Politics International

"There are no accidents in politics"

2008-09-02T11:42:00.008+02:00

Some things just don't make sense....if you stop to ponder them.

I'm not an astute political analyser, but I'm pretty good at finding good ones. Political analysis is mostly taking known, sometimes little known, information and forming some logical coherence to it all. Even then, it's often not that accurate. And I have my own thoughts which I ponder, and this is a simpler method for me, when it works.

Take the overblown hullabaloo about John McCains VP choice of Palin, a fast developing puzzle. I'm not going to get cerebral about this sad state of affairs. But I am going to go with one thought: Accidents seldom happen at high political levels. "There are no accidents in politics", remarked Joseph P. Kennedy to a reporter in 1960. (full quote:"We're going to sell Jack like soap flakes. There are no accidents in politics.") LBJ and FDR have been purported to have said the same thing.

So...if McCain's choice of VP, with its soap opera media frenzy, is pondered, I really wonder it this is for real. I think it could very well be a distraction, and planned this way.

Ponder a few things along with me....
1. McCain, as is obvious, is too old to be a globe trotter. Not that he often needs to be; a president has a large staff to do the footwork and running, including a VP. But he must travel upon occasion. Not to mention the high demands of chief executive work, even from an office. There is serious, and justified, question about McCains physical and mental abilities.
2. The choice of Palin is also more than a bit illogical. Yes, it has its logic from several standpoints, but overall it is a logical disaster.
3. For decades, the Republicans have played dirty tricks to sink the Democrats. The Dems seemed to have caught on to this and have not been blindsided to this point. But then, maybe the Reps see this, and are taking a different strategy....

Keeping in mind the thought "there are no accidents in politics" (at high levels), would it make sense for McCain to head the Republican ticket against a strong runner as Obama with Biden? And then to choose such a controversial VP running mate? I think not. I'm looking for something to happen, and fairly soon, which might well be a 'blind sider', to wit:

- A possible invasion of Iran by Bush, with his 'extending' his own presidential term of office by decree. Almost certainly preceded by a false flag op, giving him his excuse for the invasion. This possibility has been warned of for some time.

- A surprise candidate taking McCain's place after he "pulls out of the race". Perhaps due to a medical condition etc.

- Yet...it could be as simple as Sarah Palin pulling out, as suggested by another. And replaced by someone more embraced by the Right. But if that's the case, who in the world chose Palin and vetted her? Can't be just McCain, could it? Who dropped the reins, then? Something ain't right there.

- Even if the Republicans lose this one, even if big time, the elites running the show have an approved man in office, to wit: Barack Obama. Don't think for one moment that Obama would have gotten anywhere near this far without approval from (way) on high, the real elites. Certainly, "foreign policy" plans will continue, and the encroaching fascism may be camouflaged, but not stopped.

A different singer singing the same song, so to speak; the song written by those actually holding the reins. As it always is.

But nothing at this level will be left to accident or chance. Or, did one of the lieutenants really drop the reins with Palin? Stay tuned; this story changes by the hour, and there's more coming.

What a Soap!

The ballot system here...

2006-10-24T12:46:00.000+02:00

The system here, in place since at 1811 (thanks to Napoleon) is for everyone to register at city hall in the town/area in which they live. This supplies answers to many needs, including census, and all is kept up to date. Each birth, death or moving into/away from the city/area is recorded. Each civil document is connected to this info: Wedding licences, drivers licenses etc. I just sent in my application for another 10 year extension of my residence permit (I'm not a Dutch citizen because of the complexities with the U.S. government, or I would hold dual citizenships). I had to go to city hall to get a document stating my address and family members, all kept up to date. This original document took 15 minutes to obtain, including waiting time in line (seated) and was printed out by computer. Cost €11.00, for which I pinned. Of course, I had to identify myself; my passport did this nicely. This is proof positive that I am who I say I am, and I live where I do, and with whom. This is a key bit of info, and proof, for my residence permit.

This same system is used to send out ballots. Pretty secure. Everyone has a ballot sent to them, together with voting info. Anyone may request and use an absentee ballot, and a fair amount of people do. All voting stations, typically schools and churches, are within 1 kilometer walking distance, so all are easily reachable by walking (except the rural areas).

BTW, because of this system, I could trace my family name and make the connection to the names they used before this. On 20 August 1811, my great, great, great grandfather established our family name permanently; it was taken from, but not at all the same as, the name of the farm on which they lived for over 100 years. I have a photocopy of that original entry, obtained from the provincial records. Before 1811, our family often used the name of the farm as their last name for some years, and more often, the patriarchal system. Thus, our family name was Duitlaar (farm name), Gerrits, Jansen, Willems, Hendriks, Alberts etc., all first names of male family members.

Can't Happen in the U.S.

2006-09-03T16:07:00.000+02:00

If the Nuremburg Trials were to be held today, a number of top U.S. government officials, including Bush and Cheney, would be indicted and found guilty. The neo-cons knew this before they invaded Iraq, and that explains why they refused to take part in the ICC. They knew what they were doing and going to do was breaking many international laws, including the Geneva Conventions. The fact the the U.S. government goes its own way following the wishes of a neo-con minority (who fulfil the wishes of the few financial top elite)is not lost on the world.

The author of this article has it 100% correct when he writes: "While the United States is a country like any other, its citizens no more special than any others on the planet, Americans still react with amazed surprise at the suggestion that their country could be held responsible for something as heinous as a war crime."

Most Americans do not make the connection between all the poverty and violence in the world and the overwhelming part that their own government plays in this. Most Americans believe what their government tells them through the controlled mainstream media; and believe that they are a peaceful, democratic country that only means to help others in a world filled with enemies. This majority of Americans hasn't a clue as to what goes on in the world, and especially the overwhelming part their own government plays.

Michael Parenti, political scientist and author, says it well: "The enormous gap between what US leaders do in the world and what Americans think their leaders are doing is one of the great propaganda accomplishments of the dominant political mythology."

The name of the game has been the same for centuries now: The killing and destruction and pillaging of other peoples and countries to feed the wealthy elite, and enrich the economies of the aggressors, mostly Western White Societies, where the U.S. stands head and shoulders above the rest since WW2, leaving Great Britain in a distant second place. Follow the money ie: Look where the resources such as oil and minerals (including fresh water) are to be found. Also, geography comes into play for strategic and economic gain, such as for pipelines, ports and military bases. That's where these few aggressive countries invade, and always under a cloak of lies. In the name of peace and prosperity, they bring death, destruction and poverty.

That also explains the horrific conditions in many of the so-called third world countries. Their governments are nothing more than puppets of the West, colonies by proxy.

And yet, Americans were always taught that it was because of their own wonderful country, it's capitalisitic economy, its "Christianity", its freedoms won by their god-like "founding fathers", and its democracy that it had become so prosperous. Indeed, the U.S. did enjoy the world's best economy for a few decades following WW2; but that is also diving these last years, and has nowhere to go but down, and rather rapidly.

If Americans only realized that their economic system was based on destruction, death and pillaging and economic slavery of other countries, they would have long ago made some changes. The American people are no different than any other; they are not inherently stupid. But they have been subjected to the most widespread and effective cloak of propaganda in the world, and so they have been blinded to reality. This matrix has become their reality; they know no differently.

What happened to the Native Americans in the beginning of U.S. history has not stopped. It has gone on, often outside of its own shores. It isn't because God blesses America, or that capitalism is so wonderful, or Americans are special, that the U.S. has prospered until recently: It's mostly because of the pillaging of other countries, including denominating all oil sales in U.S. dollars, that keeps the U.S. economy subsidized, and the wealthy elite reasonably content.

But Americans have to know what is really happening before they can overcome the many decades of the most effective propaganda and media control the world has ever seen.

Let's hope this does happen before it's too late. The window of opportunity is getting very small, and the hour very late. The majority of Americans need to see their beliefs for what they are: Beliefs based on misinformation. Propaganda. Thank goodness that some Americans are already awake, but their numbers are too few, and they are too terrified of their own government.

Inaccurate information

2006-08-09T10:22:00.000+02:00

All of us make a mistake at times, and I'm no exception. Most of the time, these are 'innocent' mistakes and do little harm as well. But in the case of something publicized, even 'innocent' mistakes need to be corrected.

I got a message from a fellow blogger at another blogging website, whose blog I had been to earlier for a brief look. Seeing the brevity of my visit (after midnight, which is why) I did not arrive at any definite conclusions from his site, but he struck me as being orientated towards the political Right. In such cases, I say little or nothing and visit again at a more opportune time. The blogging website is one where all visitors are clearly identified, so we both knew who the other was.

But what really struck me the next morning is that, while calling to my attention the fact that one of my posts was inaccurate and was an "urban legend", he did it in a decent manner. Having been heavily involved in political debate and also blogging on internet for some six years now, this was a first for me. I have never been decently criticized by someone from the Right in the U.S., but have often been bashed, and most of the time unfairly and inaccurately. So this was a first.

Now, my post was a piece about U.S. presidential IQs, and I should have known better, for the website that hosted it, as well as its contents, was clearly suspicious to me for a number of reasons. Yet, because of the "dumb George" image floating around the world, and a higher regard for the intelligence of other presidents, I did post it without thinking further; I just joined in the poking fun of an obviously 'challenged' ~~puppet~~ politician.

The website source, and its material, is false, with the exception of Jimmy Carter. My own reactions to it should have alerted me, but I just went along. This is confirmed by Snopes.com, which I have in on a "My Yahoo" news sources page along with other mainstream news sources, and which the fellow blogger also pointed out. Here's my article:
http://earl1940.stumbleupon.com/review/5124914/
And here's the Snope link:
http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/hoaxes/presiq.htm

My whole point with this post is to express both surprise at the decency of this fellow blogger whom I assume is a Rightie, and to simply point out that the post should not be taken as accurate.

Nonetheless, as I mentioned to him in a quick reply late last night, the numbers published are an indication, even if exaggerated or inaccurate. I left it still posted, for it does have some entertainment value to it, and is not entirely wrong. Besides, I wish to refer to it with this post.

That said, I know what my own IQ is, having had it thoroughly tested years ago by a highly regarded psychologist. It's not on the low side, but I am NOT impressed by IQ numbers, and feel they do not give an accurate indication of someone's true capabilities, or the ability to use them. They are a good indication of potential and some other attributes, but no guarantee of many things. I know that from my own experience. Our own character traits and what we experienced in our lives have a great deal to do with the level of our abilities and 'accomplishments'. And then, much of this is not at all valued in a money orientated and often superficial society.

All this aside, I am still of the opinion that G.W. Bush is the worst president of the U.S. in my lifetime, is intellectually limited, and also the most dangerous. The fact that he is still in office does not speak well of the political process in the country, either.

Enough said

2006-07-24T12:14:00.000+02:00

Election Fraud

2006-07-09T18:22:00.000+02:00

Remember the U.S. elections of 2000 and 2004? Here's a repeat.

First, get a lot of untraceable electronic voting machines produced, the kind that are easily hacked.

Second, hack them, and change the results in favor of the elites.

Third, claim victory early and loudly.

Sound familiar?

Read it here.

The Religious Clash of Egos

2006-07-09T17:06:00.000+02:00

As always, it's a matter of power and/or money.

It's Not About the Interests of Jesus, Muhammad or God

The Religious Clash of Egos

All the founders of world religions made it perfectly clear that religion is only about how we treat ourselves and each other, and that God does not benefit from religion.

God's priority is human interests. It's not about God.

If we look closer, all religious disagreements can be boiled down to ego and power.

The rabbis did not disagree with Jesus about the Ten Commandments, but about what the Gospel means for rabbinical power.

Christian Rome did not disagree with Muhammad about the Ten Commandments (the Koran confirmed them), it was about the control of the Middle East.

Jews, Christians and Muslims expect Jesus to come once Jerusalem has become a big metropolis. Well, now it has.

So what are they going to do when Jesus comes and tells them that there is nothing to clash about?

Source:
http://cytations.blogspot.com/2006/07/its-not-about-interests-of-jesus.html

Back again (?)

2006-07-09T16:48:00.000+02:00

My main politics blog website has been drastically changed and limited as to bandwidth, so I am thinking of coming back here for my blogging, and using the other one for links. Within a short time, I'll come up with a solution. Meanwhile, I'm back....

Stretched

2006-03-04T12:34:00.000+01:00

As is obvious, I haven't been posting at this blog lately. I'm still posting, but my blogs have take a different turn lately, and this blog is a 'lite' version of my regular politics blog, anyway.
For my regular politics blogging

For my general blogging

For those not familiar with Stumble Upon, it is almost a whole world unto itself. Best viewed with the Firefox browser, by the way.

And a new blog with several writers contributing, the chief writer being a known author/analist, Richard K. Moore.

Earl
Amsterdam

Calculating the Risk of War in Iran

2006-01-30T20:22:00.000+01:00

A comprehensive essay looking at all the facets.

In the past weeks media reports have speculated that Washington is ‘thinking the unthinkable,’ namely, an aggressive, pre-emptive nuclear bombardment of Iran, by either the United States or Israel, to destroy or render useless the deep underground Iranian nuclear facilities.

The possibility of war against Iran presents a geo-strategic and geopolitical problem of far more complexity than the bombing and occupation of Iraq. And Iraq has proven complicated enough for the United States. Below we try to identify some of the main motives of the main actors in the new drama and the outlook for possible war.

The dramatis personae include the Bush Administration, most especially the Cheney-led neo-conservative hawks in control now of not only the Pentagon, but also the CIA, the UN Ambassadorship and a growing part of the State Department planning bureaucracy under Condi Rice. It includes Iran, under the new and outspoken President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It includes Putin’s Russia, a nuclear-armed veto member of the UN Security Council. It includes a nuclear-armed Israel, whose acting Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, recently declared that Israel could ‘under no circumstances’ allow Iranian development of nuclear weapons ‘that can threaten our existence.’ It includes the EU, especially Security Council Permanent Member, France and the weakening President Chirac. It includes China, whose dependence on Iranian oil and potentially natural gas is large.

Each of these actors has differing agendas and different goals, making the issue of Iran one of the most complex in recent international politics. What’s going on here? Is a nuclear war, with all that implies for the global financial and political stability, imminent? What are the possible and even probable outcomes?

Read on . . . .

USA threatens Norway after boycott support

2006-01-30T15:17:00.000+01:00

U.S. democracy and respect for others' in action.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice threatened Norway with "serious political consequences" after Finance Minister and Socialist Left Party leader Kristin Halvorsen admitted to supporting a boycott of Israeli goods.

The reaction was reportedly given to the Norwegian embassy in Washington DC, and it was made clear that the statements came from the top level of the US State Department, newspaper VG reports.

VG claims that two classified reports promised a "tougher climate" between the USA and Norway if Halvorsen's remarks represented the foreign policy of the new red-green alliance of the Labor, Socialist Left and Center parties.

Norway's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jonas Gahr Støre, responded immediately with written explanations to both Israel and the USA, clarifying the government's stance, while Halvorsen distanced her party's policy from that of the government's.

(Aftenposten English Web Desk/NTB)

Source

Beating Around the Bush By the Bourse

2006-01-29T23:06:00.000+01:00

Only bimbos believed Bush when he said it was WMD's that made him attack, invade, occupy and massacre Iraq. Most of us thought it was to steal Iraq's oil, but we were only partly right. What totally terrorized the tyrannical Texan tycoon was when Saddam played the oil bourse card in November, 2000. When Saddam started selling Iraqi oil in euro's, he jeopardized greenback hegemony as the world's supreme foreign exchange transaction currency. If this brilliant idea catches on, it will trigger the total collapse of the USA economy. The oil grab is a sideshow. The main feature is the oil bourse.

The Neocon global domination agenda is engendered by the denomination of global oil transactions in greenbacks. America prints out the bucks that are required for the purchase of oil, and the world has to produce stuff they can sell to get the bucks they need to buy oil. Printing Monopoly 'fiat' money only costs America the paper and green ink, so the USA dollar has been fattened on oil-enriched chicken feed since Tricky Dick delinked the buck from the bullion. The oil bourse scheme could so seriously setback US suzerainty that Saddam got stomped to smithereens. Krassimir Petrov, who teaches international finance in Bulgaria's American University, warns "should the Iranian Oil Bourse gain momentum, it will be eagerly embraced by major economic powers and will precipitate the demise of the dollar." Saddam was just the first wavelet in the coming tsunami. On March 20, 2006, Iran will start selling oil in euros.

Read on. . . .

Catastrophe Looms

2006-01-28T22:04:00.000+01:00

Americans need desperately to comprehend that if Bush attacks Iran and Syria, as he intends, terrorism will explode, and American civil liberties will disappear into a thirty-year war that will bankrupt the United States.

The total lack of rationality and competence in the White House and the inability of half of the US population to acquire and understand information are far larger threats to Americans than terrorism.

America has become a rogue nation, flying blind, guided only by ignorance and hubris. A terrible catastrophe awaits.

Read on. . . .

Breathtaking Power Grab

2006-01-28T22:00:00.000+01:00

Just when you thought this administration couldn't get any more blatant in its effrontery about claiming and wielding power, along comes the surveillance blitz. I've talked to people who think it's because even the administration people know their legal case is shaky and want to get ahead of public opinion. What's fascinating and distressing is how quickly and completely so many people fall into lockstep behind the arguments, perhaps the shakier the better.

What emerges with clarity from the weeks since the National Security Agency domestic surveillance program was made public is that this administration is single-mindedly devoted to increasing the power of the government, and more specifically of the executive branch, and has used the 9/11 attack and the subsequent "war on terror" to justify this goal. It is worth remembering that Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld and a few others were veterans of the Nixon administration who saw Watergate not as a loathsome abuse of power, but as an unfortunate event that discredited and downgraded the prestige and power of the executive branch and made it more difficult to exercise, in Hamilton's words, "energy in the executive." The terrorist attacks provided a perfect opportunity.

