articles -- More proof Zionists Running US don't care about gentile American or Mideast lives, Justice or Humanity
Dick Eastman
because he refused to remove a picture of wanted Shiite Muslim leader
Moqtada Sadr from his car, police said today.
http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,9282016%255E2,00.html
Dead Second-Hand-Liongate -- U.S. and Britain not releasing information
about the many deaths of their hired killers. Robert Fisk: At least 80
foreign mercenaries - security guards recruited from the United States,
Europe and South Africa and working for American companies - have been
killed in the past eight days in Iraq. [More deaths than in the false-flag
black-op frame-up attack on either of the tower of the World Trade
enter1 --de] Lieutenant-General Mark Kimmitt admitted on Tuesday that
"about 70" American and other Western troops had died during the Iraqi
insurgency since April 1 but he made no mention of the mercenaries,
apparently fearful that the full total of Western dead would have serious
political fallout. He did not give a figure for Iraqi dead, which, across
the country may be as high as 900.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6031.htm
Nearly Half of Every Tax Dollar Goes to Military, National Debt
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
As April 15 approaches and people prepare to pay their 2003 income taxes,
they should know that nearly half of every dollar they owe will be used to
support military spending and interest on the national debt. Military
spending in 2003 required 29 cents of every income tax dollar, with the debt
taking another 20 cents, according to the National Priorities Project.
By comparison, education and veterans benefits receive only four cents of
every income tax dollar, slightly ahead of nutrition (three cents), housing
(two cents) and natural resources (two cents). Less than a penny of each
dollar will fund job training programs. The only budget category besides
military spending and the debt to receive more than five percent of the
income tax dollar is healthcare (20 cents).
The average household paid $6,548 in federal income taxes in 2003. Of this,
$1,928 went to military and defense, $1,295 to pay interest on the debt, and
$1,287 for healthcare. Only $249 from the average household funded
education, $233 for veterans' benefits, $176 for nutrition, $147 for housing
and $117 for natural resources.
Citizens can get a breakdown of how their individual tax payments are spent
by visiting the Internet website of the National Priorities Project (NPP) at
www.nationalpriorities.org. Visitors to the website can also find the impact
of federal tax policy in all 50 states and 190 cities nationwide.
[And remember, our Zionist government perpetrated the 9-11 false-flag
mass-murder frame-up in the first place! Perle, Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld
seem to have adopted Sharon's singleness of purpose -- or do you think they
really are protecting us agains those who hate our freedoms??? --DE]
http://www.commondreams.org/news2004/0409-03.htm
-----
Falluja ceasefire broken by U.S. tank operation. He also said the
occupation on Tuesday pushed several tanks through the only open gateway
used as an exit for Iraqi families in an apparent violation of the latest
ceasefire in Falluja. -- "The invading forces were met with fierce
resistance by the Falluja defenders which forced the US tanks into a quick
withdrawal," correspondent Abd Al-Adhim Muhammad reported. -- "Five were
killed and several others injured in the battles between the resistance
fighters and the occupation troops." -- The US fighter planes dropped stun
bombs to cover their troops withdrawal, he added.
http://tinyurl.com/2cugd
Probe Needed Into US Action in Falluja -- Civilians who fled the fighting
described the streets of Falluja as being littered with bodies, including
women and children, and Iraqi politicians have accused U.S. forces of meting
out collective punishment on the city's residents. "The questions being
asked are very legitimate. When you cordon off a town and hear many stories
that are very worrisome about civilians being killed it needs to be
examined," said Hania Mufti, a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch, a
New York-based rights group.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0413-03.htm
An Eyewitness Account From Inside the US siege of Falluja -- Falluja, Iraq,
a low-rise, mostly Sunni city of about 200,000, has become this war's
Sarajevo. I was there on Saturday and Sunday during what was supposed to be
a cease-fire. Instead of calm, I found a city under siege from American
artillery and snipers.
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040426&s=jamail
' Sources close to the delegation said Sadr has proposed that he will
disband his Mehdi Army if told to do so by the religious authorities. "The
delegation answered that as he did not ask the Najaf elders before forming
his militia, why is he asking for an edict to disband it now? But the
negotiations are ongoing," an aide to leading cleric Mohammad Bahr al-Uloum
said. '
Bush's solution: escalate! -- "We will continue taking the greatest care
to prevent harm to innocent
civilians, yet we will not permit the spread of chaos and violence. .. I
have directed our military commanders to make every preparation to use
decisive force if necessary to maintain order and to protect our troops.
... The violence we have seen is a power-grab by these extreme and ruthless
elements. It's not a civil war. It's not a popular uprising. Most of Iraq is
relatively stable. Most Iraqis by far reject violence and oppose
dictatorship."
http://tinyurl.com/26v7r
Most Of Fallujah Victims Women, Children: Report -- Most of the Iraqis
killed in the
week-long U.S. occupation offensive into the restive town of Fallujah, west
of Baghdad, are children and women, an Iraqi dentist in the besieged town
revealed Monday, April12 . -- Osama Saleh Al-Tikrit belied U.S. claims
that 95 percent of the victims were resistance fighters, saying the entire
world "has got used to the American lies". -- "I was in Fallujah before
Sunday ceasefire and I saw with my own eyes many civilians and ordinary
people lying dead on the streets," Tikriti, a dentist at Baghdad hospital,
told IslamOnline.net over the phone. -- He was referring to a12 -hour
ceasefire reached Sunday, April11 , by the U.S. occupation troops and Iraqi
fighters in Fallujah and extended Monday for another 24 hours. -- He said
at least 600 people were killed and up to 1500 others wounded in the U.S.
sweep, citing a tally released by the town's hospital, which was struck last
week. -- U.S. Marine Lieutenant Colonel Brennan Byrne claimed Sunday,
April11 , that most the dead -- 95 percent -- were "insurgents" picked off
with precision by U.S. marines.
http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2004-04/12/article05.shtml
Iraqi doctors and independent Arab media sources have accused the U.S.
Military of breaking the ceasefire in Fallujah as "several Abrams tanks
attempted to breach the city defenses in the Anzal district of the city."
http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=1881&mode=thread&order=0
UN Inspector Wants Inspectors Back in Iraq -- The Director General of the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) renewed a call for return of arms
inspectors to Iraq, saying he had asked the U.N. Security Council for a
green light. -- Mohamed ElBaradei, speaking at a conference hosted by
Cairo University on Tuesday, April13 , said the IAEA's "mandate for the
inspection of weapons of mass destruction (in Iraq) is still in force". --
He stressed that his "inspectors should return there and the Security
Council should give its green light for that return." -- ElBaradei urged
the U.S.-led forces in Iraq to allow his organization to
return to the country. -- The IAEA inspectors pulled out of Iraq just
before the unleashing of the U.S.-led invasion in March2003 .
http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2004-04/14/article03.shtml
Battle lines in political philosophy -- Nick and Dick take on "Republican
Strategist" -- Nick: your "mobocracy" slur has fulfilled itself because
of systematic programs to counter the public intelligence (COINTELPRO). We
people have been treated like dogs, Pavlov's dog, programmed to turn
tricks/whore for the big-box fatcat elites, surreptitiously by the
multibillion $ PR industry. The people have been kept in the dark about
damn near everything important to actual life. BUT, if we begin to
collectively make our own decisions, locally, regionally, then our
infantalized populace, overweaned under like perpetual paternal guardian
careLESSNESS, we will collectively, the whole body politic, begin learn
from our mistakes and actually mature and whoa, evolve.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pentagon911/message/156
US Marines Shoot Ambulances in Fallujah -- Speaking from his ranch in
Crawford, Texas the President the United States, George W. Bush told
reporters American soldiers have acted against, quote: "lawlessness and
gangs" in Iraq in the past week. The American theater commander in Fallujah
told Britain's Guardian newspaper 95 percent of those killed in the assault
on the city are armed militants. But that's not the story coming from
Fallujah's temporary emergency clinics. This Baghdad doctor has spent most
of the last week in Fallujah. His name is being with-held for his own
safety.
"When you see a child five years old with no head what can you say?" asks
one doctor in Fallujah, whose name is being with-held for his own safety.
"When you see a child with no brain just an open cavity what can you say?
When you see a mother just hold her infant with no head and the shells are
all over her body."
So many Fallujahans have been killed by the US Marines that residents have
resorted to digging mass graves. The City's foot-ball stadium now holds more
than 200 dead bodies:
"We buried many in the stadium for football until it became full. When you
are burying you cannot stay long because they (US Marines) will just shoot
you. So we use the shovel. Just dig a big hole and put a whole family in the
hole and leave as soon as possible so we are not shot."
The official number killed in Fallujah is 600, but the total number of
civilian casualties is likely much higher. The official tally only reflects
those deaths reported by the cities mosques and clinics. But American
snipers and bombers have killed many people while they are inside their
homes.
http://www.pacifica.org/programs/reportfromiraq/PacInIraq-20040413.html
-------
U.S. AND BRITISH CAUGHT SMUGGLING LONG RANGE MISSILES AND WMD WARHEADS INTO
IRAQ POSSIBLY TO FAKE A DISCOVERY THAT WILL FRAUDULENTLY JUSTIFY THE
ATTACK IN TIME FOR THE U.S. ELECTIONS. AND THE COMING TRIAL OF SADDAM
(Thank you Mark Bilk!) -- Over the past few days, in the wake of the
bombings in Karbala and the ideological disputes that delayed the signing of
Iraq's interim constitution, there have been reports that U.S. forces have
unloaded a large cargo of parts for constructing long-range missiles and
weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the southern ports of Iraq. -- A
reliable source from the Iraqi Governing Council, speaking on condition of
anonymity, told the Mehr News Agency that U.S. forces, with the help of
British forces stationed in southern Iraq, had made extensive efforts to
conceal their actions. He added that the cargo was unloaded during the
night as attention was still focused on the aftermath of the deadly bombings
in Karbala and the signing of Iraq's interim constitution. -- The source
said that in order to avoid suspicion, ordinary cargo
ships were used to download the cargo, which consisted of weapons produced
in the 1980s and 1990s. -- He mentioned the fact that the United States
had facilitated Iraq's WMD program during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq and said
that some of the weapons being downloaded are similar to those weapons,
although international inspectors had announced Saddam Hussein's Baath
regime had destroyed all its WMD. -- The source went on to say that the
rest of the weapons were probably transferred in vans to an unknown location
somewhere in the vicinity of Basra overnight. -- "Most of these weapons
are of Eastern European origin and some
parts are from the former Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc. The U.S.
obtained them through confiscations during sales of banned arms over the
past two decades," he said. -- This action comes as certain U.S. and
Western officials have been pointing out the fact that no weapons of mass
destruction have been discovered in Iraq and the issue of Saddam's trial
begins to take center stage. -- In addition, former chief UN weapons
inspector Hans Blix has emphasized that the U.S. and British intelligence
agencies issued false reports on Iraq leading to the U.S. attack. --
Meanwhile, the suspicious death of weapons inspector David Kelly is also an
unresolved issue in Britain.
Andy Rooney: "Treating soldiers fighting their war as brave heroes is an
old civilian trick designed to keep the soldiers at it," Rooney explains.
