto their backs with their legs in the air and
munched grass.
1% choked on their grass but recovered soon after.
Designers of the poll
initially considered asking the question "Do you understand the
term "abattoir". However it was agreed that this question would
have no relevance to the individuals polled.
The results of the poll
suggest that sheep, like humans, have absolutely no idea of what is
happening in the world around them, and generally just prefer to
eat grass.
Hamas Official Says Truce Possible with
Guarantees
Tue June
3, 2003 06:58 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A senior
official of the Palestinian militant organization Hamas said on
Tuesday the group would stop attacks on Israelis if it had
guarantees of a gradual Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian
territory.
Ismail
Abu Shanab, in an interview with ABC's "Nightline" program, said
the United States should give the Palestinians assurances about the
outcome of the "road map" process that President George W Bush is
promoting.
Asked if
Hamas would stop attacks during negotiations between Israelis and
Palestinians, he said: "Definitely yes ... We are ready to offer it
at any time if there is a guarantee that those preliminary steps
will be taken as part of a full or wide-scale withdrawal, and not
the final steps.
"We want
the United States to guarantee all of these things, an Israeli
withdrawal, even if it is step by step." [...]
"The road
map has a chance to succeed if the Americans block Israeli efforts
to destroy it," he added. [...]
Israel releases prisoners as
goodwill gesture
Jun. 3,
2003. 12:09 PM
FROM ASSOCIATED PRESS
JERUSALEM
- Israel released scores of Palestinian prisoners today, including
the oldest and longest-serving inmate, in a goodwill gesture ahead
of a summit with U.S. President George W. Bush. But disagreements
remained on the fate of about 100 Israeli settlement outposts set
up in the occupied West Bank over the last several
years.
Ahmad
Jubarah, 68, was released from the Ashkelon prison in southern
Israel after serving nearly three decades for his role in a 1975
Jerusalem bomb attack that killed 13 people, the Israel prisons
service announced.
In the
attack, an apparently abandoned refrigerator was stuffed with
explosives and left near Jerusalem's downtown Zion Square. Besides
those killed, 70 people were wounded.
Israel
also released about 100 prisoners today who were being held without
charges or trial from the Ketziot, Ofer and Megiddo military
prisons, the Israeli army said. Tayseer Khaled, a hardline PLO
official arrested in February, was freed late Monday.
[...]
N. Korea admits nuclear
plan
KENJI
HALL
Jun. 3, 2003. 01:00 AM
SEOUL,
South Korea (AP) — North Korea has told American legislators
it already has nuclear weapons and plans to build more, a U.S.
congressman said yesterday after a visit to the Communist
state.
Representative Curt Weldon, who
led a delegation of U.S. legislators on a three-day visit to the
capital, Pyongyang, said North Korean officials also claimed they
had nearly finished reprocessing spent nuclear fuel rods — a
move that could yield nuclear weapons within months.
"They
admitted to having nuclear capability and weapons at this moment,"
said Weldon, a Pennsylvania Republican who is the No. 2 member of a
House of Representatives panel that oversees the armed
forces.
"They
admitted to having just about completed the reprocessing of 8,000
rods," he said. "And they admitted to an effort to expand their
nuclear production program." [...]
US makes new plans for war on
Pyongyang
By Shane Green, Herald
Correspondent in Tokyo
June
4 2003 The United States is said to be developing new plans for a
war in North Korean that would bypass the demilitarised zone
dividing the two Koreas and target the leadership in
Pyongyang.
The
plan is based on the success of US-led forces in Iraq in quickly
reaching the capital, Baghdad. US officials quoted by Reuters said
the plan would involve the consolidation of the US and South Korean
forces in two areas away from the demilitarised zone.
If
war broke out, the forces would skirt the demilitarised zone and
head for Pyongyang. "This is Kim Jong-il's worst nightmare," one
official said.
It
was estimated that the recently announced $US11 billion ($17
billion) upgrade of the capabilities of US forces in South Korea
would give them the ability to "take down" North Korea's heavy
presence on the border within an hour of war breaking
out.
The
report coincided with a visit to South Korea and Japan by the US
Deputy Defence Secretary, Paul Wolfowitz. [...]
Mr
Wolfowitz said the US also had "some considerable advantages",
pointing to the "remarkable military capabilities" demonstrated in
Afghanistan and Iraq.
He
said the US believed it was important to "update our force posture
from where it was 10 years ago, to take advantage of those
capabilities".
Lawmaker seeks video of Lynch
rescue
By Malia
Rulon
June 3,
2003 | WASHINGTON (AP) -- Democratic presidential candidate Dennis
Kucinich called on the Defense Department on Tuesday to release the
unedited footage of the rescue of Pfc. Jessica Lynch from an Iraqi
hospital and to answer questions about her injuries.
"Nothing
the administration has said about Private Lynch has been verified
by private news reports," the Ohio congressman said Tuesday. "It's
time to find out the truth."
Attention has been drawn to the April 1 rescue since a British
Broadcasting Corp. report and Associated Press interviews with
Iraqis who were present suggested the dramatics surrounding Lynch's
rescue were unnecessary.
Reports
of the rescue say the U.S. commandos broke down doors and went in
with guns drawn, carrying Lynch out with helicopter and armored
vehicle backup, even though there was no Iraqi military presence
and the hospital staff didn't resist. [...]