Truly, as Randolph Bourne explained during World War I (which people in what in retrospect seems a touch of foolish optimism called the Great War), "war is the health of the state." We had reason to be warned and wary early on when Vice President Cheney explained, I think with a certain detectable gleefulness in his dour demeanor, that this war might go on for generations. It's almost enough to make one think that the health of the state – the opportunity to build government power – is the reason and the terrorists a handy justification. I'm not so paranoid as to think they have purposely avoided capturing Osama bin Laden so as to keep the potential threat always out there. But it was certainly convenient for the U.S. government that bin Laden showed up on audiotape last week making new threats, giving president Bush an opportunity to invoke him once again in his speech at the NSA.

I would argue, on the other hand, that almost everything the administration has done since 9/11 suggests a fundamentally unserious approach to bin Laden and al-Qaeda. Intelligence was poor, to be sure, but it was not nonexistent. After 9/11 the administration didn't use what was available about Afghanistan but went in cold and blundered about, failing to capture either Mullah Omar or bin Laden. Then it attacked Iraq, which had not been involved in the 9/11 attacks (and didn't have WMDs either), which stretched U.S. military forces to the breaking point and served as a recruiting ground for terrorists.

All these activities had the effect of building up the state without posing any more than trivial inconveniences – in some cases bolstering – the terrorists who pose the most concrete threat to the United States. Is it too fanciful to suggest that building the state rather than destroying or even seriously weakening al-Qaeda was the primary goal?

ASSERTIONS OF POWER

At any rate, administration spokespeople including Vice President Dick Cheney, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and the president himself have been conducting a full-court offensive to persuade Americans that the program of surveillance of Americans without a warrant from the special secret court created by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) by the National Security Agency (NSA) was not only legal but virtually obligatory following the terrorist attacks of 9/11. The campaign is no doubt intended to soften up public opinion in advance of hearings scheduled for Feb. 6 by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The trouble is, every argument the administration makes rests on shaky legal ground.

The administration argument, in line with the 42-page document released last Friday by the Department of Justice last Friday, has essentially three components. First is that the U.S. Constitution gives the president, as Commander in Chief, what the advocates have chosen to call inherent "plenary" power to do pretty much whatever he deems necessary or desirable if it can be said to have been done as part of defending the country from foreign attack or the threat of foreign attack.

Second, administration people argue that the congressional resolution passed after September 11 for Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) authorized the president to begin the warrantless NSA domestic monitoring program. As the DOJ document last week put it, in the AUMF Congress "gave its express approval to the military conflict against al-Qaeda and its allies and thereby to the president's use of all traditional and accepted incidents of force in this current military conflict – including warrantless electronic surveillance to intercept enemy communications both at home and abroad."

Third, administration spokespeople argue that the administration consulted with Congress on this program, so what's the problem? If Congress had objections, it could have and should have raised them. Since it didn't do so when informed of the program, all this second-guessing now only helps the terrorists

INHERENT NONSENSE

The argument that the president has virtually unlimited inherent "plenary" power to decide what constitutes a threat and do whatever he deems necessary, perhaps including breaking or ignoring existing laws, to counter it, is a virtually complete misreading of U.S. constitutional history.

Read on . . . .

Why don’t we know much: Israel & Palestine

2006-01-27T15:42:00.000+01:00

This is taken from the "If Americans Only Knew" website, with which I am quite familiar, having read it a number of times. There is much good information here which clearly lays out the history and the problems up to this day.

The site says about itself: "It is the goal of If Americans Knew to inform the American public accurately about this area. Most of all, it is to inform Americans about our enormous, and too often invisible, personal connection to it."

Why don’t we know what is going on in Israel & Palestine?

Recent studies of U.S. media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict reveal that the media reported Israeli children’s deaths at rates 7 to 40 times greater than Palestinian children’s deaths. Some typical examples: I
- In 2004, when 8 Israeli children were killed and 179 Palestinian children were killed, NBC reported on 100% of Israeli children’s deaths and on 10% of Palestinian children’s deaths, ABC on 100% and 11%.

- The New York Times reported on 50% of Israeli children’s deaths and 7% of Palestinian children’s deaths.

- In the first six months of the current uprising – during which time four Israeli children were killed and 93 Palestinian children were killed – the San Francisco Chronicle reported prominently on 150% of the Israeli children’s deaths (through repetitions) and on 5% of the Palestinian children’s deaths.

- A 2004 study of Portland’s Oregonian newspaper revealed headline coverage on 88% of Israeli children’s deaths and on 2% of Palestinian ones.

At least 82 Palestinian children were killed before the first Israeli child. Why is there such an immense differential in reporting on deaths related to the ethnicity of the victim? Why are so few Palestinian children’s deaths being reported to the American public?

Clues

The Associated Press is the major source of international news for U.S. news media. Virtually all AP news reports about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict go through its bureau in Israel.

Read on . . . . and click on the tabs and side index at the top for much more information.

Why We Fight - A Film By Eugene Jarecki

2006-01-26T21:25:00.000+01:00

17 January, 1961 - The famous farewell speech of Dwight David Eisenhower.

And did we listen to him?

Commentary from Richard K. Moore

2006-01-26T21:20:00.000+01:00

Richard Moore is an American who moved to Ireland some years ago, much as I did to the Netherlands a bit earlier. He was on an extended book tour in the U.S. promoting his new book "Escaping the Matrix : How We the People can change the world" and while he was there, his father passed away as well. In an Email to those on his list, his comments about the U.S. are interesting, as some others he makes.

Richard's Cyberjournal web site has some very eye opening reading for those interested in some political reality.

Especially recommended is "Escaping the Matrix", but all articles are good. Here, then, his comments.

What a strange & frightening place is the USA. LA freeways,
TV designed for babies, cookie-cutter suburbia infinitum...I
soon remembered what drove me away. But there's lots of good
people there, and I visited as many as I could. Ditto scenic
adventures, and opportunities to play music.

I was struck by the pervasiveness of factionalism. I spent
some time with Christian conservatives, and with California
liberals. Neither side had any notion of the possibility or
usefulness of dialog with the other. Each had caricature
images of what 'the other' is about, and thinks in terms of
'winning'. I said this stuff in my book, but in person it
seemed so stark, and such a contrast to Ireland. Among
liberals, the only priority is "getting rid of Bush", which
illustrates why he was such a good elite choice for
President. He's the perfect lightening rod for blame and
activism. He serves as a 'reason' for all wrongs. No need to
look at the system.

Thanks to all of you who sent condolences regarding my
father. We were all with him at the end, and we did him
proud at the service. The guy had 20 years of retirement in
Hawaii, playing golf nearly every day, with his
grandchildren nearby - we miss him dearly but we must
acknowledge that he had a damn good life. May he rest in
peace.

While in California, I was reading the San Francisco
Chronicle most days. I remember it as being a 'real
newspaper', albeit mainstream. Not any more. It's become a
small-town paper. I heard tell this is a trend, reflecting
declining readership of papers generally. If you take those
who think the TV gives them news, and those who realize they
must go to the Internet for any real news, I suppose there
aren't enough left in the middle who want to buy good
newspapers. Everywhere the spiral downwards.

In any case, from reading the minuscule Chronicle coverage,
I became more convinced than ever that an attack on Iran is
soon on the agenda. The Chronicle serves as a portal to
Matrix reality. It doesn't have room for any breadth, so you
get the straight Matrix line. So what do you read about
Iran? ... a gradual but persistent demonization program. Day
after day we see the 'international community' losing
patience with Iran's stubbornness regarding it's 'nuclear
program'. After a while, you can't help but think, "Why
don't they do something about it?" Thus are the American
people, and the rest of us as well, led to accept what
elites have been long planning for their own purposes.

Their purposes, following a long tradition, are to maintain
their control over global finance, by means of dominating
oil sources and controlling the currency in which oil is
traded. Their current urgency arises from the fact that Iran
is about to launch a Euro marketplace (bourse) for global
oil sales. That would start a run on the dollar like you've
never seen. "It's not nice to threaten Mighty Dollar...bad
boy, Uncle Sam get mad, cut off head, you learn lesson."

Just as Bush serves as a lightening rod for US policy
generally, so Israel serves as a lightening rod for US
policy in the Mideast. You've seen the reports: "Israel
cannot tolerate a nuclear Iran; We will take steps to
protect ourselves." So go the barkings of the attack dog,
armed and fed by Uncle Sam.

There are other scenarios, but they seem to be broadcasting
this one rather clearly: Israel launches attack. US happens
to have fleet nearby "on exercises" and intervenes to
prevent "excessive Iranian response" to "understandable if
regrettable" Israeli action of "self defense". Thus
standeth The Dollar.

An American Hitler and his Gestapo

2006-01-25T16:50:00.000+01:00

Using plain, outspoken and not polite language, Doug Thompson lets fly at Bush. Well qualified (see bottom) to speak, this is no sit-behind-a-desk writer but someone in the know. Frankly, I agree with Doug wholeheartedly, and would occasionally use this language, but my mother of 88 is still alive and very alert, so I don't want to have to face her for saying anything worse than "my goodness" (I kid you not). Yes...I know I'm 65, but you don't know my mother, bless her feisty - and myoptic believing-in-all-that-the-Church-and-Bush-says - Calivinistic soul. A son cannot use knowledge, reason and logic against the blind belief of his mother. Or his two similarly believing brothers. Even at THIS age. LOL (sigh). Erg, hé, typisch Amerikaans. Only in America.

An American Hitler and his Gestapo
By DOUG THOMPSONPublisher, Capitol Hill Blue Jan 23, 2006

The U.S. Department of Justice, led by Alberto “The Constitution is an outdated document” Gonzales, wants to know if you’ve been looking at any racy material on the Internet.

Yahoo and MSN have already complied with subpoenas from Gonzales’ storm troopers demanding records on who is using their search services to look at porno sites on the Internet.

Google, to their credit, said no and is now caught in a tough legal fight against the George Bush’s Gestapo.

Ohmigod! Did he say Gestapo?Damn right I did.

If you don’t think the rights-robbing, privacy-invading, Constitution ignoring administration of George W. Bush is anything less than a Hitler-style Gestapo then you’ve got your head stuffed so far up your ass that all that brown stuff is blinding you.

America, once hailed as the land of the free, has – under the tyranny of King George – become Amerika, reviled as a global thug that doesn’t give a damn about anyone’s rights, especially those of its own citizens.

Protest if you want. Spout the Republican Party line is you can without gagging. I don’t give a damn. If you believe George W. Bush is anything less than an American Hitler then you’re too damn dumb and stupid to argue with anyway.

Bush is an evil man, a power-grapping despot who believes in absolute rule, a madman so wrapped up in his perceived role as “a wartime President” and “Commander in Chief” that he believes no law applies to him or his rotting, corrupt, administration. The Constitution? Why it’s just “a goddamned piece of paper” to this insane megalomaniac.

Legal scholars agree that Bush blatantly broke the law by ordering the National Security Agency to spy on Americans without warrants or court review. The only cretins who support this dictator are the brain-dead Republicans who put power above the law and party loyalty above their country.

Bush is a traitor to his country. As a traitor, he should be led from the White House in chains and tried as one. Since he insists he is a “wartime President,” then let’s try the son-of-a-bitch as a wartime traitor, a Benedict Arnold who turned on his country and gave aid and comfort to its enemies. Bush has done far more damage to the freedoms and security of American than Osama bin Laden. In fact, I’m starting to believe the traitorous asshole is in league with bin Laden and others who want this country destroyed.

No true American would treat the Constitution with the contempt that spills like toxic bile from the lips of George Bush. No true American would continue to support this maniac as he continues to dismantle what once was the greatest country in the world.

Bush is clearly guilty of high crimes against the Constitution of the United States. It’s time to give this reincarnation of Adolph Hitler exactly what he deserves.

© Copyright 2006 by Capitol Hill Blue

Source: Author's website.

And if you haven't had enough of Doug yet, here are two updates:

Grounded along with other fellow terrorists

The criminal conspiracy that destroys America

Iran's Really Big Weapon

2006-01-23T17:40:00.001+01:00

We've been hearing endlessly of Iran's "nuclear threat" as the U.S. beats the war drums harder and harder, with Zionist controlled Israel along side. Even the EU3 are playing along, at least to a point.

But it is well established fact that Iran does not have nuclear weapons, nor the means of enriching uranium for that; it lacks the hundred of centrafuges for that purpose, and the UN has been allowed to watch every step of Iran's nuclear development. So, that story is a farce, a cover story for the real one, which is this story.

But if all else fails, the U.S. and perhaps Israel may invade anyway with air strikes using nuclear weapons. For what is at stake is the basis of the U.S. economy - its ability to keep oil sales in dollars which underwrites its debt. Without this, the U.S. economy will drop substantially, perhaps even fail. If the worst scenario indeed happens, the world economy will also collapse, and with that, the Euro.

Even more so than 1973, there is a tightrope being walked here.

The prospect of a mushroom cloud rising from the Dasht-e-Lut, Iran's Desert of Stones, may not be Tehran's greatest threat to international stability. A successful test of an Iranian nuclear weapon at some point in the next few years may prove less destabilizing than a simple free market economic measure that Iran is said to be planning for March of this year. Tehran is preparing to open a bourse, a mercantile exchange and potentially a futures market, where traders can buy and sell oil and gas, along the lines of the International Petroleum Exchange (IPE) in London and the NYTMEX in New York.

The differences are first, that this one would price its energy in euros, not dollars, and second, that it would not use West Texas Intermediate or Brent Crude (from the North Sea) as its standard oil for pricing. It would use a Persian Gulf-produced oil instead.

Read on. . . .

Also a must read: Iran and the fall of the American Empire

I, Greenspan

2006-01-23T17:40:00.000+01:00

Since I joined the Fed, outstanding home-mortgage debt has jumped from $1.8 trillion to $8.2 trillion.

Total consumer debt went from $2.7 trillion to $11 trillion. Household debt has quadrupled. And government debt, too, exploded. The feds owed less than $2 trillion in the second Reagan administration, a figure that had been almost constant for the previous 40 years. But under my direction, the red ink has overflowed like the Nile in flood – to over $7 trillion.

During the two terms of George W. Bush alone, the feds have borrowed more money from foreign governments and banks than all other American administrations put together, from 1776 to 2000. And more debt will be added in the eight Bush years than in the previous two hundred.

The trade deficit, too, more than tripled since I’ve been at the Fed, from 150.7 to 756.8 billion, and will reach $830 billion in 2006. When I came to power, the United States was still a creditor. Now, it is a debtor, with more than $11 trillion worth of U.S. assets in foreign hands, a more than 500% increase since 1987.

Who can argue with such a record? Who can compete with it? Who would want to?

Read on. . . .

Satire: Annoyed Americans

2006-01-22T17:09:00.000+01:00

In my work here before I retired, I dealt with a lot of tourists here in Amsterdam. One of the little games I played, all in good spirit, was when I had an American and a Brit in front of me and we were talking. Of course, I would lead off by asking where each came from. And when one would ask me the same question (I was obviously not Dutch from my English useage and accent), I would casually say, "Oh, from the Colonies."

I had each one by the short and curlies, so to speak. But it was meant in good fun, and so we could laugh. Life has its pleasures.....

Sometimes it's ok - more than ok - to lighten up. Here, then, a bit of satire sure to bring a smile to many. Maybe I should do that more often here....

AMERICANS ANNOYED BY "ALL THIS INTERNATIONAL SHIT" ON INTERNET -

Web's Increasingly Worldly Flavor Threatens Americans' Worldview.

The profusion of international news available on the Internet has made it increasingly difficult for the average American to ignore the rest of the world, a trend researchers say threatens Americans' long, proud history of disregarding anything not about them. "With all the foreign newspapers and multi-cultural sites, the Internet is making it almost impossible for the average American to remain uninformed and apathetic," said Samantha Lessborn of Washington State University, which conducted the survey. "Americans can still do it. But it now takes effort, whereas before it was as easy as turning off Tom Brokaw whenever he said 'In South Korea today...'"

According to survey participant Danny Grisham, a 22-year-old from Cheyenne, Wyoming, it's not just the plethora of international news on the Web that is irritating. "Look, I can get around the news. I just turn off Reuters headlines in MyYahoo," he said. "But even some of the search sites like Yahoo and Alta Vista are available in different languages. Like everybody in the world doesn't speak English. Yeah, right."

Read and enjoy....

US demands Google provide search data

2006-01-21T14:41:00.000+01:00

This needs to be known by everyone on internet.

US government demands Google hand over Internet search data

The US Department of Justice has asked a federal judge in San Jose, California, to compel Internet search giant Google to comply with a subpoena issued last year to turn over records that detail millions of Internet searches.

Google denied requests for the data, while rivals Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL have all handed over records to government lawyers, who claim they need the data to bolster claims that the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) does not violate the Constitution. The act was introduced by the Clinton administration in 1998 under the auspices of protecting children from online pornography. It established criminal penalties for any commercial distribution of material harmful to minors. The legislation was suspended a year later after a successful suit by the American Civil Liberties Union and others claiming the act violated the constitutional right to free speech.

Like all such legislation, its scope was far broader than its supposed target, making it an offense for web sites to post material deemed “harmful to minors,” which, as civil rights campaigners said at the time, could criminalize sites of some art galleries and book stores.

Read on . . . .

Political issues behind 'nuclear' Iran

2006-01-21T14:37:00.000+01:00

There are a number of issues going on with the "Iran issue". From the west, it is neocolonialism and control of both oil and the petro-dollar, neither of which are dealt with in this article.

But there is another side. Iran also has its own problems and is not entirely innocent. This article analises both sides, giving a better balance to the whole picture.