"But you can be sure our soldiers in Iraq are not all brave heroes gladly
risking their lives for us sitting comfortably back here at home. It's
disingenuous of the rest of us to encourage them to fight this war by
idolizing them."
http://www.gopusa.com/news/2004/april/0414_rooney_soldiers.shtml
New Reports on U.S. Planting WMDs in Iraq
BASRA, April 12 (MNA) -- Fifty days after the first reports that the U.S.
forces were unloading weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in southern Iraq,
new reports about the movement of these weapons have been disclosed.
Sources in Iraq speculate that occupation forces are using the recent unrest
in Iraq to divert attention from their surreptitious
shipments of WMD into the country.
An Iraqi source close to the Basra Governor's Office told the MNA that new
information shows that a large part of the WMD, which was secretly brought
to southern and western Iraq over the past month, are in containers falsely
labeled as containers of the Maeresk shipping company and some consignments
bearing the labels of organizations such as the Red Cross or the USAID in
order to disguise them as relief shipments.
The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, added that Iraqi officials
including forces loyal to the Iraqi Governing Council stationed in southern
Iraq have been forbidden from inspecting or supervising the transportation
of these consignments. He went on to say that the occupation forces have
ordered Iraqi officials to forward any questions on the issue to the
coalition forces. Even the officials of the international relief
organizations have informed the Iraqi officials that they would only accept
responsibility for relief shipments which have been registered and managed
by their organizations.
The Iraqi source also confirmed the report about suspicious trucks with fake
Saudi and Jordanian license plates entering Iraq at night last week,
stressing that the Saudi and Jordanian border guards did not attempt to
inspect the trucks but simply delivered them to the U.S. and British forces
stationed on Iraq's borders.
However, the source expressed ignorance whether the governments of Saudi
Arabia and Jordan were aware of such movements.
A professor of physics at Baghdad University also told the MNA correspondent
that a group of his colleagues who are highly specialized in military,
chemical and biological fields have been either bribed or threatened during
the last weeks to provide written information on what they know about
various programs and research centers and the possible storage of WMD
equipment.
The professor also said these people have been openly asked to confirm or
deny the existence of research or related WMD equipment. A large number of
these scientists, who are believed
to be under the surveillance of U.S. intelligence operatives, have claimed
that if they refuse to comply with this request, they may be killed or
arrested on charges of concealing the truth if these weapons are found by
the Bush administration in the future.
He said that the Iraqi scientists believe their lives would be in danger if
they decline to cooperate with the occupation forces, especially when they
recall that senior U.S. officer Michael Peterson once said, "Iraqi
scientists are at any case a threat to the U.S. administration, whether they
talk or not."
A source close to the Iraqi Governing Council said, "In the meantime, many
suspect containers disguised as fuel supplies have been moved about by some
units of the U.S. special forces. The move has been carried out under heavy
security measures. Also, there are unofficial reports that the containers
held biological and bacteriological toxins in liquid form. It is possible
that the news about the discovery of the WMDs would be announced later."
He also said that such mixtures had been used by the Saddam regime in the
1990s.
The source added that some provocative actions such as the closure of
Al-Hawza periodical by U.S. administrator Paul Bremer, the secret meetings
between his envoys with some extremist groups who have no relations with the
Iraqi Governing Council, the sudden upsurge in violence in central and
southern Iraq, a number of activities which have stoked up the wrath of the
prominent Shia clerics, and finally, the spate of kidnappings and the
baseless charges against the Iranian charge d'affaires in Baghdad are
providing the necessary smokescreen for the transportation of the WMD to
their intended locations.
He said they are quite aware that the White House in cooperation with the
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has directly tasked the Defense Department
to hide these weapons. Given the recent scandals to the effect that the U.S.
president was privy to the 9/11 plot, they might try to immediately announce
the discovery of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in order to overshadow
the scandals and prevent a further decline of Bush's public opinion rating
as the election approaches.
CIA-MI6 OP? ---- Occupation Forces Official Claims to Have No Information
About Transfer of WMD to Iraq ---- A security official for the coalition
forces in Iraq said that he has not received any information about the
unloading of weapons of mass destruction in ports in southern Iraq. Shane
Wolf told the Mehr News Agency that the occupation forces have received no
reports on such events, but said he hoped
that the coalition forces would find the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction
one day. Coalition forces and inspectors have so far been unable to find
any Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. The U.S. invaded Iraq under the
pretext that Iraq possessed a stockpile of weapons of mass destruction.
http://www.tehrantimes.com/archives/Description.asp?Da=3/13/2004&Cat=4&Num=011
The Afghan narcotics economy was a carefully designed project of the CIA,
supported by US foreign policy.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
As revealed in the Iran-Contra and Bank of Commerce and Credit International
(BCCI) scandals, CIA covert operations in support of the Afghan Mujahideen
had been funded through the laundering of drug money. "Dirty money" was
recycled --through a number of banking institutions (in the Middle East) as
well as through anonymous CIA shell companies--, into "covert money," used
to finance various insurgent groups during the Soviet-Afghan war, and its
aftermath:
"Because the US wanted to supply the Mujahideen rebels in Afghanistan with
stinger missiles and other military hardware it needed the full cooperation
of Pakistan. By the mid-1980s, the CIA operation in Islamabad was one of the
largest US intelligence stations in the World. `If BCCI is such an
embarrassment to the US that forthright investigations are not being pursued
it has a lot to do with the blind eye the US turned to the heroin
trafficking in Pakistan', said a US intelligence officer. ("The Dirtiest
Bank of All," Time, July 29, 1991, p. 22.)
Researcher Alfred McCoy's study confirms that within two years of the
onslaught of the CIA's covert operation in Afghanistan in 1979,
"the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderlands became the world's top heroin
producer, supplying 60 per cent of U.S. demand. In Pakistan, the
heroin-addict population went from near zero in 1979 to 1.2 million by
1985, a much steeper rise than in any other nation."
"CIA assets again controlled this heroin trade. As the Mujahideen guerrillas
seized territory inside Afghanistan, they ordered peasants to plant opium as
a revolutionary tax. Across the border in Pakistan, Afghan leaders and local
syndicates under the protection of Pakistan Intelligence operated hundreds
of heroin laboratories. During this decade of wide-open drug-dealing, the
U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency in Islamabad failed to instigate major seizures
or arrests.
U.S. officials had refused to investigate charges of heroin dealing by its
Afghan allies because U.S. narcotics policy in Afghanistan has been
subordinated to the war against Soviet influence there. In 1995, the former
CIA director of the Afghan operation, Charles Cogan, admitted the CIA had
indeed sacrificed the drug war to fight the Cold War. 'Our main mission was
to do as much damage as possible to the Soviets. We didn't really have the
resources or the time to devote to an investigation of the drug trade,' I
don't think that we need to apologize for this. Every situation has its
fallout. There was fallout in terms of drugs, yes. But the main objective
was accomplished. The Soviets left Afghanistan.'"(McCoy, op cit)
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO404A.html
Kerry, backing Wolfowitz-Perle subjugation of Iraq policy: whatever it
takes, but lets get more foreign help if we can -- next time I'll do it so
the people continue to go along! : "I believe it is important for the
president to not just share with all Americans what we all believe. We know
we must succeed, we know we are committed to having a stable Iraq." Without
offering a specific plan himself, aside from more nicely inviting other
nations to participate in setting up a globalist puppet regime in Iraq,
Kerry then writes that Bush "offered no specific plan whatsoever" for
stabilizing the situation in Iraq. "Rather, the president made it clear that
he intends to stubbornly cling to the same policy that has led to a greater
risk to American troops and a steadily higher cost to the American taxpayer.
... Now we know with an incredible collapse of security in Iraq, we know to
what degree those words 'mission accomplished' missed the mark and to what
degree we remain challenged today. ... "As we stand here today, America is
carrying virtually the entire burden in Iraq, I believe that our policies
must change." Repeating his "solution" of getting help from other nations
to finish the job in Iraq, Kerry concluded, "I think this is one of the
great failures in judgment about how you take a nation to war." Make no
mistake, when Kerry takes us to war over the next four years, he will, each
time do it right. What more could you want, right. Source:
http://tinyurl.com/2nspr
The revenues generated from the CIA sponsored Afghan drug trade are
sizeable. The Afghan trade in opiates constitutes a large share of the
worldwide annual turnover of narcotics, which was estimated by the United
Nations to be of the order of $400-500 billion. (Douglas Keh, Drug Money in
a Changing World, Technical document No. 4, 1998, Vienna UNDCP, p. 4. See
also United Nations Drug Control Program, Report of the International
Narcotics Control Board for 1999, E/INCB/1999/1 United Nations, Vienna 1999,
p. 49-51, and Richard Lapper, UN Fears Growth of Heroin Trade, Financial
Times, 24 February 2000). At the time these UN figures were first brought
out (1994), the (estimated) global trade in drugs was of the same order of
magnitude as the global trade in oil.
The IMF estimated global money laundering to be between 590 billion and 1.5
trillion dollars a year, representing 2-5 percent of global GDP. (Asian
Banker, 15 August 2003). A large share of global money laundering as
estimated by the IMF is linked to the trade in narcotics.
Based on recent figures (2003), drug trafficking constitutes "the third
biggest global commodity in cash terms after oil and the arms trade." (The
Independent, 29 February 2004).
Moreover, the above figures including those on money laundering, confirm
that the bulk of the revenues associated with the global trade in narcotics
are not appropriated by terrorist groups and warlords, as suggested by the
UNODC report.
There are powerful business and financial interests behind narcotics. From
this standpoint, geopolitical and military control over the drug routes is
as strategic as oil and oil pipelines.
However, what distinguishes narcotics from legal commodity trade is that
narcotics constitutes a major source of wealth formation not only for
organised crime but also for the US intelligence apparatus, which
increasingly constitutes a powerful actor in the spheres of finance and
banking.
In turn, the CIA, which protects the drug trade, has developed complex
business and undercover links to major criminal syndicates involved in the
drug trade.
In other words, intelligence agencies and powerful business syndicates
allied with organized crime, are competing for the strategic control over
the heroin routes. The multi-billion dollar revenues of narcotics are
deposited in the Western banking system. Most of the large international
banks together with their affiliates in the offshore banking havens launder
large amounts of narco-dollars.
This trade can only prosper if the main actors involved in narcotics have
"political friends in high places." Legal and illegal undertakings are
increasingly intertwined, the dividing line between "businesspeople" and
criminals is blurred. In turn, the relationship among criminals, politicians
and members of the intelligence establishment has tainted the structures of
the state and the role of its institutions.
Where does the money go? Who benefits from the Afghan opium trade?
This trade is characterized by a complex web of intermediaries. There are
various stages of the drug trade, several interlocked markets, from the
impoverished poppy farmer in Afghanistan to the wholesale and retail heroin
markets in Western countries. In other words, there is a "hierarchy of
prices" for opiates.
This hierarchy of prices is acknowledged by the US administration:
"Afghan heroin sells on the international narcotics market for 100 times the
price farmers get for their opium right out of the field".(US State
Department quoted by the Voice of America (VOA), 27 February 2004).
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO404A.html
'Pressuring' Journalists -- Constraining the News
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
James Hider, a Times reporter who is embedded with US Marines near the front
line outside Falluja, said the threat of kidnapping had become so acute that
the majority of western journalists were no longer venturing beyond Baghdad.