Comment: This
story was obviously concocted in an attempt to galvanise US public
opinion, stir national patriotism and provoke anti-Iraq sentiment.
This in itself is, by this stage, no longer shocking. What does
give pause for some serious thought is that the "powers that be"
realise that this type of mind manipulation and propaganda actually
works on the masses, i.e. YOU.
Worries Over Rising Islamic Extremism in
Pakistan
CHICAGO (NFTF.org) -- On Monday, the provincial assembly in the
North West Frontier province of Pakistan voted unanimously to
establish Islamic law in the region, heightening worries that the
U.S. invasion of Afghanistan is actually increasing hatred and
anger toward U.S. policies abroad.
The majority religious alliance in the province is against the U.S.
occupation of Afghanistan, and outspokenly supports remnants of the
Taliban.
In
addition to Pakistani society, Afghan society is also reacting more
violently toward the U.S. presence in their country. Afghanistan
has recently seen an increase in attacks aimed at U.S.
troops.
Pentagon tool to record a user's every
sensation
By Michael J. Sniffen
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Coming
to you soon from the Pentagon: the diary to end all diaries -- a
multimedia, digital record of everywhere you go and everything you
see, hear, read, say and touch.
Known as LifeLog, the project has been put out for contractor bids
by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, the
agency that helped build the Internet and that is now developing
the next generation of anti-terrorism tools. [...]
Birth defects linked to Gulf
war vets
Jun. 3,
2003. 07:53 PM
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — Children of
veterans of the first Persian Gulf War are more likely to have
three specific birth defects than those of soldiers who never
served in the Gulf, a U.S. government study has found.
Researchers found the infants
born to male veterans of the 1991 war had higher rates of two types
of heart-valve defects. They also found a higher rate of a genital
urinary defect in boys conceived after the war to Gulf War veteran
mothers.
In
addition, Gulf War veterans' children born after the war had a
certain kidney defect that was not found in Gulf War veterans'
children born before the war.
The
researchers said they did not have enough information to link the
birth defects to possible exposure to poison gases, pesticides and
other toxic substances, which many Gulf War veterans suspect are
culprits of their mysterious illnesses and their children's health
problems. They also did not have access to parents' family
histories and job exposures. [...]
New Virus Found, But It's Not
SARS
(AP)"This may be one more
piece to the puzzle as to what all these respiratory infections
are."
Dr. Ann Falsey, University of Rochester. It isn't SARS, but
infectious disease specialists are trying to learn more about a
recently discovered virus that some think may be the culprit in
many unexplained respiratory illnesses around the world.
[...]
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS
The
Salt Lake Tribune
UFO
researcher George Filer said the number of sightings has remained
fairly consistent for the last few months, but May had some of the
most unusual encounters.
For
instance, folks in Winnebago, Wis., reported seeing what looked
like three flying Spaghettios hovering over Lake Winnebago on May
15 and May 20 and a trio of flying green cigars was spotted running
amuck around North- ridge, Calif., on May 7.
Still, the most bizarre UFO
sighting occurred in rural Ohio, where a group of 30 stick figures,
each about 3-feet tall, broke up a wild party.
Filer admits these cases
sound almost unbelievable but that won't sway him from doing
further research because, in his words, "the strange ones are more
likely to be true."
Villagers hire
ghost-buster
The
Nation
Residents of Kudkwang
village in Khon Kaen have invested part of their village fund on
hiring a ghost-buster following several mysterious
deaths.
Fifteen "ghosts'' have been
targeted.
Three ritual ceremonies
have already been held to try rid the village of the ghosts, with a
third one scheduled for this morning.
Residents of the Muang
district community are convinced they "killed'' nine of the ghosts
at the previous ceremonies.
Village headman Bunchoo
Khamthun said that last month alone more than 10 villagers had died
of unknown causes, with autopsies revealing most had died from
internal bleeding.
Bunchoo said the village
had spent about Bt30,000 on the ceremonies, with the money coming
from the village central fund and contributions from
residents.
What's more, villagers are
convinced they know the identity of one of the ghosts - and she is
still alive.
The
unidentified spirit' lives in isolation with her husband in a shed
close to the village.
The
woman's mother said she could not understand why villagers had
accused her 48-year-old daughter, whom she described as religious,
of being a ghost.
"I
told my daughter not to be afraid of the ritual ceremony. But if
any other residents try to physically assault her, I'll immediately
file a complaint with police," she said.
"We
live not so far from the city. People are educated, but still
obsessed about black magic," she added.
Passenger makes hoax bomb call to delay
flight
09:51
Tuesday 3rd June 2003
Associated Press
A man
running late for an internal US flight made a hoax bomb call in an
effort to delay the plane.
The man
called the America West airline and indicated there was a bomb on
board a plane leaving Medford, Oregon, for Phoenix,
Arizona.
America
West check-in staff at the Rogue Valley International-Medford
Airport became suspicious and notified police after the man came to
their desk asking about Flight 6262.
The
aircraft was by then was on its way back to the airport because of
the threat, says police lieutenant Mike Moran.
The
unidentified man is being held on outstanding, unrelated criminal
charges and being questioned by the FBI, Moran says.
The
plane's 30 passengers were evacuated and a bomb squad searched the
aircraft with the help of a dog. All bags were rechecked for any
trace of an explosive device, but nothing was found.
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