The escalating confrontation between Iran and the major powers over Tehran’s nuclear programs raises crucial political issues. Once again the Bush administration is recklessly setting the course for military conflict. Again, the European powers, Russia and China, caught between Washington’s demands and their own economic interests in Iran and the Middle East, have chosen to appease the US. While economic sanctions are currently under discussion, the White House has repeatedly made clear that “all options”, including a military attack, are “on the table”.

The political issues behind the Iranian nuclear confrontation

The EU-3—Britain, France and Germany—have called for an emergency meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to refer Iran to the UN Security Council for punitive sanctions.

The entire rationale for UN action against Iran, recycled endlessly in the international media, reeks of cynicism and hypocrisy. All five permanent members of the UN Security Council—the US, Britain, France, Russia and China—have nuclear weapons and have failed to meet their obligations as signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to dismantle their huge nuclear arsenals.

A glaring double standard is applied to Iran, which is being menaced with economic sanctions and military strikes over its nuclear programs, while US allies—Israel, India and Pakistan—already have nuclear weapons. Other countries, such as Brazil, either have built or are currently constructing uranium enrichment plants, which are not outlawed under the NPT.
[i]
BUT....[/i]

No one should mistake Ahmadinejad’s bravado for a genuine struggle against imperialism. The aim of this limited challenge is to pressure the major powers for a more advantageous relationship for the Iranian bourgeoisie and to bolster Iran’s position as a regional power

Read on . . . .

Iran and the fall of the American Empire

2006-01-20T16:24:00.000+01:00

What Iran is really about.

Why would America ever consider another war, and then with nuclear weapons, with Iran??

And if you've ever wondered about the mumble-jumble about currencies, empire and petro-dollars, and what this all has to do with America and/or the Middle East, this is a must read.

The Proposed Iranian Oil Bourse Abstract:
The proposed Iranian Oil Bourse will accelerate the fall of the American Empire.

01/19/06 "Gold Eagle" -- -- A nation-state taxes its own citizens, while an empire taxes other nation-states. The history of empires, from Greek and Roman, to Ottoman and British, teaches that the economic foundation of every single empire is the taxation of other nations.

The imperial ability to tax has always rested on a better and stronger economy, and as a consequence, a better and stronger military. One part of the subject taxes went to improve the living standards of the empire; the other part went to strengthen the military dominance necessary to enforce the collection of those taxes.

Historically, taxing the subject state has been in various forms-usually gold and silver, where those were considered money, but also slaves, soldiers, crops, cattle, or other agricultural and natural resources, whatever economic goods the empire demanded and the subject-state could deliver.

Historically, imperial taxation has always been direct: the subject state handed over the economic goods directly to the empire.

For the first time in history, in the twentieth century, America was able to tax the world indirectly, through inflation.

It did not enforce the direct payment of taxes like all of its predecessor empires did, but distributed instead its own fiat currency, the U.S. Dollar, to other nations in exchange for goods with the intended consequence of inflating and devaluing those dollars and paying back later each dollar with less economic goods-the difference capturing the U.S. imperial tax. Here is how this happened.

A must read. . . .

Chirac issues Nuclear warning

2006-01-20T16:15:00.000+01:00

It is becoming quite obvious that the EU is siding with the U.S. against Iran, and also using the UN as their tool to give their economic hegemony legitimacy. International politics is always about power and money, and the richer countries maintaining their hold over the poorer. In today's world, colonialism goes on, just under the guise of a blanket of words. The nuclear threats raise the ante to new heights in the game.

Chirac Threatens Nuclear Weapons Against 'Terrorist' States

President Jacques Chirac for the first time Thursday raised the threat of a nuclear strike on any state that launches "terrorist" attacks against France.

He also said France's doctrine of nuclear deterrence has been extended to protect the country's "strategic supplies", taken to mean oil.

"Leaders of any state that uses terrorist means against us, as well as any that may be envisaging -- in one way or another -- using weapons of mass destruction, must understand that they would be exposing themselves to a firm and appropriate response on our behalf," he said.

"That response could be conventional, it could also be of another nature," Chirac said in a clear reference to nuclear weapons during a visit to a French nuclear base in the northwestern region of Brittany.

The president said he was extending the definition of "vital interests" protected by France's nuclear umbrella to include allies and "strategic supplies".

The French press understood "strategic supplies" to include oil. Le Monde newspaper said that was aimed "probably also at those countries from which France imports part of its energy needs".

"If, theoretically, such interests were threatened by regional powers -- Iran, North Korea? -- France would react," the daily said.

The French president, however, did not single out any country in his speech.

He did indicate, though, that the previous Cold War stance of threatening massive and widespread destruction against enemies had been changed to a doctrine permitting a graduated and limited nuclear response.

"Faced with a regional power, our choice is not between doing nothing and annihilating it," he said.

France has configured its nuclear arsenal to be able to respond "flexibly and reactively" to any threat, by reducing the number of nuclear heads on certain missiles on board its submarines, he said.

Such a move would enable it to conduct strikes on specific targets and limit the zone of destruction.

Read on. . . .

Is America the SS Titanic?

2006-01-19T14:37:00.000+01:00

Instead of presenting facts and analyses, this apt comparison is fascinating in its own right and there is a lesson here as well.

Is America the SS Titanic? History's Enduring Morality Tale

In 1912 the steamship Titanic was an enormous floating palace with many levels of society enclosed in a single vessel. The upper levels of the ship housed the wealthy and powerful. Below the richly furnished staterooms of the elite, the corresponding levels of society descended to the very bottom of the ship, where the lowest classes lived and worked.

"At her launching in May 1911, the British press hailed the White Star Line’s 46,000-ton superliner Titanic as ‘the Wonder Ship,’ the most stupendous, the most luxurious, the safest ship afloat," wrote Sir James Bisset.

Despite the media rapture that heralded the Titanic as the most marvelous ship afloat, several of her crew deserted. "The rumor had started several days before the Titanic left Southampton ," said then second mate Bisset. "Newspapers for months had been printing articles extolling her wonderful qualities, but on the morning when she was due to leave Southampton , twenty two men who had signed on in her crew were missing."

Despite the media rapture that presently heralds America as the sole remaining superpower, an unsinkable republic and an unassailable democracy, the country appears to be cruising as comfortably into unsafe waters laced with icebergs. The warnings have been forthcoming for a long time now. Similar to the enduring morality tale of the Titanic, where "not one, but many errors brought her to disaster," little hints of disaster indicating a larger tragedy to come have been sent—and ignored—by friendly ships of state all around.

Aboard the SS Titanic on her maiden voyage a helmsman firmly took the wheel. Behind him stood two powerful figures, the ship’s Captain, Edward John Smith, and Bruce Ismay, the Chairman of the White Star Line. Behind them stood the prestige and power of the owner of the White Star Line, Ismay's father. "There is testimony that Ismay urged the captain to maintain maximum speed," said Bisset, one of the first men on the rescue scene after the sinking. Thus the helmsman aboard the Titanic actually wielded little power, exercised little judgment, aside from spinning the wheel. Those who stood behind him in the shadows set the course and determined the speed (and were wholly responsible for the ship). A New Atlantic Speed Record for her maiden voyage became an enviable goal. All that was required was an increase in power, and thus, speed for the entire voyage.

Aboard the SS America, nearly a hundred years later, the helmsman stands at the wheel, looking self-important, nominally in charge. Although the hands of the helmsman certainly grasp the wheel, the course and speed of SS America have been set by others. In the shadows, the power elite plot the new course, having increased power and speed, irregardless of the safety of the vessel. To the privileged class striding the upper decks of the most powerful vessel afloat, there is little cause for alarm, however. After all, capable men control this enormous ship of state and so the leisure class promenade proudly past the stout lifeboats of their diversified investment portfolios, and calmly tell themselves the vessel is unsinkable.

Continue on . . . .

6 million wiretapped conversations per month

2006-01-18T22:12:00.000+01:00

INSIDER INFO: 6 million wiretapped conversations per month

Facts from IBM In a quirk of fate, I met someone from IBM who was directly involved in implementing the wiretapping system that is all over the news.

It is much worse than the news would suggest. As some have reported, this is definitely not just NSA. The bidding for the technology to do this project was conducted by members of the FBI and the CIA. During the proposal process, IBM was told explicitly that they were to answer questions, not ask them.

One of the most noteworthy comments was that the Government had specified 60 Terabytes of monthly storage for digital versions of conversations. MONTHLY! At about 11k per call, that is about 6 million conversations per month. (correct my math if you are better at computers!). This is enormous.

People in the press are concerned that they are tapping the phones of people without just cause. What they are really doing is much, much worse.

In reality, they are tapping hundreds of thousands of lines all the time. This is KGB stuff.

Every call is stored digitally and indexed accurately, creating an archive that can be used for political purposes in the future. This is not reels of tape that would require massive effort to file through and might become useless quickly. It is highly indexed information that is being kept in storage. Two years from now, they could look into particular phone numbers to check in on cell and land lines. It is cell and land lines

They are running filters on every conversation for Farsi and other languages in real time This is domestic spying on a massive scale, not just a few wiretaps without a judge.

This should be cause for impeachment.

Source

Another Undeclared War?

2006-01-18T20:17:00.000+01:00

There have been some conflicting news reports the last couple of days, but here from Pat Buchanon, a conservative but no neocon, he is stating what the issues have clearly been all along and up to today. It is obvious that the Bush regime wants war and will do anything it takes to get that. With Iran's Oil Bouse in Euros due to begin March 20, he has little time to waste. Just many more thousands of lives will be wasted, but....who's counting when it comes to keeping the oil and petro-dollars in place for the financial elite? It's Iraq, all over again, but with (much) higher stakes, including economic and nuclear.

Is the United States about to launch a second preemptive war, against a nation that has not attacked us, to deprive it of weapons of mass destruction that it does not have?

With U.S. troops tied down in Afghanistan and Iraq, and Pakistanis inflamed over a U.S. airstrike that wiped out 13 villagers, including women and children, it would seem another war in the Islamic world is the last thing America needs.

Yet the "military option" against Iran is the talk of the town.

"There is only one thing worse than … exercising the military option," says Sen. John McCain. "That is a nuclear-armed Iran. The military option is the last option, but cannot be taken off the table."

Appearing on CBS' Face the Nation, McCain said Iran's nuclear program presents "the most grave situation we have faced since the end of the Cold War, absent the whole war on terror."

Meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Bush employed the same grim terms he used before invading Iraq. If Iran goes forward with nuclear enrichment, said Bush, it could "pose a grave threat to the security of the world."

McCain and Bush both emphasized the threat to Israel. And all the usual suspects are beating the drums for war. Israel warns that March is the deadline after which she may strike. One reads of F-16s headed for the Gulf. The Weekly Standard is feathered and painted for the warpath. The Iranian Chalabis are playing their assigned roles, warning that Tehran is much closer to nukes than we all realize.

But just how imminent in this "grave threat"?

Thus far, Tehran has taken only two baby steps. It has renewed converting "yellowcake" into uranium hexafluoride, the gaseous substance used to create enriched uranium. And Iran has broken the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) seals at its nuclear facility at Natanz, where uranium hexafluoride is to be processed into enriched uranium. But on Saturday, the foreign ministry said it was still suspending "fuel production."

However, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has declared, "There are no restrictions for nuclear research activities under the NPT," the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Iran has signed.

Here, Iran's president is supported by his countrymen and stands on the solid ground of international law. Yet Secretary of State Condi Rice said last week, "There is simply no peaceful rationale for the Iranian regime to resume uranium enrichment."

Is Condi right?

Unlike Israel, Pakistan, and India, which clandestinely built nuclear weapons, Iran has signed the NPT. And Tehran may wish to exercise its rights under the treaty to master the nuclear fuel cycle to build power plants for electricity, rather than use up the oil and gas deposits she exports to earn all of her hard currency. Nuclear power makes sense for Iran

True, in gaining such expertise, Iran may wish to be able, in a matter of months, to go nuclear. For the United States and Israel, which have repeatedly threatened her, are both in the neighborhood and have nuclear arsenals. Acquiring an atom bomb to deter a U.S. or Israeli attack may not appear a "peaceful rationale" to Rice, but the Iranians may have a different perspective.

Having seen what we did to Iraq, but how deferential we are to North Korea, would it be irrational for Tehran to seek its own deterrent?

And, again, just how imminent is this "grave threat"?

"We don't see a clear and present danger," Mohamed ElBaradei of the IAEA has just told Newsweek.

Read on . . . .

What Makes Americans Susceptible to Manipulation

2006-01-18T00:23:00.000+01:00

This mirrors some of my own thoughts about the same subject. I quote it here in its entirety.

[This piece ran as an op/ed in the Baltimore Sun in late October, 2004, just before the election.]

What Makes Americans Susceptible to Manipulation?
by Andrew Bard Schmookler

One question has been especially troubling me: Why will so many Americans buy images of national leaders that are so at odds with so much evidence?

This question is crucial because the American democracy was founded on the notion that the truth will out in the deliberations of a free people.

Fear is surely a factor, especially so since our country came under attack three years ago. When we’re afraid, we lose our tolerance for ambiguity. Black-and-white thinking is in: you’re either for us or against us. When in the grip of fear, we crave certainty, because uncertainty magnifies the feeling of vulnerability. So a leader who shows no doubt, who doesn’t even entertain second thoughts, is comforting for the fearful. The more afraid we are, the more we shift into a part of the brain where rational analysis does not govern.

It is when people do not think critically that they are most manipulable, and fear is but one force that’s eroded America’s capacity for critical thought. Over recent generations, the most mighty of our educational institutions –advertising—has systematically worked to teach us to mistake appealing image for the reality, the sizzle for the steak. Those taught to buy cigarettes to make themselves glamorous can be persuaded to buy incompetent leadership to make them safe.

Many Americans have more recently been still further trained away from habits of critical thinking by the powerful subculture of intellectually irresponsible right wing media. For more than a decade, “the Godzilla of talk radio” –Rush Limbaugh—has taken millions of Americans on a daily excursion that panders to their prejudices, never challenging them to reconsider their ideas, always encouraging them to blame all their problems on identifiable others.

The voice leading them on these excursions radiates the aura of certainty, despite the vast ignorance it covers over, and shows no scruples about distorting facts to reach a desired conclusion. These daily forrays into comforting falsehoods have forged in the minds of millions of Americans a path down which fine-sounding messages unmoored from reality could more readily travel.

But there are still older paths in the American psyche that have been available for adept political manipulators.

One of the most powerful ways of by-passing critical rationality in America has long been the posture of religious piety and moralism. That’s how the Music Man sells River City on a boy’s band. “These leaders must have integrity, they’re so religious,” I heard on my call-in radio show. People who have been betrayed by the false piety of the Jimmy Swaggarts and Jim Bakkers of the world will still assume that one who speaks often enough of his great faith can be trusted.

That’s the way that the wolf of unbridled self-aggrandisement hides behind the sheep’s clothing of false righteousness. (That’s how political leaders who are only serving their lust for power and their greed can get legitimacy and compliance.)

There is another venerable template in American political culture: the pattern of rhetoric by which governing elites inflame peripheral issues to distract their followers from seeing the truth of their exploitation.

In the South, race long served as the imflammatory distraction to enable the few to dominate the many. In our times, the pseudo-alliance to preserve white purity has been largely replaced by a pseudo-alliance to maintain moral purity. What’s not noticed is that while the leaders just keep these hot-button moral issues (like abortion and gay rights) festering, unresolved, they make sure that the agenda of the rich and powerful (the regressive tax cuts, the dismantling of environmental regulation, etc.) actually gets accomplished.

While the con itself is not new, the scope of today’s successful deception of the American people is unprecedented.

The powerful used to just take what they wanted by the sword. The rise of democracy required the powerful to trade in the sword for the con job: just manipulate the people into choosing against their own true interests. It is only when the people can see through the lies that they reclaim the power that is their birthright as citizens of this American democracy.

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India, Iran and the nuclear challenge

2006-01-17T17:26:00.000+01:00

A look from another angle at the issue of nuclear research and Iran, together with interesting and very relevant background.

India Sides with the U.S. in the illegal pressure on Iran

IN THE next few weeks, the Manmohan Singh Government will face its second major test on the Iranian nuclear front. For the United States and its European allies appear determined to refer Teheran to the United Nations Security Council for pursuing a civilian nuclear energy programme in defiance of Washington's diktats. The provocation for the latest western hysteria is Iran's decision to conduct research experiments on uranium conversion and other aspects of the civilian nuclear fuel cycle. These experiments are taking place in facilities that are fully safeguarded by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Moreover, these activities are in no way prohibited under either the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) or Iran's Safeguards Agreement with the IAEA, published by the Agency as Infcirc 214.

Under the Safeguards Agreement, Iran is obliged to accept safeguards "on all source or special fissionable material in all peaceful nuclear activities ... for the exclusive purpose of verifying that such material is not diverted to nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices." On its part, the IAEA has "the right and obligation" to ensure that safeguards are applied on all such activities "for the exclusive purpose of verifying that such material is not diverted to nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices."

Over the years, Iran (like South Korea, Taiwan, Egypt and a few other countries) had failed to report to the IAEA — and hence ensure safeguards upon — a number of nuclear-related transactions and activities. These instances were thoroughly investigated by the Agency's inspectors and the relevant files on these closed. Thus in his report to the IAEA Board of Governors on September 2, 2005, Director General Mohammed el-Baradei noted that "all the declared nuclear material in Iran has been accounted for, and therefore such material is not diverted to prohibited activities." Dr. el-Baradei said, however, that the IAEA was not yet in a position to conclude that there were no "undeclared" nuclear activities taking place in Iran — an obligation that stems not from the safeguards agreement but only from the Additional Protocol that Iran said it would voluntarily adhere to in 2003.

Despite this finding, the Board of Governors — acting under the pressure of the U.S. and the E-3 — voted on September 24 last year to find Iran in non-compliance with its safeguards agreement in the context of article XIIC of the IAEA Statute. Conveniently overlooked was the fact that article XIIC, as well as articles 18 and 19 of Infcirc 214, define non-compliance essentially as diversion of safeguarded material for prohibited purposes, something Dr. el-Baradei had explicitly ruled out.