"It was very serious even before the current situation, but for the past
month it has got much worse. The kidnappings and shooting are coming thick
and fast. "We've more or less decided not to operate outside Baghdad. A
lot of pretty seasoned war correspondents have decided it's not worth the
risk," Hider told MediaGuardian.co.uk.
The US marine commander in charge of Falluja has said the majority of the
estimated 600 people killed in the four-day conflict were legitimate
targets, saying, "95% of those were military age males that were killed in
the fighting". However al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya have repeatedly shown
pictures of women and children among the dead and injured.
In a statement the TV channel said the US military was putting "unjustified
pressure on the media".
"Al-Jazeera rejects these accusations and considers them a threat to the
right of the media to cover the reality in Iraq amid a difficult and complex
situation on the ground."
The US military has been accused of threatening the media covering the
conflict in Iraq and pressuring journalists into presenting a one-sided
picture of events.
Al-Jazeera, the Arab TV channel, made the accusations after a US army
spokesman, Brigadier General Kimmitt, accused the station and the
Dubai-based al-Arabiya news channel, of taking an "anti-coalition" stance in
their reporting.
Al-Jazeera's accusations follow suggestions that US soldiers fired on a
reporting team from the station based in Falluja and had made the removal of
al-Jazeera's crew from the town one of its terms for a ceasefire with the
rebels. -- A spokesman added that the station felt compelled to make it
clear to viewers that it was broadcasting an unbiased account of events in
Iraq.
"We felt it was a grave accusation and wanted to set the record straight.
Al-Jazeera is determined to maintain its professional integrity and
reporting in a balanced way," he said.
Al-Jazeera's claims come amid increasing concern that the mounting dangers
facing western journalists in Iraq could mean the end of independent
reporting from the country.
Arguing with Bush
Juan Cole, Professor of History at the University of Michigan
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
I saw President Bush's news conference Tuesday evening. He said many things
that disturbed me, not in any partisan sort of way (and I continue to
maintain that simple partisanship makes for bad analysis), but on grounds of
ethics and clear thinking and democratic values. I got the transcript and
began arguing back, but could see it could go on for hours. And probably
others would do a better job. But, since bytes are cheap, I may as well post
what I put down; this is a diary of sorts, after all.
On the analogy between Iraq and Vietnam:
' THE PRESIDENT: I think the analogy is false. I also happen to think that
analogy sends the wrong message to our troops, and sends the wrong message
to the enemy. '
If a historical analogy is offered as a cautionary tale or a form of
analysis of a contemporary situation, it has to be judged on its own merits.
Making such analogies is a form of democratic discourse, and it is the sort
of thing that the Bill of Rights meant to protect when it said that the
government shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech. To say that
bringing it up "sends the wrong message to our troops" and to "the enemy" is
to attempt to prevent democratic discourse on the grounds that it affects
the morale of the democratic country's fighting forces and that it might
give encouragement to those they with whom they are at war.
But the troops are either fighting for democratic values or they are not. If
they are, then it is illogical to demand that the Republic forsake
democratic discourse because they are fighting for it. It would be like
saying that all Americans should turn in their firearms during the war, or
that Americans should cease worshipping in the religion of their choice
during the war. It is precisely the ability of American citizens to analyze
the nature of the war freely that the troops are defending. Moreover, the
"enemy" (though who exactly that is is unclear at the moment) is fighting
for his own reasons, and can hardly take any real comfort from the existence
of free and democratic discourse in the United States.
' A secure and free Iraq is an historic opportunity to change the world and
make America more secure. A free Iraq in the midst of the Middle East will
have incredible change . . . '
This premise is not necessarily true. Turkey has had relatively democratic
elections since 1950, but this development had no resonances in the rest of
the Middle East. Iran went theocratic in 1979, and Khomeini expected
everyone in the Middle East to follow suit. No one did. Saudi Arabia is
among the world's richest monarchies, but it has not spread monarchy in the
mainly republican Middle East. Middle Eastern countries are often fairly
insular with regard to politics, and every tub is on its own bottom. There
is no guarantee that a "free" and democratic Iraq will have any real
influence on the rest of the region.
At the moment, moreover, Iraq is a poster child for dictatorship. Any
Egyptian who looked at what has transpired there in the past year might well
decide that the soft dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak is altogether preferable
to taking the risk of opening up the system and possibly causing a similar
social breakdown!
' There's no question it's been a tough, tough series of weeks for the
American people. It's been really tough for the families. I understand that.
It's been tough on this administration. But we're doing the right thing. .
.. '
I find the equation of the way in which the loss of nearly 80 US troops and
the wounding of dozens has been "tough" on the American people, and the way
in which these events have been "tough" for the Bush administration to be in
bad taste.
Saddam Hussein was a threat.
It is difficult to see how a ruler whose army was so easy to defeat, and who
was reduced to hiding in a spider hole, was a threat to the United States.
' He was a threat because he had used weapons of mass destruction on his own
people. '
I should think this proves he was a threat to his own people.
' He was a threat because he coddled terrorists. '
I don't know what this means, to "coddle" terrorists. Either he sponsored
terrorist actions aimed at harming the United States directly, or he did
not. He probably did not, after 1993. The State Department did not even list
Iraq as a terrorist threat in recent years.
' He was a threat because he funded suiciders. '
Saddam Hussein never gave any real support to the Palestinian cause, and he
did not pay suicide bombers to blow themselves up. It is alleged that he
funneled money to the orphans of such suicide bombers, but I have never seen
any documentation for the claim. Supporting orphans is in any case not the
same as funding terrorism.
' He was a threat to the region. He was a threat to the United States. '
I can't see how, given the state of his military in 2003.
' That's the assessment that I made from the intelligence, the assessment
that Congress made from the intelligence; that's the exact same assessment
that the United Nations Security Council made with the intelligence. '
Key figures of the Bush administration, including the President, Vice
President Cheney, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and National Security
Adviser Condi Rice consistently misled the Congress by intimating or stating
over and over again that Iraq was close to having nuclear weapons, that it
had weapons of mass destruction, and that it was responsible for September
11 and had strong ties to al-Qaeda.
All of these allegations were completely false. Having stampeded Congress
into a hasty vote on the war in Iraq with this farrago of phantasies, to now
use Congress's acquiescence as proof that Iraq was dangerous is frankly
dishonest.
' I went to the U.N., as you might recall, and said, either you take care of
him, or we will. Any time an American President says, if you don't, we will,
we better be prepared to. And I was prepared to. I thought it was important
for the United Nations Security Council that when it says something, it
means something, for the sake of security in the world. '
So then would it not be equally important, if the Security Council said "no"
to a war, for that decision to be upheld by the United States? When it says
something, after all, it should mean something, for the sake of security in
the world.
' See, the war on terror had changed the calculations. We needed to work
with people. People needed to come together to work. And, therefore, empty
words would embolden the actions of those who are willing to kill
indiscriminately. '
I can't understand what this string of Bushisms could possibly mean. If Bush
needed to work with people, why did he blow off the Security Council in
March of 2003? If people needed to come together to work, wouldn't they need
to come together about launching a major war that affected the entire world?
Why then did Bush go to war virtually unilaterally (bilaterally at most)?
That wouldn't represent much in the way of "people" "coming together." If
empty words would embolden killers, wouldn't turning the entire United
Nations Charter, which forbids unilateral wars of aggression without
Security Council permission, into so much scrap paper be a way of
"emboldening" such killers?
' He also confirmed that Saddam had a -- the ability to produce biological
and chemical weapons. In other words, he was a danger. '
Saddam did not have any stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons at all,
and had no nuclear weapons program. Iraq has the same ability to produce
"chemical weapons" as all other industrializing societies do, no more and no
less. But Iraq did not have such weapons, and it is hardly a casus belli
that they had the potential to make them. So does Brazil, but we haven't
invaded it lately.
' Finally, the attitude of the Iraqis toward the American people -- it's an
interesting question. They're really pleased we got rid of Saddam Hussein. '
About half say the US presence in Iraq is a form of liberation. About half
say it is a form of humiliation..
' And they were happy -- they're not happy they're occupied. I wouldn't be
happy if I were occupied either. They do want us there to help with
security, and that's why this transfer of sovereignty is an important signal
to send, and it's why it's also important for them to hear we will stand
with them until they become a free country. '
What? I thought they were happy. Now you say they aren't happy. Which is it?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Bush has never concretely penalized Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
for ignoring US directives and shrugging off his commitment to the peace
process. It's also worth noting that diplomatic admonitions are the
responsibility of the State Department which has been on the losing end of
the policy wars in Bush's White House. One wonders what Israeli-American
relations, and indeed what American relations with the rest of the world
would look like if the neocon hawks who control Rumsfeld's Defense
Department were also in charge at State. ... Drawing attention to the
Jewishness of the neocons is a tricky game. Anyone who does so can count on
automatically being smeared as an anti-Semite. But the point is not that
Jews (who make up less than 2 percent of the American population) have a
monolithic perspective. Indeed, American Jews overwhelmingly vote Democrat
and many of them disagree strongly with Ariel Sharon's policies and Bush's
aggression in Iraq. The point is simply that the neocons seem to have a
special affinity for Israel that influences their political thinking and
consequently American foreign policy in the Middle East. -- we decided to
tackle the issue head on and came up with a carefully researched list of who
appear to be the 50 most influential neocons in the US (see above). Deciding
exactly who is a neocon is difficult since some neocons reject the term
while others embrace it. Some shape policy from within the White House,
while others are more peripheral, exacting influence indirectly as
journalists, academics and think tank policy wonks. What they all share is
the view that the US is a benevolent hyper power that must protect itself by
reshaping the rest of the world into its morally superior image. And half of
the them are Jewish.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/worldcom/message/13965
The end of Zionism
Israel must shed its illusions and choose between racist oppression
and democracy
The opposition does not exist, and the coalition, with Ariel Sharon at its
head, claims the right to remain silent. In a nation of chatterboxes,
everyone has suddenly fallen dumb, because there's nothing left to say. We
live in a thunderously failed reality. Yes, we have revived the Hebrew
language, created a marvellous theatre and a strong national currency. Our
Jewish minds are as sharp as ever. We are traded on the Nasdaq. But is this
why we created a state? The Jewish people did not survive for two millennia
in order to pioneer new weaponry, computer security programs or anti-missile
missiles. We were supposed to be a light unto the nations. In this we have
failed.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1041960,00.html
======
Last minute addition:
Gulf Times
Editorial, Qatar, April 11
"A year ago, after Saddam Hussein's regime collapsed, nobody in the US
administration would have dreamt that the first anniversary of that event
would coincide with heavy fighting in Iraq in which hundreds have died,
including around 50 American troops...
"This week has seen the first concerted taking of hostages from coalition
countries and many westerners are probably unaware of the epidemic of
kidnapping which has taken root in Iraq since the 'liberation' ... Sadly,
this lawlessness has been allowed to flourish in the 'new Iraq' and has
terrorised the population ... Nobody is going to build a free and prosperous
Iraq by creating a mountain of corpses and nobody will win honour or glory
by slaughtering the weak and innocent."
Arab News
Editorial, Saudi Arabia, April 11
"Shortly before Saddam's statue in the heart of Baghdad was brought crashing
to the ground, the Americans made the first of a string of elementary
mistakes which now, a year later, find the smiling liberators transformed
into grim-faced occupiers. It was a simple error ... A single American
soldier secured the Stars and Stripes around the head [of the statue]...