Read on. . . .

Selling the Amazon for a Handful of Beads

2006-01-17T17:15:00.000+01:00

Miss Equador 2006
Oil is not the only "natural resource" here
This gives a partial glimpse of how foreign oil companies get at the oil in other countries. Latin America is interesting in that there is some resistance to this now.

In the midst of an Amazonian oil boom, classified documents reveal deep links between oil companies and Ecuador's military.

The documents raise human rights questions as Amazonian indigenous groups push back against Big Oil.

It's unusual, to say the least, that a foreign-owned business, dedicated to oil exploration and production, should choose to advise the Ecuadorian Armed Forces as to where best to base their soldiers, and it is a sad reflection on the power relations in Ecuador that the advice not only did not offend, but was followed. The danger is that, now that the oil companies have established their authority over the military, and now that indigenous lands have become a target for military intervention, it is a short step to the military terror that has been seen in Burma, Nigeria and Colombia.

Read on . . . .

OK then, more about Miss Equador and other contestants....

More Lies about Iran

2006-01-16T14:32:00.000+01:00

There’s been a lot of rubbish written about Iran’s “removing the seals” from its uranium enrichment equipment.

The fear-mongering western media have exploited the expression for all its worth. Even those who are normally skeptical of the Bush-propaganda machine are taken aback by this ominous-sounding phrase.

What gibberish!

How else does one make nuclear fuel for electric power plants if the fuel-producing mechanism is under lock and key?

The fear-engendering description provided in the news would have the reader believe that “diabolical” Iranians are ripping off the seals with crowbars so they can quickly assemble their secret nuclear stockpile to bomb Tel Aviv.

This is the worse type of demagoguery.

The fuel that is produced from these uranium enrichment reactors DOES NOT PRODUCE WEAPONS-GRADE MATERIAL. That requires thousands of centrifuges which Iran does not have.

At the same time, the nuclear watchdog agency, the IAEA, has on-site inspectors and cameras monitoring the entire process.

Everything is under constant observation.

Read on . . . .

Stupid in America

2006-01-16T14:26:00.000+01:00

While there is some good info here, the negative emphasis on "government monopoly" is not founded. Government also has a monopoly on education in western Europe, but then families are free to choose which schools their kids will attend, and all schools, secular or religious, are funded by the government at the same support per student. If a school does not attract enough students, their funding will become inadequate and they will not survive. Furthermore, with perhaps the exception of the telephone companies, all utility services have dropped in their quality of service once they were privitized. The solution for America is, of course, to fund all schools alike, and to let parents choose the schools they wish for their kids. And then there are other things affecting kids' behavior and learning abilities such as poverty, diet etc..

Why your kids are probably dumber than Belgians

For "Stupid in America," a special report ABC will air Friday, we gave identical tests to high school students in New Jersey and in Belgium. The Belgian kids cleaned the American kids' clocks. The Belgian kids called the American students "stupid."

We didn't pick smart kids to test in Europe and dumb kids in the United States. The American students attend an above-average school in New Jersey, and New Jersey's kids have test scores that are above average for America.

The American boy who got the highest score told me: "I'm shocked, 'cause it just shows how advanced they are compared to us."

The Belgians did better because their schools are better. At age ten, American students take an international test and score well above the international average. But by age fifteen, when students from forty countries are tested, the Americans place twenty-fifth. The longer kids stay in American schools, the worse they do in international competition. They do worse than kids from countries that spend much less money on education.

Read on . . . .

2006-01-14T14:05:00.000+01:00

President George W. Bush has signed executive orders giving him sole authority to impose martial law, suspend habeas corpus and ignore the Posse Comitatus Act that prohibits deployment of U.S. troops on American streets. This would give him absolute dictatorial power over the government with no checks and balances.

Bush discussed imposing martial law on American streets in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks by activating “national security initiatives” put in place by Ronald Reagan during the 1980s.These “national security initiatives," hatched in 1982 by controversial Marine Colonel Oliver North, later one of the key players in the Iran-Contra Scandal, charged the Federal Emergency Management Agency with administering executive orders that allowed suspension of the Constitution, implementation of martial law, establishment of internment camps, and the turning the government over to the Presiden

Bush used parts of the plan to send troops into the streets of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. In addition, FEMA hired former special forces personnel from the mercenary firm Blackwater USA to “enforce security.”

Read on. . . .

Bush Authorized Domestic Spying before 9/11

2006-01-13T16:52:00.000+01:00

The National Security Agency advised President Bush in early 2001 that it had been eavesdropping on Americans during the course of its work monitoring suspected terrorists and foreigners believed to have ties to terrorist groups, according to a declassified document.

The NSA's vast data-mining activities began shortly after Bush was sworn in as president and the document contradicts his assertion that the 9/11 attacks prompted him to take the unprecedented step of signing a secret executive order authorizing the NSA to monitor a select number of American citizens thought to have ties to terrorist groups.

In its "Transition 2001" report, the NSA said that the ever-changing world of global communication means that "American communication and targeted adversary communication will coexist." "Make no mistake, NSA can and will perform its missions consistent with the Fourth Amendment and all applicable laws," the document says. However, it adds that "senior leadership must understand that the NSA's mission will demand a 'powerful, permanent presence' on global telecommunications networks that host both 'protected' communications of Americans and the communications of adversaries the agency wants to target."

What had long been understood to be protocol in the event that the NSA spied on average Americans was that the agency would black out the identities of those individuals or immediately destroy the information.

But according to people who worked at the NSA as encryption specialists during this time, that's not what happened. On orders from Defense Department officials and President Bush, the agency kept a running list of the names of Americans in its system and made it readily available to a number of senior officials in the Bush administration, these sources said, which in essence meant the NSA was conducting a covert domestic surveillance operation in violation of the law.

Read on . . . .

The Official Cover for Imperialistic War

2006-01-13T16:43:00.000+01:00

John Bolton "Bull in the china shop"
Now it is obvious why he was chosen to be the U.S. "Ambassador" to the U.N.

Here is the cover under which the U.S. will invade Iran, and at the same time, stymie the EU. The EU's part in this is complex, but essentially, they are being blackmailed by the U.S.. But then, mutual colonial greed also plays a part. The following article analises the whole pretense very well. Pay attention to all of it, for it is gives good insight of how the present day U.S. foreign policy works when it decides on war; very much similar to the run-up of the Iraq invasion.

US, EU set to refer Iran to the UN Security Council

The US and European Union (EU) have set course for a full-scale confrontation with Iran, following steps by Tehran on Tuesday to restart its uranium enrichment facilities. The foreign ministers of the EU-3—Britain, France and Germany—met yesterday in Berlin and called for an emergency meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to discuss referring Iran to the UN Security Council for possible punitive sanctions.

The Bush administration, which has been clamouring for such action for more than two years, immediately backed the decision. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice yesterday condemned Iran’s “provocative actions” and its “dangerous defiance of the entire international community”. She declared last week that the US had the votes on the 35-member IAEA governing board to ensure the issue was taken to the UN Security Council.

The entire process bears a close resemblance to the lead up to the US-led invasion of Iraq. Just as non-existent “weapons of mass destruction” were the pretext for an illegal war on Iraq so the Bush administration is exploiting Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program to further its economic and strategic domination in the resource-rich Middle East and Central Asia. The chief target is not so much Iran but the United States’ rivals in Europe and Asia, which over the last decade or so have established close economic relations with Tehran.

But the sanctions will have a serious impact on EU countries, which are heavily dependent on Iran for oil and have expanding trade links with Tehran.

Read on . . . .

Dollar Imperialism -

2006-01-11T10:21:00.000+01:00

A MUST READ!
Of all I've read, this essay explains and ties together all that has gone on in the last decades, and before, better than any other single article I've seen. We're heading for war with Iran very quickly now; Livergood gives not only the real reasons, but how we got to this point. And more.

An imperialistic regime extends its power and dominion over other nations through military, economic, and cultural means. This involves the military acquisition of territory, gaining control over the political and economic life of subject groups, and imposing its money system on conquered nations. The Assyrian, Egyptian, Chinese, Roman, and British Empires all established a single currency standard for the regions over which they ruled. The British forced their colonies and most other nations of the world to use the British pound sterling as the international monetary standard during its world rule in the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth century.

When America emerged from the second world war as the most powerful nation in the world, both economically and militarily, the demonic cabal that had seized political, economic, and social control of the United States in the first decades of the twentieth century was able to impose the American dollar on the world as the standard currency. In 1944, even before the war was over, the Western nations met at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, to agree on the American dollar as the world currency. Bretton Woods established a dollar standard to replace the gold standard. The value of the dollar was fixed to gold at $35 to the ounce, and the world’s currencies were fixed to the dollar.

Following World War II, the international cabal wanted to make sure its dollar would be the international currency standard, so it created, among other processes, the Marshall Plan, named after Truman's secretary of state, George Marshall. The plan loaned American dollars to all the nations of Europe to "assist in the return of normal economic health in the world."

Read on, this is excellent!

Jerusalem to be annexed by Israel.

2006-01-10T15:34:00.000+01:00

Which insures continued strife....

Israeli media rallies behind Sharon’s Kadima party.

Israel’s media and political establishment has gone into overdrive in an effort to ensure that Ariel Sharon’s party Kadima survives its founder and forms the next government on March 28.

Meanwhile, every moment has been used to shore up Israel’s stability as the bourgeoisie’s key representative inevitably leaves the stage.

The first task for the ruling elite is to preclude the emergence of any domestic opposition to the annexation of much of the West Bank and the whole of Jerusalem that Sharon initiated behind the smokescreen of his unilateral withdrawal from Gaza. This would leave Israel free to impose its agenda on the Palestinians, under conditions where there is rising militancy as a result of the depredations imposed by military occupation and economic encirclement.

Read on . . . .

US learns from Dutch flood dykes

2006-01-10T14:51:00.000+01:00

Click on photo to enlarge
It is not a normal part of American mentality to seek advice, knowledge or help from other countries (or at least admit that), so this is a bit of news. And then this article comes from the UK news source.

In the aftermath of Katrina, the Dutch sent people to help with pumping out the flood waters with their much higher capacity pumps, as well as help provide immediate aid per ship, which was not readily accepted. This received minimum news coverage.

While the Netherlands is the leading country in water management (not just flood control), there is one element I suspect is missing here on the part of the U.S. federal government: The wish to protect its own people and quality of life. The delegation seems to me to be aimed primarily at economics/business, which is also a part of water management. But the will to do what is best for its own people is one thing I see missing in this, and so many other things.

US learns from Dutch flood dykes

A US delegation is in the Netherlands to study the flood control systems protecting a country that lies further below sea level than New Orleans.

The 50-member delegation includes the Governor of Louisiana, Kathleen Blanco, US senators and business leaders.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the US is looking to learn from the experience of the Netherlands. Water management experts will be showing the US visitors its massive system of dams and sea walls.

In the flood of 1953, 2,000 people died in the Netherlands.

Complex measures The Delta Project, with twin gates the size of the Eiffel Tower, can seal the mouth of Rotterdam Harbour in case of a sea surge.

But the government admits, that no matter what you do to prepare, something can always go wrong. "You can never say a 100%," says Annelie Kohl, a spokesperson for the water ministry. "That doesn't exist anywhere in the world - that would be unwise to say," she says. "But obviously it's a very important part for our defence here in the Netherlands. "As you know, most of our country is below sea level, so it's of the utmost importance for us to have safe dykes and other measures to protect us."

The US delegates will be looking at how the Dutch now designate land for rivers to flood when the water level rises, instead of building dykes and levees. But to be sure, they have just completed an entire network of flood defences here to protect against any storm - except one so severe it can happen only once in 10,000 years.

Source.

Unborn babies possibly harmed by GM foods

2006-01-09T18:48:00.000+01:00

GM: New study shows unborn babies could be harmed

Mortality rate for new-born rats six times higher when mother was fed on a diet of modified soya

Women who eat GM foods while pregnant risk endangering their unborn babies, startling new research suggests. The study - carried out by a leading scientist at the Russian Academy of Sciences - found that more than half of the offspring of rats fed on modified soya died in the first three weeks of life, six times as many as those born to mothers with normal diets.

Six times as many were also severely underweight. The research - which is being prepared for publication - is just one of a clutch of recent studies that are reviving fears that GM food damages human health.

Italian research has found that modified soya affected the liver and pancreas of mice. Australia had to abandon a decade-long attempt to develop modified peas when an official study found they caused lung damage.

Read on . . . .

Bolivia's Home-Grown President

2006-01-08T15:43:00.000+01:00

Miss Bolivia, Susan Barrientos: Now that I have your attention, you can read the rest of this :D

Evo Morales, below left.

Evo Morales may have won at the polls, but Bolivia is still far from a victory.

On its face, the election of Evo Morales to the presidency of Bolivia would seem like an enormous victory for the left -- another domino in the line of Latin American nations turning away from Washington Consensus-style economics to forge a path of its own. But the question remains whether the first indigenous president in Bolivia's history will be allowed -- by the Bolivian Congress or by the larger international financial and legal system -- to live up to his promises and fulfill the enormous expectations of his supporters. If not, Bolivia could face an even more unstable future.

The symbolic value of a Morales victory cannot be overstated in a country where symbols represent the passions of a people mobilized to change what they see as 500 years of state oppression.

But will Evo Morales be able to live up to his promises?

Read on about this interesting country and its new native president. . . .

Read Miss Bolivia's Bios here....

Iraq to cost U.S. more than $2 trillion

2006-01-08T14:46:00.000+01:00

Iraq to cost U.S. more than $2 trillion, says report

More pressure on the Bush administration over its handling of the war Washington: The real cost to America of the Iraq war is likely to be between $1 trillion and $2 trillion, up to 10 times more than previously thought, according to a report written by a Nobel prize-winning economist and a Harvard budget expert.

The study, which expands on traditional estimates by including such costs as lifetime disability and healthcare for troops injured in the conflict as well as the impact on the American economy, concludes that the U.S. Government is continuing to grossly underestimate the cost of the war.

The paper on the real cost of the war, written by Joseph Stiglitz, Columbia University professor who won the Nobel Prize for economics in 2001, and Linda Bilmes, a Harvard budget expert, is likely to add to the pressure on the Bush administration over its handling of the war.

It also follows the revelation this week that the White House has scaled back its ambitions to rebuild Iraq and does not intend to seek new funds for reconstruction.

Read on. . . .

Results of AP-Ipsos Poll on Bush, Congress

2006-01-07T16:38:00.000+01:00

What Americans think.
Normally, I don't post polls; such a poll is not left online for long, nor archived. But this speaks volumes, and therefore I have posted the whole thing. Even if the poll is not accurate, it would be slanted in favor of the administration. Be that as it may, this will give the 84% of the readers here (non American and non Canadian) an idea of how Americans are thinking.
Click here to see the results.

More revelations of U.S. illegal spying

2006-01-07T12:23:00.000+01:00

More revelations of illegal spying by US government

Over the past week, several new reports have emerged casting additional light on the vast extent of illegal spying carried out by the US government. It is becoming increasingly clear that the government has initiated a major project to collect and database the communications of US citizens and non-citizens, including opponents of the war in Iraq and other policies of the Bush administration.

Risen reports that the NSA has been able to gain access to telecommunications switches, which are routing stations run by a handful of giant companies that direct large quantities of telephone calls and e-mails. “Unknown to most Americans,” Risen writes, “the NSA has extremely close relationships with both the telecommunications and computer industries, according to several government officials. Only a very few top executives in each corporation are aware of such relationships or know about the willingness of the corporations to cooperate on intelligence matters.”

These switches contain both international communications and communications entirely within the US. Because the US controls the Internet infrastructure, much of the world’s e-mail traffic at some point passes through stations located within the United States. “With its direct access to the US telecommunications system, there seems to be no physical or logistical obstacle to prevent the NSA from eavesdropping on anyone in the United States that it chooses,” Risen writes. The program established to allow the NSA spying is a highly secretive “special access program,” with no oversight or accountability required from the NSA regarding the communications it decides to monitor and for what reason.

Read on . . . .

The end of the Sharon Era

2006-01-06T14:45:00.000+01:00

The end of the Sharon Era, Time for a New Beginning?

As Ariel Sharon clings to his life after suffering a major stroke, commentators across the globe, including many Arab leaders, are predicting the dire consequences of his removal from the Israeli political scene for the prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace.

Yet while it is true that with Sharon gone his new party Kedima will likely lose out to a Netanyahu led Likud party, no matter who wins the upcoming Israeli or Palestinian elections the end of the Sharon era will in fact have little impact on the peace process.

This is because for all intents and purposes the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is over, and Israel has won, decisively.

Perhaps with the passing of Sharon, Arafat and the rest of the Israeli and Palestinian old guard, a new generation of leaders on both sides will emerge that has the courage and foresight to imagine a shared future for the two peoples that today remains unimaginable. The alternative is another generation lost to violence, a future neither Israelis nor Palestinians deserve.

Read on. . . .

Israel plunges into political turmoil

2006-01-06T14:41:00.000+01:00

Israel: Sharon's stroke plunges Israel into political turmoil.

A life-threatening stroke suffered by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on January 4 has provoked a predictable deluge of hypocritical statements of concern for the fate of a “warrior” turned peacemaker.

The latest stroke has caused massive bleeding in his brain, and there are reports that he is at least partially paralysed.

Even if he recovers, his continued leadership of the Kadima party he created after splitting with Likud is in doubt, as is the outcome of the March election it was projected to win.

Since coming to power in 2001, Sharon, who deliberately provoked the second Intifada in September 2000 with his visit to the Al Aqsa mosque, has presided over a bloodbath that has claimed the lives of close to 3,500 Palestinians and around 450 Israeli civilians. He has also encouraged a massive expansion of Zionist settlements in the occupied territories, with almost half a million settlers now in the West Bank and Jerusalem. His much-lauded pullout of a few thousand settlers from Gaza has provided a cover for the United States to support a land grab that will permanently annex both Jerusalem and at least half of the West Bank to Israel. At the same time, it has provided the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) with the ability to actually step up its military offensive against the Palestinians without factoring in concern for Jewish settlers trapped in Gaza.

The economic suffering caused by Sharon is equally terrible.

Behind the hypocritical eulogies for Sharon and the attempts to unite the disparate factions within Israel’s ruling circles lay grave concerns over the political stability of Israel and the entire Middle East. Tel Aviv’s stock market plunged in early trading January 5, with a 6 percent drop

The conditions are therefore maturing for major social and political struggles within Israel itself.

On top of this, Sharon’s drive to destabilise the Palestinian Authority (PA) and to reduce the Palestinian people to penury has been all too successful. Its impact has produced a broad-based radicalisation and deep-felt anger and hatred of Israeli repression and oppression.

Read on . . . .

Sharon critical; may already be dead.

2006-01-06T00:35:00.000+01:00

The battle of words and spin is here, too. While there is no official word of his death, it appears possible. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, you can rest assured that it is very busy.

CONFIRMED: PM ARIEL SHARON IS (AT LEAST CLINICALLY) DEAD

Reliable sources indicate to Israel Insider that PM Ariel Sharon died at 11 am. Israeli media channels still report his condition is "very grave." Director of Hadassah Hospital Shlomo Mor-Yosef officially denies "rumors" of death and says Sharon's condition is "serious but stable." Channel 10 reports those closest to Sharon as saying he has suffered "brain damage." A likely explanation to reconcile the two reports is that Sharon has suffered brain death -- the lack of cerebral activity -- but that his heart continues beating, while he remains anesthetized and respirated.

israelinsider: politics: CONFIRMED: PM ARIEL SHARON IS (AT LEAST CLINICALLY) DEAD....

Ariel Sharon dead

The War Against Iran 18 Reports

2006-01-05T19:35:00.000+01:00

The coming war against Iran - 7 part series up to this week.

In Dutch - De komende oorlog tegen Iran - 7 delig - tot nu toe.

16 other stories and links at my main blog.

Ariel Sharon suffers second, major stroke

2006-01-05T01:41:00.000+01:00

JERUSALEM - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffered a massive stroke Wednesday and was on a respirator after falling ill at his ranch. Doctors operated to drain excess blood from his brain. Powers were transferred to his deputy, Vice Premier Ehud Olmert.

Dr. Shlomo Mor-Yosef, director of Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, said Sharon suffered "a significant stroke," adding that he was "under anesthetic and receiving breathing assistance." A few minutes later, Mor-Yosef emerged to say that initial tests showed Sharon had suffered a cerebral hemorrhage, or bleeding in his brain.

Doctors who have not examined Sharon but are experts in the field said his chances of a full recovery are slim.

"It's among the most dangerous of all types of strokes," with half of victims dying within a month, said Dr. Robert A. Felberg, a neurologist at Ochsner Clinic in New Orleans.

Israel's Sharon Suffers Massive Stroke - Yahoo! News

Stories today

2006-01-04T21:47:00.000+01:00

The possibilities for war with Iran has gone from possible to likely to almost certain. This means many stories. I am posting much at my Politics International blog, and will resume posting much of that here when it slows down. Just click here to go there.

Israel's War Deadline-Iran in the Crosshairs
Terrorists in High Places - That's where they are
Israel preparing to use nuclear weapons
Cartoons - from Al Jazeera - worth a look
Al-Qaeda in Lebanon: More Neocon Hooey
Nuclear War against Iran
Preemptive Nuclear War in a State of Readiness
Is Washington Planning a Military Strike?

The Coming War with Iran - Recommended Reading

2006-01-03T22:05:00.000+01:00

Ook In het Nederlands; zie onderaan.

An excellent series has been written about the whole run-up to the almost certain coming attack on Iran. And then in both English and Dutch. I recommend it highly. And thanks for the tip given to me by Johnito.

In English - The Coming War With Iran - 6 parts, 7th will be translated from Dutch shortly.

In Nederlands - De Komende Oorlog Tegen Iran - 7 delig.

Chicago vs. Hugo Chávez

2006-01-03T15:21:00.000+01:00

Rather than accept cheap diesel from Venezuela, the city chose to raise commuting costs for low-income residents.

The Chicago Transit Authority is refusing an opportunity to alleviate commuting costs for hundreds of thousands in the Windy City's low-income neighborhoods. Instead of accepting deeply discounted fuel from the Venezuela-owned Citgo Petroleum Corp., the city is instead raising fares to solve budget shortfalls.

In an October meeting with representatives from the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), the city's Department of Energy and other city officials, Citgo unveiled a plan to provide Chicago with low-cost diesel fuel. The company's stipulation, at the bidding of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, was that the CTA, in turn, pass those savings on to poor residents in the form of free or discounted fare cards.

But two months later, despite claims of a looming budget crisis, the CTA president "has no intent or plan to accept the offer," according to CTA spokesperson Ibis Antongiorgi. She gave no explanation. According to Venezuela's consul general in Chicago, Martin Sanchez, the CTA has yet to inform his office of its decision to decline the discount offer.

/Read on ....

Why did the Chicago Transit Authority refuse the CITGO oil? One reader tells us why....

The Perfect Storm for wider nuclear conflict

2006-01-03T13:21:00.000+01:00

This is a continuation of the foregoing report and spells out some likely consequences of a U.S. attack on Iran.

January 2, 2006

The Perfect Storm for wider nuclear conflict

U.S. political and military officials have also approached Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Jordan, Oman, and Azerbaijan seeking their support for a U.S. attack on Iran. Ina replay of the phony pre-war intelligence on Iraq, Washington is trying to convince various countries that a link exists between Iran and "Al Qaeda."

Polish intelligence sources report that Poland's Defense Minister Radek Sikorski assured Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld of Poland's support for any U.S. strike against Iran.

Sikorski is a former American Enterprise Institute colleague of such neo-cons as Richard Perle, Michael Ledeen, and Lynne Cheney, the so-called "Second Lady" of the United States. Sikorski and Polish Foreign Minister Stefan Meller assured Rumsfeld and Rice, respectively, that Poland would stand by the United States during the split in NATO that will occur as a result of the American strike. Polish intelligence sources, who are unhappy with the arrangement of the new right-wing government in Warsaw with the Bush administration, leaked the information about the recent U.S. demarche to NATO in Brussels about preparation for the attack.

Similar intelligence "leaks" about the U.S. attack plans were also leaked to the German magazine Der Spiegel.

European intelligence sources also report that the recent decision by Putin and Russia's state-owned Gazprom natural gas company to cut supplied of natural gas to Ukraine was a clear warning by Putin to nations like Ukraine, Poland, Romania, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Moldova, France, Austria, Italy, Hungary, Bosnia, Serbia, and Germany that it would do the same if they support the U.S. attack on Iran.

Intelligence and military officials around the world are also bracing for the results of a U.S. attack on Iran.

In a counter-attack, Iran would immediately launch its Shahab I and II missiles....

The virtual end of NATO as a viable defense organization may also result from an attack that will drive a final wedge between Washington and Europe. And China may elect to respond financially and militarily against the United States

Within the U.S. military and across the globe, there is heightened tension about the intentions of the neocon Bush administration and its allies in Israel.

Report continues here on January 2 page. Scroll down, as there is no permanent link to this report.

U.S. finalizes plans to attack Iran

2006-01-03T12:59:00.000+01:00

If Bush decides to go ahead with this, it will have far-reaching consequences for the U.S. and the world. Virtually everything will be susceptible to dire consequences and may even result in wide-spread war, or WW3. Only an insane maniac would make such plans, but coming from the Bush administration, this is not surprising. I can only hope that clearer heads prevail there, and the U.S. does not go through with this devastating insanity.

January 2, 2006 -- Intelligence indications and warnings abound as Bush administration finalizes military attack on Iran. Intelligence and military sources in the United States and abroad are reporting on various factors that indicate a U.S. military hit on Iranian nuclear and military installations, that may involve tactical nuclear weapons, is in the final stages of preparation.

Oil installations and commercial port facilities would likely be relatively untouched by U.S. forces in order to preserve them for U.S. oil and business interests.

There has been a rapid increase in training and readiness at a number of U.S. military installations involved with the planned primarily aerial attack. These include a Pentagon order to Fort Rucker, Alabama, to be prepared to handle an estimated 50,000 to 60,000 trainees, including civilian contractors, who will be deployed for Iranian combat operations.

In addition, there has been an increase in readiness at nearby Hurlburt Field in Florida, the home of the U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command.

There has also been a noticeable increase in activity at Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center at Twentynine Palms, California, a primary live fire training activity located in a desert and mountainous environment similar to target areas in Iran.

From European intelligence agencies comes word that the United States has told its NATO allies to be prepared for a military strike on Iranian nuclear development and military installations.

More to read here....on the Jan.2 page; there is no permanent link to this story.

Truth or dare, America

2006-01-02T21:51:00.000+01:00

In optimistic moments, it's fun to wonder what the world would be like, if the people who followed Christianity and the world's other assorted religions actually lived their lives by the teachings of the religions they claim to follow. Why, I think we'd have peace on earth.

What if news reporters reported news? What if newspapers from the Washington Post to the Hicksville Gazette simply told the truth, with headlines that “Bush lied yesterday, when he said ...” and “Cheney is a pathological liar”? What if the nightly news was designed to make current events understood, instead of obfuscated?

How furious would your average American be, to discover that everything we the people had been told, everything we'd thought we'd known all our lives, was a mountain of lies, half-lies, three-quarter-lies, "national security" lies, lies we knew were lies, lies we suspected, lies we'd swallowed, lies we'd told ourselves, and lies we'd told each other?

Read on....

Telling it like it isn't

2006-01-02T21:21:00.000+01:00

Robert Fisk
I FIRST REALIZED the enormous pressures on American journalists in the Middle East when I went some years ago to say goodbye to a colleague from the Boston Globe. I expressed my sorrow that he was leaving a region where he had obviously enjoyed reporting. I could save my sorrows for someone else, he said.

One of the joys of leaving was that he would no longer have to alter the truth to suit his paper's more vociferous readers. "I used to call the Israeli Likud Party 'right wing,' " he said. "But recently, my editors have been telling me not to use the phrase. A lot of our readers objected."

And so now, I asked? "We just don't call it 'right wing' anymore." Ouch. I knew at once that these "readers" were viewed at his newspaper as Israel's friends, but I also knew that the Likud under Benjamin Netanyahu was as right wing as it had ever been. This is only the tip of the semantic iceberg that has crashed into American journalism in the Middle East.

American television, meanwhile, continues to present war as a bloodless sandpit in which the horrors of conflict — the mutilated bodies of the victims of aerial bombing, torn apart in the desert by wild dogs — are kept off the screen.

Editors in New York and London make sure that viewers' "sensitivities" don't suffer, that we don't indulge in the "pornography" of death (which is exactly what war is) or "dishonor" the dead whom we have just killed.

Our prudish video coverage makes war easier to support, and journalists long ago became complicit with governments in making conflict and death more acceptable to viewers. Television journalism has thus become a lethal adjunct to war.

Read on ....

Extensive illegal spying by US government

2006-01-02T17:11:00.000+01:00

New reports expose extensive illegal spying by US government

Recent articles in the US media indicate that the illegal spying organized by the Bush administration has extended far beyond what was initially reported. It is becoming increasingly clear that the US government has been engaging in a massive operation that violates fundamental democratic and constitutional rights.

Following an initial report by the New York Times on December 15, Bush acknowledged that he issued a Presidential order authorizing the National Security Agency (NSA) to spy on some calls made to or from the United States without obtaining the approval of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. In issuing the order, the administration acted in violation of US law, which requires the NSA to receive a court warrant to monitor any communications involving individuals within the United States.

Citing unnamed current and former government officials, the Times reported on December 24 that “the volume of information harvested from telecommunication data and voice networks, without court-approved warrants, is much larger than the White House has acknowledged ... It was collected by tapping directly into some of the American telecommunication system’s main arteries.”

Essentially, this means that the government was not spying on a few hundred individuals at a time, as had been previously reported, but potentially thousands or millions of separate communications, including phone conversations and emails.

Read on....

Chief Rabbi warns of anti-Semitic 'tsunami

2006-01-01T21:47:00.000+01:00

Michael Rivero says it well:

I have warned readers for years that Israel's habit of hiding their crimes behind the world's Jewish people was setting those people to be targets of an eventual backlash. Israel has worked so hard to blur the line between Israel's government and the world's Jewish people that it has worked only too well, and many people are under the erroneous impression that the world's Jewish population do support Israel's apartheid policies, and therefore bear partial responsibility for them.

But in the end, you cannot blame the entire Jewish people for the crimes of Mossad any more than you can blame all Americans for the crimes of the CIA, or all Muslims for the crimes of Al Qaeda (who may be Mossad and CIA anyway). If there is a backlash against Jewish people in general, it will be exactly what Israel wants, so they can go on playing victim, extort money from the rest of the world, and steal yet more Arab lands with impunity.

Read on. . . .

Happy New Year! Gelukkig Nieuw Jaar!

2006-01-01T14:25:00.000+01:00

I wish you health, contentment and peace in this New Year.

Iranian Head Plans 'Holocaust ' Commission

2005-12-31T16:57:00.000+01:00

Iranian Head Plans 'Holocaust' Commission

West shamed by Islamic leader

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran is apparently preparing a government commission to investigate the ultimate taboo: Jewish "Holocaust" orthodoxy.

Ahmadinejad survived a recent assassination attempt soon after making remarks about world Zionism's psychological use of the supposed planned genocide of the Jewish people in the Second World War, a contention that has surprisingly little evidence supporting it.

Ahmadinejad also pointed out that the West, whose misleaders lecture nations such as Iran about human rights, imprisons many of those who dare to question the supposedly established historical fact of the "Holocaust."

According to the anti-Iranian site Iran focus Ahmadinejad wants the planned commission, which would be the first of its kind anywhere, to finally establish what happened around the Jewish issue in World War Two, since Western scholars are not permitted to freely research, publish or discuss the "Holocaust."

Ahmadinejad and Iran are under intense Israeli-instigated American pressure in regards to the Iranian civilian nuclear energy program. Israel cynically claims the program "could" one day be used for an Iranian nuclear weapon. Israel is the only regional power in the Middle East with nukes.

Read on . . . .

Holocaust - real or myth?

2005-12-30T21:32:00.000+01:00

This is a topic that is, to say the least, highly controversial. To even question the accuracy of how many Jews died in the German Fascist/Nazi death camps during WW2 is asking to be lambasted by some, and be labeled "anti Semitic" and worse.

For many years now, I've wondered why we hear so much and so often about the "gassing of the Jews" and other atrocities, but almost never of others in the same camps, namely Gypsies and homos and perhaps others. I have never made it a deep study, but I have read a fair amount over the years and lately as well some articles giving a different account. I have no strong feelings or alliances except that I am against unfair and inhumane treatment of anybody by anyone regardless of name, nationality, religion or any other "reason".

Of course, I never heard of anyone questioning the accuracy of the stories of the holocaust for many years. I just assumed that it was true, seeing as how it was so prominently and frequently told. But then, why not the others under Hitler? Why not the Russians, of whom many more died? Or the Chinese? Or the Native Americans in what is now the U.S.?

True, we have been hearing a little of the Native Americans, but still nothing about the other groups I've mentioned, and then still others around the world, such as Africa or Indonesia.

Why do we hear so much about the Jews then?

I'm asking this honestly. Anyone who knows me also knows I am not biased toward any group of any kind, and this has been a real struggle for me, because I was born and raised with a lot of harsh discrimation toward blacks in America. I still have corners of my mind where discrimination towards them resides, but much of the original is gone. But I digress....

The last couple of years, I've run into more and more information from seemingly good sources that contradict the holocaust stories. Mind you, no one is denying large numbers of Jews were sent to the "concentration camps" in Germany, or that large numbers of them were mistreated and died. But the gas chambers stories and the total number of Jews dying do not add up. The concentration camps were mainly forced labor camps and many did die there, but not of gassing. Typhus was a big culprit, but also hard labor, poor nutrition and lack of food, and lack of medical care.

My own father died of Typhus (unrelated story), so did Anne Frank, whose house I've been through at least 5 times. Jews have had, and still have, influence in Amsterdam, where I live. Heck, our mayor - quite popular by the way - is Job Cohen. I've stood on the platform at Central Station here where many Jews boarded the trains.... The average Jew has never been a problem, just as the average person of any nationality or religion.

It is when politics, driven and controlled be a few elite, and some extremists, get into the picture that we have problems. I see the extremeists as tools of the few elite.

But I am now seeing that this history was written not as it really happened, which is also true of much other history. I am treating this newer material as any other topic I am confronted with that does not agree with what I learned earlier: Continue to read and ponder. I do not change my opinion on anything quickly, and I need a lot of evidence to do that. But over time, and with enough evidence, I have and will change my view. And that's where I am at the present: Considering material coming to light, doubting some things, questioning others, looking for not only the facts, but also motives. I've been doing this for several years now regarding the holocaust. I still have no firm opinion, but my view is not the same as years ago when I simply 'believed', and find I am leaning to doubting some significant "facts" of the holocaust.

I also have posted little about this here, seeing the volitility and misunderstandings of this subject. Nor have I saved any material or links. Just read and pondered and dropped the matter, only to repeat that many times.

But now I have seen enough to know that what I had learned in the past is not the way it happened. While I do not seek out this subject, I do run across it regularly in my hours of reading every day. And so I have been "letting it happen" instead of trying make it happen.