Iraqis had already been given grounds to suspect that this victory had not
been won for them ... but for the advancement of US power over Iraqi oil and
the region as a whole ...
"Maybe if, as they began their work a year ago, top officials in the
Provisional Authority had done some urgent analysis of the problems they
faced and the perceptions and suspicions that they had to overcome, it might
have been different. But the Bush White House reckoned it already knew all
the answers."
Gulf News
Editorial, United Arab Emirates, April 11
"A year after it took control of Iraq and the collapse of the Saddam regime,
the US is back to square one. Security has not been restored and nor is
there a government exercising a real role. There appears to be no political
blueprint looming on the horizon either. A solution to this problem ...
cannot be achieved by [the US] using its formidable arsenal to bomb cities
and civilians. There must be a political solution as soon as possible. And
there will be no solution without the involvement of the United Nations,
Arab countries and Europe, which must be involved in charting out the future
of Iraq with the direct participation of the Iraqis themselves.
"The US must not monopolise this solution as it is trying to do now ...
Washington had promised the Iraqis that it would rid them of the Saddam
regime. Instead, the US is enslaving them today."
Hassan Fattah
Daily Star, Lebanon, April 10
"People have been modelling Iraq's occupation after those of Germany and
Japan. That may be the problem; neither model offers an appropriate sense of
what is going wrong and why ... In two decades' time, in fact, historians
may instead compare Iraq to revolutionary France, which after shaking off
the royal family plunged into dark days of terror before emerging a true
democracy...
"The best news is that Saddam is gone ... But Iraqis also face ever
darkening days ... Most everyone agrees that things will only grow worse
before they get better in Iraq, as every force operating there seeks to make
its mark to divide and conquer. Hopefully this reign of terror will last for
a much shorter period [than in France]."
· Hassan Fattah is the former editor of Iraq Today
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1190101,00.html
And finally, here again is the proof that the Neo-Cons running the Pentagon
were involved in the perpetration of the 9-11 mass-murder frame-up:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TRUTHBAZOOKA/message/5
http://www.cosmicpenguin.com/911/Eastman/m18h05.html
Dick Eastman
Yakima, Washington
Every man is responsible to every other man.
Dick Eastman
Readers have chosen to ignore the call for third-parties coalition and mass
demonstrations over the 9-11 frameup.
The money power is going to hit the US with economic collapse, weather
devestation of crops, cut off of imports, sabotage of life support systems
(water and power generation) and bio-chemical plague while their monopoly
media stops mouths and ears with cointelpro noise.
Then the Chinese led coalition will invade and be lauded as heroes and
liberators by the world for doing so. they have been preparing for war with
us for decades and never stopped. The pacification and 'policing'
occupation will decimate the middle class and all of the urban population
with a vengence as though each one of us was George Bush himself (who by the
way will be out of the country.)
The names Jefferson, Paine, Madison will be no more and so will we.
What goes around comes around. Get used to it.
Dick Eastman
Yakima, Washington
What men?
(Please, don't test this prediction -- form a coaliton of third parties
against war today and take to the streets with signs and handouts over the
9-11 frameup and the libercidal frame-up wars.
------
OPERATION ENDING FREEDOM -- PROGRESS REPORT
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
NM ROTHSCHILD & SONS - April 15, 2004 -- The decision has been taken
following a strategic review of the services offered by Rothschild and will
result in the withdrawal from commodities sales and trading activities in
London. As part of this decision, Rothschild will be withdrawing from the
twice daily London Gold Fixing, which it currently Chairs
--------
Richard Clarke and Military Technology Transfers to Israel and China
Clarke served in both the Bush 1 and Clinton administrations. From 1989 to
1992 during Bush 1, Clarke served as the assistant secretary of state for
political-military affairs overseeing sensitive US technology transfers. In
a March 1992 report, State Department Inspector General Sherman Funk stated
"alleged Israeli violations of US laws cited and supported by reliable
intelligence information show a systematic and growing pattern of
unauthorized transfers...dating back to about 1982." According to other US
officials at that time, those Israeli violations date back to the early
1970s. Many of those alleged violations during the Reagan era include
Israel's illegal transfers of American technology to China. -- The Funk
Report heavily criticized State's Bureau of Political-Military Affairs for
ignoring scores of intelligence reports on apparent violations of retransfer
restrictions and other restrictions and for not reporting them to senior
officials and Congress, as required by law. -- The report also recommended
that the then Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs
Richard Clarke be disciplined for his lack of oversight on Israel. Clarke
was reprimanded and eventually lost his job. However Clarke, a consummate
bureaucratic survivor, reappeared shortly after that on the National
Security Council staff in the Clinton administration. -- When the Funk
Report was issued and Clarke was removed from his State Department position,
Funk allegedly received threatening phone calls at his home. Funk was
summoned to closed-door hearings in the US House of Representatives and was
allegedly accused by Representative Tom Lantos of California of harming
Israel while others reportedly joined in a verbal assault of Funk's
positions on Israel. -- At that same time the Jerusalem Post reported, "It
appears the bureaucratic target (of the Funk Report) was Assistant Secretary
of State for Political-Military Affairs Richard Clarke. US officials
reportedly say Clarke is being removed from his position for negligence."
The Jerusalem Post goes on to quote a pro-Israeli activist as saying,
"Clarke was a friend of Israel in an administration where they do not
necessarily grow on trees. Somebody was out there to get him." -- Also
defending Clarke at that time in the Jerusalem Post were neoconservative,
pro-Israeli advocates Michael Ledeen and Stephen Bryen claiming that there
was "lack of proof that Israel had violated any agreements." Interestingly,
both Ledeen and Bryen served in the Reagan administration at the same time
as Clarke. Bryen was also reprimanded during that period for alleged
improprieties regarding technology transfer to Israel. Bryen and Ledeen now
serve on the US China Commission which oversees American technology
transfers to China.
-------------
James Madison, 4th US President: "History records that the money changers
have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible
to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and its
issuance."
-------
William Rothschild, associate national director of education at the
Anti-Defamation League, April, 2004: "We are no longer dealing with the
blunt anti-Semitism that we saw in the past. It's no longer a case of
here they tore off a mezuzah, there they wrote graffiti saying `dirty Jew.'
Now we are seeing political anti-Semitism."
-------------
Thomas Jefferson: "I believe that banking institutions are more
dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up
a money aristocracy that has set the government at defiance. The issuing
power (of money) should be taken from the banks, and restored to the people
to whom it belongs. If the American people ever allow private banks to
control the issue of their currency, first by inflation and then by
deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will
deprive the people of all property until their children will wake up
homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."
-------------
Justin Raimondo 4/14/04: Everyone is assuming that the Bush administration
meekly complied with the outcry coming from both sides of the aisle in
Congress, declassifying and releasing the Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB)
for August 6, 2001, with uncharacteristic speed.... now it turns out they
weren't so forthcoming after all. The text of the PDB released by the
White House is only one and a half pages long, but According to an article
by intelligence expert Oliver Schröm: "... In the PDB, as it's called in
CIA jargon, a senior CIA official presents the President with a summary of
the security situation. On this morning the CIA Director personally briefs
the President. Instead of the usual two or three pages, today's briefing
paper consists of eleven and a half printed pages and carries the title 'Bin
Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.'"
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/
--------
Lord Acton, Lord Chief Justice of England in 1875: "The issue which has
swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later is
the People vs. the Banks."
Abraham Lincoln: "The money power preys upon the nation in times of peace
and conspires against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than
monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, more selfish than bureaucracy. It
denounces, as public enemies, all who question its methods or throw light
upon its crimes. ... The Government should create, issue, and circulate all
the currency and credits needed to satisfy the spending power of the
Government and the buying power of the consumers. By the adoption of these
principles, the taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest. Money will
cease to be master and become the servant of humanity."
Editorial in the London Times after "Lincoln Greenbacks" were issued:
"If this mischievous financial policy, which has its origin in the North
American Republic, shall become endurated down to a fixture, then that
Government will furnish its own money without cost. It will pay off its
debts and be without debt. It will have all the money necessary to carry on
its commerce. It will become prosperous without precedent in the history of
the world. The brains and the wealth of all countries will go to North
America. That government must be destroyed or it will destroy every monarchy
on the globe."
U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, 1919, who signed the 1913 U.S. Federal
Reserve Act: "I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my
country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit.
Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore,
and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one
of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated
governments in the civilized world, no longer a government by free opinion,
no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a
government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men."
Congressman Charles A. Lindbergh Sr., 1913: "From now on, depressions will
be scientifically created."
---------
Patrick Buchanan 4/15/04 : "Israel has a right to defend itself," said
President Bush. And against whom was Israel defending itself at dawn on
Monday? ...Sharon's defenders say the sheik had sanctioned terror attacks
on innocent Israelis. But why did Israel not then seize him, expose his
complicity in murder, and put him in prison, as Israel had before? Why
convert this crippled old sheik into a martyr-saint? Why enhance the
prestige of Hamas? -- Has the killing made Israel more secure? If so, why
were Israeli buses deserted all week? Has it made us more secure? Why then
were the travel advisories issued to Americans in the Middle East? Why are
U.S. embassies shutting down? How does inflaming the Islamic world against
us advance the president's goal of persuading the world that Islam is not
America's enemy? -- President Bush must begin to realize that his blind
solidarity with Sharon, who has shown himself contemptuous of America's
interests in the larger region, is among the greatest crosses we have to
bear ...
http://www.antiwar.com/pat/?articleid=2201
-----------------
Andrew Hunt (antiwar.com): I repeat my earlier point: evil likes to get
innocent people 'dug in' so they can't get out. The more Americans that
Bush etc get killed, the more committed the US is FORCED to be to their
designs . . . otherwise it would all be a pointless waste of time, wouldn't
it? And there are PLENTY of Americans left to 'go fight the good fight' -
especially with CONSCRIPTION on the horizon . . .
Congressman Louis T. McFadden, 1933: "The Federal Reserve banks are one of
the most corrupt institutions the world has ever seen. There is not a man
within the sound of my voice who does not know that this nation is run by
the International Bankers." - "Every effort has been made by the Federal
Reserve Board (FED) to conceal its powers, but the truth is-the FED has
usurped the government. It controls everything here (in Congress) and it
controls all our foreign relations. It makes and breaks governments at
will."
----------
President George Bush swept aside decades of diplomatic tradition in the
Middle East yesterday, saying it was "unrealistic" to expect a full Israeli
withdrawal from lands occupied during the 1967 war or the right of return
for Palestinian refugees. In a significant policy shift, Mr Bush relaxed
Washington's objections to Jewish settlements in the West Bank, and attempts
by Israel to dictate the terms of a final settlement with the Palestinians.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1192206,00.html
--------------
John Moody, 1913 : "Seven men on Wall Street now control a great share of
the fundamental industry and resources of the United States. Three of the
seven men, J.P. Morgan, James J. Hill, George F. Baker, head of the First
National Bank of New York belong to the so-called Morgan group; four of
them, John D. and William Rockefeller, James Stillman, head of the National
City Bank, and Jacob H. Schiff on the private banking firm of Kuhn, Loeb
Company, to the so-called Standard Oil City Bank group...the central machine
of capital extends its control over the United States...The process is not
only economically logical; it is now practically automatic."
Henry Kissinger: "It is not a matter of what is true that counts, but a
matter of what is perceived to be true."