In no way would I deny the mistreatment and death of a large number of Jews during that time, and other times, in history. But the 'holocaust' story that has been so prominently served to me is also doubtful. And I still continue to wonder why we don't hear much about other, often larger, groups that we know for certain were mistreated and killed.

One question I can ask is this: Who profits by this?

So...that's about where I sit at the moment. Questioning, doubting some significant parts of the holocaust story, but not denying parts we know happened. I do the same with the Native Americans. But I have not even begun with the Russians, Africans, Chinese, Indonesians.....

This is a struggle for me. The struggle is to learn the truth insofar as that is possible. I have been doing this for many years in other areas, particularly my religious and political background. And that is also still not conclusive.

One final thought here: Some Jews are Zionists, but the vast majority are not. Just as in the U.S., some Americans are neocons, but the vast majority are not. And by the way, many of the neocons in influencial positions in the U.S. are Zionists as well, look at Bush's advisors. It is the Zionists that are the problem, just as the neocons are.

What I'm doing here is kind of putting my thoughts on 'paper', not taking a hard position on this volitile subject. But I also have a tag line in my emails that says: "Watch what is done, not what is said." I try to live by that.

For now, I have tagged this subject "Opinion". But I may well tag parts of it in the future as "Deception, disinformation, cover-up" as I already have done with other topics.

The following article is interesting, if not controversial. I do not know about some statements in it, nor do I know if those are accurate, nor is the source a well known one to me. But they are interesting. This article, taken together with many others, must be weighed and compared. Therefore I would label it "interesting". I will not form an opinion on such, just weigh it against many others. Oh yes, I have not read any material by neo nazis or any other anti Jewish or biased group.

This is the article; there are many more....

New Orleans police gun down mentally ill man

2005-12-29T21:59:00.000+01:00

From the mainstream media story below, we get one account. Here is another account, giving more information and perspective. The photo above/right is of Robert Davis, the retired school teacher, who was badly beaten by the police earlier, and is mentioned in the report below.

A New Orleans man, described by relatives as mentally ill, was gunned down by police on Monday. Anthony Hayes, 38, was killed after allegedly lunging at police with a three-inch blade. Three bystanders videotaped part of Hayes’s confrontation with some 18 police officers, three of whom fired nine shots at the man. Eyewitnesses expressed anger over the fatal use of force given the victim’s apparent illness. They said that Hayes was a familiar, but solitary, figure in the neighborhood. Michelle Dawson, a Burger King employee, said that Hayes would spend hours at a table in the restaurant talking to himself without bothering other customers.

New Orleans police gun down mentally ill man

Both post-Hurricane Katrina cases of police violence in New Orleans would have received scant attention by the media had they not been captured on videotape. In fact, the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana revealed that it is investigating at least 10 brutality complaints filed in the past month or so.

A mentally ill man, who by all accounts posed no threat, is gunned down in cold blood, and this execution is justified on the basis of the “shoot-to-kill” mandate given to police agencies. Such a state of affairs is indicative of the growing brutalization of American society and its underlying social polarization.

Read on . . . .

Doomsday for the Greenback

2005-12-29T15:38:00.000+01:00

I've read and followed William Clark's first essay from just before the Iraq invasion, and this has been updated by him, and here by Mike Whitney. And I agree as well that this is the kernel of truth that lies behind, and explains, U.S. policy, and especially lately. A must read.

A preemptive attack on Iran would “provoke other industrial nations to strategically abandon the dollar en masse”… “in an effort to thwart the neoconservatives from pursuing their desperate strategy of dominating the world’s hydrocarbon energy supply.” William R. Clark “Petrodollar Warfare; Dollars, Euros and the upcoming Iranian Oil Bourse”,

The Federal Reserve is the financial headquarters for the cartel of multinational banking establishments. The confederation of banks in the Fed underwrites the exploitative activities of the world’s main industries and sets rates in a manner that best serves their objectives. This is how the bankers perpetuate the system of economic hegemony and apply the shackle of debt and dependence to the planet’s most destitute countries. The Federal Reserve is every bit as critical to the maintenance of the empire as its political counterparts in Washington or its blood-brothers in the US Military. It is the largest of the empire’s three gears; economic, political and military, which mobilize the mighty wheel of state terror.

Read on. . . .

New Orleans police: Shooting unavoidable

2005-12-29T12:41:00.000+01:00

Normally I don't comment on such incidents here, but this is too often the case in such incidents in the U.S., and of which the world is well aware.

I live in a city not too unlike New Orleans, save the poverty, (Amsterdam), but the number of times police must shoot someone can easily be counted on the fingers of one hand in a year's time. And....there will be one or two shots fired, aimed at disabling the person and only as a last resort. Not the 10 shots reported here, which are not meant at disabling, but "taking him out". If this report is accurate, the police behavior would not at all be acceptable here.

This highlights one of the differences between police methods in the U.S. and western Europe, and also contrasts the traditional cultures and the methods allowed by these cultures and governments. While the governments here also often wield too much power, it is more subtle and much less violent and intimidating.

The New Orleans Police Department was quick to distinguish Monday's fatal shooting of a knife-wielding man by police officers from the string of incidents that has battered the department's reputation since Hurricane Katrina.

"This officer's life was in imminent danger, and they did what they had to do," spokesman David Adams said in an interview Tuesday. The officers involved have been reassigned, and the incident is under investigation, he said.

"They ordered him to drop the knife, and he just kept backpedaling," Adams said. "Then he lunged at an officer, who had to step back to avoid being stabbed in the chest." That's when police fired. The man suffered multiple wounds, and 10 shell casings were recovered at the scene, Adams said.

Read further....

Spys like us.

2005-12-28T16:48:00.000+01:00

With the recent revelations of spy activity on its own citizens, the spying of UN members just before the US invasion of Iraq is getting attention again. This was all but not reported in U.S. mainstream news then, although it was to be seen on internet.

And then to think that we haven't even talked about commercial or industrial spying yet, which the U.S. has been engaged in for many years. Eschelon, a system in place for years, and other methods were used to monitor all forms of communication as well, and the internet is being monitored, of course.

It would appear that there is little that the U.S. has >not< monitored. This does not speak well of a country who trumpets its "freedoms" and "free trade" so loudly.

For many years, I've been saying that the louder and more often such things are proclaimed, the less of them there actually are.

NSA Spied on U.N. Diplomats in Push for Invasion of Iraq.

Despite all the news accounts and punditry since the New York Times published its Dec. 16 bombshell about the National Security Agency's domestic spying, the media coverage has made virtually no mention of the fact that the Bush administration used the NSA to spy on U.N. diplomats in New York before the invasion of Iraq. That spying had nothing to do with protecting the United States from a terrorist attack. The entire purpose of the NSA surveillance was to help the White House gain leverage, by whatever means possible, for a resolution in the U.N. Security Council to green light an invasion. When that surveillance was exposed nearly three years ago, the mainstream U.S. media winked at Bush's illegal use of the NSA for his Iraq invasion agenda.

Back then, after news of the NSA's targeted spying at the United Nations broke in the British press, major U.S. media outlets gave it only perfunctory coverage -- or, in the case of the New York Times, no coverage at all. Now, while the NSA is in the news spotlight with plenty of retrospective facts, the NSA's spying at the U.N. goes unmentioned: buried in an Orwellian memory hole. A rare exception was a paragraph in a Dec. 20 piece by Patrick Radden Keefe in the online magazine Slate -- which pointedly noted that "the eavesdropping took place in Manhattan and violated the General Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations, the Headquarters Agreement for the United Nations, and the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, all of which the United States has signed."

Read on ....

Rice authorized National Security Agency to spy on UN Security Council in run-up to war....

Mercenaries guard Green Zone and more

2005-12-28T12:48:00.000+01:00

Latin American mercenaries guarding Baghdad’s Green Zone

Since the US invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, about 20,000 mercenaries have been hired to work as private security contractors. This figure represents one mercenary for every seven uniformed American soldiers in these regions. With $30 billion spent by the US Government on private security contractors in 2004—its largest expenditure in Iraq after oil and construction—the contractors have found a gold mine in the Latin American market. War is big money and, like any other business today, security contractors are scouring the globe looking for the cheapest labor so as to maximize their war profiteering.

Unemployed young men from Peru—most of them former soldiers—are paid only $1,000 a month—less than a tenth the salary paid to American mercenaries. For $5.75 an hour—a figure that is roughly equivalent to the US minimum wage—the recruits put themselves “in the line of fire” protecting US and British interests in Iraq and Afghanistan. Forbes magazine reports that the US Government “pays private firms between $500 and $1,500 a day for the experienced military personnel they supply in Iraq. That works out to mercenaries who often earn between $150,000 and $250,000 a year.”

Read on . . . .

DU - Weapons of Mass Distruction

2005-12-27T22:23:00.000+01:00

United States Is Actively Engaged In War Crimes And Polluting With Nuclear Materials

Today, I am going to address a subject that it as touchy as anti-Semitism and over time is going to be a very painful realization that the citizens of this Republic will have to face. Americans do not like to have to come to grips with the fact that this nation is not always right, our policies are not always honorable, and our actions in war are not always defending Liberty and Freedom. Sometimes what is done in our name is so horrible they do not want you to know about it.

Imagine that, coming from a person that is not anti-war, but does see wrong for what it is. No amount of spin can convert a wrong act into something decent and honorable.

The media has failed to report that we have left behind deadly radiation that is exposing people in the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq and our soldiers to very high levels of deadly radiation and nuclear molecules.

Read on. . . .

DU linked to Gulf War 1 Syndrome

The Anglo-American War of Terror: An Overview

2005-12-27T16:10:00.000+01:00

A must read.

This essay is one of the best I've seen, giving a good overview of what is, and has been, going on. It is rather lengthy, of necessity, but is a fascinating read. Instead of unconnected bits and pieces, this ties together a lot of stuff.

An understanding of the underlying historical background is crucial. This war agenda is not the product of a distinct neo-conservative project. From the outset of the Cold War Era, there is a consistent thread, a continuum in US military doctrine, from the "Truman doctrine" to Bush's "war on terrorism". Foreign Policy adviser George F. Kennan had outlined in a 1948 State Department brief what was later described as the "'Truman doctrine."

The World is at the crossroads of the most serious crisis in modern history. In the largest display of military might since the Second World War, the United States and its indefectible British ally have embarked upon a military adventure, which threatens the future of humanity.

What this 1948 document conveys is continuity in US foreign policy, from "Containment" to "Pre-emptive" War. In this regard, the Neo-conservative agenda under the Bush administration should be viewed as the culmination of a post World War II foreign policy framework. The latter has been marked by a succession of US sponsored wars and military interventions in all major regions of the World. From Korea, Vietnam and Afghanistan, to the CIA sponsored military coups in Latin America and Southeast Asia, the objective has been to ensure US military hegemony and global economic domination, as initially formulated under the "Truman Doctrine" at the outset of the Cold War.

Read on. . . .

9/11 Index-Many Links

2005-12-27T12:39:00.000+01:00

Because of the massive amount of information involved, I have placed the many links I have all on one page. This will simplify reading of the large amounts of information.

Many of these links will have further links, thus there is more here than meets the eye. The links are found on my main politics page, Politics International; the permanent link can be found at right.

Much info, many links all on one page.

U.S. offensives target civilians not fighters

2005-12-26T19:03:00.000+01:00

More than 100,000 Iraqi civilians, including women and children, have died in Iraq since the war was launched in March 2003, mostly as a result of airstrikes by the occupation forces, according Iraqi and U.S. public health experts.

And recently Iraqi townspeople and the U.S. military stated that innocent civilians are being targeted by the U.S. airstrikes in Iraqi residential neighborhoods along the Euphrates River in far western Iraq, and not what the U.S. Army claims to be “insurgents, an editorial on the Washington Post stated.

he exact number of civilians killed in those strikes is strongly disputed by the Marines, the article stated, but townspeople, tribal leaders, as well as medical officials and witnesses’ accounts assert that scores of noncombatants were killed in the U.S. military’s last month operations, including airstrikes carried out ahead of the U.S. 17-day offensive in Anbar province.

"These people died silently, complaining to God of a guilt they did not commit," said Zahid Mohammed Rawi, a physician in the town of Husaybah, said.

Read on ....

'They' Destroyed New Orleans

2005-12-26T12:45:00.000+01:00

The wounds of Katrina are not healing, despite the passing of some time and lack of media attention. Here is a report, albeit one that waffles a bit, but seeing it is the first published report of this individual, he seems to be trying to bring "balance" to it. It needs no balance, just facts and context. I do, however, object to the negative tint he ascribes to 'conspiracy theories'. Conspiracy theories Conspiracy theories are real, and many are based on enough fact to be - at the least - worthy of consideration, if not serious attention.

When it comes to explaining why the levees broke, many otherwise reasonable New Orleanians are quick to believe in conspiracy theories.

My little cousin, Kenneth, sits across from me smoking a cigarette in the driver's seat of his car. Like everyone else in my family, he lost everything when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. Now he sits in my driveway on a Saturday night in LaPlace trying to understand why."Them people blew them levees," he says, looking at me, puffing on his cigarette. "They wanted to save the white people Uptown, but they ain't know it was gonna be this bad."

I just look at him when he says this. He's sincere, not a trace of doubt in his voice. Some people might call him crazy for believing a theory like that. But truth is, he's not alone, far from it. Last month I went to Arlington and visited some of my in-laws, who evacuated there. When the subject of Katrina and the levees came up, all of them went to talking the exact same way.

Read on ....

Merry Christmas, Vrolijk Kerstfeest

2005-12-25T12:49:00.000+01:00

Today is Christmas Day. It needs no explaining in western cultures, in which the Christian belief plays an influential role.

I wish you and yours a Blessed Christmas, Happy Holidays and a time of socialness or togetherness, but also reflection.

May you enjoy this time of celebration in your own way. And perhaps in a time of quiet and reflection, ponder on just what part our own cultures and countries play in world peace and well being. Or the lack of it.

Letter From a Military Mom

2005-12-24T23:25:00.000+01:00

It wasn’t that long ago that the military command in Iraq started pulling computer access to various units. Seems some of the troops were writing emails home to family, to friends, to various anti-war groups and the like, and the military was getting a bit disconcerted by that. After all, can’t have your own troops pretty much turning the “official news” on its head now can you? So what do you do? You shut them up and any way that you can. Let them know they are monitored works pretty good.

But, what about the “moms” back home that are writing on the internet? Moms like Robin Vaughan, whose letter detailing her recent experiences with the Department of Defense and the Army is below.

Moms writing back and forth to “sons and daughters” in Iraq, who might “slip” and tell “mom” what life is really like in Iraq; Can’t have that now, can we? What if the “moms” start telling others what their sons and daughters are telling them (at least the ones that are still able to access a computer). Can’t have that people might turn against the war ON Iraq. I guess we better threaten and intimidate the moms so they’ll keep their mouths shut, stay off the internet and just go home and be a mom

This is pretty much what has happened to Robin Vaughan, the mother of a young man who was in Iraq.

Read Robin's letter....

The Making of the Enemy

2005-12-24T14:03:00.000+01:00

Having been born and grown up in the U.S. until the age of 48, I can bear witness to this article, for it outlines the manipulation of the American public by the 'elite'. It is the story of 'how America works'. For most of my 48 years in the U.S., I, too, bought into this matrix of manufactured 'reality'. In WW2, it was, of course, the Japanese and Germans who were the 'enemy'. Right after that, the 'Red Menace', the so-called 'Communists', specifically Soviet Russia. I remember the atmosphere during the times of Joe McCarthy. I remember the warnings and training we got regarding an atomic bomb attack. Then Korea and after that, Viet Nam, and a new chapter of the 'Red Menace'. China, too, was always in the background. Bomb shelters. And so on. When Soviet Russia collapsed, a new enemy was needed, and manufactured.

Ladies and gentlemen: I now present to you your newest and latest enemy: Fanatic Muslim Terrorists. And of course, Muslims are generally fanatical, backward, hot-headed, willing to give their lives for their cause; they are 'ragheads', the new equivalent of 'black hats'. Oh yes, and they are 'not like us Christians'. They hate us for our freedoms, and present a great threat to the American people. Just look what they did on 9/11.

Yeah, sure.

Whether in the newspapers, on TV news, or just in books and films, there was always the thread of "white hats" and "black hats", this discription coming from the earlier days of 'cowboys and Indians'. Yes, the Indians were our first 'enemy'. So this article rings true to my experience.

I finally, and very gradually, over some years, began to see through this when I met some real confrontations in my own life, and began - and I emphasize 'began' - to start thinking with a more open mind in the 1980s. And for me, the rest is history, as they say. One more thing: Internet has been the biggest boon to me once I started thinking more with an open mind.

The manufacture, marketing and dissemination of bogeymen enemies, both real and fictional, for a long time endemic in American society, has always worked to perfection, becoming the inertia used to control the population. It becomes the energy needed to maintain America’s permanent wartime economy. The creation of unseen bogeymen into supernatural evildoers fits the perfect mold of how the American citizenry has been brainwashed over the years through the use of Hollywood movies and television, with the constant themes of good versus evil, of fantasy and sensationalism, and of course the always needed happy ending, where the good guy always triumphs over the villain.

From Indians to Mexicans to Spanish to Filipinos to Germans to Soviets to Communists to Vietnamese to Arab Muslims to the future Chinese an external enemy has always been a threat, a thorn on our side, seemingly rising out of thin air, molded by the hands of greed addicts, warmongers, criminal capitalists and authoritarian corporatists, allowed to be born in order to cover up for the real and much more dangerous enemy.

External enemies have always existed in our reality because they are an invaluable tool to those who aspire to control the people and the resources of the planet. What was the Cold War but a charade used to gain control of and dominate southern nations, rich in natural resources and cheap labor, and to control their people, and hence their economies, both through market colonialism and the use of proctors? What is the so-called war on terror but a charade for the geostrategic race being waged to control the oil fields of the Middle East and Central Asia, knowing full well that oil is not finite and that the nation that controls the oil will invariably control the world?

Read on ....

Help de Bibic-kinderen

2005-12-23T13:19:00.000+01:00

Dit verhaal in het Nederlands.

This log is in Dutch, as it pertains to a Serbian family that lived in the Netherlands for 5 years as refugees, and were not allowed to stay here. In a nutshell, they now are homeless and penniless drifters in their own country, having no papers, no rights and nowhere to live, nor a means of surviving.

Normaal gesproken, schrijf ik alles in het Engels (mijn moedertaal). Maar toevallig ben ik deze webpagina tegengekomen en mijn hart ging meteen uit voor deze mensen. Maar....wat kan ik doen?

Nou, ik kan hun verhaal doorgeven en de boel een beetje daglicht geven. Het is toch een exemplaar van ellende........helemaal door politiek. Inclusief de oorlog in dat gebied en zelfs Bill Clinton. Vandaar verdient het een ereplek in mijne weblog. Voor het verhaal, ga gewoon naar de website van Lucia van de Kamp, die hun verhaal opschrijft en doet haar best om de situatie te verbeteren. Onderaan is haar webpagina url. Enkele woorden van haar website volgen.

Normen en waarden, Na ruim 5 jaar uitgezet, het hoe en de gevolgen…

We zijn in de herfst-vakantie naar Servië gegaan met de kleding en de persoonlijke spullen. Vader Smail zwerft in de bossen, want hij is bang voor de mannen die hem zoeken. We hebben gezien dat 4 mannen het huis doorzochten! Moeder Esma is vertwijfeld, de kinderen hebben geen recht op school, medische verzorging e.d. Het gezin is niet geregistreerd, hebben geen papieren en zijn de burgerrechten kwijt.

Lees hun verhaal hier....

Gulf War1 Syndrome is uranium poisoning

2005-12-22T21:16:00.000+01:00

DU munitions

We've been using nuclear weapons in the Gulf War1, ex Yugoslavia and now in Iraq. The only thing is this form of nuclear weapons works in slow motion. The numbers of people affected in this article are only U.S. military. Think of the people living in those countries who were exposed, and still are.... And DU is considered a WMD, by the way. Guess what? Saddam did not have WMD, but we did, and we used them. A lot.

Heads roll at Veterans Administration Mushrooming depleted uranium (DU) scandal blamed

“Out of the 580,400 soldiers who served in GW1 (the first Gulf War), of them, 11,000 are now dead! By the year 2000, there were 325,000 on Permanent Medical Disability. This astounding number of ‘Disabled Vets’ means that a decade later, 56% of those soldiers who served have some form of permanent medical problems!” The disability rate for the wars of the last century was 5 percent; it was higher, 10 percent, in Viet Nam.

...a special report published by eminent scientist Leuren Moret naming depleted uranium as the definitive cause of the ‘Gulf War Syndrome’ has fed a growing scandal about the continued use of uranium munitions by the US Military.”

“The long-term effects have revealed that DU (uranium oxide) is a virtual death sentence,” stated Berklau. “Marion Fulk, a nuclear physical chemist, who retired from the Lawrence Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab, and was also involved with the Manhattan Project, interprets the new and rapid malignancies in the soldiers (from the 2003 Iraq War) as ‘spectacular … and a matter of concern!’”

Read on ....

Is the U.S. Becoming a Police State?

2005-12-22T17:21:00.000+01:00

I think a more accurate question would be: To what degree has the U.S. become a Police State?

Martin Luther King, the most celebrated dove in American history, was spied on because he was considered a threat. That means none of us is safe.

"Special collection program'' is the euphemism that the National Security Agency uses for spying on American citizens without a warrant.

If you think it disrespectful to discuss dictators, President Bush and the Constitution in the same column, be sure to give John Dean a call. The former White House counsel under President Nixon wrote a paper in 2002 in which he discussed the possibility of a America becoming a ''constitutional dictatorship."

'The distinction between a 'constitutional dictator' and a strong president is remarkably thin, if nonexistent,'' he wrote. All this eavesdropping business reminded me of C. William Michael's 2002 book 'No Greater Threat: America After September 11 and the Rise of the National Security State.'

Read on ....

Demand Censure for Bush-Cheney Misconduct

2005-12-21T17:48:00.000+01:00

Sorry, Mr. Conyers. While I'm not against what you're doing, it is too little and too late. There is massive evidence, more than sufficient for an immediate impeachment process, by both international and U.S. constitutional law. By the time your procedures could have any effect, Bush and Cheney will have served out their terms and done even more damage. Saddam is guilty of crimes against humanity; but Bush, Cheney and others are guilty of many more, and more severe, crimes against humanity. Saddam is engaged in a phoney trial, the odds stacked against him and FOR HIDING THE U.S. INVOLVEMENT.

Why not have a fair trial for both sides?

We need action; and we need it now!

Here's Conyer's piece; perhaps well meant, but too little and too late:

Stand with Congressman ConyersDemand Censure for Bush-Cheney MisconductInvestigate Impeachable Offenses I am taking steps against the Bush Administration’s handling of the Iraq War and its collection of intelligence. I am going to need you to stand with me in fighting for accountability.

Join me to demand censure for Bush and Cheney in addition to the creation of a Special Committee to investigate impeaching the Bush Administration for its widespread abuses of power. I have sought answers from the administration to questions arising from the Downing Street Minutes, the Valerie Plame leak, and scores of other abominable abuses of power that pervade the activities of this White House. 121 Members of Congress and many citizens like you have joined me in asking these questions of the President.

I have just completed a thorough review of this administration’s misconduct and have produced a 250-page report that provides evidence suggesting further steps to be taken. [A copy of the report may be found at RawStory.com, and also at CensureBush.org where additional action items may be found.

Conyers' piece.....

Some of the evidence for impeachment....

Sign the Call to Drive Out the Bush Regime

2005-12-21T17:07:00.000+01:00

A fair number of Americans read this blog, and this is addressed to them. I have signed it, too. I am still an American citizen, even though I have lived in the Netherlands for many years now. Dutch citizenship is denied me without an expensive legal process, if I wish to keep my social security (AOV); just another example of American 'freedom'.

Sign the Call to Drive Out the Bush Regime

Your government, on the basis of outrageous lies, is waging a murderous and utterly illegitimate war in Iraq, with other countries in their sights.

Your government is openly torturing people, and justifying it.

Your government puts people in jail on the merest suspicion, refusing them lawyers, and either holding them indefinitely or deporting them in the dead of night.

Your government is moving each day closer to a theocracy, where a narrow and hateful brand of Christian fundamentalism will rule.

Your government suppresses the science that doesn't fit its religious, political and economic agenda, forcing present and future generations to pay a terrible price.

Your government is moving to deny women here, and all over the world, the right to birth control and abortion.

Your government enforces a culture of greed, bigotry, intolerance and ignorance.

People look at all this and think of Hitler — and they are right to do so. The Bush regime is setting out to radically remake society very quickly, in a fascist way, and for generations to come. We must act now; the future is in the balance.

Millions and millions are deeply disturbed and outraged by this. They recognize the need for a vehicle to express this outrage, yet they cannot find it; politics as usual cannot meet the enormity of the challenge, and people sense this. There is not going to be some magical "pendulum swing." People who steal elections and believe they're on a "mission from God" will not go without a fight. There is not going to be some savior from the Democratic Party. This whole idea of putting our hopes and energies into "leaders" who tell us to seek common ground with fascists and religious fanatics is proving every day to be a disaster, and actually serves to demobilize people.

Continued here, where you can also sign....

Iraqis Glad 2005 Over, Dim Hopes for 2006

2005-12-21T11:02:00.000+01:00

Al Qa'im hospital (right), the reality of Bush's "Operation Iraqi Freedom".

Dahr Jamail's first-hand reports read quite differently than the "news" that is presented to us in the West. I've subscribed to his reports for quite a while now, and find the difference astounding. If you really want to know what is happening in Iraq on the ground, to the people, then Jamail's reports are an absolute necessity. You will NOT read and see this in 'normal' news.

I will warn you: It is extremely disturbing. You will be confronted with the reality of what is happening in Iraq. It is nothing like the "news" reports that are presented to us. Few will be able to read and view all that Jamail brings, for it not only is shocking in itself, but confronts us with the reality of the lies and corruption of our own governments.

You can subscribe - cost free - to Jamail's reports as well. Then you, too, will have first-hand information of some of what is really going on. The subscription url is: http://dahrjamailiraq.com/email_list/

Meanwhile, you can also visit his complete website at: http://dahrjamailiraq.com/

BAGHDAD, Dec 20 (IPS) - Despite the parliamentary elections last week and temporary ease in violence, Iraqis remain bitter about the outgoing year, and sceptical of 2006.

Asked about her hopes and expectations for 2006, the doctor says: "I only want a normal life far away from the interests of those bastards who invaded our country. I don't care about the elections and politics and the new political parties because these are just a small part of the strategy of the invaders."

This article, and much, much more continues here....

9/11 Black Boxes not missing, FBI has them.

2005-12-20T22:39:00.000+01:00

9/11: Missing Black Boxes in World Trade Center Attacks Found by Firefighters, Analyzed by NTSB, Concealed by FBI

One of the more puzzling mysteries of 9-11 is what ever happened to the flight recorders of the two planes that hit the World Trade Center towers. Now it appears that they may not be missing at all. Counterpunch has learned that the FBI has them. Flight recorders (commonly known as black boxes, though these days they are generally bright orange) are required on all passenger planes. There are always two-a flight data recorder that keeps track of a plane's speed, altitude, course and maneuvers, and a cockpit voice recorder which keeps a continuous record of the last 30 minutes of conversation inside a plane's cockpit. These devices are constructed to be extremely durable, and are installed in a plane's tail section, where they are least likely suffer damaged on impact. They are designed to withstand up to 30 minutes of 1800-degree heat (more than they would have faced in the twin towers crashes), and to survive a crash at full speed into the ground.

Read on....

Bush’s Snoopgate

2005-12-20T17:07:00.000+01:00

Bush’s SnoopgateThe president was so desperate to kill The New York Times’ eavesdropping story, he summoned the paper’s editor and publisher to the Oval Office. But it wasn’t just out of concern about national security.

Bush was desperate to keep the Times from running this important story—which the paper had already inexplicably held for a year—because he knew that it would reveal him as a law-breaker.

Dec. 19, 2005 - Finally we have a Washington scandal that goes beyond sex, corruption and political intrigue to big issues like security versus liberty and the reasonable bounds of presidential power. President Bush came out swinging on Snoopgate—he made it seem as if those who didn’t agree with him wanted to leave us vulnerable to Al Qaeda—but it will not work. We’re seeing clearly now that Bush thought 9/11 gave him license to act like a dictator, or in his own mind, no doubt, like Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War.

Read further....

U.S. Warns Turkey Of Air Strike On Iran And Syria

2005-12-20T16:51:00.000+01:00

It's getting obvious the build-up for another invasion is in the works. Oh yeah, Iran's new bourse, selling oil in Euros, is to begin in March.

But they have >gasp!< nukes!

Yeah, right. And so did Saddam (who also changed to selling oil in Euros in Nov. 2000).

In an overlooked story, the Turkish press reported last week that CIA Director Porter Goss went to Ankara recently and informed the Turkish government that Iran already has nuclear weapons and they should be ready for "a possible US air operation against Iran and Syria".

CIA’S GOSS REPORTEDLY WARNED ANKARA OF IRANIAN THREAT During his recent visit to Ankara, CIA Director Porter Goss reportedly brought three dossiers on Iran to Ankara. Goss is said to have asked for Turkey’s support for Washington’s policy against Iran’s nuclear activities, charging that Tehran had supported terrorism and taken part in activities against Turkey. Goss also asked Ankara to be ready for a possible US air operation against Iran and Syria. Goss, who came to Ankara just after FBI Director Robert Mueller’s visit, brought up Iran’s alleged attempts to develop nuclear weapons. It was said that Goss first told Ankara that Iran has nuclear weapons and this situation was creating a huge threat for both Turkey and other states in the region. Diplomatic sources say that Washington wants Turkey to coordinate with its Iran policies. The second dossier is about Iran’s stance on terrorism. The CIA argued that Iran was supporting terrorism, the PKK and al-Qaeda. The third had to do with Iran’s alleged stance against Ankara. Goss said that Tehran sees Turkey as an enemy and would try to “export its regime.”

Read on ....

Repeat of the same, only more.

2005-12-20T14:31:00.000+01:00

Peace on earth, goodwill toward men. Bush style.

Bush uses lies, fear-mongering to defend war in Iraq, police state measures at home.

In his nationally televised address from the White House Oval Office Sunday night, George W. Bush reprised (repeated)the barefaced lies, distortions and appeals to fear and political backwardness that characterized the last such speech delivered by the US president, announcing the onset of the unprovoked US “shock and awe” onslaught against Iraq 33 months ago.

This time around, however, Bush found himself compelled to argue against those who “conclude that the war is lost and not worth another dime or another day”—a description that applies to many millions of Americans. He was forced to acknowledge that the attempt to quell resistance to the US occupation has been “more difficult than we expected,” and, while touting the turnout in Sunday’s Iraqi parliamentary elections, he admitted that the vote “will not mean the end of violence.”

The speech was sandwiched between Bush’s live radio address Saturday and a White House press conference Monday, both of which he used to defiantly defend his secret and illegal use of the National Security Agency to spy on US citizens, arguing for what amounts to dictatorial powers.

The essential framework of this defense was the same as that utilized to drag the American people into this war in the first place—the lie that the invasion of Iraq was a response to the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York City and Washington and constituted an essential battle in the “global war on terror.”

Read on ....

US Holding Children in Prison Camps as POW's

2005-12-19T20:53:00.000+01:00

This is beyond sick.

Today, I started reading former President Jimmy Carter's new book, "Our Endangered Values". In it, he revealed something that is absolutely horrifying--the US is holding children as young as 8 years of age who have been captured in Afghanistan and Iraq in prison camps--namely, the one in Guantanamo, Cuba. Worse yet, Donald Rumsfeld knew about it. Read a short excerpt below:

After visiting six of the twenty-five or so U.S. prisons, the International Committee of the Red Cross reported registering 107 detainess under eighteen, some as young as eight years old. The Journalist Seymour Hersh reported in May 2005 that Defense Secretaary Donald Rumsfeld had recieve a report that there were "800-900 Pakistani boys age 13-15 in custody."

Continued. . . .

Tricky Headlines

2005-12-19T15:35:00.000+01:00

“Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday that Israel should be wiped off the map, the official news agency IRNA reported, dampening hopes Iran would temper its hostility toward the Jewish state...." reads the Reuters report, and we've all seen it.

Why on earth would Ahmadinejad say such a thing? Is that not political suicide?

Yes, it is. And that's why that saying was attributed to him. Most of us remember the many words used in the drum-up toward war with Iraq, and now the very same thing is going on with Iran. And these words, like so many used against Iraq, are untrue. Demonizing an "enemy" is an old trick.

But here's what failed to get reported in the mainstream news.

Reuters participates in a propaganda campaign against Iran

In order to justify a military operation against Iran, the neoconservatives have started to create a record. The have put a lot of effort into making people believe that this country is ruled by dangerously crazy people who are trying to make a nuclear bomb to be used. In view of such a danger, the only answer is to wage a preventive war. Within this context, the U.S. press agency Reuters, one of whose representatives is, since the summer, a member of the War Room of the Pentagon, launched an insidious operation against Iran.

On October 26, 2005, Reuters wrote: “Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday that Israel should be wiped off the map, the official news agency IRNA reported, dampening hopes Iran would temper its hostility toward the Jewish state. Support for the Palestinian cause is a central pillar of the Islamic Republic which officially refuses to recognize Israel’s right to exist. “Israel must be wiped off the map,” Ahmadinejad told a conference called "The World without Zionism," attended by some 3,000 conservative students who chanted "Death to Israel" and "Death to America."

Surprisingly, not many people thought of checking the original wire from IRNA “Ahmadinejad: Zionist regime bent on countering world of Islam”, IRNA, October 26, 2005]], that does not cite the words attributed to president Ahmadineyad.

On this basis, Shimon Peres requested that Iran be kicked out of the UN, and the Israeli Foreign Minister, Silvan Shalom, compelled the Security Council to make a decision.

However, the facts are very different. President Ahmadineyad never said that he wanted to wipe Israel off the map, but he endorsed the statement made by imam Khomeini that someday the Zionist regime would be wiped from the map (see document below). There is therefore, no such radicalization of Iran, but the same position stated 25 years ago. Neither is there a threat from Iran to kill anyone, let alone to commit genocide against the Israeli people. There is only a position of principle to condemn the Zionism on the same basis as Iran condemns apartheid, racism and anti-Semitism.

Read on ....

Aspartame: UK Parliamentarian Calls For Ban

2005-12-18T22:44:00.000+01:00

For those who follow such health issues, this is not new news; for those who are not yet aware, this is. Rumsfeld seems pretty active in the medical money tree; he also is involved in the making of Tamiflu, a supposed antidote to the much hyped "Bird Flu".

Aspartame: UK Parliamentarian Calls For Ban

According to a recent article in The Guardian, Roger Williams, a UK Member of Parliament, called for emergency action to ban the artificial sweetener Aspartame, questioning its safety. The MP said that there was "compelling and reliable evidence for this carcinogenic substance to be banned from the UK food and drinks market altogether". A second article in the same issue of The Guardian reminds us how aspartame was approved by Donald Rumsfeld calling in "political markers" to override the doubts of the FDA's scientists. No honest reassessment of the science on aspartame was attempted as country after country followed the FDA's lead and approved the chemical sweetener. Consumers did and do report many untoward side effects, but apparently there is no mechanism in the FDA to follow up, analyse or investigate such consumer complaints. Betty Martini has been collecting the information, all available on dorway.com and who.net. Several books detail the dangers of the sweetener, but it seems that - barring widespread public protests - there may be no way to get health authorities to break their 'conspiracy of silence'. Aspartame seems pretty much unassailable. Well, a Member of Parliament in the UK takes up arms against the monster and calls for action.