---------
Ideological Hegemony: Thought Control in American Society -- In June 2003 a
Washington Post-ABC News poll found that about 1 in 4 Americans
(incorrectly) believed Iraq had used weapons of mass destruction during the
recent war with the United States. [1] A separate poll in the same month
found that 34% of Americans believed the United States had already found
weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. [2] In September another poll found
that 69% of Americans believed Saddam Hussein was personally involved in
9-11. [3] Even the Bush administration has been forced to admit that these
claims are not true. These misconceptions are the outcome of a system of
thought control called ideological hegemony. Hegemony operates through many
mechanisms including the media, education system, newspeak and others with
the primary function of maintaining support for the dominant socio-economic
system in the United States.
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/stories.php?story=04/04/03/8936773
------------------
TRUTHOUT has been hacked. Here are todays postings from William Rivers
Pitt"
t r u t h o u t | 04.15
William Rivers Pitt | George and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamtie
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/041504A.shtml
9/11 Panel Says Bush Saw Repeated Warnings
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/041504B.shtml
Voyage to the Country of Hate
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/041504C.shtml
Former FBI Chief: Ashcroft Ignored Terrorism
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/041504D.shtml
Deaths of Scores of Mercenaries Not Reported
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/041504E.shtml
Intense Battles Continue in Fallujah
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/041504F.shtml
U.S. Stalls on Ratifying Sea Pact
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/041504G.shtml
New York Times | Mr. Bush's Press Conference
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/041504H.shtml
New Reports on U.S. Planting WMDs in Iraq
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/041504I.shtml
Among Military Families, Questions About Bush
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/041504J.shtml
--------
The Banker's Manifest, 1934: "Capital must protect itself in every way,
through combination and through legislation. Debts must be collected and
loans and mortgages foreclosed as soon as possible. When through a process
of law the common people have lost their homes, they will be more tractable
and more easily governed by the strong arm of the law, applied by the
central power of wealth, under control of leading financiers. People without
homes will not quarrel with their leaders. This is well known among our
principal men now engaged in forming an imperialism of capital to govern the
world. By dividing the people we can get them to expend their energies in
fighting over questions of no importance to us except as teachers of the
common herd"
Mayer Amschel Rothschild, 1790: "Permit me to issue and control the money
of a nation and I care not who makes its laws."
--------------
"Occupying power needs full-spectrum-dominance Middle East dictator. Must
have excellent connections with neo-conservatives in Washington and
experience in quelling any kind of dissent by whatever means necessary.
Ability to work under pressure essential. Democratic credentials will be
provided by the employer. Send detailed CVs to L Paul Bremer, Coalition
Provisional Authority (CPA), Green Zone, Baghdad. All correspondence will be
kept strictly confidential." This ad has not been posted - not yet. But it
just about sums it all up in terms of American isolation in Iraq, after the
Pentagon and the CPA's neo-con policies have managed to lead to the
unthinkable: Sunni and Shi'ite united against the occupation in a war of
national resistance. -- "Of course they don't like being occupied. I
wouldn't like being occupied
either." President George W Bush, April 13 White House press conference.
>From Opinion by Pepe Escobar
http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FD15Ak01.html
-------
How Israel persuaded leader of the free world to see West Bank entirely
their way -- Ariel Sharon was smiling during much of his joint White House
conference
with President George Bush last night. -- He secured most of what he came
to Washington DC for, perhaps more than even he had dared to expect. -- He
had wanted public endorsement of the principle that the pre-1967 borders on
which so many - and not only Palestinians - have long assumed would form the
basis of any future settlement of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, were not
after all inviolate. And he wanted a clear public statement from the US
President that there would be no right of return to Israel for the families
of those who have been refugees for more than half a century. -- That he
got both, not implicitly but explicitly, was made all the more surprising
given that President Bush, mired in the intractable chaos and bloodshed of
Iraq, might have been expected to be especially sensitive about anything
which would exacerbate tensions between himself and Arab leaders. --
Certainly some of the more worldly officials in the Israeli government had
expected that the President would indeed be so constrained that he would use
opaque words where Mr Sharon would have preferred clear ones. Instead, Mr
Sharon returns from Washington having secured a significant and remarkably
open shift of US policy in his favour.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=511598
------------
"Bin Laden" Offers 'Truce' To Europe
http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2004-04/15/article01.shtml
---------
Tony Blair's article, "Why We Must Never Abandon This Historic Struggle in
Iraq," where he writes, "The insurgents are former Saddam sympathisers ...
terrorist groups linked to al-Qaida and, most recently, followers of ...
Moqtada al-Sadr" is reviewed. Tony Really Must Try Harder.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1191333,00.html
-----------
Senior Labour MPs expressed concern at Mr Blair's close relationship with
George Bush as he prepared to fly to Washington tomorrow for talks that will
be overshadowed by the crisis in Iraq. In a sign of Mr Blair's nervousness,
Downing Street confirmed that he would not receive the Congressional Medal
of Honour he was awarded nearly a year ago, insisting it was not yet ready.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=511264
Hardline American diplomat handed top job in Baghdad -- John Negroponte, to
head a US embassy in Baghdad that will number about 3,000 people. ...
Diplomatic sources in New York said the new Iraq government was likely to
comprise heads of 10 to 12 new ministries in Baghdad plus a prime minister.
It is not
clear who would select those figures, although it would be likely come down
to Mr Brahimi himself. Sources said he would try to fill the ministerial
posts with Iraqi technocrats rather than religious or political figures.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=511585
---------
Palestine, Palestinians, and International Law -- book review -- Citing
the fundamental precepts of international human rights law, Francis A. Boyle
writes, "As is true of any other state in the world today, the
newly-proclaimed state of Palestine possesses the inherent right of
individual and collective self-defense recognized by customary international
law and article 51 of the United Nations Charter..the Palestinian people
actually living under this criminal occupation have the perfect right under
international law to resist the Israeli army by the use of force, just as
the French Resistance did against Nazi forces occupying France during the
Second World War."
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6032.htm
---------
U.S., France Block UN Probe of Aristide Ouster
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0413-08.htm
-----------
Rothschild Brothers of London, discussing the British banking system, June
25, 1863: "The few who understand the system, will either be so interested
in its profits, or so dependent on its favors that there will be no
opposition from that class. The great body of people, mentally incapable of
comprehending the tremendous advantages will bear its burden without
complaint."
-----------------
Arthur Schlesinger: This is Bush's Vietnam - the wrong war, at the wrong
time, in the wrong place There was no popular clamour for war. If we had
not gone to war, few Americans would even have noticed. -- A respected
professional diplomat Morton Abramowitz, asks "Does Iraq Matter?'' in The
National Interest, a sober conservative journal. "America's pre-eminent
power position in the world,'' Ambassador Abramowitz argues, "can endure an
early withdrawal from Iraq.... For the nearly half century of the Cold War,
US foreign policy was founded on containment plus deterrence. Mr Bush
scrapped that. The new basis of US foreign policy is preventive war. ...
"Failure is not an option'' had been a favourite Pentagon cliché, but Pat
Buchanan, an isolationist of the old school, now declares, "what Fallujah
and the Shia attacks tell us is that failure is now an option.''
http://argument.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=511530
----------
Phillip A. Benson, president of the American Bankers' Association, 1939:
"There is no more direct way to capture control of a nation than through its
credit system."
John Maynard Keynes: "By this means government may secretly and unobserved,
confiscate the wealth of the people, and not one man in a million will
detect the theft."
------------
A plan to spend an average of nearly $3 billion on supercomputers at every
weapons lab by 2009 aimed at meeting China threat and laser weapon facility
is suddenly under attack.
http://tinyurl.com/2p8gm
--------
Jo Wilding -- April 11th Falluja -- I'm sorry it's so long, but please,
please read and forward widely. The truth of what's happening in Falluja has
to get out.
http://vitw.us/weblog/archives/000663.
''They hit us with everything they had,'' said Tom Conroy, a Marine
corporal. ''This is a whole another world. The hostility is no longer hard
stares or dirty looks. It's gunfire.''
http://iht.com/articles/515085.html
Abraham Flexner , 1930: No nation is rich enough to pay for both war and
civilization.
Desiderius Erasmus, 1515: What is war, indeed, but murder shared by the
many.
---------
To Bush, credibility means that you keep saying today what you said
yesterday, and that you do today what you promised yesterday. "A free Iraq
will confirm to a watching world that America's word, once given, can be
relied upon," he argued Tuesday night. When the situation is clear and
requires pure courage, this steadfastness is Bush's most useful trait. But
when the situation is unclear, Bush's notion of credibility turns out to be
dangerously unhinged. The only words and deeds that have to match are his.
No correspondence to reality is required. Bush can say today what he said
yesterday, and do today what he promised yesterday, even if nothing he
believes about the rest of the world is true.
http://slate.msn.com/id/2098810/
--------------
Seymour Hersh: Tracking the 19 Hijackers What are they up to now?
At least 9 of them survived 9/11. A former high-level intelligence official
told me, "Whatever trail was left was left deliberately--for the F.B.I. to
chase." -- List and photo's of hijackers and other information -- The
FBI still says these are the terrorists. But when they are found alive,
the FBI says their identity was stolen, and its not the terrorist. Remember
that suspicious bin Laden "confession" video? How could he praise
uninvolved living people for the 9/11 hijackings??? If they stole
identities, how did the FBI identify those passengers as terrorists??? --
Not by flight calls, which contradict the FBI information! -- These aren't
the first mistakes. FBI quickly had amended the original list, as the
original "suicide hijackers" came forward!
http://tinyurl.com/34kjr
John Dewey, 1921: The more horrible or depersonalized scientific mass war
becomes, the more necessary it is to find universal ideal motives to justify
it... The more prosaic the actual causes, the more necessary is it to find
glowing sublime motives.
Marcus Tullius Cicero (d. 43 B.C.) : The most inequitable peace is better
than the most just war.
(Iniquissimam pacem justissimo bello antefero.)
August Bebel to the Reichstag, 1870: In times of war the loudest patriots
are the greatest profiteers.
Ursula K. Le Guin, 1971: He had grown up in a country run by politicians who
sent the pilots to man the bombers to kill the babies to make the world safe
for children to grow up in.
Arnold J. Toynbee, 1969: Victors are seldom in a mood for making
concessions; a dazzling series of victories is apt to blind the victors to
the truth that military victory is a wasting asset.
=================
9-11 was about Opium. Here is one way we know: The Taliban were
singlehandedly about to cut out the $2 trillion dollar opium/heroin market.
Plans for war in Afganistan followed, with Collin Powell in India talking of
war that year. I remembered the story and have often mentioned it, but
couldn't find on my hard drive.. Now Gary North has provided it again. --
DE
June 2001:
India in anti-Taliban military plan
India and Iran will "facilitate" the planned U.S.-Russian hostilities
against the Taliban.
By Our Correspondent:
26 June 2001: India and Iran will "facilitate" U.S. and Russian plans for
"limited military action" against the Taliban if the contemplated tough new
economic sanctions don't bend Afghanistan's fundamentalist regime.
The Taliban controls 90 per cent of Afghanistan and is advancing northward
along the Salang highway and preparing for a rear attack on the opposition
Northern Alliance from Tajikistan-Afghanistan border positions.