Read on....

U.S. plans nuclear attack on Iran

2005-12-18T17:03:00.000+01:00

Former CIA officer: U.S. plans nuclear attack on Iran

The United States is developing a nuclear plan to attack military bases in Iran, said Philip Giraldi, a former CIA intelligence officer. Giraldi said that the U.S. nuclear strike against Iran would take place after a 9/11-style attack on the United States, and that the planned attack would be analogous to the unprovoked invasion of Iraq. The former CIA officer also said that an attack on the U.S. would serve as the pretext for putting the plan into action.

One recent study, released before the election of former Taliban mayor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the presidency on June 23, asserts that the U.S. assault on Iran has already started. The analysis, prepared by former United Nations nuclear arms inspector Scott Ritter, reveals that the CIA aids Iranian opposition groups. It also said that the Washington plans to stage military attacks against the Islamic republic with U.S. forces from the neighboring Republic of Azerbaijan.

However, a new attack on the U.S. soil could provoke a large sector of the American public and encourage the Bush administration to launch an attack on Iran.

Read on....

White House keeps large 'enemies list'

2005-12-18T12:02:00.000+01:00

White House keeps dossiers on more than 10,000 'political enemies'

Spurred by paranoia and aided by the USA Patriot Act, the Bush Administration has compiled dossiers on more than 10,000 Americans it considers political enemies and uses those files to wage war on those who disagree with its policies.

The “enemies list” dates back to Bush’s days as governor of Texas and can be accessed by senior administration officials in an instant for use in campaigns to discredit those who speak out against administration policies or acts of the President.

The computerized files include intimate personal details on members of Congress; high-ranking local, state and federal officials; prominent media figures and ordinary citizens who may, at one time or another, have spoken out against the President or Administration.

Capitol Hill Blue has spoken with a number of current and former administration officials who acknowledge existence of the enemies list only under a guarantee of confidentiality. Those who have seen the list say it is far more extensive than Richard Nixon’s famous “enemies list” of Watergate fame or Bill Clinton’s dossiers on political enemies.

White House insiders tell disturbing tales of invasion of privacy, abuse of government power and use of expanded authority under the USA Patriot Act to dig into the personal lives of anyone the administration deems an enemy of the state.

Read on....

The real enemy in the world is ourselves.

2005-12-17T17:23:00.000+01:00

Abductions, torture, assassinations, terrorism and other horrors against individuals, but also against whole groups of people and cities through bombings and other weaponry (think of Fallujah for example) are more than ample evidence of an administration gone over to "the dark side". While covert activities already named, and more, have been part and parcel of the U.S. foreign policy for more than 50 years, with the atrocities in Afghanistan and Iraq they have achieved new levels of violence and numbers.

Some, perhaps many, people in the world are quite aware of this. Those in affected countries are more than aware, if they've survived. The people least aware of what the U.S., British and Australian countries are doing are the American people themselves, and this is due largely to complicit corporate control of mainstream news in the U.S.

But even in Europe, I think most people are not aware of the extent of their own governments' quiet complicity in all of this; in the very least, looking the other way; and more likely, quietly cooperating in the economic venture of pillaging and raping of oil and other resource rich and strategicly placed countries. It is nothing more than violent colonialism updated with the weapons of today and a refined resolve, and often by proxy.

What the U.S. with its sidekicks is doing cannot happen in a vacuum. Others in the know are also complicit, and this raises some huge questions about western 'civilization', driven as it is through its economic policies of the capitalism of today. And the People of the world are paying the price for this raping of our earth and its people. I won't even bring up 'values'.

I can only hope that more people become knowledgeable of what is really going on, for a knowledgeable People is the best antidote to this unspeakable criminality. It's time the People realize that the greatest criminals of all time occupy some of the highest positions in the "developed" countries of today.

Torture has been in the news quite a bit lately. Many (perhaps most) Americans first heard that U.S. soldiers tortured prisoners when the Abu Ghraib scandal broke (in April 2004). Of course, U.S. operatives have been torturing prisoners for decades. There's even a course in it, which is taught at the US Army School of Americas (now renamed the "Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation") in Fort Benning, GA. In late 2005 another scandal emerged, this one to do with the CIA's secret prisons in Europe and elsewhere, and the CIA's practice of "rendition", which means abducting people and flying them to countries where they can be interrogated without having to worry about whether any US law is being broken. Just one example of this is the case of Abu Omar, who was picked up off the street in Milan and flown (via Germany) to Egypt, where he was held for fourteen months and tortured (see Italy Charges CIA Agents).

When Condoleezza Rice visited Germany in early December 2005 she faced a barrage of questions concerning the CIA's practice of rendition and whether there were CIA-run secret prisons in Europe (she did not deny that there were). The publicity prompted a poll by Associated Press / Ipsos which found that "In America, 61 percent of those surveyed agreed torture is justified at least on rare occasions." (UK Guardian) (One has to wonder how they framed the question, since there's a big difference between "justified" and "justified on rare occasions".) Hardly any Americans, however, are aware that not only do U.S. operatives occasionally torture "terrorist suspects" but that in many cases they torture them to death. The failure of the U.S. media to make any mention of this is the subject of an article by Peter Phillips, Hard Evidence of US Torturing Prisoners to Death Ignored by Corporate Media.

Phillips refers to a report by the ACLU which quotes forty-four US military autopsy reports. Phillips asks: "How can the American public understand the gravity of the torture that is currently being committed in our name when the issue is being reported with no reference to the extent to which these crimes against humanity have gone?"

As a contribution to informing the American public as to what torture really means, we reproduce here a few of the autopsy reports. Remember that these deaths resulting from torture were produced by U.S. operatives, acting under the orders of commanding officers, who were implementing a policy which has its origins at the highest levels within the U.S. Department of Defense. These autopsy reports are not for people just brought in dead from the street — they are for people who died while in U.S. custody.

Read on....

EU Complicit in CIA 'rendition' flights

2005-12-17T12:14:00.000+01:00

More and more the last few years, I am seeing criminal behavior at the highest levels in government and business. While all of us agree that the behavior of Germany under Hitler was atrocious and inhumane in many respects, I am seeing this very behavior on the part of the U.S., Great Britain and Israel. The EU has been a more silent partner to all of this, but involved nonetheless. He who is complicit is also guilty.

The Nuremberg Trials at the close of WW2 brought a few people to justice and did attract much attention. Were we today to apply the same rules and standards of the Nuremberg Trials to what the Western Nations are doing in the world, there would be many people found guilty of the same crimes.

Document proves European Union agreed to CIA rendition flights

Attempts by European governments to deny knowledge their airports were used by the CIA to fly detainees to facilities where they could be tortured has unravelled. A document obtained by the civil rights group Statewatch confirms that the European Union (EU) agreed to such flights as part of a wider programme of joint security operations with the Bush administration in 2003.

Minutes of confidential talks held in Athens on January 22, 2003, prove that EU officials agreed to allow access to their airports for the United States, and also indicate that the EU was well aware that such an agreement made them complicit in possible war crimes.

EU member states would rather be accused of “irresponsibility” than to be found to have knowingly participated in a crime—hence their being forced to agree to various investigations into renditions. But this has been accompanied by repeated denials of any knowledge of what was going on, despite hundreds of CIA flights being logged by plane spotters across Europe—particularly in Germany and Britain.

Read on....

Iraq 'election' a rubber stamp of occupation

2005-12-16T17:36:00.000+01:00

The U.S. was warned of internal strife and the strong possibility of civil war long before they invaded. But that doesn't matter. What does matter is that the oil in Iraq comes under the control of the huge U.S. and British corporations and that oil remains sold only in dollars.

US ambassador "will remain the critical behind-the-scenes power," says New York Times.

Iraqi election to rubber-stamp continued US occupation.

The Bush administration and the American media are, predictably, hailing the December 15 election as a giant step towards democracy in Iraq. In reality, as they well know, Thursday’s balloting only provides a parliamentary screen—and a very thin one—for continued US occupation and domination. Whatever the outcome of the voting, real power in the oil-rich country will remain firmly in the hands of the American military and the chief US representative in Baghdad, Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad.

The period leading up to the election suggests that rival factions in Iraq are preparing feverishly for civil war. Nearly all the major parties and coalitions contesting the election focused their campaigns on religious or ethnic appeals, and post-election conflicts could produce a communal bloodbath leading to the breakup of Iraq, or intensified US military operations.

Read on....

9/11 Full WRH Index

2005-12-15T17:23:00.000+01:00

A number of sites post links to 9/11 information. Here, too, are quite a few. Here's the new full index of 9/11 links from What Really Happened, added to the links here.

Those familiar with the evidence already know the importance of 9/11, for it is the 'reason' given for the onslaught against personal freedom at home via 'Homeland Security', in whatever form each country has it. The militarization of civil society is making us into a Police State, not only in the U.S., but also the U.K., Australia and in Europe as well. And, not least of all, 9/11 is the 'reason' given for the "War against Terror" in oil producing and other strategic countries. Both at home and abroad, pre-emptive military actions and wars are reducing the quality of life for all, and robbing many, many thousands of life and health itself.

Look through it, and other 9/11 links at Politics International (link at right), if you've an interest in 9/11 info

Israel may strike Iran

2005-12-15T16:27:00.000+01:00

There's been quite a bit of talk about Iran being invaded by the U.S. or by proxy by Israel. The real issue at hand here is not Iran's development of nuclear weapons, of which there is no evidence, but that Iran plans to begin its own oil bourse in March 2006, and then selling oil in Euros instead of dollars. And that is a real threat to the U.S., the UK and, by proxy, Israel.

In other words, the U.S. does not believe in free trade, for Iran may do this under all laws and agreements. But then, it never has believed in free trade, and this explains the many military bases the U.S. has in almost 100 different countries.

British newspaper alleges Israel is planning a military strike on Iran

An article in the British-based Sunday Times last weekend provided details of Israeli military plans for a strike on Iranian uranium enrichment plants that would dramatically inflame tensions throughout the Middle East. According to the report, based on unnamed Israeli intelligence and military sources, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon recently ordered the country’s armed forces to be ready for an attack by the end of March.

The report comes in the context of repeated public threats against Iran by senior Israeli officials, and alarmist allegations that Iran is on the brink of producing nuclear weapons. As the Sunday Times noted, Sharon himself recently warned: “Israel—and not only Israel—cannot accept a nuclear Iran. We have the ability to deal with this and we’re making all the necessary preparations to be ready for such a situation.”

Read on....

Diebold voting machines easily hacked.

2005-12-14T22:44:00.000+01:00

Devastating hack proven - Leon County dumps Diebold

Wed. December 14, 2005: Due to contractual non-performance and security design issues, Leon County (Florida) supervisor of elections Ion Sancho has announced that he will never again use Diebold in an election. He has requested funds to replace the Diebold system from the county. On Tuesday, the most serious “hack” demonstration to date took place in Leon County. The Diebold machines succumbed quickly to alteration of the votes. This comes on the heels of the resignation of Diebold CEO Wally O'Dell, and the announcement that a stockholder's class action suit has been filed against Diebold by Scott & Scott. Further “hack” testing on additional vulnerabilities is tentatively scheduled before Christmas in the state of California.

Finnish security expert Harri Hursti, together with Black Box Voting, demonstrated that Diebold made misrepresentations to Secretaries of State across the nation when Diebold claimed votes could not be changed on the “memory card” (the credit-card-sized ballot box used by computerized voting machines.

Correct results should have been: Yes:2 ; No:6 However, just as Hursti had planned, the results tape read: Yes:7 ; No:1

Read on....

Katrina 3 months later: New Orleans left for dead

2005-12-14T16:55:00.000+01:00

Watch what happens, here and elsewhere where Katrina hit, in the next months and years. Actions will speak volumes, words mean nothing.

An editorial last Sunday in the New York Times, headlined “Death of an American City,” begins, “We are about to lose New Orleans.” It goes on to state that “the moment is upon us when a major American city will die, leaving nothing but a few shells for tourists to visit like a museum.” Adding that this major American city “is in complete shambles”—and that the government plan for reconstruction is “a rudderless ship”—the Times states what is, in fact, a brutal reality.

he Times makes the correct point that without reassurances that the failed levee system will be reconstructed to protect the city against future deadly storms, residents and business owners will not be willing to make a commitment to return and rebuild their city and their lives. In fact, authorities have done nothing to provide any such guarantee, an ominous indication that New Orleans is being abandoned and left to die.

Continued....

Many Katrina articles in "Katrina-Rita archives on one page" at my Politics International site under "links".

Americans: Buy Your Gas at Citgo

2005-12-14T12:53:00.000+01:00

This may be the only ad you'll see me run; but I do it gladly this time.

Looking for an easy way to protest Bush foreign policy week after week? And an easy way to help alleviate global poverty? Buy your gasoline at Citgo stations. And tell your friends.

Of the top oil producing countries in the world, only one is a democracy with a president who was elected on a platform of using his nation's oil revenue to benefit the poor. The country is Venezuela. The President is Hugo Chavez. Call him "the Anti-Bush."

Citgo is a U.S. refining and marketing firm that is a wholly owned subsidiary of Venezuela's state-owned oil company. Money you pay to Citgo goes primarily to Venezuela -- not Saudi Arabia or the Middle East. There are 14,000 Citgo gas stations in the US.
(Click here http://www.citgo.com/CITGOLocator/StoreLocator.jsp to find one near you.) By buying your gasoline at Citgo, you are contributing to the billions of dollars that Venezuela's democratic government is using to provide health care, literacy and education, and subsidized food for the majority of Venezuelans.

Instead of using government to help the rich and the corporate, as Bush does, Chavez is using the resources and oil revenue of his government to help the poor in Venezuela.

Read on ....

Plane spotters scourge of CIA

2005-12-14T12:47:00.000+01:00

How planespotters turned into the scourge of the CIA

Paul last saw the Gulfstream V about 18 months ago. He comes down to Glasgow airport's planespotters' club most days. He had not seen the plane before so he marked the serial number down in his book. At the time, he did not think there was anything unusual about the Gulfstream being ushered to a stand away from public view, one that could not be seen from the airport terminal or the club's prime view.

But that flight this week was at the centre of a transatlantic row that saw the prime minister being put on the spot on the floor of the House of Commons and the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, forced on the defensive during a visit to Europe. The Gulfstream V has been identified as having been used by the CIA for "extraordinary renditions" - abducting terror suspects and taking them to secret prisons around the world where they may be tortured.

Article continues....

Internet censorship is real, and it is here.

2005-12-13T15:49:00.000+01:00

This article from Wayne Madsen is given even more credibility because it appears in Global Research.ca, a highly regarded political news site, and a favorite of mine as well. Pay attention to this; it's real.

I've noticed this year, in searching for certain news photos on Google, that there was little to be seen, while I could find more on another photo search program, which strangely ceased functioning for me a few weeks back. I have no idea of why, either. While I have noticed for years now that much news to be found on internet sources had not been appearing in mainline US sources, but now there are some things happening on internet, as explained in this article. The AOL story broke in International Forecaster several weeks ago and it's dealt with here as well.

The numbers of people visiting my website have also fallen lately, too, as mentioned in this article; and I have no explanation for this. Perhaps now I do.

While September drew a lot of people with the Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and the 9/11 anniversary, giving high numbers, and with a corresponding drop in October, there was another significant drop in November, something I cannot explain. It does not lay with the website. Yet, people coming to my website through Google searches for news have also dropped off correspondingly. But yet, Google searches for several photos at my site have brought the same or higher numbers than earlier months, so Google still knows where I am.

Interestingly, it is usually easier to get the same numbers of people to my newer Google Blogger site, which is a lite version of my larger politics weblog, than to my main site which has many, many links. And good links draw search engines as well as people. Yet it no longer makes a difference. Granted, the Blogger site is from Google, but has less to offer. So something is going on.

Oh yeah, see what happens when you click on the following link at the bottom of the article:
www.georgewbush.com

What did you get? Where do you live?

I got http://www.gop.com/, so there was a re-direct for me, coming from outside the US. Did anyone get www.georgewbush.com? I did this twice, the second time in stealth mode, giving no info about my computer from my browser. Same result. So they got the info from my ISP. which is Dutch (now American owned).

I'm curious about that one.

Anyway, I think there is filtering going on on internet. And it's likely to get worse, not better.

Choking the Internet: How much longer will your favorite sites be on line?

Internet censorship. It did not happen overnight but slowly came to America's shores from testing grounds in China and the Middle East.

News reports on CIA prisoner flights and secret prisons are disappearing from Google and other search engines like Alltheweb as fast as they appear. Here now, gone tomorrow is the name of the game. Google is systematically failing to list and link to articles that contain explosive information about the Bush administration, the war in Iraq, Al Qaeda, and U.S. political scandals. But Google is not alone in working closely to stifle Internet discourse. America On Line, Microsoft, Yahoo and others are slowly turning the Internet into an information superhighway dominated by barricades, toll booths, off-ramps that lead to dead ends, choke points, and security checks.

Don't forget to click www.georgewbush.com at the bottom of the article.

Read on ....

Reality and Spin in the Media

2005-12-13T15:40:00.000+01:00

If you are aware of how news gets into the news, and how the present day's news system works, you will understand more of the news you get to see. While this article does not deal much with not reporting the news, nor of other ways of managing the news, it does deal with some parts that are not generally known, and is very informative. Worth the read.

In a wide-ranging interview, 'Wag the Dog' author Larry Beinhart describes how members of the news media censor stories -- even as they publish them.

Read on....