Indian foreign secretary Chokila Iyer attended a crucial session of the
second Indo-Russian joint working group on Afghanistan in Moscow amidst
increase of Taliban's military activity near the Tajikistan border. And,
Russia's Federal Security Bureau (the former KGB) chief Nicolai Patroshev is
visiting Teheran this week in connection with Taliban's military build-up.
Indian officials say that India and Iran will only play the role of
"facilitator" while the United States and Russia will combat the Taliban
from the front with the help of two Central Asian countries, Tajikistan and
Uzbekistan, to push Taliban lines back to the 1998 position 50 km away from
Mazar-e-Sharief city in northern Afghanistan.
Military action will be the last option though it now seems scarcely
avoidable with the United Nations banned from Taliban-controlled areas. The
United Nations, which adopted various means in the last four years to
resolve the Afghan problem, is now being suspected by the Taliban and
refused entry into Taliban areas of the war-ravaged nation through a decree
issued by Taliban chief Mullah Mohammad Omar last month.
Diplomats say that the anti-Taliban move followed a meeting between U.S.
Secretary of State Collin Powel and Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and
later between Powell and Indian foreign minister Jaswant Singh in
Washington. Russia, Iran and India have also held a series of discussions
and more diplomatic activity is expected. . . .
---------
If it's war you want, vote Kerry
John Laughland shows that the Democratic contender is more hawkish than
Bush, and may appeal to the neocons this November As the Bush
administration comes under increasing fire for its decision to attack Iraq,
the Democratic contender, John F. Kerry, is profiting from his perceived
status as a critic of Bush's foreign policy. A patrician grandee with a
pleasing mix of liberal and patriotic views might seem to many Americans a
welcome relief from the bellicose Texan with his faux swagger and his team
of men who seem to have 'military-industrial complex' written across their
menacing foreheads. But if anti-war Americans do elect Kerry for that
reason, they will have duped themselves. Warmongering will be worse under
Kerry than under Bush, and real peaceniks should therefore vote for Dubya.
Bush and Kerry agree on almost everything in foreign policy, but where they
disagree, Kerry is more hawkish. In an indication of the extent of the
militarisation of American political life, John Kerry launched his campaign
for the presidency specifically by profiling himself as a Vietnam war hero,
and by presenting George Bush as a draft-dodger and a coward. Kerry's
subsequent statements on foreign policy and homeland security have continued
to attack Bush as a wet. Kerry said in February, 'I do not fault George Bush
for doing too much in the war on terror. I believe he's done too little.'
Kerry has committed himself to 'a stronger, more comprehensive strategy for
winning the war on terror than the Bush administration has ever envisioned'
(my italics throughout). Those Americans who are uncomfortable with George
Bush's Patriot Act, and the Department of Homeland Security, should blanch
at John Kerry's proposals to enlist the National Guard in Homeland Security
and to 'break down the old barriers between national intelligence and local
law enforcement'. Such barriers are precisely what distinguish free
societies from dictatorships. Kerry seems even more obsessed than Bush with
weapons of mass destruction, as he is constantly harping on about the danger
of WMD being delivered through American ports.
Kerry voted for the war on Iraq and continues to support it wholeheartedly.
He said last December that those who continue to oppose the war 'don't have
the judgment to be president - or the credibility to be elected president'.
Kerry does not even say that Bush has jeopardised US security by attacking
Iraq instead of facing down the al-Qa'eda threat: he is not Richard Clarke.
Instead, Kerry says, 'No one can doubt that we are safer - and Iraq is
better - because Saddam Hussein is now behind bars.' On 17 December last
year, Kerry lent credence to the loony theory that Iraq was the author of
the 9/11 attacks, something George Bush has done at least twice. Yet in
February, Kerry attacked Bush for planning to hand back power to the Iraqis
too quickly - what he called 'a cut and run strategy' - even though Bush
intends the US embassy in Iraq to be the biggest American embassy in the
world, and even though some 110,000 US troops are to remain stationed there
indefinitely.
Above all, John Kerry is, like Bush, committed to the world military
supremacy of the USA. 'We must never retreat from having the strongest
military in the world,' says the possible future president. Kerry claims
that George Bush has actually 'weakened' the military, and so he has
promised 40,000 more active-duty army troops. Indeed, Kerry, who drum-beats
his 'readiness to order direct military action' whenever necessary, has gone
so far as to imply that friendly countries might need to be attacked in the
war on terror. In February he said, 'We can't wipe out terrorist cells in
places like Sweden, Canada, Spain, the Philippines or Italy just by dropping
in Green Berets.'
John Kerry has tried to give off a reassuringly multilateralist aura, and he
says Bush has alienated America's allies. This may be why some people
believe him to be less of a warmonger. But they are wrong. First, Bush is
himself avowedly multilateralist: the Bush White House seldom misses an
opportunity to emphasise his faith in multilateral institutions and
international alliances, to boast of how many countries there are in the
coalition against terror, or to claim that the Iraq war was necessary to
save the credibility of the United Nations. Second, Kerry himself vigorously
rejects the idea that US military action can be subject to a UN veto. In
December, Kerry attacked his then contender, Howard Dean, on this very
issue, and in February he said, 'As president, I will not wait for a green
light from abroad when our safety is at stake.' Even Kerry's commitment to
'a bold, progressive internationalism' is in fact identical to George Bush's
repeated commitments to 'keep open the path of progress' in the 'global
democratic revolution', and to provide 'leadership' in the 'defence of
freedom'. Both Bush and Kerry genuflect to the memory of the same Democratic
presidents, Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt.
Kerry is actually more hawkish than Bush about the threat from Islam in
general, and about Saudi Arabia in particular. Both of these are favourite
neoconservative themes. While Bush has often emphasised that America has no
quarrel with Islam, Kerry happily speaks about the specific danger to the
USA from the Islamic world, using language which is not substantially
different from that in the latest neo-con manifesto, An End to Evil by
Richard Perle and David Frum. Kerry explicitly lists certain populations as
representing a special danger to America - Saudi Arabians, Egyptians,
Jordanians, Palestinians, Indonesians and Pakistanis - and he reproaches
George Bush's own grandiose plan to 'democratise' the entire Middle East not
for its overweening ambition, but instead for its timidity. Kerry has
attacked the Bush administration for adopting a 'kid gloves' approach to the
Saudi kingdom, which he has repeatedly accused of complicity in the funding
of Islamic extremism and terror, and he has said the Saudi interior minister
is guilty of 'hate speech' and of promoting 'wild anti-Semitic conspiracy
theories'. This recalls Frum and Perle's surprising classification of Saudi
Arabia as 'an unfriendly power'.
Serious neocons, indeed, might be calculating that the bungling Bush is now
more of a liability than an asset for their desire to remodel the Middle
East, and to consolidate America's unchallenged military power in the world.
Kerry might be just what they need, in order to draw the sting of that
left-wing anti-Americanism around the world, and in the US itself, which
inspires so much antiwar feeling today. The Kosovo war showed that a war for
human rights and against oppression, fought by a slick Democrat, plays far
better with world public opinion than all that red-neck bull about dangers
to national security. It will be far easier for President Kerry to fight new
wars than for the mistrusted and discredited Bush. So to those who think
that the election of a Democratic president will put an end to American
militarism, I say, 'You ain't seen nothin' yet.'
http://www.lewrockwell.com/spectator/spec270.html
William E. Gladstone: "From the time I took office as Chancellor (December,
1852) 1 began to learn that the State held, in the face of the Bank and the
City, an essentially false position as to finance. The hinge of the whole
situation was this: The Government itself was not to be a substantive power
in matters of finance, but was to leave the Money Power supreme and
unquestioned. In the conditions of that situation I was reluctant to
acquiesce, and I began to fight against it by financial self-assertion from
the first. I was tenaciously opposed by the Governor and Deputy Governor of
the Bank (of England), who had seats in Parliament; I had the City for an
antagonist on almost every occasion."
James A. Garfield, 20th US President: "Whoever controls the volume of money
in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce."
General Richard Myers, the chairman of the U.S. joint chiefs of staff, said
Shiite leader Moqtada Sadr , who has "incited violence and sparked unrest"
in Iraq "must be brought to justice". ... But the top U.S. military official
declined to say if the threat to kill Sadr was still an option for the
U.S.-led forces, saying that a number of Shiite leaders were negotiating
with Sadr to bring a peaceful end to the standoff. General Myers said the
U.S. forces had reinforced their forces around the Shiite holy city of
Najaf, where Sadr is believed to be staying, but refused to say if the
U.S.-led forces would attack the city to capture the Shiite leader. --
Myers said that detaining Sadr might trigger some 'violent reactions', but
only for a temporary period. -- Sadr is willing to stand trial on charges
of killing a rival scholar but only under a future "legitimate and
democratic" government in Iraq, an aide said on Wednesday
http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2004-04/14/article09.shtml
"Ever since the Civil War, Congress has allowed the bankers to control
financial legislation. The membership of the Finance Committee in the Senate
[now the Banking and Currency Committee] and the Committee on Banking and
Currency in the House have been made up chiefly of bankers, their agents,
and their attorneys...In this way the committees have been able to control
legislation in the interests of the few."
.
-------------------------------------
Dear Friends,
I have this from a friend of my friend David Hartsough -- an invitation
to drop everything and go to Iraq right away to try and prevent the next
expansion of the bloodbath already going on.
If this is something you can do,
PLEASE GET IN TOUCH WITH PETER DIRECTLY
--info at the end of the letter--
not with me.
Please forward.
Thanks,
Carolyn Scarr
-----------------forwarded message----------------
Subject: URGENT to Carolyn, EPICALC re: Iraq emergency delegation
Date: Sun, 11 Apr 2004 14:02:56 EDT
From: MDrum...@aol.com
Sunday April 11, 2004:
URGENT re: emergency delegation to Iraq for protective accompaniment in
relation to imminent expansion of the U.S. military assault to Karbala
and Najaf
Dear Carolyn,
Thank you very much for your telephone message. We truly appreciate
your offer to contact people who might be interested in the Iraq
emergency delegation, and hope you can do so today, as the situation is
very urgent. I just wrote to Barbara Lubin, as you suggested, at the
MECA e-mail address (if you have Barbara's home telephone number or
personal e-mail that would be very helpful as well). I've known Dave
Hartsough for some 27 years. [I have been involved in justice/peace
organizing since the 1970s, worked on Global Exchange and Resource
Center for Nonviolence staff in the 1990s after finishing two-year
plowshares sentence.] My wife and I were in Iraq in October (stayed
with Christian Peacemaker Team), came back with slideshow and
observations, not only on good work being done there by CPT & others
but also concern about aspects of work that CPT & others are not doing
there, ideas for organizing a group to go back in 2004 to fill some of
that gap.
Now, in the face of intense military escalation during this past week
(which as you know has left hundreds of Iraqi civilians dead in Fallujah
and elsewhere), and consultations with Iraqi friends, we are scrambling
to organize what we believe is an urgently-needed emergency delegation
of U.S. [and international?] civilians to Iraq - specifically as a
witness and 'protective accompaniment' presence that would visibly,
directly, nonviolently challenge the U.S. military offensive in Iraq at
its next, and pivotal, targets - the holy cities of Karbala and Najaf.
Medea Bejamin, whom I've known for years, was very enthusiastically
supportive of this idea when I spoke with her, but she can't go herself
at this time. I am urgently contacting individuals and veterans,
justice & peace groups about this and, although there is interest, it is
- quite frankly - difficult to pull this together because of the very
urgent timeline, the significant element of personal risk involved, and
the logistics + finances.
Nevertheless we believe it is possible and necessary. Meg (who, by
the way, is an ordained Lutheran pastor) and I are prepared to go if
such a group can be pulled together rapidly enough. We think that Najaf
and Karbala (where we visited with religious and community leaders in
October, taking their concerns to the U.S. military command post in the
immediate wake of the first deadly gunfight there between Muqtada's
militia and American troops) are pivotal. If these, the central holy
cities of Iraq's Shia majority and of Shias worldwide, are attacked by
U.S. forces in pursuit of Muqtada and his people, Iraq will almost
certainly be plunged into all-out civil war. Bush, Rumsfeld, Bremer,
Sanchez and Kimmet have indicated that they are preparing to attack
these cities within days. We do think that, in the present context, the
presence of U.S. (and international?) civilians nonviolently and visibly
putting themselves in the way of such an assault, as U.S forces mass
outside these cities, could make a small but potentially significant
contribution to lessening the chances of this disastrous attack plan
being carried out.
We need to have anyone who would consider joining such a delegation in
the days ahead to please contact us immediately, as time is of the
essence. Hope to hear from you very very soon.
Best wishes,
Peter Lumsdaine:
MDrum...@aol.com
Dick Eastman
by Dick Eastman
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
1. Pentagon security camera shows
a. Too short a plane
b. Smoke trail of a missile being fired
c. White-hot flash explosion consistent with a missile warhead
2. Photos show wrong crash imprint in the wall
3. Photos show and wrong flash-powder burn darkening the wall
4. Downed lampposts and witnesses each identified a different
approach path to the Pentagon, the Boeing's and the killer jet's
5. Wrong kind of debris
6. Single piece of right kind of debris shown to have been
found on the opposite side of the approach path from
the side of the plane where that particular piece had
to have come from.
7. Witnesses also
a. heard a missile
b. heard a sonic boom prior to blast
c. smelled burning chordite after the blast
d. saw a radar blip behaving like a jet-fighter blip
8. No photos of wreckage from inside consistent with the crash
9. Evidence of only one engine and one seat , a pilots seat.
10. A distraction plane, ur engine plane making dives over D.C.
both photographed, videotaped and shown on BBC, and
reported (erroneously) by many wintesses as the actual plane
"diving at an irrecoverable angle)
11. The attack was made almost horizontally into the first-floor
level -- consistent with a countour-hugging jet-fighter attack
12. Normal rescuers were prevented from entering the building
while only certain people, including Rumsfeld himself, conducted
(screened) victims from the building
13. Rumsfeld had recently been given exclusive power to
OK air interceptions -- and yet he was in his office the whole
time the twin towers were hit, and when the Pentagon was
hit he went to oversee "rescue" instead of going to the situation
room where his interception authority could be given -- he
arrived at the situation room at about the time the Pennsylvania
plane (backup for the Pentagon) was finally shot down.
14. The various drills and practices for an air attack on the Pentagon
including some kind of simulation on 9-11-01 itself, coupled with
denials that such an attack had been considered possible.
15. Impossible stories by, for example, John Judge (regarding
his amazing stewardess friend who claims to have seen the
Boeing inside the hole, recognized the plane as the one she
always flew, recongized her stewardess friend as a victim by
a photo of her severed arm with the matching "friendship
bracelett" they both wore; that she was passing out
doughnuts and coffee to the rescue workers with the salvation
army when the salvation army was nowhere in evidence at the
scene -- John Judge who is a professional JFK conspiracy
theory debunker and discloses that this same stewardess
friend is also a JFK theory investigator, the same
John Judge who launched the phony "People's Investigation
of 9-11 with a press conference by stating that the Pentagon
attack is not something responsible investigators should bother
investigating etc. since we "know" the Boeing hit the Pentagon
and don't want to be a laughing stock etc. -- the People's investigation
that never once reviewed any of the evidence packages I posted
to them -- the same John Judge who to this day refuses to
debate Dick Eastman on any internet forum and whom all --
dare I use the term -- "responsible" 9-11 investigators think is
a John Judge who is working for the coverup, for obstruction
of justice, and because he does it so badly is himself become
one of the proofs of the frameup along with the known-only-to
himself flight attendant who works one of the flights that
most definitely had to have been regularly monitored by
US intelligence operatives, probably flight attendents, and
this one just happened not to take Flight 77 that day by
happenstance etc. -- so how about it, Mr. Judge?
16. The deaths of only the CIA's indepdendent intelligence
revivals , the Offices of Naval Intelligence personel, and auditors
of defense spending contracts etc. alone moved
into the "newly renovated" section that was hit -- on the side
where most of the witnesses would be the Arlington Cemetery
dead or people involved with driving their cars. Naval Intelligence
would have independently investigated 9-11 had they lived --
the investigator that no official has yet conducted -- Wolfowitz
sure bin Laden had done it and ready with the solution of invading
Afganistan on the very first day -- even as they were allegedly taken
by complete suprise only a few hours before that determination.
See the many photos and witness testimony and further analysis
by respected scientific minds establishing all of the above here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TRUTHBAZOOKA/message/5
and
http://www.cosmicpenguin.com/911/Eastman/m18h05.html
Dick Eastman
Yakima, Washington
Every man is responsible to every other man.
================
The Pentagon planned to reduce the number of American troops to about
110,000 by mid-2004.
But with no end to violence on the ground, US generals have appealed for
more troops - and the defence department has agreed to keep the level at
about 130,000 for the time being. Other countries supplying military
presence in occupied Iraq: United States, United Kingdom, India, Poland,
Bangladesh, South Korea, Turkey, Thailand, Ukraine, Australia, Pakistan,
Japan, Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Philippines, Russia, Germany.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3628959.stm
FISK: By endorsing Ariel Sharon's plan George Bush has legitimised
terrorism -- What better recruiting sergeant could Bin Laden have than the
President of the United States? -- So President George Bush tears up the
Israeli-Palestinian peace plan and that's okay. Israeli settlements for Jews
and Jews only on the West Bank. That's okay. Taking land from Palestinians
who have owned that land for generations, that's okay. UN Security Council
Resolution 242 says that land cannot be acquired by war. Forget it. That's
okay. -- Does President George Bush actually work for al-Qa'ida? What does
this mean? That George Bush cares more about his re-election than he does
about the Middle East? Or that George Bush is more frightened of the Israeli
lobby than he is of his own electorate. Fear not, it is the latter.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/story.jsp
Three Japanese hostages held in Iraq, have been freed, following calls for
their release by the Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS) - the highest
Sunni authority in the country.
http://tinyurl.com/2hcy9
Sound familiar? Danish Prime Minister who supported Iraq conquest because
of WMD's is in hot water because it has been revealed that he was sent 10
reports, each concluding that the coalition was
unlikely to find weapons of mass destruction. Yet, despite that and with no
contrary indications, Mr Fogh Rasmussen later told the Danish parliament in
the run-up to the war, which began on 20 March 2003, that he was convinced
Iraq was in possession of such weapons saying, "This is not something we
just believe. We know." The whistleblower, Major Grevil, who was sacked
from his job in March, said he leaked the
documents because he did not like the way the government had interpreted the
reports he had helped write. Denmark sent a submarine and a warship to
participate in the campaign.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3629311.stm
Entire building facilities that had been monitored by UN nuclear inspectors
have disappeared since the war, the UN's nuclear watchdog said on Thursday,
looted and removed from Iraq European satellites reveal. "The imagery shows
that there has been extensive removal of equipment and,
in some instances, removal of entire buildings," International Atomic Energy
Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei said in a letter to the UN Security Council.
"Other information available to the agency, confirmed through visits to
other countries, indicates that large quantities of scrap, some of it
contaminated, have been transferred out of Iraq," he said.
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040415165134.540rlpm3.html
WHO HAS ATTACKED SPANISH BASE -- No longer active, someone is attacking
the base and the US is keeping journalists away? Story: Spanish
military base has come under attack following clashes between Spanish forces
and unidentified assailants. -- "The assailants fired five mortar's shells
on the central base of the Spanish, Salvadorian and US forces. The attack
was followed by more than 15 minutes of armed confrontation while F-16
warplanes were hovering over the area. -- In Najaf, there were three bases,
northern, central and southern. Occupation forces prevented journalists and
reporters to approach these bases ...
http://tinyurl.com/3288k
They swear allegiance to the Jaish al-Mahdi, the militia of Iraq's radical
young Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whose uprisings across southern Iraq last
week shook the American authorities in Baghdad to the core. -- It is a
force the American military has vowed to destroy. Now these gunmen talk of
jihad and boast how they would delight in giving a lesson in the bloody art
of guerrilla warfare to the troops of the US Army's 1st Armoured Division,
currently massing unseen just a few miles away. -- This was the scene
yesterday in Najaf, the city at the centre of a stand-off that could define
the future of Iraq. If US troops carry out their threat to launch an
offensive against Mr Sadr's militia, the fight would be bloody and could
unleash an unprecedented wave of violence and uprisings across the south
that could imperil the American occupation.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1193136,00.html
Hear no evil, read no evil, speak drivel --Bush's press conference shows
just how ill-informed he is about Iraq
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1192158,00.html
Tony Blair will today attempt to salvage appearance of British -US "special
relationship" in Washington -- Less than 48 hours after Mr Bush spurned
his plea for an "even-handed" approach to the Middle East, the prime
minister will make clear in private that Britain cannot sign up to Ariel
Sharon's unilateral plan which was all but endorsed by the president.
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/foreignaffairs/story/0,11538,1193134,00.html
Lt. Col. Robert Strzelecki, a spokesman for Polish forces in Iraq said on
Thursday the Polish-led
multinational division operating in key Shi'ite Muslim areas of
south-central Iraq. were blindsided by the violence caused by cleric Moqtada
al-Sadr's followers because U.S. officials did not warn them of actions
shutting down a newspaper associated with Sadr or capturing a key
lieutenant to the Shi'ite cleric, events that triggered violence by Sadr's
militia that rocked the relatively calm Shi'ite parts of Iraq and opened a
second front in the challenge to the U.S.-led occupation. The cleric's
followers seized control of several towns.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N15403091.htm
Once while in Afganistan someone in the Taliban suggested that David Hicks,
now an Australian detainee at Guantanamo , should become a suicide bomber.
He rejected the idea. That, according to the first inside source to discuss
the case, is all they have on Hicks after holding him at Guantanamo as a
high-risk "wild-card" for over two years. A Guantanamo interrogator, said
to be in the US Army and identified only as Tom, suggested that Hicks was
probably part of an al-Qa'ida plan to use indoctrinated westerners to
infiltrate the US and badmouth Zionism (after all, Hicks declined the
suicide mission, according to "Tom") -- "Tom" beling allowed to send up
Hicks to condition public opinion less than a week before a group of
Guantanamo detainees, including Mr Hicks, go before the US Supreme Court to
challenge the government's right to hold them indefinitely at the military
base in Cuba.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/australasia/story.jsp?story=511870
White HousePress secretary Scott McClellan moved quickly Wednesday to
correct the record, seeking out reporters to point out that president
should have said in his Tuesday night address and press
conference that 23.6 tons of mustard gas were found in Libya, instead of 50
tons, McClellan said.
http://tinyurl.com/3gcll
Iraqi officers who betrayed Saddam, burning their bridges behind them on
Iraqi nationalism and sovereigny, to be given top security force positions
in an attempt to prevent a repetition of last week's mutiny by several
hundred Iraqi soldiers.The newly trained Iraqi battalion refused to join the
US Marines' attack on Falluja, saying its job was to defend the country, not
to kill other Iraqis. The action cast doubt on the US aim of building up
Iraqi forces to let US troops withdraw from the front line. The
appointment of officers who betrayed the old regime was advised by British
officials last summer after the entire Iraqi army was disbanded by Paul
Bremer. See:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1192227,00.html
Moslem Cleric tells Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz , Meyer, no new bloodbath. [
Doesn't he realize the "red line" he has drawn will be a red flag before
these bull-headed Zionist organized crime figures who perpetrated the 9-11
mass-murder frame-up? --de] Story: Iraq's most powerful Shia spiritual
leader, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, warned the United States against entering
the holy city of Najaf in pursuit of his militant rival, Moqtada al-Sadr, it
was reported yesterday. -- A senior Shia source told Reuters that
Ayatollah Sistani had declared Najaf a "red line". -- The warning came as
2,500 US troops gathered around the central Iraqi city in pursuit of Mr Sadr
and his Mahdi militia. It is significant because that US incursions into the
holy city would unite Shia factions, and possibly spark a broader uprising
among Iraq's majority population. -- The sensitivity of the situation
appeared to have been taken on board by the US military and General Richard
Myers, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said talks were under way to
"try" to avoid a bloodbath in Najaf.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1193088,00.html
Purgery under oath at the 9-11 Commission -- but a tacit conspiracy among
Commissioners to ignore it.
http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?disc=149495;article=53143;title=APFN
New big picture not too helpful. -- At first they thought it was flat.
Then that it was shaped like a football. But now, scientists believe the
universe could be shaped like a flat-sided trumpet. The new shape,
predicted by careful mathematical modelling to fit with known astronomical
data, would have the universe stretched out into a long funnel, flaring into
a bell-like shape at one end. The thin end would be infinitely long - but so
narrow that it would have a finite volume. That would lead to strange
effects in some parts of the universe, where time and light would be so
curved that you could see the back of your own head. Also, a long-held
theory about the universe - that it looks much the same anywhere - would
have to be abandoned. And finally, the universe would be finite, rather than
extending in every direction forever.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/story.jsp?story=511575
http://etherzone.com/2004/homc041504.shtml
SICK & TIRED OF 9/11 LIES
OUR VOICES MUST BE HEARD
By: Alan Homcy
I'm sick and tired of both Republicans and Democrats politicizing 9/11.
They're both equally guilty. I'm sick and tired of Republicans
characterizing anyone who questions the official government story as being a
"Bush Hater," and I'm sick and tired of the Democrats using 9/11 as a
political football to gain an edge in the upcoming election.
Despite the mainstream news saturation about the 9/11 hearings, nobody is
saying anything. The bickering and name-calling bring to mind spoiled 5 year
olds. The administration appointed commission has proven itself to be a
sham, unwilling to ask the probing questions that would truly make the
witnesses squirm.
The problem is that the commission has framed their inquiry with certain a
priori assumptions, from which their line of inquiry flows. The tacit
assumption is that the following statements are irrefutable:
1.. The 9/11 attacks happened precisely the way they were reported by the
mainstream press, and our government was caught totally by surprise.
2.. They were planned and executed solely by Osama Bin Laden and Al Queda.
3.. All material evidence conclusively shows that points 1 and 2 are true
beyond any reasonable doubt. This is like holding hearings about how far
one can sail before falling off the end of the earth. The entire debate is
predicated on the assumption that the earth is flat. But outside the
courtroom, a crowd of citizens is screaming that the earth is round, while
those inside are locked in debate over whether the distance is 50 miles, 100
miles, or 200 miles. The point is that if the foundation is unstable, it
really doesn't matter if you go with the mauve or the teal drapes.
Now if statements 1,2, and 3 are indeed true, then the line of inquiry makes
sense, but if there still exists legitimate doubt about these statements,
then the questions are irrelevant. It's like a group of
blind hunters arguing about who shot off the elephant's bill or the
elephant's wings, while a duck lies dead at their feet. Regardless of who
wins the argument, it's still a duck.
So here we have the CFR sponsored commission asking about who knew what
about Osama and Al Queda and when they knew it. Whoa. First, please share
with those of us who pay your salaries the top-secret body of evidence that
proves their guilt. And please don't show us that grainy
videotaped "confession" starring the fat Osama, or the incredible
indestructible passport that somehow survived the carnage at ground zero
that liquefied the black boxes. By the way, whenever something blows up,
every terrorist group on the planet claims responsibility, even if they were
not involved, because their cause is furthered only by planting their flag
on the rubble. Why has Bin Laden failed to take credit for the most
successful and devastating terrorist attack in history? Humble terrorist is
an oxymoron.
The CFR sponsored commission is investigating the supposed breakdowns in
intelligence. Whoa. FBI agent Colleen Rowley's request for a search warrant
of a suspicious flight student's laptop was categorically denied, causing
Rowley to suspect foul play since such requests were never denied. She
subsequently wrote impassioned letters to FBI Director Robert Mueller
begging for explanation, which she never received. Breakdown? More like a
decision. When intelligence agents were threatened with firing if they
continued to investigate Bin Laden and Saudi sponsored terrorists, is that a
breakdown? When FBI translator Sibel Edmonds was told to ignore pre-9/11
transmitted warnings and offered a promotion to keep her mouth shut, is that
a breakdown? When Russian and Jordanian intelligence officials delivered
firsthand accounts that Bin Laden was going to carry out massive US attacks
in late summer of 2001 to key government officials, was that too a
breakdown? When huge volumes of put options were suspiciously placed on
airlines and securities firms directly affected by the WTC attacks, all
under the watchful eyes of the FBI and Justice Department's PROMIS software,
the sole purpose of which is to immediately identify and red flag just such
activity, is this also characterized as a "breakdown?"
It's as if the 9/11 believers and the 9/11 skeptics are living in parallel
universes. The CFR sponsored commission, mainstream media, and nearly all
government officials parse millions of documents looking for needles in the
proverbial haystack, while thousands of independent researchers and
concerned Americans wait outside, banging on the soundproof windows
screaming that the dots have been connected. Many of us, myself included,
voted for Bush and could care less about politics. Both conservatives and
liberals, we want to know the truth. We have been lied to long enough. We're
prepared to deal with the truth.
http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?disc=149495;article=53087;title=APFN
Also from APFN:
Lies have surfaced in sworn testimony by Ashcroft, Tenet, Rice, etc.
Begin a 9-11 truth movement with your local organizations, see
HTTP://www.911visibility.org
READ: "The New Pearl Harbor" and urge all you know to. Copies have been
delivered to ALL members of the Govt. 9-11 Commission. One 9-11 widow is
suing
Bush et al under the RICO Racketeering Act for foreknowledge of 9-11,
allowing
it to occur for political gain, and engaging in a criminal cover up.
With a fast mass mobilization to demand answers to these, the thugs in
Washington could be brought down and their criminal intentions exposed. Some
lies
are:
Ashcroft: Claims he stopped flying commercial jets before 9-11 once because
of a heightened threat against him (there is no record of this), and two
because his guards had guns (all previous Atty Gen's guards had guns, and
they flew
commercial).
Tenet: Did not brief Bush on heightened terror threat and the suspected
terrorists training in the U.S. (Later the CIA reported indeed Tenet met
with
Bush TWICE in August of 2001). When the planes hit the towers Tenet says,
"Oh,
I hope that wasn't the terrorist training to fly in the U.S."
Rice: "We had no idea anyone would fly planes into buildings." FALSE
TENET:
CIA director doesn't recall trip to Texas in 2001
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N14343033.htm
WASHINGTON, April 14 (Reuters) - CIA Director George
Tenet insisted he had no contact with the president who was vacationing in
Texas dur(Tenet)
Doesn't Recall 2001 Tx. Trip (CIA says he went 8/17/01)
14 Apr 2004 21:04:12 GMT
CIA director doesn't recall trip to Texas in 2001
WASHINGTON, April 14 (Reuters) - CIA Director George Tenet insisted he had
no
contact with the president who was vacationing in Texas during the month
before
the Sept. 11 attacks. But he was mistaken.
A CIA spokesman later said Tenet had in fact gone to Texas during August of
that year
to brief President George W. Bush.
"I didn't see the president. I was not in briefings with him during this
time. He was on
vacation. I was here," Tenet told the commission investigating the attacks
on Wednesday....
***
The CIA spokesman said Tenet had flown to Texas on
Aug. 17, 2001, to brief the president.
**************************************************
ASHCROFT:
4/15/04
Ashcroft Fails to Allay Suspicions Regarding Avoidance Of Commercial
Airlines
In response To Commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste's question on 4/13/04 to
Attorney General Ashcroft on his reported avoidance of commercial airlines
(see Paul Thompson's timeline for 7/26/01), Mr. Ashcroft made the following
assertions:
1) He only uses government planes while on government business. Consider -
The article from CBS.com is the evidence he began flying commercial before
9/11/01. It begins with the words, "Fishing rod in hand..."
2) He was avoiding commercial flights because of the special weapons his
bodyguards carry.
Consider-The article continues, "There was a threat assessment and there
were guidelines. He is acting under guidelines." So which is it, there was
a threat assessment or not? Also, since the assessment came from the FBI,
isn't this the same FBI that hadn't seen the Phoenix memo, Rowley's memo, or
the 8/6/01 pdb?
3) His wife flew commercial to Europe recently. Consider- Does that mean he
flew with her? Why didn't he say "My wife and I flew commercial?" The CBS
article also said he had been" advised to fly only by private jet the
remainder of his term." When did the guidelines change? Could it be they
were relaxed soon after 9/11/01? If he flew commercial so much, can we find
anyone out there who saw him on such flights? Maybe they're the same folks
who remember seeing W serving in the national guard in Alabama?
Other points of note:
1) The easiest way to resolve this is for the commission to request a full
list of flights, both commercial and otherwise, that Ashcroft has taken
since July of 2001.
2) The commission should require the FBI to produce, any and all proof that
there were threat assessments. They should start by finding out who was
quoted in the CBS.com article.
3) Doesn't it seem ironic that Ashcroft's predecessor Janet Reno, who upset
the Cuban-American community over Elian and upset the militia types over
Waco and Ruby Ridge, should never be required to stop flying commercial? If
Mr. Ben-Veniste is sincere about wanting to avoid his participation in
another Warren Commission (meaning government cover-up generating
conspiracy theories for decades), he should make sure the flight lists and
threat assessments are secured.
FBI Whistle-Blowers Go Unheard - Village Voice, Thu Apr 15 21:49
9/11 Panel: CIA Could Have Unveiled Plot - FINDLAW, Thu Apr 15 17:43
9/11 COMMISSION: LIES GIVEN UNDER OATH (ACTION ALERT) - BILL, Thu Apr 15
00:02
CIA Corrects Tenet - But Not Under Oath! - Joseph Ehrlich, Thu Apr 15 21:29
Claims of bias within the 9/11 commission. - Wikipedia, Thu Apr 15 19:01